#Prophetic agony | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

merakiui · 2 months ago

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pearl of scarlet, shed of innocence.

yandere!rollo flamme x (female) reader cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, brief nsfw, non-con touching, periods, blood, delusion, descriptions of violence and body horror, mentions of medieval torture, kidnapping/captivity, implied cult, implied stockholm syndrome/brainwashing, subtle gaslighting, descriptions of religious symbolisms/imagery note - manufactured angel, baptized in holy light. self-proclaimed prophet, corrupted in benign blight.

There are no angels in this world, or so it is told.

So to find a scapegoat for sanctuary, the people search far and wide for a lamb to sacrifice.

There are no angels in this world, or so it was told.

You’re brought to the altar beneath a crooked cross, screaming and kicking like rebellious livestock resisting slaughter. Your back is cut open and your bones are bent at awkward, avian angles. As blood drips from the stone, puddling beneath robed soles, feathers are glued on with meticulous, methodical precision. Cold hands hold your arms in place. You try to pry yourself free, but they force you down with disapproving hisses.

From the shadows, the Prophet emerges. He is a man who can foretell tragedy before it strikes, or so everyone has heard. The sun filters in through slanted windows, illuminating half of his figure. You watch dust motes bob in the light like jellyfish. They warp into strange, shapeless blobs when fresh tears overflow and spill.

He stops in front of you, swipes a skeletal finger through the blood on the altar, and holds it up to the light. It is beautifully red, a marvel to behold. An angel who can bleed is a feat unheard of. Almost human, everyone’s eyes seem to say as they exchange looks. You grit your teeth, saliva dribbling from your cracked lips, and suppress wild, animalistic screams. There’s no adjective in any dictionary that can truly describe the world of hurt you’re in. It is almost like stripping your soul away from your body or unzipping your flesh bit by bit so that your skeleton can step out. The air stings, the feathers itch, and the flowing blood is hot and plentiful.

When you look at the Prophet, you wonder if his image is blurry simply because of the tears fogging your vision or the foreboding dark of unconsciousness clawing at the back of your head.

He watches the people dress you up, fawning over a monstrosity made marvelous. A wet cloth dabs at the blood running in rivulets down your back, between the arch of your wings, staining the valley between your ruined scapula.

“Why?” you cry out thickly, choking on the word. “Why me?”

He looks through you rather than at you, green eyes filling with an unusual light. “You’re perfect.”

His gaze seems to signify that this will not be the last time you bleed on this altar, beneath a silent cross. You listen to his footsteps as they click out a steady rhythm. He stops at your side, and you twist your neck to look at him. The hands holding you down lessen their pressure, but you don’t pull away. You blink owlishly at the Prophet, whose stare is cold and clinical, and attempt to understand his perverted psyche.

Your analysis falls apart when he sticks two fingers into the open wound, where your broken bones protrude from your back. Pain flashes through your body and you tense rigidly from the shock. A howl filled with the purest agony rips through your throat, shredding your vocal chords.

“Stop! Hurts—that hurts! Fuck!” You ball your hands into fists, pointed nails pricking your palms, and you wail like a newborn. He tuts at your sailor mouth.

When he finally slides his fingers out, they’re coated in blood. Seeming satisfied, he steps around to the front and, brushing your hair back, marks your forehead with a blood-stained blessing. A cross. It burns like hot iron on flesh, and your face contorts with a nasty grimace.

“An angel who can feel pain knows of the suffering we endure at the vile hands of mages,” he says, spinning a fantastical yarn. “She is the product of cursed magic, but here she will be our salvation. She will be a symbol of safety, exalted by our hands.” He tilts his head at you, peering into your beady, bloodshot eyes. “And your name shall be—”

You don’t hear it. The shock has left you paralyzed. Before you can succumb to the horror, you’re sewn up tight, stripped, and put in robes of all white. Everything is tailored to your exact measurements. There are holes cut in the back for your wings. They are limp and feathered and mangled, but they are yours.

When the Prophet—Rollo Flamme—lifts your chin and turns your head, you ask him once more: “Why?”

He smiles and folds his hands in front of his chest, his eyes fluttering shut. “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, lesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae.” After repeating it twice more, he finally peels his green eyes open. “Amen.”

You can’t understand a word, just as you fail to comprehend the world you’ve found yourself in. A tiny sliver of shelter hidden deep within the trees.

You walk on wobbling legs, taking just a few steps forward before falling over into someone’s arms. Before your body surrenders to exhaustion and trauma, you hear the Prophet’s pleased hums.

There is one angel in this world, or so it is told.

They sit you on a throne so that you may, at the approval of the Prophet, offer consolation and consultation to those in need.

A man comes stumbling to your sacred seat. He bows so low to the ground that his forehead touches the soil. You catch pieces of his wild ramble. Most of it registers as static in your brain, the syllables stretched so far they snap.

“...raped—she didn’t—couldn’t…died by my hands—I am—no good… A sinner who—surely you understand—must repent…” He lifts his head then, and you can see the panic scrawled on his face. “Angel, won’t you forgive me?”

The Prophet places his hand on your shoulder and squeezes. He is the only one permitted to touch you because he knows you best. Because he understands tragedy before it can cut you down. His bony fingers are a reminder that you have just as much power as he’s willing to grant you—that it is precisely because of him that you are not lying chopped with the pigs as a failed approximation of an angel.

“Your verdict?” he asks, smoothing out the tension in your shoulders.

You eye the man with frigid abhorrence. I should kill you with my bare hands and when you beg for it to stop I should look you in the eyes and ask, “Did you stop for her when she uttered those same pleas?” And then I will snip the sorry thread of life you cling so desperately to, condemning you to the fiery pits of hell.

“Rat torture.”

The man shrieks. It is a ghastly racket. He blubbers like it’s a particularly scary punishment.

“Angel, have mercy! Please, I beg of you, have mercy on my soul!”

“There are a dozen ways to punish cruelty, but none can ever compare to the type of heinous hurt and torture you have so brutally inflicted upon an innocent woman. That you would come to me in person and expect me to absolve you of such a despicable sin… I am disgusted.”

The Prophet hides his scowl behind a celestial handkerchief. It was the only thing on your person when you were taken and thrown into this woodland prison. He’s kept it for himself; it smells of you, pure and perfumed.

He leans down to whisper in your ear. “Might I suggest the Judas Cradle or, perhaps, The Rack? A rat is far too lenient, Angel of Innocence, and I suspect not even a rodent would enjoy such a rotten creature. Why punish the innocent rat?”

You glance at his face, searching for the motive behind such suggestions. Though he may veil it well, you can sense the distaste and the hatred. It mirrors yours. “Then the Cradle he shall have. But only until he bleeds, after which he shall be stretched and torn apart in a manner befitting his crime.”

“As always, your judgment is sound.” The Prophet turns to look at the man. Two members in white grab his arms and haul him to his feet. “You’ve heard the Angel’s verdict. Follow through with it just as she decreed.”

As he’s dragged away, screaming and sobbing, you rise to your feet.

“I will have no more visitors,” you’re saying, taking the steps two at a time.

The Prophet exits the platform after you, perplexed. Saliva is warm and thick in your mouth, climbing through your esophagus like a winding python. Before you can duck into a nearby tent, you collapse in the grass. Bent on your hands and knees, you vomit.

The Prophet stands over you, watching silently.

Beneath a bright sun, your feathered bones shivering with every great heave, you feel your mind splitting apart. A single stitch comes undone, and with it the rest of your weakened sanity unfurls. You can hear your heartbeat in your ears, taste it on your tongue. The soil squirms under your fingertips, searching for the salvation only you can provide. Everything is alive. Everything has a heartbeat. Everything is a lie. (Or is it?)

Everything is also nothing. You cough and choke down a violent wheeze.

The Prophet’s hand brushes your cheek. The tangle in your stomach somersaults, curling in on itself, and then it’s gone.

You look up at him, wiping bile from your lips. Tears gather on your lash line. Perhaps your pathetic appearance instills some sort of sympathy in the usually unfeeling Prophet, for he bends down to your height and cleans your face with his handkerchief.

“It is truly sickening,” he says, “to see the depravity of humankind on display like this. We are grateful for your presence here. Everyone depends on you. Thus, it is important to show them an unfaltering face even when the world around you shakes.”

Trembling, you reach for his wrist. Your fingers curl tightly. “Don’t let another monster like that look at me.”

“I shall personally take his eyes just before his punishment.”

“Please,” you beg, grasping for his robes. “Never again. Please…”

“You’ve done well today. Let us retire for now. I’ll wake you for prayer and dinner.”

“You must promise, Rollo.”

Only you are given permission to address him so informally. Everyone else calls him the Prophet, the Father, the Righteous One. He is more of a god than a human when the rays frame a dainty, sunlit halo just above his head.

In a way that is almost intimately tender, he closes his hands around yours. “‘If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.’ I will pluck those iniquitous irises from their sockets and situate them so that he will look upon his flesh as it is twisted and violated without mercy.”

Despite causing such irreversible anguish, his cold, bloodless hands are soft.

You believe him just as everyone else does. Who else can you look to? Who else should you look to?

In times of uncertainty, is it not the job of a deity to come down and dispel negativity?

Every month, there is a gathering at the altar. It falls in line with your biological schedule. The Prophet appreciates your timeliness; he says so as he lifts your robes, revealing skin unblemished. This occasion is markedly different from the usual rigmarole of worship. This is proof of your goodness. Of human-like flesh and blood rendered angelic.

Your innocence is put on display for all, stretched open around pearl-white digits. His hands were bathed in holy water prior to this, and now he stands behind you at the altar to bury his fingers in the snug softness of a place previously untouched. A flower, everyone calls it, always in bloom in pretty shades of red. Angels cannot conceive, but your body yearns for it every other day outside of your cycle. Angels should not bleed, but you are a special case. The only angel in the world—in a world narrowed down to this clearing in the forest. Angels should not ache or age, but you are unique in your bodily functions. So many rules are bent and broken just to keep you here, a flightless bird pinned by macabre piety.

He strokes your wings with his free hand. The skin from which they protrude is numb and hard, healing into a gruesome scar. It is a point of your pride as an angel, manufactured though you may be. Sometimes you think you can feel his touch through your wings, gentle and appreciative, always so careful.

You inhale sharply and throw your head back against his chest when his fingers curl up inside you. Blood drips from the slick petals of your flower, pooling at the pristinely polished surface of the altar. An audience of zealots watches, rapt, as you flinch and gasp.

You do not feel pain when the Prophet touches you. He sees your tragedy through his green eyes, assesses it on your face and in your behaviors, and he soothes it with his fingertips. Perhaps it’s a placebo. Perhaps nothing is real and you are simply stuck in a bad dream.

You want to believe there is a reason for everything, but it’s impossible to find one amidst so much madness.

“Like we are every month, without fail, we are blessed by the red rain of our Angel of Innocence. Behold her flowering purity.” He withdraws his blood-soaked fingers, and you bite your hand to stifle a thoughtless, instinctive moan. Liquid crimson strings from his digits. He presents them to the crowd. They cheer for you, ecstatic to be free of worldly curses. No more foul temptations. No more magic. No more evil. All of the world’s filth is cleansed just beneath your pure shadow.

Or so the fable is foretold. All of it lies in wait at the back of the Prophet’s throat.

You used to struggle and squirm, hide within the ruffles of your robes, and jerk away from the Prophet’s spidery hands. Now you bloom beneath his fingertips, grateful for his attention and touch. He loves you the most, after all.

There is one angel in this world. There is one Prophet in this world. The two, forever intertwined, are hallowed dreams spun from the cotton of quiet thieves.

Or so it is told.

#yandere twst #yandere twst x reader #yandere twisted wonderland x reader #yandere twisted wonderland #yandere rollo flamme #yandere rollo flamme x reader #yandere rollo #yandere rollo x reader #n/sfw #tw: periods #tw: body horror

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gunsandspaceships · 1 month ago

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Tony Stark - Prometheus

This is the final part of the series, which unites all the separate, thematic parts (links are highlighted in blue) with evidence of the conclusion that you will find at the end of this post.

Introduction

Prophet

God of Forethought: the name Prometheus means "forethinker", "foreseer", "prophet".

Creator of intelligent life

In Greek myths, Prometheus is the creator of an artificial form of life - the humankind. "He created them looking up to the sky like gods."

"Here I will sit, forming men after my own image. It will be a race like me, to suffer, to weep, to enjoy and to rejoice" (Goethe)

Earth's Best Defender

Prometheus takes on the protection of mortals from tyrant gods who want to enslave or destroy them.

"Cover your heavens, Zeus, with gauzy clouds, and practice, like a boy who beheads thistles, on the oaks and peaks of mountains; but you must allow my world to stand, and my hut, which you did not build, and my hearth, whose glow you envy me." (Goethe)

"Beautiful is the tradition Of that flight through heavenly portals" (Longfellow)

God of Fire

He stole the fire from gods to give it to humans to protect them, keep them warm and give them light in the form of science and technology.

"All the soul in rapt suspension, All the quivering, palpitating Chords of life in utmost tension, With the fervor of invention, With the rapture of creating" (Longfellow)

The Mountains

For that, Zeus ordered Prometheus to be chained to a rock in a cave and sentenced him to eternal suffering.

"First the deed of noble daring, Born of heavenward aspiration, Then the fire with mortals sharing, Then the vulture,--the despairing Cry of pain on crags Caucasian." (Longfellow)

Heart

Every day an eagle flew to Prometheus and pecked at the center of his life.

"Who helped me against the pride of the titans? Who rescued me from death - from slavery? Did you not accomplish it all yourself, my sacred, glowing heart?" (Goethe)

The Torture

For the sake of humans, Prometheus voluntarily accepted eternal pain and chose to suffer in silence.

"A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, All that the proud can feel of pain, The agony they do not show, The suffocating sense of woe, Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless." (Lord Byron)

Chiron

Ancient Greeks had another myth - about the father of surgery, centaur Chiron, who once saved a hero betrayed and ambushed in the mountains.

Chiron was also the one who took on Prometheus' suffering and died in his place. He was shot by an arrow and to end his own pain exchanged his life for life and freedom of Prometheus.

The Sun

For humankind, Prometheus became the image of a noble fighter against oppression, and a symbol of human progress and creative freedom.

"When I was a child I did not know in from out; I turned my confused eyes to the sun, as if above it there were an ear to hear my laments - a heart like mine that would pity the oppressed." (Goethe)

Conclusion:

Taking all of this into account, I believe that Tony was not only inspired by the myth, but he himself is Marvel's Prometheus, at least in the MCU.

Excerpts from poems used: - "Prometheus, or the Poet's Forethought" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; - "Prometheus" by Lord Byron; - "Prometheus" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Bonus:

Kaos

"Prometheus brings Fire to the Cavemen"

Familiar names

Marvel and their love for Greek mythology

Prometheus, Goethe, Schubert, and RDJ

Thanatos

Life and Death

Comics

#marvel #mcu #tony stark #iron man #the avengers #prometheus #greek mythology #mythology

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barrenclan · 4 months ago

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I'm losing it, there's apart of me still bracing myself for Pinepaw's death, but on the other hand the language used in his prophetic dreams is a little worrying. Yes, antlers peirce through him, but instead of physical pain, it's the most raw, gutwrenching agony and misery he's ever felt. Deepdark, what are you planning? How are you going to break his heart?

I'm sorry for holding your ask until after Issue 39 came out (this ask was submitted in June), but I was worried anything I might say would give away what a beautiful analysis of Pinepaw's dreams this was. The most gutwrenching agony he's ever faced - not physical but psychological. How will you break his heart, indeed.

The title was definitely always metaphorical - BarrenClan as a concept, as a belief system, dying. But Pinepaw speared on the horns - both a metaphor like above, but also perhaps has some truth to it?... what could that mean?... ooh I love teasing.

#ask #anon #deepdark #pinepaw

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hirukochan · 1 year ago

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Ambushed

A Severus SnapexFem!Reader Oneshot

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Pairing: Severus Snape x former student reader

Summary: After your former Professor murdered Albus Dumbledore a few weeks after your one-nightstand you never expected to see him again.

Warnings: Smut, catcalling, blood, injury

Wordcount: 5000

Read on Ao3 or below the cut

Life has become significantly darker since the death of Albus Dumbledore. You hear rumours of the Ministry falling, about Death Eaters taking over and You-Know-Who rising. From the perspective of the public all that hasn’t happened. Everybody can feel the change and taste the misery hanging in the air between abandoned and destroyed shops in Diagon Alley.

The rich fuck you work for is paying you extra because you decided to stay. You aren’t going to let yourself be scared into running away!

You started evening courses at a small university in Aberdeen a few months ago. Enchanted Art. For what? Hell if you know, but art sounded good. You however aren’t…good. Not at all, but it’s fun. You enrolled a few days after what you now call ‘the worst mistake of your life’.

Severus Snape.

Death Eater.

Murderer.

Newly appointed headmaster of Hogwarts.

And you fucked him. Just three weeks before he killed Albus Dumbledore, a man who trusted him.

The Daily Prophet and the Ministry are framing Harry Potter for it. There is a large manhunt going on with a bounty on Potter’s head. The boy has disappeared from the face of the earth.

You saw him at the funeral in Hogwarts. Many former students came to say their goodbyes to Dumbledore. You went out of shame and guilt. It doesn’t make any sense for you to feel like that. Neither did you know what Snape was planning nor did you support him in any way. And yet, just knowing you had that man in your bed is eating at you.

You sway and stumble but can catch yourself on the side of an abandoned building. Death Eaters have been attacking Diagon Alley for months, even before You-Know-Who came to power, but never your shop. You guess it’s because a second-hand bookshop is absolutely useless. You don’t even have many customers! The shop is not profitable whatsoever.

You rub your eyes and push yourself off the wall to continue your less than straight way back to your flat. You’ve been drinking with the Weasley twins who run the joke shop a few streets away from yours. They are one of the few shops still open like you. They were three years under you and always good for a laugh though you were never friends with them. Now out of school and in the same boat you get along well.

And drinking alone is pathetic.

You are pathetic, but not that pathetic.

Not yet.

You squeeze through an alley. Just another corner and you’d be there. You’re too drunk to apparate and apparition can suck it anyway.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing out all alone?” A male voice calls out to you. You ignore it. You are really not in the mood to be accosted now and your wand might just slip.

You grip it tighter in your pocket. One could not be careful enough these days. Perhaps you should have taken Georges’ offer of walking you home.

“I’m talking to you!” He sounds angry now. Just fuck off. Just turn around and fuck off or better come here and give me something to let my aggressions out on. “Stuck up cunt!” You are whirled around by your shoulder and thrown against a wall. The air is pressed out of your lungs and your back aches.

The blurry face of a sleazy looking man comes into view but in the next second he’s gone. You blink. Your alcohol drenched brain needs some time to catch up. Then a scream rips through the night and you recoil. Everything in you screams to run. To turn around and take off, to save yourself, but your eyes are glued to the man on the ground, writhing and screaming, his body shaken by endless, never-ending agony.

Steps echo through the night and your head snaps up. A tall, dark figure moves towards you. Black robes, dark hair- for a second you think it’s Snape and you don’t know how to feel at that and even less how to deal with the sting of treacherous disappointment when you notice he’s too slim and too short to be Snape.

Moonlight reflects off a silver mask. You grip your wand tighter, terrified of what’s going to happen next.

A Death Eater.

A real fucking Death Eater right in front of you! And you’re still not running. Why the fuck are you not running?

“Tsk tsk tsk.” He clicks his tongue and shakes his hand. The man’s screams have stopped, replaced by a strangled, gurgling sound that somehow sounds so much worse. Your blood freezes in your veins and you start shivering. This is it. This is how you die. Drunk and on your way home. Just a street away! Away from safety, though you suspect that it’s a false feeling. A lie.

There is no safety left in Britain.

“Has your mummy never taught you, you mustn’t touch what isn’t yours?” He shakes his head and clicks his tongue again. A green light illuminates the alley. It paints grotesque shadows onto the silver mask and the wall behind him.

You scream. Shock and pain are ripping the sound out of the wall of your throat and haul it into the night. You cover your mouth with your hands. Tears sting in your eyes. You don’t want to die here.

Your heart pounds in your chest, strong and fast, declaring it has many good years still left, refusing to back down but also trapped by a rich net, woven from terror and dread.

“You shouldn’t be out so late.” The Death Eater says. His voice is slightly muffled by the mask, but he sounds young. So terribly young. Perhaps around the twins’ age? Did he go to school with you? You don’t recognise his voice, but you are in shock. Right? Yes, shock. He just killed someone! Like it’s nothing! To think you might have sat next to him in the Great Hall or the library…

“It’s not safe. Best run along now.”

You blink. Confused. He is letting you go? Why would he let you go? He rips his sleeve up, revealing a jet-black tattoo on his underarm, one that you’ve never seen before but recognise regardless.

“That’s a fucking order!” You flinch. And then you’re running. Running down the street and not stopping until you’ve reached the door to your flat. Your fingers tremble so much you struggle to get the key into the keyhole. You use every single protection charm you know on the door after you’ve closed behind yourself. You’ve gotten good at casting them. You had to.

“What the fuck.” You whisper to yourself, back leaned against the wall and wand clutched to your chest. “What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck!” A Death Eater just fucking let you go! He tortured someone for attempting to assault you and then killed him.

He fucking killed him.

You watched someone die.

What the fuck.

Oh Merlin and Grímhildr and god and Jesus fucking Christ!

‘Mustn’t touch what isn’t yours’ What does that mean? You’re not some object to be owned!

“Maybe he has a crush on me?” You think out loud. Yeah…maybe that guy really did use to go to school with you? Maybe he- you have no idea but what other reason would there be? Would a Death Eater disapprove of assaulting women? Somehow you find that hard to believe.

The incident does not leave your mind. You become paranoid. Always checking your steps and looking around for that glimmer of light catching on a silver mask. Often you’d look out of your windows, watching the empty street but you don’t see the young Death Eater again. You expect him to come back any day to finish you off

One day you arrive at the Leaky Cauldron after your evening classes tired and hungry. It’s a little after ten and you decide to eat in the pub instead of cooking. An hour later you step outside and apparate onto the steps in front of the door to your flat. You secure the door with your usual spells and kick off your shoes before hurrying up the stairs. You want nothing more than to collapse into your bed-

Something isn’t right. It’s the faintest difference. A smell that is not quite right. A whisper of magic in the air that does not belong to you. The small hairs on your nape stand and your stomach clenches. You grip your wand tighter.

There is something on your floor. A large black something.

“What the fuck?” You mutter and drop your hand to your side. “What the fuck? No no no- get the fuck up, Snape!” He doesn’t move. He is lying face down in a puddle of blood in the middle of your flat. Where did he come from? How did he get in? Why is he here?

You kick him.

It sounds like a logical choice in your head.

He doesn’t move.

“I have a Death Eater in my flat, on my floor. I have a dying Death Eater on my floor!” You panic. You are panicking. You kick him again. Nothing changes. “Shit shit shit!” You could just…kick him down the stairs and lock the door? How did he get in here?!

“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-” What do you do? What can you do? Why is he here?

For lack of a better plan, you kick him again, but despite how gratifying it feels to let your aggression out on him you have to come up with a better idea. You can’t just keep kicking him!

Wary of the Death Eater on your floor you kneel down and press two fingers to the pulse point on his neck, ready to jump backwards at any point. His skin is burning up. What happened?

You can’t just kick him down the stairs. It’s tempting. He’d deserve it- but that isn’t you. Besides it would take the Death Eaters not even two seconds to figure out who left him there to die and they might come back to hurt you.

You heave him into your bed and peel the blood-soaked clothes from his chest. There is a deep gash across his side. Blood steadily runs down his pale skin. What happened to him?

“He’s a Death Eater that’s what fucking happened to him.” You scold yourself. “And you are fucking helping him- fuck! Why did you choose my flat to die in, Snape?!” You flick your wand at him, and his own wand comes flying through the air, landing in your hand. You shove it into your pocket.

Snape looks like shit. He’s thinner than a few months ago, his skin paler and dark, deep shadows have seemingly permanently attached themselves to the skin under his eyes.

The glorious Death Eater that defeated Albus Dumbledore.

You scoff.

“Good- that is that…disarming the Death Eater that is twice your size and can probably do wandless magic…or simply snatch them back from you because let’s be honest here - we aren’t a fighter!” You have no idea who you are talking to, but you feel hysteric and talking to oneself is what hysteric people do. Right? Right?

“Please don’t die here and start haunting me!”

“I’m not dying.” Snape grunts and you scream.

“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck- you scared the living shit out of me! What the fuck are you doing here?” Without bothering to answer you, he examines the wound on his side. He grimaces.

“I advise you against attempting that.” The deep, velvety rumble of voice makes you shudder in all the wrong ways. You keep your wand trained on him anyway.

“Get the fuck out of my flat!” You hiss, raising your wand higher, keeping it aimed at him.

“So hostile.” He tuts. “Did I leave you unsatisfied last time?”

“You’re a murderer!” Your voice is shaking, tears pool in your eyes and you have no fucking idea why you feel betrayed. You hadn’t spoken to Snape in five years before your one-night stand. But had you known…had you known he is a Death Eater you would have never let him into your bed.

“Yes.” Snape says and he somehow sounds bitter. What right has he to be bitter? “I heard you ran into some…trouble.” You shove your wand in his face and perhaps he sees in your eyes how serious you are, a faint promise of hexing him or something else, but he raises his bloodied hands slightly as if to tell you he isn’t a danger.

“Do you have a first-aid-kit? So I can get out of your hair.” You look at him, considering. You could make him leave. “I’m not a danger to you.” To you. To others, yes, but not you. You have no idea how to feel about that thinly veiled confession. You flick your wand towards your bathroom. Snape rummages through your first-aid-kit.

“Who the fuck doesn’t stock dittany?” He asks, glaring up at you while aggressively opening the fuckton of buttons on his robes. Who needs so many buttons?

“Why would I have fucking dittany? Sorry I did not expect you would choose my home to almost fucking die in!”

“I wouldn’t have died!” He sneers.

“Tell that to the puddle of blood on my floor. Why are you here?” He hesitates. His shoulders droop and he stops messing with his clothes. Something profoundly vulnerable flashes through his eyes.

“Where else would I go?” And that is that apparently. He peels back layers of blood-soaked clothes, and you try not to ogle him. He hadn’t taken off much of his clothes when he fucked you…

The moonlight hides the currently sickish undertones of his pale skin, making him look like one of those marble statues you’ve seen in a muggle museum once. His skin is littered with scars, a visual reminder that this man is a Death Eater - a fact your body is more than willing to ignore judging by the uncomfortable, damp spot in your knickers.

You watch him patch himself up from a safe distance, your wand pointed at him at all times. His fingers tremble, his skin is chalky pale and beads of sweat cling to his forehead, but his movements are precise and purposeful.

And yet-

You have never seen him like this.

Small somehow.

Vulnerable.

“I was told you were assaulted.” His voice is quiet, he usually speaks soft and quiet - a man like he never has any trouble getting a classroom full of hormonal teenagers to shut it. But today it’s different. There is something…inherently broken about the way he says the words and it gives you pause.

“So what? You decided to break in? Who do you think you are that you get to check up on me?” You spit the words at him because if you don’t, you might do other things and you really can’t afford that.

“That wasn’t-” He inhales sharply and impossibly enough pales even more. You summon a glass of water. “Thank you.” He whispers and downs the whole thing in one go.

“Wouldn’t want your cult friends to show up here because I let you die.”

“You should be careful what you say.” He doesn’t say it as a threat. He says it softly, with dread mixing into his worry.

“I thought you weren't a danger to me.”

“Plenty of people are.”

“Right…then. You know where the door is.” You nod towards it. Snape rises to his feet - far more graceful and steady than he has any right to with how shit he looks. He comes closer and you bite the inside of your cheek to resist the urge of stepping back. He comes closer still, his much larger frame hovering above you and any sliver of thinking Snape is small evaporates into thin air.

His silky hair falls into his face and hides it in the shadows of your flat, with only the moon illuminating the small space.

You take a shaky breath and attempt to ignore the heat between your bodies or the way your heart beats all wrong. His eyes have an intensity to them that makes you shudder and involuntarily recall how his hands felt on you…his breath dancing across your skin…the way he tastes-

“You still have my wand.” He says, his voice impossibly deeper and smokey and his eyes- these damn stunning stupid eyes that burn into yours, whispering promises of things you can’t even begin to wrap your mind around.

You automatically close your fingers tighter around your own wand. He is so close now the tip of it digs into his chest. He doesn’t even flinch. Like the threat of a curse does not even affect him, like he doesn’t give a shit that you could simply kill him right now or perhaps it’s arrogance. He believes you incapable of it - which is the truth but still! Is it asking too much to want him to be at least a little afraid?

Snape reaches out and his hand brushes over your side and you inhale sharply.

There must have been a lapse in the fabric of time - in the universe itself because suddenly you are kissing. You don’t know why or how but the wands clatter to the ground and Snape’s hands are on you and your body scream fuck the universe because this feels right.

Snape’s arms wrap around your smaller form and press you to his chest and you let him, weaving your hands into his hair while he claims your mouth with a feral hunger. You moan into the kiss and lean into his touch and try to smother the whisper in your head repeating the last two words you’d want to hear right now over and over.

Death Eater

You slide your tongue over his. There is a faint taste of iron in the kiss but it doesn’t matter. Snape’s fingers dig into your flesh like he is trying to devise a way to never have to let you go again.

He clings to you like a dying man to life.

Death Eater

He stumbles backwards and takes you with him, plopping down on the bed and pulling you into his lap. It feels natural. Your bodies fit together like two puzzle pieces and something somewhere in the universe just clicks.

You run your hands down his neck and over his shoulder, noting how much thinner he feels now compared to last time. You shove his frock and dress shirt down his shoulders. The feeling of his naked skin against your hands feels electrifying. A buzzing prickle seeping into your body through the pad of your fingers and spreading throughout your very being like blazing wildfire, pooling deep in your belly.

Death Eater

You moan into the kiss and grind against Snape, feeling his hard cock against your core through your knickers.

Death Eater

Two pairs of hands drop to his fly at one, frantically fumbling with buttons and stumbling over each other. Snape retreats and returns to thoroughly groping your arse under your skirt. You manage to free his cock and Snape helps lift your hips. You push your soaked knickers away and align his cock with your entrance.

“Fuck I forgot how big you are-” You hiss at the stretch. Snape kisses your neck and nibbles on your collarbone.

“Have you been with someone since-?” He leaves the question open. Further specifications aren’t needed. You are still slowly lowering yourself on his prick, until the delicious kind of stretch turns to a stinging stretch where you pause to give yourself time to adjust.

“-no.” You pant. Snape groans against your sternum and wraps his arms around you again, pulling you close. He kisses down your chest and over your breasts. Nuzzling you through the fabric of your blouse.

“Fucking hell-” You mutter once he is finally sheathed inside you. You’re out of breath and sweaty and so so full. His cock is throbbing against your inner walls, hot and thick and you need a moment to collect yourself.

“So good.” Snape groans and continues peppering kisses over your chest. You whimper in response. “You take my cock so fucking good-” He rips your blouse open and shoves your bra up, locking his lips around your nipple instantly. You moan and cling to his shoulders. Snape licks broad strokes over your nipple, alternates between sucking and kissing and grazing you with his teeth.

His lust-drenched sounds make you squirm in his arms and arousal leak over his cock, soiling his trousers.

It takes a little moment for you to get a hang of how to move on top of him, but once you’ve figured it out, you earn approving groans from Snape.

“Fucking missed you.” He murmurs against your skin.

“Did you now?” You raise a brow.

“I’m talking to your tits, dear.”

“You have issues.” You moan and sink back down on his cock.

“I thought we had already established that.”

“Yeah, when you decided my floor was the proper place to die!”

“Wouldn’t have died.” He groans and locks his lips around your nipple again. You cradle his head with your arms and rest your cheek against the crow of his head while bobbing up and down his length in an unsteady, unrefined rhythm.

Snape doesn’t seem to care.

And neither do you really.

The voice in your head shut up a while ago and you bid farewell to it, telling it to never come back.

Snape inhales sharply and you stop instantly.

“Did I hurt you?” You ask, unable to keep the worry out of your voice. Snape’s face is contorted in pain. He reaches for the footboard of your bed and his knuckles turn white under the force with which he holds onto it.

“Lie down.” You murmur and push against his shoulders gently. Snape looks at you both irritated and untrusting, but he eventually (less than gracefully) lowers his back onto the mattress.

You reposition yourself above him and lean back to brace your hands against his thighs right above his knees. Slowly you begin moving again. It feels awkward for a while but then you find the right angle and Snape presses his fingers against your clit, stroking tender circles over the throbbing bundle of nerves and pleasure overshadows any feeling of awkwardness.

“You’ve always been a fast learner.” Snape groans. “Such a studious girl.”

“When the subject interests me.” You chuckle and the corner of his mouth twitches.

“Am I an interesting subject?”

“Hmm…Certainly one I can’t seem to escape.” You raise your hips and sink back down, moaning in tune with the delicious stretch of his girth.

“Do you plan on almost dying on my floor in the future?”

Snape laughs, an uneasy sound accompanied by a concerning rattling sound coming from his lungs. “Are you planning on stocking Dittany in the future?”

“Nah, but I was thinking about getting a runner and- ow!” He slaps your thigh, not hard, but a pleasant sting runs through your flesh and the sudden slapping sound startled you. “Bastard.” You hiss and push yourself up, planting your hands on either side of his head, careful to avoid the dark strands of hair spread out around his head.

“Is that the thanks I get?”

“Thanks?” He hums. An expression of raw pleasure flickers over his face and it pulls you in, captures you like a fly in a sticky trap - and like a fly in a sticky trap you realise the danger you are in just by associating with Snape, not to mention by fucking him.

You never thought yourself to be a morally depraved woman but here you are, with the enemy quite literally in your bed.

An injured, weakened enemy.

As if you’d have a chance against Severus Snape no matter how weak he is! No, leave the heroism to other people, people that value their lives less or think the world will be grateful for their heroism.

You close your eyes and lean down to meet Snape’s lips, to get lost in the feeling of a warm body against yours, the mechanical workings of what a romance would feel like, to draw some comfort from a man that is willingly giving it to you when all other male specimens on this earth seem to not give a shit about you.

“Started University.” You murmur against his lips. Snape has put his hands on your arse and is helping your movement, pulling you and down on his cock, guiding your cunt or using it for his own pleasure or revelling in having a former student of his so messed up she lets him fuck her.

“I heard. I’m glad.” He mutters back and takes your bottom lip between his teeth.

“Keeping taps on me?”

“Only a little.” And it’s back to kissing. Wet, heated, burning kisses. And passion or maybe erratic obsession but if obsession feels this good what does it matter?

The heat of his tongue against yours, his hands squeezing your arse, his breath dancing over your face, his cock spearing open your cunt repeatedly, it collects inside you, runs through your limbs and veins and fills your whole body. You can feel it rushing alongside your blood, feel your body respond to it by picking up the pace of your heartbeat, sweet clinging to your skin, especially on your thighs that straddle Snape’s. It floats through your body and eventually pools in your lower belly and deep inside your cunt, welcoming Snape’s prick on each thrust by splitting into two and regenerating like cell division-

Heat grows and morphs and hardens into a brooding mass that threatens to rip free of you. It scratches against your insides, searching desperately for a way out, a way to release this pressure and then Snape presses his thumb down on your clit and it rips free of you. Snape thrust up into you in one hard stroke and he groans, his grip on your arse tightening and you collapse above him and he pulls you down by putting his arms around your torso - his wound long forgotten by both of you.

His cock throbs as he spills inside you, splatters of warm, sticky cum painting your inner walls and with a content hum you rock against his softening cock to relish the last flickers of your orgasm.

Snape grunts - a pained one this time - and you push your trembling body up and lift your hips to sit down on the bed next to him. His now limp cock slips out of you and you hate that you miss the feeling of it, hate the emptiness left behind. You pull your knees to your chest and lean against the headboard of your bed, staring at the window just to not look at Snape.

“I-” Snape begins but stops himself. With another pained grunt he sits up and does the many buttons of his clothes back up. He sighs and rubs his hands over his face, raking through his hair. “I will try to not almost die on your floor again.”

“Good.” You want to sound stern, but it comes out sounding exhausted and confused.

“Good.” He murmurs. A knock on your door rips you from your thoughts. Who would knock so late? Perhaps it’s your elderly neighbour…

You pick your wand up from the floor and fix your skirt and blouse and walk towards the door.

Still caught in a whirlwind of confusing and contradicting feelings and perhaps Snape’s presence has led you to let down your guard a little, whatever it is you forget to cast your detection charms before opening the door-

Silver glimmers in the moonlight. You recognise the mask. It’s the young Death Eater that killed the man who wanted to assault you. He is flanked by two taller Death Eaters. Whatever you had wanted to say gets stuck in your throat as it swells shut. Just out of their sight you grip your wand tighter.

“Miss.” The young one says. “Apologies for the interruption.” Why the fuck is a Death Eater addressing you so polite? Movement behind you catches your attention but you don’t dare move.

“Was I not clear enough when I said this shop is not to be disturbed.” Snape drawls and all hints of pain or injury have left his voice. He looms behind you, tall and menacing and you can actually see the taller Death Eaters shrink back.

“My mistake. Again, apologies, Miss. Your presence is requested, Sir.” The younger one says to Snape.

“Do not repeat it in the future.” Snape scoffs. He ignores them and closes the door.

You can’t seem to find your voice again.

“This all will be over soon.”

“How do you know?” You whisper, uncertain what Snape means. What will be over? The resistance? You-Know-Who? His presence in your life?

“I hope you won’t have to see me again.” His lips brush your forehead ever so slightly, his fingertips dancing over your arms.

He turns to leave.

“Snape-” You don’t know what to say. His eyes linger on you for a moment, you think to see something flash in them, a hint of some deeply buried emotion but then he turns, opens the door again and he is gone.

You lean your forehead against the smooth wood. You can still feel his touch lingering-

A sob tears through the silence and you press your hand to your mouth as you sink to the floor and you don’t even know why. You kneel on the floor in front of your door and sob and cry.

When you eventually regain your composure and return to your flat you are met with the sight of drying blood…

The next day you go to the apothecary down the street and buy a bottle of Dittany.

| Part 3 |

#severus snape x reader #ao3 fanfic #snape x reader #snape x you #severus snape smut #dividers by cafekitsune

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dying-brb · 3 months ago

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desolation / an ellie x f!oc fanfiction / tlou universe

!slowburn !angst !subreader !domellie !fluff

tw: this is a heavy fic. mentions of sa, violence, gore, etc.

(oc starts off 14 but only for backstory)

chapter 1: 1090 words

ᨒ↟ 𖠰 1 - serene release ᨒ↟ 𖠰

december 2033 - colorado

⋆⭒˚.⋆ Natalie - 14 yrs old ⋆⭒˚.⋆

As I laid there, dying, I tried desperately to find the will to escape, blinking my heavy eyes in repetition.

Stay awake, Natalie.

But my eyes faltered. They rolled back and sank back into my skull begging for the relief of sleep. No, this wasn't sleep. It was a false prophet - an early demise clawing its way inside of my being, desperately pulling and tearing my soul from the weak husk I clung to.

My eyelids weighed heavier, the urge gnawing at me to let them fall shut, let the agony end; For just a moment, I considered it.

No.

Stay Awake.

I wasn't ready to die. Not really.

Ironically so, I prepared myself for this moment - begged for it, time and time again. When loved ones had died, when previous groups abandoned me, death had seemed like a serene release.

Growing up in this sick excuse for a world, I always wondered how it would happen. Would I be torn apart by Infected? Become the Infected? Succumb to the cruelty of a harsh winter? Starve?

No.

At this moment, it seemed more likely that I was going to die to a group of savage cannibals, and I would be butchered at the hands of a man that had a fascination for little girls.

My heart sank at the mere thought, and I felt bile rise in my throat, scorching my dry esophagus. I coughed lightly, choking down the vomit, I gasped for a quick breath of air and my lungs screamed in pain at the sudden inhalation. I gritted my teeth.

This was hell, but the pain was keeping me alert, keeping me alive.

Keep your fucking eyes open.

I remembered before, the moments when I had begged for the end to come, I had wondered if it would hurt—Death. Which now, in this moment, seemed like an idiotic thing to question.

Yeah, of course it fucking hurts. It hurts like hell.

The searing agony that gripped my muscles snapped me back to reality. I yanked my mind out of the past, only to be forcefully thrust into the harshness of the present moment. My heart was thumping quicker now, my breaths, once slow and wheezing were now rapid and full, croaking and stuttering, but full. I wondered if this was my bodies last-ditch attempt to save itself.

Alarm bells clanged inside my head, their echoes reverberating through my skull, vibrating as they reached my ears. My eyes widened, my once heavy lids were lighter now. Adrenaline surged through my veins, making my legs twitch with the urge to flee. I desperately wanted to leave this place and never look back, but I remained frozen on the cold tile where I lay, my body writhing with excruciating pain.

Still frozen in torment, I harnessed this newfound mental energy to survey my surroundings and formulate a plan. My eyes darted from corner to corner of the room, the hellish nature of the scene before me causing my heart to slam in my chest, and pound against my eardrums.

Breathe. Make a plan.

I refocused, absorbing every detail my fading mind could manage. I took deep breaths, exhaling slowly, my hands trembling as I noted the positions of windows, doors, and any potential exits for a swift escape. I scanned for anything that could serve as a weapon, should I break free from this confinement.

The caged room I lay in reeked of rotting meat and iron. I honed in on the pungent smell, the harsh fluorescent lighting casting unwelcome shadows, and the distant murmur of voices echoing through the halls.

Digging my nails into my side, I embraced the pain, using it to sharpen my senses and maintain consciousness. I resolved to absorb every detail, knowing that once I escaped and recovered, I would meticulously recount my steps, retrace him. Kill him. That fucking bastard.

David.

Suppressing tears of rage, I scoffed as I recalled how I found myself in this wretched corner of the world; Merely stumbled upon it in a midnight daze.

Just yesterday, I was scavenging through the snow-laden forests of Colorado. As for my exact location in Colorado, I couldn't tell you—it had become a blur amidst the relentless hunger that left my head light and my heart faintly beating. Lost in a delirium, as if I was one of them, the infected.

Perhaps this was what the early stages of mutation felt like, just before losing oneself—their personality, dreams, aspirations, and will to live all slipping away. Maybe all that remained was a relentless hunger and confusion, grasping at the flickering remnants of life while clinging desperately to the feeble fragments of humanity.

Then again, maybe not.

I simply felt adrift, with no hope left to cling to, my grasp slipping away from what little remained. It plunged me into a primal struggle for survival, fueled by animalistic paranoia. With my mind spinning, driven by the desperate quest for food, I had long abandoned the map and strayed from the path she had set me on. The path that led to the Fireflies. The path that would give meaning to my immunity.

This thought sparked a glimmer of hope within me, reigniting my determination. Clutching my grumbling stomach, I leaned against a nearby tree trunk for support, resting my head against its rough bark, my breath ragged.

That's when realization sunk in—I couldn't feel my fingers or toes. Hypothermia.

Was this the end?

As I contemplated giving up and surrendering to the cold embrace of eternal slumber, a light pierced through the darkness of the forest, forcing my hand to shield my sensitive eyes. A voice, tinged with feigned concern, broke the silence.

"Excuse me. Are you alright?" The voice trembled slightly as a flashlight nervously scanned my body. "You look like hell."

I groaned in response, my lips barely moving, cautious of this stranger in these desperate times. Yet, with no other options left, I felt a flicker of hope that perhaps this solitary figure could be my salvation. Someone, anyone, was here, offering a chance at survival.

"Here, come with me," the awkward, lanky man said, taking my hand and guiding me, his shoulder bearing my weight. I couldn't protest even if I wanted to, the exhaustion held me in a tight grip, suppressing even my primal will to survive.

And so I went, practically dragged alongside the man, into this wretched corner of the world that I lay in now.

#ellie williams x female reader #ellie x reader #ellie x fem reader #tlou x reader #ellie williams fanfic #the last of us #ellie tlou #ellie the last of us #the last of us 2 #ellie williams #oc #ellie x oc

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eastwindmlk · 6 months ago

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A @jilymicrofics for the prompt Retire, Jan 14th

Word count: 838

It was strange, after more than half a century, to be cleaning up her office for the final time. To carefully wrap her trusty tea set in yesterday’s Prophet, sift through the boxes of paperwork in search of what to archive, what to keep and what to finally bin.

As she sorted through an assortment of old assignments and Christmas cards from a bygone age, Minerva finds herself reminiscing. Once familiar faces and voices curled from the depths of her mind, a fond smile on her face.

The corners of her lips trembled like her aged hands when her fingers brushed along a script that gave her pause. Because even after all these years, all these hundreds of students, she could still tell whose penmanship this was.

The large letters crammed onto the parchment, like he knew he was going to run out of space for his sweeping t’s and large loops. The words slanting upwards as if wanting to escape from the paper.

She did not doubt that, at the time, that was precisely what he’d had on his mind, while stuck doing a detention assignment for her. It was supposed to be an essay, but in true James Potter fashion, he’d ignored the explicit instruction and instead composed a letter.

Dearest Minerva,

As we sit across from each other in your office, a pot of lapsang souchong between us, I am aware you are pretending to be cross with me. For the sake of posterity, I will pretend with you. Though we both know that they deserved every miserable second.

In the future, however, I will strive for a more creative solution. Even if I think turning their belts into snakes was quite a nifty piece of transfiguration. I will let you be the judge of that. Being the expert and all that.

Speaking of the future, I am supposed to write an essay about where I see myself next year. Which I could have answered effortlessly a fortnight ago. But things changed. Every paper is full of it now. And I refuse to sit idle just because I happened to have been born into a family that fits into their narrow view of our world.

One year from now, I will be as restless as ever. Using the privilege that comes with my name to help those who cannot help themselves. However, unlike before, I will not humour myself with the delusion that this can be achieved by mere words.

I will gladly put my wand with my conviction and face whatever is in store beyond the safety of these walls. Together with my friends, we will make a difference.

My friends and I are talking about getting a place together, somewhere nice and lively. We were hoping to travel, see some of the world. Those plans are on hold, at least for now. Though none of us will say it aloud, we hope that the four of us will be around for it.

So, we spend evenings talking about this trip, imagining places to go and things to do in the hopes that the four of us will get to go.

Hopefully, I will be dating Lily Evans. (Please don’t tell her I said that.) I think she is finally coming round to me. She no longer glares in my direction, though I can still feel her eyes on me sometimes.

Maybe I am crazy, but I can tell it is her just from the way it feels. Her watching me is special somehow. Often I itch to turn to her, to catch her looking. To catch a glimpse of her smile or her fluster. Just the fraction of a moment where I can believe she might actually feel the same way.

Or maybe not the same way. I would not wish this complete and utter agony on her. If she does come to fall for me, I hope she falls softer. I hope that I am not too blind to see and catch her before the rough landing.

That is only if I will ever be lucky enough to be enough for her. To have grown into a person, she can depend on rather than the childish prick (I am so sorry, did not mean to curse.) I used to be.

I am afraid I am running out of space. I could fill several more rolls of parchment (Which is not me asking for more) with hopes and wishes for the year ahead. Some more achievable (Pass my N.E.W.T. s) and some more hopeful (Snog Lily Evans. Again, please don’t tell her I wrote any of this.)

Your favourite student,

James Potter

Her fingers crumpled the paper where she gripped it tight, a lump rising in her throat. Her eyes scanned the content of the letter once more before pressing it briefly to her heart before placing it atop her pile of keepsakes.

Minerva pushed herself to her feet, in dire need of a break and craving a cup of lapsang souchong.

#jily fic #jple #jily #james potter #lily evans #minerva mcgonagall #jily microfic #marauders fanfiction

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resplendent-ragamuffin · 8 months ago

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Six Months Since

By Shoshana bat-Yehonatan

A poem for the six (Hebrew) month anniversary of the Simchat Torah Massacre. With thanks to the JPS, Koren, Metsudah, and other translations on Sefaria.org. Footnotes link to sources of quotes. Footnotes connect to sources which will be in reblog, because otherwise it's too long to post.

TW: RAPE

Six months has it been

Since the fields turned red without flowers

Now calaniot bloom where once my darlings danced

But still, my precious ones are gone.

I have no prophets to comfort me

No visions from God [1]

My king remains in exile [2]

How can I sing a song of God on alien soil [3]

In an alien tongue?

Yet I have been too long a stranger in a land not mine[4]—

Two thousand years, to a paltry hundred and twenty—

And I forgotten even how to speak the Holy Tongue

Let alone write in it.

I have neither wit nor words to sing my grief.

And so I turn to those before me

As they turned to those before them

And say,

“God, open my lips, and let my mouth declare my grief.” [5]

Oholiva cries [6]

And Ohola wails [7]

This year was pregnant[8] with a second month of joy

Instead she wails in travails unending

“When will my children return?” [9]

Oh wall of Fair Zion [10]

Shed tears like a river [11]

Cry out in the night and pour your heart out like water [12]

Rachel’s eyes are red as her sister’s [13]

As she weeps over the fate of her children [14]

Six months it has been

Since they ravaged women in Zion [15]

Maidens in the towns of Judea [16]

Since their hands tore my princes apart

No deference shown to elders [17]

On this day six months ago

My infants were taken captive before the enemy [18]

The joy of our hearts was seized

And our dancing turned to mourning [19]

For the youths are gone from their music [20].

Now my eyes shed rivers of water [21]

Over the ruin of my people’s daughter [22]

Bitterly I weep in the night [23]

My cheeks wet with tears [24]

There is none to comfort me: my friends have betrayed me [25]

I cry:

Behold my agony! [26]

My priests and my elders have perished in the city [27]

The elders strewn like dust on the ground [28]

Those whom I dandled and reared my foe has consumed [29]

“This is the day we hoped for! We have found it, we have seen it!” [30]

My maidens and youths have gone into captivity! [31]

“It is your doing.” [32]

Blood on her legs, her nakedness seen, [33]

Zion reaches out for comfort [34]--

“Away! Unclean!” [35]

She can only shrink back and sigh [36]

“May it never befall you.” [37]

The nations have resolved “They shall stay here no longer” [38]

We wander and wander [39]

But where are we to go?

How can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred? [40]

“My life as my wish, my people as my request,” [41]

I begged my Husband [42]

“For we have been targeted, my people and I, to be destroyed, massacred, and exterminated.” [43]

But the King turned His face from me.

My dear ones were purer than snow [44]

Ruddier than rubies or coral [45]

Their bodies lovely as sapphire [46]

Now their faces are darkened with ash [47]

Unrecognizable amid the ruin of the streets [48]

See, God, and behold to whom You have done this! [49]

Look at me, answer me, Oh God! [50]

How long will You hide Your face from me? [51]

I have no prophets now to comfort me

And must take my comfort from those before:

You promised “God will restore your captives.” [52]

Return them, God, and let them come back [53]

Renew our days as of old. [54]

#october 7 #bring them home now #israel #am yisrael chai #jumblr #tw: rape #I'm so tired #poetry #jewish

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nousrose · 1 month ago

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From snobs to scavengers, all expend their criminal generosity, all hand out formulas for happiness, all try to give directions: life in common thereby becomes intolerable, and life with oneself still more so; if you fail to meddle in other people’s business you are so uneasy about your, own that you convert your self into a religion, or, apostle in reverse, you deny it altogether; we are victims of the universal game. The abundance of solutions to the aspects of existence is equaled only by their futility. History: a factory of ideals, lunatic mythology, frenzy of hordes and of solitaries. Refusal to look reality in the face, mortal thirst for fictions. The source of our actions resides in an unconscious propensity to regard ourselves as the center, the cause, and the conclusion of time. Our reflexes and our pride transform into a planet the parcel of flesh and consciousness we are. If we had the right sense of our position in the world, if to compare were inseparable from to live, the revelation of our infinitesimal presence would crush us. But to live is to blind ourselves to our own dimensions. And if all our actions—from breathing to the founding of empires or metaphysical systems—derive from an illusion as to our importance, the same is true a fortiori of the prophetic instinct. Who, with the exact vision of his nullity, would try to be effective and to turn himself into a savior? Nostalgia for a world without ideals, for an agony without doctrine, for an eternity without life. Paradise. But we could not exist one second without deceiving ourselves: the prophet in each of us is just the seed of madness which makes us flourish in our void. The ideally lucid, hence ideally normal, man should have no recourse beyond the nothing that is in him. I can imagine him saying: “Torn from the goal, from all goals, I retain, of my desires and my displeasures, only their formulas. Having resisted the temptation to conclude, I have overcome the mind, as I have overcome life itself by the horror of looking for an answer to it. The spectacle of man—what an emetic! Love—a duel of salivas. All the feelings milk their absolute from the misery of the glands. Nobility is only in the negation of existence, in a smile that surveys annihilated landscapes. Once I had a self; now I am no more than an object. I gorge myself on all the drugs of solitude; those of the world were too weak to make me forget it. Having killed the prophet in me, how could I still have a place among men?”

A Short History of Decay

E. M. Cioran

#em cioran #philosophy

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elysiaheaven · 2 months ago

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𝗡𝗼 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱-𝟮𝟱-(The Fox's Wedding)

Words:3132

Mentions of k!lling

Hoolay, his demeanor cold and calculating, faced Jiaoqiu with a mocking smile. "Perfect chance? To return to my weak and shattered pack, at the mercy of a ridiculous false prophet, and become a mere puppet in her clutches? Heh, her plan is full of flaws. The only paths she has prepared for you are escape and death."

He then turned his piercing gaze toward Jiaoqiu. "Listen up, a wolf never allows itself to become prey. From now on, you'll follow my orders."

Jiaoqiu, stunned by the sudden shift, could hardly believe what he was hearing. "Wait, what did you just say?"

Mok Tok, clearly unsettled, interjected, "But my Lord...!"

Hoolay's eyes narrowed, a hint of menace in his voice. "Would an alpha wolf ever listen to a cub, Mok Tok?"

Mok Tok quickly lowered his gaze, his voice trembling. "No, I've never heard anything like that... I... I wasn't trying to defy your will. I will always unquestioningly follow your orders."

Hoolay, ignoring Mok Tok's plea, continued with an unsettling calm. "I'm offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Don't you want to run away, Jiaoqiu?"

Jiaoqiu's face was etched with confusion and concern. "What game are you playing?"

Hoolay's smile widened, his voice laced with dark amusement. "Just a little pre-hunt entertainment. Don't you want to run away? I'm giving you a chance to see the ports and report back to me."

Your eyes widened in shock and disbelief as Hoolay's words sank in. You struggled against the cage, your fear and confusion giving way to a desperate resolve. "What... what are you planning to do?"

Hoolay's gaze flicked towards you, a sinister smile playing on his lips. "You Jiaoqiu, too, will aid me in this little game. After all, foxian like you always obediently return to their masters... no matter how far they run away."

Jiaoqiu, realizing the gravity of the situation, looked at you with a mixture of concern and determination. "Y/n, we need to get out of this. I'll figure something out. But you must be ready to act quickly."

You, despite the overwhelming fear and uncertainty, nodded. "I... I will do whatever it takes. But we need to find a way to stop Hoolay and Mok Tok."

Hoolay, pleased with your response, turned to Mok Tok. "Make sure they understand their roles. I expect results, or the consequences will be dire."

Mok Tok nodded, though his face was filled with apprehension. "Yes, my Lord."

Jiaoqiu, couldn't believe his luck. "I can't believe he actually let me go... What game is he playing?" His thoughts raced as he considered his options. "Perhaps I can try to warn the Cloud Knights... No, maybe escaping might be the best course of action..But Y/n...."

He scanned his surroundings, noting the sharp pressure of a foxian's cold gaze. The look carried an unspoken warning: "Every clever little thought you bear might lead to severe consequences you will come to regret."

Jiaoqiu's expression hardened. "Just as I expected... He's testing me."

As he continued toward the port, his mind churned with concerns. "The Cloud Knights must have been aware of the situation inside The Shackling Prison for some time. Will General Feixiao personally lead a squad to capture Hoolay?"

Suddenly, a sharp, familiar pain made him flinch.

"Y/n?" Jiaoqiu's eyes widened in shock. "What are you—"

You clutched his hand tightly, your expression full of pain and worry. "Jiaoqiu, be careful. Hoolay's games are dangerous... I will come with you tho,every step I take is like walking on a bed of needles."

Jiaoqiu could see the glass shards embedded in your hands and the pain etched across your face. Despite the agony, you tried to control your expressions, maintaining a semblance of calm. "I... I need to warn you. Don't go too far."

Jiaoqiu, torn between his mission and your condition, took a deep breath. "Alright, I understand. But we need to find a way to stop this madness."

He continued to move towards the port, his pace slower now as he kept a watchful eye on you. "I can't risk being seen trying to escape, and someone is definitely keeping an eye on me," he thought, glancing over his shoulder.

Jiaoqiu's mind was a whirlwind of strategies and concerns. "I'll do as Hoolay asked for now, but I need to find a way to alert the Cloud Knights without drawing attention."

Jiaoqiu stood silently before Hoolay, his eyes cold and resolute. "You're back, Jiaoqiu," Hoolay's voice slithered into the stillness. The wolfish leader's eyes gleamed, waiting for any sign of defiance or betrayal.

Jiaoqiu met his gaze without flinching. "You were watching me closely, weren't you? If I had sought help, your people would have killed them on the spot. Was that your plan all along, Hoolay?"

Hoolay grinned darkly, leaning back with a subtle nod. "Smart as always. You're quick to understand. I told you to go check the situation at the port, but I never said you could speak to anyone."

Jiaoqiu clenched his fists, his jaw tightening. He had walked through the streets, ignoring his instincts to seek help from the Cloud Knights, avoiding anyone who might be caught in the crossfire. He had seen the watchful eyes following him, the threat hanging in the air like a knife waiting to drop. But you... you had been with him all along, limping silently by his side, enduring the pain of the glass shards still embedded in your skin.

"Why?" Jiaoqiu growled, his voice thick with frustration. "Why this game? What do you gain from holding everyone's life in your hands like this?"

You glanced between them, keeping your emotions in check. Your steps had been agonizing, the glass shards cutting deeper into your feet with every movement. But you didn't let it show. Not now. Not when it was clear that Hoolay was savoring his control over both of you.

"You did the right thing, Jiaoqiu," you said softly, your voice steady despite the pain. "You didn't involve the Cloud Knights. But that doesn't mean he's done testing you."

Hoolay let out a low chuckle, watching the two of you with interest. "Ah, Y/n. Always the clever one, aren't you? But cleverness won't save either of you here."

He leaned forward, his expression darkening. "You're here because you want to play the game. If you had sought help, I would have had my men execute them in front of you. The more hope you hold, the greater your pain when I snuff it out. But you didn't—so now you remain in my hands, just like everyone else."

Jiaoqiu's heart pounded in his chest as he stared into Hoolay's cold, unfeeling eyes. There was no way out of this. No matter what choice he made, someone would suffer. He had taken the safer path, but it still led to the same end: submission to Hoolay's twisted game.

"You're doing this to prove that you hold all the cards, aren't you?" Jiaoqiu muttered bitterly.

Hoolay smiled, baring his teeth. "Exactly. You may have made it back here without seeking help, but that just means I get to enjoy this a little longer. Watching you both struggle... it's truly delightful."

Hoolay hurted Jiaoqiu!

What are you just staring at them! Do something!

The moment Jiaoqiu winced from the pain, you couldn't hold it in anymore. A strangled cry escaped your throat, the sound raw and desperate. You rushed toward him, heart racing in your chest, but before you could reach him, something far worse happened.

"Ahhhh!!!!! Kill hoolay now!" You screamed at a borisin nearby. You could control their minds...Thank god!

A nearby borisin, stirred by your scream, lunged at Hoolay, as if trying to strike in your defense. For a split second, everything froze. The air was thick with anticipation, but Hoolay didn't flinch. Instead, with effortless precision, he stopped the creature mid-attack, his strength overpowering it with ease. His hand found its way to the doll that had been clutched in his grip, the one that symbolized a fragile piece of control he had over the situation. With a wicked grin, Hoolay squeezed it with all his might, and you could almost hear the crackle of fabric and stuffing tearing apart.

You stopped in your tracks, anger flaring in your eyes. You glared at him, your whole body trembling with fury as he crushed the doll in his hand like it was nothing. You wanted to lash out, to strike him down for daring to hurt Jiaoqiu, but your limbs felt frozen, caught between fear and rage.

Hoolay turned his gaze on you, amused by your reaction. His smile deepened, sharp teeth gleaming in the dim light as he observed you carefully. "You're a strange one, aren't you?" he said, his voice a soft purr. "You've lost your fear of pain and torture so quickly... fascinating."

You stared him down, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing you break, but your heart stuttered in your chest when Hoolay shifted his attention. His eyes, predatory and calculating, flicked back to Jiaoqiu.

Jiaoqiu's breath hitched, and his face paled as Hoolay's gaze lingered on him, the amusement in the warlord's eyes morphing into something far darker. You saw it immediately—the spark of fear igniting in Jiaoqiu's eyes. His bravado, his strength, all of it crumbled under the weight of Hoolay's piercing stare.

"No..." you whispered, your voice hoarse, barely able to believe the shift in the room. The dread clawed at your throat, choking you.

Hoolay's laugh was deep and mocking, echoing in the small space. He glanced back at you with a knowing smirk, his cruel eyes glinting. "Ahh, there it is... Your weakness is clear to me now," he said softly, his tone like ice cutting through your defenses. "You don't fear for yourself... you fear for him."

His words hung heavy in the air, and the realization stung deeper than any wound. He had found the one thing that could break you—Jiaoqiu. You could endure pain, torment, humiliation, but seeing Jiaoqiu in danger, seeing that fear in his eyes, was enough to shatter the steely resolve you had so carefully built.

Hoolay's laughter echoed once again, the sound dripping with victory. He knew he had the upper hand now. "Your courage is just an illusion," he sneered, "as long as you have something to lose."

You stared back at him.

The suffocating air in the room felt heavier with every word that Hoolay spoke. His voice, gravelly and thick with the weight of ancient hatred, slithered into every corner of the space. You stood there, muscles tensed, watching as he circled Jiaoqiu like a predator toying with its prey.

Hoolay's reminiscing turned into something darker as he recounted the early years of his captivity. His eyes burned with memories of suffering, torment, and bloodshed—of being prodded, poked, and drained by the foxians in their attempts to unravel the secret of "Moon Rage."

Jiaoqiu, despite his training, stood motionless, the weight of Hoolay's words pressing down on him like an invisible force. His face was unreadable, though you could feel the subtle tension in his shoulders, the quiet agony of realization sinking in. This wasn't just another prisoner speaking to him—this was a warlord of unimaginable cruelty, shaped by centuries of suffering, and now, reborn with the dark promise of his ancestors.

You stepped forward, trying to break the heavy silence, your breath quickening. "Stop it, Hoolay," you demanded, your voice sharper than you intended. "What kind of monster are you, to believe in these barbaric rituals? The Lunar Embryo, the moon heart, devouring... you're nothing but a savage, clinging to a nightmare."

Hoolay's laughter rippled through the room, deep and rumbling. He turned his gaze toward you, eyes glinting with amusement. "A monster, you say? Perhaps. But you, little fox, have yet to witness the true power that lies within. Your words are laced with fear, not bravery." His gaze flicked to Jiaoqiu, and his lips curled into a twisted smile. "But not him. No... Jiaoqiu seeks power, but not to destroy his enemies or to become them. He's the most pitiful of all—he seeks it to help others."

You clenched your fists, feeling the sharp sting of glass shards embedded in your skin, remnants of your earlier defiance. The pain was dull now, overshadowed by the anger boiling beneath the surface. Jiaoqiu shifted slightly, glancing your way, but his attention remained locked on Hoolay. His silence was deliberate, cautious.

Hoolay's voice softened, almost mockingly. "I see it in you, healer. You want answers. And I... well, I know everything about the Moon Rage, about the power you so desperately want to understand."

Jiaoqiu's lips twitched, his voice low but steady. "What are you trying to tell me, Hoolay?"

The warlord's eyes gleamed as he began recounting the tale of Duran, the ancestor of the borisin, who sought to defy his limited lifespan and seize control of the stars themselves. His words painted a vivid picture of blood sacrifice, genetic sorcery, and the birth of the Lunar Embryo—a power that, he claimed, resided within every generation of the Borisin Warhead.

Hoolay stepped closer to Jiaoqiu, towering over him like a predator sizing up his prey. His voice dropped into a hushed growl. "Devouring is the essence of life, Jiaoqiu. It's what allows us to endure. To thrive. The divine heart that beats within me has been passed down through generations, through ritual and sacrifice." He paused, then leaned in, his breath warm against Jiaoqiu's ear. "I thought I was lost, that hope had died after centuries of torment. But now... this heart beats once again."

A tremor ran through you at his words. You knew Hoolay's next move would be ruthless, unrelenting. The sheer conviction in his voice was terrifying, and yet, you could see the flicker of hesitation in Jiaoqiu's eyes. He was holding something back, weighing his options—perhaps deciding how much of the truth he should reveal.

Before Jiaoqiu could respond, Hoolay's lips twisted into a sinister grin. "Now, it's your turn to tell me everything about the Merlin's Claw."

The air shifted, and you felt a twinge of unease crawl up your spine. You opened your mouth to protest, to stop whatever was about to unfold, but before you could utter a word, a soft rustle caught your ear.

From the shadowy rooftop above, Moze crouched, his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the scene. His voice, barely a whisper, carried through the night air. "Jiaoqiu... I've found you."

"Little Maggot, Are you sucking off to find peace in this little foxian? You always suck off something from everyone." He said...

Your breath caught in your throat as the rage began to bubble to the surface. Hoolay's laughter echoed through the room like nails on glass, scraping against every nerve. Your heart pounded, hands trembling, blood dripping from the glass shards embedded in your skin. Every fiber of your being wanted to shut him up, to tear down his arrogance. The mocking gleam in his eyes was unbearable.

"Maggot, am I?" you spat, voice shaking with fury. Your words dripped with venom, eyes burning as they locked onto Hoolay's sneering face. "Then, Just like a maggot, I'll *suck* and *slurp* up all your wounds—until there's nothing left. Going on until you're *dry*, until every ounce of blood in your veins is gone. I'll devour every last shred of you, piece by piece!"

Jiaoqiu, eyes wide with both shock and a flicker of dread, watched as your voice twisted into a snarl. Even he hadn't seen this side of you before, the raw hatred bubbling over into every word. But it was Hoolay's reaction you focused on, the slight twitch of amusement still plastered on his face.

Hoolay chuckled lowly, the sound making your blood boil. "Oh? Is that how you plan to finish me off? By sucking me dry like the parasite you've become?"

You took a step forward, unblinking, pain no longer even a distant thought. Your vision narrowed, focusing solely on him. "You'll die so slowly, Hoolay," you hissed, voice shaking with a barely contained storm of rage. "So painfully, that you'll *beg* for the centuries of torment you've already lived through. You'll *wish* you never met me, because when I'm done with you, there won't even be enough left to recognize as human—or whatever you think you are."

Hoolay's smile faltered ever so slightly. For the first time, his eyes narrowed, lips pulling into something less amused and more cautious. He seemed to be weighing your words now, sensing the sheer madness boiling just under your skin.

And that's when you knew you had him.

"You think you're untouchable? That your power makes you invincible?" Your voice rose, anger lacing each word with deadly intent. "I'll drag you into the dirt where you belong. I'll make your heart stop and start again, over and over, so you feel the edge of death—*just* long enough to know what it's like to be helpless. Just long enough to remember what fear *really* feels like."

Jiaoqiu, breathing shallow, took a hesitant step toward you, unsure whether to intervene or let you continue. Moze's presence from the rooftop, unseen to the others, shifted slightly, eyes sharp as he watched your confrontation unfold.

"You... you're strange," Hoolay finally said, his grin returning but with a hint of unease. "To lose your fear of torture so easily... it's almost amusing. But," his gaze flicked toward Jiaoqiu, lingering for a moment before falling back to you, "I see your weakness."

Jiaoqiu's eyes widened as Hoolay's words hit him like a dagger to the chest. You clenched your fists tighter, muscles coiled in preparation, but Hoolay merely laughed.

"Oh yes, you can scream and rage all you want, but your weakness is clear as day." His gaze flicked back to Jiaoqiu, a cruel smirk forming on his lips. "You can pretend to be strong, but when it comes to him..."

"Shut. Up!" you roared, your voice cracking with intensity as you took another step toward Hoolay, teeth gritted.

Hoolay's laughter only grew, the sound grating against your nerves like sandpaper. "Ah, there it is. Your fear, your rage—it's all tied to him, isn't it? Your precious healer. Without him, you're nothing."

Your breathing grew ragged, chest rising and falling with each sharp intake of breath. Every part of you wanted to lash out, to strike Hoolay down in that very moment—but you hesitated. Because as much as you hated to admit it, there was a grain of truth in his words.

He saw the hesitation flicker across your face, and his grin widened. "See? You're just as weak as I thought."

Trembling with barely-contained fury, you forced yourself to remain still, eyes locked on Hoolay's with a hatred that felt like it could burn the world to ash.

"Mark my words," you growled through clenched teeth. "You'll die wishing you never crossed me. You'll regret every second you spent thinking you had the upper hand. When I'm done with you, there won't be a single piece of you left for the wolves to scavenge."

And for the first time in that endless, twisted conversation, Hoolay's laughter died in his throat.

#honkai star rail #hsr fanfic #honkai star rail fanfic #hsr x reader #hsr jiaoqiu #jiaoqiu x reader #jiaoqiu #jiaoqiu hsr

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calebwittebane · 26 days ago

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i had a dream id gotten conned into becoming a god and proceeded to try and design a world without suffering or pain. i really really struggled with this one. no matter what i did, it seemed like bouncing between endless suffering and highly sheltered sensory deprivation state with all functions for every person reduced to a minimum. eventually the author--it turned out i was in a fictional work, and the author was a sneering cynical asshole who enjoyed seeing me suffer--started mocking me, saying that a real demiurge really in control of things through unlimited possibilities wouldve figured that out, but i'm just a loser who spent a long time being human and therefore my mind has very human limitations. i started arguing with the author, saying that theyd written me this way and have no right to mock me, that despite this attitude they have this clearly is some form of venting theyre doing through art, and they need to take something seriously for once. my limitations are simply a reflection of theirs, and their mockery is their pained wailing in disguise. they were like well i dont like your attitude so because youve decided to be a little bitch about it i will now punish you by making you experience every death that ever happened to anyone and WILL have happened to anyone. so i did. it was awful. the prophetic visions of what sort of carnage famine disease and freak accidents the future has in store for humanity, they were almost as bad as the historical part. reminder: i feel pain in my dreams. anyway once that was done, and it did in fact feel to me like actual centuries were passing, actual centuries of nothing but agony, i told the author they were a vindictive bitch, incapable of comprehending the suffering theyre inflicting. if they ever felt even a fraction of what they dish out without much thought, they would curl up and cry and never do anything again. they told me i just objected to the way i'd sculpted my own consciousness. that to be a human, advanced and philosophy oriented as we are with our proportionally large complex brains, is to reject all inevitability as barbaric. i said that was stupid--humans are still, despite our unique traits, simply part of the animal kingdom, and more broadly made of the same matter as the rest of the universe, a continuous lattice of reactions among many other, a sustained chain that hasn't stopped since the very first instance of reproduction occurred between two organisms. the author just favors the human perspective because theyre biased and write what they know.

then the author felt like doing something petty once more so they decided to put me in a situation where im trying to buy art supplies but my dad is also there undermining everything i say. i said: this wont get to me--author, it seems you dont know me all that well, for buying art supplies was indeed one of the only type of occasion where my dad Would just let me do what i needed to do and would more or less trust i knew what i was doing. the author laughed and said, and yet you were able to summon a version of events where he does act poorly in this context. how cruel and unfair of you, to imagine something so uncharitable. how can you be sure of anything you remember? and i was going to give a reply but things around me started glitching out. people got spaghettified and turned into like. ok imagine a coral reef but its people.

i think i mustve argued with the author about some technical accuracy in their depictions of trains? i got to experience some train crashes as punishment

so yeah im awake now and i dont feel like ive gotten a lot of rest considering i just escaped time prison

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tracle0 · 22 days ago

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Snippet Sunday VIII

I think it's the eighth Sunday...? Maybe maybe! Here's some prophet story I wrote freshly for you (yes, you!)

A hand raised to his chest, trying to find the mutilation that had forced his ribs to poke out like ageing farmhouse fencing. His skin was sealed, unblemished under his fingers; sticky from his blood, but otherwise untouched. An identical inspection around his throat found the same. No hole for pathetic, fleshy pleas to wheeze through. All fixed. All perfect.

“You saved me,” he finally whispered, eyes wide and awed. “You – you didn’t have to, but you…?”

The Blight – previously quiet, considerate, letting him get to terms with the gift of his life – curled in his head, content. You’ve done me well, it said simply. I don’t want to lose you yet.

He probed carefully at his skull, hair sliding between his fingers. He could see where shards of his skull had been ejected, pick them up and inspect them, but he found no hollows in his head, no blemishes. “Thank you,” he said softly. “I… thank you.”

Your brother is almost here.

Cain blinked, the brief memory of something – a squirrel? – flashing through his mind, before he shook it away, focused. “We should go, then,” he said, starting to stand. The ground glimmered. His surroundings groaned and sobbed, the forgotten guards whimpering and wheezing, the fury surrendering them to shock and agony. “To Body?”

It hesitated. As he started to walk past a pair of guards, one pinned down by the other, bloodied and bruised, it drew his attention down to the ground, to a discarded knife next to the freed, fighting pair. See if you can slow him down, it suggested idly.

#snippet sunday #writerblr #writing #am writing #my writing #original writing #spilled ink #prophet story #this is really a direct follow-on from last week #same chapter and all that #pov: your quasi god wants you to fight your brother but you love him too much to do that #so you're just gonna knife the tire of the van he's riding around in instead #(good plan!)#I get to write the temple bit soon. I am very excited for the temple bit soon #also fun fact! We now have an? Almost complete stretch of events!!!#pre-sea to sky!!! That's uh #9 chapters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#wowowowowowoowww!!!#now that sky has been destroyed we get to get to the Personal gods wahoo #first up will be body and it will be fun #but who knows when I'll actually write it oops #this week could have writing time but I also have an essay to write about raptor conservation in the UK so we'll have to see #have a good week :)

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inheartofwinter · 10 months ago

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For @drarrymicrofic 's prompt "Time loop". G | 542.

Maybe I will write more later. Fingercross that I would be able to create something decent.

They say that tomorrow never comes. Draco is sure they don’t mean it like this.

He stares at the Daily Prophet, silently willing the date on it to change. The date, probably relishing in Draco's agony, remains the same. It is the same the day before, and the day before that, and the day before the day before that, and— There are too many days before that, certainly more than Draco's liking, that Draco feels foolish to hope for something different. He still hopes.

Draco throws the paper at the wall. It always says rubbish, anyway.

“You know that’s not going to help,” says Potter from behind the kitchen’s table. He is buttering a slice of toast. On the table, there are two plates of perfectly cooked English breakfast, a mug of coffee and a cup of tea. Everything is made by Potter.

“What else are you telling me to do?!” Draco snaps back. “Sit down and drink coffee?”

Potter puts down the coffee mug he just drank from a second ago. “No. The world knows you hates coffee. But you can drink tea.”

Draco grumbles but sits down at the table. He sips the tea. He has to stop himself from moaning in pleasure as the liquid warms his entire body up. It is exactly how Draco likes it.

Draco glances up and catches Potter smirking at him. Draco glares at him.

After nearly a month of being stuck with each other, Potter has come to know too much about Draco’s habits and preferences for Draco’s comfort. Draco consoles himself that the contrary is also true. Draco also learns a lot more about Potter in that short time than in the previous ten years they have shared. However, if he is honest, that fact sometimes scares Draco shitless.

“You should go shopping for grocery. I'm getting tired of English breakfast,” Potter says between bites of egg.

“I'm not. You can get your own food if you don’t like it.” Draco throws back just to be contrary.

“Maybe I should.” Potter agrees. “Come to think of it, I don’t even have to cook. I can just get take away. Do you like naan?”

This is what discomforts Draco the most. It is getting harder and harder to anger Potter. Halfway through the second week, Potter doesn’t rise to Draco’s bait anymore.

“Aren’t you a bit too comfortable with this situation?” Draco grumbles. “People would think you love it.”

All pretend relaxation falls off Potter. His posture straightens up. His face hardens. “I'm not. I would sell my soul to get out of this.”

Draco mentally curses himself. There it is, the blank, world-weary eyes Potter occasionally wear. Against Draco’s better judgement, he knows that he would dig his own heart out if it could stop Potter looking that way. Between trying to get out of the time loop and having every meal together, Draco has fallen for Harry Potter.

Once again, Draco curses whatever has put them in this situation.

“Maybe we will figure it out today.” Draco says, hoping his lame comfort would cheer Potter up just a little. “And it will be like before again.”

Potter blinks. Then, he nods, looking less depressed but also kind of odd. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

#drarry #drarry microfic #drarrymicrofic #time loop #pining #kind of domestic #btw it happens in Draco's kitchen

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miniwrites1 · 2 years ago

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In the Shadow of Azkaban - Dark! Sebastian Sallow

Requested!

Word Count - 1.2k

Themes - Angst

(Warnings will be added as the story progresses)

As a potions master, you were used to having to find your own ingredients, whether it be a trip to the Forbidden Forest or simply stopping by J Pippin’s Potions; it was a hazard of the role that you’d taken when agreeing to teach potions at Hogwarts, being invited back by Headmaster Black.

You’d made a name for yourself rather quickly in the wizarding world, producing a curse-reducing potion to aid those who had suffered at the hands of dark wizards, extending their lives and reducing their pain. It had been a breakthrough, with many people telling you it was impossible. But being undeterred, you pursued it. The media coverage you’d had after the breakthrough had been intense; the Daily Prophet had contacted you daily, standing outside your home and sending letters until you’d finally relented into giving them a quote to run on the front page.

“(Y/N), what made you want to create a cure for pain?” A journalist asked, magic quill and parchment ready to scribble down your every word. You paused for a moment to think.

“After seeing a close friend be killed by a curse, I knew I needed to do something. She was in agony every day up until her death. It is unfair to allow those cursed to suffer for the rest of their lives.” You responded calmly, trying to keep your composure; you could feel your nose tingle slightly and a small lump forming in your throat, a sign that you were heading towards tears. You had remembered Anne, Sebastian’s sister, who had passed away not long before you had finished testing the potion. You’d sent her letters about your discoveries, ensuring to keep in contact with her throughout the journey of your potion craft. She seemed excited at the thought of a potion designed specifically for someone like her; however she’d never had the chance to use it.

You remembered visiting her a few days before she’d passed, using the floo network to get to Feldcroft. You’d appeared outside the front of her home covered in soot, yet she’d invited you inside anyway, glad to see a friendly face and embracing you in a hug as soon as she saw you. You could tell she was in pain, which only made you fight harder to find a solution.

Days later, you received an owl to your home informing you of her death; it was devastating to you. After everything that had happened with Sebastian and the death of her uncle, you’d know that she was struggling, but it added a new layer of pain she couldn’t stand any longer; she’d battled for six long years until she’d finally passed away.

And now you were the potions master at Hogwarts, spending your days teaching children to brew potions that could heal or kill other people. Somehow you’d still found time to continue your research, a potion that could ease a curse was one thing, but a potion that could cure a curse was a whole other thing entirely.

As your students arrived at your classroom, you looked at their faces, smiling and happy mostly, remembering that feeling of walking into your first potions lesson with Sebastian at your side. It was a mere memory now; Sebastian was locked away in Azkaban, unseen and unheard, with only the Deatheaters for company. Thinking back, you felt a small amount of shame in turning him in, having him expelled and sent to Azkaban for killing his uncle, but at the time, it felt like the right thing to do. He needed to know that what he had done was unforgivable in the eyes of many and that the dark arts were not something to be meddled with.

Sighing softly, you stood up from your desk at the front of the room and sharply wrote your name on the board, causing all the students to focus their eyes forward; the sound of chalk grating across the board was enough to catch anyone’s attention, let alone first years. “Good morning class; I’m Professor (Y/L/N).”

Sebastian’s POV

Sebastian flipped through the Daily Prophet lazily as he sat on the floor in his cell, a small number of articles grabbing his attention, mainly those about spells and dark wizards. He sighed to himself; he’d been locked in Azkaban for seven years from the age of sixteen until twenty-three, having to beg for scraps of food from other inmates during his one hour of freedom from his solitary cell.

He was classed as almost reformed, showing that he’d paid his debts to society for what he’d done, but he would always be branded as a murderer.

“One more year.” He mumbled to himself as he made another mark on the wall of his cell. He’d been counting down the days until his freedom, waiting for the day he could finally feel a fresh breeze and the grass under his feet. That day couldn’t come soon enough. He felt his heart rate pick up as he thought of everything he’d do once he was free. The first would be to find Anne; he wanted to ensure she was still alive, even from a distance, as he doubted she would see him. He couldn’t blame her, not after everything that had happened.

The second would be to find (Y/N), the one who had sentenced him to a life of pain and sorrow. He blamed you for everything that had happened to him, swearing to himself that he would hunt you down until his last dying breath to make you pay for what you’d done to him.

Anger flared through his veins, a visceral sense of wanting to hurt you taking over. He wanted, no needed to make you pay for everything. He would stop at nothing to get to you; even if you were in the world’s most guarded, secretive place, he would find you. Flipping over the copy of the Daily Prophet he was holding, he noticed the headline.

“Troll slaying Witch discovers a pain-reducing potion.”

He glanced down at the photo below the headline, anger coursing more furiously than ever when he saw your face beaming at the camera, pride in your accomplishments shining through. He wanted to tear the paper in half, seeing that you’d made something of yourself flipped a switch inside of his mind. He didn’t just want to make you pay; he wanted to make you suffer in the most painful ways possible. He wanted to rip everything away from you, just as you had done to him.

His eyes floated to the sub heading.

"Professor (Y/L/N) dedicates the breakthrough to Anne Sallow - Passed 17th November 1896."

Sebastian closed his eyes, feeling tears brimming at the corners, throwing the paper across the room. He'd never had the chance to say goodbye, never had the chance to save her. Through his sadness emerged an unwavering feeling of anger.

You knew how much Anne had meant to him, Ominis had too. Why had neither of you contacted him? His anger only grew more as he thought.

In his mind he began to piece together a plan of how to get to you once he was free. He knew it would be a mammoth task to try and get near you again; however his Slytherin genes weren’t just for show; slowly he’d find a way to you, break you down bit by bit and ruin you in the worst possible way.

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