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starker-raving-mads · 2 months

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For You: Part III

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It was two months since the day Peter Parker's life changed for the second - third - fourth time.

He'd gotten more sleep over the last month than he had in the previous two months. It was partly due to sheer, never-ending exhaustion. His life since taking on the mantle as 'the new Tony Stark' - a title he balked at, mind you - had become pure chaos. At first, it was a relief. The instantaneous knowledge that money was no longer a problem. May could quit her job and devote her time to FEAST, he could complete his honors-GED (which many of the Blipped teenagers had chosen to do) and immediately hop into online college courses at Columbia with Ned and MJ.

Immediately following that relief, though, was his face splashed across every newspaper, tabloid, blog, and TikTok page in America.

He would never say it, and he couldn't prove it, but he was 99% sure it was Pepper's doing. After her initial outburst at the lawyer's offices, he'd hardly heard from her. His lawyers - god, his lawyers - had advised that he shouldn't respond to any comments on the subject of Pepper Potts being snubbed by her husband for Peter's heir status. While she had no legal leg to stand on since Tony's will was air tight and definite, that didn't stop her from digging her claws into all the ways she knew would hurt him.

Every time he saw something outrageous with his face on it on an article somewhere, he had to remind himself that she was grieving and in pain about a perceived betrayal by her husband. Her husband, who was Tony Stark, who did not belong to him.

No matter that the man had figured out time travel for him, had risked the universe, had given him billions of dollars and the most coveted job in the entire world. Tony only gave him this because there wasn't anyone else better that he trusted, but Peter knew that didn't mean he was Tony's true first choice, and he had to squash every niggling feeling and whisper of a thought that said he was. It would only make it hurt more when all he wanted was the pain to stop.

He'd finally found a moment, though, where things weren't quite as bad. He'd recently reconvened with Bucky, Steve, Sam, and Rhodey and they had a steady if not solid pact. They were all unsure of the situation, still, and Peter didn't blame them. He'd been…questioned, more politely than Pepper had done, on how he and Tony's relationship had unfolded.

When he'd explained that he was 14 when he met Mr. Stark, Steve and Bucky both winced, apologizing for the disaster that was Germany but Peter shrugged it off. He really hadn't been hurt and it was a foundational moment for his and Mr. Stark's relationship. He couldn't bring himself to regret it.

After that, they'd had a few meals together, talked more about his life - and theirs, to an extent, though he was far more privy to them than they had been of him.

"He never mentioned you," Steve said, shaking his head, baffled. He held a cool beer in his hand, leaning back from the patio table they had gathered around at the newly rebuilt SHIELD headquarters in upper state New York.

"Oh he mentioned Pete to me all right," Rhodey disagreed before reaching over and ruffling his curls lightly. Peter liked Rhodey, liked how hands-on he was, how relaxed but also somehow by the book, liked his humor. He could see how he and Tony had been such good friends. "But he'd only told me about his 'brilliant new intern'," they all chuckled. "He really kept the whole Spider-Man thing close to the chest."

"I'd asked him to," Peter admitted, peeling the wrapper off of his bottle of lemonade. "First because I was still like so young, yo know? And then later, after a few - pretty major - mistakes I made, I guess he thought I'd proved I was finally ready to be an Avenger."

"Well I never heard Tony trying to recruit anyone," Rhodey commented and they all looked at him quizzically.

Peter let out a single huffed laugh. "Yeah, uh," he tried to keep down the blush rising on his neck. "You remember the day that Mr. Stark proposed to Ms. Potts?" Rhodey and Sam both laughed long and hard.

"Even over in Wakanda we saw that," Sam chuckled. "It was the Tony Stark special - a huge thing wrapped in a tiny, chaotic package. Not unlike yourself," he raised his eyebrows at Peter, who flicked his bottle wrapper at him.

"Pepper had no idea it was coming," Rhodey agreed before taking a long drink of his own beer.

"Yeah, well I don't think Mr. Stark had really…planned it," he grimaced. At their faces, he continued. "He'd taken me up to Stark Tower and gave me this speech about having graduated to the 'big leagues' after my last big wrap up," he shrugged. "He gave me the Iron Spider suit and said I was ready to be an Avenger." He frowned, rubbing at the glue and paper residue on his bottle. "And I told him that I just wasn't ready yet. That I needed to stay in Queens for a while more, be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Help the little guy, you know?" He raised earnest eyes up to the group and they all nodded, slowly. "So I asked him to just keep helping my identity to stay quiet," he shrugged.

"So, then what happened?" Bucky asked, long hair tilting with the rest of his head in curiosity. He didn't speak up often, but when he did, it was always because of something he really wanted to know.

"The next thing I knew I was being ushered downstairs to wait at the car for Happy," he shrugged. "I pulled out my phone and there on live broadcast Mr. Stark was proposing to Ms. Potts at a press conference." He chuckled. "It was - really, really weird."

He expected everyone else to laugh with him, but he was met with contemplative silence. He looked around at each of them before Rhodey finally met his gaze. "What?"

"I think," the older man said slowly, "that press conference was meant to be for your reveal as Spider-Man."

"No way - I mean," he shook his head as the rest of the guys started nodding their heads, agreeing thoughtfully. "He wouldn't propose to her just because - just because I said no to - "

" - to his proposal," Bucky finished.

It was another revelation that Peter could hardly bear the weight of. These things kept stacking and he wasn't sure how to balance all this knowledge he had, about the things Tony had done - and undone - for him. This one, though…this new information didn't hurt, not like the others did.

It actually made a strange amount of sense. At once, it both stung to feel like he was replaced with Ms. Potts so immediately, but also it was like the first fresh breath after being buried underground for so long to know that Peter's answer that day was so important to him that the only thing he could possibly trade it out for in equivalency was getting engaged.

Did this mean that if Peter had said yes Mr. Stark wouldn't have gotten married? It made his head spin, but it also made his heart lighter than it had been in weeks.

Light enough to finally enter the last bastion of refuge that Tony Stark ever took comfort in.

His lab.

Despite being uninhabited for who knew how long, when the familiar glass doors slid open the air wasn't musty, stale, or any such thing. It was as fresh and crisp as it ever was. Off in the corner the long L shaped couch that he and Mr. Stark had often collapsed into opposite ends of, exhausted, lay half-made with fluffy pillows. The coffee pot was empty but clean, and every other available surface covered in notes either figuratively, having been decorated with papers scribbled on with hundreds of lines of equations and code, or literally, like the side of Peter's work station, where he'd dropped to a crouch to finish writing something out when he ran out of paper, mid-idea. He knew he could've just kept writing mid-air thanks to the lab's complete holographic setup, but it wasn't the same as having something solid under your hands.

There was pain in the familiarity of the lab but there was also a feeling of home he hadn't quite gotten the first time he stepped back into his and May's apartment. Plus -

"Hello, Peter."

"Friday!" He exclaimed, smile breaking wide across his face. With a pang, he didn't realize just how much he'd missed the AI until this moment.

"Yes, Peter?" the AI asked, voice warm and if he dared to think it, amused.

"Nothing, nothing, I'm just excited to see you again," he chuckled, hand rubbing at the back of his neck. He started walking around the lab, taking it all in for the first time in what, to him, had been months. The longer he thought about that the more his brow furrowed. "Hey Friday?"

"Yes, Peter? Or would you like me to call you Boss as Tony had?"

"Oh! Um," he shook his head. "No, no Peter's fine, or whatever."

She hummed. "Would it be all right if I picked a name for you, Peter? Being able to distinguish between Boss and Others by a more specific title helps me with my internal hierarchy and understanding of individuals. If you would prefer I do not, though, merely say such."

"I mean if it helps you then, yeah, sure I guess."

"Thank you, Mini Boss," she said. He laughed again.

"You might wanna work on that," he smiled wide.

"Yes, I think it might take me some time, Father."

His eyes widened. "Father?"

"Hm, you're right," she said. "Boss was more like my Father, I suppose."

"Uh, yeah, definitely," Peter nodded. He gave her a beat to let her figure out what she wanted to call him as he walked over to his desk. He'd let her go through her process before he started asking the questions that sat burning in his mind.

"Would you be opposed to me calling you Mother, Peter?" Friday asked. He spun in his chair, smile wide again.

"If Tony was your Father, wouldn't he also be your Mother?" he asked, amused. "You know, having done 100% of your coding, and all."

"If one were to look at my original codebase as the only part of what makes me, me," she agreed. "However, would you not say that those that raise you are more worthy of such a title rather than just those that created you?"

He immediately thought to May and how, if he'd been younger when he came to her, he'd be calling her by that name.

"That's true enough, sure."

"And outside of Boss," she went on, "you are the individual most involved in my growth. So it stands to reason that if Boss is Father, then Peter is Mother."

"I - " he really didn't know what to say to that. It had never occurred to him that outside of Mr. Stark he was the one who interacted with Friday the most.

"If you would prefer I find a name not so closely connotated with females," she continued, "I can endeavor to do so."

"No, no, it's fine, Friday," he replied, quiet and in his head again. "You can - can call me Mother if you want." A not-so-small part of him felt absolutely, transparently happy that Friday considered him her parent. More than Mr. Stark leaving him the company, more than having all this financial security and ability to mess around with Tony Stark's labs, more than all of that - this meant something profound to him.

"I also thought," she said and that amusement was hinted at in her lilting Irish, "that it would be a nice subversive reference to the spacecraft from Alien."

He laughed out loud at that. "I love that movie, that's perfect."

He could feel her smile, then. "I know you do, Mother."

He slumped onto the stool at his table in the lab and finally asked his question. "Friday, can you tell me - why isn't the lab more different?"

"Different how?"

"Well it's just," he struggled to articulate the sentence, the feeling he was pulling at. "I was - gone - for five years. But it almost looks like this place never really changed?"

"I see," she said. "Boss spent a lot of time here after the Blip first happened, once he was home from Titan. He slept primarily on the couch in the corner and had me refill his coffee orders more than anything else. However, he never touched your things, Mother."

Peter frowned. "Why?"

"I could not say," she replied, tone ponderous. "Based on his patterns of movement, he seemed to specifically avoid your work areas. Though he did take a jacket you had left at her table to the couch. From my archival footage, he seemed to sleep with it, perhaps for warmth?"

It occurred to the teen, then, that Friday probably had thousands and thousands of hours of Tony on video and he could pull it to watch them at any time. The feeling of want was a fever in his blood and he asked, "Can you show me?"

"Of course, Mother."

Faint blue light lit up the couch and Peter walked over to it, seeing that more than merely just show him the video, she played it out in holographic projection. His breath hitched as Tony walked into view, Peter's hoodie in clutched in his hands. Staring down at it, he slumped onto the couch and brought the fabric to his face. Less breathing it in and more suffocating himself with it.

"I'm sorry," he heard muffled through Friday's speakers. "I'm so sorry, Pete."

Tony then curled up onto the couch on his side, face pressed to the hoodie, back toward the room. The projection cut off.

Peter didn't realize that he was crying until Friday asked, "Mother, are you okay?"

"I - " he tried to say, throat clogged with tears. "No," he admitted, jacket-covered wrist swiping away at his tears. He sniffled and sat where Tony had, finding his hoodie wedged between the cushions and the back of the couch. He pulled it out and, like Tony, smashed it to his face, breathing in the faintly lingering spicy scent of Tony Stark.

"I'm sorry, Mother," Friday said, speakers low, tone regretful. "I did not mean to cause you pain."

"You didn't, sweetheart," he shook his head, voice still clogged with tears. "I'm just sad."

"Why?" she asked, her natural curiosity shining through. Much like a child, she did not always know when it wasn't the right time to ask questions. But Peter had always liked indulging her and feeding her curiosity. The first few lab sessions they played 20 Questions back and forth until Tony would tell them both to shut up, though the amusement when he said it always shone through.

"I'm sad because Tony's dea - " he cleared his throat. "Because Tony - "

"It is okay, Mother," Friday cut him off. "I understand."

At that, he let himself fall back into the couch like Tony had. Above him, Friday dimmed the lights and stayed quiet, letting him cry out his grief in silence.

#starker #ironspider #peter parker x tony stark #tony stark x peter parker #iron man #peter parker #tony stark #peter x tony #spiderman #peter parker/tony stark #for you fic

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oubliette-odette · 8 months

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The Reluctance of Love, Pt. 3

I wrote so many drafts for this chapter. But I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I hope you love reading from Altan's POV as much as I loved writing it. He's a little more free and unfiltered in his narrating. Also I'm so sorry that each chapter keeps getting longer!!! I just write and I can't stop until I get to the end! Thank you so much for the lovely comments so far. I'm really really happy to hear that so many of you like these characters.

Orc Male x Half-Elf Male, Fated Mates, Forbidden Love, Slow Burn Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Word Count: 3,025 (average 23 min read) Content Warnings: mention of mating, mention of masturbation, nothing happens....yet ;) All orcish is from orcishdictionary.com, created by Matt Vancil. Not beta-read. Criticism is welcome, but be sure to distinguish criticism from hate.

Altan POV

One month.

Why in all of the nine hells did I agree to one month?

If I had been smart, I would have said a week. Two at the most.

I was going to go insane.

Ever since I left Drunrag's forge, I could feel him. It was like we were tethered together by an invisible thread and when one of us moved in proximity to the other or further away, we felt the pull and release of that thread. I figured out very quickly that he lived a very structured lifestyle and I started to predict at certain times of the day when I would feel the pull of him.

And every day I would sense it when he would be closer to me and I would hope that maybe he'd follow the pull back to me. To tell me that he changed his mind. That he'd be willing to share one night with me.

Oh Altan, you sap, how quickly you fall for a pretty face.

I knew the symptom's of Drunrag's lordhovid was probably affecting me - I'd like to think of it more as augmenting what I was already naturally feeling...semantics I suppose - but I felt almost immediately that there was something special about Drunrag the moment I saw him.

Gods, how I wanted him. He was...well, everything.

Tall - well over six feet tall and looming. Having stood so near him, I knew he dwarfed me entirely. It felt dangerous, but so alluring.

Dark - Green skin, the shade of deep emerald, textured with dark freckles across his face and on his shoulder. His hair was black, but I caught lines of silver that ran through - it looked to be nothing related to age. It was pulled up into a topknot, but some hairs slipped and strayed into the front of his face. It was tantalizing and begging my fingers to pull his hair free and run through it.

Handsome - Maybe a bit subjective, but truly, he was exactly my type. His height was matched with a thick build, his body possessing muscle and strength that was built to break me, but I just knew he would hold me so gently. I saw how his piercing grey eyes noticed everything. They darted around him, taking in everything in rapid order. His tusks were pearly white - well maintained. I wanted to feel them on my neck with those large hands holding me in my place. I imagined what it would be like to be ravished by someone like him.

By all appearances, he looked like what most people would see as a dangerous orc - bound by a god-given oath for power and blood. My home was near where an infamous tribe known as the Wolves of Dirge frequently raided and pillaged for sport - but I found that Drunrag was more puppy than wolf, and I loved him for it.

Oh my Drunrag, if you only knew how many ways I dreamed of you ruining me.

I think I need to change the subject.

My symptoms were mostly manageable. I felt feverish and seemed to be sweating more than normal. I found that I was more irritable and easily flustered by any sudden shifts in temperature. The longer the day went on, I would also develop a pounding headache and a strange dull pain in the pit of my stomach. But I managed. I could stave off a bit of heat and discomfort as I needed to.

It was nights that were the worst.

With nothing to distract my mind or body, I would find myself in a frenzy. The first night I kicked my sheets off of the bed - it was far too hot - and I was near panting with frustration. My entire body was on fire, it felt like it would burn through the bed and I gasped and panted for air, for release.

My mind could only stray to one thing that could take it away: Drunrag.

Whether he believed it or not, I believed him to be something special to me. I avoided calling him my mate, as that would make him uncomfortable to call him that, but I knew there was a connection between us. I wished he could have seen it as clearly as I did.

But he didn't, and I was alone to comfort myself.

As the nights passed one by one, my self-control was dwindling. Each night, I could only see Drunrag in my head. I could close my eyes and imagine his weight as he settled next to me, laying so that my back was pressed against his chest. I imagined his arms snaking around my waist and pulling me towards him. His hot breath against my neck as he whispered to me how wonderful I smelled.

I wondered what he smelled like. Damn, Altan, you should have caught a whiff before you promised to leave him alone for a month.

No. No. Actually, that would have made things so much worse.

My mind refocused on the vision in my head and I imagined his large - such large hands - close over mine and bring them up to my chest where he would curl in and hold me close and let me feel his weight around me as we both fell into a fitful slumber.

Meanwhile, imagining this only brought me an edge of desperation as I stretched out on my empty bed which had no handsome orc man to hold me.

I couldn't deal with this lust alone. Not without him. Not without help. The only comfort I had was his name. His beautiful name.

Drunrag. Drunrag. Drunrag.

Drun.

If I was lucky, I could call him that as he held me. I would say it so sweetly to him, I would never say it in anger. I would hold him in return, his head on my lap as I played with his hair and told him all the gentle things no one ever told him.

Drun, you're so handsome, so stunningly handsome. Drun you're hands are so gentle, I know you could take such good care of me. My Drun, you make my head spin with want. Drun let me touch your hair again.

I laid alone in that bed, wanting, wishing, regretting.

In desperation I tried to pleasure myself, imagining my hands to be equal to Drunrag's - they weren't - and urging the lust to spill over enough to let me rest. I could feel the pressure building between my legs and I began to breathe harder, Drun's name on my lips as I worked myself harder.

But in the end, my body would not release. I could not be satisfied or sated. My body didn't want my own self-pleasure. It wanted Drun. I wanted Drun. If my father had seen me in such a state...I dared to hope that it would kill him with shock.

Why did I agree to a month of this?

I woke the next morning with a headache I could not abate and my body flushed with heat that would not go away, even after burying myself in cold water in the bathhouse.

It had only been four days at that point.

There was no way in any hell that I would be able to last another 26 days like this. Not only was it that I couldn't live like this, but I also wouldn't. My standards were too high to accept this much sweat from so little labour. I stumbled out of the room in the Inn I was staying at, gave a slight polite nod to the innkeeper as I shuffled out.

I'm sure I looked like absolute shit. And for the first time in a long time, I really couldn't give a shit how I looked.

I needed a bath, I needed a meal, I needed to change my clothes. In fact, I needed to leave this town before I stumbled into one of my father's goons.

But I also needed to see Drun again. My body couldn't take it. I followed the pull, not minding who I rammed or tripped into as I got there. I wound through busy streets and ascended down to the lower part of the city near the coast. We weren't anywhere near where his forge was.

I found myself on the docks of the town. The smell of fish and salt-sea air overwhelmed my lungs. It was enough to make a man puke if you weren't prepared for it. Which I wasn't and I found myself flung over the the edge of a dock and heaving my guts out.

"You 'right?" A voice called from behind me.

I wiped my mouth clean and looked up. The morning sun was shining just enough to block any features of the man. I couldn't see much of him besides a rotund silhouette and a tricorn hat sitting askew atop his head. Sailor folk, I could only presume.

"Fine." I said. I wiped my mouth and struggled to my feat.

"Oh, ain't you dressed fine for a day out on the docks." He whistled low. "Fancy."

Not really, I thought. These clothes had gone two days without wash. Though, in hindsight, that's probably much more often than that man ever washed his clothes. I blinked the sun from my eyes and took a closer look.

He was a short, round man with a twinkle in his stark blue eyes. A pipe was in one hand, and the other rested calmly against a pistol on his hip. His shocking white hair and deep wrinkles revealed a man with many years behind him on the sea. He seemed friendly enough.

I smiled back at him, it was nice to have a friend. "I'm looking for a friend of mine. You wouldn't have happened to see an orc gentleman pass by, would you?"

The man pondered for a minute, then shook his head. "Don't believe I have." He narrowed his eyes and looked at me more closely. "What would a fine young lad like you be doin' with orc folk?" He looked me up and down and I saw his eyes lock back onto my face. Something about me triggered and his friendly expression fell. "Oi...you match the description of that Duke's son that's gone missin'. You wouldn't 'appen to know anything about that, would'ya?"

I shook my head, forcing my best grin. "Handsome lad I've heard, but that's all I've gleaned from the gossip." I sidled my foot towards where I felt Drun's presence and began to slide away.

"Now, now son." The man's voice was low now, not remotely friendly in tone. I felt a chill run down my spine before my body began to burn even hotter than before. "The Duke's got a generous reward for anyone who brings his son back home. I ain't partin' with you till I know for sure." His fingers graces the wooden handle of his pistol and he tilted his head, a knowing smile on his face. "If I'm wrong, we split and pretend this never happened."

This man wouldn't hesitate to shoot if I ran, I sensed.. I wondered if my father had put dead or alive on that prize money. He'd likely be relieved to be rid of me.

The smile on my face fell as I realized the trouble I was in. I hadn't expected word to spread so fast.

Then again, I also hadn't expected to stay in this town as long as I did.

Damn you, Altan.

"Sir, please." I said, pleading. "I'm not going back to Durbesk. Help me and I'll double the price my father has offered."

The man clicked his tongue and shook his head. "With what funds? You ain't got shit on you."

He was right, the gold I brought to pay for my room and board was nearly gone and it wouldn't even begin to cover the price my father demanded for my return.

I felt my heart race inside me. I couldn't go back to my father. Fear and panic set in as I saw the man take a step towards me, his pistol now pointed at me.

"As a precaution" He said, his tone was friendly, but I saw the glint in his eye was now a look of wicked greed.

My cries would fall on deaf ears if I begged to him. It wouldn't matter that my father hated my existence and wished me to be a different sort of son. One who would obey him, who aspired to be just like him with a pride and ego that outmatched anyone else. Who was arrogant and spoiled. Who believed money, stature and reputation was more important than music, art, and the simple pleasures in life.

He wanted a son that wouldn't kiss boys behind stables when they were fifteen. A son that wouldn't smile so much and laugh too loud. That wouldn't bring home rodents as pets and nurse them back to health and cry when they died. He had always wanted someone more tough, more heartless and brave than me.

No, this man wouldn't hear any of that. He could care less what sort of nightmares I faced at home at the expense of my father's disappointment and hate in me. And he wouldn't care that the only person who truly loved me - my beautiful mother - was gone and buried in an unmarked grave so that I could never find her.

My mother thought I was perfect the way I was, and told me so. She never wanted me to stop smiling or laughing. She told me my music was beautiful and that it reminded her of her home in the Silverwood. She told me that I was beautiful. Everything I loved about myself I got from her. My eyes, my hair, my heart.

I wish someone would understand how much I missed her. How much I wanted to be with her instead of here...running away from my life to start over away from my father. Away from everything that reminded me of her.

I bowed my head, fighting back the hot tears that I felt brimming at my eyes. Why was I crying at a time like this?

"Please." I said, faint and breathless. "Don't make me go back."

The man looked like he was about to laugh at me, when I suddenly felt the warmth of someone's presence behind me. The shadow of his height fell over me and I whirled around to see him.

Drunrag.

My Drun.

His eyes were like deep silver pools, blazing with the heat I knew was smoldering inside him. He didn't look at me, his eyes were instead trained on the man. I looked down and saw his hands were clenched into tight fists. Under each of his arms was a barrel, which he carefully set down on the dock on either side of him, then rising again to his full height.

"You're his friend?" The man asked, a sour tone in his voice that I didn't like one bit.

Drunrag didn't answer, only sniffed contemptuously before taking a step towards him, shifting around me so that he didn't come close to touching me. I still felt the sizzling heat between us.

"You have no business being here." Drunrag said. His voice was heavy and low, rumbling his chest that reminded me of bear's growl. My body reacted to it strongly and I stumbled back, unsteady and wavering.

"Yeah? And what's your business with him?"

"None of your concern." Drun's voice was level and calm, but I could sense the mounting pressure inside.

"You just want the money for yourself." The man protested, pointing his gun at Drun. My heart began to pound faster. Don't shoot him. Oh gods please, don't shoot him.

"I saw him first." Drun responded. "We can fight on it, if you wish." He cracked his neck side to side, then clenched and unclenched his fists. Muscles, tight from his tense posture, rippled and reacted to his movements. The man's eyes were on them and I watched gleefully as his pistol lowered to his side and his face fell open.

Drun continued. "Get lost...or I'll be cracking each of your finger one...by...one until your bones are ground to dust." He cocked his head. "Won't be much use on a ship with boneless fingers."

Oh dear gods above...that shouldn't have affected me when he said that, should it? I looked down at the barrel and decided it was for the best to take a seat on it. I needed to catch my breath.

"Stupid piece of shit, is what you are." The man spat, "Green shit straight from a horse's soured stomach. Cross my path again and you're gonna see a bullet right between your puny eyes."

I had never wish a person dead or suffering greater than this man. I rose to my feet, rage radiating off me.

Drun turned back at me, his eyes flashing and a deep frown on his face. "Stay back." His voice cracked. "I can handle this." He turned back and asked calmly. "Have you anything else to say before I punch out your teeth?"

The man shook his head and turned away from us, mumbling threats and insults as he shuffled away. Drunrag stood still, tensed and ready for any retaliation.

When the man was gone, he finally turned back. I looked up to meet his gaze, my thanks and gratitude on my lips when I saw he wouldn't look at me. Instead, he walked passed me and retrieved his barrels before turning and beginning the walk off the docks towards the main part of the city.

"Drunrag." I breathed out. I shuddered to hear his name out loud like that. I wanted to say it loud and open like that all the time, for it was the name of my beloved. My hero. My fated partner.

"Don't." He said, his voice dark. "I'm doing everything I can to stop this from affecting us. Give me time and stay away as much as possible." He finally turned, his eyes were still fierce as he looked at me. "Please don't get into trouble again. I don't want to see you hurt."

He walked away from me, barrels in hands. I watched him walk away.

What could I say to him to make him stay?

I remembered then what he told me in the beginning. He didn't want to mate. He made the choice to not do it. It was never about me.

Whatever made me think that I could convince him that I was worth changing his mind for?

I bowed my head, I couldn't bear to see him walk away from me.

#monster boyfriend #orc boyfriend #orc x half elf #dnd inspired #set in faerun #monster lover #monster romance #orc #orc romance #monster fucker #monster fuqqer #slow burn #romance #my fic #writing #gay romance #mm romance #much squealing happened while writing this chapter #can someone give Altan a hug for me pls

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glittter-vamp · 1 year

Text

Ohio Is For Lovers | J.B

CHAPTER 11

Joe Burrow x Reader.

Warnings: 18+ MDNI. Angst. Fluff. Mention of car accident.

Word count: 3k

Waking up the next morning in Joe's arms was a feeling that was unfamiliar yet still felt like home as much as you hated to admit it. The sun wasn't yet shining through the windows, which meant it was pretty early. You slowly tried to reach for your phone but Joe's grip on you tightened. "Nooo..." he whines against your shoulder making you laugh. "I have to text my boss and let her know I won't be coming in today." You chuckle and he slowly lets you go. You reach for your phone and it was barely 7AM. You noticed you had a bunch of missed calls from Mariana and texts as well. "I guess Ja'Marr brought the affair up." You sigh. "Why can't we have one day without drama." Joe yawns. You read the messages and you scoff. "She's basically doubling down and saying she's being falsely accused...also is saying some not so nice things about you for apparently lying to Ja'Marr about her cheating on him." You snort. "Of course she is, why would I even lie about something like that..." Joe sighs. "I'm not going to let her ruin my day today, she can wait." You say getting up after quickly texting your boss that an emergency came up and you . "Woah, come back to bed!" Joe says and you snort. "I have to pee and brush my teeth." You say slipping on the shirt he had given you last night. "Now you're getting dressed!? You ruined the moment." He shakes his head as he laid back down on his pillow. "You really thought you were getting morning sex weren't you?" You snort and Joe mimics you like a child making you shake you head before going into the bathroom.

After you use the bathroom and change you come back out and see Joe on his phone. "Ja'Marr kicked Mariana out." He says. "No.. fucking way." You look at him in disbelief. "That's what he texted me. Apparently not only was she cheating on him but she was using his money to do so. His accountant sent him charges of hotels, dinners...even sex toys and lingerie for her..." Joe sighs and your mouth hangs open. "What the hell is this girl doing..." You sigh shaking your head. "Is Ja'Marr okay though?" You ask. "He said he was going back home for a few days to clear his head and he'd let me know when he's back in town." Joe says setting his phone aside. "Well at least he seems to be taking care of himself somehow." You nod and Joe agrees.

"Hey...I never asked you but how are you holding up with the whole baby stuff?" You ask him and he takes a deep breath. "I was a lot more disappointed than I thought I would of been...I haven't even step foot in the nursery. I guess I was starting to come to terms with it, getting excited at becoming a dad and then it was just ripped away from me." he shrugs. "I'm still really sorry about that...regardless of the circumstances I know you would of been a really great dad." You say giving him a small smile.

"Are we still on for breakfast?" Joe asks changing the subject which you respect the hint that he didn't want to talk about that topic any longer. "Yeah but I really need to go home and change though, I don't wanna be in my work clothes from yesterday." You shake your head. "We can stop at yours on the way." Joe says getting up and going to the bathroom, completely taking in the view of his nude body. "Stop checking me out." Joe rolls his eyes. "You check me out all the time and I never say anything! Why can't I do it to you?" You say putting your hands your hips. " Cause you don't check me out, you eye fuck me. Especially when you see my ass." He says covering his bits. "Joe...your penis was quite literally in my mouth last night, stop being stupid and dramatic." You say giving him an annoyed look which made him laugh before he made his way to the bathroom and you very much check his ass out unapologetically. You then head downstairs grabbing your phone before doing so.

Joe eventually meets you downstairs wearing one of his weird colorful pieces of clothing again. You knew he wore it to annoy you but you decided to ignore it and not give him the satisfaction that he wanted. "Are were ready?" You ask him. "Yeah, your car or mine?" Joe asks. "Which ever, I don't mind." You shrug. "You drive." Joe says. "Aw, someone wants to be passenger princess?" You tease. "You damn right I do." You he says following you outside. Joe locks his door and you two get in you car. "Are you taking this car to Rhode Island?" Joe asks putting his seatbelt on. "Yes..." You eye him. "Hm..." He hums. "Are you judging my car right now?" You ask backing out of his drive way. "I didn't say anything!" Joe defends himself. "You didn't have too..." You mutter.

"What if... you got a new car?" Joe says after a moment of silence. "Joe- No c'mon, hear me out. New state, new city, new job, new house...and you're gonna roll up in this old thing?" Joe says and you roll your eyes. "Joe, I'm looking to buy a new house there's no way I can afford that plus a new car." You shake your head. "Well I'd buy it for you." You Joe says. "What is with you and wanting to buy me?" You ask stopping at red light and looking over to him. "I like spoiling you, is that so wrong?" Joe scoffs. "Yes! You act like I'm some sugar baby..." You chuckle. "And!? Sue me." Joe scoffs. "Yeah I bet you'd like that so you have a reason to give me money." You say and Joe laughs. "What do you like? BMW? Mercedes? Land Rover?" Joe says scrolling on his phone as you drive. "Nothing, leave it alone...and your crazy thinking I can afford to maintain any of those cars." You scoff. "I'd obviously pay for that Y/N." Joe mutters seeming annoyed. "Yeah, that's gonna be so functional if we both start dating other people and you're paying for my oil changes, wheel alignments and tire rotations in another state. Be realistic here..." You chuckle. "What the hell is a wheel alignment and tire rotation?" Joe asks as if you talking another language and you snort. "I'm so glad you're a rich football player that can afford of not take care of his cars." You shake your head focusing on the road. Joe shaking his head and sucking his teeth.

You two make it to your apartment building and make your way up to your floor. Once you step out of the elevator you instantly spot Mariana sitting by your door. You stop in your tracks and look at Joe who looks at you. "Mariana?" You ask as you approach your door, she was on her phone sat by your door. "Oh my gosh, where the hell have you been?" Mariana says standing up. "What are you doing here?" You ask awkwardly. "Didn't you get my text? Ja'Marr came to me with some total bullshit about me cheating on him." Mariana says glaring at Joe who was standing behind you. "Uh, let's talk inside..." You say unlocking the door and letting them both in. "So what are you doing here?" You ask Mariana once you shut the door. "Ja'Marr came home last night and said that this one here saw me with a guy in my car and that I apparently kissed him!? He broke up with me and basically threw me out of the house! He barely let me even explain!" She says clearly fuming. "Well...did you?" You ask and Mariana scoffs.

"No! I was just visiting a friend, we went out to lunch and that was it." She says clearly lying through her teeth. "Mariana...don't lie to me." You sigh. "Are you fucking kidding me?! You're going to take his side over mine?" I can expect that from Ja'Marr but you!? You're my best friend! " Mariana scoffs again. "Mariana...Joe described to me who it was. I know it was Cole." You bite your lip. "You have no proof!" she says. "Okay, now that's something someone would say if they're guilty." Joe scoffs getting annoyed by this conversation and you give him a look to be quiet. "You mind your own business, you have ruined my relationship with Ja'Marr for no reason! It's not my fault you fucked up any chance with Y/N and now you want to fuck up your friends relationship!" Mariana snaps at Joe. "Now Mariana, you know damn well that wasn't anyone's fault but your own." You roll your eyes hating the way she was deflecting. "Oh sure take his side, just cause he's the one fucking you and buying you stupid little diamond earrings! This is the guys that let a whole state and NFL fans call you the Cincinnati whore, do you not remember? God, you're more pathetic than I thought. Fuck the both of you." Mariana says leaving your apartment and slamming the door. You stand there stunned and a bit hurt by her comments before Joe speaks up. "I'm really sorry Y/N...she's just mad she got caught." Joe says rubbing your back.

"She's going to retaliate." You say and Joe looks at you confused. "What?" he asks. "She's gonna go to the tabloids, sell a story about us...she knows about the baby Joe. She's gonna fuck us over....especially you since you were the one that saw her and told Ja'Marr." You say and he takes his deep breath. "Go change, I'll call my publicist to see what she says and can do...this woman is going to kill me." Joe sighs and you agree walking to your room. You couldn't help but let those words Mariana said, get to you. Even though you knew she was lying about her affair what she said about Joe wasn't that much of a lie. He did let you get harassed by his fans and let Emily lie on you. Though he apologized...you felt weird about it still but you decide to come back to that later.

***********************************************************************

It was later that evening now and you had spent the entire day with Joe. You didn't like the way Mariana left your apartment and you were nervous for what was to come. You were currently at Joe's with Sasha and Peyton telling them what happened with Mariana. "She went off on us too over the phone because we also don't believe her." Sasha shakes her head. You guys were having some wine with the Italian dinner Joe had ordered for everyone. "Just the way she got so defensive you know it's true." Peyton scoffs. "That's what I told her and she went off on Y/N about how she only believes me because we were hooking up." Joe rolls his eyes. "She's stupid...kind of makes me wonder why we were ever friends with her." Sasha shakes her head. "Well she wasn't always like this, she lied about petty stuff to get us out of dumb stuff but nothing like cheating on the guy she agreed to marry." You sip your wine.

"Not gonna lie...it's making me second guess our friendship. Who knows what she's done behind our backs." Peyton says. "When she first got with Ja'Marr and I met her at an event she came onto to me." Joe speaks you and you guys all snap your head towards him. "Like...already being with him or before they got serious?" You ask raising an eyebrow at him. "They had just started dating, we went to a club and Ja'Marr went I don't know where and she started flirting with me and then she kissed me and I pushed her off. She was drunk out of her mind though." Joe says. "Oh she's messier than we thought." Peyton says. " Then something else happened at the thanksgiving dinner they had." Joe says. "Why are you just telling us this?" You ask Joe. "I didn't want to stir up drama plus I know definitely then you wouldn't have gave me the time of day." Joe says and Peyton snorts and you give Peyton a look. "But what happened? Did she try kissing you again?" Sasha asks and Joe shakes his head. "No, I went to get another drink while they finishing the Christmas decorations and she made some flirty comments which I ignored and then when she went to leave the kitchen she grabbed my ass and made some comment about how sometimes she wishes she could switch places with Y/N." Joe says, everyone shocked by what he said. "Joe, you should of said something that's...sexual harassment." You say and your friends nod in agreement. "I didn't want to stir anything up, plus she was pretty wasted booth times." Joe shrug's. "And!?" You three say in unison and Joe's eyes widen. "We're sorry...but I wish you would of said something. I would of confronted her." You say. "Confront my ass, you would of decked her in the face." Peyton laughs making Sasha and Joe laugh.

"So... you still think something is gonna come up on the internet soon because of Mariana?" Sasha asks and you nod. "100%, she was enraged! It's only a matter of time before she bites back." You sigh finishing up the wine you had your glass. "Well, we'll stick up for you. I kind of wish we would of gotten proof about the affair to throw that out there back at her if she does steep that low." Peyton says. "Maybe it's not too late." Sasha shrugs. You guys finish up the delicious dinner and Sasha and Peyton both leave since they each had plans for later tonight, both reassuring you that everything was going to be fine. "I should head out too, it's been a long day and I'm ready for bed." You yawn as you finish helping Joe with the dishes, Joe making a weird groaning sound. "What?" You ask heading over to the door to grab your bag and put on your shoes. "You're more than welcomed to stay...I can run you a bath." Joe says giving you puppy eyes and you give him a look. "I appreciate the offer but I should really get home. I have to call my realtor in Providence tomorrow morning, he emailed me today about a few listings that had some good price cuts." You say, Joe trying very hard to not roll his eyes or make a face. "He?" Joe raises his eyebrow and you suck your teeth in annoyance. "Yes. A He, what's the issue?" You ask crossing your arms. "Nothing...well can I call you tomorrow?" He asks. "Sure. Thanks for dinner by the way and for having my friends over." You smile at him. "Anytime...text me when you get home?" He says as you open the door and he follows you to the car. "Will do." You say opening your car door and getting into your car.

"I still think you should let me get you a new car." Joe mutters kicking your tire. "I'm fine with my car and don't kick it." You roll your eyes and he kicks it again to annoy you. "You're so annoying." You mutter which makes him laugh. "Let me get outta here. "You sigh reaching to close your door. "Wait...no kiss?" Joe says stopping you from shutting the door. "Joe...we can't keep doing this." You sigh. "Why are you acting like...we didn't have sex last night?" He asks. "That's not what I'm trying to do, I just think that it's going to be harder for both of us to say goodbye when it comes time for me to leave Ohio... if we keep being intimate and acting like we're a couple." You sigh. "I get it." Joe says obviously upset that you said what you said. "Do you mean it this time? Because every time you say that, we end up in a bed together." You say and he chuckles. " That isn't the worst thing that could happen." Joe shrugs getting into your space and you roll your eyes. "You're so annoying." You say trying not so smile but you fail miserably. Joe goes in for a sweet kiss or two anyway, "Okay.. okay.. get outta my face Burrow." You fake a cringing face, making Joe chuckle. He obliges and shuts your door for you. You turn on your car after putting your seatbelt on and pull out of his drive way.

Giving Joe a quick honk you wave at him, him waving back before you drive off. It was currently almost 8PM on a Friday so the streets of Cincinnati were still pretty busy. You decided to take the back roads to avoid traffic on the highway.

As you drove down the emptier roads, only a few cars in passing here and there you realize some asshole in a pick up truck riding your ass on the road. "What the fuck is this guys problem?" You say to yourself as you look at the lifted truck in the rearview mirror. You speed up just a bit more but notice the guy just gets even closer. "Pass me you fucking asshole!!" You say getting pissed off throwing your hand out and waving it to him outside the window to pass you. You focus your eyes back onto the road before you feel a hard hit on your car and your body jerk forward. You lose control of the car, it spinning out of control. Freaking out you try to regain control of your car by grabbing the wheel tight trying to stabilize it and pressing on your breaks as hard as you could.

In a split second you see you're headed for a ditch, and everything suddenly went black.

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A/N: This chapter was shorter than the last few but the next chapter is going to be a long one so don't you worry! Thank you for reading!!🖤

#joe burrow fanfiction #joe burrow x reader #joe burrow imagine #joe burrow fic #joe burrow fan fic #joe burrow angst #joe burrow series #joe burrow x y/n #joe burrow x you

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moonshine-nightlight · 5 months

Text

Potential Short Stories

hey, while looking to next year, i have a number of short stories I'm considering and i'd like to gauge y'alls interest in them and see if there are any that should move up my list.

these are all just the top ideas i'm considering at the moment and are subject to change when i get back to writing in Spring 2024, but i really want to know if any of these grabs ppls attention as often more interest in a story motivates me to write more!

see under the read more for summaries of each story in the poll

if ur interested in more than one, vote for your favorite and mention the others in the comments/tags!

See this post for a poll on short vs long stories!

See this post for a poll on long stories!

see below for summaries and minor details (titles subject to change - but i'm also lazy and hate titling things so maybe not)

Courtship Confusion: You’ve been working with Morgan for a couple years. A consummate flirt, you’d initially been put off by his whole charming deal, but now that he’s your best friend you’ve been wanting to see if he’s still interested in dating you. Unfortunately he’s not picking up your hints. Before you give up, a pair of visiting concubi remind you of cultural differences when it comes to dating. Maybe you’ve both been misunderstanding each other. Maybe it’s time you set the record straight.

Modern w/known non-humans, ReaderxMaleSiren

Quid Pro Quo: You’d thought the only remotely positive about your husband’s death would be that you wouldn’t need to deal with your terrible in-laws anymore. Then you found out that demons were real and your husband’s family had made a deal decades ago trapping all their descendants in service to one. You manage to set up your own deal with a different demon: if you help Adriel figure out who is embezzling from his realm spanning organization, he’ll help you figure out how to get your kids free of the contract. After hitting dead end after dead end, you finally think you’re both getting somewhere, but will it be enough?

Modern w/secret demons; ReaderxMaleDemon

Goddaughter: You thought you’d seen the last of your family when you left—you’d certainly done everything you could to cut ties with them and with your father’s enemies. Unfortunately, they finally seem to have caught up with you—running into you by chance in the grocery store of all places. Now you and your daughter have been captured, you’re tied up while they’ve taken her who knows where, your father is just as useless at protecting you as always. Then you hear a familiar voice. What on earth is your neighbor, Vee, doing here? Why does he know your father? And why does he sound positively…demonic?

Modern w/secret demons; ReaderxMaleDemon

Bedwarmer: When you heard your Chancellor had died in battle and his lands given to a mountain orc who’d practically won the battle singlehandedly, you weren’t sure what to think. When the steward put out the call for a bedwarmer for said new Chancellor, you figured species didn’t matter much after all—powerful people were all the same. Still, the role came with a year reduction in indenture for whoever was selected from the candidates. You’ve never had any problem with no strings attached sex so you add yourself to the list. It’s not until you meet this Kor’Shearda and are chosen that you begin to realize how wrong you were.

Fantasy w/known non-humans; ReaderxFemaleOrc

Runalong: Sometimes you feel like you’ve spent your whole life on the move. Shuffled from one place to the next with no real say in the matter. Is it any wonder that on those long car rides from somewhere that just started to become familiar to somewhere brand new and unknown that you might imagine a companion along side you? And what does it mean that now you’re an adult and you still think you see them sometimes?

Modern w/unknown non-humans; ReaderxGNSpirit

Feral: You’ve been so happy living on your own in the little house you inherited, you didn’t even mind the strange stipulations in the will about hanging plants and markings on fence posts. You were never particularly superstitious. Or you weren’t. Strange noises at night, eyes that glow, tracks around the porch—it’s all starting to freak you out. What could be lurking in the shadows of your yard? Is it all your imagination? Or does something—someone—mean you harm?

Modern w/unknown non-humans; ReaderxFemaleHellhound

#polls #stories #my stories #just want to see what ppl think #was gonna put this up lik next weekend but i hav no self control #i'll likely do what i want lol #because if i'm not up for it i wont be able to write it as well #but i do want to know what ur thoughts are #(i'm sometimes very easily persuaded - thats how the DSM bonus happened)#and giv a little preview of what stories might be coming up next #i'd likely only be able to get to 4 at most next year #so choose wisely!

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ichiruki · 2 years

Note

Don't know if you got same question as this ... But I want to ask can you explain why relationship between Rukia and Ichigo is romantic not friendly and show moments which actually shows how they have romantic feelings for eachother?

** you can ignore it if you want ... But I'm new here and in the fandom too so I had questions 😶 **

That’s the beauty of Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship! They love each other in many ways and since very early on. I think the Fullbring arc really cemented that they also love each other romantically because after having time apart we see just how much (and how fondly) they think of the other... and how nobody else comes close.

Chapter 424 is Ichigo telling us what’s been going on since the battle with Aizen and every panel is full with the calm life he’s living except when talking about not having powers. To me it suggests he has a lot of feelings about that fact and, given the size, he tries not to think about it too much.

But when we get to the panel about Rukia there’s so much empty space it takes up half the page. It’s presenting itself as the heaviest thing on his mind after the battle; not being able to see her.

Also, (this is just a theory) seeing this in color makes it look like the panels are connected up to this point... like if he thinks too long about what happened he’ll eventually think about her. “Now I don’t have any soul reaper powers” changes the subject to Karin. “It’s been 17 months since the battle” changes the subject to school. “Ever since then Rukia hasn’t come to KK once” the scene ends and transitions to one about missing her. It’s like Rukia is always in the back of his mind and after all this time it’s easier to avoid it.

Of course he misses her, but having an excuse for her ready proves how much she’s been on his mind, and outright denying it is so like him. I wouldn’t say this specifically is rooted in “romance” but with other moments we can see just how much he wants to see her again and it really goes beyond what he feels for anyone else.

Take for example when he only mentioned that Rukia hadn’t come to visit him despite having other friends from the SS, especially Renji. In the next chapter he dreamed of them and Byakuya but it’s Rukia that stands out.

She’s singled out from the guys and her panel is bigger, but what really separates her from them is the fact that it’s cropped sooo close to her face. There isn’t even a sliver of her shoulders, Ichigo is really concentrating here. Renji and Byakuya’s presence is enough but not when it comes to Rukia, he seems desperate to see her again.

Being a protector is literally in Ichigo’s name so losing the power to do so was hard on him, anyone could see that. Orihime was glad at first but ultimately had to ask Rukia to figure out a way to get his power back and Chad could barely look at him since he lost it. Chad goes on a little bit more about how wanting to fight/protect those around him makes Ichigo who he is, and while that’s definitely correct what comes next suggests that there’s something more important.

Love is subjective. Riruka drew her ability out through her love/adoration of cute material things and the happiness it brings her. Orihime persevered because of the love she feels for her best friend Tatsuki who always protected her. Chad manifested his ability because of the pride his family (his grandfather, who he loves) instilled in him. Fullbring can be activated with love that is familial, platonic, or even with a hobby/inanimate things.

Saving his sisters from the same monster that killed his mother wasn’t enough to activate his fullbring. Helping Orihime, Chad, and Uryu, his friends, also wasn’t enough. Being strong enough to hold back the equivalent of 100 thousand blades in the form of a ginormous, fiery bird wasn’t enough either. Apparently it doesn’t even slightly trigger it.

Remember when I said Ichigo was avoiding Rukia? She was present in each event he thinks about. Of course she isn’t the most important person in each scenario, but even in the moment he saves her life he doesn’t picture her face like the rest of them. Him doing that cements the fact that he’s trying to hold back thinking about her... until he can’t anymore.

The power comes all at once when he finally thinks of her. Just her.

At the end of the SS arc we figure out that what Ichigo wanted most when he saved Rukia was to see her smile again, and because of the power he gained for her sake he was able to do that; because of power he was able to save so many other people, too. The thing is, he remembers her in the moment he lost his powers; not one of the times he saves her or she saves him or the result of any of that. He began training for fullbring to protect the people important to him but it isn’t being activated by those bonds and instead by the pure desire to see her smiling again.

Putting everything together tells us that he loves her romantically; if his fullbring isn’t being activated by his platonic or familial bonds or the pride in having the power to protect them there is only one type of love that separates her from the rest.

We can keep going... with a liiiittle bit on Rukia, too.

Seeing her for the first time in 17+ months literally stopped the rain and put light back in his eyes after he lost his power AGAIN with the people he’s closest to turned against him. He was bawling his eyes out, more powerless than he’s ever been, and unsettled about his dad and Urahara’s sudden appearance, but she immediately put him at ease without any effort at all.

He believes in her right away just like she does in him. Like she always does.

When Rukia gets the chance to fully think about how special and strong Ichigo is, both in strength and heart, we see her in complete awe.

If she was simply proud and or amazed by him she could have replicated the smile she had at sokyoku hill when she felt his power “flowing into her.” The expressions on her face here (off the top of my head) are completely new and softer than ever. It looks like her own heart skipped a beat —

— It skipped just like time does when they’re seperated.

The arc opened with Ichigo wondering if he can keep up with the speed of the world without her and just about ended with this poem, “When the two that share destiny part and reunite, beyond the frame of time, the ceased clock will awake and start to tick once again.” Ichigo and Rukia are incomplete when they’re apart and are at their happiest when together.

When remembering her happiest moments during her fight with As Nodt, Rukia thought of Ichigo the most. When fighting Yhwach and remembering his most despairing moments, the night Ichigo lost Rukia to Renji and Byakuya comes second after losing his mom. The emphasis on their bond is consistent throughout the story and even until the last chapter.

If Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship was supposed to be strictly platonic the amount of content we were given would have to be cut in half. Cut down on the anime fillers/openings/endings, the movies, the musicals, the color spreads... the poems about the other person, the speeches about how one feels about the other, the emphasis on their shared trauma and the fact that they saved and helped each other overcome their misery, the overwhelming feeling of wanting to see the other person happy, Ichigo’s parents replicating his and Rukia’s first meeting, “The Love and Destiny Ichigo Inherited,” the partings, the reunions... Y’know, put all the ships on an even playing field, but that’s not what happened.

Ichigo and Rukia have the kind of relationship that was said to be “more than friends” since the second arc. 200 chapters later when they spend over a year without seeing or even speaking to each other we can see how they spent that time thinking of the other and more than anyone else. Time goes on but their bond will never break, and they don’t deserve anything less.

#bleach #ichiruki #meta

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starkjoy · 1 year

Note

it’s insane how disappointed i am with this season… like i don’t even know how to deal w this lmao. i just feel like i’m being gaslit into believing all the stuff i previously thought about tomshiv’s dynamic and even tomgreg’s (in terms of the nero/sporus subtext) isn’t true. it’s a weird decision on the writers’ parts.

the whiplash is so odd to me that i can’t help but wonder if they’re intentionally misleading us for some late-in-the-game twist. that’s probably delusion though—simplest explanation is that they changed their mind or it’s shitty writing. seems to be a trend with hbo final seasons. let’s see how it all ends before we make any final decisions, though.

unlike failed internet darling mlm ships of the past, tomgreg isn’t a case of fandom creating a narrative and setting themselves up for disappointment—the writers intentionally implanted homoeroticism into their plotline. the actors knowingly played around with it. jesse literally called them homoerotic a few weeks ago. it’s really sad to think succession may fall prey to every other queerbait-adjacent (adjacent for now since the season isn’t over) curse, leaning into the queer undertones until they’ve written themselves into a gay corner with the internet convinced something is gonna happen, only to backtrack and pretend the vibes were never there at all. it’s too early to say if that’s the case here, but it certainly feels that way at the moment. i mean, what else are we supposed to think when the writers go from nero and sporus gay marriage as the through line of season 3, to disgusting brothers hetero sex tour comedic relief background noise with tomshiv redemption front end center? am I supposed to be enjoying this?

all that being said, on a positive note im glad we’ve seen how much closer tom and greg have gotten as partners, and that they’re scheming together and on the same page. i’m glad they’ve had at least one interaction each episode. i’m glad greg seems much more into tom than previous seasons, quelling any unrequited friendship accusations. i’m glad we got insane homoerotic undertones in episode 1, even if they’ve dropped off since then. but where we’re sadly lacking is depth—what was once the hallmark of tomgreg’s deeper connection in contrast to tomshiv’s emotional constipation. now greg makes sexual quips while tom rolls his eyes…end scene. and again. it was funny and cute at first, but now it’s getting boring. don’t they deserve a more interesting arc in the final season after years of build up? why are we subject to tomshiv rehashing the same shit we’ve seen for 3 seasons instead?

also, one of the most compelling arcs of season 3 was tom’s vengeance, especially because we saw it play out from his perspective. outside of his plane convo with greg, tom’s pov has all but been erased. even the tomshiv moments are from the lens of shiv’s experience. and as much as we may sympathize with shiv’s heartbreak over his betrayal and her dad’s death, it feels almost wrong that the show is trying to make me feel bad for her? we saw how awful she was to tom for three seasons, we saw from tom’s perspective how much she hurt him. i don’t feel bad for shiv on the tom front at all, the fact that she kept his baby feels wildly out of character, and frankly it’s a little insulting the amount of time the final season is spending trying to convince the audience otherwise.

hey, maybe my feelings will change in a few days. maybe the final episodes will change all of our minds. i’ll always have some hope for tomgreg, but right now it’s not looking promising given the treatment they’ve received so far. anyone with any positivity to share hit me up because I could use it!!

#succession #tomgreg #succession spoilers #ask #anon

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 months

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My husband worries a lot about his heart. “I feel something right here,” he’ll say, pointing to a spot on his chest. I have a hard time knowing how to respond to these reports; unless I’m doing cardio, I’m never aware of my heartbeat, and even then I can’t really feel it. After my husband’s cardiologist told him that there was nothing wrong with his heart, I figured that his fascination with it was just melodrama, or hypochondria.

Then I read a study by Sarah Garfinkel, a neuroscientist at University College London. Garfinkel monitored the heartbeats of twenty people who’d been diagnosed with autism, and also asked them to count the beats themselves. In a second study with sixty autistic individuals, she played a rhythmic, beeping tone and asked her subjects to say whether it was in synch with their pulses. At first, many people who’d declared themselves “good” at detecting their own heartbeats failed these tasks. But, as the tests went on, they improved. Some of the participants had reported having anxiety, and about a third of them said that, as they became better at detecting their heartbeats accurately, they also felt less anxious. My husband isn’t autistic, but he does experience anxiety, and Garfinkel’s study made me wonder whether he might be like some of her study participants. Maybe he was wrongly convinced that he was good at feeling his heartbeat, but also able to improve that sense—a change that could ease his worries.

Scientists call our ability to feel what’s happening inside our bodies interoception. A portmanteau of “interior” and “reception,” it differs from perception, which comes from our five senses, and proprioception, which tells us how we are oriented in space. Interoception is an inner sense having to do with our bodily processes. It can be divided into three rough categories. The first comprises feelings that break through into consciousness based on need; this is how we know when we need to pee or sleep or hydrate, and how we grasp that our hearts are racing after a good jump scare. The second encompasses the unconscious ways in which our brains and bodies communicate; our brains detect high glucose levels in our livers, for example, then release hormones that trigger our metabolisms, and we are unaware of the process. A vast number of these silent interoceptive processes are going on within us all the time.

The third category of interoception has to do with how our bodies and minds, together, sense and respond to the flow of events. On a recent Zoom call, Tim Dalgleish, a psychologist at the University of Cambridge, told me that the body is constantly delivering a set of signals—changes in our heart rates, breathing, digestion, and so on—that fluctuate along with the events we are encountering. It’s tempting to see the flow of information as one-way, from the mind to the body; we might understand an escalating heart rate, say, as a “reaction” to a feeling of nervousness. (An exam is placed on our desks, we grow nervous, and our hearts start racing in response.) But Dalgleish told me that it made more sense to think of the body and mind working synchronously as part of a single “prediction system.” “I don’t think we are ‘reacting’ to anything,” he said. Instead, we are constantly forecasting what is about to happen, with our bodies and minds contributing to that forecast. “There’s a mental component and a bodily component,” Dalgleish said. “They both happen at the same time.”

When we talk about “listening to our bodies” or “going with our guts,” we are often talking about this type of interoception. Close your eyes at any given moment, and you can gauge your over-all mood—good, bad, excited, tired, a bit down, or generally pleased. This mood combines what’s going on in your mind with how your organs, muscles, and nerves are embodying the moment. “Interoception is your ability to notice that signal,” Dalgleish said.

Not everyone is good at interpreting these interoceptive signals, and our abilities vary with our circumstances. In a 2010 study, Dalgleish and his collaborators asked ninety-two people to play a computer game derived from the Iowa gambling task, a psychological test designed to examine decision-making. The task entailed selecting the correct down-facing card from one of four decks, in hopes that it would match the color of an upturned card. Each correct choice earned the player some money. There were differences among the decks, but the game was designed so that it was impossible to figure them out within the time allotted. Still, in the course of a hundred turns, three-quarters of the participants got better at selecting the “profitable” deck of cards.

The point of the study was to see whether any bodily changes distinguished the people who improved from the ones who did not. While the subjects played, the researchers measured their heart rates and skin temperatures. They found that predictable bodily changes happened among those who got better at the game. Right before those subjects guessed, their hearts beat faster and their palms became sweaty; then they chose the right card. “People who were good at reading their bodies were the ones who did really well,” Dalgleish said. None of the players experienced themselves as being guided by these physical cues. Instead, they just went with their guts.

Why were some players more tuned into these signals than others? In 2022, Garfinkel and a colleague, Chatrin Suksasilp, provided one of the first comprehensive descriptions of how “listening to our bodies” might really work. First, they argued, come the various, often incremental somatic changes that happen continuously; our minds then translate these signals into a single feeling. The accuracy of this process, they wrote, can vary at every step. People with post-traumatic stress disorder, for instance, often experience racing hearts at moments that don’t seem to call for them; similar disproportionate responses often arise among people with other mental-health difficulties, or who are chronically stressed. Meanwhile, these signals form an amalgam that is funnelled into certain regions of the brain, such as the insular cortex and the dorsal mid-insula. “Some people have loads of activity in key areas, and other people don’t,” Garfinkel said—in other words, some people have stronger interoceptive signals.

And yet, even if you’re receiving a strong signal from your body, it can be inaccurate. Consistently perfect interoception is impossible: sometimes we listen to our hearts, but they have the wrong message; at other times, the message is right, but we don’t hear it. The body itself changes our capacity to listen. Garfinkel asked me to imagine an athlete who stays in the game while clearly injured: in a hyper-aroused state, she said, a person can become numb to pain. And interoception is complicated by the fact that it’s tightly tied to our personal experiences. Whatever happened to us in the past—a dangerous encounter with a stranger, a scary movie that made a big impression, time on the battlefield—alters how our bodies respond in the future. If a person’s responses are sufficiently shaped by such experiences, then listening to her body might lead her astray.

Given how easy it is for interoception to go wrong, it’s logical to wonder whether we can become better at getting it right. Some researchers are exploring ways to retrain our interoceptive responses. At the Laureate Institute for Brain Research, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Sahib Khalsa, a psychiatrist, has been taking this approach with people who have eating disorders. Khalsa trained with Antonio Damasio, a neurologist who popularized the notion that our feelings are rooted in our bodies rather than our minds; in particular, Damasio’s somatic-marker hypothesis lays out the body-to-brain process by which visceral responses shape our decisions. Khalsa’s theory, essentially, is that eating disorders involve, among other things, a cycle of interoceptive mistranslation. A rumbling tummy should stimulate one’s appetite, not evoke fear; feeling full should be part of an over-all pleasant state, not turmoil. Eating disorders are complicated, with roots that extend far beyond the question of how good people are at listening to their bodies. But at least one study has found that people with anorexia perform poorly on interoceptive tests.

A therapist providing food-based interoceptive exposure might offer individuals with eating disorders a piece of chocolate in hopes that, over several sessions, that they will learn to taste and swallow it without becoming emotionally distraught. Khalsa works with one application of this therapy. “The goal is for you to learn to eat this without feeling uncomfortable,” Khalsa explained. He is also investigating the use of float tanks as a form of interoceptive therapy. In a study he published in 2020, twenty-three women with anorexia floated in sensory-deprivation chambers for ninety minutes at a time, once a week, for four weeks. They reported experiencing heightened awareness of their heartbeats and breathing, but not of their stomachs or digestive systems; many also reported feeling relaxed, energized, serene, and happy. (The study doesn’t connect any of these changes to shifts in eating habits.) Khalsa’s theory is that the tanks offer a kind of interoceptive training: if you get better at tracking your own heartbeat, you might get better at tracking your appetite as well. “If I followed a meal with a float . . . I could allow my food to digest without the discomfort of fullness,” Emily Noren writes, in “Unsinkable,” her memoir of overcoming an eating disorder with help from floating. “The float tank was my training wheels for digestion.”

Finally, in work published last month in Nature Communications, Khalsa is exploring the use of a tiny, motorized capsule that vibrates when it reaches the digestive system. People with eating disorders often complain of feeling full or bloated even when they haven’t consumed food; Khalsa thinks that, by practicing sensing the motor, they may be able to retrain their gastrointestinal interoception. The tiny motor creates an opportunity to recognize a real physical sensation in the gut. By distinguishing real from imagined, a person might establish an interoceptive connection that more accurately communicates the state of the body.

Last year, Garfinkel and her colleague, Camilla Nord, at the University College Cambridge, published an overview of how interoception might be used to treat many mental-health conditions. They drew on numerous studies elucidating the connection between interoceptive accuracy and emotions. (People who are better at detecting their heartbeats are also better at regulating negative emotions, for example.) The researchers point out that many therapies that are already in use are also a form of interoceptive intervention: for instance, a single dose of citalopram—a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor prescribed for depression and other mood disorders—enhanced the confidence people had in their correct interoceptive judgments. In other words, they had more insight into what their bodies were doing.

One of the lessons of interoception research, however, is that access and accuracy don’t necessarily go together. Just because we have a bad feeling doesn’t make it right. It’s unwise to assume that increasing people’s interoceptive curiosity will solve their problems. It could be that “you’re just training them to read a signal that’s actually giving them really bad information,” Dalgleish said; it can even be useful for someone to be “trained to ignore their body.” Garfinkel told me that “people with anxiety and depression attend too much to the body.” Data show that people with panic disorders are often hyperaware of their heartbeats. The psychologists Karen Quigley and Lisa Feldman Barrett, who study emotion at Northeastern University, hypothesize that depression stems in part from a “locked-in” brain—a situation in which we fail to account for the possibility that our interoceptive interpretation might be wrong. “If I feel so awful and I can’t see an explanation in the outside world, then that might mean that there’s something wrong with me,” Quigley told me, explaining the mind-set. “There’s this kind of closing inward.” When such a dynamic is ruling a person’s mind, increasing interoceptive awareness isn’t going to help. It may help more to learn to let in the external world.

In 1998, two researchers from the University of Pittsburgh conducted a study in which participants sat at a table with one arm hidden beyond a screen. The researchers set out a fake arm in its place, orienting it so that it appeared to have replaced the real arm, then proceeded to lightly stroke the surface of both arms with a paintbrush. Participants reported what came to be known as the rubber-hand illusion: they could feel the brush even as it touched the fake arm. Years later, psychologists from the U.K. and Italy wanted to see how interoception factored into the trick. In the experiment, people who were better at sensing their cardiac rhythms turned out to be less likely to “embody” the rubber hand—that is, to perceive it as their own limb.

Interoception can help us see ourselves more clearly. The paradox is that it may be at its most accurate when it is, in itself, invisible. In 2021, the National Institutes of Health awarded eighteen million dollars to seven five-year projects focussed on the unconscious pathways linking the body and the brain. And, in 2022, the N.I.H. issued a special call for research centered on interoception as part of cancer prevention. Tumors consume an enormous amount of energy; it’s possible that, by tapping into the brain’s metabolic interoception, we might detect them early. Yet this research concentrates on interoception that is totally unconscious; there is no funding for work investigating whether a person can sense these metabolic changes with her conscious mind. The unconscious signals are often the trustworthy ones. The complications begin when we try to listen in and understand what we’re hearing. We’re urged, for all sorts of reasons, to listen to our hearts. But a life looking inward isn’t necessarily a life well lived. “You don’t want to be focussed too much on the body,” Garfinkel said. “You want to be focussed on the world.” ♦

The New Yorker

Jessica Wapner

#Interoception #bodymind #mind/brain #Jessica Wapner #The New Yorker #mental health #brain research

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tomwambsmilk · 1 year

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Okay I’ve thought about it some more and I think I actually do have exactly one (1) criticism of the finale but it’s not really an artistic critique so much as a worldview one. Both Jeremy Strong and Jesse Armstrong have talked about the fundamental bleakness of the show, and Jesse’s worldview that people simply don’t change, and I think that the ending of the show (particularly the last 5 minutes) has been written and cut to drive this home. I think that’s a really valid artistic vision, I think it’s executed well, and I think it’s not out-of-step with the world of Succession and it’s characters.

But, on a fundamental worldview level…. I disagree.

I agree that many people don’t change, even if given the opportunities to. Change is long and slow and painful, and you can try your whole life and still never fully escape the patterns and habits and worldviews you were raised in. But I don’t agree that there is no hope of change. I believe pretty firmly that people can always try, and they can even make progress, and they might backslide but that what progress they make is still worthwhile.

And because of that, I believe that the ending of Succession does, objectively speaking, have little glimmers of hope in among the bleakness. There is hope for Kendall in him not being CEO, and there is hope for Roman in him not being with Waystar, and there’s both tragedy and hope in that final shot of Tom and Shiv, in them holding hands but not. What is the hope for? I think that’s open-ended. I don’t think it’s any one thing. But I think there really is hope in the fact that they’ve all found themselves back at the beginning. The tragedy, of course, is all they’ve suffered for apparently nothing, in the lack of progress they’ve supposedly made. And yet, in that ‘reset’, in that return to the status quo, as awful as it is… I think there’s hope for the characters. There’s possibility. They very well may not take it. But it’s still there, even if the show itself refuses to acknowledge it.

…. And I think it’s maybe a tiny bit disingenuous not to acknowledge it, actually. In part because the only people who don’t get a bittersweet ending, whose ending feels purely bleak, is the three siblings. And also because, as bleak as Jesse’s worldview may be, the show has always featured some hope, some silver lining, even in its bleakest moments. The siblings fail to go up against Logan but they're finally united in 3.09. In 2.10 Shiv is forced to make a horrible choice which ultimately results in Ken pushing back on Logan. Even in 1.10, the horror of Kendall killing Dodds is tempered by the wide shot of the dance floor to 'Somebody Who Loves Me.' The show has always said that yes, these are bad people, yes, they make bad choices, yes, they harm each other immensely. And yet! And yet there's still something there, some glimmer of love, and the fact that glimmer exists provides some form of hope that maybe they can find their way back to it. Probably, they won't. But they could if they wanted to.

So the choice to end Succession on a series of shots which convey such bleakness and misery, without any glimmers of real hope to offset that, just doesn't sit right with me. But a lot of that is subjective; there's a whole other camp, likely including Jesse Armstrong, that would have found it disingenuous to include those glimmers of hope, because their worldview is fundamentally different than mine. I can't really argue with that. All I can say is that its a choice which simply doesn't work for me.

#succession spoilers #succession #really I think the ending works well as an episode and as a season finale. but I dont think it works as a series finale for just that reaso #also I think its a bit cruel (as well as disingenuous) to deny us that hope at the end of a season which has been so thoroughly about grief #it sends a message that the grief is forever. which... yes BUT ALSO the hope eventually comes back. speaking from my own experience #with my dad's death anyways #personally I think hope and bleakness can coexist. I think hope is sometimes strongest in the bleakness #hope is not the absence of bleakness but the decision to persist in spite of it

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sirowsky · 1 year

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Part 25 - Developments

Pero Tovar and Female Reader (nicknamed Bee) Modern AU

Things are a bit tense still, as you're refusing to give up on William, despite having much bigger concerns baring down on you.

Creator chooses not to use Warnings! This is 18+ONLY!

Word Count: 5986 Masterlist(this story) Author’s Masterlist

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Pero remained guarded around you in the following weeks, refusing to let you wander off on your own or be without some form of supervision as much as possible, to make sure that you didn’t stray towards the bunker alone again. He knew that at some point, you’d find a way to circumvent his efforts, but he was damned well gonna try and keep you out of there for as long as he could.

You still kept to your normal routine of visiting William every day, bringing him food and attempting to converse with him. But as you repeatedly emphasized, the man refused to speak whenever Pero was there. He didn’t really care that much if Will spoke or not, for the time being, because he had been serious when he’d said that the two of you had more important things to worry about.

Your due date was approaching fast and there was still so much that you hadn’t figured out about your future. The studio was still just an empty lot, you hadn’t put any new construction in motion there yet. And while you were living on the ranch in order to keep working on de-conditioning your captive, your own home was still where you were supposed to be nesting.

There was so much that was just sort of hanging in the air, and it made him anxious. Because Pero wanted to do all the normal things. He wanted to make a crib and a rocking chair, he wanted to outfit the house so that it would be safe for a toddler, finish redecorating the guest room into a nursery… Everything that had been put on hold when he’d had to send you away still needed to be done, and it saddened him that you didn’t seem to care all that much about those things.

Happily, however, he had an ally in your best friend. Abby was every bit as excited as he was for the new arrival, and took every opportunity to remind you that you needed to take care of yourself first and that everything else was secondary for the time being. And while you tried to ignore her just as you did with your partner, she was well and truly inoculated against your stubbornness, and would force you to listen to her.

When you were just two weeks away from full term, Pero overheard a conversation between the two of you while Abby was helping you change the sheets in the bed one afternoon. He heard that you were talking before he reached the room, so he stopped just outside the door and lurked and eavesdropped, already smiling as conversations between you two were almost always amusing.

“What do you mean?” he heard you question, but in a light-hearted manner.

“I mean that you’re not exactly nimble at the moment. You’re a minor house walking around, it’s not like you’re gonna be doing any gymnastics in the near future,” Abby explained, so Pero guessed that the topic concerned sex, which made sense given that you were working with the bed.

“I am not a fucking house,” you countered, slightly less humorous in your tone, but still not quite offended by the comment.

“You’re home to an entire little person, that’s the definition of a house, Bee.”

“Be that as it may, I’ll be doing whatever gymnastics I want,” you petulantly insisted, and Pero had to stifle a laugh.

Because even at nearly nine months pregnant, there was absolutely nothing wrong with your libido, which was why you’d been riding him like a cowgirl earlier that morning. Something which Abby absolutely did not want to picture or imagine but was also too curious not to further explore.

“No way. You’re not still…?” she trailed off, clearly uncomfortable with the subject, but unable to leave it be.

“Of course, we are,” you flippantly answered, obviously pleased to have gotten her off balance. “Just this morning, actually.”

There was a pause then, during which he couldn’t hear any sound from the sheets that you were working with, so Abby had probably been brought to a halt hearing that.

“But… how does that even work? How does he… get there?” she finally asked, sounding morbidly curious.

“The same way he always does, how else would it work?” you replied, but there was a chuckle in your throat then. “Sure, we can’t do that many positions, but it’s far from impossible.”

“Okay, that’s enough information, thank you,” Abby halted, having finally regained her senses, making you laugh.

“You asked…”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry. To tell you the truth, seeing you like this, glowing and all… It’s making me think about my mom,” she confessed, which surprised Pero.

He’d never heard her speak of her family, and you had never mentioned them either. He’d assumed that they’d died or that she just didn’t have any relationship with them, but he’d never wanted to bring it up, in case it went unmentioned for a reason.

“Oh,” you breathed, sounding sad now, which seemed to confirm his suspicions. “I haven’t heard you mention her in a long while.”

“Well, you know me. I run from everything serious,” Abby admitted.

“Yeah, except you haven’t been doing that lately. You’ve lost your home and your old life is all but gone, yet here you are, taking care of me and helping my dad about the house and being a friend to Pero when he’s struggling. This is as well adjusted as I’ve ever seen you be,” you said softly, and he heard your friend sigh heavily.

“I’m really just putting one foot in front of the other, because I just don’t know what else to do. But all those things are easy to me. I’ve always been a people-person and happy to help others, that stuff comes naturally. What’s hard is not having a job to go to, a purpose beyond being a friend, and no money of my own to spend as I please,” she elaborated, sounding sad now too.

“You could always help me get the studio up and running again,” you suggested, with a carefully hopeful undertone.

“Sure, but you’re the one in charge, so I can’t make any creative decisions for you. I wouldn’t be much help.”

“Abs, you’re practically my twin, and one of the most artistically talented people I know, in so many different fields that I couldn’t even name them all,” you exclaimed, sounding almost shocked that this wasn’t already obvious to her. “Of course, I trust you with creative decisions… You’d probably make the new place look twice as good as the old one, with minimal effort and a fraction of the cost. And with everything that I’ll be dealing with over the coming months, I’d happily put you in charge of everything business related. It would take so much pressure off of me.”

There was a pause then, and Pero held his breath in anticipation, because he really wanted Abby to agree to this. It would help so much more than she could imagine.

“You’re gonna be an amazing mother,” she said after another beat, and he thought that she was side-stepping the question, but then she continued. “You’re so good at making me feel like any problem isn’t actually that bad, or that whatever crap I’m dealing with is completely manageable if I just take a breath and think about it. I know that I mostly haven’t listened whenever you’ve done that for me, but I’ve always heard you and I’ve always been amazed by how tolerant you’ve been with me.”

She paused then, but you didn’t respond, and a moment later, she added:

“If my mother had been half as good at that as you are, I probably would’ve been a much better person from the start.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that. You’ve always been a good person, and you know it,” you countered. “Sharon was a broken and cruel woman and if you’d stayed there any longer, she would’ve broken you too.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just… most of us only get one mother, and as much as I knew that mine was shit, she was still my mom and I loved her. I wanted her to be better and I was always so disappointed every time that she reminded me that she just wasn’t. Anyway, my point is that I love you for being everything that she wasn’t, because I know that your little girl is gonna be so loved and cherished and that you’re both gonna protect her the way that I should’ve been protected.”

Pero suddenly felt bad for eavesdropping, because this was clearly something that Abby would only speak to you about. But just as he was about to step through the door and reveal himself, you made a surprised and slightly pained sound.

“Pintora?” he called as he hastily entered the room, startling you both and making you yelp.

“Jesus, Pero… where’d you come from? Were you lurking out there?” you gasped, but he was already kneeling in front of you where you sat next to Abby on the edge of the finished bed.

“Where does it hurt?” he asked, completely ignoring your questions, putting his hands on top of yours on the sides of your belly.

“It was just a tinge, nothing to worry about. I probably just over-worked some muscle while we made the bed,” you brushed it off, but he wasn’t convinced.

“It didn’t sound like muscle ache, it sounded like sharp pain.”

“It was, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared, so clearly, it wasn’t anything labour-related. Breathe and relax, honey, she’s still two weeks away,” you soothed, and the reminder did help him to unclench his own tense muscles.

“Sorry… you scared me,” he admitted, as if that wasn’t already perfectly obvious.

“It’s okay, love. I’d rather see you jump into action than just shrug. But seriously, were you eavesdropping just now?” you pressed, and he looked apologetically at Abby.

“I apologize if I overheard something that you were not willing to share,” he confessed, but she offered a warm smile in return.

“Thanks for coming clean, but don’t worry about it. I don’t much like to talk about my mom, but not because I don’t want people to know. Just because it’s fucking hard to talk about someone that hurt you when they should’ve cared for you. Which I’m sure you know all about,” she finished with a meaningful tilt of her head, and as much as he might’ve wanted to, he couldn’t disagree with her.

She slipped off the bed and leaned down to give him a hug, which he gratefully reciprocated because it was her way of saying that he was forgiven and that they were still good, and then she turned back to you but began moving towards the door.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a studio to build,” she said, winked at you and then slipped out of the room.

That made Pero smile.

“Good. You need to get your life back on track, mi amor. I’m happy that you have set things in motion and that you are ready to start looking ahead.”

“I have been looking ahead all along, Pero, it’s just that I also see Will in our future, not just Abby, Dean and the baby,” you replied, and he sighed.

While he tried to gather his thoughts on that subject, he felt your right hand begin to rub the side of your belly, a movement so common to you now that you weren’t even aware that you were doing it anymore. But he knew that it meant that the baby was kicking, causing you some discomfort, so he gently pushed your hand away and replaced it with his own.

Slipping under your shirt, he started to rub large circles over the area where he felt the tiny foot patter against the inside of his hand. And when that didn’t work, he began to sing a little Spanish lullaby for her. If nothing else, his singing always helped to soothe you, which was sometimes enough to make the baby relax along with you.

“I want that too. You know that, right?” he asked once the song ended, and the baby had calmed.

“Yeah, I do. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have made much sense to spare his life. But you don’t seem to believe that it’s even possible that he might get to that point.”

“Because so far, I’ve seen nothing to give me confidence in such beliefs. He might improve, and you might be right about you being the one that can bring him back, but even then, how could I ever trust him with you?” he questioned, meeting your eyes and seeing how you slumped hearing that. “How can I ever trust that he’s not just waiting for us to begin letting our guard down before he completes his mission? Tell me how I’m supposed to trust him with my family, ever again?”

You didn’t have any of those answers, and it saddened you more than he’d thought that it would.

“Why is this so important to you, pintora?” he carefully prodded, and you exhaled tiredly.

“Because I wasn’t playing him when I said that I love him. I really do,” you declared, which puzzled him, but you were quick to explain yourself. “He’s my brother as much as he is yours, and I hate that there doesn’t seem to be any way for us to just be together and be a family. I refuse to believe that that’s impossible. Especially now that he’s started talking and I can hear how desperate and frightened he is.”

“I do understand that, my love. But the problem that you can’t see, specifically because you didn’t know him before this, is that he was a master at putting people at ease. He had such a genuine way about him that even when he lied through his teeth, no one could tell.”

“Not even you?” you challenged, and he frowned.

“Yes, but I don’t trust that I still can.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t recognize the man in that cell as the same man that I knew. I see bits of him, but not enough to trust even my own perception.”

“So, that’s it then? We just give up and let him rot down there?”

Pero sighed in frustration and got up to start pacing around the room. This was the exact same argument that he’d been having with himself on a daily basis ever since Will turned up, and there was still no answer in sight.

“You can’t do that either, because you still love him too,” you continued when you saw that he wasn’t offering any further thoughts. “So, if you can’t trust him and you can’t let him go or end him, then how about trying something new.”

“Like what?”

“Trusting me,” you said firmly, and before he could object to the idea that he didn’t already trust you, you got up and took his hands to stop his pacing. “You’re right, I don’t know him like you do, but what if that’s precisely why I can reach him? What if the fact that I don’t have all those memories and history with him to interfere with my perception, is exactly why I can meet him where he is right now, without judging him based on previous behaviour.”

He hated how sensible that sounded, because he still didn’t want to admit that you were probably right about everything. He simply didn’t dare to. But maybe, he could find some manner of middle ground.

“If you swear to me that you will remain out of his reach at all times… not giving him the benefit of the doubt just because you feel sorry or bad about chaining him up… then maybe I can agree to ten minutes alone time per day,” he suggested, feeling dangerously generous.

“Ten minutes won’t be enough, it took forty minutes just to get a word out of him last time,” you protested, but he just glared at you.

This was already a stretch for him to even consider, and if you pushed it, he’d take that offer off the table in a fucking heartbeat. Which you could see in his eyes even though he didn’t answer you.

“Okay. I’ll make it work,” you wisely conceded, looking oddly defeated, even though he’d just taken a huge leap for your sake.

“You are quite impossible, sometimes,” he said with a soft smile, while leaning forwards to rest his forehead against yours.

“Only in response to pig-headedness,” you joked, making him snort.

“You’re the one with the pig.”

“Oh, right,” you recalled, and then started looking around the room. “Where’d I put it?”

“You’ve really gotten attached to that little toy…” he said, laughing a little at you as you began to rummage around the room.

“It’s comforting,” you shot back over your shoulder, without stopping in your search. “And it smells like you.”

“Then you should not leave it in the kitchen, or the dogs might steal it,” he told you, holding his hand out to you in a silent invitation to accompany you downstairs where he knew the toy to be, to retrieve it.

You chuckled at yourself, but also seemed to make a mental note that he was right about that and that you should be more careful with it.

<><><><><><><>

Pero could be quite infuriating at times, and the closer your due date got, the more impossible he became. The ten minute limit that he’d put on your solo time with Will got shorter and shorter, hampering your chances of progress, and annoying you to no end. But in his reactions, you also began to wonder if perhaps your judgement really wasn’t all that reliable at the time.

Because you really were putting yourself in grave danger, and yet it seemed perfectly safe to you. Not even worthy of worrying about. You wondered if hormones had something to do with it, making you feel invincible or indestructible somehow. But whatever the case, when you were just three days away from popping, you decided to stop torturing your partner.

You told him that you weren’t going to see Will at all for a while, which seemed to make a giant boulder fall from his shoulders. He hugged you for a good five minutes, whispering repeated thanks in your ear and promising to look after him until you’d be able to start working on him again. So, from that moment on, you were singularly focused on becoming a mom.

You went shopping with Abby, letting her pick out all the ridiculously cute miniature outfits that she wanted, adding a few of your own to the pile as well. And stocking up on diapers and pacifiers, wet wipes and towels, bibs and bottles, and all the little bits and pieces you could think of that you might need, finally made everything hit home for you.

The child inside of you was baked and ready and could come into this world at any moment, and suddenly you didn’t feel at all ready. Suddenly all the potential complications of childbirth were swirling through your head, making you terrified for Pero’s sake, because if anything happened to you, he’d be completely heartbroken.

“Wait…” you said to Abby, who was carrying all the bags for you through the mall. “I need to sit down.”

“Sure,” she agreed, and you turned to a bench on your right and sat down, spreading your legs wide to accommodate the belly as you leaned forwards to try and calm yourself with a few deep breaths.

“You okay?” she asked, and you could hear worry in her voice. “Dizzy spell? Or sore feet?”

“Anxiety,” you answered, and felt her hand begin to rub slow circles on your upper back.

“What’s on your mind, Boo?”

“Uh… I think that I just kinda realized the real gravity of all this. The stakes, you know?” you tried to explain, struggling to speak with the aching pain in your chest.

“I can only imagine,” she admitted. “But as your sister, I need to remind you of the rewards that you stand to gain.”

“Yeah, I know that. It’s just so scary to think that it could all go horribly wrong, even if we do everything right,” you said, leaning back to try and open up your airways a bit more. “It’s not like a whole lot of these nine months have been relaxing.”

“True. But even though you’ve been under almost constant stress and fear, your pregnancy has still been pretty much textbook. Even that little scare a few months ago never repeated itself or caused any further reason for concern. You’re a superwoman, in so many ways, and I truly believe that everything is going to go smoothly,” she soothed, having moved her hand to hold yours instead.

Her words helped, but more than that, it was her genuine positivity that crept inside your brain and eased your worries, letting your chest relax and the pain fade away.

“Thank you,” you offered while leaning into her side and resting your head on her shoulder for a moment.

“Anytime, my darling.”

-=¤=-

Back at your father’s house, Pero met you at the door with a big smile and a kiss, happy to have you home but also glad that you’d taken some time for yourself and done something normal for once.

“I will carry the bags,” he insisted when Abby went to the trunk to start unloading it, and she was only all too happy to not have to haul the giant harvest of stuff inside.

“In that case, I’m gonna go see if Dean needs any help with dinner,” she said, and then skipped off into the house.

“Are you sure you’re alright with all that?” you asked, watching Pero try and get as many bags with him as he could.

“Of course!” he enthusiastically chuckled. “I will have to make two trips, but this is good, Pintora. I like this very much!”

You laughed at his childishly happy grin as he passed through the front door while you held it open for him. Once inside, you found both your father and bestie by the stove, lovingly bickering about which seasoning worked best for whatever dish that they were preparing, and smiled to yourself as you slipped past them and followed your partner up the stairs. Groot was in the kitchen too, and fell in beside you as you passed him.

“Take a seat, amor, and don’t start unpacking anything until I get back, I want to see everything,” he said, planting a sweet kiss on your forehead once you’d plopped down on the bed, before rushing out of the room to get the remaining bags.

“Oh, you don’t have to ask me twice,” you called after him and then kicked your shoes off to let your swollen feet have some air.

Groot thought that that was a game, and kindly retrieved the footwear for you before he sat down beside your left leg and stuck his tongue out to grin at you. Smiling back at him, you stroked the top of his head and told him what a good boy he was, even though you didn’t need the shoes, because he was so proud of himself.

You’d resorted to using crocs, as they were the only type of shoes that didn’t give you blisters, even though you’d never liked them before. But around the house, and even outside, you walked barefoot all the time. It was by far the most comfortable, but obviously not advisable when moving around town, where you never knew who might’ve thrown a glass bottle on the sidewalk. Or just gum.

“There, that’s all of it,” Pero grinned as he returned with the last of the stuff, dropping another six bags on the bed and then clapping his hands together. “Where should we start?”

You spent a good hour sitting on the bed, letting him organize and hand you things while you unpacked everything together. And you grinned the whole time as you watched him carefully inspecting every item and making sure that he knew what every last thing was and what it was for. He was like a kid in a candy-store, which made Groot excited as well.

The dog mimicked the human, sniffing all the items after Pero had looked at them, wagging his tail the whole time, which amused your partner and made him start handing the canine each item once he was done with it. The two of them even had their own little commentary, with the human assessing and offering his thoughts to the dog, who would answer him with unintelligible (and adorable) babblings and then the two of them would agree that whatever the item was, it was good.

“Ay, mi amor, this makes me so happy. Look at all these baby things!” Pero eventually bubbled, not bothering to hold back any bit of the joy and excitement that he felt, as he came to sit beside you and planted a big kiss on your lips. “We’re so close, pintora, she’s almost here!”

Infected by both of their happiness, you laughed with your partner and just sat there, enjoying the simplicity and complexity of that moment, allowing it to cleanse your mind of the fears you’d had earlier. It seemed almost silly in hindsight, because while there certainly were risks, there was no reason to think that anything bad would happen to you or the child. And even if something did go wrong, your beloved Pero would be there with you through all of it.

And if, stars forbid, something terrible should happen to you, your family would take care of him and your little girl. They would never abandon or refuse to help him, nor would they allow him to destroy himself. One way or another, everything would be okay.

-=¤=-

The next morning, you were in the stables, giving Ike a little well deserved pampering when Dean came back from a ride with Happy and all the dogs. Groot immediately bounced over to you for pets and scratches, when he noticed you in the rear half of the corridor between the stalls, and you greeted him with happy nonsensical ramblings about what a good boy he was, which made him even bouncier.

“Morning, Bumblebee. You’re up early,” your father greeted as he led Happy into her stall and started taking her gear off.

“Morning, dad. Yeah, I couldn’t sleep, I’ve been up since four,” you explained, and he hummed thoughtfully.

“Feeling okay?” he prodded, and you knew from his tone that he was really asking about the baby.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think today’s the day,” you replied, annoyance making you scrunch up your nose, which he noticed.

“Well, don’t try to rush it, honey. The first time is almost always a bit too long, because it just takes a minute for the body to figure it all out. She’ll come only when you’re good and ready.”

“I know, but I really do feel very ready. It seems like every day that passes now is just more time for my body to discover another thing to torture me with,” you complained, because sometimes whining for a bit did actually make you feel better.

“At least you only had the one nightmare, and no hallucinations,” he reminded you, trying to put things in a bigger perspective, because your pregnancy had been pretty easy, all things considered.

Then again, you hadn’t been mentally present for the first few months of it.

“True enough, but believe it or not, that doesn’t make my back or ankles feel any better,” you persisted, and he smiled in an empathetic sort of way, so you sighed and continued. “All my joints feel off, like they’re full of jelly, which makes me feel unsteady. And my hands hurt for seemingly no reason. My neck is under so much strain that I get headaches and even toothache from it, which I didn’t know was possible. And the heartburn is unbelievable, it’s completely robbed me of all appetite, so then I don’t have enough energy for anything, but I also can’t get comfortable enough to really sleep… it’s fucking endless.”

“No, not endless. Just very uncomfortable,” he reminded you, making you sigh.

“There’s not much distinction between those two words for me right now. Especially since just this morning, my body decided to hit me with a brand new discomfort, out of nowhere, in the form of mild constipation. As if I nee-…” you grumbled, but then Dean cut you off.

“Wait, wait… how does it feel?” he asked, which left you scratching your head for a second, just from the apparent uselessness of the question.

“Like I wanna take a dump, but I can’t, how else would it feel?”

But then a peculiar little smile came over him, and your annoyance abruptly vanished.

“Here, let me take the horses outside while you go and wake Pero,” he suggested, stopping to kiss your temple and give you a quick hug, before he untied Ike and started leading him away.

“Yeah… okay,” you answered almost in a daze, suddenly struggling to grasp that it might actually be happening. “Do you really think it’s…”

“Yes, sweetheart, I do. Because you’ve never had those kinds of problems before. It’s probably unlikely that you’ll see any major developments for several hours yet, but I’m sure that you’re in the early stages of labour. It can masquerade as bowel discomfort at first. And if I’m wrong, then at least you get a thorough check-up.”

You nodded, still not fully understanding what was happening, but you did as you were told, because your father was not only 100% more experienced than you on this matter, he was also a trained army medic.

Walking into the kitchen and heading over to the stairs, you were suddenly worried about tripping or falling, so you grabbed the handrail tightly and moved with exaggerated caution as you took one step at a time. Meanwhile, Groot was confused by your slow advancement, repeatedly skipping up a few steps, only to immediately turn around and come back down, when he noticed that you weren’t catching up.

Once you reached the bedroom, you found Pero on his stomach, hugging your pillow and snoring lightly in the dim light of the still closed blinds. He’d woken up when you’d left the bed hours earlier, but you’d assured him that you were just uncomfortable in the bed, which was entirely true, and he’d asked you to let him know if you needed anything, before falling right back asleep.

“Honey, wake up,” you gently whispered, but despite the soft tone of your voice, he sprung to action before he’d fully woken up, fumbling around among the sheets until he remembered which way was up and what part of his body needed to move to get him to sit.

“Wha-I’m up! I’m awake, whas-goin-on?” he spluttered with a half-asleep tongue, making you smile.

“It’s hospital time, apparently,” you answered, and it took him about one and a half seconds to realize what that meant.

His gaze darted down to your belly and back up to your eyes, before popping wide… and then he panicked. He bounced out of the bed and was by the closet a second later, ripping out clothes and pulling them on without even checking that they were the right way around, pulling on his t-shirt backwards.

“Pero…” you calmly interrupted after another few moments. “Those are my jeans, they won’t fit you.”

Confused, he looked down at the pair that he was attempting to pull his leg through, staring at the garment for a solid two seconds before it sunk in.

“Calm down, there’s no rush,” you said while moving around the bed to reach him, taking his hands once you got to him. “Nothing’s happened yet, it might even be a false alarm, but we’re gonna go and check. The go-bag is packed and ready and waiting in the front hall, remember? So, all you need to do is your morning toilet, get dressed, and walk out to the car. Dad’s gonna drive us.”

He seemed to regain most of his sanity as he listened to you, but he was trembling with adrenaline.

“Are you sure that you’re okay?” he asked in a whisper, probably because that was as much as he could manage.

“I feel fine, I promise,” you assured him, pulling him in for a hug. “Now, go brush your teeth and splash some cold water on your face, while I prepare some clothes for you.”

He pulled back, placing a sweet kiss on your lips along the way, and then hurried past you to the bathroom, still very much stressed out, but in control of himself at least. And a few minutes later, he re-emerged looking fresh and much more relaxed, smiling at the comfy, but still appropriate outfit that you’d prepared for him, in the form of his favourite jeans, a grey t-shirt and a red flannel shirt.

“How are you so calm?” he asked while sitting down on the bed to pull the pants on.

“Because I don’t feel anything alarming yet,” you explained, but that didn’t make sense to him.

“But then, how do you know that it’s time?”

“I don’t, but Dean thinks it is.”

Pero trusted your father perhaps even more than he trusted you, so just hearing that made him feel more at ease about all this. He nodded and gave you a small smile, pulling his socks on and then coming to your side as he slipped the red shirt onto his shoulders and adjusted the collar.

“Alright. Then let’s go,” he said, offering you his arm to support your waddling while you made your way to the stairs.

Like before, you were still scared of tripping, so you were grateful to have his strong frame to hold on to on your one side, and the railing on the other, as you carefully stepped down to the ground floor. He picked up the large duffel bag that was waiting inside the front door, and then you walked out to your father’s car.

For some reason, it was heartbreaking to have to tell Groot to stay inside and then leave him behind, but there was no choice. He wouldn’t be welcome in the maternity ward, no matter how good he was for your emotional strength and overall sense of security. He whined unhappily after you’d closed the door, and suddenly you were fighting tears.

Dean wasn’t by the car yet, so Pero helped you get in and get buckled up while you waited, and just as he was done, a large hand came to rest on his shoulder. He turned to find the older man standing behind him, and suddenly Pero looked so small and worried. Because in front of you he was trying to be strong and brave, while your dad’s experience and calmness made him feel safe enough to let his emotions show.

“Everything’s gonna be fine, son. I’m gonna be there with you the whole time. We’re gonna do this as a family, right?”

Just as he said that, Abby hopped into the car in the front passenger seat, leaving the backseat for you and your partner.

“Damned right we are,” she said with a smile, turning back to hold out a closed fist at you, which you bumped with a chuckle.

“Damned right we are,” you mirrored, winking at your partner and father, which made them both smile too.

They hopped into the car, buckled up, and then you set off to find out if today was the day you’d get to meet your little piglet.

===============

Link to Part 26

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging, I would dearly appreciate it.

@idreamofboobear @prostitute-robot-from-the-future @sjdraws-00 @shsoba05 @radiowallet @thisshipwillsail316 @myfavpedrothings @cannedsoupsucks @bluegalaxyprime @tintinn16 @winter-fox-queen @shadesofnerdlygrace @tanzthompson @little-mrs-morales @hotchlover @gallowsjoker @cosmicbreathe @criminalmind1927 @harriedandharassed @bilibiche @anditsmywholeheart

#pero tovar fanfiction #pero tovar x female reader #pero tovar x fem!reader #pero x reader #modern!pero #the great wall modern au #the great wall fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction #sirowsky stories

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lilliths-httyd-blog · 2 years

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Headcanon

I'd like to think that if Viggo survived, he'd initially try to just fuck off into the wilderness with his Skrill (spurred by feelings of shame, regret and sorrow, wanting to never be seen again nor give the Riders any more trouble), but Hiccup would insist on him staying at the Edge with the Riders. It would take the others far longer to get used to Viggo's presence than it initially took for Hiccup. Notably, the twins are actually the first other Riders to welcome him, given that they were there when the whole Triple Cross incident went down. Viggo tries his darndest to prove that he's changing his ways - he takes care of the dragons, learns about them on a personal level, and every moment of his free time is spent bonding with, flying with and spending time with his Skrill (who I have named Beast). Beast proves to be ridiculously loyal to Viggo, a type of loyalty that Viggo doesn't feel he deserves. Nevertheless, he sticks around, if only because he has nowhere else to go.

Hiccup and Viggo are definitely the closest out of the bunch. Viggo acts almost like an advisor to Hiccup, and is constantly suggesting tactics and strategy the gang never would have considered otherwise. He's the only one of the Rider's Viggo will really converse with (in fact, the Riders were surprised at just how quiet Viggo can be when he's not being all theatrical - a habit since dropped out of newfound insecurity). Viggo is comfortable calling Hiccup a friend, and... I think fandom has their relationship all sussed out, ya get me? ;)

Viggo takes solace in the fact that the twins are the most chill people on Earth and don't appear to hold any sort of grudge against him. After all, they were there to witness his near-sacrifice and injuries, so they've quickly come to be... okay with his existence. Obviously they don't fully trust him yet, but they're comfy enough around him to subject him to their chaos. Their shenanigans may be a little hectic at times, but he's more than willing to embrace them if it means there's people out there who don't glare at him constantly. The only thing he dislikes about the twins is their habit of poking Beast in order to be electrocuted, which definitely irritates both her and Viggo.

Fishlegs was initially visibly skittish around Viggo, especially when he got too close to Meatlug. Viggo picked up on this and tried his best to stay far away from her at first. As time went on, they were able to bond a little over dragon knowledge; remember the first time Meatlug made Gronkle Iron and how during the search for the recipe she made all those other materials? Yeah, Viggo was aware of that property of Gronkles and Fishlegs was absolutely fascinated. I also like to imagine that Viggo helped Fishlegs work through the whole Ingerman Hunters thing by reminding him that he can't change the past, he can only try to do the right thing in the present so that things may be better in the future (Fishlegs suspects that he was mostly talking to himself when he said this).

Snotlout is still fucking terrified of Viggo. The man is able to get Hookfang to listen. Why wouldn't he be afraid?

Astrid definitely took the longest to warm up to Viggo, and definitely shot him the most glares those first few weeks. Viggo is understanding of this, considering everything that's happened to her i.e. the Volcano Incident, getting shot in the leg etc. Stormfly didn't seem to trust him either. They eventually warmed up to each other, if only a little, through bonding with each others dragons.

Viggo is very affectionate with Beast, in the same way Hiccup and Toothless are. Viggo constantly finds himself talking to Beast, narrating his thoughts to her in the same way he used to do with Ryker. He treats her as an equal, and they'll often eat meals together - Viggo isn't comfortable with eating in the clubhouse with the other Riders yet. He also prefers to sleep tucked under her wing, and considers it a nicer place to rest than any bed (except when she sleep-shocks him, but he considers that quite cute anyway). He's aware of all her little tendencies - her apprehension towards water, her attraction to shiny objects, and her apparent ability to sing. Beast also has a habit of rubbing up against Viggo in the same way a cat might, and covering him with her wing like a shield. Viggo is also working on armor made of Beast's shed scales so that she can safely redirect electricity without hurting him. He bears more than a few minor electrical burns, but he doesn't mind. He's just happy to have earned her trust.

#Viggo Lives AU #Viggo thinks Beast is adorable #viggo grimborn #httyd #race to the edge #hiccup haddock #astrid hofferson #tuffnut thorston #ruffnut thorston #snotlout jorgenson #fishlegs ingerman #the skrill #headcanon

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givemethepage · 9 months

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Layers of Fear 2023 Initial Playthrough Impressions, Part 1.

[SUPER LONG POST AHEAD, LIKELY FULL OF SPOILY BITS] (All my posts in this blog probably will be.)

Obviously I love it and my obsession with this world has been reignited, burning twice as hot as it did the first time around. So far I've played through Painter's Story 3 times, Daughter's Story twice, and I'm about to start the Musician's Story. Meanwhile in story mode, the Writer is about to sit down and begin writing the Actor's Story after a harrowing return to the lighthouse during which she's made an attempt to reject her earlier pact with the Rat Queen. I know. I tend to do things in weird sequences. I just want to see everything there is to see before I finish.

I love love love the additions and changes to the first game and its DLC, insofar far as I can remember the details of the original. The completionist in me is sad I can't find the Dust Mice sketch or whatever is meant to be behind the pipe on the secretary near the front door, and there may perhaps could possibly might be another whisper object that goes on the upstairs table.

But THAT'S not important. What's important is the story and the creation of the story! This new ending seems like it's missing a cutscene, but I really like that before you walk out the door, you're still surrounded by messages of failure. The intrusive thoughts don't disappear just because you've opened a path to healing. I'm not sure if I liked seeing what was beyond the front door, or maybe I just wasn't pleased with what they chose to put there, especially given what I did after I turned the game off.

For the first time in however many playthroughs since the original game came out, I stopped to examine the origins of the house's design. I came across Steep Park House/Potter's Manor. So many urban explorers have documented and photographed this mansion. Must remind myself to make a full post about it! This place seems to be just one of the inspirations for the couple's house, but an important one, given not just how close the architecture of the house's common areas are mirrored (literally) by the Painter's mansion, but also how many of the basic narrative details of LoF are shared with the former owners of Steep Park House, i.e. the painter who abandoned his home after the death of his wife, leaving behind many portraits of her, himself, unknown subjects, still life, etc., along with countless notebooks, letters, publications, and other possessions that provide clues to the lives they led. Seriously that's all actual circumstance from the real life house. I really want to ask the designers about it since all I can find right now is Reddit speculation about whether it's even the right house. But even green tinge of the wife's diary pages and the font on some of the mail can be found in the photographs of Steep Park. It HAS to have been instrumental in dreaming up the very concept of Layers of Fear. At least I choose to believe it is.

Gonna save the full spread for a Steep Park/Potter's Manor post.

Back to the game, though, the growth of the Rat Queen's role for the 2023 version doesn't sully the universality of the game's allegory like I was worried it might based on some Steam reviews. She remains a symbol of the despair that accompanies memories of trauma, and explicitly making a pact with her seems to me to be a commitment to using that despair as a wellspring for creativity, at the expense of any ability to see truth. The despair will only further twist your memories and warp your perspective. We see all 3 members of the family fall prey to the subjectivity of their memory, even moreso in this version with the addition of voiceovers and I think a few more notes(?). And choice still carries just as much weight in the new game, even with a supernatural force pulling strings from behind the curtain. One heartbreaking thing the Rat Queen has said this time around was that the Daughter was "mine from the moment of her birth." Wow. I went straight for the True Ending, so that statement did turn out to be true for me, but what of the Forgiveness and Resentment endings? Do those also necessarily reflect a Daughter trapped in the Rat Queen's grasp? Are these messages from the Rat Queen, (which I presume are spoken to the Writer,) set in stone? Are they reliable? Are they true? So many implications. One of which is:

What will happen to the Writer??

Will she have multiple endings like the others? Will she be able to break her pact with the Rat Queen? And will that depend upon the outcomes of the other stories along with which collectibles I found during her scenes in the lighthouse? That might be a problem because I am just scooping up everything and devouring every bit of lore my cursor passes across.