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#and make them not be humans with microscopic differences
I am Desperate to hear more of your mk worldbuilding headcanons (also, your art is stunning)
Aaaa thank you 💕 Don’t worry I got you
Zaterrans are modern human’s missing ancestor.
Male Osh-Tekk are teal while females are brown. They also have feathers instead of hair with bird hands and feet.
Edenia has a huge veiling culture.
The Kollector was the one who brought Sento to Outworld, Shang Tsung purchased it from him.
Khao is made entirely of islands completely disconnected from each other (ex. desert island right next to a swamp island). On the other hand Seido is one large continent with little biodiversity.
Omegis is the baba yaga.
Cyromancers naturally have fast heartbeats because their heart is trying to compensate for how cold their bodies are.
Most folklore creatures come from races and animals from different realms accidentally crossing a rift.
There aren’t many coastal settlements in Outworld because the merging of realms always causes flooding.
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the-ancient-dragons · 11 days
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The last Overcomplicated Pantalan tribe; LeafWings!
You know how it goes. I'm just me and Joy and Tui are awesome and amazing.
Details and explanation below.
Otherwise, next week is something new! You'll get to meet one of my fantribes >:)
More overcomplicated dragons.
With the LeafWing, I struggled to decide what approach to take. Should I do something closer to canon or go crazy and do 100% my go-to headcanon?
Because my go-to headcanon is that LeafWings should have four wings. I found it odd that they and SilkWings both come from Pyrrhia, but SilkWings (technically BeetleWings) were the only tribe that evolved four wings? I hesitated to even mention this in my HiveWing post because idk how popular this opinion is, but even the fact that Clearsight's arrival somehow split the BeetheWings into two WILDLY different tribes is astounding, with how long dragons live.
But that's not the point of this post. We're here for LeafWings and buckle up, it's a doozy.
So first of all, the reason I justified a four-winged LeafWing is to help it camouflage as a plant better. I'll eventually provide a sheet of this, but it would have two main defence modes, the first being a single-leaf version where they lie flat on the ground or stand still with their wings drooping, creating the silhouette of a single leaf, or a version where they hang on the end of a branch and hold their wings and tail out.
It isn't just their wings that creates this look. I took the original single sail and split it in two, based on the ribs of a draco lizard, and had them run along the sides of its neck. When spread, they are a part of the single-leaf camouflage and bridge the gap between the head and shoulders. They would also have more similar frills on their front and back legs in case they need to camouflage standing up. They could use this for hunting or hiding...
Continuing with the bug-avian beak mix, I referenced african parrot species and leafcutter ants. The highly altered head is based on horned frogs and leaf geckos, and I obviously based the colouration and patterning on leaf insects (though the lighting kind of hides it on the back of the head, lol). Last but not least, I wanted to preserve and enhance the leaf cell design Joy used for the scattered body scales (at least, I'm 90% sure it's for that purpose, it seems most obvious). So, like any sane human, I found photos of plant cells under microscopes and used the rectangular-ish shapes for the main body scales.
I had so much fun making this series. It seems like a lot of people enjoyed it as much as I did. I learned a lot about external anatomy and mixing different creatures to achieve unified designs.
School is doing its best to murder me (I can't do big pieces) so from now on I'll have to stick to loose sketches I can do in-class or doodle within an hour. But once we learn more about bones and muscles I'll be able to take a crack at analyzing the full bodies of some of the tribes. I'll go in whatever order I see fit.
In the meantime, I've got some Fantribes for you, starting next week! See you then!
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whatsnewalycat · 5 months
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SURRENDER
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Part Two of Ruthless | Stepdad Joel Miller x f!Reader
Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY)
Word Count: 6.2k+
Warnings: non-canon, Boston Joel, dub con, step-cest, sneaky sex, use of the word daddy in a sexual context, dad kink (that’s a thing right?), age gap, degradation, praise kink, avoidance, silent treatment, sneaking into bedroom at night, angst, collective grief, mentions of explosions and gunshots (nothing graphic), *it’s about the yearning*, hair pulling, no physical descriptions of reader aside from hair can be pulled, reader is 18-19, Joel being a bad dom and a bad caretaker, hot shower, food mention, mentions of religion, unethical D/s dynamics, dry humping, anal sex, physical restraint, face fucking, sub-space unlocked, dirty talk, dd/lg maybe i think, masochism, like a lick of fluff if u squint 
A/N: Heeeey buddy. As stated above, this is a second part to Ruthless. Big thanks to my love @frannyzooey for the help and hype, you're the best. Please be mindful of the warnings and tell me what cults you think exist in post-outbreak tlou.
[ my masterlist ] [ taglist ] [ AO3 ]
———
As the 19-year anniversary of Outbreak Day draws near, unrest festers in the streets of Boston.
Whenever August ticks over into September, residents of the QZ seem to divide into three distinct categories: people who want to forget, people who won’t let them forget, and people who are too young to remember. 
Born post-apocalypse, you fall into this third category. 
Which doesn’t mean the ripples of loss don’t touch you, contrary to what some may think. You still lost something. Everyone did. 
This fact is apparent when you take the scenic route home from your job posting at the distribution center. 
Rubble crunches under your shoes as you walk down the crowded sidewalk, passing by a message spray-painted over the battered brick building: WE’VE BEEN FORSAKEN. 
Graffitied sentiments like these pop up constantly this time of year. Overnight, almost. Your mom and Joel mostly blame Fireflies for the vandalism. The bombs, too. Apparently they stir shit up to make people uneasy, then recruit those who seem susceptible. That’s what your mom thinks, anyway. ‘Leveraging their grief against them,’ she says. 
You think it might be more than that, though. 
Yesterday you saw three separate arguments break out in the streets. When you were taking inventory of k-rations this morning, an explosion went off so close-by that boxes rattled off the shelves. It was the second bombing this week, and you don’t foresee it getting better until October. 
Sure, the Fireflies lay claim to the lion’s share of vandalism and destruction, but their activity is consistent year round. They are the baseline. But this? This is different. 
You attribute the excess chaos to this heavy, static feeling in the air. It clings to your skin and gets stuck under your nails like a thick cloud of invisible dust or spores. Microscopic particles embed themselves in the cracks and creases of each person inside the QZ, fertile ground for clusters of violence to sprout up at every turn. 
If you had to guess, you’d say this phenomenon probably spans the globe. All of you felt the loss of Outbreak Day, the whole human collective. Echoes of what humanity lost will likely still be heard a thousand years from now. 
Some people refuse to accept this. 
Like the guy a few strides ahead of you, who walks by an orange spray-painted message that reads REMEMBER WHAT YOU LOST and sneers, “Almost twenty goddamn years, fuckin’ let it go and move on.” 
You watch him. See his neck get all red as he mutters to himself and clenches his fists at his sides. He looks around like he expects someone to challenge him. Nobody does. 
This doesn’t seem to satisfy him. 
Further up the sidewalk, he encounters a memorial made up of candles and wilting flowers hugging the side of a residential building. He kicks it over and repeats his earlier sentiment, this time louder and directed towards the brick wall. 
“It’s been twenty fucking years, get the fuck over it already!” 
Of course, a passing spectator indulges him. 
“Hey—watch it, asshole!” 
The two men puff up their chests and start yelling back and forth, so you cut right down an alleyway to avoid the situation completely. 
When you arrive home, you find Joel at the dining room table, hunched over a map, holding a glass of whiskey like it’s a lifeline. 
Neither of you say hello, but when you glance up while untying your gritty shoelaces, you catch him staring at you. 
A jolt of electricity shoots through you. 
He corrects himself, returning his eyes to the map as he takes a big swig from his glass. 
“Mom home?” 
“No.” 
Nodding, you rise to your feet and slip out of your shoes, squirming with the excitement that one syllable brings you. 
“When’s she gonna be home?” 
He doesn’t look at you. Just shrugs and takes a sip of whiskey, too engrossed in his project to spare you attention. 
For weeks, he’s been trying his hardest to pretend you don’t exist, which would be typical behavior if he didn’t fuck you dumb a few weeks ago. Sometimes you’re not even sure that what happened between you was real. 
But, then again, sometimes… sometimes you feel him staring at you when he doesn’t think you’ll notice. Sometimes he touches your waist as he passes by. Sometimes at night you hear him pacing the hall outside your bedroom, the faint squeak of the warped floorboards giving him away. 
When this happens, you stare at the door and will him to do it. Aching with something stronger than want, you pray for him to cross the threshold. But he never does. 
You exhale through slack lips and wrinkle your nose at the canned goods. 
“Hungry?”
He grunts in response, which is Joel for ‘I could eat.’
Tilting your head at the handwritten labels, you present the options, “Stew or… meat and beans?” 
Another grunt, roughly translating to ‘Both options are fucking terrible,’ a sentiment with which you wholeheartedly agree. You grab the stew and empty it into a saucepan on the gas stovetop. 
While it heats, you steal glances at Joel, noticing the rigidity in his demeanor. His set jaw and tense muscles. The deep creases in his furrowed brow. 
You’ve coexisted with him long enough to understand he’s not immune to the heady thrum of anguish in the air this time of year. Like you said, nobody is. 
Joel distinctly falls into the “people who want to forget” category of the forsaken, but carries whatever or whoever he lost on Outbreak Day like a ten thousand-pound weight on his broad shoulders. He white-knuckles his way through the season of chaos and mourning and tries to act like it doesn’t affect him, but it does. 
You can tell, not just from the way he holds the grief captive in his body, but also from the obvious indulgence in his favorite coping mechanism: planning. 
Joel is a meticulous planner. 
Between smuggling runs, he comes home after a long day of manual labor at some job site and unwinds by plotting logistics. Drinking, too, but he clearly has a favorite. 
Hours will go by while he pours over reference material, maps or blueprints, making addendums of any notable changes he and your mom discovered. After this, he deliberates. Joel could chew up weeks with this step. He plots out each possible route, taking into consideration all the penciled-in shortcuts and caches they’ve stashed within a 30-mile radius, then determines the most beneficial path for their next big adventure. 
Given FEDRA’s current paranoid state, with the increased patrols and surveillance and whatnot, your mom and Joel won’t be making a trip outside anytime soon. But still, he drinks and plots and winds himself up into a tight obsessive knot. 
You divvy up the simmering stew into two bowls, placing one next to his glass of bootleg booze while you take a seat across the table from him. He ignores your presence, just flicks his eyes around the map like it’s supposed to give him the answers. 
When you’re halfway done with your bowl, you gently prod him, “It’s gonna get cold.” 
Sitting up in his chair, he sighs and scrubs his face with his hands, then folds up the map and sets it aside. 
The two of you eat in silence. Each wordless second twists hot beneath your skin. Your mind wanders to the dig of his fingertips in your soft flesh. The sting of his flattened palm. The stretch of his thick cock. The things he said to you—fuck.  
You’re tempted to tell him to do it again. To tell him that you’re still abiding by his rules. That you don’t sneak out anymore. That you haven’t felt the sweet bliss of release for weeks because you don’t fucking come without his permission. 
Over and over, you rehearse it in your head. You imagine yourself telling him, ‘I’ve been so good for you and you haven’t even noticed.’
The sound of him clearing his throat pulls you from your thoughts. 
He shifts in his seat a little, studying you, “You still seein’ that boy downstairs?” 
Your heart stutters. Heat floods your veins as you shake your head. 
“Why not?” 
All you can do is stare at him while trying to verbalize an answer. For weeks, you ached for his attention. And now that you have it? The words are stuck in your throat. 
You shrug, pushing your empty bowl away to lean your elbows on the table. When you look up at him again, he blinks. Waiting for a response. 
A rush of adrenaline makes the world around you buzz. 
“Why do you care?”
He clenches his jaw for a moment, then parts his lips to respond. 
The apartment door swings open. 
Both of you start at the intrusion. You jump to your feet to collect the dirty dishes while Joel turns to greet your mother. 
“It’s a fucking madhouse out there,” she grumbles, then pulls out the seat adjacent to him and starts telling him about her day. 
———
You step into the shower and hiss in reaction to the scalding hot water. 
The fact that it's warmed at all surprises you. Not an unwelcome surprise, even if it hurts a little. Most days the water comes out tepid at best, and you’d gladly accept a third-degree burn over a lukewarm shower. 
Besides, the sting feels right on your skin, as weird as that sounds. You relish the pain while washing yourself, thinking, ‘this is what I deserve for feeling this way.’ Hell fire, if the sidewalk preachers are right. If there is such a thing. If you’re not there already. 
Only once the water runs cold do you turn it off and go back to your room, leaving the door cracked open behind you. After putting on a big t-shirt and some underwear, you turn off the lights and climb into bed. 
For a while you stare at the water-stained ceiling and listen. You hear the roar of FEDRA’s armed vehicles patrolling the streets. Far away, gunshots ring out into the night. Some kid starts crying next door, then his mother lulls him back to sleep. 
Closing your eyes, you try to tune it all out and focus on the noises within this unit. Concentrate on the drip-drip-drip of the bathtub faucet. The ripping sound of your mom’s snores. 
Then, you hear it. 
A creak from the floorboards. Footsteps. 
Their bedroom door squeaking open. 
Everything goes silent long enough for you hold your breath and scream inside your head, please please please—
It starts again. One careful step, then another. 
His presence hovers there at the door for six restless seconds before he opens it and steps inside, closing it behind him. 
Your pounding heart squeezes your breath ragged. It comes out this shallow, shaky push and pull that broadcasts your consciousness. 
Still, you pretend. 
You keep your eyes pinned shut and listen to the advance of his footsteps to your bedside. 
Down by your feet, the mattress shifts under his weight. He doesn’t touch you for a while, only watches you, his gaze burning into your skin. 
Then, he murmurs, “I know you’re not sleepin’.” 
You blink your eyes open to look at him, in boxers and an undershirt, all hunched over at the foot of your bed. Always carrying that weight on his shoulders. The glow of the street lamp outside your bedroom window casts this perfect golden light on him that makes you kind of hate how good he looks. 
“What are you doing?” you ask in a whisper. 
Over the blanket, he rests his hand on your calf, then takes it back and shakes his head. 
You roll onto your side, swinging one leg over the blanket and tucking it between your thighs, a wordless plea for him to touch your hungry skin. Joel shifts further onto the bed, turning his body to stare down at you with a straight spine. His gaze drifts up your exposed skin, fingers twitching in his lap. 
This faltering self-discipline compels you. 
Joel is nothing if not self-disciplined. That much is true for all the forsaken, yourself included. 
Your working theory is that nobody wants after the world ends, they just need. Need to sleep, need to eat, need to fight. Anything to survive one more fucking day. It’s all any of you can ask for. 
So do you want him, or do you need him? 
And what about him? Joel fucking Miller, with his reinforced concrete walls and heavy heart. Was he ever capable of wanting? 
“Joel,” you reach out to touch him, beckoning him to meet you halfway. 
His eyes flick to your outstretched hand, then back to your face. He shakes his head, as if declining the offer, but you don’t retreat. You sit up and crawl across the bed to him. 
The column of his throat bobs, head rocking back as he watches you come to a stop. He almost lets you touch his cheek when you try again, but snatches your hand away before you can make contact. 
“Don’t,” he warns, the tone of his hushed voice deadly serious. 
He squeezes your fingers while you study his stonewalled expression, tilting your head at him, “Why did you ask me that earlier? If I’m still seeing Bert?”
“I was curious.” 
“Curious why?” 
His lips part, then close, gaze dropping to your mouth. 
Heat pulses through every inch of your body. You drop your voice to a breathy whisper. 
“Were you thinking about what you did to me?” 
Something flickers behind his eyes when they snap onto yours. It draws you in, urging you to scoot so close your knees butt-up against his jackknifed leg. 
“You fucking loved it, didn’t you?” you ask quietly, smirking a little when his stern face twitches, “You loved how it felt to make me surrender—” 
The dull throb of his tightening grip around your hand makes you gasp. A rumble slips from his chest, which could be read as a warning if you had an ounce of self-control left. If you didn’t need him to combust. 
You let your gaze drift from his burning gaze down the slope of his nose to his lips, “Do you think about it every time you see me, like I do with you? How fucking good it felt?” 
“It was wrong—” 
“Then why are you here?”
Your question comes out louder than you expected. It ricochets through the charged space between his body and yours, popping the bubble of awareness around you. 
All the little sounds you picked up on earlier seep back into the foreground. FEDRA patrolling. The whiz-pop of firecrackers going off maybe a block away. A faint murmur of conversation in the upstairs unit. 
He holds your stare, but doesn’t make a sound until a snore rips from your mom’s chest, signaling crisis averted. When he speaks, his words come out hushed and calm. 
“You need to be quiet. Understand?” 
The command liquifies your bones. 
You lick your lips and nod, “I understand.” 
“Good.” He studies you as if deep in thought, finally releasing your hand to pinch your chin and assert, “You know why I’m here. Stop pretendin’ you don’t.” 
It’s hard not to fall in line when he’s looking down at you like this, all hot-blooded and self-assured. Cocky, almost. But you try to push his buttons anyway. 
“I thought it was wrong.”  
“Don’t get cute with me. Yes or no?” 
Your pulse flutters. Tongue goes numb. All you can do is nod. 
He jostles your head a little, “Say it.” 
“Yes.” 
“Say yes please.” 
“Yes please.” 
He works his jaw back and forth, studying you, then tugs your shirt.
“Take this off.” 
While you pull the offending garment over your head and toss it aside, Joel moves further onto the mattress, leaning back against the wall. 
You follow him, swallowing the static buzzing in your throat as he ushers you onto his lap. The scrape of his rough hands on your waist may as well be a live wire crackling across your skin. He pulls you closer and closer until your belly presses into the worn cotton of his shirt. The heat between your legs settles on his stiff length. When he twitches against you, a heady electric current courses through your body and coaxes a whimper from your lips. 
It seems too intimate to look at him, so you cast your gaze downward. Your shaky hands lay flat against his chest, absorbing the rhythmic thud of his heartbeat beneath your palm. 
Being with him like this feels strange. Not strange how it sometimes is with a new partner, that clumsiness before you know how your bodies work together. 
It’s strange in a fucked up out-of-context sort of way. Of course, growing up around him never conditioned you to think of him like this. Joel fucking Miller, with his scarred-up knuckles and unending apathy. The only man who could make big brown eyes like that seem cold. 
All those years, you never considered him anything more than an obstacle. 
Even then, if there was some tiny shimmer of attraction lingering under your skin, a piece of you that wanted more from him, you never thought he could feel so solid and soft and alive. You never dreamed he could make you feel so fucking good.
“This stays between us,” he tells you, more of a command than a request. 
“I won’t tell if you don’t.” 
The tips of his fingers dig into your hips, and he purrs, “You’ve been good for me, haven’t you?”
You preen at the warm timbre of his voice, body arching into him as you breathe, “Yes.”
Under your touch, his muscles tense. He exhales hot against your cheek and guides your hips in a rocking motion, slow and steady, rubbing all those aching nerves hard against him. 
“You liked it, too. Didn’t you? How I fucked you last time?” 
A low-frequency hum throbs deep inside you, amplifying every sensation tenfold. You nod, rolling your hips faster, “I did, I liked it.”
“Yeah, you liked it? Or did you fucking love it?” he hisses, “Dirty little slut like you. Bet you loved getting fucked in the ass, didn’t you?”
“Oh my god, Joel—” 
“Tell me.”
“Yes yes yes I fucking loved it—” 
Too loud. 
He ceases all movement, locking you in place with a steel grip. All ten of his digits bury themselves in your skin. The exquisite pain makes you gasp. 
“Hush.”
You clamp down on your lips in an attempt to stifle yourself. Each heaving breath wiggles down to your core and back. 
“Look at me.” 
If you do, you’ll dissolve at the edges. You know it. You are sugar paper and he is a humid room and you are so incredibly fucked. 
Pinching your eyes shut harder, you shake your head and whisper, “I can’t.”
“Why not?” 
“I’ll come if I do.” 
The confession makes him throb underneath you. He husks, “Do it, look at me.” 
You do. 
Even in the shadows you can make out his features, his parted lips and hooded gaze. The desire etched into his face as he stares at you, looking mystified in a way you’ve never seen before. Heat percolates beneath your skin, sending your heartbeat racing. 
His hips arch into you just so, then he pulls you in and pushes you back, rubbing your body against his, “Do you wanna come? Come for me just like this?” 
“Please—please,” you whine, feeling pleasure branch out from your middle as he slides you back and forth, “Please I wanna come for you it’s been so long—” 
“Will you be quiet?” 
Swallowing a moan, you nod frantically. 
His eyes flicker around your face and he breathes, “Go ahead.”
You’re not sure if it’s the flames in his eyes or the fact that you haven’t had an orgasm in almost two months, but the second he gives you permission, the ecstasy you tried so hard to contain spills over the edges and floods your body. It pulses through you hot and hard and makes your mind go white. You have to clasp your hand over your mouth to muffle the guttural noises that try to escape. 
“That’s it,” he coos from far away, still grinding your twitching body against him, “There we go. That’s my good girl, hmm?” 
“Oh my god—” you whimper at the sharp aftershocks that shoot through you, “It feels so good, Joel, fuck—” 
“Do you wanna come again?” 
Nodding, you link your hands behind his neck and set yourself in motion, rubbing against him a little faster than his set rhythm. His eyelids flutter as he throws his head back, the muscles under his shirt going taught. Beneath the thin fabric of his boxers, he’s hard as a fucking rock. 
Releasing the tight grasp on your hips, he roams up your sensitive skin to your breasts and tests their weight before squeezing. It shoots through you, the pleasure and pain indistinguishable, just a throbbing rush of need. Your breathing comes in heaving gasps and you pinch your eyes shut again, tilting your head towards the ceiling as you once again find yourself struggling to keep quiet. 
“Eyes on me,” he reminds you. 
You snap them open and meet his. 
“Good girl.” 
And—god, the way he looks at you, his gaze hungry and wild. Fucking maddening. Simultaneously, you wish he would stop—the contact too intense, too intimate—and pray that it never fucking ends. 
Heat bubbles up inside you. You bury your fists in his hair and roll your hips faster, chasing the scorching need for more. 
He hisses and pushes back against your thrusts, murmuring, “That’s it, grind that pussy on me, make yourself feel good.” 
“Fuck—fuck yes, it feels so fucking good—” 
“I can feel how fucking wet you are, leakin’ all over me. You do love it, don’t you, baby?”
You start to tremble and nod, trying your hardest to whisper when you tell him, “Yes yes yes I do I fucking love it—I wanna come again, can I please come again, please please—” 
“Listen to you. So good, askin’ for permission.” He brings a hand to your face and brushes his knuckles against your cheek, “Such a quick learner.” 
“Joel—” 
“Do it. Make yourself come again.”
Something untethers inside you. Heartbeat pounding behind your ears, you work your body against him in jerky movements, each one more delicious than the last. His eyes burn into yours, all heavy-lidded and lust-blown in the darkness, watching your face twist up with pleasure as the hot gooey feeling between your legs stretches wider and wider, then overtakes you completely. 
You give in to it with a shattered breath, burying your face against his shoulder to muffle your moans. He holds you down, making sure you smother your cries in the damp cotton of his t-shirt as wave after electric wave washes over you. 
When your spasms start to peter out, and your rolling hips come to a stop, he releases his stronghold to pet your hair. Your heaving chests meld together, breath syncing up into a steady ebb and flow as he smooths his palm up and down your spine. 
For a moment, it’s just this. Just the soothing motion of him rubbing your back, calming your boneless body. Soft and quiet with everything else stripped away. 
Emotion swells in your chest and tingles up your throat, behind your eyes. You try to hide it, the fact that you’re crying, but it becomes obvious when a sob escapes you. 
Joel shifts a little, then tilts your chin up to meet his eyes. He searches your face and frowns, furrowing his brow. 
“I’m sorry,” you wipe your tears and cast your eyes downward, “I—I don’t know why this is happening, I’m sorry. I’m stupid.” 
“No—hey, no,” he assures you, “It’s fine.” 
You shake your head. 
“Look at me,” he commands, and when you do, he cups your cheek and holds your gaze, “It-it’s normal to feel… emotional. Really, it’s ok.” 
The warmth and sincerity of this—his touch, his eyes, his words—makes your heart stutter. It curls up inside you and sedates your jumpy nerves. 
You sniffle and nod, “Ok.” 
His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he studies you, bringing his hands to your waist. The longer you stare at each other, the more all the subtle signs of his lust come back into focus. How his tongue peaks out to wet his lips when he looks at your mouth. The heavy thudding of his heart. His strained breath and throbbing cock. 
Your gaze drifts to his lips. A needy, aching desire simmers at the base of your spine. It seems wrong to kiss him. More sensual than sexual, rooted in something he will never have for you. But still, you wonder. 
You wonder how soft his plush lips would feel against yours. How he would taste. Whether or not he would use tongue, or teeth, or both. 
Your fingertips twitch hesitantly towards his mouth. He doesn’t pull away or admonish you, even though you give him ample time to protest. When you make contact, smoothing your touch over the pillow of his bottom lip, he murmurs against your fingers, “I’m not your boyfriend. I’m never gonna be, either, I wanna make that clear. That’s not what this is.”  
“I know you’re not my fucking boyfriend, Joel.” You scoff at the thought, “Boyfriend. I don’t want that. I don’t need a boyfriend. What I need…” you watch your touch drift from his mouth to his jawline, where you scrape your nails through his scruff, “What I need is someone to fuck the thoughts out of my head.” 
“Fuck the thoughts outta your head,” he repeats, almost a chuckle, “That’s what you need, huh?”
“That’s what you need, too. Isn’t it?” 
Something smolders behind his gaze as he searches your face. 
“You can use me, you know. Take whatever you need from me. Use me like a fuck toy, Joel, I fucking need it.” 
His whole body reacts to your request, muscles flexing taught as he clenches his jaw.
You bat your lashes at him and pull yourself close enough to feel his breath on yours when you ask, “Don’t you need a little fuck toy like me, daddy?” 
“You’re a sick girl, you know that?” 
“You like it.” 
Neither of you can deny the other’s accusation, resulting in a stand-off that tingles beneath your skin and makes your heart pound in your throat. 
Subconsciously, you rock your hips forward and suck in breath when his cock throbs against your clit. He pushes back, flooding your veins with fire, “Are you gonna keep quiet if I fuck you?” 
“Are you gonna shut me up if I can’t?” 
He lets out one single amused chuckle, then asks, “Are you really tryna test me right now?” 
Suppressing a smile, you shake your head. 
“That’s what I thought.” 
Something in the way he says it blooms heat in your chest. His tone teasing, almost playful. 
He gives your ass a light smack, then tugs at your underwear, “Take these off.” 
You roll off him onto the mattress and slide them down your legs while he stands to strip naked. Seeing his cock makes your body hum. It stands at attention, bobbing a little when Joel catches you staring. 
Sidling up to the bed, he beckons you closer, so you follow his silent guidance and crawl over to him, wrapping your hand around his thick length. You glance up at him, licking your lips as you await further instructions. 
“Get it nice ‘n’ wet for me.”
Nodding, you bring your mouth to the head of his cock, exploring first with your tongue, licking up the salty dribbles of lust. You taste a hint of yourself on him too, arousal that soaked through his boxers and marked him yours. Temporarily, at least. At least for tonight, or at least for right now. 
A pleased rumble erupts from his chest when you wrap your lips around him and start to slide up and down his shaft. He feels solid and warm and fills your mouth completely. The first time he hits the back of your throat, you gag and pull off him, working him with your hands as you catch your breath. 
“Do it again.” 
You take him in your mouth, rutting up and down a few times before sitting up taller to drive him down your throat. He buries his fists in your hair and thrusts his hips forward, “There we go, that’s it—fuck, you’re so fucking good at that.” 
His praise sparks at your core. You whine around his cock and bob against his thrusts. It doesn’t matter that you can’t breathe. You don’t need oxygen, you just need this. The sting of his grip prodding your movements, the raw stretch of him fucking your airway, the wet squelch that fills the room. 
When he yanks your head back and unclogs your throat, you gasp for breath and stroke him with both hands, churning his slick length. Fire roars in his eyes when you look up at him. 
He grabs your chin and husks, “Say thank you.” 
“Thank you.”
He smacks your cheek and grabs your chin again, “Say thank you for fucking my face.” 
“Thank you for fucking my face, I fucking love it—”
“Say please can I have some more.” 
“Please can I have some more, daddy?” 
Stifling a groan, he crams it back in your drooling mouth, down your throat, snapping his hips in sharp, quick thrusts that make you gurgle with pleasure around him. Far away, you hear him panting, “Take it take it take it—”
The chorus makes your body tingle. You think about your mom sleeping in the other room, how there’s just a wall between her and this. How she could wake up at any moment and follow the muffled, hedonistic noises. How she would find Joel balls deep in your mouth and you giving him something she never could: control. 
This time when he pulls you off his cock, he uses his white-knuckle grip on your hair to make you flip over and turn around, ass in the air towards him. 
The head of him nudges up against the tight ring of your asshole. You hear a wet splat, then feel the heat of his spit trickling down between your cheeks. Your body clenches with anticipation as he smears it around. 
“Remember, you gotta relax,” he murmurs, releasing your hair to smooth a palm against your spine. 
You inhale a deep breath and exhale the tension from your muscles, letting your heart melt into the mattress. 
“Good girl,” he arches forward, breaching your entrance. 
The sharp sensation splits you open. It pulls a wanton moan from your lips that rings through the silent apartment like a siren. 
Yanking you up by your hair, Joel secures your back to his humid chest and clasps a hand over your mouth. Stars invade your field of vision as he drives his cock deeper and deeper, only stopping when he can’t go any further. You sob against his palm, so he pulls it down harder, muffling the noise until you stop. 
Everything goes silent and still, but you can’t even bring yourself to worry that you woke her. Not when all you can hear is your thudding heart and his ragged breath, coarse with what you assume is rage or lust or both. Not with his lightning rod cock vibrating hot up your middle. 
It doesn’t matter that she could walk in to find her common-law husband fucking your ass, or that this discovery would burn all your lives to the ground. All you care about is more. More stimulation, more attention, more Joel—more more more—
You try to move your hips in an attempt to create friction, but his vice grip renders you immobile. So you stay in place and try not to make noise as the flames lick at your insides. You squirm and ache and claw at his arms while he muffles your whimpers. 
Then your mom snores in the other room. 
He pulls his hand from your mouth and you gasp for air. 
Thinking you can get ahead of the inevitable scolding, you plead, “I’m sorry—” 
He drags his cock out of your body, then plunges it back inside, all the while hissing, “If you’re gonna be my little fuck toy—” 
“Holy fuck—”
“—You have to be fucking quiet. Do you understand?” 
Nodding, you gasp, “I understand, I’ll do better, I promise—please just fuck me, please please—”
You strangle a moan in your throat when he slips a hand between your legs and draws tedious circles on your clit. 
“Try ‘n’ breathe through it,” he coaches, “I’ll go slow for you this time, ok? Just remember, shut the fuck up and take deep breaths.” 
You suck in air until your chest is full, then release it, restricting its flow through a narrow space between your lips. You do it again. Tension begins to melt from your bones. It has a clarifying effect, allowing you to relish in the heat of his touch. You take another deep breath, only hitting a snag when Joel starts to rock his hips. 
It feels fucking unreal. Rough and raw, the steady drag of his cock fills you with static electricity over and over. 
“Oh fuck—”
“Shhh…”
Your inhale stutters, but you regain control on the exhale. Everything disappears except him. His heated skin sticking to yours. How fucking full he makes you feel with each thrust. The thick swell of pleasure that accumulates every time he flicks his wrist. You surrender to all of it, to Joel, entrusting him with everything except your breath. 
“That’s it, baby, let go.” 
“It feels ssso gooood,” you whisper, head rolling back onto his shoulder, “Nothing’s ever felt this good, holy shit—”
His lips tickle your ear as he purrs, “Such a good little fuck toy, aren’t you, baby?”
You gasp a little when the velvet of his tongue rolls against your pulse. Nodding, you reach back behind his neck to scrape your fingernails through his curls. He does it again, this time sealing his lips to suck on the sensitive skin. Your heart pounds thick and hot through your body. The edges peel back at the corner of your mind. You push back against his thrusts, panting out subdued whimpers as the fire in your belly begins to spread. 
“Do you wanna come?”
“I do, I wanna come—oh my god I wanna come, please make me come, daddy—”
His hand covers your mouth and holds you down so he can fuck you harder, stretching you out wide and filling you deep. He works your clit faster. The bed frame thumps against the wall in a frantic rhythm that matches the wet slap of his thrusts. Tears prick your eyes and heat swells beneath your skin, pressure building more and more until you think you can’t fucking take it anymore—
His palm smothers your moans as you fall apart, breaking into a million pieces and coming back together again with a choked sob. Joel buries his face in the crook of your neck and groans as his hips snap forward, then stutter to a stop. 
The two of you go slack propping each other up, too loose-limbed and lethargic to peel yourselves away at first. He makes the first move to separate, though, uncovering your mouth to brush the damp hair from your forehead, “You ok?” 
“Yeah,” you tell him instinctively, then second-guess yourself and look up to meet his eyes, “I mean, I don’t know. I think so.” 
He studies you, nodding. 
Hesitation buzzes in your chest when you contemplate whether or not to return his question. It seems unlikely he’d cooperate even if you wanted to know the answer.  So instead, you give him his out. 
“Is this goodnight, then?” 
“Suppose it is.” 
A flicker of something passes between your bodies as you stare at each other. It feels so hot to the touch that you chicken out, glancing away as you whisper, “Will you do something for me before you go?” 
“Hmm?” 
“Tuck me in?” 
The noise that comes out of him is half-grunt, half-chuckle. Joel for, ‘You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.’ But he obliges, pulling his soft cock from your body at a mercifully slow speed before allowing you to make yourself comfortable. He sorts out your blanket and drapes it over your body, then starts fishing his clothes off the floor. 
Tugging his shirt over his head, he asks, “Need anything else, princess?” 
You’re sure it’s a dig, but choose to ignore it as you snuggle into the covers and hint, “Don’t make me wait so long next time.” 
He sits down at the edge of your mattress and threads his legs through the boxers, “I’ll make you wait as long as you need to. What else?”
“Mmm. Goodnight kiss?”
“Goodnight kiss,” he scoffs to himself, then looks back over his shoulder at you, “Fine, then I’m goin’ to bed.” 
He turns to face you more directly, folding a knee onto the bed as he leans in and tilts your head to the side, pressing a gentle kiss into your cheek. Even though you wish he had kissed your lips, you close your eyes and savor the affection while you can. 
After murmuring goodnight, Joel leaves. He crawls back into bed with your mother while you memorize the sound of his retreating footsteps.
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sweetstarcollector · 1 year
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So phrases like "people with uteruses" or "people who have periods" never really bothered me as much as more overtly dehumanizing phrases like "bleeders" or "birthing bodies", but I saw a post today talking about the abnormal symptoms women experienced after getting tear gassed protesting, that ended with something like "we don't know the full effects of tear gas on people with uteruses". And what struck me about that is that's not really correct, because female people without uteruses (either bc they were born without one or bc they had a hysterectomy) will still experience different symptoms after being tear gassed than male people. Women metabolize substances differently than men, our immune systems are different, our hormonal cycles are different, our skin has different thicknesses, etc. All of those things have potential effects on tear gas reactions, and are not dependent on whether or not we have a uterus. They're dependent on whether or not we're female. So saying "people with uteruses" when what is meant is "female people" is not really accurate. And I realized that a lot of times when people use those kinds of phrases, they aren't being accurate.
For example, I'm sure we've all seen people say things about how the repeal of Roe v Wade will harm people with uteruses/people who can get pregnant/etc. And while yes, it definitely harms those people, the full truth is that abortion bans harm *female* people, *regardless of if they can get pregnant or have a uterus.* Because female people who don't have uteruses can still get pregnant, and in those rare cases will 100% of the time need an abortion. Female people who deal with infertility and can't carry a fetus to term can still be jailed for miscarrying. Female people who are completely sterile (for whatever reason) can still be denied medications/medical treatment on the grounds that the treatment could theoretically harm a fetus. Female people who may currently have no uterus/no longer be able to get pregnant but who have had an abortion in the past will face increased stigma.
Here's another example:
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It seems pretty straightforward- menstruation stigma is experienced by people who menstruate. But again, that's only half true. Period stigma is experienced by all female people, regardless of if they menstruate. Think about the fact that we are told female people should not hold political leadership because "what if a female president has PMS and starts a war", despite the fact that almost all female presidential candidates are old enough that they would have experienced menopause. Female people have their feelings dismissed because "it must be that time of the month", regardless of if they're too young to menstruate or too old or if they have a condition causing amenorrhea. Female children grow up seeing periods- a natural function of their bodies- portrayed as disgusting, dirty and gross, as making them unclean, as something to dread and fear. This affects them before they experience menarche, this affects them even if they never experience menarche. It affects all female people.
I could come up with more examples, but you get the idea. Reducing female people to singular body parts and organs inherently denies the reality of femaleness. All parts of us (both biological and social) interact with all other parts of us to form an experience that can't be understood by chopping us up and putting our individual functions under the microscope. In order to get an accurate picture you need to look at the whole (female) human.
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idiotmf · 2 months
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Alien scientists who just really want to study you
Another one of my most recent favorites is my alien boy Xyon. Can you tell I'm a whore for 'y' in names? It's a curse, really.
Also, in case it's not blatantly obvious... I'm introducing characters and beings that I wanna write some good ol' smut on later. (▰˘◡˘▰)
For good measure: Minors scram, for the rest: there's going to be NSFW themes but they are more biological in nature.
A/N: Please feel free to point out typos and grammar wrongdoings so I can obsessively fix them. I write these on my phone and chances are I'm fat-fingering this tiny keyboard, since I use my thumbs for typing. Also, English isn't my first language, so there's also that.
This post is pretty long and covers a more in-depth explanation of this Alien species because I wanna use this as a reference sheet later...
Anyways, here's some random lore dumping about Xyon, Xenians and Xen'jai, their native planet.
As you may have already noticed, I loooooove naming patterns. In the previous post it was my shadow demon boys Aryllus and Oryllion, here it's Xyon, his planet Xen'jai and as you'll come to find, most of the other things related to his planet also start with an X. Here is why:
1. Language:
In the native language of Xenians, the X represents a prefix referring to a life form. Xenians are the people, Xen'jai is their planet, and Xyon is a person. Linguistically speaking, especially for humans, the X doesn't translate as such, it is a complicated sound that a human cannot reproduce and the closest possible sound for an accurate translation. (Can you tell I spend way too much time world building?)
Speaking of their native language, Xenians do not speak the same way as humans do; rather, they communicate via a mixture of various noises, including clicking and verbal sounds that could only be described as waving sheet metal in the air. Imagine this but less goofy and with various pitches, echoes and clicks.
For storytelling convenience, they of course possess a translator that can both pick up foreign languages and translate their own. Although I have one story where they just fully cannot communicate for a long time and that one's wholesome as heck.
2. Appearance:
Xenians are in principle considered humanoid. They have two legs, two arms, a head and a torso. Their posture is slightly different, due to the differing gravity on their planet, so their spines are entirely straight, rather than curved like a human's, which gives them a rather uncanny look at first glance. Although if you do meet a Xenian, honestly that is probably the last thing you notice about them.
The first thing is most likely their height. Xyon himself is between 2.5 meters (approx. 8'2) and 2.8 meters (approx. 9'2), which is considered average for a male of his species, with females being slightly taller on average at 3 meters (10 feet). A male Xenian, if threatened or putting on a mating display, can stretch its spine and torso to appear larger and more threatening. Females are incapable of doing so, but as larger and more intimidating presences, they have no need for it.
The bodies of Xenians are covered in fine, dark blue fur, even if it appears as skin to the naked eye of a human. Like the fuzz you have on your face, but more prominent.
Their gray skin underneath is almost leathery to the touch, which can be examined on their long, almost reptilian tails that serve multiple purposes, such as balance, showing emotions and affection, or can be simply used as an extra arm to grab onto things.
Their faces aren't exactly faces. It resembles more the face of a cat, featuring a short snout and a flat nose, although there are no visible nostrils, as Xenians have millions of microscopic openings in their noses to absorb and filter air. Just like felines, Xenians have sharp teeth and retractable claws, paw pad like palms and soles and most importantly, slit pupils, making some humans speculate that perhaps they are a species of highly intelligent bipedal felines. Xenians do not have whiskers or any of the like, since their tail does most of the work for them.
Unlike humans, Xenians do not wear clothes. Despite being a highly advanced race of what used to be carnivorous hunters, Xenians have no sense of embarrassment from appearing naked. They do wear an exoskeleton which serves various protective functions, however their genitals are sheathed, making Xenians appear genderless to the unschooled human eye.
3. Social Constructs:
Xenians are social creatures. They live in large groups, much like humans, often with their families until they are old enough to train for their purpose.
Unlike humans, Xenians are born with a 'purpose', a path chosen for them that they must follow; Xyon's purpose lies within studying intergalactic life forms. Thanks to their technology, calculations for things such as possible base intelligence, strength and overall health are possible before a Xenian even hatches, promoting not only the growth and increasing intelligence of an already highly advanced race but also unethical practices, such as culling of unhatched eggs with undesired traits. This may appear highly disturbing to humans but is extremely common and even considered a relief amongst Xenians, as they lay between five and twenty fertilized eggs that may hatch, yet only ever one to three Xenians hatch and reach maturity due to culling, keeping their race from overpopulating their rather small planet.
Xenians, while not the sole creatures of their planets, are the most intelligent, much like humans on earth. They have moved past their need for food, instead consuming gel-like substances with all their needed nutrients and calories, yet they will occasionally initiate fake hunts with competing parties as entertainment, much like a human would play a game of soccer with a friend. However, they do not kill any animals, rather using their own version of AI to calculate intricate escape routes and keep the game interesting.
While Xenians have both male and female as a base sex, gender and gender roles do not exist to the same extent as with humans. Taking care of hatched eggs is usually done by either of the parents, sometimes a different party entirely, as some Xenians live in mating groups. It is usually the male-coded Xenians that try to impress female-coded mates with their displays of stretching their torsos, however, same sex relationships are common, since mating isn't about offspring but mainly about spirituality.
Which brings us to the point you probably came here for lol...
4. Mating:
Unlike humans, Xenians mate for life, using pheromones present in their sexual fluids to claim each other once a bond is established. Mating is considered highly spiritual, finding a mate is an extremely important part of a Xenian's life.
As mentioned before, some Xenians will live in mating groups, featuring various different partners, which is a fairly new occurrence and sometimes frowned upon by followers of traditional mating practices, which are still upheld on Xen'jai but due to their beliefs in equality, those who frown upon this practice are usually frowned upon themselves.
Xenians with male genitalia possess two sheathed and usually hidden phalluses, which are extremely close together, like fingers on your hand. Both can be slightly moved and serve different purposes. The upper, smaller one can be quite similar to that of a human in both size and shape, it serves to fertilize eggs present in a Xenian with female genitalia, which renew with a new cycle of their native moons. This smaller phallus is extremely sensitive, much like a clitoris and the only of the two that can ejaculate.
The larger one on the bottom is solely used for pleasure, as female-coded Xenians have a mechanism that only allows for impregnation during heightened pleasure, thanks to an additional opening inside their equivalent of a vagina, which only stretches during arousal to let sperm through. Being used for pleasure, their larger phallus has evolved to be able to bring just that. It is both thick and long, covered in small bumps that secrete lubricant for ease of mating but also serve to stimulate the insides of their partners.
As you may be wondering, does a Xenian of the female sex have two vaginas, then? The answer is no. During mating, eventually both phalluses may be inserted into the female, which is a lot easier than you likely imagine, since their insides aren't as tight as that of a human (which is a delightful discovery Xyon makes when he gets to fuck a human for the first time).
Unlike female humans, Xenians do not possess a clitoris, another delightful find for Xyon, all of their pleasure is derived from the nerves inside of their vagina, most of them connected to the muscle that controls whether sperm can be let through or not.
Just like humans, Xenians have contraceptives, since sex is occasionally rather casual. They work differently, however. It is a gel, that must be applied to the smaller phallus, killing sperm as it comes out and blocking the production of mating pheromones that initiate a bond, by triggering the partner to release their pheromones as well. In case of a relationship that is made of two males, both must apply this gel, in case of female only, it is neither but can be triggered with a pheromone dispenser to initiate a female-female pheromone bond.
This is considerably longer than I thought it would be and I still left a lot out to shorten it... Like I didn't even mention that you have to teach him what kissing is and Xyon gets obsessed with it, or that they subconsciously wrap their tail around things and people they like, which... I'm sorry but that is adorable to me... (╥﹏╥)
At first I tried doing the cool headcannon thing some people do with bullet points but I just cannot keep myself short enough to do that*. I also just have a preference for flowing sentences, rather than bullet points. But man...
Anyways, yes, this is a reference sheet once I get into writing some good ol' Xyon x reader smut. (≧◡≦)
I also have another Xenian boi, Xenon, who is a geologist, rather than a biologist but he is still very new and there isn't a lot established yet. Xyon is far more fleshed out and I'm going to introduce him a bit more too, maybe along with some smut.
* as evident from this ending note lmao
Dear gods, I have so many established fantasy worlds I wanna share, so my next lore dump is probably in sight, if I'm not already writing another one.
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backmuscles21 · 6 months
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You're Supposed To Be Ours
Recoms x Reader
Summary: You are an RDA chemist, you have caught the eyes of all the recoms. They can be a little possessive. So, when they see you talking with someone else, they need to teach you your place and where you belong. Warnings: smut, belly bulge, size kink, begging, spanking, orgasm denial/delay, punishment, possessive behaviour, sub/dom undertones
You came to Pandora as a chemist, they needed you to run tests on water, plants, rocks, and other elements. Basically, what they wanted you to do was make a periodic table for the things on Pandora.
Easier said than done.
However, you did love your job and you loved the planet. One thing you loved the most about your job was the new relationship you started. You have an avatar body for when you go on missions to collect samples to test and figure out their composition. Since you have a trillion-dollar avatar body and were only a scientist, you needed protection. And what better protection than the new Na’vi recom soldiers? Plus, they were tall, strong, and muscular.
So that is how you met your new lovers. You learned that they were a little hard-headed, very strong, very loyal, and pretty jealous. Not necessarily jealous of each other, they saw themselves as a family, but with literally anyone else. When you told them you liked boy boys and girls you couldn’t talk to a single soul without them feeling a tinge of jealousy. Some were good at hiding it others had it written all over their face, it didn’t really bother you too much, you had them.
You would go to work and then go back to them, sometimes in your human body or in your avatar. Not too many people knew you were with all the recoms, the only people that really knew were some of the people in your department. They had seen you with them when they dropped you off or came by to pick you up after you finished work or when they would visit you while you were working. It was always someone different, but it was always one of your tall blue lovers.
Some of your co-workers liked to pick on you a little for being with them and fucking the aliens. You didn’t care, you loved them deeply, and you wouldn’t ever trade them for the world.
But one day, when one of them came to visit you while you were working, they saw you talking with some of your co-workers. You were laughing and smiling and you just tucked your hair behind your ears, you did that when you were flustered.
It was Prager who came to visit you, he was feeling tired and in a cuddly mood and he always sought you out when he got that way. He was angry that you’d be talking with this guy that you worked with. You should be laughing with anyone but them, you were theirs. So, Prager went back to the recom common room to tell everyone what he saw.
He stormed back to the common room, punched in the door code and stomped in.
“What happened? Did she say she had to work? Cause I told you so,” Lopez said with a smirk.
Prager didn’t answer, instead, he gathered everyone in the common area.
“What’s going on? Care to explain?” Miles asked.
“I went to see her and I saw her but she was talking and laughing with another guy. They were supposed to be working and she even tucked her hair behind her ears. She was flirting with him; I couldn’t believe it. So, I came back here to tell you guys,” Prager explained.
“What was she doing?” Mansk asked, always trying to work out situations, giving you the benefit of the doubt.
“She was by her microscope, she was writing on some papers, but then she stopped and she gave him her undivided attention,” Prager explained
“Well, let’s go see this then,” Lyle said wanting to confirm it.
Miles put his arm out to stop Lyle, “no. We wait till she finishes work, she has to anyway. Then we will confront her. You know she can’t lie worth a damn and will crumble under us. She can also explain her side of the story and we will go from there.”
“Are we gonna punish her?” Walker asked with a slight smirk.
“Depends. She might have an explanation and then we will just tone down our usual punishment. If she doesn’t deny it and says what she did, we will use a lesser punishment. If she tries to hide it and denies it, we will go no bars held. She knows her safe word,” Miles explained to everyone.
“When is she done?” Zdog asked.
“A few hours. I’ll pick her up. I intimidate her the most,” Miles said as he smirked at his fellow soldiers.
“So, what do we do till then?” Ja asked.
“We could try to get her out early. Maybe do a random walk-by and see if it’s continuing?” Fike suggested.
“That’s the first smart thing you’ve ever said,” Lopez smirked.
“Go fuck yourself,” Fike said to Lopez with a scoff and smile while rolling his eyes.
So, a few hours passed and Miles left a couple of minutes before you were supposed to finish for the day. He walked in front of the glass doors of the chemistry lab, there were multiple scientists working away. Then his eyes landed on you, looking into different Petri dishes and writing stuff down. He fell in love with you all over again, he couldn't believe how gorgeous you were. Both your human body and your avatar body were absolutely stunning, he understood why people wanted you, not that they’d ever get you.
He opened the door and walked in, he saw you look up and smile brightly. He walked over to you and placed his hands on your shoulders and watched you finish your notes.
“I’m almost done give me five minutes.”
“Take your time cupcake,” Miles said patting your shoulders.
He noticed your co-workers staring at you and him and then whispering to each other, he knew they liked to gossip. He wasn’t bothered by them and he knew you weren’t either but he still didn’t like it. He gave them a slight scowl and turned back towards you.
Finally, you and him left the lab and went to the recom-only areas. Once you entered the room and saw all of your lovers right there you were surprised.
“Woah, what’s going on? Did I miss something? Is there a special occasion?” You said slightly nervous.
Miles came up behind you and placed his hands on your shoulders and squeezed a little bit. “We needed to talk to you about something and we need you to be honest.”
“What’s up?” You said it slowly, you were kind of scared.
“Were you flirting with one of your co-workers today?” Miles asked.
“Flirting? You think I would purposely flirt with someone I work with? That’s like giving that person a death wish. I wasn’t trying to flirt with anyone, if that happened, I’m sorry that it did, it was not my intention.”
“But you were flustered. I saw you tuck your hair behind your ears,” Prager said.
“I was using my microscope a lot today and I forgot my hair tie. You know how I hate my hair in my face. I just happened to tuck my hair behind my ears a lot today.”
“But you were laughing and talking with him then you looked down and tucked your hair behind your ears. You were flustered, he made you flustered.”
“I swear I never intended for that to happen. I have to talk with my coworkers, I need them to tolerate me. I work with them and there’s no replacing them or me so we have to get along. I promise I was not intentionally flirting with anyone I work with.”
“But you were being friendly,” Lyle said.
“Yeah, but I need to be. I need them to like me. I’m friendly to anyone I talk to. I don’t talk to a lot of people other than you guys but I’m not an asshole.”
“I think you need to learn your place,” Miles said leaning over to whisper in your ear.
Your eyes went wide, they planned on punishing you for this.
“Do I need my avatar for this?”
“No, we will be tame enough for a human.”
You breathed out loudly through your nose trying to calm yourself. You didn’t hate when this happened, it was hot. However, it was just a lot and it was tiring and it was just so much for your little body.
Miles started to move his hands down to your hips, then he moved them from your hips to slide up your sides and take your shirt off. You lifted your arms to help him take your shirt off, he threw your top onto the floor and touched your smooth skin again. His hands went to your back and unclasped your bra, he took it off you as well and let it fall to the floor. Miles smiled as he watched everyone state at you, he placed his large hands on your tits and pulled you into his body. He started to play with your nipples and it made you cry out.
You could see the smirks on everyone’s faces as they watched you whine while being toyed with. Miles' hands then found the hem of your pants, he unbuttoned them and let them fall to the floor.
“These are cute,” Miles said as he revealed your panties to the recoms. He grabbed the band of your panties on your hip and let it slap against your skin.
“Now, be a good girl and go apologize to Prager first. He wanted you so badly and he had to see you openly flirting,” Miles said as he slapped your ass as you walked over to Prager.
You sat on Prager’s lap and kissed him; Prager’s hands roamed your body before staying on your hips. He squeezed the flesh of your hips and occasionally your butt, you found yourself naturally rolling your hips into him. You could feel him getting harder and harder, you then got off him to kneel in front of him. You started to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his pants; you pulled out his hard cock. Your hands were so tiny compared to his Na’vi-sized dick; you stroked him a few times before you took him into your mouth.
It was hard to take him into your mouth but you pushed through, his hand grasped at your hair as you sucked him off. He was moaning out lowly as you did the best you could to get as deep as possible, what you couldn’t reach you stroked. Prager was trying to not jerk his hips and start fucking your face but he couldn’t help it, you were just so good. You focused on his head, pushing your tongue onto it and swirling it around. You tried to keep your teeth from hitting his shaft but it was so hard when he was stretching your mouth to its limits. You knew he was close just from the way his thighs twitched and his cock twitched in your mouth.
You pushed him to the back of your throat as he came, it went right down and as you pulled off him, you looked up at him. He was smiling, he looked so blissed out.
“Do you forgive me?”
“Of course, baby,” Prager said stroking your head.
“Don’t be so nice to her. We’re not done here,” Miles said as he walked over to you and picked you up.
Miles placed you down on your stomach on one of the recom-sized tables, your legs dangled helplessly as he held you there with a hand on your back. Lyle walked up next to Miles and kissed your back a few times, his hand then replaced Miles as he stood behind you. He ground his semi-erect cock into your butt before his other hand stroked down your back, landing on your left butt cheek.
“You gonna count ‘em?”
You nodded, “yeah,” you breathed out feeling yourself get more turned on.
His large hand landed a good smack on your butt cheek, it had a good echoing sound.
“One,” you staggered out.
His hand gripped your butt cheek after the smack, his hand rubbed the area as it left your skin coming down again.
“Two.”
You could hear him snickering as he played with your butt cheek a bit before landing a few concurrent slaps to your left cheek.
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Five.”
You couldn’t lie, it was starting to hurt. You knew that this is what was supposed to happen, it was supposed to cause a bit of pain. You liked it but their recom size and strength was a bit much, it just felt raw more than painful, but you could still handle it.
“Six,” you whined out as Lyle slapped your butt again.
He was definitely an ass man but also a boob man, this man was just horny and would take what he could get. He loved all bodies, all sizes, and all parts, but he had a favourite, big juicy asses. He loved a nice jiggly butt, nothing was better, he liked getting to slap, squeeze, pinch, fondle, lick, kiss, suck, bite, whatever he could do, he wanted it. That’s why he was perfect for this job, he could get off on watching your butt jiggle as he slapped your butt.
“Seven.”
Lyle hit the same left cheek, you started to lurch forward as he made contact. It was getting to be quite painful but you were almost done, he almost always went to 10. If he tried more, you might stop him, if he would actually stop.
“Eight.”
You squeezed your eyes when Lyle made impact, you were moaning out at every hit. You could also feel how hard Lyle was, he had to be leaking.
“Nine.”
The finish line was so close, one more and you’d be done. You felt the hand on your back move to your hip, that was new. Both his hands then held your hips and he lifted your hips up a bit and that’s when you felt his cock head rubbing through your folds. You didn’t even hear him unzip his pants, He then pushed in as he slapped your left cheek one last time.
“Ten,” you cried out as he pushed a few inches into you.
Your hands tried to grip at the table, your fingertips pressing into the table while your knuckles bent. Your back was trying to arch with no success, Lyle held you in place as he slowly pushed in more and more.
“Feel how hard you made me by just having your ass on display. I guarantee now pussy ass science puke could fuck you like this. Could get as hard as this. Could get as deep as this. Could make you scream out like this.”
He was praising himself as he started to thrust in and out of you, he was praising how good their recom bodies could fuck you. Hoping that you’d never even think about your coworkers ever again, hoping that you’d never even look at another person.
“Lyle, fuck, Lyle,” you reached your hand back for him, “please.”
“Please what, buttercup?”
“More.”
“You got it babe.”
Lyle sped up and went deeper, you moaned out and he smirked. Your forehead hit the table as you cried out, he couldn’t help but get harder at the sight of you soaking up what he was giving you.
“Fuck, you’re so fucking deep.”
“You like it baby? I can do more. I can already feel myself inside you.”
Lyle smirked as he kissed your back, you could feel his hand on your stomach just below your navel. Your arm slowly moved down there to feel where his hand was, you could feel his cock poking through your skin. You’d seen it and felt it before but it got you every time, it was so hot to know how they were bulging out of you. it just made you feel so small, it was so hot to feel it, even more so when you’d press on it and you’d hear whoever was in you moan.
Like now, pressed down on your lower stomach had Lyle moaning and grunting, he kept thrusting faster and faster before cumming deep in you. While it felt good and it was hot, you didn’t cum and that was probably their plan for tonight, not stimulate you enough to cum or deny you of it all together.
Lyle pulled out and moved away from you, he then lifted you up and placed you in the lap of Lopez. He already had his cock out, he held onto your hips before helping you to sink down on his thick cock. You gripped onto his shoulders for dear life as you felt the stretch, nothing helped with the stretch. Even after Lyle just fucked the shit out of you, you still weren’t meant for their large bodies.
“Fuck, you’re squeezing the shit out of me, baby girl,” Lopez said resting his forehead in yours.
He slowly sunk you down further and further until he stopped and started to lift your body up and down on his cock. Your head rested on his shoulder as you cried out, your arms wrapped around his neck as you pulled your bodies close together.
“Please, please, please, let me cum,” you whined out. You figured begging might help.
“I’m glad you figured it out. Sooner than I thought. Either way, you won’t be cumming for some time,” Miles said from right behind you. You felt him kiss your shoulder after he told you, his plan.
You whined out from Miles' words and from feeling Lopez go in deeper. You knew you had to cum, but you also knew you couldn’t otherwise your punishment would get worse. Your mouth bit into Lopez’s bare shoulder as you focused on not cumming. The grip Lopez had on your body got tighter as you tried your best to follow Miles’ orders.
“Fuck baby girl, you’re gripping me so fucking hard.”
“Well, I’m trying not to cum. You’re just hitting it perfectly.”
He made a particular few thrusts up into you at really stroked your walls beautifully. You moaned out, holding onto him harder as you held back the best you could.
“Miles please let me cum, I can’t hold it back, please.”
“You’re not cumming.”
You knew asking Lopez was futile, he wasn’t going to let you cum anymore than Miles would. You knew that you would just have to hold off, but that was going to be even harder shortly. After Lopez finally came, you felt yourself finally be able to let your body relax, but that didn’t last long.
“You good with going upside down?” Walker asked smirking in your ear. She bit the lobe of your ear lightly as she wrapped her arms around your waist. She lifted you up off Lopez and took you to where she was sitting. She rested your back on her thighs and took your hips lifting them up to her mouth. Your legs straddled her head as she smiled at you between them.
“Wait I can’t, she gonna make me cum. All she does is know how to stimulate. She doesn’t stop till I cum.”
“That’s your problem, honey,” Walker smiled as she attached her mouth to your clit.
Your head pushed back against her knees as you moaned out loudly. Your hands gripped the armrests and your eyebrows furrowed; your mouth was agape as Walker pulled moan after moan from your mouth. It was such a compliment to her to see you stuck in a state like this. However, it didn’t take long before she had you cumming, it was going to happen, and you were already holding back. You were so sensitive, it didn’t matter, any stimulation was going to get you to cum.
Walker slurped at your pussy as she took everything you gave her.
“I hope you enjoyed that. Because you’re in for it now.”
You stared up at Miles, you could see how much his hard cock was pushing his pants out from your position. You could feel yourself getting more turned on. Miles picked you up and laid you back on the table from earlier. He more or less dropped you and held you on your back. He snarled as he watched you squirm under his large hand, his jaw moved from side to side.
He was planning how he wanted to abuse your poor pussy.
One thing you learned about him was he enjoyed eye contact. If he was eating you out, he’d stare at you and you better be staring back. Same with when you gave him head, on top of that, while fucking he also wanted to see your eyes. You couldn’t close them from pain or pleasure, you had to keep them on his. He made you stare at him as he unbuttoned his pants, he kept eye contact with you as he roughly pushed into you. He pushed all of his length into you in one go, it made you moan out loudly. You have been prepared well enough but it still stung and especially just from how he just pushed it all inside. He was bottomed out and he was one of the longer and thicker ones. He started to thrust into you right away, he took no prisoners either.
He was merciless, he lifted a leg to rest it on the table to get better leverage to fuck you deeper. Your small hands clawed at his back; you were in pain but it felt so good. Miles was deep inside, he was fast and normally at this point, you’d just lay your hand on your lower stomach to feel the bulge of his cock outlined in your skin. You couldn’t your body was so wound up, he was stimulating you so much, you just gripped onto his skin.
Your abs were so tightly restricted, you were just constantly being overstimulated. Your eyes fought to stay open to stare into his as he fucked you, all you wanted to do was close your eyes and throw your head back. You fought with yourself to keep from letting your body feel the pleasure, you had to keep your eyes open. Not to mention, even if you begged, he probably wouldn’t have let you cum.
“Miles, Miles, please, I can’t. I have to cum.”
“You will wait till I do then I will let you.”
You sighed out in protest, you could barely hold it, you wanted to cum now. You knew he wouldn’t be too much longer but still, you had to cum now. You felt him twitch, he was close he had to be, it was light there was light at the end of the tunnel. He came deep inside you; you cried out as it just filled you up.
“Miles, please, can I cum?”
His sharp deep thrusts didn’t stop, “have at it, cupcake.”
It only took a second after he finished his sentence for you to cry out while cumming. Your body moved on its own, your eyes squeezed shut and the top of your head hit the table. It was probably one of the most intense orgasms the recoms have ever given your human body. Miles kissed your sternum a few times before pulling out, Ja was quick to pick your tired and spent body up and place you in his arms. He sat down with your body resting on his, he was grounding you by rubbing at your back and running a hand through your hair.
“Don’t you want to get off too?”
“No, baby. You’ve done too much. Your body is tired and probably sore. We can wait,” Ja said to you.
“But I’ve taken you all before?”
“Yeah, that was when you were taking two or three of us at once and we didn’t make you hold your orgasms. You rest, we have all the time in the world,” Zdog said butting in to kiss your tired and sweaty face.
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1968 [Chapter 8: Demeter, Goddess Of The Harvest]
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Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.
Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.
Word Count: 6.2k
Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰
💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜
Is it a story worth telling? I think so. It’s better than nothing. It’s better than watching raindrops slither down the cracked concrete walls until the prison guards come back to bloody us again.
Today I’m sending John McCain taps in the shape of the tale of Io. John has a hard time tapping back—they’re doing something to his shoulders, they’re destroying him—but he likes to listen. He’s getting it a lot worse than I am; perhaps even the North Vietnamese fear Aemond’s retribution if I die here. They should be afraid of him. He thinks he owns everything he touches, and he’ll snap bones to keep it.
So anyway, Io was a king’s daughter, a mortal who Zeus saw and wanted and took when her father kicked her out to avoid the god’s wrath. That’s easily half of Greek mythology, right? Zeus appears, irrevocably fucks up someone’s life, vanishes in a plume of clouds and thunder. He leaves human rubble behind him: ribs, nerves, disembodied hearts that leak blood from torn ventricles, minds broken in two. Zeus impregnated Io and then turned her into a cow to hide her from his wife Hera, ever-watchful, ever-vengeful, an aspiring mass murderess. When this disguise failed, Hera condemned Io to wander ceaselessly through the wilderness, tormented by the constant stinging of a gadfly. Eventually, Zeus returns Io to human form and she pops out a few bastard kids, as if Zeus needs any more of those. Then he ditches her and she marries some Egyptian dude. There are other details that I’ve forgotten. I don’t think John McCain will know the difference.
I’m sure you’re wondering how I acquired all this fabled trivia. I don’t seem like the type to lie around under trees reading folklore from religions that died thousands of years ago. You’re right, I’m not. But Aemond is. He would tell the stories, and Helaena would embroider scenes on quilts for us to burrow under in the winter, and I would dramatically act out the best parts (mostly murders), and Aegon would scribble comics in jagged black pen strokes. He has all these notebooks down in the basement filled with his new versions of ancient myths: Poseidon as a horny dolphin, Aphrodite as Marilyn Monroe.
Wait, I remember what I skipped. While Io was roaming across the globe, she bumped into Prometheus—chained to a rock for giving humans the gift of fire—and he cheered her up somehow. I guess meeting a guy who gets his liver continuously chewed out by a giant eagle would make me more appreciative of my circumstances too.
I have a lot of time to myself here in solitary confinement. My social circle is microscopic. I tap to John through the wall, I have dinner dates with Tessarion the rat. And I think about my family. They’re fucked up, but I miss them. I miss going to Monmouth Park with Fosco to bet on horse races, I miss getting hammered with Aegon while he sings Johnny Cash or Beatles songs. I miss my mother and Helaena and Criston. I even miss Aemond’s wife, though I only met her a few times before I deployed. She’s sharp, she’s hilarious. She’s mean as hell to Aegon, and sometimes he deserves it.
At first I wondered why Aemond hasn’t gotten me out yet, but I understand now. It sounds a lot better to have a brother being tortured as a prisoner of war than one who received a Get Out Of Jail Free card. It’s the kind of thing Aemond would consider. He understands which stories are worth telling.
I feel kind of bad for her. Aemond’s wife, I mean.
I don’t think she knows about Alys.
~~~~~~~~~~
On a chilly mid-September morning cloaked in fog, Mimi is laid to rest in the Targaryen family mausoleum at Saint George Greek Orthodox Cemetery in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Most of the golden plaques already have names chiseled into them: Viserys and Alicent, Fosco and Helaena. Aegon will one day be interred beside his wife. You have a spot reserved next to Aemond. All of you have already lived and died and been entombed; all of this was predestined by the stars eons before you had blood or bones.
Ari’s vault—an unnaturally tiny drawer, less than half the size of anyone else’s—is located just above yours. You can’t stop staring at it. You can’t hear anything the bearded priest in his black robes is chanting. Then Cosmo squeezes your hand and you look down at him. Mimi’s other children are somber but seem to be coping well enough—they are used to being raised by consensus, they would probably be more affected if one of the nannies died—but Cosmo always wants to be near you. He gazes up with those vast, wet, murky blue eyes, so much like Aegon’s, and you offer him a sad, reassuring smile. Cosmo smiles back. And you think: Life goes on.
Alicent is sniffling noisily; it echoes off the walls of the mausoleum. Criston—a man with no plaque assigned to him—is trying to console her. Aegon is watching you from across the cold granite chamber, grim and red-eyed in his black suit, the first time you can remember seeing him in one since your wedding. He wears no small gold hoops, only a row of stitches in his right ear. He wants to say something, to do something, but he can’t. Aemond is beside you, a hand heavy on your waist but muttering something to Otto. Back in Omaha, Otto had spent a few hours alone with the medical examiner, and when the death certificate was issued it revealed that Mimi died of a heart defect, a perfectly blameless sort of misfortune, an innate impending disaster. And so that’s what the newspapers printed, and any gossip to the contrary is confined to salacious rumors, untrustworthy and unproven.
When the ceremony is over, journalists are waiting to scavenge for photos and quotes under the guise of expressing their sympathies. It’s a shameless display, though they at least have the decency to wait by the cemetery gates. Aemond and Otto go to meet them. Alicent, Criston, Helaena, and Fosco, protective of the children, keep them far away from the feeding frenzy, hungry-eyed reporters like sharks without fins. Ludwika is reapplying her lipstick. Aegon is smoking a Lucky Strike and talking to his oldest son, Orion, a stilted exchange that holds the promise of turning warm with time.
You sit on a stone bench and Cosmo curls up beside you, rests his head in your lap, dozes off as you thread your fingers through his wavy blonde hair. In the mist there are shadows of gravestones and trees that turn skeletal as they shed their leaves.
“He is okay?” Fosco says as he ambles over, meaning Cosmo. He has his hands in the pockets of his slim black trousers that stop at his ankles. His suit is velvet, his eyeglasses speckled with drizzle from the slate-grey sky.
“He’s alright. He’s resting. Are you okay?”
“Oh,” Fosco sighs mournfully. “I keep thinking someone is missing. We came into this family together, Mimi and I. We got married six months apart. I have never had to do this without her. And I know she had her problems, but she was different when she was younger. She always liked a party, that’s why she and Aegon got along so well at first. But she was so loud and so funny, always telling these long stories, and everyone in the room would be grinning as they waited for the good part. Viserys loved her. Otto loved her. And then she had all those children one after the other, and that was hard, and Aegon self-destructed when he was the mayor of Trenton, and that was worse, and she was supposed to fix him and she couldn’t, the harder she tried the farther he ran from her. She started drinking her Gimlets before dinner, and then after lunch, and by the time you showed up it was never ending. But that wasn’t who she really was. She was like a moon that got smaller and smaller until the only thing left was a sliver.”
This family breaks people. This family kills people. “We’ll make ossi dei morti for Mimi tonight. I’ll help you, and we can teach the kids.”
Fosco smiles, swipes a tear from beneath his glasses, squeezes your shoulder with one wiry hand. “I am very glad you are still here.”
“I’m not trying to race you to that mausoleum.”
Fosco laughs. And then he says as he spies Aegon approaching: “Um…I will go avoid the paparazzi somewhere else.”
“You don’t have to leave, Fosco.”
“It is no trouble. And I suspect you enjoy your very rare privacy.” Fosco gives you a knowing glace and then heads back to where Helaena, Alicent, and Criston are lingering with the rest of the children. Now Ludwika is fluffing her blonde curls with her French tips, a smoldering Camel cigarette tucked between two fingers.
Aegon comes to you through the mist, plops onto the bench, and looks fondly down at Cosmo—now fast asleep, his face smooth and peaceful—before he speaks. “I can’t grasp that she’s really gone. We barely spoke for years, but she was always there, you know? Christ, she deserved better than this. She could have been happy somewhere else.”
“Your children need you.” It’s not the first time you’ve said it, but it’s the first time he believes you. He nods, staring out into the fog. “They have to get away from this whole circus for a while. And you have to learn how to be a real parent.”
“I’ll have time to work on it. I’m staying here. I’ve already been informed.”
You are alarmed. “What? By who?”
“Aemond and Otto.” Aegon says. “When the rest of you fly west, my kids and I will be at Asteria.”
“They’re getting you off the campaign trail,” you realize.
“They’re putting me on house arrest.”
Not seeing Aegon, not being near him? How long can I stand that? “I’m sure you’re relieved. You hate the grandstanding and the media.”
He shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I won’t be alone. I have Fosco and Ludwika.”
“I’ll talk to them.”
“About what?”
“About the fact that they need to look out for you.”
“Aegon, I’ve been doing the political wife thing for over two years.”
“But it’s different now.”
He’s right, it is.
“You’ll call, won’t you?” he asks. “You’ll let me know how the trip is going, you’ll tell me if anything bad happens? Because I can always get on a plane and meet you wherever you are. Otto might pay someone to murder me, but I’d risk it.”
“Of course I’ll call.”
“Hey.” Gently, he turns your face so you can’t hide from him. “Will you be okay without me?”
I have to be. I don’t have a choice. Instead you reply: “I’ll miss the weed.”
The tension breaks and Aegon smiles, and then he pats your cheek twice with his open palm. “Behave yourself.” He waves Ludwika over, interrupting her meditative chain smoking.
“What, what?” Ludwika says. “Are we leaving soon? Yes, it is so sad what happened to Mimi, but us standing around in the rain won’t resurrect her. And I look terrible in black.”
“I can’t be there for the last leg of the campaign.” Aegon points to you. “I need you to pay attention and check in with her at least a few times a day.”
“This is a common request. I should get a degree in it so I can charge people.”
Aegon furrows his brow at her. “What are you talking about?”
Ludwika smirks as she puffs on her Camel. “You are not the first person to ask me to keep an eye on her.” She nods subtly towards Aemond, then sashays off to give a quote to the journalists.
~~~~~~~~~~
In San Diego, Aemond meets with residents of a new public housing complex to hear their concerns about neighborhood jobs and infrastructure. In San Jose, he visits labor activist Caesar Chavez—being treated for debilitating back pain at O’Connor Hospital—and expresses support for the ongoing boycott of all grapes produced in the state. In Sacramento, he attends a Jimi Hendrix concert and receives a standing ovation from the audience; the next day he joins high school students protesting for a more inclusive curriculum. In Oregon, he makes a speech at Portland State University acknowledging the tremendous cost of the Vietnam War—in money, in time, in blood—and pledges to begin dismantling U.S. involvement as soon as he is sworn into office in January. Aemond talks about hope and despair, the bleak reality and the American Dream, and he is so overwhelmed by the crowd that he doesn’t even notice when someone takes his cufflinks as souvenirs. His lack of concern for his own safety exasperates Criston, but Aemond can’t be convinced to increase his security or his distance. If he expects the disaffected masses to carry him to the White House, he has to be real to them.
“What if another Wallace supporter tries to shoot you?” Criston demands. “What if a Nixon stooge stabs you or a crowd tramples you?”
“No one can kill me,” Aemond says, grinning wryly. “I’m not supposed to die yet. I’m supposed to be the president. It is God’s will.” And how can anybody disagree when that appears to be so true?
The earth dies as you drive north, summer withering into autumn. That familiar brisk cuttingness reappears in the air. You shake thousands of hands, smile for countless photographs. Mothers and wives of dead soldiers sob into your shoulder as you embrace them; teenage girls ask how they can get a good man like Aemond. Only one thing is missing from his glorious pilgrimage: something he wants desperately, something he cannot have (though he’ll never know why), you conceiving his child in time to announce it before Election Day. Each morning you sneak a pill and every night you bite the bullet. As often as you can, you duck into Dairy Queens to order lemon-lime Mr. Mistys.
George Wallace is in the South, galvanizing segregationists and accepting the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan. Richard Nixon is working his way across the Midwest. He has chosen a politically moderate Greek as a running mate, Spiro Agnew; this does not strike you as a coincidence. He even shares a name with Aegon’s second son.
Nixon promises “peace with honor” in Vietnam, which means no immediate end to the draft. He makes speeches about “states’ rights” and “law and order,” ambiguous euphemisms designed to attract Wallace’s white supremacists without alienating too many suburban moderates. He commiserates with those lamenting the proliferation of sex, drugs, and divorce. He says he will return the nation to a more moral time. You wonder what he means. You can’t think of any such refuge in the bloodletting, spine-crushing history of mankind.
A kindergarten teacher tells you in Olympia, Washington, her eyes alight with reverence usually reserved for heroes, saints, gods: “People are voting for Aemond, but they’re voting for you too.”
And you find yourself thinking as a thousand miles roll by beyond the glass of limousine windows: How many people will I condemn if I don’t help Aemond win? How many lives is mine worth?
~~~~~~~~~~
The Hotel Sorrento in Seattle insists on giving you and Aemond the honeymoon suite: a retreat from the breakneck campaign, a romantic oasis for the future president and first lady…according to half the country, anyway. You are in the impractically large pink bathtub, surrounded by snowy dunes of bubbles. The wall to your right is a mirror, foggy around the edges; just a few yards to your left is the king-sized bed. In the top drawer of your nightstand is the card Aegon gave you in July. You aren’t sure where Aemond is, and you don’t especially care. You are relieved to be alone.
There’s a passion-red phone built into the rim of the tub, conveniently located for sudden room service revelations, champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries, steak and lobster. You have a different idea. It’s 7:15 p.m. here, so after 10 on the East Coast. On the steam-slick keypad, you dial the number for the main house at Asteria.
Eudoxia picks up and demands gruffly: “Geiá sou? Ti?”
“Hi, Doxie. Is Aegon around?”
“Where else would he be? Making himself useful somehow? Killing communists, driving a rocket to the moon? No. He is a burden as always.”
“Please be nice to him. His wife just died.”
“And so he cannot put his empty cups in the sink?” Without waiting for a reply, she sets the handset down on the kitchen counter with a clunk. There is distant, muffled shouting in Greek; she seems to back and forth with somebody. Then Eudoxia returns. “Antio sas,” she says, and hangs up just as a phone elsewhere in the house is lifted from its cradle.
Aegon answers with something halfway between a groan and a yawn. “Yeah?”
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Hey!” You can hear it riding the wire like electricity: a rustling as he sits up, a fresh clarity in his skull. His voice is deep, hushed, still husky with sleep. “What’s up, little Io? Any interesting happenings to report from your neighborhood of the solar system?”
“I just left a riveting tea party. Apple cinnamon scones and smoked salmon sandwiches. We talked about what kind of couches I should get for the White House and I wanted to kill myself. Are the kids okay?”
He’s smiling; you can tell. “They’re alright. I could have used you this afternoon. I was trying to help Spiro with his math homework. Trying, not succeeding.”
“Well he’s in middle school and thus beyond your skill.”
“How’s Jupiter?”
You know who he means. “I don’t want to talk about Aemond.”
“Okay.” Aegon says, curious. “So what should we talk about?”
A few seconds tick by, silent and perilous. “Where are you right now?”
“In my lair. Like a beast.”
“Alone?”
A transitory pause. “At the moment.”
“On the shag carpet or your futon?”
Now he’s very intrigued. “Futon. Why?”
“I just want a visual.” Beneath the water, your free hand is resting on the velvety inside of your thigh.
“Where are you?” Aegon asks.
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Maybe I want a visual too.”
You chuckle, peeking over at yourself in the mirror. Your skin is dewy with steam; stray wisps of hair stick to your face. “I’m in a gigantic pink bathtub. It’s ridiculous, it’s shaped like a heart and everything. They have a phone installed right here in case I find myself in desperate need of filet mignon.”
“Oh.” And then he hesitates, like he’s afraid to say the wrong thing. “Big enough for two?”
“More like five. You should get a tub like this for your basement, it would delight the campaign staffers.”
“My basement’s been pretty empty recently.”
Softly, vulnerably, glass offered for him to shatter: “You aren’t seeing other girls?”
“Nah, babe. I want something they can’t give me.”
You picture him, messy hair falling over his forehead, drowsy eyes that gleam with clandestine wisdom. You can smell the smoke and rum that bleeds from his skin. “I wish you were here.”
“In Seattle?”
“No. Right here.”
Aegon exhales shakily, swallows, takes a few seconds to collect himself. “How’s the water?”
“Extremely hot and full of bubbles.”
“So I wouldn’t be able to see you.”
“No,” you say, baiting him.
“But I could touch you.”
“You already have.”
“Not enough,” he murmurs. “Nowhere close to enough.”
“Do you remember what I felt like?”
“Oh God,” he whispers, and you envision him closing his eyes, rubbing his face with the open palm of his left hand. “Yeah. Of course I do. I can’t get it out of my head. But I’ve been trying not to…you know…it felt wrong to think about you that way unless you were cool with it. Like I was betraying your trust or taking advantage of you or something.”
“No, I want you to think about me.”
You can hear Aegon moving around on the green futon, repositioning himself, yanking down a zipper. When he speaks again, his breathing is quick and jagged. “Where’s your other hand, huh?”
“Under the water,” you reply coyly.
“You bitch,” he says, laughing. “I miss you so fucking much. The house isn’t right without you in it. You belong here, you belong where I am.”
Beneath the veil of bubbles and steam, there is no scar on your belly, no infidelity, no campaign, no distance of almost 3,000 miles separating you and Aegon. Your fingers slip between your legs, finding slickness the water can’t wash away. It’s a familiar sensation, though you haven’t felt it in a while: rising steadily until you hit a plateau like a jet reaching cruising altitude. From here, it will either glide along smoothly until it dies out, or eventually turn sharp and painful. “Tell me about you,” you pant.
He can hear it in your voice, a needful surrender that sets him on fire. He can’t believe this is happening; he never wants it to end. “I mean, I’m…I’m insanely hard.”
“Stroke yourself, imagine it’s me. I wish it could be me.”
“Oh fuck,” Aegon whimpers. “Okay, okay…I want you. I want you with my fingers, I want you with my tongue, I want you to beg for it, and then…”
Impossibly, incomparably, your own pleasure is climbing faster than you can reconcile yourself to it, no longer a hunger but a violent aching, a crushing gravity you can’t fight against, a ship being dragged to the floor of the ocean. What’s happening? When will it end? You moan into the phone, amazed yet petrified. You can’t get enough air; it feels like drowning, like dying.
“I need to see you,” Aegon says. He’s close to the climax that you know men experience, he has to be; he’s gasping. “I need to be with you, let me give you what you want.”
“I want you to finish inside me.”
“Io…babe…oh my God, you’re gonna kill me…”
There are sounds out in the front room of the suite: a lock clicking, footsteps, keys and a wallet tossed onto the kitchenette counter. You’re so consumed you almost don’t notice. Aemond is back. Aemond is back!! And every ion of your ascending euphoria evaporates. “Gotta go, bye.”
“Wait—!”
You hang up just as Aemond is opening the bedroom door. He walks in—immaculately tailored dark blue suit, polished black leather shoes trampling soft pink carpet—and turns to you. He has already taken his glass eye out and put on his eyepatch. Vaguely, fleetingly, you wonder where he’s been. His gaze darts to the red phone, your fingerprints in the condensation. “Who were you talking to?”
“My parents.”
If Aemond doubts this, he doesn’t show it. He crosses the room, sits on the edge of the bathtub, peers down at you with an omniscient metallic glint in his eye. He’s always been less a man than a force of nature. “I know this year has been hell.”
You envision Persephone being stolen by Hades, Orpheus searching for his dead wife Eurydice, Charon ferrying souls across the River Styx. “You haven’t made it easier.”
There’s a flash of something in his scarred face, blazing and instantaneous like lightning, and then it fades. He reaches out to touch your hair, swept up and neatly bound with clips and pins. “We can’t forget everything we’ve accomplished together,” Aemond says. “I still need you. You’re my Aphrodite.”
He’s going to tell you to get out of the tub, to lie down on the bed, to open yourself so he can fill you. You distract him, forestalling the inevitable. Each morning Prometheus dreads the return of the eagle that pecks out his liver; as every summer ends Demeter mourns the loss of Persephone. “Any luck with Nixon?”
Aemond sighs, furious, brooding. “He still won’t agree to a debate. Wallace is onboard, he’s rabid for it, he’d show up if we held it in the fucking asteroid belt, any opportunity to spew his idiocy. But not Nixon.”
“Because he knows standing on the same stage as you can only hurt him. People thought he looked bad in 1960, can you imagine now? Television has gotten so much clearer. They’ll be able to count his sweat drops from their living room couches.”
“So how do I get him to do it?”
You look up at Aemond. It’s not a hypothetical question; he’s really asking for advice.
“I have to debate Nixon,” Aemond insists. “It’s close in the polls, which means it will be even closer on Election Day. I’ll underperform whatever is projected, my coalition is less likely to show up when it counts. College kids, hippies, transients. That’s just a fact. But the old people vote. The suburban housewives vote. Nixon’s resting on his political experience and accusations that I’m a communist, an agent of chaos. But I could slaughter him in an hour on ABC.”
You think of the mutilated Vietnam veterans waving their signs and screaming at LBJ from the other side of the wrought-iron gates of the White House. “Challenge him in public. Say that the American people deserve to see the candidates debate, and do it where everyone can hear you.”
“What if Nixon still refuses?”
“Then you call him a coward. You say he must have something to hide. You ask how he’s supposed to square up with the Russians and the Chinese if he can’t even face you.”
Aemond grins admiringly. “You’re vicious.” And he lifts your hand from the rim of the tub so he can kiss your knuckles. Once you licked up drops of his approval like Tantalus, cursed with eternal thirst. Now it is poison that turns your veins black.
“If there’s a debate, everyone should go,” you say, seized by sudden inspiration. “We should have a united front, including Aegon. It can be his return to the public eye. A month will have passed since the funeral, the timing is right. He can pose for a few photos with the kids to show the nation that they’re doing well and distract from any lingering rumors about Mimi.”
Aemond isn’t grinning anymore. He’s studying you with his cold blue gaze; no, he’s trying to intimidate you, to overpower you. “Otto and I will decide what to do with him.”
“He’s a Targaryen. He should be with the rest of us.”
Aemond stands and motions for you to follow, a snap of his wrist like a man calling a dog. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed.”
Panic, tension, an iron sinking in your belly. The water is only lukewarm now, but you don’t want to leave it. “I’m not done yet.”
“Yes you are.”
There’s nothing else to say. Legally, a wife’s flesh is one with her husband’s. You slip as you step out of the bathtub, and Aemond grabs your forearm. Not like he’s helping you; like you’re something he owns.
~~~~~~~~~~
Two knocks, swift and forceful. “Hey, it’s me. You ready? Everyone else is downstairs in the lobby waiting for the limos.”
You hurry to open the door, almost twisting your ankle as you stumble in your heels. They’re an inch higher than what you’re used to. Aemond chose them, and your dress too, and your sapphire teardrop earrings, and the silver chains around your wrist and throat, and your future and your past, and your life itself. It’s mid-October, and the night of what will almost certainly be the sole presidential debate of 1968. Aemond’s retinue is staying at the Hotel Saint Louis. It’s harvest time, the fields beyond the city being reaped of their soybeans, wheat, corn, cotton, and rice, the beef cattle culled in mechanical underworlds. Aegon’s flight must have just landed.
As soon as he sees you his eyes drop, wide and bewitched, ensnared everywhere except your face. You say: “Can you help me zip this, please?”
He blinks a few times, then shakes it off. “Sorry, what?”
“The zipper’s stuck. I need you to get it.”
“Yeah. Sure.” He steps into the suite and stands behind you. The gown is a vivid blue like the Greek flag, gorgeous and shimmering but a size too small. It wasn’t tight a week ago, but now it is, and you aren’t pregnant just always gaining and losing weight in new places, first the baby and then the pill, and it wouldn’t bother you if Aemond didn’t seem so confounded by it. Aegon says as he tugs at the zipper: “I don’t think it’s gonna fit, babe.”
“It has to fit.”
“Even if I miraculously get this closed, you won’t be able to breathe.”
“Do whatever you have to. Just…just…” You push every last molecule of air out of your lungs, suck in your belly, and you hear the triumphant squeal of the zipper. “Yes!” Oh, but Aegon was right: you really can’t breathe. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“You’re not gonna last the whole debate in that. You’ll be sweating more than Nixon.”
“I’m fine.”
“Io…”
“I’m fine. Come on.” You snatch your matching purse off the coffee table by the couch, check your makeup one last time, and hobble in your heels as you walk with Aegon out into the hallway.
At the Kiel Auditorium a few blocks away, the Targaryen children—Aegon’s five and Helaena’s three—are presented for photographs before being escorted back to the hotel by the nannies. And even in the few weeks that have passed since you last saw Aegon’s kids, there have been extraordinary changes. They talk to their father, and he talks back, and he ruffles their hair and rests his hands on their shoulders and asks them about what they’re learning from their private tutors. Cosmo tackles you before he leaves—a powerful bear hug, though he can only reach your legs—and he says he hopes you’re coming home to Asteria soon.
“Me too, kiddo,” Aegon tells him, and then smiles at you; but above his gleam of teeth his cloudy blue eyes, like the Atlantic in a storm, are gloomy and troubled.
As the audience takes their seats and the journalists are poised to capture the best images and quotes of the night, the three candidates and their wives (minus Wallace’s dear departed Lurleen) meet briefly backstage to exchange the perfunctory well-wishes. Pat Nixon is introverted and bookish, though she tries to hide it; but Aemond reels her in like swordfish until her eyes are filled with him. George Wallace gets one glimpse of your venomous glare and escapes, claiming to need one last trip to the restroom before the debate begins. But Richard Nixon beckons you to accompany him to a quiet, discrete corner of the room.
“I tried to call,” he says. He’s a remarkably normal man: medium height, receding dark hair, rough voice, weathered skin, not a god but a mortal, and—you have the impression—more aware of his flaws than his fiercest critics will ever be. “But no one at that damned beach house would ever put me through to you.”
You aren’t sure what he means. “Oh?”
“I never got the opportunity to tell you how sorry I was for your loss in July, Mrs. Targaryen,” Nixon says with unglamorous, plain, genuine compassion. “Pat and I, when we heard, we wept for you. We truly did. And for your husband to be clear across the country…I can’t even imagine. It must have been awful for you. A parent never gets over something like that. It stays with you like a scar.”
“It does,” you say softly.
“I lost two brothers. Arthur died when he was seven, tuberculosis killed Harold in his twenties. God, it just about destroyed my mother. You’re a remarkable woman. You’re lightning in a bottle for Aemond, do you know that? You’re like one of those Kennedy gals, but even better. More personable than Jackie. More intelligent than Ethel…although, to be frank, who wouldn’t be? And you’re not afflicted with any ghastly vices like Ted’s wife Joan. What would Aemond do without you? He’d lose, that’s what he’d do.”
Nixon’s smart, but he’s wounded. He’s capable, but he’s so desperate to prove it. Power could ruin a man like this. “You’re very kind, sir. You did some great work under Eisenhower. Self-made like my father was, a devotee of the American Dream. I believe you have an important role to play in this country…” You smirk, a bit mischievously. “Just not as the president.”
Nixon chortles. “No matter what happens tonight, rest assured that I hate Reagan more than I could ever dislike your husband,” he says, meaning the Republican governor of his home state of California. “You know that bastard tried to primary me?”
“Actors don’t belong in politics.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Nixon says, and then bids you farewell as the lights turn blinding and the curtain begins to rise.
As soon as the adrenaline begins to fade, all you can think about is that you can’t breathe. You take your seat in the audience between Aegon and Ludwika, who won’t stop making jabs about Nixon: “He looks like a troll,” “He looks like a sasquatch,” “Do you think Pat makes him wear a  Creature from the Black Lagoon mask in bed so she is not so repulsed by him?” The most you can offer is an occasional distracted nod in response.
“You alright?” Aegon whispers.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look alright.”
“I’m great.”
“Sure,” he says, and he acts like he’s teasing, but there’s something tremendously sad underneath. He can’t save you from this. He can’t save you from anything. What must that feel like?
On the debate stage—broadcast to a national audience—Aemond performs brilliantly. Nixon salvages what could have been a bloodbath with a handful of clever retorts that Aemond pretends not to be rattled by. The real loser of the night is Wallace, who is brutally attacked by them both: Nixon because Wallace is commandeering some of his voting bloc, and Aemond because of his near-assassination back in May. After an hour, the contest concludes and the candidates descend to the main floor to pose for photos and get lassoed into brief interviews with various journalists. Everyone in Aemond’s entourage besides you and Aegon flock to his side. By now you’re gasping in shallow gulps, close to tears and in agony from your ribs to your wobbling feet.
“I told you,” Aegon says. And then: “Come on. We’ll take the first limo back.”
In the front room of your hotel suite—one yellowish end table lamp glowing dimly, the rest of the space like twilight—Aegon wrestles with the zipper as you struggle for every breath, trying not to pass out. “Ow,” you whine. “Oh fuck, this was so stupid…”
“Don’t let him make you wear shit you don’t want to wear.”
“I have to do what he says, Aegon.”
“He doesn’t own you.”
“Legally, he does.”
He’s tugging futilely at the jammed zipper. “Are you planning on using this again?”
“I believe that would be wistful thinking.”
“You probably look better out of it anyway.” He grabs his Zippo lighter from the pocket of his emerald green suit jacket and flicks it to life. “Don’t move, okay?”
“Okay.”
“At all.”
“Got it.”
You can feel heat, intense but not painful. Aegon has pulled the edge of the fabric as far away as he can from your skin and is singeing it until it turns black and charred and brittle. Then he tucks the lighter back into his pocket and with both hands rips your dress down to the small of your back. Cool air rushes to meet the ridge of your spine; goosebumps prickle all over. Aegon is marveling at you; you can see it when you glance over your shoulder at him. Then he lays a palm against your bare skin, leans into you, inhales everything you’ve ever been: smoke and sex and starlight, strategies, shadows, secrets.
The others will be pouring into the hallway from the elevator any minute. Aemond. Aemond could find us.
“We can’t,” you whisper, hating yourself for it.
Aegon kisses the nape of your neck—so slow, so kind—and then goes to the doorway. You wait for him to leave, but he doesn’t. He’s looking at you as you hold up the ruined gown so it covers your belly and your chest. You gaze back helplessly, wanting him, needing him, a moon chained to another world’s gravity.
We can’t, we can’t, we can’t.
“I’m so sorry,” you say.
And only then does Aegon vanish.
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cityofmeliora · 1 month
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notes on Primo's characterization 💖
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let's talk about Primo! i think he's a really, really interesting character!
i've said before that i think Primo is the only one of the brothers who takes the whole ~satanic death cult trying to bring the end of the world~ thing seriously.
Primo was indeed very serious about the cult. maybe too serious? even some other members of the cult dislike that about him.
NAMELESS GHOUL: The first Papa Emeritus was someone very rigid, very strict, and very solemn. A real son of a bitch! (laughs) To be honest, we don’t miss him at all! MyRock #44 (2017) translated from French by @ a-wandering-ghoulette)
the best source of Primo characterization is a 2010 interview with Sweden Rock Magazine where Primo and the Nameless Ghouls kidnapped the interviewer. though i quote *a lot* of it here, i strongly recommend reading the full interview because it is truly fascinating. notably, Primo himself speaks in this interview rather than a Nameless Ghoul.
Primo is a misanthrope who believes humans are "vermin" that have doomed themselves due to their "intellectual decline". in his eyes, they are unworthy of life and will eventually be destroyed.
“Human beings are vermin, thus the end of humanity is ultimately a good thing. We play but a vanishingly microscopic role in this cosmos of nothingness.”
The devil-worshipping organization that the Ghost leader speaks of is claimed to operate on a worldwide level and among many different areas: from politics and business to religious movements, in the entertainment industry and on the street. It does not have a name, but its existence “can most easily be explained as a living and ongoing result of humanity’s intellectual decline and eventual decay.”
Primo affirms Ghost's mission statement as originally presented in the band's old Myspace page: to spread the devil's influence and convince other people that humanity deserves its inevitable end.
According to the statement on the band’s page, Ghost’s main mission is to trick mankind into believing that the end of the world is ultimately a good thing. “Our only task is to accompany the world’s downfall.”
A question comes to mind: wouldn’t the band, which with its poppy hard rock could by all means appeal to a much wider audience than ordinary black metal acts, gain more attention by engaging in more commercial modes of expression? “We have other entertainment groups within our organization who are doing just that. Our task is to emphasize the devil’s message in the part of society that has, to varying degrees, already accepted it. It’s directed at the social grouping that goes to the type of concerts that we perform. Our goal is to be able to carry out our black mass, our ritual, for them. Other members of the cult work with far more subtle modes of expressions, better suited for consumers who are not as receptive to the truth.”
though he openly calls the organization a cult, his religious belief is sincere.
to Primo, the band's anonymity and use of costumes are a way of showing reverence and humility in their task. if Satan is the Father, and Antichrist is the Son, the band is the (unholy) Ghost: the force which connects humanity to the power of the Father and the Son. for the audience to think of Primo or the Nameless Ghouls as individual people would distract from their message. when he takes on the role of Papa, he becomes one with their cause.
You refer to yourselves as a group of nameless spirits - should this be taken literally? Is the band actually something other than human? “To make it easier for mortals to deal with the fact that we, as individuals, have no significance in this experience, we have chosen to act as ghosts - hollow and diffuse.”
Why did you, as a leader, choose an outfit so similar to the one worn by the Catholic Pope? “For the Pope it is a way of showing reverence and seriousness, and at the same time humility before his task. He uses it to step into the body that is the essence and the fog, something we advocate too. It is our way of becoming one with the fog.” Things become clearer when the leader speaks of the meaning behind the name of the band: “Akin to the tripartite view so stubbornly proclaimed by the Christian faith, we too believe there is magic in the concept of three and we are part of it: there is a god, Satan, a son, Antichrist, and a ghost in the middle that is the inexplicable - the fog.”
Primo has a theistic view of Satan, believing he is real deity who speaks through / inspires the band's music. in this way, the Ghoul Writer could be considered a sort of prophet to him.
That’s right. Ghost have their music written for them. In one online interview, a so-called “ghoul writer” is mentioned who supposedly composes melodies and lyrics with the help of ungraspable powers from beyond – devilish whispers instruct him which words should accompany which chords, and so forth. “There is indeed a human individual who composes patterns of tones and words which operate ever so beautifully in unison. However, I am of the belief that there is a higher being who speaks through this individual,” asserts the Pope.
like a proper cultist, Primo cannot imagine having a life / identity outside of the cult. he remembers that there was once a time when he was not a member of the cult, but he cannot remember what it was like to be that person. his devotion to the cult has been a core part of who he is for a very long time.
How he got involved in this movement and dedicated his life to Satan, he has a hard time answering. After a long silence, the singer says: “I find it very difficult to remember the life I had before I found the darkness. It is therefore very difficult to answer your question. My memory doesn’t go that far.” Surely the Pope must remember something?           “I cannot remember a time when I did not find myself part of the dark energy. That does not mean that I remember nothing from my past life, only that I cannot remember how I felt then. This is because it was a time when I did not know very much.” Was it by coming into contact with other members of the organization that you found this darkness? “As I said, I do not remember when this happened. But I think…” He chooses his words carefully. “… I believe that, like many others, I was woven into this dark through subtle, human components found within it. Once again, my intellect was not as developed as it is now, so I have great difficulty in explaining what happened - when and where, and to what extent.”
while he cannot say exactly what happened to him or when, Primo seems to have had genuine spiritual experiences. he was always connected to the dark energy, and he feels that he became awakened and that his intellect has developed since he truly found his faith.
despite being a misanthrope, Primo admits he was brought into the darkness by some sort of human connection. he might actually have the capacity to care about some people.
in a Kerrang feature where Primo gets quizzed on "demonology, serial killers and stuff like that", he says the cult knew witches who were burned at the stake, but he doesn't like to talk about it. it stood out to me that he says he doesn't want to talk about it, because he speaks so openly and matter-of-factly about other dark / upsetting topics. at the very least, it appears he doesn't like it when bad things happen to other members of the cult.
WHAT DOES THE PHRASE MALLEUS MALEFICARUM TRANSLATE AS IN ENGLISH? A) HAMMER OF THE WITCHES B) HAMMER OF THE DEMONS C) HAMMER OF THE GODS PAPA: “That would be the witch-hammer. We knew some Witches, but unfortunately a lot of them were taken away.” KERRANG!: “As in burned at the stake?” PAPA: “Correct. But I don’t like to talk about that. (Answer: A) ✔
he seems to be quite pleased about other people dying, though. and he is certain they all go to Hell.
6. NAME ANY TWO OF THE THREE ORIGINAL MEMBERS OF MAYHEM. PAPA: “Though one was not an original member two of the band are actually burning in Hell, and they’re good guests, certainly. But yes, I will say Euronymous and Necrobutcher.” (Answer: Euronymous, Necrobutcherr, Manheim) ✔ 7. WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE SHIP THAT WAS DISCOVERED FLOATING ABANDONED AND UNMANNED IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN IN DECEMBER 1872? PAPA: “It was that ship with such a heavenly name, the lady Mary Celeste.” KERRANG!: “And can you finally tell us where all the people went?” PAPA: I’ll check the records. Obviously they’re all in Hell now, but the way they got there is a little cloudy. But then our Lord too works in mysterious ways…“ (Answer: Mary Celeste) ✔
some of Primo's other responses in this article reveal he has a dark sense of humor and perhaps cruel inclinations. when talking about possessions done by the cult, he says "sometimes you just want to do it for the hell of it" and "you want to make a bit of sport out of it", referring to a possession that (allegedly) influenced a serial killer. he refers to the victims of these possessions as "poor [name]", but his remarks on their misfortune don't indicate any actual remorse or sympathy. it might even be intentionally ironic.
5. WHICH PAINTER ALLEGEDLY UNDERWENT AN EXORCISM IN 1947? PAPA: “Poor Salvador Dali. You know we had his missus possessed as well, all in the name of Satan…” KERRANG!: Is possession something that’s done for serious reasons or just to pass the time? “Well sometimes you just want to do it for the hell of it…”  (Answer: Salvador Dali) ✔
13. WHAT AMERICAN SERIAL KILLER CLAIMS HE WAS COMPELLED TO COMMIT HIS MURDERS BY A DEMON THAT POSSESSED HIS NEIGHBOUR’S DOG? PAPA: 'That was that poor boy, the Son Of Sam. That sure was a successful possession, although it did involve far too much crotch-sniffing and turd-eating.“ KERRANG: "Is it easier to possess a dog than to possess a person?” PAPA: “Not necessarily, but you want to make a bit of sport out of it.” (Answer: David Berkowitz/Son Of Sam) ✔
also, many of the events Primo speaks about would've happened before he was born or when he was very young, so it seems he's studied the cult's history very well, and he keeps tabs on their current activities. he does his research!
and as a fun fact: Primo is pretty good at math :)
14. IF YOU’RE TRICK OR TREATING AND THREE HOUSES GIVE YOU SEVEN SWEETS, TWO GIVE YOU FOUR, AND ONE GIVES YOU NINE, AND YOUR PARENTS THEN DOUBLE WHAT YOU HAVE, HOW MANY SWEETS DO YOU END UP WITH? PAPA: “76.” KERRANG!: “That was alarmingly fast, sir. Are good mathematical skills important when you’re burning in the fiery pits of Hell?” PAPA: “We all have our different strengths, but of course the number we are most used to is 666…” (Answer: 76) ✔
there's not a lot of information about Primo, and what exists is hard to find, but i live to bring knowledge to the people 🫡. these are all the sources i have on hand that talk about Primo. if anyone else has other articles / videos talking about Primo, i'd really appreciate it if you shared them!
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eclecticmiasma · 3 months
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Yandere DunMeshi MBTI: Laios Touden
No one in the world requested this, I just think this man needs to be studied under a microscope and I can't quit rolling him around in my brain. Headcanons based on the Yandere MBTI indicator conceptualized by the lovely ddarker-dreams! Please send them love and feel free to request me for any characters. [Warnings: general yandere scariness]
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CRUEL Vs. REVERENT Darling captures Laios's attention primarily because they are kind. They smile at his stories even if he's told them a hundred times before, they ask him questions about monsters and don't shy away when he pulls out a tome's worth of notes detailing each one. Darling always has a terrible look on their face when Laios is injured and has never once made him feel less than. To Laios, darling is the sun.
If darling is part of his party, they can expect to be doted on, fussed over, and guarded to a point where the only time they are truly alone is when bathing. Even then, Chilchuck has to constantly assure Laios that darling is absolutely fine, much to his chagrin. If they are injured or die, Laios almost becomes a different person for hours after they're revived. He's anxious, snappy, even hostile until darling can bring him back down with their calm nature.
If darling isn't in the party, they can still expect to see Laios nearly all of the time. Sometimes it doesn't quite make sense how Laios can go on so many trips to the dungeon and yet still have time to consistently be in darling's personal space on the surface. Darling can expect to receive souvenirs from the dungeon (mostly monster parts, always frightening) and letters about adventures that Laios will simply tell them again in person anyway. He'll insist on walking them home and greeting them in the morning before he leaves to the dungeons again.
AWARE VS. DELUSIONAL
All Laios knows is that the emotion he feels when the object of his affection is around seems measurably different than his love for his sister or love for his friends. Truth be told, there has always been a nagging worry at the back of his mind that he might never be able to feel for a human the way he loves adventuring or studying monsters. That he's doomed to a life of solitude surrounded by nothing that understands him. When darling comes along, they're like a beacon of light that tells Laios he's capable of being normal for once. After all, he finally feels the kind of love he's been lectured time and time again that he should be feeling at his age. A chivalrous need to protect, to treasure, to study and bring gifts and share meals and troubles and maybe, just maybe even taste and touch and devour- It's just what loving someone means.
MANIPULATIVE VS. HONEST
There is no need to manipulate darling because Laios himself doesn't feel that any of his behavior is wrong. He doesn't know how to be anything but himself, and any hint darling or others try to give him that maybe his interactions are bordering on unhealthy and obsessive don't reach him at all. If darling says they'd better get going, Laios is there to walk them home. If Marcille tries to tell Laios that darling is perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, he marvels at how talented darling is and then does nothing to change his behavior. If Namari outright tells him that he needs to give darling space, he'll nod seriously and then decide that sitting across from darling and not next to darling is sufficient. In Laios's mind, everything is perfect.
STRICT VS. LENIENT
As long as darling is safe, or what Laios deems to be safe, everything is fine. Darling can do what they want on the surface, talk to whom they want on the surface, go dungeoneering if darling is part of the party. Problems begin to arise when that sense of security wanes. The look of that gnome chatting with darling isn't one that Laios likes. As a tall-man, it's very easy to keep him from speaking to darling ever again. Darling wants to go on a trip to Kahka Brud, Laios is quick to insist that he come along. After a particularly nasty event in the dungeon, Laios might make it his mission that darling never venture beneath the surface again. Laios is harmless until threatened- that's when his brand of love becomes suffocation.
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*do not post elsewhere without explicit permission. please consider reblogging, as Tumblr tends to hide darker content!
[RULES] [MASTERLISTS] [AO3] [KO-FI]
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courtofparrots · 1 month
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A list of equipment in Luis Serra's lab and what he might use them for
My beloved mutual @geddy-leesbian put in a ton of effort and got these incredibly detailed screenshots of Luis's island lab, featured in this post, and I thought I would follow that up by comparing what he uses to what I use in my own lab. This was fun for me to do and I also thought it could be used as a resource for any writers that aren't as familiar with Luis's profession.
(for context if you don't know me, I am a microbiologist, bacterial geneticist if you want to be specific. I'll be earning my PhD hopefully this year, and I have been studying biology for 10 years, and actively working in various labs for 7)
Obviously this is a science fiction video game, so while I may be a scientist, I am still using some level of guesswork! This is just meant to be a fun little thing for my fellow resi nerds.
1. Liquid Nitrogen tank
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These are used for flash-freezing biological samples for long-term storage. In the context of Luis’s research, he might flash-freeze plaga cells or dead plaga bodies in order to store them (typically at -80 Celsius) without them decaying or being damaged
2. Microcentrifuge
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This is a veryyyyy common piece of equipment. You use them to spin samples so you can collect cells out of suspension. It’s like how they spin blood to separate it from plasma at blood donation centers
3. Light microscope
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I’m sure everyone recognizes this one but still wanted to add the picture from my lab because I appreciate how detailed and accurate his equipment is
4. Shaking incubator
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Used to grow tubes of cells! They are typically kept at 37C (body temperature) and they shake at like 200rpm to keep oxygen flowing through the culture so they stay healthy. You would do this to grow samples of whatever organism you desired so you could run experiments on it the next day (we call it making overnights or overnight cultures).
5. Maybe an anaerobic chamber?
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These are slightly less common pieces of lab equipment so I was surprised to see it! We have one in our lab because we do some work on gut-dwelling bacteria that have to be grown without oxygen. As you can see, ours looks a little different so it might have some different uses, but generally the little cube on the right side is where you would place a sample (it’s an airlock) and then transfer it into the chamber. Seeing as Luis has it, I’m thinking maybe las plagas might need to be grown anaerobically at certain stages, I’d guess in early life when it’s really dependent on being in the human body.
I've got some other pictures to compare that I'll also be posting about in the coming days, about things like chemical management plus some other weird equipment things Luis has, but in the meantime if you have specific questions feel free to DM me! I hope this is helpful!
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lixiesfreckless · 7 months
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No Translation Needed | h. h.
➸ synopsis: when the language barrier between you and a stranger becomes too wide, your shared interests bridge the gap for you.
➸ starring: hwang hyunjin x female reader
➸ word count: 2.7k
➸ general content: artist!hyunjin, there is somewhat of a language barrier, both people are complete art nerds and it's way too endearing, takes place in south korea, flufffff(I'm so fond of this man)
➸ warnings: microscopic mention of alcohol
➸ rating: teen+
➸ author’s note: an older fic but I'm still so attached to it. two kinds of people: the type who hear hyunjin speak english and move on, and then me
♫ this fic has a soundtrack! you don’t need to listen to it while reading, but rêverie by the man, the myth, the legend, claude debussy goes SO HARD ON THIS FIC LIKE-
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You were never the type to dabble in realism.
A pair of headphones, a wide brush, a blank canvas, and a bucket of red paint; that was your activity of choice on friday nights. Nothing that came from that ever resembled anything in particular, but it was never supposed to. Just looking at it, one could tell what emotions fueled the creative process those nights.
The feelings behind them were real enough, you'd hear people say.
But of course, there's always some people that detest abstract art. They say it takes no talent, no thought, that you're just slathering paint on a canvas and expecting to get recognition for it. Sometimes you think they're right.
Other times you buy a plane ticket out of the country, you know, for fun. If you were a starving artist, maybe you'd think about letting their words get to you.
And while some would argue that booking a spontaneous vacation to Seoul could classify as a form of escapism, the painting in front of you has you wondering whether you could mark this trip in your tax forms as a business expense.
All of your years in art school and not once had you ever learned so much from one piece of canvas.
Art museums are designed to look boring. They are supposed to draw your eye from one acrylic-covered canvas to another, making you forget about your surroundings and immerse you into the various artworks. This one was no different, hues of beige and black and white littering the geometric space.
That being said, you are certain that this painting would have caught your eye even if it was posted in Times Square.
You had made your way across the room, ears picking up on the few Korean phrases you knew as strangers shifted around you. A graphite cityscape. A gouache vase of flowers. A portrait made of ink prints on wood. The exhibit you randomly picked over tonkatsu and soju last night in your hotel room was definitely a good one, no doubt.
And to think you almost walked past this piece.
Bold strokes of blue, tiny specks of white, all on a frame that was wider than your wingspan. 
The girl was depicted just off center, in some billowy white dress.
Floating? Drowning? 
You settle on suspended as your footsteps slow down, turning to approach the watery scene.
Staring at it feels like staring at a glass of water. You can't definitively say whether it’s half-empty or half-full, whether she’s reaching for the surface or letting herself sink. Her face is covered by wispy brown hair, obstructing her true emotions from view. Somehow you know this was a conscious decision the artist made, to let the viewer come to their own conclusion on the piece.
Even though you know about the negative effects that human oils have on artworks, you still find yourself fighting the urge to reach out and touch it. To feel the ripples of the oil paint and somehow find your own hand soaked, as if you reached through the canvas barrier and felt the cold loneliness yourself.
Impressionist paintings did always have this charm about them, at least to you. They felt abstract upon inspection, just a mess of strange brushstrokes and controversial colors. And yet when viewed from a distance, it feels like a completely different experience. Up close, a dizzying mix of the shades of the sky. A step back, and it's an unspoken thesis on the solitude of limbo, or whatever you've decided to name this piece.
You glance at the info card at the bottom right corner.
Buoyancy- Hwang Hyunjin
You make a mental note to research him later before your eyes get pulled to the subject once again.
‧⋆ ✧˚₊‧⋆. ✧˚₊‧⋆‧
You have been staring at his painting for eight minutes.
He had walked around, chatted with other featured artists, talked with a few strangers, but when he came back, you had acted as though you were one of the items on display; still locked in the same position as before. Eyebrows furrowed, one hand resting on your canvas tote bag, the other in the pocket of your trousers. 
In the nicest way possible, you looked like a tourist.
But tourists don't have long attention spans, and you could have been roleplaying a statue with how long you'd been standing there.
A strange mix of anxiety and excitement rushed through Hyunjin when he found you still standing there. 
No one had ever observed his art for that long before.
At least, not in one sitting. Definitely not like this. Why haven't you moved on? Can you see something that he can't? Are you thinking of buying a print?
He wants to approach you. To leave you alone. To watch you scrutinize his painting. To run screaming to the event coordinator.
Casually, he sticks both hands in his jeans and stands a few feet from your right side, as if he's one of the visitors.
He takes a moment, gaining whatever’s left of his composure before speaking.
“I'm so glad I know how to swim.”
You snap out of your daze, surprised to hear English in the Korean white noise you've been immersed in. You look over and see the gorgeous young man standing near you, looking at the painting you've been so engrossed in.
“Yeah,” you exhale, “I totally get the fear of open water.”
Hyunjin chuckles, strangely drawn in by the sound of your voice.
“Although, she doesn't seem all that scared to me,” you add, shifting your focus back to the canvas.
“You don't think so?”
“I mean, you could argue that she doesn't want to be there, that she's drowning,” you begin, pointing to the girl. “But…the longer I stare at it, the more I feel like she's just hanging there, not reaching for the surface on purpose.” Your finger trails down to the bottom right corner. “I think that's why it was named Buoyancy, at least that's what I got out of it…”
You trail off, realizing that you're rambling to a total stranger about a random piece of artwork. Looking back at him however, you find your face heating up at the amazed expression on his, as if you had just told him his middle name.
“I wish I had thought of that,” he lies. It was almost scary how quickly you had found the meaning he'd tried to convey after months of fighting with the paint.
“Well that's the fun thing about art,” you say, smiling to yourself. “It's all subjective. What were you thinking?”
Hyunjin opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again in mild frustration.
“I'm not…very good with English,” he says, defeated.
He would argue that he's not very good with any language, even his mother tongue.
Art was the only language he felt he could speak easily without hesitation. It was easy to throw himself into that with reckless abandon, because it was the only place where he truly felt understood.
“But I can still understand you,” he quickly amends, glad to see that spark behind your eyes again. He walks past you, stopping at the painting on your left. “What about this one?”
“This one has some really dramatic lighting, which makes me believe…”
‧⋆ ✧˚₊‧⋆. ✧˚₊‧⋆‧
Evening sunlight filters in through the exhibit windows as you and Hyunjin examine an organically-shaped vase, admiring its handiwork.
“I’ve always wanted to try pottery but…I don’t really like the feeling of cold clay on my hands,” you chuckle, looking at the tall man next to you. He grins, scrutinizing his hands as he contemplates his answer. 
“People tell me I have good fingers- for clay,” he adds quickly, even though the meaning wasn't lost on you, and you fight back a smirk to appear unphased. “But I haven't found a good studio? Is that how you call it?”
“I wouldn't know, I've never been,” you say, walking to the next painting. Which happens to be where you both started.
“Wait, have we been through this whole gallery?” You quickly check your watch, confirming that you have been there for much longer than you had intended. Looking back at the stranger you have spent the evening with, you feel heat start to scatter across your face.
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to take up so much of your ti-”
“I liked it,” he blurts, and you feel reassured as his face lights up with panic. “Talking. With you, I mean.” He looks just past you to the art on the wall, ears turning the slightest shade of red. “No one has ever said anything so beautiful about my art before.”
He watches as your face circles through several emotions, before settling on embarrassment. 
“You're…you're one of the artists? Which one is yours?” You say, trying to recall what you said about every art piece.
He nods toward the painting that had first caught your attention, the one that practically jumped out at you an hour ago.
“Hyunjin,” he says quietly, extending a hand toward you in a humble introduction, as if that same hand didn't produce the masterpiece in front of you. 
“Y/n,” you whisper, trying not to let your mouth hang open in awe. “And to think I was going to Google you later.”
“You were?” The light in his eyes was unmistakable.
“I always research artists that inspire me,” you admit, bashfully dropping his hand.
“I inspired you?”
You meet his eyes and you know then, the weight that your words carry.
To create is a desire that all artists cannot shake; it is what keeps the painter keep coming back to the blank canvas, the sculptor to the slab of clay. But when the process is finished, all they can hope is that someone will see it, and feel a fraction of what they felt whilst creating it. 
Moving someone to the point of giving them the desire to create, through their artwork, is a dream many artists never get to see come into fruition.
And maybe that's why Hyunjin stares at you now, wondering which lucky star is shining down on him now.
“Can I…” he pauses, hoping he's saying the line like how they do in the movies, “can I buy you a drink?”
‧⋆ ✧˚₊‧⋆. ✧˚₊‧⋆‧
When people say studio apartment, this is what you wish they mean.
Floor-to-ceiling window walls on one side, where several canvases sit propped up against the city skyline, and an apartment on the other, with a cute kitchenette and loft bedroom that doesn't feel cramped. It's perfect for someone who needs enough space to think, without sacrificing their space to live.
You hear Hyunjin click the door shut behind you as you set your bag down on a chair, surveying the studio side of his residence.
Several canvases catch your eye.
You can't even blame him for attempting to paint it because with the view he has, you'd paint it every day. 
Different versions of the Seoul skyline are scattered across the room, each depicting a different time of day. Sunrise is leaning against the window. Midday is sitting on a canvas. Twilight is hanging up on the wall, and something akin to golden hour lays unfinished, perhaps even abandoned on the floor. You crouch in front of it to get a better look.
“That one is…not finished,” Hyunjin says from the kitchen, pouring two glasses of soju. You can feel his nervous gaze on you even with your back turned to him.
“It's beautiful,” you whisper, looking at the palette he used to mix the colors. An array of browns and yellows are smeared on the glass, which were no doubt used to put the buildings into the scene.
He doesn't say thank you; his face does that for him when he crouches next to you, cheekbones pink as he sets the soju glasses on the floor. 
“I can't get the colors right,” he sighs, staring at the painting in discontent. “It looks…dull.”
“Maybe you should try adding red instead of brown,” you suggest, picking up a palette knife. “May I?”
Hyunjin stares at you in bewilderment, before opening a tube of vermillion and squeezing a bit onto the palette. 
“I studied color theory for what felt like forever,” you chuckle, taking the knife and adding red to a few of his previous colors.
“I never went to art school,” he says, as if that makes him a lesser artist. You feel a twinge of jealousy at that statement, knowing that the man next to you was this skilled without coaching, before adding, “You didn't miss much. It killed my creativity.”
Hyunjin goes pale at that as you pass him a clean paintbrush and toss the palette knife aside.
“Did you get it back?” He asks, and when you tilt your head, he adds, “Your creativity?”
“It comes and goes.” Sometimes you wish you didn't stake your livelihood on your ability to create. Inspiration is always a welcome guest but it never stays for long, at least on your side of the ocean.
Watching him add your hues to the painting is like having inspiration fed right into your bloodstream. Immediately the painting comes to life, the reds of the sunset becoming visible at the whim of his paintbrush.
He stops for a minute to admire the changes, and turns to you for feedback, eyes twinkling with joy. Or maybe that's just the soju.
“It was beautiful before,” you say, tracing your finger along the side of the canvas, “but now it looks alive.”
“I love the way you talk,” Hyunjin says quietly after a moment of silence, and the bluntness of the compliment nearly has you choking on your soju. But he just looks at you, no hint of humor in his eyes, sitting entirely too close to your tipsy self, and you feel your body buzz with warmth.
“And I love the way you smile,” you whisper back, unable to look away as he sets down his paintbrush, trying to hide his contagious grin.
He turns back to you, and you wish for several things. You wish you didn't have a plane ticket taking you away from this place in a week. You wish that you had finished your glass of soju. You wish you could poke the mole under his eye, or the dimple in his cheek.
You wish that you were drunk enough to close the gap between you two without a second thought.
But when your foreheads touch, your phone buzzes, so you grin and chuckle to yourself.
“I…I think we've had too much to drink.”
He looks at you through hooded eyes and smiles again.
“Or not enough.” He counters.
You nod in agreement at that and pull back, mentally kicking yourself for losing the only chance at finding out what his smile tastes like. But it's probably better this way. You don't want to be remembered as the girl who sweet talked her way into his bed.
You're halfway to the sink with your glasses when he speaks up suddenly.
“I want to see you again.”
You set the dishes down before turning to face him, and you wish you had brought a change of clothes. And maybe an extra toothbrush.
“I don't want to finish it without you,” he says, nodding to the painting that he had moved to the easel.
“I can come back tomorrow morning,” you promise, trying not to sound too hopeful.
“I can make crepes.”
“I love crepes.”
He picks up your bag from the chair and brings it to you, hating how much it feels like he's rushing you out the door. 
“See you tomorrow, y/n.”
“Goodnight, Hyunjin.”
You leave the apartment and close the door behind you, but your feet don't advance down the hallway. Hyunjin's hand hovers over the locking mechanism, unable to click the deadbolt into place as he considers running after you.
Before you can talk yourself out of it, you spin around to knock on his door, only to find him throwing the door open and grinning in delight at the sight of you.
“It's past midnight, isn't it?”
His smile tastes like mint and chamomile tea.
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Note
"I was thinking about a neteyam x fem!human!reader. Reader is a short girl, maybe 4'11 (1.48) and Neteyam takes advantage of it and corners her to the wall..."
This was my request. Sory for misunderstanding
oblivious
Paring: Neteyam X Fem!Human!Reader
aged up Neteyam(26) Reader(22)
Word count: 5K
Synopsis: You’ve been sent to Pandora as a researcher. Constantly having your head in the books, swabbing cultures, and learning more about the world you’ve been sent to. Grace would occasionally mention the different Na'vi, but you had no clue who anyone was. Little did you know someone had been watching you this whole time. 
word bank: Lawr=melody
Warnings: no use of Y/N, smut, Dom!Netyam, semi-oblivious reader, size kink, teasing, slightly possessive Neteyam, P in V, cock warming, creampie, breeding kink, hair pulling, male receiving oral, 
a/n- This definitely took longer than I thought it would, but I finally got it done. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy.
“Can you get that for me?” You asked while letting out a sigh accepting your defeat. Grace raised her brow and shook her head. “You know there should be some sort of high requirement for these job positions.” You playfully rolled your eyes and took the stack of books from her. “If they did that it would be discrimination! And thank you.” 
“Mhm, you’re welcome.” She started walking away but turned back on her heels. “Oh, Neteyam and Lo’ak are stopping by.”  You placed the books next to the microscope, looking up with a confused face. 
Grace scuffed. “Do I need to make a damn PowerPoint for you? Come on quark!” You rolled your eyes at the nickname she gave you. It was the name used once protons and neutrons are broken down. Making them the smallest particles. 
“Are they the ones that come in here with spider?” She nodded her head and lit her cigarette.  You weren’t too familiar with the Na'vi… You tried to speak the language but only managed to grasp a couple of words, phrases, and some sentences if you were lucky. 
But most of the time when the men came through you just minded your business and stayed to yourself. 
“Yes with Spider… seems like he’s the only one you remember?” 
“Weeell he’s the only one who’s here often.” She shook her head “What are they stopping by for?” 
“Not sure. Anyway, I’ll be in the village.” 
You’ve seen pictures from when Grace was in her human form but that was many years before. She talked about the war many times and it still shocks you how she survived….how anyone survived. 
You nodded my head and started pulling out the necessary agar dishes and instruments for culture dishes
Many scientists passed by not paying you any mind. It wasn't until you heard Norm logging on his tape recorder that you finally looked up from the microscope.  He noticed he was looking and waved while finishing up.  “Hey, how’s it going Quark?” You let out a sigh making him chuckle.  “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but you have to admit the name catches on fast.” 
‘At least it wasn’t an insulting name I’ll give Grace that’ you thought. “Yeah yeah yeah. I heard Spider and his f-
“ NORM! What’s going on!” You turned your head quickly hearing his loud voice bounce off the walls of the lab.  “Never mind it seems they have arrived.” You said 
Spider looked at you and instantly ran almost tackling you! “Umph… dude, we talked about this! I’m not a damn target stop tackling me like I’m a runaway!” 
“Shit- I’m sorry” he pulled away and fixed your hair…. Well, I attempted to fix it. You swatted his hand away and properly fixed it. The other scientist always would comment how you two were meant to be siblings with how you interacted with each other. The two Na'vi men were in the back watching the whole thing. 
“Spider is that your girlfriend? You sure ran to her like she was.” 
Spider spun around and gave the slightly shorter one the finger while the tallest one watched the two banter….until you felt his eyes on you. Your breath hitched causing a smirk to appear on his. You watched as he looked away and walked towards Norm. 
“Oel ngati kameie olo'eyktan.” Norm said while bringing his hand up to his forehead and extending it. This was a common greeting they used but of course, you struggled with it.  The really tall one returned the gesture and began speaking the language you struggled with the most. 
“What’s this you’re working on?” Spider asked causing you to jump. You’d been so caught up in staring at the man you forgot the name of to notice Spider was next to you along with the other man. “Shit! Spider, you have to stop doing that!” You clutched your chest and let out a huff of air. “And it’s swabs from the animals on Pandora…then once they are incubated properly I’ll be able to see the different bacteria that live on them.
The pair chuckled. “He didn’t do anything you were distracted by my brother.” You raised a brow and looked back between the one talking to Norm and the one standing next to you. 
You hummed and nodded your head. “ I see the resemblance.” 
He scoffed and shook his head while fiddling with the various books on your table. “Resemblance my ass! You’ve met us about a dozen times yet forget what we look like and our names.” 
You huffed and placed your hands on your hips. “Well, I’m sorry smart ass I have things to do and complicated names that I have to remember for reports…..and I do remember now you’re Lo’ak you always come in here and talk rather loudly if you ask me.” 
He scoffed and knitted his brows together mimicking your hand placement. “ I do not talk loudly you should see a doctor if your ears are sensitive you mouse.” You gasped and picked up one of the books getting ready to throw one at his head. 
“Oh, so you want to throw insults at my height?” 
His eyes widened “ n-no no that no-“
“Listen here you damn giant take another jab at my height and I’ll make sure to knock some inches off of you!”  You went to go throw the book as his mouth opened again but you were stopped by a large hand. You looked up to see the man called Neteyam smirking down at you. 
“Looks like you got yourself in some trouble brother.” He let out a deep chuckle sending chills down your back. The Na’vi accent was very thick on his tongue but you understood him clearly. Neteyam looked down at you again and let your hand go. You slowly let your hand drop and he smiled. 
“ I’m sorry Lawr, my brother tends to make trouble everywhere we go.” He said softly while squatting down. I took a step back surprised by how close he was. “Allow me to make it up to you…. I’m hosting a party well it’s more of a celebration for a hunt we had earlier this morning.” 
‘A celebration? How…what would I even wear’ you thought. “ I-I well I don’t really-“ 
“Bro look at her she can’t even speak properly,” Lo’ak said. You knitted your brows together gripping the book, and swiftly threw it at his head. Of course, he didn’t see the coming so it got him right above his eyebrow. 
Lo’ak let out a loud yelp and held the injured area. “ I have several more books if you want to keep talking ass hat!” Everyone started laughing and I turned back to Neteyam. 
“ I’ll take you up on that invitation thank you… Is there anything I should wear?” He smiled giving you a once-over. 
“You can come as you are or you can wear something nice, but I think you look beautiful as is.”  He smiled, making the heat rise to your cheeks. “Gosh ha-well I’ll wear something nice. It’s a celebration I don’t want to look raggedy.” 
I let out a small chuckle and sat back on my chair causing him to do another once over. He smirked before my attention turned back to Spider. 
“So no candy?” Spider chuckled and dug into his pouch. “If I didn’t bring any I’m sure you would have thrown a book at me.”  You playfully rolled your eyes as he placed the candy in the drawer on your research table away from your swabbing one. “No that’s only for people who have smart mouths.” You said taking a jab at Lo’ak who was still rubbing his forehead.  You heard Neteyam chuckle as he stood up. 
“Well, I will leave you to your work. I have duties to tend to until later….I’ll see you then lawr.”  You bit your lip subtly noticing his eyes not leaving you. He smiled before walking away.  You felt a little jab to your arm and it was Spider. You looked over to him and shook your head as he winked and wiggled his brows. 
“Will you stop? Now go, I’m sure Kiri needs help with something!”  Lo’ak gasped bringing your attention to him.  “So you remember my sister's name but not mine!” You laughed as you pulled out more agar dishes for swabbing. “Yes, because she is nice and I enjoy when she comes in!” It was the truth. Kiri truly was nice to have around and occasionally would bring little snacks. Most of the stuff on Pandora you couldn’t eat but some stuff you could. 
“You’re ridiculous you know that right? Am I not nice to have around?” You looked up at him and got up from your chair, you couldn’t help but feel a little bad for throwing the book at him. You went into the first aid freezer and grabbed one of the ice bags. 
You walked back over and handed it to him. “Here… and yes sometimes when I don’t have work to get done and you're not being loud.” He hesitantly took it and muttered a thank you before putting the ice on his brow. 
“Hm, maybe I’ll consider being quieter…or maybe you can take a break from work and come back with us.” 
You hummed while sitting back on your stool. “ I’ll think about it.” Is all you said he accepted the answer and nodded his head. They said their final goodbyes and you finally could go back to work…well at least you tried to but all you could think of was how intense Neteyam's gaze was.
-
After many hours of working you finally made your way back to your room to get ready for this ‘celebration'. This was the first time in months you’d gone to any sort of party so you were going to go all out and by all out it meant putting on some lipstick and mascara. You let your hair drop to your shoulders from its previous hairstyle so there was no need to spend unnecessary time with that. Especially when it was already curly.
“Maybe this is too much?” You said while looking in the mirror adjusting your outfit. You settled on a hip-hugging long skirt and the matching tube crop top that was practically a bra on you. Maybe it was too much especially with you putting your belly piercing back in. Maybe it was too much or maybe you were being super self-conscious knowing Neteyam would see you. 
You bit your lip and shook the unwanted thoughts from your head. “No! I haven’t been out of the lab in months I’m going as is!” You turned off the light and marched out of your room, only to be followed by a loud whistle from Norm who was now in his avatar form. 
You looked up and shook your head. “What are you doing here?” He chuckled and gestured for me to start walking. 
“ Neteyam insisted I be here to walk you to the village and sent his apologies for not being here instead.” You looked up shocked by what he just said but only nodded your head and hummed in response. ‘Hm he’s a gentleman I see.’ You thought 
“Also I’m sure I don’t have to give you the talk… but it’s best you don’t… how do I put this? Lo’ak tends to mess around so just a heads up.” You let out a loud laugh and shook your head. 
“That’s hilarious that you think I would even let him try something. I’m sure he got the message earlier today.” Norm chuckled and ducked as he walked out the building. 
In the past exopacks were needed for humans to breathe but after the war Grace and some of the other scientists developed a shot that would make it possible for you to breathe Pandora's air. That’s not your specialty so you had no clue how they did it but it was cool. 
With norms help it wasn’t a far walk and the music could be heard for a distance you’ve never been to one of these events before. A smile
 appeared on your face seeing grace in the distance dancing with other people. A sight you’ve never seen before. 
Kiri spotted you and instantly walked over with a wide smile on her face. “You made it! You look fantastic.” You did a little dance while turning around showing her your whole outfit.  “Come come let’s dance we can’t let this outfit go to waste!” 
Your eyes widened ‘Dance?’ You thought. You had no clue how to do their dances much less if they would look good on you. “ I-“. Kiri chuckled and leaned down to gently push you to the dance floor. “ I’ll show you now, stop worrying.” 
You looked around seeing couples dancing rather sensually. You hadn’t realized the music changed… and of course, you’d danced to similar music but it was nothing like this. You took a deep breath and followed Kiri’s lead and once you got comfortable you followed and put your own twist on it.  
You lost track of time with how many drinks you consumed and the music flowing through your body. You didn’t notice Neteyam watching you all night. But anyone who he conversed with sure noticed how his attention was elsewhere. 
It wasn’t until you managed to wander off that you were taken away by the various glowing flora. “Gosh, I should have brought my kit. I have to come back out here and get samples.”  You said admiring the plants, letting a gasp out seeing a strange animal fly up from below. 
“Not without me I hope.” A low familiar voice said causing you to jump. He let out a deep chuckle and held his hands up. “ I didn’t mean to scare you lawr” You tilted your and continued walking. 
“So you were following me?” You said as your hand grazed one of the flowers you passed by. “And what does that word mean?” 
The sound of the music was growing faint with every step you took but the further you walked the more things around you were illuminated. “You could say that yes. What kind of leader would I be if I left someone like you alone? And it means-“You spun around and knitted your eyebrows together. 
“ What is with you and your brother commenting on my height? I already know I’m short, okay!” You huffed out 
“ I can’t speak for my brother but I find your shortness cute.” You rolled your eyes letting out an annoyed grunt shoving his hips back in the process. But of course that was the wrong move on your part. The devious smirk on your face slowly faded as you watched his face morph into something you’d never seen before. 
It was as if your feet forgot how to walk forward and instead walked backward. The cold rock wall against your back caused you to let out a gasp. ‘When did we walk into a cave?’ You thought. It wasn’t until now that you realized the details in his face let alone his body. You bit your lip trying to look past the groin that was rather close to your face. You exhaled deeply and tried to move to the side but his hand pushed you back up against the wall. You looked up to find him staring down intensely. You watched as his head tilted. 
“Now what would happen if someone were to corner you like this?” He slowly lowered himself and you tried reaching out to trace the glowing dots on his abdomen but your hand never reached. “Someone as little as you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself against someone like me.” His hands grazed your cheek causing you to lean into it. “But you're not a wild animal or-” You felt his hands grip under your arms and swiftly pick you up pressing you back into the wall. 
Your breath hitched by how close his face was. “You clearly lack skills that would be vital to protect yourself out here.” He said, looking dead straight into your eyes.
“And how would you know?” He chuckled sending chills down your back. “Because I’ve been watching you ever since you started working here. I never saw one of your kind so small before.”
“ I didn’t know a leader could be a stalker.” He raised a brow.  “If stalker is what you call it then I guess but could you blame me? You had me intrigued,” he said with a smirk on his face as he moved closer to yours. Making your heart beat faster than ever. ‘What is he going to do? Is he going to kiss me?’ You thought. “We should get back.” He said pulling away from my ear and setting me back down.
“ hu-what?” He chuckled and gestured for you to walk in front of him. “ I said we should get back I wouldn’t want anyone thinking you got lost.” You felt his smirk burning in your back and all you could do was walk back to where everyone was with a frazzled mind. ‘What was that? I could have sworn he was going to kiss me! Then he pulls away. Get it together why the hell would he kiss me? I’m sure he’s betrothed to someone.’ And it didn’t help having those thoughts race through your mind. 
You felt his hand graze you back causing you to look up at him looking down at you. You gasped feeling one foot make its own decision to stop mid-motion. You yelped feeling the impact hit your knee. He cursed and swiftly picked you up. Not sort of wines coming from you. “See… I think it’s best I carry you.” He said turning in a different direction. “Maybe the second bowl of alcohol was too much…” you said gripping onto him. You heard him scoff. 
“No the first bowl was enough matter of fact. You shouldn't have drank any at all. I’m surprised you are still talking.” He said in an amused tone as if the alcohol was something not to be messed with. “And why is that? I can handle my liquor quite well!” You huffed.
He laughed and shook his head “Well my ass! You just fell and hurt your knee.” You rolled your eyes. “Yeah because you touched me!” He didn’t say anything but kept walking… It was like that for a while. He said nothing and you stole long glances at him. You gripped onto him tighter feeling like you would fall. Making your face accidentally end up in the crevice of his neck. You cursed to yourself, smelling the addicting aroma coming off of him making you look up. He looked down briefly muttering something you couldn't understand. “Where are we going?” you asked resting your head on his chest. “Back to my place I need to examine your cut.”
He pulled back the flap on the door opening and sat you down on the woven carpet. You looked around as he walked off somewhere. It was lowly lit but lit enough so that you could see all the little details. ‘He's neat....and it doesn't smell in here. Well, why would it smell? He obviously knows how to clean especially himself. Gosh, he smelt so good. Did the Na’vi have cologne?’ Once again you found yourself distracted by all these questions and thoughts. You didn't notice he was sitting in front of you until his large hand touched your leg. You let out a gasp and he chuckled. “And you're easily frightened…I’m not letting you go out there alone.” You rolled your eyes and he let out a surprised scoff as he applied whatever it was on your knee.
“You know you have one hell of an attitude in you.” You grunted, “ especially someone for your size.” You reached in front of him and pushed his leg. If he wasn't so tall you would have pushed his chest. “See, my point is proven. Now sit still before I make you I need to finish doing this.” You raised a brow and looked him in the eye. “And why would I do that?” He let out a chuckle removing his hand from your knee. “Because I said so now don't move.” You huffed and stayed still until your eyes leaned back on his chiseled abdomen. Every part of his body had a different stripe. Without realizing your hand inched closer to touch the ones near his belly button. 
“If you keep touching me like that Lawr I don’t think I’ll be able to hold myself back.” He said jokingly but deep down you wanted it to be real. Unknowingly the sexual tension that had been building from this morning had come to a violent boil, and truthfully, you wanted him to do dirty things to you.  You looked up doe-eyed “Then don’t.” He looked shocked for a moment but smirked your comment off. “ I don’t think you know what you're talking about.” He said lowly 
He moved back now finished with your knee you bit your lip trying to decide what to do next.  You felt his thumb graze your lips dragging you out of your thoughts. “Don’t do that I’ll have another thing to fix.” He said but this time he wasn’t joking. This time his eyes were locked on you and his finger still pressed against his lips waiting for you to release the hold. 
But you didn’t instead you parted your mouth slightly letting his thumb fall in and swirled your tongue around it. Imitating what you would do to him if he would give you a chance. 
He let out a deep grunt when sucked on it but eventually let it go with a pop. “Please”, you asked, lust lacing your voice. You reached down at his loincloth waiting for him to protest and say no even looking up for approval. But the only look on his face was a smirk. “What are you waiting for my little Lawr? Put that mouth to work and show me how much of a good girl you are.” You bit your lip moving back to his loincloth swiftly untying it. 
You let out a gasp once faced with his large thick uncut cock. Your mouth was just watering at the sight ‘Gosh I need this in my mouth right now! Is this even going to fit in me?’ You thought as you took him I. Your hands bringing your mouth closer. 
You licked up the dripping pre cum on his tip making him let out a groan, bringing his hand to the back of your neck.  ‘There's no way this is going to fit in my mouth’ you thought as you quickly tried to figure out how to tackle it. You looked up and he let out a chuckle. “Is this your first time?” He asked in a rather cocky tone. You rolled your eyes. Took the tip of his cock into your mouth doing what you could do in the position you were in. 
A slew of curses spewed from his mouth as you tried to take him deeper but to no avail you were a coughing gagging mess. He huffed out as his hand caressed your cheek. “You gotta relax your throat, pretty girl. I know it’s big but if you want to take me you gotta relax it.” His smooth lust filled voice made you clench around nothing.  He suddenly let out a low grunt as his hand wrapped back around the back of your neck.  causing you to look up while still sucking on. 
He pulled you back by your hair. Making an unexpected moan to escape your mouth. “Enough of that on your back now.” He ordered. Without a second to spare, he picked you up putting you on your back. Your breath hitched feeling his fingers graze your clothed clit. He let out a mischievous chuckle. 
Resulting in your skirt getting yanked off along with your top. Leaving your chest exposed and your panties, which did a horrible job concealing how turned on you were.  Before you could even reach to cover your breast his mouth was already latched onto your nipple. “Fuck” you moaned out bringing your hands up to his head. You could feel him smirk against you. You gasped hearing a rip causing you to lift your head up in surprise only to find your panties ripped and thrown across the room. “Neteyam!” he chuckled. “You don’t need them anyways”, he towered over you revealing his cheeky smirk as his braids fell over his face. He took his cock in one hand stroking it slowly, clenching his fist as he rose to the tip. You watched yearningly, “Are you going to jerk off to me all night or are you going to fuck me?” You cursed out feeling him tap the thick head of his cock suddenly on your clit. “This is what you want?” he asked teasingly while looking at you wholly overtaken by lust.
You whined gripping his forearm as he lathered your wetness on his cock. “Yes” you finally spoke. He teased your entrance slowly trying not to hurt you, but it was hell holding back from plunging deep inside you. “You’re gonna need to breathe for me Lawr and relax. I can't do it if you don't do that for me,” he said softly. You nodded your head lazily still gripping onto his forearm, and as soon as your breathing became someone regular he began to enter.
 It was a burning pain at first that had you clenching your eyes shut even letting a few stray tears slip. “ I know I know I’m sorry Lawr it will feel better soon- fuck I promise.” He planted sweet kisses all over your face while whispering comforting words in your ear but soon the bearing feeling faded and your grip lessened. It was as if someone flicked a switch and now all you felt was pleasure. “Please” you mewed out as he started to properly thrust into you. He looked down wiping the stray ears from your face and smirked at your newfound pleasure. “See I told you… All you had to do was trust me.” He let out a deep gruntal moan as you clenched around him. 
It’s a shame he couldn’t fit all of him inside you. But that was okay because as the seconds passed inch by inch he was filling you up almost knocking the air from your lungs as he pounded into you. You bit down on his forearm moaning into him. 
He let out a breathy chuckle while rutting into you. “Marking me already hm?” He brought his hand down massaging your swollen clit. “You don’t have to worry I’m not going anywhere I’m yours.” You couldn’t process what he was saying or even begin to translate it. All you knew was that with the way his hips were moving and how much he was stretching you out you wouldn’t last long.  
He pulled out suddenly flipping you over, and pulling your hips up. “Wa- what’s going on?”  He leaned down kissing your back making your head droop low. “ I’m sorry I can’t hold back anymore.” He said in a tone you weren’t familiar with.  Your head spun around to see him lining up, but before you could ask what he was saying he dove back in making a scream of pleasure rip right through your throat. 
His grip on your hips was sure to leave a bruise the next day, but it was worth it. It was all worth it. You were ass up face down with Neteyam plunging deep in you. With your pussy relentlessly cleaning around him trying to pull him in deeper.  “shi- FUCK, you drive me crazy. You know that  fuck I’m gonna cum if you keep clenching around me like that!” The tears that were once on your face from pain were now replaced with tears created by pure bliss. 
No man has fucked you like this before. The orgasm that was brewing deep within you was fast approaching and if his brutal pounding didn’t put you on your ass by the end of the night the orgasm sure would. He reached under rubbing your clit again causing you to try and crawl away. He let out a chuckle yanking you back. “You’re not going anywhere. Take this fucking cock like the good girl you are and finish what you started lawr.” You cursed out as he continued to massage your clit not granting you any mercy. “No no no FUUUUU-“your screams fill the room around you as your orgasm ambushed its way to the forefront. 
A strong gush of fluids soaked the ground below you. “Good girl, look at you”, he cooed as his thrust got sloppy. He moaned out resuming the hold he had on my hips. “I'm gonna cum- fuuck I’m gonna fill you up so good. Is that what you want? Hm” you whined at the thought of his cum spurting into you.
 Despite you just cumming you clenched down on him hard. “Shii- I'm gonna fill you up- breed you so good. Make sure it fucking takes and if it doesn’t don’t think for a second I won’t have you bent over again.” His voice was strained. You turned back locking eyes. “ I want you to cum in me.” You mewed out. You watched as he came undone, feeling his cock twitch in you as his hot seed filled you up. Flooding your pussy to the point it was spurting out while he was still deep in you 
“Fuck.” He let out a breathy chuckle while rubbing your back. Your head dropped pressing against the floor, but he refused to let your body fall. Spinning you around and laying you on his chest as his back met the floor instead all whilst making an effort to keep his cock stuffed in you. “We have to get back to the-” he chuckled softly rubbing soothing circles into your back. “I'm sure they knew from the moment we left we weren't coming back.” You lay there on his chest believing every word he said, even if it wasn't the truth. You were too tired to question it and way too cock drunk to care
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maingh0st · 2 months
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the main reason I like Taryn/the Ghost (despite the fact we get microscopic crumbs in the text) is that it’s thematically compelling for them as characters.
the best romances aren't just about ~vibes~ and ~spice~ but about two unique, fully realized characters becoming part of one another's lives. each character carries their lifetime's worth of formative experiences, beliefs about the world, goals, strengths, habits, wounds, coping mechanisms, preferences, etc—so inevitably there's conflict and change and (ideally) growth. this is why we love Jude/Cardan so much!
like, for just one example: Jude always resented the Folk, even as she admired and envied them. she talks about wanting to be better, to be worse, to excel beyond them and rule over them, and ultimately to conquer her fear of them. part of why Jurdan is so great (aside from being The Power Couple) is because falling in love with Cardan forces Jude to accept that sometimes, the Folk can be good and safe and worthy of her trust. in my interpretation, this arc culminates when Cardan is turned into a snake and Jude has to rely on others (Fand, Grima Mog, the Court of Shadows, etc.) rather than just her romantic partner. she does conquer her fear of the Folk—partially through her cunning and tenacity, yes, but also partially through learning to trust her heart and find those with whom she is safe.
but that's not a lesson Taryn needs to learn. she wants to fit in with the fae; she craves their approval. in tcp, Locke's whole shitty test is based on Taryn's ability to prove that, even though she's human, she can live like the fae. and in twk, while Jude is isolated, exhausted, and (rightfully) paranoid about being betrayed, Taryn is constantly surrounded by the Folk. she seems to find belonging among them, yet she almost loses herself in the process. from a story perspective, Locke isn't that interesting of a romantic partner because he only confirms what she seems to already believe: that to belong in faerie, she will have to change and abandon certain parts of herself (represented most starkly by her betraying her sister). she will have to learn to love differently and live by different rules. and she's quite good at it, as we see—but it makes her miserable. so Locke's murder is narratively important (beyond just being Very Fun) because it represents her rejection of the life he insisted she live.
but the Ghost (for as little as we know about him) is half-human and spent part of his life in the human world. I think there is so much potential for the most delicious narrative tension to arise from their dynamic. they both, for their own reasons, straddle both the human and the faerie worlds, yet fully belong to neither. both of them make choices they regret (killing Liriope / betraying Jude) and both of them are harmed as a result (the Ghost's true name being used / Locke being straight-up emotionally abusive). there's a lot of common ground there, but also potential for great conflict considering the very different lives they live.
after the events of tqon, I get the sense that they're both kind of... recalibrating. of course, the Ghost is still part of the Court of Shadows, but the monarchs he serves are very different than Dain, and he's also been freed from the abuse of his true name. and Taryn is a widow, pregnant, the daughter of an exiled general, the sister of the new mortal queen, and seemingly a bit of a phenomenon in the social scene of Elfhame. who are they, and what is their place in this world that isn't built for them? how do they find belonging without losing themselves? what does living a good and fulfilling life even look like for each of them? how do they adapt to their environment without crossing into the territory of self-betrayal? truly just so many questions that are so fun to chew on
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torukmaktoskxawng · 1 year
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Headcanons if Avatar!Grace lived and raised Kiri alongside the Sullys and adopted Spider:
"Jake Sully, I know damn well that you didn't just ground your son for recklessness! 'You wanna hear about reckless? How about the time you taunted a baby hammerhead titanothere and its mother before being chased into the jungle by a Thanator like the asshat you are."
Spider is depressed because Neytiri has yet to warm up to him. Grace gathers him up like he's still a baby and since she's a Na'vi and he's a human, it's so easy to do: "Give her some time, kiddo. Neytiri has lost more than most to the Sky People. In the meantime, go find your sister. I think she's been wanting to show you her newest verse in her songcord."
"Neteyam, sometimes you gotta just ignore your father. He's a jarhead. No. I'm not telling you what that means."
Kiri when she's vocal about her insecurities and how she feels different from everyone else. Grace silently listens before saying: "You hear Eywa? Normally, I would call you crazy from a scientist's perspective... but after what Eywa has done for me... After she saved all that I am in this body while the human one died, and after she gave me you, I don't think it sounds as crazy anymore. You're a miracle, baby. My sweet little miracle. You and your brother are so special, and any moron who says otherwise must have a death wish."
Ever watch Once Upon a Time? Remember this scene between Regina and Emma? ⤵️
Quaritch: He's my son-!
Grace: HE'S NOT, HE'S MINE!
"Jake, Lo'ak came to me traumatized because he walked in on you and Neytiri."
Jake: It was an accident. But at the same time, he can't just walk in without announcing himself.
"No? Huh. That's funny. Hey, I think Norm should go talk to your son about the time you wheeled in on him and Trudy--"
Speaking of Norm, Grace has a hard time being able to fit herself in their portable biolab due to the size so Norm and Max build a large greenhouse and lab meant for Grace's new height difference. They can't change the fact that the microscopes are still too small for her hands, however.
"If my hands weren't capable of crushing the damn thing I would've done it myself instead of letting you idiots tamper the samples with your saliva AGAIN."
She still teaches all the village kids how to speak English among other human customs. A new school is built in the mountains and Tuk is her best student, obviously.
Grace vocally admits she prefers Jake in a wheelchair because he was easier to push around. To which Jake responds: "Woman, you know damn well you still push me around."
Here's some more angst: Kiri and Spider are arguing and I believe this scene comes from the live action Mowgli movie:
Kiri: You're my best friend, Spider. I understand what it's like for no one to want you. I don't have any friends neither. But we have each other and we're like the same--
Spider: We're not the same.
Kiri: We are. Because- you're special, and I'm special--
Spider: WE'RE NOT SPECIAL! Don't you get it?! We'll never be one of them! We're freaks! You're not special, Kiri! It's just something Mom tells you to make you feel better about yourself BECAUSE YOU CAME OUT WRONG!
(Side note: Wow. I just made myself cry.)
Grace would be beside herself. She's trying to comfort Kiri after the fight and trying to figure out what to do with Spider. She knows she should ground him, but at the same time, she knows where he's coming from and why he finally snapped. With Quaritch hunting them and likely trying to take Spider back, the boy is beyond stressed on top of still trying to fit in.
Lo'ak ended up being the one who got Kiri and Spider to make up after giving each other the silent treatment for a week. Lo'ak understood them better than Grace ever could.
Grace, with Rotxo, probably: If you break my daughter's heart, then I'll break your tail.
Jake is trying to get his whole family to behave alongside the Metkayina so that they could stay there and not get kicked out. He didn't realize he'll have to make GRACE AUGUSTINE behave on top of that.
Ronal and Grace have MAD respect for each other you can't convince me otherwise.
I NEED to see Avatar!Grace riding a skimwing with the brightest smile on her face that would be so amazing.
Tsireya buddies up to her immediately, sticking to her side like glue and asking a hundred questions, usually followed by "Can I take Kiri and Spider swimming?"
Ao'nung keeps a good several feet between himself and Grace. He's suspicious and she straightens him out with one glare, ESPECIALLY after he bullied her kids around for being freaks.
Grace even got Tonowari to laugh when she came dragging his son home by the ear for talking rudely to her.
Grace is like a second mom to Neytiri when they're so far away from home.
And finally:
"I'm too old for this bullshit."
Please reblog and add your own headcanons! I need more Grace
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weenwrites · 2 months
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Hi, can I request TFP headcanons (megatron, predaking and shockwave) with a gorgon medusa s/o? The reader has a human body but has snake hair and is also a very beautiful person, and does his power to turn people into stone also work on Cybertronians? (note: the reader can only activate the powers if she wishes).
✎A/N: Hi, please keep in mind next time that I only write gender neutral readers, so as such I've written the headcanons in third person.
[ Please do not repost, plagiarize, or use my writing for AI! Translating my work with proper credit is acceptable, but please ask first! ]
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Megatron
He's primarily interested in weaponizing their ability against the Autobots, and the fact that their ability is irreversible is what makes them all the more powerful when compared to the likes of the most dangerous iacon relics such as the immobilizer. He's put Shockwave in charge of conducting experiments to test the limits of their abilities, and ordered Knockout to look over your physical health during and after the experiments.
He's paid little attention to human culture and folklore, so he doesn't know of the Greek myths surrounding gorgons unless they've explicitly told him. But the most fascinating thing he's heard from these myths is how Perseus was still able to utilize Medusa's petrification abilities even after her beheading. Now, he doesn't take these myths as truths, and he swears by his very spark that they will come to no harm, but he still keeps it in mind.
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Predaking
He's rather fascinated by their non-human appearance. Of course they still retain quite a lot of human features, but their hair is something unique. He never knew that it wasn't considered normal to have living snakes in place of hair, but then again he doesn't have much experience with humans in general.
Regardless of whether they're cold-blooded like a snake or warm-blooded, there's no denying that his naturally warm plating isn't nice to cuddle up against. He's good at regulating his own temperature as well, to ensure that his plating isn't scorching hot to the touch or uncomfortably chilly.
If they feel any sort of alienation from other humans, he can vaguely relate with that feeling too. However, he doesn't feel any negative feelings as a result of the stark differences between him and a "normal" cybertronian. His predacon heritage makes him proud, it sets him out as unique, stronger, and better than the others in his eyes. So the way he sees it, with your superior abilities, you're better than other humans.
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Shockwave
Their ability would prove most useful against the Autobots, as soldiers on the field naturally try to broaden their view of the enemy whilst remaining concealed themselves. Primarily, his goal is to understand how their ability works in order to replicate it in weapons himself.
Why does their gaze initiate the petrification process? How does the petrification progress? Is there a way to reverse the petrification process? He doesn't notice any visible source of water permeating the flesh and replacing it with dissolved mineral deposits, and he's had them petrify animals time and time again for his own observation. He's cut the animal open and snapped limbs off the animal as it was being petrified and swiftly moved to observe the progression under a microscope, yet it progresses too quickly on such a small animal for him to properly observe and document the way it functions.
As such he's decided to upscale his test subjects to larger and larger animals in hopes of observing it better, and to gauge and possible limits to their ability. But don't think he's forgotten about his primary subject. He'll observe them over time, taking note of any little detail he notices to ask if it's a repercussion of their abilities later. He's even gone so far as to have Knockout hook them up to medical equipment to observe various factors surrounding their physical health, however it's not primarily out of concern but rather its in order to observe what happens within their eyes or body in general to trigger the petrification process.
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skyscrapergods · 4 months
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since bugs don't like mint, could mint be used as a repellent to changelings?
I had to do a bit of a deep dive to figure this out. This is all silliness but you can see the work that goes into my worldbuilding this way!
Changelings are descended from insects, but it's hard to call them insects today. They are the size of small horses, and they metabolize magic in addition to normal food. Because of this massive scale difference, some things that affect insects will not affect them.
One example is diatomaceous earth, which looks like white dust, but is actually microscopic particles of broken algae shells. These fragments become tiny, razor sharp shards that leave vertebrates unscathed, but cut arthropods to pieces. The dust soaks up the oils that exist on the bugs' surface, drying the poor things to death. This makes diatomaceous earth an effective pest killer.
Changelings are massive, and the surface skin between their joints is too thick to be cut by microscopic shards. They also keep plenty of oils inside their bodies and won't be dried out by some white dust. It will still probably be uncomfortable and cause irritation, though.
Back to mint, I had to look up a lot of studies to find the material and method of insecticide it has. I figured out the biocide in mint is menthol, but didn't know how or why it happened. Here's what I found:
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So it looks like menthol messes up energy reserves, protein content (of the insect?), and digestive enzymes. I looked up the enzymes, and we also use amylase, protease, and lipase. Apparently chitenase as well, which helps our stomachs break down chitin (what exoskeletons are made of). So if humans (and presumably horses) have the same relevant enzymes, then would we be disrupted by menthol as well?
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So there's nothing particularly special about bugs that make them more at risk to menthol poisoning except for the one thing: their size.
We can rub mint oil on our skin and be just fine, but a tiny mosquito is going to get that oil on them, absorb it by touching or sucking it up, and get some Consequences to their proteins and enzymes. It's a tiny amount to us, but a massive amount to a mosquito.
So, if the mosquito was the size of a horse, a tiny amount of menthol would be a tiny amount of menthol. Horsquitoes Have much thicker exoskeletons and joints, and would require a massive amount of menthol to hurt them.
So!!!! If a gigantic insect senses mint, it might be a bit worried the first time, but will learn it's not harmful in small amounts.
Horses and bugs alike should avoid massive concentrated amounts of menthol, relative to their size. To a bug, that's a mint leaf or two. To a vertebrate or vertebrate-sized insect, that's chugging essential oils, which most people don't do.
TLDR: Mint, like many insecticides, is dangerous to bugs due to their small size. But changelings and ponies are only in danger if they drink concentrated menthol, as we share many proteins and enzymes.
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