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solarwonux · 4 years ago

Text

1. “We have to be quiet.”

67. “You should wear that more often.”

literary agent!jin x f!reader

genre: slice of life, fluff

w.c: 2.3k

warnings: a little suggestive, nudity, lots of fluff

note: writing this made me soft lolol. I love this couple so much, they’re absolutely adorable tbh lolol. Anyway, let me know your thoughts. Enjoy.xx

MASTERLIST || PROMPTS

“Come back to mine.” Seokjin flashes you an award winning smile, sending your heart into a frenzy. It fights against the beat of the pop song quietly playing through his car speakers, while he drives through the empty streets, not a car in sight, your hand gripped tightly in his.

“But your roommates.” You whisper even though you don’t have to as there was no one around except for you and Seokjin. Yet, every time either of you mentioned your roommates your voices would dial down, fade into a whisper like an unspoken rule. Afraid that saying their names out loud would somehow summon them.

“It’s almost four in the morning.” Seokjin stops at a red light, bringing your palm up to his lips, lingering there for a few seconds before setting it down to his lap. “They’re likely sleeping as we speak.” He states, flooring the gas once the light turns green. The impact makes your body hit his leather seat with a light ‘thud’.

You groan, Seokjin laughs before easing up, slowing down. He liked to do that; catch you off guard. He showered himself in your reactions only to tease you until you kissed him to shut him up.

“Please, I leave for my business trip tomorrow night and I want to spend all the time that I can with you before I leave.” Briefly, he takes his eyes off the road, fluttering his eyelashes, winding them into flight.

You cave, because you also do and he knew that you would have no matter what. “Fine, but you’re only going to be gone for two days.” You roll your eyes, a pretty, soft smile decorating your face. The smile Seokjin first fell in love with five years ago. It’s amazing the two of you have been sneaking around for three of those five years and never once been caught. It’s stupid but he prides himself in keeping up with appearances.

“But it’s my first one without you.” Seokjin grimaces, pulling into the parking lot in front of his apartment building, setting his car on park and turning the engine off. The penthouse he shared with three of his friends was dark and you let out a sigh of relief.

He was right. There wasn’t a soul awake in that house.

You shake your head, letting go of his hand and unbuckling your seat belt. Cringing when it hits the car window. Seokjin sends you a glare, his poor precious car that he saved up for years would break if he left it in your hands. You mumble a low apology before leaning over the middle console and planting a soft kiss against his plump lips to seal the deal.

Seokjin beams, kissing you once more, “let’s go, I don’t think I can stay awake any longer.” He says and opens his car door, jogging over to your side. You wait, knowing that if you were to take initiative in opening your own door he would throw a mini tantrum, stating: “babe I know you’re an independent woman and don’t need me but let me feed my ego every once in a while.” So you let him.

He janks the door open, the impulse threatening to knock him off his feet. His body was tired, so was yours. But neither of you had been able to sleep after knowing that there were barely twenty four hours left until Seokjin left for his first business trip without you.

You were promoted to Chief Editor at the publishing company. No longer a literary agent or sharing an office with your boyfriend as you were now a floor higher. It had really sent the two of you off the rails for a few days. He was light years proud of you, but he missed having you around.

Seokjin offers his hand, leaning nonchalantly against the car door, his eyes drooping, heavy with sleep. He looked adorable, “thanks Jin.” You take his hand and he lazily pulls you out of the car, his arm circling around your waist.

“Anything for you, my queen.” He mumbles, leaning in and leaving a chaste kiss against your forehead. “Now let's go, remember we have to be quiet.” He winks, placing his index finger above his lips, his hand traveling around your waist to your hand, lacing his fingers in between the spaces of yours.

You roll your eyes and slam the car door making him jump. A knowing glare sent your way making you laugh.

“Babe.” He whines.

“We’re outside and they’re fourteen stories up, asleep. Even if the car door were to wake them up they have no way of knowing it’s us. Don’t worry.” You pat his chest and walk past him pulling him along. “Plus I can be quiet when I need to.” You look over your shoulder sending him a kiss. He shakes his head, pretending to grab it mid air and then placing it above his heart, with a lovesick look on his face.

“So cheesy.” You say, a sigh of protest leaving his lips.

“Only for you.”

Sneaking into Seokjin’s apartment prompted it to be harder than expected.

For starter’s the second Seokjin and you walked into the dark apartment, he bumped into the coat rack near the front door, knocking it over. It hit the floor with a loud clatter, leaving you frozen, your pulse pounding against your ears.

Even in the dark you could see Seokjin’s wide eyes. Panic streaked past them replacing the galaxies he kept hidden behind them. The sweat was pooling against your brow when the hallway light turned on. “The kitchen,” Seokjin’s yell is coated in a whisper. His arms signaling to the kitchen in a haste. “They won’t see you if you go into the kitchen.”

You nod, jumping over the coat rack and running into the kitchen. Squatting down behind the counter for extra precaution. A laugh stifles behind your closed lips, the adrenaline rush waking you up. This is why you and Seokjin still snuck around, not that you needed to. You were more than positive that everyone has known about your relationship for years. The two of you weren’t necessarily careful, but it was still fun.

“I thought you were sleeping.” Namjoon says. His voice drenched in sleep, arms crossed in front of him looking down at his roommate confused.

Seokjin stood up, bringing the coat rack with him and leaned against it. “Couldn’t sleep, pre-business trip jitters so I went out for a drive.” He shrugs.

Namjoon raises his eyebrows suspiciously. Surely he was tired as hell and didn’t want to deal with yours and Seokjin’s antics tonight. He knew you were here, your choked laugh had given you away while he made his way into the living room. But for the sake of going back to the bed that was calling out to him. So, he pretended not to know. He’s been pretending for nearly three years. Another night wouldn’t hurt.

“Alright well good night,” He squints, bringing up his wrist and taps his apple watch, 4:30am, it reads. “Or good morning, do you still need me to drive you to the airport tomorrow night?” He scratches the back of his neck and lets out a tired sigh.

“Yeah, that would be great, thanks man. And sorry for waking you up. I think your clumsiness is rubbing off on me.” Seokjin drags the coat hanger, the legs screeching against the wooden floor making all three of you cringe at the noise. He sets it against the wall, fixing the coats to buy time.

Namjoon shakes his head and yawns, stretching his arms above his head. “Whatever.” He says and turns around making his way to the comfort of his room once again.

Seokjin closes the door to his room quietly. Letting out a sigh of relief thanking all his angel’s that the only one that woke up was Namjoon and not Hoseok. The ladder would’ve made him sit down on the couch and talk about his troubles. Or if he was in one of his moods - not the bad ones - he would’ve given him a run down on how his day went in full detail.

“So much for being quiet Jin.” You scoff.

Seokjin turns around and walks to you bringing you in into a tight hug, “It’s not my fault I forgot the stupid coat rack was there.” He mumbles against your hair, running a soothing hand down your back.

“It’s your place, how do you forget the way things are set up.” You pull back, tilting your head to look up at him. Maybe it was because you were close to letting the sleep take over your body but he looked more radiant underneath the dim light of his room and somehow taller than earlier. It definitely had to be your sleep deprived delusions. There was no way the man before you could’ve grown another two inches in the last three hours.

“I’m too tired to argue with you so yes baby, my beautiful lover you are right.” He nuzzles his head into your neck, tickling your skin in the process. A tiny laugh falls out of your lips. It sounds like music to Seokjin’s ears. “Do you want to change?” He stands up straight, his brows furrowed in concern, while he takes in your stuffy work attire.

“Yes, I feel I’ve been wearing these slacks for five days straight.” You huff pulling on the legs of your pants, revealing your lavender painted toenails, wiggling them against his carpeted floor.

At around eight Jin had clocked out and snuck his way into your office asking if you wanted him to take you home. A promise to stop at your favorite burger joint failing to finish escaping his mouth when you had cut him off and told him that you had to finish the re-edits of the novel you were assigned too. Your department was heavily understaffed which meant your work was doubled, biding you to stay late after hours to be able to make all your deadlines. It worried Jin to see you so overworked, but as much as it tired you out. You loved it so he never once complained to the company.

Plus the two of you had appearances to keep up. Can’t have everyone knowing that he was head over heels for you and vice versa.

But at around one he started to worry after not hearing from you for nearly two hours. He called you and that’s when he found out you were still at the office. Without a form of hesitation he put on his shirt and walked out the front door, keys in hand. Telling you he would be there in fifteen minutes. Which is how the two of you ended up driving around town for the last two hours sharing fries and caramel sundae from the fast food restaurant down the street of the company. Of course a couple make out sessions here and there after he parked the car at an abandoned Toy’s R’s Us. (The ‘r’ unlit so it read Toy’s Us instead, which for some reason sent the two of you in an uncontrollable fit of laughter.)

Now you were here, in his room, still wearing your work clothes, shoulders dropping as finally the wave of exhaustion that had been plaguing your boyfriend for a good hour hit you.

Seokjin untangles his limbs from you and walks to his closet. “They look good on you. I had half a mind to walk into your office this morning and get a good feel.”

“A good feel of what?” You cock your head. Nimble fingers moving up to unbutton your blouse. The annoying Chiffon material scraping against your soft skin.

“Your ass.” He states throwing you the matching shirt of one of his pajamas. “Do you want the pants?” He turns around holding the striped material in his hands, swallowing thickly as he watches you remove your clothes, leaving you naked in the middle of his room. The only thing protecting you from his prying, hunger filled eyes were the flower patterned panties you kept on.

“No, they're uncomfortable.” You bend down picking up the pajama shirt and unbutton the first few buttons. Oblivious to the way Seokjin was looking at you right now, burning his heated gaze into your body, loving the way it seemed to glow, shimmer, underneath the moonlight casting through his wide bedroom windows. In about two hours it would disappear for the night so he made sure he imprinted the image into the part of his brain that belonged to you.

“You should wear that more often.” He throws the pants over his shoulders and stalks over to you.

“I’m not really wearing anything.”

“Exactly.” He smirks.

You roll your eyes and shrug on his shirt, leaving the first few buttons undone. You walk to the right of the bed - the one nearest to the window and the wall - and pull back his navy blue comforter. “Let’s go to sleep, I’m too tired to do anything.” You lay down.

Seokjin agrees, as much as he would like to just hold you close and make love to you until the sun rises. His eyes were closing in on him and he was sure the second he felt the heat of your body and your warmth wrap around him, he’d fall asleep.

It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.

“I agree, there’s always tomorrow...Well I mean today but in eight hours.” He reassures, laying down on his side and bringing the comforter up to his chin. He wraps his arm around your waist, resting his head against your chest, humming as the comfort overtakes him.

You rake your fingers through his hair, placing your cheek against the crown of it. “I love you, Jin, you make me so happy.” You whisper, closing your eyes.

Seokjin smiles, bringing you closer, kissing the sliver of skin against his shirt. “I love you angel, you make my life worth living.”

In seconds the silence and stillness of the night takes over. Your bodies relaxing, tangled up in a mess of limbs, finally welcoming sleep.

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kominum · 4 years ago

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semoto (corpse x fem!reader)

4 times you think tuxedo mask!corpse could be yours + 1 time you learn to stop feeding your own delusions

pt. 1 + background info can be found here! please read for context.

basic rundown of classic!sailor moon (anime) lore ‘creatively’ used in this two-part:

sailor moon and tuxedo mask are star-crossed lovers/soulmates that faced tragedy in a previous life.

sailor mars (aka you/reader) had a crush on tuxedo mask’s non-hero persona, darien/mamoru, for a while

sailor moon is the moon princess and tuxedo mask is the earth prince.

sailor moon’s non-hero persona, usagi/serena, bickered a lot with darien/mamoru.

fem!reader // tw: death mentions, bodily injury, unrequited love to the very end, some unresolved tension.

1. “Whaddup, baby?”

Without much reason, you and Corpse trade off calling each other whenever a new monster is defeated. You’re figuring out all of this as much as he is, but he doesn’t have much guidance besides some supernatural force within him. He’s not taking instructions from a black cat and white cat like you and the other girls are who can help fill you in on the gaps -- all he knows is that he’s pivotal to maintaining Earth’s existence, and he’s not exactly thrilled about it.

But the calls are never about the fights, never about your secret identities. In fact, you’d be willing to bet half your grocery funds that he still hasn’t made the connection between you and your Sailor Mars persona and part of you wants to keep it that way. Sometimes you’re mentally exhausted and just want to forget about the events for the day or night, which is why you usually end up calling him soon after everyone disperses or vice versa. It’s almost instinctual these days, and you wonder how long it’ll be before you accidentally crack.

Right now, the rule of thumb seems to be, “Never trust new flashy shops that open with no warning and have too-good-to-be-true grand opening offers.” This time, some luxurious salon opened up by a famous local hairdresser had been the said attraction. All of you weren’t ignorant enough to believe the sham, but the star of the show had taken the chance to say, “Let’s go scope it out!” when really, she wanted that free haircut. You had called her out on it, but she argued that if anything happened, then perfect, you all could take care of it right then and there. Needless to say, you do not want to be attacked by a monstrous version of Edward Scissorhands ever again. Corpse had made a dark, humorous entrance, a style he’s really adapted to because he knows it pisses Sailor Moon off,

About an hour later, you’re home and bandaging up some cuts and rubbing salve on bruises, phone on speaker and dial tone blaring through the bathroom. You’re addressing the scrape on your knee when he picks up, a low drawl of, “Whaddup, baby?” comes through and your heart stutters.

The girls call you a number of terms of endearment: sweetie, honey, love, dear, babe, queen, but the last person to address you as ‘baby’ with any amount of affection was your ex-boyfriend.

You scoff to hide how flustered you actually are, quietly hissing as you attempt to put some Neosporin on the scrape and catch onto some stray skin. “Are you drunk?” You ask jokingly, knowing full well he wasn’t.

“Drunk? Nah. Tired? Yeah. But that’s always.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“It’s old news. But uh, what’s up? Been a while since we last talked.”

“We talked like...three days ago. You called me, remember?”

“Feels like forever. I like talking to you.”

You wonder if it’s irony or plain, cruel fate that this man will probably be the death of you.

2. “Don’t lay a fucking hand on her.”

It’d been a bad day overall. Lack of sleep compiled on by a growing pile of assignments in addition to having to get your tires checked out for an air leak because your car said, “Not today, honey,” -- everything came together in torrential hurricane and the last thing you needed was to be caught fighting another force of evil.

You’re so tired.

Sailor Moon seems to have all the energy in the world as she dodges attacks left and right, but your muscles are screaming in agony. You’re constantly hunched over and panting, but looking for the right openings to weaken the monster. Luckily, the creature has its back towards you when it dashes over to Venus and you muster everything you have to summon a bow and arrow made of fire, pulling back and making sure your arms don’t quiver.

But at the last second, your lack of oxygen gets the best of you and your flame sniper barely manages to graze the monster’s side and narrowly avoid Jupiter. It’s enough to cause a distraction, but the anger in its glare as it’s directed at you elicits surrender in your heart. There’s nothing left in your bones to help you run or hide, and your knees buckle painfully onto the concrete. Everything else hurts so bad that you’re not bothered by the sediments digging through your skin. Venus is running towards you but she’s not quick enough, and you feel your eyes begin to slip. If this is what death feels like, then so be it. You hope that the girls’ mourning will be short, that they can still complete the ultimate mission, and--

“Don’t lay a fucking hand on her,” an angered, frustrated baritone spits out and you’re torn between laughing or crying. In a separate romantic context, you’d like the idea of wholeheartedly leaving your life in his hands. But in this reality when either of you could die at any moment and the world be consumed in darkness, it’s something you would never wish upon anyone. It’s a different situation than your bonds with the girls.

The pain is enough to send you in and out of consciousness for the next few minutes. But strong, warm arms sit you up, though they’re slightly trembling and keeping you awake. “Hey, you okay? What happened to you? You’re stronger than this.”

“G-great way of telling me, fuckthathurts, that I was...shit today,” you joke, but hiss when you try to move your legs and the deep scrapes scream in agony.

“Take it easy, ‘kay? Or your princess is gonna have my head--”

“Thanks man, but we got it from here,” said princess interjects, hoisting you up with the help of the other girls. “You can go.”

“Speak of the devil,” Corpse chuckles and helps make the transfer less painful, a lot less awkward jostling around. “Look, I saved her--”

“And I said thank you. We’ll see you around,” your stubborn friend dismisses.

“You’re welcome, baby.”

“Not your baby, piss off!”

3. “I’m always gonna be there for you, no matter what.”

It’s soft yet sonorous, deep yet light. Twilight hours are cast high above you both, separated by walls and buildings connected over wires and unseen forces. Technology is the sharpest, double-edged sword you’ve seen and used on this planet, because Corpse has never felt so close yet so far than in this moment. Your mind deludes you further by indulging in believing he’s right there next to you, strong arms holding you much like he did when you were on the brink of unconsciousness just two weeks ago.

Wishing, hoping, wanting. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous.

The one year anniversary of your ex-lover’s death looms over you on another sleepless, caffeine-fueled night. It’s no surprise when his custom ringtone chimes softly throughout your room during these graveyard hours, but it certainly raises your eyebrows when after a minute or two, he asks tentatively, “Are you gonna go visit him?”

There’s no question as to who or where “him” is. You haven’t been since the funeral, if you’re honest, swept up by work, classes, and your new side job. But Corpse doesn’t know that, and you know it’d be the right thing to do. Maybe it’d help settle the storm of anxiety (or guilt?) that swirls in your gut on a daily basis.

“I think so,” you reply quietly after a moment of silent contemplation, already thinking ahead to what the drive might be like. “He deserves better.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Charming, compassionate, thoughtful, absolutely too good for this world -- the three-letter affirmation nearly slips off your tongue without a second thought. You can’t risk him seeing you, putting two and two together, and potentially forever losing him to his long-lost princess. Selfish delusion creeps through your veins and you fight back the shiver of guilt that runs down your spine.

“I think I’ll be okay. Might be a visit made best alone, but I really appreciate you even asking.”

“Let me know if you change your mind. You know I’m always gonna be there for you, no matter what. Right?”

Warmth. Strength. Oblivion.

“I know. Thank you.”

4. “I don’t have anyone else but you.”

“Why are we doing this again?”

“Because we can’t sleep and have nothing better to do.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” you chuckle into your phone, free hand swirling a pot of instant ramen. “I have better things to do at 3 in the morning than watch The Poltergeist with you.”

“Then go fucking do it,” Corpse laughs teasingly.

“And leave you high and dry? I don’t have the heart.”

“I mean, you really don’t have to--”

“Seriously, I was awake anyways. Just giving you shit.”

“One of these days, you’re gonna fucking regret it.”

Ramen done and lamp on, you snuggle beneath your blanket and start the traditional countdown to pressing ‘play’ on the movie. Neither of you really had the technology to screen share on this Discord call (your laptop is almost on its last leg and your apartment WiFi can be spotty at times), so it seemed better this way.

The next roughly 2 hours are filled with laughter, small jump scare yelps, and quiet yelling at the ignorance and twisted logic of horror movie characters. But towards the end of the movie (and arguably the climax), your eyelids start to droop, body succumbing to the warmth of your bed. The screaming and cheesy, orchestrated music are all background noise as your breathing evens out, shifting in and out of consciousness. Ending credits roll on screen before you know it, and the only think that rips you awake is Corpse’s gentle calling of your name.

“Sorry, fell asleep,” you murmur tiredly and squint at your screen, languidly closing out the window and letting the Discord window take precedence. “Tells you how riveting I found this movie.”

“Should’ve just let you sleep, my bad,” he chuckles. “Thanks for staying up with me.”

“Yeah of course -- I wanted to, just got a little sleepy. Wanna watch another one?”

“ ‘m actually gonna try to sleep. Don’t wanna bother you too much. You got work tomorrow?”

“Not ‘til noon so it’s okay. You sure?”

“Yeah...yeah. I’ve only had like...3 hours of sleep lately. Fucking awful.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“You do enough by just letting me call at the fucking crack of dawn, seriously.”

“I’m your only option, let’s be real,” and your voice is a mix of fatigue, humor, and some bitter sardonicism. There’s no malice intended, and you really hope it’s conveyed accurately.

“...I don’t have anyone else but you,” he all but murmurs. Your heart clenches painfully, anxiety and fear and love surging through your lungs. Those words don’t hold the connotation you desperately wish for, but what matters most is that he knows he’s not alone and you’re not the only one he’s got. You verbalize as such and he only hums back in a façade of agreement before wishing you a good night.

And sometimes, while you do know that your girls have your back and that you love them to death and would take a bullet for them any day, there are nights where you really do feel the same.

That you have no one else but Corpse.

5. “He was never yours.”

There’s nothing you hate more than psychological monsters. You’d probably take physical pain over mind games any day because at least, it’d heal faster to some degree, or there would be a more surefire way of minimizing symptoms. But sometimes, there are days when the egotistical chess players of hell come to wreck havoc on the world, and you get lost in their trap. It’s annoying, a pain in the ass, and affects you a lot more than it should at times.

This particular instance makes you want to quit. It makes you, Sailor fucking Mars, guardian of the planet of fire and passion and perseverance, leave all of this behind right here and now. You’ve never hated yourself more for feeling so weak.

You’re not sure what to call it -- altered dimension, distorted reality -- but all you know is that you and the princess are kept in separate cages hanging from an endless ceiling, labelled as baits for tuxedo mask/Corpse to come. The enemy lets you both stew in the confines of the metal, watching with glee as your partner attempts to cut through the rails with her tiara and ultimately fail. It seems they’ve thought of everything because you’re not their #1 enemy today. Or maybe you are. You’re not sure anymore, even as they launch into villainous speech.

“Nothing brings me more joy than watching you lose all your energy to fight, both physically and mentally. I’ve seen all your dreams and wishes. Nothing’s more fickle and double-edged than love, no? We shall see who the prince really belongs to.”

Mention of the prince has you snapping your head to meet the enemy’s eyes, slowing squinting as they catch yours and begin cackling like your demise is racing at the speed of an oncoming train. Your princess looks confused, but dread is heavy mercury filling your veins because you know, you know, your best held secret is coming to fruition.

“What the fuck are they talking about?” She hisses across the void.

“I don’t know,” you lie through your teeth, eyes flicking toward every corner of the cage now to find a way out. This isn’t how you wanted it to happen, much less happen at all.

“Are they talking about Corpse?”

“Is there any other prince they’re referring to?”

“Do you always have to be a smartass with me?”

“Somebody’s got to,” you allow yourself a slight reprieve of laughter. It’d be dumb to try to set fire to this thing, knowing you’d only burn yourself in the process. Your exorcism tags also have no use and you can hear the clock ticking down in your mind.

“Think it’s pretty fucking rude to keep a couple of girls in cages, not gonna lie,” a baritone voice cuts through. It sends temporary sparks of relieve down your spine. Perhaps you’ll have a fighting chance to get out of here.

“Welcome, welcome! I’d like to get straight to the point, but maybe we’ll up the stakes a little bit before you answer my question,” they tease cartoonishly and you want to roll your eyes.

“Is this a fucking test--”

Both you and sailor moon yelp as the cages drop into a miraculously (or not) appearing large body of water, but still hanging just above the surface so you have enough air to breathe. You look out and down to see how deep this pit is, and though it might be some elaborate illusion seemingly defying all laws of physics, you see nothing but descending darkness. You don’t even have to hear the question to know what the enemy is going for, to know that they’re trying to hit you where it hurts the most, and you loathe how cliché and goddamn unfair this whole situation has turned out to be.

“So, dear prince. Pretend that the fate of the world depends on the princess. Before you are just two girls you know and care for, stuck, captured, and on the brink of drowning. You may only save one. Who would it be?”

It’s fucked up. Corpse seems stunned, perplexed by the question. “What the absolute fuck is this? Just let them go if you had an issue with me.”

“Quite frankly, I have an issue with allof you, so this is only fair. Now, what’s your answer?”

Corpse catches your eyes first. Is it from the water that your eyes seem to be brimming with unshed tears? Is it stubbornness or defeat in the way your hands clench around the cage bars?

And this is why, once again, you hate enemies who strictly play mind games. Confirmation that Corpse would never love you the way you do him, knowledge to the princess that she’s the source of your deepest unhappiness despite the bickering friendship, realization to Corpse that the girl he’s treasured so dearly and maybe unknowingly kept as a bit of a placeholder was doomed to love him -- pain on all of you, lashes and scars on what was once believed to be unbreakable bonds, as soon as the villain explains it all with sick glee.

“Do I have to give you an answer?”

“If you don’t, I’ll really consider drowning them since I honestly wasn’t before.”

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

“Ah, just to make things a little more interesting -- I’m aware you and the princess speak regularly outside of all this.”

They what? This was certainly news to you.

“And?” Corpse asks somewhat defensively.

Don’t say it. Don’t tell him. Please don’t--

“Say Mars, don’t you enjoy those late night calls with him, too? Though I must say, meeting in a hospital while your ex-boyfriend is having life-altering emergency surgery seems rather morbid in its own respect.”

You don’t have to look at him to know and hear the gears turning in his brain, the villain allowing this brief silence to let everything sink in. There’s a disbelieving whisper of your name, your real name, but he’s cut off from saying anything more.

“You have 10 seconds.”

You know the stories. You know the couple’s tragic end in their previous lifetime. You know that as much as the princess denies feeling anything but annoyance towards Corpse, she looks forward to seeing him. There’s a certain softness that he treats her with, different from the platonic affection that he showers you in. You’ve lied to yourself for too long.

The countdown has no chance to finish when Corpse spits out a name that’s not yours, your eyes squeezing shut to fight back the tears that threaten to flood over. Everything disappears and you land on your butt -- a quick sweep of your surroundings registers two things: Corpse running over to your princess and the villain standing proudly at the chaos they’ve created. It’s instinct that has brings your powers to surface, arms and fingers quickly notching a fiery arrow with pinpoint aim at the imaginary target on their head. “Move!” You yell at the two and they scramble to gather their bearings and avoid your rage.

They don’t run or cower. The maniacal grin only grows wider and more sinister and you’re this close to screaming expletives.

“Hurts, doesn’t it, to know that he was never yours?”

It’s the last thing they say before you release the arrow, watching with no remorse as they burn and disintegrate. When the dust disappears and the dimension shifts back to some abandoned building with an exit, you run.

You run until your lungs burst, until they scream over the aching of your heart, until your costume dissolves and you’re finally buried under the blankets. You turn on ‘Do Not Disturb’ and only allow notifications from a select few important numbers.

And maybe you’ll keep running. Maybe you’ll go off the grid. Maybe you’ll let your voicemail inbox fill up with unheard messages, apologies that you don’t and never will deserve.

But the love you feel and cherish will never fade. It’ll run alongside you; a bright, burning star, forever bittersweet--

Forever out of reach.

#corpse x reader #corpse husband x reader #corpse x y/n #corpse husband x y/n #corpse x fem reader #corpse husband angst #corpse husband imagine #corpse husband

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tatooedlaura-blog · 4 years ago

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Geometry of a Triangle

I found a few hours of quiet time and what better way to spend them than to revisit that beautiful thing called, “Triangle” ...

It’s a standalone and I’ll be tagging @today-in-fic ...

&&&&&&&&&&

“Oh, brother.”

With that statement, she pushed herself off the bed rail and turned, click-heeling back into the hallway, running into a clump of boss and unwashed boys, “how is he?”

“He’s delusional.” Moving past them, she hit the down button on the elevator when she reached it, “he needs time, rest, and probably another CT scan, which I will schedule for him once I get downstairs.”

The four of them, following like obedient dogs, got on the elevator with her and just as the doors were closing, “damn it. I forgot my keys in there.” Recklessly flinging her arm in between twin metal deathtraps, then stepping out once they’d reopened, “why don’t you guys go and I’ll call you if anything changes?”

Not one to question her, ever, they said their goodbyes and disappeared. Once the elevator had definitely left the floor, she took a deep breath, wondering if collapse against the wall would be appropriate given the amount of stress still choking her system. Why was he always trying to kill her, inadvertently mind you, but still, every time he left his apartment, he put her in panic mode.

She really fucking hated panic mode.

Taking a minute to collect herself while staring out the window at absolutely no view at all, hospital expansion building blocking the view of what was probably a very pretty neighborhood.

Whatever.

She took her time going back to his room, companions not fluttering around her, peppering with questions, irritating her with endless regurgitation, explanation and exaltation of the exploits of her thankfully not drowned partner.

And Skinner just needed to go away in general; she’d kissed him in the elevator and now couldn’t look him in the eye given mortal embarrassment.

She needed a vacation.

&&&&&&&&&

Finally, many deep breaths later, she was back at his door, numbered 342 in the grand scheme but from her last count, it was hospital room number 206, give or take; she also counted emergency room curtained off areas as rooms so her count might be a little skewed.

Walking back in without knocking, she thought maybe he’d be asleep and she could do her thing and go home to warm bed, fragrant bath, cup of hot chocolate, not necessarily in that order. He wasn’t asleep, however, instead looking up at her, tracking her as she carefully shut the door, turned, crossed her arms, “I was beginning to wonder if you’d be back.”

“I had to get rid of them before I could …” her voice cracked here, tears rushing to the surface, falling freely down her cheeks in under a second.

Mulder tried to get up but was forced back down by gravity and dizziness, so instead, he reached out his hand, “come here. I’m sorry. I hate seeing you cry.”

“If you wouldn’t do such stupid things, maybe I wouldn’t have to cry.” Swiping her face, the torrent already slowing to a trickle, she sniffed hard, “maybe you’re like a puppy. You need a good swat every now and then in order to learn not to put me through this crap.”

Beside his bed by now, he reached his hand out, hooking it in the pocket of her jacket, “I have never intentionally set out to make you cry. I swear.”

Growling at him, she dried her face one last time with her fingers, looking down at him, “did you really say earlier that you loved me? How many drugs are you on, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“You should know. You’re the doc, doc.”

Moving to see his chart again, she zoned in on the narcotics area, perusing then sifting through her memory, “looks like plenty. More than enough to say all kinds of incriminating things.”

Looking at her sheepishly, “did I really say ‘I love you’ though?”

And her heart jumped then sank, bobbed back to the surface and sank again, “you don’t remember?” He looked innocently guilty and she tilted her head at him, “I won’t hold it against you then.”

“Thanks.”

Moving back to his side, she pulled the chair over, slotting her feet in the undercarriage of the bed and settling back, head comfortable after a moment, Mulder’s fingers wiggling in her direction, his discreet invite to hold his hand while they fell asleep.

She both hated and loved their routines.

“I really am sorry I always make you cry.”

“I can’t imagine this life without you, Mulder, such as it is.” Thinking back to all the times she’d cried for him, both inside and out, “I have often wished that my stress levels weren’t congruent to the production of my tear ducts but they are and we have both learned to live with that.”

“I still hate that I make you cry.”

Squeezing his fingers, “go to sleep, Mulder. I’ll see you when you wake up.”

&&&&&&&&

Ten minutes later, she expected him to be deep in dreamland but looking in his direction once she realized she didn’t hear his whistle-snoring nose, she saw his eyes open, staring intently at her, studying form and function of his Scully, “why aren’t you asleep yet?”

“Trying to ignore my headache while I think about a few things.”

Dusk was dropping outside, their room growing dim and soft, her voice quiet across the vast region between them, “what kinds of things?”

“Nazis and Thor’s hammer and shiny red dresses.”

He must be wandering his delusions again and she figured, why not wade in with him, “were the Nazis wearing the red dresses?”

“No, thank God but you were.”

“I was wearing a shiny red dress? How did I look?”

“If I answer that question, you’ll hit me again.”

Maybe she shouldn’t play into his medication after all, “well, why don’t you go to sleep and dream about things and tomorrow, we will get another head scan.”

The side of his face ached from her 1939 clenched fist and deciding to go for broke, given he knew she’d chock up anything he said to drug-addled haze, “your hair was slicked back, pin-curled, perfect even as we ran up and down the halls, thwarting Nazis and trying to find a way to get me home.” Continuing when all she did was tilt her head, listening with both ear and he hoped, heart, “you saved the world in a knee-length dark red dress and heels and,” pinpoint focus on her darkening blue eyes, “you looked more beautiful than I’ve ever deserved to see you.”

Oh, she could so easily be dragged into his delirium … dream … reality …

This was headed to a bad place and she needed to stop the train before she got fully onboard, believing every last word falling from his lips, “I always thought I looked pretty good in my pajama pants and Yosemite Sam t-shirt.”

“That’s my t-shirt, by the way.”

Returning to lightness even as her heart pounded unexpectedly in her chest, “you say yours, I say mine. I keep it. We both win.”

“How do I win?”

Was she really going to say it?

“Because you get to see me in it.”

She said it.

“If I ever find that red dress, Scully, I’m buying it and you’re wearing it and we’re going out on the town to make sure everyone sees you in it. There’ll be so many guys falling at your feet, you won’t know what to do.”

“So, I’ll just stand there and let them swoon?”

“And then you’ll come home with me.”

She felt the blush blooming across her chest and crawling up her face, “you need to go to sleep, Mulder. As both your doctor and your …” she hesitated without understanding why, partner seeming cold, friend seeming inadequate, anything other distinction making her blush even more, “you need to get some sleep, Mulder and so do I.” Standing quickly, squeaking chair legs against tile, “I should probably go. I’ll pick up some clothes for you and bring them back tomorrow when they release you, okay?”

She still hadn’t let go of his hand.

Odd.

In fact, her fingers were firmly joined with his, zippered closed, thumb stroking thumb.

Very odd.

“Hey, Scully,” tugging her hand so she moved towards him, she leaned across the bar of the bed once again.

“Yes?”

“Be with me tonight. Spring me from this place and take me home and hover and feed me meds and check my stitches and just … be with me.”

Another ‘oh, brother’ should have risen up her throat, fallen to his ears but instead, she leaned in even more, “let me go find a doctor.”

&&&&&&&&&&&&

There was finagling and promising and coercion to the highest levels but in the end, she helped him off the elevator and down the hall to his apartment, setting him on the bed, taking in his weary eyes, his pale face, “you look terrible.”

Not able to argue such a valid point, “could you find me something to wear, please? I feel like I’m about to die or at the very least, begin having hallucinations of pink elephants playing poker in the corner.”

Not about to dispute the obvious, pink elephants fairly likely at this point in their day, “can you sit up for a second or do you want to lay down while I find things?”

Hands firmly gripping mattress edge, “I’ve got it. Just don’t leave.”

She’d return to that statement later on but for now, “I’ll be back.”

At the dresser, she pulled out stuff for both of them, missing the Yosemite Sam shirt but happy with her find of ‘Sit on it, Potsie’ black, frayed glory. Soon, she was back beside him, gently pulling his shirt over his head, wincing along with him when she passed the collar over his bruise-darkening eye. Pants weren’t too difficult, Scully holding his arm for balance while he dropped scrubs and pulled up ratty sweatpants, “remind me not to follow any ghosts ships in the near future.”

“No.”

He smiled as best he could but most of his energy and being was wrapped up in desperate need to lay down, go to sleep, rid his head of the terrible pounding that had wedged itself behind his eyes, “did you bring drugs home with you?”

“Several. What color do you want?”

“Rainbow me up, please? My head feels like it’s going to explode.”

Drugs swallowed, Scully changed – he would comment on her shirt at some point in the evening – and after tucking him in, she turned out the light but came back to his side, “I’m going to go sleep out on the couch, okay? Do you need anything?”

Even through pain and wavering reality, “be with me, remember? The couch is too far.” Indicating over his shoulder, eyes already closing for longer and longer intervals, “I have plenty of room behind me, softest mattress in the place, I promise.”

She could seriously just wait two minutes then go out to the couch, he’d never know but Scully being Scully, especially tonight, especially now, especially here, “okay but if you kick me in your sleep, I’m kicking back.”

Slurred, sleepy, “I’ll try not to kiss you in your sleep, promise.”

Nearly correcting him, she instead checked the front door locks one more time, then, incremental debate later, folded back the covers opposite him, sheets cool, pillow shockingly comfortable. She’ll admit it, she may have let out a slight, happy, back of the throat groan when her head sank down into it.

This pillow may have to go the way of Yosemite.

&&&&&&&&&&

Never expecting to fall asleep so quickly, she had no idea she had until she found herself blinking, eyes rolling and lids sticky. Concept of time had disappeared, clock telling her it was after 2 am but mind firmly believing she’d only been asleep for a few minutes. Wondering what had woken her, she turned to her other side, coming face to face with Mulder, still asleep but hand twitching, searching.

He must have touched her back while he moved and taking his wandering fingers, she was surprised when he bought them to his lips, kissing her knuckles, “I should have kissed you again after you hit me.”

Wondering if he was still dreaming, “Mulder?”

His eyes opened suddenly, wide awake like she’d never seen him, “You saved the world and I should have kissed you again.”

“You kissed me?”

Smiling, his eyes closed, drifting back to dreams, “and I want to do it again.”

Still back on the last statement, “you kissed me?” He answered with a deep sigh, sleep capturing the conversation in limbo and driving her forward, 2 am a thing of both beauty and shadow, she maneuvered to get her lips to his, a light brush, a tentative touch, a fleeting taste, “I love you, too, Mulder.”

#nazis and thors hammer and red dresses #even a triangle comes full circle in the end #msr #txf fanfic #x-files fanfic #MulderNScully #My writing

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aboveallarescuer · 4 years ago

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Daenerys Targaryen's tropes - Upbringing Makes the Hero

"Heroes are made, not born" is a common and unstated theme in a lot of works. Though a good many heroic origins proudly trot out heroes who have been raised in The Spartan Way and can look Death in the eye-sockets without blinking before leaving their Tibetan monastery home, quite a few grew up Farm Boys who never picked up anything sharper than a hoe, though those can be quite a handful.

In fact, heroes with a down to earth upbringing tend to have a unique advantage over the more badass and epic ones: they're more centered. While they won't be saints, they'll have a strong enough moral compass to navigate most moral dilemmas, resist The Dark Side, and even refute Hannibal Lectures that more emotionally fragile heroes struggle with. If they gain super powers, they won't forget "the little people" and turn into a Smug Super with delusions of grandeur. Though they didn't gain the crime-fighting prowess of a lifetime of Charles Atlas training, or the street-savvy of an orphan with a Dark and Troubled Past, they also didn't sacrifice basic skills or their social life.

Daenerys's background

A princess, Dany thought. She had forgotten what that was like. Perhaps she had never really known. (AGOT Daenerys I)

After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in any one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper’s hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one.

At first the magisters and archons and merchant princes were pleased to welcome the last Targaryens to their homes and tables, but as the years passed and the Usurper continued to sit upon the Iron Throne, doors closed and their lives grew meaner. Years past they had been forced to sell their last few treasures, and now even the coin they had gotten from Mother’s crown had gone. In the alleys and wine sinks of Pentos, they called her brother “the beggar king.” Dany did not want to know what they called her. (AGOT Daenerys I)

“The Milk Men shun him. Khaleesi, do you see the girl in the felt hat? There, behind the fat priest. She is a—”

“—cutpurse,” finished Dany. She was no pampered lady, blind to such things. She had seen cutpurses aplenty in the streets of the Free Cities, during the years she’d spent with her brother, running from the Usurper’s hired knives. (ACOK Daenerys III)

“My brother visited Pentos, Myr, Braavos, near all the Free Cities. The magisters and archons fed him wine and promises, but his soul was starved to death. A man cannot sup from the beggar’s bowl all his life and stay a man. I had my taste in Qarth, that was enough. I will not come to Pentos bowl in hand.”

“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said.

“There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and I ... my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” (ASOS Daenerys II)

Key examples of Daenerys's mindset and actions as queen that reflect her past experiences

Death followed death. Weak children, wrinkled old women, the sick and the stupid and the heedless, the cruel land claimed them all. Doreah grew gaunt and hollow-eyed, and her soft golden hair turned brittle as straw.

Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. (ACOK Daenerys I)

“I was alone for a long time, Jorah. All alone but for my brother. I was such a small scared thing. Viserys should have protected me, but instead he hurt me and scared me worse. He shouldn’t have done that. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my king. Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”

“Some kings make themselves. Robert did.” 

“He was no true king,” Dany said scornfully. “He did no justice. Justice ... that’s what kings are for.” (ASOS Daenerys III)

Dany set great store by Ser Jorah’s counsel, but to leave Meereen untouched was more than she could stomach. She could not forget the children on their posts, the birds tearing at their entrails, their skinny arms pointing up the coast road. “Ser Jorah, you say we have no food left. If I march west, how can I feed my freedmen?”

“You can’t. I am sorry, Khaleesi. They must feed themselves or starve. Many and more will die along the march, yes. That will be hard, but there is no way to save them. We need to put this scorched earth well behind us.”

Dany had left a trail of corpses behind her when she crossed the red waste. It was a sight she never meant to see again. “No,” she said. “I will not march my people off to die.” My children. “There must be some way into this city.” (ASOS Daenerys V)

When she looked over one shoulder, there it stood, the afternoon sun blazing off the bronze harpy atop the Great Pyramid. Inside Meereen the slavers would soon be reclining in their fringed tokars to feast on lamb and olives, unborn puppies, honeyed dormice and other such delicacies, whilst outside her children went hungry. A sudden wild anger filled her. I will bring you down, she swore. (ASOS Daenerys V)

Her audience chamber was on the level below, an echoing high-ceilinged room with walls of purple marble. It was a chilly place for all its grandeur. There had been a throne there, a fantastic thing of carved and gilded wood in the shape of a savage harpy. She had taken one long look and commanded it be broken up for firewood. “I will not sit in the harpy’s lap,” she told them. Instead she sat upon a simple ebony bench. It served, though she had heard the Meereenese muttering that it did not befit a queen. (ASOS Daenerys VI)

Reznak would have summoned another tokar next, but Dany insisted that he call upon a freedman. Thereafter she alternated between the former masters and the former slaves. (ADWD Daenerys I)

He was too eloquent for her. Dany had no answer for him, only the raw feeling in her belly. “Slavery is not the same as rain,” she insisted. “I have been rained on and I have been sold. It is not the same. No man wants to be owned.” (ADWD Daenerys III)

Her freedmen were represented by the captains of the three companies she had formed—Mollono Yos Dob of the Stalwart Shields, Symon Stripeback of the Free Brothers, Marselen of the Mother’s Men. Reznak mo Reznak hovered at the queen’s elbow, and Strong Belwas stood behind her with his huge arms crossed. Dany would not lack for counsel. (ADWD Daenerys III)

When you smashed the slave trade, the blow was felt from Westeros to Asshai. Qarth depends upon its slaves. So too Tolos, New Ghis, Lys, Tyrosh, Volantis … the list is long, my queen.”

“Let them come. In me they shall find a sterner foe than Cleon. I would sooner perish fighting than return my children to bondage.” (ADWD Daenerys IV)

“Lingering here will never bring it any closer. The sooner we take our leave of this place—”

“I know. I do.” Dany did not know how to make him see. She wanted Westeros as much as he did, but first she must heal Meereen. (ADWD Daenerys IV)

Yesterday a wagon had been overturned and two of her soldiers killed, so today the queen had determined that she would bring the food herself. Every one of her advisors had argued fervently against it, from Reznak and the Shavepate to Ser Barristan, but Daenerys would not be moved. “I will not turn away from them,” she said stubbornly. “A queen must know the sufferings of her people.” (ADWD Daenerys VI)

#daenerys targaryen #dany tropes #a dance with dragons #a storm of swords #a clash of kings

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idealistsinc · 4 years ago

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27 // hurt

wc: 1,276 content warning: mentions of past abuse, suicidal ideation note: a direct follow-up to 26 // when pigs fly. see also 04 // clinch and 18 // panglossian for additional context

Eventually, all was quiet.

Isha’a uncovered his ears and stood up on trembling knees from the sofa where he’d sunk to weather Senan’s storm, pausing to listen with an intensity bordering on terror to the soundscape beyond the door. But there was only a gusty wind rumbling through the walls, a chocobo crying somewhere below on the street. Isha’a made a concentrated effort to release the tension in his spine, taking a slow, deep breath to calm the hammering of his heart.

Senan had left—for now. Isha’a entertained no delusions that it would be the last he saw of him; their father was not a man who found refusal to engage an acceptable response. He would rally and return with another arsenal, cloying and cruel in turn until one or both of them fell again under his iron fist. Isha’a still didn’t understand why Senan had bothered after well over half a cycle of indifference. Something must have driven him out of his fortress. Surely he didn’t suddenly find himself in need of his errant, disobedient sons to flitter to and fro at his beck and call. Surely he had already appeased his colleagues with some excuse as to their whereabouts. Why try to apologize now of all times, when they were both settled a thousand malms away, when a letter would have done just as well to convey his intent if he genuinely meant to reconcile?

Isha’a might have puzzled Senan’s motivations for the rest of the afternoon, if he let himself, but at the end of the day Senan’s motivations didn’t matter. What mattered was Rin.

The bedroom door was closed. Isha’a’s ears angled forward, but he couldn’t hear any sign of movement inside. “Rin?” he called. No response. Isha’a tried the knob; it turned easily in his hand. “Rin, I’m coming in, okay?”

Rin was sitting still on Isha’a’s bed when he entered. If Isha’a didn’t know better, Rin might have seemed at ease, but his eyes gave him away—they were the vacant eyes of a hunted animal, the eyes of a rabbit caught in the jaws of a wolf. Isha’a wondered how much of Senan’s raging Rin had been able to hear, then realized that, of course, Rin would have hung onto every word.

Carefully, Isha’a touched his arm. A muscle jumped under his palm. “Are you okay?”

For a moment, it was as though Rin hadn’t heard him. Then, Rin’s eyes slid closed. “No,” he murmured, pained. “Is he gone?”

“I think so.”

He waited for Rin to say something else. When he didn’t, Isha’a climbed onto the bed with him. The room was stuffy, the smoldering heat of a desert summer in full, blistering bloom outside, but Rin had started to shake enough that Isha’a unfolded the blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it about the both of them, the way he used to do when they were children and curled beneath the comforters together to hide from the night’s cold shroud. To Isha’a’s surprise, Rin huddled into him, his tail curled tight over his lap.

“Thank you,” said Rin, finally. He shivered despite the warmth burning in from the open window, his breathing unsteady. “Isha’a, I…I have to tell you something.”

There was a wound as jagged as broken glass in his voice. Isha’a hesitated, then reached over to squeeze Rin’s hand, resting limp and clammy against his knee. Rin didn’t acknowledge it, but he didn’t pull away, either. “I’m listening.”

“When you found Luma, Father didn’t want me to go, and we—argued. I argued, because he was detached from it all, and I wanted…I wanted him to hear what I was saying. I wanted him to react.” Rin’s gaze slipped for a moment into an unfocused stare; he dragged himself back with visible effort, struggling to speak, struggling to stay present. “And he did. He…”

He trailed off, jaw tight. “What happened?” prompted Isha’a, very gently. Something cold had started to prickle at his scalp and trail its talons down his spine as Rin grappled for words he couldn’t seem to say, a hard knot lodging in his throat.

His brother looked at him vacantly. Then, he ghosted his hand over his left cheek, as Cheye had once done so long ago, prodding a bruise inflicted by an overzealous Brass Blade. Isha’a’s stomach bottomed out from under him at once.

Oh.

“Afterward, he denied me nothing. If it was gil I wanted, I would have it, no questions asked. One day he even delivered my orchestrion rolls back to me and said I had earned my indulgences, although I was failing nearly every one of my courses by then. He—” Rin faltered, clenching at the blanket with a white-knuckled hand. “He bought an orchestrion for the house. He said it was a recommendation by a colleague, but—I knew. We both knew. And I—”

This time, Rin shuddered so violently Isha’a felt it in his own chest. His fingers tightened painfully around Isha’a’s, self-loathing dripping from his tone like venom. “I stayed with him, Isha’a. I let him buy me, even knowing that all this time he had the capacity to behave better than he did and chose not to. None of that mattered so long as I got what I wanted, so long as I had his attention, so long as he—” Rin’s lips pulled back from his teeth, not so much a grimace as a very painful grin. “Gods, there’s something wrong with me, because when I heard him say he’d let us come back to Sharlayan with him, all I wanted was to open the door. I wanted it so badly I had to leave the room; it was like it didn’t even matter that he hit me, or that I spent every fucking night during my last week in Sharlayan on top of the bell tower trying to decide whether or not I should—”

Rin caught himself too late. His expression slammed shut, and he physically recoiled from Isha’a as though that could take back what he had said.

Isha’a did not want to cry, just then. He wanted to swallow it down, to let Rin have the space to spill out the things that had been boiling inside him, but Isha’a could only remember how Rin had looked that day in Gridania, sitting under the hot sun with his head tilted back and his cheeks hollow as he tried desperately not to faint, could only remember that same hunted edge in his eyes when he’d said, “You have to come back to Sharlayan,” could only remember and think about how he should have done more. He could have done more, could have traveled back to Sharlayan, could have helped Rin pack his things, could have punched Senan in the face, could have, could have, could have—

Could have lost him. Forever. For good.

Isha’a sobbed. He clung frantically to Rin, nearly tumbling them both to the floor when he snared himself in the blanket, crying, “There is nothing wrong with you, okay? Nothing. I—I’m so lucky to have you as my brother, and—and if you weren’t—if you—”

He felt Rin push his face into his shoulder, felt something damp start to seep through his shirt. “Okay,” said Rin.

“—and if Senan or anyone else comes around, I’ll be here. I’ll help you. I’ll—” Kill him, whispered some quiet corner of Isha’a’s mind, and meant it. “—I’ll feed them all to Maneater, okay? He’s hungry for flesh.”

Rin’s laugh teetered dangerously close to weeping. “Is that a promise, Isha’a?” he said.

And Isha’a replied, holding him as tightly as he could, “Yes.”

isha’a belongs to @mimiorzea

#ffxivwrite2020 #ffxiv isha'a molkoh #ffxiv rin weise #my writing #time to found the 'dropkick senan into the sun' society #i decided to use hurt as my 'prompt' because that's the song i listened to while i was writing this #and also because i am in Pain

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renegadewangs · 5 years ago

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Ace Mindhunter - 2nd Interview

Characters: Simon Blackquill, Athena Cykes, Shi-Long Lang, and a rogues gallery of AA villains. Fandom: Ace Attorney Pairings: N/A. Warnings/rating: 16+, I would say. Talk of heavy themes such as death and abuse, plus cursing. Spoilers for every AA game up to Spirit of Justice, AAI2 included. Gratuitous amounts of headcanon for antagonists. Summary: Simon Blackquill is roped into a Behavioral Analysis project along with Athena Cykes. They must sit down with convicted murderers for interviews, in hopes of finding out just what drove them to their convoluted crimes.

2nd Interview Roger

Date: June 9th 2028 Time: 2:21 PM Location: Interview Room. Another day, another interview. Much as Simon had protested, Athena had stood her ground. She wished to be a part of this project and now that she'd drawn the answers out of Vasquez where Simon had failed, there was no way to argue. If there were ever an early interview which would have her lose her nerve, today's subject would be the one to do it. They'd gone from one TV producer to another, this one a familiar face to Athena. He'd been tossed into prison quite recently, on the 28th of April, four months after Simon had left it. This inmate had not killed out of self-defense. It had been premeditated, vindictive and as convoluted as things tended to get around L.A. these days. The perfect subject for a closer examination. They had been kept waiting for over twenty minutes already when at last a guard entered the room from the inmate's side. “The Ratings Rajah will see you now,” the guard said, acting as if he were announcing the entry of royalty. “This should be good,” Simon heard Athena mutter under her breath. Despite never having been one to regard the muck produced by Take-2 TV, the man who walked into the room was exactly the sort Simon would picture to be behind it all. Greasy hair, a smug grin, a raised eyebrow, sunglasses even within a dark room... He was as different from Vasquez as could be. While his beady eyes flicked to Athena for an instant, he seemed unbothered to be faced with one of the defense attorneys who'd caused his downfall. After sitting down, he leaned his chair back and put his feet up on the table. “Hang loose, babies! Let's make this quick, yeah? I'm a busy man,” Retinz said. “Are you really?” Athena asked in turn, glaring at him. “Is that your first question? Eesh. This is why I don't leave interviews to amateurs. Need me to take charge instead?” Retinz reached for the list of prepared questions, but Simon slid it out of his reach and instead gestured to the tape recorder. “Before any of that, do you mind if we record this?” “Mind if I do?” Retinz pulled a camcorder out of his sleeve and directed it at Simon's face, grinning. “Sorry,” said the guard, who'd remained by the door. “He's not allowed to have things like that, but he keeps hiding them somehow. We just can't figure out where he's keeping it all.” “Magician's secret, I suppose,” Athena grumbled. “Ever heard of enunciation?” Retinz asked her. “Better speak up, unless you want your audience to deal with subtitles.” “You'd best put that camera away before I remove your hand with it. There will be no more coin tricks for you when you're without fingers,” Simon said. Retinz promptly made his camcorder disappear again. “So what's this interview all about? Are you writing an article about how right I was? Have you come to apologize for slandering my good name?” “Ugh...” Athena looked almost nauseous. She pulled herself together again with impressive speed, though. “We're here on behalf of Interpol's Behavioral Analysis Unit. We'll be asking you about your family history, antecedent behavior and thought patterns surrounding the crime you have committed. Our goal is to compile several psychological profiles and, ultimately, use them to create a statistical analysis which will not include your name. What you discuss with us is subject to Interpol's confidentiality clause and cannot be used against you in your applications for parole.” “So this is... What, a science project for school?” Retinz asked. “Interpol,” Athena snapped at him. “Potato, tomato.” Athena puffed up her cheeks with indignation. Simon decided that he would allow her to take the lead again for now, as this experience would either toughen her hide or break her determination to go through with the project. “We'd like to talk about where you were born and raised.” Athena opened her folder to glimpse down at Retinz's profile. “It says here you lived in Wichita until you were sixteen years old?” Retinz made a very loud noise, similar to a game show's buzzer. “Kansas? No, no, what kinda mook do you take me for? Haven't you watched any of my shows? Born and raised in Brooklyn!” “There's no government record of you ever living in Brooklyn.” “Who cares about records? Didn't I just tell you? It's all explained in my shows.” “... So you're lying to your audience,” Athena concluded, pursing her lips together. Retinz waved a dismissive hand at her. “Talk about greenhorns... Don't you know nobody cares about the truth? They get enough of that from their own lives. People watch TV so the flashy, mindblowing fiction can distract them from all that.” “That sounds rather like a magician's misdirection,” Simon pointed out. “It's a producer's bread and butter. Besides, anyone can do a bit of trickery on TV. All it takes is clever editing, a green screen here and there, some hapless acting... It's all easy gimmicks.” Retinz glanced towards the far wall, his gaze hardening. “... A magician's deception takes hard work and passion. Only a filthy criminal could have that sort of talent.” “A criminal such as yourself?” Athena asked him. “What are you saaaying? You'd better wash your mouth out with soap right now, Missy!” Retinz proclaimed, raising both hands in a defensive manner. “Are you kidding me right now?! I was there when it all went down in the courtroom, remember? We exposed you as a killer!” “You sure that was me? Maybe I had a twin, like those cute magician girls.” Athena looked ready to boil over. As for Simon, he saw an opportunity and took it. “Hold on. Only a moment ago, you stated that only a filthy criminal could have the talent necessary to be a magician. Yet now you refer to cute magicians?” “Those wannabes weren't real magicians. No talent. Zilch,” Retinz stated. “That's why they were piggybacking off Little Miss Wright, see.” “Right, speaking of your grudge against Trucy Wright-” Athena began, only to be interrupted. “Grudge? What gruuudge?” “The one that landed you in here!” “Don't know what you're talking about. I've got better things to do than project resentment onto little girls. Makes for a great TV show, though! Exactly the sort of fiction people are searching for in their mundane lives! Maybe you're not a lost cause after all.” “Oh, uh...” Retinz pulled a phone out of his pocket and promptly began typing, muttering to himself. “Defense attorneys make for great script writers. They sure can spin some interesting delusions, LOL! Smiley face... Hashtag Wright Anything Losers... Aaand post!” Simon glanced at the guard, who took a single step towards Retinz. There was no point, though, as the phone had already vanished by the time the second step was taken. Simon wondered just how many followers Retinz still had on social media and made a note to find out. A live feed directly from prison and the support it might gain could add to their research. “That's slander...” Athena huffed. “Talk to me about slander when you're stuck in death row for a murder you didn't do, yeah?” Athena leaned back in her chair, lost as could be. Simon didn't blame her. This sort of denial would usually only be found on the witness stand. To have it continue even after conviction... Well, it made for an interesting sub-category within their study, to say the least. “So tell me, Mr. Greasy Producer,” Simon began, “why are you in here?” “I was framed by the competition, obviously. Take-3 TV hates my guts. Might've even teamed up with Trucy Wright- you know. The real killer.” Athena made a move as if she were about to tear Retinz's head off, so Simon held her back with one hand. Even as he did so, he watched their subject's reactions very closely. “So all those testimonies of what people have seen and heard in the courtroom during the Wright trial... Those were all fabricated?” “Oh, you bet. I'd tell you to ask the girl sitting right next to you, but she's good buddies with Trucy. She won't take my side, believe you me.” “I see that you've requested an appeal of your case several times.” “And I will keep asking until I get it.” “This is pointless,” Athena said quite abruptly, slamming the folder shut and rising to her feet. “We're not going to get anything out of him. Let's just go.” For all of four seconds, Simon assumed her claims to be a bluff. Some trick to get Retinz talking. That was thrown into question when she left the room and didn't return. Indeed, this interview had broken her determination, just as he'd wished. Why, then, did it leave him feeling defeated? “Excuse me. We will continue this interview tomorrow.” Simon got up from his chair as well, stopping the recording process. Retreat was indeed the best strategy for now. Retinz grinned up at him, looking every bit the victor. “Hey, bring some good coffee next time, will you? None of that machine sludge they try to poison me with in here. I need a hit of a brand name, like Bunny's Caffé or Starbills.” “... Duly noted.” ------- Date: June 9th 2028 Time: 2:31 PM Location: Detention Center. Athena was storming through the detention center and towards the prison's exit so fast, Simon would have trouble keeping up if he were a lesser man. He caught up to her just before she reached the door and while he used very little force, he grabbed her arm all the same. “Hold it.” “I'm not going back in there,” Athena insisted, whirling round to face him. “Let's just tell Lang it's a waste of time. Because it is. How are we supposed to ask him about his childhood if he's just going to lie about it? And how will we find out anything about his thoughts during the murder if he keeps insisting he didn't do it?” “The denial is, in itself, something worth investigating. Where does it stem from? How does it sustain itself within his mind? Are you not curious?” “I... Maybe. Or maybe he's just acting like that to piss us off. A skeevy guy like him would know all about acting, right?” Athena glanced down towards the ground, then back up at Simon, as if hoping for his confirmation. “The only way to be certain is to continue the interview. I've told him that we will return tomorrow and we had best plot out a strategy before then.” Athena grinned and pumped a fist. “Oooh, so you're on board with me helping you out after all?” “... I believe that the daughter of Metis Cykes would not be defeated by a mere hustler of a magician. You must stand tall and if that means you would walk into a room with a killer willingly, I will stand by your side.” “Aww, that's sweet. Thanks, Simon.” Athena nudged his upper arm. “The two of us together, we'll crack this guy. Or just his ribs. Either one.” They retreated into a corner of the detention center's waiting area, where several couches and coffee tables were gathered. Simon made sure to look so very gloomy and ill-tempered, no one would come within twenty feet of them while they discussed more sensitive matters. “So how do we get him to say something that isn't nonsense?” Athena asked. “Perhaps we can begin by asking him about the victim. He knew that unfortunate wannabe magician long before the murder. Perhaps something worthwhile will spill out.” “Oh, I'm sure he'll offer his sincere condolences and make sure we've recorded it. And then he'll try to use it as evidence if he ever gets an appeal,” Athena huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “We all know he did it! Who does he think he's fooling?” Simon mulled it over for a moment. Seven years in prison had left his views on psychology rusty, and he believed it best that Lang never find out about that, or else he'd risk losing his chance to meet with the Phantom. For now, he had to focus and get those old gears grinding again. “I don't believe his words to be hot air. Not entirely, anyway. Indeed, everyone knows he committed the crime, so there is only one person left to fool.” “Who would that be?” “Himself, of course. He shows signs of emotional detachment, not only towards the crime but towards his past. Furthermore, while his mind associates accomplished magicians with criminals, recall his reactions when accused of being either one.” “... He deflected.” “Precisely. Perhaps we should not be speaking to Roger Retinz, the Ratings Rajah. Instead, we ought to find a way to converse with Mr. Reus.” ------- Date: June 10th 2028 Time: 2:18 PM Location: Interview Room. Once again, they'd been kept waiting for almost twenty minutes when at last Retinz walked in with a casual stride. Once again, he tilted his chair back and allowed his feet to rest on the table. His eyes moved towards a cup on the table. “... Bunny's Caffé?” “Indeed. You failed to specify what sort of coffee you wanted. I've decided that you are a double espresso man and if you don't like it, you will not be a coffee man at all,” Simon said, smirking. “Double espresso is exactly on the nose. Thanks, man. At least someone here has good manners.” Retinz made sure to shoot a filthy look towards Athena, then he took the espresso and drained it without so much as a second thought. Simon wondered vaguely whether he had built up an immunity to caffeine over the years or whether he'd just given himself a sleepless night. “We'd like to try, once again, to go over this list of questions with you. It is imperative that we gain better insight into your history and motives.” “Why? Your little pet project is about killers, right? You've got the wrong person. I'd suggest you pay Trucy Wright a visit instead.” While Athena's fingers tensed, she said nothing. Simon drew a steadying breath of his own before continuing. “First of all, it's imperative that we establish something else. That is, are you the magician known as Mr. Reus?” “Whaaat?” Retinz went from faux surprise to a dismissive attitude so fast, it could've given him vertigo. “Don't you know anything? Manov Mistree was Mr. Reus. He's dead now.” “Then, I will rephrase the question. Were you, at any given point in time, Mr. Reus?” Retinz clammed up immediately. There was no acting, no snide comebacks, nothing. What did happen was that the man reached for his right arm, where a scar was meant to be. Ready to deal the final blow, Simon pulled a handful of change from his pocket and placed it in front of Retinz. “What is...?” the man asked. He moved into some sort of stiff disdain. “You think I'm so down on my luck that I need your charity? Don't be ridiculous.” “A few coin tricks, if you please. As I was unable to play the part of audience during the Wright trial, I've heard no more than tales.” “If you want to see your coins disappear, just give them to a hobo. Or Little Miss Trucy.” “Quite right, anyone can make coins disappear. Only the Great Mr. Reus possesses the skill to perform the finest coin tricks in the world. Tricks of legend.” For a few seconds, Retinz seemed almost hesitant. Then something changed at the drop of a hat- or a facade. His gaze hardened and just like that, he was a whole other person. He took several coins in hand, clenched his fist, then they were gone. He stretched out all his fingers to show off his empty palm. Next, he held up his other hand, where the coins were spread out quite neatly between his fingers. “... Now, check behind your right ear.” Simon frowned, did as he was told and found another coin there, kept in place by his untidy hair. “How's that for a magic trick? I could have a coin appear anywhere on your body if I wanted to, but there's certain lines I don't dare cross. You don't seem the type who would laugh about it.” “Mr. Reus, I presume?” “The one and only. We accept no more imitations or substitutes.” Athena's jaw must've dropped at some point, for Simon looked her way just in time to see that she was closing her mouth again. “Oh... Well. All right, then.” “I would like to ask, once more, for your truthful participation. Are you prepared to answer our questions?” Reus clenched his hand together and tilted it, so that he could flick a coin into the air with his thumb. He caught it quite deftly. “Ask away.” “You were born and raised in Wichita, where you lived until you were sixteen years old, is that correct or isn't it?” “Bingo.” “Tell us about your parents.” “They were poor. Dirt poor. We lived in a run-down little shack. Pops was unemployed and drunk, mom was packing groceries at the deli.” “Did you have any siblings?” “Nope, it was just me. Probably for the best, because three was already a crowd in that hovel of a house.” “You didn't get along with your parents?” “Nope.” While Athena was attempting to stay out of the conversation, her pen was scritching against the paper. Simon didn't want to ask his next question in front of her, but knew that he had no choice. Regardless, he would be a hypocrite for assuming that she wouldn't be strong enough to handle this sort of thing. He'd already made his decision when he stopped Athena from leaving the detention center only a day ago. A deep breath, then he posed the query. “Did they abuse you?” “Sounds like this interview's turning into a dumpsterfire. Don't get too close, or you might get burned,” Reus proclaimed. He stopped flipping his coin and held it in the palm of his fist. When next he opened his hand, there were several inches of flames. The glow of the miniature fire was so bright that the lenses of Reus's sunglasses became obscured. The guard, who had once again been standing ready by the door, appeared both unnerved and unwilling to act. So much for the strong arm of the law. “Whoah, whoah! Take it easy, Jafar!” Athena called at him. It seemed as if Reus needed just a bit more incentive to speak. One more gimmick to open up to them. Simon reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a deck of cards. It was placed before the magician, drawing his attention without further ado. “Go on. Take them,” Simon urged. “I assure you, it's a complete deck.” A pause, then the flame in Reus's palm disappeared. He began to shuffle the cards in the most expert manner Simon had ever seen, even going so far as to shoot the deck from one hand into the other and back again. The whole ordeal turned into something of a blur. Finally, Reus held the deck face-down looked him square in the eye. “Name a card off the top of your head.” “... The Ace of Spades,” Simon said. Reus lifted the top card off the deck and placed it face-up on the table. It was the Ace of Spades. “Now you, Missy,” he told Athena. “Uuuhh... The Five of Hearts?” Reus lifted the next card off the deck and that one, too, was exactly as foretold. Athena smacked a hand down on the table. “Wait, no! I changed my mind! I want the Four of Diamonds!” Reus took the Five of Hearts with his free hand, spun it around on his fingertip, then placed it back down. It was now no longer the Five of Hearts, it was the Four of Diamonds. “It is done.” “Maaaaan... That's impossible.” Athena said, and Simon didn't need her special ability to hear the envy in her voice. Reus slid the two cards back into the deck, then began to shuffle again. He looked quite content as he did so, perhaps even comfortable. He was in his element, which was exactly as Simon had planned it. “My Pops,” Reus began, placing down the King of Clubs for them as if it were a tarot card, “was King of the castle. He was the one who would lay down the law and he would punish accordingly. That law depended on his mood. On a bad day, he'd knock the stuffing outta me just for breathing too loudly.” Simon was forced to consider the possibility that this was yet another 'fiction' tailored to a certain audience. Without a doubt, this sort of story held fitting notes to those attempting to compose the melody of a psychological profile. Still, the look on Reus's face gave the whole thing credibility. It was grim and real. “What did your mother say about that?” “Mom... was his devoted Queen.” Reus laid the Queen of Hearts out next to the King, then placed a Joker neatly below the two of them. “She had no problems with the hierarchy because the law didn't apply to her. She kept saying Pops had it rough because he was having such a hard time finding a job, and if he took it out on me it was my own fault. Somehow, everything was always my fault. Somehow, I was the failure.” “That sounds like a tense atmosphere for a child.” “No kidding. Pops said he didn't want me around, so I didn't stick around. I was outside the house more often than inside, hiding and practicing magic tricks.” Reus slipped the Joker back into the deck of cards first, shuffled, then snatched up remaining two to complete the collection again. With that, he went right back to absentminded shuffling. “What exactly about magic was it that drew your attention?” Athena asked, now a bit more sympathetic and willing to tend to business than before. “A magician could do anything and overcome anything. No limits. Being sawed in half was no problem, being tied up with chains and stuck in a dunk tank was no problem, being trapped in a cage and then run through with swords was no problem... They could make a yacht disappear, they could teleport across the stage, they could read your mind... When I was a kid, I thought magicians were the most powerful beings in the world.” Simon tapped his pen against the paper, thinking it over. “And they could never be hurt, correct?” The cards Reus had been holding sprang into the air and scattered all over. He recoiled, once again reaching for his scarred arm as if he'd just been burned in that very specific spot. “W-Well... Only the very best, obviously.” “So when you were sixteen, you left your home and attempted to make a name for yourself as Mr. Reus.” “Right. Naive youngster that I was, I had my sights set on the Gramarye Troupe.” Reus returned to flipping a coin as he spoke, each time catching it with such a nimble motion of the fingers that it didn't land so much as transition straight into its next jump. “By the time I was twenty, they'd already welcomed me into their midst. Bunch of miserable traitors that they were...! I gave several years of my life to them- gave them everything I had to give and they dropped me like I was nothing! My burning passion was nothing but a sad little smoulder in their eyes!” “... I've heard tales that Magnifi cast you out after a single mishap and none of the other Gramaryes stuck up for you.” “That's saying it lightly. Magnifi humiliated me and soured the name of the Great Mr. Reus for years to come. Anyone who believes Troupe Gramarye was a family is dead wrong. Every single one of the old man's students was fighting for their own reputation and I didn't see it until that incident opened my eyes. That's when I learned you can't trust anyone in this world- least of all magicians.” “And yet... You did not exact any sort of revenge until many years later. Not until Trucy Wright announced her plans of a Gramarye revival. What prompted you to act at that time, when you had been living a perfectly content life away from magic for almost thirteen years already?” “Magnifi and his accomplices got their due without my interference. A year after I was dismissed, Thalassa pulled a vanishing act of her own- some say she got hurt while practicing a magic act, just as I did, so Magnifi made his failure of a daughter disappear. A few years later, the old man croaked, Zak took the fall for his murder and Valant was effectively castrated. I thought the Gramarye name was dead and buried, so I made peace with it. That is, until she appeared.” “Trucy Wright?” Simon frowned and sat back in his chair. “Even if she wanted to revive the Gramarye name, she had nothing to do with your disgrace. She was only a young lass at the time.” Reus slammed his hand down on the table quite suddenly and while the fire in his hand had long gone out, it was still in his eyes. “She has the Gramarye blood and she flaunted the name! Trucy in Gramarye Land, indeed! What a joke! She even wanted to drag Mr. Reus into that disaster of a publicity stunt! Over my dead body!” “At that point, you were no longer Mr. Reus,” Athena said with a bit of a scoff. “It was Manov Mistree's decision to make, and so... It was over his dead body. You made sure of that.” “Don't you sit there and judge me, missy! A pipsqueak like you could never understand this all-consuming fire; this need for revenge. Trucy Wright is doomed to be every bit the criminal her parents and grandpappy were. If she isn't already, she will be some day, you mark my words!” While Athena might've huffed at Reus's attitude even further, something held her back. It was the emotion, perhaps, to the man's words. Widget was alternating between blue and red around her neck. “Do you believe,” Simon began, “that the sins of the parents carry into their children? That blood ties limit a person's potential by tying them down?” “Absolutely.” “Then, what of your own parents? Do you believe they set you on a path you could no longer stray from?” “... Ayep. I reckon they did.” “Have they come to see you after you gained a name for yourself? The Ratings Rajah was a big deal, after all.” “Oh, they hunted me down, all right.” A mean smirk appeared on Reus's face, implying he was delighted by the memory rather than horrified. “They came right up to my penthouse, packed bags by their side, asking for money and a place to stay.” “What did you say to them?” Reus took the empty espresso cup and held it between both hands, then pressed his palms together. While Simon had definitely seen the cup crumple under all that pressure, the remains had vanished when Reus pulled his hands apart again. So long as there was magic in this world, who would have need for a trash can? “Nothing. I laughed and slammed the door shut in their faces. What goes around, comes around, right?” he stated with no end to his amusement. With that, Simon considered the interview an official success; they'd learned quite a bit about what had driven Roger Retinz to premeditated murder. All it had cost him was a handful of change and a deck of cards. Applying that knowledge in practice was a whole other matter, but at the very least, they could present results to Lang. Athena must not have been quite satisfied yet, for she looked through the papers and chose another angle of attack. “If you don't mind, I'd like to go back to the topic of Manov Mistree for a bit,” she stated. “As I understand it, he was a big fan of the original Mr. Reus and you happened to learn of that by chance. Instead of ignoring that bit of your past, you revealed yourself to him and made him your apprentice. Why was that?” “Why indeed?” Reus asked, and while it might've been taken as sarcastic, the furrowing of his brow suggested that he was wondering in earnest. He went back to flipping his coin again. “... Maybe I was feeling vindictive. Maybe I wanted Mr. Reus to have one last bit of glory and I didn't care who I had to corrupt in order to get it.” “You believe that you corrupted Mr. Mistree?” “Of course. Such a bright-eyed, optimistic, gullible guy... Not the brightest bulb in the shop, but he was determined to learn. He could've been anything else, really, but he wanted to be a magician so badly. If he hadn't dreamed those foolish dreams, he wouldn't have met such a sticky end.” “And only a criminal could have a knack for deceiving people the way a magician does, hm?” Athena mused aloud. “So what was your relationship with Mr. Mistree like? Did you encourage him to follow his dreams or did you warn him about what it took to be the real deal?” “Oh, I did everything Magnifi refused to do for me. I gave him pats on the back and complimented his progress; the whole good mentor shebang. He ate it up. Never seen anyone more thirsty for approval and boy did he get it.” Simon's gaze flickered towards Athena, then back to Reus. “Did you take advantage of Mistree's adoration?” “You're gonna have to be more specific, pal.” “Did you engage in acts of a sexual nature with him?” “A guy like me, who's constantly surrounded by bikini babes in the studio? You've got some guts, asking me a question like that.” “Yet, you fail to answer.” Reus flicked several coins through the fingers of his left hand. Athena squeaked out of nowhere and hopped up from her chair. The Five of Hearts was pulled out of her boot and impressive as the trick had been, neither herself nor Simon was amused. They both made that clear through their furious expressions, which were all but ignored. “... I did at first,” Reus ultimately admitted, now flipping a coin along the back of his hand from finger to finger. When he caught sight of the look on Athena's face, he tutted. “Don't you worry, I didn't do anything he wasn't into. He was the one taking charge, not me. Took him out to dinner and everything, too. Burger Barn.” “Seriously? All that money, and you take the guy you're sleeping with to Burger Barn?” Athena's disgust reached a whole new low. As for Simon, he was of the opinion that Retinz's cheap nature was the least of his crimes. “Yeah, that really should've tipped him off, shouldn't it? Good old Manny, he was so blinded by the person he thought I was, he couldn't see the trash inside. Lots of expectation for me to live up to. How could I crush his hopes? But after a while, he became more Reus than Manov. That's when I stopped getting my kicks.” Simon's eyes narrowed into a glare. “That turn of events was your own doing. By actively encouraging Mistree's dreams and teaching him your ways, you shaped him into Mr. Reus. Then, when he was close to becoming just like you; a supposed criminal... You could justify butchering him with a clear conscience. He ceased to be a person and instead became a means to an end.” “Seems like it. I created a monster, by which I mean myself, and then I fed that monster to the flames of my revenge in hopes the fire would consume the last shreds of Magnifi's legacy. Fucking tragic.” “If you agree that the mindset is tragic, do you regret what you've done?” Reus stood quite suddenly and threw a card across the room as if it were a ninja star. The corner of it pierced the wall and so, the card remained there. Athena looked impressed. Simon thought the showmanship was quite unnecessary, but then, perhaps it was one of the few outlets Reus still had left. The disgraced magician placed both hands on the table and leaned forward, speaking his next words in a vicious whisper. “I'd kill Manov a hundred times over if it meant I had a chance to be rid of my thirst for revenge. I would need to kill him a hundred times over, because that's what it means to be a fuck-up. … How's that for a psychological profile, Dr. Freud?” To Be Continued

#my fanfiction #aa #aa spoilers #simon blackquill #athena cykes #AA mindhunter

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luftballons99 · 7 years ago

Text

how alone you are

fandom: Kuroshitsuji/Black Butler

relationships: Platonic Sebastian Michaelis & Ciel Phantomhive (s*baciel shippers don’t touch!)

summary:

“I have no one,” Ciel whispers, shaking. “I have no one.”

“You have me, my lord, until I bring you victory,” Sebastian assures him softly.

Ciel lets out a short, frost-bitten laugh. “Until you claim my soul,” he corrects.

A Faustian pact is a poor cure for nightmares.

tags: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, platonic fluff, Platonic Relationships, seriously if you ship seba/ciel dont touch this fic please, Trauma, References to Book of Murder and Book of Circus, venting, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Banter

chapters: 1/1

read it on ao3 here or under the cut

(i dont know why but somehow i found myself catching up all the way on the black butler manga after years of not reading it and was hit with the urge to write a fic that 1) explores sebastian and ciel's dynamic as unlikely friends(???) and 2) allows ciel to reach something of an emotional catharsis with the help of the only person (entity?) who, for better or for worse (probably for worse), actually understands him (kinda). they're both incredibly tough characters to write so i hope i at least somewhat got their personalities right? the idea of ciel venting is in and of itself pretty ooc but i suppose if any fanfiction was perfectly in character, it would all be canon, so. yknow.

anyway i cannot stress this enough i do not want any s*baciel shippers in my notifs ok? don't comment. don't even look at this fic. though i guess if youre reading this you already did, in which case, fuck you for not checking/straight up ignoring the tags. point is i dont wanna hear any shippy shit alright keep it classy. ciel's 13, give him a break. he needs a guardian, not a love interest, especially not one thats thousands of years older than him. yikes.)

There are some things - however few - that Sebastian cannot protect him from.

He is content to leave it that way, at first. It’s not his job to be a shoulder to cry on or to chase away nightmares. That was never part of their deal and he wagers that Ciel would prefer to keep it that way. Whether it is because of self-delusion or pride, he will not confide in Sebastian; not when it comes to the scars that lie beneath his skin, invisible but lethal. And truthfully, it is just as well; Sebastian is unsure what he would even do with the information. Handling someone’s emotions without exploiting them is not really his area.

All he needs to do is keep Ciel alive and healthy. All he needs to do is watch the corpses pile up at the foot of Ciel’s throne. All he needs to do is kill some time before his next meal.

And yet all Ciel needs to do to keep Sebastian at his heel is call his name.

And that, as much as it pains Sebastian sometimes, was very much part of the deal.

It has been a while since Ciel has had a nightmare; at the very least, it’s been a while since he’s had one terrifying enough to rip a grating shriek of his butler’s name from his lungs and through the quiet air of the Phantomhive manor. Sebastian has noticed, however, that Ciel has not been sleeping well, regardless. Just this morning, the young lord nearly fell asleep on his feet as Sebastian slipped his silk eyepatch on for him, and then later did fall asleep in his study, drooling into the pages of a book. Something is weighing on his mind, and while usually Sebastian would argue that it’s none of his business what goes on in his little lord’s head, it seems to be becoming his business right now as he rises from his desk and ascends the stairs to answer his master’s call.

He is at Ciel’s door in a matter of seconds and, because no one is around to see it, conjures a tray of warm milk and honey with an elegant flourish of his wrist. He sighs inwardly. He knows that Ciel is still plagued with trauma; has ruined too many gloves wiping vomit off the corner of Ciel’s mouth and reminded him to breathe too many times to forget. Still, he was hoping that his young master would have grown out of his nocturnal panic attacks by now.

After all, a violent flashback while witnessing a child’s murder makes sense to him. A nightmare after a quiet, peaceful evening at home does not.

Regardless, Sebastian dutifully knocks on Ciel’s door three times, signalling his presence. He waits before entering, watching the warm milk he prepared ripple in the flickering candlelight illuminating the hallway. He hopes the young master has enough sense to swallow his pride and invite him in before it gets cold.

“Sebastian?” he hears Ciel call after a moment, his voice raspy and muffled on the other side of his door.

Slowly, Sebastian pushes it open and steps inside. Warm light from the hall spills into the room, a slant of yellow cutting across the young master’s trembling form, tucked deep under the covers. It disappears as Sebastian shuts the door behind him.

“That’s right, my lord,” he replies softly. He balances the tray in one hand as he walks toward the sconce attached to the wall by Ciel’s bed. Knowing that Ciel will want to be able to see him clearly, he pinches the wick of the candle between his forefinger and thumb, and when he lowers his hand, a small flame has already begun to burn at the tip.

Sheets rustle as the young master stirs, emerging from his linen cocoon with a white-knuckled grip on his thick blanket and a terrified stare aimed at Sebastian. Sebastian smiles down at him pleasantly, unfazed by his master’s horror. He sets the tray down on Ciel’s nightstand and wordlessly spoons honey into his cup of milk.

“Nightmare, master?” he asks idly, stirring. Ciel doesn’t answer, still busy panting from lingering panic. “It has certainly been a while since I’ve had to come feed you milk in the middle of the night like a starving pup- “

“You shut your mouth this instant ,” Ciel barks, voice raw and loud and sudden enough to make Sebastian’s hand still and his eyes go wide, his smile slipping cleanly off his lips and leaving his expression blank. He glances up from the tray he brought, meeting Ciel’s multicolored glare. “You forget your place, butler .”

Sebastian releases the spoon he was holding, letting it clink lightly against the rim of the cup. He places a hand over his heart and bows deeply.

“My apologies, my lord,” he says evenly and, because he is sure Ciel won’t be able to see it from this angle, arches an eyebrow at the floor in incredulity. His young master certainly has a shorter fuse than usual this evening. It is true what they say about children becoming agitated when deprived of their nap-time. “Please forgive me.”

He remains still, awaiting the boy’s response. It comes a moment later in a frightened, colorless whisper.

“Come here,” Ciel says, lacking his usual authoritative tone. It’s like he’s reverted back to how he was on that first night, skinny and quivering and sick with fear. The only difference now is that he’s a few inches taller and that instead of smacking Sebastian away and commanding him to keep his distance, he seems to need human proximity - or the closest thing to it he can get his hands on. Sebastian glances up, taking a step forward and kneeling obediently at his master’s bedside.

Ciel regards him fearfully, as if Sebastian might disappear into thin air like smoke from a snuffed out candle. He reaches out a small hand from underneath the covers and curls his nimble fingers into the collar of Sebastian’s shirt. He squeezes and releases the crisp fabric repeatedly, like he needs to make sure both it and Sebastian are really there.

Sebastian remembers something Doctor Arthur said on his first and final visit to the manor; about how, in sleep, the young master looks a little less like an Earl and a little more like a Ciel. He may posture as much as he wishes, but he will always remain that battered little boy sticking his blood-brown hands out from in between the grimy bars of his cage; the boy who was forced to grow up so fast that he didn’t truly grow up at all. The boy who spit upon God and shook hands with the devil. The boy who chose hell over happiness.

“What is it, my lord?” Sebastian asks, curious and amused as Ciel continues to pat down the front of his jacket with frantic hands. They still suddenly, cupped around Sebastian’s shoulders as the young Earl thinks, his face indecipherable. Sebastian looks up at him, waiting patiently.

Ciel’s face crumples like parchment over an open flame. The ominously glowing magenta mark of the covenant in his right eye flickers as he blinks back his tears.

“I’ve had enough,” he whispers, voice trembling - from rage or sorrow, Sebastian is not sure. Rage at his own sorrow, perhaps. His fingers dig into Sebastian’s shoulders, tight like twin mouse traps. If Sebastian were human, he might flinch. “I’ve had enough of this.”

Sebastian places his hand over one of Ciel’s in what he thinks is a reassuring gesture. “Enough of what, my lord?” he wonders.

“I asked you,” Ciel starts, gritting his teeth, “for power. That was our deal, demon.”

Sebastian cocks his head to the side. “Has my service been unsatisfactory?”

Ciel smacks his palm over Sebastian’s mouth. Sebastian blinks. He does not try to pry his master’s hand away, even though it would be easy. He could snap Ciel’s arm like a twig, if he wanted to, and has mused about doing so before. But they have a deal, and it demands that Sebastian never let any harm come to a single hair on Ciel’s head. And besides, it has been a while since Ciel, difficult as he is, has inspired any violent inclinations in him, and that includes now.

“I asked you for power,” the boy continues, “and yet my mind remains weak.” His voice tapers off into barely a whisper, as if he’s still afraid of admitting it out loud - even to someone who already knew. The true horror for Ciel, Sebastian knows, is not so much the torture he endured three years ago, but the fruitlessness of his efforts to take vengeance.

“The dreams do not cease,” he hisses in disgust with himself, “and I will never leave my cage.”

Sebastian is quiet for a long moment. He could say, This is the lightless path you chose. He could say, There is a difference between power and strength. He could say, You are only human. And he could spend the rest of the night with a red, stinging cheek as a result.

Ciel’s hand slips from Sebastian’s face and grips the silky lapel of his jacket. He seems to want an answer, after all.

“My lord, you are overtired,” Sebastian says gently, deciding to hedge his bets. “Please help yourself to the milk I brought; it may soothe your nerves.”

Ciel scoffs, releasing Sebastian’s jacket and hugging his knees. Sebastian stands and attends to the tray he left on Ciel’s night table, letting his hand hover over the cup of milk and feeling satisfied when it warms his palm. It hasn’t gone cold quite yet.

“I’m not a child,” Ciel spits suddenly. If it weren’t for his small stature, anyone else might believe him. He carries the title of Earl and the weight of the underworld with it on his tiny shoulders and not once has anyone but Sebastian seen him buckle under the weight - and even that is a rare thing. He’s proud, he’s greedy. He’s the worst that humanity has to offer, and he’s the best at being so.

He’s thirteen.

“Of course not, my lord,” Sebastian says graciously, though the amusement in his tone is not lost on his master, who snaps his head up and seems to bristle like a cornered cat. “Shall I take it away, then?”

Ciel’s response is an immediate, “No.” Sebastian grins down at him knowingly. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“That smile. It makes me sick.”

Sebastian picks up the cup with one hand and tucks his smile behind the other. “Please accept my sincerest apologies once again, young master,” he says, voice wavering as he tries not to laugh.

“Your ‘sincerest apologies’ don’t do me any good, Sebastian,” Ciel points out hotly, accepting his cup when it is offered to him. “Just do as you’re told.” When he looks up at Sebastian, his eyes are still glassy with poorly-masked fear. His emotional refractory period is not as short as he would like his butler to believe.

Sebastian watches Ciel peer down into his cup with a shaky sigh before taking a tentative sip of from it. After ascertaining that it isn’t too hot, he closes his eyes and tilts his head back as he continues to drink. Eventually, he lowers the cup so it rests in his lap, held in place by his small hands. His eyes remain closed as he takes a steadying breath.

“Are you sure you’re alright, young master?” Sebastian pries gently.

“My emotional state is none of your affair,” Ciel shoots back, eyes still stubbornly shut.

Sebastian’s eyebrow twitches in irritation. Obstinate brat.

“I see,” he says, tone cold. “That must be why you summoned me to your chambers in the middle of the night. Of course. How foolish of me.” He gives Ciel an icy look, patience wearing thin.

(Yes, he is immortal, and yes, he will have an eternity left at his disposal long after Ciel has died, but hours of managing the boy’s schedule while attending to the daily calamities the other Phantomhive servants cause has made him reluctant to waste time. Every minute he spends in Ciel’s chambers is a minute not spent planning their itineraries for the coming day or preemptively preparing himself mentally for his coworkers’ blunders.)

On that very first night, Ciel ordered him to never lie. Sebastian had figured out quickly that the little lord would not afford him the same luxury.

Ciel gapes up at him, appalled. “ Excuse me,” he starts indignantly, “Since when do I owe you an explanation for my orders?”

“I would never dream of expecting such a thing,” Sebastian assures him, but they both know it’s insincere. “I simply wished to express my concern for…”

He lets the statement taper off into silence when he realizes what he’s trying to say, his jaw going slack before his mouth snaps shut.

Ciel’s eyes shoot wide open before narrowing into skeptical slits, luminous amethyst and candle-lit sapphire shimmering through his lashes. “Your concern for what?” he asks, insistent but wary.

Sebastian considers his master for a moment, thinking. So much for hedging his bets.

“...Your well-being,” he answers finally, and it isn’t until the words slip off his tongue that he tastes their truth. He blinks.

Ciel’s brows pinch together, the eyes underneath searching Sebastian’s face like a bandit looting a vagrant’s corpse. He flounders. Finally, in a test of Sebastian’s meaning, he says, “Your concern is unwarranted. As you can see, I am not injured.”

And it is true - Ciel is healthy as can be; he hasn’t suffered so much as a papercut in over a month. And it has been, by all accounts, a quiet, peaceful evening.

And yet Sebastian has not felt at ease ever since he heard his master scream.

“Indeed,” he says thoughtfully, brows knitted, “but it is not an injury that had you calling my name.”

Ciel’s eyes widen as he looks up at Sebastian, stunned. “I’m fine now,” he insists after a moment, suddenly impatient.

“‘Fine’ has variable definitions,” Sebastian points out and Ciel rolls his eyes, “None of which I would use to describe your current - “

“So what?” the young master demands, incensed, the very foundations of the manor Sebastian built him quaking at the sound of his voice. Sebastian closes his mouth. “I’m alive. That is all that has ever mattered to me.” Ciel’s thin fingers press tighter around his cup of milk as if he’s trying to crush the delicate, flowery design painted on its exterior into oblivion.

What outstanding hypocrisy. Sebastian has had enough.

“You,” he begins in a rough sigh before dropping into a crouch in front of his master, unimpressed, “are quite the nuisance.”

Ciel gapes, immediately raising one hand high. Sebastian’s arm snaps forward before the young lord’s palm can make contact with the side of his face and squeezes his brittle wrist tight.

Ciel flinches, fear striking his features like lightning, and Sebastian is surprised when he doesn’t feel satisfaction at the sight. When did that change? He loosens his grip, but does not let go.

“How dare you ,” Ciel spits, outraged. Tears blur and distort the smoldering mark of their covenant. Still, he swallows a hiccup and growls, “You are trying my patience, Sebastian.”

“What a coincidence,” Sebastian remarks, feigning enthusiasm. “You are trying mine.”

The dam breaks. “You insolent - ” Ciel begins in an angry sob, face twisted in agony, but cannot seem to struggle to the end. His gem-like eyes overflow, his princely nose leaks, his heart-shaped face is blotchy and red. In this moment, he is no Earl.

Why, then, should Sebastian masquerade as his butler?

“It is your stubborn refusal to confront your emotions that results in these puerile night terrors of yours and my subsequent subjection to your misdirected, hysterical outbursts,” Sebastian informs him strictly, red eyes cold. Ciel, through slime and salt water, manages a powerful glare and a snarl. Sebastian is undeterred. “Therefore, if there is so much as a ghost of a chance that you airing your grievances now will result in even a single night more uninterrupted by this nonsense, I believe it is in our best interest to take it, wouldn’t you agree?”

Ciel begins to wrench his wrist out of Sebastian’s grasp and Sebastian allows it, even though he anticipates the sharp slap to his cheek that follows. He sighs loudly in annoyance and looks at the floor, listening to the boy in front of him sniffle and hiccup pathetically. He takes a moment to compose himself; to let the flicker of anger in his chest to go out, eyes falling shut.

He does not anticipate Ciel’s arms hooking around his neck in a distraught embrace.

Sebastian tries to remember the last time he was held.

It was probably by Mey-Rin; she trips over her skirt or her shoelaces or other people’s shoelaces or the floor at least twice a day, and it is often Sebastian who catches her before she falls and breaks her nose - or worse, the dishes she carries. And though the encounter did not leave much of an impression on him, he did sleep with Beast to find information about her benefactor.

This, however, is obviously, markedly different. This is his young master. This is a child desperate for emotional reprieve. This is a little boy in need who would rather die than admitting so.

Carefully, Sebastian places his hand on Ciel’s head, cautious and curious as to how it feels to comfort someone he’s actually invested in. He smooths over Ciel’s tousled dark hair; feels tears seep into the collar of his shirt; thinks vaguely about all the laundry that’s piled up this week. Ciel shivers against him pathetically, muffled whimpers spilling from his lips into Sebastian’s shoulder, and Sebastian keeps stroking his head the same way he’d stroke a cat’s - sans the enamored cooing.

“I hate this,” Ciel grits out spitefully, yet holds Sebastian tighter. Sebastian chuckles softly, amused by the contradiction. Ciel always has been a walking, crawling, squirming juxtaposition.

“If I may be so bold, my lord,” Sebastian offers quietly, “You need this.”

Ciel responds with a pitiful hiccup. Sebastian lifts the hand not occupied with Ciel’s hair and runs it down his back in slow motions that he can only guess are soothing.

“I have no one,” Ciel whispers, shaking. “I have no one.”

Sebastian almost asks, I thought you had no need for emotional attachments? , but manages to restrain himself. Now is not the time for banter, and he’s already been slapped once tonight.

“You have me, my lord, until I bring you victory,” Sebastian assures him softly.

Ciel lets out a short, frost-bitten laugh. “Until you claim my soul,” he corrects.

Sebastian was not expecting that. They do not discuss that part of their deal often, despite both knowing its inevitability. Strangely, the pang of hunger he feels in his core at the reminder is accompanied by something else - different, but equally as painful. While hunger leaves him hollow, this seems to fill him past capacity. He is being torn apart.

“Victory first,” he vows after a quiet moment, suffocating his feelings like he would a kitchen fire. “You have my word, sir.”

Ciel’s fingers dig into Sebastian’s back as he buries his leaking nose deeper into the crook of his neck.

“How cruel,” he whispers bitterly, “that the same hand protecting me is the one by which I will die.”

Sebastian’s hand stills mid-stroke of Ciel’s ducked head. He had never thought about it like that. Ironic, yes. Poetic, yes. But never ‘cruel.’ When he thinks about it, he finds the word fits just as well.

“You chose this, my lord,” he reminds the boy and himself, but still does not feel absolved.

“Indeed,” Ciel agrees and holds Sebastian tighter. He is never this clingy unless his life is in danger. Sebastian supposes that, in a sense, it is.

“Now, now, sir,” he chuckles, slowly leaning out of Ciel’s embrace. It is late, they have a busy day ahead of them, and one of them has to be the first to stop playing house. “I have kept you awake for far too long already.”

Ciel’s arms loosen around Sebastian’s neck as he pulls away, though his hands remain clasped at its base. His eyes are swollen red, his cheeks flushed and glittering with moisture to match. Sebastian tuts lightly and shakes his head as Ciel sniffles, reaching into his pocket and producing a handkerchief. He rubs the boy’s cheeks and nose clean, suddenly rocked by the memory of the last time he had to do this - just under three years ago. Ciel was ten and still readjusting to life outside of cages and cult rituals. It took a while before he started bothering to wipe his mouth after a glass of milk or his nose after a sneeze, and it was Sebastian who would remind him by example.

Once again he is filled with that emotion he cannot place. Confusion wrinkles his brow and parts his lips. Ciel seems to notice and gives him a curious look, but before he gets the chance to investigate, Sebastian is pulling his handkerchief away, slipping it into his pocket, and rising to his full height. Ciel’s mouth, which had fallen open when he meant to begin his interrogation, shuts silently. Sebastian cannot decide if it is a relief or not; that Ciel isn’t prying.

(He wonders - long after tonight - what Ciel does not say.)

When Ciel finally does speak, it is to interrupt Sebastian’s movement to extinguish the candle bathing the room in soft orange light with a firm, “Wait.”

Sebastian tilts his head questioningly, retracting his hand. “Master?”

“The light,” Ciel says quietly, tired eyes drooping as he looks up at his butler; his confidant; his murderer. “I like it. Don’t put it out until after I’ve fallen asleep.”

Sebastian smiles, deciding it is safe to tease once again. “The esteemed Earl Phantomhive, unable to sleep without a nightlight. How sweet,” he cooes, a hand over his heart. Ciel narrows his eyes at him. “Shall I tell you a bedtime story while I’m at it, my lord?”

“I dare you,” Ciel challenges him irritably. Sebastian knows better than to accept. He grins and watches Ciel’s eyes fall shut.

“Then I take it I am not yet permitted to retire for the evening?” he asks with a put-upon sigh.

“Do you even sleep?” Ciel wonders flippantly in a yawn that he does not bother to cover with his hand. He rolls onto his back and pulls the covers up to his chin.

Sebastian is surprised, but not put-off, by his master’s interest. “No, sir,” he says, “however, like you, I do require rest.” He pauses, chuckling. “Though obviously not as much as humans do.”

Ciel snorts. “Obviously.”

“Well then, master,” Sebastian begins pleasantly, standing with his back to the wall adjacent to Ciel’s bed, “I will remain by your side until you fall asleep.” And until the day where you do not wake up again.

Ciel hums in acknowledgement, rolling onto his side away from Sebastian and curling into a crescent shape against the mattress. Sebastian, although - or perhaps because - his master can’t see him, allows himself a genuine smile. There will be no more nightmares tonight and, hopefully, for the foreseeable future.

“Sebastian,” he hears the young lord say suddenly and glances up to the back of his head, dark against the soft white of his downy pillows.

“My lord?” Sebastian prompts softly, standing at attention.

There is a long pause before Ciel speaks again - so long that Sebastian wonders if the boy has finally succumbed to sleep - but just when it seems like the conversation is over, Ciel breaks the silence once again with a firm, albeit sleepy, “You did well today.”

Sebastian blinks. He has lived a long time; has seen many things and met many people. He is not easily stunned.

Hearing those words from his master, however, will shake him every time.

I invoked your ire to the point where you slapped me, part of him - the same part that got him slapped, incidentally - wants to remind the boy, but he keeps his quip to himself. They have gone back and forth enough for one night. Surely there is no harm in accepting the gift of his master’s acclaim.

“My lord, I am most honored by your praise,” he tells him, smiling in gratitude and pride. “If I may offer my own - “

“Oh, spare me. All I did was ruin your shirt with my stress-induced optic and nasal secretions.”

Sebastian grimaces at Ciel’s wording. “Now, my lord, surely there is a more graceful way to - “

“Just accept the compliment without patronizing me, Sebastian,” Ciel huffs, frustrated, and rolls over to meet his butler’s eyes. He points at him decisively. “That’s an order.”

Sebastian, still smiling, sighs and raises his hands in surrender. “As you wish, young master,” he concedes.

With a final nod and fluff of his pillow, Ciel settles under his covers. When his eyes shut this time, Sebastian knows they will not open again until morning. He shakes his head, leaning back against the wall with crossed arms as he watches the young lord’s thick covers rise and fall with each of his steady breaths. When Sebastian is sure Ciel is asleep, he extinguishes the light. The room plunges into the comforting darkness of night, softened by milky rays of moonlight filtering in through the window.

Sebastian collects the tray and dishes he brought, being sure not to make a sound when he lifts them up from Ciel’s nightstand. He glances down at the boy over his shoulder before making his way out of the room, remembering his words - You did well today, Sebastian.

A bittersweet smile forms on his lips as he pushes Ciel’s door open. With one last look back at his master’s sleeping form, Sebastian whispers, “As did you, my lord,” and slips out of the room.

#kuroshitsuji #black butler #ciel phantomhive #sebastian michaelis #fanfiction #fic #my fic

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cptncassianjandor · 7 years ago

Text

Infinity War/Avengers 4 ending fic?

Ok Infinity Spoilers below so~ ya been warned. I’m tagging it as infinity war stuff as well, double warns my boos.

This is what I think/want to happen at the end of Avengers 4. How they can respectfully move on to phase 4. Word count: 1.9k

“It’s fair, there was no discrimination” Thanos states, he is old and tired. He has fulfilled his own prophecy, there is nothing left for him to do.

“It isn’t fair to take people who have hardly lived their lives” Steve argues, he is hurting, mad over the loss of his friends

“There are those who are no longer suffering” Thanos replied, flashing up an image of Gamora’s planet in fast forward, starting from when he slaughtered half the population to now, the planet is flourishing “They are living the life they deserve. It is fair.”

“So why not target the murderers, the awful people in this world instead of those who are good.” Tony fires up his barely repaired suit, aiming the hand cannons at Thanos, knowing it would only take a flick of his hand to disintegrate Tony to nothing

“Everyone is corrupt, children bully, steal and lie, adults are no better.” Thanos takes a sip of a purple drink, flexing the gauntlet as a reminder or possibly to admire it.

“Only a God has that right, and you are no God” Thor wants nothing more than to slam his axe into Thanos’ ugly face but he knows he can’t yet.

“I’m surprised you’re able to restrain yourself Nebula, and that you’re helping such a rag-tag bunch of people.” He ignores Thor’s outburst and faces his last daughter, knowing she calculates every move he makes.

He casts an eye over the group pointing an array of weapons at him. Steve holding a shield, Tony with his various cannons, Thor’s axe sparks in his hand, Rocket holding Bucky’s gun and his own. Bruce has finally managed to convince Hulk to come out and he stands there in the Hulkbuster armor, Natasha stands with Okoye, M’Baku, and Rhodey. Behind them is Carol, they try to hide her as a surprise,

Thanos knows the odds, has watched this scenario a hundred thousand times and knows how it ends.

“Compared to you they are pleasant company.” Nebula replies, her black eyes boring into his. Her hand disassembles into a cannon and aims at him.

It begins with Thanos disintegrating reality around them all and constructing Titan around them. Why not entertain their delusions until they tire and then wipe them out in one fell swoop.

They go all out, Steve shouting orders and tactics, Tony and Rhodes firing off explosions, Okoye and M’Baku unleash their fury on the thing that destroyed their King. Hulk and Natasha run at him with their might.

Thanos dodges it all, he phases from side to side, reflecting explosives and bullets back at them but they don’t stumble or let him knock them back. Each use of the infinity stones tires him now, each phase is slower, the reality flickering around them as they continue their assault.

“You cannot beat me.” He grunts as he throws Rocket off him for the third time, tiny claw marks covering his arms, tiny bits of shrapnel catch him and cause him to bleed.

“This is not how it goes” He roars, clenching his fist and slamming it into the ground causing a shockwave that knocks them all back.

The assault stops briefly as they stagger back to their feet, and out of all of them, Tony laughs.

“How many outcomes did you watch” Tony wipes a smear of blood from his cheek, annoying grin in place

“A hundred thousand and they were all the same, all of you died at my hands.” He growls back, Thanos is long past letting them tire.

“Out of all 41 million outcomes” Tony begins, he steps forward toward Thanos and Steve falls into place next to Tony. “You only watched a few thousand.”

“Why would I waste my time watching you pathetic mortals fail again and again.” Thanos rolls his shoulders,

“You missed an important one buddy, out of all the 41 million, there was one outcome where we won.” Tony now has the heroes following him toward Thanos.

It is hard for the Mad Titan to not step back as they converge on him.

They stop a short distance away from him. Thanos was wrong. They will not tire with that hope behind them and he cannot bring up the power to obliterate them all at once.

“You are foolish to believe you can win against six infinity stones.” Thanos tries to force the stones to his will, versions of reality fade in and out, he phases through rocks and walls.

They all lash out again, hitting Thanos with everything they have and slowly he is the one who tires, he finds himself making small errors and getting hit, more of his blood is spilt.

He drops to a knee when Hulk hits him in the back and pins his legs down. Stark grapples onto the gauntlet, knowing it can come off with the right amount of force. Natasha, Okoye and M’Baku spear weapons through his other hand pining to the ground.

“You cannot handle them” Thanos gasps as Thor’s axe presses against his chest, splitting the old wound he had. “They are beyond mortal men”

Hulk smashes a fist over Thanos’ head and he goes limp momentarily, just enough for the gauntlet to behind to budge. Steve grabs the rim and yanks hard and it flies off, landing on the ground and twitching violently.

“Without someone to harness the powers, it will destroy us all” Thanos sounds panicked, Nebula is at his throat with a sharp blade that cuts into his neck.

Steve and Tony rush toward the gauntlet, which flies up and hovers between them, Steve’s arm stretches out to grab it but the gauntlet has its own mind and attaches itself to Steve’s hand, the powerful metal molding to his arm.

Thanos slumps to the floor as everyone surrounds Steve, who has dropped to the ground with the gauntlet flashing, his body convulses as he see’s a thousand different things, voices floating through his mind.

“Rogers?” Tony tries to pin Steve down with his anchors, but the gauntlet disintegrates them. The damage that had been evident before was now healing before their eyes.

The crumpled metal smooths into burnished gold, even Steve’s own wounds heal.

In his head the Time stone shows him what he wants to see and things he doesn't. Steve watches an outcome where he lived to dance with Peggy, how he could will that into his life. His heart aches when he sees her, even more when the stone throws more outcomes, they get married, they have children.

We can make it real, for a price.

The stones hum to him, replaying outcome after outcome, one where he brings them all back including Peggy, Bucky's arm is flesh and not metal, Vision is a person. Everyone lives.

But someone has to die.

“Steve?” Natasha says softly, and his head snaps to her “You ok?”

He sits up without saying a word and looks at his hands.

Steve knows what he has to do. Everything will be fixed.

He snaps his fingers, and the world shifts around them.

They are back on Earth, in Wakanda, and those who had disintegrated are there waiting. Tony pulls Peter into a hug, Okoye shouts for T'Challa and Shuri, Gamora is awkwardly pulled into a hug by Nebula and Quill, all of them trying not to cry. Groot is talking with Rocket, who is most definitely crying.

"You big lug nut" Rocket sobs as Groot pats him on the head

"I am Groot." Groot replies and Rocket sobs harder.

"Don't do that to me kid" He is crushing Peter, tears running down his face.

"I'm sorry Mr Stark" Peter is just as distraught, his face wet with tears

Steve turns to Thanos, who has come with them.

"I'm surprised you didn't have me erased. Everything comes at a price." He muses, watching as Thor embraces Loki. "So who didn't you save."

Steve stares at Thanos, who laughs. It is punctured with heavy breaths, Thor's axe cut deeper than expected and now the Titan is drowning in his own blood. Fitting perhaps.

"You could have changed the galaxy a different way. Changed the wills of those who are greedy, power hungry. Instead, you chose mass genocide." Steve ignored Bucky and Sam who are next to him.

He can't face them right now, when this is over, there will be time to talk.

"Genocide is not always bad. It has its uses." Thanos replies

A price the stones remind him, they want blood for their power. He knows, but for now, he ignores them and focuses on Thanos.

"You snapped your fingers and caused a lifetime of suffering to those had done nothing wrong. The rich still feed off the poor. Children go to sleep without food in their bellies." Thanos' voice is weaker, blood flooding the grass beneath him

"Let me kill him."

Steve turns to a person he has never met but knows instantly she is Gamora.

"Sister.." Nebula's voice is strained "Killing him now would be a mercy. He deserves to suffer."

"I thank you for bringing my precious Gamora back Steven. I will gladly die knowing she is safe."

Steve is unused to his full name, especially from an enemy.

"You threw me off a cliff" Gamora screams at him

"For the sake of the galaxy. Everything I did, I did for the sake of the less fortunate." Thanos slumps further into the grass, everyone who Steve brought back is watching from various positions, some grip their weapons in case this is a ploy.

Steve sits down himself, suddenly weary and knows what is happening. He has made up his mind.

"Steve?" Natasha's voice is quiet and he knows he can't avoid telling them anymore

"The stones demand a price" he says quietly, hearing a small bubbling laugh from Thanos as he dies slowly in the grass

"A price Steve? You offered yourself up?" Bucky snaps at his best friend

"I've lived my life Tony. The world doesn't need Captain America anymore, it needs you guys." Steve is aware that he is fading, slowly.

The stones are being patient as he says his goodbyes.

"Buck, we're well over 100 years old. Maybe it's time we retire" Steve jokes, painfully aware of how much he's hurting his friends, how much he's hurting doing this.

It would've been selfish to take someone else, to shorten someone else's life so he could live longer.

"I can't do this without you Steve." Bucky drops next to his friend, gripping Steve's faded shoulder.

"You did pretty well here in Wakanda. Shuri fixed your arm. You're free of any control now Buck."

"This isn't cool Steve. You can't save the world and then.. go." Sam can't bring himself to say the word die "What are we gonna tell them? People look up to you man"

"They look up to Captain America, not Steve Rogers." He closes his eyes, listening as those who know him beg him not to do this, to take them instead.

The ones he doesn't know thank him, for bringing back their loved ones, their family, and friends. He is sad he will never know them beyond the stones knowledge. Steve can't stop the tears as they fall.

There is silence suddenly.

He knows it will end soon.

"You promised me a dance." Peggy's voice makes him open his eyes.

Around them, couples sway to slow-moving jazz music. He doesn't look anywhere but Peggy, stood in a black dress, her hand stretched toward him.

"We don't have long. The song will be over soon" She urges and Steve pulls her toward him.

She laughs against his chest as he holds her tight, swaying in time to the music.

Steve has one last thought before it ends.

The stones were kind.

#infinity war #infinity war spoilers #Avengers #avengers 4 #the avengers #captain america #steve rogers #tony stark #iron man #Guardians of the Galaxy #iw spoilers #fanfic #my bad

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theironweasel · 8 years ago

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Fullmetal Alchemist: And Why I’m worried Avatar has spoiled me.

SPOILERS!

This was the series more than any other anime I had seen that I was hoping that could live up to the quality of the Avatar franchise. It was an Action/Adventure series about the same length as both series and it was even TV-PG, allowing even darker situations and themes, and it had a strong starting concept. Once again, however, I was ultimately disappointed.

The Humor. This is a rather small complaint in the grand scheme of things, but I felt the humor in FMA fell pretty flat most of the time. I think there are two reasons for this, first most of the jokes are just repeated time and time again and are the one comedic note a character has. Edward gets mad when someone calls him short, Armstrong has his weird physique obsession, and Hughes loves to go on about his daughter. The other issue is the tonal shifts the humor creates. I’d describe the humor in FMA as exaggerated, with background changes, chibiesque faces and other anime humor tropes. However this doesn’t really gel with the serious and dark tone of the rest of the series, this is why the humor seems to work better in the small number of “comedy” episodes such as the Flame Alchemist. Compare this to both Avatar series. In each, characters also tend to derive their comedy from one particular place, but it isn’t limited to a single joke. Sokka has his cynical sarcasm, Toph has her blind jokes, Katara has her deprecation of her brother, Bolin has his naive silliness, and even Mako get’s his overly uptight attitude and awkwardness. But they don’t just repeat the same joke over and over and the reactions of others is also a huge part of the jokes, from annoyance to anger to confusion. Additionally the jokes don’t tend to break from the tone too much. Sokka’s sarcasm is usually a result of the bad situations he tends to wind up in, and Katara tends to get on Sokka’s case when she is annoyed at him for some reason. These jokes are also much more subdued and realistic, they feel like real human beings who have these personalities would say these things in the situation they are in. In FMA, most of the time, it feels like characters become caricatures whenever their humor moments emerge. Also, a lot of humor relies on the reactions of other characters with FMA it's very easy to predict the over the top reactions that will happen. One of my favorite jokes in Avatar is when Bolin is checking to see if Aiwei is in his house “He's not home. Or he's hiding in there. (gasps) Or he's invisible.” To which Mako gives him an amazing look of annoyance that is simply expressed in a pursed mouth and a cocked eyebrow but the timing and sincerity of it always make me laugh.

2. The Pacing. FMA has a problem I rarely even talk about or notice, because I tend to find as long as the pacing is consistent it doesn’t matter much how fast or slow it is. With FMA the pacing is all over the place. At first The Pacing was quite good, letting a single story last only 2 episodes at most, but shifting from a continuing arc to one off episodes relatively well, though the time skip is bizarre. However this changes once the Lab 5 arc begins. 4 episodes are almost entirely in one building over one night with a continuous story that creaks along at a snail's pace. This was the beginning of the longer arcs that would mostly comprise the rest of the show. The worst offender was the Izumi arc which lasted 8 episodes, and the locations that were visited were: An island, a house, some streets, a meat shop, a military base, a bar, a mansion and some sewers. Basically each episode averaged one new location. By comparison, the Ba Sing Se arc in ATLA minus Appa’s Lost Days, was 7 episodes and covered many more locations: The Drill, the outer walls, the lower ring, a tea shop, Zuko’s apartment, the Gaang’s house, the palace, Lake Laogai, a zoo, a haiku club, a restaurant, a fountain area, a spa, The Dai Li headquarters, The Jasmine Dragon, The Water Tribe camp, The Eastern Air temple, The Catacombs and several other locations. Additionally, The entire second half of Book 2 could be considered a single arc that’s 11 episodes long from The Library to The Crossroads of Destiny, however while there is an overarching plot, each episode also has it’s own plot where a number of aspects are resolved each episode, making each feel like a complete story even if the larger story is only slowly developing. FMA has a habit of arcs essentially being one story broken into a number of parts which tends to kill the pacing. It could be argued that LOK is essentially 4 season long arcs going from 12-14 episodes each. While this is technically true, each episode feels independant from each other while also building on the overall plot. While people complain that the pacing gets slow in the middle of Book 2, it isn’t as bad as some of the FMA arcs and bounces back quite well in the second half. And Book 3 is one of the best examples of a slow buildup with an amazing payoff that I’ve ever seen.

3. The Villains. I’m going to be blunt here, the villains of FMA are pretty bland and boring, which is a real shame.There really isn’t much going on with these villains, at best they aren’t completely one dimensional and have some tragedy in their backstory. At worst they have one, continuous boring note they hit and that's it. This is such a waste given the naming convention for most of the villains. We have 7 villains named for the 7 deadly sins, there is so much that could have been done with this, exploring the nature of these concepts from the obvious to the imaginative, to the subtle. We could have seen how a being that is supposed to be an embodiment of a vice interacts with humanity, or how these supposed vices could also be virtues in certain situations. There are a million things that could have been done with this, but for the most part this just plays out as: a guy who will eat anything, a woman who dresses kind of sexily, and a woman who talks like she just woke up. One of the strengths of Avatar are the villains though each series handles them in different ways. First, ATLA tends to have more traditional villains, save for Zuko, though Azula teeters the edge between traditional and humanized, though this is what makes her one of the best villains in fiction by combining pure evil with humanity and tragedy. Back to my point though. Most of the villains are pretty simple, and all of them are essentially aspects of Ego. This is the exact opposite of FMA, taking one concept and exploring it in different ways. Zuko is about the infliction of one's ego on another person and how that can screw someone up and learning how that ultimately, feeding that ego won’t lead to real contentment. Zhao is a bully who enjoys inflicting suffering on others to boost his own ego and his actions both for and against his nation's interests are simply to serve his delusions of grandeur. Long Feng is all about control as an extension of his ego, he rose up through society to prove himself and demanded complete control of Ba Sing Se as an extension of himself. Azula is about the control of Ego as well as how it becomes a defense mechanism to replace a lack of love from those around her, showing how it is ultimately unsustainable because when it is stripped away there is nothing left. Finally, Ozai represents the power hungry nature of Ego and how it will never be satisfied, abusing and manipulating those around him for power and eventually being driven close to madness by a belief in his own power and invincibility. I love this aspect of ATLA as it examines all the aspects of Ego from subtle to extreme, with Ozai being the climax and showing just how terrifying and horrible an absolute devotion to Ego is. LOK takes an opposite approach, each villain represents a different ideology that is taken to an extreme but also humanizes them more than in ATLA. Amon represents how a devotion to extreme equality is misguided as it requires punishing the naturally gifted even though they may choose to use their gifts to help others (Like the Krew) and that in any political movement a figurehead is required and it can be the ultimate weakness. On the other hand it also shows how Amon started as a good person whose ideals were warped by abuse and even though he wants to try and start again he is ultimately killed because of the inevitability of repeating the mistakes of the past, while he may want to change in the moment, all it takes is temptation for the whole thing to start over again. Unalaq is a pretty boring villain but at least he does believe in the need for spirits to be a part of the physical world only taking it to an extreme. And we at least got Vaatu as a pretty cool embodiment of ultimate Darkness and Chaos. Zaheer is extremely interesting in how humanized he is without giving him any real backstory. All this comes from his actions which reflect someone who cares deeply about his friends and loved ones and genuinely wants to help people, but is also ruthless and willing to do ANYTHING to get his way even if it is hypocritical. He also represents a kind of violent Individualist Anarchism that is relatable in how it advocates for total freedom in the midst of an extremely oppressed society. However, it fails to account for how people, especially those who have been oppressed for a long time, don’t tend to act responsibly. More importantly, most people want safety more than freedom and are willing to turn to a horrible dictator to feel safe if necessary. Which brings me to Kuvira, a representation of Fascism who emphasizes Strength, Order, and Military might, from her jackboots to her mechanized army, with a face that could cut glass and an intimidating voice that will make you pee your pants. Seriously, while Hitler was a powerful Orator he didn’t have much else going for him, Kuvira is like if an Übermensch was also the Fuhrer. But beyond that, while her humanization is limited, the final reveal of her character while minor, ties all of her actions together as someone desperately seeking validation in opposition to her abandonment complex. Seriously, look at how long I went on giving just a brief description of each of the villains of Avatar and I could go into much more detail. FMA’s villains are so boring that I could use the same space to write about every single detail we know about all of the villains from backstory, to powers, to motivations and I would at most miss a few minor details.

3. The Plot. The plot starts out simple and interesting, however it eventually becomes way too convoluted with multiple factions with different motivations and goals that aren’t always made apparent so that we aren’t always certain what is going on and why. While it is okay to have some of these things, too much and you start becoming unsure what exactly is going on in relation to everything else. Another unfortunate effect of this is that there are a number of plot points that revolve around one group knowing some information that other groups don’t know. Again while occasionally okay, it is done too much. ATLA has a very simple plot with only a few twists occasionally, but for the most part, most episodes are self-contained stories so it’s difficult to get lost. LOK has more complicated plots, but each one only lasts 12-14 episodes and there is still plenty of stories that wrap up well in one or two episodes and the plots are all pretty interesting and engaging.

4. The Characters. This is more of a mixed bag, I like both Edward and Alphonse and think the relationship between them is pretty great. I do wish the show had taken more advantage of this and focused more on it, because the closest I came to crying watching this show was early on when Alphonse quietly lamented to his brother how he can’t feel anything anymore, specifically he can’t even find physical comfort in his own brother. However there are way too many side characters and most of them are kind of boring and onenote. A huge red flag for me is when Hughes died, this was probably the most likeable of the side characters and this should have been gut wrenching, but I only got a little misty eyed and mostly because of the kind of exploitative child crying during his funeral. It also feels like a number of characters who were supposed to have a bigger arc really didn’t, like Scar who winds up not really changing at all and stupidly plays into the villains’ plans. ATLA was pretty smart in knowing how to handle characters, have a small number of complex main characters with a ton of minor characters with a lot of personality who aren’t seen often, so they are memorable but their schtick isn’t over used. LOK didn’t have quite as interesting main characters, but made up for it with great side characters such as Lin Beifong, Tenzin and Varrick.

5. The Fights. While decent, I got rather tired of Ed using his arm blade to fight and all of the other Alchemists using just one ability the same way over and over. While I understand the specialization of the Alchemists, I wish they would use other abilities more or use their specialization in more creative ways. Avatar was always excellent about coming up with creative ways to use bending from the specializations, to just the imagination of how to use bending from utilitarian such as using sweat as water, to the fantastic, such as firebending magic shows.

6. The Tone. While FMA is praised for it’s dark tone, I think it has a habit of kind of wallowing in it’s darkness too much, especially in regards to the Ishvalan war. While it’s good to have dark moments and even an overall dark tone, I found FMA to not really utilize it’s darkness well. I often felt like the darkness was just dragging everything down into a kind of depressing miasma. The best example I can give with Avatar is Korra Alone which is the most consistently depressing episode of the entire franchise but it is all born out in Korra’s character whereas with FMA it’s mostly worldbuilding/ character development for side characters and doesn’t go into it enough to really justify how relentlessly dark it can get.

7. Winry. Ok this mostly comes up in one episode: Her Reason, but it is essentially just an exaggeration of her normal problems. She comes off as selfish, conceited, and acts like the world revolves around her. She doesn’t consider the emotions of others and never apologizes when she makes a mistake, letting those around her take the blame. At best she just comes across as a kind of boring love interest. Compare this to Avatar, where even the most love interest focused characters such as Yue, Suki and Opal are still pretty strong characters even if they aren’t super deep. And they have the ability to rebuff their love interests if they are acting like jerks without resorting to violence, something that Anime characters seem to have difficulty doing.

8. Izumi. OH MY GOD. If there is one thing I HATE about FMA it is Izumi. She is hateful, hypocritical, uncaring and oh yeah ABUSES CHILDREN! Now I get that in a dangerous world sparing is necessary even if they get their butts’ kicked. However, leaving two prepubescent boys on an island by themselves for a month with a guy who kicks the crap out of them IS ABUSE and no life lesson is worth the trauma that would have resulted from this in real life. There is also the insufferable tendency of the show to follow up her abuse with kindness which is the exact thing an ABUSER would do to fuck with their victims emotions. I could go on for awhile about Izumi, but instead I will compare with Avatar. Iroh is one of the most amazing characters in fiction, at first he may seem like the wise old mentor stereotype but it's quickly apparent that he is a bit of a goofball, but also deeply kind and caring, even putting up with his largely ungrateful nephew. And as we learn, Iroh used to be a very different person and his journey reflects the journey of other characters. In LOK we have Tenzin who is a rather flawed mentor in that he takes himself way too seriously and is rather inflexible in his ways. However he deeply loves his family and culture, learns a lot over the course of the series, and while he is a bit stiff he is also kind of a doormat so that even when he is acting his worst, it never comes across as malicious because if people were really fed up with him they could just ignore him and all he would do is harumph.

As for the Movie, all I will say is that while I liked what it did with the kind of silly plot point at the end of the series. However I don’t think it did enough with it, I wish that most of if not all of the characters had been universe swaps. And in addition, I wish it did more with this concept, turning Hughes into a stick in the mud, single, Nazi was a bad move. It would have been fascinating if they kept the same characters but showed how might they react in a vastly different situation. For example what if Hughes was his usual self, with a family, and because of this he is terrified that the weakness of Germany is a threat to his family, hence why he would reluctantly join up with the Nazis. Ideas like this could have given a lot of depth to the story. Oh, and the villain sucks. Yes FMA made a dimension hopping Nazi boring, with her entire motivation tying into the on the nose moral of “Racism is bad M’kay?”

However, despite all this, I don’t think Avatar has spoiled everything for me. When I look back to Trigun I remember how invested I became in the characters to the point of being moved to tears on multiple occasions and I consider Vash, Wolfwood and Milly to be characters I will always remember and love.

#fullmetal alchemist #edward elric #alphonse elric #winry rockbell #izumi curtis #Avatar The Last Airbender #legend of korra #korra #aang #bolin #iroh #uncle iroh #tenzin

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phynxrizng · 8 years ago

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THE FIRST WITCH WARS. AND WHY ITS DIFFERENT TODAY

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Found in Pagan ChannelRaise the Horns blog

The First Witch Wars & Why It’s Different Today

April 10, 2016

by Jason Mankey

I’m under no delusions that everyone who practices Witchcraft today will one day drop their brooms and dance together around the cauldron. There are a whole host of differences among the modern strains of the Craft, and while we share a great deal, we don’t share everything. And while my wife and I don’t quite put up a You Are Not Invited sign when our Gardnerian coven meets, the idea is mostly true. Non-initiates are not welcome, and even certain lines in our tradition don’t have a free pass to join us.

From the start Witchcraft has been rather exclusionary. Much of that is because of how the coven was originally structured. Today the phrase “perfect love and perfect trust” is often used willy-nilly and without a lot of thought, but originally that phrase was one of the core tenants of the Craft. The coven represented chosen family, and the only persons allowed in were those who had earned the love and trust of their fellow Witches.

Particular Witch-traditions are also about particular temperaments. Don’t believe in deity? Perhaps our Goddess-centric group won’t be a good fit. Does archaic (and somewhat sexist) sounding language bother you? Then what we say in our circle probably won’t resonate with you.* I love and trust all sorts of people who just aren’t a good fit with our coven and many of them are cognizant enough to realize that.

What I try not to do is judge the Witchcraft of others. The Feri Path is not for me but I still know that it’s a very real and valid path. My friends who practice it are strong and committed Witches and are doing good work. There is no version of the Craft that is “more authentic,” intense, scary, or real. I’m not threatened or jealous of other Witchcrafts, some are just different, and that’s great. When my wife and I go out for ice cream I go for the cookie dough and she goes for the mint-chocolate-chip, I know that the cookie dough isn’t really better because it’s what I prefer, I just know that it’s better for me.

THE FIRST WITCH WARS

When I complain about the current cosmic pissing contests that seems so prevalent in many Witch circles I’m often reminded by well meaning souls that the “Witch Wars” are nothing new, and that’s completely accurate. The first modern Witch War took probably took place in 1958 when Charles and Mary Cardell showed up in the Spiritualist magazine Light claiming to be Wiccens. After failing to impress Doreen Valiente and other established Witches the Cardells went to “war” on Gardnerian Witchcraft,** which culminated in the book/pamphlet Witch by Charles Cardell released under the pen-name Rex Nemorensis.

(1) Witch was meant to be a “tell all” about Gardner and included (alleged) excerpts of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows. Cardell was too cowardly to release his book while Gardner was still alive and released it in 1964 just a few months after Gardner’s death. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead but the Cardells were quite a strange couple (they liked to pass themself off as brother and sister, which they were not), and they faded from history shortly after the release of Witch.

Today they are a curious footnote in Witch history and are probably most famous for being involved in the first public Witch War. The second major Witch dust-up was instigated by someone who would have a lasting impact on Modern Witchcraft, Robert Cochrane (Roy Bowers). Cochrane was one of the first people to go public with a Witchcraft tradition outside of Gerald Gardner’s, and he wasn’t all that nice about it. (In his defense, I’m sure there were lots of Gardnerians behaving badly here too.) In Doreen Valiente’s memoir The Rebirth of Witchcraft she mentions Cochrane’s desire to have a “Night of the Long Knives” with the people he derisively called Gardnerians.

(3) (And since there were not a whole lot of Witches in England at the time, the whole idea is completely absurd.)*** Cochrane had a combative personality and his friend Evan John Jones once remarked that “he seemed to want to be at loggerheads with most other occultists.” (3) By the time Cochrane was calling for his night of the long knives he was most likely dealing with some sort of serious mental duress. He took his own life shortly after Valiente left his Clan of Tubal Cain in 1966.

There have always been problems in the world of Witchcraft, but I think it’s a lot different today than it was fifty or even twenty years ago. It shows up in people and groups who define their own Witchcraft not by what they do, but what they stand in opposition to. It’s one thing to say “I don’t practice Witchcraft like she does” and another to say “the Witchcraft they practice is not serious” all while not knowing who they truly are. I understand not liking Gerald in 1960, it’s another when all of his past and present initiates are also dismissed out of hand.

Public arguments amongst Witches were also once considered propositions. If you wanted to argue in a public forum about Witchcraft it required a bit of work. You had to get out the type-writer and put together a letter; there were no outlets for immediate criticisms and condemnations. I remember writing letters to editors, it was a pain in the ass, and by the time you were ready to write your letter the anger had probably already passed anyways.

All kinds of arguments were probably avoided due to sheer laziness forty years ago. Even if you got your letter written it often took months for it to appear anywhere, and by that point everyone might have already forgotten about the argument.

Even our most public arguments thirty years ago were still mostly private. They occurred in Pagan magazines, which took a bit of work to track down. In 1993 I didn’t have to worry about my Aunt Donna stumbling across an argument on my Facebook feed about Wiccan privilege.

Today our comments are available for just about anyone to see, and even things posted in private groups can be easily copied and shared with thousands. I wasn’t a big fan of Tarostar in the Green Egg Forum circa 1996, but I also didn’t make copies of his letters and pass them around the campfire, but we kind of do that today when we share something on social media.

Social media makes every argument so immediate and personal. Discussions that might have once occurred over the course of a year unfold over an afternoon. Instead of carefully considered opinions responses are written in minutes, without any time to reflect upon them, and issues of great complexity are simplified into yes or no arguments. Today we share memes and quotes without a second thought as to how others might react to or be hurt by such ideas. Yes, there have always been Witch Wars, but they’ve never played out so publicly before.

There have always been spiteful Witches and there have always been Witches intent on telling everyone that their version of the Craft is superior. But because we communicate with one other so quickly and we have so many immediate public forums the arguments and controversies are bigger.

Twenty years ago you could hide in your Temple Room and just do your shit, and not worry about Witchcraft outside your own walls. Not as possible in the age of Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. Even if you don’t engage in all the mudslinging you still see and are even possibly affected by it on some internal level.

There is no one Witchcraft that is “better,” there’s only what’s best for each of us. Instead of arguing about what’s “real” let’s share some experiences and create a better Craft. Witchcraft is about what works, and it works much better when we focus on our own Craft instead of everyone else’s.

COMMENTS THAT DIDN”T MAKE THE ARTICLE

*We’ve always recited Doreen’s Valiente Charge of the Goddess with the words “beloved of gods and men” which is how we first heard it. It was later amended to read “gods and mortals,” but we we think the extra syllable throws off the Charge’s cadence. **Which at the time, was pretty much the only public Witchcraft in the UK. (Note how I wrote “public Witchcraft” and not “only Witchcraft.”) ***I’ve grown quite fond of Cochrane over the last few years and some of his ritual innovations show up in my own rites from time to time. The end of his life is an utter tragedy, and it’s possible that Modern Witchcraft might be very different today had history proceeded a bit differently.

NOTES 1. Taken from Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon, Oxford University Press, 1999 pages 298-299. I’ve quoted this book so many times in my life that I don’t even have to check the title page for the publisher and year. 2. The quote is from Valiente’s Rebirth of Witchcraft (Phoenix Publishing, 1989), but I looked it up in Philip Heselton’s Doreen Valiente: Witch, published by the Doreen Valiente Foundation in 2016. It actually just came out this past February. Page 135. 3. More Hutton, this time from page 317. Stay in touch! Like Patheos Pagan on Facebook:

About Jason Mankey

Jason Mankey has been involved with Paganism for the last twenty years, and has spent the last ten of those years as a speaker, writer, and High Priest. Jason can often be found lecturing on the Pagan Festival circuit, so you might just bump into him. When not reading and researching Pagan history he likes to crank up the Led Zeppelin, do rituals in honor of Jim Morrison (of The Doors), and sing numerous praises to Pan, Dionysus, and Aphrodite. He lives in Sunnyvale CA with his wife Ari and two hyper-kinetic cats.

Reposted by, PHYNXRIZNG

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myupdatestudio-blog · 8 years ago

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New Post has been published on Myupdatestudio

New Post has been published on https://myupdatestudio.com/whilst-beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-robobeholder/

Whilst beauty is in the eye of the (robo)beholder

For over a year, I worked as a beauty editor, writing and getting to know about the goods, tendencies, and people that make us need to appearance a sure manner. And as studies for the various tales I wrote, I consulted with dermatologists, plastic surgeons, makeup artists, aestheticians, and greater looking to answer a simple query—how am I able to make myself extra conventionally attractive?

Whilst Beauty

Makeup Amazon

“Beauty is confidence,” they’d usually say, prefacing the actual answer. Inevitably, these professionals could eventually tell me that you’re feeling more assured, and hence more beautiful, when you appearance blemish- and wrinkle-free. (Pending at the product they had been promoting, this can also incorporate being tanner, or greater contoured, or thinner, or paper, or much less made up, or curvier, and many others.) Regardless of respondents’ distinct aesthetic tastes, everyone appeared to agree—younger is extra lovely. beauty become approximately anti-growing older.

Naturally, the trouble right here is the premise. What is splendor past a person else defining it? For as long as humanity’s obsession with the term has existed, we’ve similarly regarded about its subjective nature. In spite of everything, “splendor is in the attention of the beholder” is simply a cliché that posits that specific subjectivity of attractiveness.

But what if the beholder can remove subjectivity—what if the beholder wasn’t someone, However a set of rules? The usage of the system getting to know to define beauty may want to, theoretically, make beauty pageants and scores like Humans annual Most lovely within the International list more goal and less vulnerable to human blunders. Of path, teaching an algorithm to do something may involve a few bias from whoever does the programming, However that hasn’t stopped this computerized technique from defining equally subjective such things as listening options or news feed (we see you, Fb et al).

“We don’t want a human opinion,” says biotechnologist Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov, one of the founders in the back of a festival-preserving, beauty-quantifying initiative called beauty.AI. “At the end of the day, there are plenty of disagreements. We’re searching for ways to assess beauty, and a few methods may be extra applicable or much less applicable to human belief. But the complete cause of splendor.AI is to do away with a human opinion, to go beyond it.”

splendor.AI changed into merely one of the state-of-the-art tries to have generation objectively evaluate beauty. However as an online opposition that crowdsourced headshots and allowed bot-driven algorithms to decide ratings, perhaps it represents the fever point of this workout. If so, the initiative’s final results made one thing definitively clear: artificial intelligence will in no way decide a widespread face of splendor. Even these days, it only highlights how exactly slim one’s definition of splendor can be. Long before everybody knew what an algorithm changed into, humanity has tried to quantify and degree splendor. Leonardo da Vinci’s pen-and-ink drawing of the Vitruvian Guy, whose head become one-8th of its body, changed into based totally on Roman architect Vitruvius’ writing on the difficulty from his treatise, De Architectura. Plato believed that splendor resided in components that harmoniously fit into the complete. St. Augustine believed that the more geometrically same something became, the greater lovely it becomes. The theories went on and on.

And for as long as People have made these landmark statements on splendor, they’ve additionally found out apparent cultural bias approximately their requirements of splendor. Northern Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer used his own arms, acknowledged for being longer than common, to assemble a canon of the human body. Or, for the latest instance, morning show Good Day DC anchors Know-how Martin and Maureen Umeh went viral final 12 months for giving the side eye to a 2014 cosmetic surgical procedure have a look at stating that Kate Middleton had the “Maximum suited face.” Evidently, the look at becoming based totally on a check group of “normal-performing white girls aged 18 to twenty-five years.”

in the beyond few a long time, students have at the least come to simply accept that regular splendor is a complex, perhaps not possible aspect. one of the greater famous works furthering that concept comes from creator Naomi Wolf and her 1991 bestselling book, The splendor Delusion. “beauty is a forex device like the gold fashionable,” she wrote. “Like any financial system, it’s far decided through politics, and inside the present day age within the West, it is the closing, exceptional perception machine that continues male dominance intact.” Wolf believed that beauty is a production of capitalism meant to keep the repute quo in the ever-increasing West—basically arguing that present day, extra numerous supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks still had to suit into a rigid definition of splendor that involves such things as “tall,” “skinny,” and “younger.”

those cultural complications haven’t stopped cutting-edge researchers from trying to teach for a better solution, but. Working example: University of California, Irvine researchers Natalie A. Popenko and Dr. Brian J. Wong. (Wong, a plastic health care professional and professor, become one of the professionals in the back of that controversial, Kate Middleton-face have a look at.) In their Maximum well-known paper—2008’s “Evolving attractive Faces The use of Morphing era and a Genetic algorithm: A brand new method to Figuring out Perfect Facial Aesthetics”—the duo hired virtual morphing software program to “evolve” and “breed” extra appealing faces over the years primarily based on statistics collected from varied, human assets which include Fb surveys, plastic surgeons, scholar examine contributors, and professionals from an eyebrow cosmetics organisation preferred through Kylie Jenner. in the Most simple experience, their paintings attempted to installation predictive computing in a similar manner to how scientists generate weather models… except they had been hoping to peer whether a mean advanced through the years into an ideal face.

Ultimately, Wong and Popenko decided that a “common” face didn’t make for a lovely face. In fact, nasal width, eyebrow arch top, and lip fullness correlated substantially with the take a look at’s scores of splendor. In different phrases, Jenner turned into onto something with her Kylie Lip Package (designed to present you complete, pouty lips) and heavily arched eyebrows (delivered to you with the aid of Anastasia Brows). It turns out splendor, at least the kind that makes you need to keep at Sephora, isn’t determined by evolution—it’s determined through celebrity idols.

As this kind of research has persisted, corporations have sought to get in on the premise of technologically-described beauty. The project-sponsored Naked three-D Health Tracker is a $400 clever replicate (available for pre-order) that scans your frame in 3-d and makes use of a heat map to tell you where you’re growing muscle or gaining fat, and it claims effects within 2.five percent accuracy. It comes with a reflect that “appears” to you—a literal “reflect, mirror, on the Wall” state of affairs—and encourages you to stand the records: Are you absolutely dropping weight? This scale claims it received will let you cheat.

Or, released closing April, an app referred to as Map My beauty claims to apply facial zone recognition algorithms to objectively check beauty. Customers add selfies, and the app spits out how and wherein to position on make-up. To this point in its short life, the app has tested especially useful for advanced techniques like contouring, the vintage college approach made viral through Instagram and the Kardashians. (Contouring requires a strong knowledge of your very own facial structure with a purpose to manage appearance The use of light and shading.)

“The usage of this lively appearance model and making use of it to selfies we’ve got never visible before, we will extract a handful of parameters which also—amongst others—describe implicitly facial beauty,” says Dr. Kristina Scherbaum, the laptop scientist at the back of the app. What the one’s parameters are, but, stays a mystery. Map My beauty has business aspirations past helping at-domestic make-up artists. The crew has formerly labored with international beauty retailer Sephora, and now Map My beauty has its very own crew of expert makeup artists. those professionals act as a focal point institution for labeling and categorizing the database, and Map My beauty says its judgment criteria is proprietary.

This means an app may also spit out the answers, However, a group of human beings is again backstage making selections (with varying levels of subjectivity and objectivity). So from DaVinci to Wong and Popenko to this, that undeniable human detail, In the long run, permeates outcomes irrespective of how many layers of the era are brought.

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