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novafire-is-thinking · 2 months ago

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Medic, Maverick, Maniac, Murderer: Understanding Pharma

First thing’s first: I love Pharma, dearly.

In all the time I’ve spent evaluating his character, I’ve mainly focused on what can be worked out about who he is as an individual: his core sense of self, psychological drives, subjective worldview, etc.

When all else is stripped away, who is Pharma?

This treatise is the product of obsessing over Pharma, analyzing canon (and extras), and reading as many different perspectives on his character from fans across the fandom as I could find. The post is long, so for those of you who balk at the thought of reading a shortfic’s worth of Pharma thoughts, feel free to read the TL;DR (Conclusion) at the end and then decide if the full read is worth your time. Also, a premium reading experience is available in the form of the original Google Doc version.

As you read, keep in mind that this is primarily a mix of psychoanalysis, evidence-based examination, and speculation—not moral, ethical, or sociological commentary. The goal is to examine Pharma’s psychological drives and core values, and each of his appearances in the context of those. All other types of evaluation are up to readers.

Now, take your victim blaming-allergy meds (just in case); remove your black-and-white thinking caps; and leave your personal morality lenses at the door.

Psychological Drives & Core Values

Why does Pharma act the way he does? What gives him a reason to keep living? What are his personal priorities?

At the beginning of the Delphi arc, First Aid establishes Pharma as a “control freak” and someone who “thinks he’s an expert on everything.”

Now, First Aid has a habit of complaining about his bosses, but on both points, there’s canon evidence to back them both.

Expertise and Intellect

Throughout the Delphi and Luna 1 arcs, it’s established that Pharma is a skilled and brilliant doctor.

He once performed a 4-way fuel pump transplant, donating his own fuel pump in the process. (see above panel)

Later, he invented a soundbomb that left an echo laced with a virus and invented an antidote to that virus:

And on Luna 1, he was on the edge of finding a cure for Cybercrosis, based on the fact that Swerve was able to formulate a cure from his notes.

More than being a doctor, Pharma lives for intellectual and scientific achievement as a physician scientist. He feels most alive when he’s able to solve complex medical problems, and when his achievements are recognized by those whose opinion he considers important.

This is Pharma’s 'why.'

And even though he’s arrogant and enjoys praise, it’s not his primary motivation. He doesn’t need it in order to set his mind to whatever he’s interested in, although he’ll seek it from those he values most (i.e. Ratchet).

Pharma sees himself as less of a doctor, and more as a scientific innovator or medical maverick. The practice of medicine is primarily a catalyst for his creativity and intellect; it’s not an end in and of itself like it is for someone like Ratchet or First Aid.

First Aid’s observation of Pharma can be better phrased as, “[Pharma] thinks he’s an expert on everything medical”—because he’s not so driven by achievement and admiration that he’ll grovel at the feet of strangers and get good at something he doesn’t personally find interesting. The only time we see him express a desire for praise is when he’s around Ratchet—someone he holds in high regard for both personal and professional reasons. This makes sense since Ratchet is one of the only people who can give Pharma any kind of competition within what he considers to be his area of expertise.

“Each day we go to our work in the hope of discovering—in the hope that some one, no matter who, may find a solution of one of the pending great problems—and each succeeding day we return to our task with renewed ardor; and even if we are unsuccessful, our work has not been in vain, for in these strivings, in these efforts, we have found hours of untold pleasure, and we have directed our energies to the benefit of mankind.” —Nikola Tesla

Ego

Without question, Pharma has an inflated ego, but having an inflated sense of self doesn’t automatically mean a person is a full-blown narcissist or that they are totally uncaring.

Every personality trait exists on a spectrum. Yes, Pharma is arrogant, but the presence of arrogance doesn’t automatically and completely cancel out all “positive” traits. (For fun, check out studies on Dark Tetrad and Light Triad personality traits.)

People are complex. Arrogance can coexist with genuine kindness, ruthlessness can coexist with deep compassion, etc.

Whether Pharma exhibits genuine kindness is up to each reader’s interpretation of what little canon material exists, but the point is: Pharma’s arrogance doesn’t automatically rule out the possibility of authentic “positive” traits.

Controlling Tendencies

Pharma is comfortable pulling the power card and using it to dump what he sees as uninteresting parts of medical practice on those below him:

“So Fisitron’s writing about the Wreckers’ elbows now, is he?” said Delphi’s Chief Medical Officer. “Come on, First Aid - get to it. You’ve got a Fader in Row 2 downstairs.” He squeezed the air with his finger and thumb. “He’s about this far from shutdown.” —from Bullets by James Roberts

However, there’s nothing in canon indicating he’s power-hungry in a megalomaniacal sense. He’s not Starscream or Megatron; he doesn’t seek political or social power. In fact, he seems perfectly happy hiding away in a lab or medibay by himself so he can direct all his energy toward solving issues and achieving the so-called ‘impossible’ within the field of medicine:

The ways in which Pharma exercises power and control are through his expertise, and his administrative/management skills. That’s it.

Self-confidence

Pharma’s arrogance and controlling tendencies don’t seem to be a mask—like he’s trying to compensate for some sense of lack (in those areas). Yes, he fears failure, and yes, he displays some insecurity when Ratchet questions his competence. But at every other point and in every other way, Pharma is unapologetically self-confident. He’s fully self-assured of his intellectual prowess and problem-solving capabilities; he knows what he knows, and he also knows what he doesn’t know.

Pharma’s arrogance and desire for control don’t stem from a hidden lack of confidence or a hunger for power on its own. They stem from the fact that he genuinely sees himself as the best person for the work he does. He trusts himself above anyone else to solve problems that come his way—medical or otherwise (within limits).

Elitism vs. Superiority

I’ve always read Pharma as having an elitist attitude, but not in the social stratification sense:

elitist (adj.) relating to or supporting the view that a society or system should be led by an elite.

There’s no evidence that Pharma believes an elite class of people should hold the most power. Instead, Pharma’s “elitism” is actually an individualistic sense of superiority. It’s centered on him alone, and is tied to his capabilities as a physician scientist and surgeon.

Pharma sees himself as the best of the best and makes sure everyone knows it—sometimes through his words, but mostly by his conduct in the field of medicine. This, paired with Pharma’s natural temperament, doesn’t exactly make him socially popular—inside or outside of medicine:

One could argue that the “personality” Lockdown is referring to was a result of all Pharma had suffered at Delphi and Luna 1, but just as easily, one could argue he was always a bit difficult to get along with, and that his traumatic experiences merely magnified his already-present psychological patterns. Personally, I like the latter interpretation because it’s a flaw that makes Pharma a more interesting character no matter his mental state.

Everyone reacts differently to real and perceived social rejection. Some are so concerned about it that they’ll try anything to belong; others genuinely don’t care, and they continue as usual; and still others cope by shifting their mindset and developing a sense of pride in being an outsider.

There’s no evidence for this in canon, but I believe it’s within reasonable characterization boundaries to headcanon Pharma as being in the second or third category.

With either of those two mindsets, a sense of superiority can develop, or even be an inciting factor. Either someone sees themselves as genuinely superior to the majority and doesn’t mind when this alienates them from people, or they convince themselves they’re superior because the pain of accepting they were rejected for who they are is too much to handle.

Whatever the case, the point is, having an “elitist” attitude isn’t necessarily rooted in a sociological or ideological belief. Sometimes, individuals just see something in themselves that—to them—justifies a sense of personal superiority. A quick glance at Pharma’s canon appearances makes it clear he holds such a view of himself, at least to some degree.

Morality and Compassion

When Pharma first shows up in canon, he’s working at the New Institute. A lot of questionable things took place there on a regular basis—things Pharma would have been aware of, to some degree. However, his presence at the Institute doesn’t automatically mean he agreed with everything happening. Depending on how strongly someone feels about something, some people are content to disagree in silence. Not everyone who seeks employment considers it a priority that the establishment they work for aligns perfectly with their moral values. After all, there are other reasons to take a job: financial benefits, exclusive educational and career opportunities, pure convenience, etc.

I’m not here to say either way whether Pharma’s willingness to turn a blind eye to the events at the New Institute was wrong or right; that’s up to each reader to decide for themselves. However, Pharma’s choice to remain employed at the Institute for some time can say something about him as a character: his priority as a doctor and person is not to take care of everyone he encounters, or to act as some kind of moral or ethical authority.

This isn’t to say Pharma won’t ever stand up for something he regards as right or push back against something he sees as wrong, “off screen.” It’s just that everything in canon points more to a tendency to choose his battles instead of acting immediately on any moral sense the way someone like Optimus or Ratchet might.

This also isn’t to say Pharma doesn’t care about saving lives, but from what little is shown of him before Delphi, it’s hard to say how much he cared. Ratchet confirms later that Pharma was an excellent doctor for most of his life, but all that tells us is he was an excellent doctor; it says nothing about his internal attitude toward his work or patients.

However, inferences can be made based on doctors in our own world:

Being a doctor—especially one in trauma care—is far from easy. It takes a lot out of a person, and there are very few people who last in the profession for a long time. Most medical professionals fall into one of the following categories:

People possessing a strong will that’s coupled with an unwavering passion for taking care of others (the public’s favorite)

People who naturally have, or develop, an ability to switch their empathy off and on at will, or build walls around it—also possessing a strong will (the ideal)

People who naturally have a limited capacity for empathy (the one the public hates to acknowledge)

People with a strong social and professional support system (the necessary, but underutilized and underappreciated factor)

Of course, even if a person has one or more of the above, burnout can and does still happen, but individuals who have at least one have the best chances of surviving and thriving amidst the demands of the majority of medical professions.

As far as is shown in canon, Pharma never had a strong support system—either circumstantially or by choice—so something else was keeping him in medicine.

Pharma shows concern for both Tumbler (Chromedome) and Hubcap:

But even though he obviously cared enough to step in, neither instance makes a strong case for a capacity for empathy beyond the “average” or “norm.” Performing a job well is a lot different from being personally invested in the work.

Based on everything up to this point, and this later comment from Pharma, about Ratchet…

…Pharma has probably never shared the same I-care-about-everything-and-everyone view of the world. Instead, it’s more likely that Pharma holds a more rational view of his work and patients.

One of the first things learned in medicine, especially in trauma medicine, is that you can’t help or save everyone, and to hold yourself to that standard can destroy you quickly if you have a certain temperament or lack healthy boundaries for your empathy.

“There are times when it may seem as though I view sick or injured people not as living, breathing humans with feelings and emotions and people who love them, but simply as cases, as problems to be solved. And that is absolutely true. It's not that I don't have empathy, but the hard fact is that as a doctor, and especially as a trauma surgeon, too much empathy can get in the way of your job and cause you to make decisions based not on sound medical judgment but on your own emotions. Sure, I've seen things that even years later can still make me choke up when I think of them: a little girl shot and killed, a shattered young Marine who shouldn't have died but did. But you can't choke up in the ER or the operating room. To be effective as a trauma surgeon, you have to put a layer of Kevlar around your heart.” —Dr. Peter Rhee, Trauma Red: The Making of a Surgeon in War and in America’s Cities*

Pharma may have learned this difficult truth earlier than Ratchet and developed a practical way of managing his empathy that comes across as “cold.” He may have always had an ability to put up walls around his spark. Or, he may have always had little to no capacity for empathy.

The fact that the morality lock on Tyrest’s portal prevented Pharma from passing through proves he felt guilty for what he’d done, and JRO confirmed this. Therefore, it’s safe to assume Pharma had some level of empathy for his former patients, suffering moral injury when he felt he had no other option but to start killing them.

Still, looking at Pharma’s psychological drives and his behavior throughout canon, it’s clear compassionate care and morality are subordinate to his other values and interests.

*I highly recommend this book, and learning about Dr. Rhee in general. He’s a huge inspiration of mine, and one of my main sources of inspiration when writing Pharma. Level-headed and capable, strong-willed, selectively empathetic, an excellent scientist, etc. He lives for the thrill of practicing medicine both on the floor and as an expert in his field who pushes trauma medicine to new heights through his research. He also takes great pride in his hands. Seriously—the man spent an entire paragraph and a half talking about his “good hands” and how they were one of two reasons he decided to go into trauma surgery. The other reason was that he “liked action and excitement, liked the feeling of being able to walk into a tough situation and take control.” (Sounds familiar…)

Delphi

First thing’s first: we don’t know how much Pharma did or didn’t know about the DJD before agreeing to take the Delphi assignment.

That far into the war, he would have known something about the DJD and their ways of terrorizing traitors and Autobots, but for whatever reason, he took the assignment anyway. Perhaps Prowl assured him the situation on Messatine would be monitored and that the security team would be enough. Perhaps he underestimated the DJD’s capabilities, or scale of territory, and thought he would be able to handle things on his own. Perhaps Prowl gave him no choice. Maybe it was all of these and more.

Whatever the case, according to JRO, Pharma didn’t hate Delphi before the incident with the DJD.

Word of god remains a touchy subject in fandom, but in this case, it’s important because it says two things:

The DJD left the Delphi medical team alone for some time.

Being on the edges of DJD territory didn’t automatically mean isolation and harassment by their hand.

On the second point, First Aid was free to come and go from Messatine as he pleased, seeing as he attended a medical conference at Kimia five years into his assignment at Delphi:

Five years ago [mid-Delphi assignment], the leader of the Wreckers had cornered him at a medical conference at Kimia, the space station that doubled as a weapons research facility. —from Bullets

And five years after that, he was able to not only contact Springer without delay about one of Agent 113’s bullets he’d discovered in an Autobot badge…

He raced upstairs to his computer terminal and typed in a certain frequency code for the second time in his life. A face appeared on the screen and grinned. “It’s me,” said First Aid. “And you're never gonna guess what I’ve got for you..!”

…but he was also able to meet up with Springer to hand off the bullet:

“Your friend has a funny way of making contact,” First Aid had said when he’d got in touch three days earlier, and he was right.

It’s not known if this handoff happened on or off world, but either way, the DJD didn’t interfere.

At some point, Tarn set his sights on Pharma and the Delphi team. Knowing the DJD, one can only imagine what Tarn used to show off his team’s capabilities and convince Pharma the best option was to cooperate.

In striking a deal with Tarn to keep the DJD away from Delphi, Pharma established his territory and ensured his continued security and the safety of his staff. As long as Tarn got his T-cogs, Pharma could continue on in relative peace. He could work his magic on bots that ended up at Delphi, carry out his management duties, and work on whatever projects or research he may have been conducting in his free time.

For whatever reason, after he first came into contact with Tarn, Pharma didn’t call for help. Communications were still operational, as Pharma wouldn’t have suggested contacting High Command about the Duobots if the team was aware of any comm malfunctions:

Also, First Aid later confirms that communications were fine until the Big Bang (soundbomb detonation):

It’s always possible the DJD was monitoring the radio waves, but secure subspace frequencies exist, such as the Datalog Network First Aid used to send the datalog containing the death statistics:

Speaking of which, assuming First Aid sent the datalog with the statistics right when things started to get ‘weird,’ and before the Big Bang shut down comms, it only took—at most—a few days for them to reach Ratchet and Swerve on the Lost Light:

But back to Pharma not calling for help: for all of Prowl’s intel, contingency planning, and fretting over the security of Autobot territories, I find it hard to believe he would have stuck an Autobot medical team on the fringes of DJD territory without giving them some means of securely contacting the outside in case of issues.

But even if Prowl didn’t give Pharma a secure way to contact him or anyone else, and even if Pharma was convinced the DJD was monitoring regular communications, there were other ways he could have reached out for help. After all, the team wasn’t alone on Messatine. Like Pharma said, Prowl continued to send bots to defend the nucleon mines:

The Autobots had been mining nucleon for millions of years at this point, so I doubt the mined nucleon was just sitting in storage on Messatine; shipments of the stuff would have been sent off-world to wherever the Autobots needed it. Why not send a message for Prowl with someone leaving with one of those shipments? A message meant only to be sent over a call when absolutely certain they were out of range of the DJD’s potential monitoring.

Or, why not order in off-world medical supplies and send a message back with the delivery bot(s)?

There are two possible answers to this. One takes into account JRO’s word on the subject; the other is more intricate and speculative on my part, but it leads to the same place. So whatever your stance is on the validity of word of god, there’s an answer for you.

Answer one (word of god)

Simple as that. Pharma was aware of the scope of the DJD’s capabilities and relentlessness, and determined he was trapped prey.

Answer two (no word of god)

There are a few possible reasons Pharma didn’t call for help right away:

He was convinced all his other options would take too long and/or would still lead to him being put under suspicion. After all, being found to have harvested even a single T-cog from an already-dead patient for the DJD could have raised concerns that would lead to Pharma being investigated and/or having a mark put on his record.

He underestimated the severity of Tarn’s addiction, and was certain he could keep up with the T-cog demand without resorting to other means of harvesting, not realizing Tarn’s quota would increase later on.

He was already paranoid as a result of whatever mind games Tarn had set in motion at their first meeting, making Pharma think escape was futile.

Word of god or no word of god, there are clear reasons as to why Pharma ended up trapped. Most likely, it was a mix of all of the above.

Whatever was going on in Pharma’s mind before, he ended up in deeper trouble. Tarn increased his demand for T-cogs, and Pharma couldn’t keep up. By the time this happened, even if he had wanted to call for help, it was too late to do so without implicating himself. He reasoned his only option was to start killing patients to harvest their T-cogs.

Soon, Pharma was so consumed with fretting over whether he’d be able to meet Tarn’s next demand that he didn’t have time or freedom to do anything else except worry and feel guilty. His whole life revolved around Tarn’s addiction; he was no longer in control, and could no longer enjoy whatever it was about Delphi he’d previously enjoyed. Perhaps the facility itself enabled Pharma to research cures and perform scientific miracles of medicine.

Being at the mercy of Tarn—convinced the DJD would find him no matter what—would have been pure psychological torture on its own, but also knowing that any small chance he did have of getting help would end in him losing everything would have added to his suffering. Pharma became desperate to reclaim control over his life and began planning an escape.

Now, JRO has said that Pharma didn’t originally plan to use the rust plague on the DJD…but canon says otherwise:

Of course, Pharma could have been lying to make himself look better in Ratchet’s view, but based on everything he’d been through up to this point with Tarn, it’s more likely he was telling the truth and had tried to eliminate the source of his suffering first. After all, wiping out the DJD would have been the simpler, cleaner option.

When the Duobots refused to detonate the soundbomb near the DJD, Pharma’s objectives shifted. He had to get Delphi shut down in a way that would:

Convince the DJD the shutdown was legitimate.

Pharma knew chances of escaping the DJD at all were slim to none, but he was desperate. Getting Delphi shut down would cut off Tarn’s supply of T-cogs and allow Pharma to escape Tarn’s immediate control, but the shutdown had to be “legitimate” to prevent Tarn from retaliating and hunting him down later. Leaving Tarn even the slightest chance of regaining control was too risky, so Pharma had to make sure his plan was as airtight as possible.

Cover up the patient murders.

If the truth got out about Pharma killing patients, he’d lose his medical license and most likely be put away for life. Being cut off from the practice of medicine and his intellectually stimulating work as a doctor would mean losing more than a job and a reputation. It would mean losing everything in which he’d anchored his sense of identity and life’s meaning. His refusal to consider any other options wasn’t just about ego and preserving his image as an excellent doctor; it was about preserving any kind of meaningful future he saw for himself.

Pharma needed a plan that would fulfill all of the above. Turning the engineered virus on the medical facility was the most effective and efficient solution. Anything else would have made him suspicious in the view of either Autobot High Command or the DJD, and neither of those would have ended well for him.

Because of his goal to preserve his reputation and future in medicine, he couldn’t even risk revealing anything to First Aid or Ambulon, who would have seen to his ruin. They became nothing more than loose ends that had to be tied up, and based on the fact that Pharma only prepared one vial of the vaccine, his original plan involved him being the only survivor:

He probably would have had no problem making more of the vaccine for anyone else who survived, but he wasn’t counting on it. He wanted a totally clean slate; in letting his staff die with most of his patients, he would be getting rid of any and all evidence and reminders of his failures. He may have cared about First Aid and Ambulon before things got bad, but somewhere along the way, he decided either it wasn’t worth it to go through the trouble of finding a way to save them without raising suspicion, or he didn’t want to risk them putting together the pieces later on.

Of course, when Ratchet showed up, plans changed.

Ratchet

Ratchet is not the kind of person who seeks first to understand or be understanding. He’s inclined to trust what’s in front of him over anything abstract, and tends to look at the results of someone’s actions over trying to find any kind of ‘why’ behind them. Also, unlike Pharma, he operates from a strong moral sense, and reacts quickly and strongly when something or someone goes against that internal moral sense.

Ratchet’s reaction to finding out what Pharma did may seem hasty and harsh, but it makes perfect sense on a human level. There is no such thing as unconditional love; everyone has personal and moral lines (boundaries), and they’re different for each individual. When the most rigid of lines is crossed, that’s it; walls go up and the offender is cut off, no matter how strong the relationship may have been.

Ratchet obviously knew Pharma well enough to think he could try talking some sense into him, but then Pharma revealed that he’d crossed one of Ratchet’s lines: murdering patients. Any willingness Ratchet may have had to try to understand vanished. By the time Pharma started trying to provide a ‘why’ for his actions, Ratchet’s moral judgment had already shut down any chance of understanding what could have possibly led Pharma to kill patients. It didn’t help that Pharma seemed totally unapologetic and outright proud of his plan. For Ratchet, the ‘why’ didn’t matter anymore. What he saw was what he trusted, and what he saw was a friend who’d become his idea of a monster.

Now, Ratchet and Pharma’s relationship is one of the most confusing IDW relationships I’ve had the pleasure and pain of dissecting.

It is notoriously difficult to determine the depth and strength of a relationship from the outside. However, I’ve decided to go ahead and address it anyway because it has the potential to provide insight into Pharma as an individual.

If I were to sum up Pharma and Ratchet’s relationship in a single word, I would use “ambivalent.” The first time I read MTMTE, the thing that stood out to me most about their relationship was the drastic differences between how they each perceived the relationship.

In one sense, there’s the idea of Pharma basically being Ratchet’s crazy stalker ex, which is tossed around in fandom a lot. While I personally dislike seeing it regardless of context (yes, even as a joke), I do see how JRO’s writing choices set things up in a way that makes it easy to superimpose that trope.

In another sense, there’s the idea that Pharma and Ratchet were always close friends, and that what happened at the end of the Delphi story was a betrayal of both sides that came out of nowhere and whose consequences were taken too far.

I disagree with both. Personally, what I see at the end of the Delphi story isn’t an obsessed ex gone mad, a sudden betrayal, or a badly executed backstabbing. What I see is a breakdown of an already-complicated and poorly-maintained relationship: true feelings being revealed, long-repressed bitterness being forced to the surface, carefully-hidden cracks being split wide open.

Most people don’t have an accurate understanding of how much or how little they truly know the people in their lives, often overestimating how well they know a person until something surfaces and blindsides them.

According to JRO, Ratchet was oblivious to Pharma’s romantic interest, and throughout canon, it’s easy to see Pharma was more invested in the relationship than Ratchet ever was.

The question is, did Ratchet ever care about Pharma at all? And if so, to what degree?

Yes, Ratchet calls Pharma “buddy” and “friend,” but the former was sarcastic, and the latter means something different to each person. Also, in light of the circumstances, Ratchet could have just been saying “friend” in response to Pharma saying it—an emotional appeal more than anything.

However, Pharma must have been aware of Ratchet’s lack of relational investment because during the confrontation at Delphi, Pharma’s first reaction wasn’t to appeal to their friendship (ex: “But you know me!”). Instead, he appealed to their shared profession:

Then there’s the exchange of insults:

This is what I meant earlier by “true feelings being revealed.” Ratchet may have just been trying to match Pharma’s insult, but it’s unlikely it was merely reciprocal because while Ratchet is snarky at times, he’s sincere in that snark. There’s almost always some truth in his verbal jabs no matter how unserious they seem, and he’s never cruel for cruelty’s sake.

So, if Pharma saw Ratchet as an inferior doctor, and Ratchet saw Pharma as an inferior Autobot…it’s reasonable to assume there was always some deep-rooted competition and conflict preventing them from being super close.

Possible suspicion surrounding Pharma’s conduct as an Autobot paired with a tendency to misjudge the nuances of relationships could explain why Ratchet was so quick to decide Pharma was a lost cause. Maybe Pharma’s actions at Delphi confirmed something from the past that Ratchet had brushed off for whatever reason.

In any case, Ratchet seems to have been largely unaffected by the Pharma he found at Delphi. While leaving Messatine, he emphasizes that he’ll miss Pharma’s talent.

Not “who he used to be.”

Not “what we used to have.”

Just…“his talent.”

Later, on Luna 1, Pharma mentions that he and Ratchet were inseparable, but that could mean a few different things:

Best case scenario: Pharma and Ratchet sought each other out on equal terms.

Worst case scenario: Pharma followed Ratchet around.

Somewhere in the middle: the job forced Pharma and Ratchet to work in close proximity most of the time, and while Pharma intentionally ran into Ratchet more often than necessary, Ratchet also sought out Pharma every now and then.

Whatever the case, working with someone every day doesn’t tell you anything about who they are as a person, and the amount of time spent with someone doesn’t automatically correlate to how deep the relationship is or how well the people know each other. It’s not like either Pharma or Ratchet are shown to be good at expressing their personal feelings outside of extreme circumstances.

Ratchet does bring up late-night conversations of the past:

But while this indicates there was something deeper between him and Pharma, because neither of them were ever shown to be super open with their true feelings, it’s unlikely the conversations were full of touchy-feely talk. In all likelihood, the conversations were mostly medicine and war-related, with the rare spark-to-spark talk sprinkled in. Also, considering everything up to this point, one has to wonder if those talks ever meant anything to Ratchet, or if he was just digging for something that might stall Pharma’s torture.

Maybe those late-night conversations did mean something to Ratchet, but whatever the case, Pharma didn’t take the bait. He knew Ratchet was trying to stall by making an emotional appeal, and perhaps he was convinced the conversations hadn’t meant that much to Ratchet.

Looking at all of this, it’s hard to believe Ratchet ever cared about Pharma as more than an interesting work friend. But even if he had cared more than he let on, it wasn’t enough to overcome the doubts he had about Pharma’s character.

As for whether Pharma truly cared about Ratchet, I’m convinced he did, but in a mostly unhealthy way, and with a strong undercurrent of one-sided rivalry. At some point, Ratchet had been an equal and a source of challenge, and he probably listened to Pharma pretty often. It’s reasonable to assume Ratchet was one of the only people—if not the only person—able to handle Pharma’s intense temperament and challenge him in a meaningful way, providing some semblance of friendship for Pharma.

However, one last thing that stands out is that, when telling Ratchet why he’s torturing him, Pharma didn’t say anything like, “Because you hurt me” or “Because you turned against me—your friend.” Instead, he said it was for “ruining things at Delphi” and because “you declared war on my body.”

Either Pharma wasn’t being entirely honest, or Ratchet’s friendship didn’t mean as much in the first place as he’d previously implied. It’s possible the ‘Because you hurt me’ was implied in “for ruining things back at Delphi,” but why not say it outright? Perhaps it was a fear of vulnerability and admitting there was ever a relational need at all.

At the end of the day, it’s difficult to say for certain how close Pharma and Ratchet were, but it’s clear they were never on the same page and there were always barriers between them.

Luna 1

Revisiting the matter of Pharma’s morality taking a backseat to other priorities, his time on Luna 1 further underscores this. Again, Pharma chooses his battles and is unwilling to put himself at great risk for the sake of others, but a closer look at the situation with Tyrest reveals there wasn’t really anything he could have done for the Cold Construct population even if he had wanted to. It would have been him against Tyrest, an army of Legislators, and a bunch of Decepticons. Pharma knew his limits, and seeing as his goal was self-preservation, it was perfectly rational for him to go along with Tyrest’s grand scheme.

Besides, it doesn’t look like he was given much of a choice:

Although, knowing Pharma, he still would have demanded to know beforehand what he would get in return for the pain, and evidently, Tyrest held up his end of the deal since Pharma had access to the Luna 1 tech collection.

As for Tyrest’s plan to wipe out the Cold Construct population, there’s nothing indicating Pharma’s decision to turn a blind eye to it was rooted in malevolence or bigotry—just rational apathy: ‘I can’t stop Tyrest, so why concern myself with the outcome?’

Again, you can’t save everyone; Pharma had all he could do to save himself.

But it wasn’t all horrible. I would even go so far as to say Pharma found some happiness on Luna 1. Tyrest didn’t care about him, but he didn’t need Tyrest to care. Everyone else there hated him, but he didn’t need to feel like he belonged or was admired. At this point, Pharma’s only interest was Tyrest’s Luna 1 tech collection, and that meant playing nice so he could keep his reward. Back at Delphi, he probably assumed he’d never again practice medicine the way he’d loved; being brought to Luna 1 was an unexpected, yet welcome, second chance.

Even so, Pharma had his moments of cruelty. Back at Delphi, he had easily-identifiable reasons to kill patients—both the ones whose T-cogs he harvested and the 20 more he tried to kill when he shot the life support machine. But on Luna 1, he had no reason to be cruel, yet he chose to be. By this point, he’d mastered the ability to almost completely ignore or subdue his conscience.

In the case of Ratchet’s torment, one could argue Pharma only drew it out for retaliation purposes; it was personal for him.

As for cutting Ambulon in half, it was obviously meant to be as gruesome as possible, yet also quick. But personally, I don’t think it was about Ambulon; it was more about hurting Ratchet. Due to the fact that Ratchet’s identity is wrapped up in his compassion and his ability to be helpful as a doctor, one of the most effective acts of revenge would be to do something that makes him feel utterly helpless.

Also I wonder if, subconsciously or consciously, Pharma was attempting to recreate the sense of helplessness he felt back at Delphi under Tarn’s watch: “Do you see, Ratchet? Do you now understand how it feels to have control ripped out of your hands? To be totally helpless?”

Next, for some reason, Pharma was invested in the promised execution of Getaway and Skids:

He had no personal connection to either of them that would give him a reason to be interested, so maybe Tyrest told him he could perform the execution and/or have the corpses for medical experimentation. Either way, Pharma would have had a chance to use some of the tech in Tyrest’s tech collection, possibly explaining his excitement.

Of course, any chance of an execution disappeared when the final showdown went wrong.

When Pharma tried to escape to Cyberutopia and discovered he couldn’t pass through the spacebridge forcefield, he gave up. He’d been caught; he would no longer have access to Tyrest’s tech collection; Ratchet and every other self-righteous Autobot would never forgive him; and the morality lock prevented him from escaping. By all appearances, he would never again be able to engage in that which gave him a sense of meaning. He had shrunken his world down to his obsessive interest in a specialized field and one significant, yet unrequited relationship. With both of these lost, his world collapsed.

Yes, guilt played a part in Pharma’s despondency, but because he seems to have been in denial of said guilt, it’s more likely his despair was primarily due to the fact that he saw no future for himself. He had nothing left to live for.

In light of this, Pharma’s flippant comments to First Aid make sense. He wasn’t being insensitive as much as he was goading First Aid. Pharma’s not stupid. First Aid had a massive rotary cannon on him, and Pharma knew exactly which emotional buttons to push to get him to pull the trigger.

Pharma wanted to die.

Adaptus

First, let me emphasize that Adaptus did not take possession of Pharma’s body. Instead, Pharma was the unwelcome guest:

How Pharma ended up in Adaptus’ new body is a mystery, but whatever the case, Pharma didn’t pass on to the Allspark. Whether or not he had a choice can only be speculated.

First Aid had blasted Pharma’s head clean off, so whatever happened must have been related to the spark. Perhaps some residual spark energy was trapped in a body part that Adaptus repurposed, leaving Pharma tethered to the new body unwillingly.

Still, Pharma managed to assert his will and override Adaptus for a brief moment. Considering Adaptus was basically a god, this is impressive.

Based on Adaptus’ surprise at being interrupted, it seems he didn’t know Pharma was there. Why Pharma hadn’t tried to assert himself sooner is a mystery. Maybe Adaptus’ scheme was entertaining; maybe Pharma actually liked the company; or maybe he’d been waiting for an opportunity to get revenge on Tyrest for everything done to him back at Luna 1.

Sure enough, just like with Ratchet back on Luna 1, Pharma’s vengeful streak came out as soon as there was an opportunity.

Unfortunately for him, this left him vulnerable, and Tyrest took advantage of the confusion:

Conclusion

When someone reduces their world to narrow personal interests and one or a few very special people, their grip tightens around what little they have. They often become obsessive and possessive of the few things that make them feel alive, and their view of the world becomes increasingly more subjective and detached from the outside world. Pharma seems to have fallen into this trap.

Even so, in the context of the circumstances, several of the decisions he made were rational—even if coldly so. Oftentimes, “extreme” rationality and self-preservation are villainized in fiction, and characters like Pharma who don’t automatically put themselves at great risk for anyone and everyone are villainized, or at least looked down on. Their choices are often regarded as less human, but rationality and self-preservation are just as human as compassion and self-sacrifice.

Ultimately, Pharma was trapped and pushed over the edge into “insanity” by Tarn’s cruelty, but his own choices made from a place of pride determined how he fell, and how far he fell. It was a perfect storm of Tarn’s mind games and Pharma’s intellectual arrogance, excessive self-confidence, obsessive nature, and stubborn grip on the kind of future he wanted for himself.

Pharma is yet another Icarus who flew too close to the sun and paid dearly for it, and while JRO/the narrative could have given this Icarus better wings, that doesn’t change the fact that he chose to fly so high.

***

Many thanks to anyone who made it to the end of this monster of a post.

-tosses a Rodimus Star at you-

#look who finally finished this thing #idw transformers #idw1 #maccadam #MTMTE #lost light #idw pharma #pharma #tf idw character analysis #tf idw meta #dr. fancy hands #nova’s nerding out again

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bunnliix · 22 days ago

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Little Doe

All I can say is that I went a lil wild writing this, and that this may have been sitting around in my google drive for months now. So here is what happens when I get inspired and maybe a bit unhinged

Pairing: Outlaw!Mingi x fem!reader Summary: You catch Mingi's eye, and he doesn't want to let you go wc: 1.4k AU: bouncy universe Genre: SMUT warnings: fem!reader, mean!Mingi, stalking, gunplay, being grabbed and held down, being stepped on, yandere-ish Mingi Smut warnings: DUB-CON/non-con?, threats, guns, praise kink if you squint, pet names (doe, love), breeding kink, breath play, talks of branding, talks of primal play, being pulled up by your hair, pain, non-con voyeurism Beta'd by the wonderful @skzdust

The heel of his boot pushes down into your back as you struggle underneath him. “Awww, look at this. You really think you’re gonna escape darlin'?” The boot wedges itself further into your back, as you feel a gun push into the back of your head. “I caught you, little doe, and now I’m gonna have fun with you, and if you try and run, well, let's say it won’t be fun for you.” You hear him say to you, as the gun pushes further into the back of your skull.

You stayed silent, not wanting to get yourself killed, but also not wanting to endure whatever this man would do to you.

“Cat got your tongue, little doe? C’mon, talk to me love. I wanna hear how pretty your voice sounds before I make you scream. Before you have no voice because I’ve made you scream so much that you’ve lost it,” he says, leaning down close to you, as you lay on the ground.

Flashback…

You had left the bar late one night, having had your weekly celebration with your friends. They had all left before you, leaving you in the bar filled with men, one of whom caught your eye, and not in the best way. He was staring you down like a tiger would its prey, you felt like if you stayed any longer, you’d be trapped. So you made your escape, or what you thought was your escape.

Walking out of the bar, you walk down the main road till you reach an alleyway that provides you a shortcut on your way home. You slip into the narrow path between buildings, thinking that you’d be safe now, not having seen or heard anyone follow you out of the bar. You get about halfway down the alley when you hear steps behind you, which pushes you to hurry to the other end of the alleyway. You don’t stop to look behind you, knowing it would only slow you down, and you never know if this person is alone or if there’s somebody waiting for you to look away before they swoop in and catch you within their claws.

You make it almost all the way to the end of the alleyway when your hands are grabbed and pulled behind you. You thrash around in the stranger’s grip, catching him off guard for a moment, allowing you to escape. You make it only a couple feet further before you’re forcibly pushed to the ground, a boot in your back as you struggle to get out from underneath it.

Back to the present…

“Now, are we going to do it the easy way, or the hard way, doe?” He asks you, his voice almost sickly sweet.

You struggled underneath him, trying to free yourself. His shoe only pressing down harder, making your attempts at freedom useless.

“I guess we’re doing it the hard way then,” You heard as you felt him move, as well as a hand snaking up your thigh, finding your panties and ripping them off your body.

“Well, I should thank you for wearing a skirt, making it so much easier for me.” He thanked you, as you felt his fingers on you, finding that you were soaked.

“Oh? It seems I’ve found a dirty little doe. Look at you, getting soaked over a stranger pinning you down and using you. Maybe I’ll just have to keep you after this. Use you for my own pleasure whenever I want, I’m sure you wouldn’t say no, would you, my pretty fucking cocksleeve?” You heard from above you as your hair was gripped, pulling your head up, as fingers appeared in front of your face.

“Suck. If you don’t, then I guess you want some pain, hmm?” You quickly take his fingers into your mouth, sucking on them diligently as he hums happily, or at least you assumed it was happily.

You felt his boot leave your back, as he rearranged himself above you, and you heard clothing being moved, as well as a zipped being unzipped and you knew what he was doing. You felt your skirt being flipped up and a groan as he laid his eyes on your pussy.

“Oh baby, little doe, I’m gonna stretch you out so much, no one else will compare by the time I’m done with you. You’ll want my cock to fuck you over and over again, nothing else will satisfy you.” He told you, as he pulled your hips upwards until you were on your knees.

A hand found its way onto your back, pressing down to keep you in position as you felt the head of his cock at your entrance as it pushed in. The stretch was more than you had ever felt before, but fuck it felt amazing and you knew, as he slid into you, that you’d never find another man to satisfy you ever again.

The man above you groaned, “Fuck little doe, you’re so fucking tight and you squeeze me just right. I’m just gonna have to keep you. I’ll keep you and you can sit on my cock all pretty, and I’ll fuck a baby into you too someday.” He rambled on and on as he slid back out before slamming back into you, his hips snapping into yours.

“Fuck, a pretty little cocksleeve, just for me. Maybe I’ll have to recreate this night over and over again, just to keep the memory fresh. Let you run and get all scared as I chase you. Maybe next time, I’ll trace pretty designs into your precious fucking skin, leave my own mark on you. Maybe I’ll even brand you.” You moaned at the thought of it. “Oh? Someone wants my mark on you permanently? Cute little doe. I’ll brand you, and mark your pretty skin with whatever designs I choose.”

Skin slapping skin was the only sound other than both of your moans and groans that could be heard, as you felt any sanity leave your body. You only wanted this man to fuck you for the rest of your life. He could use you for his pleasure, you didn’t care as long as it meant you getting fucked by him. Maybe he’d be nice enough to fulfill all of your dirty fucking fantasies. God, you’d beg on your knees if it meant he’d use you.

You could feel your orgasm approaching quickly as he kept fucking you hard, your pussy squeezing him. He groaned and you felt his hand move from your back to your throat, gripping it tightly and pulling you up against him, your back to his chest. “Fuck baby, keep squeezing me like that and I’ll come. You want my come inside of your little pussy so badly?” He asked you, as you whined.

Your release hit you, washing over you like a wave without any warning. You moaned before whining as he continued fucking you through your orgasm. “Good girl, cumming on my cock. Fuck baby, I’m gonna come.” He groaned, as you felt his come inside of you as he came, holding you down onto his cock as far as you could go. You were so sensitive you whined in protest as he thrust a couple more times to make sure you had taken all of his cum inside your pussy. You slumped in his arms, unable to keep yourself up anymore, only held up by his grip on your throat.

“Aww, can’t hold yourself up anymore, my doe? Cute.” He told you, as he pulled you off of his dick, his come dripping out of you.

“Quite a performance there, Mingi,” you heard another man say, as the man, who you now knew was named Mingi, chuckled from above.

“Always the voyeur, aren’t you, Hongjoong?” Mingi answered the other man.

“Is it wrong to enjoy seeing you fuck yet another girl stupid?”

“No, but it does make you a bit of a creep, if you weren’t so attractive physically.” After replying to Hongjoong, Mingi hoisted your body onto his shoulder as he stood up.

“Come on lil doe, I’m taking you with me. Nobody’ll miss you, right?” He asked you, getting a whine in return, making him chuckle.

“Cute. And if anyone does miss you, then you’ll just have to tell them how much you don’t want to leave me. Because I know you won’t ever want to. No one ever does.”

Taglist: @callmeghostly @bethelighthalazia @palindrome969

#ateez x reader #mingi x reader #ateez smut #mingi smut #song mingi smut

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the-king-of-lemons · 9 months ago

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I know a lot of people on qsmpblr use Tumblr mobile, but if you do use browser Tumblr then I would recommend the Simple Translate extension. Because Tumblr doesn't have built in translation like Twitter, there's less fans posting in their native language, instead most people just use English.

Simple Translate is an extension that allows you to translate text that you highlight into a target language. (It uses Google Translate API, but so does Twitter so the translation quality is pretty much the same).

Firefox Extension | Chrome Extension

When you highlight text in another language, a translate icon appears, when you click on it a panel containing the translation of the text appears.

You can also change the settings of the extension so that the translation panel automatically appears when you highlight text in another language.

Here's some more examples using the official QSMP Twitter accounts, you do not need to change the settings of the extension to translate from different languages into your target language.

(All of these match the translations given when using the "translate bio" button on Twitter directly.)

You can also access a translation box using the icon in the toolbar, any text you enter can be translated to the language selected in the drop-down menu (meaning you don't need to open a new tab to use Google Translate).

Some settings explanation and other stuff under the cut. Not super important but I figured I'd add it anyways.

There is an option to use DeepL API as opposed to Google Translate (it's another translation tool, there is free access to the API with a limit of 500,000 characters/month, and a pro version for unlimited access).

Whatever the target language is set as is what text you highlight will be translated into. There is another option for a second target language, I'll explain that further down.

This option changes how you view the translation panel, the first option (default) has the icon appear when you highlight text (as seen in the first image of the post), the second option has the translation panel appear automatically when you highlight text, and the for third option the panel and icon won't automatically appear, but can still be accessed by right-clicking the highlighted text and selecting "translate selected text".

The checkbox below these options means that if the text you're highlighting is already in your target language, the translation icon and panel will not appear, it can again still be accessed by right-clicking what you've highlighted and selecting translate.

This option appears twice, in both the Web-page section (for translating selected text) and the Toolbar Popup section (for the translation box in the toolbar popup).

The web page option, when toggled on, means that when you select text that is in your target language, the translation panel will translate into the second target language that has been selected. If the checkbox for "do not display if translation is not required" is toggled on, you can only view the translation from Target -> 2nd Target by right-clicking to translate selected text.

The toolbar popup version of this option is used to automatically switch the language in the toolbar translation box when you input something in your main target. (ie. second target set to French means that when you input English text in the translation box it will switch the translation setting from "(detect language) -> English" to "English -> French").

There are also settings to change the style and size of the translation button and panel.

Side note: Mixed language messages (not containing your target language) will only translate one of the languages, you can work around this by highlighting the different languages separately.

Links again if you don't want to scroll all the way back up

Firefox Extension | Chrome Extension

#if you use twitter and want to crosspost this feel free #but please link to this post and perhaps paste the post text into the alt text of the screenshot #so people can translate the post text from english to their own language (or honestly feel free to translate it yourself and post that too)#qsmp #qsmpblr #qsmptwt #i think this could also maybe be useful for tweets that arent detected as another language so the translate option doesnt appear?#idk i dont use twt much #idk if anything like this has been posted before tbh #i just enjoy seeing people speaking in their native languages over on qsmptwt and when it occasionally happens here too #and i think itd be pretty cool to see it more on qsmpblr #tiggady tags #also i figure it could be useful translating from english into ur native lang!!! forgot to mention that in the post

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ask-the-prose · 1 year ago

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Do Your Research

This phrase is regularly thrown around writeblr and for good reason. It's important to research what you are writing about to know what to include, what can be fudged, and how to depict whatever you're writing. I see "do your research" most thrown around by well-meaning and highly traditionally educated writers. It's solid advice, after all!

But how do you research?

For those writers who don't already have the research skills necessary to write something comfortably already downloaded into your brain, I put this guide together for you.

Where do I even start?

It's a daunting task, research. But the best place to start is with the most basic, stupidest question you can think of. I'm going to talk about something that I already know a lot about: fighting.

When researching fight scenes, a great way to start is to look up what different weapons are. There are tons out there! So ask the stupid questions. What is a sword? What is a gun? How heavy are they?

Google and Wikipedia can help you a lot with these basic-level questions. They aren't great sources for academic articles, but remember, this is fiction. It doesn't need to be perfect, and it doesn't need to be 100% accurate if you don't want it to be. But knowing what is true to life will help you write well. Just like knowing the rules of writing will help you break them.

You may find in your basic research sweep that you have a lot more specific questions. Write them all down. It doesn't matter if they seem obvious. Write them down because they will be useful later.

How To Use Wikipedia Correctly

Wikipedia is a testament to cooperative human knowledge. It's also easy to edit by anonymous users, which means there is a lot of room for inaccuracies and misleading information. Wikipedia is usually pretty good about flagging when a source is needed or when misleading language is obvious, but Wikipedia itself isn't always the most accurate or in-depth source.

Wikipedia is, however, an excellent collection of sources. When I'm researching a subject that I know nothing about, say Norse mythology, a good starting point is the Wikipedia page for Odin. You'll get a little background on Odin's name and Germanic roots, a little backstory on some of the stories, where they appear, and how they are told.

When you read one of the sentences, and it sparks a new question, write the question down, and then click on the superscript number. This will take you directly to the linked source for the stated fact. Click through to that source. Now you have the source where the claim was made. This source may not be a primary source, but a secondary source can still lead you to new discoveries and details that will help you.

By "source-hopping," you can find your way across the internet to different pieces of information more reliably. This information may repeat itself, but you will also find new sources and new avenues of information that can be just as useful.

You mean I don't need a library?

Use your library. Libraries in many parts of the US are free to join, and they have a wealth of information that can be easily downloaded online or accessed via hardcopy books.

You don't, however, need to read every source in the library for any given topic, and you certainly don't need to read the whole book. Academic books are different from fiction. Often their chapters are divided by topic and concept and not by chronological events like a history textbook.

For example, one of my favorite academic books about legislative policy and how policy is passed in the US, by John Kingdon, discusses multiple concepts. These concepts build off one another, but ultimately if you want to know about one specific concept, you can skip to that chapter. This is common in sociological academic books as well.

Going off of my Norse Mythology example in the last section, a book detailing the Norse deities and the stories connected to them will include chapters on each member of the major pantheon. But if I only care about Odin, I can focus on just the chapters about Odin.

Academic Articles and How To Read Them

I know you all know how to read. But learning how to read academic articles and books is a skill unto itself. It's one I didn't quite fully grasp until grad school. Learn to skim. When looking at articles published in journals that include original research, they tend to follow a set structure, and the order in which you read them is not obvious. At all.

Start with the abstract. This is a summary of the paper that will include, in about half a page to a page, the research question, hypothesis, methods/analysis, and conclusions. This abstract will help you determine if the answer to your question is even in this article. Are they asking the right question?

Next, read the research question and hypothesis. The hypothesis will include details about the theory and why the researcher thinks what they think. The literature review will go into much more depth about theories, what other people have done and said, and how that ties into the research of the present article. You don't need to read that just yet.

Skim the methods and analysis section. Look at every data table and graph included and try to find patterns yourself. You don't need to read every word of this section, especially if you don't understand a lot of the words and jargon used. Some key points to consider are: qualitative vs. quantitative data, sample size, confounding factors, and results.

(Some definitions for those of you who are unfamiliar with these terms. Qualitative data is data that cannot be quantified into a number. These are usually stories and anecdotes. Quantitative data is data that can be transferred into a numerical representation. You can't graph qualitative data (directly), but you can graph quantitative data. Sample size is the number of people or things counted (n when used in academic articles). Your sample size can indicate how generalizable your conclusions are. So pay attention. Did the author interview 300 subjects? Or 30? There will be a difference. A confounding factor is a factor that may affect the working theory. An example of a theory would be "increasing LGBTQ resources in a neighborhood would decrease LGBTQ hate crimes in that area." A confounding factor would be "increased reporting of hate crimes in the area." The theory, including the confounding factor, would look like "increasing LGBTQ resources in a neighborhood would increase the reporting of hate crimes in the area, which increases the number of hate crimes measured in that area." The confounding factor changes the outcome because it is a factor not considered in the original theory. When looking at research, see if you can think of anything that may change the theory based on how that factor interacts with the broader concept. Finally, the results are different from the conclusions. The results tell you what the methods spit out. Analysis tells you what the results say, and conclusions tell you what generalizations can be made based on the analysis.)

Next, read the conclusion section. This section will tell you what general conclusions can be made from the information found in the paper. This will tell you what the author found in their research.

Finally, once you've done all that, go back to the literature review section. You don't have to read it necessarily, but reading it will give you an idea of what is in each sourced paper. Take note of the authors and papers sourced in the literature review and repeat the process on those papers. You will get a wide variety of expert opinions on whatever concept or niche you're researching.

Starting to notice a pattern?

My research methods may not necessarily work for everybody, but they are pretty standard practice. You may notice that throughout this guide, I've told you to "source-hop" or follow the sources cited in whatever source you find first. This is incredibly important. You need to know who people are citing when they make claims.

This guide focused on secondary sources for most of the guide. Primary sources are slightly different. Primary sources require understanding the person who created the source, who they were, and their motivations. You also may need to do a little digging into what certain words or phrases meant at the time it was written based on what you are researching. The Prose Edda, for example, is a telling of the Norse mythology stories written by an Icelandic historian in the 13th century. If you do not speak the language spoken in Iceland in 1232, you probably won't be able to read anything close to the original document. In fact, the document was lost for about 300 years. Now there are translations, and those translations are as close to the primary source you can get on Norse Mythology. But even then, you are reading through several veils of translation. Take these things into account when analyzing primary documents.

Research Takes Practice

You won't get everything you need to know immediately. And researching subjects you have no background knowledge of can be daunting, confusing, and frustrating. It takes practice. I learned how to research through higher formal education. But you don't need a degree to write, so why should you need a degree to collect information? I genuinely hope this guide helps others peel away some of the confusion and frustration so they can collect knowledge as voraciously as I do.

– Indy

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horangare · 3 months ago

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us (TEASER)

pairing : dilf!jeonghan x college student!reader

content : angst, fluff, smut (no smut in teaser)

in which : you knew you could only keep this up for so long. the lying, the secrecy, the feeling of being stuck. you just want to feel normal again, just once, so you trade one lie for another.

warnings : none for the teaser really. just like…heavy feelings?

wc : 428

note : oh we are so back. also i’ve never done a teaser before so bear with me. i’m also not sure on a specific release date but i’m aiming for like the second week of september!

“I don’t have a boyfriend, Iseul.” You say in the most convincing tone you can manage. It hurts to be dishonest with her, but at the same time it isn’t really a lie, is it? No, there is no boyfriend, but there is someone.

How could you even describe your relationship with Jeonghan? He dresses you up in lace and frills, fucks you better than you’ve ever been fucked, and then runs you a bath or brew you tea or sometimes he’ll just sit at your side, holding you in his arms while you cling to him like he’s your lifeline. It would be a perfectly normal dynamic if he wasn’t the father of your best friend, and it’s only because of that factor that you feel the need to take the secret of you and Jeonghan to your grave.

You wish it didn’t have to be that way. You wish you could love Jeonghan without the guilt and the lying and the hiding, because you really do love him, and he loves you too, but you don’t know how much more of this you can take.

Iseul huffs, obviously unconvinced by your answer. It snaps you back into reality. “Well, he might not be your boyfriend, but whatever he is I know he exists.”

“No he doesn’t! There is no he!” You say somewhat exasperatedly. When you look at Iseul, she’s just standing there. Lips pursed, hands clenched at her sides. It looks like she wants to say something—something she’s likely fighting not to say, and she wins that battle, because in the next second she’s staring down into the sink.

“Fine. Sorry I asked. I just thought that, you know, if me and this guy ended up hitting it off we could all hang out and stuff.”

Great, now you feel bad.

“I’m sorry.” You sigh. “It’s just…it’s complicated.” Iseul simply nods, glancing at you with a sad smile on her face.

“I get it. I guess I just…” She pauses for a moment, then shrugs. “I just wanted to know, that’s all.” This time, you’re the one to nod and smile.

It goes quiet. Iseul turns back to her reflection, tilting her head in every direction imaginable as she scrutinized her appearance. And there you sit, watching, thinking.

“So you really don’t know his name? Because I could just do a quick Google search and-”

“Oh my god, stop!” Her laughter echoed through the bathroom, and it’s so light and jovial that it takes you over and now you’re laughing right along with her.

“Sorry,” you say again through your giggles, this time feeling just a little less heavy.

#yoon jeonghan #yoon jeonghan smut #jeonghan smut #jeonghan angst #svt jeonghan #seventeen jeonghan #svt smut #seventeen smut #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #jeonghan x reader

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meanbossart · 1 month ago

Note

i know this is a bit of a stupid question, but i was wondering how you go about adding the lighting to your pieces? like when you have a warmly lit tavern room scene, or a moonlit scene, and you have that lovely warm red or orange or yellow or cool blue lighting hitting the characters from one side? i've always wanted to learn how to do that but no amount of experimenting has ever yielded decent results

If you mean what layer modes I use, It's usually Add Glow with a dark version of the color I'm trying to emulate. Occasionally I also use overlay with whatever shade gives me the desired effect. I've been trying to be more experimental and less formulaic with my BG3 art (a habit I had developed from comic-making) so I don't do the exact same thing 100% of the time!

If you mean placement, then that's something you need to get the hang of through practice. If you have any 3D software that lets you play with light sources, that's a good place to start.

CSP has pretty easy-to-use tools to do just that, so you can get a feel for how rimlights would appear on a body if you have a difficult time visualizing it, and then eventually take your own liberties to achieve contrast and the right amount of drama without feeling obligated to stick to what's realistic (When it comes to light, realism always comes second to effectiveness for me).

If you don't use CSP, googling "rimlight reference" or any combo of similar words should wield you some decent material to work with too!

#ask #tutorial #resource #advice

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sugaredrhubarb · 25 days ago

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A QUICK GUIDE TO AO3 CUSTOMIZATION FROM SOMEONE WHO KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT CODING

ft adding pink to everything and my secret to writing long comments

note: I originally posted this to twt but if that place burns in a fiery pit I spent too long on this for it to disappear, so I'm putting it here too :)

so many people know way more about this than I do, but this is a step-by-step walkthrough of the changes *I've* made, and hopefully it works as an introduction people can build from for whatever they'd like to do

There are a lot of images in this post! (click to enlarge)

to start, AO3 skins

site skins change how the AO3 website appears when logged in (even on mobile), mine is pink and blue!

I'll have my skin turned off throughout the post so the guides appear as they will for you

to create, edit, and view skins, go to the "skins" tab from the left-hand menu. you can also view public site skins from there or from the button in the preferences.

public site skins are made by other users. i would really encourage previewing and exploring them to become familiar with the possibilities (maybe you just want to use one of them and now you're done!)

to create your own skin

on the skins page, click "create site skin"

if you don't know CSS (same), use the wizard! clicking on the "?" will give more information about each option

I only use the colours section you'll see a link right there for hex codes I use pink as a header colour and bue for accent but lots of people change the background colour and that looks really cool!

submit

The next step is to add CSS from a public skin to your own. I use "ByLine" by Branch. this separates the tag categories and adds spacing to make them easier to read.

here is a before and after using the fic "Landslide" by @roosterbruiser as an example

to see the CSS of a skin, click the title

copy all the text below the CSS heading

in the skin creator/editor press the custom CSS option and paste all the text into the CSS box

you can have both wizard and custom CSS settings, in mine you can see the header and accent colours as well as the CSS

level up: USERSCRIPTS

userscripts are small pieces of code that modify a website. for AO3, this may involve adding shortcuts and buttons or even advanced tagging functions (computer people, I'm so sorry if this is wrong, I'm trying). I use Greasy Fork and Tampermonkey.

This is how I write long and formatted comments!

Greasy Fork is an archive of userscripts and Tampermonkey is a browser extension and userscript manager. You don't need to use these two in particular. please use your common sense when downloading anything or adding permissions to your browser.

Greasy Fork guide on installing fics

Install Tampermonkey on Chrome

there are TONS of user scripts for AO3. This is another good opportunity to explore all the possibilities. there are lots of more complicated options I haven't explored.

scripts for AO3

i use this floaty review box

and this comment formatting

EDIT: if you use chrome you might need to turn on developer mode in your chrome extension manager - you can google "tampermonkey developer mode" and it should explain that :)

to install (once you have Tampermonkey installed):

open the script you want in Greasy Fork and press install

Tampermonkey will open, press install again

clicking the Tampermonkey extension will let you toggle scripts on and off, and opening the dashboard will let you view, edit, and delete scripts

i find i can only have a few turned on at a time before they cancel each other out, but that depends on which ones you're using and someone more savvy might be able to fix that

how to use the floaty review box - write more comments!

there will now be a "floaty review box" button at the top of the work, it will open a floating text box you can move anywhere on the page. highlighting any text and pressing the insert button will paste the text with italics into the box

anything you type in the review box will appear in your comment at the bottom of the page!

if you have also installed the comment formatting script, you'll be able to highlight any text in your comment and use the new buttons above the comment box to format it

thats all ive got! Hopefully this is a good starting point to get familiar with some of the terms and basics for skins and scripts <3

if you want some inspo for how to comment on fics i made a whole fic rec list on twitter based on comments I've left, it's here. i have a masterlist of recs there mostly for darklina/reylo and similar ships.

the tag #reading with ru has cod recs and me talking about books

#please no one follow me from this im never helpful otherwise #ao3 skins #ao3 #fanfic #ao3 community #fandom #ao3 resources #im sorry if the image quality is awful lmk if I should clarify any of the text!#floating comment box #floating review box #ao3 guide

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featguler · 5 months ago

Note

hii your fics are written so well it’s captivating and beautiful!!

can u write sumn abt attempting to find out if the reader is single or available w kylian :)

heard the risk is drownin' ────── kylian is charging straight in.

♡ ────── pairing : kylian mbappé x reader ♡ ────── tags : reader's gender, ethnicity, nationality, and appearance is not specified, but they are described to be smaller than kylian. set in the cannes film festival; reader is a film scholar/film critic and is teaching at a university. reader doesnt have an insta sorry i gotta make this easy for me. kylian is down baaaaad he's also kind of assholeish here but he's also hot so idc. NOT PROOFREAD!! ♡ ────── wordcount : 1,277 ♡ ────── notes : this is such a cute request!! i love him so much, thank you for requesting this 🥺 disclaimer ive never been to cannes but i wish i have. this is a good luck one-shot for france tonight!! title based on risk by gracie abrams ♡ masterlist.

Kylian wants you.

It’s clear to see ever since a friend invited him to her private, directorial debut screening. Filled with pretentious film commentators, Kylian almost questioned his sanity in accepting this seemingly random invitation from a friend he knew from Catholic school over ten years ago.

Almost.

Almost, because you were the lighthouse that helped him navigate the mist that night. During dinner, you seemed oblivious to his superstar status, and initiate the conversation you shared with a fun and lighthearted question about his favorite movie.

“I didn’t know,” you laughed to yourself when he told you he was the Mbappè from 2018’s FIFA World Cup, “Sorry. I guess not everything revolves around films.”

Contrary to others in the revel, you were able to communicate in a way he understands—you didn’t sigh when revealed that he had never seen (heard of, even) a film you mentioned, and you were able to eloquently steer the course of your conversation in a way that is both enjoyable but also challenging for him.

Paired with the way your eyes twinkle under the dim lighting, just like that, he was in love.

And he wants you.

It’s simple for everyone that knows him to see. He repeats your name under his breath—the only thing he learned that night—and shakes his head when he recalls that he cannot find you anywhere.

He wants you. He wants you bad.

He thinks you’re cheeky. When he searches your name up on Google, all that came up were the papers you had written to contribute to multiple visual culture journals and books, or an article of a film you wrote published by a third party website from six months ago. No Instagram account, no Facebook account, no nothing.

Kylian tries asking his agent at least 50,000 times, but it’s not like his agent, or any sports agent for that matter, would have the connection to set him up with someone like you.

And he would ask fucking Clémentine, but she gatekeeps information about you like she is a shepherd clinging on her last dozen sheeps, leaving his messages on read and calls unanswered. Being Kylian Mbappè does not help him at all. Even being her friend does not help him at all.

He guesses that he could send you an email, but what’s attractive about that? He’s desperate, but not desperate in the sense that he would write an email on his iPad and send it to you like some kind of student hoping for a raise in grades. He’s a damn footballer. What he wants to do is take you out on a nice dinner before bringing you back to his house, not ask you to collaborate on an academic paper about film semiotics—or whatever these papers talk about.

And that leads us to today. Let's set the scene.

The time: the first Saturday of the Cannes Film Festival 2024, first screening of the day; the place: the Cannes Film Festival, Cannes, France; and the characters: Kylian Mbappè Lottin, fucking Clémentine, and you.

Well, he doesn’t know where the fuck Clémentine is, and he couldn’t give less of a fuck where Clémentine is.

Somehow, he ended up finding a spot to sit to your right, and instead of taking in the highly anticipated work of a certain Greek director, Kylian leaned to place his cheek on a closed fist supported by his elbow against the arm rest, occasionally glancing to his left in hopes to get a glimpse of your eyes against the bright screen, testing in every crinkle on your face when a certain scene was shot in a way that amused you.

When will another one of such invaluable opportunities rise?

“So,” As soon as the standing ovation dies down and the theatre lights are turned back on, Kylian turns to you, starting a conversation. “What did you think?”

“Wonderful,” still dazzled, the smile remains etched on your lips. “Unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, I swear.”

“Oh, wow.” he laughs, placing a palm against his mouth for a moment. “And I’m here thinking that you’ve seen more films than the average person.”

“Oh, yeah,” you nod, immediately catching up to his playful tone, “I’ve seen at least five movies.”

Quiet laughter is shared between the two of you, and Kylian feels a familiar, comfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. “So that makes this the sixth movie that you’ve watched?”

“In my entire lifetime, yes,” you giggle.

Kylian bites his lips before rubbing the side of his neck, for a short moment which he hopes you don’t notice the anxiety brewing within him. “Well, this is my first film, actually. So I was really excited to watch it.”

“Five more to go,” you notice everyone else beginning to stand up, patiently waiting for their turn to escape from their row and exit the theatre. “Then maybe you’ll have half the experience I do.”

The tone of your reply draws out another laugh from him.

Damn.

All he does is laugh when you are around. You must be the funniest person he’s ever met.

“So,” Kylian clears his throat when you stand, following your suit. “What’s your plan after this?”

“Clémentine and I are thinking of sharing a pizza down the street for lunch before returning for the 2 PM showing,” you shake the watch around your wrist before looking back at him with a dazzling smile. “What about you?”

“Clémentine?” Kylian muses, hoping to get some kind of reaction out of you. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.”

“What’s with that face?” You begin walking behind the person before you, still somewhat facing him. “I’m sure. You must be busy.”

“Eh, it’s all just show. I got nothing to do most of the times,” he raises his shoulders with a grin. “Well, what’s after the 2 PM screening?”

“I’ve got papers to grade,” you sigh, feeling a slight chill when the summer breeze brushes over your skin the moment you both step outside the studio. You squint your eyes at the sun, turning to him. “Wish I could stay around longer, but I’ve got responsibilities.”

Kylian tilts his head, still smiling at you. “Yeah? I was actually thinking that I can take you out for dinner tonight.”

You blink, and turns your body so that you were fully facing him—only then do you realize how big he looks: his broad shoulders, the shape of his chest pressed under his thin shirt.

“Oh,” you stammer, taking a step back once you noticed how close you two are standing to each other. “I– uh, you know—”

“Responsibilities?” He asks with a light chuckle. “That’s fine. Another night?”

Kylian watches your pupils dilate, shifting to every single thing around you except for him, avoiding eye contact at all cost. “That’s very kind of you, it’s just—”

Then, it clicked on him.

“Oh,” he says with a furrow of his eyebrows, lips pressing into a frown. “Boyfriend?”

You clear your throat, and the nod you give him is timid, but it is a nod.

Kylian takes a deep breath, burying both his hands in his pockets, for a moment staring off into the distance, before turning back to you with a gentle smile.

“Then,” he closes the gap to you with a step, looking around for a moment, before leaning in to whisper in your ear. “When you break up with him, let me know. I’d love to take you out for dinner.”

And casually, he straightens his back.

“I’ll see you around,” he laughs softly with a wink, raising his hand to wave at you as he walks away.

#໒꒰ྀི´ ˘ ` ꒱ྀིა : 𝑬𝑼𝑷𝑯𝑶𝑹𝑰𝑨 𝑺𝑶𝑳𝑨𝑹𝑰𝑨 #kylian mbappe #mbappe #kylian mbappe x reader #mbappe x reader #real madrid #real madrid fic #real madrid x reader #football fic #football x reader #kylian mbappé x reader #mbappé #mbappé x reader #kylian mbappé #one-shot

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marilynthornhilllover · 4 months ago

Text

To Become A Dragon Rider

Rhaenyra .Targaryen X Fem!Reader

Warning: smut 18+, breast sucking, speaking in high valerian, french kissing , slight masturbation, choking , mommy kink, tamed kink, praise kink, fingering, riding of fingers, Rhaenyra being controlling and dominant.

N.B: the valerian translation is not perfect, I used the shows translation,the rest I got from Google so forgive me if it is not 100% accurate.

As the queen's loyal advisor and hand it was your swore duty to inform her when her plans or acts were outrageous or not align with what the realms wishes. Rhaenyra was planning to send Elinda to king's landing to recruit all the long forgotten targaryen bastard that were swept under the carpet and kept hidden for years.

Her plan was to bring them to dragonstone to have them claim a dragon. Either vermithor or sliverwing. You tried to talk her grace out of the corruptible act. It was beyond dangerous to even think about nonetheless to even put a foot to attempt. It was a huge risk, and rhaenyra knew that but so did the dragonseeds.

Also, wherein doing this act she weakens Jacaerys' claim to the throne and his birth right to succeed her when she dies. It was no lie that Jace was a basterd, everyone knew that. Perhaps when rhaenyra laid with ser harwin she didn't think others will know, maybe didn't think he'd take his hair color....

They knew that without a doubt in the world that the chance that stood before them claiming a dragon was perhaps none. Dragons were said to be Gods, what makes a targaryen different from men. And the price you pay for attempting to claim one was death.... your life was the price.

Having a dragon was jace's only excuse to the claim that he wasn't a basterd, because basterds couldn't ride on dragons yet with this his excuse falls short of it's validity. You tried breaking it down for her in the sweetest most understandable way possible, but rhaenyra was a targaryen. And whatever she wishes, she shall have.

You walked slowly behind her, both of you followed by guards as you entered into the hall. Rhaenyra immediately stopped when one of her dragonkeepers approaches her.

" heksir Daor sȳrī issa ( this is not well!)" He speaks, clearly angrily. Rhaenyra stops and looks back glancing at you before she proceeds to walk again.

" Skoros ȳdrassis hen? ( what do you speak of)?" She asks, clearly confused. He huffs as he angrily approaches rhaenyra but takes awareness of her guards eyeing him closely.

" Issa vali se nyke jāhor daor gūrogon isse bisa! ( my men and I will not take part in this madness)" he says as he eyes rhaenyra up and down before storming off, the other dragonkeepers following quickly behind with their heads bowed. Rhaenyra clenched her jaw before she sighs.

She looked around the room, eyeing all of those who stood before her, the dragonseeds. A small half smile appears on her face and she approaches them. Taking a deep inhale she speaks up.

" I know that each of you have left behind a life to answer this call, a life to which you may never return to, but I assure you that if you survive you will be transferred, no man can claim a dragon and be otherwise" she says walking around the room, carefully inspecting everyone. Trying to pinpoint the braves ones, the weak ones and of course the ones with little hearts but big dreams. The ones who just want a better life perhaps.

But with a dragon does not come a better life, with a dragon comes war, death, privation, starvation. Rhaenyra continues to talk and you zone out. All your childhood you've only ever wanted to become a dragon rider, to feel what it feels like to be a kin, to serve the realm. You knew that it was never going to happen. Only the blood of dragon can conquer and tame their own kind, dragons.

You loved rhaenyra, she was the realms delight, you vowed to serve her faithful and truthfully until death. And you'd stop at nothing until she sits her throne.

" the dragon" Hearing her voice again you immediately snap out of your thoughts, not wanting to miss anything important and suffer the consequences of it.

" named vermithor, is the largest in the world after vhagar and perhaps the most fierce" she pauses and looks up at you before her eyes connects with the ceiling.

" he's called the bronze fury, we'll go to him now" she picks up her cloak and walks towards the door that leads to the hallway of the dragon cave before she stops again.

" and...may the God's bless you" she then nodds and continues to make her way out of the room. Everyone following behind. Everyone follows her onto the platform and they all look around in awe. You keep your distance, staying in the entrance of the hall. Rhaenyra walks all the way towards the end of the platform and turns around to face everyone.

" naejot māzīs vermithor" she commands, her valyrian accent was thick and the way she rolled her R's was stunning. You bit your lip and tried to control your breathing, you were well aware of the little crush you had on rhaenyra for the longest time but as time grew and you became her hand was it was certain that your love for her also grew.

You never hid your feelings from rhaenyra, she knew. You almost had a chance with her but then she was married off to laenor, then daemon. But now that daemon was in harrenhall the chemistry and tension between the both of you had been growing more and more each passing day. You tried to contain yourself and while it was working there were certain things she did that made your skin hot.

A deafening silence can be heard before a low rumbling erupts after rhaenyra spoke and everyone gasps and grabs onto the nearest wall or person beside them. The sound of claw scrapping and a loud growl echos from beneath the surface of the platform and rhaenyra turns around as vermithor emerges from the depths of the darkness. Everyone shudders as they look up at the enormous beast completely terrified.

The beast screeches and opens it's mouth wide, it's long and sharp teeth showing as a threat. Rhaenyra doesn't flinch or move, facing vermithor head on without fear.

" vermithor lykiri" she says, her tone soft and calm yet the creature is surly aware of the power she holds as a targaryen but after years of not having a rider and being locked up with pent up stress the dragon seems restless. Vermithor growls and places her wing on the platform causing a piece of it to break as the others behind step back in terror as their Hearts pounded rapidly in their chest.

" lykiri!" Rhaenyra shouts and the dragon looks down at her and pulls back before he growls loudly, the large sum of air slightly pushing against Rhaenyra but she doesn't move with it.

" DOHĀRĪS!" She shouted again but this time for demanding and the beast finally obeys, closing it's mouth, he slowly pushes his head towards her grace in a calm surrendering way. Rhaenyra gently and peacefully places her hand on him and he closes his eyes and breathes. Rhaenyra smirks and turns around.

" who amongst you will be first?" She asks, her voice thick and sultry, slightly husk too from shouting. There's a slight pause before someone steps forward. Everyone looks at him and he looks at rhaenyra, complete fear bounds in his eyes. Rhaenyra's eyes flick up to yours and for a moment she holds your gaze.

In her bright green eyes all you see swirling in them is desire and need. For what you do not know. She may or may not end this day with new dragon riders, but the hardest task was getting dragonseeds to begin with. You feel ashamed of it but a feeling of wetness can be felt between in your legs as she continues to challenge you with her vicious gaze.

You could slowly feel yourself getting hot. Maybe it was the air, or perhaps maybe due to being in a dragon cave with little to no ventilation or maybe it was the look in rhaenyra's eyes. As if she wanted to devour you. You'll be honest hearing her speak in high valerian with her accent did things to you, it wasn't the first occasion but it was certainly the first time you heard her speak in such demanding tone.

Suddenly you wanted to be at her mercy and command, on your knees maybe.... have her praise you in high valerian. Command you, shout at you. You've always been thankful rhaenyra wasn't cruel to you, but seeing her strict side made you think of all the things she could do to you do to you.

Maybe you wanted to see that side of her. The tension began to rise and you felt as your chest getting heavier with every breath you took, you swallowed heavily and quickly averted your gaze, upon doing this you walked swiftly towards the queen's chambers. When's she finished she'll return. You weren't supposed to leave her side at all, you weren't even to leave the room without her permission but you couldn't stand there a second longer.

You may explode.

When rhaenyra saw you leave in such a haste she too quickly dismissed herself.

" I have nothing more to tell you, it must be the dragon who speaks" she says, nodding to everyone as she quickly fled the place.

You closed the door behind yourself and walked towards her desk. You placed both hands at the side of the table in attempt to steady yourself. You felt light headed, you could feel your own juices pooling at the inner parts of your thighs. Slipping your hand into your underwear you felt your wetness, moaning softly at how sensitive you were as well.

You began to rub slow circles around your bud gripping the table even tighter as soft whimpers slipped from your lips.

" why did you leave?" You jumped, totally caught off guard by the sudden intrusion you swiftly spun on your toes to see rhaenyra standing at the door. All the color drains from your face and your convinced she can see how sticky your fingers are as they are coated with your own juices. Rhaenyra eyed you her eyebrows quirked as she patiently awaited your answer.

You swallowed thickly your voice even breaking as you spoke.

" i— I uh— forgive me your grace but I'm afraid I do not have an excuse" you said looking everywhere but at her eyes, biting your lips you watch as she slowly approaches you. Her eyes glued on yours, a predator stare, for you, her prey. Every step she took towards you was one step backwards for you until she had you completely caged in. No space to run, just the wall, you and her.

Your breathing intensified when she pressed her body weight on yours. Her eyes traced down your body before they suddenly snapped back up to your eyes a new found darkness lingering within them. You are caught off guard when rhaenyra roughly forces her hand around your neck. You gasp as your hands flew to the hand that was wrapped around your neck.

There is a predatory hunger, dark and urgent, in the way she stares at you. It makes you want to shrink into yourself or even disappear. It frightens you the way she stares into your soul, but not as much as the urge you have to simply give in to her. The room feels too hot, your skin blazes and you grow wetter between your thighs, guilt eating away at you for it.

You are broken from your thoughts when rhaenyra's hand cups your mound beneath your skirt, her lips parting slightly as she feels the arousal gathered there. Your eyes go wide and you try to move your hips away but you remember your trapped between her and the wall. You swallow a moan when her hand pushes itself pass your undergarment and into your panties.

" you dare to lie to me?" she whispers her voice smooth and dripping with honey but you heard the rasp of demand lingering within. She smirks when she sees your eyes go dim and your breath hitches when her finger hovers cover the entrance of your cunt, she could feel the wetness pouring out on the digit as she slowly drags it back up to your clit teasing the small bud.

You feel her squeeze your neck tighter, urging you to answer her. You didn't know what to say, your brain had already became clouded with the possibilities of what she could do to you right now.

" i—fuck rhaenyra, I mean my grace, it's your high valerian accent" you answered, Rhaenyra removes her hand from your neck and positioned it at your hip, her grip on you firm as ever. Her body heat radiating off her making you more hot. Your head falls back against the wall and your eyes close when you feel her enter two fingers inside of you.

" your gonna ride my fingers like the good slut you are" she muttered against your lips as she leaned in to kiss you. Her lips were just as soft as you had imagined if not better. Her hand moved up your side and back up towards your neck but this time she didnt choke you, she just allowed her hand to rest there.

She forced another one of her digits inside of you which caused you to let out a pornographic moan to which she swallowed. Your eyes rolled back at the intense and sudden intrusion, the stretch had you collapsing on her shoulder as your knees gave out and your legs quivered.

Her tongue wondered in the depths of your mouth as she French kissed you. Her tongue completely enveloping yours and sucking on it as you slowly dragged your hips forward and backwards riding rhaenyra's fingers, whimpering like a needy dog. Rhaenyra broke the kiss and pulled away, chuckling when you chased after her lips.

She curled her fingers in you and once again your head fell back against the stone cold wall behind you. You started moving your hips at a faster pace as you slowly began to fall apart on her slender fingers. Rhaenyra could feel you clenching around her fingers as your juices dripped from them.

Rhaenyra started making a circular motion with her fingers as her hand grabbed your hip again and started forcing you up and down. You grabbed onto her shoulders to stabilize yourself as you trashed against her. Your sure that any passbyers could hear your moans and the squelching sound of her fingers connecting with that spongy spot in you.

" Sȳz riña ( good girl)" she purred as she started thrusting her fingers as deep as they can go, knuckle length in you. You could feel your cunt spamming around her as you neared your climax. You needed it badly, but rhaenyra was not going to allow you to cum so easily.

" That's it, good girl, such a good girl" she whispered, her lips made contact with your neck as she gently began to suck on the tender flesh, she knew she couldn't mark you, but a part of her wanted to. Wanted to make it known to everyone that you were hers. Daemon might as well have not existed anymore because it was you rhaenyra wanted, and she always gets what she wants.

" Pleasepleaseplease, Rhaenyra please I want it so bad please let me cum" you cried trying your hardest not to let go and fall into oblivion. Rhaenyra chuckled but said nothing. She continued to bruise your skin with kisses and marks. You muttered a soft " oh fuck" when he fingers managed to drive deeper into your pussy when you lifted your hips.

" perhaps you should beg me in valerian.... if you so desperately want it of course" you could feel her smirk against you when you whined. She was going to be the absolute death of you. You started thinking of ways in which you could translate yourself, thinking back on all the times you heard her speak valerian or heard someone else spoke valerian.

You didn't know much, and your pronunciation was always off, you did understand when others spoke it but it had always seemed like trouble when you tried to speak it for yourself. Rhaenyra's fingers curve deeper into your cunt which causes you to cry out as your nails drag against the wall.

" shhh, time is ticking ñuha Rāqnon ( my love )" she husked, her pace picking up. A silent scream surpassed your lips and your eyes squeezed shut, her fingers in you felt so good your hips still moving against them.

" ijiōragon ( please)" you whispered as tears pricked the corners of your eyes as they snapped open to find her already staring. The animalistic look in her eyes was almost enough to make you entirely make a mess on her fingers.

" Kostagon nyke māzigon? ( may I come)" you asked and she smirked.

" Nyke ȳdra daor gīmigon ( I don't know )" she replied, at this point she was playing games with you, She was sending you crazy. Her fingers in you were moving at a pace you didn't even know was humanly possible. She had them so far deep in you, you felt every movement. You clenched down around her as your eyes rolled back. God she took up so much space in you.

If anyone were to enter and see this scene they would only think of you as a slut from henceforth. But you didn't care.

You could feel your orgam approaching and so did she. She could feel how needy you were for it. The way you were clenching around her. She pulls out her fingers half way and slam them deep into you. She started thrusting hard into your g spot with her fingers deeply curled into you. You could feel the knot in your stomach already forming.

Your hands immediately grab her hair, pulling against it and straching your nails against her scalp.

" good God's rhaenyra please— fuck!" Your eyes roll back and your back arches slightly off the wall as your orgasm hits you like a passing train. Your breathing is heavy and your legs were trembling if not for her strong grip on you, you would have crumbled to the ground. After you came down from your high your reopened your eyes and you are immediately met with rhaenyra's primal gaze.

" remove your cloak" you were confused by her demand but you obeyed her order and removed your cloak. Rhaenyra finished the job and undid the lace to your dress to expose your breast. You gasped when he pinched the small bud to your left breast causing it to become more erect. Her eyes flicked up towards yours as she smirked at you.

Her lips found your left nipple as she attached her mouth to it. Sucking gently her hand slid up your back pressing your chest into her face more. You tilted your head back a bit and allowed her to pull and twist your small bud with her tongue like a baby. Rhaenyra's other hand came up to your other neglected breast and began groping it. You moaned softly and closed your eyes as you gave into the feeling.

Rhaenyra released your nipple with a 'pop' as Slavia dragged from her mouth to the bud before she envelope the other nipple into her mouth and started twisting the bud, slightly chewing on it even. You whined but it was quickly cut off when the door knob rattled and twisted. Rhaenyra quickly removed herself from you and you grabbed your cloak and put it back on.

The door swings opens and rhaenyra's sworn knight steps through. Rhaenyra pretends to inspect the floor as she clears her throat and you turn your body so that your back would be facing the door.

" your grace, pardon the sudden intrusion but the dragon vermithor has chosen it's new rider.... you must come now" he says Clearly out of breath. Rhaenyra nods turning to look at you but you avoided her gaze. She clenches her jaw and looks down before looking back up at the knight. She walks swiftly pass him as he turns to follow her, closing the door on his way out he looks at you suspiciously.

When they both left you sighed a breath of relief. Today was a day, Rhaenyra's plan did work. Getting Vermithor and sliverwing a rider was successful. But Hugh and ulf weren't the only ones who got to ride and dragon today, you rode a special one in it's chambers......

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