#They literally call it majestic in the description

[oneiriad]

Royal Copenhagen's Majestic Flap-flaps.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

you should post screenshots of all the marvel rivals magneto lore for those of us who don’t have the game 👀

"Max Eisenhardt was born with a near-limitless Mutant ability to manipulate magnetic fields. Suffering a lifetime of brutal persecution, Magneto made it his mission to ensure the survival of Mutantkind, no matter the cost. His unyielding crusade often puts him at odds with other Mutants who seek more peaceful ways to coexist with humanity. Magneto led the campaign to gather the planet's Mutant population and transport them decades into the future to a safe haven on the sentient island Krakoa, protecting his brethren from the growing dangers of the wider world."

magneto lore description + his signature :) i'll come back to reblog and add to this post as the rest of the stories are unlocked!

full Trial of Magneto story below the cut screenshotted AND typed up by Yours Truly

As he gazed off into the distance towards the line where the ocean met the sky, Magneto's cape fluttered gently in the calm breeze that was drifting across the coast of the sentient island nation of Krakoa. His was a life far longer than most people ever had the chance to live, and this was one of the few moments of true peace that he could recall. But he knew from experience it would not last for long. It never did.

"Something on your mind, old man?" a familiar voice asked from above, breaking the silence. As Magneto glanced up, there, hovering on the wind like a majestic goddess, was Ororo Munroe -- the Mutant weather manipulator known as Storm.

"Funny, isn't it," mused Magneto, "that we fought all those years for a better future for Mutantkind... and now we have finally found it, further in the future than any of us ever imagined."

Not so long ago, the sovereign nation of Krakoa had been swept up in a chronal storm -- a time-twisting anomaly that would have ripped the island to bits if not for Ororo's deft manipulation of its tumultuous currents. Instead of becoming lost in the timestream forever, Krakoa arrived safely on the other side of the tempest in the year 2099. The future that Mutantkind had always dreamed of was finally theirs to claim. And Magneto was never one to let such an auspicious opportunity pass him by.

"It matters not what century we are in," Storm said. "What matters is that our people have a home here on Krakoa, thanks to you, Erik..."

Magneto cringed as his old friend called him by his human name. True, he had gone by many of them over the decades -- Max Eisenhardt, Erik Lehnsherr, Magnus -- but they were monikers he had merely tolerated in order to better fit into a world where Homo Sapiens still believed themselves in control. Here, in this new era, he could choose a name that spoke to who he truly was. Magneto -- the Mutant Master of Magnetism.

"I may be leading the cause to find our fellow Mutants and bring them to this safe harbor, my dear," said Magneto, "but the success of this crusade cannot be attributed to one Mutant alone."

"You're damn right it can't, bub," a grizzled voice snarled from the edge of the jungle that bordered Krakoa's shore.

Magneto and Storm both turned to see a familiar figure walking out of a newly-blossomed Krakoan gate. The short, hairy figure looked as though he had just been to hell and back. And knowing Wolverine, that could very literally be the case. Alongside Wolverine stood a young Mutant, just old enough for her powers to begin manifesting.

"Found the kid who got sucked through that dimensional rift," Wolverine continued. "She's lucky I went in there after her. Limbo is no place for a new Mutant."

"I couldn't disagree more," another voice said, this one with a hint of a Russian accent. "This New Mutant has managed just fine there."

"Illyana? Can it truly be?!" Storm rushed over to the young woman who had just stepped through the gateway, instantly wrapping her in an embrace. For years, Illyana Rasputin, the Mutant teleporter known as Magik, had been like a daughter to Storm. Before she was claimed by the darkness of Limbo... Before...

"Nice to see you too, Windrider," said Magik with an uncomfortable smirk. "It's been... longer than I care to remember."

Magneto stepped towards the new arrival, not embracing her, but examining her closely instead. There was something strange about her. It was clear that she had walked a far different path than the Illyana Rasputin of his world. This child had been hardened by the horrors of war, something to which Magneto himself could closely relate.

"You are not the child we once knew," Magneto said. "But you are welcome here on Krakoa. All Mutants are, regardless from where or when they hail."

"How about people who grew up thinking they were Mutants, only to h ave their entire world turned upside down when they learned the truth years later...?"

Magneto audibly gasped as the question was asked by another woman who had just arrived through the Krakoan gateway. His gaze instantly shifted over to her as she walked forward. Her every step stirred ripples across his memory, for he had been there when she had taken her very first ones so many years ago.

"Wanda..."

"Hello, father," the Scarlet Witch said as she approached Magneto with a calm confidence that few had ever shown in his presence. She reached up and began to slowly remove Magneto's helmet, an action that would almost certainly be met with instant retaliation should anyone else attempt it. But Magneto stood as silent as solid steel, simply basking in the magic of his long lost daughter's company. His stoic expression softened as Wanda leaned in and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek.

"How... How can you be here?" Magneto managed to say. He could bend Adamantium into any shape with his Mutant power, but these simple words were somehow nearly impossible to form.

"It took a bit of work," Wanda mused. "I'm not technically a Mutant like you, after all, which means Krakoa wouldn't normally let me through its gates. But a touch of chaos magic did the trick."

"What I meant to say is..."

"Oh..." Wanda's playful tone vanished faster than a stage magician's pet rabbit. "Your Wanda... She's gone, isn't she? I'm sorry... This must be difficult..."

"Quite the opposite," Magneto said, regaining his composure. "To see your face again, to hear your voice, to know that -- somewhere in this fast Multiverse a version of you has thrive -- is perhaps the least difficult thing I could ever conceive. It is all that any father ever wants."

"I wouldn't say I've been thriving, exactly," Wanda admitted. "I've been holding my own universe together by its threads for far too long. I truly believed that I was its only hope to survive."

"Like father, like daughter," chuckled Wolverine.

"But I've started to see the bigger picture," Wanda continued. "We're all fighting our own wars. The only chance we have of winning them and keeping ll of our universes intact is if we start fighting together."

"Speakin' of fightin', I'm late for a date with Natasha," Wolverine said. "We've got ourselves a tin-plated dictator that needs overthrowin'."

Magneto almost chastised Wolverine for entrenching himself in the petty squabbles between the humans of this era, but he paused for a moment and considered his daughter's words. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps his own war to preserve Mutantkind was just one battle of many, all of them equally important.

"Since Krakoa arrived in this future, my allegiance has been to Mutantkind alone," said Magneto. "I felt it best to isolate our people in order to protect them. But your words inspire me, my dear. It is clear that no Mutant is an island."

"Except Krakoa, da?" Magik chimed in playfully.

"In order to commit to such an alliance, however, it must be a mutually beneficial one," Magneto continued. "There are still Mutants out there, lost across space and time, who require out assistance in order to lead them home."

"That sounds like the perfect task for a Sorceress Supreme," Wanda said. "But I'll require your help. As fond as I am of your classic look, I think we're in need of use a helmet that's a bit more functional."

"Of course," Magneto said, raising his hand into the air. Within moments, tiny scraps of metal buried beneath the sand of Krakoa's beaches converged and reshaped themselves in a complex yet familiar device once worn by Charles Xavier himself -- Cerebro.

"If I recall, old school Cerebro was capable of tracking down Mutants anywhere in the world," said Wanda. "But a few arcane enhancements should expand the helmet's search area to include adjacent dimensions as well. Like you said, all Mutants are welcome here, regardless from where or when they hail."

"Well?" said Magik, her eyes burning with anticipation. "Try it on already, old man!"

The moment Magneto put on the helmet, he saw flashes of powerful Mutants scattered across the Multiverse. A telepathic ninja trapped in a strange world of unholy amusements. A king of the seas preparing to strike at the unsuspecting surface world. A powerful cosmic presence determined to burn the darkness out of the night sky. And thousands more, each yearning to defy fate and to find their place in an ever-shifting cavalcade of timelines and realities.

"There is much work to be done," Magneto said. "Far more than I expected. When do we begin?"

"No time better than the present..." said Magik. "Or the future, I guess. Wherever we are."

"You have given Mutants a gift this day, Wanda," Magneto said proudly. "Your efforts will not be forgotten."

"I'm going to hold you to that," Wanda replied. "And when the time comes, the army that you're about to gather may very well be the one that tips the balance in our favor."

"Then let this be a call to all Mutants across time and space," Magneto continued. "The gates of Krakoa are open to them. In the words of a dear old friend..."

"...to me, my X-Men."

[gumycandyyy]

OKAY IM FEELING BRAVE N NOT GOING ANON SO HI!!!

I love your writing n I was wondering if i could request a WK x Gn! Reader where the reader is like crashed into a cave or smthn, wk goes to investigate and they find the reader that (size wise) is like HUGE, like 16 feet tall!! BUT. once they see wk they shrink down to around his size, n they talk n find out they’re from like a diff planet in their universe?! N they can’t get back.

(idk where this idea came from I apologize:3)

୨♡ Ｙｏｕ＇ｒｅ Ｓｏｍｅｔｈｉｎｇ， Ａｒｅｎ＇ｔ ｙｏｕ？" ♡୧

I love this idea! I think I'm gonna combine it with another ask i got.

(For those wondering why the gumlee fanart tag is here, it's because I put some of my art at the end of every fic. It just happens to be gumlee this time)

Gender neutral reader

Romantic

Type: Headcanons

Request: Yup! They're back open, too!

Some descriptions of the reader, nothing detailed, just dragon stuff.

Summary: Being a space dragon is cool. Except for when you're too tired to leave a planet.. Thankfully, you have help from a new friend.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

-You're a space being.

-A celestial dragon, if you will.

-You're quite a majestic being, even having some of your own constellations named after you.

-Perks of being a beautiful immortal creature.

-While you're practically immortal, you can get tired, especially after traversing through the cosmos.

-So every so often, you gracefully land on a habitable planet, to regain your strength for a few days.

-You more or less crash landed on this one.

-It was called Ooo, if you recall correctly. You're sometimes allowed to name a few planets or stars, but this one has existed for longer than you have.

-It's a little embarrassing to be taking refuge in such an old planet.

-However, you had the funniest encounter while on Ooo.

-It was little more than twenty minutes after you crash landed in an icy forest.

-You had knocked down quite a few trees and stirred up quite the commotion in a town nearby, as they could see you flying in from the atmosphere.

-You were trying to take a few splinters out in your dragon form when you met...

-Him.

-It sounded so cheesy, but you had never seen a more beautiful thing in the universe.

-Safe to say you were floored.

-Literally.

-He and a few... What looked to be scouts and knights made of ice neared you cautiously.

-He seemed to recognize you, which was a little strange. You guessed there were history books of some sort written about you.

-He introduced himself as the Winter King, and welcomed you to Ooo.

-Yes, he had definitely heard of you.

-You decided to shift into your smaller form. It was still ethereal and god-like, but it was easier on the eyes than being a twenty-foot tall dragon.

-You kept your wings and horns, just parts of yourself that you thought to be enchanting.

-the Winter King spoke to you, a little shocked at your sudden shift. You were wearing clothes, what other mortal customs had you missed?

"Well, *ahem* it is my honor to meet a celestial being such as yourself! If I may ask, why choose this planet?"

-You explained that it was the nearest habitable planet, and that it didn't matter too much.

-You didn't think too highly of yourself, as you were quite low on the god-scale. Only a minor universal god, instead of being a multiversal god.

-If that made any sense.

-You politely asked Winter King if you could regain your strength in his kingdom.

"Oh, why of course! A- anything for someone such as yourself!" -His pale blue skin flushed in a pinkish tone, and his voice faltered ever so slightly.

-You tended to have that effect on people.

-However, he seemed to be handling your presence quite well, so part of you wondered if he were somewhat immortal, or was just a magic user in general.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

-You stayed for a little less than two weeks, learning quite a bit as you took refuge.

-You were quite uneducated when it came to planets like Ooo, embarrassingly so, at times.

-But it felt nice to have Winter King explain things to you.

-He seemed so respectful, yet so interested in everything you did or said.

-It turned out he was an astronomy nerd, and stories of you were his favorite.

-He wrote down practically everything you said, but as time went on, it seemed less like worship and more like interactions between friends.

-You preferred it that way, to be honest.

-You learned not only much about Ooo, but also much about the Winter Kingdom as well.

-Whenever it snowed softly, you would always spend time outside, sometimes dragging Winter along with you.

-You did everything from nap, to play in the snow.

-It seemed childish, but the two of you had quite a bit of fun.

-Not to mention the food there was absolutely phenomenal.

-You swore that you would return the generous favor of the Winter King.

-When it eventually came time for you to leave the planet, the both of you were quite sad.

-However, you knew if you stayed longer, you'd never leave. And that wasn't good.

-You were out on the terrace, having said your goodbyes to Winter and the citizens, ready to shift to your ethereal form to take flight.

-However, you felt something nagging at you to stay for a few more moments.

-You were correct to wait.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

Winter called your name, looking to have run all the way up here. He placed his hands on his knees and took a few deep breaths.

"Winter..? I thought you already said goodbye?" Winter cleared his throat and stood up, placing his hands behind his back. He'd regained his composure so quickly it was shocking. He cleared his throat once again.

"It just occurred to me that I never asked for that return favor.." You brought your hand up to your lips, ashamed you forgot your promise.

"I- Oh my word, I apologize. I forgot."

Winter assured you that it was no big deal, and that his favor was only a small one. He stepped towards you, almost shyly.

"Well, rest assured, I can do almost anything. There is a grey area in which I'm unable to give, but otherwise, I will do anything in my power to grant you what you seek."

Winter blushed, his gaze transfixed on the ground. He seemed to be at a loss for words. Your large wings twitched, and after a few moments, Winter seemed to have figured out what he wanted.

"If it's not too much to ask, I'd like to request..."

He looked up at you with the sweetest of smiles.

"A kiss."

You were taken aback for just a moment, but regained your composure as quickly as you lost it. You took a step towards Winter, returning his warm smile.

"Well, if that's all you seek, I would be more than happy to give you what you so desire."

Winter shifted in place with an almost giddy expression, and looking up at you, you could tell he had wanted this for quite some time.

You'd be a liar if you said you hadn't thought about it prior to today.

"I would much appreciate that."

He said simply. So making sure not to waste any more of your time, you bent down to Winter's height. Despite being in your smaller form, you were still quite a bit taller than anyone else.

You caught his lips in yours, holding the embrace for a few moments. His lips felt cold, and it was all you could have hoped for.

When you separated, you gently held his face in your clawed hands.

"I have truly cherished this time with you, and I wish I could have stayed longer. However, my higher duties must not be ignored."

Winter nodded in understanding, placing his small hand atop yours.

"I promise I will think of you often, and will call on you if I'm ever passing through this side of your galaxy. That I will swear." "But until then, my dear."

The only thing Winter could remember of that moment, was the feeling of your lips in his forehead, and the silhouette of your ethereal form, fading out of the atmosphere.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

your complimentary art ^^ (gumlee edition!!)

Sorry bout the whole hiatus thing, I had been sobbing for two hours straight. Anyway, rq's are open!

reblogs >>> likes

[sugudoe]

HIIIIII i love your work and i wanted to try out the matchmaking prompt you have ok here’s my description:

I am 5,10 (yes tall i know) i have brown eyes, freckles and i’m black and colombian. I speak fluent french and spanish. I have heterochromia ( my right eye is green) I also have a beauty mark on my upper lip.

As for my personality….

I like to think i’m very funny, i can’t really take anything seriously, i laugh a lot usually not in the best situations. And despite what i just said i usually don’t like talking to people because i get very easily irritated sometimes( it really just depends) I LOVE to sleep, and it’s actually kind of bad sometimes because i’ll literally sleep until someone wakes me up. I have a major sweet tooth and could seriously eat candy for the rest of my life but i also really like to work out. Ummm im lowkey broke ngl i’m too lazy to work and if i do get money i spend it within like 2 days of having it. and uhhh that’s all!

(also ignore my shit punctuation sorry)

you seem like the prettiest person ever, hello??? also i had three matches for you being geto, gojo and toji, but nanami came and was like “nah.”

•⁀➷ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. . . ﹫ 𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘪 ៹ ༉‧₊

kento could try and lie to himself, that what called his attention was your strength to beat a stitched curse — shooting through the air during his mission, landing right in front of him. blood covered your skin, yet you were majestical to him. when you fixed your attention on him, eyes shinning with mischief, you winked and said to him “are you alright, mon coeur?”

he disguised it all with a dinner date, as gratitude for saving his life in shibuya. later, he showed you how grateful he could actually be.

nanami finds himself devoted very quickly. there are certain personality traits you have he could not accept so easily. see, sometimes you act like satoru, and he doesn’t like that very much. still, he loves you even more. still, it’s you, the one that does no wrong in his eyes.

so, in the middle of it all, dazed inside a mist of love and passion, he finds himself coming out of his trance in the most baffling moments. for example, after giving you all the candies you wish, it’s like a mind link, you crave and he grants. nanami snorts half way through the bag when he realized it’s the fourth day in a row he has been spoiling you.

“why are you laughing, mi amor?” silk voice with sprinkled sour candy, you smile lovingly and he stares back the same way.

“i love you, just that.”

how easy it is for kento to indulge you in whatever you wish. yet, he knows he has to put his foot down, so here comes the balance. candies are only for the weekends or after lunch, and only fifteen minutes naps are allowed (you take four a day).

god, nanami loves to wake you up. sleepy eyes, groggy expressions and mumbles. he kisses the dreams away, bringing you back from slumber with more energy than ever.

truth is, nanami doesn’t mind your bad habits if only he is the one to keep you balanced. he would never, in a million years, cut your things off, instead he adores your sparky eyes and tongue tinted with bubblegum, to come home and catch you cuddled up on the couch, wearing his clothes and sleeping waiting for him to get you from dreamland. and like a knight and a romantic, he gets you. he’ll always get you.

──── 𓇼 ° ⋆ FUN FACTS ᵎᵎ

۫ ּ ﹗nanami’s favorite sounds come from you — your voice and laugh, he often loses his composure and laugh with you as well. is quite a sight for those who aren’t used to seeing even a single smirk from him.

۫ ּ ﹗nanami buys everything you need, and slowly he helps you to deal with this desire to waste it all, mostly because you’re not wasting yours but instead his. nanami is rich, i don’t make the rules.

۫ ּ ﹗you can get irritated with him sometimes, but never long enough. he can sense the atmosphere changing and come home with a bouquet and a box of chocolate. you both much rather shit talk about others than fight each-other.

۫ ּ ﹗you go quiet, he goes. you tell geto and gojo to eat shit, nanami makes sure they do. he is a simp, trying hard to pretend it’s all under control, but he falls for your antics so easily. the biggest supporter!

۫ ּ ﹗teach him all the languages you know, he learns easily and loves to call you “mi vida” or “chérie

[monsterblogging]

So like, the kaiju cultists of Pacific Rim interest me quite a lot, because religions and cults and all that are things that interest me. I need you to understand this first and foremost.

Because.

*deep breath*

*sobs*

The kaiju prayer in the novelization is. Um.

Well...

It's complete and utter nonsense. Total garble. Completely incoherent.

What do I mean? Well...

So, here's the kaiju prayer written by Alex Irvine for the Pacific Rim novelization:

We are the sisters of the kaiju.

We open our arms to receive the angels of the ocean.

Majestic creatures from beyond our horizons, deliver us from suffering and strike the evil from our hearts.

You are mercenaries on a mission of mercy, come to free humanity from a poisoned home. With almighty powers, you stir our oceans and steal our skies.

O kaiju kings, lead us down into your paradise below the seas and vanquish all who oppose your supreme reign.

Look how you crucify our false prophets, man-made tyrants who fear what they do not understand. You are not the scourge. You are the salvation.

We fall to our knees in your infinite shadow and raise our hands in awe and admiration.

Let the blue blood of the archangels wash away our iniquity that we may start life anew in the world before…

On a broad level, this aligns with Travis Beacham's statement about BuenaKai following an apocalyptic theology and believing the kaiju are here to wash our sins away.

But when you look closer, you can see that the kaiju are referred to as angels, archangels, kings, and mercenaries. Angels/archangels, mercenaries, and kings are very different things, and only one of these actually makes sense.

It should be pretty damned obvious to anyone ever that whatever the kaiju are, they are not kings. Kings wouldn't be out here attacking cities and getting nuked or beaten to death by Jaegers.

Mercenaries is also a strange word to throw into this whole mess, because a mercenary is a soldier for hire. It's both incompatible with king and angel/archangel.

Angel/archangel is the only one that makes any kind of sense. This one actually does align with information in the film, where Hannibal Chau says that the cultists believe the kaiju are "sent by the gods." (And given that Chau sells kaiju bits across the street from a kaiju church, it's reasonable to think he's probably not too off in this description.)

Something that's kinda weird is the "majestic creatures from beyond our horizons" bit. Literally everybody knows they come from the bottom of the sea, and this knowledge is definitely attributed to the BuenaKai cultists in this prayer.

And then there's this line:

Look how you crucify our false prophets, man-made tyrants who fear what they do not understand.

Dear god there's a lot to unpack here.

Like. "False prophet" is probably the the most inept insult Irvine could've come up with, and betrays a severe lack of knowledge in how any Christian or Christian-adjacent spiritual worldview actually works. Like for all of the ridiculous demonization religious extremists get up to, they don't just call anything and everything they don't like a "false prophet." This only happens in hack writing where the writer only knows a few basic Christian cliches.

Same goes for "crucify." The kaiju are not doing any crucifying. The word is only here because it's a Christian cliche. You could have just said "slay," Alex. It's also in the Bible.

"Man-made tyrants who fear what they do not understand" is also bizarre. Wouldn't the "tyrants who fear what they do not understand" be the people who built the Jaegers, not the Jaegers themselves?

Again, I have researched some of the most unhinged spiritual movements on the goddamn planet (Love Has Won, anyone?), and none of them are this incoherent.

So I've decided to rewrite this prayer into something coherent, that also reflects the existence of BuenaKai monks:

We are the brothers and sisters of the kaiju.

We open our arms to receive the angels of the ocean.

Majestic creatures from the world below, deliver us from suffering and strike the evil from our hearts.

You are warriors of mercy, sent to free us from our poisoned home. Your almighty strength stirs our oceans. Your sacred majesty occludes our skies.

O mighty archangels, show us the righteous way that shall lead us to life everlasting in the world to come. Vanquish all who oppose your holy wrath.

Look how you strike down our proud works, look how you have slain the Jaegers and crushed the Wall. You are scourge to the tyrant and salvation to the faithful.

We fall to our knees and raise our hands to thank the Holy Ones who have sent you.

In your death even is victory; your sacred blood cleanses the world of man's sin, to prepare the world for life anew.

[gildeddlily]

we don't care

we don't care if you see them as boyfriends, bestfriends, platonic soulmates, romantic soulmates, the new murder-husbands, but this show is majestic

naturally, for Anna Hanyu, my new supreme girl. She could crash my skull with her arms and I'd thank her as a ghost, then become her ghost pet. And then for the destroying gender norms with nonchalance (the whole kazuki character is the description of malewife, and they didn't made it in a forced or ridiculous way, he's just so beautiful and what every dad should be), for the trauma responses representation (yes kazuki we've heard you talking ab your parents abandoning you and your fiancé-child death and the way you reacted to miri's mom abandoning her. yes rei, you're the most fucked up in the whole anime, we've seen u sleeping in a frickin bathroom and refusing to smile and just suffer and never get the love you deserved and we've seen you making the opposite with miri, protecting her as a father and being super cute doing it), for the oh so adorable male&male friendship that is rarely seen on shows (it's easily understandable that they're not gonna be a couple in the canon verse, but they casually call miri "our child" and themselves "her papas" without shame and it's so refreshing to watch something like this)

It's not even like Yuri On Ice where the thing is really and totally gay (it was my first anime and the consequences are... alr)(they literally kissed), it's pure platonic canon relationship between two men that everyone can interpret as they want (the found family trope is enough for me), because they don't care ab anuthing other than giving Miri a good family. They're just two men, loving their children and doing a goddamn good job at it, as simple as that (we stan a non-queerbaiting anime with two male protagonists) now Im gonna cry and listen classic rock music in my bed

[bigsnzstanacct]

King’s New Allergy Epilogue Snippet

Well since I wrote it I might as well share it, WIP but y’all put it on my mind so. This is just the dialogue for the “admitting the fetish” bit, which of course would have more description around it if it were the real final version:

“I thought someone had broken your magic!”

“Someone did, dear. It was you.”

“But how?”

“I… I know I said I’d never keep another secret from you—“

“Love…”

“It isn’t about the magic, it isn’t, it’s… I have… oh gods… Ireallylikedhearingyousneeze.”

“What was that?”

“I… really liked… hearing you… sneeze.”

“Really liked? In what way?”

“Please, don’t…”

“Were they pleasing and melodious in sound?”

“My love—“

“Did you fancy having a good jump every seven seconds?”

“My liege—“

“Or was it just being able to hear the sound of my voice wherever you went?”

“Mercy!”

“It is called, I am told, a fetish. A sexual perversity fixating on a particular object, or body part, or sound…”

“It’s always been a thing for me. I mean even before I met you. Although yours are…”

“Spectacular, majestic, incredible, very literally the most powerful sneezes anyone has ever suffered through in the history of Albion?”

“Tragically, yes, all of those things.”

[kikosaurscave]

Hawks x Reader angst

words: about 1000

warnings: you die ur dead now, use of the F-WORD, blood, fire, burnt body descriptions, angst, slightly suggestive, cheating, keigo is a bad bf, character death.

HAH I wrote this in december 2020 and balled my eyes out while writing it into my notes, now im editing it in october 2021 and literally gasped at the plot twist in there.

---

you dont know why he did it he just did.

One second you both were flying back to your shared house, his hands around your waist while you searched some things up about your quirk. the next second you were falling to your death

“Whatre you doing there, dove?” He suddenly asked, obviously bored of both flying and your relationship :question mark: as it seemed

“Do you know if feathers on birds grow back? Im trying to figure it out because that incident last week” You asked him, “I dont know? Wanna test it out?” He smirked, rerouting upwards towards the baby blue sky while you were to too distracted to register what was happening, searching up the answer to your question on your phone, glancing at the cleavage of his neck that had a small mark you had imprinted on him yourself. You smiled heartily up at him.

By now you had just what he had asked but by then he was just at the point in the sky where the air gets lighter, thinner, just about hard to inhale, halting with a devious smirk that he'd now wished would stay deep inside.

Answering his question you responded with a curt, “i dont think that a good idea at the moment..it hurts. I just need to kno— What?..! K-keigo!! He-help!!...!” stuttering in shock. All of a sudden he let go of you after whispering into your ear,

“See you never, baby bird.”

Faltering boney wings spreading out wildly as you fell, he only watched you fall to inevitable death.

That incident you were blabbering about to him. You had saved Keigo from getting cablastered with fire by an angry bystander, while he flirted with fan girls. In front of you..both of you. In the end it the feathers on your wings being burnt away to crisp, and it hurt like hell, apparently he didnt even notice.

You watched as he flew past you lower to the ground, intentions unclear to you, tears coated your eyes they hadnt gotten the chance to fall down your cheeks from how fucking slow you were falling. Your body felt like it'd been set on fire, body heating up, you were on fire? again? you screamed the same scream now stuck in his scrawny bird brain.

He halted, closer to the ground wondering what would happened if he saved you right now.

Looking back to your now burning self as you slammed into the ground. Your once majestic (f/c) wings looked untouched of the fire, a large dent in the ground from impact upon you falling.

as if he had finally realized you even asked him if the feathers on a bird’s wings grow back or that he'd actually dropped you, killing you in the process, his eyes widen in horror and guilt, watching your body pool in your blood.

Internal bleeding that found its way out through your mouth.

He landed next to you after a w seconds, crouching down to your bloody body, unable to hear the people in the crowd surrounding them call for any authority or their questions, gasps ect. ‘Is that (h/n)?’, ‘Oh my's or other inaudible sentences like a frantic ‘Sweetie dont look!’ coming from the parents trying to cover he eyes of their snotty nosed screaming kid.

Taking your bruised self into his arms he wiped some tears from your eyes that actually managed to gloss your singed cheeks.

“..Dove?..” A tear of his own dropped onto your cheek. Had he been crying? His eyes were blurry as he blinked the salty tears away, having them fall onto your cheek, answering his question that he indeed was crying.

“Dove! Wake up! Please! Please?..!” He held you closer, balling his eyes out.

He fucked up man

It was his fault too

He wanted to deny it but he knew it was true

He didnt notice when the medics took you from his arms, he hadnt even noticed he had been waiting hours on end in the hospital outside of the room you were getting surgery in as they tried to save you.

You were a great hero..high rank just behind him. But you were dying and all the kids, All the teens, the adults, the elderly that looked up to you had to witness your collision with the ground that was definitely different to when you flew around with your eyes closed

The door opened and doctor walked out with a strained clutch on their clipboard. Hawks looked up at him with a hopeful stare, the doctor just blinked back at him with a gloomy, sympathetic look, and Hawks knew he knew then you were really dead.

He held himself to together for the time being as he nodded a little, holding onto the fun ego his fans knew him for aside his charming looks.

“Can I see her?” Hawks asked. there was no need for an answer because he fled inside the room after the team of surgeons cleared out of room only you occupied.

He now sat next to the table you laid on, watching over you like he would have if you woke up from an unpleasant nightmare. It was those nights he envied, to stare down at your tired face while you slept. Looking at your beautiful, flawless skin. It didnt matter to him whether you were ashamed of acne. Your pink, plush lips that he loved. Your pretty eyelashes. Everything about you, he loved. Every feature, every curve, every slide, dip, strand of (h/c) hair, fuck. he used to run his hand through the locks of your hair.

either way it would all wither away.

why’d he do it? Why’d he cheat? Why’d he treat you wrong when everything he wanted, he had when he looked at you. if he ever really looked at you. He might have just realized how much he really needed your presence in that moment

Looking at your now, tethered, beaten body. Your hair wasnt soft when he ran his fingers through it, you still had beautiful curves though you had patches of purple like dabi’s, scattered over your gorgeous skin. His fault, all his fault, it ate him up inside, his heart ached and yearned for the feeling of you comforting him when he was down.

He last look at you he took, he regretted everything, every girl he brought home behind your back, every nasty thing he said about you, every slur, every rumour, everything.

The only thing he didnt regret was meeting you or falling oh so deeply in love with you, it was that type of love that he didnt notice until a possibility of him losing you came to his attention and now after everything he had done, you were actually gone.

Before he realized it, he had walked out the hospital. Slow tears trickledown his cheeks and the vermillion red wings that filled his pride now trailed behind him in a deep sad crimson.

Stepping through the door of your shared apartment and closing it behind him, he dropped to the floor finally breaking.

Tears streaming down his cheek, he had to hold himself up and the other clenching his bloody shirt as he cried, and cried..and cried.

His mind was a crumbling mess as his wings turned a darker shade, he got up making the distance to your shared room.

He collapsed onto the bed, falling onto his side and into a fetal position, wrapping himself in his once vermillion wings.

When he opened his eyes he noticed a shirt of yours that had probably been left from rushing.

His tender hand clutched onto it, pulling it to his face and taking in its scent, your scent. Before bringing it to his now bare chest, holding it close as he cried harder.

He needed you but it was too late.

sad

---

it was cringey and had quotes and sappy shit but its been fixed.

[babydaddyleorio]

a day at the aquarium

how you spend the day at the aquarium with some of the jjk girls

Nobara

-Fridays were date night for you and Nobara, the only problem was that the two of you had basically been to every place you could think of already. That’s why in the middle of brainstorming ideas, Nobara suggested that your next date be at the aquarium since you’ve never been together.

-When you first step foot in the aquarium, Nobara immediately grabs a map and starts planning out the itinerary for the entire trip. She wants to get the full experience and do every single thing that the aquarium offers.

-Since Nobara was brought up in the countryside, she’s definitely familiar with fish and is not really scared of them in the slightest. In fact, she was actually looking forward to coming here with you to see all the other different sea creatures.

-Somehow you and Nobara would come across a scavenger hunt and would end up having a competition to see how many fish the two of you can find.

-You end up winning of course, but Nobara insists that you cheated and calls for a rematch.

-You still win lmao

-Nobara likes to trace her finger against the glass for the fish to follow and calls your name excitedly so you can come look at all the ones that have gathered. 

-Would definitely be brave enough to cross the shark bridge and drag you along with her.

-She really likes to do those interactive thingies where you wear 3-D glasses and It basically feels as If you’re right next to the animals.

-She thinks that the penguins are the absolute cutest. And once her eyes catch sight of the baby sliding to where it’s mom and dad are, she smiles at the thought of you and her creating your own little family one day.

Maki

-Maki has a busy schedule most of the time, so the fact that you guys were even able to coordinate this date was already a score.

-She picks you up in a sweater and blue jeans because she wanted to be prepared just in case the aquarium was too cold, but you couldn’t really pay attention to her words since you were literally swooning at how great she looks in casual clothes.

-Maki actually reads the descriptions of each animal you’re visiting and listens to the tour guide intently. Maki may not seem like It, but she really loves learning about this and these creatures were actually intriguing to her.

-Gets annoyed super fast that you have to stand in long lines to see the attractions but doesn’t complain too much since It gives you more time to just talk with each other.

-Really likes the jellyfish exhibit because she thinks that they’re so graceful and pretty.

-She would be okay with you dragging her around to look at different things because she thinks It’s adorable how excited you are.

-You and Maki end the night with your feet absolutely killing the both of you from all the walking you did, but Maki isn’t too bothered by the pain since she got to spend the whole day with you.

 Mai

-Mai was not particularly jumping at the thought of going to an aquarium because the last thing she wanted to do was surround herself with stinky sea creatures, but once you persuaded her that this trip might actually be fun, she finally gave in.

-She would walk next to you with her arms crossed as her eyes would graze across the clear glass, not really wanting to admit to herself that these animals were kind of intriguing.

-She would be the type to get startled by a creature if they bumped their head against the glass or came too close to her and you’d have to hold your laugh in at how she would try to play it off.

-She would continue to have an annoyed look as you walk around the exhibits but once she sees that you were actually enjoying yourself, she would gradually drop her façade and start to show a little more interest.

-Once she relaxes, she thinks that the baby sea turtles are so cute and bends down to look at them with a small smile on her face.

-Definitely makes the children clear the area so the two of you can play in the kids section.

-Would not want to touch the animals at first, but she finds herself still rolling up her sleeves to touch the starfish with you, you not missing the giggle that came from her mouth once she did it.

-“It was fun… I guess.” She’d say as the two of you walked outside the building and you’d have to nudge her shoulder before she’d finally burst out laughing and confess that she had a good time.

Miwa

-Miwa is super excited about this, maybe even more than you are. 

-She thinks that every animal is adorable and can not get enough of them. You literally have to stop her from running all over the place because she’s so eager to see everything.

-Would be the type to sulk If an exhibit was closed because she really got her hopes up.

-Would also be the type to drag you to the gift shop and buy tons of souvenirs. She would have a squid hat on her head, a T-Shirt full of the sea animals, a stuffed seahorse in her arms, and whatever else she could get her hands on. You’d have to laugh at how silly your girlfriend looks, but also think to yourself how cute her enthusiasm is.

-She’s constantly taking selfies and videos of everything you guys are seeing. She wants to savor the moment and get as many memories as she can before you guys leave. Would eventually end up running out of storage and somehow getting a hold of your phone as well.

-Is on the edge of her seat as she watches the Dolphin shows with you. You can literally see her melt beside you as she watches the Dolphin jump out the water so majestically. 

-Her eyes literally widen once you get to the Dome part of the aquarium. It’s absolutely breathtaking for her and at some point she would glance over at you and you would feel her gaze and end up turning your head and smiling back at her. Miwa honestly can’t think of a better person to share this view with.

[stepintomyvoid]

A Deeper Understanding [Newt Scamander x reader]

A/N: Yes this is me, trying fanfiction again. I haven’t written a single word in like 3 years or sth? But whateveeeer I’ve been really inspired by the Harry Potter Universe again, so here we go. Also please excuse any grammatical errors! English is only my second language, so please be gentle haha! But if you like this stuff, please please tell me! I’m super anxious about my writing, but I will of course take constructive criticism.

Warnings: not really anything, it’s fluffy and a bit angsty, mention of death

Word Count: 2721

“I wonder, Mr Scamander, is that really the fitting pair of shoes for those trousers?”, you smirked, carrying a large bucket of feed for the mooncalves. The golden haired man looked up, following your body as you walked past him. He was crouched down, tying his oak-brown leather shoes. The right corner of his mouth twitched a bit, almost indicating a smile. But he stayed silent, keeping his amusement to himself.

His silence jabbed your mood a bit but you shrugged it off. You had helped him for a few months now, assisting in caring for his beautiful creatures. To you, it felt like years. But your relationship went back even farther. Your first time meeting the shy Newt Scamander was your first year in Hogwarts. You, a muggle-born witch, were still adjusting to the new wizard world upon you. You had just been sorted into your Hogwarts House the day before and walked around the castle, aimlessly, just taking it all in. When you bumped into a Hufflepuff sitting cross-legged on the floor with some small creature in his hands. That’s when you met and forgot again. He was a little too awkward, you were a little too lost. It was just a random encounter and nothing came out of it. You didn’t even know his name back then.

Years later, you saw a certain Erumpent, an indeed breathtaking rhinceros which looked like it had actual lava in his horn, roaming around in Central Park in New York, the location of your Christmas vacation. This was your second encounter. Upon seeing this giant creature galopp through the winterly landscape, you left immediately; only years later you learned that the one and only Newt Scamander was there too. Not only that, he was responsible for it. All of your friends called you insane and laughed your encounter off like it never happened.

You actually met the young Mr Scamander in one of his readings about Magical Creatures in London, he was talking about Thestrals. He described these skinny black horses with skeletal bodies as elegant and gentle, he said they were calm but at the same time so very powerful. How he talked about every creature in the same loving way fascinated you from the beginning.

“But their beauty can only be seen by very view”, he said. He just sat on a small chair in front of a small crowd in a library. Not a lot of people were interested in his liberal views. But you adored him. The way the golden sunlight, broken by the dirty window glass, shined on his left side, the few times he actually looked up from the floor and a passionate smile grew on his face, you couldn’t stop listening. “You see, only those who saw death can see a Thestral. But many mistake this description for its literal definition. To see a Thestral, one needs to-“

You raised your hand. The brown-haired curls looked up. Almost startled by your action, he exclaimed a “yes?”. “One needs to have a deeper understanding of death, rather than just being a witness.” You blushed immediately as the small crowd turned around to look at you. “Right?”, you added shyly. He nodded.

After the reading, Newt stood up immediately, almost fleeing the building. You ran after him. “Uhm, Mr Scamander! Mr Scamander! I, uh...”, you called. He stopped to turn around. “Yes, can I help you?”, he asked politely, his gaze on the ground. He shortly looked up to study your expression. “I know, this must seem...strange. But I just wanted to apologize for interrupting your reading. I’m sorry if that seemed impolite”, you said with a hopeful smile.

“Oh”, he paused. “No, don’t worry. I’m just not... uh, used to people knowing or even caring about Thestrals. Most of them find them rather grim, I believe”, he smiled, looking into your eyes again for a few seconds. His blue eyes shimmered hazel in the afternoon sun. “I must excuse myself. I have to feed the mooncalves, I wish you a nice day”, he nodded and was on the verge on turning around again, you reached out, almost gripping his coat to stop him. “Mr Scamander, if I may, would I be able to help you with that? You don’t have to say yes, I just...I would love to learn more. One can only read so much in books”, you chuckled. He turned to you again, looking shocked again.

“Don’t feel obligated”, you added. “You are most welcome to. I can always use some help. Excuse my hesitation, this has never happened to me before”, he laughed, “if you follow me?”

And that’s how you found yourself visiting Newt Scamanders suitcase every day since then. You were a good team. And once he opened up to you more, joked around every now and then, you felt more comfortable around him as well. But still, there was always this thick wall between you emotionally. Neither one of you shared too many personal memories with each other. You enjoyed each other’s company dearly, you did. But something always kept you from being closer. Even though, from time to time, there were moments where the freckled man could make your heart jump like you’ve never felt before.

“Need help with that?” you asked one day as Newt was brewing a potion to treat the stomach ache of one of the Diricawls. You stood behind him, your hands on his shoulders, so you could look over him on your tip-toes. He turned his head a bit so he could see your face in the corner of his eyes, he blushed. “I’m good”, he said like a whisper. “Ugh, shut up and let me help you”, you scoffed and pulled out your wand. A few circular swings with your wand and the brown-ish fluid in the dark kettle started bubbling softly. “There you go, sweetie”, you said and patted his shoulder blades roughly. “No one is better at potions than you, Y/N”, he grinned slightly as he turned around to face you, his hands on the table behind him. “I know”, you winked at him. He broke the eye contact, his red-brown locks fell into his face, failing to hide his blushing cheeks. There it was again, that feeling. His shyness when you called him sweetie or honey drove you crazy. Officially you might have been completely platonic but his hidden smirks and chuckles made your insides burst.

 And then, one fateful Decembre evening, everything changed.

 “Y/N? You mind doing me a favour? You can say no of course... but... I’d... I’d love to have you there”, he smiled, his eyes darker than usual. You were just finishing up and about to leave but him asking you with this kind expression was a turn of events. “Uh, sure. What do you need me to do?”

Only about twenty minutes later you found yourself standing on the edge of a small lake surrounded by a pine forest at almost midnight. It was a bit chilly even for you, you lifted your shoulders, covering your face in your scarf. “Are you cold?”, Newt asked kneeling on the edge of the water, his wand in his hand, a worrying look on his face. He looked so pale in the blue light. “It’s alright”, you smiled at him. “Mr Scamander, if I may ask, what exactly are we doing here?”, you crossed your arms looking around. The forest was dark and cold, it looked utterly uninviting. Before you, the light blue lake reflected the moonlight and made for a calm atmosphere. It was almost completely silent. Your breath was visible in front of you and in that moment you wished, you had worn a thicker jumper.

“Looking for Kelpies, of course, Ms Y/L/N.”

“Of course”, you scoffed to yourself. Your gaze wandered across the water, it was quite peaceful.

“Couldn’t this wait `til the morning?”, you asked stepping closer to the lake.

“Sadly, no”, he then went on a rant on how this time was very important to get a good look at a Kelpie because they’re the friendliest when the sea is the coldest. You tried to distract yourself from the freezing cold by listening closely. But as you looked over to the other side of the lake, you made out a black creature drinking in the lake. Your eyes widened. A slender four-legged creature with a slim neck. It seemed, as if the creature could sense your staring and its head shot up, looking directly at you. Like a startled deer, you couldn’t look away. It was a Thestral.

“Newt!”, you whispered, keeping your eyes locked on the horse-like creature. “Newt!”, you said again with a bit more intensity. You couldn’t see but he turned around to look at you, saw your mesmerized face and looked into the same direction. “What is it? Did you see something?”, he asked, not moving a muscle. “It’s a... a Thestral, Newt. I can’t believe it. It’s so... beautiful”, you said slowly, still not blinking. The black skeleton moved around a bit, its coat shimmering blue in the night.

“What?”, Newt asked. He slowly stood up. He looked back and forth a few times. “Y/N?”, he said with a soft voice.

“Newt, don’t move! Look at it, it’s majestic”, you said with a wide smile. “Y/N-“, he tried again. “What is it? It’s right over there. Can’t you see it?”, you said with a hushed voice as to not spook the creature.

“No, actually, I can’t... see it”, Newt admitted. As you looked at him for the first time in minutes, you realized, he was a lot closer than you thought. Slowly you realized what this meant. Your smile faded. Newt had a painful expression on his face, covering it up with a weak smile to make you feel better. Of course, only you could see the Thestral. Because only you had witnessed death. Flashes of memories flooded your brain. You looked down brushing your hand through your hair.

“I’m sorry, Y/N”, he said as if he thought this would make it better. For the first time, his eyes never left you. “It was my Mum”, you said huskily, “she uh... passed, twelve years ago.”

Tears started clouding your vision as more and more memories came back again. You witnessed your Mum’s death. But how it happened was so horrible that you could not dare to speak it out loud.

Newt came another step closer and lightly squeezed your arm in comfort. He wanted to make it all ok again. Both of you didn’t say another word. You didn’t need to. For a moment you looked up into his eyes before he hesitantly pulled you into a hug. His arms were wrapped around your waist. Even through several layers of clothes you could feel his warmth against your chest. He smelled like apple pie and cider. Your arms around his neck, he was pulling you close to him, breathing into your shoulder. At that moment, you felt so vulnerable, like you would break any second and his strong grip was the only thing holding you together. He was stronger than you expected. His hands on your back, he pushed you closer to him. And there was nothing you wanted more than to kiss him right in this moment. He had never touched you like that, so intimate and strong.

Slowly his grip loosened, leaving you immediately cold again. Your hands slowly slid down his neck but stayed at his cheeks. You cupped his face looking at his dark blue eyes sparkling. His freckles were almost invisible, varnished with a red colour. His hands stayed at your hips, his thumb lightly brushing over you. You pulled his head down softly and he followed willingly. The amber curls tickled your forehead and you felt a soft hand cupping your cheek. You were only milimetres away from each other, so close, you breathed the same air. The heat was almost unbearable.

“Y/N...”

“Don’t...”, you mumbled. Your foreheads touched lightly. “Y/N, I...”, he began again. You gripped the hair at the back of his head to keep him close. His fingers ran through your hair as his other hand slid up your back. Your lips wanted his. You were breaking under his every touch.

A sudden water splash from the lake ripped you from your moment. Both of you turned to the lake, a dark shimmering creature had risen from the depths of the water. As fast as it appeared, it was gone again. The few water drops you felt, cooled your heated cheeks rather quickly. Newt rushed to the edge of the water, “did you see that?!”, he exclaimed. “Yea”, you gulped, still shook by what just happened. After looking at the water surface for what felt like hours, Newt turned around again looking at you, standing there like a beaten dog. You didn’t dare to say anything. What would you even say? Why didn’t he say anything?

The rest of the night both of you kept pretty much silent. You had never felt this unsure in your life. Normally, Newt was the shy and awkward one but he just turned your world around. The next few days you barely talked, still processing your moment the other night.

Until, you just couldn’t keep it in anymore. Without a warning you blurted out: “Tell me, how you feel about me.”

Newt, who was sorting plants as of right now, turned around with wide eyes. “What...”, he said slowly. “Tell me”, you repeated. “Who am I to you.”

He just stared at you without making a noise for a few moments before looking back at the ground, avoiding your gaze. “What... what do you mean by... by that?”, he stuttered, still looking down.

“Newt, come on. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t... I just can’t keep working here acting like everything’s normal, when it’s not... it’s really not”, you said walking around rubbing your forehead. “What’s wrong?”, he asked innocently. “I’m sorry, that was a stupid question. Is it about your mother? I’m terribly sorry. If there’s anything I can do, just-“

“Stop”, you cut him off sharply. “Please don’t... don’t do that.”

“Do what?”, he asked, obviously confused now.

“Being all cute and innocent and nice and... and just... you”, you replied and looked up at him.

“What’s wrong? I don’t...”, he stammered trying to read you.

“Who am I to you”, you asked again standing right in front of him.

He didn’t reply. He just stared holes in the floor again. Your hands softly found his cheeks and you pushed his gaze up to look at you. His eyes struggled to look at you. But when his found yours, there was it again, the magic, the flicker, the nervous tingling feeling in your stomach. “Tell me”, you whispered. “Say something”, you said, followed by an endless feeling pause.

“You’re funny”, he whispered. You held your breath for a moment.

“And you’re smart... so clever.” You started grinning.

“You make me smile, you’re so good and full of light.” You rubbed your thumb over his cheek.

“You brew the best potions, better than anyone I’ve ever seen. And you’re just...”, he paused.

“You’re just so very beautiful.”

You let out a happy giggle, your hands sliding to his neck and gently twirling his locks with your finger. He couldn’t look into your eyes but you could see that he liked it.

“Your nose is very symmetric and you have a nice chin”, he added, raising his gaze and looking at you with those hazel puppy eyes. You started laughing.

“What?”, he shyed away. “I’m sorry. That was inappropriate. I shouldn’t have said that... I understand if you want to leave”, he said.

“Don’t you dare think that for one second, Mr Scamander”, you said with a wide grin. That’s when you pulled him closer and finally kissed him. Your lips met and Newt closed the gap between your bodies. He pushed himself against you. “That’s all I wanted to hear”, you pulled away for a brief moment, only to deepen the kiss quickly after saying that. You never wanted to let him go again.

Thank you so much for reading! <3

[aellynera]

An Off Day (Nathan Bateman x Reader)

AN OFF DAY

(okay, look. my husband thought he was being funny and said “give me a character and i’ll give you a scenario” and then i snorted laughing and then...well. this happened. set sometime before the events of the movie.)

((shoutout to @anetteaneta for an important bit of info and @tinygaydemonbby​ for the random chat and another key bit.))

Word Count: 2100(ish)

Summary: It’s your day off and you’re just trying to enjoy it. Nathan is working and he’s trying to enjoy it. It doesn’t at all go the way you imagined.

Warnings: Cursing. Banter. Robot sex (not graphic). Personal injury. Innuendo. Propositions. Nudity. Complete and utterly ridiculous trash. Possible typos. Nathan Bateman.

The absolute magnificence of the Alaskan landscape was something that, quite frankly, you were never going to get used to. The trees, tall and majestic, towering over the lush green grass. The river, crisp and pristine, bubbling its way to the immense waterfall that cascaded down the cliff face and eventually made its way into the ever-vast ocean. The bald eagles that would soar from treetop to treetop, even the occasional moose that would make itself known at the edges of the compound and then disappear like ghosts into the forest beyond.

It was otherworldly.

The occasional twig snapped and leaf crunched under your boots as you hiked along your usual trail along the north side of the property. Today’s air felt cool on your cheeks despite the sun overhead; at least it was summer - technically, even if the temperature wasn’t getting much above 60 degrees Fahrenheit these past few weeks - so you had twenty hours of daylight instead of the twenty hours of darkness in winter.

You found your favorite spot on a nearby rock and perched on the smooth surface, tilting your face up to that glorious, shining orb. This really was what you needed right now.

*ding!*

...And that was really what you didn’t need. Definitely not right now, and probably not later either. Speaking of otherworldly.

Your boss was a difficult man, and you had a strange rapport with him that was irritating on a daily professional basis, and to your dismay, increasingly so on a personal level. To be fair, you were the only two humans out here. To also be fair, your boss was kind of annoyingly hot.

You sighed and reached into your pocket, pulling out your phone and glancing at the screen.

God: Where the fuck are you?

God? What the… You were annoyed by the text, but more annoyed by the name. When the hell did that bastard changed his name in your phone? He was insufferable on the best of days, but this was a new low. A new high? You weren’t really sure. Sighing, you shot a text back.

You: It’s my day off.

God: You know that’s not really a thing here right?

You: It is when I need a break from you.

God: I’ll make it up to you.

You: Unless you’re asking me to dinner, I don’t want to hear it.

You groaned. You really didn’t mean to say that.

The little ellipses that showed he was typing back flashed across the screen several times, then stopped. Then popped back up, and stopped again. And just because your boss was your boss, it did it four more times, but still no response.

You shoved your phone back in your jacket pocket and returned your attention to the river, breathing deeply and watching the water swirl around a pile of rocks on the opposite bank.

*ding!*

Dammit.

God: I need you to come back like right now.

You: I’m not gonna sit around and be your Eliza Doolittle today, Nathan.

You weren’t just saying that. Last week, the man had dragged you, literally, into the lab by your elbow and had you repeat vowel sounds and random words extremely phonetically while holding a pulsing orb of glowing blue goo. He claimed it was some kind of brain training. You’d said it wasn’t part of your job description, but honestly, it probably was. You were there to assist, you were there to manage, you were there to occasionally have a satisfyingly intelligent and non-arrogant conversation, and you were mostly there to make sure Nathan Bateman didn’t blow anything up or burn anything down.

That didn’t necessarily mean you liked any of it. Okay, fine, you kind of liked the assisting part and definitely the intelligent conversation part. But it was your day off, and all you wanted to do was not be in the house.

God: What? No, it’s...I just need your help with something.

You: Nathan. It. Is. My. Day. Off. No assistance today. Bother me tomorrow.

God: ...Please?

That gave you pause. Since when did he actually ask for anything politely?

You: Fine. I’m halfway up summit trail, give me like 20.

God: Make it 10.

You:  Asshole.

God: And bring a bag of frozen peas.

What the actual hell.

You blinked at the screen twice, turned your phone off completely, and started back towards the house.

*****

You didn’t know why you paid the slightest bit of attention to Nathan’s request, but once in the house, you found yourself in the kitchen, pulling a bag of frosty legumes out of the freezer. With it in hand, you made your way to the lab.

Nathan hadn’t told you where he was, but you knew where to find him. He was always in the lab.

“Okay, I’m back,” you called out as you pushed through the door to Nathan’s inner sanctum. “Now what is so damn important that…”

“Oh thank fuck,” Nathan’s voice called out. “Do you have the stuff?”

You glanced around suspiciously. You couldn’t see him. Until you came around the side of the long table in the middle of the room and found him. Your eyes widened at the sight of Nathan, curled up on the floor in a fetal position, sweating and vaguely shaking.

And totally naked.

He glanced up as he saw your shoes approached and weakly raised his arm and made a grabby hand. “Gimme.”

Tossing the frozen vegetables to him, your mouth opened and closed several times, trying to process the scene. Before you could really take it all in, you watched as Nathan reached over his shoulder, grabbed his discarded t-shirt, and wrapping the icy bag in the shirt, placed it directly on his crotch.

“All right,” you finally got out, “what the actual hell is going on?!”

“Ohhhhh,” Nathan moaned as the cold compress made contact with his skin. “I thought I was gonna die.”

“Why are you naked?” you yelled at him.

“There was a malfunction,” he replied, nonchalant as if you were simply discussing the weather.

You just gaped at him. This was definitely not in your job description.

“A malfunction,” you repeated.

Nathan made a feeble gesture at the table. It was covered in metal parts and wires, screwdrivers and other things you assumed were robotic but couldn’t recognize. He had been working a new body build for the past few days, that much you knew. But now there were metal bits everywhere and Nathan was bare as the day he was born, sprawled in the middle of the floor. Your eyes scanned the table again; the biggest object, in the middle of the mess, looked sort of like...oh, you did not like where this was going. You pinched the bridge of your nose.

“I may have miscalculated the required tension,” Nathan said, still curled up on the floor.

The required...oh hell no.

“Nathan...you know you’re the literally the smartest person I know, and you know I think you’re brilliantly creative and inventive and all that important stuff, but please, please tell me you were not actually doing what I think you were doing,” you muttered.

“I was working!”

“You know I can just check the security footage, right?” you stared him down.

Nathan looked at you over the top of his glasses. “I had to test it and make sure it worked.”

You buried your face in your hands.

“Why does a robot have to have working...parts?!” As soon as you asked, you wished you hadn’t. This idiot genius actually had the nerve to blush. Slightly. He would never admit it, but his ears definitely got pinker than they’d been a few seconds ago.

Nathan sat up suddenly and glared at you, adjusting the ice pack again - thank the heavens - to keep himself covered. “First of all, it’s not a robot, it’s an AI. There’s a big difference. And second of all, we talked about this. The point is to make it as human as possible, so this particular part was necessary.”

The glare you shot back at him could have melted his current loincloth. It was your day off and Nathan couldn’t even leave you be for one whole day without his compulsion to cater to whatever whim was in his head and get under your skin. You dropped into one of the lab chairs.

“So...let me get this straight,” you sighed. God help you. But not the God in your cell phone, because he could go fuck himself. Or get fucked. Whichever.

Suddenly, through your haze of utter exasperation, what you’d just thought clicked into place and you snorted a laugh. Your eyes flashed over to the thing in the middle of the table. It was definitely shaped like a pelvis.

Nathan’s eyes became daggers. “What’s so fuckin’ funny?”

Your eyes went to the thing on the table and to his hands, and then back again. You shook your head, cleared your throat, and tried not to laugh again. It didn’t work. “Sorry. Um. So...what you’re saying is...you got injured because you were...fucking a robot pelvis.”

“I should fire you,” Nathan grumbled.

“And you got injured - from fucking a disembodied robot pelvis -”

“I am so going to fire you.”

“...because it was too...tight?”

“I shouldn’t have asked for your help. I should have just let myself die here, naked and unsatisfied.” He flopped back down.

You couldn’t help yourself any longer. Your laughter rang through the lab, a mixture of actual amusement and horrified reality. You snorted again and that made you laugh harder. Nathan had always joked about making a sex robot. Well, you thought he had been joking, but now, clearly not - and he’d hurt himself in the actual process of trying to make sure it worked. You weren’t a monster, you hoped he wasn’t truly actually injured, but you also took a little satisfaction in knowing karma existed.

After a few minutes, you wiped your eyes and looked down at him. Nathan stared back, but you could see the start of a sheepish smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I told you I miscalculated the tension. It was fine--”

“Until it wasn’t?” you wheezed.

“--until it cut off all the circulation to my dick.”

You bit your lip. “Nathan Bateman. You literally cockblocked yourself.”

He didn’t respond right away. But then he spoke, at the same moment you noticed the smirk on his face fully bloom and what you’d come to call his “up to some bullshit” look glimmer in his eyes.

“Are you gonna come help me or not?”

“Excuse me?” You were fairly certain your eyebrows could not go any farther up your forehead.

“Well, I’m not in excruciating, unimaginable pain now, and I’d like to make sure my dick isn’t going to fall off. And I didn’t finish. Need a little help here.”

“You want me to--” you stuttered.

“Un-cockblock me,” his wolfish smile broke out fully now.

You hurled a pen at his head. “You really are an asshole.”

“I admit,” he continued, easily dodging your projectile, “this wasn’t what I was expecting for the first time you saw me naked, but I’ll work with what I got.” He started to remove the ice pack.

Another pen went flying his way. “You know, I’m just going to pretend that you’re not about to flash me with your mechanically impaired penis, and that you didn’t just proposition me, and I’m leaving this room now,” you said, standing up and shaking your head.

“Baby, you’re just gonna leave me hanging here?” he grinned, stretching back out on the floor. He folded his hands behind his head. The t-shirt wrapped bag of frozen peas remained - now perched rather proudly, you noted - on his groin.

A vexed growl left your lips as you walked towards the lab door. “Leaving now!”

“Well could you at least toss me my pants?”

You glanced down. Nathan’s sweatpants were balled up behind the lab door. How they’d gotten all the way over here...nope. Nope. You decided that information was entirely unnecessary.

You threw his pants at him and they hit him in the face with a satisfying whump.

“You sure I can’t convince you to help me out here?” Nathan asked serenely from under the fabric.

He couldn’t see the small smile on your face as you walked out the door. Thank god. Or...God. Whatever. The man was a menace.

“Ask me to dinner,” you called over your shoulder.

“I’ll text you,” he called back.

God.

~end~

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[skzsauce01]

Normal Pt 1

Description: For more skilled maneuvers, dragon shifters need a rider to help them out. After rejecting multiple riders, Hyunjin, a traumatized and handicapped shifter, is assigned to you. To add a cherry on top, you’re deaf, so how are you supposed cast spells to free him from his limitation, let alone the anger in his heart? Some HTTYD influence.

Warning: none

Word Count: 3.8k

Pairing: fem!reader x dragon!Hyunjin

Pt: 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5

“You have got to be kidding me.” Hyunjin can feel his eye twitching as he looks at you, his new rider. If he’s being honest, he’ll admit that you look familiar, but it doesn’t make him hate you any less.

“If you have complaints, then maybe you shouldn’t have mistreated your previous rider until he quit,” the professor seethes and begins walking away. “Remember, this is your last chance or we have to expel you.”

“Professor. Professor!” the young dragon-shifter calls, but his pleas fall on deaf ears. With a sigh, he turns to you, the one with literal deaf ears.

“Stay out of my way,” he growls and pushes roughly past you.

You tilt your head to the side, unable to comprehend his moving lips. He seems displeased, but still, you want to make a good first impression, so you run up after him and offer him a red pouch.

“What do you want?” he frowns.

You open the bag for him to see the appai berries inside, his favorite fruit. 

“Oh, wow, for me thanks!” he grins happily, making you smile as well. You beam at him as he takes the gift from your hands. However, you don’t expect him to then spit into the bag and shove it back into your face with a scowl. 

“You really think I’d say that?” he scoffs and continues stomping down the halls of Sheng Academy, shaking off the feeling that he’s seen you somewhere.

“A deaf handicap! Can you believe it?”

“Hyunjin, calm down,” his friend and roommate, Changbin, sighs.

“Easy for you to say; your rider is head prefect,” Hyunjin grumbles at the other shifter.

Changbin just lets out another sigh and focuses his attention on his dinner.

“Who says we need riders anyway?” Hyunjin continues. “We can fight and fly perfectly well without them!”

“You know that isn’t true.”

“I’m a Twilight Terror,” he hisses.

Changbin rolls his eyes at the mention of the superior dragon breed. “I’m going back to the dorms now. You should find her and get some practice in before the great ‘Twilight Terror’ falls face first into dirt in class tomorrow.”

“Like claws I will,” he curses while taking the unfinished custard from his friend’s plate.

It appears that you have the same idea as Changbin though. As soon as Hyunjin puts his tray onto the collecting belt, you walk up to him.

‘Practice?’ you sign. 

“I can’t understand your stupid hand dance,” he snickers and pushes your forehead backwards with two fingers.

You figure out what that meant, so you pull out a notepad and write your question onto a sheet.

With the same cocky smile on his lips, he leans down towards you and exaggeratedly replies, “Nnnnoooooo.”

Despite his answer, Hyunjin makes his way to the training grounds after he has lost you. It is actually a commonality for him to practice whenever he has a chance. By himself, that is.

“Face first?” Hyunjin mocks. “We’ll see about that.”

After a quick chant, the pendant around his neck glows and turns him into a gorgeous, deep purple reptile. Hyunjin lets out a majestic roar and takes off into the air.

He loves the feeling of the night air under his wings and the feeling of control as he maneuvers around the training course. Over the horizontal beam, around the rotating spikes, toss a fireball at the target, through the-- Bang! His tail accidentally slams against a pole, sending him face first into the sand below.

“Claws…” Hyunjin groans internally, picking his head off the ground. 

Fustratedly, he thumps his useless tail against the ground repeatedly until he feels an extra weight trying to hold it down. When the dust cloud he created settles down, he nearly gasps when he sees you clinging onto him with wide eyes.

You shake your head and make a thumping motion with your arm. ‘Don’t hurt yourself,’ you sign regardless of his understanding. 

Hyunjin blasts a breath of hot air into your face before flinging you off of him and flying away as quickly as he can.

Once alone again, Hyunjin curls up into himself and paws at his left tail fin, or rather, the lack thereof. He can still remember the day he lost it like it was yesterday. He can also still remember the man who took it from him. The man he called his rider.

Hyunjin knows deep down he cannot maneuver as fluidly and precisely without the spells of a rider even if he had a functioning tail, but he would rather keep trying every night by himself than admit it. Speaking of spells, how are you, a deaf rider, supposed to control him? You probably cannot even enunciate the most basic of spells, he realizes with a scoff. He realizes his hypocrisy when making fun of your handicap when he has one as well, but he would rather disregard that thought too.

“We’re going to be having free practice for class today. Remember, the New Year Race is in just over three months!” your professor announces. 

“Are you competing this year?” a she-dragon asks, bumping her snout against Hyunjin’s wing.

“We’ll see, Hye Ji,” he replies, hiding his tail even further between his two front legs. Hye Ji sighs at the response and flies off with her rider to find a training spot.

You cannot tell what the dragons are saying even if you can hear, but you can clearly see her intentions. You give Hyunjin a suggestive nudge, and he growls dangerously at you.

“Now, now, Hwang,” your professor chides. “Be nice. Maybe L/N can take you to the Race this year.”

“I don’t need a rider--”

“I’m sure you don’t.” Turning to you, she signs and vocalizes, “Ready?”

You nod, but Hyunjin lets out a grunt. To no one’s surprise, he starts to stalk off. As he does so, he feels a sudden weight overcoming his head, causing it to drop onto the ground and halting his movements. Angrily, he turns to the professor for using a spell on him. To his surprise though, her necklace wasn’t the one glowing; yours is. 

“How?” A spell like that is difficult and even more so when used on a dragon who has not accepted you as its rider yet, not to mention the even greater increase of difficulty due to your inability to have even heard the words to it before. Still, the white shine of your pendant is unmistakable.

After you release your spell, his curiosity bests his pride, so he stays where he is, watching your every move. You walk over to give him a few gentle strokes along his side-- a friendly, and non-invasive spot to pet.

‘I’m going to get on now, okay?’ you sign. 

Your professor translates, and Hyunjin lets out another grunt and flies off.

“What did I expect? I really hope he comes around before he can’t graduate,” your professor sighs and goes to check on her other students. You’ll figure it out, she hopes.

Flying alone makes him feel weightless and free. Although your earlier spell was impressive, it scared him, knowing there is someone who can control his muscles like that. So what if he isn’t able to make quick turns or fly in the same spot? He is a Twilight Terror; he can just blast away anything in his path.

He flies towards a nearby pole to prove his point. He gathers all his frustration and insecurity into a ball of plasma and condemns the approaching obstacle into obliteration.

Wait. Approaching?

Hyunjin’s eyes widen as he realizes that the pole is only one of many rotating ones on a gear-like contraption, and the next one is coming faster than he can react on his own. Suddenly, his muscles feel a sharp burst of energy and pivots his body just barely under the incoming barrier. His tail is left behind, however. It jerks uncontrollably behind him as the situation becomes more dire. 

Hyunjin lets out a worthless roar in your direction, demanding that you get your spells together quickly. You cannot hear him, but you understood his message. Honestly, you are disappointed with your lack of ability, but you simply are not used to working with a dragon with only half its fin, especially from a distance. Still, that is no excuse for you not to be able to save him. 

At the last Hollywood-like second, you manage to get Hyunjin out of harm’s way. He looks at you incredulously before flying a clear path towards you and turning human just as he lands. It’s only then that he notices how pristine your white riding uniform is. The underside of your coattails, the area most easily burned during fights, flaunt a brilliant crimson colour. Either you’ve just purchased the outfit or you are just that good at riding. 

With your professor gone, Hyunjin snatches the notepad from your coat to communicate.

‘How did you conjure spells like that?’ he scribbles and pushes the words into your face.

You take the pad back. ‘Let me on your back and you’ll see.’

Hyunjin scoffs at the idea. ‘Why didn’t you use them on me last night?’ he asks, referring to your rather pathetic attempts of holding his tail down with your physical body.

‘It wasn’t time yet. I don’t control dragons when I’m not supposed to. That’s abusive.’

Abusive? Hyunjin narrows his eyes, unsure whether or not you are lying. Why not use your powers when you have them, especially when you can control dragons who haven’t sworn their loyalty to you and from a distance no less. 

‘Who are you?’ he decides to ask.

You smile when you read his words. Eagerly you scribble your response. ‘Your friend who’s going to take you to the Race!’

Hyunjin rips off the page once he’s read it, crumples it, and tosses it at your black boots. “I’ve not entered that thing once in all the years I’ve been here,” he snarls in your ear, not caring that you can’t hear him. “No rider has ever been able to be my rider, let alone a friend.”

As he tries to walk off once again, you pull on his sleeve.

“What?” he whips around angrily.

You reach forward to press something into his mouth. It doesn’t take long for him to recognize the familiar sweetness of an appai berry. You hand him the page he threw at you, now with the words ‘good work!’ written on the back, and walk off the practice grounds, leaving him behind this time.

“Where did you get that?”

“Get what?” Changbin asks, popping another berry into his mouth and swirling his blue necklace around idly. A familiar red pouch sits besides him.

“This!” Hyunjin exclaims as he snatches the pouch before his roommate can grab another one.

“Dude, chill. It was just hanging on the door knob when I came home. Are they yours?”

“No,” he replies curtly.

“Hey! Then give them back!” yells Changbin after his friend as the latter makes his way back out again.

It doesn't take long for Hyunjin to find your dorm room. The look of excitement across your features when you open the door to see him only fuels his anger. 

“What is this?” he yells. “You think bribery is going to work?”

Your blank stare causes him to drag his hand down his face in frustration. Without a choice, he writes on your white board, ‘I don’t want any of your bribes’ and tosses the pouch at you.

You grab his wrist to prevent him from leaving as you write, ‘If you don’t want bribes, then earn it.’

“What?” he vocalizes. You understood that.

‘Earn the berries like you did today.’

‘This is ridiculous. I’m not a child.’

‘Then think of it as an add-on. You want to know how I work my spells, don’t you? Just try letting me on you, and you’ll find out AND get appai berries. It’s a win-win.’

‘Don’t you get it? I’m NOT letting a rider on my back.’

‘I’m not asking you to swear loyalty to me. Consider it a favor.’

‘And what makes you think I’d do you a favor?’

‘Because we’re friends! :D’

Hyunjin wipes away your emoji with his hand. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

For the next few days, while you are trying to coax him into a ride, Hyunjin has been trying to figure out your spellcasting methods by himself in the library. By his reasoning, there aren't too many riders who can control dragons who don’t let them, so the school journalists must have done an article about you somewhere sometime during your career at Sheng.

“Changbin, can you get the door?” he calls with an arm full of borrowed newspapers and magazines.

“Yeah, sure. One second.” 

“Thanks,” Hyunjin nods once the door swings open. He nearly drops all the manuscripts once he sees who else is inside the room though.

“What is she doing here?” he gestures accusingly at you with his head.

You wave innocently at him then beckon Changbin to sit back next to you.

“I’m helping her sketch a blueprint of a model of your tail so that she can practice on it since, you know, you won’t let her practice on you,” replies Changbin.

‘Thank you,’ you sign.

‘My pleasure.’

“You sign?” Hyunjin scoffs.

“She’s taught me a few things,” the other male shrugs. ‘He’s such a soggywog,’ he signs to you.

You giggle, which surprises the Terror since it’s the first sound he has heard from your mouth. It’s more pleasant than what he imagined a deaf person is able to muster, but again, it’s another fact he would rather not dwell on.

“What did you say to her?” he demands, to which his roommate shrugs and shares a knowing smile with you.

‘I think it’s about as good as it can get,’ Changbin writes, turning back to the blueprint. 

‘I’ll get to building it then,’ you write back and give him a quick hug as thanks before signing your goodbyes.

“You two sure got close,” Hyunjin notes as his friend closes the door behind you.

“She’s nice, so why not?” Changbin conjures a red pouch of berries from seemingly nowhere and starts munching on one. “They’re mine this time. Hands off.”

Hyunjin waves him off and spreads newspapers on the desk you have just vacated. “Anyway. I’m trying to figure out how Y/N is casting her spells. Want to help me?”

“Nope! She’s also going to constrict half of my tail and practice riding me, so I’ll find out sooner or later.”

“And I don’t suppose you’ll be telling me afterwards.”

“You’re so smart, Hyunjinie~” he coos mockingly.

“I’m telling your rider you’re cheating on him with another rider.”

“Oh, Chan already knows,” Changbin tells him. “He’s riding with her in case something goes wrong.”

“When did this happen?” the younger one wonders aloud.

“When you were busy avoiding your rider,” Changbin answers. “Not that I understand why. She’s so nice and pretty.”

“She’s not my--”

“Oh right, it’s cause you already have Hye Ji!”

“Seo Changbin!”

Hyunjin isn’t curious about what you can do about a broken tail like his. He isn’t! The only reason that he is hiding in one of the corners of the practice grounds is because he likes it there. Yeah, totally!

He sees you and Chan step back from Changbin as the dragon takes on his reptilian form.

‘Beautiful,’ he sees you sign towards the Death Fangs and get started fitting a contraption that will constrict the movement of the left half of his tail.

Chan helps you up and then gets on behind you himself, and your white necklace begins to glow as Changbin lifts up off the ground. Hyunjin frowns when Chan laughs upon figuring out your trick. Your lips are moving but not in a way the common spells would require them too. If you aren’t saying the spell words, what are you saying? 

Just then, your magic flickers a centimeter too far to one side, sending Changbin into a spinning spiral. Hastily, you pull on a string to release the constriction and increase your magic to steady the dragon. Chan helps, and a mix of blue and white ribbons of magic surrounds the three of you until Changbin is upright again.

During your increase in powers, Hyunjin can make out your chants. No, not chants, singing! How has he not noticed how you place a hand over your voice box to feel the vibrations as you ride? Rather than using different words for different spells, you use different frequencies! 

Chan has Changbin land with his arms around you much tighter than they were before the accident. Given the possible outcomes of what just happened, the tightness is warranted, but not in Hyunjin’s opinion.

‘I’m sorry,’ you sign once you have dismounted. 

‘No worries. It’s why we’re practicing,’ Chan assures. 

Of course the prefect knows how to sign too.

Changbin lets you reattach the constriction, and you are in the air again in no time with Chan right behind you. By the end of the session, you are able to maneuver Changbin through the easy course without any incidents. With satisfied nods, the three of you decide to make your way to the dining hall for dinner together while Chan bombards you with questions about your technique.

Hyunjin steps out of his hiding spot after you have left nothing but the memory of the white of your uniform behind. He doesn’t even realize how sore his legs have become from standing in the same spot for so long until he moves. Something about your riding is that enchanting that he forgets just how much time has passed. He wonders how you haven’t been able to find a single article about you yet.

“Hyunjin?”

“Hye Ji? What are you doing here?” He whips around to face the yellow dragon.

“Just out for a little air,” she replies with a sweet smile. “Want to fly with me?”

“I, uh, just finished training. I was just heading in for a shower,” Hyunjin lies.

“Come on, just a little bit?”

“I’m really tired, sorry,” Hyunjin tries, unconsciously moving the muscles that would hide his tail behind his back if he had one at the moment.

“Then I’ll carry you!” offers Hye Ji. “I tried it with my girl friends once. It’s really fun.”

“Your rider’s not here!”

The girl shrugs. “We can take the easy course. Come on, please?”

Before long, Hyunjin finds himself on top of the dragon fifty meters above the ground. 

“Hold on!”

She is right about one thing: this is really fun. Until they fly a little too close to a beam for his liking.

“Watch out!” Hyunjin yells. 

If he had been flying by himself, he would certainly not have been able to avoid it. Just then, he imagines you are sitting behind him, taking him from harm’s way as Hye Ji swoops naturally over the pole. Then suddenly, he is you. He is seeing the exact path you took not minutes ago with a broken tail swaying in the wind behind you. He looks to the side at how comfortable Hye Ji’s wings are without having to compensate for an imbalanced tail. 

He then closes his eyes and feels the wind blow effortlessly pass him. It’s a nostalgic feeling-- one he very much enjoyed years ago. He remembers flying without a care of where he is or where he’s going. He remembers flying without having to prove anything to himself or anyone. Most of all, he remembers flying with the laughter in his ears. Laughter from his--

His rider.

The thought jolts Hyunjin’s entirety. Being unaccustomed to riding, the motion jerks his body to the side of Hye Ji where he loses his footing and slips and begins an all to familiar journey to the ground. 

He chants the transformation spell to soften his landing with his wings.

“Beautiful,” Hye Ji breaths at Hyunjin’s deep purple scales. “I-I mean, I’m sorry about dropping you!”

The male shakes off the dust and returns to human form before she can see his tail, especially after she has just witnessed him face planting into the floor. Again.

“It was my fault,” Hyunjin says with a shake of his head. “I think it’s time I go back for that shower.”

“Wait! Don’t you want a ride? The dorms are very far from here,” she offers.

“No thanks. I’ll walk back.”

“I said I’m sorry!”

Hyunjin turns around to give her a small smile. “Don’t worry. It wasn’t you; I just have a few things to sort out myself.”

“I think I’m in love.”

Hyunjin raises an eyebrow at his roommate who’s sprawled across his bed. “Just from one ride?”

“She’s just… that amazing, you know?” he sighs exasperatedly.

“You’ve fallen one too many times today, haven’t you?”

Changbin sits up. “I’m just kidding, you know.”

“Good. You had me really worried there for a second,” Hyunjin chuckles with a shake of his head and turns back to his math homework.

“You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to play Chan dirty like that.”

Hyunjin looks up at his friend. “What about Chan?”

“S-M-I-T-T-E-N. She’s going to be in a lotta trouble with his fangirls. You know, since he’s head prefect and all.”

“He’s known her for one day,” Hyunjin objects with the shake of his head.

“At least he doesn’t avoid her like the plague.”

“I’m not trying to cozy up to that rider.”

“YOUR rider.”

“She’s not my--”

“Seriously, Hyunjin?” Changbin snaps. “How long are you going to go about that idea? You realize that riders get graded on how well they control their dragons, right? You might not care about not graduating or whatever, but have you thought about them? Do you know how many riders quit this school because they’ve been paired with you and your attitude? Do you realize how many of their hopes and dreams you’ve ruined?”

“I--”

“Yeah, sure your future isn’t what you want it to be because of your tail, and I’m guessing it’s some rider’s fault, but don’t you see that you’re doing the same thing to other people?”

“So what if I’m projecting my pain onto them?” Hyunjin retorts. “I’m a selfish, vengeful, futureless dragon. Maybe I should drop out myself to spare some rider from a poor, unfortunate fate of flying a half-tailed lizard!”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“You’re right, it’s not. You just want to protect your rider’s little girlfriend because she’s strong and pretty and bribes you with berries.”

“No, I want to protect you, Hyunjin,” Changbin states plainly. “Y/N is unlike any rider I’ve ever seen before, and I really think she can help you feel like who you were before. Just give her a chance.”

Hyunjin opens his mouth but is unable to find a counter reply. Changbin sighs and ruffles the younger dragon’s hair before heading to bed.

~ ad.gold

[rina-writes]

Read This

Summary: You, a long term friend of the twins, notice that Ethan has been acting strange.  After beating around the bush for a couple months, Grayson breaks down and tells you what’s going on. You decide to show Ethan something that you never intended for him to read...

A/N: When I started this side blog, I wanted to make it such that it would only feature my writing of who I am obsessed with at the time. I really wanted to comment Ethan’s battle with acne, but didn’t want to take away from the purpose of this blog. So, I put it in this short fic. I hope you all enjoy!

You could see the concern in Grayson’s face as you trudged toward Ethan’s room, your long cardigan flowing majestically behind you with the quick movement. Grayson lurched forward to grab your wrist and you looked at him with a frown.

“I don’t think you understand the state that E is in right now.” Grayson said, looking at the ground instead of meeting your eyes. “I know you’re a fan of tough love, but I don’t think this is the greatest time for it.”

“Grayson, I’m not an asshole.” You said, pulling your arm away from him.  “I’m not here to kick him when he’s down...I just want him to see something that I wish I had seen in my most insecure moments.”

Grayson seemed hesitant.  You couldn’t blame him.  The three of you were usually goofballs, pranking each other and roasting each other whenever you got the chance. It was weird for you to see Grayson so serious and using an inside voice.  It was weirder not seeing Ethan at his side. It felt like the world was topsy turvy enough with everything going on, to see your friend group shattered as well pushed you to want to do something about it. 

“I’m giving you 10 minutes.” Grayson said after some thought with a sigh.  “But, leave the door open.”

“Okay, mom!” You punched his arm, playfully. 

Grayson wagged a finger at you putting on his best scolding face before laughing softly.  He gestured for you to go up the stairs and you nodded, turning from him. 

The walk to Ethan’s room felt longer than usual.  You realized it was because you were a bit nervous and it caused you to drag your feet.  You took a deep breath and added some pep in your step.  This wasn’t the big bad wolf, this was one of your closest friends. If you went in with that mindset, this whole thing was for naught.

As you got closer to Ethan’s room, surprised to see the door already open.  You knocked on the door gently as you walked in.  You frowned seeing Ethan laying in bed, his head pressed against a pillow with his eyes glued to his phone.  He looked paler than you’ve ever seen him and his hazel eyes glossed over as though he was in his own dream world.

“Hey, it’s me.” You said, walking toward him. You tried to put a bit of normalcy in your voice. You hoped he didn’t hearing it quiver.

“Hey...” Ethan said, not enthusiasm in his voice.  He didn’t really move. His head was still pressed to the pillow, but he used his feet to clear a space on the bed for you to sit. 

“Oh wow the royal treatment.” You grinned. You walked over to him and he turned away slightly.

“Uh, I should let you know, my face is kind of a mess right now.” Ethan said, his words muffled slightly.

You sat on the edge of his bed and looked at him. You could barely see his face, but from what you could see, it didn’t look that bad.  If he didn’t bring it up, you probably wouldn’t have noticed. 

“Ethan, you’re talking to me.” You pointed at yourself.  “If I didn’t apologize for literally every hair disaster I had in the last four years, you shouldn’t apologize for this.”

“They weren’t THAT bad...” Ethan said, finally locking his phone, but still avoiding your eyes.

“Your mom and the other hair stylists staged an intervention because of my last dye job.” You leaned forward and narrowed your eyes. “They emptied the store and had chairs in a circle like freaking Alcoholics Anonymous.”

Ethan laughed softly, a sound you realized that you had missed from the moment you entered the room. 

“The chairs were such a nice touch.” Ethan joked doing the ‘chef’s kiss’ motion with his hands. “I wish I could take credit for it, but pretty sure it was someone at the salon.”

“My point is...”  You said, moving right along as you resisted the urge to touch your hair now just to check if it was okay. You smiled, “...we’re friends, Ethan. We don’t have to apologize for things like this...”

Ethan went silent.  You gulped worried that you went too far already. Now you understood why Grayson was acting they way he was downstairs.  You wondered how many times they argued and how many times they shut each other out over the past couple of months.  With them, there were two kinds of fighting. There was the fighting when they were both yelling and pushing each other.  That was the norm.  But, then there was the fighting where they both spoke in the quietest of voices. Where they didn’t make eye contact and only said a few words, usually sandwiched with swears. These were the arguments that worried you most because it usually meant one or both of them was hurting.

“I want to show you something.” You said, pulling out your phone from the front pocket of your jean shorts.

For the first time since you walked in, Ethan looked at you. This also meant that this was the first time you got a good look at him. He did look bad, but not because of his skin. His eyes looked so cold. It was like he was staring through you. You’ve seen him beam at complete strangers and now, he was staring at you like you were invisible. 

You controlled your reaction, not wanting him to misunderstand your surprise. You softened your face, but dared not smile. He would be able to see through a phony grin. You looked own at your phone and started to get ready to show him what you planned.

“Grayson doesn’t let me see Twitter.” He said, before glancing away. “If that’s what you’re going to do...”

“Well, thank goodness I’m showing you Tumblr then.” You said, still looking at your screen as you typed in your search.

“Here...” You handed it to him and Ethan took your phone.

“What is this?” He asked, squinting at the brightness of your screen. At the top was ‘ethan dolan’ which searched all the Ethan Dolan tags on Tumblr.

“It’s the top results for Ethan Dolan on Tumblr.” You said, resting your hands on your lap.  “I looked it up a long time ago to tease you guys.  As you can see there are a lot of edits and stuff, but there’s also fan fiction.”

“I’ve read this stuff.” Ethan said, handing it back to you. “Clearly, you don’t watch our videos.”

There was a hint of a smile as he teased you. With it, you saw a glimmer of the Ethan Dolan you were waiting to emerge.  Baby steps.

“Trust me.” You said pushing the phone back towards him. “This is nothing like you have ever read before.”

“You don’t even know which one I’m going to read.” Ethan rolled his eyes.

“Your fans are a lot more...eh, mature in their writing now.” You blushed softly. “Trust me.”

Ethan looked annoyed, but he decided to read one of them.  You watched uncomfortably as his face turned redder and redder. 

“Why am I spitting on her?” In the most deadpan voice, Ethan broke the silence and asked, looking at you.

“Oh my god!” You yelled, getting embarrassed. “I don’t know! I didn’t write it.”

“Do people think I’m that mean?” Ethan asked, looking back at the phone. “That I’d choke my girlfriend because she said that she was going to go ask Grayson to take care of her. Like OKAY, you do that...”

You snickered. As if Ethan would have such a chill reaction to something like that.

“Oh come on, E.” You rolled your eyes. “You’re not innocent...you know what fetishes are and that some people like being dominated.”

“Are you saying some people because you mean yourself?” Ethan quirked a brow, looking at you with a smug expression.

He was totally messing with you! You have been upset if you weren’t completely relieved

You narrowed your eyes, not giving away you position. “Anyway...now, I want you to go to the recent tab.”

You watched Ethan’s eyes search the screen and then his thumb move to the top of the screen to click on ‘Recent.’  He scrolled down more, his face turning more red.

“Well, that’s a very graphic description of my penis.” Ethan put your phone down and crossed his arms over his pillow, looking at you with a soft smile. “Did you come here to get laid?”

“Ugh, no!” You rolled your eyes.  “You’re missing the point...”

“You just had me read written porn about myself...I’m not sure anyone would get the point.” Ethan said, the smile on his lips getting wider as his eyes started to regain the playfulness you had grown to adore.

“What was the difference between the fics in the Top section and the Recent section?” You asked, trying to give him a hint.

“Oh, you’re so acquainted with them that you call them fics?” Ethan asked, leaning back. You could now see that he was shirtless, in long gray sweat shorts, his stomach and chest exposed as he laid back on his head board.

“Alright, that’s it.” You said, pretending to leave as you snatched your phone.

Ethan knew you were bluffing, but he was too nice to call you out on it.  “I’m sorry,” He gave you a little pout.  “Don’t go.”

“Answer the question...” You said, sitting back down and crossing your legs.

Ethan stuck his hand out to take your phone and you unlocked to hand it to him. He switched between the two tabs.

“Uh, the ones in the top are a lot dirtier, I guess?” He narrowed his eyes. “Not by much though.”

“Okay, what about the gifs and stuff?” You asked.  “Still seeing thirst comments?”

Ethan chuckled. “Yeah...about the same.”

“That’s kind of my point, E.” You took your phone and stared him down so he couldn’t look away.  “For your fans, you’re still so hot that they want you to choke them and make them beg for you. You’re still their soft boy that they want to spoon and pamper. You’re still their sweetheart that...in all honesty, was probably the first love for many of them. They haven’t noticed your pimples...E.”

Ethan opened his mouth to say something, but you put up a finger.  

“But they don’t know how bad it is.” You said in the deep, husky voice you use to imitate him along with your signature arm flex gestures.

Ethan rolled his eyes. “They really don’t. I mean look.” He pointed to his forehead.

“I’m going to lick it.” You said, lurching forward.

“HOLY --- Don’t you dare.” Ethan said, sticking out his foot to stop you.

You laughed, loudly and eventually, Ethan did as well.  

“Every time you say something like that’s I’m going to lick. Then you’ll have acne and my spit on you.” You stuck out your tongue.

“I’m going to have nightmares.” Ethan joked, smiling softly. 

You slapped his thigh and grinned. “Look, I’ve been kinda where you are.  With my skin, with my hair, with my weight...all of it.  I kept thinking I didn’t deserve to have fun until I looked perfect. All the while, the people around me didn’t even notice.  I bet you probably don’t even remember when I’m talking about...”

Ethan shook his head.  He turned his head to look out the window and then realization washed over his face.

Ethan paused for a moment. “I only remember that one day where you didn’t want to go to the beach and then someone told me it was because you didn’t want to go swimsuit shopping...I didn’t really get it at the time.  I was just upset because that was the first time we were going to hang out in months and it was the only time Gray and I were free.”

“That’s how I feel about this.” You smiled softly. “To me, Gray, your friends, your family, your FANS...” You pointed to your phone. “We don’t get why you don’t want to come to the beach.  We don’t give two hoots how you look in the swimsuit, we just miss you.”

“I can’t say I feel 100% better.” Ethan admitted. “But, I’m feeling a little less...shitty.”

“A little less shitty. I’ll take that.” You smiled, standing up. 

“I half expected to come in here and slap me across the face.” Ethan laughed softly.

“Good god, do both Dolan Twins think I’m an asshole?” You put your hands on your hips. 

“Oh Tin Man, you do have a heart...” Ethan joked. 

You grabbed one of his pillows and hit him with it.  He grabbed another and hit you back, your laughter filling the room.

“Wanna get something to eat? Or at least go downstairs?” You asked. “You know how Gray gets when he’s left out.”

You imitated Gray hunched over and pouting looking at Ethan from the corner of your eye.

“Yeah...” Ethan smiled, getting off the bed and standing up.  “Imma tell him you did that.”

“Heh, do it.” You scoffed. “I’m not afraid him...Just uh, let me start my car.” 

You reached in your pocket to pull out your keys and pretended to remote start you car by pointing it at the window.

He gave you a tight hug.  “Thanks, kiddo. You’re not half bad most of the time.”

“Yup.” You said, hugging him back lightly.  “I’m the best, I know.”

“So be honest....” Ethan asked  “...how many of those fics of me have you read?”

Your eyes widened slightly. “What? Grayson, are you calling me?!” You yelled speed walking toward the door.

“Gray! Y/N is lusting after.” Ethan yelled, following you out the door.  “She’s prying on your brother in his moment of weakness.”

Grayson smiled as he heard you two thundering down.  9 mins and 35 seconds...not bad at all.

[pocket-void]

Table for Two

A/N: Hi! This the first fanfic I’ve written for literally anything! (I’m an on and off writer in general tho) I’m hoping to write a collection of unconnected short stories currently called Smaller Sides to Life, that focuses on small/short moments in time during specific events. I’d be so grateful for any comment or feedback, but honestly I just hope you enjoy it first and foremost! >///<

Pairing: Logicality Words: 2468 Content: Human AU? A lot of descriptions of anxious waiting, so I guess it’s got a lil angst. Happy ending! (Please tell me if I need to mention anything I am very unfamiliar with how this works ;///;) Summary: Logan grows ever more anxious as he waits for his date, who, at this point, he isn’t even sure is coming.

If you wanna read my google doc for this instead you’re free to. (I like Cambria font u///u) I have an Ao3 but I am currently not using it.

Logan was alone, sitting comfortably at a table for two in the back of a halfway decent food establishment, silently watching as the ice cubes in his water shifted and tapped against the glass while they melted with each passing second. Well, “comfortably” was a lie, of course. There was absolutely nothing comforting about being in such a place on his own, with only the dim flickering candles on the table to keep him company. He didn’t really know what the worst part of the whole thing even was. Was it the ever encroaching chatter that surrounded him? The sickeningly sweet music that played in the background? The blank, unflinching cold stone wall in front of him? Or perhaps, it was the still empty seat that sat mockingly at the other side of the table.

Indeed, Logan was unhappy, uncomfortable, and alone.

The nervous tapping of his foot was practically synonymous with the pattering rain against the windows. The typically majestic city view now nothing more than an amorphous glob of glowing lights amidst the water droplets and fog. He couldn’t help but repeatedly switch between checking his watch and frantically clicking his pen, occasionally scribbling down a loose nonsensical thought or two onto his little notepad. The action barely made a difference in soothing his racing mind, but he had to do something to distract himself. He’d do practically anything to ease the agony that was continuously settling in his heart with each passing minute. The absolute dread hanging over him like an impending guillotine.

This was foolish. Logan sighed. Surely he was overreacting. There must’ve been a reason. He thought to himself, but it was no use. Not a single thing he told himself could possibly make the immensely slow sinking weight forming at the pit of his stomach go away. Not. A single. Thing. For someone who typically prided himself on being able to, and rather efficiently mind you, keep his calm in the most stressful of situations, this was quite distressing to say the least.

He’s simply running late. He reasons to himself. It happens. You know that. Well, of course he did. There were practically an infinite amount of possibilities that could’ve delayed the arrival of the person he was waiting for, and most of them were not inherently related to Logan’s personal character. That was the most logical conclusion, anyway. Did that thought comfort him any though? No.

It’s been an hour, Logan. You must be joking if you still think he’s coming. Another thought tore through his mind. Well, he may not have been joking, but he was well aware of how ridiculous it must’ve seemed. Just him, sitting alone at a table for two, growing ever more and more desperate by the second. To hold on to even a sliver of hope must’ve seemed utterly utterly foolish. Every pitying glance by the passing waiter refilling his cup only served to make him feel even more miserable. He wished desperately, in that moment, that he could just disappear; he hoped he could shrink down in size so small that he wouldn’t have to be seen anymore. He wanted to completely collapse in on himself and crumple up like the pathetic scraps of paper he’d been unconsciously tearing out of his notes. He wanted the world to just fade to black, and for him to simply drift away into an endless void, away from everything. Away from this. Maybe then he’d be free from the dreaded weight that sat heavily upon his shoulders. He didn’t think his heart could even beat this fast, but there it was, hammering in his chest like a hyperactive hummingbird. 

He hated it.

He’s not coming, Logan. That thought instantly sank itself into the depths of his soul. He felt a lump begin to form in the back of his throat; it was almost nauseating. He’s not coming because he doesn’t want to see you. Another thought that dug itself into his mind. He felt his teeth harshly grind against each other as his jaws clenched, begging himself to hold back the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes. He didn’t even give you a call. The world suddenly seemed to freeze. A quiet realization sent an absolutely disparaging chill down his spine. You didn’t even get the courtesy of knowing you’ve been rejected. He let out a weak shaky breath before finally lowering his face into his hands, completely defeated. This was beyond pathetic, honestly. How unbecoming of him to be this way. He wasn’t coming. He already fully knew how illogical it was to remain in his seat. Yet, a part of himself still refused to let him throw what remained of that practically shattered hope away. 

And so, the clock kept ticking still...

Logan wasn’t really sure how long it’s been at this point. Everything had begun to slowly meld together in his mind. Beyond the disappointment and despair was just the dull aching pain of rejection in his chest, not to mention the utterly dry and bitter taste in his mouth. He berated himself for being this pathetic about the whole thing, and a coward who couldn’t even muster up enough courage to stand up and go home. It was frustrating, because he knew better than this. It was both impractical and nonsensical to keep waiting. But he felt weak, and his two feet remained firmly stuck to the floor as if they were made of solid, immovable lead. The waiters have collectively decided to leave him alone at this point, which he had considered a small blessing. He didn’t want to bother pretending to smile or claim that everything was ok anymore; the energy was long depleted by now.

Logan let out yet another shaky breath, wrapping his arms around him and hugging himself tight, trying as he might to figuratively and literally “get a grip” on reality. What was he even waiting for? Why had he been so eagerly anticipating sitting at this table just a few hours before leaving work? What was the point? What was he doing? He still had tasks to do! There were still piles upon piles of work that had to be done at his desk but no, he was here. He was here, sitting alone, and doing nothing. Logan glanced down at his watch yet again, but its face was unreadable. His eyes blurry and unclear even as he rubbed the tears away, adjusted his glasses, and squinted. The only message it managed to send was just how much time he was wasting away by remaining where he currently was. Nobody was coming. His grip tightened, nails practically clawing at the sleeves of his suit. Never in his life had he felt so betrayed by something that originally had a perfect and fitting place within his schedule. What had he done wrong? Where did he make a mistake?

The gentle laughter and casual chattering of the surrounding atmosphere were  like needles in his back as he felt himself curl inwards. The sweet and decidedly romantic music that served as the loving backdrop for what was to be a pleasant evening for patrons was now mocking and decadent. It sounded almost like a distant echo, far far away. Something that he was always in the vicinity of, but will never truly be able to enjoy; a happiness he cannot obtain. He was trapped. He was trapped here, in a dim corner of a restaurant, with a lukewarm cup of water, weakly flickering candles, a cold unflinching wall, the pitter patter of rain, the incessant (and mildly imaginary) ticking of his watch, crumpled up scraps of note paper, sickening chatter, unappealing music, a dry bitter taste in his mouth, an unnerving feeling of cold sweat, a dizzying headache, a fast racing heart, a barely registering breath, a lump in his throat, and clearly watering eyes.

All at a half empty table for two.

He hated it.

He ended up sitting there for so long that he felt drained, empty. His eyes now only slightly stung when opened, but he kept them closed while he leaned against one arm against the table. By now he had, at the very least, managed to catch his breath. He felt so tired. Logan took a deep breath and glanced down at his watch yet again. It had only honestly been an hour and a half, not that much time at all in the grand scheme of things. And yet here he was, feeling like he had been stationary for several years. Perhaps it was finally time to go. He shifted his aching body to finally attempt to escape from this prison, but a hurried rush of footsteps instantly made him freeze up yet again.

It couldn’t be.

But it was.

“Oh my goodness god, you’re still here!”

Logan jolted at the sound of the sweet, silvery voice that rang out, very obviously filled with concern. He turned towards the person who hastily ran up to him, the cold hands cupped around his face immediately snapping him awake from his previous haze.

“I can’t believe you waited for me for this long!! Have you been here the whole time?? I’m- Oh my god I’m so so sorry Logan I-”

He honestly couldn’t even process what he was seeing, much less feeling. A man stood in front of him now, frantically gesturing and apologizing, and absolutely soaked to the core. Logan could very much feel the gazes of dozens of patrons on them now, but it didn’t matter. All he could do was stare with wide eyes at his date, whose suit was completely muddied and shoes absolutely ruined by the rain. He blinked a few times as he tried to understand what the man was even saying as he kept pausing and stuttering while constantly sweeping his matted and wet light brown hair out of his eyes. Seeing him there, standing in front of him, was enough to make Logan feel his heart slowly begin to beat once again.

“God, Logan, I know you must be mad at me, I’m- How could I possibly ever make this up to you? Oh god, oh dear, I can’t believe I did this to you! I’m just so sor-”

“Patton…” Logan finally managed, taking one of Patton’s cold hands into his and finally stopping his rambling. He took a silent moment to just quietly immerse himself into the other’s sparkling and visibly apologetic blue eyes. A beautiful and comforting sight for his literally sore ones. He felt something start to bubble up inside of him, and it began to slowly rise in his chest. A warm, fluttering feeling that rose, higher and higher, until a soft laugh finally slips from his lips. Patton’s expression instantly lightens at the sound, and Logan could feel the once soul crushing weight that surrounded him finally melt away. He gives Patton’s hand a light squeeze, an absolutely relieved smile now upon his face. “Patton. It’s ok.”

There wasn’t a single moment’s hesitation when Patton sprang forwards to wrap Logan in the tightest hug he could possibly manage. Despite the water that slowly seeped into Logan’s own clothes, and the hug being admittedly cold on account of Patton being completely drenched, he had never felt his heart swell with so much warmth in his entire life. They stayed locked in each other's embrace until Patton remembered his current condition and quickly backed off with yet another series of apologetic bows.

“Dear lord, now look what I’ve done. I went ahead and ruined your clothes too!” He giggled, trying his best to wipe away the water with a napkin to barely any success.

Logan just couldn’t help but smile at the clumsy yet adorable gesture. “Don’t worry about it. It’s clearly not as bad as whatever happened to you.” He pointed out. “Say, whatever did happen to you anyways? You weren’t answering any of my calls and I...I thought you weren’t going to…” He paused for a moment before opting to take a long sip out of his cup instead before shrugging. “You know.” He murmured, his body unintentionally stiffening at the insinuation.

Patton looked crushed at the thought, which he was unfortunately terribly aware of. He embarrassingly rubbed at the back of his neck and lowered his head. “I-I know, and I really am so sorry Logan. I...I didn’t expect you to still be here either. And I couldn’t even tell you! Oh geez… After making you wait so long, you probably honestly should have just-”

“It’s ok, Patton.” Logan reassured with a nod, voice barely a whisper. He gently lifted one of Patton’s hands and brushed his lips against the man’s knuckles. “What’s important is that you’re here. That’s enough.” He felt a small bit of pride as he watched Patton’s face flush at the unexpected gesture.

The man quickly took the hand back with a laugh before settling down in the seat across from Logan. At last, filling the space that completed the whole picture. 

“Still, the fact that I made you wait that long is terribly unreasonable. So just please let me-”

Logan chuckled, gesturing towards a leaf that was still stuck in his date’s hair, to which the other quickly pulled out with a flustered huff. 

“Logan, I’m trying to apologize here!”

“You already have.” He stated, quickly dismissing the concern with a smile. The other clearly had no defense against him doing that, to which Logan was fully aware of. The smile then curled into a satisfied smirk upon his silence. “So, are you going to tell me?”

Patton blinked in response. “O-Oh! Right! You aren’t going to believe this, but-”

And as Patton energetically attempted to recall his unfortunate run-in with the storm while trying to rescue a cat from a tree, forgetting he’s allergic to them, slipping up and falling out of said tree, missing the bus, and losing his phone in the entire process, Logan simply sat comfortably across from him, fully content to listen to his story. It was ridiculous, it was nonsensical, and it was of course, entirely hilarious, but he enjoyed every word that came out of the mouth of the sweet and adorable man that now accompanied him. Patton’s rain stained glasses, half dried and now puffing up hair, and his freckled smile, completely lit up the once dim and lifeless corner of the restaurant they sat in. Nothing could have detracted from that moment in time. Not the rain, not the stares, and certainly not how the time just seemed to fly by, even during the comfortable silence that sat between them while they both enjoyed their meals. Logan wouldn’t have missed any of it for the world.

Here at this table for two.

[anncanta]

The imagery of BBC ‘Dracula’: mythology, alchemy, literature. Part 2

Part 1 is here.

Mirror

One of the cross-cutting images of the entire work, which underlies the very narrative structure on which it is built, the image of the mirror is one of the most ancient in European culture. Which is not surprising – a reflective surface capable of showing a person himself was probably initially perceived as magical – not by chance, as in the situation with photography, the earliest myths and fears associated with mirrors speak of soul abduction.

In Dracula, the image of the mirror is presented at the same time as a literal object that the protagonist fears, his main phobia, a metaphor for his ability/inability to look at himself, and the resulting all this motive of duality that unfolds the story as a drama of reflections.

Let's start with a literal mirror. I don't know if you noticed, but in the first episode, with the exception of the scene in Jonathan's room in Dracula's castle, there are no mirrors at all. And even that only thing of Harker Dracula instantly breaks. It is interesting how he does it – not as a negative character, grimacing angrily at the sight of a hated object, or an unforgettable queen in various versions of the story about Snow White, destroying a mirror showing her not what she wants. Dracula breaks the mirror instinctively, doing it in one movement as if delaying or trying to think about it could be almost more dangerous than the object itself is. It is possible that this is so. He then tells Jonathan that he cannot provide him with another mirror in return, as he does not keep such things in his house. From that moment on, not once during the two episodes did he look at his reflection, including the scene with Dorabella, where the Count shows a young woman what could have been in her life, reflected in the water, but does not look into it himself.

The third episode looks in huge contrast to the first two. Now Dracula, who woke up in the twenty-first century, looks at himself constantly. In fact, if you peer closely, he does just that throughout the episode. And not only literally, but also metaphorically. Which, in general, is logical: given the events that took place in the castle, and then on Demeter, we can assume that for the first time in many years Dracula plucked up the courage to see himself, to meet with himself and think about what he was.

Judging by what the Count sees in the mirror, the answer is not very inspiring.

It turns out that there is nothing majestic, bright, and attractive either in himself or in his life. His spectacular charming appearance is a mask, an illusion, and an old man with gray hair and sunken eyes looks to him from the window glass, his house is a pompous empty room, trying to replace the unattainable sun with an excess of artificial light, his woman is a silly girl who is not afraid of death because she is unable to appreciate life.

The ruthlessness and brightness of the reflections leave no chance for false interpretations. In this sense, the relationship between Dracula and his new lawyer is especially eloquent. You need to understand that the reflection of Jonathan Harker in modern reality is not Jack Seward, but Renfield. Obsequious, stupid, pitiful, ready to do anything for the sake of influence and power. It is the worst mirror the Count has ever seen, and, as he begins to conjecture, perhaps just the one he deserves.

The reflection in Renfield and in Lucy leads Dracula in the end to what he fled from for so many years.

To the needle and the sun.

Needle

When you talk about images in works of art, you always have to keep in mind that images are inseparable from motives and plots with which they travel through time and that every time you discover a particular object and symbol in a text, you, like a fisherman in an old fairy tale, can bring the whole world to the surface. And it doesn't matter at all whether the image is large or small, is it constantly mentioned in the text or is the central one in a single short episode.

In Dracula, the needle occurs only once, but its appearance can serve as an example of how a single image, arising, ‘gathers’ an archetypal story around itself.

Globally, in Dracula, there are two central archetypal plots: the plot of the beauty and the beast and the plot of the sleeping beauty. I suggest looking at how one of them works at the image level.

I'm talking about the plot of the sleeping beauty. 

Let`s recall the episode in the isolation ward. What does Dracula do before making an incision in his arm and filling a test tube with blood? That's right, he gives Zoe a needle. The same spindle, which in a fairy tale makes a sleeping beauty fall asleep (symbolically, like a caterpillar, plunge into a transformative state, from which it will emerge as a butterfly).

In the film, Dracula plays both the role of a witch taking revenge for the fact that she was not invited to the party, and a prince called to wake up the beauty. This is literally shown in the scene when, in a vision of Zoe, who drank the Count's blood, Agatha and Zoe look into each other's eyes, connected by Dracula and standing on opposite sides of him. Moreover, pay attention – Zoe stands behind the Count's back, symbolizing the past, while Agatha is right in front of him, metaphorically meaning the future.

Well, and if this is not enough for someone, a little later they will show us Zoe, lying in bed, and Agatha, entering the door.

And what comes after her?

Sun 

Author`s note

This part of the article contains thoughts that I unexpectedly discovered a few days ago in a beautiful text The Petruvian Man by @devoursjohnlock. I highly recommend this article to those who are interested in the topic of images and the structural construction of Dracula.

In the first episode, the sun rarely appears, in the second it is hidden almost all the time behind clouds or fog, and in the third it crosses the hero's path several times in a row – first in Bob's house, where Zoe threatens to collapse the roof if Dracula does not surrender, then – in the form of golden light, hugging the building of the Jonathan Harker foundation, where the Count is brought in a box, until it finally bursts into the window of Dracula's own house, categorically and victoriously, putting an end to all the vague games.

We will not talk here about the meaning of the sun as reason, consciousness, openness, new life, clarity, and realization of an integral personality. This is understandable, and we talked about this earlier. Let's look at it as an image that is used in this text a little unusual, but that's why it is no less interesting, creating depth and additional context where you don't expect it.

We are talking about the scene at the very beginning, in the first episode, which at first glance seems to be nothing more than a joke, an attempt by the writers to ‘dilute’ the drama, so to speak. But it's not that simple.

Remember how Dracula leads Jonathan Harker to his room and walks past the portraits of Petruvio and the architect’s wife? Remember what he says to Jonathan?

‘This castle was the Widower`s final work. A monument to his lost love and the sunlight, to which he could never return.’ And then Dracula adds: ‘...he died here in the arms of his wife,’ – in response to Jonathan's remark how this could be possible, as Petruvio was a widower, saying: ‘It must have been a cold embrace.’

Reflecting later on this gloomy joke, Johnny concludes that Petruvio considered his wife his sun: ‘What else is sunlight, but the face of one`s beloved?’, and guesses that behind her portrait is hidden a plan of the castle. And then words follow, which, in combination with what was said earlier, create an image that becomes a kind of symbolic prologue to the entire text and at the same time a brief description of the plot.

Finding the plan, Johnny deciphers it and discovers a way out behind Petruvio's portrait. Then he says: ‘Petruvio’s wife was the sunlight, and he stood guard at the door.’

Does it remind you of anything?

What happens in the last scene in the third episode?

The catharsis of the uniting of the two, which became possible only because both realized and accepted their – as we could see from the very beginning – natural roles in this play. Agatha took the role of the sunlight and the liberating power of love and mind, and Dracula – the role of the door.

And on a figurative level, this was laid down from the first minutes of the film. Spoken in words for those who do not read visual messages. Down to the smallest details, like the architect who died in the arms of his wife, who by that time was already dead. As well as Agatha, who was physically dead for one hundred and twenty-three years by the end of the third episode.

Rather, as in the case of the needle, and in many others, here words only confirm and express directly what is said at the symbolic level, and it is impossible to separate one level from other. Reading them at the same time, moving between them, and looking at them together, you can see the whole story, and even guess what is it about.

But more on that later.

Part 3.

[tawakkull]

ISLAM 101: Spirituality in Islam: Part 130

Istighraq (Immersion)

Literally meaning absorption, diving into, becoming deeply involved in, istighraq (immersion) denotes transportation by joy, oblivion of the world, the cleansing of the heart from worldly worries enabling one to turn to God whole-heartedly, and, in consequence, going into such deep ecstasies that one becomes unaware of even oneself and one is filled with wonder. Those who have acquired love and friendship of God and who have been honored with His special nearness and compliments, travel between love and witnessing the truths that pertain to Him. They throw away whatever exists in their hearts other than Him, fixing their eyes on Him only, becoming absorbed in the observation of His beauties.

Initiates in this state, with the inner perceptions and feelings that come from self-annihilation in God, see everything annihilated in God also. Those who are enraptured with the pleasure arising from such a state cannot help but utter sayings such as “I am the true one” or “Glory be to me, how exalted my being is!” Although such sayings issue from mouths under the influence of the spiritual state and pleasure that pervades the being, they have sometimes been taken to be true. It sometimes occurs that initiates cannot distinguish between what is substantial and what is apparent and, confusing their drop-like being with the infinite ocean of Divine Existence, utter unbecoming words of pride that are incompatible with the rules of Shari’a and irreconcilable with the self-possession that one must have before God. Even if every initiate cannot experience such a depth of self-annihilation and the pleasure that issues from it, most of them feel and experience this state. Some of them are regarded as being directly taught by God or the Prophet, without needing another teacher or guide; this is called “the way of Uways al-Qarani.”[1] Muallim Naji[2] refers to this way as follows:

See, what kind of immersion you have caused me to experience; My eyes see you as if you were the tears which they shed.

Immersion has three degrees:

The first degree is that in the beginning, an initiate acquires knowledge of some truths, but not being able to experience what is known, he/she is not perfectly conscious of the truth of it. Knowledge is different from experience. Any knowledge concerning the Divine truths is usually theoretical until belief, love and spiritual pleasure become second nature for the initiate. When an initiate feels and experiences these in the very center of the conscience, then knowledge has been absorbed in the spiritual state. This knowledge absorbed and lost in the conscience is the knowledge of a Prophet. We call it knowledge only because at the beginning it is knowledge. At the end of the journey, where this knowledge is completely absorbed and lost in the conscience inciting the initiates to and guiding them in action, it becomes the spiritual state and a station in which the initiates finds peace. With respect to Prophethood, the best description of the initial degree of immersion is in the verse (37:103): When both (Abraham and Ishmael) submitted (to God) wholly, Abraham laid Ishmael down on his face (to sacrifice). The last, perfect degree of this Prophetic knowledge, which has become the Prophetic state, is impossible for us to perceive.

Those whose knowledge has become their state have always been examples to be followed by people. It is difficult to de-scribe such people, even with comparisons and parables. On the other hand, there are others who are described in the Qur’an as, like an ass carrying books (62:5). A scholar unaware of the knowledge he or she has and whose knowledge has not become his or her state is no different from an ass who merely carries the books. Any state which is not based on knowledge is tantamount to heresy, while knowledge which has not become a state is ignorance and heedlessness. Straightforwardness through knowledge means rising to a heavenly point on the wings of the state based on knowledge.

Initiates who have attained the second degree in immersion and in whose spirit the truth concerning the Essence of the Divine Being has developed, rise to the rank in which the One Who freely bestows gifts favors them with special gifts. At this rank the spirit severs its relation with all other than the Almighty and turns to the horizon that the appreciative heart has indicated. In the eyes of initiates honored with such a favor, the variations between the manifestations of the Divine Names disappear and everything seems to them immersed in the light of the Divine Essence and veiled by His Attributes. Seekers after the Truth who, until they have attained to this rank, mention the Eternal One Who freely bestows gifts with His Names, such as the All-Beautiful, the All-Majestic, the All-Subtle, and the All-Overwhelming, take themselves into a life intoxicated with gifts that come directly from the Divine Being Himself, Who is the All-Light. They do not think to make any distinction between the Essence of the Divine Being and His manifestations.

To describe this state, Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, the most advanced one in intoxication, says:

O Muslims! I am unaware of myself: what means do you offer? I am neither of the world, nor of the other world, nor of Paradise nor of Hell; Neither am I of Adam nor of Eve, nor of the highest abode of Paradise. I am from nowhere and nowhere has no signs with which to make me known. I am divested of both body and soul, being in the royal tent of the Beloved. I have thrown away both my eyes, seeing the two worlds together, and I know Him Who is the One, mention the One, search for the One, read the One. O Shams al-Tabrizi! I am so intoxicated in this world that Nothing but intoxication can be a cure for me in this abode.

The third degree is that an initiate may attain to the point beyond the sphere of the manifestations of the Divine Attributes and become immersed in the most sacred manifestation of the Essence of the Divine Being, Who is known as the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward. This state is also viewed as a return to the station where the initiate’s heart recognizes the Almighty as a Hidden Treasure, or as a return to the uncondi-tioned realm where everything pertaining to the created realm vanishes. A spirit which gets into this state usually expresses itself by saying: “There was God without there being anything that existed with Him. Now He is as He was before.”[3] It addresses itself to its confidants:

The place where I am has developed into no-space; his body of mine has wholly become a soul; God’s Sight has manifested Itself to me; and I have seen myself intoxicated with His meeting. (Nasimi)

It is very difficult to express more beautifully than in that stanza the relationship and difference between the Existence of the Self-Existent One and the portion of all other beings, whose existence is totally dependent on Him. However, the following verses of ‘Abd al-Rahman Khalis are also truly beautiful:

O Muslims! What is this state in which I am and which bewilders me? Sometimes I am a crazy lover, sometimes a wretched, insane one. Sometimes I am a poor one having no place, and sometimes the king of time. For I am intoxicated with the wine of love, knowing nothing else. I am one who pays no attention to the cap of austerity. All praise and gratitude be to God that I have drunk the wine of love; I am speaking in the land of Oneness the words of Him Who is One, Not worried that the King of Time may do anything to me, And having no fear of those who wear coarse robes.

I have omitted the words that were uttered in the state of total intoxication as against the Book and the Sunna of the Messenger. Even though not to utter such words is a self-contradiction for the friends of God who are under the overwhelming influence of the spiritual state, the same action would mean straying from the path for those who are sober and can make a distinction between the Creator in His Transcendence and the created. It is especially heresy for common people to utter such words in mere imitation of those who have been overwhelmed by the spiritual state.

O God! O One Who guides the astray, guide us to the Right Path, and peace and blessings be on him who is the most honorable of God’s creation, Muhammad, and his family and Companions, who are the rightly guided. Amen, O All-Aiding!

[1] Uways al-Qarani (d. 656) is regarded by some as the greatest Muslim saint of the first Islamic century. 

[2] Muallim Naji (1850-1893).

[3] Al-Bukhari, “Tawhid,” 1; Ibn Hanbal, al-Musnad, 4:431.