#but i found the german version more amusing

[flourish-of-steel]

The duality of Nektar the Bold

[farfromstrange]

Tupperware | Matt Murdock x Reader

Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Summary: A conversation about kitchen supplies leads to something more...

Warnings: SMUT 18+ MINORS DNI, oral m!receiving, unprotected p in v (wrap it b4 you tap it), multiple orgasms, aftercare

Word Count: 6.7k (This is a literal Smut Beast)

A/n: Yeah, whatever you think the title means in context, I guarantee you, this is different. But also, maybe not. I found this in my drafts because it was originally planned as an FG One Shot, but I decided to just throw my plans off the board and turn it into a reader insert (I've written this a while back, but I reread and edited it). Funny story: I found this writing prompt and it reminded me of the accent I have and how I say Tupperware (and how everyone in my State says Tupperware, the German version ofc), and I found it funny because that is definitely something I did when I said it in English for the first time. Anyway, enjoy!

The couple sat on his couch, the lights of the Billboard growing more distinctive as the sun started to set. He was working on the paperwork that had piled up over the days while she was reading something on her laptop. The steady typing of her fingers synchronized with her steady breathing. He didn’t mind the sound of her working. He enjoyed the carelessness of it all. Just two people seeking the comfort of each other’s presence while doing two completely different things. It wasn’t weird, it was productive.

At some point, he reached for her leg that was poking his side and placed it in his lap. She smiled at the casual, domestic action. His fingers stroked her calves absentmindedly while his mind continued to occupy itself with the information on the case that reached in through his headphones.

He heard her laugh at something. He smiled as he asked, “What?”

“I was looking for some accessories for our kitchen,“ – his heart bloomed at the pronoun, – “And now Google is trying to sell me  Tubberware,” she stated. “I don’t even use Tubberware anymore.”

The headphone fell from his ear.

“What are you saying?” Matt asked.

His lip twitched, more in disbelief than amusement, but it was also weirdly adorable, the way the ‘b’s’ rolled from her tongue.

“Say it again,” he told her.

Her eyebrows crinkled. “Tubberware,” she said, remaining serious and clueless throughout.

“Say it again. Slow.���

“Tubberware.”

“Slow, very slow– actually, say the first syllable.”

Her frown deepened. “Tub,” she said confidently.

Matt bit his cheek. “Wrong.”

“What do you mean, wrong?”

“I thought I caught that. You’re saying tub. It’s P.”

He had to keep telling himself not to laugh, but it was so incredibly hard with the pout on her lips growing by the second.

She removed her leg from his lap and sat upright, laptop moving dangerously close to the edge of her thighs. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Tupperware,” he stated. “Tupper.”

Blood rushed to her cheeks. “It’s Tupperware?!”

He couldn’t hold it any longer. The laugh rolled off his lips like a serenading song. “It’s Tupperware, always has been, always will be,” he choked out.

The pout came back, stronger than before. A frustrated pout. This was entirely different from the confused and irritated one. “I thought it was tubberware because it kind of looks like a tub,” she muttered.

“Oh, baby,” he laughed.

“It looks like a tub,” she said.

“I know it does. I’m sorry.”

“Stop laughing at me, you dick!”

“I’m really sorry, sweetheart. It’s just… say it again. Please. For me.”

“So that you can make more fun of me?” she asked. “No thank you.”

“I’m not making fun of you, I promise. It just sounds so cute when you say it. Do it for me, please. I want to hear it again.”

She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of laughing too. She was supposed to be mad at him, but she somehow couldn’t because looking at it from this angle, she realized how stupid it was. Tubberware. It was hilarious, even.

“Tubberware,” she said again, trying to breathe through the fit of laughter bubbling in her throat.

Matt laughed. “Again,” he begged.

“Tubberware.”

“It’s so cute, I can’t-“ his voice cracked.

“I hate you!”

“I know you want to laugh,” he titled his head knowingly, “so laugh.”

“No,” she said.

“Please."

“Don’t tell me what to do,” but at this point, she was already laughing. The sound he loved so much grew louder by the second.

Her stomach hurt. His did, too.

“I’ve been saying it for years,” she said between breaths. “And no one’s ever told me. Oh, God!”

“I’m sorry,” said Matt. “I didn’t mean to… Tubberware.” He giggled. “It’s adorable.”

“Shut up!"

"I'm sorry, I'll stop." He wiped some more of his laughing tears.

Grateful for his attempt to compose himself, she nodded. "Okay,” she turned back toward her laptop, “While we’re already on the issue, do we need anything else?"

He threw his head back, thinking. “We could use some new spatulas,” he said. "And lunchboxes. Tupperware has some great choices, you should take a look."

Her laugh died into a smile. “You know I love you, right?”

“I love you too, sweetheart.”

“What I’m saying is, we’re not getting Tubberware.”

“Why not?” He cocked an eyebrow. “They’ve got great kitchen stuff and it’s easy to use. You know, for me as a blind man…”

“Matt Murdock, are you one of those Tubberware grandmas?” It was her turn to laugh.

He pouted. “Shut up.”

“Oh no, we need to talk about this.”

“No, I’ve got work to do. You should buy what I just said. We definitely need that.”

“Alright, let me see what Amazon has," she said.

“No, we'll get it from Tupperware," he retorted. "I've been using nothing else for years."

“That's not my problem. There are cheaper options. Amazon, same-day delivery.  Why do we have Prime if we don't use it? And don't say because of the Podcasts, we have Spotify, which is ten times better."

“Tupperware has better quality.”

“I'm buying the spatula and the lunchboxes from Amazon, end of discussion.”

There was a playful smile on his lips, already telling her what he was about to say next was merely a joke. “You’re not the man of the house,” Matt argued. “As the man of the house, I dictate where we buy our kitchen supplies.”

She gasped, her mouth hanging wide open as she processed his words. Even though it was a joke, she couldn't help but feel slightly offended at even the prospect. Shaking her head, she cocked her eyebrows at him and said, “And as the woman you depend on to suck your dick, I strongly suggest you think about what you just said.”

He bit his cheek. “Oh, so we’re going there?”

She smirked. “I thought you could handle it, tough guy.”

“Okay, that’s it!” He tossed the case file aside, tore the laptop from her hands, and pulled her into his lap in one swift motion.

Matt was always the first to suggest a gentle game of teasing, but he barely had any tolerance for it. He was always the first to get riled up, no matter what. Perhaps she should have thought twice about her words, but it was so much more fun to see him like this than give in too soon.

He rolled her hips down into his, his fingers sure to leave bruises as he guided her along his slacks. The moan she let out was guttural.

Matt bit down on her earlobe. “Mouth off on me again and this is all you’re gonna get for the next week,” he said.

Her thighs fluttered around his own. The heartbeat between her legs bounced off his muscles. The room suddenly grew too hot to breathe the toxic air in.

“On second thought,” she began, though when Matt’s lips wandered from her ear to her neck and down to her cleavage, the words got caught in her throat.

He ran his hands under her shirt. Her skin was hot. The rough callouses of his fingers pulled the fabric aside until it slipped off her shoulders.

“No bra,” he smirked. “Nice.”

She whined. “I really need to buy kitchen supplies now, Matt,” she tried again.

He sucked one of her nipples into his hot mouth. If they were hard due to the cold air in the apartment or because his touch sent her into overdrive she wasn’t sure, but once he was on her all she could think about was his stupid mouth on her tits.

Her nipple slipped off his tongue with a pornographic plop. “I want you to do as I say,” he said.

“You can't use your bedroom voice when we're talking about the apartment. Oh, fuck!”

He slapped his hand flat on her ass.

“You were saying?”

She wanted to wipe that shit-eating grin off his perfectly wet lips.

“Stop teasing me.”

Matt leaned back from the mess he made on her chest, eyelids fluttering innocently, hands rested on her hips again. “You said you needed to buy kitchen supplies,” he said.

And he was instantly back in his teasing mood, believing he finally got the upper hand.

“I lied,” she said.

“No, you didn’t. You really need to buy kitchen supplies.”

She huffed. “Fine, guess I’ll do it myself.”

He wanted to laugh.

Her shorts accompanied her shirt on the floor. Half naked, she plopped down next to him on the couch again.

Matt choked on nothing at all, her scent thick in the air. When her thighs moved, the sound it made was wet, hot, and sticky. He loved that sound. He loved it most when it was as close to his ears as possible, squished between those perfect thighs that made the sound unbearable.

She threw her head back, throat exposed. She sighed. Her fingers ran over her body, barely touching, only testing the waters. All hairs on her body stood at full attention, the ache between her thighs thudding so hard to the point where she could hear nothing but blood in her ears. Her heart sped up, half because of embarrassment, the other half because of excitement. She wasn’t sure what was stronger. They’d never done anything like this before and she doubted he’d even let her. Up until this point he hadn’t done anything but listen closely though, fists clenched around the soft fabric of his slacks close to his crotch.

Her fingers ghosted over the waistband of her panties. Black silk. He liked the feeling of lace on her, but after some time it began to tickle and he hated the way it itched at his skin, so she barely wore lace anymore. He had his hands on her at all times, she had to adapt.

Matt’s hand shot out instantly. Her fingers barely breached her panties and he already had enough. “Don’t you dare,” he said.

“Why?” she challenged. Her voice was nothing but a series of breaths.

“Because it’s mine.”

“If you won’t touch me-“

He shoved his fingers down her underwear.

“Fuck!” Her head fell even further down the armrest.

“You were saying?”

“I’m sorry. Keep going.”

“Why?” his thumb stopped over her clit. “Why should I give you anything?”

“Because I will buy or- or do anything you want from now on, I promise!”

“Watch your tone, sweetheart,” he bellowed.

“Please,” she squirmed, searching for any kind of friction. His hand kept her hips restrained without even trying, any move grazing her just enough to make her body jolt, but not nearly enough to be pleasurable.

“Hm,” he hummed.

“Please?”

“Okay,” and he pressed his thumb down so hard, she swore she saw stars dance around her clouded vision.

She moaned just the way he liked it. “Fuck.”

“Will you keep quiet?” Matt resumed his work. Even though his pants were painfully tight, he acted like nothing had happened. “I need to finish this paperwork,” he told her. “I won’t ignore my responsibilities just because someone decided to be a needy whore today. So if you want to cum, you better stay quiet so I can concentrate.”

His thumb worked its way up and down her clit, circled, and drew patterns she’d never seen before. She bit into her bottom lip until it drew blood.

He knew her body better than anyone else, better than herself even. He knew what she liked, what made her squirm, what she didn’t like, and what could make her body shake instantly.

Her body was an altar. He had every last inch mapped out to perfection. Her skin was soft like a sunny day in spring and it smelled salty like the sea, sweet like the field of flowers in Central Park, and distinctive like summer rain. Every time he touched her, he was on fire. The temperature in her body changed with every flick of his fingers. Every hitch of her breath he caught onto. She didn’t even have to tell him to keep going, he simply knew.

Matt worshipped her body like he would kneel on the bench at church. She was a row of burning candles before the cross and he knelt before her like a pathetic disciple willing to do anything to please the divine being.

Her stifled moans through the palm of her hand drove him crazy. Usually, he was a lot more composed than that, but it was late, he was overworked and he was horny, and he couldn’t concentrate with the wetness of her arousal lying thick in the air. He licked his lips to taste it. He tasted the air like a starved man.

Matt growled. “Fuck this,” he said.

She protested silently when he retreated his thumb. She sat up against the armrest, staring at him. His hair stood in all directions from the hand he ran through it, his lips plump, seeking friction.

“Come here.” He grabbed her hips and placed her back on his lap, legs on either side of his thigh. “I need you close to me,” he breathed into her mouth as they met halfway. “Ride my thigh.”

She swallowed. “What?”

“Ride my thigh. Be a good girl and ride my thigh. You want to make yourself cum, hm? I’m giving you an opportunity here, unless, of course, you’re too pathetic to do it yourself. Do you need me to help you, hm?”

She swallowed again. “Please,” she said.

His hands gently began to roll her hips against him. “Like that?” he asked.

The moan she let out was answer enough.

“Feel good?”

She bit into her lip, nodding wildly.

“Use your words,” he said. “Don’t hold back.”

Her head fell on his shoulder, hand seeking something to hold onto behind him at the back of the couch.

The silence earned her another hard slap on her ass.

“Answer me.”

She sighed. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Feels good. Keep going, please.”

Matt smirked. “Good girl.”

The leather was dented under her fingers. She held onto the couch for dear life. His hands guided her hips deliciously over his thigh, the fabric of his slacks mixed with the silk of her underwear sliding against her sensitive clit over and over again driving her closer and closer to the end.

She saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Her eyes rolled back. The pressure in her lower abdomen began to build slowly but steadily. She involuntarily sped up, sloppily fighting against the slow pace he’d set. He would’ve stopped her if he hadn’t been so riled up already, so he let her. He let her chase for the sweet relief the knot in her stomach prepared her for.

“Matt,” she whined his name.

One of his hands began to stroke her back. “I know,” he said. “I know, baby.”

Her thighs twitched around his, her entire body shaking underneath his touch. It was all too much. His rough hands on her hot skin, his fingers digging in sure to leave bruises, and the gentle coax of his hand on her back, stroking innocently to help her through it. His touch was too much to bear.

Matt instantly reached out when she threw her head back. The moan sounded delicious in his ears. He caught her head with his hand around the back of her neck, making sure she wouldn’t fall over and hurt herself. She clenched around nothing, thighs threatening to close but his own kept them open.

A tear slipped down her cheek. She wasn’t crying, not at all. The tear came from a place of pure pleasure. Her body couldn’t handle it. The sensations he put her through left her speechless every time he touched her. She couldn’t breathe. Her throat was dry.

His thumb drew circles on the back of her neck. He brought her back to earth after it just shattered before her very eyes.

“Fuck,” she choked out.

Matt guided her back into his chest and she took the support gladly. His heart beat against her bare breasts. The bulge in his pants became painfully clear once she regained feeling in her limbs. It brushed her thighs where it lay between his own.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, playing with the hairs on the nape of his neck.

“That was…” she couldn’t find the right words.

“I know.”

She didn’t quite trust her legs when she twisted to swing the one between his thighs over the other one. She kept her hands on his shoulders to straddle him without falling over.

Matt tilted his head, eyes searching for hers. “What’re you doing?” he asked hoarsely.

“Looks like you need some help,” she stated. She played with his belt buckle.

“It’s fine. You know I don’t need anything in return for making you feel good.”

“I know, but I want to. That looks painful.”

In one swift motion, she pulled the belt out of his slacks and tossed it aside.

Matt chuckled at her eagerness. “You are insatiable, you know that?” he dove in to kiss whatever bare skin he could reach.

His lips sloppily kissed down her neck and up again, chasing her lips. She kissed him back as hard as she could. Their teeth clashed, tongues fighting each other for dominance, knowing he’d win anyway. He swallowed every breath she took, sucking her dry and breathing new life back into her mouth.

She opened the button on his pants, trying hard to pull it down enough to get his aching cock out of them.

He caught onto her plan. Shifting his hips, she managed to reach into his boxers.

“Wait,” he said.

“What?” she blinked at him.

Matt reached for the hem of her panties. His fingers flexed.

Rip.

She gasped. The silk fell to the floor in nothing but flaps of fabric.

“I’ll buy you new ones.” He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth.

“Fine.” In response, the buttons of his dress shirt flew in all directions. She ran her hands down his chest, satisfied with the ripped front of the shirt hanging loosely off his shoulders.

He chuckled. “That’s fair.”

She kissed down every exposed sliver of skin on his torso. Her tongue ran over the jagged scars, the freshly healed bruises from a couple of nights ago. He was beautiful. With the billboard casting a pornographic red light on them, eyes closed, he looked like the child of an angel and a demon. His entire existence was ephemeral, his body a wonderland.

She sucked one of his perky nipples into her mouth. He arched almost entirely off the couch.

“I love you,” she breathed against him.

She liked the way the words sounded. For someone so afraid of admitting her feelings not so long ago, she’d come quite far. It had become her new favorite thing to say. Though the true weight of the statement came in the moments they were intimate. She could chant the same three words to him all day, but the second they were close to each other, touching where only they could touch, those three words regained their true meaning. It was sweet, almost innocent. The kind of love everyone wished for. An endless spiral of butterflies danced around in their stomachs.

Matt chuckled. The very same sound turned into a moan once her teeth dug into the flesh around his nipples.

“I’m worshipping you now,” she told him. Her kisses traveled down his body.

Her warmth on his chest disappeared. Instead, the hot trail of kissed lead to the opened button of his slacks. Her tongue played with his belly button, the happy trail leading into Neverland.

She kissed each scar on either side. “Perfect,” she hummed. “I don’t deserve you and yet you’re mine. This is mine. Only mine. No one else’s.”

“I’m yours.”

“Mine,” she kissed the lower part of his stomach. “Mine,” her lips landed on the hem of his boxers. “Mine,” it was an animalistic growl. She pulled down his underwear swiftly.

Matt didn’t have time to comprehend what was happening. He was so in awe of the way she touched and spoke of his body, he listened to her for the sake of having her praise him over and over again. The words carried innocence in their sinful ways.

He choked on air. His scars long forgotten, her mouth opened around its original destination.

“Lord have mercy!” he grabbed a fistful of hair.

Her tongue licked a thick stripe down his shaft.

Matt was a religious man. He prayed regularly and went to church and Sunday Mass. He swore never to take God anywhere other than he needed to be, but that woman and her cursed mouth made him see God in the fiery land of his unseeing vision. What they were doing was outright sinful. He knew he’d go to hell for saying the lord’s name in vain. He’d go to hell for everything he’d ever done and yet, while that was the truth, he didn’t care because, at that moment, he was living. He was alive. He’d gotten used to the thought of going to hell, seeking penance almost every day since. With her though, something had awakened inside of him. He couldn’t let it go. The Devil inside of him wanted to play.

Her mouth danced perfectly to the gospel of his moans, he forgot who he was. He tried hard not to push her head further down his cock, although the warmth of her throat sent him into pleasurable overdrive.

The cold air hit the head, falling from her lips like a wet towel. “It’s okay,” she said. “Take what you need.”

It was all the confirmation he needed.

His hips bucked up into her throat. She had laid off the gag reflex the first time she had his cock in her mouth, knowing the act alone could turn her on for more than one day. She could cum from simply touching him, hearing the dirty sounds slip past his swollen lips, and she’d be more than okay with it. The sounds he made were heaven’s gift to her, she was sure.

His cock twitched against her throat. She braced herself, eyes already closed. 

“Stop,” he choked out.

She instantly sat back on her heels, naked and worked up.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

“No, not at all.  I just… I need you.”

His chest heaved with the denied orgasm. The one he had denied himself. Anticipation rutted through his veins.

She swallowed the precum mixed with spit inside her hollowed-out mouth. The skin tingled. “You want me to-“ she pointed to his lap.

Matt sensed the motion. “If you want to,” he said. “But you can lay back and let me do all the work if that’s what you want. Just tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.”

Her thighs trapped his. She’d never been so comfortable doing that before. She was completely naked on top of him while he sat there, half-dressed, eyes searching for what he couldn’t see. Blood rushed to her cheeks. The position was compromising.

He pulled the hair from her face. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I don’t know what I’m doing but yeah, I’m sure.”

“You don’t have to. I’ve got you.” He pressed his lips to her collarbone. “Mine,” he licked a stripe up her pulse point. “Mine,” the spank landed right on her ass. The next touch of his fingers made her shudder. Her cheeks flooded red with blood. “And mine,” he parted his fingers between her thighs to spread the lips of her pussy wide open.

Part of her wanted to scramble away. He couldn’t see but he could feel everything. It was just about the same as having him watch every inch of her body closely. Every last crevice he wanted to memorize. She wasn’t sure what to think. Her brain refused to function. She was entirely bare to him.

“Matt,” she said his name.

“You’re beautiful. Nothing to be ashamed of.” He kissed her again. Passionate, loving. “Remember our safe word?”

“Hmm.”

“Tell me.”

“Red.”

He flicked the switch. “Okay, good girl,” the dark sound of his voice made all the embarrassment vanish. Instead, heat shot through her core. “Good girl, having your good little cunt spread for me. Just want to look at you the way I can. Want to see what’s mine. Want to feel how wet you are from riding my thigh. Oh, look at you!” he smirked. “This is turning you on, isn’t it? Your heart’s going crazy and you’re literally dripping.  You’re making such a mess on my good pants. You want to make a mess on my cock now too, don’t you? You want to be my good little slut and ride my cock?”

She only whined.

His hand slapped across her ass harder this time. The collision stung. “Use your words,” he demanded. “Use your words or I’m leaving you like this.”

“I’m sorry,” her voice came out sobbing. “I’m sorry. I want you inside of me. I want to be your good girl, I promise.”

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yes, please! Please fuck me, Matthew. I’ll do anything. Please!”

“Don’t cry.” He wiped her cheeks. “I know I’m good, but no need to cry. You’ll get what you want. Want to make you feel good, hm. You deserve it for always being so patient.”

“Yes, I’ve been patient. I’ve been good. So good.”

He laughed. “You’re already so dumb for me, baby. You sure you can take this?”

“Yes!”

“What’s your color?” The always caring Matt Murdock peaked out from under the dark, sex-crazed facade only she got to see.

She shuddered. “I-“ words came harder than they should have.

His head titled. Worry spread across his face, ready to take back whatever he said.

“Green,” she eventually managed to say.

She only wanted the ache between her thighs to be numbed. She wanted him so incredibly deep inside of her, she could feel him bulge her stomach, everywhere he could be inside of her.

Matt smirked, and it only grew darker from there.

“Good girl,” he praised again.

She slapped her hand on her mouth. He bottomed out quickly, without warning. He penetrated her without thinking twice about it, burying himself so deep inside of her, he could feel her walls contracting around him with every inch. She sucked him in and she screamed. She was sure she screamed. Her hand was the only thing keeping the neighbors from knocking on their door. His name slipped from her lips like a prayer, like she was singing his name in church and the word echoed off the walls for everyone to hear. Except no one was supposed to hear this. It was just them. This was their safe space. They could be however they wanted to be like this, and only then they could touch each other so sweetly when the world wasn’t watching them and they didn’t have to worry about anything other than themselves.

The sound was new, even for Matt. He too was sure he let out the nastiest sound known to man, but unlike her, he had no intention of masking it. He bottomed out and he chose to stay like this for just a little while longer, waiting for her muscles to relax, waiting for her to enjoy this.

The impatient roll of her hips eased his worries.

“Okay?” he asked quietly.

She breathed through her nose, “Okay.”

“Then ride me.”

And she did.

She started with a slow pace, taking her time to adjust to his size. Every inch of her felt perfectly filled out. He managed to reach parts of her she never could’ve found on her own. He had this way with her body, it was like a high that never ended, the endless train on the river of sugar rush.

Her eyes trailed up his body. Head tilted back, his eyes fluttered with every thrust of her hips. One arm flexed with the pressure he applied to the leather seat, the other was placed softly against the flesh of her hips. He made sure she knew he was there if she needed him to take control, though, at the same time, the move seemed almost domineering, leaving her no choice but to do as he wanted. She was completely at his mercy. Even the slightest touch made her cave. He knew it and she knew it.

If he’d told her to drive to hell with him, she would have.

The slow and steady pace felt like heaven to him. Her hips drew patterns to chase that spot so very deep inside of her, only he could reach it. The swirl was delicious around his cock, the hot, soft flesh of her insides rolling against him, up and down and up and down. He listened to her heartbeat, strangled breathing, and the goosebumps on her skin. Moan after moan escaped her lips, growing louder and louder until she couldn’t hold it anymore. He filtered out every hint of discomfort or frustration. What she liked, what she continued doing, and what just didn’t seem to work. She explored herself without even realizing and it turned him on even more. He could’ve sworn he felt himself getting harder inside of her if that was humanly possible.

His ears only picked up on rushing blood and labored breaths. There was nothing else but the feeling of her body, the scent of sweat, and bittersweet arousal on his lips and tongue. He was entirely enveloped in her. Everything was about her. Her body, her wetness, her heart. The heart between her legs, loud and dominant.

She whimpered at the sight before her. Matt Murdock in all his glory, half naked with his shirt ripped at her fingers, fabric, and skin clutched between her nails. Sweat coated his forehead, mouth slightly agape. His lashes fluttered around his unseeing eyes. She didn’t even have to move. If she wanted to, the sight would’ve been enough to make her come undone in a matter of seconds. He was so comfortable in her presence, his shoulders slouched in absolute relaxation as her movement urged him closer to his own release.

The next time her hips rolled down into his, he met her movements. His hips jerked up with a purpose. That purpose lay deep inside of her and he knew where it was. The thrust from underneath made her cry out. The spongy spot inside of her danced with euphoria as the head of his cock brushed against it.

He chuckled breathlessly. “There it is,” his head stayed hung over the back of the couch.

She braced herself. The new wave of pleasure only spurred her on. The way he dove impossibly deeper into her with every brush against that sweet spot had him reeling, gripping the leather for any kind of support. She followed close behind, her hips beginning to move as if her life depended on it. With every thrust, she sped up. Although her legs slowly grew tired, all she could feel was the tingling knot deep in her stomach blossoming into a beautiful flower and waiting to blow.

The hand that had once laid around her waist landed around her throat instead. The leather wasn’t nearly enough to keep him composed if that was even possible.

Hell’s Kitchen always haunted him. Noise and smell followed him home, and the sound of innocent people getting hurt kept him from falling asleep most of the time. He couldn’t tune it out. The city was a part of him. Even asleep, he dreamed of all the bad that was out there and all the things he’d done in his life, the things that lead him there, the people he’d hurt. The city never slept and neither did he, not really.

Though with her, for the first time, he was able to breathe. She overwhelmed his senses to the point it almost became unbearable. Her touch singed his skin yet calmed his mind down to the point he could tune out everything else and just focus entirely on the woman atop him. Sight was overrated. He didn’t need to see to know the way she moved was graceful in itself. Everything she did, she did with passion. The rolls of her hips were angelic. With her head thrown back, sweat and tear all over her face, she was the most beautiful person he’d ever come across. He could feel every inch of her, smell her, taste her. The whole wide city disappeared in the wake of her existence.

She was his salvation. He was drowning.

“Matt,” she sighed. His name rolled sweetly over her lips like she was singing him to sleep.

He squeezed his fingers around her pulse point. The pressure caged her in, sending moons across the stars in her galaxy. She reached for his wrist, not sure if she wanted to keep him or push him away. The tingling traveled from her stomach into every last crevice of her being.

He twitched inside of her. His muscles tensed. She rolled against him again, chest to chest. Hard nipples brushed against each other.

She dove in for a taste. Sweat had nestled into his stubble. Air was overrated. She kissed him until her lungs had nothing left to give. Until there was no other way but to swim back to shore to take a deep breath.

They’d fucked before. They had sex before. They’d done a lot of things. Whatever this was though, it counted as neither. Time was of the essence. Not too little, not too much. Just the right amount of time, simply savoring each other, getting to know each other as much as humanly possible in the most intimate sense. Subconsciously, they’d both been carrying way too much pressure. It showed in the way they craved each other. Starving animals in the middle of the desert preying for sustenance.

She scratched her nails through the hairs on his chin, leaving red marks down his throat. He groaned ever so softly into the depths of her mouth.

“I love you,” she said. His name came in serial moans. She breathed hard, heavy. Lost all sense of space and time, as if she couldn’t even believe it herself.

Matt tasted the salt on his tongue, wet strains of tears carried from her drenched cheeks to his. She was crying, whining, begging, and as lovely as it was to hold her like this, the words were the last straw to destroy his composure completely.

“I love you.”

He flipped her over like she was a doll, easily handled, thighs opened to grant him the space he needed to get between them. All the while his hand remained on its throne around her throat.

She moaned. The red lights of the billboard shone at him from behind, fading into hues of purple and blue with each thrust. His hips brushed against her clit every time he dove forward, hard and relentless, deeper and deeper. She couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. The lights became a distant memory. Nothing mattered but the hot pressure inside her lower abdomen, his weight on her, the twitch of his cock against the spot inside of her at the same time he brushed the spot outside of her and all eventually just became too much.

“Sweetheart, look at me,” he demanded. “Look at me!”

She forced her eyes open. He loved it when she looked at him, vulnerable, exposed. And though she tried hard to obey, his pace made it almost impossible to keep her eyes open long enough. Not much longer and the only was about to snap.

“Who do you belong to? Who’s making you feel good?”

“You,” she gave him the answer he wanted. “Always you.”

“That’s right, sweetheart. Me, only me. You’re-“ he thrust his hips forward, “Mine. Mine.” he dug his teeth into her shoulder.

She sobbed. It was too much. Too good, too much. Her entire body was on fire.

“Matt, please.”

Waiting for permission, anything.

Fingers intertwined above her head on the armrest. She clawed onto him. His hand traveled down between their bodies, catching her clit just right between his fingers. Just a little more. Circles and triangles and more circles.

“All of this is mine, understood?” his face buried in the valve of her breasts. “I’m so in love with you,” he said. “So fucking in love with you.”

The Billboard outside exploded in fits of color. The coil snapped. She gave up the little control she had left, clinging onto him, shocks of pleasure wreaking havoc. Her pussy clenched around him. It was tight, so tight, and she kept him there until she could milk all he had to give her.

Matt stiffened. His mouth stayed open in a silent moan. Sound only came back to him once he came, hard. All the pressure from the week before unloaded and he fell on top of her, moaning, panting. His body vibrated with the aftershocks. The heat inside of her walls sucked him in until every last drop was spent, dripping along his softening shaft, out of her. 

The world stood still.

“I love you,” the admission blew hot against her sternum. Her hands raked through his hair, holding him.

She sighed blissfully. “I know.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

Matt was a sensitive person after sex. During, he took control. He hardly left her any time to breathe or think. After though, the world came crashing back in, his senses so overwhelmed by everything, he just needed someone to ground him. His mind wasn’t back yet, ears rushing with blood and every nerve in his body straining. The only thing keeping him sane was the beating of her heart against his ear.

Not sure if she could trust her legs just yet, she gently rolled them over. “Come on,” she whispered. “I’ll clean us up.”

He lay there, eyes directed at the ceiling. Her warmth disappeared only to be replaced by a lukewarm washcloth on his stomach.

She helped him out of his pants. The cold air of the apartment eased the burning.

He had regained most of his consciousness by the time she laid back on top of him. The sofa wasn’t spacious and for the first time, he was glad there was no space for her to move anywhere but his bare chest. The skin-to-skin contact made the sudden awareness less unbearable. He needed to focus on the feeling of her. He needed to remember what it felt like to breathe.

She traced patterns on his skin. Eventually, she asked, “You okay?”

“Thank you,” he said.

“You know, I love you too. More than anything.”

“I know.”

“I’m in love with you,” she looked up at him. “I don’t just love you, I’m in it. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He couldn’t help it. “Oh,” the tears flowed freely.

“Hey-“

Matt choked out a laugh. “You’re the best damn thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said. "And I don't even know why I'm crying because I'm not sad, I'm happy."

Her eyes softened. She touched his cheek gently. He closed his eyes, leaning into her touch, kissing her palm, down to her wrist, and back up.

“I was thinking,” she broke the silence.

“Dangerous,” he muttered.

“Hey!” she slapped him only slightly, but it was enough to make him groan.

“I was thinking,” she began again. “How about, you and I,” her fingers traveled down his exposed chest, “take the day off tomorrow, stay in,” she kissed his throat, “and have absolutely filthy sex everywhere in this apartment until I can’t walk anymore.”

He moaned. “That won’t be so hard,” he said.

Needless to say, he didn’t buy any kitchen supplies that day, the day after that, or the day after that. Truth be told, she never got the chance to buy them.

“We can start today.”

The second they stepped into the shower, her chest was pressed to the cold tiles as he took her from behind.

Even if she’d wanted to, the throbbing between her legs the next morning made shopping for something as useless as kitchen supplies an impossibility. And as she sat on the kitchen counter in the morning, back arched with his head buried deep between her thighs, she realized she wouldn’t regain feeling in her limbs anytime soon.

[tessasilverswan]

hello tessa!! how are you doing??

any mary hatford hcs you’d like to share? :)

-@you-know-i-get-itt

Hi Gia!! I'm a bit stressed about not finishing all my material for finals but thinking about Mary is a very welcome study break. I am SO glad you asked because I have many Thoughts™ about her. How are you?

Fair warning: after writing all this I realized it's not the headcanons you asked for but rather the fic idea I had, so I'm sorry about that. The hcs are sort of embedded into it? Also, I had a brief outline for it in a doc but I started explaining it and got more ideas and it got quite long, so I only did a third of the thing. There's more dancing around in my head; I could write it out if you wanted me to?

Note: the links lead to either my Mary posts or other people's with hcs because I'm too anxious to tag them. If one of those is yours and you're seeing this, thank you again for sharing it! : )

To begin with, I know a lot of people don't like associating Taylor Swift with aftg, and I generally agree that her songs are too light-hearted for this series. But. Do you know The Bolter? It's literally the basis for all this, so here:

(I can't see if this is the explicit or clean version, but know that the one in my head says whore and not bore; you'll see why)

as she was leaving, it felt like breathing (pt 1?)

"a curious child, ever reviled [...] with a quite bewitching face"

Well, Mary Hatford was a pretty normal child for an old mafia family. She wasn't the heiress of the empire, she was younger than Stuart by about 10 years. Her mother had him at around 20, and her at 31. As was the norm for rich families, the parents were little involved in the rearing of the children, and the task fell to a nanny; they really only interacted with them at dinner. So Mary had a very thorough education, befitting an aristocrat or rich businessman's daughter, and those were her peers. She was made to learn languages: French, Spanish, German, Russian, in preparation for whatever family she'd marry into; and numbers: statistics, accounting, calculus, profits vs losses. All of these she would eventually teach her son.

I can picture her very clearly at 7 or 8, climbing trees to hide during games of tag played on the grounds of Hatford Manor, getting twigs in her hair and tearing her clothes, but not being found. Seeing if she could go higher. Coming down when the sun started setting to the nanny scolding her for hiding, for getting so dirty. Mary with her hair in a crown braid, now more undone than braided, with scratches and pieces of bark sticking to her knees. Smiling innocently at the nanny, still going off, and saying in the sweetest, most plaintive voice that the other kids ganged up on her and forced her to hide. The nanny immediately taking pity on her, taking her hand and leading her back to the house, running a bath for her. Mary stopping smiling as soon as she turned around.

Another time she fell into the pond while skipping on the wet stones on the surface. She almost cracked her head on one, but luckily she didn't and only scraped her forearm. It was a shallow cut, but bled profusely, and it was her first scar.

The other kids were a bit scared of her, she would always outrun them, sprout phrases in languages they didn't speak, talk about complex, for their age, calculations. She would cartwheel around and do the backspring handstand, tumble on the grass. She was a wild thing, often with grass stains on her clothes, and she was cunning from a very young age, able to wrap the adults around her little fingers with wide eyes and her disarming smile.

Stuart was quite amused by her; they weren't super close but still somewhat. He spent more time with her than their parents ever did. He would be the only one sorry to see her go to the US.

She had a pet rabbit with a very stereotypically British name like Mr Rupert or something. She was scared of small dogs because one bit her once when she was carrying the rabbit in her arms. She liked fruit but not grapes.

"started with a kiss"

This is basically the last Mary post I made. Mary had a close friend who understood her situation, who Mary could and did confide in about the pressure of appearing in high society as the daughter of a rich and old family, forming alliances with the wives and daughters of businessmen over tea and pastries with her mother, and a few hours later witnessing the business her father really traded in. The girl's family wasn't exactly mafia, but they kept some shady deals so she understood. She doesn't have a name in my head yet but I'm toying with Josephine and Emilia. (suggestions are welcome)

The girl's family moved into another mansion quite close to Hartford Manor, and to make good connections with their neighbors, both families introduced their daughters, who were of a similar age.

Anyways, they were very close friends, each other's only, really. They spent the soirées they attended together side by side, usually telling each other stories they overheard from their respective house employees. The other girl braided flowers into Mary's crown braid and Mary would put one behind her ear. From age 8-9 onwards they were pretty much inseparable when not required to play perfect daughters. They kissed each other on the cheek, but rarely in public since it was required that they not show strong friendly affection in high society. They were told off when they would run hand in hand shrieking excitedly, so they just sort of learned to maintain more distant façades before they reached the age of 10. Everything about them had to be perfectly calm and collected, proper for girls soon to be of interest for marriage prospects.

I don't know how it happened, I just know that it did: they kissed on the lips at 13, in summer in the Hatford Manor rose gardens, before either of their mothers had the chance to start talking to them about the importance of arranging marriage for combining assets, of finding eligible young men that would enrich their fathers' domains. And they slipped into it in the most natural way possible. They already told each other everything, spent as much time together as possible, and kissing just felt right, like the continuation of their closeness. Of course, a couple years later things turned less innocent, and they realized that what they were doing was perceived as taboo, immoral. They were supposed to marry boys and start a family to enrich their husbands' and their family names, not continue living in neighboring grounds, seeing each other every day like they had until that point. And then the countdown started; they met in secret, to kiss, to venture further than kissing, behind greenery or in small tearooms.

Mary's father caught them just shy of her turning 18, snuck away in an empty room when they went for lunch to the girl's family home. It was compromising enough. He'd had suspicions for a while, and he was furious; he dragged Mary away by the hair, yelling at the girl that she was a whore, and a deviant, and whatever other homophobic choice words you can imagine. He forbade Mary from ever being in the same room as her friend again. Shouted at her too. Shouted at the girl's father, threatening to expose that their family was all kinds of perturbed etcetera. Gathered his wife and his children and his coat and slammed the door on his way out.

He immediately started searching for eligible young (mafia empire) heirs to marry her off to. Mary Hatford never saw that girl again.

[ohtobealady]

October Prompts

8: Honor

This is inspired by @ladyrosse ‘s cardgame request. Honor - (in whist) an ace, king, queen, or jack of trumps

Robert sighed as he flipped over another card. Three of spades. He surveyed the short lines of cards he’d laid on his bed tray and found he had nowhere to place it—no lonely four of hearts or four of diamonds, no orderly stack of spades resting at the top. He sighed, again, and drew a new card from the deck.

King of hearts. He frowned. Well, he had needed this card but he had no free space to lay it.

“Oh, bloody hell,” he muttered irritably, and Robert drew another card.

He peered up from the new card as the door pushed open, and then he smiled as her face peered around the door.

“Hello, darling,” Cora smiled, and Robert felt all-at-once relieved and envious. She had on her thin summer coat, her gloves, her hat; she moved to him and kissed the top of his head, and she smelled of fresh air and sunshine. He pouted.

“How are you feeling?” She asked with a second kiss, this time to his temple, and he shook his head.

“As if I’ve entered some ring of hell Dante neglected to mention.”

“Oh,” a third kiss—to his cheek—elicited a tiny spark of warmth, “it can’t be so bad.”

“It is.”

Cora’s lace glove pointed at the cards arranged before him. “Your seven of clubs can go here.” And she walked, then, to her dressing table. Robert dropped the cards he held and watched her.

“How is everyone?” he asked as she pulled her gloves from her hands. She glanced at him in the mirror. He continued. “Frederick and Beatrice? I suppose they’re well.”

“They are,” she answered, and he watched, still, as she took the pin from her hat and removed it from her head.

“I suppose Fred’s off somewhere, enjoying the glorious days of summer.”

He heard her grunt of a laugh and a small part of him delighted in the way she rolled her eyes. “The grass is always greener, you know.”

His eyes followed her as she stood to take off her coat and came to sit beside him, near his feet.

“I’m not sure Fred would like to trade places with me. He rather enjoys food.” He paused as she took up the cards from the tray. “And wine,” he added in a soft groan, at which his wife shook her head.

“Well, I like you well.” She was looking at the cards, squaring the corners of the deck. “And not in a hospital bed.”

He hummed, conceding the argument with some reluctance, but with love for the way he’d heard the sincerity in her voice.

“Now,” she was shuffling the cards, “what shall we play?”

“Hand of poker?” he smirked up at her. Cora narrowed her eyes.

“I won’t have my bedroom smell of cigars, thank you.”

He laughed. “Very well. German Whist, then?”

“Alright,” and she began to deal. “Thirteen cards, isn’t it?”

He nodded and watched the way she quickly dealt them out. He watched, too, the way she stood and made herself more comfortable as she put the deck between them, tucking a knee upon the bed. A quick image of her from years and years ago flashed in his mind, and his chest tightened sweetly.

There she was, lovely as ever, and here was he, an old man with a new scar marching across his soft stomach.

“Hearts are trumps,” she said, and she looked up at him.

He laid down a card, she did too, and he took the trick.

They played a few more tricks in silence, Robert glancing up at his wife and finding her prettier and prettier, sweeter and sweeter, until at least he felt the words—I love you—gather on his tongue.

No. He swallowed them down. This too much resting, too little solid foods, it was making him irrationally emotional. And he knew his wife. She wouldn’t know what to do with any of that.

He cleared his throat. “Do you know, this version of the game, of whist, is also called Honeymoon Whist.”

“Oh?” She smiled at him, and she played a card. “Why’s that?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. He took up the trick. “But considering the name, I thought you’d find it amusing.”

“Amusing?”

“Yes.” He chuckled a little. “Honeymoon whist.”

She was quieter than he thought she should be, and suddenly he realized she didn’t remember. “Cora. We played whist on our honeymoon.”

She blinked at him.

“On the train,” he rested his wrist in the tray, he was sure showing his hand. “You do remember, don’t you?”

She smiled, her brow furrowed, and then she shook her head. “Did we?”

“Yes!” He nearly shouted. He looked back at his cards and selected one to play. “Honestly, Cora, I wonder about your memory—“

“—in Italy?”

“Not in Italy, no!”

She put down a card and took the trick. “I don’t recall—“

“—in Scotland. Or rather on the train up to Scotland.” He put down a card. “Do you really not remember?”

But when he brought his eyes up to her again, he could see that she did.

Her crooked smile. Her bright eyes. Her tilted head. “Oh,” she said quietly. “Our wedding night.”

“Yes,” he arranged his cards. “Our wedding night.”

“I remember that you let me win.”

“Nonsense,” he laid down a card—king of hearts. “You didn’t have any help from me.”

“Yes I did.”

Robert looked up at her, at her even quieter voice, and found her smiling at him.

“I had plenty of help from you.”

The pink smile she wore felt contagious, and the corners of his mouth tickled upward as he thought of that night thirty-five years before. How young they were, embarrassed and fumbling about. How tender and rose-tinted it all seemed now, nights and nights and nights of marriage softening the sharp corners of that evening.

“We helped one another,” he grinned, his cheeks warming as he watched a small blush rise in his wife’s cheeks.

She nodded, and, reaching his free hand out to the tray, he chuckled softly when she took it in her own. “Yes. We did.”

“And, we will continue to help one another, won’t we?”

She extracted her hand from his, and she pushed the the trick he won towards him. “Yes.” He loved the way her eyes sparkled when she cocked a brow. “Though, you have at least two more weeks before any of that, thank you.”

He laughed at her, unguardedly and, for the first time all day, happily. “That isn’t what I meant,” he lied.

And Cora only glanced up from her hand at him, smirking behind her cards.

“No,” she lied, too. “Of course it isn’t.

[gothunzel]

I've always found it fascinating that 'original' versions such as the Brother's Grimm and will often refer to Rapunzel as a 'bird' and Gothel as a 'cat...' She refers this herself too !

When seeing Gothel: "Aha!" she cried scornfully. "You have come for your Mistress Darling, but that beautiful bird is no longer sitting in her nest, nor is she singing any more. The cat got her, and will scratch your eyes out as well. You have lost Rapunzel. You will never see her again."

...hello? "Beautiful bird" "The cat got her" ? Please... Prey x Predator....?

Beauty is prevalent and one of main messages of the Brother's Grimm version. I'd like to note that Gothel is not ugly, she is simply described as 'old' by Rapunzel and that she gave the prince 'poisonous and evil looks.' They specifically chose the word 'sorceress' to AVOID the witch connotations in the english language + all translations not once used the term witch. This got construed over time.

"The sorceress did not notice what was happening until one day Rapunzel said to her, "Frau Gothel, tell me why it is that you are more difficult to pull up than is the young prince, who will be arriving any moment now?"

"You godless child," cried the sorceress. "What am I hearing from you? I thought I had removed you from the whole world, but you have deceived me nonetheless.""

Frau means Fairy in german. Fariy comes from the second version of Rapunzel (Persinette) where Gothel is called this, not Mother.

I find it a little amusing that she is so jealous, because how did Rapunzel deceive you? If anything she didn't realise it was wrong and told you that because she didn't understand...wwww....

[stagnata]

Asterix Roman thoughts

I found this as a 2019 draft on my DA Sta.sh

The main part of the "Asterix" franchise is comics, so there are too many characters to keep track of, I'll only list the cartoon and game Romans.

Caligula Minus

He is so small (as short as Asterix) and cute. He also looks really frail, how did he end up in the army? I listened to his voice in a few dubs and my favourites are French and German, they're more distinctive, and I prefer the German one because it's easier to listen to.

Caius Bonus / Crismus Bonus / Phonus Balonus

It amuses me that he is so keen on replacing Caesar that he cries when Getafix (and Asterix) makes it complicated.

Caius Tiddlus / Caius Pupus

Spiritual descendant of Droopy from Tex Avery's cartoons, how else do you explain that he is always in front of Asterix and Obelix? Plus he doesn't express emotions except when Obelix implies he ate the Beast and when he is on the Isle of Pleasure with the sirens. I tend to whisper as I type stuff and I sound like a female version of him.

Motus / Caous / Bossa Nova / Voluptuous Arteriosclerosus / Caius Faipalgugus

He is loud and treats those below him like trash, but he is still funny.

Ardeco / Noodles / Infirmofpurpus / Plutoqueprevus

My recent gallery should make it obvious that I love him. I find him to be the most relatable character (I cry when I'm scared too). He looks so huggable, they should make plushies of him, maybe the owl too. I heard him in over 10 dubs and my favourite is German, other ones I like are Polish and UK English. The French voice is good but it's a bit harsh on my ears. In the USA dub he (and several other Romans) has an Italian accent and his voice is high-pitched so he sounds like a poor impression of Mario. His Croatian voice is so deep it's funny but it lacks screaming. The Swedish voice is hard to listen to and he screams way too much. The Greek voice reminds me of Mickey Mouse, doesn't fit him.

Lucullus

He threw Dogmatix in the sea and got eaten by a panther. Good riddance.

Anglaigus / Squareonthehypothenus

I think this guy was popular at some point, but it's been several years since the cartoon with him came out and I see only one person still draw him these days. He is funny and sort of cute.

Sam Shieffer ("Asterix and Obelix XXL", "Asterix and Obelix XXL 2: Mission Las Vegum", "Asterix at the Olympic Games")

Tutorial character in the first two games, saves the protagonists' lives in the second two games. It seems that XXL1 takes place in one timeline and XXL2 with OG in another, because he meets the protagonists for the first time in XXL1 and XXL2, while OG reuses the character designs from XXL2. In XXL1 his name is never said or shown. In XXL2 and OG he parodies another character (name and outfit) I'm not familiar with.

Larry Craft ("Asterix and Obelix XXL 2: Mission Las Vegum)

You can guess the inspiration for this character. He is a mini-boss somewhere in the middle of the game, not too hard (for me at least). I feel a little bad for him.

[teddybasmanov]

Umm, so another Felix and Agent A song? It's from "The Csárdás Princess" an operetta by Kalman - from one of my - if not the - most favourite operettas.

About meeting your lover after a long time being apart, a lot of things having happened with both of you (maybe including meeting other people), your old whirlwind romance seeming like a dream, but now that you see each other again, that dream seems so much more real.

That's pretty much what's going through their heads during that damn interrogation.

Also, the lyrics don't really show it too well, but there's also a whole thing about how even though you're physically together now, you cannot be together again. I also feel like in the Russian version there's a lot more blame being thrown around - I've just found you / And now I'm losing your forever again / ... / You've always toyed with me / And were cold in your soul / The only one to blame for everything ending / Is you alone - sounds like something Felix would think when reminding them of Paris doesn't work (and considering it was clearly them who left him there and them who always had the upper hand and more information and more experience).

And of course, my favourite bit at the very end is Even if it was just a dream / We're seeing it again.

Hungarian version:

German version:

Russian version (plus a movie clip):

Full (original) lyrics translation (from this source):

SYLVA: I think of it. (sung) Festive laughter, celebration, Friends around me, jubilation, Music playing, lights ablaze! EDWIN:  Glasses clinking, waiters beaming, Dancers whirling, jewels gleaming, Everything a golden haze! SYLVA: All of us were touched by magic, A dream to cherish and adore. Such memories as these stay with us all our lives. Yes, for ever more. BOTH: But happiness and love’s enchantment Are gone for ever and a day. SYLVA: Like fading phantom figures They are out of reach. So far away! EDWIN:  Where are they now, Words so devotedly spoken? Gone like a dream, Gone with the dawning of day. Where are they now, Vows which could never be broken? Where are they now? Where are they now? Where are the love and the hope? Where are they now? Promises which none could sever, Now so soon they’re gone forever, And a husband’s at your side! SYLVA: Other eyes so sweetly smiling, Soft embraces, words beguiling Edwin and his lovely bride! EDWIN:  How could you destroy that magic, Destroy our own enchanted spell? The love I felt for you no words could ever tell, None could ever tell. BOTH: And yet of such a tender passion The memory alone is left; SYLVA: Two wounded hearts of all their cherished dreams bereft, Ever bereft. Where are they now, Words so devotedly spoken? Gone like a dream. Gone with the dawning of day. Where are they now, Vows which could never be broken, BOTH: Where are they now? Where are they now? Where are the love and the hope? Where are they now? SYLVA: Just a fairy-tale romance, How confusing, Just a momentary fling, How amusing! Just a comic episode, Simply splendid, So let’s laugh now it has ended! La la la la la la la. Simply splendid, La la la la la la la. Now it’s ended. BOTH: Just a fairy-tale romance, Unenduring. Now it’s over. Dead and gone! (Dance) Where are they now? Where are they now? Where are the love and the laughter, Oh where are they now?

[silky-slinky]

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE !

FIVE HARGREEVES X FEM!READER PAIRING !

TW: MENTIONS OF DEATH AND REGINALD !

READ THE PART TWO HERE !

FIVE HARGREEVES MASTERLIST !

A/N: THIS TOOK TOO LONG TO WRITE, I ADMIT. ENJOY !

Five's eyes squinted at the sight of an old man in an iron lung while walking towards him taking a good look. Then it dawned on him, that the old man in an iron lung is him. “It can't be.” Uneasiness is evident in his voice.

Lila turned to look at the boy, “what's wrong?”

“It's me.” Jaw clenched at the sight of his older version.

After a moment passes, Lila laughs and throws her head back at what he said, seemingly not believing him. “No way.” She says in between laughs. “So this whole time you've been complaining about the commission and you're the one who founded it.” Thumb pointing at the younger and older version.

“Classic.” Her laugh ringing loudly in the closed and illuminated room.

With her laugh still echoing throughout the walls, he continued. “If I did, I have no memory of it.”

Lila ignored his words. “So I was thinking you were a maverick, but you're a company man, down to the bone.”

“I mean you-” she leaned back in laughter, “you literally cannot breathe without this place.” Gesturing to the room they were in.

Of course, Five ignored her remarks. “Something's not right.” Side-eyeing Lila. “I don't have paradox psychosis.”

“I could feel it outside, but in here, it's...” He gestured outside while looking around. “Nothing.”Their thoughts were quickly interrupted by a raspy voice coming from the older Five.

“Never were too bright, were we?” Sputtering out a few coughs. “The operations bunker is paradox-proof.” Taking a sharp inhale, hard to do so. “I constructed it as a panic room, in case of a collapse in the time continuum.”

“In this room, all permutations of yourself can exist.” His words end with a wheeze.

“You must be here because of a...” He took a sharp inhale. “Kugelblitz.”

“Is that like a cheese blintz?” Lila asks almost seriously.

Which Five was quick to reply. “It's German for ball of lightning.”

“It's an extra kinky kind of black hole.”

“The kind that can suck up entire timelines.” Lila catching onto what both were hinting at. “Bingo.” The older Five says.

“So, how do-” The younger Five starts before being interrupted yet again by the older one. He furrowed his eyebrows.

“How is Y/n?” The younger one softened his face at the mention of your name. A thing Lila noticed, a thing Lila would be pestering him about.

As the words left the older one's mouth, he can't help but think of the time he also asked about you in another completely different timeline.

“Just- promise me you won't freak out.” A wide grin on Luther's face.

As the older Five started to speak, he was quickly cut off by Luther. “No talking. Don't freak out. No freakouts.” He clarified once more as he leaned back to reveal the younger Five peeking from the pillar, looking uneasy as ever.

A few moments of staring at each other in bewilderment, the younger Five starts off by greeting him. “Hey there, stranger.”

The first sentence the older Five said to the younger one was, “Is Y/n okay?” Not even caring about how his younger self was standing right in front of him. Luther grinned in amusement, finding it amazing how even the wrinklier version of Five was still so in love with you.

There was no surprise the older him would mention you, he's loved you all those years you knew each other, and he'd love you even longer than that. Even if it meant that he'd still be thinking about you in an iron lung, looking as if he'd shatter if someone laid their hands on him.

He knew that Lila knew, he knew that everyone knew. He did not care one bit. He knew himself that he was affectionate towards you, his face and posture relaxed when he could see you safe. He was so incredibly in love with you that he didn't care about his surroundings when he was with you.

There was something in you that sparked something in him. He found comfort in your touch, your words, your everything.

Five calmed down, his hands making their way into his pockets. “She's well. Still in love with her after all these years?” Who was he kidding by asking that question? Of course, he was still in love with you, and he never will stop.

“We never did stop loving her.” The older Five had a saddened look on his face that the younger Five wasn't happy about.

“What happened to her?” The younger Five asks.

“She died, along with them.” A few coughs sputtered from his mouth. The younger Five's eyes practically bulged out of their sockets.

“What do you mean? And how do I stop this?” He gritted his teeth as he spoke very slowly to make sure the older Five knew that he was fuming with anger.

“You don't.” Safe to say Five was growing impatient every time the older Five opened his mouth. Lila looked back and forth at the two Five's, also growing impatient.

Five took everything inside him to not kill the older Five himself, “If you created all of this, then you must have created a solution.” To which the older Five replied with coughs and wheezes.

“All that will be left is... oblivion.”

You didn't know why Five clung to you more than he ever did. You also noticed that he kissed you every time he had the chance. Not that you minded, of course, it was unusual of Five to behave like that. It was like you were dying soon.

There you all were, huddled in the second floor of the hotel lobby, Five dragged you along to the railings. Your back towards the railings as you watched in amusement how Diego and Ben argued with each other in their own languages.

Seemingly Five had enough of their endless bickering. “Hey!” Walking towards them, dragging you along in the process. “You guys done?”

“The universe is disappearing outside.” He gestured outside with his free hand that wasn't holding yours. “So you can keep rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic if it makes you feel better.” His free hand is now in his pockets. “But the fact remains that we are too late.” To which Ben and Diego only scoff in reply and leave you two alone.

“Five, come on,” Luther spoke up from his chair, Sloane snuggling in his arm.

“It's over, Luther. We failed.” Your face dropped at his words. There wasn't anything any of you could do.

Viktor sat up right. “Come on. It can't be over over.”

“Yeah, come on, Five. We gotta figure this out, man.” Diego spoke from where he was standing.

“Is there anything we can do?” You spoke up, you did not want this to end that easily. You've spent your whole time with Five saving the apocalypse, you weren't about to give up that easily. He physically softened to hear your voice, you hadn't spoken that much ever since he got back. You, of course, were figuring out why he acted like that.

He ignored your words, only giving you a soft glance and tracing shapes on your hand. You frowned at that, what did happen when he left? When you did ask him about it, he told you that nothing happened. “Okay. How about we take a step back? Look at the big picture here. Most of us have spent the last 28 days trying to save the world from ending.”

He paused before continuing. “What have we accomplished?” With his words, everyone's bodies fell back in defeat. He was right, no matter how hard they tried every time, it would only bounce back and make another apocalypse.

After a moment of silence, Luther spoke up. “Well, we did make friends along the way.” Luther and Sloane smiled at each other. You loved their relationship, perhaps the only one like it. You loved how despite the world ending, they spent their time getting to know and love each other.

“Incorrect!” Five's hand now leaving yours. “You know what we've done?” His eyes panned over to your frame leaving his side as you made your way to Viktor, leaning on his chair. To which Viktor moved to the side to make space for you. Gladly taking it, you smiled gratefully at him.

Five watched your every move as he explained to everyone his thoughts. “Nothing. We have made things worse every time.”

Allison followed up with an, “amen to that.”

“Look, when I went to the Commission I had a conversation with my 100-year-old self.” You swore you could feel Lila's stare at you.

“And my last words were, “don't save the world.”

“Don't save the world?” Viktor asked, clearly as confused as everyone there.

“Don't save the world.” Five clarified once more, taking your hand as he forced you to stand beside him, wrapping one arm on the small of your back.

“Why are you like this, Five?” You question him from your bed. You both were lucky enough to have a spare room of your own, giving you some sort of privacy. In Klaus' words “they'll be shagging all night long!” That is the reason why you both shouldn't have a room.

Five's eyes look at yours from the mirror, he was getting ready to go to that bachelor party Luther invited him to. “Like what, darling?”

“I've asked you about this before.” You took a breath, Five already knew where this conversation was going. “Why are you acting like I'm about to die soon?” A nervous laugh erupted from your lips. Honestly speaking, with how everything was, there could be a possibility.

“Can't I just spend more time with my love?” Five spoke, mentally praying that you'd believe him. Though it was more of a half-lie, one part he did want to spend more time with you, one part screaming 'yes you're about to die.'

You only nodded along to his words, believing him for now as you helped him get ready.

The remaining sparrow and umbrella academy members piled out of the passageway. All looked defeated, Luther's death taking a toll on them mentally and physically. Five couldn't help but wonder where was Y/n, it took you too long to go through the passageway. Reginald came out last, looking out of breath. “At last, the other side.”

“Wait-” Five was quick to interrupt Viktor, “where's Y/n?” He screamed at the top of his lungs at the old man. Viktor softly whispered “where's Klaus?”

“Children, I'm sorry, but your brother and that girl...” Five was growing more and more impatient at his father's words. “I did all I could, but they didn't make it through in time.”

Five stomped over to Reginald, full of his lies. “Bullshit!”

“Where is she?” He spat in his face, he couldn't care less.

Diego held Five back, afraid of what will happen next. “Take it easy, Five.” He lowly whispered to his ear as he dragged his body from Reginald, Five opting to be defeated, sitting down on the floor as he cried his heart out.

People around him were shocked at his state. In all they've known Five, they've never seen him cry. He simply did not allow himself to show that side to them. This was what the older Five was talking about.

The older Five's words rang in his ears, “she died, along with them.”

Lila's hand flew up to her mouth in shock at the past events happening. They all bowed their heads to pay respect to everyone in this room. They didn't only lose you, but also Luther and Klaus. Five and Sloane are the most affected ones there, Five losing you and his brothers while Sloane lost the love of her life.

Viktor slowly brought a hand to Five's back, rubbing it gently as they all watched him weep in silence.

THANK YOU FOR THIS REQUEST !

- ★

[derailedfiction]

The Most Wanted | Baron Zemo | The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Part 2 Pairings: Helmut Zemo x Fem!Reader | Sam Wilson & Fem!Reader |  James Barnes & Fem!Reader Word count: 6017 (sorry) Warnigns: swearing, a bit of kissing, shooting  Summary: As Reader’s presence is exsposed the only way to get to Zemo is to cooperate with Sam and Bucky.

A/N: Reader is German-speaking which means that ¾ of what she says is in that language. If she speaks with Zemo, one to one, I switched to English (pls pretend it’s still German xD).  Also next time I’ll put translations next to German version. It will be easier to read probably.

You grunted as you were seated on a chair, and quickly restrained with a rope around your arms and hands. You scanned the room looking for Zemo but he was nowhere to be found. As your search did not bring you any satisfactory answers, you set your eyes on the other man, expectantly.

“Was kann ich für sie tun?” you asked calmly with a nonchalant smile.

“What?” Sam looked puzzled at James, and back at you. “What does it mean?”

“She asked what she can do for you, Sam,” Zemo answered leaving the bathroom with a bottle of cologne and a towel in his hands.

“Well first of all she can tell what the hell is she doing here,” you observed the dark-skinned man with much amusement. He seemed to be quite annoyed with the situation.

“Warum ist er so verärgert?” you asked Zemo, still carefully observing Sam.

“What?” he asked again, clearly agitated that he did not understand what you were saying.

“She wants to know why you are so annoyed,” Zemo replied, spreading some cologne on his hands and then on his neck with a gentle pat.

“Can’t she speak like normal language?” Sam sat down on the couch with a helpless expression. 

“Wha–at?” you mocked Sam with a silent laugh. You saw a corner of the Baron’s lip went up for a moment. 

“I don’t really understand why the whole world should speak English, Sam. Oh, mein Gott, Y/N, sprichst du noch kein Englisch?” Zemo looked at you with a question in his eyes. A similar question was in Sam’s eyes as he desperately wanted to know what was happening.

“Nein, aber ich verstehe was er hat gesagt,” you shifted on the chair you were restrained to.

“She will not speak English, even though she understands you,” Baron translated.

“What do you want?” you felt observant gaze received from James.

“Ihn,” you pointed at Zemo with wide grin. “Ich wollte euch beide zuerst erschießen und ihn dann nehmen. 

“She wants me and wanted to kill off the two of you before,” Baron replied emotionlessly.

“That would add up, she had a sniper rife literally next doors,” James said, “Who beat you up like this?” he asked after a moment, pointing at your bruised lip and a black eye.

“Die Wakandanerin. Sie dachte, ich würde sie zu Zemo fuhren. Aber dann hat sie mit dir gesprochen,” you smiled lightly towards James as you thought, it was kind of him to ask about it.

“The Wakandian did it to her as she thought she would lead her to me. Then, the Wakandian has spoken to you, James. It’s quite surprising how fast they sent somebody to fetch me.”

“Is it really?” James looked at him with disbelief. “I bargained us more time to deal with things, so no need to thank me.”

“It was sweet of you to defend me at least,” Zemo turned from the window and lightly nodded towards James, much to his dismay.

“You killed T’Chaka and now Nagel” Sam echoed, and yet Baron shrugged that information as he would an irritating fly. “How long do you follow us?”

“Seit Madripoor. Übrigens war dein Tanzen komisch, Zemo,” you winked at the Sokovian with silent laugh. You were way too much enjoying this questioning.

“She was following us since our visit in Madripoor. Ich dachte, ich habe dich dort gesehen, Y/N,“ he put his hand on your shoulder and squeezed it lightly.

“Du war recht,” you turned your head to catch glimpse of his figure behind you. The smell of cologne he used was rather intoxicating. 

“Is it me, or you two like know each other?”

“Yes, we have worked together before and as I said, I had a feeling that I saw Y/N during the party,” he answered and went to examine kitchen shelves. “She’s one of the best bounty hunters I have known, and it’s a delight that she’s hunting for me now.”

“Man, you have some strange definition of a delight…” Sam stated, crossing his arms. “Why you hunt him now?”

You fell silent for a longer moment not really wanting to tell why.

“Meine Schwester –” you started talking.

“Her sister was kidnapped and is held by someone. She will be released only in exchange for my person,” Zemo translated simultaneously, playing with a cookie on his finger. “She doesn’t know who that is. Y/N only received a video with her sister and information about what she’s supposed to do. If she cannot fulfil the expectations, her sister is going to be killed. Es tut mir sehr leid, Y/N.”

“Hör jetzt auf, Zemo. Du kümmerst dich nur um dich selbst und zerstören Super-Soldaten. Das ist es,” you felt closely examined by him and then he did something most surprising for you.

“I don’t believe she will pose any threat to our cause. I do think that she actually can be quite an asset.”

The three of you looked surprised at Zemo. Sam and James because they both thought dealing with another shady character would be too much. And you because it would make your job so much easier, just to use distraction and snatch Zemo right from their noses. 

“Wunderbar! – No!” the three of you exclaimed at the same moment.

“Why not? I would get three watchmen, making sure I would not escape,” he continued undisturbed by your sudden vocalization. “Moreover, Y/N is excellent in hand-to-hand combat and is trained in any kind of weaponry.”

“I don’t even…” Sam started and put his hands in the air as if he surrendered to this whole situation. “I mean, it’s not bad to have additional pair of eyes on Zemo but is it worth it? She’s a criminal too.”

“Right now, we have bigger problems. Karli bombed a GRC supply depot,” James started reading the latest news on his phone. 

At that point, you stopped listening to them, as they were deliberating on the subject you were not that much familiar with. Even though Zemo offered a solution for your presence in the team, no one was willing to untie you from the chair. You sat there observing the place carefully, trying to find a perfect way to run away at some point with your prize. 

You kept your gaze on Baron for a long moment. He bustled around the kitchen as if he did it every day, without a break of several years in a German prison. Of course, it was impossible for him to forget how the Avengers were responsible for the deaths of his family and yet, it was bizarre for you that he decided to cooperate with them. As you knew him from the past, Zemo would cherish the very thought of destroying this particular group of superheroes, showing them how very human they indeed were. Still, you just witnessed how Baron threw a Turkish delight towards Sam as if he were giving him a treat for a great lead to follow. 

“Du starrst, Y/N,” he stated indifferently, handing you some tea.

“Danke,” you thanked him, even though you had no opportunity to drink it. “Ich kenne dich und bin dennoch überrascht, wie du diese Männer behandelst. Sind sie nicht deine Feinde, Zemo?” 

“Im Moment sind sie nützlich. Das ist alle,” he answered you and from the look on his face you knew that Baron Zemo had already a plan.

“What are you talking about?” Sam came closer to the two of you.

“Y/N is surprised that I cooperate with someone that I swore to destroy,”

“Well, you can count me in, Y/N,” he replied as he undid the bonds. “One wrong move and you two will be handcuffed to me and James.”

“Das hört sich nicht so schlecht an,” you rubbed your wrists sightly worn from the rough rope and drank tea from Zemo.

“I’m afraid my dear friend that she rather liked that idea,” you winked at Sam coquettishly as he rubbed his face in disbelief. 

“Was machen wir jetzt?”

“We are going to ask some questions about Donya’s funeral,” James answered your question, “We gotta move.”

Within fifteen minutes you were ready to leave the apartment, and since James and Sam did not want to take any chances leaving you alone, you were walking in pair with Zemo. 

“Ich bin überrascht, dass du nicht versucht hast, sie zwischen Städten zu verlieren,” you said to your companion as you walked.

“Nun, wie ich schon sagte, sie sind ein Mittel zum Zweck, das ist alles,” he replied. “Was hast du in den letzten Jahren gemacht?”

“Nichts Besonderes, aber ich war für 5 Jahre wegen dieser Snap weg. Jetzt bin ich hier…”

“Man, don’t you worry about what are they talking about? They could be like planning escape or something, to roll us over,” Sam said to Bucky, cautiously observing the two of you in front of him. “It’s just wrong…”

“It’s not, they’re talking about the past. She was gone after Thanos snapped,” Bucky replied quietly, trying not to give up he’s able to understand German. “She’s still quite lost after she got back.”

“Can you blame her? Or anyone in such a situation? It’s pretty fucked up…”

Bucky cracked for a moment listening to your conversation, “She just told him, she would have killed him back in Madripoor and she didn’t just because of their shared past.”

“Damn man, they have some unresolved issues under those smirks and sass.”

You turned around feeling the gazes of the two of them on your back as you were speaking with Zemo. They were walking behind you, keeping a reasonable distance, and talking about something rather lively. 

“It is shame of what became of this place,” you rose your eyebrow lightly looking around the small courtyard, which wasn’t in its best condition.

“I’ll go check upstairs. You keep eye on him,” Sam went up for the next floor and you were left alone with James, as Zemo softly humming a lullaby came closer to children.

For a moment two of you stood in silence watching how Baron was approaching children, and then you asked, “Du verstehst mich, oder?”

“A little, yes,” James answered you. If he was surprised how quickly you found out about it, he didn’t show it at all.

“Was machst du mit ihm? Wenn du er nicht mehr brauchst?” you crossed your arms following James’ stare.

“He’s going back to the prison.”

“Und die Wakanderin?” you heard long sigh from him, he did not really know what to do in this situation.

“I’m not sure. Zemo is too dangerous to let him be unsupervised, or to be intercepted by a shady character, no offence.”

“Nicht genommen,” you smiled lightly. 

“Now, what the hell is he doing?” Sam came closer to the two of you, seeing the idyllic conversation between Zemo and children.

“Wish you didn’t hear him sing – What?”

“Cute kids,” Zemo said as he passed the three of you heading to the exit.

As you left the CPR facility, you had a feeling that someone was observing you as four of you walked down the street back to the apartment. You observed each passing by person, sensing something was going on.

“Was ist los?”

“Jetzt nichts als ich denke jemand folgt uns. Der Power Broker hat Leute nach drei von Ihnen geschickt,” you replied quickly turning around your head.

“Achtung!” just as you saw the mercenary take out the gun, you pushed Zemo away and took the bullet. A sharp pain tore your arm as you landed on the ground next to Baron looking at you surprised. “Was?”

“Warte,” he took out the knife and tear for pieces your sleeve to create a tourniquet above the wound. “Versuche es zu drücken, Y/N.”

You nodded holding your arm firmly, trying to prevent any further bleeding. On the other side of the road, James was just knocking out the assassin.

“We should move. I don’t want to take any more chances with other killers,” Sam helped you stood up.

“Und der Söldner?” you asked.

“He won’t be conscious for longer time and we will probably be somewhere else. Come.”

Four of you hastily returned to the quarters, making sure no one was following you. Sam and James armed themselves with additional weapons as they wanted to be sure you were safe in there.

“We’ll go and check whether this place is safe. You two stay here, understood?” Sam told you as he went out with James.

You stood in the middle of the room trying to gather yourself to do something with the wound you have been pressing. You took few steps towards the bar and made yourself two drinks, one of which you immediately drank.

“Now, take these, it will help with the pain.” 

“Yeah, thanks,” you took the pills from Zemo and swallowed them with few sips of whiskey. “Now, if you allow, I’d like to take care of this,” you pointed at your arm wound, as you slowly went to the bathroom and closed the door behind you.

As you were finally alone without any sympathetic or wanting-to-help gazes, you sighed loudly and quite shakily. It was not your first time being shot, and honestly, you knew that having Zemo around and babysitting him for not to get killed, would mean more bullets to take. 

You sat down on with tiles of the floor, observing how blood was slowly dropping on it creating a small plash. You moved your fingers carefully, trying to determine whether some muscles or tendons were damaged. It hurt badly. Burning pain ran through your whole hand up to the arm wound.

“Fuck,” you whined quietly, and you rested your head over the edge of the bath. 

That was not the plan at all. At last, the pills you got were starting to work as your pulsating pain did not bother you anymore. Slowly with the biggest caution, you could have at that moment, you removed the makeshift bandage and examined the wound. It was still bleeding, rather profusely, despite the pressure band over the injury. The longer you stared at it, the more light-headed you felt.

You heard somebody opened the door and Zemo entered the bathroom. You had not had enough power to say something sarcastic about his way of respecting somebody’s privacy.

“What are you doing? I don’t need any help,” you observed Zemo as he sat next to you with a first aid kit.

“I’m not going to do anything. But you might need this if you really want to take care of the wound,” you snorted and took the kit. “Why did you do that? Why did you take a bullet for me?”

“Does it really matter?” as you heard nothing from the man, you looked up and saw Baron watching you expectantly. “I must deliver you alive if I want my sister to stay alive,” you answered hesitantly, cleaning the wound. 

“It is admirable how dedicated you are to your sister, Y/N.”

“Is it though? If not her I would be free as wind getting other shady figures for actual money. Not to mention that it was not, the plan,” you scoffed and gritted your teeth as the wound began to burn hellishly. 

“I would do anything to save my family.”

“I know Zemo, I know it,” you agreed looking at him softly, and then you sighed heavily. “I will need your help with it. I thought the bullet went clean through, but I can’t see any exit wound.”

“How could you not know it?” he asked in growing amusement. 

“I don’t know man. I am high as kite, Zemo. I don’t really feel that much,” you looked blankly at the hole in your arm for a moment before you gave him a pair of forceps. “I will cut the wound from both sides and you have to take the bullet out, got it?” He nodded in agreement.

You proceeded with careful cuts along the edge of the wound, as precise as you could. You took a deeper breath and nodded for Zemo to try and retrieve the bullet. Even though you were on strong painkillers, it was almost impossible to not move or whine. 

“Don’t move, Y/N. I almost have it,” you grabbed the bath edge firmly trying not to shift any more.

“Easy to say… Fuc–” a cry of pain escaped your mouth in the same moment as the bullet was taken out. “Oh, God that was awful. I will never get used to it. Thank you,” shakily you reached for a needle and thread to close the wound. 

“Let me,” he took over the instruments and without further ado, he quickly stitched the wound and put a fresh bandage over it. 

“Hey! You alive in there? We heard some screaming,” you heard Sam from the other side of the bathroom door and lightly smiled.

“Yes, it’s alright,” Zemo answered as he helped you to stand up from the floor.

“He cares, doesn’t he? Even if you did him wrong, he cares.”

“Yes, he does,” Sokovian agreed. Still supporting you, he led you to the sofa, on which you fell with relief as you were feeling more and more dizzy. “Du solltest dich ein bisschen ausruhen, Y/N. Du hast ziemlich viel Blut verloren.”

“Yeah, yeah, was auch immer,” you weaved him off impatiently and laid down with your feet up. 

You felt absolutely awkward that you got yourself shot because you pushed Zemo to the side. It was probably one of the dumbest things you have ever done. Well, if you counted being caught by Winter Soldier, that is the other dumbest thing you did. It was not your best day at all. You heard somebody was clamouring in the kitchen pouring water into a kettle and then into small cups. 

“How are you?” You looked at James, who asked you the question.

“Gut,” you replied shortly, taking the cup of tea from Zemo. You felt in fact a bit better as the medications you were given truly kicked in. 

You pressed yourself deeper into the sofa with your eyes closed, trying to rest for a while. You disconnected completely from external stimuli, focusing on your breathing, and calming the heartbeat. Even though you lost some blood, you didn’t feel that bad. 

Suddenly you heard the sound of breaking glass and louder exchanges. You opened your eyes and looked at Zemo surprised as the Americans went dealing with their things.

“You can’t play with others, can you?” you asked with a soft chuckle making him some space on the sofa to sit. “I know you probably have some plan but still, being followed by the Wakandians, and bounty hunters, and probably some other killers it’s not an easy thing to cope with.”

“You think I need protection?” you showed off your arm. “I don’t need any, I am perfectly able to use my mind to gain in every situation.”

“I’m just saying that playing on different fronts at the same time always ends rather badly,” you finished off your tea and put the glass on the table. 

“What can I say, I am a wanted man,” you snorted lightly at his words. He was truly the most wanted man at the moment. 

“What was that tea again?”

“Cherry blossom, why?”

“I feel – dizzy,” you said unsure. You looked at the glass and at him, and then back at the glass. And then it clicked. “You little –”

“Shh, mein Schätzchen,” he immediately caught your falling head and swiftly stood up, making a place for you to lay down. “You will sleep for some time.” 

You felt so heavy and dizzy, you had no power to fight with him. The last thing you saw was Zemo unfolding a blanket and putting it over you.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing Sam, she just fell asleep after the pills I gave her to ease the pain,” Zemo lied without a blink of an eye and made sure you were comfortably sleeping. “We should probably move.”

***

You woke up sometime later, just as Zemo said. What he didn’t mention was an extreme headache you got as soon as you opened your eyes.

“What a fucker…” you murmured as you got up from the sofa, throwing the blanket on the side. How thoughtful, you thought ironically looking at the material.

There was no one in the apartment and as you figured out, they have probably been gone for the funeral ceremony to talk with Karli. You moaned softly, rubbing your temples in hope that the pain will go away. It didn’t do anything and bright light coming through the stained windows wasn’t especially helpful either. 

You wandered around the room and kitchen to find some painkillers. You suspiciously sniffled tea in a small metal box, still remembering what Zemo did. As you thought about it, if he didn’t get into a quarrel with James all of them would be asleep and Zemo would have been far away. A perfect getaway. 

“Rather shameful not to carry it to the end,” you said to yourself washing down the painkiller with a drink. But then again, it was Zemo considered so he probably saw another opportunity for him to run away. 

As slowly the painkillers once again started to work, you decided to go back to your rented room and take your belongings. It was hard to guess when your company would be back and you didn’t want to risk them, at least James and Sam, discovering you were gone, and the hideout was left unsupervised. But then again, you shrugged your arms carelessly it was not your responsibility to look after it.

You poured water into a kettle and put it on the burner of the stove. I’ll be back before the water boils, you thought and took one Turkish delight on your way out. 

In fact, you got back just in time to take the kettle off the heat and make some tea for yourself and you started to explore the residence in search of some clothes to change. You did not really think it would take that much time to extract Zemo. It was supposed to be a day, give, or take. The whole situation of you being captured and somehow kept hostage was not included in the plan.

You took off your torn blouse and dropped it on the floor, in search of something new to wear. You looked through one of the few wardrobes that had any clothes in it. Mostly male, but you also found a few dresses and children's clothes. As tempting as it was to wear one of the dresses, you felt it would be somehow a sacrilege to wear Zemo’s wife clothes. Instead, you chose one of his purple shirts and tried it on. It would suit you nicely if not the zip across the chest which was a bit tight, so you had to keep it slightly unzipped. 

You returned to the kitchen, finding yourself extremely hungry if not ravenous. Eating more Turkish delight would do no good either, as they were extremely sweet. Rummaging through kitchen cabinets you found ingredients to make a stew and you thought everyone could eat something warm. You quickly chopped some vegetables and put them in a ceramic casserole along with meat and seasoning. Now all you had to do was to wait and control if it’s not burning.

“Du siehst gut aus in meinem Kleidern,” you heard suddenly as you were checking up the food in the stove.

“Danke,” you kept your smile for yourself and you turned around to see three men coming in. Zemo went straight for a piece of cloth and wet it in ice-cold water, which he put over his eyes as soon as he lied on the sofa.

“I thought you would be gone, the second you wake up,” Sam was rather surprised to see you casually cooking.

“Warum? Ich muss ihn abfangen. Er ist mein Ziel,” you took out the stew out of the oven and put it on the counter. 

“And you made us food?” you took four plates out of the cupboard and put them on the table along with silverware.

“Ja, warum nicht?” you were quite content of yourself as the food smelled wonderful and you took pleasure in cooking it. You missed your domestic life dearly especially knowing it was impossible to get it back. 

“Das ist sehr nett von dir, Y/N,” you muttered under your nose to his words and poured him some bourbon. Zemo looked as you could use some.

„Und mich zu betäuben war nicht sehr nachdenklich von dir, Zemo,” you replied angrily, handing him the drink as he lied on the sofa with cold patch over his head. „Was ist mir dir passiert? Bitte essen.” 

With the move of your hand, you showed Sam and James to sit at the table and eat what you have prepared.

“She invites you to eat,” he translated, slowly drinking his bourbon. “Der neue Captain America warf seinen Schild auf mich ,” he then replied to your question and removed the compress. 

“Was?” you chuckled at the mere thought of him being knocked out like this. “Komm, du muss auch essen.” You encouraged Zemo to join the Americans at the table and eat together.

The four of you sat awkwardly at the table as you were putting food on the plates and handing them over to each of them. 

“So, Sam would you consider taking the serum if you were offered it? Hypothetically speaking, of course,” you said nothing just rolling your eyes internally. What a perfect question to ask at the table.

“No,” he cut it shortly between the bites.

“No hesitation? That’s admirable.”

You looked at James sitting quietly as you and eating. You sensed he was still tormented by his past and listening to them hypothetically speaking about taking or not the super-solider serum was uneasy. You felt sorry for him being used as a pawn in other’s men fight. Living without the ability to decide what to do must be haunting, let alone the knowledge of your forced actions.

“Danke,” you heard from him as he finished eating. 

“Gern geschehen,” you couldn’t help but to give him a warm smile and watched him go to another room to get some rest. He was still bothered by his past and even though he tried his best to make it go away, it did not work as he wished it to work.

Zemo as he finished, also stood up but helped you with cleaning the table and putting dishes into a dishwasher. Then once more he retrieved to his favourite, horizontal position on the sofa with another drink and cold compress. Unfortunately, his rest didn’t last long as two men stormed into the apartment. 

“All right. That’s it. Let’s go. I’m now ordering you to turn him over,” Walker said authoritarian pointing at Zemo.

“Shield or no shield, the only thing you’re runnin’ in here is your mouth,” Sam confronted him as everyone tensed up for inevitable conflict. “He’s actually proven himself useful today.”

“Who is she?” Walker pointed at you rudely as soon as he was denied getting Zemo.

“Temporal associate,” you heard Sam answering in your favour.

“Another criminal? You two are just falling down as you collaborate with such people,” he summed that up in his pretentious, all-knowing manner. He looked at you for a moment. “John Walker, Captain America.”

“Ich weiß das,” you muttered to him.

“Can’t she speak like normal language?” you heard Walker scoffing.

“You know, people can use different languages too, Walker. Maybe learn another?”

“That’s how it’s going to be, Sam? Should I put my shield down, to make it fair?” Sam smiled lightly with disbelief. That man was insufferable. 

The atmosphere was tense, and it was seconds away for Sam and Walker to start the fight. It was postponed for a while only due to a sudden appearance of a spear that stuck into the column right next to Walker’s head. The Dora Milaje arrived, and they had no fucks to give.

The leader of them start talking with James in Wakandian, and you knew it was the time they wanted to get Zemo to pay for what he has done.

“Hi, John Walker. Captain America.”

Is he dense or something?, you thought looking at how thoughtlessly his actions were. Even you knew not to disregard Dora Milaje nor to interfere in their businesses, and he was going straight into it. You saw his partner being a bit agitated by the sudden entrance of warriors.

“Sagt er das jedes Mal, wenn er sich vorstellt?” you snorted watching how Walker was trying to talk reason to the Wakandian, and even you knew it was one of the stupidest things he could do.

“Yep,” James said pouring himself a drink.

As you have foreseen second after John’s hand was on Dora Milaje’s arm he was doomed as three of them attacked him and Lemar.

“Are we going to do something about it?” Sam asked James, who took quite a pleasure observing the fight.

“Looking strong, John,” he shouted back at the fighting men. 

You could not help it as a short laugh escape your mouth. It did not take long for Sam to join the quarrel and shortly after James followed him.

As Falcon and Winter Soldier came into the fight, you approached Zemo and asked, “Should I also fight them as your champion? To get the right to, have you?” you smiled cheekily over your whisky.

“You can have me any moment, you want Y/N,” you choked on your drink. “Now, if you excuse me.”

You watched him taking a bottle of alcohol and aggressively zeroed his glass. Then undisturbed by anyone he went to the bathroom and just before closing the door, your eyes meet. You perfectly knew Zemo was escaping and all you did was to raise your glass towards him and finish your drink. 

That’s going to be fun, you thought pouring another glass of whiskey, watching how everyone is getting their asses whooped. 

***

“How could you let him go?” you held up your arms in a gesture of ineffable incomprehension of your act.

“C’mon man, it’s not that we need him that much now. We must focus on our mission, Bucky. I know it’s hard for you, I know it, but we can’t blow it away,” Sam put his hand on James’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly, trying to reassure and comfort him.

“I helped him escape from Berlin that was enough for Dora Milaje,” James said sternly and stopped in front of the building they had set up a meeting in. “You can’t go in, Y/N, two of us is already too many.”

“Klar,” you agreed and watched them go inside the beast’s belly. 

You walked down the street, heading to a small square located in this part of Riga. You surprisingly found yourself enjoying this short stroll without anyone to interrupt you or anyone to chase after. Quite a lovely vacation you could have had. You liked this city as it had interesting history and architecture that survived Second World War. 

The fountain in the middle of the square was captivating and a lot of tourists were taking pictures of it. You were surprised that despite incidents caused by your company, there were organised groups and sightseeing tours. You admired the monument for a longer while until you noticed something on the opposite side of it. 

“I thought you would be far away from here,” you approached slowly Zemo, standing in the shadow.

“I thought about it but then again I feel somewhat responsible for how everybody jumped to each other’s throats just to be able to get me.”

“Isn’t that what you are famous for? And don’t tell me you feel bad about it,” he looked at you and smirked.

“Bad, no but it’s rather tiresome for me. I don’t really take any joy from it,” Zemo hesitated for a second and you could tell he dropped some part of his act. You could have seen the very broken man who was the reason for the Avengers split. “Why not a dress?”

“What?” you were taken by surprise with his question.

“There were few dresses in the closet, and you decided to take my shirt,” you looked at Zemo frowning.

“I won’t do anything to it, if that’s what you mean,” you tried to laugh it off, but it wasn’t successful. “I thought it would have been strange to wear your wife’s.”

“I wouldn’t mind if someone could do a good use of them,” he smiled sadly. “Anyway, I enjoyed your company today. It reminded me of your visits when I was imprisoned.”

You crossed your arms over your chest, staring blankly at the pavement. That was quite charming of him and you smirked at this thought. 

“Yes, me – ” you stopped talking at the sudden sound of breaking glass and crushing metal. 

In front of you two men were fighting, of which one was much more superior. You watched Walker throwing his shield again and again at the man, treating him like a training bag. 

What the actual fuck, you thought as you heard other man pleading for his life, but Walker was out. He didn’t hear him nor listen to him, there was something more going on. He put the shield up, above his head and allowed his rage to take control over him. Walker repeatedly smashed the head of the poor man several times with his shield and then he stood with it. 

Unmoved. Triumphant in his imagination. Covered in blood splashes. And the shield bathed in bloody strains shimmered ominously. The new era of superheroes has arrived in its brutal glory. Unstoppable. Utterly frightening. 

“Jesus and that is how Captain America deal with things now?” you couldn’t believe your own eyes, as Walker murdered a man in daylight. “Now, I can see more vivid than ever why super-soldiers pose a threat to the order.”

“The whole world is watching, and they know what he did. He will be never forgiven for such a barbaric act. Previous Captain America stood for what the US wanted to be, righteous and good. This one, he’s … he’s what America is like. Brutal and not afraid to kill anyone who wronged it,” you listened to Zemo seeing how every single one of passing by people were with a phone, recording or even streaming live this whole situation.

“Where are you going now?” you looked at him for a moment, still cautiously monitoring the surroundings, trying to digest the terrifying view. 

“Sokovia, or rather to what is left of it…” Zemo answered looking plainly before himself. “Will you give me a week?”

“I will give you two days tops before I go after you again, Zemo.”

“Good enough,” he smiled lightly and looked at you. “Don’t you want to come with me?”

“Nah, I’m good. I want to be around here and see how this will develop.”

All of sudden he caught your chin and moved it up, and then kissed you gently. You stood in awe, trying to figure out what on earth was going on, as you were not completely over that you have witnessed Captain America going apeshit. But after a moment of suspension, you kissed him back.

“Care to explain?” you asked as you separated from the kiss.

“People tend to feel uncomfortable when they see a kissing couple and I didn’t want to be filmed,” he said with a charming smile. “I don’t want Sam nor James to find me before I want to be found.”

“People or you wanted me to feel uncomfortable?” it felt strange but in a good way. You only hoped that he wasn’t trying to play with you as well as he did with others. 

“And are you?” you rolled your eyes with a groan. He was acting impossible. As he managed to temporarily escape his guards, Zemo was probably going to be even more of himself than he already was.

“I will see you in two days, Zemo.”

“That’s the plan,” he smirked and disappeared into the crowd.

________________________________________________________ German vocab.: Oh, mein Gott, Y/N, sprichst du noch kein Englisch? – Oh my God, Y/N, can’t you really speak English? Übrigens war dein Tanzen komisch. – By the way, your dancing was ridiculous. Ich dachte, ich habe dich dort gesehen. – I thought, I have seen you there. Du war recht – You were right.Es tut mir sehr leid. – I’m very sorry.Hör jetzt auf, Zemo. Du kümmerst dich nur um dich selbst und zerstören Super-Soldaten. Das ist es. – Stop it now, Zemo. You only take care of yourself and to destroy super soldiers. That's it.Wunderbar! – Wonderful. Du starrst. – You are staring. Ich kenne dich und bin dennoch überrascht, wie du diese Männer behandelst. Sind sie nicht deine Feinde, Zemo? – I know you and am still surprised how you treat these men. Aren't they your enemies, Zemo? Im Moment sind sie nützlich. Das ist alle. – Right now, they are useful. That's all. Das hört sich nicht so schlecht an. – That doesn't sound too bad. Was machen wir jetzt? – What are we going to do? Ich bin überrascht, dass du nicht versucht hast, sie zwischen Städten zu verlieren – I'm surprised you didn't try to lose them between cities. Nun, wie ich schon sagte, sie sind ein Mittel zum Zweck, das ist alles – Well, like I said, they're a means to an end, that's all. Was hast du in den letzten Jahren gemacht? – What have you been doing in the last few years? Nichts Besonderes, aber ich war für 5 Jahre wegen dieser Snap weg. Jetzt bin ich hier… - Nothing special, but I was gone for 5 years because of the Snap. Now I'm here… Du verstehst mich? – You understand me, yes? Was machst du mit ihm? Wenn du er nicht mehr brauchst? – What are you going to do with him? When you no longer need him? Und die Wakanderin? –  And the Wakandian? Nicht genommen – Non taken. Was ist los? – What’s going on? Jetzt nichts als ich denke jemand folgt uns. – Nothing now but I think someone is following us. Der Power Broker hat Leute nach drei von Ihnen geschickt – The power broker sent man after the three of you. Achtung! – Watch out! Warte. Versuche es zu drücken – Hold on. Try to push it. Und der Söldner? – And the mercenary? Du solltest dich ein bisschen ausruhen, Y/N. Du hast ziemlich viel Blut verloren – You should take a rest. You lost a lot of blood. Yeah, yeah, was auch immer. – Yeah, whatever. Gut – good Mein Schätzchen – darling Du siehst gut aus in meinem Kleidern – You look good in my clothes Danke – Thanks Warum? Ich muss ihn abfangen. Er ist mein Ziel – Why? I have to intercept him. He is my target. Ja, warum nicht? – Yes, why not? Das ist sehr nett von dir – That’s nice of you Und mich zu betäuben war nicht sehr nachdenklich von dir – And knocking me out wasn’t very thoughtful of you Was ist mir dir passiert? – What have happened to you? Bitte essen – please eat Der neue Captain America warf seinen Schild auf mich – The new Captain America threw his shield at me. Was? – What? Komm, du muss auch essen – Come, you too should eat. Gern geschehen – You’re welcome Klar - Clear

[lucianalight]

I'm reading an article on why the person doesn't like JoJo Rabbit and WOW does the ending quote sound familiar:

"Waititi—a talented, well-intentioned director—makes the mistake of thinking that by not taking Hitler seriously, we somehow diminish his power. That by rendering him into a dopey, insecure crybaby, we can expose the emptiness of his beliefs. That we can just… write it all off, and come up with a new ending. Jews, Nazis—we’re all human, right?"

And even a much older Jewish person reviewed it as well and had this to say:

"So when the opening credits of Jojo Rabbit played over archival footage of wide-eyed Nazis shouting with ecstasy in the streets to the tune of The Beatles' I Wanna Hold Your Hand (in German of course) I felt a bit sick."

"Footage of real Nazi rallies without any of the shouting was uncanny, to say the least, and nauseating. What Waititi wanted to accomplish, he accomplished. You want to sing along, you want to tap your feet to the familiar tune but to do so equates you with the countless people who followed Hitler's final solution and the murder of millions of Jews, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, Romani and others.

The screen version of Hitler, played by Waititi himself in terrible blue contact lenses as the imaginary friend of young Jojo, is exactly as a ten-year-old might imagine him: petulant and fickle. Not the man who inspired The Beatlemania-like fervour on crowded German streets.

We're meant to laugh at all the other Nazis, as we laugh at Charlie Chaplin, but they are a much bigger part of the Nazi machine than Waititi gives them credit for. I found myself chuckling out loud with the other 29 likely-gentile movie-goers at Sam Rockwell's expertly performed, drink-sodden commander.

But looking back on it, that rests uneasily in my stomach, especially given the character's arc and the ringing in my ears of the recent death-knell statement from one of the highest authorities in the US that 'there are very fine people on both sides' of white supremacy."

What I'm trying to point out is that tonka COULD be a great director, as long as there isn't source material. As long as he creates the world and characters, it would be fine but he keeps going after already made characters (Marvel, What We Do In The Shadows, JoJo Rabbit) and it just doesn't work.

Fine if he wants to take serious stuff and make them silly but there needs to be a line drawn

"Despite its nominal message about turning hate into love, Jojo Rabbit is a work that normalizes Nazis, and thus Nazism, and thus intolerance in general, by alternately saying that it either doesn’t exist, or is cute and amusing and powerless in the face of aw-shucks kiddie compassion. That makes it astoundingly wrong about WWII, about humanity, and also, of course, about today’s alt-right-infested climate upon which the film has been designed to comment. Putting it in the same company as the rest of this year’s Best Picture candidates—especially the epic The Irishman, the revealing Marriage Story, and the vivacious Little Women—is absurd"

This was such an interesting read. Thanks for sharing it with me. I haven’t seen the movie and therefore I can’t have an opinion about it. But as someone living under totalitarianism that is promoting a certain ideology, this is not the way I would want a movie to represent the hate and cruelty my people are experiencing. The brain washing, the propaganda, the othering, the sheer viciousness people are experiencing is much more complicated and serious than a bunch of idiots doing funny and nonsensical stuff. Their idiocy sometimes is laughable, but a laugh born out of helplessness to do anything else. Not the way you find Charlie Chaplin funny. Yes there needs to be a line drawn. The more I read about TW’s movies and humor, the more I get certain that they are really not for me.

[watching-sam-and-dean-again]

For the people choosing Misha, I have to ask, what exactly do you consider good acting, or consistency?

Let’s do a little comparison between how Misha and Jared play different characters, shall we? I’m going to consider not just "they are different than the normal version of the character" but also if the difference makes sense in context of the show where this version of the character appears.

I’ll do this under the cut since I’m adding what will likely be a long post to someone else’s post.

Misha:

Jimmy - This character is definitely different than Castiel, and well-acted. He shows nuance and emotions that are appropriate to the circumstances ✔️

The End "Hippy" Cass - (technically Cas, but depowered) very different than normal Cass. Misha does well here, showing a both over the top hedonist Cass, but also one who is generally exasperated and amused-in-a-vague way. I find this part enjoyable and it makes sense (mostly) for a Castiel without powers at the end of the world, where all is futile. ✔️

Godstiel - He is both normal Cass but different than normal Castiel at the same time, there are moments where he gives that sense of power and menace, but it also edges into being too campy at times for me ➖/ ✔️

Lucifer - I find this portrayal of Lucifer inconsistent and too edging into "funny." It’s more a mimicry/parody of Mark P’s performance than making the character his own. He is channeling Hellucifer (not Lucifer as we know him at that point), with often over-exaggerated speech and expressions/movements. I found he did this part well, with some subtlety, in "The Vessel" but otherwise it was mostly silly and ott. Remember kids, imitating (copycatting) another actor is not the same as creating a resemblance but making the part your own . ➖

The Empty - the need to put on a (bad) accent to keep which character one is playing straight, when playing two characters who are talking to each other, is not actually good acting, see Jensen in "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "The End", Jared in "Swan Song" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and Jake Abel as Michael talking to Adam (I don’t remember the ep title) for stronger examples of how to do this effectively. (The Empty Cass gives me secondhand embarrassment.) ❌

Apocalypse World Castiel - again, what accent is that? The accent makes literally no sense for the chracter unless AU Jimmy (whose vessel this Castiel also inhabits) is German for some reason, and this character is way over the top. It’s got no nuance and is more like he’s mimicking/parodying some other actor from some other genre. Full campy territory. ❌

I am not including a human Castiel or Crazzy Castiel, as they are just Cass dialed up or down a little.

Jared:

Meg - Jared is both subtle and scary in this role. Particularly in the scene with Jo, he goes from "trying" to be Sam, to full on menace, to having a feminine edge, to flipping back into "desperate Sam" when Dean shows up. There are moments where you can see he is Nicki Acox's Meg ✔️

Tall Tales Sam - I’m including this because this is an example of the appropriate use of campiness and being over the top. Jared goes for it in this episode but it makes sense because Dean is describing Sam in the ways Jared plays him. Also, it’s hilarious ✔️

Lucifer - while I’m not sure he’s my favorite Lucifer actor, Jared brings quiet menace, gloating condescension, and rage to the role in appropriate measures at the right time, depending which episode we are talking about. I can even see hints of how Mark P plays him, but it isn’t copy-cat mimicry, which is more interesting. ✔️

Soulless Sam - he’s chilling, he’s amusing, he’s Sam …but not. Watching him play Soulless is fascinating because he even plays a Soulless Sam who is trying to pretend to be normal Sam, but still feeling … off. It takes a lot of skill to portray all that goes on with the character, and he does it for half a season. He is consistent and great. ✔️

Ezekiel/Gadreal - Jared plays the angel with a stiffness and formality that feels appropriate for an angel who has been locked away for malenia. He also gives off a sense of naivety and reluctant-coldness. He also shared this role with another actor, and while I think his chanelling Nicki and Mark P are more clear than Tahmoh, I still believe they are the same character. While, I think Jared does a great job in this role, I don’t enjoy it as much as others, but it’s still very well done. ✔️

Justin Smith - this role is defiantly campy, but it’s in keeping with the episode. I find this portrayal enjoyable, if not particularly nuanced. I think Jared is really fun here, but it also feels a little more Jared than Sam to me, so for the sake of fairness I won’t give it a full check (even though he deserves one for the fun of the role) ➖

I’ll admit, I’m not a totally unbiased observer here, but to have that many people saying Misha is the strongest at playing different characters when he has at least two ACTUALLY BAD examples of acting in his list makes no sense. At all.

[ratinthedeadhouse]

Forbidden Love

My heart is devoted to the one I shouldn’t love...

Fyodor x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Trying to keep it fluff.

"... A demon you say?" You question with hesitation, pale face bearing a frown as you try to put all the puzzles together. "That man is the super ability user and a terrorist that Yokohama is so desperate to catch? The very man, I spent countless evenings going to museums and libraries with? The very man with his astonishing diamond brain had helped me solve several murder cases?"

Silence settled between you and other Special Division Forces agents who glared at you with fear or utter confusion.

Nobody knew of your accidental connection with Fyodor Dostoevsky, or simply known as Demon Fyodor, and it sure was a surprise to you when your (e/c) eyes noticed a familiar face on all the screens and papers in the office with a screaming title: 'Wanted Criminal. Terrorist. Fyodor Dostoevsky. Highest rank ability user. Ability unknown.'

You honestly had no idea who the mysterious slender man was when you first met him at the museum. He looked charmingly tired, sharp purple eyes looked deeply into your soul while you both stood, rather awkwardly, near a woodblock painting that depicted the suffering of young children and women. Their weak bodies engulfed by flames, others were drowning in the peaceful veil of water. Despite the horrible scenario the colours united in harmony making you both stare at it for longer than you should have.

"The choice of the colour pallet... It mocks their suffering" you stated after a while, rather talking to yourself but hoping, subconsciously, that a curious stranger with a funny white hat would respond to your comment. To your amusement he did.

"Mhm," he nodded at first, pinching his chin like philosophers do while thinking and then slowly added: "Maybe the painter wanted to tell us that not all sufferings are recognizable at first glance. I noticed when walking up to the painting, the bright colours made me think of happiness and kindness, however, now that we stand closer to it we see that their very souls are in terrible agony" Fyodor's voice was soft like moonlight rays with a gentle touch of a foreign accent.

"I suppose... It depicts life itself. We never know how much one suffers due to the façade they’re putting" you said with a sad smile. At this very moment you looked delightful, Fyodor found a strange pleasure in watching your serious face merging into a saddened frown. And oh, he did it on purpose. He could've chosen a less explicit interpretation of the absurd painting but in his calculated mind he knew that this version would strike you the most... And he was right.

You still didn't move from the tiny painting, twirling a strand of your silky, (h/c) hair around your finger, beautiful eyes glued to the painting but your thoughts wandered far away. 

It took one glance from Fyodor to understand your entire being, no matter how complicated you think of yourself - to him you are an open book, and he could not resist the urge to live the faint mark on one of those innocent, white pages. 

“I apologize if my interpretations upset you, miss...” started Fyodor with a polite smile curving upon his frail face, but was interrupted by your sudden enthusiastic reply:

“Oh, please don’t apologize. One is a fool if they are not moved or hurt by art” your voice was gentle and soft and Fyodor couldn’t help but love your words. 

Perhaps you two were more similar than he thought at first. In any case, enchanted by your watchful careful eyes, your smile and graceful movements of your hands, your speech and voice - he couldn’t just let you go like that, out of his sight. 

A man tilted his head sideways a little, looking pleasantly amused, letting his dark locks fall upon his cheek, gently. “It seems that I found a charming lady who shares a similar view on things with me” something bittersweet hid in his words but it didn’t matter to you. 

With a small, delightful laugh you move your right hand forward: “My name is, (y/n). A pleasure to meet you” 

Expecting a handshake you watched as the man in a long dark cape came closer, gently grabbed your pale small hand and softly kissed the back of your hand;

“A beautiful name for a beautiful lady” he murmured watching how your pupils dilate. “My name is Fyodor. Would you agree to spend the rest of the evening in my company?”

Walking around with a stranger whom you’ve just met seemed like a ridiculous idea... But you felt safe around him, although his eyes were dark as a bottomless well, you agreed but made a promise to yourself to stay on guard. However, he cast away all your suspicions in just a few hours. 

You became good friends, discussing ancient Myths and modern poetry embarked on philosophical journeys sitting in the dim corner of the library simply enjoying the presence of each other. He even played his cello for you under the mocking bright moon. His words and the depths of thought sometimes caught you off guard however, you were able to track his line of thoughts and in return challenged him with your endless and charming affection. 

Fyodor never learnt what the word love truly meant. He could explain its psychological and physiological effect but never experienced it himself. He was in absolute control over his feelings and that is why he felt confused when you would meet him with a bright, loving smile that changed into a slightly concerned frown when you noticed dark eye-bags on his face. Why did you notice it? Why did you care? Who gave you the power to capture his heart so suddenly and so... wrongly? 

For the first time in a long while, Dostoevsky felt as if he made a dreadful mistake. At first, he thought of you as a pawn. Easy to move and easy to get rid of. But you reminded him of himself... yet you were so much better! Despite your intellect and wittiness, you had a warm, loving heart, that even accepted a demon like him. It all changed when you finally opened up to him about your placement of work. That’s when he realised how forbidden your relationship would be. Soon you would find out anyway about his identity, his goals and... it would wound you. Deeply. 

Soon he stopped coming to the museum where you two would usually meet. You remember that day. You took his favourite tea from the shop and held it in your cold hands while the hot drink burnt your fingers. 

‘He will never come again’

You felt as if you lost a piece of your heart. But you never cried about it and kept all the memories of the mysterious man named Fyodor close to your heart, or rather what was left of your heart. 

But now it all makes sense. The puzzle is complete. You stand in the room full of your colleagues who proceed to glare at you in silent amusement and your heart leapt in ecstasy. The adrenaline rushed through your blood as your cheeks turned red - you felt like the main character of your own story, engaged in a forbidden relationship with the demon himself. 

You didn’t care about the consequences but on entering the Special Prison for the restrained Ability Users, shadows of doubt crept within your heart. 

“Please wait here, ma’am. You sure you want to interrogate him?”

“Yes” 

“In terms of emergency, we won’t be able to assist you immediately... ” 

“I understand”

The heavy door was shut behind you, a metal desk was drilled into the floor and so were the chairs. No windows - just solid rock walls that reminded you of a medieval dungeon, except there were no cracks at all. Finally, you heard footsteps and another door before you was opened. 

“Good afternoon, Fyodor,” you said in a strict tone trying to hide your excitement as much as you could. 

His lilac eyes widened in surprise, thin lips parted as he watched you right there before him. In his head, he tried to process why you came out of your way to see him? Did he not abandon you back then? Did you not realise what a hateful creature he was? 

“(Y/n)... Why are you here?” he questioned curiously. 

You were now completely alone in the interrogation - underground cell. He watched you come closer to him with a soft smile looking with kindness into his soulless eyes... 

“Why, you ask? Because I love you. That is the only concept you failed to fully understand. Monsters have hearts as well, they just need to learn how to love” words fell softly from your rosy lips while Fyodor closed his eyes and chuckled to himself. 

“Talking to you is pure joy (y/n)! Love is the ultimate atonement of all human sins. Even a Devil needs someone to love him at the end of his immortal life...“

“... Angels did fight for Faust’s soul at the end, despite all his reckless deeds” you added referencing the work of a German poet, Goethe. 

Fyodor sighed. He reached his slender cold hand towards you and you grabbed it without hesitation. 

“Will you be... my angel, (y/n)?”

You nodded raising your bright eyes at him. A soft kiss was placed upon your forehead before he hugged you letting you bury your face in his shoulder. You were like a blooming flower in his deadly grip... but he would never hurt you. Ever. 

People say the forbidden fruit is sweet... But is it so for the forbidden love that burns like fire?

 lmao part 2 is gonna be saddddd (if I get the motivation to even write it) 

[odium-amare]

The Origin of Elves and Human Relationships in the High Fantasy Genre: The Elfin Knight and Scarborough Fair

The mental gymnastics male Tolkien fans go through to justify why there were only Female Elves x Human Men marriages in Tolkien’s work on reddit or other Tolkien platforms never fail to amuse and amaze me.

The general argument for why there were so many female elves and human men couples in The Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings and not the other way around was because Tolkien focused on old Celtic Mythology where the supernatural partner was often a woman (faery queen, female elf, female dryad, female fae, etc.) 

Second justification was because the human men in Tolkien had more of a “higher purpose” than human women (who were stuck at home doing “women’s chores” and did not need to go out on adventures to meet elves and fight battles.

Third argument was that female elves like rugged men and male elves also like beauty therefore both males of both species would go after elven women and not care for human women who eventually age and would grow “ugly.”

The second argument derived from ignorance and misogyny in male infested writing so it’s not a proper or real argument. With proper research into Celtic folklore that was written since around the 1400s-1600s and looking at the old Celtic/Scottish ballads and Nordic Mythology that influenced Tolkien’s writing, human women did play many vital roles and had A LOT of encounters (romantic or otherwise) with non-human men - Not just human men and supernatural women. If Tolkien wanted, there were a lot of stories with elven men (or fae) with human women he could have EASILY incorporated into his universe and made FANTASTIC stories out of them. 

The third argument was once again not a proper argument or reasoning. It was simply incel logic (or lack thereof) which I would not bother addressing

Frankly, the reason why there were more elven women and human men in Tolkien’s universe was because Tolkien was literally self inserting himself and his real life relationship with his wife (whom he saw as beautiful and a higher level than him) mirroring Beren/Luthien and Aragorn/Arwen’s power dynamics.  Tolkien was a guy and like most guys, fantasize the idea very hot, exotic women. Female elves were supposedly more exotic, magical and beautiful than human women. Naturally, he preferred to write average/plain men getting the hot chick than if the genders were to be reversed.  That’s it. There’s no deeper meaning to it. 

So let’s dive deep into Celtic Folklore/ballads, Nordic and German myths. 

The song “Scarborough Fair” was one of the most classic, timeless songs there was - did you know had another name and story of its own?

What’s funny is that people often used this song for a lot of LOTR and Fantasy music videos.

Its other name was called “The Elfin Knight.” 

This ballad had been collected around parts of England, Scotland, Canada and America.  Its oldest version was found in circa (1600-1650.)

An elven man threatened to carry off a young, mortal woman unless she could perform specific tasks for him:

There stands three trumpeters on yon hill Blaw, blaw, blaw winds, blaw Blaw their trumpets sae loud and shrill And the wind blaws aye my plaid awa'Gin I'd his trumpet in my kist Blaw, blaw, blaw winds, blaw And were in the lad's arms that I like best And the wind blaws aye my plaid awa'Gin ye would be wed wi' me Blaw, blaw, blaw winds, blaw There's ae thing ye maun dae for me And the wind blaws aye my plaid awa'I maun hae a fine linen sark Blaw, blaw, blaw winds, blaw Without a stitch o' needlewark And the wind blaws aye my plaid awa'Ye maun wash it in yon draw-well Blaw, blaw, blaw winds, blaw Where water never sprang nor fell And the wind blaws aye my plaid awa'Ye maun drt't on yon hawthorn Blaw, blaw, blaw winds, blaw That hasna seen blossom since man…

There were many versions of this song and in some versions, it’s the elf who designated impossible tasks for a human woman if she wanted to marry him. She in turn would also reply that he must complete impossible tasks himself if he wanted to marry her.

Scarborough Fair had been officially said that it was the same song as The Elfin Knight but with a different name. This song could be interpreted more romantically and melancholically about lost/unrequited love.

In other versions, by the end of the song, the elf said he could not marry her because he had a wife and 7 sons.

Ballads related or connected to The Elfin Knight/Scarborough Fair were the famous tales such as Tam Lin, Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight and believe it or not, Beauty and the Beast.

Beauty and the Beast (the fairytale) was literally influenced by The Elfin Knight and Tam Lin. 

On to some of Norse Mythology. 

Agnete and the Sea King is a sculpture you will see in Denmark. It’s a well known story in Scandinavian culture about a beautiful merman seducing a young, human girl pulling her down to sea to live with him as his queen. She bore him 7 sons before she ran back to the human world abandoning her merman husband and their 7 children.

Notice how in both the Elfin Knight and the Sea King folklore, 7 was always the number for children.  Who else had 7 sons? Fëanor.

7 had been the fairytale number for kids for a long time and in both folktales involved human women with non-human men. 

Even in the Tolkien universe, the FIRST elf x human relationship ever was Aegnor and Andreth (male elf and human woman.) Those two existed way before Beren/Luthien or Tuor/Idril did.

One of the most fascinating and meaningful discussions that took place in Tolkien’s verse was Finrod and Andreth debating on elves and men and their destinies (a historically significant elf and a significant human woman) that arguably was one of the contributors to Finrod helping Beren/Luthien’s missions. 

If you interpret Caranthir/Haleth romantically, that also took place way before any human man and female elf relationships did.

[ebaeschnbliah]

SHERLOCK’S  WEBSITE

‘Reading the document is the same as seeing the author’

This says a Chinese proverb (X). What does it mean then, when John tells Sherlock in A Scandal in Belgravia: ‘nobody is reading your website’?

SHERLOCK: I have a website. JOHN: In which you enumerate two hundred and forty different types of tobacco ash. Nobody’s reading your website.

Some more musings about Sherlock’s website ‘The Science of Deduction’ and its content below the cut ...

Just a little while later in the same episode - while he writes aboout the unsolved plane crash case in Düsseldorf ... ‘Sherlock Holmes baffled’ - John describes his own blog as Sherlock’s ‘living’.

JOHN: Look at that. One thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five. SHERLOCK: Sorry, what? JOHN: I re-set that counter last night. This blog has had nearly two thousand hits in the last eight hours. This is your living, Sherlock – not two hundred and forty different types of tobacco ash. SHERLOCK: Two hundred and forty-three.

‘This is your living’ is basically the same as ‘this is your life’. This is YOU. The way John describes Sherlock on his own blog, shapes how the public eye views the great detective. The same way as Dr Watson did in canon in his stories for The Strand. This fact becomes even more clear during the greenhouse scene in TAB. Although Dr Watson is aware that he doesn’t tell the truth about Holmes, he doesn’t change his stories about him either. 

HOLMES: .... as I have often explained before, all emotion is abhorrent to me. It is the grit in a sensitive instrument ... the crack in the lens. WATSON: Yes. HOLMES: Well, there you are, you see? I’ve said it all before. WATSON: No, I wrote all that. You’re quoting yourself from The Strand Magazine. HOLMES: Well, exactly. WATSON: No, those are my words, not yours! That is the version of you that I present to the public: the brain without a heart; the calculating machine. I write all of that, Holmes, and the readers lap it up, but I do not believe it.

If John’s statement ‘my blog is your living’ can be translated into ‘my blog is your life’ - my blog is YOU - what then can be said about John’s other comment, regarding Sherlock’s website ‘The Science of Deduction’, when he tells Sherlock: ‘nobody’s reading your website’? If the document, the blog, the website reflects the personality of the writer, the author and when nobody is reading Sherlock’s website because nobody is interested in its content ... doesn’t this translate into:  'nobody’s interested in who you really are’?  I assume one can indeed read it that way, because the plot confirms such a translation as well.

Oh, don’t worry. I know who you really are. I’m never off your website.  (THOB,  Dr Frankland)

If Dr Frankland knows who Sherlock really is, just by looking at his website - at Sherlock, the author -  maybe it would be a good idea to take a look as well. ... the same way Sherlock advices Kitty Riley in TRF: ‘Well, look at ME and tell me what you see ... you can just read what you need’. 

First of all, I’m not going to use the external internet website created for Sherlock BBC in this post. @possiblyimbiassed did already a detailed and very interesting analysis of it in ‘The Science of Reduction’. In the comments of that post I tried to exlpain the reasons for my doubts as to whether those external informations - as fascinating and tempting as they are - could lead to a solution for the story told on TV. Anyway, in this post I’m going to look at Sherlock’s website just as it is presented on screen. But what can be deduced about The Sciene of Deduction by using solely informations from TV? There’s not much to go on, one might say ... and as I’m no Sherlock Holmes either, I will most likely ‘miss almost everything of importance’, like John did with Carl’s shoes. But looking at Sherlock, the author, is definitely worth a try  ... :)))) 

The Science of Deduction

Sherlock’s website ‘The Science of Deduction’ can be seen already in the Unaired PILOT when he is about to answer requests from various people. The very first message he is just writing, is directed at his brother Mycroft who apparently contacted him in a somewhat ... ‘impossible situation’. Sherlock’s answer is a quote from canon, probably the most well known and often used statement of the great detective ... in canon as well as in many adaptations:

Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.  (The Sign of the Four)

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?  (The Sign of the Four)

It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.  (The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet)

We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.  (Adventure of the Bruce Partington Plans)

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (Adventure of the Blanched Soldier)

Five more requests wait for Sherlock’s attention. His Inbox is indeed well filled ... at least six possible cases ...

Sherlock answers Gregson’s request about a ‘Church bell theft’. This done, he is clearly pleased about DI Lestrade’s not very informative message ‘Please call me’. When he is about to answer Jones request about ‘Samson and Del’, Mike Stamford and John Watson enter the room and Sherlock stops working through his Inbox. 

The next day Sherlock and John meet for the first time at Baker Street 221b. John mentions that he’d found Sherlock’s website the night prior but contrary to Sherlock’s big expectations, John isn’t much impressed (unlike Jeff Hope who thinks Sherlock’s Science of Deduction is brilliant). This scene happens in both versions - PILOT and ASIP - almost identically.

JOHN: Oh, I, um, looked you up on the internet last night. SHERLOCK: Anything interesting? JOHN: Found your website, The Science of Deduction. SHERLOCK: What did you think? JOHN: Quite amusing, I suppose. SHERLOCK: “Amusing”? JOHN: You said you could identify a software designer by his tie and – what was it? – a retired plumber by his left hand. SHERLOCK: Yes; and I can read your military career by your face and your leg, and your brother’s drinking habits by your mobile phone. JOHN: How? SHERLOCK: You read the article. JOHN: The article was absurd. SHERLOCK: But I know about his drinking habits. I even know that he left his wife.

Sherlock BBC, PILOT

One of the small and also strange differences between the two versions is the ‘identification’ text line from Sherlock’s website, quoted by John. In PILOT Sherlock refers to a plumber and his left hand and in ASIP to an airline pilot and his left thumb. “It is, of course, a trifle, but there is nothing so important as trifles” tells Holmes in The Man with the Twisted Lip and “It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important” in A Case of Identity. A lot of such little, seemingly unnecessary modifications and inconsistencies can be found throughout this adaptation. Maybe they are indeed there for a reason?

JOHN: I looked you up on the internet last night. SHERLOCK: Anything interesting? JOHN: Found your website, The Science of Deduction. SHERLOCK: What did you think? JOHN: You said you could identify a software designer by his tie and an airline pilot by his left thumb. SHERLOCK: Yes; and I can read your military career in your face and your leg, and your brother’s drinking habits in your mobile phone. JOHN: How?

Sherlock BBC, ASIP

Why had the profession to be changed from plumber to airline pilot and the body part from hand to thumb, one wonders? Unless it’s because plumbers have to do with water and work down to earth or even underground. They install pipes/tubes or mend broken ones. By the way, in german language the phrase ‘install a pipe’ (ein Rohr verlegen) has the same meaning as the english ‘put up shelves’. Airline pilots on the other hand often tend to be situated high up above the clouds. Well, this sort of topic runs like a red thread throuout the whole story. And that strange change of profession isn’t the only ‘small’ modification from PILOT to ASIP either. 

(Strange little changes   Plumber musings)

Also interesting ... there are no visuals of Sherlock’s website in the official episodes ASIP and TBB. Only in the following episode, TGG, the viewer is able to take a first ‘official’ look at The Science of Deductions, when Sherlock writes his messages to the bomber. The look of his website has changed completely.

The Great Game: the first entry in the Forum is about Carl Powers shoes and botulinum toxin ... that’s the reason for food poisoning.  (Under the microscope)

Next time the website can be seen, is after Sherlock solved the second case and sends his congratulations regarding Ian Monford’s relocation to Columbia ...

And a third time when Sherlock has solved the murder of Conny Prince ...

There is no picture of Sherlock’s website connected to the fake Vermeer painting because this time Sherlock sends the solution not on his laptop but uses the pink phone dublicate instead (Yes, besides 2 Johns, 2 Faiths, 2 Charles, 2 serial killers, 2 empty houses, 2 flights of the dead, various pairs, doubles, twins ... etc, etc ... there are also 2 pink phones present in Sherlock BBC). Anyway, the Science of Deduction can be seen again when Sherlock suggests a meeting with the bomber at the same pool, where once little Carl died, to hand over the stolen missile defence plans ...

There’s no picture of Sherlock’s website in ASIB. The Science of Deduction turns up only in the two short but very interesting pieces of dialogue between John and Sherlock with which I started this post.

John utters the opinion that their clients come to Baker Street just because of his blog. Sherlock reminds him that he too has a website. John then mockingly mentions Sherlock’s analysis of 240 different types of tobacco ash on said website and adds ‘nobody is reading your website’. Sherlock is clearly offended and corrects the number of tobacco ashes from 240 to 243. Some time later John raises the tobacco-ash topic once more, proudly refers to his own blog - and the 1895 hits on it - and tells Sherlock ‘this is your living’.

The next visual presentation of the website can be seen in THOB, when Sherlock shows John the Inbox message of little Kirsty about her vanished, luminous rabbit Bluebell ...

In the same episode Sherlock tells Mrs Hudson that a ‘little blog on the identification of perfumes’ can be found on his website. It turns out that Sherlock hasn’t only extensive knowledge regarding ash, he also knows a lot about perfumes.  (Perfumes in Sherlock BBC by @gosherlocked ) 

The HOUND-episode is also the one in which Dr Frankland tells Sherlock: ’I know who you really are. I’m never off your website’. The Baskerville scientist knows John’s blog as well and is a bit confused that Sherlock isn’t wearing the deerstalker hat, as shown there.

The Science of Deductions turns up next in TRF, in an newspaper article about the recovery of Turner’s masterpiece, the ‘Falls of the Reichenbach’, that Sherlock was able to recover (last line on the left column).

Sherlock’s website is mentioned a last time in TSOT. Not on Sherlock’s laptop but on John’s phone. Mary suggests that John should go on a case with Sherlock. John opens The Science of Deduction on his own phone and asks Sherlock to pick a case from his already ‘bursting Inbox’. Sherlock chooses The Bloody Guardsman. Sadly it’s impossible to get a clear shot of the small mobile-screen. (John’s blog stops at TSOT by @gosherlocked)

THE LOOK

Blue is the main colour Sherlock has chosen for his website ... shades of different blue ... a dark midnight blue and the skyline of a city by night can be dimly seen in the background and - a little bit clearer - on both sides. 

As Sherlock Holmes is one of London’s most popular characters, it’s easy to assume that the skyline used for his website is that of GBs capital. With this in mind, the water in the bottom right corner, that can be seen rather good on the first pic above, should be the Thames and the shallow arch above it, most likely one of its many bridges. On the opposite site, in the upper left corner, next to the small, pale tower and right behind the ‘The’ of the website’s headline, the vast vault of Saint Paul’s Cathedral can be dimly seen (the view is better on a TV screen). 

If one connects the images of river and bridge on the left with St Paul’s on the right, I guess the background of Sherlock’s website could be a panorama photo similar to the one below. That’s a view from the Southbank of the Thames with Blackfriars Bridge in the foreground. And this location does play a role in the story ....

Blackfriars Bridge is located between Southwark Bridge and Waterloo Bridge. The name derives from Black Freres ... the French 'frère' meaning 'brother'. This referes to the black habits of the Dominican monks. A monk is also called a brother, a nun is also called a sister and the opposite of a ‘black brother’ would be a (ghostly) ‘white sister’. Just saying. :) 

(The Roads we walk   Vatican Cameos   A Christmas Tale)

As mentioned above, this particular cityscape plays a role in Sherlock BBC. It’s a crime scene from TGG. 

SHERLOCK: View of the Thames. South Bank – somewhere between Southwark Bridge and Waterloo.

At this place, Alex Woodbridge was found, the security guard and hobby stargazer, killed by the Golem, in the Vermeer case ... the same case which doesn’t turn up in the messages on Sherlock’s website because he uses the pink phone and conveys the solution verbally. Viewed metaphorically ... he speaks through the heart.

Blue is the colour of the sky ... high up, where the aeroplanes fly. Blue is also the colour of the water, deep down below ... where powerful emotions run freely and London is Sherlock’s city. The country, the city, the houses, even cars are closely linked to the famous detective. They seem to represent his ‘body’. 

Just put me back in London. I need to get to know the place again, breathe it in – feel every quiver of its beating heart.  (Sherlock, TEH)

Brother Mycroft IS government and ‘queen’ at the same time. There are all kinds of networks above and below ground and steam trains run behind fake facades. Saint Paul’s Cathedral and the river Thames are often special eye-catcher. The coat of arms ... with dragon, lion and Saint George’s cross ... make their appearance as well as the great fire of London in 1666, the Isle of Dogs and the Greenwich pips. ‘Transport’ goes from standstill to movement ....

666-The number of the beast   Every quiver of his beating heart   Saint Paul’s Cathedral   Still at the centre of the web   From standstill to movement 

WEBSITE ... A SITE FOR THE WEB

Sherlock has a website .... John has a blog. Why the difference? Both men, Sherlock and John, are given strongly internet-related nicknames ... Hat-man and Robin:The web detectives ... Sherlock & John: Blogger Detectives. Sherlock is also called ‘Net Tec’ and ‘net phenomenon’. What’s the difference between Blog and Website:

BLOG:  The word ‘blog’ is short for ‘weblog’ (web=net + log=logbook), jokingly broken into the phrase ‘we blog’. A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries. Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. 'Blog' and 'blogging' are now loosely used for content creation and sharing on social media, especially when the content is long-form and one creates and shares content on regular basis. (X)

WEBSITE:   The word website consists of web=net + site=place. Literally web-site means ‘a place in the net’. A website can be used in various fashions: a personal website, a corporate website for a company, a government website, an organization website, etc. Websites can be the work of an individual, a business or other organization, and are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web. (X)

Of course, the word ‘web’ immediately reminds me of Jim Moriarty. The spider at the centre of a criminal web, woven with thousands of threads and Jim knows precisely how each and every single one of them dances. Sherlock is going to monitor the underworld in order to notice every quiver of that web, so he will notice when the spider makes his move. 

As mentioned above, all kinds of networks - above and below ground - play a major role in Sherlock BBC. There are Mycroft’s people, his agents and spies. There are terrorists who threaten London with a massive attack. General Shan has a vast network with thousands of operatives and Sherlock calls it ‘a cult’. A surveillance web is closing in on Baker Street, their attention focussed on Sherlock. An Underground network as well as an underground network runs below the surface of the big city. A secret cult of revenging birdes meets in the crypt of a desanctified church. Sherlock is convinced that the ‘world is woven from billions of lives, every strand crossing every other. What we call premonition is just movement of the web. If you could attenuate to every strand of quivering data, the future would be entirely calculable, as inevitable as mathematics’. So many threads - linked and interwoven - they create a web, a net .... a web-net. Basically, that’s exactly how brains work as well. Every brain is a very vast and highly functional biological network ... and Sherlock’s is faster than most ‘... still catching up with my brain. It’s terribly fast’.

Recent models in modern neuroscience treat the brain as a biological computer, very different in mechanism from an electronic computer, but similar in the sense that it acquires information from the surrounding world, stores it, and processes it in a variety of ways. Neurons typically communicate with one another by means of long fibers, which carry trains of signal pulses to distant parts of the brain or body. (X)

And then there's also Sherlock’s ‘own’ network ... the ‘homeless network’ it is called. According to Sherlock, it is ‘indispensible and faster than the police’. Those group of people is based on the Baker Street Irregulars from canon. There, in Victorian London, they are street boys, sometimes employed by Holmes to run errands for him. Holmes speaks of them as ‘division of the detecitve police force’. Dr Watson describes them as ‘little scoundrels’ and ‘half a dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped eyes on’. 

While the idea of homeless people who sometimes assist Sherlock in his cases is taken from canon, the name - homeless network - is not. Names are always important in this story. So basically, what is a homless network? It is a network that has no home. At times it is usefull for Sherlock and he pays them for their help. In a way this reminds me of Eurus. She says abut herself: 'to remember everything one just needs a big enough hard drive’. Her intellectual abilities are also of occasional use for the government. In return she requires treats. Similar to Sherlock’s homeless network, Eurus has no home either. She lost it long ago in her childhood days. Sherlock has a website ... a site, a place in the web ... but only very few people are interested in it. Actually just Jeff Hope and Dr Frankland as it seems. Sherlock has a homless network ... a network without a home. 

The women of the ‘cult’ from TAB first gave me the idea that all those dangerous groups ... agents, spies, terrorists and the various networks ... could actually be metaphors for something that happens inside Sherlock’s mind. That all those groups represent the awakening of emotional stirrings ... desires, fears, impulses ... that haunt the great detective. There seem to be aspects of Sherlock’s personality which he views as rightous criminal and puts them behind padded walls or elephant glass. Others are just annoying and distracting. Some he ignores most of the time because he considers them to be irrelevant for his system. Some have no home, although they turn out to be usefull now and then. Then something unexpected happens ... something new is coming ... and this marks the beginning of a change of perception in Sherlock Holmes, maybe a revolution.

The reptile in 221b   Underground networks    AGRA-Under the sign of four   Eurus, the emotional memory & The cold war by @raggedyblue

FOUR MESSAGES and a GAP 

Four messages can be read on Sherlock’s website. All of them are from TGG, related to four of the five cases, written by Sherlock and directed at ‘the bomber’. As it turns out at the end of the episode, this person is none other than Jim Moriarty, the spider in the centre of the web. 

FOUND. Pair of trainers belonging to Carl Powers (1978-1989). Botulinum toxin still present. Apply 221b Baker St.

Congratulations to Ian Monkford on his relocation to Columbia.

Raoul de Santos, the house-boy, botox.

xxx

Found. The Bruce-Partington plans. Please collect. The Pool. Midnight.

Only one of the cold cases is not mentioned on Sherlock’s website, because Sherlock uses the pink phone duplicate, sent to him by the bomber in a strong box at the beginning of the ‘great game’, to submit his message. Sometimes it is useful to ‘mind the gap’ as Sherlock says. Sometimes that, what is left out, is just as important as that, what is there. The ‘gap-case’ is the one about the fake Vermeer painting, whose forgery was first noticed by security guard and hobby stargazer Alex Woodbridge, murdered because of it by the Golem. His body was found at the Southbank of the Thames near Blackfriars Bridge ... the same location Sherlock uses as background for his website. Sherlock discovers and proves the truth due to the display of an impossible supernova on the painting. 

A picture pretends to show a scene from the past, but the massive explosion painted on it reveals, that the picture has actually been created much more recently. That massive explosion had never happened in the past.

The bomber’s hostage in the Vermeer case is a kid who is never shown on screen. The little boy transmittes a countdown from 10 to 1, that mirrors Sherlock’s own countdown in TFP (Countdown) while the boy’s plea for help mirrors that of the girl on the plane and also that of Victor Trevor, the boy in the well near Musgrave Hall. Victor Trevor and Musgrave Hall represent two canon stories -  The Adventure of the Gloria Scott and The Musgrave Ritual - both set in Sherlock Holmes’ university time, long before he met Dr Watson. Both cases lead back to a time ‘where Sherlock began’.

(Why Victor Trevor was turned into a child by @sagestreet)

THE HOUND & THE GUARDSMEN

Little Kirsty Stapleton’s cry for help in THOB to ‘please, please, please’ find Bluebell, her vanished, luminous rabbit, marks the beginning of the HOUND case. Chemistry, triggered by the pressure of feet, fills the air and drives everyone exposed to it, crazy. Love is in the air .... At the end Jim Moriarty (Mr Sex) walks free, released from his cell by Mycroft Holmes himself ... 

Private Stephen Bainbridge’s request in TSOT, regarding a mysterious stalker, marks the beginning of the GUARDSMEN case. Jonathan Small (literally: Jonny Little), a brilliant, ruthless monomaniac (who strongly reminds me of Jim Moriarty), stabbs guardians/facades with a ‘meat dagger’. At the end Mary Watson is pregnant ... ‘stabbed’ by ‘Johnny boy’ (Hamish=James) Watson ... the HOUND hidden behind the facade of the facade .... Matroshka ‘poppets’ indeed.

“Mary – lots of love ... poppet ... oodles of love and heaps of good wishes from CAM.”  (Telegram from Magnussen, keeper of the deepest and darkest secrets and scandals,TSOT)

THE BLUEBELL COMPANIONS

Alongside little Kirsty’s message about Bluebell there appear two more requests on the Inbox page of Sherlock’s website (they can be easily read on TV screen). In films neiter images and certainly not texts appear on screen out of coincidence. Pictures are there for certain reasons, even if it’s just for the purpose of a fitting decoration. Texts on the other hand are much more specific. Someone must have had the idea to put it there and someone had to create the image. Especially the makers of Sherlock BBC have repeatedly mentioned that everything that appears on screen has its meaning. With this in mind, what can be deduced about those two earlier requests in Sherlock’s Inbox?

1- Please help victims of China earthquake. It costs just 5p. 

China - right from the beginning a certain ‘easterly’ theme appears and runs from there throughout the whole story like a red ribbon until the moment the Eastwind finally approaches in the shape of Eurus. In a metaphorical reading I connect the East to emotions and memory. 

An earthquake is a sudden outburst of held back and bottled-up energie. When the pressure gets too high it results in a violent release of that energy. Explosions .... rocks crack, the earth shakes. Earthquakes can trigger landslides, volcanic activity or cause a tsunami. Major changes are also often referred to as ‘earthquakes’.

Costs of 5p ... A penny (p) is a coin and a unit of the britisch pound (£), the official currency in the UK (a currency Sherlock doesn’t know how to spend?). 5p is money. The saying goes that time is money. A minute is a unit of time. Viewing it in reversed order ... money is time = 5 penny are 5 minutes. ‘It took her (Eurus) just five minutes to do all of this to us.’

Reading it that way, a possible translation of the first request in Sherlock’s Inbox could be:  “Please help victims of emotional upheaval. It takes just 5 minutes.”  :)

2- Re. Mudchute Query

Mudchute is a railway station situated in the Millwall area on the Isle of Dogs. The name Millwall has its source in the large number of windmills built on the river wall in the 19th century. They were needed to ground corn and wheat into flour that was brought along the Thames. The original station was located on an old Victorian railway line that had been disused for many years. An elevated station opened 1987. When the line was extended under the Thames, the station was rebuilt close to the tunnel entrance. It opened 1999 and was finally completed 2009. The station was originally intended to be named Millwall Park but then renamed in Mudchute, refering to the engineering overspill when Millwall Dock was being created in the 1840s. (X)

Basically ... the second request in Sherlock’s Inbox is about a query regarding a railway station, built in the Victorian area at a place linked to mills (♪ Remember the maid ... the maid of the mill ...♪, TAB), disused for years, rebuilt and elevated, named, renamed ... until it was completed in 2009, the same year the Unaired Pilot was created. Well .... that sounds a bit ... familiar?

PERFUME AND TOBACCO ASHES

Appart from Sherlock’s cold case messages addressed to Jim Moriarty and two requests from - Kirsty Stapleton and Stephen Bainbridge - there are only two other entries on The Science of Deduction ... Sherlock’s own analysis about perfumes and tobacco ashes. Basically that’s about ... scent/smell and fire residues.

SCENT:  From Kasbah Nights to Claire de la Lune, perfumes play a significant role in this story and Sherlock is a true expert in smellig and recognizing the different brands. The first thing that comes to mind, related to the word ‘scent’ is a dog - more precisely a scent dog. One of the most prominent representatives of that breed is the Bloodhound. And it is well known that Sherlock Holmes is indeed compared to a blood hound in ACDs The Sign of Four. That same quote has been adopted in TEH (Sherlock the Bloodhound), it appears on John’s Blog and is read by Mary. But in Sherlock BBC the bloodhound isn’t only linked to Sherlock himself. The HOUND is also connected to John Watson, Jim Moriarty, Victor Trevor, Eurus and Redbeard the Irish Setter, also a scent dog.  

(The dogs in Sherlock’s mind palace  The bloodhound in his hands   Transformation of Redbeard  and the ‘Follow the dog’ series by @sagestreet​)

FIRE RESIDUES:  Sherlock has an extensive knowledge regarding tobacco ashes. This characteristic has also been taken from canon.

I have made a special study of cigar ashes—in fact, I have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar or of tobacco.  (ACD, A Study in Scarlet)

In TSOT drunken Sherlock proclaims loudly ‘Ash! I know ash!’  Almost the same words (‘I know human ash’) uses the guy from ASIB, whose aunt had been among the plane crash victims in Düsseldorf (’Sherlock Holmes baffled’). In the same episode Sherlock steals an ashtray from Buckingham Palace. In TEH Sherlock’s return from hiatus is underlined with at least half a dozen scetches of phoenixes, rising from the ashes, at the walls of the Landmark Restaurant. Another bird that has great resemblance with a phoenix can be found on Brenda’s gravestone at Musgrave Hall  (Among the funny gravestones).

Ash is the residue of a fire damage. Fire and burning is one of the main themes in Sherlock BBC. From Jim’s threat to burn Sherlock’s heart out to the gingerbread man burned to a crisp, from John’s Guy Fawkes bonfire to Sherlock’s admission ‘I’m burning up’, from the Baker Street living room in flames to the great fire at Musgrave Hall ... not to mention all the exploding or not quite expoding bombs throughout the show ... fire anf burning is never far away in this story.  

(Love is a burning thing   A case ablaze   Set this house on fire by @gosherlocked)

TOBACCO ASHES ... CHEMISTRY BURNED

Tobacco s the common name for plants belonging to the Nicotiana family. It contains the highly addictive stimulant nicotine. The dried leaves of the plant are mainly used for smoking in cigars, cigarettes, pipes, etc ... Nicotine is a widely used legal drug. The burning of tobacco results in smoke and the residue left behind is ash. Sherlock knows ash. Interestingly and unlike to canon, in this modern adaptation Sherlock doesn’t simply know ‘any known brand of cigar or tobacco ash’, he has analysed exactly 243 different types of those ashes and he explicitly corrects the number 240, cited by John. Is this seemingly unimportant correction just there to emphasise Sherlock’s annoyance over John’s mockery or is maybe another meaning hidden behind that corrected number?

243 ... ‘This is your living, Sherlock – not two hundred and forty different types of tobacco ash’ - ‘243!′

243 different types of tobacco ash are not Sherlock’s living. 243 different, tobacco products - burnt to ashes - are not Sherlock’s life.

As mentioned above, tobacco contains nicotine and nicotine is a drug. Viewing Sherlock BBC on a metaphorical level ... all drugs are chemistry and chemistry is love. The chemistry of love, burnt to ashes ... 243 times over. Hmmmm ....  Then an idea hit me and I asked Google a question:

This answer is from January 2020. The first official series of Sherlock BBC aired 2010 and the Unaired Pilot has been produced in 2009. I seem to recall that the first and the second series have been accepted by the BBC at the same time and since 2009 several more Sherlock Holmes adaptations have seen the light of day (Guy Ritchie Holmes, Elementary, New Russian Holmes, Miss Sherlock, Mr Holmes, Sherlock Gnomes, Holmes&Watson, Enola Holmes ... to name just a few). 

Could it be that the number of different tobacco ashes, analysed by Sherlock, mirrors the number of different adaptations about the famous detective? Sherlock Holmes ... reborn again and again with each adaptation, like a phoenix from the ashes, and yet he was never able to live a full life ... including emotions, love and sex?

‘All lives end. All hearts are broken’, that’s what Mycroft tells Sherlock in ASIB. Chemistry burned to ashes in an endless row. ‘So many days not lived, so many words unsaid’ ... says Eurus in TFP and referes to the coffin whose lid is adorned with a brass plate, I LOVE YOU, written on it  (A coffin for love). You are absolutely right  @loveismyrevolution with your idea of Sherlock standing between two ‘angels’ in that scene, although I would rather call them ‘choices’. Because this scene has great resemblance with the three solutions/choices Sherlock has to choose from after the event on Barth’s roof  (Solutions or choices). 

At that time Sherlock is confronted with two elemental forces ... love and sex. The one is represented by Molly (mirror for John) and the other one by Jim Moriarty, Mr Sex. Sherlock chooses neither one of the two. He backs away and walks a third path. He decides to live a celibate life - married to work - solely dedicated to reason and intellect, represented by Mycroft. That’s why he needs to create a strong facade to hide his true feelings for John. But then, unexpected and without noticing it at first (delayed action stabbing), even this facade gets ‘penetrated’ by John. Love (Rosie) is conceived and this changes everything. (Changing of the guard)

After the first shock (shot), Sherlock starts to go deeper into himself than ever before. He repeats the investigations about himself (the pink case) from a different perspective. Everything that happens in S4 reflects, in one way or another, occurances from S1-S3 ... arranged differently and some new actors are added. For example: the morgue-scene in TLD is a mirror of Sherlock’s fall in TRF ... it’s another Reichenbach. Eurus’ five tasks of Sherrinford seem to be a sort of ‘final distillate’ of Sherlock’s repeated analysis. In the coffin-scene Sherlock is once more confronted with a choice. This time though SEX is excluded. Sherlock has to choose between LOVE or BRAIN. And just as he did after the ‘first’ Reichenbach, Sherlock tries again to back away. At that stage though Eurus doesn’t let him. Sherlock’s emotions force him to go back to the very beginning, to find the truth. What that truth is and what consequences will come from it .... is still untold in this story, as I read it. There’s a final distillation but not a final solution at the end of S4.

“This is your living, Sherlock ... not 243 different types of tobacco ash” 

... says John, refering to his own Blog. But is this really the truth? The counter on John’s Blog stops at 1895 in ASIB and the text entry, read by Mary in TEH, is a quote from canon. Already in the first series, in TBB, Sherlock asks John - his blogger/biographer - to pass him the pen and near the end of S4, in TLD, John’s Blog has ‘gone a bit downhill’ and people actually think it's Sherlock’s Blog. This leaves the question: is Sherlock taking over the narrative of his own story now? What kind of story will it be? How will it end? Will Sherlock have to make a third choice in the future? A choice between Dr Watson, the ‘fixed point in a changing age’ and John Watson, who could be so much more than just an ‘eternal’ friend? After all, there are two Faiths in the story, two serial killers and Hamish (Jim, Mr Sex) hides right in the middle of John (H) Watson ... at the very centre of the web, one might say. 

Two times John    Pairs-Twins-DoubleOHs   Double OH seven Bond Air is go   The big question   and an excellent explanation of the idea about ‘Two-John’s’ in the comments on this post by @lukessense

Will Sherlock BBC turn out to be one more adaptation that ends as a ‘missed oportunity’ ... one more chemistry burned to ashes .... another sample of tobacco ash for Sherlock to analyse and add to his list? Or will it be different this time? Something new ... something big? Will it be the story about the emotional and sexual awakening of the literary character Sherlock Holmes? 

Only the future will tell ....

Thanks for reading and thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts.

February, 2021

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

Outlanders: How Jinjer survived a revolution and built their own world

Jinjer’s resilient spirit was forged in the civil war that erupted their native Ukraine in 2014. As the groove metal quartet prepare to unleash their fourth and most complex album to date, singer Tatiana Shmayluk relives the turmoil that shaped them. Cue: one of modern music’s most remarkable tales of survival, resistance and sheer determination…

It was when the first fighter jet flew overhead that Tatiana Shmayluk realised she had to run.

For the past few months, the mood in Ukraine had been growing increasingly tense. As a former USSR state, in spring 2014 the country had only had independence from Russia since 1991. Many citizens had wanted then-President Viktor Yanukovych to sign an agreement aligning the country closer with the European Union in November 2013. Plenty of others wanted to stay close to Russia. Protests began across the country. Then violence. Then Yanukovych was ousted from office in February 2014. Then more violence.

“There was a revolution,” says Tatiana. ​“There were huge riots in the main square of Kiev. In the end, our president, his ass was kicked out and he left the country. That was crazy. And then everything turned into chaos. And that’s when people really started hating each other.”

That April, following a highly suspect vote on whether to stay or go which resulted in a widely disputed declaration of autonomy for the region around Tatiana’s home-city of Donetsk in the east of the country, on the border with Russia, armed conflict commenced, involving Russian troops, tanks and air power. So began what Tatiana calls ​“a civil war – Ukrainians attacking Ukrainians”, with those loyal to their former Soviet masters on one side, and those wanting to break free, and have independence and closer ties with the EU on the other.

You may remember news footage of protesters banging dustbin lids at lines of soldiers and riot police. The politics of the situation are obviously layered and complex, but the simple version is: imagine a turbo version of Brexit that actually tore the country in two and resulted in one region declaring an independence that’s somewhat disputed by most of the world that isn’t Russia. And with a lot more violence. And a conflict that’s still piling up bodies now.

Tatiana was having a barbecue when she realised what was about to happen. ​“We were at a picnic, not far away from my building where I lived,” she says today from her flat in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. ​“We were just chilling on the grass, eating food and stuff. And we heard this loud sound in the sky – we looked up and saw a jet. And that was that. We just grabbed our stuff and ran home, and we started figuring out how to leave before it was too late.”

Had Tatiana and her friends – including other members of her band, Jinjer – waited much longer than they did, their passage to Lviv some 1,300 kilometres to the west, where bassist Eugene Abdukhanov and his wife were already living, might have been much more hazardous. Even as they ​“packed all our shit into a van” and made a break for it, the country was starting to change shape around them.

“Already there were borders built being built around our region,” she says. ​“And I remember when we were crossing it, we were met by a guy, a soldier with a weapon. And then we heard [machine gun fire] somewhere very close to us.”

As she describes this, Tatiana makes an almost amusing machine gun noise, but she is painfully aware that even seven years on, the situation remains a serious one. ​“There’s no way out for this problem,” she says, ​“No solution. And that’s really, really sad.” If one needed an example of the lasting effects here, her parents have remained behind in what she calls, with almost mundane succinctness, ​“the war zone”.

“There’s an actual border between Ukraine and the former parts of the country, and it’s all blocked. And due to the pandemic, they have no chance to cross borders,” she explains. ​“They cannot receive money from the government, their pensions. I always tell my mom, ​‘Hey, mom, just try once to do this, make really big effort and cross this border, even [if you have to go] through Russia. Just come here and stay here. I can help you in any way possible.’ But she is old school. And when you have been living on this earth for over 60 years, it’s really hard to change your way of living.”

But that’s what Tatiana and Jinjer have had to do. And growing from such trying circumstances has only made them more rigid in their resolve. Because literally having to run for your life will have an effect on a person. ​“Growing balls, maintaining your balls,” is how she puts it.

“Of course, it makes you stronger,” she says. ​“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Today, Tatiana has lived in Kiev for more than five years. As Jinjer’s singer, she is one of the rising stars of European metal, and made her living visiting countries as far-flung as Argentina, Australia and Japan to play her band’s music. Next week, the band release their fourth album, Wallflowers, a furious, razor-sharp work of metal that will delight fans of Cradle Of Filth and Conjurer alike, and will add nicely to streams that, in total, already sit at over 100 million.

Though she says that she’s only been recognised around town a handful of times, and that she probably gets noticed more for the tattoos that cover her arms and neck (“Old women who were born in the Soviet Union really reject people with tattoos,” she says. ​“They look at you like you’re a prisoner, or a prostitute…”) than for her music, at 34 life for Tatiana is very different to what she knew growing up. As a kid in the early ​’90s, after the collapse of the USSR, her family were, she says, ​“average”, but there were clues that the Shmayluk family were not one of society’s ​‘haves’.

“I remember that we couldn’t afford meat,” she recalls. ​“After the Cold War ended we got a lot of American food, like veggie burgers. It looked like oatmeal with brown [fake] chicken that you make into patties, and then you fry them. You eat them as kind of meat, but it’s not. It’s just some shit, like some very plastic stuff. I realised how poor we were. And I was crying, ​‘Mom, I just want some meat. I don’t want to eat this.’”

Elsewhere, though, Tatiana remembers her childhood as being ​“great”, a time she looks back on with fondness. ​“We didn’t have internet and stuff, so we just played outside all day long. And school was awesome.” The food imports post-Cold War might not have been the most brilliant thing she had ever seen, but the new order also brought with it more western culture. MTV introduced six-year-old Tatiana to hip-hop (“I’d practice dancing like MC Hammer”), but via going through her brother’s room and raiding his tape collection – often bootlegs – she also got turned on to Nirvana, Metallica and The Offspring.

“We had this family tradition that every evening we had supper together around the same table,” she remembers. ​“When I discovered The Offspring, I put Smash on my huge headphones. I was sitting in a chair, eating, and I wasn’t talking to anyone from my family, just listening to music. And then when I finished, I just sat back and just enjoyed the music, doing nothing.”

Her ability to both lose and find herself in music turned into doing something more significant at high school when, after years spent doodling herself playing guitar in a band with other girls in a sketchbook, Tatiana performed her first gig as part of a talent contest, doing covers of songs by Limp Bizkit and German metallers Guano Apes (“No-one voted for us,” she laughs). Her first gig as an audience member, meanwhile, came a few years later, when Soulfly played in Kiev. Despite the fact she didn’t actually get to see Max Cavalera and his band onstage, it was an experience in itself.

“I traveled from Donetsk to Kiev, like, 700 – 800 kilometres,” she says. ​“My parents were very protective, they didn’t want me going anywhere on road trips or anything, and they didn’t give me any money to spend. I only got to watch maybe 30 minutes of the show, because my boyfriend got drunk and started a fight with someone. Security grabbed him and threw him out of the club. It was quite a shitty day!”

In 2010, aged 23, having completed language studies at university, and working briefly at a dating agency, Tatiana joined Jinjer. Two years later, they self-released their debut EP, Inhale, Don’t Breathe. A year after that, they played outside Ukraine for the first time, in neighbouring Romania. ​“That gave us a push to move forward, because we really liked it,” she says. ​“And although we didn’t bring any money back – we didn’t earn anything – we realised that we want to do this, and we’re going to overcome any obstacle that is waiting for us.”

Eight months later, this would be put to the test by fleeing the war. Having moved to Lviv, Jinjer – Tatiana, Eugene, guitarist Roman Ibramkhalilov and then-drummer Yevhen Mantulin – then all moved into what the singer describes as ​“a summer house” just outside the city. Soon, the band became a full-time concern. They still had nothing, but it was a more fun nothing.

“We were all just hoping for the best, touring just with money that we had, earning nothing, like one euro,” she says. ​“Sometimes we didn’t have anything to eat, basically, because we were broke, because everyone had just quit their jobs. We just had some coins to buy a beer. That was intense. But I remember those years only with a warm heart. That was fun. That was a really huge challenge for just people who had never done that before, but we happened to overcome all this shit because we stayed together.”

But as touring became a more regular thing and things for Jinjer seemed to be on the up and up, the band once again found themselves faced with bad luck that most will, mercifully, never know. On tour in 2014, they had a long drive to Russia for the next run of shows. Stopping at a friend’s house in Kiev for the night, Tatiana took a taxi back to her own place, leaving everyone else to continue partying and drinking. At 4am, she got a phone call about Yevhen.

“They said, ​‘You have to come here because he’s broken his spine,’” she recalls. ​“He fell out of the window. Everyone [had gone] to sleep, and he stayed there in the kitchen, sitting on the window frame, smoking. And then he fell asleep, and fell from the third floor. They heard someone screaming in the middle of the night, but they didn’t realise – they thought that it was maybe a dog or something. And then someone checked the kitchen and he was not there. Then they looked down and saw him just lying there.”

By some miracle, he survived, though he no longer has use of his legs. Tatiana says she and his bandmates were ​“in shock for many years”, and that, ​“I remember we were all around him, toured with him, just hanging out, and then he’s just like… bam.” But even this incident, which left him in a wheelchair and unable to return to the band, is talked about in the same spirited, fighty way that Tatiana talks about every challenge.

“He seems very positive,” she says. ​“He’s doing music and he tours around Russia with a band. It’s kind of a hip-hop band, and he plays guitar. He’s still doing tours, so that’s awesome.”

Should you ask Tatiana to describe to you the Ukrainian national character, she’ll tell you that they are “stubborn”, and that as a whole they feel “we have nothing to lose”. She’ll also tell you that, “Ukrainians are very passionate people. Not like Italians [are passionate], for example, or Spanish people. We are passionate with a straight face, you know, not smiling – more like Russians.” When it comes to danger, meanwhile, she says that “we take risks easily”.

Surprisingly, despite the above description matching the impression you get of Tatiana from her story, she doesn’t think of herself as ​“a typical Ukrainian”. She does, though, nod in confirmation when asked if she sees playing music as a form of resistance. Before any of the bigger events and challenges, this spirited defiance started with becoming a musician at all, at home.

“The first time I resisted something that really prevented me from doing what I love was my parents,” she says. ​“Mostly my mom, who didn’t want to see me as a musician. In Ukraine, it’s kind of a big thing. If you’re a musician, it’s not respected. From 17 to 23, I was protesting [her], silently. I didn’t, like, yell at her; I didn’t fight with her. I just said, ​‘Yeah, yeah,’ and I did my own thing. That’s when it started, and it’s still going this way.”

An example: on Wallflowers, there’s a song, Disclosure, in which Tatiana vents about treatment at the hands of certain media outlets in her homeland. Even being used to internet haters, giving the band shit for everything from daring to escape a warzone, to daring to have a female member, to daring to become successful, the experience left her boiling.

“Earlier this year, in March, me and Eugene went to some studio to do an interview with a Ukrainian guy who is a YouTuber, and he used to work on Ukrainian TV channels,” she says. ​“So there was a tense atmosphere, and very angry vibrations between us. And he was so manipulative. We had differences in our political views and stuff, and he didn’t want to accept that. So he really wanted to show us in a very bad, bad way. I was pissed off for three days after that, and wrote the song about it.”

As people with a profile, do you think you’re a target for that sort of thing?

“We absolutely are targets for those people, for haters,” Tatiana says. ​“They hate us for different reasons: for me being a woman, you know. And people think that we pay for [success], like with our money – some of them think that we are hugely rich. My mom is a bookkeeper! My dad worked in coal mining, he was a worker, just working class. But no-one cares. They always find something to blame us for. But at least they don’t do us any harm. Only with words and comments. It’s distant. They’re poison, but it goes nowhere.”

Tatiana Shmayluk is a self-evidently tough woman. She’s also extremely nice. Equally, she’s extremely modest. When she talks about her life’s trials and triumphs, survival and successes, she does so in a manner that almost shrugs these things off, that possibly anyone could do them. Possibly, if pushed by the sight of a war literally kicking off while you have a barbecue, we could. But it’s still surprising that, for someone with more real things to get angry about than most, she describes what she’s putting into Wallflower as simply ​“my whining and insecurities”.

“Every album, I find something to be angry about,” she says. ​“It’s pessimistic, but it’s nothing to do with the pandemic. The pandemic gave me some time to just sit and think about, different stuff that I’ve been going through. And we have to agree that the whole world isn’t getting any better – I put myself into this kind of state of mind that, ​‘Okay, it’s almost the end of the world.’ Maybe the next album will be more optimistic and more positive. Maybe…”

Pessimism or not, none of it makes her story of prevailing against the things she has any less stirring. Never mind the fact that the band she fronts come from a country most tours don’t even stop at. She’s – rightfully – proud of Jinjer’s success, and the work ethic it’s taken to get them where they are, but she’s almost at pains to share the glory with her bandmates. And in part, it’s this that’s carried Jinjer through all this the most. It’s this, she says, that’s helped her both survive, and to thrive.

“I would never do this myself. I wouldn’t be able to work on so many obstacles just by myself,” Tatiana admits. ​“And if I had some type of my own personal career, just a single singer, I wouldn’t even start doing that. I really need those guys. And the guys, I hope they need me. That’s just how it works: all together. Even having nothing in our pockets and empty stomachs, we could work.

“It just depends on how big your dream is.”

[breitzbachbea]

Day 1: Language [GreSic]

Here is my first entry for @aphrarepairweek2021! No intimacy like finding traces of a shared past on your tongue.

Ship: Greece/Sicily [OC] (Herakles Karpuzi/Michele Vento) Set in an Human/Organized Crime AU Read it here on ao3

All Sicilian & Greek words are translated at the bottom - I marked the words in red, so that you can easily find where you left off if you jump to the translations!

Much thanks to @amber-isnt-a-precious-stone for betareading this Oneshot & to @crispyliza for helping me with the Greek transcription. Love you guys <3

Since I don't describe Michele in the oneshot itself, here's also a Teenage GreSic kiss, drawn by my friend @/C0FFINATED from twitter! (They're 16 & 15 here; in the Oneshot, they're somewhere between 18 and 20)

In Una Lingua Familiare

They sat in Herakles’ old and battered kitchen. It must have been the height of Greek Luxury back in the 50s, when it had been renovated. Now it felt cosy, with all its chipped tiles and worn handles.

Something flew past the window and they both turned their heads.

It flew past the window again.

“Taddarita,” Michele told Herakles with a content smile.

Herakles smiled back. “Nychterida.”

“Oh, I think that’s the same word,” Michele said and lifted the small coffee cup to his lips.

“It’s not,” Herakles said. “After you butchered it.”

Michele chuckled about it. He still hadn’t taken a sip. Herakles had made them Greek coffee and Michele was careful with it. He dreaded the thought of reaching the bottom and ending up with a mouthful of coffee grounds. “We didn’t butcher them, we’ve made them our own. But we’ve kept them, regardless.” He finally drank some before he glanced back to Herakles with eyes half lidded. “Carusu,” he said.

“Agori”, Herakles replied.

They had drifted off and talked about history and linguistics again. A safe topic. No business. No nightmares. Michele had tried his best to get rid of the bags under his eyes before he came to Greece but he had no idea if he succeeded. Herakles hadn’t said a word about it and he was grateful for it.

He just wanted to go back to the days when he learnt Ancient Greek at the liceo classico and Herakles did the same at his lykio. When they had found another shared passion to fill the time of the rare afternoons spent together in Palermo or Athens.

“Modern Greek is still Greek” Herakles said. “The words we kept, we didn’t change.”

“Even if we changed them to suit our tongues, we haven’t replaced them,” Michele answered. “After the Phoenicians and the Romans came. And the Arabs and the Germans, the French and the Spaniards. None of them could take the words from us.” His voice was low and he wondered if it even left his mouth or just stuck as vibrations to his lips.

Herakles gave away nothing as he looked into Michele’s eyes. His form was mostly in the shadows, with only the dim light of the moon, the city and a dingy lamp in the corner of the room.

Almost nothing. His tongue darted out and licked delicately over his upper lip.

Michele watched him intently. “Liccu,” he said.

“Lihoudis,” Herakles replied.

They said nothing for a while, broke eye contact and Herakles took a sip of his coffee.

“There’s an Italian version of Herakles, too,” Michele said and Herakles lazily raised an eyebrow. “I could call you Erculi.” His accent was heavy when the name rolled off his tongue.

Herakles' thumb rubbed over the edge of his cup. His lips were slightly parted and Michele didn’t miss the attentive spark in his eyes.

He tried to distract himself by taking another sip of coffee.

“Mihalis,” Herakles said and Michele swallowed coffee grounds and sugar.

His hairs stood on end. He wanted to take Herakles’ hand and call him Erculi and babble sweet nothings in Sicilian at him. He wanted to be reminded of the touches they had shared when they had been kids, behind the safety of a schoolbook and the wild growth of a garden or sometimes tucked away in the corner of a dock wall.

Now they weren’t kids anymore, however, freed from their parents' watchful eye. He could do all that.

Herakles chuckled and despite the hour, it was a joyful little sound. Michele had put the coffee cup down and thought to get a glass of water to wash the coffee out of his mouth. He didn’t dare look at Herakles.

“You know who also changed my name?” Herakles asked and Michele glanced at him.

“Who?” The grounds stuck to his tongue and the walls of his mouth, but he wouldn’t say anything. Not unless Herakles said something first.

“Natasa. She calls me Iraklis, because she thinks Herakles is pretty pretentious in this day and age.” He chuckled again, his eyes on the table instead of Michele, and a faint smile on his face. “Maybe that’s also the reason why we Greeks changed all the words you Sicilians kept.”

Michele chuckled to himself. He got up to fetch a glass of water.

“She's been a big help in navigating this Shark Tank. Calls me Ira for short,” Herakles said and Michele nearly choked on the water. One last chuckle left Herakles, more of an amused sigh.

“Oh,” Michele said, as steady as his voice could manage.

“Interesting.”

Herakles looked at him from the corner of his eyes. “Yeah?”

In Italian, Ira means wrath.

They weren’t kids anymore, Michele thought. He wanted to sleep.

So he put his glass of water down, walked over to Herakles and peered inside his coffee cup. Empty, but so carefully drunk that he didn’t inhale the grounds.

“Iri means to go in Sicilian,” Michele said. Herakles had turned towards him. “I think I want to go to bed.”

Up close, he saw the dark circles underneath Herakles’ eyes. There was a cut on his thumb that hadn’t yet fully healed. Scratch marks peaked out underneath his hair and shirt.

And Michele didn’t care one bit for any of it, because it didn’t change that Herakles was so beautiful it knocked the breath out of Michele’s lungs.

Herakles scooted back with his chair, a dull sound on the old tiles, and welcomed Michele onto his lap. His hands steadied him as he sat down and one found its way into Michele’s hair as he kissed him. He liked the warm and heavy weight against his head and his own thumb brushed over Herakles’ cheek. Herakles’ lips were soft and warm and when his tongue darted out into the other’s mouth or it willingly met Herakles’ in his own, there was a faint taste of sugar and coffee.

Herakles broke their kiss and pulled back. When Michele opened his eyes, they went wide upon meeting Herakles’ stare. The pleading in his eyes scared him.

“Mihalis,” Herakles then whispered and Michele was ready to keel over.

“Erculi,” he got out, voice on the verge of tears and held onto Herakles for dear life as they kissed again.

~*~

"Taddarita/Nychterida [νυχτερίδα]" = Bat

"Carusu/Agori [αγόρι]" = Boy (In Greek, it can also be used to mean "Boyfriend". Since the Italian ragazzo works the same way, I assume the Sicilian carusu can also refer to a boyfriend. Do with that information what you will.)

"Liccu/Lihoudis" = Greedy; To have a sweet tooth