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thorne-kreizler-fanfiction · 1 day ago

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-"Sometime during the night you both got rid of your clothes as your bodies demanded more closeness, your skin against his" YOUR BODIES DEMANDED MORE CLOSENESS, I'M SHOUTING

-"If the blade entered your king’s body a bit to the right or at a different angle, you would be sleeping in an empty bed and the only place you would be able to see Thorin’s face would be the marble effigy at his tomb in Erebor." You have no right to make me form tears like this

-"even if just for a moment" sTOP-

-"Now, however, in the darkness of the night, he is still yours, just for a while longer." oh-❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

-"The raven mane of his hair interspersed with silver strands, like veins of a precious metal encased in a rock" THIS WAS AMAZING WRITING AND VERY DWARVISH LIKE. I'm starting to suspect you are a dwarf…

-“Maralmizu, Thorin,” I need to close the computer and take a moment to regain composure-

-“'Can’t sleep?' he murmurs with a charming smile" MAHAL KEEP ME FROM GOING CRAZY

-Roäc!!!! I am going to CRY

-"A few clumsy niceties about how he enjoyed your time together and how he will always remember you, yadda yadda yadda." Lol. That's so sad but it made me laugh

-"This is the last time he plays you like his harp" ÄULE AND YAVANNA-

-"Nothing else matters beyond this little island of joy you created in the cruel ocean of time." stop this, please-

-"You are not afraid of the L-word any longer." I'M KICKING MY FEET

-THIS SMUT WAS SO CUTE😭

-ooh the amount of oceanic symbolism here😭

-"You are sure your hazy mind plays tricks on you. He has just called you his tiny songbird. He has called you his. No, you must have heard it wrong." STOP IT RAGNA I WANT TO ATTEND YOU TWO'S WEDDING BUT THAT CAN'T HAPPEN IF YOU DON'T SEE HE LOVES YOU TOO FOR DURIN'S SAKE!!1!

-"This blissful picture is not written in the stars, not for you." oh-

-"Perhaps they should have named him Stoneheart instead." oooh the dramaaaa

-"this is how a goodbye tastes like." STOP ITTTTT LATHALEA I WILL FIND YOU

-“Ragna… come with me to Erebor,” I JUST SCREAMED SOOO LOUDLY!!!1 FOR DURIN'S SAKEEEEE

-"No, of course not, you stupid, stupid Ragna! He just enjoys having you in his bed, have you forgotten about it again?" RAGNA STOP IT YOU ARE MAKING ME RAGE!!1!11

-"your own private map room if you wished so" I WANT TO CRY. HE'S SO THOUGHTFUL

-"His eyes are closed but you somehow know that they are as blue as his father’s." THE TURMOIL OF EMOTIONS I'M FEELING RIGHT NOW WILL MAKE ME EXPLODE

-"this is one of his flanking maneuvers" RAGNA YOU MAKE ME FUCKING MAD. JUST OPEN YOUR HEARTTT!!! WHY IS IT SO HARD TO ACCEPT LOVE??

-"looking more like a stone statue of one of his ancestors at the Main Gate of Erebor. Stern and lifeless." I want to cry. This writing is so great

“Tell me, Ragna. Let me hear it.” I screamed

-THORIN WHAT YOU DOINGGGGG YOU JUST HAD TO SAY "I LOVE YOU"

-"Instead, you have locked yourself in your rooms, trying to pretend that the world beyond your door doesn’t exist." I am fucking depressed and I feel a void in my heart

-i'm trying so hard not to hate on these two idiots but it's hard

-"One of Thorin’s braid beads. In your own bed." I'm crying

-"Since then, every day looks the same: work, work, more work, and staying at the office until late evening, until you are numb with tiredness." Oh I know how this goes. Trying to hide your heartbreak under piles of work papers. Yikes…

-"And then that bloody letter comes and turns everything upside down." MY HEART JUST SKIPPED A HEARTBEAT

-LATHALEA I HATE YOU FOR THIS AND BECAUSE I KNOW THAT NEXT CHAPTER WITH THORIN WILL HURT ME TWO

-I still have tears in my eyes...

All Is Fair in Love and Trade – Part 6/9

Relationships: Thorin x Reader Rating: E Warnings: smut, angst

For @gwen-ever 💙 Thank you for your support and help and everything else, you know yourself 🤩 A special thank you to everyone who has commented, reblogged and supported this fic! I'm really grateful to you all, you give me the strength to continue writing 💙💙💙

Khuzdul phrases: Maralmizu - I love you Zunshanush - [intimate diminutive] tiny bird Zunshanushê - my tiny bird

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All Is Fair in Love and Trade, part 6/10

Later that night

A tear rolls down your cheek and you sleepily wipe it away. Last wisps of a dream are quickly fading away, leaving you slightly disoriented. You can’t remember much besides a lingering feeling of softness and warmth. Something tickles at the tip of your nose. Something coarse and reassuringly warm, just like in your dream. You open your eyes and it takes you a moment to realize that you are still in Thorin’s bed, cuddled up to his bare chest. Sometime during the night you both got rid of your clothes as your bodies demanded more closeness, your skin against his. Now your lover is laying down on his side, one of his arms resting against your hip, your legs entangled, You run your hand through his thick chest hair, but he doesn’t react to your caress, still in deep sleep. Covering his left pectoral, there is a dark blue tattoo of a raven, barely visible in the faint light of a single candle. The tips of your fingers are tracing its outline, admiring the detailed pattern, feeling the strength of Thorin’s body slumbering beneath his skin.

Your gaze shifts down, to the side of his abdomen, where a long, knobby scar meanders through the peaks and valleys of his muscles. It is not the first time you see it, but only now you have a moment to look at it from up close. There are so many tales and songs about the Battle of Five Armies and the bravery of Thorin Oakenshield that you know very well how it was inflicted. Azog the Defiler. If the blade entered your king’s body a bit to the right or at a different angle, you would be sleeping in an empty bed and the only place you would be able to see Thorin’s face would be the marble effigy at his tomb in Erebor. Thank you, Mahal. Thank you for sparing his life. Thank you for bringing him into my life, even if just for a moment.

You have spent two weeks with him, only two weeks of your long lives, but it was enough to make your heart beat faster. It was still worth it, no matter the emotional turmoil you have been through. You know that whatever you have found in each other’s arms is going to end before long, in a couple of hours, as soon as the dawn of the new day comes. The King will return to his mountain, leaving your heartache in his wake. Now, however, in the darkness of the night, he is still yours, just for a while longer. Your fingers continue their explorations, as if trying to commit every inch of his body to memory. The raven mane of his hair interspersed with silver strands, like veins of a precious metal encased in a rock, his strong neck, the powerful line of his shoulders and arms, his broad torso narrowing into lean hips, his sinewy thighs dusted with coarse hair, pressed against yours, his legs intertwined with yours. Yes, you will always have your memories, the memories of an arrogant, irritating king, of a daring warrior, of a splendid lover. Of your Thorin and that tender smile he gave you in your bed last night, melting your heart. Now, his face is peaceful, the lines of his usual frown smoothed out by sleep. You feel a sudden, irrational burst of warmth in your chest and before you can think, you hear yourself speak. “Maralmizu, Thorin,” a shadow of a whisper leaves your surprised lips, and you are hoping that the night will keep your heart’s secret safe.

The tips of your fingers once again brush against the raven tattoo, the bird’s eye watching you attentively, its beak shut. A silent witness of your moment of weakness. You place your hand over the ornament and feel how Thorin’s chest is slowly rising and falling.

This would be a good moment to leave, you think, to disappear in the darkness while you still have the strength to do it in a composed manner. You have just said your farewell and there is nothing more keeping you here. You cast one last glance at Thorin’s oblivious face and start carefully disentangling your legs from his.

Suddenly, a hand covers yours on his chest and you are staring into the clear blue eyes of your king. Well, there goes your strategic retreat.

“Can’t sleep?” he murmurs with a charming smile that makes your heart flutter.

“Your raven kept me company,” you smile faintly, your muscles tensing in anticipation of what is to come. Woman up, Ragna! You have always hated goodbyes, and, let’s face it, you suck at them, but you know Thorin well enough by now to expect a short and efficient one. Look, he opened his mouth. Here it goes. You hold your breath. “Roäc?” one of his eyebrows lifts in surprise and his gaze follows yours to his chest, his hand still covering yours. “So he has a name?” you point your chin at the tattoo, letting out a sigh. Just a moment longer, then. “I had the tattoo made in Dunland, after Erebor fell, to remind me of what I left behind.” his face darkens, his hand clutches yours. “I raised Roäc from an egg, we were almost inseparable. But then Smaug came and every dwarf alive had to leave the Mountain.” “And… what happened to Roäc?”

“He stayed. He would not leave Ravenhill nor his kin,” Thorin closes his eyes for a barely noticeable moment.

“I am sorry to hear it,” you answer, your eyes set at your hands clasped together. “I never thought I would see him again, and yet he waited for me for over 150 years. Roäc was the first raven to greet me when I returned… home.” He makes a small pause and you see his Adam’s apple bob in his throat.

“It must have been a happy day for you both,” you pat the image of the raven on his skin. “It taught me that one should never lose hope,” his intense gaze meets yours, and there is a new spark at the bottom of his eyes, something you can’t decipher.

“Hope…” you repeat. Hope. How ironic. Rapidly you close your eyes in an attempt to stop them welling with treacherous tears. Now is not the time, Ragna! You need to hold on a bit longer!

Thorin’s hand, still clasped together with yours, slides towards the center of his chest. You can clearly feel his strong heartbeat beneath your palm.

“Ragna, I…” he says. Oh. Absorbed by his words, you have completely forgotten about what has to happen now. You’ve had enough lovers to know where this is going. A few clumsy niceties about how he enjoyed your time together and how he will always remember you, yadda yadda yadda. After that, it will be time for you to leave for your chambers where a cold and empty bed is waiting for you while he is to return to his comfortable life in Erebor. The end.

You decide to save you both the embarrassment of that meaningless conversation and bid him goodbye in the only way you are good at. When you place your finger on Thorin’s sensual lips, his eyes widen in surprise, but not another word leaves his mouth. Instead, your hand moves to his bearded cheek, cupping it gently, enjoying the tickling sensation of his beard gently scraping against your palm for the last time. And then you kiss him.

He lets out a hum when your lips meet his. But this is not a ravenous, hungry kiss from before. It tastes like the first strawberries of summer, fresh and sweet, making your lips tingle, its careful tenderness going straight to your head. His hand sinks in the hair at your temple, his fingers gently running through your locks.

“Ragna…” he breathes against your mouth, his nose rubbing against yours, his thumb brushing against your cheek. But this is not the time for talking. You place a small kiss at the corner of his lips, and then another and another, sealing them with a myriad of soft pecks. His hand cups the back of your head and he responds, peppering your whole face with gentle kisses. He moves his lips lower and you stifle a small whimper when he repeats his ministrations on your neck.

“Ragna…” he murmurs against your throat, and then kisses you just below your earlobe, eliciting another whimper from you.

“Ragna...” his lips brush against your ear, gentle like a dove’s wing, making you purr with pleasure, while his hand starts unhurriedly travelling down your back, tracing the line of your spine, making you shiver with delight. This is the last time he plays you like his harp and you want to make the most of it.

Thorin’s hand slides down to your waist and then slowly, sensually travels up again, while his lips trail over the swell of your breast. Passion stirs inside you as you press your hips towards him, feeling the red-hot hardness of his manhood between you. A rumbling groan leaves him as his mouth attentively worships every curve of your breasts. Oh, Mahal, you want to feel him all over your body. When his thumb brushes against your nipple, a shadow of a moan escapes you.

“Ragna…” he murmurs once more. Now he is back to kissing your mouth with impossible ardour, and you are drawn to his eyes, darkened with lust. They remind you of a sea on the brink of a storm.

No, you are not going to let him talk. Not now. Not yet. Knotting your hands in his hair you return his kiss. You revel in the hardness of his warrior’s body against yours, sensing the signs of a coming squall that is going to carry you both away.

You place your hand on his chest and push it gently. When his back rests flat against the bed, your lips cover his, meeting in yet another sensual kiss. Your silky locks fall around you, a curtain of hair shielding you both from the whole world. Now, in this very moment, it is only you and him. Nothing else matters beyond this little island of joy you created in the cruel ocean of time.

Unhurriedly, savoring the moment, you straddle his hips. A spark of recognition flickers in Thorin’s eyes and a familiar half-smile appears on his face as his hand travels upwards along your thigh to rest on your bare hip. You wrap your hand around his silky hardness and guide it straight to your core.

“Ragna...” he purrs as you lower your body on him, taking in his formidable length, your breathing shallow. His fingers dig into your skin as you are impaling yourself in one steady push. It feels so ecstatic. So right.

He is buried in you to the hilt, but doesn’t move, waiting for you to adjust to him. You rest your hands on his chest, taking in deep breaths and finding his gaze. His eyes are like the late evening sky on a warm summer evening, adorned with flickering stars. A silly thought crosses your mind: if you were to make a wish now, would you see a falling star in his firmament, carrying it to fulfilment?

Please, stay with me.

“Ragna, lovely Ragna,” he whispers.

As you hover over him, Thorin cups your cheek, oblivious to your unspoken plea. There is something in the way he speaks, something sweet and tender, that once again makes you wish you could hear him say your true name in this tantalizing voice of his.

“Thorin,” you respond, leaning into his palm and brushing your lips against it. Your chosen name for his chosen name. Your heart for his passion. A fair exchange. No strings attached. One last time.

This is when you rock your hips against him for the first time. Not breaking the eye contact between you, you lift yourself up slightly only to slide all the way down with a sigh accompanied by his low grunt.

Don’t let me leave. Please, don’t go.

This slow, sensual dance of your bodies is what you would call lovemaking. You are not afraid of the L-word any longer. You pour your heart into every caress, every move you make. It does not matter if he doesn’t reciprocate your feelings. Yours will have to be enough for both of you tonight. It is your farewell gift for the king of your heart.

Please, show me, how can I melt your heart? How can I make you see?

Thorin’s hands are wandering across your skin, caressing you gently, as if he was admiring a marble statue sculpted by the greatest stone masters of Erebor. The intense feel of his manhood inside you is overwhelming. Taking in the new, incredible sensations, your body continues the slow, steady movements. Now it is not about chasing the diamond peaks of pleasure; it is about enjoying these precious moments between you for as long as you can. It is as if Thorin understands your thoughts, because his caresses become in an equally unhurried manner; his every touch is attentive and careful, leaving your skin tingling with delight.

I want this night to last forever. Please, let it never end.

His eyes are hooded with pleasure, the dark waves of his hair scattered across the pillows. Thorin is yours now, just for a few moments longer. Only yours. You press your weight against him, taking him in once again, rocking back and forth with a moan while he pulls you down, his hands caressing your back and buttocks tenderly. A whimper escapes your lips at this change of angle, all the sensations intensifying, your breasts pressed against his muscular chest.

Thorin’s hands firmly rest on your hips as he thrusts up into you, slowly, purposefully, again and again, finding a way to plunge deeper inside of you than ever before, not stopping, navigating you both through the wild waves of your ocean of passion.

“Ragna…” the sound of his deep, husky voice fills your ears as he thrusts into you once more.

With a stifled cry of pleasure on your lips, you give in to your passion. Your body tenses in with pleasure, waves of ecstasy washing over you, taking over all of your senses. But you are not alone. Thorin is there, not letting you go, riding out the storm beside you. You are holding onto him as if he was your raft on the high seas, your only salvation on the stormy waters of the ocean. A few more erratic thrusts and his delicious warmth spills inside you, making you shiver with pleasure. He is right there with you, sharing your bliss, your hearts beating to the same rhythm.

My heart belongs to you. Only you.

“Thorin…” you whisper into his skin, as you lay down, your limbs heavy with bliss, your cheek against his chest, clinging to him, feeling his arms closing around you in a tight embrace.

“Zunshanushê,” he murmurs back tenderly, his fingers running through your hair as the storm of ecstasy slowly subsides around you. You are sure your hazy mind plays tricks on you. He has just called you his tiny songbird. He has called you his. No, you must have heard it wrong. The word he must have spoken was Zunshanush. Just a tiny songbird. A pet name. A songbird from the Iron Hills he will perhaps recall from time to time with a smile, back in Erebor.

You wish the circumstances were different. You would have been his Ragna, and he could have been your Thorin. You would start each day with a kiss and braid each others’ hair every morning. You would fall asleep in a tight embrace every evening, just like you are embracing now. And then, a little pebble or two would appear in your lives, giggling, saying their first words, making their first steps, running happily around the mountain, learning to ride a pony...

Ragna, you need to pull yourself together and stop being mawkish. This blissful picture is not written in the stars, not for you. First of all, you are painting an ideal, overly romantic picture of your happy life with none other than the arrogant, bullheaded King Under the Mountain! Have you suddenly forgotten how irritating and full of himself he is? Have you forgotten how you both have your separate lives and completely different duties to fulfil? And if that wasn’t enough, there is the matter of you living under two completely different mountains, separated by days and days of travel.

You know what you have to do now. Get up, gather your things and go. You have to ignore the whispers of your heart and forget how good it feels to have his strong arms around you, once and for all. Need something to snap out of it? How about this tiny little detail: Thorin Oakenshield is only interested in your body, nothing more. Perhaps they should have named him Stoneheart instead. The only way you are going to have your “happily ever after” with that dwarf is in your dreams. Damn your luck and your silly feelings. Couldn’t you have fallen for someone else? Preferably not an extremely annoying and unfeeling king?

There is something wet on your cheek, and you brush it away, only to realize that these are your tears. You feel their salty taste on your tongue. This is how a goodbye tastes like.

“Ragna, what is it?” Thorin murmurs into your hair.

You press your face into his chest in panic. He can’t see that you are crying! The last thing you want is for him to pity you. Take a deep breath. That’s it. Calm down, Ragna, you can do it. You know how to hide your emotions. Imagine you are back in the council chamber.

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” you hear yourself say and then you clear your throat. “It is almost dawn, isn’t it?”

You can almost hear his heart beating in the silence that falls after your words. And then he takes a deep breath. “Ragna… come with me to Erebor,” he says, pressing his lips against your head.

Oh. You have not seen it coming. Does he mean…? No, of course not, you stupid, stupid Ragna! He just enjoys having you in his bed, have you forgotten about it again? The only thing that matters to him is not your sharp mind, but the thing you have between your legs! And now he is probably thinking that you will gladly obey him, like a lowly scullery maid, becoming simply yet another submissive woman in the long line of his conquests, just because his majesty wishes so! Over your dead body!

“That’s a good one!” a dry laughter escapes you as you feel a stab of pain in your chest. You hope Thorin doesn’t notice how much the sound you have just made resembles a sob. He doesn’t join your chuckles, but grunts instead.

“Does my proposal sound amusing to you?” his words rumble in his chest against your cheek. You sit up to face him, feeling the anger, the pain, the disappointment rising their ugly heads within you.

“Return with you? As what? As a lo…” great, here we go again. The L-word refuses to pass your mouth this time. “As the king's concubine?”

“Would it be that bad?” he rises on his elbows, meeting your gaze. “Come with me and stay in Erebor. You will have everything you could ever imagine, and more. New apartments in the royal wing, dresses, jewels, your own private map room if you wished so, and a table.”

“A table?” you frown.

“Yes, a table, and two comfortable armchairs by the fireplace. We will sit there in the afternoon and you will tell me how bad my ideas are and how much you dislike them... And yes, I will be the one to keep you warm in my bed at night.”

“Do you think I want this?” your frown deepens. Seriously. Is he that stupid?! It looks like you need to spell it out for him. “Do you think I would like just being just rich and doing nothing all day long while you are busy with the matters of state?” Thorin shakes his head slowly and sighs.

“For most of my life, I did not have any of these riches, but now I can use them in any way I wish. You deserve a life in luxury, Ragna...” he sits up and tries to take your hand in his, but you move away. You know very well that the moment he touches you, the moment you feel that pleasant tingling on your skin, you will agree to anything he proposes.

“What luxury would it be if I wouldn’t be able to speak with you nor anyone else for more than an hour a day or so? What about every single of my actions being closely observed and scrutinized by everyone under the mountain?! Oh, and I almost forgot about people bowing at me just because I happen to sleep in your bed! Is this what you think I want? A golden cage?!” you hear your heart pounding in your ears.

“Do not speak to me of golden cages!” he gives out a roar. “I lived in one, and I know how it feels, both inside and outside! If you come with me, you will not have to suffer any of it. I am offering you only what is best! Can you not see it?”, his stormy stare bores through you as he leans towards you, his eyes narrowed, his jaw set in anger.

“So now I am to throw my whole life away on your whim only to pleasure you every night?! And to be shunned when you are bored with me?” your hand clenches into a fist. Does he not see how much pain he has caused you already? Why is he adding more? Is he really that thick?!

“This is not…” he starts, but your fury takes over and you cut him off. You are not finished yet. “What about my career? Do you have any idea how hard I have worked to become Lord Dain’s advisor? How important my work is for me? Do you think I can abandon my responsibilities just like that?!” you throw words at him as if they were daggers. “And you have the nerve to propose it now, knowing how much depends on the upcoming treaty negotiations with Mirkwood?!”

“I do not care about Mirkwood!” he roars back at you. “It has nothing to do with you and me!”

“Well, then clearly we are of different opinions on this matter! A good negotiator thinks of everything before presenting their offer, and you clearly haven’t! Are you even speaking to the right person? Why me? You can have any other woman to warm your bed at night!”

“Ragna…” he growls your name in one long purr. “Are you truly asking me this? Have we not been enjoying ourselves?”

“This is not the point! Here, I’m respected, I’m making a difference, and in Erebor, I’d be just another bed warmer!” you spit out the last words as if they scorched your tongue. “Do not speak of yourself this way! This is not who you will be under my Mountain!” he slams his hand against the bed.

“Then who would I be? What would happen if you were to find yourself a queen? Would I be expected to keep on being your mistress, discreetly hidden away in the deepest corridors of the mountain? Serving her king whenever he feels like?” you feel the salty taste of tears on your tongue, an explosive mix of pain and rage running through your veins. A hazy image suddenly appears before your eyes, you looking at a sleeping babe in a beautiful bed as you brush one of his dark locks off his face. His eyes are closed but you somehow know that they are as blue as his father’s. “What if I were to give you a child? What life would I be expected to lead, along with your bastard son or daughter? Would we be required to live away from you, from anyone’s sight, not to offend your queen’s sensibilities? Or would we have to leave your mountain, never to return?! Do you really think I’m like one of your ladies, ready to fulfil any of your wishes, without a single thought?”

A dark silence fills the chamber for an eternity, or maybe it is just a few heartbeats. At this point, you are not sure any longer. Thorin’s bedchamber feels equally dark, as dark as the vision of your hypothetical, but quite probable future in Erebor. Luckily for you, you won’t let the stupid, arrogant dwarf in front of you destroy your life. Now he is glaring at you without a word, his own face set into a grim expression. And then he explodes.

“Stop this nonsense at once, Ragna! It won’t happen! Nothing of the things you said will happen! You are different! Do you hear me?!” Sparks of anger brighten his stormy eyes.

“How can you say that?! How do you know?! And am I truly different from other women who keep you company at night? Different how?” You demand. Did he really think you imagined him to act like a chaste and proper ruler from the ancient dwarven legends? Did he expect you to think that his nights in Erebor were filled only with peaceful sleep and thoughts about the bright future of his beloved kingdom? Seriously. Life is not a fairy tale.

The King opens his mouth, looks at his fisted hand and unclenches it slowly. Then he clears his throat and lowers his gaze along with his voice, “I sleep better when you are around.” He has to be joking. That sudden change in him baffles you. What is he up to? Is he trying to soften you up? What a cheap trick.

“Let me get this straight. The King Under the Mountain wants me to go with him to Erebor so that he has pleasant dreams?”

Thorin looks back at you, and you can notice a shadow passing over his eyes as he sighs.

“This is not what I mean, Ragna,” he says in a quiet voice.

You pause for a moment, tilting your head slightly. This… this is so unlike him. It takes you a moment, but then you understand. He is a great strategist, that is what they say about him, and this is one of his flanking maneuvers. Everything is a battle to him, even your last conversation. This is a way for him to gain an advantage over you and counterattack when you least expect it. You have to be on your guard, Ragna!

“What do you mean, then? Have you forgotten our arrangement? It was just an adventure, a treat to sweeten up the negotiations,” you retort, ignoring the stinging tears. You can’t stop them from running, you can’t swallow them any longer. Each of them burns a trail down your cheek. It hurts more than you expected it to.

“So it was all business to you? This? An additional hidden clause to this trade agreement?” he gestures at the crumpled bed sheets around you, his shoulders suddenly sagging. Now that shadow is cast over his whole face, its features set in stone. But perhaps it is just a trick of light. Because… he can’t be that sad, can he? It is not as if he was about to lose his favorite trinket. Besides, he has a whole damn treasury of them! He won’t ever notice your absence; while you… you know you will never forget him. You wipe off the tears from your cheeks. He follows your movements with his eyes, but never makes a move, looking more like a stone statue of one of his ancestors at the Main Gate of Erebor. Stern and lifeless.

“I…” for the first time in your life the words fail you. You feel his gaze burning your face. How can you tell him how you feel…? How can you find words to describe this shard wedged painfully into your heart, making you feel restless, clouding your mind, making you change into a helpless puddle of emotions every time he is around…?

“Tell me, Ragna. Let me hear it.”

But the right words don’t come. You will not give him the satisfaction of an answer so he can gain the upper hand and easily use you any way you like. The moment you tell him how you feel, you are lost. So you stare at your hands instead, trying to control their trembling.

Thorin waits for a few heartbeats and then speaks, as if to himself, “I see.”

He gets up from the bed and walks over to his desk, the light from the fireplace dancing over his muscular, well-honed body of a warrior. But you realize the time has come. From now on, the Thorin who held you close mere moments ago is out of your reach. Only Thorin II, King Under the Mountain remains. You search blindly for your clothes, your vision blurry. When you raise your gaze, he is already dressed, wearing a pair of loose trousers and a crumpled shirt that somehow makes him look even more alluring, and yet no longer yours to touch.

“You are right, Lady Ragna, this was just a negotiation.” he speaks coldly, in an official manner, and yet you notice a hint of anger ringing in his voice. Clearly, he is not as unaffected as he wants you to think.

You made him furious, and you are glad. An eye for an eye. He shouldn’t have offered you that humiliating arrangement. He shouldn’t have hurt you the way he did, but he did, and now he is paying for it.

King Thorin Oakenshield’s back is turned towards you, while his hands rummage among the papers on his desk. “I will not require you any longer. That will be all.”

Not able to utter even a word, you dress as quickly as you can, and leave his chambers, ignoring the shaking of your hands, and the heavy weight in your chest. This is for the best, isn’t it? So, what is wrong with you? Then why are you feeling the way he surely wanted you to feel? So worthless, so replaceable? As one of the many tools he would use in the forges, and then cast it aside when it is no longer needed, and then move from one anvil to another. An object. That is what he made you feel like. Once something useful, something important in a way, now an useless piece of scrap metal. You are happy he is suffering, you are happy that for once you made him feel something, something that was not pride, nor triumph. You are happy, Ragna, aren’t you? But if you are happy, then why your tears won’t stop tonight, why every breath hurts so much, why do you want to turn back? Why do you want to run into his rooms and take back every word you said? Isn’t it exactly what you have wanted in the very beginning? A profitable trade agreement and a bit of fun on the side?

* * *

This is the last time you speak with the King Under The Mountain during his visit to the Iron Hills. You don’t get any sleep in the early hours of the morning, but you arrive to the council chamber for the ceremonial signing of the treaty, making sure you look your best, wearing the most lavish gown you own (the one with the deepest cleavage, to turn away everyone’s attention from your reddened eyes). You make a point of staring at the painting of Lord Dain’s great-great-great-great grandfather while he and the king make their speeches. His majesty signs the cursed treaty, but Thorin never graces you with even the smallest of his looks, his brow constantly furrowed, his gaze as stormy as the autumn sky.

Afterwards, Lord Dain applauds you for serving the Iron Hills admirably and securing favorable treaty terms. Everyone else congratulates you for another great success. Soon after, the King of Erebor leaves back to his Mountain. You should feel triumphant, but instead you hear that little voice inside you growing louder as the distance between you grows: “Was this truly what you wanted, Ragna? Was it?”

* * *

Thorin is gone. The king left the Iron Hills a couple of hours ago. You have never gone to the Main Hall to bid him farewell as everyone else did after the treaty was signed. Instead, you have locked yourself in your rooms, trying to pretend that the world beyond your door doesn’t exist.

Thorin is not here. Sitting down on your bed, you move your hand across the mattress, as if hoping to feel the lingering heat of his body. Unfortunately, the bedsheets are unpleasantly cold under your touch.

Thorin has left. He is not coming back. Your bed is empty. Just like your heart.

You are about to get up when your fingers find something small and hard beside one of your pillows. One glance is enough to recognize it. One of Thorin’s braid beads. In your own bed. As if you weren’t trying to forget that he was here, along with his warm gaze, gentle kisses and tender caresses. You still remember the way he held you in his arms. Something aches in your chest and you need to take a deep breath to chase the tears away.

Bringing the bead to your eyes, you recognize all the details. It is made of silver, and there is a small sapphire along with the rune “T” and the symbol of the royal house of Erebor etched in it. You barely register when your hands find one of your braids and clasp the bead around it. The glistening metal complements your hair color well. You steal a glance at your reflection in the bedroom mirror. This is how you could have looked like in another life. Sighing hopelessly, you shake your head. Oh dear, Ragna, is this how bad it got you? Dreaming away about wearing Thorin’s marriage braid along with his bead? Weren’t you supposed to hate being chained to another dwarf this way, surrendering your independence, your freedom? Ah, well. Last night made clear that certain things between you were never meant to happen. Forcefully, you pull off the bead from your hair and throw it blindly on the floor, your vision blurry once more, your cheeks wet yet again. Stupid Ragna. Stupid negotiations. Stupid king.

You decide to sleep on the reclining armchair in the study that night and every night since then. Every time you look at your empty bed, your mind makes you recall how it looked when he was there, so close to you, slumbering peacefully, not a frown sharpening his features. It hurts. You have to ask one of the maids to change your bed linen. Why? Because Lady Ragna, one of Lord Dain’s chief advisors, cannot be trusted to change her own bed sheets. If you had a chance, you would press your nose against the crumpled fabric, inhaling Thorin’s lingering scent, and then shed another round of helpless tears. All because of that one evening you spent together in your chambers, kissing and embracing. Damn him.

That one evening of wallowing in self-pity and drowning your sorrows in Dorwinion wine you promised yourself turns into three days. On the fourth day, Lord Dain finds you in your office sleeping on a pile of documents. You have completely forgotten about that inspection of the forges you were supposed to attend to together with him on that day. You mumble your apologies, trying to ignore the pounding headache and a wave of nausea. He sends you home, telling you to sleep it off.

On the fifth day, you come to your office completely sober and throw yourself into work. Somehow, you manage to survive the day without thinking of Thorin more often than twice every hour. Since then, every day looks the same: work, work, more work, and staying at the office until late evening, until you are numb with tiredness. This way you fall asleep before your head hits the pillow, even though your dreams do not bring you any relief. You don’t really care about it, because at the end of the third week you manage to work out a fragile truce between your heart and your mind (hey, you’re a great negotiator, after all!). The deal is simple: you don’t think and don’t speak about Thorin, making an effort to bury all the memories of him in the deepest corners of your brain. In return, the constant dull pain in your chest is becoming more and more tolerable every day. And then that bloody letter comes and turns everything upside down.

* * *

Three weeks after Thorin Oakenshield’s visit to the Iron Hills

You are staring at a piece of thick parchment emblazoned with golden letters, the Royal Seal of the King of Erebor proudly gracing its bottom part.

Your eyes glide over all the mandatory titles and lengthy niceties only to focus on a single sentence:

It is with great honor that we invite Lady Ragna, daughter of Eldi, to the annual Durin’s Day Feast in Erebor.

The letter is signed in black ink, and you recognize the handwriting:

Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King Under the Mountain

The parchment is shaking. No, your hand is shaking. And your heart is beating fast, too fast. Ragna, calm yourself down! It’s just a stupid letter! You take a deep breath. Then you fill your goblet with water (you can’t even look at the Dorwinion wine any longer, not since… nevermind!) and drink it in one gulp. You read the invitation again, but the blasted letters don’t want to disappear nor form another name. It is clearly addressed to “Ragna”. You.

Thorin Oakenshield, the king of all the Dwarves of Middle-Earth, the dwarf who captured your heart and then tore it apart, wants you to attend his famous Durin’s Day Feast.

Shit.

* * *

Please let me know how you liked this chapter! 🌟🌟🌟Oh, and I have a small announcement to make! 🌟🌟🌟 This fanfic grew yet again (surprise), a bit more (surprise) than I thought it would (surprise). So next week you are going to get a new surprise chapter - showing what happens with Thorin after he returns to Erebor and before he sends that letter to Ragna.

Read it? Like it? Reblog it! Taglist: @fizzyxcustard @shrimpsthings @dark-angel-is-back @sherala007 @amelia307 @jotink78 @anyaspidergirl-blog @tschrist1 @rachel1959 @saltwater-in-the-afternoon @xmly-xo @justfollowtheroad @kirenia15 @linasofia @bitter-sweet-farmgirl

#thorin oakenshield #thorin oakenshield fanfic #my thoughts #iron hills #erebor #the hobbit #the hobbit fanfic #smut #thorin oakenshield smut #all is fair in love and trade

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allthingswhumpyandangsty · 3 days ago

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I need some advice. I'm writing a fic where a guy has been groomed since he was 14 by this 18 year old guy. They've been dating for five years (19 and 23 now) and the older guy basically abuses the younger guy regularly.

Ex: Yelling at him, grabbing him, throwing him around, punching him, when he cries after he does this he demands he "make it up to him"

My goal for this next chapter is to make my readers feel really bad anxiety while reading (both a horrible and noble goal, in my opinion) but I'm struggling with writing the actual abuse part. It's an argument turned into the older guy punching him and throwing him around while yelling at him for being a slut and the like.

I'd love any advice for writing scenes like that! Sorry this is kind of long 😭

HOW TO WRITE ABOUT ABUSE

trigger warning’s applied

from the abuser’s POV

sudden burst of anger / violence. your character may act completely calm and polite, without any hint of anger whatsoever, when all of a sudden and with no warning the hit and the yelling come.

thinking they are always right and not willing to hear the other’s reasoning.

seeing the other’s different opinions as an act of disobedience / a challenge, and using this to justify their abuse (“I hit you because you were disrespecting me”).

gaslight and manipulation. them making their victim believe the hit “wasn’t that hard” or that the victim was “overreacting”. or that it was the victim’s own fault they were hit.

isolating the victim and making the victim depend entirely on them. so that the victim doesn’t have anybody to run to when the abuse gets too much.

them doing something sweet for their victim after they hurt them (“see how good you have it with me? see how much I love and spoil you?”).

threatening to hurt themself, the victim or even the victim’s loved ones if the victim tries to leave.

them being extremely possessive, jealous and controlling while telling their victim they are only being “protective”.

from the victim’s POV

flinching every time someone (not necessarily their abuser) makes any sudden move, because they’re expecting a punch, slap or kick.

thinking they’re “not good enough” and that’s why their (abusive) partner “punished” them.

thinking they “have to be better” for their (abusive) partner.

thinking their (abusive) partner hurts them because they love them.

thinking everything is their fault. blaming themself for letting their (abusive) partner down / for making their (abusive) partner angry.

thinking no one will love them as much as their (abusive) partner does.

thinking no one will be as patient with them as much as their (abusive) partner does.

retreating to silence and submission.

falling right back in love with their (abusive) partner when the (abusive) partner spoils them with romance, kindness and gift after the abuse.

#admin answers #writing #writer #whump #angst #whumpblr #writeblr #tropes #trope #writers #prompt #prompts #writing inspo #writing advices #writing advice #writing inspiration

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ptej1980 · 2 days ago

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Any thoughts on this? On Saturday, Nic liked the Netflix post, “Can Colin fight?” And JVNs quote following the London trip a day later that included The lyrics to the Lily Allen song 😭. That essentially said name her, asking us to look up those lyrics. Do you think it’s a subtle way of saying… Luke made a choice with A, it hurt Nicola, she turned to her friends over the summer, and now he’s coming back to her with regrets?

Just thoughts, though I do like to believe Luke and Nic are together. The SAG awards showed him being so enamored with her especially.. it’s just hard to believe if they are together they wouldn’t just come out and be done with it..

Hmmm….Firstly after everything we have seen and know I don’t think we need to look into the above IG activity too hard and over analyse.

I can understand why you may think 🤔 and wonder if it has some greater meaning and honestly if that is your thoughts then I don’t hold it against you as you have been incredibly polite and questions are always welcome.

Nic has put some very obvious signs out there, chaos week in August and then again in October with coordinated posts. IMO, liking a post of herself where she looks smoking hot. 🔥 yes it refers to Colin, however if you go through the IG post it also refers to real life couples. So I think it was just a like from our loveable chronically online Nic

JVN is always a little cryptic we know he likes to serve the tea and he has in the past actually been quite obvious in his posts and suggestions. This song I feel could be in reference to any number of people or situations and because I am confident in my ship this does not bother me.

I like to remind myself of every morsel and crumb that we have been given. And 3 things

1. Polaroid 2 rings 3 proximity, heart eyes soulmate energy.

Polaroid is a grid post, she is also wearing her rings in a Grid Post.

Your main question was “If they are together why do they not come out and just say do”.

Ok so I will first pose the question for the other side of the coin, if Nic or Luke with there adjacent (especially Luke). Why would his PR team work so hard to remove traces of her off his SM, ask her to remove her tags of him, and shut down and remove editable feature on wikerpedia delete all that says he was in a relationship with her? Why is she nowhere on his SM not a story, or a tag for either event he took her to. Why did look miserable at those events and we heard him say “let’s get this done”. If he was in a relationship with her why would he interact with his costar like he does. You know who is in his IG grid a lot ….Nic. Vice versa Luke is the main feature in hers.

There are many theories as to why they may not have gone public. I am a firm ring Truther hard core Lukola shipper who has never jumped so many things have puzzled me.

1. NDA/PR is the most common reason that fandom has speculated. I feel that this plays a big part in why they may not have launched. They are following the stipulations of a contract and keeping the personal lives private.

2. Professional credibility. There love is literally art imitating life. Luke and Nic built a solid friendship both admitting they are best friends that have a great love for each other. The delay in launch may be simply because they want to be taken seriously as actors.

I think it may be a combination of the two. They both have worked so hard and to have it judged as just besties falling in love would be hard, they also seem to have to overcome some hurdles and navigate this new chapter of their life with their family. The hurdle might be annoying but it is providing privacy.

I hope this helps alleviate any concerns or confusion. Thanks 🙏 for the ask 💛🐝

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crk-kr-to-en · 1 day ago

Note

hi again, same person who sent the most previous ask (at least i hope lol since im too afraid to come off of anon)

is there any particular reason as to why you think the english shadow milk isnt the real shadow milk either? i mean everything he says in english is canon, so I don't see how that wouldn't make him real? im not saying he can't act serious at times, but i feel like him being unserious is a part of his character, not to mention the various jester inspirations his design takes. idk if i misunderstood what you had said or not, it just confused me as to why it's supposedly not real just because he acts unserious at times sob

Cookie Run Kingdom is a KOREAN GAME, with KOREAN VALUES where they originally write the story in the KOREAN LANGUAGE which has POLITENESS LEVELS that the English translators ate either trying so hard to convey or couldn't give any less shit about even trying to accurately convey it that it still ends up not making sense. (Shamil in this case ESPECIALLY?? The other Beasts were simply toned down violence) (This is not aggressive, this is Homestuck capitalization method emphasizing.)

English Shamil is just the product of the English translators attempt to make a character that would highly appeal towards Western fans, aka: Tumblr Sexyfication™️. Everything he says might be "canon" but there's this evil we call the English Localization who ruins everything for everyone for the sake of money. They even only provided CJ with less information about his character that reduced him into a "male harlequin" when the Korean voice makes him more noticable that he wasn't always a jester. Jesters in real life also used to be scholars but they refuse to even acknowledge that? How to you mess up THIS BAD that it wasn't intentional??

youtube

Majority of Korean Shamil kingdom interaction lines are not only silly, there are at times where he's genuine or just straight up unhinged.

Genuine: "Cookie of Knowledge? I used to be called that~"

Unhinged: "Wolf! A wolf appeared!!!... Really, or not?" "Have you ever lied? Then we've already met~" (This bitch wants us dead, bro.)

An entirely different line(also unhinged): "If you trust me, I'm a liar. If you don't, I'm a bad cookie. What's your choice?!" (What the FUCK are you talking about😭) replaces "If I told you I'm a liar, would that be a lie?" (this is just silly :/)

And comparing those to the English lines, En ONLY makes him look silly.

And I have NEVER seen this many Cookie Run ads before, and all of them are Shadow Milk. They never did this with Burning Spice or Mystic Flour. What I even find So ANNOYING about the english crk channel is how much they're exploiting people's Shamil favoritism into watching a lot of their videos because it's about Shamil.

800K VIEWS??? 200K FROM A MILLION??? OMG. EVEN THE ONE HOUR VIDEO WHO NEEDS THAT??!?!

He's not even a normal complex character anymore. He's starting to become another brain rot character. 😭

#asks stuff

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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 3 days ago

Text

@waynes-multiverse

Reading through your comments had me cackling the whole time 🤣

Yup!! Promises made, promises kept!! I was in fucking stitches throughout this whole fic and it was goddamn worth it 😂🩵

Yay! I literally laughed while I was writing this like the Wicked Witch of the West and I was worried that it wouldn't have the same effect on other people, but so I'm very happy that you enjoyed this one Wayne!!

No, stawp!! I have to watch Tarzan and Finding Nemo with my kid. I can't think about this 🤣 And I'm a Flynn Ryder apologist as well lmao

Oh my goodness 🤣 I have to watch those movies with my nephew so I'm in the same boat as you lol! But I'm not going to lie, all the hear me outs are literally conversations that my friend group has had 😅 And oh yeah, Flynn Ryder is in no way shape or form a hear me out, he had no business looking that good. He has only green flags and he's a simp for his cutie pie! No one can tell me different.

Oh, she better not tell him that. He'll never let this down 😂 And I'm so excited to see how the night progresses. That summary already had me hooked. I described Russell in a fic as the "green-eyed chaos theory" and judging by this, you have that very same HC and it makes me super giddy 🤣👏💚

"Green-eyed chaos theory" EXACTLY 👏🏻 Wow that's such a great way to describe it!! I agree one billion percent! He invites chaos in 😭 I feel like he's also a little bit of "everything bad that can happen will happen" as well. Not that he'd do it, but just that his luck is not the best 🤣

Oh, I'm sure he'll make her forget about gravity, at least 😝 And I'd like to note I got very invested in this friend group and their conversations and personalities. That's definitely not easy to do (especially in fanfics lol), so kudos to you here!! 👏 (I loved Matt's character btw)

Russell would have any woman singing Defying Gravity like Elphaba in the bedroom 👀🤣

Aww that's such a huge compliment! Thank you so much sweetie 🥰 I'm trying to get more comfortable writing OCs again and building her friend group was so fun! I wrote way too much lore about each of the characters 😅 I like Matt too! He's kinda the dad of the group and he's really just a sweet down to earth guy who loves his girl. If I do decide to make this more than one part, it will be fun to develop those characters more 😊

Uhm... Oh, girl, I don't think stable and structured is what you're getting here 😂

I know! Thank you for pointing this out, I was literally trying to have someone come into her life that would just mess it all up. Kinda like in Lilo and Stitch when Lilo prays for an angel and gets stuck with an alien 🤣

I can't with this game 🤣🤣 This will forever haunt me...

Also glad you liked the head-butt lol! I really just wanted to make the reader as awkward as possible (she's really me in every way tbh lol)

I was waiting for that lol. And I did not see it coming at all that it would actually reference her witnessing him murder someone! Yeah, that will be fun to explain away haha. Loved how she didn't believe him at all that he was attacked first 😂

Yeah... their meet cute really wasn't that romantic 😬 Russell is going to need to work hard to explain this one to her. And oh yeah, she's not gonna trust some random guy she just met, she knows that's how you get got 🤣! I love the gif by the way- it really does encompass the craziness of the situation. I was also thinking about Pepper Potts and Tony Stark yelling at each other in Iron Man 2 when Tony first gets attacked by Whiplash and Pepper doesn't believe him lol

Laughing so hard throughout this! This is glorious comedy 🤣🤣 I wish this was an actual movie lol

Oh my goodness! Thank you so much 😭🥹💗

I loved that reasoning. As an introvert, I truly felt that 😂🫶

As a fellow introvert, I too wouldn't want to have to meet someone new 😅 Just let the hot guy have me, at least I won't have to introduce myself! 🤣

Awww 🥹 Why did that get to me? What the fuck is wrong with us for liking these train wrecks? 🫠🫠

I know 😭 Russell really was just trying to protect her! And I like to think of us having taste 💅🏻 LMAO

Aaaah omg I loved this so much! I honestly could read more of them!! 😍 Where are they going? What about her friends? Will she ever return? Who are these fucking people that are after Russell? 👀 This was so hilarious, Lee!! I'm currently battling a cold, so this was the perfect medicine 🩵🩵🩵

Thank you so much Wayne! I'm so happy that you enjoyed it 🥰 I know... I really wrote myself into a corner with this one, because I also want to read more about them and their ridiculous adventure that comes after this. I'm hoping that when I get rid of some of the WIPs I have, I'll get to come back to this story. ❤️ Also I’m so sorry that you’re not feeling well! ❤️‍🩹 I hope you feel better soon!

And I kept this for last: 👉 Hear me out – Scratch from Ice Age. I wish he'd hold me like that nut...

"I wish he'd hold me like that nut" ☠️☠️☠️

I am going to tell you that you are not the first person to suggest Scratch to me as a hear me out. He's resilient, he's caring (about that nut), and he just wants to spend quality time with the thing he loves most (it could be you LOL).

My Ice Age hear me out is Diego- because I'm addicted to grumpy characters who may or may not be old men 😅

I Can Explain!

Pairing: Russell Shaw x f!reader, Reader POV

Prompt: "How Do You Know Where I Live?"

Requested by: @vixaaa

Summary: When you meet a gorgeous green-eyed stranger at a bar and agree to go home with him, everything goes off the rails and you're strapped in for the ride.

Tropes: Awkward Rom-Com? Forced Proximity? Protective Russell.

Word Count: 10.6 K (But You'll Laugh The Whole Time)

Warnings: An Unhinged Game of "Hear Me Out," References to Sex, Sexual innuendo, Little bit of self-deprecating thought (reader), Reader is kinda awkward and clumsy, Gunfire, Weapons, Talk of Murder, Shooting?, Brief Description of Torture, Brief Description of Murder, Terror, Fear, Cursing, Kissing, I think that's everything? I promise this one is a rom-com despite all the warnings. 😅

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is no use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Main Masterlist

Prompt Celebration Masterlist

A/N: Hey guys! This is another wonderful prompt request that I got for my prompt celebration from the enchanting @vixaaa! This one is based a little bit on the movies "Knight and Day" and "RED." If you've never seen either of those, go and watch them right now. They are some of my favorites!

P.S: Yes, this is the one I've been writing that has just been making me wheeze/cackle laugh the whole time I wrote it...

“Alright, hear me out… Gil, the angelfish from Finding Nemo. There is no way in hell he was made for kids.” Your friend Liza says wobbling slightly on the plush leather bench seat of the booth before taking a shot of vodka. Her peacock blue No. 2 hair shimmers like a beacon in the dimly lit bar.

“That’s low hanging fruit.” Kay snorts from your left while leaning heavily into your shoulder, the smell of her vanilla perfume wafting up with the movement. “That scar? The tragic backstory? And voiced by Wilem Defoe? Sign me up.”

You giggle into the shot glass clasped in your hand before you knock it back, face scrunching at the taste and pleasant burn.

The “Hear Me Out” drinking game your two best friends proposed to clear your head from the nuclear level bombing of an exam you just took in your Physics One class, had been successful so far. You couldn’t remember any of the questions from the test that made you scream obscenities into the strawberry shaped pillows on the couch in your living room earlier. Exactly where the two of them had found you when they got back to your shared apartment at the end of the day.

The live music in the crowded bar thrummed through your veins and the shots were giving you just the right amount of buzz to feel more carefree than you had in the past week. The week that you’d spent approximately one million hours studying for the test and trying to memorize all the formulas that looked exactly the same.

Four times you’d fallen asleep on your computer and had the imprint of the keyboard on your cheek, three times you’d had a mental breakdown and decided to change your major promising yourself that you were sure you could make it doing freelance whatever the fuck sounded good at that moment, and you couldn’t count the number of times that you’d gone to the library to study only to get distracted by whatever else was better than studying for a physics test.

Spoiler alert, there are a lot of things that are.

But you knew you were screwed the second you saw the first question and the rest of them had only been the final nails in the coffin that was the dream of getting an “A” in the class before the semester was over.

The glimmering sheen of hope at the end of the semester you once had, was ebbing to a dim lantern being swung by a lighthouse keeper in a hurricane, hence the large tray of vodka sitting prettily on the water ringed table in front of you.

You were sure to regret every single shot, but your next exam was two days away and you didn’t want to think about it yet, not when the shadow of the last was poking you in the back with a pencil like someone looking for your final piece of gum.

For a Tuesday night, Duke’s, the bar the three of you frequented so often that the rotating circle of bartenders knew you all by name, was crowded.

There was the familiar glow of the neon signs posted on every wall, a new band performing a set on the small stage in the corner, a collection of screaming girls in the front row of the crowd snapping photos and drooling over the base player, a group of frat guys shouting obscenities at a tv blasting a football game, and a few patrons trying to unwind from a long day while nursing multi colored drinks and sitting sporadically around the crowded bar while the bartender of the hour leaned against the counter and tried to hear orders people shouted over the din.

You would have been more than happy to spend the evening on the couch eating a greasy pizza and drinking margaritas back at the apartment, but Kay and Liza refused to let you rot on the couch.

The three of you had been inseparable since freshman year when you’d been assigned as roommates together. Liza was an art major hoping to illustrate book covers one day, Kay was a hardworking pre-med student, and you were… undecided. Physics 1 had been the idea of your advisor, who after a year of trying to get you to declare a major was close to throwing in the towel, you believed that he was using Physics 1 as a form of payback for driving him almost to the point of early retirement.

“Okay, okay I see you.” Kay giggles, before grabbing a fresh shot. Her long black hair is pulled back from her face with a claw clip, but a few pieces bob around her head with the movement of her head to the music. “And I raise you Kerchak from Tarzan!”

“The daddy gorilla?” Liza asks, leaning into her fiance, Matt, where he lounges back against the faded maroon leather beside her.

There was a half full glass of beer sitting in front of him, one he’d ordered when he found out what everyone else at your table was drinking. But he’d been a good sport so far despite all of his suggestions to the game being so obvious there was no reason for him to defend his choice and the rest of you mocking him endlessly for it.

“Sweetie, he could be my daddy any day of the week.” Kay winks and throws back her shot.

“You’re disgusting.” Liza rolls her eyes, refusing to take a shot to agree with Kay.

“Hey! What happened to ‘we listen and we don’t judge?’” You interrupt, putting your arm around Kay who holds up a middle finger in answer to Liza’s taunt.

“Where was that when I said Jessica Rabbit two turns ago?” Matt grouses from his side of the table, crossing his large arms over his chest. His blond hair had tumbled out of the bun at the back of his neck to cover the grass stain on the collar of his jersey. He’d come straight from practice when Liza called.

And then Kay and you had to suffer through the long make out session the two of them had when they reunited as if they’d been separated by war for fifty years and not two hours. They were recently engaged and you loved Matt, which is why you’d let them make out for exactly thirty seconds before Kay and you started making exaggerated gagging noises while they kissed.

Kay’s boyfriend hadn’t been able to get out of work, but Kay was going to walk to the coffee shop inside the library to pick him up when the tray of shots in the center of the table sat empty. Usually you’d worry about that sort of thing, your friend walking alone on campus at night, but because Kay had the highest tolerance out of all of you, Matt included, and a total badass who welcomed the challenge of anyone who tried to test her, you were willing to let it slide.

That and the three of you tracked each other’s location with your phones.

“Because Jessica Rabbit isn’t a hear me out! Everyone knows that she’s super sexy!” You argue. “She doesn’t fit the criteria of this game!”

“She’s right babe.” Liza says, squeezing his arm with a sympathetic smile. “But it’s okay. I love that you’re a basic bitch.”

“But she’s animated!” Matt exclaims, obviously confused.

“So? Flynn Ryder is animated and he’s every woman’s dream.” You shrug, picking up a glass to take your turn.

You begin to shuffle through the mental file folder you have on characters who possessed “the energy” that made them so attractive. Truthfully, Kay and Liza had already said most of the ones you were thinking.

“You want to talk about every woman’s dream?” Kay smirks, her eyes flick over to the bar. “Check out green eyes over there. Holy shit, I’d let him rock me like a hurricane all day and all night!”

“I’ll be sure to tell Sean, your boyfriend of three years-” You begin to say, but Kay pinches your cheeks between her fingers and turns your head so you can see who she’s talking about.

Oh.

The stranger sitting at the bar is everything she suggested and more. He’s the kind of handsome that didn’t exist outside of the stack of communal romance novels that sat on the bookshelf in your living room and served as the perfect reminder of how single you were.

The man is taller and broader than any of the so-called boys you went to class with each day, his tight fitting dark t-shirt pulling up over muscular arms that rippled with taunt muscles and were decorated with smoky tattoos curling beneath the ink colored sleeves. His chocolate colored hair is long and pushed back over his head, but a few strands hang forward to frame a well defined jaw covered in a thick dusting of facial hair.

Your throat suddenly gets very tight.

The man’s gaze is focused on you, the green of his eyes brilliant, crinkled just around the edges with his smile. He winks and your entire face takes on the identity of a strawberry with your flush.

“Holy shit!” Kay nudges you. “You have to go over there.”

“What?” You squeak. “Are you insane? That guy is-”

“The kind of man who would make you forget all about that physics test?” Liza raises an eyebrow.

“The kind of man who would break the laws of physics with you all night long?” Kay adds. “Babe, come on, it's been months for you. Why don’t you go over there and say hi?”

“No way.” You shake your head vehemently, hyperventilating a little bit at the thought of going up to a complete stranger.

You were not the confident girl in the group that did that. Kay was. It was exactly how she had met her boyfriend Sean three years ago, by using a cheesy pick up line that made him snort so hard he had beer coming out of his nose. Liza wasn’t much better. She’d met Matt in this very bar when her heel broke and she stumbled into where he was sitting with his friends at the bar.

And the truth was it had been a few months since the last relationship (if you could call it that) fizzled out… and with both of your friends in relationships you often were the awkward fifth wheel. It wasn’t that you didn’t like your friends' boyfriends, Matt and Sean were great and they always did their best to make you feel comfortable whenever you were out with everyone, but you were kinda tired of being the spare tire.

“I don’t think we should be encouraging her to go off somewhere with a random man from a bar that she just met.” Matt says with a frown.

Matt often held the braincell in your friend group and was the one who was more focused on making sure that everyone was safe. He was the one who followed up with a text whenever someone left to go home, the one who made sure that everyone stayed together when you were out late, and was usually the designated driver.

“You’re such a hypocrite.” Liza boops Matt on the nose. “You were a random man that I’d never met before. And if I’m not mistaken we met in this very bar.”

“That’s different.” Matt sighs, but he leans towards Liza, the tension dissipating from his shoulders as he looks at her and his frown slips into a smile.

They were one of those couples that no one ever thought would work. Liza was the carefree art major with no plan in the world and Matt was the All American, blue-eyed, blond haired football player that everyone said was “going to do great things” when in reality all Matt wanted to be was Liza’s husband. He didn’t care about anything else, but making her happy. Hence the giant engagement ring on her finger, the same one that he’d let her design because he knew that was important to her.

They were everything you wanted in your own relationship. A beautiful merging of crazy (from you) with someone stable and structured, preferably someone with a strong jaw, brilliant green eyes and-

Great, he’s already invaded my subconscious.

You glance up again to see if the stranger is still looking. He is, but this time his smile is just a little wider, and you watch his eyes drag down the length of your body for a moment appreciatively before flicking back up to yours and catches you doing the same thing.

You weren’t wearing anything revealing, in fact, you hadn’t bothered dressing up to go out because you didn’t feel like it. You were still wearing the blank sweatpants and oversized sweatshirt combo that you’d worn to your exam.

When you caught him looking at you, it made you regret you hadn’t worn something more eye-catching.

“Come on, that guy is checking you out! Go over there.” Kay nudges you, jostling the forgotten tequila shot in your hand.

“He looks like trouble.” Matt says half-heartedly, but he’s too busy staring into Liza’s eyes to really care. Her hands are entwined at the back of his head pulling his forehead down to hers.

When it got to that point of the night, it usually meant that the two of them were about fifteen seconds from calling it an early night and going back to Matt’s apartment. Technically Kay would probably end up there as well because Sean was now Matt’s roommate and that meant you’d have the apartment to yourself…

“How can you tell? Are you looking at his reflection in Liza’s eyes?” Kay takes a shot from the collection of the remaining few in front of her.

“We all know that if Sean was here, you’d already be practicing your scuba breathing.” Liza gently brushes back the few strands of blond hair that hang forward into Matt’s face which only makes him sigh softly and look at her like she’s the last woman on earth.

You try not to be jealous.

Kay only rolls her eyes. “Alright, I’m taking initiative.”

“What does that mean?” You begin to ask, but Kay shoves you out of the booth and towards the handsome stranger who hasn’t taken his eyes off of you since your eyes met moments ago.

“Kay. What the hell?” You turn back to look at her, but she’s already holding up your forgotten shot.

“Take this and go over there.”

“But-”

“The only butt you should be thinking about is his, in those deliciously tight jeans. You will thank me in the morning.” She refuses to budge. “And then come home and tell me everything the two of you did, because Sean’s about to go visit his family for a week and I will need something to fantasize about.”

You wrinkle your nose in disgust, but then look to Liza hoping for help. Unfortunately she’s too busy counting Matt’s eyelashes to defend you. You look back at Kay who is still holding up the shot, gaze unwavering.

I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

You think to yourself with a sigh, before taking the shot, hoping that it will give you some of the confidence you need to talk to the most attractive man you’d ever seen in your life.

I can do this, I can do this-

The internal monologue repeats itself over and over again with each step as you weave your way through the crowd to make it where the man is sitting, dropping your gaze to the people around you as if you’re more focused on them.

You weren’t, but staring at him while you were walking towards him seemed too predatory, and you could already feel how warm your cheeks were from your flush.

You grip the firm edge of the bar when you make it to him, using it to ground yourself there in the moment before you find the strength to meet his gaze.

There’s a faded green jacket hung over the high backed barstool behind him that you hadn’t noticed before.

Your eyes trace over his body, just a quick glance, but snags on his arms for just a second too long to be casual. They were even more glorious in person, tan and flecked with cinnamon colored freckles hidden beneath twisting tattoos that disappeared into his dark shirt sleeves.

“Hi.” You smile shyly at the man when you meet his gaze.

“Hi.” He rumbles with an easy smile while the green of his eyes flashes in the neon sign hanging behind the bar.

His voice catches you off guard. You weren't expecting it to be so smooth, silk over your skin, but also like the rough drag of the ocean against sand as it pulls it out to sea.

“Hi.” You say again as all other thoughts evaporate from you mind and you fight the urge to facepalm.

What the hell am I doing over here? I might as well do the walk of shame back to my own table.

Russell raises an eyebrow, his smile widening. “Hi.” He echoes.

You open your mouth-

“Before you say hi back sweetheart, why don’t you tell me what you’re drinking instead?” He winks making your cheeks warm with their flush.

Honestly, you were expecting him to be turned off by your somewhat awkward introduction, but if you bothered him, he doesn’t show it. He leans towards you curiously, eyes drinking you in.

You clear your throat while your mind scrambles to come up with something appropriate or sexy to say other than ‘wow you’re pretty.’ You settle on. “Whatever you’re drinking.”

Smooth real smooth.

You glance back in the direction of where your friends are sitting as the man’s gaze turns to the bartender so he can order you a drink. Kay makes an obscene gesture with her hand that makes Matt kick her under the table, and Liza gives you an encouraging thumbs up.

Kill me now.

You turn back to the man lounging against the bar, unaware that he’s watching you again.

“You seemed like you were having some fun over there. What were you talking about?” He nods his head in the direction of your friends, the motion causing more of his dark hair to fall into his eyes and you fight the urge to push it back from his face and find out if it was as soft as it looked.

“Oh um.” Your mouth goes dry. The last thing you wanted to say to the gorgeous man was that your friends and you were discussing what animated movie characters turned you on. So you blurt out. “The First Law of Thermodynamics.”

It had clawed its way from the dark recesses of your mind where the rest of the test answers had been hiding from you when you tried to summon them earlier.

“What?” The man laughs while you feel your face begin to blaze.

“The First Law of Thermodynamics?” You clear your throat. “The theory that energy cannot be created or destroyed."

Where was that when I needed it for the test?

“Huh.” He smirks and takes a long sip from the beer in his hand. “Didn’t think Tarzan had anything to do with that.”

Oh sweet baby potatoes he heard the daddy conversation. Why couldn’t he have heard the Jessica Rabbit conversation instead?

“Ah.” You laugh awkwardly, realizing exactly what he overheard.

The bartender puts down a bottle of beer in front of you and whirls away to another patron sitting on the opposite side of the bar. The band begins to play a new song, this one louder with more drums than the last one, causing the man to lean closer to you so you can hear him.

“So.” The smell of the man’s cologne wafts over you. He smells like pine, mint, whiskey, and there’s an odd smell you can’t place, something that smells almost a little bit like smoke.

You ascribe it to cigarettes, but you don’t realize how wrong you are.

There’s something about him, more than just how attractive he is or how good he smells that draws you in. Maybe you’d just been burned by far too many boys and were blinded by the man sitting in front of you, but he had a roughness and self-sufficient air that you found refreshing.

He was assertive, sexy, with smoldering green eyes that somehow seemed soft and hard at the same time and filled you with an unholy amount of desire.

“So?” You parrot, bringing the beer up to your lips, hoping that a sip will take the edge off.

“Don’t you want to hear mine?” His voice is low and sultry, breath warming the air between the two of your faces.

You sputter out a cough, choking on the sip you took in surprise, and his eyes widen in concern.The man brings his hand down against your back with a hearty smack to clear out your lungs.

“Are you okay?”

“Never better.” You choke out, voice a little wheezy. “Wrong pipe.”

This is quickly becoming the most embarrassing moment of my life.

“Are you sure?” The stranger’s eyes trace over you as if he fears you’ll start asphyxiating at any moment.

“Mhmm.” You clear your throat again. “What were you saying?”

“I asked if you wanted to hear mine.”

You suddenly forget how to breathe, the only thing grounding you to this moment is the hand you placed on the cherry wood of the bar. “Sure.”

“Rain.”

Despite the last few seconds of you feeling so awkward it made you want to sink into the floor like quicksand and the fact that your throat is still burning from when the beer went down the wrong pipe, your mouth quirks up in a smile. “The horse from Spirit?”

“Mhmm.” He smiles a little wider. “My little sister used to watch that movie non-stop, and there was always something about that horse.”

“Huh.” You muse taking another sip of the beer, this time successfully not choking on it. “I didn’t peg you for a horse guy. You seem more like a Nala person.”

“Oh that lion did it for me too.” The man leans closer to you and you can feel your knees getting weak. “She definitely had bedroom eyes.”

“She did!” You laugh at him. “The animators knew what they were doing.”

It was getting easier to talk to him now and you could feel your nerves slowly going out to sea. There’s a comfortable silence that fills the air between the two of you.

“Why did you say the First Law of Thermodynamics earlier?” He asks before taking a sip from his beer. The condensation trickles down the side of the glass to pool against the wood of the bar.

“Because I didn’t want to admit what we were talking about.” You answer honestly. “And I guess it’s still a little fresh in my mind-”

“Why?”

“I had a physics test today. Completely bombed it. That’s why my friends brought me out tonight, they were trying to make me forget it.” You wave a hand dismissively, but it was the first time you’d thought about the test in the past hour and it still stung a little bit.

You were hoping that by this point of the night it wouldn’t have mattered anymore, but it did. Not to mention you didn’t exactly want to be talking about your most recent failure with a man who looked anything like he did.

But something about him made you feel comfortable talking to him about things that were not on the pre-approved list of subjects you created when you spoke to people you were attracted to. He didn’t seem to just be some hot stranger in a bar, he seemed like he actually cared, and that he was invested in what you were going to say.

It made him even more attractive. You weren't used to boys wanting to actually listen to anything you had to say.

“I’m sorry.” His face pulls down into a sympathetic frown.

“Me too.” You sigh.

“Maybe you didn’t do as bad as you think you did.”

“Oh I did. When I turned in the test, the professor made a face.” Your thumb rubs against the glass of the cold bottle clutched in your hand. “I studied all week for it and it kinda feels like I wasted all that time.”

The man studies you for a moment. “I think that if you learn something from it, then it’s not a waste. There are no accidents.“

“Are you purposely quoting Master Oogway to make me feel better or is that just a coincidence?”

“He’s a smart turtle.” He laughs pleased with himself that he made you smile. “But you remembered the First Law of Thermodynamics. And I thought it was a nice pick up line. Might use that sometime.”

“Shut up.” You laugh and raise your hand to hit him on the shoulder, but he catches it with his.

The contact of the rough palm of his hand in yours makes electricity zing through your body, bringing a wave of heat coursing behind it.

“That’s not very nice. Keep trying to hit me like that and I might have to take you to court, Sweetheart.” He winks.

“Oh please-”

“How else am I going to run into you again?”

“Well-” You swallow trying to find the next words, but they’re stuck in the back of your throat.

I am so out of practice.

“Well?” He raises an eyebrow in a silent challenge, the end of his perfect mouth teased upwards in a smile.

“This doesn’t have to be goodbye.”

“What did you have in mind?” The heat of his gaze sends goosebumps dancing over your skin and you swear you can feel your heartbeat in the base of your throat.

People do this all the time. I can say it. I can-

“Maybe-” You scoot closer to him, summoning some courage from the tequila. “Something like this.”

Your free hand curls into the front of his shirt to pull the stranger closer for a kiss.

Unfortunately, you pull him just a little too hard, with a little too much enthusiasm, and he falls off the stool with a startled cry in surprise and knocks his head into yours.

“Ow.” You groan rubbing at the red mark forming on your forehead. “I am so sorry.”

By now your cheeks are so warm that you could fry an egg on them and you were sure you looked like a giant raspberry. You had never been so clumsy or so embarrassed in your entire life.

“It’s okay, you just surprised me a bit.” The man says, but he’s peering at the mark on your forehead. “Are you okay?”

How many times is he going to ask me that tonight?

“Yeah the only thing that’s hurt is my pride.” You let out an awkward laugh. “I’m just gonna-“ You gesture with your thumb over your shoulder to signify that you’re going to leave.

The anecdotes that your friends were going to tell from tonight had already begun to manifest in your head:

“Hey, remember that time you tried to flirt with a gorgeous man at the bar and you headbutted him?”

“Hey, remember that handsome stranger? The one you told all about your failed physics test instead of sleeping with him?”

“Wait.” He gently puts his hand on your waist, sending your heart into a gallop. “Can we try that again?”

“Huh?” You blink in surprise.

So far all you’d done was head butt him and tell him your sob story about failing your physics test.

Worst seduction technique ever.

“Don’t move.” He smiles. “Don’t want to have to take you to the hospital for a CT if you bump my head again.”

It would have made you laugh if he wasn’t already kissing you.

It might just be the alcohol talking, or the fact that the last thing you kissed was the strawberry pillows on the couch in the living room last week when Liza, Kay, and you were watching your favorite paranormal tv show and you were imagining the male lead, but this kiss is nothing like any of the others you’d had in the past.

His mouth devours yours, beard scratching against your cheeks in a way that makes your entire body buzz. The man’s hands tighten your waist to draw you closer, closing the space between your bodies, and all you can feel is the wonderful drag of his fingertips against the end of your sweatshirt, the burn of his beard, the press of his chest onto yours, and the tangle of his tongue as you sink further into him.

A moan vibrates up through his chest and into your mouth that you echo with a soft sigh, your hands slipping over the taunt muscles before finding purchase against his back, your fingertips curling into the soft fabric of his t-shirt.

The rest of the bar is rendered to a dull throb of life at the back of your mind, the man in front of you absorbing the rest of your attention as he should. He is nothing like anyone you’d ever met and you wanted to know more. You wanted to see the end of the odd shaped scar just at the base of his throat, trail your fingers over the dark tattoos that decorated his skin while searching for more in places you couldn’t yet see, and sink into the deep green sea of his eyes.

“Better?” He breathes.

“Much, but if you’re not into that, I also know the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Just to give you something to remember me by.” You mumble against his lips, still slightly embarrassed. Your hands were still curled behind his strong shoulders, fingertips digging into the firm muscles.

“Beside the bruises?” He smirks before he kisses you again, the languid roll of his tongue against yours makes you forget your own name. “I’d very much like to hear it.” The rumble of his words vibrates through where your bodies are pressed against one another. “But first let me get the car and then I’ll let you tell me all about it.”

He brushes his lips to yours one more time, before he puts cash on the bar, and leaves you breathless as he saunters away towards the front door.

Holy fucking shit. How did that work?

“Girl Yes!” You hear Kay, before you feel her hands come down on your shoulders to shake you excitedly. “I was a little worried in the middle there for you with that head butt, but yes! That’s how you do it!” Her excited squeal brings you back down to earth from the cloud you were floating on with Russell.

“Where’d he go?” Liza asks. Matt was holding her from behind, his chin on her shoulder as he slowly rocked her to the music.

“To get the car.” Your cheeks flush at the insinuation.

“Fuck I am so jealous. The only thing I’m going to get to do tonight is Sean’s back.” Kay gives an exaggerated sigh. “It’s acting up and that means I’m going to have to give him a massage for an hour and not the good kind. It always knocks him out.”

“Aww babe.” Liza says.

“It’s okay.” Kay shrugs, but then sends her a saucy wink. “I can do some laundry. His washing machine has this spin cycle that makes me see stars.”

“I didn’t need to know that you’ve been molesting our washing machine.” Matt closes his eyes as if trying to scrub the image from his mind.

“It’s money well spent, Mattie.” Kay batts her eyes at him.

He huffs, but then turns his gaze on you, his blue eyes are filled with concern. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” You shrug, nerves popping and sizzling inside so much that they might as well be giving off enough electricity to power New York City. “I don’t get a creepy vibe from him. I think he’s actually kind of nice.”

It was true. Your radar was usually on point with things like this, and there was something about Russell that didn’t scream axe murderer. He seemed surprisingly laid back and honest, and you found yourself curious to know more about him.

Matt doesn’t look convinced.

“It’s okay babe.” Liza says, swaying her and his body to the music. “We have the app on our phones and we all know the safe word.” She continues, referencing the word the three of you designated when everything was okay as well as the other word that meant everything was going terribly wrong.

You didn’t think that you would need it.

He sighs. “Fine, but if he tries anything weird-”

“What qualifies as weird for you?” Kay asks, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve always been curious about your kinks.”

Kay always took pride in getting under Matt’s skin. You never knew why that was, only that it seemed to be her mission to make him crack. He never did.

“Be safe.” He nods at you before he drags Liza towards the door.

“Seriously babe.” Kay begins to back away. “Be safe. Because the last thing you want to pass right now is a pregnancy test.”

“Why are we friends again?” You groan as you follow behind her, weaving through the mass of bodies writhing to the newest song.

The air outside the bar is cooler, but there’s just a hint of something on the wind. Spring was coming, but it was still far enough away to leave just a light chill in the air. The street in front of Duke’s was populated sporadically with cars of varying shapes and colors, but you couldn’t help but wonder what kind of car the mysterious stranger drove.

Why didn’t I ask him for his name?

“Because you’d be lost without me.” Kay laughs at you, but then pulls you into a hug. “Have fun and please try not to think about that stupid test. You’re so smart and I promise that one test is not going to define your entire future. If that were true my first organic chemistry test would have come with a refrigerator box to live in, because that test was literally the stuff of nightmares.”

She frowns at the memory. It was the first test that she had ever failed in her entire life, and although you were the one who usually obsessed over grades, it was the first time you’d ever seen Kay so disappointed. That was also because her professor had asked her to stop by for office hours and told her that there was no way she’d ever be able to get the grades she needed in his class.

But a weekend marathon of Sex and the City listening to her mentor Samantha Jones, had brought her back to life and she’d sauntered confidently into the classroom armed with a flat white latte and sat in the front row at every lecture the rest of the semester.

She’d gotten the highest grade in the class.

Basically, Kay was your hero, that was the real reason why you were her friend.

“I’ll try my best. Tell Sean hi for me.” You squeeze her just as tight, before she walks away down the darkened path back to campus where Sean would be waiting for her.

There was an odd glow over the sidewalks tonight, a yellowed light that crawled along the cracked brick building that housed Duke’s and halted just shy of the opening of the alley that ran between Duke’s and the bank next door. No other people were visible. Even the small crowd that usually leaned against the rustic brick wall outside of the bar smoking was nowhere to be seen.

It was odd.

You rub your hands down your arms with nervous anticipation. You’d slept with someone from a bar one time before, but one night stands were not your forte at all. The last time it’d happened, you’d gone back with a guy to his apartment only to find out an hour later when his girlfriend got home that he wasn’t single. She hadn’t seemed surprised that you were in bed with him, but you had been when she pulled out a switchblade the size of your hand and began to slash through the neatly arranged collection of plush squish-mallows on the floor while screaming obscenities at the guy.

In hindsight, maybe the squish-mallows were a clue that he was in a relationship.

But you didn’t have any bad feelings about the man you’d met. He was attractive, witty, nice, funny, and he genuinely seemed concerned about you when you almost choked to death on a sip of beer.

I will make him forget the entire awkward encounter.

You promised yourself, but you also began to be a little bit nervous. You didn’t know why it was taking him so long to find the car.

A bird caws overhead, sweeping low across the buildings, feathers an inky black in the night air, its shadow flickering across the moon.

Another two minutes pass and you start to get antsy.

Maybe he just left?

The thought brings a wave of disappointment over you. The stranger was the first person in a long time that you’d felt genuinely attracted to and now you couldn’t help but think that maybe he lied and when he said he was going to get the car, he really was trying to get away from you as fast as possible.

You take a few steps in the direction that Kay left thinking that you might as well cut your losses and see if you can catch up, but hesitate.

What if I leave and he comes back? What if-

An odd noise that sounds like a cat hacking up a hairball comes from the alley directly to your right, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the pavement.

You turn. Most of the alley is obscured in shadows, several large dumpsters jut out from grimy brick walls stained with God knows what, but you don’t see anything out of the ordinary.

There are some lights fastened to the wall that runs the length of the bar, sending a dingy orange light over the bags of trash, empty flattened cardboard boxes, and plastic cups strewn over the wet ground.

The door of Duke’s swings open for a moment, bringing the sounds and smells of the bar through the doorway as a woman enters tugging a sullen looking man behind her.

You turn your attention back to the empty alleyway, and catch the low rumble of a voice that sounds oddly familiar. It echoes through the darkness bouncing off the stone, metal, and bags of trash to where you stand at the dimly lit mouth of the alley.

That’s weird.

Another sound follows the voice, a wet sounding thud that piques your interest. You take a tentative step forward into the darkness.

Wait. Isn’t this how every horror movie starts?

It was a valid question. But then you hear the voice again, it’s louder, vibrating against the brick and mortar, and it pulls your forward.

Anxiety hums through your body as you inch down the alley, sticking to the well lit side that runs the length of Duke’s.

“Who sent you?” The familiar voice asks.

There’s no answer, and the sound of the cat choking up a hairball comes back.

Someone needs to get Grizabella a glass of water.

You take another shaky step passing by the first dumpster before you reach the part of the alley that wraps around the back of the bar.

At first you’re not sure what you see. The part of the alley behind the bar is more of a cramped street with a tire marked dirt path, bathed in awkward light from the moon and from a lazy streetlight that’s only half lit. There’s another dumpster back here, this one a little larger than the others you’d seen along the side of the building, but that isn’t what’s interesting.

The image comes into focus.

The stranger from the bar is standing there, his back to you, but he isn’t alone. The stranger has a man pinned to the dumpster, a large knife stabbed into the space between the man’s collarbone and his right shoulder while his other hand is clasped tightly around the man’s neck.

“Who sent you?!” The stranger roars, the knife digging into the man’s shoulder.

Your entire body freezes in fear.

My radar was so wrong. How could it be this wrong? He was so caring and kind- That’s what they said about Ted Bundy.

Your gaze drops to what you thought was a garbage bag at the green-eyed stranger's feet, but realize that it’s not a bag, it’s a body.

Holy shit he’s a murderer! Maybe if I just back away slowly-

You take a slow step backwards hoping to edge back into the alley that runs the length of the bar and forget this night ever happened, but instead of your foot finding solid ground, it finds a forgotten potato chip bag.

The crinkled plastic crunches underfoot, breaking the still silence of the night. You inhale sharply and look up. Your gaze locks with the green-eyed man.

“I didn’t see anything.” You hold up your hands, backing away slowly. “Have a nice night.”

“Wait-”

“Nope.” You turn and flee down the alley hoping that someone is coming out of the bar at the exact moment who can witness the broad stranger chasing after you. His boots thud against the concrete, splashing through water in hot pursuit, contrasting against the plods of your own feet sloshing through puddles and through trash to get back to the light.

Before you make it halfway through the darkness, he grabs your arm and turns you to look at him.

“Let me go!” You shriek, tugging at his grip, preparing to kick him between his legs, the only place that matters.

“Please wait. I can explain!”

“You don’t have to explain!” You keep pulling at his arm. “I didn’t see anything! I don’t know who you are. And you know what? I wasn’t even in the bar tonight! I was back in my apartment watching Crime Scene Kitchen!”

It was the first thing that popped into your head, but if it meant that you got to live, it would be your alibi.

He hesitates confused. “What’s Crime Scene Kitchen?”

“What? You just fucking murdered someone in an alley, you’re about to murder me, and that’s what you’re asking me?” You scream.

“I’m not going to murder you. And I was the one who was attacked!”

“Oh sure!” Fear clamps down hard on your throat squeezing the air coming in through your lungs. Tears begin to burn against your eyes as you try to release his grip. “Somebody help me!” You scream loudly trying to twist away from him and wishing that you’d brought your bottle of pepper spray or that you’d taken the self-defense class last summer with Kay or at least paid more attention to that scene in Miss Congeniality.

How could I have been so stupid? He’s going to kill me here and I’ll never know what that physics test did to my GPA.

You frown slightly at that thought. It really is weird what goes through your head when you think you’re going to die.

“Please, let me explain.” He says again, eyes wide and filled with an emotion that looks surprisingly like regret.

His dark hair has fallen forward over his cheeks that are flecked with blood, but the lights that line the wall of the dark alley perfectly frame his face. He looked like a model for a beer commercial or one that they’d roughed up a little for those weird perfume commercials you saw that never made any sense, but were always intriguing.

Why are all the hot ones crazy? Why couldn’t he have just been a bad kisser? Or maybe a little too loud? Why is his flaw that he freaking MURDERS people?

As you think that, there is a little voice inside your head that asks: Could I be okay with that?

NO! OF COURSE NOT!

“There’s nothing to explain! You’re a murderer! You just killed those people!” You aim a kick at his crotch, but the man only catches your ankle with his large hand. You could feel the warmth of his skin through your sweatpants, the sensation that brought warm tingles through your body when you were in the bar, only sends a wave of fear crashing over you.

“Yes I did, but for a good reason!”

“Really? What reason was that!?”

“They were trying to kill me!”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I-”

Before he can finish his sentence, gunfire explodes over your head. Sparks fly as bullets crash into the dumpsters and rip through the night air around where you and the man are standing.

There’s a large black suburban parked in the street that runs behind Duke’s where you’re found the stranger with the body. Three men stand in front of it all in dark clothing and each one is holding a pistol pointed directly at where you’re standing.

“Holy shit!” You scream, but the stranger tackles you back behind the large rusting green dumpster that juts out and gives you cover from the blaze of bullets.

His body lays over yours, curving protectively around you, and his arm is behind you head so when you hit the ground, your head doesn’t. The impact of the cold, wet, concrete beneath your body jostles through your system, but you can’t focus on it too much, not when the man’s entire body is laying on top of yours and it feels as if he was made especially for you.

He lays in the cradle of your thighs, wonderfully broad and hard, the muscles of his body contrasting to the soft curves of your body underneath your clothes. It left very little to the imagination, well… not little.

It’s enough to make a girl forget that he’s a murderer… No, what am I saying!!

You shove him off of you and cower back behind the dumpster, the sound of gunfire filling your ears and making you realize exactly what you smelled on the man earlier that you thought was smoke.

“Baby-” He says reaching out to comfort you.

“Don’t touch me! I’m not your baby!” You swat his hands away from you pressing yourself back into the wet wall of the alley.

The smell of mold and trash was rising all around you in an unholy mist. The wet ground soaked into the soft fabric of your pants and left stains that you didn’t want to think about what they were.

“Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit-” It comes out like a sickening mantra as you rock back and forth, hands on your ears to make the sound of the gunfire stop.

I’m going to die here. In this dismal back alley. In front of this gorgeous murder. If I had know that I wouldn’t have spent so much of this week studying for a mother-fucking physics test!

“Sweetheart!” The man shouts to catch your attention, but you don’t look at him.

“What in the devil’s ass is happening?!” You shriek.

“Listen to me!” He shouts louder over the sound of gunfire and takes your cheeks in his rough palms to make him look at him. His green eyes are brilliant in the light, but filled with a determined fire that makes you suddenly feel very safe despite watching him kill someone and the active gunfire bouncing all around you.

You wanted to trust him, but you also didn’t want to be on the news or used as a cautionary tale for mothers to guilt their daughters with.

“I promise that nothing is going to happen to you.”

“How can you guarantee that?!”

“Because I don’t break my promises.” The determined grit in his eyes hardens as they sweep over your face. “I will explain what’s going on. But first I have to go talk to them.” He releases your face, but hesitates.

The man wasn’t bothering to duck and cover, in fact each time a bullet ricocheted off the side of the dumpster he didn’t even flinch, meanwhile the sour taste of bile was rising into your mouth and you were sure that you were going to throw up. Panic was setting in, and your heart rate was getting dangerously high as anxiety and fear flickered along your nerve endings.

Oh my sweet goodness he’s mentally unstable.

“Actually.” He sighs and flashes an awkward smile. “I don't want to lie to you. I’m going to go kill them. Don’t move.” He reaches into the waistband at the back of his worn jeans and pulls out a gun.

Has he had that this whole time? HOW did I not feel it?

“Wait what? Don’t go out there!” Your fingers fist in the front of his jacket, the fear of him leaving you more than the fear of him murdering you. At this point it was either be killed by the beautiful stranger or killed by the other guys, and being killed by the other guys meant that you’d have to meet someone new and look where that had gotten you tonight.

“They’re not exactly going to leave on their own.” He cracks a smile despite the situation. “But promise me you’re not going to move.” His smile turns into a concerned frown, eyebrows furrowing together as his eyes settle on you once more, steely and unyielding.

“I promise.” Your voice comes out shaky and not at all what you sound like. Truthfully you were surprised that you got anything to come out of your mouth that wasn't vomit.

He nods once.

When he leaves, you wait exactly three seconds, counting each of them out in your head before you take off in a dead run for the front door of Duke’s bar and into the safety of the street beyond without looking back while hoping that all of this has just been a bad dream.

Coming back to the apartment feels surreal, crossing through the living room like a Salvador Dali painting, and finally closing your bedroom door and locking it is like a mirage.

You weren’t sure how you made it back here, only that you did, and that was all that mattered.

Kay and Liza weren’t home, predictably, but you would have tried to call both of them if you hadn’t dropped your phone in the cluster fuck that was everything that happened an hour ago. Because on top of everything now you didn’t have any way to contact your friends and let them know that you’re alive and okay.

Your body was still buzzing with the anxiety of everything that happened, mind going a mile a minute the longer you allowed it to bathe in the memories of being shot at and watching the stranger kill those men.

The stranger that somehow was able to trick your radar.

I just need to breathe, relax, and-

You turn around towards your bed expecting to go to sleep and forget all of it, but the thought stutters to a halt as you realize you’re not alone. The green-eyed stranger is standing there in the center of your bedroom. He is holding a bundle of your clothes in one hand and your empty school backpack in the other.

“What the fuck?!” You scream and reach for the Strawberry Shortcake bat your dad bought you when you moved out, hefting it high on your shoulder preparing to swing. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He raises an eyebrow at your awkward stance. “Why are you holding a bright pink baseball bat?”

“All the better beat the shit out of rapists who break into my apartment in the middle of the night!”

“What happened to murderer?” The end of his lips lift up in a smile too perfect to be real. He almost seems to be enjoying this, like he thinks you’re being cute and not accusing him of something terrible.

“That too!”

He laughs at you, but then his smile slips into a frown.“Why did you break your promise?” You don't understand why he looks like a kicked puppy at the thought that you broke your promise.

Of course I didn’t keep it! I was running for my life to get out of the way of the millions of bullets pointed at my head!

“What?”

“You promised that you would stay there and you didn’t. You could have been killed.” Worry flashes in his gaze, and your eyes drop to the flecks of blood on the outside of his jacket that remind you of everything this man had done tonight.

“Oh, well excuse me for breaking a promise I made to a murderer!”

“I’m not a murderer.”

“If the boot fits!” You snap back. “You showing up in my bedroom certainly seems plenty murdery. That and you going through my underwear drawer for a little souvenir.” Your eyes narrow in suspicion.

“A souvenir?” The man laughs at you again, his shoulders shaking. He’s still wearing the same clothes he was in the alley, and again you’re momentarily stunned by how attractive he is.

“Why else would you be going through my drawers? And how do you know where I live!?”

“That’s not important right now.” The man shoves the bundle of your clothes into your backpack before moving back to the chest of drawers in the corner of your bedroom for another handful.

“What the fuck do you mean that’s not important right now? And what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m packing you a bag.”

“What? Why? So it’ll look like I ran away?!”

Oh holy fuck he’s still going to kill me!

You swing the bat as hard as you can, but the man raises the backpack to block your attack.

“Calm down Derek Jeter! I’m not going to murder you, please stop saying that.”

“Why?”

He frowns and shrugs his shoulders. “Because it’s hurting my feelings a little bit.”

“Hurting your-” You shake your head in disbelief. “Look, I have no idea who the fuck you are or why you broke into my apartment but-”

“Hi. I’m Russell.” The man now identified as ‘Russell’ holds out his hand to try and shake yours.

That’s obviously a fake name.

You stare at him blankly. “Are you insane?”

“No, I just told you, I’m Russell. And we have to go.” He retracts his hand and begins to shove clothes into your backpack again.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, crazy! I have class in the morning and an exam in two days!” You heft the baseball bat higher on your shoulder as a silent threat.

Judging by the way he blocked your attack so easily a few moments ago, you didn’t have high hopes. But you did think that if you screamed loud enough your elderly neighbor, aptly named Willy due to the many, many times he’d flashed Kay, Liza, and you “accidentally,” would come over at least to see if you had any extra magazines to take back to his hoarder apartment that was stacked floor to ceiling with yellowed newspapers long out of print.

Russell sighs, and looks from the bat to you, shoulders relaxing a millimeter, but there’s still something determined in his gaze. “I understand that you’re scared, but those guys, they saw you with me.”

“So?”

“So if I leave you here with no protection, they’re going to come here and take you.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes I do!” He replies, the edge of his voice is tinged with anger and frustration.

“How?”

“Look!” Russell holds up a battered phone. Displayed on the cracked screen is a message thread of texts to an unknown number. Russell clicks on one of the pictures that was sent an hour ago, about the time the two of you met.

As it grows larger on the screen you recognize the two people in it. It’s a picture of Russell and you kissing at the bar. Your eyes are closed, hands curved over his shoulders possessively, while you smile into his mouth.

The memory of the kiss sends a warm tingle down your spine as you remember how good the kiss was. It was definitely in the top ten, hell, it was number one.

Don’t be seduced by his charm and good looks! You saw him kill someone tonight! Not to mention he probably killed those other guys that were shooting at you.

Russell swipes his finger over the screen again, this time the picture is of him and you talking, your face on full display. You’re laughing at something Russell said with your right hand resting on the cool bottle of beer you never finished. Honestly, if anyone was seeing those photos for the first time it would look like Russell and you were together.

“You took pictures of me!?” You shout. “You’re a fucking freak!”

“Sweetheart, listen to me-”

“I’m not your Sweetheart. You’re just some random murder that I met at a bar!”

The things that I’ve said tonight for the first time could be an SNL skit. Why me?

“For the last time, I am not a murder! And I didn’t take those photos. The men who were after me did.”

“So? Why would they care about some random girl?”

“Because they don’t know you’re some random girl I met! They think that you’re important to me and until I figure out who they sent these pictures to, you’re not safe.”

“Can’t you text them and say that you just met me tonight? That it’s a pure coincidence?! That I’m not important to you.” You point at the cracked phone, waving your free hand frantically at it.

Russell laughs at your question. “Are you kidding? Do you think they’re going to believe me?”

“I don’t know! And how would they know where I live?”

“The same way I knew how.”

That is a good point. How did he know where I lived?

You hesitate, gaze flicking over where Russell stands with your backpack in his hand, but another idea begins to wiggle from the depths of your mind. “Wait. Is this some kind of kinky thing you do? Some fetish? Pretending to be a spy or that people are after you just to get yourself all hot and bothered?”

“What?” Now it’s Russell’s turn to look at you like you’re crazy.

You take that as confirmation. “It is! Holy fuck, that is so messed up.”

Wow forget murderer, he’s an actual psychopath. Why the hell did I drop my phone?

Kay and Liza weren’t going to be back tonight. Especially not if they think that you took “Russell,” if that really is his name, back to the apartment. You had no other way of contacting them, except with your laptop that was sitting closed on your bed behind where Russell was standing.

“Wait a minute. I’m not a spy.”

“Exactly, that’s the point! You’re pretending to make me-”

“No, I’m not. I promise all of this is real!” Russell sighs frustrated. “I know that you don’t want to believe me, but it isn’t safe here. And I can protect you!”

“That’s exactly what you would say to kidnap me!”

“Sweetheart. I am not going to kidnap you, I’m trying to keep you safe. I mean, if I have to kidnap you I will-”

Your eyes widen and you heft the bat high on your shoulder prepared to swing.

“Sorry, that was a bad joke.” He holds up his hands in surrender, flashing an apologetic smile. “What would it take to make you believe me?”

It was the question that you had been contemplating since he’d protected you in the alley. You knew nothing about him, didn’t know what he did for a living, and you’d only just learned his name. But despite everything that happened there was a little part of yourself that wanted to believe him. You wanted to believe everything he was telling you, well, not the part about you being in danger and the idea that people now wanted to kill you, but the part about being able to trust him.

You think about the way he made you feel at the bar, when he listened to you complain about your physics test and made you laugh. You’d trusted him then, enough to go home with him or at least, try to go home with him.

“I don’t know.” The bat slips a little bit from your shoulder with your honesty. “Do you have any character references?”

Russell cracks a smile. “Isn’t it a little early for you to ask me about my old girlfriends? Don’t think any of them would be willing to say anything good about me either.”

This time you can feel a little smile begin to tug at the end of your lips, one that Russell notices.

“I know that you’re scared.” He takes a tentative step forward. “But I promise that I will explain everything to you, answer all your questions, but all I know is that you’re not safe here. And I can’t in good conscience leave, if I know you’re in danger.”

The look in his eyes had the determined fire you’d seen many times tonight, but there was something honest about it. They saw through you, and even though you had spent most of the night terrified and believed him to be a murderer, you didn’t think that someone like that would be so determined for you to go with him.

It felt like two parts of your head were at war. You wanted to trust Russell, you didn’t think he was lying to you, but you had seen him kill those men. And there was an unfortunate part of you that worried he made all of this up to kidnap you.

But I think if he meant to do that… he would have jumped me the minute I walked into my bedroom, he wouldn’t have said “hi.”

“I know this whole thing sounds crazy. But the last thing I want is for you to die because of something stupid I did. Please.”

You bite the inside of your cheek thinking about Kay and Liza. “If I leave, what about my roommates? They live here too.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m not going to sugar coat it Sweetheart, there’s always a chance that they’ll be hurt, but with you gone, there’s also a chance that these guys will focus more on finding me.”

“So basically you can’t guarantee their safety?”

“No.” He drops his gaze for a moment, but then he looks at you again. “But I can guarantee yours and I don’t want to take the chance with your life. And my brother is smart, maybe he can figure out a way to keep them safe too.”

You stand there for a moment contemplating what he’s saying, the memories of everything that happened tonight rising up in an unrelenting wave, not just cowering behind the dumpster, but the kiss the two of you shared, and the way he made you laugh.

I want to trust him. I don’t think he’s lying, I don’t think he’s going to hurt me. You think to yourself, and then the inevitable thought comes. I feel safe with him.

“Do you promise that your name is Russell and that you’re telling me the truth?” You ask one more time to make sure.

“Yes.”

So you take a chance and hope to God that you’re not wrong.

“Okay.” You nod, lowering the bat entirely. “I’ll go with you.”

He sighs in relief. “Good.” Russell holds out the backpack towards you. “You should probably pack this. If I had my way, there won’t be much in here besides underwear.”

“You’re such a guy.” You roll your eyes and take the backpack from him, but you can't help the smile that curls on the end of your mouth.

Russell returns it, pleased with himself that he'd gotten you to smile again. “That's better than you accusing me of being a murderer.”

“Jury’s still out on that one.”

“But you have to admit… this did make you forget your physics test right?”

He's not wrong... but you don’t think that this is better.

A/N: I had so much fun with this one. I hope y'all laughed as much as I did 😂

Thank you so much for reading! Likes, Reblogs, and Comments are not required, but are always appreciated! I love hearing what y'all think! 😊 If you'd liked to be added to my taglist please let me know!

Taglist:

@roseblue373 @livya99 @mrsjenniferwinchester @zepskies @louisanalady

@yvonneeeee @kr804573 @waynes-multiverse

#russell shaw #russell shaw x reader #russell shaw x female reader #russell shaw x you #russell shaw jensen ackles #jensen ackles #wonderful mutuals 💕#hello friend! 😊

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aier-elear · 6 hours ago

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Thinking about how Ben's biggest fear & whole reason he ran away from the girls ended up happening anyway, even with Nat helping him escape eternal torture.. he deserved better. 😭

In seriousness, Ben's story is actually so tragic. The regret he already felt even getting on that plane because these girls cost him the life & love he wanted. Then losing his independence & being kept as a doll, stripped of all authority he had & slowly watching himself become redundant to the people he was trying so hard to guide & protect. Running away for fear of becoming a meal to them because he knew how little he meant to them now, the people he had sacrificed everything for. Attempting to hide & purely survive until he could get out of there & then being dragged back into the crazy, stripped of all his independence AGAIN & this time treated like everything he was afraid they would treat him as, the whole REASON he ran away..

I'm so glad Nat stepped up & granted him release. But I'm so angry that he didn't get to escape being food, that they disrespected him like that. Also, now we can see the decline of Nat & why she ended up how she did in the future timeline.

AAAAAAAAAA if that multiple realities theory has any merit, pls let Ben's soul have returned to the reality he daydreamed, where he never took this job & didn't run from who he was. 🥲

#personal #yellowjackets spoilers #yellowjackets season 3 #yellowjackets s3 #yellowjackets #yj spoilers #coach ben #ben scott #coach ben scott #yj season 3 #coach scott #yellowjackets season three

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abnomi · 6 months ago

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been trying to get back into animation

original gif below ^^ teehee!

#F slur #reclaimed f slur #You wanna know the worst part abt this #this is the first finished animation ive made in like 5+ yrs #animation #turbo #turbo wir #turbo wreck it ralph #king candy #king candy wir #king candy wreck it ralph #Idk why i locked in so hard HEHRHEHHAHA😭😭😭😭😭😭 i just kept on adding more and more until it became This #abomination #i was even gonna make the background more polished and everything but then i was like Wait i actually dont care #this was so fun to make ouggjghhhmhmgjjdf i forgot how fun animation was!!!!!!😢😢😢 definitely going to be making more in da future #this was very experimental i just love putting myself on grinding duty and qorking on something like this for hours straight #i am so learning bros #ill post frames tomorrow bc its midnight and idk how many ppl are gonna see this rn but i cant just not post it immediately #wreck it ralph #silly time 🐛🐛🐛#my art! 🎨

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taruruchi · 1 month ago

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𝐃𝐚𝐲 4: 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐲𝐨

Inspired by this post by @h0neybane !!

Random note I just wanna mention: Evelyn's drawing didn't have a veil and the crown/tiara (what's the difference) but I was looking at Ariel's wedding dress and wanted to reference those parts of the fit HSBDJNSFN

Taglist: @solxima @angelwishess @scint1llat3 @distant-velleity @twtysevapr @cynthinesia @h0neybane @viperbunnies @linabirb @thehollowwriter @wafflethewitchboy @siphoklansan @jewelulu @skibidibabygirl @jadelover69 (ask me if you wanna be added/removed! also if you wanna be removed just for february bc I'm posting every day 😭)

#Me and my horrible ass backgrounds 😭😭#But please appreciate the work I put into the calligraphy I worked hard 😞 <- it's not even straight #twisted wonderland #twst fanart #twst art #azul ashengrotto #twst azul #twst yuu #twst oc #twst yuusona #yuusona #azul ashengrotto x mc #azul ashengrotto x yuu #azul x yuu #azul x mc #azulchi #taruchi #I quite thought I was eating when I was doing Azul's and when I finished his #Then I got to Taru's and everything changed #I mean I had an abundance of references for Azul and really few for Taru but like #Why was hers so hard #Girl 🤾#I rushed hers so bad too ajdkfks and uh. It's 3 am 🤡#I'll be knocked out immediately after I post this #Anywhoozle happy azulchi day. Which was yesterday for me but wtv it still counts #If I forgot to add smth. That's for tomorrow me to deal with #☆ taruchi's drawings 🖌

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flowerakatsuka · 5 months ago

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" just know that i'm always here for you, okay? "

i'm finally finishing up my s2 rewatch and getting to the 24th episode awoke a beast in me. so i wanted to make a fake screenshot based on some of their lore that takes place during that episode. i think they'd end up having a heart-to-heart moment since kuroba went through similar struggles after their grandfather's own hospitalization...

also have a bonus doodle bc i need to even out the balance between serious & goofy with these two.

#my urge to attempt writing a fic based on this is SO STRONG. even though i do not have a lot of experience w/ fic writing #buT GAAAA I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THE LAST TWO EPISODES AND KUROBA....#it's hard to put into words rn but god there's so much.....#like. kuroba trying to help out matsuyo behind the scenes since they sympathize with how hard things can be when i loved one ->#is in the hosptial due to something that could've been life threatening ( matsuzou's heart attack & chouji's hip + leg injury )#i also think they personally delivered some get-well flowers to matsuzou and checked up on him in the hospital #that's not even getting into everything that happens after the sextuplets die...#i won't go into it rn but there's a reason why matsuyo & matsuzou are very keen on kuroba marrying into the family #ALSO I FINALLY DREW A BACKGROUND AGAIN AFTER 50 YEARS #now ya'll have a lil insight on what the inside of kuroba's shop looks like hehe #hopefully my rambling is making sense rn. i hope it is 😭#osmt #yumematsu #osomatsu-san oc #karamatsu #mj ocs #oc : kuroba #ship : kurokara #mj draws

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compress1repress · 1 month ago

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part 4 of the reader x tashi x art x patrick band au - they find reader's old fan account (slightly nsfw) (also art sexts in third person lol)

(their profiles, part 1, part 2, part 3)

#this is the final part i think!#sorry you have to zoom in a lot on some!! it's so hard to fit everything in one post #hope you guys enjoyed.. i at least had fun 😭#idk why it's sending me that art is sexting in third person 😭 he would though... “art is entering you” bro you ARE art #challengers #challengers 2024 #patrick zweig #art donaldson #tashi duncan #social media au #band au #atp x reader #artrick

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scificrows · 2 years ago

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Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.

Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):

In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.

It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]

The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]

Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]

In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]

In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]

Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot #𓄿 #hi i'm READY to write a thesis about murderbot i am having way too much fun with this #i created a pretty excel spreadsheet and everything #i don't know why i did this but now i can look at them while i think about this more! so i figured i'd share them haha #i didn't count uses of 'friendly' but special shoutout to when MB is all alone in its cold cubicle missing 20% of its body mass #and starts putting on a show because 'the friendly noise would keep it company' 😭😭#i feel sick thinking about murderbot all alone on its own not knowing what its like to have friends watching media for 'the friendly noise'#also YES okay i wanted to make a point about miki there but i just #couldn't bring myself to talk about that more so... yeah #also uhhh this data is very subjective #i didn't count particularly ironic uses of 'friend' and generally did not count every instance of friend and sometimes it was a hard call #also i probably shouldn't have counted the times murderbot refered to drones or secsystems as its friends (often after hacking them)#but murderbot does seem to care about them and shows kindness and respect and sometimes points out that a system is friendly #so while i don't think MB means “friend” in the same way referring to them as when it refers to ART for instance #i still think its CUTE and also kinda funny how many times that happened so i decided to keep those!!!#but yeah take my data with a grain of salt lol

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bungobble-my-balls · 5 months ago

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WAIT SIGMA WAS ONLY A PAGE IN ATSUSHI'S STORY

BECAUSE ATSUSHI IS A BOOKMARK AND THE BOOKMARK MOVES AS THE STORY GOES ON

BUT SIGMA WAS BORN FROM A PAGE, AND ONCE THE BOOKMARK PASSES A PAGE IT DOESN'T GO BACK

THEY MET ONCE FOR A SINGLE CHAPTER, A BRIEF IMPORTANT INTERACTION, AND THEN DIDN'T SEE EACHOTHER AGAIN (FOR NEARLY FIVE YEARS IN OUR TIME NOW). ATSUSHI CONTINUED WITH THE STORY BUT SIGMA STAYED WHERE HE WAS (DEALING WITH DOA AND FYODOR BALONY)

SIGMATSU ANGST SYMBOLISM?? IN MY BUNGOU STRAY DOGS??!!??

#ASAGIRI I'M LOSING MY MIND PULLING THINGS HERE WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE TWO #WHY DO YOU KEEP GIVING THEM PARALLELS AND CONNECTIONS WHAT DOES IT MEAN #!!!!😭😭😭#bsd chapter 119 #bsd 119 #bsd spoilers #Sigmatsu #still frothing at the mouth over Sigmatsu a day after reading the chapter #sigma #Atsushi #this is less a theory more me trying SO hard to figure out what Atsushi being the bookmark means for everything about the book #bungobble my post

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fumifooms · 5 months ago

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Makima, devils and self-fulfillment

Dumping some Makima and CSM thoughts after a part 1 binge bc I think about her forever and ever. I’m sure I’m forgetting some devil lore, feel free to correct what i get wrong/what’s been confirmed. On the table of contents there’s why & how Makima got fixated on Chainsaw, her revealing liking for the country mouse and discussion of her nature & emotions & desires. Was the scorpion doomed to be a scorpion?

The most of this post was thought of during a conversation with @saccharineomens and I don’t think it makes sense to jump into the spiral it sent me on without first laying down the interesting groundwork theorizing she did:

"Thinking about how makima herself wants to be deified. I wonder whether she recognizes the difference between Love As Worship and the love that Aki, Power, and Denji had. She says she wants to help humanity by having Chainsawman eat the “bad” devils, but why does she want to help humans? Because she was ordered to by the Prime Minister? No, her drive seems much more personal than that, it seems like she teamed up with the PM for contractual reasons. (In the most recent chapters we see governmental members wanting certain devils to be eaten, too. What was Makima’s relationship with them? She’s too independent to just follow THEIR orders, she’s Control.)

So is she wanting to better humanity for the accolades, or out of the goodness of her heart? She sees the big picture. She sees any small sacrifice as worth it for the end result, and she’s ruthless. Perhaps she thinks that a more sedate human race would be easier to control? But Makima doesn’t loathe humanity. She never acts like she sees all humans as lesser. She loves humanity’s creations, like good food and movies. She just wants Good Things all the time

She says she prefers the country mouse BUT adds a story where she helps exterminate country mice like vermin. She likes the simplicity yet rejects the idea of being simple. Makima the complex individual you are"

The story itself seems to prefr the country mouse. Well- it strikes a balance, shows that a risk to live good & fully can be very worth it, but still that stability over ambition is preferable, proning having a simple happy life over fame, a simple job instead of a dangerous one, etc etc. And I do find Makima’s answer on this so so interesting, she prefers the country mouse, but this preference isn’t out of affection or sympathy but because of how relaxing it feels to exterminate them when they cause problems.

Order satisfies her. Her order satisfies her. She likes the action of rooting out disorder. Maybe this is the devil part, like how Power especially wants blood and drinking it, I feel there’s an itch to every devil, and for Makima it’s a very rigid world view/morality/standards & making things follow her rules and submit to her order.

And maybe this is why she’s attached to humans too, why she felt it was worth it to stick with the government- because devils are chaotic by nature (it’s a whole plot point that hell is essentially a free-for-all battleground for example), meanwhile humans are the species that universally rule Earth with systems they invented and instilled. They made then enforced rules, complex and intricate webs of them. She feels alienated amongst devils but she understands the humans’ need for an orderly organised society, and now she wants to be part of it. Control and conquest require social dynamics after all, requires civilizations or groups. War is chaotic while peace is, well, peaceful— Makima resents her sisters for being death, famine and war, things that throw the world in such chaos. She wants a world of perfect order, no matter how much collateral damage there will be if the end result is control.

This is even more interesting if you consider that yes, Makima is untouchable of her own design, she deifies herself with her omnipresent amount of control and the sway over others that she seeks and encourages— There is this urge to dehumanize her for it, that yes, she is the devil of control and that means she was never going to be any different, have any more feeling be any less uncanny. And I love part 2 so much for this, because it shows us the war devil and the famine devil and we see how frankly uncharismatic with poor self-discipline they are, Nayuta too, and it helps us realize just how much Makima’s success was self-made.

She admires Chainsaw Devil, the Hero of Hell, because he had his own code and his own rules and he made Hell, the chaos pit, submit to them unfailingly. Wherever he goes he decides what he does and what happens to the people he encounters but does so consistently, he has his mechanism and his rules that he always obeys, and he fulfills them every time. It’s still a mystery the why of Chainsaw Devil’s behavior back then and how it works exactly, maybe Pochita left hell because he was tired of these rules he lived by like chains, but still, he was a servant to his code. Makima would have been glad being killed and eaten by Chainsaw Devil because it’d have been becoming part of his design, his conquest, his domination, she’d have been part of that —his— order. Through her death she would be shaping his world and be part of a conqueror’s making history. Like how she appreciates the country mice that die for the sake of order. Like how sacrifices must be made to herself, like listing the name of every person whose life was lost to the Gun Devil— All for the ~greater good~, for her vision for the world. Conquest always thinks its reasons are justified.

And she does mention with the country mice thing that she goes out to a friend’s farm every year! She has a human friend?? That she visits yearly and she genuinely likes it?? Ultimately she lives a busy city life because of her goal and drive and her urge & satisfaction with overseeing shaping the world herself, but part of her, like so many characters including Angel and Aki and Reze, wishes she could live a slow peaceful country life. Moviegoing and dogs and mice in a farm- Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if Makima could find fulfillment and happiness in being a farmer, in keeping control of her own farm, getting satisfaction from exterminating vermin and expertly getting everything right, the right crops grown at the right time on the right soil? Here, too, in a way it’s trying to have full control of an ecosystem, but her goals would be easier to achieve and better, without ceaseless sacrifice or much pressure. But Makima wants grandiosity and her goal does matter to her on a fundamental and moral level, she does think she knows what’s best for the world, and with the power to change it why wouldn’t she strive to? Visiting the farm is just a break, just something she does in fall to help out and just in time to see the vermin extermination. It calms her, then it’s back to actual work.

In capitalism, even the one at the very top of the ladder is ultimately alienated from others and often unsatisfied by their lifestyle, always wanting more and more power because surely that’s the extra edge they must be missing to be content— like how Makima thinks she wants to dominate Chainsaw Devil instead of being his equal. And she says it herself too, she likes humans the way humans like dogs…….. And she keeps so many dogs :( Makima prefers the country mice because they’re calming to root out, maybe because she usually mainly deals with city mice. It’s very easy to equate humans to the mice in this allegory because it’s pretty direct and she’s already likened humans to lesser animals compared to her. She’s self-isolating by design for her design but she still craves relationships and contentment, and the dogs are the embodiment or her want for bonds and occasional simplicity because there is no possible ulterior motive, no way they tie back into her wider plan. They’re her personal life— something that feels so alien when speaking about Makima. Personality and individuality and likes and preferences and friends they visit every year. She likes how easily she can train a dog and how they become putty in her hands, at her beck and call, how much they love her and how much she enjoys their love. How simple and straightforward and easy it is. She keeps them because she likes being loved by them and loving them, and she’s gotten and raised so many. A conqueror always wants more and more and more, is never satisfied.

Devils and agency

Like Power the blood devil wanting blood and having a fixation on drinking it like with Denji’s, or how it was shocking that the violence devil was pretty tame and nice and how he himself theorized it was because he was a fiend and possessing a human body… There’s something to be said about nature vs nurture with the devils. The way they reincarnate and always embody their fear makes it seem categorically like nature, that they always always end up fulfilling the role they were named after and born to fill… Outside influence they’re helpless but to conform with. Like the humans accepting their spot in the social ladder and the shittiness of their living conditions and job under capitalism. Makima craved being equals with someone despite being the control/conquest devil, Angel Devil despite claiming to be a devil who likes to see humans dying was haunted by their deaths and wanted to avoid ones like Aki’s. The Ghost Devil being ironically haunted by Himeno, seemingly helping Aki in her memory out of… Lasting affection? Or maybe it was less about being haunted itself and more about it recognizing how Himeno haunted Aki, and acknowledging that, with the memento, paying her respect to the ghost of her. It’s Angel Devil’s devil nature that makes him like human suffering, so then is it his angel nature too to still care about their deaths? Is there truth to this or is that just personality, just our confirmation bias haunting every part of their identity like it might in their own view of themselves too? We do know different reincarnations of devils do have different personalities after all.

Yoru, war devil, is the most interesting one when talking about the nature vs nurture debate with devils. There is how through her we see the perhaps the most the consequences of a devil stopping being feared— we see a horseman for a concept as universal and horrifying as war be reduced to some bird who needs a contract with a human to have any power even just on the situation when meeting Asa. And through the story we get to know her better, and it becomes clear that her goal is fueled in good part by simply wanting to be remembered and respected through fear. Liked, validated, seen a powerful. But what is more isolating than war? Or control? We also see Nayuta accepting others’ house rules. If part 1 shows perhaps the futility of running away from the truth, with Denji’s memory, with escapist coping mechanisms, with passivity and denial under a corrupt system and with abusive relationships- running away from your own feelings and from the reality of things and from all that you are, more complex than simply human or devil or both or neither— part 2 builds upon the theme of cult of personalities, the chainsaw church, etc. The apocalypse is coming, but this celebrity superhero might save us all, or doom us all uh, dunno. The hero of hell reliving the cycle of pressure from responsibilities and expectations, maybe the part will end with Denji running away like Pochita did~

But yes, on the reverse, I think Famine is a very interesting example of how a devil’s namesake may be more innate than coerced by circumstances. One would think that a famine devil would only like inflicting famine upon others, not being famished itself, but Famine has a bottomless stomach that can never, ever be satisfied, sated. I struggle to find a psychological explanation for this, except that maybe instead of her being hungry it’s her feeling empty when she’s not eating, tasting and having that high sensory experience that releases serotonin in humans, sort of like drugs? But I do take this as a step towards the compulsion theory overall, feels like a reach in the consistency otherwise. And compulsion does not mean it’s something that they like nor that it’s something that they fight against, pretty neutral, just a nature that nudges you towards one path. Maybe it’s even just their go-to for entertainment. Maybe it’s the only thing that makes them feel right and whole. But still the debate remains, what is it, a compulsion or an urge or an itch or an active desire or a conscious chosen want? Does it change anything in practice?

And because of all of this earlier, devils being self-fulfilling prophecies with their role is not in unsignificant part nurture, because doing their atrocities is how they stay remembered— feared, powerful, known— hell and devils are a very isolating place and breed after all, and we do see devils can want companionship. Existentially, it’s their purpose and how they justify their place in the world, in the terrifyingly vast and unknowable cosmos.

We still know so little of what makes Chainsaw Devil so special, why his carnage is so self-controlled. Despite a chainsaw maybe being possibly one of the most "nature" thing you can be— a tool to cut things, a human tool that can be helpful for many things, something to be wielding by another at their judgement on what they decide, but mainly something to cut, a tool suited for carnage, to hurt and to destroy. A blade with a toothed chain, spinning around and around and around endlessly on the same road at the same pace. Such a…. Innately circular concept. And yet the Chainsaw Devil is his own, not driven by an urge or by chaos but his very own brand of order, his own unique assigned purpose, a "if you call i’ll come running to help" policy equalizing everyone. He chooses to withhold his destruction and interference otherwise, and then he chooses to be used. If it’s a choice, of course.

Maybe this is what inspired Makima so much, that Chainsaw Devil could decide what to make of himself despite expectations or innate role. Because even Hell he decided & managed to subjugate under his will and whim, with a precise vision and process. When Chainsaw Devil acts like Denji or is defeated, Makima clicks her tongue and loses her admiration and respect. Makima admired and liked Chainsaw Devil, but only as long as he matched her great image of him in her mind, as long as he followed he rules for what she thinks he should be like. She admired him for his unrivaled self-made success, but once he stepped out of that to truly embody self-fulfillment and agency, disappearing from hell to live on his own road at the beat of his own drum… Well. Surely that was a mistake she has to correct. However their second battle ends, the better conqueror will have prevailed and she’s happy about that, all in the spirit of domination and subjugation.

Imo Makima’s biggest tool, similarly capitalism’s most helpful effect for its own purposes, is complacency. Resignation and passivity helps uphold the system and go along the flow of the will of the people in power. Aki and Reze go along with orders even when knowing their job is trash, etc. In Angel Devil especially we see him go along with the flow uncaring about anyhing, and we discover it was in part due to Makima taking away memories that motivated him. If every devil decides this is just how things are and how things should be that’s what they’ll continue to be and do mindlessly, not pursuing a better life like Chainsaw Devil and Denj and not seeking to change the world like Makima. I think even Makima veils herself to a lot of things, she doesn’t like to think deeply about some things, like her desire for connection, or how making bad movies disappear is strenuous and unsustainable and requiring sacrifices at best— how her judgement is as subjective as anyone else. How liking the country mouse and her friend back at the farm and her dogs could be not devoid of sentimality. Wanting bad movies erased is her one biggest show of selfishness, of pettiness and individuality, it’s about her tastes, simple as. About how she can have tastes, and cry seeing a scene of people hug, and want things that aren’t logical, her ideology and mind twisted into a pretzel to avoid acknowledging that she doesn’t live and breathe purely for the mission she’s made a single-minded robot out of herself to accomplish. Nayuta is assertive and selfish and loud, Makima is manipulative and strategically both for her goals and for coping hollow.

Everything in her plans and goals she says is for the greater good, necessary evil, manufactured happiness the way she’ll have decided for people— and that’s the thing isn’t it, like with War, it’s the crack that shows it was all truly about herself after all. Her self-made deification still had the flaw that a self made it. Makima is not omniscient, and it’s not Chainsaw Devil the not-so-fellow-kindred-soul conqueror who gets the best of her, but a city mouse, a dog, someone she would have never thought to respect, Denji.

#Fumi rambles #Chainsaw man #makima #analysis #meta #The goal is moreso me dropping thoughts than being flawless on every aspect of the lore so if and when i get things wrong b merciful….#Maybe her liking of control is why she remembers the ww2 authoritarian fascists. I don’t want to say the word jic for tumblr search #Pity is never a factor When mercy is a sign of a talentless actor #And as you grow its hold on your throat starts to falter And once you go beyond pure humanity's border #You will come back like a dooooog 😭#This’d be a different topic but. I don’t think makima likes denji as much as one of her dogs. If so i’d say it was in the moments where #she brought him to movies but even then….. i think she has more fondness for her dogs bc w denji it was indifference and derision #I love you please humiliate me / strip my dignity and laugh my honey #God. God i’m fine. I’m so okay about csm #Makima has a cryptic but strong sense of morals?? That doesn’t align with ours obvi but #‘Someone like you has no right to wish for a normal life do they?’ What do you meannn what do you meannnnn #What is this contempt for denji. Does she see herself as moral or part of those that are city mice bc they’re undeserving of a calm life???#Maybe famine only feels fed on humans and their blood 🤔 or their fear. man idk idk idk idk but i wanna see more of her quirks #And before someone says ‘but every demon likes to drink blood’ power is especially fixated on it tho cmannnn #Did Angel lie when he said he liked seeing humans die?? Did his haunting thing become worse after meeting Aki?? Did he suppress it #because he feels like he doesn’t belong as a devil??? bc he’s suppressing his memories of the villagers he cared about??#Has he just been trying so hard not to care for so long. Passive bc he thought that’s all he could or should be #AGHHHHH #Spoilers #There’s a lot more i’d have liked to touch on like the popular theory that Makima was *raised* by the government #and i’ve seen a take that the ‘my friend at a farm’ thing is all euphemism from makima about her troublesome human killing job ykyk #but i think the phrasing is too literal and natural for that. The snow and soil talk everything. It’s a perfect allegory but it can be both

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