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lingthusiasm · 10 months ago

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Transcript Episode 89: Connecting with oral culture

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘Connecting with oral culture'. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.

Gretchen: I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about oral storytelling. But first, we have a fun new thing that you can do which is that we’ve created a highly scientific – [clears throat] – personality quiz where you can answer some very fun and fanciful questions and find out which Lingthusiasm episode most closely corresponds with those responses.

Lauren: If you’re new to the podcast, and you’re trying to figure out what episode to start with, or if you’ve been with us for ages, and you wanna dive into the back catalogue, or if you’re trying to figure out which episode to recommend to a friend, our incredibly un-scientific, often-amusing questioned quiz is there for you to find the perfect episode.

Gretchen: You mean, you don’t think that which beverage someone likes corresponds to which Lingthusiasm episode they’re gonna like? I think this is very scientific.

Lauren: Absolutely unvalidated, absolutely untested, they are entirely for your amusement at bit.ly/lingthusiasmquiz.

Gretchen: Unscientific – but very fun.

Lauren: You can also find the link in the episode show notes.

Gretchen: In our most recent bonus episode, we take this quiz ourselves to find out which episode we are – although, of course, we love all of them as our children – and we also talk about the results of our 2023 listener survey.

Lauren: This one is rigorously scientifically constructed and tested. We have all the results, including whether Lingthusiasm is more kiki or bouba, and we discuss the results of important questions like, “Is the thumb a finger?” and “Is your sister’s husband’s sister still your sister-in-law?”

Gretchen: You can go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm to get access to this bonus episode and way more behind-the-scenes and other fun topic bonus episodes that help us keep the show running for all of you.

[Music]

Lauren: A conversation I enjoy having is to ask two people how they met because, sometimes, you’ll get this wonderfully honed and polished version of the story that they’ve both told that may not actually be entirely the original story but is “The Story” of how they met. And sometimes, you get two completely different takes on the event, and that has its own value as well.

Gretchen: When it comes to the story of how we started this podcast, my version of the story is Lauren and I had been friends on the internet for a long time. We were finally hanging out in person for the first time at a conference, and Lauren was like, “I’ve been thinking about starting a podcast,” and I was like, “I’VE been thinking about starting a podcast,” and the rest, as they say, is history.

Lauren: Whereas I swear by the story that Gretchen was like, “I would love to do a podcast,” and I was like, “I have skills that I could bring to your great idea for a podcast. We should do this together.”

Gretchen: We had this conversation face-to-face not over email or over DMs or somewhere where it might’ve been recorded, so we have no record to know whose version of this memory is factually what happened, but emotionally, both of us think that it was the other person’s idea first, which I think is really funny.

Lauren: I’ve even gone back to look at early written interactions that we’ve had to see who started the conversation from social media through to DMs and emails, and I’ll tell you what, direct messages on social media platforms are not an archivist’s friend.

Gretchen: It’s really hard to actually find out what’s going on. Even our first emails to each other which we can find are continuing the conversation from DMs. But this tendency to want to have our life histories documented is a very written-culture technology sort of thing. It’s what made me recommend to you to read this short story by Ted Chiang, who I knew that you’d heard of as the author of Story of Your Life, which is the short story that was adapted into the movie Arrival. He has this other short story called The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, which I thought you would enjoy. Do you wanna give us a little summary of it?

Lauren: Sure. I mean, we’ve already talked about the fact that writing is a technology. We have a whole episode on the idea of putting symbols onto clay or paper or tortoise shells is a very particular cultural invention, but what I like about this short story is it gets to the point that this technology brings with it all of these social changes and social dynamics that create literacy. It’s a short story, but you get two for the price of one. There’re two completely different narratives that are happening in this story. The one that’s specifically about writing is about Jijingi, who is a Tiv speaker from Tivland. A missionary named Moseby arrives in his village. Jijingi is the only person in the village who takes Moseby up on the offer to learn how to write. Moseby comes along with a whole colonial project – very much like British colonial vibes – where writing comes along as a technology that is used to govern people administratively, so along with writing comes record-keeping and trying to write down and codify histories and rules. That brings with it all these changes to the social fabric of Tivland.

Gretchen: I liked this story because it talks about the effect of the transition from oral culture to written culture on memory and cultural shift. One of the ways that Chiang illustrates this is by having the second strand of this braided story, which features an unnamed journalist as the narrator who is talking about this futuristic technology – which the story is set some unknown number of years in the future – when everyone has started using “Remem,” which are these optical cameras – you carry around this iris cam which is giving you access to video footage of a whole bunch of things that have happened in your life, all of these moments that would’ve gone undocumented, like the moment when Lauren and I decided to start a podcast.

Lauren: We could go back and get the definitive version, which for us would be an amusing resolution, but our unnamed protagonist goes back to look at all the arguments he had with his teenage daughter, which is never gonna end well.

Gretchen: It causes the unnamed narrator of that story to reassess his relationship with his daughter and the accuracy – or the emotional truth – of these memories that he’s been feeling in one particular way and how it feels to go back and look at them from the perspective of this disinterested camera which was also present at the scene.

Lauren: We are so familiar with writing as a technology and as a memory tool. It was nice to be put in the position of being slightly bamboozled by this future technology and how that would once again make us reassess our relationship with – as the title of the story says – the truth of fact and the truth of feeling.

Gretchen: We’ll link to the short story because it’s available online. I definitely endorse reading it. What did you think about it when you read it?

Lauren: I assume that the story of the Jijingi is – it seems to be drawing on the thing that we see happen when Western cultures brought literacy in with them because there’s all these dynamics around the written record changing the oral tradition where different tribes would talk about how they were related to each other, and then they were like, “No, because you’ve written it down here, and the written version is the definitive version, so we’re not gonna honour the current status of knowledge about which groups your group is aligned with.” I assume the specifics of that were fiction, but it seems to really capture the vibe of that.

Gretchen: Interestingly, this specific case is a real case that happened. Of course, the specific names of the people involved and what they were thinking, I think, are, indeed, fictionalised. But the Tiv people of Nigeria had a set of genealogies that were being used in settling court disputes, and they were recorded by the British in the colonial context. Then they diverged in the oral tradition from the written thing, and then the later oral people were saying, “No, you guys have written down the wrong thing. We have what’s true here.”

Lauren: Because that’s what’s true at this point in time for – like, “We’re friends with this community over here right now and not this other village, so we’re gonna update the story to reflect the current state of things.”

Gretchen: Right. And there isn’t perceived to be a rupture in that the way writing can create a rupture between your perceived-self versus the version of yourself that you’ve projected into the past. What I was told was that Chiang had read an academic manuscript about the effects of orality and literacy on cultures and on humans by an academic named Walter J. Ong and had been inspired to take a few sentences from that and expand that into a whole short story that elaborates on the emotional truths addressed in that relatively dry academic fashion.

Lauren: It’s very satisfying because I was like, “This feels like a story,” but it did feel grounded in an understanding of how literacy can change social dynamics.

Gretchen: I was inspired to read the academic book as well by this, but the short story conveys these truths in a more vivid storytelling way, which gets to the whole storytelling themes that come up from making things memorable by telling them as stories.

Lauren: I appreciate you sent me the short story and not the 200-page academic manuscript.

Gretchen: I read the 200-page academic manuscript! I think it’s very interesting. We’ll return to more things from the Ong book so that not everybody has to read it. But one of the things that reading this Ong book about orality and literacy made me reflect on was what he calls “residual orality,” little pockets of our lives and our experiences that may still be in an oral culture even when we’re living in predominantly written cultures, which you and I are both predominantly in a written culture. One example of this coming up in my life was I’m just young enough to remember when social media changed the way that gossip worked to be more written from being more oral.

Lauren: Ah, yes.

Gretchen: I remember in a pre-Facebook era of gossip where let’s say there was a party, and I wasn’t there. If some big drama happened at the party, you know, “I can’t believe so-and-so said this to so-and-so,” there’s a big fight or something, and I wanted to reconstruct what happened, I had to go talk to a bunch of people – I remember doing this – talk to a bunch of people, get their stories, which would all be a little bit different from each other, and decide what I believed from that based on my knowledge of these people and their personalities and what they were likely to tell as a story. I remember it being a really weird experience when Facebook started, and people would be posting things that were in view of just their friends. You could see similar types of dramas playing out – you know, “I can’t believe what this person said to that person” – but you could actually read the whole thing, and you could be present for the whole thing, and you could have that factive truth of witnessing the whole thing, even if you weren’t there at the time, because a few hours later it would still be there.

Lauren: And the pulling out your phone to tell someone some gossip that’s happened because you want to hold up the Instagram photo or you want to show them the Facebook thread where all the drama went down.

Gretchen: Right. Screencap culture of “I can’t believe this person said this thing. I’m gonna take a screencap and just show it to you” rather than “I’m going to report the story of what happened from my perspective” has made gossip more of a written culture than an oral culture where we have less acceptance for the fact that things may change a bit in the retelling, or you may retell the version as you experienced it from your own perspective and massage it to be more of a story with emotional beats at particular places. Now, you pull out a screencap, or you pull out the actual version, “Let me just read you what this person sent me.” Gossip has gotten more written in the last 20 years, which you can phrase that as a loss, and it’s also harder for people to deny obviously jerk-ish behaviour, so there are pluses to it, but it is something that’s changed.

Lauren: Another area that I think of as residual oral culture is when it comes to fairy tales. As a kid, it took me a long time – and I think a lot of people struggle with this tension – where the animated film version of a fairy tale is different to the picture book that you have which is different to a different picture book that someone else might have or the version that your grandmother told you not from a book just the version that she had. This is how fairy tales traditionally go. This idea that there’s a written, canonical version kind of came about when the Grimm Brothers decided to record fairy tales that they had encountered as part of their general documenting of German language and German history. I love that the Grimm Brothers are known most broadly for their fairy tale writing down. In linguistics, they’re known for doing all of this amazing historical research on the sounds of German and Proto-German. Fairy tales are their secondary claim to fame for linguists.

Gretchen: But giving the claim to fame of the people who did the documentation when what they were actually doing was documenting a thing that was in the collective memory of a group of people is a theme that keeps coming back when it comes to oral culture. Again, I am grateful to the Grimm Brothers for writing all of these stories down because otherwise I probably wouldn’t know them, as with many of the documenters. On the other hand, they ended up getting credit or claiming credit for all of these people whose names we don’t know who iterated on various versions of these fairy tales because they were part of a collective oral tradition.

Lauren: Also, writing something down doesn’t mean that it will stay a part of the transmission tradition. The Grimm Brothers over multiple volumes and multiple reversions of it ended up with around 200 fairy tales.

Gretchen: I don’t know 200 fairy tales.

Lauren: You mean you don’t know “The Three Snake-Leaves”?

Gretchen: I know “Cinderella.”

Lauren: Are you looking forward to the animated remake of “The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage”?

Gretchen: I know “The Princess and the Pea”?

Lauren: Some Grimm fairy tales have stood the test of time, and others have not remained in transmission for different groups of people. You might be from a different part of the world where you still know “The Magic Table, the Gold-Donkey, and the Club in the Sack,” but that’s not one that I’ve kept in my family repository of stories.

Gretchen: But writing lets things remain in an archive for someone to rediscover rather than the cultural pruning of the oral tradition where the bits that gets remembered are the bits that get continually repeated.

Lauren: There’s a lot of oral culture that we only have thanks to the written form. Homer and the Homeric epics – the Iliad and the Odyssey – only exist because someone at some point wrote down a version of those stories.

Gretchen: Somebody who may or may not have been a guy named Homer.

Lauren: But I have a statue of the bust of Homer! He was a person!

Gretchen: I mean, there certainly was some person and some people somewhere, but Homer is, in many ways, a cultural folkloric figure himself. By tradition, these poems are attributed to Homer, but they may not have even been written by the same dude. They certainly seem to have some temporal distinctions between the Iliad and the Odyssey. They were definitely part of the Ancient Greek oral tradition because they have a lot of structural features that are characteristic of the oral tradition, the sort of episodic structure, the formulaic things like “wily Odysseus” and “owl-eyed Athena” and the various epithets that get attached to the characters who are these clear archetypes. Homer himself – we don’t really know. This idea that he was this blind guy is because one of the bards in one of the Homeric poems is blind, and people have said, “Well, maybe this is a self-insert because he himself was blind.” We don’t know.

Lauren: Amazing.

Gretchen: The paintings and the busts and so on of Homer are all produced several hundred years later. They’re sort of fanfic adaptations of him.

Lauren: I actually feel more impressed when I discovered that Homer wasn’t a single person and, in fact, this whole debate about the status of him is known as the “Homeric question.” I feel more impressed knowing that there wasn’t just one person who told these stories but there were, and still are, people across this region who would remember thousands and thousands of lines of oral stories and be able to perform them – not word-for-word every time – but they would hit the same beats, they would be transmitting the same stories, they would all put their own spin on it, and that this continued on for centuries and millennia, and somehow I find that more powerful than the idea that there was this one dude in particular who was really good at this.

Gretchen: It wasn’t this lone genius. It was a culture that supported bardic storytelling.

Lauren: It wasn’t necessarily a culture that just disappeared with Ancient Greece. In fact, even well into the 20th Century, if you went to the region in Europe around there, there would be people in mountain villages who still sang epic songs of incredible length. Milman Parry was an American classicist who decided to see if there were any “modern Homers,” as it was put, and he recorded one song that was performed over five days and ended up being 13,000 lines, which is just an amazing skill to have and one that, as a literate person, I’ve not grown up to be trained to have the kind of memory to perform that kind of feat.

Gretchen: That’s really neat. I think a thing that interests me about the question of the Homeric recordings and Milman Parry’s recordings is that the Homeric Greeks, whoever Homer was or all of the Homers were, were using this new technology – to them – of writing to record these oral poems that were very important to them culturally. Then you have Milman Parry using also the latest and greatest recording technology which was, what, wax cylinders?

Lauren: Oh my gosh, I think it was these aluminium disks that they had to swap out every five minutes or something. I can’t even imagine the amount of equipment that they had to move around to make this happen.

Gretchen: Yet, it’s still such a feat to record a five-day poem. There’s also a big recording feat that happened in the 1960s to record the Mwindo epic from the Nyanga people in the Congo. The poet there, Candi Rureke, who was asked to narrate all of the stories of Mwindo, who’s the hero of these folk stories, and said, “Never had anybody performed all of the episodes in sequence.” He narrated, as a result of the negotiations between the researchers who wanted to do this, all of the Mwindo stories – sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse – over 12 days. There were three scribes – two Nyanga scribes and one Belgian scribe – who were writing down his words at the same time because it’s obviously faster than one person can write. This is not like writing a novel or a poem. It’s much more of a performance. After the end of those 12 days, he was exhausted, obviously.

Lauren: I’m not surprised.

Gretchen: It’s already framed in terms of the demands of writing, which says, “Okay, we’re gonna try to do this in a big, tight sequence and have this efficient thing.” Oral poems are created to be told to people for maybe an hour or two in the evenings, and then the next day, you tell another story for an hour or two, and together, they form an episodic mythology of “Here are all the stories of the gods” or “Here are all the stories of the heroes” or “Here are all the stories of these archetypal, legendary figures” – the princesses and the dragons and these types of things.

Lauren: As a member of the Nyanga community, you hear all the Mwindo stories across your lifetime. The idea that you would sit down and tell them in some kind of sequence is not the normal way these are performed.

Gretchen: Right, exactly. There’s a story about Mwindo, who’s the hero – the omnicompetent hero – his epithet is “Little-One-Just-Born-He-Walked.” He walked as soon as he was born. There are stories about how he climbed from the womb and, in one case, emerged from his mother’s bellybutton. This is the version from the recording with Rureke that I was able to find. But I also saw in a different encyclopaedia that Mwindo emerged from his mother’s middle finger. They’re both clearly doing a similar preternatural birth-style story – emerging from your bellybutton or from your middle finger – but the details can vary. In both cases, the important stuff is still there where he’s helping his mother with chores even while he’s still in the womb. He’s walking and talking from the moment he’s born. His father’s trying to only have daughters because there’s a prophecy that his son will be his downfall. He tries to kill Mwindo even as a baby and, of course, he doesn’t succeed because this is a hero.

Lauren: What a precocious child.

Gretchen: Exactly. But the birth story is one of the many stories that gets told and isn’t necessarily told in sequence where it’s like, “Well, first he was born, and then this thing happened and then this thing happened.” You could pick any one of them to tell on a given night.

Lauren: It’s interesting how we see stuff vary in oral narratives, but there’s also something really compelling about what is emerging as the same across different stories and, often, across large areas. I mentioned briefly that the Grimm Brothers kicked off this whole recording of folk stories and fairy stories across Europe and beyond. People have looked at the similarities there. But there’s this even bigger story that I find really compelling, which is the story of the Seven Sisters, which I know from Indigenous Australian narrative tradition.

Gretchen: I’ve heard of the Seven Sisters as referring to a Greek story about the constellation that I also know as the Pleiades. It’s got this very closely clustered set of stars in the night sky that's sort of shaped like a teeny-tiny Big Dipper, I think of it. In my recollection, when I’ve looked at the Pleiades myself, I’ve seen six stars, and yet, the Greek stories about the Seven Sisters, the Indigenous Australian stories about the Seven Sisters.

Lauren: Yeah, the story in Australia is about the same set of Pleiades of which there are six if you look in the sky now, but some astronomers did some research that looked at how one of those stars is actually two stars, one in front of the other, and if you rewound the sky 10,000 years, they would be two different stars. The story of the Seven Sisters is that one of them is shy. You don’t see her, and she hides herself. It seems like this story that gets told across cultures is to account for what has been a changing of the sky across millennia.

Gretchen: That’s fascinating. This lost seventh star, or seventh person represented by the star, has been found in European, African, Asian, Indonesian, Native American, Indigenous Australian cultures that have – I mean, they’re a very cluster-y cluster. I have to say, if you’re looking at the night sky and looking for like, “I think these ones all go together,” they’re very close according to our visual perception on Earth. I can see why you’d come up with a story about them.

Lauren: Being in the night sky is a really good hook for remembering the story and continuing to pass it on as you all look up into the sky.

Gretchen: Yeah. But the fact that this seventh star has been transmitted for maybe 10,000 years is phenomenal.

Lauren: And a really great example of how oral culture can be a really great way of preserving knowledge or recording history not in the way that we think about it with writing. Not to say that that’s the only value that it has because it absolutely doesn’t, but it is one really interesting thing about the way we preserve and transmit these stories.

Gretchen: We don’t have written records that are 10,000 years old. Writing is not that old. Scientists have sometimes wondered, “How could we try to transmit a message to people 10,000 years in the future?” If we look towards the past of what kinds of things did get transmitted, maybe we need to take inspiration from oral cultures. One group of scientists and folklorists who’ve been trying to figure out the way to transmit messages for a long period of time are people who are trying to come up with long-term nuclear waste warning messages.

Lauren: Hmm, because that nuclear waste is still gonna be nasty well beyond any period we know we have successful transmitted messages in human history to date.

Gretchen: There’s this fascinatingly named field of research called “nuclear semiotics.”

Lauren: Oh, that sounds amazing. What is that?

Gretchen: Which is the study of how to create nuclear warning messages that will still be intelligible 10,000 years in the future.

Lauren: Oh, because we have that yellow triangle with the black spikey symbol, but I’ve absolutely heard of people who were like, “My 5-year-old looked at that symbol and thought it was a flower.”

Gretchen: Right. Or if you use a skull, well, sometimes skulls are, you know, maybe it’s pirates.

Lauren: Yellow might be meaning that it’s something really cool in here rather than a bit of a warning.

Gretchen: There’s a lot of proposals. Some of them are more practical and some of them are a little bit more wacky. Certainly, writing it out in a whole bunch of different languages so that even if some of them aren’t in common use in thousands of years, maybe at least some of them will still be sort of around.

Lauren: Or maybe we’ll have reverted entirely to being oral cultures again. Literacy has arrived. It may not stay.

Gretchen: But if literacy doesn’t stick around, then one of my favourite proposals is the breeding of so-called “radiation cats” or “ray cats” – because we have had cats for more than 10,000 years. We know that.

Lauren: That is true.

Gretchen: If you bred a special type of cat where they would change colour when they came near radioactive emissions, and then you’d have to transmit the message that if the cat changes colour, it’s bad.

Lauren: Oh, you make a folk story out of colour-changing kitties which will be out there in the world and, hopefully, that story gets passed on along with the other folktales.

Gretchen: You have to make a fairy tale and myths and poetry and music and painting about the dangers of colour-changing cats. You have to get all of the cats or many of the cats to be colour-changing, but people like cats. There was an episode of the podcast 99% Invisible where they commissioned a musician to write a song about ray cats for a 2014 episode about this which was called “10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Resettlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories (Don't Change Color, Kitty),” which was supposed to be so catchy and annoying that it might actually get handed down and stay working. But I have to say, I have never heard people sing this song in a cultural-folkloric sense, so I don’t know if they succeeded in having it be transmitted even 10 years.

Lauren: But you know, I listened to that episode many years ago, and as soon as you said “colour-changing kitties,” I knew exactly what was happening even though I did not know nuclear semiotics. So, there you go. There might be hope.

Gretchen: Maybe if it’s a wacky enough idea, people will keep talking about it because it sounds so cool.

Lauren: It’s really good applied folklore studies there.

Gretchen: In addition to transmitting information about how many stars are in this particular constellation, this speaks to the role of folklore and oral cultures in shaping behaviour. Maybe that’s telling people to not go near the colour-changing cats, but also, there’s a whole bunch of Aesop’s Fables around things like jealousy or things like ingenuity, various clever things that foxes do or things like that. Those are ways of telling people about appropriate or inappropriate behaviour.

Lauren: I bet you’re gonna tell me Aesop isn’t real either.

Gretchen: Well, look, it seems like the fables originally were part of oral tradition and were written down about three centuries after Aesop’s death.

Lauren: Ok, so the fact of feeling rather than the fact of truth. I get it.

Gretchen: I think at that point there were various things that, once you had Aesop’s Fables as a template for a certain type of morality story, you can ascribe various other kinds of stories and jokes and proverbs to him, even though some of that is from earlier than his period or is not just strictly from the Greek cultural area.

Lauren: Aesop’s Fables, where usually animals perform different actions, and they have moral consequences, it’s actually a really good teaching tool, teaching children about cultural expectations around behaviour and what counts as good behaviour and what counts as rude behaviour. That’s really hard. Having stories to do that with rather than waiting for them to make every possible social mistake is a really great cultural tool.

Gretchen: A lot of parents these days will buy their kid a picture book about, like, “Here’s the potty, and why you might want to use it” or “Saying ‘thank you’ – it’s important. Here’s all the ways we can say ‘thank you’” to also try to mould their kids’ behaviour into some of the things that’re culturally important to us.

Lauren: It’s why it’s really fun to see different morality stories across different cultures as really interesting ways to see what a particular culture values.

Gretchen: There’s an interesting story about Inuit storytelling as used to discipline or to train children into things that are important. Obviously, it’s important for kids to stay away and be careful around the ocean where they could easily drown. Instead of yelling at them, you know, “Don’t go near the water!”, you can tell them a story about a sea monster who is in the water who could eat little children, which is a little bit more vivid in terms of the potential –

Lauren: It certainly gets the point across.

Gretchen: It’s a bit more vivid than just saying, “Don’t go near the water. It’s not safe,” to tell you here’s this fanciful story that the kid may or may not completely believe in a literal sense but conveys this message of “This is dangerous. Don’t do that.”

Lauren: You know, we don’t just have to tell children stories to teach them lessons. Society has a long tradition of telling children stories at bedtime.

Gretchen: There’s a really fun version of this. Another epic poem that was written down so early that we don’t know the original poet’s name is Beowulf in the Old English Tradition. In this case, we don’t even have a “Homer” name. Even though we don’t know anything about Homer, Homer’s name is ascribed to this poem by tradition. In the case of Beowulf, we just call this person the “Beowulf Poet” because we don’t even know who wrote it down or which exact people it passed through, but it has many of these similar characteristics in terms of having these formulaic elements and these rhythmic elements that make it easy to remember as a poem and eventually get written down.

Lauren: It was written so early in the history of English that we’ve even talked in a previous episode about how there is a modern translation of it into an English that is more accessible to us today.

Gretchen: There’re many translations of it into various different kinds and registers of Modern English. At the time, I was very excited about the Maria Dahvana Headley translation, which begins with “Bro” to translate the “Hwaet” word at the beginning which gets your attention. Other people have also translated this word with things like “So” and “Look” or “Listen.” There’s another new translation of this poem which reimagines it as a children’s story where all the characters are children, and the monster that comes and eats the warriors and drags them back to his lair and so on is, instead, a sort of grumpy old neighbour who goes into the children’s treehouse and makes them grow up instantly into boring adults.

Lauren: Oh, how terrifying!

Gretchen: The connection here is that this adaptation was written by Zach Weinersmith, who’s a webcomics guy, mostly, who started telling it as a story to his kids as a bedtime story and found that oral culture stories, even though we think of them as high-culture and complicated and things, actually tell really well to children because children are still operating under an oral culture in many cases because they haven’t learned how to read yet.

Lauren: Oh my gosh, you’re so right. I feel like my early primary-schooling days were such a rich world of all those rhymes and stories and games that you learn as a little kid. So good!

Gretchen: Right, like the skipping games and the clapping games which get transmitted by other children, and sometimes you meet someone from somewhere else, and they’ve got a slightly different version of “Ring Around the Rosie.”

Lauren: Mine was “Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies, a tissue, a tissue, we all fall down.”

Gretchen: Mine was “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.”

Lauren: Ah, there you go. I mean, yours is obviously incorrect, but good for you. [Laughter]

Gretchen: We were transmitted different versions of those rhymes, but they have this characteristic game of holding hands and running around in a circle and falling down that they go with even if parts of it, especially the little bit more nonsensical parts, got transmitted into something else that felt a bit more sensical.

Lauren: How does the Beowulf retelling read? It must be fun to read out loud.

Gretchen: It’s really fun to read out loud. Here’s the first couple lines, which go “Hey, wait! Listen to the lives of the long-ago kids, the world-fighters/ The parent-unminding kids, the improper, the politeness-proof/ The unbowed bully-crushers, the bedtime-breakers, the raspberry-blowers/ Fighters of fun-killers, fearing nothing, fated for fame.”

Lauren: Oh, so good.

Gretchen: I love that it’s doing the alliterative Anglo-Saxon metre, and it’s doing all these very Old English compounds of “world-fighters” and “bedtime breakers” and “fun killers.”

Lauren: That’s still accessible.

Gretchen: That’s still accessible and playing with the language but in a way that’s still available to kids. I recommended it to some of my friends with kids, and they said their 5-year-old loved it.

Lauren: Perfect. A lot of highly literate people are untrained in oral storytelling that, personally, having something I can read to replicate that experience is really reassuring for me as a limited-capacity literate person here.

Gretchen: I also think it’s neat because children’s stories are trying to do two different things. One of those is create pre-literate and early-literate and proto-literate children by giving them these books with relatively simple language and words that are relatively phonetically spelled, especially for English, which is not very phonetically spelled all the time, and trying to give them something that they might be able to read by themselves relatively early on. And then simultaneously, these kids are quite sophisticated language users in the oral domain, and so giving them texts that are very dense and rich and have a lot going on and aren’t simple texts that they could read by themselves but let them engage with that level of oral language that they already have is this other thing that children’s storytelling can also do. A lot of these stories were either told, you know, fairy tales are traditionally told to children but also are traditionally told to mixed audiences including both adults and children. It’s interesting to see that more explicitly brought back.

Lauren: It’s interesting when you look across things like Beowulf and the stories of Mwindo and the stories that we have from the Homeric epics. You see, as there is in this Ong book, all of these features of particularly oral storytelling. It doesn’t have to be beginning to end. It doesn’t have to always be exactly the same every time. It’s these features that make you realise what a weird genre the idea of narrative fiction in book form is and, again, how literacy has created this weird layer over the top of human storytelling.

Gretchen: It took hundreds of years of literacy for someone to invent the novel. Poetry is much older than the novel, and diary or memoir or “Here’s my life story” is much older than the novel, but the idea that an author can see into characters’ brains and tell you what they’re thinking and tell you what a bunch of people are thinking but in this very psychoanalytic way and in a way that is linked together – one of the points that I thought was interesting that Ong makes in the book is that many of the early novelists were women perhaps even because they were educated enough to be literate but not educated in the what he calls “residually oral classical tradition” that the men were being educated in at the time. They were more willing to look at writing as its own medium and to see what writing could be capable of that wasn’t trying to learn Latin and study Greek rhetoric or, in the case of Murasaki writing the first novel in Japanese, learning as much of the classical tradition that was still bound up in this rhetorical history of trying to learn these very formal and stylised and performative types of stories.

Lauren: We talked about Murasaki’s Tale of Genji in our translation episode as well. That was written, and then no one paid attention to it for literally hundreds of years. It’s like a millennium old.

Gretchen: It was very popular at the time.

Lauren: Yeah, just kind of written for her friends we think. It’s all very opaque what the context of that being created was. Fiction, for a long time, was not taken seriously as a written art form. It was all about the oral storytelling in cultures that are now very book story focused.

Gretchen: You have Jane Austen sort of inventing what we can think of as the modern novel, at least in English-speaking cultures, and yeah, some of these early novel writers not being educated as much in this classical rhetorical tradition.

Lauren: Fascinating. I’ve never really thought about it before, but it’s an interesting observation.

Gretchen: One thing that I will say that I disagree with – so Ong is writing this book which is very interesting in 1982, and our thoughts on some things have changed since 1982.

Lauren: Right, okay.

Gretchen: One of the points that oral culture people who are newly encountering writing make and, like, Plato has Socrates make this point when he’s writing down Socrates' speeches because this was also an early transition from oral to written culture is that when you have a person telling you something, that person can be asked questions and can be interrogated, can answer and be held to account for the story that they’re telling you. You could ask them how they know things. When you have a written book, you are just forced to take the writer’s thoughts and opinions on their say-so at this one snapshot of the time that they’ve written them down, and you don’t have the living person there to ask questions of. We think, as very literate culture people, that the book is the better version, but not actually having access to the person is both a plus because it can live on beyond them and also a downside because their thoughts might’ve changed, and you don’t have a way of knowing that when all you have is a record from one period of time. Which is to say that the Ong book is not great about sign languages, by which I mean, it just really doesn’t include or look at them.

Lauren: Oh, dear.

Gretchen: Yeah. Charitably, I’m gonna say that the research has come a long way since 1982, when it was published. Ong’s dead now, so we don’t know what he thought in more recent times. But what the sign language research does show is that even though “orality” and “oral culture” is this term that’s based on the mouth and the voice, the cultural phenomena that we now attach to that word are very much features of signed language cultures and d/Deaf cultures as well.

Lauren: We have that great interview with Gab Hodge where she told us all about the amazing resources that d/Deaf people have for storytelling in signed languages, particularly Auslan and BSL that she works in.

Gretchen: I also came across a very interesting discussion from a Listserv from 1993.

Lauren: Oh my gosh! How did you manage that? We couldn’t even go back to DMs from five years ago.

Gretchen: This got archived as a PDF from the ORTRAD Listserv – the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition.

Lauren: Amazing.

Gretchen: There’s an electric conversation on d/Deafness and orality that got preserved in this very, very written culture way. Because I was able to go back and read what people were writing in 1993. It’s slightly edited to add little footnotes about like, “This is an emoticon. Here’s what an emoticon is,” because maybe in 1993 you don’t know that.

Lauren: So cool. Okay. What is in this Listserv conversation?

Gretchen: There’s a lot of really good commentary from Lois Bragg, who was a d/Deaf professor at Gallaudet University who was talking about the d/Deaf community doing oral culture. She was very clear that this is something that she thinks applies to the d/Deaf community and that there is a lot of narrative that is epic and legendary and somewhat historical or autobiographical, and it tends to be quite stylised. This is what she thought of as characteristic of d/Deaf culture. There’s a lot of storytelling and plays and poems and wordplay and things like that. There was some discussion with both Lois Bragg and Stephanie Hall – and this is in 1993 – that d/Deafness is in this unique situation regarding literacy because there isn’t one widely used way of writing sign language that lots of d/Deaf people use, although there’s a variety of systems that researchers and various people use experimentally. This is still an oral culture that has maybe a relationship to English as a literate culture that’s like the Anglo-Saxons who were going home and speaking Old English to each other and learning to read and write in Latin, which was a completely different language, just to access the technology of writing. Even though d/Deaf people can learn to read in English or another oral language that has a written tradition, there isn’t an endogenous way of writing signed languages that’s widely accepted.

Lauren: One bit of oral tradition that I love that’s at the opposite end of the scale from remembering a full epic – maybe this is just because of my terrible literate-person memory – but I love the oral tradition of memorable units of small sayings that everyone remembers and get embedded into your reflexive response to things. So, things like, “A stitch in time saves nine.” You have to learn what that means, but you get told it a whole bunch, and then you learn what it means, and then you say it to people when they wanna put off doing something that needs doing.

Gretchen: Or something like, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” and how you can learn, “Oh, okay, so if the sunset is really red, the weather’s more likely to be nice the next day.”

Lauren: Ah, I have it as, “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.”

Gretchen: Well, you see, I grew up on the coast.

Lauren: That’s your maritime culture coming through and my pastoralist culture coming through there.

Gretchen: Or “Measure twice, cut once,” “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Lauren: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” I was about to say they rhyme, often, or are alliterative. That one doesn’t, but it still sticks in my mind.

Gretchen: They’ve got a metrical quality to them like the longer poems, and we’ve retained the shorter proverb-y bits of memorable units. I was thinking about when I was reading the Ong book, and he talks a lot about “residual orality” even in cultures that are primarily literate. I have an example in my own life about a thing that I did that was part of oral culture. I worked as a tour guide as a summer job. We had a half-hour guided tour of the museum that the various tour guides would give the same way. Once I had been working there for a few months, I had certain jokes and anecdotes and beats that I knew, things that would work as laugh lines, and things that were more serious, and ways to get from the serious bits to the funnier bits, and not just have sudden transitions there. I had the memory of which bits that I said at which parts of the tour keyed to different locations along the route within the museum, which is a very long-standing memory technique. I learned to do that tour in an oral culture way by watching some other people’s guided tours, and then they said, “Okay, you can probably do one now.”

Lauren: Amazing.

Gretchen: One time I saw a script of the guided tour written out, and it just felt weird. It felt flat, and it didn’t have the jokes in it the same way. It didn’t have the delivery. Some of our tour guides would try to learn it from the written script, and it just didn’t feel like it was the tour the way it existed in this more fully-featured and three-dimensional and located-in-time-and-space version as it was in my mind.

Lauren: You might not always give the tour exactly the same way twice, but you were probably paying attention to like, “Oh, this is an audience that really likes the emotional bits. I’m gonna tone down the jokes,” or “I’m gonna move through this bit quickly.” You can react to the moment.

Gretchen: Right. Or “These people are giving me lots of laughs, so I’m gonna be even jokey-er.” I would have versions that I would do with seniors or with kids that would be a little bit different, but yeah, it felt like it was this very oral object that I hadn’t realised that I had that part of oral culture in my memory. The other thing that I thought about when I was reading this Walter J. Ong book – which made me wish that I read it before I wrote Because Internet, but you know, a book is a snapshot of a moment in time.

Lauren: Oh, it’s not an oral saga that you can update depending on the season.

Gretchen: I can’t just update it. I’m doing the updating in our oral saga of the podcast. Which is thinking about the relationship of internet memes to oral culture. Because in oral culture, the only things that get transmitted are things that have been put into a form that is memorable. Proverbs like, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,” you can substitute “sailor” for “shepherd” because they have the same number of syllables, and it still works, but if you try to say, “Red sky at night, sailor’s enjoyment,” that one doesn’t get remembered the same way.

Lauren: At some point, someone sat down and explained to me, you know, “The reason we say this is because where the sun is reflecting off the sky at the sunset or the sunrise reflects what’s happening with the clouds, and that gives you some indication of what might happen with precipitation later on that day.” Like, sure, that’s an explanation, but it’s not as catchy.

Gretchen: And weather tends to move from west to east because of the rotation of the Earth, and all various things like that. But it’s the mnemonic “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight” that sticks with you in your brain, and you have to preserve that mnemonic in a form that is memorable and that is pass-around-able. If you say something like, “Red sky at night, saves nine,” “You can lead a horse to water, but it’s worth two in the bush,” these are silly, playful things that we can do because we have that memory of them. But memes are not oral culture in that sticky pneumatic way. The thing that enables memes is being able to Google them. And the thing that enables the tremendous proliferation of memes – and there are so many of them. The early stages of memes were more oral. Like, “I Can Has Cheeseburger” was just the same image that kept getting repeated in a whole bunch of contexts. Whereas now, you have a template of a meme that’s like “The Distracted Boyfriend” meme where you have the guy, and he’s looking at the one girl, and the other girl’s looking at him, and you can put a whole bunch of different labels on that. Because you can search for the template, and you can search for the name, and you can see a whole bunch of people making their riffs, and then you make your own riff, and it prizes originality and riffing off of it – like, when I see a new meme that’s been going around, sometimes I look it up, or I read the meme explainer of like, “Here’s what it is,” from Vox or somebody.

Lauren: You have to work backwards. That’s been five minutes not five hundred years.

Gretchen: Right. And the fact that there are all these templates and variants that we make of the memes, rather than repeating the same really sticky one, that’s actually a very written culture phenomenon that there’s lots of different versions and edits and metacommentaries. Whereas having something that’s more sticky that just gets repeated is a more oral culture thing. Sometimes, people try to say that memes are oral culture because they’re pointing at something, but what they’re actually pointing at is that memes are an extreme of written culture rather than an extreme of oral culture. They are a cultural shift, but they’re a cultural shift in the opposite direction that people typically say, which I wish I’d been able to put that in Because Internet, but here’s the updated version.

Lauren: This episode has really, once again, hammered home how unusual in the course of human history written literacy is and how amazing and creative and powerful – and how much of a skill – oral literacy is.

Gretchen: It’s hard for you and I to even talk about oral literacy or oral literature without using metaphors brought in from literate culture. Even when we try to project our memory of what it could’ve been like to not be literate, we end up bringing in a bunch of our literate assumptions. People doing the detailed ethnography and record-keeping of oral cultures help us disturb some of those and understand more deeply a very old and also still present way to be human.

[Music]

Lauren: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on all of the podcast platforms or lingthusiasm.com. You can get transcripts of every episode on lingthusiasm.com/transcripts. You can follow @lingthusiasm on social media sites. You can get scarves with lots of linguistics patterns on them including IPA, branching tree diagrams, bouba and kiki, and our favourite esoteric Unicode symbols, plus other Lingthusiasm merch – like our new “Etymology isn’t Destiny” t-shirts and aesthetic IPA posters – at lingthusiasm.com/merch. My social media and blog is Superlinguo.

Gretchen: Links to my social media can be found at gretchenmcculloch.com, my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com, and my book about internet language is called Because Internet. Lingthusiasm is able to keep existing thanks to the support of our patrons. If you wanna get an extra Lingthusiasm episode to listen to every month, our entire archive of bonus episodes to listen to right now, or if you just wanna help keep the show running ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons can also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk to other linguistics fans and be the first to find out about new merch and other announcements. Recent bonus topics include an episode about swearing in fiction, some of our favourite deleted scenes from interviews that we’ve done over the past year or two, and the hosts of Lingthusiasm do the super scientific “Which Lingthusiasm Episode are You” quiz, as well as reporting on the results of the Lingthusiasm survey and talking about what’s coming up for the next year. Can’t afford to pledge? That’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone in your life who’s curious about language.

Lauren: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our Senior Producer is Claire Gawne, our Editorial Producer is Sarah Dopierala, our Production Assistant is Martha Tsutsui-Billins, and our Editorial Assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

#linguistics #language #lingthusiasm #podcast #transcripts #orality #literacy #oral culture #myths #epics #fairy tales #Ted Chiang #Homer #Mwindo #nuclear semiotics #ray cats

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sunsetsnz · 1 year ago

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hi! you can call me jas (or sunset). i’m 24, my pronouns are she/they and i'm bi, demisexual, autistic & adhd. i'm a digital artist from the UK and i write stuff sometimes too ⭐️💫

my personal preference is inducing and allergies > colds, so my content and blog will likely reflect that! this blog will be explicitly nsfw at any time, but i’ll always do my best to tag accordingly. i also swear kind of a lot, so if that offends you then perhaps turn back.

i won’t rule it out, but i don’t typically write fanfiction; my art and writing focus tends to be on my ocs, with a healthy dose of soft and smutty 💞

REMINDER—DNI: minors (under 18s), terfs, racists, homophobes, ableists, zionists, antisemites, etc. if you follow me without some indication of you being over 18 on your blog, you’re getting blocked plain and simple.

personal boundaries:

• DON’T reblog to non-sneeze blogs. i don’t want random vanillas finding my blog.

• i will draw, write & post about: snz, explicit nsfw, light-medium mess, caretaking, maybe occasional whump

• i will not draw, write or post about: ‘extreme’ mess, emeto, scat, or omo stuff

• i absolutely welcome you to tell me (in tags, replies, asks, even dms) if you liked something i drew or wrote. i would be delighted to know!

• it may take me a while to get to a message or an ask, especially if the ask is a prompt or request. please be patient & don't be offended if i don't answer immediately

• i’m open to discussing ocs & aspects of the kink with friends/mutuals, but please don’t approach me personally with explicit messages directed at myself or any expectation of exchanging such messages. i will feel awkward af and uncomfortable, just don’t be creepy please.

• i don’t currently take commissions

• i don’t engage in roleplay at this current time

• finally, please don’t make demands of me. prompts or polite requests/suggestions are welcome, especially if i’ve asked for some, but i still have the right to not do them. i’m here for fun, and my creations (bar any potential commissions) will always be free to you guys, so please keep that in mind. thanks!

⭐️🌙⭐️🌙⭐️

#don’t rb #yay i finally made a pinned post intro thing #personal #not snz #ig it technically is snz but whatever

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cantevenbeachhere · 6 months ago

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Rules/Guidelines

Quick RP Overview

//Malibu Mun here! Okay so this list is for how this blog is gonna work, so if you’ve got a question about asks, submissions, and pretty much general Q&A, here’s a good place to start. I’m hoping this won’t be too much, but this stuff needs to be said.

1. Here’s how to decode the text:

(Ken’s thoughts)

Spoken under Ken’s breath

*action*

//Mun is talking

2. Please no godmodding. For newbies who don’t know what that means: don’t like send an ask saying/acting like Ken did something I did not agree to or don’t take over him and his replies/actions in threads. Please respect my control over the character.

3. You’re welcome to tag me in stuff, and I also check #cantevenbeachhere too obviously.

4. This blog will overall be suitable for work and being in the same room with your parents. I’m okay with some swearing. Ken won’t swear LOL (unless there’s a thread where he’s human in the Real World or something). But if the asks are really explicit, I’ll be deleting them. I’m not about that, especially on this blog. Ken’s just here to explore harmless tumblr shenanigans and look at pictures of horses. And maybe figure some things about himself along the way. I’m not looking to block anybody, but I’m not afraid to do it. Don’t worry though, I’m pretty chill. You’re going to have to try pretty hard to get blocked here.

5. Please be patient on having asks answered. Your ask will get answered, but depending on how many I’ve got, it may take a little while for yours to pop up that it was answered, and I’ll definitely be queuing stuff too. Like the rest of you, I’ve got responsibilities outside of Tumblr, but you won’t be left out of the fun.

6. Apparently this is a thing so: Magic Anons! The magic of Barbie Land protects him from most things, but you’re welcome to try if you want. If you do decide to try something, you are permitted no more than 10 asks as the limit. Anything above that probably won’t come to fruition. Magic asks are currently welcome, but please do not abuse this one stipulation.

7. You’re more than welcome to comment on my asks, reblog them, whatever. I don’t have a problem with you doing that. You can DM me if you have a question or need clarification or something too, and I’ll try to reply as quickly as I can. Doesn’t always work out that I give fast replies, but I’m just letting you know.

8. Selectivity: I am pretty well open to anyone hopping into the inbox with a starter or a question or anything as long as it’s appropriate. I’ve been around the tumblr block for a while, and at this point, I’m game to try anything. If the interactions are working, then great! If it doesn’t seem to be working, then it’s best to try a different approach or part ways on friendly terms.

Alright sooooo that should be about it. Hopefully, this list isn’t too bad. I really would appreciate it if you respect the list please; this is how I’m going to be running things so it’s good to know this stuff before interacting.

If you’ve got any questions, you’re more than welcome to ask me.

Thanks and have fun!

~ Malibu Mun 💜

#nobel prize for horses #i’m just ken #can you feel the kenergy #malibu mun #rules #guidelines #ken #this ken has a blog #barbie and ken #ryan gosling

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chocolatytea · 1 year ago

Note

For that question shit. You are gonna answer all of them, no skipping, piglet~

-🎀✨️

Whoever this is imma find you and kill you istg 😭 and imma do this shit quick.

1. What’s my favorite tickle tool?

uhh fuck uhm…fingers-?

2. Favorite lers *fucking internal screaming*

Ice -He seems like a lee most of the time BUT FUCK WHEN HES IN HIS LER MOODS!!? ILL DIE

@ashwasfound - THIS DEMONIC DRAGON I SWEAR TO HEAVEN AND GOD.

@flufflover7 - WHERE TF DO I EVEN EXPLAIN?!!

@sakounari343 - …*cries*

@xxxmonterodapunk - MONTYYYY SOBS TEARS WAILS U ALWAYS POP INTO MY DMS AT THE WORSE TIMES TOO CRIES

@amandatheartlover ANGIE UR RUTHLESS

3. Favorite lees (My cute little lees~)

Ice

@ashwasfound

@sakounari343

4. Opinion on blindfold or restraints-

Uuuuh I mean ngl I would like blindfolds but restraints- IF IS LIKE ME TIED DOWN TO THE POINT I CANT EVEN MOVE OR OR UHHH TO THE POINT IT FEELS LIKE MY OWN HEART FEELS LIKE IT CANT BEAT OR MOVE OR SHIT- then no :3 I would mostly rather to be pinned down

5. A spot that gets me squealing.

HONESTLY WHO EVEN ARE U AT THIS POINT

*sniffles* my poor sides and thighs..a fucking squeeze in my thigh or sides will drive my ass insane i swear to heaven and god.

6. How long do you estimate you could last before calling mercy?

2 milliseconds. Period. 😭

7. Ever have tickle fantasies?

yes of course all the damn time

8. Why did you make your tickle blog?

Uuuuhh because why not. 😌

9. Does someone irl know my interest?

No and I hope they never will because if they do I’ll do a double somersault off a cliff

10. Can I say the T-word

I mean I can in text but I’m real life-? HA expect me to be giggling

11. Verbal teases, yes or no and why?

FUCK

that shit always makes me go into a giggling mess. Seriously especially when like sending me a voice message saying how adorable I am 😭 LIKE *COUGH* *COUGH* @ashwasfound MF SENT ME LIKE… 3 OR 4 RECORDINGS AND ONCE I GOTTEN INTO LIKE 2 SECONDS IN I FUCKIN DIED I WAS A GIGGLING MESS AND SNORTING JEEZ ASHY 😭

12. Upper or lower body tickles?

MAN- Ok ok LISTEN. Well- PAY ATTENTION SINCE U CANT LISTEN TO A TEXT BECAUSE IT AINT SPEAKIN. I have like— 2 spots in my upper body and like 3 spots on my lower. So I prefer both c:

13. Neck or ear tickles

Neck because why not a drag down my poor poor neck will make me die

14. Pinned down on my back because it’s more comfortable for me

15. What do you love about the lees you know?

Dear Ice, Ash, and Saklee..

@ashwasfound - I fucking love your reactions once about to be wrecked by me makes me die of laughter yet your squeals are so fucking adorable too Ashy~

@sakounari343 HELLO THERE STRAWBERRY SAKLEE~ what I LOVVVVVEEEEE about you is how you are a cute little lee and loves some tickles by me~ like literally that’s so cute

Ice- HAIHAI I’m pretty much sure your ass won’t see this but ahem. You’re so damn cute Ice istg all the times I’ve been tickling your ass u just make cute reactions and it makes me wanna tickle you so badly Irl 😭💞✨

16. What do you love about the lers you know?

MAN ISTG IF THEY SEE THIS SHIT IMMA CRY

1. @ashwasfound - THIS DEMONIC DRAGON ISTG- fucking love this asshole and how he tease the shit outta me- I mean his teases really be do getting my ass a lot especially thoses voice recordings.. THOSE SHIT MAKES ME ASCEND.

2. @flufflover7 - DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN?!? NO THIS MF KILLS ME INSTANTLY CRIES. But anyways the way how she teases me right before she’ll wreck my ass- makes me die inside

3. @sakounari343 - SAKO ILL STILL NEVER FORGIVE U ON WHAT U DID ON VC AND HOW U EXPOSED MY ASS *CRIES* BUT ANYWAYS- he’s SCARY. He’ll say the worse teases without him knowing it’s apart of my tickle list- but he’s pretty amazing ler c:

4. @amandatheartlover - Angie. ..ILL NEVER FORGET THAT DAY WHEN U WRECKED MY ASS. But anyways c: I just love how you sometimes give me gentle tickles c: yet wrecking my poor spots..anyways Angie if u see this I LOVE U

5. @xxxmonterodapunk - MONTY CRIES. YOU’LL ALWAYS POP UP WHEN IM IN A CERTAIN MOOD AND ATTACK ME AT THE WORSE SPOTS UNIMAGINABLE. But anyways- I love how this dude tickles me and shit 😭

6. ICE. ICE SPICE HOW OK. SEE. whenever ur not in a lee mood you'll be fucking RUTHLESS ISTG. saying the most unimaginable teases I've ever heard which makes me happy-? But anyways ur a good ler :3

17. Feathers or paintbrushes?

I'll prefer paintbrushes since that shit gets me giggling-

18. How long have you known about your interests in the community?

Uhhhh gosh- like years- maybe when I was like 7 or 8

19. What's your favorite way to be tickled? (As unprovoked, teased into asking, etc.)

Uhh..maybe like just making me ask you to tickle me- shit gets me all flustered

20. Are you/Do you like Polite Lees or Bratty Lees?

Bratty ass lee. Sobs

ANYWAYS IM FUCKIN DONE.

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lucidreamer-uwu · 2 years ago

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~ = Can we Kiss? = ~

Asking them if you could kiss for the first time ~

Lucifer

He'd be confused why you were asking him instead of just doing it. So he starts to wonder if he gave the impression of being unapproachable.

Slides his hand towards the nape of your neck, tilts your head upwards to align your gazes, and pulls you in gently to plant an intimate kiss right at your lips that leaves you breathless even though it only took about five seconds until he pulls away and lets you hide your flustered face in his chest.

He then proceeds to assure you that you could give him a kiss whenever you wanted.

Mammon

Takes him a second or two to process what you just said and actually freezes for a bit.

Stutters and says he'd allow it. It isn't everyday that he lets anyone give him kisses though so you should be grateful!

He'd be too overwhelmed and bashful if you kissed him just like that though. So he uses his hand to cover your eyes and kisses you the way he always wanted to.

Even though your eyes are shut, you could feel how much he loved you through the kiss.

Leviathan

You're asking if you two can kiss? Of course you can kiss! But how can you ask that so boldly??!

And wait, directly kissing too?! He could die a happy demon! But he wasn't at that level yet. He was just a noob and that would take boss level status to do!

So he covers your mouth with a nervous motion and leans in to kiss the back of his hand, just on the opposite side where your lips were.

May or may not smack his forehead on yours.

Satan

Smirks slightly despite the faded blush that tainted his cheeks.

Without another word, he'd place his hand on your jaw at the side of your face and lean in so close that a single movement would close the gap between you two.

He'd whisper a small "always, love" before he takes in your lips.

You’d probably choke on your first time because of how perfect he seemed to be.

Asmodeus

He's only been waiting forever to hear those words from you! And since the moment finally came, he wants it to be memorable.

He whisks you away to his room to get you alone. Then he'd cup your face with both hands, delicately handling your features, admiring every inch of you til you felt embarrassed.

It is only then that he lands his intoxicating peck on your lips.

He claims that he could only give you a peck since if he did more then he wouldn't be able to control himself for what came next naturally for him.

Beelzebub

Super happy that you wanted to kiss.

Makes sure he wouldn't accidentally bite you with the intention of ingesting you.

He leans down to your face and places his hand on top of your head, slides it down to the back of it, and pulls you in carefully to kiss you.

Asks you if he did it correctly afterwards.

Belphegor

Says no then goes back to napping.

The next time you sleep together he interrupts your slumber with kisses all over your face until he reaches your lips where he focuses on for about what seemed to be hours.

After that, whenever you'd bring it up, he'd always deny all knowledge of doing such a thing and claim that he was sleeping.

Every time you sleep or nap with him ever since then, you’d wake up with swollen lips and a warm face.

SHOUTOUT TO: @unicornhorse160 @scriptwritershifter @idream89 @cielamajiki for being my biggest fans as of writing this post!

Hello! Hope you enjoyed this post! I just wanted to thank everyone for all the love and support you've been giving me despite not being able to respond to most of the asks in my inbox wahaha.

JOIN MY DISCORD SERVER OR ELSE >:(( or else nothing but it’d make me very much happy if you did uwu. It’s just a small, chill server for my fellow Obey Me! enthusiasts. So if you’re interested in getting to know me and keeping in touch, slide into my DMs and I’ll send you the invite link!

Anyways, stay cool everyone! Hope you all have an AMAZING day/night. And I swear I’ll answer everyone’s asks soon!

♡

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dmwrites · 2 years ago

Text

Chapter 1- Joe Hills

——

“Joe, I need to talk to you.”

Joe looked up from the castle blueprints he had spread over the huge dining room table. Cleo was sitting at a chair by his side- he’d been so engrossed that he hasn’t noticed her come in.

“Hey Cleo. What’s up? If it’s about the walls I just moved, it had to be done and I’m not going back on the decision unless you present a really good counter-argument.”

“Again with the fucking walls, Joe!” Cleo stopped herself and sighed. “No, it’s not about the walls, although that is a conversation we will be having later.” Cleo glared at him a little bit, but seemed to loose the energy for anger a second later, her face falling into something more tired and stressed. “Joe, I’m going to admit something to you, and it’s only because we are such good friends.”

“And I know you’d slaughter me dead if I told anyone.” Joe added, nodding knowingly.

“Right.” Cleo paused, and sighed again. Her gaze rose to the upper windows of the grand dining room. “I’m afraid, Joe. I’m afraid of that stupid moon and how it’s getting bigger and bigger by the day. I’m afraid of the earthquakes, and I swear to god gravity stopped working for a few seconds the other day. I’m scared, Joe. Really scared.”

Joe put down his feather ink pen and put his hand over Cleo’s, staring up at the windows with her, where the moon was already visible and rising in the sky, even though the sun was only now setting. It was so big it took up most of the window space.

“I’m scared too, Cleo.” As he said it, an earthquake rattled the floor below them. Cleo cursed and gripped Joe’s hand tight. “I’ve tried to read all I can about the subject, but I’ve found nothing pertaining to anything we are experiencing here.”

“I just feel like if I understood why it’s happening, I would be less afraid. But if you can’t find an answer, or even make up a stupid one… god, Joe. Are we going to die?”

Joe was quiet for a moment. He took his hand away from Cleo’s, and took up his communicator. Almost as if he’d forgotten the conversation was happening, he walked to the nearest door and stepped outside. Cleo followed him, and, standing in the cold of nightfall, they both looked up at the nightmarishly large moon marring the starry sky.

“You say stupid answers… I thought I was out of resources to check, but I think… maybe I missed one.” The screen of Joe’s communicator turned on, illuminating his face. “What if we’ve been thinking too scientifically? What if urban legend and conspiracy theories are actually the answer we need?”

“And you have a resource for that kind of thing?” Cleo asked, squinting her eyes at Joe.

“I know a guy.”

And with a clever grin, Joe held the communicator up to his ear and waited for a-

“Hello?”

“Hey, Michael?”

Cleo could hear a muffled, “Yeah, that’s me.”

“It’s me, Joe Hills! You know, from Nashville, Tennessee?”

“Joe fuckin’ Hills! From Nashville, Tennessee? Of course I remember you, you bespectacled weirdo! What the hell is up, man? Did you find your way back to wherever you came from?”

“I did, indeed. Listen, Michael, I wish we could exchange pleasantries for longer, but I have an issue that is both alarming and right up your alley, I think. Do you think you could wander your way over to the Hermitcraft server?”

“I suppose I could use a break from the radio. Sure man, I’ll see if I can get access to the server. Anything urgent I need to know?”

Joe chuckled in a very tired way. “Tell me, Michael McChill, what kind of stories do you know about a moon that just keeps getting bigger?”

——

“Wait, Michael McChill?? You mean that fucker from the dream smp?? What the fuck is he doing here?”

Well clearly you didn’t read the assigned reading before you came to class:)

-dm

#August 31 2022 #fic #Michael and Joe and Cleo’s super big adventure ft. the moon #<- that’s what I’m calling it #zombiecleo #michael mcchill #joe hills #hc8 #hc x dsmp #long post

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townofcrosshollow · 4 years ago

Text

Twine Sugarcube 101

AKA, all you need to make a Twine game (I swear to god)

I’ve seen a lot of people go “Twine is too complicated for me :(” and give up before they’ve even started. And that makes me sad, partly because they’re giving up on a really cool hobby, and also because that’s false! It’s absolutely not too complicated for you!

I think the problem is that people look up Twine, see the documentation, and go “There’s way too much there! I can’t learn all that!” Well guess what- you shouldn’t learn all that, at least not yet. As a beginner you can skip pretty much all of this:

(Ignore <<linkappend>> too, forgot to crop that one out)

That’s a lot more manageable, right? Below the cut, I’ll let you know how to use all those remaining important things to make your story! Warning- it’s quite long! You might want to read it in sections! And while I’ll try to keep it entertaining, it’s also a coding tutorial, so... y’know. Might not be the most exciting read if you aren’t trying to learn Twine.

Welcome to below the cut!

First off, make sure your story format is set to Sugarcube 2. On the right side of the home screen (with all your stories), click format and choose the one labeled “Sugarcube 2.x.x” then open a new story with the green button! Here’s what you’ll see and what it all means:

Passages are all like individual web pages that you navigate between to play the game. When they’re linked together they’ll be shown like this:

Anything you write in a passage will just be shown on screen as plain text, no code required! But if you want to make anything more than just one passage with a bunch of text, you’ll have to link passages together with...

Links!

A link is composed of two parts- the text you see on screen, and the name of the passage you’re attaching it to. These are enclosed in [[double square brackets]], with a vertical bar | or a little arrow -> between them. If you want to show the passage name instead of alternative text, you can just put the passage name in square brackets alone! So this in the editor:

[[Visible text|Passage name]]

[[Visible text->Passage name]]

[[Passage name]]

Will look like this in the story:

Visible text

Passage name

And all of them will lead to the passage labeled “Passage name.” You don’t even need to create the passage- when Twine sees that you’ve linked to a passage that doesn’t exist, it’ll add that passage for you.

That’s all you need to know! Technically, all you need to do to make a Twine story is add those fancy links between passages. If you add your awesome writing skills, that story will be super cool!

...but you want to do some fancy shit, right? Well let me introduce you to the next step up in complexity,

Variables!

“Variable” is a fun, code-y way to say “a bit of information that can change.” You could say they... vary.

Variables are useful for keeping track of information. If the player chooses to be blonde instead of a redhead, you might want to bring that up again- but you probably don’t want to write an entirely separate story based on that choice, right? So instead you save that information as a variable.

In Twine, variables are written as words with a $ in front of them. So my hair colour variable might be “$hairColour.” If you just write the variable out without any code, Twine will print the information you put into the variable. So if $hairColour is set to “blonde,” this...

She had $hairColour hair.

Will become...

She had blonde hair.

The value in a variable can be a boolean (ie. true or false), a number, or a string (like “blonde” or “any other string of characters”). They can also be fancy stuff like arrays, but we won’t be touching on that.

You can use variables to keep track of a lot of things! For instance...

How much money the player has

Whether a player has a key

What the player’s name is

I keep mentioning the value of a variable or “setting” it, but how do you do that? Well, one way is to add it to a link. If you want a link to set hair colour to blonde, for instance, you could write [[Blonde|Next passage][$hairColour to “blonde”]]. Clicking on that link would forward the player to “Next passage” and set the value of $hairColour to “blonde.”

There is a better way of doing it, however, but we’ll need to talk about...

Macros!

A macro is a snippet of code that runs when you put a special code word inside these <<spiky boys>>. You can write your own macros with JavaScript if you’re smart, find them on the internet if you’re even more smart, or just use the ones that come built in with Sugarcube.

The ones we’ll be talking about, and the ones that are the most important for most Twine games, are <<set>>, <<if>>, and <<link>>.

<<set>>

The <<set>> macro allows you to, you guessed it, assign a value to a variable. For instance, if you want to set $hairColour to blonde... well, that’s all you need to do! It’s just:

<<set $hairColour to “blonde”>>

It’s important to remember with the <<set>> macro that strings (collections of different characters) require quotation marks around them to show the code that it isn’t a number or a true/false value. If you put quotes around a number and try to do math with that variable, you’ll get a big ol’ error message.

If you’re using numbers, you can also use JavaScript operators in place of “to.” Each one will perform a calculation on the variable if that variable is a number, and then replace the variable with the result. If you want to add $5 to the player’s $money, you could use this:

<<set $money += 5>>

The “+=“ will add the number on the right to the variable on the left. “-=“ will do the same for subtraction, “*=“ for multiplication, and “/=“ for division. Easy enough, just don’t forget the = sign after the usual symbol!

By default, the <<set>> macro will be executed as soon as the page it’s on loads. Sometimes that’s useful, but sometimes you would rather the player click a link that sets a variable- like if they choose a hair colour. You might also want the same link to set multiple variables, like subtracting money and giving them an item when they use a shop. How do we do that?

<<link>>

The <<link>> macro is also pretty simple. All it does is create a link, and when that link it pressed it executes whatever is inside of it. Here we’ll be using it with <<set>>, but you can use it with all kinds of different macros and even nest some of them to do really complicated stuff!

As an example, we want the player to click “buy key,” give the player the key, and subtract $5 from their money. Here’s how we do it:

<<link “Buy key”>>

<<set $key to true>>

<<set $money -= 5>>

<</link>>

The text the player will click is in quotation marks, and after all of the macros we need to execute we have to close off the code by adding <</link>>. Easy, right?

But other than printing them on the screen, what can you actually use those variables for? Well, for that we’ll be using...

<<if>>

The <<if>> macro is my favourite, hands down, because it’s an easy way of accomplishing hard stuff. Simply put, <<if>> will check if the thing you asked about is true, and if it is, it will do whatever you put inside of it.

Here’s a simple example:

<<if $key is true>>

[[Use the key|Progress]]

<</if>>

Whatever is inside the <<if>> macro will be executed if the “if” statement is true. In this case, the link “Use the key” will be printed on the screen only if the player has the key. This also applies to code- if you put a <<set>> macro inside, that macro would only set a variable if the player has the key.

Now here’s a more complicated example, to show everything the <<if>> macro is capable of. Here we also want to check if they’ve already opened the door, and display alternate text if they have no key and the door is locked.

<<if $key is true>>

[[Use the key|Progress]]

<<elseif $doorOpen is true>>

[[Walk through|Progress]]

<<else>>

You need to find a key.

<</if>>

I’ll break it down line by line to tell you what each thing does.

<<if $key is true>>

This line is the only necessary one- it checks whether $key has been set to true. You can check for any value that a variable can be, like a number, true/false, or a string. You can also check for other things with this macro- for instance, “isnot” will check that the variable isn’t equal to the value on the right. “gt” or “lt” will check if the variable is greater/lesser than the value on the right, and “gte” or “lte” will check if it is greater than or equal to the value.

<<elseif $doorOpen is true>>

This line allows us to check for something else within the same <<if>> macro. Once the game has checked the original <<if>> and found that it is false, it will move on to checking each <<elseif>> until it finds one that is true. You can have as many <<elseif>>s as you need, and they can check the same variable or different variables, but only the first true one will be executed! And, of course, you can’t use <<elseif>> on its own- it’s stuck to the <<if>> macro!

<<else>>

This line is the last resort- if the original <<if>> and any <<elseif>>s have all been false, the game will execute whatever is after <<else>>. Because of this, there can only be one <<else>> line within any <<if>> macro! If you don’t have an <<else>>, nothing at all will be executed, so whether you include one depends on the situation.

<</if>>

This closes off the <<if>> macro. Nothing special, but very important! Put it after the last piece of code or bit of text you want the macro to control.

Phew. That’s it! That’s all I wanted to show you!

Now, HOMEWORK!

Okay, not homework, just practice. Here are some things you can try building to practice all these tools and get comfortable with how they work!

A store system with different items for different amounts of money

A character creation screen, followed by a description of your character (with variables!)

A puzzle that requires you to choose the right answer to proceed

If you have any trouble, need to ask any questions, or if something in this tutorial wasn’t clear to you, please let me know- you can DM me or send me an ask anytime and I’m happy to answer any Twine questions you have. I hope this was of use to you, and have fun making games <3

#told you i was making a tutorial!#not crosshollow #tutorial #game dev #twine game #twine #interactive fiction #gamedev

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fific7 · 3 years ago

Text

Baby Can I Hold You - Part 2

Billy Russo x Reader

A/N: Billy Russo ghosted you over two years ago. But now he’s back in your DM’s. Based on the song by Tracy Chapman and set in my Punisher S2 AU, it does not follow canon and is (to my mind) gloriously free of a certain female psychoanalyst.

Warnings: 18+ NSFW due to sexual content, including oral and unprotected, between consenting adults* in some chapters. Drinking and swearing.

*Irl, please don’t go wild in the country without protection.

(My photo edit)

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

But you can say baby

Baby, can I hold you tonight?

Maybe if I told you the right words

Ooh, at the right time you'd be mine

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

His mouth next your ear, you heard him whisper, “Please…. I just wanna hold you.”

You stopped struggling momentarily. His voice - childlike, vulnerable - made you think of his years growing up in the system, abandoned by the very person who should’ve loved him, protected him, cared for him - and this hit you like a slap in the face.

You began to think that he had in fact more or less regressed to being a kid, and you guessed that he hadn’t had too much affection shown to him during those formative years. He’d never been fostered out for longer than a week or two as he was too much of a handful, and landed back in the kids’ home every time.

Giving in, you whispered back, “Alright, Billy. But that’s all, okay?” “Whaddya mean?” you heard next. “No groping, no sex, just hugging - okay?” you answered, realising you’d have to spell everything out in black and white for this new Billy. “I wouldn’t tryta have sex with you!” his voice sounded indignant, and he rearranged you slightly within his grip so that you could actually look at each other, instead of you being crushed against his chest. His eyes blazed into yours, “I wouldn’t. I know we musta had sex when we were seein’ each other… but since the accident… I don’t… I can’t….”

Wow, you thought, that was unexpected. “Okay, I understand,” you cut in as he stumbled over his words, “I get it, Billy. I’m sorry.” He shrugged, “I’m alive - guess I gotta be thankful for that.” You settled back down a bit, sighing and hoping you could get back to sleep. However, Billy was holding onto you so tightly, you were sure he was cutting off your circulation. “Billy, you can loosen your grip a bit now, I’m not going anywhere.”

His arms loosened round you to a much more comfortable level and you closed your eyes. You felt his nose making its way to snuggle against your neck again but didn’t object. Trying to sleep, you attempted to stop your mind from working overtime but all you could think about was how damn weird this was. Billy Russo - back in your bed after two years. If someone had bet you this would happen, you’d have told them to get out of town. But here he was, that lean athletic body of his lying so close to you…. You heard his breathing slowly even out and you knew he was asleep.

Eventually, you slept too.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

The next morning was - thankfully - Saturday, so no early rise for work. But you’d still awoken with a start, disorientated and with that panicky feeling that you’d overslept. Slowly, your brain told you not to worry, it was the weekend and also that you’d had a disturbed night. You raised your sleepy eyes and looked up into Billy’s sleeping face, looking remarkably peaceful given the turmoil that must inhabit his head right now. So - not a dream, then. He was here, for real.

You moved back, stretching as you did so and Billy’s eyes opened immediately, staring straight at you then looking quickly round the room, before returning to gaze at you. “Morning, Billy,” you said, “if you can please let go of me I’ll make us some coffee.” “Yeah, mornin’.” He let his arms fall away from you and you got up, heading firstly to the bathroom and then to the kitchen. While you filled and switched on the coffee machine, you heard Billy moving around in the bathroom and then he too strolled into the kitchen area, looking very relaxed and not self-conscious at all despite being in just his briefs.

“I slept good,” he announced to you, “ thanks for lettin’ me stay.” You nodded, “No worries, Billy,” then hesitated before saying, “but we need to talk about what you’re going to do now.” He turned and padded over to the sofa, retrieving his jeans and t-shirt and pulling them on then walking back, zipping up his jeans and buttoning them as he approached you. You found yourself thinking that he still managed to make this very ordinary action look sexy, and feeling a blush making its way onto your face, you turned back to the coffee machine. “Tryna get rid of me already?” you heard, and looked back over at him. “Not necessarily, but you need to have a game plan, right? Find out what’s happening at your company, for one. How long were you in hospital, Billy?”

He ran his hands over his face and up over his head, which you noticed he did a lot. “Mmmm - three months or so.” “OK, so what were you told about the situation at Anvil?” “Nuthin’. Just that my apartment got sold to pay my medical bills.” “Are you sure that actually happened? It must’ve been a really quick sale.” He looked at you quickly, “You think it wasn’t?” “I don’t know but you see what I mean? There are things you need to find out about. And while I’m not a doctor so won’t be second-guessing what you’ve been told, I do think it’s important you find out about these basics as soon as possible.”

You were surprised by the huge smile you suddenly got from Billy. “I knew I was doin’ the right thing, comin’ to you first.” Taking two mugs out of your cupboard, you filled them with coffee and took a couple of croissants (thankfully not stale yet) out of your bread bin and some squares of kitchen towel to use as napkins. You handed him a mug and a pastry and indicated that you should both head to the living area. You realised you’d adopted an almost parental approach with him.

He just seemed so much like a little kid to you. That explosion had really had a massive impact on him psychologically. As you sat down in the armchair, Billy on the sofa - you remembered how he used to be; arrogant, self-confident, assertive, an air of danger about him. Now he consistently questioned things and was jumpy, skittish. Had no filter, like children when they ask or say things. To your surprise, you felt tears welling up in your eyes and blinked them back a few times. You were determined that you weren’t going to actually cry.

Billy, obviously still with some sniper senses intact, noticed nevertheless and asked, “Why are you cryin’?” There he goes again, you thought, straight to the point. “I’m not crying.” “Yeah you were - just about anyway! Why are you upset?” You decided to be direct too, “Because I was just remembering the old Billy. You’re so different and it’s… sad to see you like this.”

His face twisted into a scowl, “A helpless idiot, ya mean?” he hissed.

“No, Billy. A damaged, lost soul…. a child, almost.”

Now his eyes filled and he blinked furiously. “No! I’m…. I’m not,” he replied, accompanied by a vigorous shaking of his head. You nodded, “You are, Billy. Maybe you don’t realise it, but you’re really vulnerable right now. Still recovering from your injuries and with almost complete amnesia. I’m surprised your psychoanalyst didn’t get you into some kind of rehab place while you recover your memory.” His eyes dropped from yours, “Yeah, he wanted me to. But I told him I had a place to go.” “And he let you leave his office without checking on that?” Billy gave a sly smirk, still not looking at you, “Yeah. Said I was stayin’ with a friend.”

Quite frankly you doubted that any medical professional would’ve allowed Billy to spin them a line like that and not insist on more details, so you suspected Billy was lying to you.

“Billy….” you waited until he looked at you once more, “You’re not telling me the truth. Did you skip out out on him?” His scarred face pinked up, his eyes swivelled away from yours again and he gave a quick nod. Totally like a kid would, you thought. “Okay. Well the second thing I’m going to do is call him and let him know you’re here. The first thing I’m going to do is say to you….” you took a deep breath, unsure if you really wanted to make the offer you were about to make. You drew in another breath before continuing, “…that you can stay here while you recover.”

His eyes met yours swiftly, “Why would ya do that for me?” Suspicion was evident in his tone. “I’m willing to do this because you need help, Billy. Someone in your corner, to watch your back. So many people could take advantage of you right now.” His eyes narrowed, “An’ you won’t?” You merely shook your head. “Why not?” Direct - again.

Now you looked away from him. “Because I used to have feelings for you, Billy. And even though you were a complete shit to me, I honestly wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t do something to help you now while you’re in recovery.” You looked back at him and he was staring at you, kind of like he had when he’d first arrived at your door. Then he gave you that huge smile you’d had from him before and he bounded up and over to where you were sitting, grabbing you into the bear hug you were beginning to get used to. “Thank you,” he mumbled into your hair. You patted his back, “It’s OK, Billy, it’ll be fine.”

How long it would take for it be fine, you really weren’t sure.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

As promised, after you’d extracted the psychoanalyst’s phone number from a reluctant Billy you rang and left a message on his voicemail, informing him of Billy’s whereabouts and leaving your phone number with him. While he would be relieved to know where Billy was, you had no doubt that he wouldn’t be particularly happy that he was hanging out with a ‘civilian’. He’ll just have to live with that, you thought.

Then you headed to that drawer in your kitchen which everyone has, where all the ‘old shit you don’t want to dump’ lives. You dug out a tatty old address book you hadn’t looked at for ages, flipping through the pages until you found phone numbers for both Frank and Curtis. Why you’d kept it, lord only knew as of course nobody used them any more, but for some reason you had and right now you were happy that you did. Peering back into the living room, you saw Billy was still sprawled out on the sofa watching the TV although you realised he’d actually dozed off.

You grabbed your phone, tiptoed to your bedroom and closed your door behind you, before dialling Frank’s number. Back in the day, you’d met him and Maria a few times and had even spent some time at their place with Billy. But you still hadn’t known Frank that well and you felt apprehensive as you heard it ringing. At least it wasn’t disconnected, you thought.

A gruff voice answered, “If you’re sellin’ something, don’t even bother tryin’.” You said quickly, “Frank?” There was a pause, then, “Yeah?” his voice sounding wary. You said who you were and then explained how Billy had turned up on your doorstep complete with almost total amnesia.

“Oh, yeah - I remember you. You an’ Billy, you were together for a while, right?” You sighed, “Yeah, until he vanished on me two years ago. Hadn’t seen or heard from him since. Apparently when he was at his doctor’s office, he found a piece of paper which had been in his wallet and it had my name and number on it. Someone - don’t know who - tracked me down for him and he turned up here last night. Said he had nowhere to go.” Now you heard Frank sigh. “Right…. me an’ him got caught up in an explosion while we were on an op. I got off lightly but Russo….” another pause, “…it totally fucked him up as you can see. I’m lookin’ after Anvil till he gets back.”

“Oh okay, so he’s still got his business then? He said his apartment had been sold to pay his medical bills. That he’d got nowhere to go. He didn’t even seem to remember you or Curtis.”

“Yeah he’s still got Anvil. And yeah, he doesn’t remember anyone from his previous life right now. An’ his apartment got rented out, with that money gettin’ used for his medical costs. So that is true, he can’t stay there as someone else has leased it for now, but I wanna know who told him it’d been sold. I needta have a word with them.” His voice had turned menacing and you were glad you weren’t that person. “I did think that sounded like a really quick sale but I guess it can happen. But he could’ve got what he was told mixed up…. he’s really got almost no memories of anything.”

“Want me to take him off your hands?” questioned Frank, “He could stay with me and Karen.” Your mouth dropped open and you were glad you were on the phone so he couldn’t see you. “K-karen?” you stuttered, and he said, “Oh… you wouldn’t know about…. uhhh… Maria passed away.” You could tell there was still a lot of pain in his voice and you said quietly, “Frank, I’m so sorry to hear that.” You knew the two of them had been as loved up as two people could be, which is why you’d been stunned to hear him referring to another woman who he seemed to be living with.

Now, sadly, you knew why that was. Frank cleared his throat, “Yeah… she had a heart attack, ‘bout two years back in fact. Undiagnosed heart condition. So Karen’s been great, helpin’ me out with the kids. Dunno what I’d’ve done without her.” “Glad you’ve got someone with you. It helps - a little.” “Yeah,” he agreed, “it does. But anyhow, whaddya gonna do about Russo?” “I don’t mind him staying here for now, I’ll make sure he keeps going to his head doctor as he calls him..” a chuckle from Frank, “…and I was kind of hoping you and Curtis might come over and visit, maybe help jog his memory a bit?”

“Yeah, we can do that,” agreed Frank, “how about tomorrow?” “That would be amazing, Frank,” you said gratefully. You hadn’t yet thought about what would happen on Monday when you had to go to work. Billy was obviously unpredictable at the moment and you wanted to be able to keep tabs on him, and you were hoping that his two friends might be able to come up with a Billy baby-sitting plan. However you’d wait until tomorrow when you saw them to mention that, it would be better discussing it in person.

After you and Frank had agreed an approximate time for their visit, you ended the call and went back through to the living area. Billy was still dozing, moving a little restlessly but looking quite peaceful nevertheless. You stared at his scars while he slept, as you hadn’t wanted to scrutinise him too closely before. That explosion had really done a number on Billy’s face, but he was still a handsome man. Or so you thought.

As you looked at him, the old feelings you’d had for him were stirring in your heart. Guess I never really got over this guy, you thought. You perched on the edge of the sofa and without thinking, laid your hand gently on one ruined cheek.

His eyes flew open and your wrist was instantly grabbed in a pincer grip. You yelped in surprise and you saw his eyes focussing on you. As soon as he’d done so, he released his hold on you. Rubbing your wrist, you said, “Sorry - I didn’t mean to startle you.” He struggled up the sofa a little, half sitting up, “Just felt something on my face…” he was staring at you now, “was that you?” “Yes, Billy…. we’re the only two here.” He nodded, “Okay, just thought I was back in the hospital for a minute.” Then looking at your wrist which you were still rubbing, “I’m sorry too.”

You stood up, “No, that was my bad. I told you not to creep up on people and here I go, doing just that.” He cocked his head to one side like a bird, “Why’d you do that?” Looking down at him you said, “You just looked… kind of sweet while you were sleeping.” His mouth quirked into a sardonic lop-sided grin, “Dunno how you can think this…” pointing to his face, “could look ‘sweet’.”

You shrugged and turned away from him, making your way to the kitchen, “Well, you did.”

As you headed to the fridge and started looking for ingredients to make brunch, you heard, “You like me again, huh?” followed by a low chuckle. You decided to ignore him - probably because that’s exactly what the situation was - and asked Alexa to play you some funk/soul music.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

The rest of the day saw you and Billy literally just couch-potatoing in front of the TV, with you supplying food, snacks and drinks along the way. Every so often, you’d be aware of his head turning towards you as he lay sprawled on the sofa and you sat draped sideways over the armchair. You ignored this until once when you decided to look back and meet his gaze.

“Thanks for this,” he surprised you by saying, “lettin’ me stay here, I mean. It’s gooda ya.” You broke eye contact, looking back at the TV. “It’s fine, Billy. I’m just doing someone I knew a favour when they need a little help.” “Knew?” he questioned you, “You know me.” Still staring at the screen, you replied, “No… I stopped knowing you the minute you decided to evaporate into thin air. And now, I definitely don’t know you, as so much has - unfortunately - changed for you.” Deciding you didn’t want to have this conversation any longer, you asked, “Drink?” He nodded and you got up and went to the fridge.

Pouring yourself some wine then grabbing and opening a bottle of beer for Billy, you walked back through and put your wine down on the small unit next to your armchair before leaning across and offering the beer to him. He took the bottle from you and put it on the floor, then grabbed you by the arms and pulled you down onto him.

Those big brown eyes of his were now close up and gazing into yours, and somehow you just knew what was coming next. Billy crashed his lips onto yours and began kissing you ferociously. You gave it a minute or so and then forcibly pulled back, scrambling off him and going straight to the armchair and plonking yourself down in it. When you looked back over at him, he had the biggest, smuggest grin on his face. “Yeah…” he nodded, “…I remember that too.”

You didn’t say anything but thought to yourself that while he might’ve had a memory of you two kissing tucked away in his head somewhere, he’d definitely forgotten previous Billy’s smooth, suave and sensual way of kissing.

Eventually you said to him, “You’re here to recover, Billy. That’s all. You weren’t with me before you got hurt, and I’m here to help you get better, that’s all.”

He stared back at you, a calculating look in his eyes and a small smirk now playing over his lips, “Yeah. Okay, I know that.”

But you had the distinct feeling that he was just saying what he thought you wanted to hear him say.

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

That evening Billy had arranged his tall frame on the sofa again with his blanket and pillow but had soon appeared beside your bed, just silently gazing at you until you finally turned back the bedcovers and let him join you under them. A small smile on his face as he climbed into bed with you, his arms immediately slid round you and he glued his body to yours, before adopting his favourite position - his nose pressed to your neck. It did make you feel a little like his comfort blanket, but you thought that it was probably what he needed right now so you’d live with it.

Waking up on Sunday morning with Billy still attached to you like a baby animal clinging to its mother, you attempted to stretch and became aware of something hard nestling against your leg. So…. nature was taking its natural course again it seemed, judging by the impressive erection he currently had. You decided it would be a very good idea to get up right this minute and make some coffee - just in case he decided to try and put it to good use. As you stood next to the bed and pulled on your robe, you watched as Billy sleepily awoke and immediately looked at the empty space next to him.

Then his eyes widened and he lifted the covers and looked down at himself. “That’s one thing on the way to recovery, obviously,” you said with a smirk. Swiftly his head came up and he stared at you, startled. “Good morning, Billy,” you greeted him properly, before heading out of the bedroom.

A few minutes later in a rerun of the previous morning, he found you in the kitchen making coffee and buttering toast. Again in just his briefs, this time he walked right up to you and placed himself behind you, arms sliding round your waist and pulling you back against him - and his erection. His lips were at your neck and he was much less desperate this time, gently putting his lips against your skin and placing little kisses there. “I’m rememberin’ again,” he whispered. Quite honestly he was making you melt, but you pulled yourself together and continued getting the mugs out as if nothing was happening and that your senses weren’t still on a rollercoaster.

Another whisper, “You’ve made this happen,” more kisses, “this is all down to you.” You turned your head towards him slightly, “Your body’s just slowly recovering, Billy. It’s your mind we need to worry about.” He dropped his arms and swung himself away from you, leaning against the counter beside you, arms folded. “My mind will take care of itself,” he declared, sulkily. “This…” he indicated the bulge in his briefs, “hasn’t happened since I woke up from the coma in hospital. What’s wrong with sayin’ you’re the cause of it?” You shook your head, “Because it’s not true, Billy. That’s just a natural thing that happens during the night. It’s probably happened before but you just weren’t aware of it because you were asleep.” “No,” he said firmly, “I’ve not woken up like this all the time I spent in hospital.”

You handed him a mug and a plate of toast. “I hear you, Billy and I believe you, but I think it’s just a coincidence. I think you’ve relaxed a bit more since you’ve been here and maybe during the night you stayed hard for longer than usual, and that’s why you woke up with an erection for a change.” Looking into his still sulky face, you smiled. “It’s not important anyway. It’s just good that your body’s getting back to normal because I’m sure that’ll also help psychologically.” You started heading towards the living area.

A loud dramatic sigh from him as you went, and you said over your shoulder, “Anyhow, I hope you’ll be in a better mood soon, Billy. You’ve got friends coming to visit.”

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

@blackbirddaredevil23 @omgrachwrites @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead @ourloveisforthelovely @swthxrry @odetostep @supernaturalcat7 @obscurilicious @strawb3rrydr3ss @bruxa0007 @aleksanderwh0r3 @theshadowkingsqueen @bat-luna-cat @carlywhomever @paracosmenthusiast

»»————————————-———-　⚜　———————————-————-««

#billy russo #the punisher 💀#billy russo x reader #billy russo fanfiction #billy russo imagine #billy russo fanfic #ben barnes

185 notes · View notes

whiteqnn · 4 years ago

Text

PURE [3] - Corpse Husband x Fem! Reader

A/N: Over 1 thousand notes. You guys are insane. I can’t see any other explanation.

Thank you so much for all the love and support under the previous parts, all those comments just absolutely made my day! I would never expect this story to receive such a positive feedback, which I’m extremely grateful for!

Anyway, I decided to add some additional plot to this story - mainly, the sudden criticism and hate directed on Y/N after the last Among Us stream. I thought it would make things more interesting.

That being said, I hope you enjoy the third part ^^

part 1

part 2

part 4

part 5

PURE [3]

Y/N stared at her phone screen, reading through the latest tweets of her friends inviting their fans to watch their streams. It was Thursday evening and just as it was planned, everyone was getting ready for another game of Among Us. Just as she would do if it wasn’t for all those comments...

The last stream caused sudden, unexpected amounts of attention on her social media. She probably shouldn’t be that surprised by it, given the fact that by appearing in Sean’s and Felix’s videos she wasn’t all that strange to their fans. But people who watched Rae, Toast, or Corpse’s streams didn’t know her. And apparently, some of them weren’t that happy to see a new face among the group of well-known gamers.

She always tried to avoid the unnecessary spotlight as much as she could, preferring to stay hidden somewhere behind other, much more popular streamers. And it never bothered her. She was never one to enjoy too much attention anyway.

That’s why when she discovered how upset, or even angry, some people were when she played with all those famous streamers, she was quite shocked, to say the least.

Like all those comments under Poki’s tweet, in which she mentioned who’s gonna be playing this time...

“Duh, why’s that Y/N chick supposed to play with them again? There are at least hundreds of other, much more popular streamers I can think of who would be better than her.”

“Who the fuck is she anyway? Why’s she there?”

“lmao, some random girl who got lucky enough to know jacksepticeye. Don’t get why she’s playing with them though.”

“NOT HER AGAIN. I SWEAR TO GOD SHE WAS SO FUCKING ANNOYING LAST TIME”

Sure, she wasn’t as famous as Felix, or Sean, or Rae, or anyone else for that matter. Her audience wasn’t very small, but it was nothing compared to the number of fans other YouTubers had. It was understandable that most people didn’t know who she was, and didn’t understand why she was there in the first place.

She was, in fact, just some random girl who was lucky to have Sean as her friend. But in a group of such great and well-known streamers, she definitely stood out like a sore thumb.

Y/N almost jumped in her seat when her phone beeped with a new message, Sean’s nickname showing up at the top of her screen.

Jackaboy: We’re starting in a few kiddo

Jackaboy: But join the call now so we can both make fun of Felix

After the last game, she was so excited and couldn’t wait for this evening. She looked forward to cooperating with Sykkuno again, to arguing with Toast, to laughing with Sean and Felix, to murdering other people with Corpse... Yet now, all this excitement seemed to vanish just like the mood to play, let alone talk with other people. They would surely see right through her and try to make her spill the beans, which would ruin the stream. And the last thing she wanted was to ruin their game.

Jackaboy: You there Y/N??

She sighed, thinking of some believable excuse that wouldn’t arouse suspicion, but her mind was flooded with all those comments and DMs she received over those past days, which expressed nothing but hatred towards her.

Y/N: I’m really sorry Sean, but I don’t think I will be joining you today... I don’t feel very well.

She waited for Sean’s reply impatiently, expecting him to send her some angry emoji or tell her to move her ass and join the discord call. What she didn’t expect though, was that he would facetime her.

Her first instinct was to throw her phone across the room as if it would make Sean stop calling. He wouldn’t stop unless she’d tell him the truth.

So she cleared her throat and plastered the widest smile on her face, before answering his call.

“Alright, what is going on?” Sean asked right away, staring at her with his brows furrowed. He wasn’t in his recording room, but in his kitchen, which meant that he left his stream to call her. “And please don’t tell me you’re sick cause I won’t believe it anyway. And neither will Pewds.”

“I’m tired, Sean... I was working late again and I really need to rest.” she lied, trying to keep her voice steady and calm. She really didn’t want Sean to interrogate her now, not when his fans were waiting for him. “I’m sure you’ll find someone else though. Please tell the guys that I’m sorry”

“Y/N, c’mon, cut this bullshit. What’s wrong?” he asked softly, moving his phone closer to his face. “You know you’re a terrible liar, just tell me what happened. If you don’t wanna play then neither do I.”

“Sean, please don’t do it” she shook her head with a sigh. “Your fans are waiting for you, I’ll be fine.”

“Well they’re waiting for you too you dummy, I already promised them you’ll be playing with us tonight” he stated matter of factly, rolling his eyes. Y/N remained silent for a moment, and Sean suddenly furrowed his brows, narrowing his eyes at her in a suspicious look. “Did someone tell you something rude last time we played? Who and what?”

“What? No, Sean, oh my God. Everyone was super nice, it has nothing to do with the last stream... not with you guys, at least.” she mumbled under her breath, dropping her eyes from Sean’s confused face.

“What do you mean not with you guys? Y/N, what the hell happened?” he demanded, slowly getting more and more worried. She wouldn’t tell him though, too scared that Sean would just laugh it off, even though he also sometimes had problems with dealing with hate. And just as if he was reading her mind, Sean sighed, his face softening in a sad smile. “You’ve read the comments, didn’t you?”

She felt so stupid for being so easily offended by comments of some random people on the Internet, that she just nodded her head meekly, still looking anywhere but at the man.

“Look kiddo... I’m not gonna tell you to get yourself together and just ignore them, cause it won’t help, and I know cause I’ve been there. Hell, I’m still there.” he chuckled to himself and continued “Anyway, you really shouldn’t be worrying yourself about people who don’t even know you. They don’t know you, Y/N, why would some complete stranger’s opinion matter to you?”

“They said I shouldn’t be playing with you guys... that I’m nothing but a burden and you should be playing with someone who’s at least recognizable.”

“Well excuse me Miss, last time I checked I could choose who the fuck I want to play with.” Sean scoffed, clearly irritated by such comments “You’re one of my best friends Y/N and I don’t give a fuck what some haters say. And neither should you.”

“Maybe you should just invite someone else... It would make everyone happy.” she muttered almost inaudibly, but Sean almost barked at her when he heard her words.

“I told you to cut that bullshit, Y/N! Everyone couldn’t wait for this game and now you wanna back out? C’mon, kid. Do you have any idea how heartbroken Sykkuno’s gonna be? When you left so quickly last time, he kept complaining that he has no one to team up with.” she couldn’t help but smile at that, letting out a tiny giggle. “And Corpse? Have you even seen his last tweet?”

“What? No, I- I don’t follow him...” she said, wondering what Sean was talking about. She quickly searched for Corpse on Twitter, still being on facetime with Sean, and her heart almost dropped when she saw the last tweet.

@.Corpse_Husband Really excited for tonight’s Among Us stream, 8PM PST.

Jacksepticeye

Valkyrae

Pewdiepie

Pokimane

Sykkuno

Disguised Toast

Logic

Mr Beast

and, hopefully, my partner in crime - Little Y/N

She stared at the screen with her eyes widened, and her lips corners curling up in a small, bashful smile. It was so nice of Corpse to mention her as well, especially with the nickname that he seemed to like so much since their last game.

“God, if you could see yourself right now. How’s it that my pep talk didn’t do shit, but Corpse’s tweet magically made you smile, ugh.” Sean reminded her of his presence, and she quickly returned to the call, trying to somehow control her burning cheeks.

“It’s not like that, Sean, I really appreciate that you’re trying to cheer me up... I just didn’t expect your friends to like me...” she admitted quietly, and if Sean could, he would probably strangle her at that moment.

“I JUST TOLD YOU THAT SYKKUNO KEPT BUGGING ME ABOUT YOU FOR TWO FUCKING HOURS. YOU THINK HE WOULD TALK ABOUT YOU IF HE DIDN’T LIKE YOU?!”

“I just... what if they’re just being nice, but they don’t actually want me to play with them?”

“I’m done.” Sean groaned, shaking his head furiously. “Alright, here’s what you’re gonna do. You stay away from your phone, join the discord call, say hi to everyone, and we’re all gonna have fun, okay? If not, Pewds is gonna murder you, cause he was already growing impatient even before I called you.”

“I’m still not sure if that’s a good idea, Sean...”

“But I am sure, Y/N! Now come on, we’re playing in five. I’m telling everyone you’re joining as well.”

And before she could even reply, he hung up. Y/N groaned, rushing to her computer to turn it on. Now it would just be plain rude not to join the game, especially after Sean wasted his time talking with her, while he should be talking to his fans. Just as he suggested, she kept her phone far away from her desk, deciding to stay away from Twitter and all those comments for a bit. Maybe it would help her clear her mind and at least try to have some fun.

An invite to the group call was already waiting for her, along with a message from Sean with a code to the game. Y/N put her headphones on before joining the call and quickly typing in the code.

“... so let me repeat myself. I ALWAYS sound guilty, no matter what. Please, guys, don’t vote me out!”

Y/N shook her head with a smile on her lips when the first thing she heard after joining the call was Felix’s pleading voice. Clearly, he was already trying to save his own ass even before the game began.

Y/N could hear Sean’s loud voice as he commented on Felix’s plea with some snarky remark, later also catching the sounds of Rae’s laughter. Everyone was already there, they’ve been clearly waiting for her to join.

“Hey, look who’s finally here! Hi Y/N!” Poki noticed her presence first.

“Hello everyone” Y/N said, as shy and quiet as usual.

“Oh, Y/N! It’s so great to see you again, I was worried you weren’t joining us tonight” Sykkuno said, a pout clear in his voice.

“WELL ABOUT DAMN TIME” Felix all but yelled, making her roll her eyes with a smile. “What did I tell you about being late?!”

“Give her a break Felix, her mic wasn’t working again... Luckily, I was there to save the damsel in distress” Sean said, and even though she couldn’t see him, Y/N was almost certain that he was smirking.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry guys to have kept you waiting so long...” Y/N said, feeling genuinely bad. Maybe Sean was right after all? They could have just invited someone else, and yet they decided to wait for her.

“It’s okay, you’re here now and it’s all that matters” a deep voice sounded out, and whether she liked it or not, Y/N grinned like an idiot with a blush rising up her cheeks.

“Shit, here we go again...” Felix sighed, making everyone else laugh. Y/N bit at her lower lip, feeling her heart thump in her chest as she felt a sudden wave of courage, deciding to speak up despite her initial shyness:

“Well... I couldn’t just leave my partner in crime alone, right?” she asked, and she could swear she heard Corpse stutter as if he completely didn’t expect her to say that.

“Ah yes, after all, killing wouldn’t be the same without her, right Corpse?” Toast teased, repeating Corpse’s words from the last stream. Everyone in the call laughed, Y/N included. She couldn’t stop herself from smiling, even though just mere minutes ago she was on the verge of crying. “It’s good to have you here, Y/N/N. Maybe I’ll actually get a chance to finally kill you this time.”

“Jesus Christ, Toast. You sound like a psychopath. Hey, I’m happy you’re here, lemme stab you in the back, please?” someone whose nickname was MrBeast spoke up with a chuckle, before directing his next words to Y/N “I believe we haven’t played together before, I’m Mr Beast, it’s really nice to meet you Y/N”

“Yeah, pleased to meet you!” another player, Logic, spoke up “I also didn’t have a chance to play with you yet, but I’ve seen Sean’s last stream... Let me just say, that Toast murder was absolutely perfect!”

“Wow. And here I almost managed to block it out. I’m fucking traumatized Y/N, you should be ashamed of yourself” Toast scoffed over Felix’s laughter.

“You should be proud of yourself!” Sean interfered “Just so you know lads, Y/N may seem like a little angel, but she’s a little demon. You’ve been warned.”

“Yeah, she’ll charm you with her voice only to snap your neck next second.” Felix scoffed.

“Just like she did with Corpse!”

“Charm?!” Y/N gasped, her cheeks burning.

“I don’t recall Y/N killing me...” Corpse said in his low voice.

“I love how that’s the only thing he denied” Poki pointed out in a teasing voice, which only made Y/N sink further into her chair.

“Can we please start the game now?” she asked in a pleading voice, hoping that everyone would stop making fun of Corpse and her. She could only imagine how uncomfortable he felt, for some reason being the target of their jokes... They must’ve made him feel awkward, right?

“Jack, did you tell Y/N how we’re playing tonight?” Sykkuno asked, and she sighed in relief that they dropped the jokes.

“Oh, right! So there’s this mod called proximity chat, where we’re able to hear each other as we pass by another person, and it seems quite fun so that’s what we decided to try out tonight.” Sean explained to Y/N, and before she could ask another question, he added “I’ve just sent you the link, it’ll take a minute to install it.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you Sean” Y/N said, before downloading the mod and quickly installing it. When everything was set and ready, she pulled up Among Us again and typed in the code, and the game finally began.

“Woah”

“Holy shit!”

“Guys this is so cool!” Sykkuno exclaimed, his voice so happy and excited that Y/N couldn’t help but giggle.

“Okay, I’m scared now. I feel like encounters with Imposter are just gonna be perfectly cut screams” Felix chuckled, as they left the dropship and moved down the map. That’s when Y/N gasped in surprise, upon seeing the locations completely different than those she was used to.

“Wait- is that a different map?” she asked through her mic, hearing Toast’s distanced, devilish laugh. There was only Rae and Sykkuno beside her, as everyone else have already split up to do their tasks.

“Oh yeah, that’s Polus, it’s much more fun than the one we were playing in last time.” Rae explained happily and Y/N groaned. She didn’t know that map.

“Great. I don’t even know how am I supposed to do tasks in here...”

“Oh, it’s not that hard. They’re in most cases similar to those you already know, they only look a little bit different.” Sykkuno said in his kind voice, before asking “Do you want to team up again, Y/N?”

“I thought you would never ask Sykkuno” Rae chuckled under her breath.

“Yeah, that would be great! I need someone to show me around” she smiled. The trio finally moved from their spot beside the dropship and went to the left where, as Y/N later realized, was electrical. She quickly did her task in there, being under the watchful eyes of both Sykkuno and Rae.

Before the latter could do his own task, the first body was reported.

“The body is in the lab” Felix said, and Y/N couldn’t help but smirk as she saw that it was Toast who was murdered first. One less person to accuse her or try to frame her, if he was the Imposter.

“I just ran towards the lab from the left side, I only saw Poki on my way there” Corpse said right away, and the accused girl was quick to try and defend herself:

“Okay, I wasn’t in the lab, I was doing that engines task which is next to the lab.”

“Did you see someone else there?” Jack questioned.

“Nope, just me and the engines.”

“Okay. Sykkuno, where are you?” the lime astronaut was next on Jack’s list of suspects, which made Sykkuno groan.

“Why do you sound so suspicious right away?” he asked in disbelief, causing the rest to giggle “I was with Y/N and Rae all this time, we were all doing our tasks in electrical.”

“Is that true Y/N?”

“Yes Sean, that is true” she rolled her eyes with a laugh “I don’t even know this map, I have to stick with someone so I don’t end up like Toast.”

“Alright, what about rest? Logic? I think I saw you in admin but then you disappeared somewhere.” Felix said.

“Yeah I’m with Mr Beast in the office”

“That’s right” Mr Beast confirmed, which didn’t bring anything new to the investigation, so everyone decided to skip.

“Wo- Okay where are we now?” Y/N asked in surprise, when the new round began in some completely new place Sykkuno didn’t manage to show her yet. She could hear as Corpse laughed at her shocked voice, which made her smile widely.

“Yeah, I’m also not used to this new map yet” he admitted, his black astronaut walking up to her white one “Hey, wanna see something cool?”

“Sure!”

*Meanwhile Sykkuno*

“Okay this is bad guys, we lost Y/N” Sykkuno said to his mic, running around the map to find the girl he was earlier teamed up with. “I thought she followed us when the new round began, but she must’ve gone the other way... What if she’s dead already? Not good, not good...”

"Woah! This looks amazing! Is there some task here as well?”

“Yes, there’s temperature recording right here” Corpse said, standing by the lava pit, watching as Y/N’s character ran back and forth over the pool of lava.

“I wonder if you could jump into it. What do you think, Corpse?” she asked curiously, standing close to the edge.

“Not that I’m aware of it...” he mumbled coming closer to the edge as well “Why would you jump into it?” he asked with a half-smile on his face.

“So Felix can’t stab me in the back.” she whispered, even though there was no one around them.

“You think it’s him?” Corpse mirrored her voice, and she hummed in response “Why?”

“He’s constantly suspicious of everyone, last time we played he also kept interrogating us all, without even telling his own location.” she stated as if it was very obvious. Corpse couldn’t help but let out a laugh “What? Why are you laughing at me?”

“Not at you, Y/N. I’m just impressed by your investigation skills” he admitted “In that case, we better both jump in. Felix likes to frame other people.”

“You wanna jump into the lava with me?”

“Sure I do.”

“There you are!” Sykkuno’s lime astronaut came out of nowhere, followed by Mr Beast. Two of them walked up to Y/N and Corpse, and before the latter could even say anything, Mr Beast snapped Y/N’s neck.

“WAIT, NO-”

“OH GOD, OH GOD” Sykkuno yelled in panic.

“KILL HIM CORPSE” Mr Beast screamed, frantically running around.

“What the heck?” Y/N stared at her screen in shock, her dead body laying over the lava pit. Mr Beast had already fled to the left, leaving her, Sykkuno and Corpse standing between two of them. None of them said anything for a moment before the black astronaut finally spoke up.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Y/N” he kept repeating, regret clear in his voice. “And Sykkuno, I- I can’t even express how-”

He was cut off by Felix’s scream, who reported the bodies before Corpse could kill him as well.

“IT’S CORPSE ALRIGHT” Felix yelled right away “HE’S STANDING OVER Y/N AND SYKKUNO, HE HAS THEIR BLOOD ON HIS HANDS”

“That is- I did not kill them” Corpse replied, calm as ever, as opposed to his frantic apologies.

“Then why were you standing there?! Without reporting the bodies?!”

“I was... mourning their death.” he replied, which caused the whole group to burst out laughing. “Seriously guys, you think I would murder Sykkuno? And Y/N? I would never even think of hurting them.”

“The simp is strong, we get it, but it doesn’t really save your situation” Rae laughed.

“Let’s kick him out guys, he can’t even defend himself” Sean chuckled, and everyone else didn’t need to be told twice. Soon enough, Y/N watched as Corpse’s black astronaut was thrown into the lava pit... Oh, the irony...

The game continued with her wandering around the map, doing the rest of her tasks to at least support somehow her fellow crewmates. She stumbled upon Corpse’s ghost at some point and laughed wholeheartedly when he started circling her little character in something she read as an attempt to apologize.

A little while later another body was reported, this time it was Felix who lost his life. Y/N didn’t really focus on the conversation this time, glancing at her phone instead. There was this urge to reach for it and check how people reacted to her joining the game, but she kept repeating Sean’s words in her head. There was no point in worrying about the opinion of somebody who doesn’t even know her... or at least that’s what she tried to convince herself to think.

Her attention was brought back to the game when she heard the sound of a new message from someone who was also dead. She clicked on the chat, seeing that it was one of the Impostors.

Corpse: :(

Corpse: I’m sorry

Y/N thought it was sweet of him to apologize for it, even though it was his main goal to murder everyone after all. She believed he was genuinely sorry for it, just like she was each time she was an Impostor and had to kill somebody.

Sykkuno: Welcome to the afterlife, Corpse!

She laughed at Sykkuno’s constant happiness, which was evident even in his messages, before typing one as well:

Y/N: We’re all corpse here

Sykkuno: Oh, so it means we’re all really cool then ^^

Y/N: Fair point

Corpse: See Y/N

Corpse: I told you I would jump into the lava for you

Y/N: You didn’t exactly jump...

Corpse: :(

Y/N: But let’s say it counts as well :)

Corpse: :)

Before they knew, the voting ended. Mr Beast was thrown into the lava, which ultimately lead to the victory of crewmates. Y/N cheered happily, when the blue sign appeared on her screen, right above everyone else who was innocent.

“Yaaay, the first time I wasn’t killed in the first game!” Sean announced enthusiastically, his astronaut running around the dropship.

“Yeah, and the first time it went so fast...”

“Right? Corpse, I’m disappointed in you. What happened to the King of Impostors?” Rae asked.

“Well.. no matter how good you are, you can’t always win, right?” Corpse replied calmly.

“Hmm, you seemed kinda absent-minded during the game, though...” Poki suggested with a smirk hiding in her voice, and Rae was very quick to pick on it.

“Oh, you’ve noticed that too? Almost as if he was distracted by something”

“I don’t know what are you talking about” he chuckled nervously, and Y/N just sat in her chair confused about what was going on. “Anyway, who’s up for another round?”

“Yeah, I have an idea” Sean said, effectively shutting everyone up “What if we play something along the lines of hide and seek? Let’s have one impostor, and everyone else needs to get their tasks done before he finds them.”

“That is...” Felix took in a dramatic breath “THE BEST THING I’VE EVER HEARD ABOUT”

“Yeah, I think it will be fun” Sykkuno replied.

“It sounds really cool, but let’s maybe tell who’s the impostor? I think it would be more fair” Rae suggested.

“I think it’s a good idea” Sean concluded, before changing the settings for one impostor only. Y/N waited patiently for the game to begin, and when she saw that she was a crewmate again, she sighed in relief. Only to gasp in a panic a second later...

“It’s me.”

Everyone stumbled out of the dropship as Corpse admitted that he’s the impostor. It seemed that knowing exactly who can murder everyone made the whole game a little bit terrifying...

“I don’t know where the heck I’m going” Y/N mumbled to herself with a nervous laugh when instead of doing her tasks, she searched for the perfect place to hide. When she entered security, she spotted Mr Beast fixing the wires, so she decided to join him.

“OH SHIT- god damn it, you scared me to death!” he all but yelled when she appeared next to him, doing her tasks.

“Sorry” she giggled, quickly finishing the wires, before speeding out of the room. On her way to weapons, she stumbled across Felix’s dead body, and could hear some screaming in the background... but didn’t recognize who was murdered next.

Y/N managed to do most of her tasks without meeting Corpse, whom she hoped not to see probably for the first time since they played together. She was just leaving decontamination when she heard Sean’s panicked laughter:

“...tee, bitches love me?”

“Wrong.” Corpse’s voice almost made her squeak in surprise, only to really scream when he suddenly snapped Sean’s neck.

“Retreat, retreat!” Y/N laughed as she sped past oblivious Rae and Logic, Corpse hot on her tail. She quickly returned to the decontamination room, hoping to flee from her inevitable death, when Corpse’s black astronaut walked in, and the door closed.

“Please don’t kill me” she chuckled, even though there was no hope for her.

“Finish my lyrics, and I’ll let you live...” he began, and Y/N furrowed her brows in confusion “ I spilt wine...”

“Wait- what lyrics? You sing?” she asked, completely dumbfounded. Corpse was silent for a moment as if he didn’t understand her, before bursting out laughing “What’s so funny again? Corpse, come on!”

“Yes, Y/N, I do sing, I was actually hoping you’ve heard some of my songs...” he admitted, still chuckling to himself. She felt a blush rising up her cheeks.

“Oh- I- I didn’t, I-... but I will, okay? I’ll do it right away!” she promised, quickly jumping up to grab her phone and listen to Corpse’s song. She was genuinely shocked, she would never expect him to sing!

She unlocked her phone with a wide, somehow nervous smile on her face, which, however, dropped the moment she saw her notifications. Hundreds of notifications.

“You there, Y/N?” Corpse’s voice reached her after a moment, when she still didn’t say anything, just kept looking at her screen. “I hope my music isn’t so bad that you passed out from listening to it...”

She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes, her phone gripped tightly in her shaking hands.

“Um, Y/N?” his voice became more worried now “Is everything okay?”

Y/N cleared her throat and quickly wiped her eyes, closing them for a moment to steady her breathing.

“Yeah, all good Corpse” she forced herself to smile, so her voice wouldn’t sound weird. “Look, um, I need to leave, can you tell the others bye from me?”

“Is something wrong?” Corpse asked confused.

“No, of course not!” she laughed through her tears “Something just came up and I really need to leave.”

“You sure you’re-”

“Bye Corpse. It was nice playing with you.”

A/N: I hope you guys are not too disappointed in me... It didn’t turn out as I initially thought it would. Isn’t it too dramatic? And is this hate plot fine? Or is it not? What do guys you think?

TAG LIST IS CLOSED!

@slytherin-chan @pillowjj @afuckingunicornn @love-and-virtues @ignooynim @crapimahuman @hannahjsworld @laugh-like-the-moon @fallengoddess772 @kingric03 @dolphinpink310 @paigeyisme @bunnychano3o @dxrtygxrl28 @z-nyx @baby-iyania @trashygeek

#corpse husband #corpse x reader #corpse husband x reader #fanfiction #youtubers #corpse husband imagine #writing #imagine

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darkmulti · 4 years ago

Text

-> 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞

-> 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭, 𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐟𝐢𝐚 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝.

-> 𝐒𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫 𝐃𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

-> releasing this a bit early because we reached 4K+!! Thank you guys so much! I love you all<3

-> THIS PROFILE CONTAINS DUB-CON AND NON-CON THEMES! PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

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It was a Saturday night — the busiest day of the week. You worked at the strip club, not as an exotic dancer but as a waiter. The money you were making was just enough for you to survive on your own.

Tonight, you wanted to ask your boss if you could start working as a dancer. You packed your new dancewear and everything you might need in case the boss says yes. It was around 4 pm when you arrived. You walked to your boss’s office and gently knocked on the door.

“Come in”

You grab the door handle and push the door open, revealing your boss Taehyung with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

“Hello, little one. What can I help you with?”

You thought the nickname was creepy at first, and when you politely asked him to stop calling you that, he said that he had a nickname for every employee. Over time, you’ve grown used to it. And you’d be lying if you said that it didn’t give you butterflies in your stomach.

“I know this is sudden, but can I start dancing?”

Taehyung squeezed the glass cup tightly, almost shattering it with his bare hand.

“But why? You’re just a little angel. Angels don’t sin, little one.”

“Sir, I really need money. I want to go back to school and get a degree so I can have a permanent job.”

There was a pause of silence before you spoke up again.

“I-I can show you my skills. I’ve been practicing. I even brought my dancewear.”

Taehyung shoots you a glare. It was intense and almost threatening. He sighs as he puts the glass of whiskey on his desk and walks to the couch, where he sat down with his muscular thighs spread apart.

“Go wear your little outfit and come back here.”

You innerly smile and leave to the dressing room to change. Once the door closed, Taehyung let out a chuckle. He’s never going to allow you to be a dancer, he just wants to watch you for his pleasure.

After adjusting your straps and fixing up your hair, you sprayed some perfume around your neck and walk back to his office.

“Sir, I’m ready.”

“Good, now come in and lock the door.”

You did as told then remove your robe. It didn’t take long for Taehyung’s member to harden after seeing your body on full display. Taehyung turned some music on then said “the stage is all yours, little one.”

You’ve been practicing for months, just for this moment. Bending over and whipping your hair back, showing off your beautiful body to him. Taehyung motioned you to come to him, so you can give him a lap dance.

He placed his hands on your hips and made you grind on his bulge. Your face warmed up after feeling his boner that you caused. Taehyung started moving his hips with yours, making you whimper.

His hands moved to your breast and gave it a light squeeze. “Sir, I thought touching is not allowed.”

“I’m the boss. I make the rules. Right now, touching is allowed.” You were too naive to understand that he was manipulating you.

30 minutes pass and you finally stop and take a step back.

“So... what did you think?”

You were expecting a positive response and even a praise but you got the complete opposite.

“I’m sorry, little one. You’re not good enough. I can give you a raise but I’m not letting you become a dancer.”

“But what if I practice more? Could you reconsider?!”

“No is my final answer, little one. I’m a very busy man and I don’t have time to watch you dance just for you to fail.”

Embarrassed. You felt so embarrassed. You genuinely thought Taehyung was enjoying your show. Well, it sure as hell looked like it. A gloomy look took over your face and you walked towards the door to leave.

“Don’t give me that pouty face, little one.”

Taehyung abruptly pulled you on his lap and attached his lips to yours. You didn’t respond until Taehyung’s hand spanked your butt, causing you to moan.

“Grind on me, baby. I know you want it just as much as I do.”

You rubbed your clit harder against his bulge until you released. “Keep moving, little one. Help daddy cum too.” He growled, before grabbing your face and kissing you again. Deep moans left his mouth turning you on even more. His hands all over your body — it felt euphoric.

Taehyung let out one last groan before cumming in his pants. “Fuck! You’re so fucking good.” he kissed your jawline and moved down to your neck.

“How about this, little one. You become my personal dancer and I pay you money. You can stay with me, I’ll buy you everything you need as long as you accompany me and satisfy my sexual needs.”

“Like a sugar daddy?”

“Exactly”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rules:

No dating

No lying

No revealing clothes

If something is wrong, tell him

No swearing

Don’t be bratty

Obey him

Never reject his kisses

Don’t leave without his permission

Answer his calls and texts immediately

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How he’s like:

Taehyung’s a charming, gentleman

He treats you like a queen

He never ignores you

You’re his first priority

This man spoils the shit out of you

He buys you luxurious clothes and accessories

For your birthday, he bought you a brand new Porsche convertible

Taehyung’s very possessive, but you honestly don’t mind

You love spending time with him anyways

Anytime another male is too close to you, he wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you closer to him

If you hug him, his hands will immediately go down to your ass and grab it

He’s very affectionate

Even at important events, Taehyung will always hug you, kiss your lips, cheeks and forehead in front of anyone

Sometimes you forget that you’re his sugar baby because he treats you like his wife

Your opinion matters to him

Whether it’s a big or small decision, he always wants to hear what you think

In the morning, he makes you breakfast

Especially if you had a long night with him (if ykyk)

When he’s doing work, he makes you sit on his lap and do some cock warming

Taehyung loves travelling with you

He’d rent out expensive villas or hotel room

Taehyung loves swimming with you

The man enjoys your company

You’re so lovable, sweet and innocent

It was almost like you were made for him

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Yandere Taehyung:

Taehyung was secretly obsessed with you

After he hired you as a waiter, he wanted to know everything about you

Since the job application required your address, Taehyung knew where you lived

He broke into your apartment and hid tiny cameras in places you’d never see

There were cameras in your kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom

He did this to keep an eye on you and make sure that you’re not seeing another man

When you’re at work, Taehyung stops by your apartment and takes some of your underwear to get off

He hacked into all your social media accounts, unfollowed guys he didn’t like and checked your dm’s regularly to make sure nobody was trying to get with you

If you made plans with your friends, Taehyung would show up (in disguise) and watch you from afar

Whenever you had plans or even a date, Taehyung would call you and say that more waiters are needed and he will pay extra because it’s an emergency

So you end up cancelling on your friends/date which angers them

Soon, your friends stopped inviting you to hang out because you always cancel last minute because of work

Taehyung’s plan was too isolated you from your friends which gives him the perfect opportunity to swoop in and be your one and only companion

And what do you know, his plan worked

Not only that but since you have no friends anymore, you’re always with him

So he never has to worry about you fooling around behind his back

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Sex Life:

Taehyung was incredible in bed

He never failed to satisfy your sexual needs

You’ve both tried so many kinky things in bed and it was honestly fun

He was addicted to eating you out

Hickeys all over your body. Between your thighs, on your stomach and chest. All over your neck, collar bone and jawline.

Taehyung loves marking what’s his

Traditional rough sex + doggy

But hey, it gets the job done

Three round minimum, 7 rounds maximum

Taehyung will always cum inside of you

He loves watching himself cum into your little hole

He gets more turned on when watches cum his leaking out of your hole and running down your thigh

Dry humping is something he’s into

The idea of both of your coming without having actual sex drives him crazy

Blowjobs for days

He loves watching you suck him off

Make eye contact with him while you suck and he’ll have an orgasm

You must swallow all of his cum

Don’t spit it out

Before Taehyung got you, he used to use your underwear to masturbate

You eventually started to notice that a bunch of your panties disappeared

Therefore, Taehyung returned most of them (except for his favourites), some washed, some not

Taehyung could literally cum to the thought of you wearing panties covered in his dried-up cum

It made him hard just thinking about it

Over time, you notice Taehyung becoming more aggressive in bed

It would get so bad that you’d have to use the safe word to get him to stop

You noticed he started doing things he’s never discussed with you before

Sometimes, you cry under him because he scares you

He’d pin your hands above your head and fuck as hard as he could

You were not used to it nor were you a big fan of it

He was taking everything out on you

Taehyung would start at 21:30 and finish at 04:00

Unknowingly, Taehyung’s yandere side took over him

Some may know him as V

His cruel and sadistic side who felt no remorse whatsoever

V’s kinks are dark and heavy

He choked you until you couldn’t breathe, tied you up so you couldn’t move, and slapped you when you asked him to stop

V enjoyed watching you cry too

Overstimulation was the worst part

Your core was crying for a break but V couldn’t care less

The man fucked you until you passed out

Minimum 7 rounds, maximum... there’s no maximum

In the morning, he’d still be deep in you and depending on his mood, he may or may not fuck you again

At this point, you didn’t care if it was Taehyung or V, you needed to leave him

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Trying to break off the (3 years) contract:

This is when Taehyung goes fucking insane.

After nights of relentless sex, you finally decide to break the contract. You couldn’t handle the abuse anymore. Sex every night to “remind you of your place” was complete bullshit. You stayed with him for two more months, hoping that the old, sweet Taehyung would come back and save you.

Unfortunately, he never did. After you lost all hope, you wanted to get away from Taehyung as soon as possible. He can keep all the gifts and money he’s given you if that means freedom.

You woke up only to see Taehyung missing from the bed. He must’ve gone to work, you thought. You get ready and pack all of the clothes you brought to his mansion. You write a small message on a notepad, saying that it’s over. You didn’t dare to tell him face to face because you knew exactly where it would’ve lead to.

You left his mansion and took the bus back to your apartment. An hour later, Taehyung was blowing up your phone, spamming you with messages.

“Where the fuck are you?!”

“Answer my calls!”

“Explain the message on the notepad!”

“What do you mean that we’re “done” ?”

“The contract’s not over yet! I still fucking own you.”

“Get your ass over here!”

“You’re making your punishment worse for yourself.”

“How can you say goodbye to me like this?! Do I mean nothing to you?!”

“You’re going to regret this!”

“Come back here, now!”

“Stay where you are, I’m on my way!”

You started to tear up because you were petrified. You drop your phone in fear and ran into your closet. You hid in a basket full of your clothes so no one could see you. Not even a minute passed and Taehyung was banging on your apartment door.

“OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR, Y/N.”

You covered your mouth, stopping the sobs from coming out. You needed to find a weapon. You looked around your closet and that’s when you spotted something.

A camera.

A tiny camera is hidden in plain sight. Your heart dropped to your stomach. How long has that been there? Who placed it there? Your mind immediately went to Taehyung. You were trying to connect the dots but how could he have possibly gotten into your apartment?

You stopped questioning when you heard Taehyung break down the door. He came right to your bedroom and opened the closet door. He pulled out the basket you were hiding. “Get up.”

That’s when you knew the camera belonged to him. He knew your exact location. You couldn’t help but wonder how long he’s been watching you.

You take a deep breath in and stand up. Taehyung’s fierce eyes encountered your terrified ones. He grabbed your jaw and pulled your face close to his.

“What the fuck were you thinking?! You nearly gave me a heart attack! I thought one of my enemies kidnapped you but no! You just left me with a shitty ass note.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?!” Taehyung pinched the bridge of his nose. “SORRY?! THAT’S ALL YOU FUCKING GOT?!”

He picked up your glass jewelry box and threw it on the floor. The whole thing shattered, causing you to burst out in tears. “T- Taehyung! Stop! Stop it! You’re scaring me!”

“Good bitch. Seems like I haven’t scared you enough because you still have the nerve to fucking leave me.”

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Omg, I finally wrote something after months of being an unproductive piece of shit.

This is bad, but I still hope you enjoyed 😊

Oh and I apologize for any mistakes. Like always, I’m half asleep:)

xoxo,

naina❣️

#taehyung smut #yandere taehyung #taehyung yandere #kim taehyung smut #Sugar Daddy Profile: Kim Taehyung #bts smut #bts profile #taehyung profile #bts yandere reaction #bts yandere #yandere bts #dubcon #non con

1K notes · View notes

mknight0000 · 2 years ago

Text

Cross-Dimensional Answers Prologue-Ch 1 (Last Legacy)

A/N: AAAAA I cannot believe this is happening!! So I am writing the events of LL from the perspective of my MC. Hopefully, you’ll get to know her as the story progresses and maybe grow to like her! Before we get started, I wanted to make a few things clear.

I do want to preface that I am not the creator of LL (obviously). I am taking the story of LL and making just a few adjustments and additions here and there (for example: the setting of the expo). This is from the perspective of how i feel my MC experienced this story and if your interpretation of the events is different then that is totally okay! We all love and experience these routes differently so one interpretation does not discredit another. With the routes being on indefinite hiatus, when I get closer to the current state of the story, I will be taking some creative liberties on how the rest of the story folds out. This is not a story that will completely follow the events laid out for us, but a way for me to finish the story so I can have some sense of closure. Also there may be some instances that I may not fully know how things operate. I will try my best to do research and information digging, but I may have to make some guesses (ex. How a check in at a con works seeing as I’ve sadly never been to one) so you’ve been warned.

Listed below are the creators of LL. They worked so hard on the world and I want everyone to show them some love for it. I put a link to the LL carrd as well so that you can check out everyone’s socials (so many talented writers and artists worked very hard on this story so please go support them!).

I do want to warn you that I am a beginner writer. I’ve only every written fictional stories for a few school assignments and for an application, so all the work I've done has been seen by very little people. If you have any constructive criticism, it is much appreciated, HOWEVER please do not send hate. It does not help anyone out, and if anything it hurts more then it helps so if you have any suggestions, feel free to DM me.

With that very long A/N done and out of the way (don’t worry it won’t be like this in the next installments), let's get this party started!!

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-Word Count: 2,428

-Warnings: Swearing, Mentions of Food, Probably poor grammar (I try to proof read but my mind jumps a lot sooooo),

-Creators: Dev (creator and writer), Ciel (sprites, cgs, illustrations), Hika (bgs, illustrations, gfx), Lulu (writer), and Grace (writer)

-Carrd Link

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“Are you sure that you have everything packed for your first day? Your lunch and backpack are already packed, right? Do you have your supplies ready?” I ask hastily into my phone, briskly walking out of my hotel toward the convention center in hopes of being early.

“Yes, yes i do, you don’t need to- hmph!” the voice on the other side exclaims suddenly. A crash sounds in the background, “Shit!”

I stop suddenly, concern lacing my voice, “Are you okay Tim? What happened?”

I hear a laugh come from the other side, after which I exhale a breath of relief.

“Yeah, I'm fine. I just tripped over my backpack is all, and I’ll be fine today,” Tim says as I hear the rustling of fabric, most likely putting on his school uniform jacket, “there’s no need to worry.”

I quietly laugh and a small smile adorns my face, warmed by the thought of my caring brother as I continue my walk toward the convention center. As I get closer, I spot signs and billboards posted around the city of Orlando, advertising the event, indicating that I am getting closer to my destination.

“You know it’s my job to worry about you, right? I’d be a pretty bad caretaker if I didn’t. I mean it’s not every day that you start your Junior year!” I say into my phone, laughing slightly towards to end of my words knowing what his following reaction will be.

“Yeah, totally, the thought of taking the SAT this year is soooo thrilling,” Tim says back, a smile hinted in his voice though his tone is of complete loathing, “Cannot wait to spend restless nights studying for probably one of the most important exams of my life, definitely no pressure.”

He is about to say something else when I hear another voice on the other end of the call.

“Is that Meg on the phone? Let me talk to her,” I hear a voice call from the other end.

“Ugh, hold on! Let me say goodbye to her before you steal my phone out of my hands!” Tim exclaims, frustration coating his words, “Well, Andy will probably hang up before giving the phone back so I hope you have a good time at the expo.”

“Thanks, Tim. Have a good first day. I know this’ll be your year, I can feel it. Just try to talk to some new people today, okay?”

A brief moment of silence comes from the other end.

“...Yeah okay,” he responds, hesitation clear in his voice, “I’ll call you when school gets out, alright? I love you.”

“Love you too.”

“Here’s Andy.”

I decide to stop and stand off to the side as silence fills the call, hearing the phone being transferred from Tim to my other brother.

“How is my wonderful sister doing this beautiful morning?” Andrew asks in a honeyed voice. I stand there, squinting my eyes, suspicion clear on my face.

“What do you need Andy?” I ask smirking, knowing that tone all too well.

“What?? I can’t ask how my talented, beautiful sister is doing this fine morning?”

I don’t even bother to respond.

“...Huh, I can never get anything past you, can I?”

“No, no you cannot,” I laugh.

Andrew laughs into the phone along with me.

“Well then, is there any chance that I can steal some of your muffins from your apartment? They’re the really tasty ones that I love and I can totally pay you back when you return,” asks Andrew.

I raise my eyebrow, “You promise to pay me back? Last time you said that it took you six months to repay me and you only did so because your own husband had to threaten you,” I state.

“Yes, yes I promise!” He pleads, “I’ll even pinky-promise if that helps!”

I laugh, “No, it's fine, you can take some.”

“Thanks, little sis-”

“We’ve had this discussion before, I’m not your little sis!” I exclaim into the phone, a couple sitting at a café table near me looking pointedly at me. I give them a shrug and mouth “sorry” to them.

“Yeah, you are.”

“Being older by 10 minutes does not count.”

“Yes it does,” he says with a smirk knowing he won the discussion, “Anyways, like Tim said, please try not to worry about us during the expo. I know it’s been a while since you’ve had time for just yourself so just please enjoy your time there, you deserve this,” he says in a gentle tone.

“I will, thanks,” I say, grateful for my brothers’ concerns.

“Make sure to get some sweet pics of you in front of the expo with your cosplay, oh! and don’t forget the gift for Seb’s birthday, you know how much he loves those Reynold guitars. He’ll definitely freak out when he sees its from the OG shop” Andrew said excitedly.

“Will do. Also, you’re still picking me up Friday evening, right?”

“Yep! Meet you at the guest gate?”

“No, on the flight line–yes at the guest gate,” I laugh into the phone. “I’ll call you when I take a break for lunch, love you, Andy.”

“Love you, Meg, have fun, bye!”

“Will do, bye.”

I end the call and I put my phone back into my backpack. I look in the window in front of me to check over my cosplay before I step into the check-in line. My brown hair is pulled into a mid-ponytail with some strands hanging out of the front for style and is adorned with a crystal flower clip. Realistically wearing a ponytail in an actual fight wouldn’t end well but hey, I look cute so what the hell. I have on a white, dramatic, peter-pan collared blouse with adorable poufy sleeves that Lizzie let me borrow for the expo, which is paired with black trousers tucked into black combat boots. Styled with the blouse is a lightly boned, black stay that is tied up in the front. The outfit itself is pretty plain, however, the gems of the outfit include my handmade cloak and the faux sword hanging from my hip. The cloak, a deep, thick, navy blue fabric, layered with a sheet of moon and star embroidered lace on top, is secured in by gold trimmed edges surrounding the collar of the cape. On the back, there is a large, embroidered, golden Starsworn logo. The cloak, alongside my handmade worbla foam sword, was the most expensive and time-consuming part of the outfit. It took many sleepless nights and breaks during my work shifts to complete them. However, paired with the simple clothing choices, my outfit perfectly exhibits design aspects of the leaked art from the latest installment to the ultimate franchise, Last Legacy II: Ex Nihilo.

After my cosplay check-over, I put on the badge that I received in the mail a few weeks prior, and walk into the appropriate line outside the expo hall under a large, tan canopy leading to the entrance of the hall, shielding guests from the Flordia sun. Hanging from the canopy reads a sign: Welcome to FanExpo FantasyCon.

I can’t believe it. I haven’t felt this excited in…years. 9 long, strenuous, exhausting years to be exact. It still feels like yesterday when I was neck deep in blankets on my bed, trying to distract myself from the collapsing world around me, when I stumbled across that review.

Despite its huge popularity, no one else in my friend group, other than Sebastian, really got into it, so the game has always been a little personal to me and allowed me to become distracted when I needed it the most.

I put my backpack down on the table once I get up to the security station so it can be checked, get my badge scanned, and walk through the metal detector to collect my bag on the other side and from there I enter into the hall.

As I walk in, I notice some familiar art from the previous Last Legacy game posted on the surrounding walls of a hallway. Smells of various food booths are posted at the other side of the expo hall, filling the very large room, and chatter from employees and guests alike echo throughout the area, creating an exciting buzz. Booths hawking various crafts are set up everywhere in the hall, from artists selling prints to various coding businesses and software developing systems advertising their companies. To my left, there is an entrance to a theatre-like room where i assume the main panel for today will be held later on.

Looking around, a a bright, wide smile adorns my face, and for the first time in a long time, pure joy fills my body. I was a little skeptical about coming to the expo when they announced it and released the ticket sales. Today is, after all, the first day of Tim’s new school year, and I haven’t been on a trip like this since before becoming Tim’s legal guardian five years ago, but after some convincing from everyone, Andy and James promising to look after him the next three days, and working extra hours to afford the tickets for access to the Mike Morrigan signing and costume costs, I went forward with buying the tickets.

This was definitely worth it, I think to myself.

Before I explore the main hall, I decide to walk down the hallway filled with panels of art from various franchises. Various scenes and characters are depicted from floor to ceiling. Some of the art is the official art from franchises, whilst other wall panels consist of concept art and art made by other artists, all done by talented individuals.

As I’m walking down the hallway a familiar voice behind me catches my attention.

“Wow! Your cosplay is amazing!”

I turn to see Celena, an incredibly talented cosplayer staring right in my direction with her deep magenta eyes (most likely from contacts). Her short, platinum white hair is adorned with an adorable bunny ear headband, which matches perfectly with her light purple dress topped with little bows in the front and a big bow in the back on top of her faux-bunny poof tail. She looks straight from the game itself, making it one of the reasons why she is my favorite cosplayer of all time.

Emotionally and mentally, I’m screaming.

And somehow, in some way, I am able to respond (almost) calmly and (almost) normally.

“Oh my god, thank you so much! Yours is amazing as well! I mean your dress is to die for! Do you mind if I get a picture with you?” I ask, overthinking each word as it comes out of my mouth.

“Of course! What’s your name?”

“Megan”

“Well nice to meet you, Megan,” she says with a smile, “And what job class are you?”

“I am a Starsworn Swordmaster,” I say, gesturing at the sword I have on my hip as we move closer to get both into frame.

I hold up my phone and take a selfie of the two of us smiling, her holding up a peace sign. After the camera clicks, I put my phone back into my bag, and when I turn back to her, she is looking at the art on the wall behind me, causing me to turn to see what grabbed her attention, in turn seizing mine.

Before me stands two familiar characters from the first Last Legacy game: Magister Escell Mirun, on the left, and Ayanna Anka, on the right. Though most of the internet is enthralled and obsessed with him, I’m not particularly a fan of the Battlemage and his cliché vain, and scheming personality. On the poster, Escell’s long purply-black hair is tied into a loose, low ponytail and it, along with his blue and green uniform with gold, accents, flows in the breeze as he stretches his pale hand outwards, imitating a spell being cast. On the right, the clever and cunning Engineer, Ayanna, stands facing away from the photo but looking back over her shoulder with her sharp, yellow cat-like eyes and iconic smirk. Her hair, put up into various thin braids, and ends highlighted in purple, lays below her large, poufy cat ears and her brown and gold-lined goggles. Her Ilpheta marks adorn her face on top of her dark brown skin, and her brown and tan striped tail curls upward. Though I love Ayanna’s character, I can’t help but question the developer’s choice in costuming, but nonetheless, I adore her.

I laugh to myself, remembering a past night during Freshman year in college when Sebastian and I discussed…funny ideas surrounding Last Legacy’s characters.

I decide to let Celena in on one of our comments, turning around, asking, “Hey don’t you think Escell would look amazing in a chainmail bikini-” I stop abruptly.

I look around and realize that I am now alone.

That’s weird, I could’ve sworn this hallway was packed with people a couple of seconds ago.

Not only am I alone, but the chatter from the main hall is gone as well.

“Hello? Celena? Anyone?” I call out.

No answer.

My breathing starts to become heavier, and I feel myself becoming colder, a clear sign of my nervousness and fear starting to show. Panic rises in my chest. The same feelings I had that night nine years ago start up.

What the hell? What the hell? What the- No don’t panic, Megan. Just- Just stay calm, maybe everyone is in the theatre for the panel? Or–

My thoughts are interrupted when a small thud sounds from in front of me. A long, multi-chrome staff rolls my way, pushed by seemingly nothing. The staff is adorned by gold accents and dangles, with a glowing crystal perched at the top, encased by gold circles, crossing over each other.

“Woah…is that…the Astrolabe?” I ask myself.

The legendary relic lies before me while I try to understand my current situation. With the amount of detail this prop has, there is no way this is anyone’s ordinary cosplay prop.

I look around to see if there is any clear indication of who it belongs to but no one seems to step forwards to claim it.

With the intent to return this to whoever dropped it, I take a few steps forward, toward the staff, and reach down to pick it up. Once my fingers touch the cool, metal base of the shaft, light protrudes from the crystal laid in the center, and white light fills my vision. I try to move my hand back but clearly, it is too late.

The hall and all the sense associated with it disappear from me and are replaced by small, shimmering balls of light. And then nothingness swallows me whole.

And then nothingness swallows me whole.

to be continued...

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Edit: Changed a few things for flow and some minor spell check

AAAAAAAAA I cannot believe this, this is so insane. This is the first time I've ever posted my writing!!! AAAAAA

#last legacy #fictif #sage lesath #oc #oc x sage lesath #writing #cross dimensional answers

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