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romana-after-dark · 4 months ago

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Sacrificial Lamb

Darkish!Marcus Acacius x Virgin!fem!Reader

Masterlist

Co-written with the bestest @ariundercovers thank you so so so much for helping me with this and adding so much!!!!

Summary: Desperate to win a battle, Marcus Acacius sends a request for a maiden to sacrifice her life and her body for the good of your city.

Warnings: NOT COMPREHENSIVE! This is a DARK FIC, treat it as such. Illusions and talk of human sacrifice, virginity loss, knife play, blood play, (it's not really play they are going at it), body carving, public sex, ritualistic sex, PIV sex, dark content but everyone is having a funky good time.

Immersivity: Reader is fem, had long hair, is called "little lamb" but that's not a reference to her size. Reader refers to herself as roman.

I'm a history major but this is not meant to be historical lol anchient history is not my area of interest. I tried to include things I knew, like Roman values, but thats about it.

4.5k words

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You’d sacrifice yourself on his altar again and again if he made you feel like this.

To feel his hands explore your body, rough skin with a gentle touch. To feel him kiss your lips, undressing you as dozens watched. To feel the prick of his knife defile you just as he did.

“Look at me. Look at me, only me. I am your god now.”

You were to be sacrificed for the greater good, for the gods to favor general Acacuis in this vital battle, a battle that would decide the fate of your city and all those in it. Should his armies fail, all those you held dear could be sold into to slavery, killed, or suffered much worse fates. So, when General Acacius put out a request, the highest calling a woman could offer outside of bearing sons, it surprised you that no one took it by the time word reached you outside the city.

General Acacuis made a call to all the virgins of your city, asking to make the ultimate sacrifice, and when you stood in front of him in all his beauty, you were not fearful. You were resolute in your decision.

Now, he leans against his throne, eyeing you in your robes as you remain knelt to the ground on both knees, your body bowed before him in his parlor.

“Do you understand what you are sacrificing, little lamb?”

You don’t look up. You don’t dare. “Yes, my lord. I am to sacrifice my life so that my city and my people are safe.”

You can hear the sound of robes russling. “Not only that, but your maidenhood. The ceremony will require me to deflower you on an altar. Publically.”

Swallowing hard, you force down your anxiety. “I… I did not know that, my lord.”

He walks towards you, the sound of his footsteps the only thing signaling you of his approach. Suddenly, his voice is right in front of you. You dare not open your eyes. “Does this change your decision?”

You hesitate, body shaking. You would say yes, because of course you would, you just needed to breathe. “I… I-”

Sudden but gentle, you feel his hands on your face, coaxing you to look up at him and you do as he urges. His features strike you, angular but soft. His nose was aquiline, strong as he was, a symbol of his power and the genes he would breed into whatever woman he lay. Still, there was a softness about him, full cheeks and eyes that pooled in brown. His arms were like oak trees, dark and strong; freckles smothered his face but were only noticeable from this close.

The General’s hands held your chin firm.

“Is this your decision, fair lady?” His eyebrows raise, frown lines in his face a telling sign of his age. “It is only yours to make, none other.”

Basking in his warmth, in the glow of his pained eyes, you nod. “Yes, my lord. It is my duty and my honor.”

He gives your face a little squeeze. “Good girl.” Releasing your head in favor of taking your hand, he speaks louder now, more formal. Gone is his warmth, once again your lord. “Rise.” He aids you to stand, hands moving to your arms, playing with the sleeves of your dressage. “Now, I must inspect you. Are you ready?”

You take a steadying breath, and when you release, you agree.

Slow and steady, the general pulls down the sleeves, relieving your breasts, stomach, and soon your unscathed womanhood. Your dress pools at your feet, your nakedness laid bare before your lord. General Acacius takes a step back, admiring you as he looks down from where he stands tall and proud, in his armor. He was practicing in the courtyard when you answered his call, and he had not changed, smelling such of masculinity that you craved him, carnally. Marcus Acacius paces around you, eyeing every inch you had to offer, viewing you like an animal at the market.

“Beautiful…” The general murmurs to himself before walking up behind you. The metal plating of his chest plate connects to your back, and a shiver of cold strikes your body, but when he wraps his arms around your person you are once again comforted. His body is so warm, fire and burning, burning, burning power so evident in his grasp. A sun god in your presence… Apollo in the flesh.

He caresses your body, his large right hand rising up to hold your breast, his left lowering to your untouched maidenhood. He tweaks your nipple with his fingers, tugging at it experimentally, and the other one peaks and stiffens in response. He groans in satisfaction and dips his head to mouth at your throat, lips and teeth scraping across your exposed skin. His fingers travel across your chest to the other side then, pinching and tugging at that nipple and you gasp at the way it sends a shock straight to your core.

But his other hand… that hand teases at your mound, fingers raking through the hair there. His hand parts your legs then, stepping wider to accommodate him. When his finger parts your folds, you hear a low chuckle. “Wet already, my maiden?” His fingertip trails up and down your crevices, catching at your untouched entrance once, then twice, and then hesitating at that bundle of nerves, swirling around it a few times. The way he plays with your folds makes you whimper, eyes closing as you rest your head back against his chest, worried that you might faint at the feeling of his hands all over you. You can feel him smile against your neck before he removes his fingers from you, but not before another long swipe through your soaking wet folds, collecting some of your slick that he’s managed to make pour out of you already. “You must wait for the ceremony, I fear… Still, a taste won’t hurt…”

The general presses his fingers to your mouth, and you’re unsure for a moment, one hand lifting to grasp his thick wrist, cuffed with metal links. “Open, little lamb,” he commands, and you obey. You can only ever obey. His fingers press into your mouth, against your tongue, and you close your lips around them. The taste is foreign to you, but not unpleasant, and you start to greedily suck on his fingers, licking the tangy sweet arousal from the rough pads of his fingers.

He pulls away from you all too soon, hands groping your abdomen and ass for a long moment before he groans in displeasure and leaves you, alone and naked and overwhelmingly heated with arousal.

You were moved into the palace immediately, as preparation for the ceremony would take a few days. You say a tearful goodbye to all your friends and family; they are who you are doing this for, to protect them.

Still, you’d be lying if you had said you hadn’t found a new motivation, something else that piqued your interest. You hadn’t forgotten the general’s touch, his smell, his face. Marcus Acacius was angelic, a figure sculpted by the gods themselves; you could swear you’d seen his likeness on a statue somewhere.

He watched as you bathed, handmaids scrubbing you down every day, washing your hair. Then, he sat there still as you stood, scanning over you as the maids doused you in perfumes and oils, clothing you in silk. You were to live your last days as royalty. Since entering his home, you were treated with nothing but utmost respect, feeding you the finest foods and wines, things you’d never been afforded in your simple lifestyle. You loved that he watched you naked, and you hoped you were pleasing to his eye.

He stood. “Leave us,” General Acacius ordered, his eyes directly on yours and never leaving as your handmaidens filed out. You’re standing in the tub still, your lord offering his hand for you to step out. You should be ashamed of your nakedness, you know it, but he was to deflower you in 2 days time, mark you with his sigil and that of Mars, piercing your heart with a knife in a prayer to Mars himself.

General Acacius scans your body, his palm on your hip sliding up to cup your breast. He liked to play with your flesh, you’ve noticed, intimate moments such as these where he held you close, held you fast, comforted you even though there was no future for you past these final days.

“My beautiful sacrifice…” He murmurs, pressing his forehead to yours as you stand with heavy breaths. “Such a waste, such a shame…”

“It’s not a shame, my lord…” You assure him, firm in your stance. “It is for the good of my city, my family.”

A quiet tsk, tsk, tsk falls off his lips. “So much honor in such a young thing.” His lips brush yours, and you gasp.

“General Aca-”

“Marcus.” His voice is gruff, stern, ordering you to comply with this infringement on formality. “I will be inside you, soon enough. You may use my given name.” He places a hand on your cheek, thumb against the plush of your lips.

You nod against him. “M-Marcus, should we-”

He pressed himself fully against you, kissing you tenderly. When he pulls away, his eyes have the blackness that often accompanies these hushed encounters. As Marcus deepens the kiss, he squeezes your face so that your mouth opens to him.

“Such a shame…” He repeats, a low rumbling from his throat, pulling at your lip gently between his teeth. “To waste such a beautiful, honorable young lady… how is it no one has taken you as their wife, hm?” Ever careful not to harm his sacrifice, Marcus wraps his large hand around your throat as he licks a stripe up the column of your neck. “That no one has ever taken you to bed, ravaged your sweet body, claimed your maidenhood as theirs… seems almost unbelievable.”

Gasping at the implied doubt, you pull your face away from him but his hand remains on your throat, looking him in the eyes with earnesty, begging to be believed. “M-my lord! I would not lie, I swear to you I am intact-”

He squeezes on your delicate neck, cutting off your words and just a little bit of your breathing, his eyes, usually dark chasms, are fiery and alight, not only demanding your submission but taking it. His clothed body presses against your naked form.

Still, his voice is comforting. “I believe you, sweet lamb. No one would lie in order to die by my hand in a ritual sacrifice. Relax, enjoy these final days.” Swift as lightning, Marcus’s lips were at your ear again. “And resist the urge to stuff your fingers in your cunt tonight. Let me be the one to break you, not the fantasy.” And with that, he left you standing there in the bathing room, your legs dripping with something other than water.

Your bare feet are cold on the marble floor. The rest of you is hot with anxiety.

Your last day on this earth, before you meet your painful end and join the souls of your lost loved ones in the otherworld. Paying your sacrifice meant no others would join you until their just time.

You were bathed, your hair brushed with expensive oils before it was woven in intricate braids at the top, falling freely at your shoulders. You were crowned in a laurel wreath, painted in gold. Loose white robes fell around you, a symbol of your purity, and you were draped in a purple sash. You were royalty, if only for today.

Were there drums? Or was the beating from you? The thud-thud, thud-thud of your heartbeat made it impossible to hear the people speaking to you, so you merely nodded along. Prayers were said by your handmaidens, all of them wailing to the Gods, crying out that this not be in vain. You’d grown attached in the week you’d been together, and for only a woman you’d wished you’d been brought to the general for a different purpose, brought to become Lady Acacius.

But your wishes were short lived.

You were raised to follow all things that made a good Roman. You were brave, honorable, respected authority, respected the household gods, loved your city and your family. All this came into play when you offered your body to the general. All this was in your heart as you walked through the opening door, leaving your attendants behind, and entering a room filled with only men.

Although the strange and distorted faces in the flames of candles scared you, your eyes were quickly pulled to him.

Him.

General Acacius stood in front of the altar, clothed in white and gold; he wore a matching gold laurel wreath to yours.

The lighting accentuated his sharp angles, the shadow cast by his nose on to his cheek made your breathing stutter, drawing ever closer to him. Step by shaking step, you approached your fate.

Strong hands steadied you. “It’s alright, little lamb.” He assured you, speaking low and deep for your ears only. “I’ll take care of everything. Have no fear.”

And you don’t. Your heart rate drops to a normal pace, your body temperature cooling, save for your frigid toes. Nothing to be done there. Marcus undoes your robes, letting them fall at your feet in waves of purple and white-turned-orange by the flickering flames. When it’s all said and done, you were to be burned in a funeral pyre, the same flames burning down your body for the good of your people. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

Next, he lays you down on the altar. The cool slab of marble sends a run of chills over your skin, but Marcus stands between your spread legs, warm hands rubbing on your goosed flesh. He makes it feel better. You try not to think too hard about the fact you are bare naked for at least 2 dozen men, but it was okay. Marcus was there. A stranger walks up and takes your hands and at first you gasp simply in shock.

“Do not worry, he is acting as instructed.”

The man goes to tie your hands, and you passively protest.

“My lord, I need not be restrained, I promise-”

“It is not to keep you here, little lamb.” He assures you, still caressing and kneading the meat of your thighs. It was incredible how large he was, how broad; his shadow swallows your body. “I do not wish to have anyone here who needs to be restrained. This is to keep your body taut as I mark you.”

When you die, you are to go to the underworld as all shall. When you meet Pluto, you are to show him the marking on your stomach, and he would know you were sacrificed and inform Mars, whose sigil would be marked next to the house of Acacius. If Mars finds your sacrifice worthy, your virginity, your life, your beauty and youth, he will grant the General good favor.

But first, your maidenhood.

The room was dead silent as the General stripped down, unfastening the clasp at your shoulder. In wonderment, you watch as his body is revealed to you, even as the candles largely shine on his back. He was stunning. The peak of masculinity, of manhood, not only his body but his stature and presence so all encompassing that you can’t help but wonder if he was Juptier himself, come down from the heavens to take another maiden as his. You would gladly suffer Classisto and Io’s fates for once chance with him.

As your eyes travel down, you can still see some scars in the dim lighting; raised pieces of flesh that make you wish you could have tended to his injuries… but your thoughts are soon distracted. You’ve never seen a cock before, barely knew what it looked like, but as the General strokes himself approaching you, you were mesmerized. It was thick, thick enough you weren’t sure it could fit, but you’d never even tried to fit anything inside you, so how would you know? The tip was covered by a layer of skin that pulled back to reveal the head with every upstroke of Marcus’s hand… fat, blunt, ready to split you open. You’re well aware of the liquid leaking from you to the altar.

“Perfect offering, aren’t you?” He asks, but it's rhetorical, his eyes distracted as he reaches between your legs to play with that sensitive spot, that place your hand wandered to on cold, lonely nights, seeking comfort in your own touch. You weren’t completely clueless, you’d pleasured yourself plenty without breaking yourself open and you had done so minutes before beginning the ceremony. You wanted to be wet for him. Marcus’s eyes connect to yours as he touches your slicked up center; he knows what you did.

“I am ready, my lord.”

“It seems you are.”

His cock spreads the lips of your cunt with agonizing slowness, your voice not even trying to hide the moans of pain and pleasure to the crowd of men, many of whom you noticed were entering states of undress. Your body is already writhing, the slow pace driving you mad and you can already tell you’re moments away from begging for more, willing to be remembered as the young woman who died begging for cock. Just as you were about to burst, to scream at him to just do it, Marcus bends over you, pressing his forehead to yours. His eyes glow in the candlelight. One hand reaches up to where you are bound, interlacing with your fingers. “Hold on to me, little lamb.”

You do as you are told, as he thrusts into your body, breaking open your hymen and spilling the blood between your legs onto the altar, staining it with you forever. Your memory would lay here in his home the rest of his life, speaking to him even in prayer.

Marcus fucks you now, his fat cock dragging in and out of your channel, claiming you again, and again, and again, and for a moment you forget where you are. You forget you’re being watched. You forget you are to die until Marcus slows his movements, pulling out the freshly sharpened knife meant for your skin.

“My little lamb, my offering, my perfect sacrifice…” He kisses your lips, something not a part of the ritual, and makes a show of him claiming your face for his audience. Marcus will take care of you, and your name will go down in honor for the rest of time.

Stuffed full of him, Marcus never stops fucking you, never stops sliding himself in and out of your cunt, teasing you as he pulls away, placing the knife at your stomach. It wouldn’t be deep; there wouldn’t be time to heal so it didn’t need to be. There was no sense in hurting you more than need be, he had said to you.

Stretched out, your arms above your head and tied down with silks, your gasp in pain as the first mark is made, scraping over your skin. He begins with his sigil, smack dab in the middle of your stomach. As you glance down, noting the size of the mark he’s making, you wonder where Mars is intended to go, how there will even be space for the second mark he had to make. But those thoughts are tucked away as he begins to move his hips again, pounding himself deeply into you. Little trickles of red droplets bubble on your skin from the cuts, morphing your body into something that was his, and his alone.

When you look at him, his eyes nearly black as the day you first entered his court, you wondered if he had any intention of marking Mars’ sigil on you.

“I’m gonna take care of you, little lamb.”

WIth one last cut, he locks onto your eyes, gripping the knife still. You think this must be it, he will now take your life and you’ll die impaled on his cock. Instead, he takes the tip of the knife to his own stomach, careful and sure movements carving your first initial onto him. And then, his body joined yours again.

Nothing in this world felt better than blood on blood.

He cut loose your binds and dropped the knife, the clatter echoing onto the floor as he climbed onto the altar, fucking himself into you with the vigor of a general on the battlefield, like winning this, winning you was what truly mattered.

Suddenly you piece it all together and realize something. You realize that you weren’t going to die today.

Fearful of the repercussions, of the others' reactions when they figure out he wasn’t going to sacrifice you, your head turns to the dozens of men surrounding you. The candles were sparse and placed away from the altar, brighter near you, leaving you without much to work with in terms of vision. As your cunt begins to tighten in that all consuming feeling, your eyes trying to close in pleasure as you try to make out the figure in the room. Dancing shadows on the wall, figures combining and moving together; bent over and close and grunting, red and orange and yellow and black swirling together. You couldn’t tell if the sounds of skin on skin were from near or far anymore.

Marcus’s hand cups your face, turning you away from the debauchery surrounding you and back to meet his eyes.

“Look at me. Look at me, only me. I am your god now.” His eyes bore into yours, pounding your pussy so harshly you could hear the wetness as you are torn apart. Marcus grips your face harshly, but his other hand swirling your over sensitive clit is tender. “You only worship me now, my sweet offering. I am the only thing that matters to you.”

And he is.

General Marcus Acacius is your god, and you will worship knelt at his feet for as long as he shall have you.

His thrusts start to falter, and he picks your leg up, notching it in the crook of his elbow as he starts to push himself deeper, touching parts of your body you hadn’t known had any feeling at all. “Cum for me.” He demands, commanding your body to his whim the way he commands his armies. “Cum on my cock, little lamb.”

Your hands reach for his forearms, fingers gripping tightly into the strong, lean muscle you find there beneath your fingertips. “W-want-” You swallow hard, staving off that feeling in your belly so warm you no longer notice the cold on your back. “Want to be filled, my lord.”

The general cups your face, brushing his thumb over your lower lip. “You will, you will, but first,” The pinch on your cheek takes you by surprise. “You must cum for me.” He lets go, but does not relent in his demand. “Let me feel you, little lamb, let me feel you cum on a cock for the first time.”

It doesn’t take much more work on his part for him to build you up into a frenzy, your walls fluttering pathetically around him as you pant, heaving oxygen back into your body from every thrust that seems to knock it right out of you. His hand still holds tightly to your face, dipping his head down now to bite his teeth harshly into your lip, your jaw, then your neck. You whimper at the feeling, eyes rolling back in your head as the combination of rough and pain and the pleasure of his cock and his fingers working you, and you finally fall apart for him, your body spasming beneath his, back arching up into his movements.

“There it is, sweet one. Give it to me. Give it to your god.” His face turns positively wicked as he hikes your leg up a little higher, the hand on your face now moving down to your throat as he squeezes lightly, reminding you of exactly who you belong to, exactly who you’ve been promised to, urged to as the very sacrificial lamb. He only barely starts to cut off your breathing with his grip, but one of your hands reaches for his anyway, holding onto his wrist as he puts the added pressure against your throat.

Your body is still quaking beneath him as he works you right through that orgasm and sends you hurtling quickly toward another. Or, was it actually just the same one? There aren’t an thoughts left in your head to try and make sense of it, nothing left to try to figure out what’s going on in your body.

It doesn’t matter now, anyway. You were his. Only his. You were General Acacius’ to do as he pleased with, and if he preferred to kill you with cock, you’d die happily that way, too.

Your blathering and bumbling beneath him slows as he lets go of your throat, growling with a frantic need above you. His thrusts stutter, hips spearing into you erratically, and you have a sense that perhaps his pleasure might come soon, too.

“Please! Please, my lord, fill me. Fill me properly, I only want to please you-” Your words come out pathetic and whining, the strength of your orgasm short-circuiting your brain as you try to make sense of the situation, make sense of the pleasure and panic you feel.

“You’ll take my mark, and my cock, and my seed, little lamb. You’ll take everything I give you.” He groans lowly, a sound that bubbles up from deep in your chest, and you can feel the way he twitches inside of you. Then suddenly, he roars above you and there’s an explosion of warmth, a feeling that spreads throughout your belly, welling up into your chest and face, heating you from the inside out. You’re burning again, burning in white hot flames as he empties himself deep into your womb.

Everything pauses, pleasure soaking into your body, the sweat cooling on your skin as your God’s full weight crashes on you, protecting your body from the view of the onlookers finishing in and on each other around you.

“Leave.” He barks, his face tucked into your neck.

A beat of silence.

“My lord… the sacrifice…” A nameless, faceless man objects from the corners.

You begin to turn to him, but Marcus adjusts up and keeps you from looking. “They don’t deserve your gaze, little lamb.” Then, he sat up on his knees, cock still buried inside you. He looks to the crowd.

“I’VE HAD A VISION!” Marcus exclaims, shouting to the others. “Mars does not desire her to be sacrificed to him, but to be taken as my wife!” He looks down at you, brown eyes swimming with continued lust even as his cock softs in your channel. “Our children shall be blessed by him, great warriors and ladies… and we shall win our battle. Do you accept, little lamb?”

It wasn’t even a question for a moment.

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Thank you thank you thank you for reading!!! I appriciate every like, reblog, and comment!!!!

A note, I decided to add a tip option with Buy Me a Coffee and Ko-fi. PLEASE DONT FEEL OBLIGATED A ALL!!! I do this for fun and enjoyment not to get paid. It's just there <3

I know the fandom seems messy right now, but you are all special <3

I dont have a taglist anymore, but follow @romana-updates to keep up!

Tagging those who expressed interest

@mangoslushcrush @yeet268 @littlekate @lunar-ghoulie @admiralackbarssugarbaby @jackie923 @fan-fiction-floozy @spidey-3 @princessanglophile @ladyofmidlo72 @fandxmslxt69

#marcus acacius x reader #general marcus acacius #marcus acacius #general Marcus acacius x reader #dark Marcus acacius #dub con #tw dubcon #body marking #tw blood #gladiator 2 #the gladiator 2 #marcus acacius smut #fem reader #general marcus acacius smut

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bettsfic · 1 year ago

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Writing q: do you/did you ever feel like there's a dichotomy between writing something fun and light and tropey & writing something good/that you're proud of? I'm trying to write a romcom-esque multichap fic that ends happily but I keep running into this mental block that it's not Serious Work so it can't be what i would consider good (which is hilarious because a) its all fanfiction none of it is serious?? and b) i know that's not true!) lmao. Was jw if you have any thots on this

i've got an analogy for you.

before i started writing, i was really into baking. back then i was not only a perfectionist but an extremist. i believed that REAL baking meant using the rawest possible ingredients. the idea of store-bought puff pastry or pie crusts was appalling to me.

and every year i baked a pumpkin pie for thanksgiving. to bake the pumpkin pie, i had to go out at early o'clock in the morning on a saturday to my local farmer's market and pick out the most perfect pumpkins. and i don't know if you've ever baked pumpkin pie with real pumpkins but it takes a long damn time. and it's hard. and so i baked the pumpkins for hours and scraped out the innards and made a puree, and i roasted the seeds for a snack. and amid all that, i made the crust from scratch too.

the pie always turned out! so i kept making it that way. until one year i just wasn't up to the task, and instead swallowed my pride and bought canned pumpkin and a premade crust.

and it tasted exactly the same as the pie that took me an entire day to make. it was also much cheaper, because in our era of industry, the processed stuff has become more affordable than the raw stuff unless you grow it yourself. (and believe me, i wanted to.)

the only difference i could discern was in the texture, because canned pumpkin is pureed more than i could puree real pumpkin. canned pumpkin also has other kinds of gourds in it, but that doesn't really affect the taste. i also felt bad for not supporting my local farmers. but it was worth it to be able to bake a pie from start to finish in 90 minutes.

for so many years i had it in my head that if a process is harder, the result is better. it was that mentality that kept me in a job i hated for a long time. it's hard and i don't like it, therefore it's more serious and respectable. it was unconscionable to me to think that something fun and easy could result in something good.

when you're writing fanfiction or anything where you're relying on the audience's knowledge of something else (like tropes), you can get it in your head that it's inherently easier and therefore worse. and because it's a skill, in order to become better at it, you have to challenge yourself. to challenge yourself, you have to make it harder.

but you're making something. you're putting words on a page in formations that have never existed before. that's hard, period. you don't have to make it harder. your readers will value it regardless of the challenge you give yourself. every thanksgiving, my family just appreciated that i had baked a pie. they didn't care how i'd baked it or what ingredients i used. yes, the longer and more difficult process created a product i was more proud of than the shorter, easier process. but you can't taste pride.

this is something i have to remind myself of all the time, because my instinct is to make everything more difficult than it has to be. you're always going to be your own worst critic, in part because you're the only one who knows your own process and the blood, sweat, and tears you put into it. but ultimately, nobody cares about the pumpkins. all they want is the pie.

#writing advice #process

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scoobydoodean · 2 months ago

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i’d like you to know you’ve made me much more of a bitter deangirl when it comes to the trap. like i still love the idea of it, of them reconnecting in purgatory of all places, and i still like the idea of lots of what dean says re: should’ve asked cas to stay and i forgive you and talking *about* his anger, but… dean had a right to be angry, including at cas. and yeah it’s good that dean apologized, for the sake of healthy communication cause that’s what you do when you’ve said hurtful things in an argument regardless of who’s “right”, but cas also should’ve apologized again. in fact, i can’t remember so i could be completely misremembering, but does cas ever actually apologize to dean beyond expressing the sentiment of feeling bad that mary died?

and i’m also thinking about the conversation they have before being separated. i like the angst of cas’s line re: i left but you didn’t stop me, but again, dean was not the only one in that argument. to leave was very much cas’s choice, and it feels kinda unfair to put that on dean, regardless of whether dean saying smth would’ve actually gotten cas to stay (which, to dean, probably would’ve seemed unlikely given cas’s past habits). and also, cas saying dean couldn’t move on, that’s actually fucking heartbreaking and almost… cruel. iirc it’d been at most a couple weeks since his mom (his mom!) had been killed!! plus dean never got to say goodbye, again!! of course he couldn’t just move on!

idk idk… anyway i believe i’ve sent an ask about your opinions on the trap before lol, and sorry about this long ass message, but i recently saw a gifset about that conversation (before being attacked) and all the notes were like ‘yes cas you tell him!’ ‘dean needed to hear that!’ ‘finally got dean’s head out of his ass!’ and it kinda made me annoyed for dean which. brainrot. but whatever. bitter deangirls unite, dean deserves the support 😭😭

context

LMAO sorry for my tumblr arc culminating in me turning full bitter deangirl ig and taking some of you down with me (I'm not sorry actually I'm having a ball in this bitch).

Cas's attempts at apologies are cataloged here. So he does try to apologize. But how many times has Cas been "sorry" only to do the thing he apologized for again? I mean the fact that he keeps "apologizing" for lack of communication and unilateral decisions over things that impact other people besides him and secret deals that blow up in all of their faces over and over and over and over shows that he is... not actually that sorry? Because if you're actually sorry, you actually change your behavior. Except Cas thinks "getting a win" (while actively digging a deeper hole in his relationship with Dean) is the way to "apologize" and make everything better instead of just... changing his behavior. And whatever his latest big plan to fix everything is never works and instead actively makes his relationships and his own self esteem worse. From the outside perspective, what Cas is doing (apologizing then doing the thing he just apologized for again) is just kind of... the ultimate way of telling a person you claim to love that their feelings actually have very little value to you. I mean Cas would be horrified by the idea that he doesn't actually value Dean's feelings, but what conclusion is Dean supposed to come to? Is it any wonder that Dean is perpetually confused about what exactly Cas thinks of their relationship? Is it any wonder that he reached a point where he couldn't stand to hear one more of Cas's meaningless apologies? To maintain any semblance of a relationship with Cas, Dean has to focus on what he feels about Cas's intentions (intentions Dean has always had faith in being good) but that faith and care increasingly forces him to ignore aspects of their relationship that are deeply hurtful because Cas refuses to do his part in addressing their issues in any meaningful way. It's just a vicious cycle of Dean trying to communicate that their lack of communication is upsetting and Cas pretending to listen and apologizing but clearly not actually listening or understanding the gravity of the situation and how it is slowly building a rift between them over years (with perhaps the most striking and hurtful example being The Future) until the secret over soulless Jack becomes "the straw that broke the camel's back" and Dean absolutely explodes at the end of season 14... and then... still... Cas's secrets remain—to the bitter fucking end.

Also yeah tbh Cas's "I left but you didn't stop me" makes my eyes roll so hard. Painfully stupid dialogue with unpleasant (though likely unintentional) implications (as linked in thread above).

#15.09 #mail

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loganwritesprobably · 4 months ago

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– Robin with the 2° genre, prompt (h.) 🌸✨

You really DID go hard with all these requests! This prompt is SO sad in combination with Robin, but the genre gave me a little bit of hope. I ended up including Brook in a platonic sense, and I've never written him before, so I hope he's okay?

I changed the prompt a little to make it work and I think it's nice ✨

Content/Warnings: Robin/GN!Reader, hurt/comfort, established relationship, Reader is insecure, Reader & Brook, Brook gives good advice

Robin was one of, if not The, most powerful women you knew. Nothing hurt more than knowing you couldn't be as strong as her. You'd never have pulled through all of the awful things she had to experience in her life. You would never deserve her. She could do so much better than you, someone who could match her strength and beauty. You were stopping her from achieving more.

You sat on the deck of the Sunny under the bright moon, watching the stars twinkling reflections on the waves. Now that you were together, you couldn't imagine a way to break things off without disrupting the entire crew, which only made you feel worse. You could either make the right choice for Robin, or the right choice for the crew.

You heard footsteps approaching you from behind, but you didn't acknowledge the person, instead just kept your eyes focused on the dark abyss of the ocean.

"My, you look deep in thought." Brook commented, his bony hand coming to rest on the railing beside yours. "Yeah, something like that." You agreed, not looking up at him. "Berri for your thoughts?" He asked, and you sighed, rubbing a hand over your face. Maybe it would help, talking about it. Brook was a friend, and had so much life experience. "Robin deserves better." You said, because you didn't need to ramble or dice your words - that was the core of your issues. "Ah, I see. Struggling with feeling inadequate," Brook mused while you continued to look out at the horizon, afraid to look at him for the first time, "I think she'd disagree, and surely it's Robin who should be making that choice? We all see ourselves differently to how other people see us. We often don't see our own value." He said, and while his words made sense you struggled to apply them to yourself.

"Sometimes I just think I should break things off and leave, she gets the chance to do better and it doesn't affect the crew." "That would be running away, and I know you're no coward. Besides, we both know she'd just chase after you yohohoho." And once again, he was right. You knew he was. It was silly to be thinking about this because ultimately Robin was the one to decide what she wanted - and she'd chosen you. "Thanks Brook." You said, and he nodded. He gently rested his skeletal hand on your shoulder and squeezed before turning and leaving you to continue with your thoughts.

Requests are open! See below links for my other works, and how to leave requests. I write both canon/canon and canon/reader requests for your enjoyment

AO3 | Fanfic Masterlist | Request Rules | Fic Trades Guide | WIPs

Tags: @claryeverlarkf

#one piece #fanfic #writing #reader insert #loganwritesficlets #loganwritesrequests #nico robin x reader #nico robin #one piece x reader #gender neutral reader

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inkpot909 · 10 months ago

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Little Sister Figure Headcanons: Platonic!Joseph Joestar x Reader

Fem!Reader with she/her pronouns. The Reader’s boss is written to be a jerk.

A/n: It feels great to be writing again! I took a massive break for the holidays, and in order to give myself time adjusting to a new job. Writing this was rather personal to me in a sense, as Joseph very much so reminds me of my own older brother. Hope y’all enjoy. <3

Warning(s): Joseph’s pathetic complicated relationship with women. Canon-typical swearing. Period-typical sexism.

Joseph Joestar… historically does not have a positive reputation amongst women.

It’s well earned; coming off as rude at best and downright insensitive at worst. And this behavior doesn’t exclude women he hardly knows either. In fact, his brash attitude is arguably more on display around strangers.

A whistle to an attractive passerby leading to his foot being stomped on. Talking a little too loudly about how women “doing up their faces is a sort of trap” earning him harsh glances from pretty much every woman within earshot. An older woman smacking him across the face with an umbrella after a murmur about not being surprised at the lack of a ring on her left hand. Making an unfounded claim that women can’t drive well, only to have been questioned, walk back on his claim, and ultimately cultivating in a knee harshly connecting with his stomach. The list only goes on.

For every five women that brush off his comments, there’s always one who isn’t afraid to give him an immediate reality check.

You fell into the latter category upon your first meeting.

“Out of the kindness of his heart,” Joseph helped you out one day when you needed it most. New York City can be a real rough place to live, and on that day, the sins of the city turned their attention to you.

Cornered by some thugs, they demanded anything of value be handed over. It made blood drain from your face, twisting your expression into something that didn’t do much to conceal the fear you had felt.

Regardless of your explicit nervousness, you had attempted to stand your ground. Sticking to your guns, although you wouldn’t ever regret doing so, seemingly only made things worse. The thugs took no time at all roughing you up a bit, to the point where they knocked you down to the concrete ground below you.

Looking back, it seems like a stroke of fate, that Joseph Joestar happened to be walking past at that very moment.

Seemingly without much hesitancy, he jumped to your defense. It was quite the spectacle, if you’re being completely honest. His cocky attitude was only validated by his genuine intuition and strength in the fight that inevitably unfolded. Watching him in combat for the first time is something you doubt you’ll ever forget.

His actions right after the fact is also something you’re likely to never forget:

Sparks seemed to ripple off him; beginning at his fingertips only to move beyond in crackling waves. Watching this stranger move about, picking off the three men that approached you not even ten minutes ago, your quick to understand that the energy illuminating from him is more than just what you can see on the surface.

It’s unbelievable, but there’s little reason to doubt what you’re seeing with your own eyes.

All the while a grin never once disappears from his face. When he initially inserted himself into the conflict, your stomach sank. Sure, he’s quippy, but he gave the impression of a man who’s all bark and no bite.

But by now, you’ve stumbled to your feet. Standing off to the side, your body motionless, eyes widen in subtle recognition that you’d been wrong about him.

It isn’t long before the three thugs desperately scramble away from the scene, tripping over themselves trying to do so. Not wavering one bit, the brunette closely watches them run off. The intensity of his gaze was jarring compared to his goofy and outlandish behavior. And you only find yourself relaxing after he finally relaxed.

Taking a step closer to him, you lift a brow when he doesn’t at all turn to look at you. Pausing, you once again plant your feet in the position they’re in.

Despite his almost insultingly unserious demeanor during the fight, you can’t not say something to him. Even if all that leaves your mouth is a simple “thank you,” it’s not within your own morality to just ignore or disregard the actions of someone who just saved your skin.

“Uhm…” you clear your throat. The action finally prompts him to whirl around in your direction, his eyes blinking a couple times displaying dumb recognition. You continue on to tell him, “Thank you a lot. You didn’t have to do that, but you still chose to get involved anyway. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t showed up.”

You felt internally glad that, albeit briefly, you were able to voice your appreciation for his help.

He blinks some more, before bringing up a hand to the side of his face. “Wow! You look terrible!” he blurts, saying it with his entire chest.

“What?” you respond, taken aback.

“Geez, lady, look you you!” he puts his hands on his hips, bending down at the waist. The action, whether he meant to or not, fully emphasizes the size difference between you. In the moment, you certainly felt more than a little patronized. “Did you even style your hair this morning? It looks awful!”

“Of… of course I did, you jerk!” you snap back, clenching your hands into fists and shaking them wildly at him. You were far too surprised to even think of explaining to him that getting hit and shoved doesn’t keep your appearance in pristine condition.

“Whoa, whoa…” he chuckles, taking a step backwards, “What happened to being all grateful?”

“Excuse me!?”

It was a rough first impression, to say the least.

You likely couldn’t stand Joseph Joestar after the initial meeting. Well, if anyone were to ask your opinion of him, that’s what would be your immediate response.

Despite that, his willingness to help a stranger out without even properly looking at them first intrigued you a bit.

Even more so, the fact that his little found family - a kind-hearted grandmother and his fun-loving friend, Smoky -immediately took a liking to you without much hesitation.

It’s those two who you’re likely to get along with first, not quite seeing eye-to-eye with Joseph for a good while.

So what is it exactly that leads to the two of you developing more of a genuine friendship? Fighting him.

No, seriously.

Not long after your brush up with the three thugs, you and Joseph engaged in a conversation about your own strength. He told you (rather bluntly) that “although your fiery, you can’t fight for shit.”

This eventually evolved into the two of you working out together. Then, that naturally progressed into him giving you pointers when in a fight. Then, that progressed into the two of you sparring one another from time to time.

Now, that power he displayed the first time you met (hamon, you remember him calling it), wasn’t something he was willing to teach you. But Joseph was more than happy to help teach you how to hold your own in a fight at the very least.

He went on to say how dangerous New York City can be for a young woman who doesn’t know how to protect herself, but you long learned to stop listening to him when he got in the mood to lecture. And though you certainly didn’t need him to tell you about the dangers of being a woman, you know there’s a certain degree of good will to his intent.

Despite his slightly condescending attitude at the start, this proved to do a lot for your relationship the more you spent time together. He was unafraid to speak his mind, and you were unafraid to call him out. With time, he started to genuinely appreciate that about you.

He went from purely pestering you, to doing so with a much friendlier edge that expressed a deeper understanding of your own sense of humor.

And at the end of the day, after each time he works out with you, he ruffles up the hair on the top of your head and tells you good job- from a surprisingly genuine place.

Considering how your friendship began, no one could really blame you from feeling surprised with its development. And there’s been several times now when Joseph’s truly had your back in a way that really makes you remember his care:

“This is a really stupid idea.”

“Shush! Besides, you think all my ideas are bad ideas.”

“And am I wrong...?”

“Oh- Jesus- would you just shush!?” Joseph hushes you once more, his head snaping over to your direction.

“JoJo,” you frown, eyes darting back and forth between him and the subject of your concern. The two of you are hunched over, peaking over a corner inside the building where you work. It’s early in the morning too. So early, in fact, your boss is the only person besides a janitor or two who’s bound to be in the building for at least another hour. “You know I could be fired for this if he finds out I’m the one behind it. He’s already itching to-“

“Quit your worrying, would you? I’ve got it all figured out! No one blaming you for jack shit- got it?” Joseph cuts you off, tone indicating that you really shouldn’t try pressing the matter further. Turning his attention back forwards, he adds, “Now, will you please zip it!?”

“But surely this is taking it a step too far,” you push it further, “When I told you about my boss-“

“A money-hungry and endlessly rude person,” he quotes your own words exactly.

“-I just needed to vent to someone about it. I wasn’t necessarily asking for petty revenge.”

“Don’t call my hamon traps petty!”

“You use it for petty reasons!”

“Oh? So now helping you is petty!?” Joseph raises his voice a little.

You’re quick to match the tone of his voice, “It’s fine that you want to help me, but I’m having a lot of seconds thoughts about this!”

“Well, that’s clearly obvious…”

“Please...” you groan, “Just... reconsider...”

“It’s too late to reconsider!”

“Well, you-“

A booming voice, coming from just a few feet away from the two of you, cuts off your words, “What the hell is going on over here!?”

Like two dear in headlights, you and Joseph slowly turn your heads over to the hall before you. There, your boss stands with an angry and slightly bewildered expression. Neither you nor Joseph heard his approaching footsteps over the sound of your bickering. And your boss is just moments away from looking close enough to recognize you- meaning your just seconds away from likely losing your job....

Luckily, a few seconds is all a person like Joseph needs to react.

Suddenly, he stands up straight and puts his hands triumphantly on his hips. “I-“ he announces, your boss looking up at him with wide eyes, “-harbor a grudge against this stupid establishment! Starting with-“ he dramatically turns to point at you, “-This young woman!”

Before your boss can react- hell, before you can react -Joseph grabs you by the waist and hoists you over his shoulder as if keeping you hostage. The sound you make when he does so certainly sells it.

This is his idea of having everything figured out!?

Laughing loudly, Joseph rushes past your boss cackling as if he’s trying out for a roll as a cartoonish burglar. As he moves away, he yells out, “Your next line will be, “What in the hell is this!?’”

And as you’ve come to expect, those same words almost immediately left your boss’s mouth.

The lecture that Granny Erina had in store for him after she finally found out about that stunt... oh, it was priceless.

He took the fall completely, even though you tried voicing your own involvement. Yes, you weren’t totally on board in at the end, but you still were a part of the ordeal.

Regardless, Joseph was having none of it.

And that’s exactly how he is with you. Cheekily looking after you in a profoundly brotherly way that after that specific incident, you began to refer to him as such. To your delight, he gladly returns the sentiment.

A part of you is hesitant to admit it, but you really look up to him. He’s taught you much, not just about being a fighter, but on anything that crossed his mind. Everything from his own thought process, to how to “properly” prepare an afternoon snack.

And in return, he’s always at your side and eager to listen to whatever thought crosses your mind.

Looking back, it seems like just as the two of you truly became so close, you were completely blindsided by an entire month of complete radio silence from him. It’s as if he’d just packed up and left... and it really broke your heart.

With more time passing, and one false death report later, Joseph was in for the lecture of a lifetime. He thought he’d gone through the ringer, from his grandmother alone, but nothing beats the frustrated ranting from a younger sister.

“Why didn’t you tell me!?”

“Do you have any idea how worried I was about you!?”

“Next time someone threatens your life send me a telegram! Write me a letter for crying out loud! I would’ve went to Italy straight away to kick their asses myself!”

“Don’t you dare ever leave me out of the loop again- you hear me, Joestar!?”

Joseph’s never going to forget a single word it.

And as frustrated you were, the look on your face when he also admitted to getting married without your knowledge on top of all that... he’s very lucky you love him like family.

#johnny’s work #jjba #jojo’s bizarre adventure #battle tendency #joseph joestar #joseph joestar x reader #platonic reader #fem reader #fluff #sfw #headcanons #fanfiction #manga #anime #smokey brown #erina joestar #drabbles #writing

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drbased · 6 months ago

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please teach us The Ways (re: ppl judging)

So the first thing to recognise is that you're at the centre of your own life experiences. You're the one who feels the feelings, thinks the thoughts, does the actions, experiences the experiences, etc. etc. So for every single belief you have, every single attitude and value you maintain as part of your selfhood, you 'should' (I put this in air quotes for reasons that will soon become apparent) have this fact at the center of how you process the world. As well as the fact that you are you, and only you, you are also the only person you have to live with and know intimately for the entirety of your life - so being kind to yourself and loving yourself is what I consider to be the most pure form of logic there is. Since you're at the core of your life experiences and always will be, that means there's a necessity in treating yourself with the care you'd expect to be required of such a situation. So when I say you 'should' do these things, I'm not saying that it's a requirement of you by some nebulous force (I don't know if you're religious anon but I have found that developing an atheistic worldview has really helped me with this), but rather that if you want to have the kind of self-confidence and inner peace required to really face life head-on, reframing your life experiences with you as the focus of your own attention, love and support is frankly the only way to achieve this robustly. Remember: this is not something you're waiting to happen, but rather an active choice you make to love yourself and to show love to yourself, just as you would other people. When you really internalise this fully, a lot of things start to slot in place naturally, as if you've unscrambled a jigsaw and now you can see the complete picture of yourself. True acceptance is hard to describe, but I think the best analogy is that of focusing your eyes - you don't know how you did it, but once you've put some fullness of effort in, it's automatically happened. Also you can slip out of acceptance at any time - this is a lifelong process, after all. And it's beautiful that it's a lifelong process! Love is a lifelong process! We don't go, aw no, I have to kiss my partner every day and tell them I love them - so the same attitude can be applied to your own selfhood.

What I like about this attitude is that there's a very solid, complete sense of logic to it - every breakdown I've ever had since, every terror I've had due to my depression, relationship with obligation, hyperchondria, drug-induced paranoia etc. etc. has ultimately hit this wall of 'oh right, I'm going to be me for the rest of my life and I'm always going to be the one experiencing my feelings, and I like having good feelings, and I can do that for myself so I'm going to do it. I don't need any justification from some external force to allow myself happiness, joy, peace and comfort - I deserve it simply because I am me and experiencing those things is good'. If you want a secondary argument to bolster it, I've found that waiting to be in the right place before I'm Allowed to do things is incredibly fragile and unsustainable and has made me kind of a worse person overall. Now with my full acceptance of my own selfhood I can be much more genuine in my decision-making and ultimately generate a sense of robust meaning from my own choices in life. It's still ultimately Not The Point, because the point should be always that I necessarily don't exist for any purpose other than myself, but sometimes I like having that secondary argument for comfort's sake, because whilst I want to do the right thing for everyone in every situation, that mentality is what caused me to have literal burnout. Now instead, my focus is on myself - my fundamental values haven't necessarily changed, I still care about everything I did before, but I refuse to martyr myself anymore.

The thing is, when you think about it, if there was One True Way to approach everything, if there was One Official Judgment of the world, then we should frankly all give up on individuality right now and just turn into the borg. But life isn't that way, so you can learn to recognise that as an individual (who, by the way, didn't ask to be born), it's your prerogative to exercise your individual personhood - and that's necessarily going to clash with the individual personhood of others. That's the whole point of being, like, a person. That's the reason you have a separate brain, a unique perspective. Your mind is your own playground, free from the chain of cause and effect, where you get to consider all sorts of wacky ideas. I used to think of my mind as form of prison, but I came to understand that the fact that we have a mind at all and aren't simply a slave to basic biological process is, to put it in a corny way, an extraordinary gift. (And why do I say it's a gift? Because I'm at the center of my own experiences and I value being kind to myself, so I make a choice to see it as a gift rather than a curse, because regardless of which is the more 'logical' choice the ultimate logic is to be kind to myself, because I'm at the center of my own world and I don't have to sacrifice any sort of comfort for some abstract sense of the greater good - and besides, doing so would achieve nothing, anyway! That's the process in action right there.)

So the first element is to shift your perspective to have you as the focus of your attention, the second is to recognise that it's your prerogative as an individual human to exercise your unique judgment, (that's what all those 'confident' people are doing, btw!) and the third part is to take these principles into learning who you really are what you really value. Once you learn true, judgment-less acceptance of you (maybe I do only ever want to eat cereal for my evening meal for the rest of my life! maybe I do only want to wear red t-shirts! maybe I do want to have a room in my house dedicated to pictures of frogs!) you get to learn who you are. This, just like the rest of it, is an ongoing process. And remember, this is about getting to know yourself! It's joyful, it's beautiful! You're finally taking yourself seriously - instead of pathologising yourself you're getting to recognise your fundamental right as an individual. Now, but those actions have consequences, right? But that's where getting to know your value system comes in. Once you've truly accepting things about yourself, you can use the power of imagination to picture yourself actually living that life - or, hell, maybe you can just start doing it. Maybe the life you've imagined for yourself turns out to have been much more about a narrative construction or categorisation of yourself - but that's fine, because now you've learned something else about yourself! And then you can change your mind! You can decide that you want to live in a different way! Ever since I developed this system, I am in a constant state of negotiating with myself: oh, if I do this thing, people will think of me as weird -> do I care if they think it's weird? -> oh, I do care a bit, why is that? -> oh, because I dislike the social consequences of that -> which do I care more about, me being 'authentic' 24/7 or me not weirding people out? -> oh, I care a bit more about not weirding people out -> then I guess I won't do the weird thing, then! -> oh, but I wouldn't like to go my whole life without doing it -> maybe I can do it sometimes, depending on the people I'm around -> Oh, I've just now made a full, complete decision on how to conduct myself based on my own personal value system!

Notice how none of this so far has been about other people? I've not had to say once anything about how to practice confidence, to fake it till you make it, or any other corny cliche. Because any attempt to do so would be deeply ironic - in order to not care about what other people think of you, you have to recognise your own prerogative as an individual to do whatever the hell you want. And only from there can you make decisions that are 'judgment-free' in the sense that the judgment doesn't feel like it comes from some terrifying nebulous force, but rather from your own internal value system. And some of those values will conflict, and that's fine! Because if the core premise is always self-love and self-centering, you will find a way to bring that into every decision. And that is what confidence is. Turns out it's not something that other people 'just have', and instead I can achieve it myself - something that younger me did not believe at all.

Another point I'd like to make here is that once you learn this kind of deep empathy for your own selfhood, it sort of naturally starts to dissipate outwards. Opinionated people can be irritating but you don't feel as threatened by them because you've stopped percieving them as some conduit for some nebulous greater truth, and rather as a whole separate human being who has a prerogative to their own weird-ass opinions, just like you. I've described this as your fear of yourself becoming somewhat higher because you learn that you're not just a series of disparate impulses but rather a complete entity with a point of view, but your fear of everything else decreases massively so there's much more of a level playing field between you and everything/everyone else. What's that quote that's like 'they're looking at me, but I'm looking right back at them'. And like, they might be looking at me, but fortunately I'm not privy to any feelings of disgust they might have looking at me, but I am privy to the feelings that I have when looking at them, so the latter is naturally my priority. It's a fucking blessing that I can't feel what everyone else feels! This is my life, my reality, my senses, my world, my opinions, my everything. And that doesn't make me a hardened psychopath, but rather the opposite - I'm free from fear of judgment so I can make much more genuine decisions.

And it builds over time, I can promise you - I sat at a comedy thing literally just this week and I was at the front row where the very aggressive comedian was bantering with me and I bantered right back! Seriously, if that had happened years ago I would have run away crying. But he's just some guy, and I'm just some guy, and now with my strong sense of self I'm not caught off guard when people talk to me. I know who I am, I know what I care about, and what I value. And the irony of life means that if there actually was some external judgment that I should care about, I'm doing a much better job to appease it now than I ever did.

#wisdom posting #my writing

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boredmezzosoprano · 7 months ago

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In defence of Catherine Earnshaw

I just wanted to take this time to talk about the heroine of my all time favourite book Wuthering Heights. She is often described as "selfish" by a lot of readers and yes this is true, but there are reasons for why she acts the way she does. It bothers me how much quicker people are to defend Heathcliff than her when if you ask me, Heathcliff has done worse things than her i.e manipulating and abusing Isabella Linton, abusing his own sickly son, abusing Hareton and robbing him of his inheritance, manipulating Catherine Linton into marrying his son and then robbing her of her inheritance and kidnapping her so she couldn’t be with her dying father and then there’s the little matter of him being the last person to see Hindley before he mysteriously dies (admittedly Hindley was an a$$hole, but still). Don’t think I’m unsympathetic to Heathcliff’s own pain and suffering - I am, it’s just that you cannot judge Cathy harshly while whitewashing Heathcliff’s character🤷🏼‍♀️ Anyway the points I want people to keep in mind are thus:

Like Heathcliff, nobody ever really raised Cathy as her parents both died when she was a child (and even then she wasn’t the favourite of either of them) and Hindley and Nelly couldn’t have been less bothered. Even though the Linton's tried to tame her spirit and mould her into "a lady" it makes sense that her default mode will always be that of a feral child.

People often accuse her of being a gold digger and yes she did plan on marrying Edgar for his money in the hopes of using that money to get Heathcliff out from under Hindley's tyranny, it should be remembered that Cathy really did love Edgar too just not as much as Heathcliff. Also how was she to know that Heathcliff was able to make his own fortune? Given that he never reveals how he made his money and nobody ever finds out how could she have known. It’s speculated that he became a highwayman i.e a glorified thief, most people would choose to avoid living such a precarious lifestyle if given the choice and its hard to blame for not wanting to live a vagabond existence, even Heathcliff admits that he "struggled". As a woman living in the 1700s the only honourable way she could make any kind of life for herself was by getting married!

When she marries Edgar she had no idea where Heathcliff was and when or if he was ever coming back and her choices were limited to marrying into a family who treat you well or stay in your own chaotic and miserable household with your violent drunk if a brother and a maid who’s made it clear she hates you and does not see you as worth her time. So yeah…

Catherine seems to suffer from some sort of disease that’s only ever described as "brain fever". Some readers have described it as encephalitis and others have called it epilepsy. In any case anytime she’s aggravated or upset in anyway she becomes violently ill and this ultimately kills her. With that in mind it becomes understandable that she would actively avoid anything that would cause her any distress as it could (and did) kill her!

There were moments in the book where Cathy with her mood swings came across to me as being bipolar or at least having some kind of personality disorder. Nelly describes her as "having seasons of gloom" during her marriage and she self harms a couple of times in the book. She also threatens to kill herself if it would get a reaction! She seems to place her own sense of value on the men in her life which shows a fundamental lack of self esteem. As someone with BPD these things all hit home for me very deeply, but unlike Cathy I have the freedom to back away from situations that trigger me (well most of the time) and access to medications that even my moods.

While it was undeniably harsh of Cathy to humiliate Isabella by revealing her feelings for Heathcliff with both of them in the room but at the same time she wasn’t wrong to try to snap Isabella out of this naive fantasy. Isabella is a character I care about deeply but it’s obvious that she was in way over her head when it came to Heathcliff! Cathy knew better than anyone that he hated Isabella and would only hurt her. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Poor Isabella does ultimately learn too late that Cathy was right. Even Nelly has to begrudgingly agree with Cathy on this one.

Speaking of Nelly, it should be remembered that everything we learn about Cathy as well as many other characters, we learn only from Nelly who it is clear is quite biased against the characters whose story she is telling. Because she can’t relate to the intense emotions of the other characters she tends to assume that it must be because there’s something wrong with them. It’s entirely possible that Nelly made Cathy out to be far worse than she actually was. It has to be said that Nelly is a character that I tend to back and forth on…

Anyway that’s my take on Catherine Earnshaw. If you disagree that’s fine but please no rude comments cuz we’re all adults and we can agree to disagree😉

#wuthering heights #catherine earnshaw #Cathy and Heathcliff #cathycliff #character study #emily bronte

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sunfl0wersandillusions · 2 months ago

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anyway. when is anybody’s guess (i have 4 days off in the next 6 weeks) but. here are three hypothetical kbms fics that i hope to be the guy to bring to fruition. someday

1) thinkin abt this (https://x.com/3sita_yarou/status/1806973032474595766?s=46 idk how to embed links) fanart by 3sita_tarot on twitter. of uncle mithrun holding obrin’s baby. his facial expressions simultaneously so melancholy and reverent here have me thinkin abt like. mithrun’s learning to experience and accept inherent value, beauty, beyond the constraints of elven society’s definitions of such. obrin and his partner’s love for their child and for one another, despite how noble society has shunned him, audaciously pure and genuine. this i think would work really well alongside kabru, his acceptance in stride over time of laios’s unmasked communication and passionate special interest. both mithrun and kabru have baked into them over time this deference to Da Rules of society, whether it’s elven society’s definition of *value* for mithrun, or kabru’s unique upbringing’s definition of interpersonal communicative *validity*. i see here in mithrun’s acceptance of identifying and owning observation of goodness in the everyday mithrun however struggling, but ultimately resolving to just. call it like he sees it and tell kabru how beautiful he is. whenever it comes to mind. and similarly, where i imagine kabru up to a certain point is a major emotional support of mithrun, i see here kabru allowing himself to be emotionally supported by mithrun, identifying and addressing beyond just denying that such needs even exist. kbms learning to embrace the joys of interpersonal connection beyond their temperance by societal convention.

2. little more toxic. but. some of you are aware of how normal i am about the detail of kabru wanting to learn illusion magic (go read my poem about it on my page i guess) and. thinking about cithis teaching him all hush hush the public can’t know about the king’s advisor fraternizing with this foreign criminal etcetc. she’s earnest and an effective teacher bc they have something of a kinship around their shared deep scrutiny and discerning of people, and a kbms truther as the two of them are dancing around the unique brand of intimacy they share at this point in mithrun’s rehabilitation. but she’s also a bit of an instigator, she lives for the drama (a la neoqueenserenity’s take in their fic good and perilous, if you’re reading this i adore your work xx) so she feeds into kabru’s anxious spiraling rumination on mithrun’s potential feelings and lack thereof, and not-so-subtly encourages him to use his newly developed abilities of magically mind control-esque-ly extracting truth from others… on mithrun, to determine the exact nature of his feelings toward kabru. it’s a low point for him, feeling deep regret for invading the privacy of someone with whom he’s worked to build such singular trust simultaneously with understanding his own fraught mental state and why/how it made him feel like he had to. not justified, but explained. but—what kabru learned was that mithrun’s feelings for kabru… are there, and being under kabru’s influence was the first time mithrun had identified those feelings as such. so mithrun comes to kabru, distraught over how to process these newly realized feelings together with the unsettling invasion of his mind that revealed them. for better or for worse, kabru’s actions didn’t outright destroy the feelings mithrun has for him. and the fact endures that nobody sees, believes in, takes care of mithrun like kabru; mithrun’s not just gonna cut him off forever after this. so as kabru works to regain mithrun’s trust and find it in himself to push past anxiety and insecurity to believe the truth of mithrun’s word without magic, mithrun unpacks the relationship between action(kabru’s) and feeling(his own) and identification thereof.

3. i just think it would be nice if part of mithrun’s journey toward reclaiming desire entailed relearning that he himself is still inherently worthy of being desired. like. as his and kabru’s relationship deepens and grows more physically intimate, mithrun and kabru together tackle mithrun’s staunch avoidance of mirrors; after for so long refusing that relic of his past and thus refusing to ever know his own appearance (he’s just been content the last forty years to know that he is “ugly” by elven standards, that’s all there is to it) i think a really constructive intimate exercise for them would be to stand in front of a mirror together, with kabru showing mithrun all the parts of him he finds beautiful, pink wisps of scars across pale skin like brushstrokes, delicate yet precise and strong hands, etc. mithrun becoming reacquainted with his “ruined” body through the eyes of someone who loves it as it is

can’t promise they’ll be full fics anytime soon but lmk if there’s one you’d especially want to read? i guess? talk to me abt these either way tho pls these two are my saving grace when i come home from this job everyday. and i mean every day. i don’t have another day off until october 8th. ❤️❤️‍🔥✨‼️🤭😍🥰

#🗣me #dungeon meshi #kabumisu #kabru #mithrun

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thefootnotes · 29 days ago

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hey, darlings.

a lot of you would have heard today that liam payne has passed away in argentina. i have plenty of strong opinions about what happened, but i'm not inclined to share them. tbh the social climate about this has been far from its best, and i'm really struggling with being online right now. we all know, especially those of us that are significantly younger than our idols, that we are somewhat likely to outlive the celebrities and artists that we love. i have been painfully aware of that fact since bob saget passed nearly three years ago now, and i knew somewhere in me that the odds are, i would outlive many of the people that i currently look up to. but the last thing i expected, with this knowledge, was to wake up on a random thursday to news that liam payne had fallen to his death. that someone who i have loved for so long, who's art i have grown up with, who's music made a considerable difference in my life. my relationship with my sister is built on the foundation of our shared love for the six albums liam created both in the band and solo, and his story of addiction and sobriety is something that was really important to my own mental health and my ongoing recovery. i don't think it's fair for me to say that i loved him like i knew him. i didn't know him. he wasn't a tourist attraction for me to just admire. i love his art, and i love the person he was publicly. i'm grieving the loss of his life. i'm grieving for all the people he should've had the opportunity to become. i'm grieving for all of the art he will never get to make. i'm grieving for the millions of young people who have lost someone they valued and looked up to, and i'm grieving for his loved ones who now have to live with this, and his son especially. ultimately, i think this death has brought on grief that i have been repressing for the last few weeks. i've really struggled with allowing myself the luxury of feeling certain recent losses of relationships and loved ones, and this was kind of... the last straw, in a way. enough weight to finally tip the scales. as i said; i'm really struggling with the climate online at the moment. the way people were treating liam was disgusting beforehand, and it's worse now. i truthfully just want to shut off all my electronics, curl under the sheets and cry. but i can't do that right now; life goes on. what i can do, for my own peace of mind and my own grief right now, is take a step back. i'll be withdrawing from some upcoming ficfests, and i'll be pulling away from the fandom a little bit. my beloved mutuals, i will still be around and talking to you all. but i won't be creating or consuming anything related to the boys and especially liam for a little while. i just... i need some space. it's too much for me right now. i'm burnt out, i'm exhausted, i'm grieving. i dont know if i'll be able to exist in that fandom space again any time soon, or at all. i'll be pulling out of fandom events and i'll be working out what my limits are for existing in this space. and i'll be praying for not only liam, his girlfriend, and his friends, but especially for bear. i implore you all to keep them, if not in your prayers, in your thoughts.

liam, i miss you. i'll carry you with me. i hope you've found peace, now. 🕊

nunca se fue, porque un pedacito de su alma se quedó aquí en el cielo, en las flores, en la gente, en mí - gio carba

#liam payne

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stn-tmblr · 1 month ago

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Hey Satan! It feels like we haven’t talked in forever! I was mainly busy with a romantic webtoon called Divorcing My Tyrant Husband! I realised how much I’ve been enjoying works that are centred around characters being married, which made wonder two things: 1. What does love mean to you personally? 2. Random, but how are female demons generally treated in society? Similar to female humans? Better? Worse?

For me, love is incredibly rewarding when you meet the right person. It’s the loyalty you have for someone who you want to cherish, and stay by their side through all troubles. It’s a unique connection that you can only imagine having it with your lover and no one else. Love has the power orchestrate anything from madness to peace

Have a lovely day/night!! -🐱💚

To answer your question, female demons are actually treated far worse in human society's eyes, I believe. Many think thank female demons are solely succubi, or not powerful, due to the fact that they are not a lot of demons in the current power structure. I would like to say that is a (temporary) unfortunate coincedince as opposed to sheer fact. I will say, though, their roles have changed over time. For example, Adam was the original sinner, for eating the apple and then lying that it was actually his wife, so for a while, men did hold high positions of power by virtue of being more sinful than women. But this changed pretty quickly as the number of sinners here grew exponentially, and then it was simply a process by birthright. Women in demon society are treated better than male demons, I believe, due to the fact their souls are -- keyword, generally, -- cleaner than males. Rather than hell being organized by effect of how "bad/sinful" someone is, it's mostly just by power, age, wealth, c. No different than the human realm. I wish I could say the afterlife was the great equalizer, it's not.

As for me, I think love is a bit of a misnomer. Love means a lot of different things to different people. I'm assuming you mean romantic love, but there are so many types of love I value equally, if not more.

There's a podcast (I'm slowly learning more about human culture), by a human author I like anyways. John Green has a podcast called The Anthropocene Reviewed. There's an episode titled Indianapolis and Love at First Sight which I think describes it quite well. Love is something that's built over long periods of time, and ultimately, requires effort, time, and is never perfect.

There was a human I had known a long time ago. At the time I did not know they were a human, but they were. I was enamoured by them. I know many of you will think I'm referring to MC, I'm not. This was about 2500 years before they arrived here.

You can ask Asmo, I was absolutely foaming at the mouth over them. I didn't know it was love then, in all honesty. He was a wealthy and young king. He had come down here, finding royalty unfulfilling. He was trying to reclaim the souls of his loved ones, thinking they had brought here. He was smart, kind, very well spoken, and likely the second least sinful person I know.

Because I was so enamoured with him, I devised a set of trials with obvious loopholes to win back their souls, at least personally to save them from hell. None of my brothers knew about this. However, the man was too honest, and refused to use the loopholes or cheat and was determined to complete the challenges "the right way". I watched him die at my own hands.

Obviously he must be an angel up in heaven, because I never saw him, or his soul since.

I hope that is sufficient, anon.

#obey me #satan obey me #obey me satan #obey me shall we date #obey me swd #obey me roleplay #asks

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anhed-nia · 3 months ago

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I remembered the oddity of two different movies simultaneously appearing about Christine Chubbuck, who notoriously committed suicide during a live news broadcast, and I remember the Rebecca Hall movie quite well--I've seen it more than once and I admire it--but I couldn't quite recall whether I had seen the documentary. I'm not even sure if I can use the word "documentary" to describe the film about Kate Lyn Sheil preparing to play Chubbuck in a movie that is fictional; that is, it only exists within the confines of KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE which, despite real interviews with real people about a real event, is a total contrivance whose goal is to interrogate tabloid journalism and the delusion that we can ever know the "authentic self" of a public figure. I think that's what the filmmakers have said, anyway, although I'm not sure the message is always so skillfully delivered. I mean, I don't get the sense that the casting of Kate Lyn Sheil is supposed to be ironic, even though she seems almost uniquely unqualified for the role, down to the fact that her mousy little voice is barely up to the challenge of a mild argument let alone the professional skill of anchoring a news program. But I think the hardest thing for me about this meta-movie is that it starts to feel like there are only two options in addressing a story like Chubbuck's: you can either reduce her to a string of ignorant, sexist cliches for maximum entertainment value (obviously bad), or you can accept that she is essentially unknowable. And frankly, I think the Rebecca Hall movie proves that there is a middle ground where you can perform thoughtful experiments with empathy.

Like no, of course no sensationalistic news item should be treated like the whole truth about someone, but KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE is overloaded with people spitballing about why Christine killed herself in a way that only serves to remind you that if you are seriously depressed and all your dreams are falling apart in your hands and you cannot trust or respect the world around you...well, then you really might be as alone as you feel, because no matter how loudly you shout what your problem is, the non-depressed majority will never, ever understand you. Worse than that, they might make a whole movie that makes you sound kind of shallow and ungrateful and maladjusted, where they all reassure each other that there is just no way to relate to you. I think it's a big problem that the narrative of depression is so often told by outsiders who ultimately don't really get it, although I don't know what solution to propose other than that people should try harder to listen to each other. Or at least admit that they're operating without much imagination for other people's feelings.

Maybe I'm overstating things because I find what we know (or think we know, yeah yeah) about Christine Chubbuck really easy to understand, and relatable to a not insignificant degree. And KATE PLAYS CHRISTINE just reminded me that if I were to ever reach an extreme conclusion about my life, I could almost be sure that whoever survived me wouldn't have much to say about it except that it was selfish and irrational and any testimony that I left behind is impossible to take seriously. Like the Rebecca Hall movie might not be the TRUTH-truth, but it makes a pretty thoughtful, educated attempt to interpret things, and I don't feel there's anything wrong with that. I keep thinking about this David Sedaris essay that somebody described to me, that I haven't even read so yeah there's another layer of manipulated reportage for you, but it stuck with me: Five of the Sedaris children used to torment the sixth mercilessly, and despite the amount of detail David gives about that, he still manages to act confused about why the bullied sibling turned out all messed up and suicidal, unlike the other kids who made the most of their opportunities in life. David Sedaris may well be an unsympathetic egomaniac, but in my experience it really does happen that someone is not doing well and absolutely all of the evidence is out in the open, and the public and alleged loved ones of that person are happy to talk about their suffering like it is just incomprehensible and possibly even worth shitting on. So yeah, sorry to be a bummer on this beautiful Sunday afternoon but maybe the ultimate reason not to kill yourself is that no one will ever get it no matter what you say or do, and they might even be rude about it after you're gone.

PS I have no idea how much good these things actually do, but I feel like I might as well put one of the many helplines out there at the end here:

#tw: suicide #not blogtober

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detectivenyx · 1 year ago

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A month or so back, someone made a tweet defending Himiko saying she's overhated by fandom and claiming she has autism. Of course, half the replies are people hating Himiko and she didn't deserve to be a survivor. I didn't know Himiko was disliked that much. This post was to ask, what are your feelings on Himiko?

if you asked a danganronpa fan on twitter if they'd like to examine their potential biases against a character and whether they're based on problematic stereotypes of marginalised groups or put themselves in a saw trap, they'd be strapping themselves into the fucking Shotgun Carousel with baffling enthusiasm, and himiko is one of the characters that makes that most apparent.

himiko has the exact same issue as hiyoko before her; she isn't waifu material since she looks like a child, and to danganronpa fans, if a female character who isn't explicitly a child isn't waifuable, there's zero value in them whatsoever. their flaws are exacerbated because they can't be sexualised and girlboss'd or failwife'd (which is not a problem reflected in male characters and them being 'husbandoable'). and this isn't an issue with the characters, but very much fan perception. there's no mistaking it, a lot of the hatred for himiko is just fans' misogyny; traits she gets criticised for having made gundam and kiyotaka fandom darlings. there's a fair amount of ableism in there too. himiko is never explicitly stated to have autism, but while i have the theory every character is at least somewhat autistic, himiko is probably one of the more obvious ones. she very clearly struggles with social interactions and her response to the life-threatening danger is to clam up and try to make herself seem insignificant, and she's a terrible liar - all traits common in autistic individuals, but additionally seen in depression. she reads to me like an autistic person with depression. to a danganronpa fan nothing is worse than an unsexy female character who is heavily implied to be autistic.

i absolutely do not get anyone who says she shouldn't have survived; the girl was berated and subjected to The Horrors every time she took a fucking breath. fuyuhiko might have had the most happen to him physically, but himiko definitely had way more on her plate. there's not a single murder in the game she wasn't accused of doing and she didn't want to bother with defending herself, and through chapter 2 and 3 she was put through the absolute fucking wringer. her magic show she put on to help everyone feel better about the motive was hijacked for the most brutal corpse disposal in danganronpa's history, then to top it off, she was accused of said murder by the person she trusted, with only tenko defending her innocence. she joins angie's student council for whatever security she can get as the smallest and weakest person left in the group, and then that crumbles when angie is found dead - the closest thing angie had to a friend. then, tenko offers to take her place as the medium of the seance, and dies because she did so. and honestly, himiko realising moments too late exactly what tenko meant to her and begging for her to move, to say something, is far more heartbreaking than anything to come out of any of the 5th chapters. and then, she gets accused of being the one to murder the two people she cared the most about. after all the shit she's already been through, of course she clams the fuck up and stops caring. she doesn't think she should've survived, the writing all but spells out that himiko's going through severe survivor's guilt, and she's just given up, if everyone goes down with her, so be it. it does require everyone to look at the case and provide himiko with a reason to go on; ultimately, she's the one who takes that purpose to keep moving forward (the old 'you can lead a horse to water' addage). and yet, STILL, she gets put through the wringer AGAIN in chapter 5 when she learns that it wouldn't have mattered anyway; they're the last people left alive and there's no more humanity. at every turn she's been given reasons to give up, again, and again, and again. and more realistically than someone heroically going 'no! i'll never give up!' she more realistically DOES give up - but giving up can be as difficult as not giving up, even more so. that's what she embodies - someone who very much does want to give up, but doesn't.

it's clear fans don't give a shit about the impact her death would have; when she dies in a fangan she's rarely given a second thought. so if her death would've been meaningless, why are people so upset she survived? that's a question i can't really answer - not when the characters that do die i think had to for the sake of the story. kaito and kokichi would've been terrible survivors because their stories do hinge on them dying; their deaths are their conclusions. but himiko, i think, for her story to have its intended effect - she needed to survive, and very much fought tooth and nail to do so.

i've noticed the video i made 3-4 years ago now did help to kind of rehabilitate her image because hatred was even more common before it but there's still quite a bit of unwarranted himiko hatred. my advice; get off twitter and get on cohost where i am and himiko's autistic swagger is always welcome

#ndrv3 spoilers #sdr2 spoilers #himiko yumeno

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aetherhollowarchive · 3 months ago

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Related to this: "For the ending, I am honestly not entire sure how much I want the MC to even realize the consequences of going home before the fact. The way I initially pictured it was for them to not know until they are already home or "on their way" there"

While I'm all for the "going back to their homeworld" being a "bad ending", I think it would be good to give players either a warning that'd be a bit clearer than just some foreboding signs, or maybe the opportunity for the MC to realize something is very wrong literally on the way there and the ability to turn back at the last second when they realize something is wrong (possibly hanging on some choices or stat checks or what not).

Players who hang out on this blog obviously know about this being a bad ending, but we should never forget a lot of players simply play games on Steam or itch without interacting with the authors at all, and I feel like having the very real possibility of a "go back home" ending presented during the entire story only for it to be inevitably disastrous could leave a very bad taste of the entire story for the players who actually chose that path unknowingly.

Of course, you can decide to go through with it for shock value, but I'm trying to imagine the other way around - if staying in the new world was the disastrous ending. And I'd be literally crushed if I had the certainty the game would allow me to chose so during it's entire course, only for it to be a bad ending in the end and me being stuck in it. It'd be way worse than simply not being able to stay in that world for me. So I think it's sort of true for the players who prefer it the other way around. So some clear in-game warnings (as in, clearly presented in the story) or the ability for a last second change of heart even when the process started, as soon as MC realizes something is wrong, would really be nice I think?

PS: ultimately it's your choice, and it won't even affect my playthrough! I'm just sharing my thoughts from a narrative pov here!

Hmm I can see your point🤔 I'm a bit torn by it though, at least for now 😂

I am a fan of consequences and assuming your choices till the end in fiction and I think I was going a bit for the shock value and the whole 'you've made your bed, now lie in it'. And I think part of me also can't see why people would read a romance story with an expiration date. Because it will be clear that the ROs can't follow MC. I suppose it could be just a "summer fling" in a steampunk world on the brink of societal collapse 🤣 The option that makes the most sense, in game, would be for a last minute change of heart, but even then, I don't think I want to clearly show what would have happened if MC went through with it. I can make it clear it's not a... particularly great option. But it can also not be a bad option, depending on the MC... I'll also have to go back to check what exactly I've said in the intro post, because MC will have no certainty it's possible to go home until the very last minute 😅It's all a hypothetical 'if you get as much aether as OG Sov, you might be able to', but never an 100% possibility as the only person who knew the how's and if's is dead. But yeah, I will give it a bit more thought and add more clarity to it in game. Fist part of the story doesn't touch much on the going home part, as in there will not be a clear lead to it, so it's still a bit until then.

Thank for the feedback! I really appreciate it 💕

#thank you so much ♥#konoi and noir #the aetherhollow archive #the aetherhollow archive if #interactive fiction #twine wip #going home route

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0junemeatcleaver0 · 10 months ago

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okay so my brain apparently wants to focus solely on a shit post instead of outlining this fic, working on my novel, or finishing my substack post but here we go because my brain worms have decided to fixate on the boys playing with guns. cool.

𝖇𝖆𝖓𝖌 𝖇𝖆𝖓𝖌 𝖒𝖞 𝖇𝖆𝖇𝖞 𝖘𝖍𝖔𝖙 𝖒𝖊 𝖉𝖔𝖜𝖓

but i just keep picturing armand deciding his latest fixation is now guns. pistols, specifically, and he's got quite a lovely collection going on. he probably finds it really meditative to take them apart and restore them, the ones that are worse for wear.

and so there are just a bunch of fucking hand guns out on a table when lestat comes over. some are already restored, some are being worked on. armand has a thin sheen of blood sweat coating his forehead from sheer concentration alone--the goal is always, for him, to make the gun operable but not to damage it in any way and never accidentally strip any of the patina off, which can lower the value of the gun drastically.

they're fussing at each other. it's mostly playful and the funniest part about this whole debacle is that it's not even the worst fight they've ever had. it's not even ugly for the forms their spats take in the modern era.

but lestat, as always, is feeling cheeky and in mock offense scoops a gun off the table and aims it squarely at armand's chest--laughing at the momentary look of shocked outrage that crosses his face.

"knock it off, lestat." armand scowls, picking up one of his many small tools to resume work on the pistol currently in his hands.

"why? scared?" he's smiling but the truth is, he is the one that is scared. something happened when he picked up the pistol--his heart beginning to trip over itself. the last time he pointed a gun at something, it mattered, it meant something. he's not had much reason to point a gun at anything since his turning but some near-human part of him (or an echo of his former humanity) is screaming and thrashing like a beast inside of him.

"please." armand rolls his eyes, spitting the word out as though the thought of ever being scared of lestat is the stupidest thing he can imagine. he doesn't even have the decency to look up to mock him, just keeps running a small, soft bottle brush inside the barrel of the gun in his hand.

anger momentarily flares in lestat and he's shocked to find his finger tightening on the trigger a fraction before he eases off the pressure.

"i could, you know." lestat sniffs haughtily. "i could shoot you."

"oh, and what a tragedy that would be." armand sounds bored of him already. he's hold a gun on the little shit and he's bored. "please, sir," he mocks, voice dripping sarcasm, "don't kill me. i'm too young to die!"

they both flinch when the gun goes off in lestat's hand. and while he doesn't remember telling his brain to pull the trigger he does recall the split second decision he made to aim just over armand's shoulder--bullet colliding with something breakable behind him. lestat doesn't know what he's just atomized into a fine powder that hangs in the air but armand doesn't even seem to need to turn to figure it out, chair legs scraping loudly over the floor as he rises to his feet like a VHS skipping --and isn't that an old reference! one he doubts his son would understand. but don't worry, viktor, i'm full of outdated references that would boggle the mind--

logically he cannot work out which he's aware of first--the sound of the shot or the bullet connecting with his shoulder. do bullets travel faster than the speed of sound? modern ones certainly, but these hunks of rust?

"--my damned Yongzheng vase!" armand is saying when he tunes back into what's being screamed at him.

it ultimately doesn't matter--the shot won't kill him but it certainly hurts and so that's the only bit of the tirade he catches before his attention is squarely on his shoulder and the searing pain radiating out from it, down his bicep and into his back.

"would you rather i had hit you?" lestat hisses through his teeth. his senses are a heady mixture of hot pain, the coppery-sweet smell of his blood, and the sensation of his body starting to knit itself together.

"yes!" it's one of the most ridiculous things lestat has heard in a minute but the seriousness with which its said sets him off into a fit of laughter again--guffawing harder and the look of irritation on aramnd's face.

"fine!" he proclaims between giggles, "have this, then."

he's not truly aiming when he squeezes the trigger this time, just points it vaguely at armand's form and fires. it grazes his side, sliding between the barely-there hollow between ribs. lestat's not certain if the bullet has even had time to settle into the wall behind armand before he's being shot at again--this time the bullet connecting with his hip.

it's worse than before, his leg buckling so that he must catch himself on the table before him. the pain is bad enough but his heightened senses means he can acutely hear the bone chipping and splintering where armand's shot has caught his pelvis.

his vision is red, the roaring in his head drowning out whatever thoughts he's having. whether he thinks to shoot again is lost on even him, his brain only coming on line quick enough to watch a large red stain spread stickily over the torso of armand's shirt, hearing himself finish whatever he was saying with a resounding, "--my fucking hip!"

it happens too quickly--he thinks perhaps he's feeling that tingling under his skin that feels so much like a million ants marching to duty to weave together the fibers of his muscle, cement his bone back in place. or it is merely the sensation of blood leaking carelessly from his body, trickling over his skin. he doesn't have time to puzzle it out before the gun goes off in armand's hand again.

the last thing he feels before momentary night engulfs him is the sensation--and sound, my god the sound!--of his lower jaw cracking, the right side parting from his face entirely. the indignity of feeling his mandible swinging like a barn door in a storm, marring the perfect beauty of his face.

the next thing he knows, he's staring up into the disapproving face of marius, shoving his open wrist into the red-gape of writhing pain where lestat's mouth used to be.

#i should be doing anything else #but i wrote this instead #here #have some #armand x lestat #gun play because why not

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