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#doing so would change so many things for the better!
kittyfrisk9 · 2 days
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IdeaDpxDc: A nice moment with a sleep demon/2
Part 1(?)
Note: Sorry, I don't know English, use a translator. I apologize if you don't get the idea.
Dead On Main.
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Peace is, without a doubt, a precious commodity.
That was the conclusion Jason came to after a long moment of reflection, observing his cosmic boy: the dream demon who had saved him from that endless nightmare.
They were both in a field covered with flowers in shades of blue, purple and pink, under a starry sky where the stars seemed to shine with an unusual intensity. The same scenario as the last twenty times.
Yes, they had seen each other again. After Jason refused to forget that moment, the demon simply visited him again the next night, without even bothering to hide.
They didn't do much, they just played, had fun and enjoyed sweet moments together, like now, when the demon came up with the peculiar idea of ​​making flower crowns.
However, despite being the one who had the idea, he was the last to finish his crown. Jason found it sincerely adorable how the demon frowned, frustrated at not being able to tie a knot. Her expression was so cute that Jason couldn't help but smile. Sure, he could have helped her, but that would have robbed him of those precious minutes of admiration for him.
He didn't know how much time passed, he just watched and pondered. After all, time in this place was strange.
"I'm done!" Void exclaimed, proudly raising his crown. "Isn't it pretty?"
Jason replied with a simple "Yes." However, he wasn't looking at the flower crown, but at the creator of it. Although Void didn't seem to notice that detail.
"Thank you. It's the same design that Sa-Saiph showed me!" He commented, satisfied.
There it was again. Those little slips of information that Jason had noticed in the multiple conversations they'd had. Jason chuckled; Void wasn't very good at hiding data. He mentally noted it down in the special folder he'd created in his head for him anyway.
Because he'd be a liar if he said he didn't try to find out more about that demon with the information he'd inadvertently given him. Though, to be honest, he didn't try very hard either.
After all, he could see that Void was a nice guy. (And maybe, just maybe, Jason had a little crush on him.)
"One of your friends?" Jason asked curiously.
"Yeah, my best friend," Void replied. "She's a huge plant fanatic. I suspect she's on the level of Poison Ivy."
"Eh, it would be a problem to have another plant invasion," Jason commented, remembering the woman's extremist past. How many times had she invaded the city with her plants?
"Oh no, no, it only happened once, and she was being forced to do it," the demon suddenly stated, as if trying to quickly correct the impression he had given.
"Your friend invaded a city with plants?" Jason asked, incredulous.
"Just once," Void emphasized, as if that made it any better.
What the hell? How had that not reached the ears of the Justice League? Forget it, he decided not to ask. Some things were better left unsaid.
He decided to change the subject instead.
Unintentionally, his vision focused on the hands holding the crown, and then on her arms. The areas on his arms were decorated with a design that reminded Jason of a starry sky, filled with tiny, glowing stars and nebulas against a dark background. It was so beautiful, as if Void's arms were an extension of outer space.
As he looked closer, he realized that some other parts of his body also shared that surreal effect of a universe filled with stars. There were sparkles of light on his skin that seemed to dance with every movement, creating an ethereal and captivating image.
"Your skin… is amazing," Jason said, without thinking. "You look like you're made of stars."
Void smiled, a little embarrassed. "Thanks. I guess it's just part of my nature. I've always loved outer space."
Jason was silent for a moment, enjoying the revelation. "Really? Why?" He asked, genuinely curious to know more.
Void looked at his hands fondly. "I think it's partly because of my older sister. When I was little, she was… gone for a while. It was only a short time, but I was lonely. Then, on a call, she told me that I wasn't alone, that the stars were keeping me company. She said that every point in the sky was a friend watching me." Void then turned his gaze to Jason. "It's a silly story, right?"
Jason shook his head. "No. It's cute." Then, blushing, he added, "I have things I like too for certain reasons."
Void looked at him with interest. "Really? I'd love to hear about it."
However, Jason looked away, visibly embarrassed. "No."
The answer made Void's expression immediately deflate. "Oh, ancients… Why not? Tell me, tell me, tell me!" He exclaimed as he excitedly threw himself at Jason, eager to discover his secrets.
Jason laughed. "Still a no." Then he quickly dodged Void, jumping up and running to avoid being caught. Void, amused and exasperated, chased after him, insisting that he deserved to know.
"Come on! It's not fair!" Void shouted with laughter as he ran after Jason.
Fresh air, laughter, and the feeling of freedom filled the field of flowers. Yes, this was the peace Jason so desperately needed.
As dawn came, Jason woke up. His bed was really comfortable, and the little meetings with his sleep demon were truly relaxing. Jason had certainly had a satisfying month.
Stretching out on his bed, Jason wondered what he should have for breakfast, until he saw him.
He immediately sat up cursing the person creepily standing in the corner of the room: the demon brat, still in Robin's costume and staring at him. "Shit, Damian! What are you doing standing there?"
Damian completely ignored his question and, in a serious tone, asked, "Todd, do you do drugs?"
"What?" Jason frowned.
"You laughed a lot in your dreams," his younger brother said, his expression a mix of curiosity and disdain.
Jason looked at him in disbelief. Had this kid been spying on him all night while he slept?
---
Note: Sorry, I don't know English, use a translator. I apologize if you don't get the idea.
One of Damian's hypotheses is that his brother uses drugs. As for Jazz, she had an accident in her parents' basement that injured her arm, so she had to stay in the hospital for a while. Danny felt super lonely without his older sister.
Comment that nobody cares about: I wasn't planning on continuing with this, I know it's poorly written, but inspiration came when I saw this (honestly it's a very weird way to get inspiration)
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desireangel · 2 days
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Dark Cherry [4] | Aemond Targaryen
Aemond Targaryen x Fem!Reader
Summary: after months of a marriage that hardly harbours the passion that you'd dreamed about, you stumble across the reason for your husband's indifference and decide enough is enough. Aemond will learn just exactly what he's been missing out on.
Word Count: 5.5k
Warnings: MDNI 18+!! canon divergence!!! I fucked the timeline and nigly bits bc this was an impulse fic ok soooo it was mostly unplanned, almost smut, angst, let the grovelling happen babyyy, unedited, mention of alys x aemond but not in a good way :((, infidelity, talk of sex, guilt, mentions of Aegon x reader, hmmm I ramble, little vulnerable Aemond, bad language, let me know if I've missed anything!
Author's note: y'all I was never done with that man like there's no easy out for him :llll. Anyways I wrote most of this instead of studying which I needed to do. Perhaps I'll have my hand at another idea I'm cooking before part 5 but I'm alsoooo unsure about how keen we are to keep this one going - like is it getting too much??? either way, I enjoy writing this. and idk how to shut up, clearly, because I love that internal mind talk shit. Drop your thoughts in my inbox or PM me because I love to yap!!! xoxo, kisses!!! <3
Masterlist
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He was a fool. A spoiled, arrogant and entitled fool. You often thought about whether Aemond actually recognised the effect of his actions on anyone else. It was always ‘I did it for us’ or ‘I did it because I had to do it’.
So after your confrontation the day before, it had surprised you that Aemond had truly believed he was forgiven. Maybe it shouldn’t have. You had, after all, sat beside him and laughed with him. Shared a moment as if things were better. But it was nothing more than a lighthearted acknowledgement that whatever game was being played was entirely ridiculous yet you could feel how something had changed. There was a newfound intensity between the two of you and Aemond had clearly understood that he had made a mistake
But that wouldn't be enough for forgiveness. Things would never really be the same. You will never forget. The nameless woman had made a home in your unconscious mind and everything would remind you of the woman your husband had chosen to take to bed over you. She was beautiful, she was experienced and free of burden. Based on that alone a part of you could see why she could have been a better choice–a part of you that ached and pained ceaselessly. 
And you weren’t sure you could carry on as if Aemond hadn’t thrown your entire world into the pits of ruin. Because that is exactly what he may as well have done. All you had was your marriage to him–a fact that was as painful as it was true. If it all fell apart because of him only you would suffer from it. 
Your name, your family’s name. A Lady born to a house of remarkably lowly nobility with little more than your marriage to the prince. A charity case marriage to tell the realm’s people that the Crown was not so prejudiced as to be above uniting with the likes of your house. That the Lannisters and Baratheons were important but they were not everything. A fabrication only made necessary to cover up the fact that it was a lie–the Targaryens (and even the Hightowers as you had come to realise) really did believe they were of better blood. 
A failure to fulfil your duty to the Targaryen crown as Prince Aemond’s wife would destroy your family name. And you would have no prospect of happiness after it. What else did you have aside from this?
Aemond would never understand that. Because not only was he a man but he was a prince. A privilege, a safety and a security he had inherited through birth. 
Aside from the pressures of society, he had hurt you. Badly. 
Despite your own confliction about it, you did have love for Aemond–how could you not? Love came from many things and while yours may have come from your dependance on his word, on the duty he performed to be your protector as he was to the Crown and its subjects, on his polite affections as limited as they were, it still found its way into your heart. Perhaps it was foolish to allow it entry into your existence when you had already known that there was no love to come from Aemond. 
It didn’t change anything. Betrayed your trust, taken you for granted and destroyed the sanctity of a husband’s loyalty as if he were as dishonourable as any other Lord. 
You would never say it out loud but it had broken your heart. And heartache is a consuming, suffocating and painful thing to feel. A constant lump in your throat, something always weighing your chest down, a disastrous, aching discomfort in your belly. Tears had stained your pillow at night and dried by the morning, the fabric of the linen acquiring the same unphased facade that you would wear as you plastered on a mask of ignorance so that you could continue to live through your day. 
All because you had wanted him. Aemond, who was doomed to disappoint and destroy merely because that is all that princes do. 
For him to have mistaken your truce–the end to the back and forth game that had been wreaking havoc in its wake-as forgiveness was infuriating. He had no idea. 
Well, maybe he did. Now that he had seen you with another just as you had seen him. And you recognised your own experience in the moment he had realised what was happening. 
Aemond’s call to breakfast made you want to laugh. But you had turned him down for afternoon tea just the day before only to be found swallowing his brother’s seed. You winced at the shamefulness of your thought, muttering a quick prayer for the sake of your piety whether it was genuine or not. 
He was seated lazily in the chair he favoured, an array of food spread across the table. There was a book in his hand. The same one he had taken from you the last time you had shared your morning meal together. Aemond had a smirk playing on his lips. 
You cleared your throat, curtsying before sitting down at the other end of the table to him and with as much distance between you as you could muster. “Good morrow, my Prince,”
“Formalities, I see,” He looked at you through his lashes. It was odd seeing him so relaxed, the tension that was always in his shoulders had been lost and there was a playful glint to his eye. You wanted to smack it out. “I believed we were past titles and distance for the sake of propriety, my sweet. As well as rigid greetings.”
All you responded with was a stare. 
Dropping the book to his side, Aemond sighed and leaned forward, pouring tea into a cup. He stood, taking a couple steps forward to hand it to you. “We have fixed-”
“We have fixed nothing.”
“I am trying to turn a new leaf,” he commanded. You took the cup and saucer from his hand, the warm waft of vanilla and rose giving you a slight reprieve from the threat that rolled off his tongue. “If you do not recall, dear wife, I as well have every reason to resent you. The image of you sucking on my useless brother’s cock is not one I can easily bare. Yet I have chosen to let it be. I could have easily decided otherwise.”
“That would make you a hypocrite.” You glanced at him over the rim of your teacup. 
“It does not matter much if I am a hypocrite, does it?” Aemond sat, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. He wasn’t bothered with the food in front of him, focused solely on you. “I hardly see how that would change anything.”
You squirmed under the intensity of his stare, picking up a cherry from the bowl of fruits and rolling the stem between your fingers. “It matters to me. Certainly, it matters for your reputation among the smallfolk. Nobody cares for a selfish prince, my dear.”
Aemond hummed, smirking at the venom you spat at him. You noticed the coin that he rolled between his fingers, nimble and thoughtless as if it were like breathing. Not so much a nervous habit but a thoughtful one. 
He couldn’t lie and say that he didn’t enjoy your confidence. It was refreshing. But there was a dip in his gut at the thought that there was no hope for the two of you. Aemond, ever logical, knew he had no one else to blame but himself with his lack of foresight and failure to see beyond the now and here. 
Because Aemond had not even considered how things would go on should you not forgive him. He had assumed that you would if not merely on the basis that there was little lost from a relationship that hardly existed in the first place. You had love for him and he was so convinced that such a thing would be impossible that he didn’t consider that it would cause you heartache beyond slighted offence and jealousy. 
A violet eye lingered on the cherry that remained between your fingers. Aemond was good at putting on an act. He thought for a moment that he would rather take lashes to his back than have you know that he had no idea how to love someone properly. A part of him was persuaded that he was incapable of being a good lover. The lashes seemed like a blissful gift compared to the self-loathing that simmered in his belly at the probability that he had ruined any chance your marriage had of recovery.  
It crossed his mind that it was his ignorance towards you right from the beginning that had damned your relationship. 
Either way, it did not help that you had turned to his brother for intimacy. Aemond felt his blood scorch whenever that invaded his mind. He wanted to crumble the walls of this fortress when he wondered if Aegon had enjoyed your womanhood. Jealousy did motivate him well, he realised, and Aemond had the murderous urge to feed Aegon to Vhagar. 
Nonetheless, he feigned amusement. “It seems as if you care for one.”
You ate the cherry. It was sweet and rich. All you replied with was an upturn of your chin as you gracefully held a small embroidered towel to your lips.
“So I am not forgiven?” Aemond had to break the silence before it cut him open. “Are we not even?”
Narrowing your eyes at him, you held back a surprised laugh. “You never apologised. Not that it would make any difference.”
“That does not answer my question.”
“Of course you are not forgiven,” you sighed. The tea cup hit the table with a clang. Your disdain for his actions and his ignorance gave you an unfettered confidence around him which you weren’t accustomed to. It made it very difficult to control yourself. “And no, we are not even, my Prince. And since you have brought it to my attention, I am of half a mind to find Aegon and offer him a meal between my thighs. You see, I have often wondered how it would feel and I expect that our King would be happy to indulge my… curiosities.”
Aemond sneered, a silent one that was more visible in his intake of a breath, the curl of his lips and the hardening of his eye. Bullseye. 
It took him less than a couple seconds to be on his knees in front of where you sat, a strong hand tightly gripping each side of your thighs over the thick fabrics of your dress. He had shoved the table aside, unphased as tea spilled and fruits and cheeses toppled to the floor. Something in the look of bewilderment on your face had Aemond ready to both grin at your clueless innocence and frown at your shock.
Aemond didn’t let himself dwell on the fact that you had given up on expecting such pleasures from him. He was your husband; nothing about what he was clearly intending on doing to you should surprise you. Cursing himself to perdition would not be enough for how he has failed you. 
“I feel obliged to remind you that we had agreed,” he grazed his nose across your knees, looking up at you through his eyelashes, jaw clenched tight as he all but growled his words. “That there will be no more of this foolishness. Not from you and not from me.”
It was an onslaught of different things that had rendered you still and silent. The way Aemond looked at you like you were the only satiating force for his eternal hunger, the wordless mixture of desire and anger in how his fingers dug into the flesh of your thighs, the desperation in his voice, strained by the fear that you would. Or was it the overwhelming feeling that Aemond was finally taking some accountability and that maybe he recognised not what his actions were but the meaning that they carried?
For a moment Aemond just looked at you, conflicted and fragmented and unguarded. The sight of him like this reminded you of a vulnerable child. But it didn’t last long before the menacing, cautionary glint was back in his eye, his posture becoming rigid as shuffled the fabrics of your skirts. 
A new kind of anxiety overcame you. Not like the insignificant nervousness you had felt that night when you had wandered into his chambers or used his leg to make yourself peak and not like the clueless apprehension with Aegon. It formed a ball in your chest and made it hard to breathe. 
There was no chance he would ever admit it but you could see Aemond’s vulnerability and desperation within the hardened facade he had perfected. He wanted nothing more than to seem strong and powerful at all times, worthy of acclaim and reverence. But here he was, willing to stay on his knees and worship you forever, all under the pretence of rageful infatuation. 
It was too hot. Even with the cool of the shadows cast by the dark net curtains that only let in enough daylight to see clearly and not enough to cause Aemond irritation from sensitivity in his eye, it was so warm you worried you would have to rip the sleeves off of your dress.
You were snapped out of your thoughts when Aemond let out a soft, dark groan, running his fingers across the expanse of your legs over your stockings, your skirts already bunched at your hips. Skin burning at his touch, you couldn’t help the way you whined and squeezed your thighs together, squirming under the intensity of his gaze. 
His voice was heavy with the burden of lust and regret. “I will be better. In all the ways that I have failed you and more. Your forgiveness, I realise, is not as easily granted as I presumed but I will show you that I am worthy of it.” 
There was a moment of weakness in your mind before you caught yourself. You didn’t quite believe him. It had clearly been too easy for him to give you empty promises and there was no reason why things would be different now. 
It was odd. Seeing Aemond weak like this. 
What would it mean if you let him continue? It was clearly different this time. You couldn’t put it into words exactly but there was a rawness, a blitz of different emotions that set things ablaze and made you want to both weep and mewl for him. 
You couldn’t spare a thought about why it was different. Aemond was right there, a weaponised Prince on his knees for you, a lowly Lady with nothing more to offer him than yourself. Since when did you hold all this power over him? 
That night in his bedchambers and last night when you had shared a laugh despite everything that had unfolded felt detached in a way. When you had allowed yourself release over his leg it was simply that. A way to ease the tension he had put in your body and a way to leave him wanting.
Aemond’s eye swam with a tenderness you had not seen from him. He continued to look up at you waiting to gauge your response. It was a slight nod of your head which had his hands tearing at the soft fabric of your stockings, his lips instantly meeting the skin of your knees before you had the chance to even gasp. All the while, he kept his eye on you as if his heart would cease to beat if he could not watch the way you reacted to him. 
It became increasingly harder to breathe. There were so many thoughts, so many sensations that you struggled to put it all together. Your flushed with anticipation, your cunt throbbed at the wet plushness of his lips on your hot skin and your hips squirmed at what was to come. 
Your mind, however, flashed with the image of Aemond, exactly as he was now, between another woman’s thighs. A woman who didn’t flinch at the unfamiliar touch, who didn’t jerk away at the foreign feeling of being pleasured. You wondered if he would be so angered at the prospect of another man’s mouth on her womanhood, if her skin felt softer or more rough on his lips and if he looked at her with the same heated need.
It made you feel sick. 
Aemond let himself enjoy the way your thighs tensed, pulling your smallclothes off of you as much as carefully as he could under the restriction of your skirts. There was an urge to rip the entire dress off but he knew it would be a step too far. He couldn’t help the low sounds that left him, sounds he couldn’t recognise. The expanse of your thighs and the sight of your flushed, hot cunt in front of him made his mouth water with a hunger that would have shocked him had he not been so distracted by your scent. 
Without complete vision, Aemond had learned to train his sense of touch, taste, smell and hearing to make up for the disadvantage he was stuck with. They were always slightly heightened compared to those who never needed the compensation of senses but in the cloud of desire and lust, he was sensitive. 
You whined at the way his tongue glided over your skin, biting down hard but not hard enough to be painful on the flesh of your upper thigh so close to where you needed to feel him. But Aemond was always remarkably patient and he merely made way to your other leg, repeating his ministrations and licking you from your knee to where he bit you at your thigh. 
The haze that had possessed you made you lose track of your thoughts so easily. Still, they fought their way to the forefront of your mind at every chance they could and you were reminded of her. 
Aemond’s mind was overwhelmed by you. There was no power in the realm that could make him think of anything else, not with the way you were trembling under his feathered touch and making such beautiful sounds for him, and not when he desired for anyone else apart from you. 
A heavy breath of shame and excitement tumbled out of you at how lewdly he dragged the tip of his nose across your thigh, pressing it into the flesh that sat above your slick, aching cunt and inhaling. You clenched around nothing, your clit twitching at the sound of Aemond’s unabashed groan. 
He grasped at your hips and your legs, his fingers burying into your flesh and tugging as if there would never be enough of you in his hands. It would have driven you into a similarly desperate state had things been different. 
The prince between your thighs was a sight to behold. Aemond’s skin was flushed pink, his eyepatch slightly out of place and his hair tousled from the way your legs clenched and unclenched against his head. He was almost drooling, mumbling about how good you smelled and how perfect and pretty your cunt was for him. His cock had never been so hard, constricted by the stiff leather of his training attires. 
Aemond enjoyed being a tease but there was only so much he could handle himself. While he wanted you to crave for him the way he was craving you so unbearably, Aemond needed to taste you. He needed to make you feel the blinding pleasure he should have been giving you at every chance he had since the night you were married. He needed to show you the ways of unbridled human desire and to show you all the ways your body could come undone and fall apart only to feel completely whole and fulfilled. 
There was no changing the past but Aemond would make up for how completely inattentive he had been. He would show you all the more fervently. When Aemond placed an open mouthed kiss just above your slit, letting a string of his spit glide off of his tongue onto your sensitive pussy, you shuddered.
All at once your mind was once again taken over by unsavoury thoughts. It had your eyes welling with tears, a familiar lump lodging in your throat, threatening to come out in a devastated sob. There was a ringing in your ears and you were back at Aemond’s door, peeking in only to see him giving that woman the same touch he was giving you right now. He had seemed so enthralled by her and the way she must have tasted. It was as if he’d been there before, indulging in her with so much passion it rivalled how eagerly touched you in this moment. 
Did her smell fill his veins with fire as yours was? Did her scent alone make his cock as painfully hard as yours did? Did her cunt drip for him the way yours did? Was the hunger in his eye shining for her too?
It was terrifying to consider. 
Aemond would spend hours here, he had decided. His duties for the day could be damned to the hells for all he cared. There was a rumbling in his chest for what he saw in front of him, inviting him to indulge and filling his mind with senseless ardour. Aemond let himself enjoy just the scent of you, his eye fluttering shut and his nose gently resting above your folds as he breathed you in, caressing your thighs softly with his hands. As if he were starved for years, Aemond salivated and with no patience left within him, he brought his lips downwards to meet the precious cunt he had been dreaming of. 
With a whimper that you couldn’t hold back, you jerked away from him. Aemond pulled away in surprise, his gaze full of confusion and lust and insecurity. “Wait, my love—“
You had slipped free of his grasp, a strangled cry escaping no matter how hard you tried to keep it in. There was one tear that slipped free, followed by countless more and you couldn’t look at him anymore, couldn’t bear to see that he was hurt before scrambling away from him. 
She was stuck in your mind. The memory of Aemond’s little trysts with her replaying behind your eyes no matter how hard you tried to shut it out. It was clear that there was nothing you could do to get ahold of yourself because everytime you looked at him, so enthralled in you and your sex, she was there. 
Laughing at you in the back of your mind, as if she had taken residence in a permanent place in your head, enjoying the state of despair and madness she and Aemond had led you to. 
But she couldn’t be in your head. Not really. Not in the way it felt she was. 
You barely glanced back at Aemond through your tears, struggling to even your breathing and calm the rapid beating of your heart. He hadn’t moved much; just simply stayed there frowning at the space that you had once occupied on the chair. 
There was nothing he could do to change things. Aemond knew that as well as you did. But there was a pain in your heart at the way he looked so defeated, so guilty that it almost seemed like he would melt into a puddle of remorse. A far stretch from the usual stoic warrior that you had known him as.
“My prince, I–” you swallowed, your voice catching when he looked up at you with a wide eye and furrowed eyebrows. For a moment you remembered that he had no right - but he was trying, was he not? “I cannot continue with this knowing that you had touched her like this. It angers me and it upsets me and it pains me to think of it but ‘tis beyond my control.”
He stayed silent, observing the way you hid yourself from him and struggled to meet his gaze. There was a sullen look to you, one you had not entered with and it stuck needles in his flesh to think that he had been the cause of it. Aemond’s entire body felt hot and he was itching to tear off his leathers. He wished the gods would strike him down as he was for hurting you so.
You had turned away, disappearing from his quarters swiftly. You would never forget the image of how you had left him there–it was both satisfying and devastating. 
Aemond, still on his knees for the ghost of you, his expression tortured and his shoulders tensed. It was a pathetic sight, should anyone stumble upon it, but you considered it beautiful. Beautiful in a lethal, catastrophic manner. Not unlike himself; a weaponised source of destruction who had a tendency to bring torment upon those he loved. 
The rest of your day had been spent alone in your chambers. You hadn’t cried so much over any of it until now. The tears and sobs that you had held inside of yourself for weeks had forced themselves out, along with the emotions you had pushed down until you could no longer. 
Aemond had a certain control while you were sitting in that seat, skirts bunched to your stomach and quivering for him to have his way. Regardless, the power was still yours and you knew that it was Aemond who was wrapped tightly around your finger at that moment. He would have listened to anything you had said–done anything you had told him to do. 
Perhaps you had become too stubborn in your anger to have let yourself feel anything else. A retributive anger; one that sprouted from the lack of love that existed in your marriage and reached a climax at Aemond’s brazen adultery. And it only grew stronger in whatever back and forth Aemond had encouraged by dangling his whore in front of your face. 
Whatever it was, you were feeling so much more now than you had before. 
Or perhaps it was because you could see that Aemond was remorseful. He would never yet admit it but you knew from the way he had behaved since you had visited him in his bed. It was no act of redemption and definitely no apology but it was impossible to ignore the change in him. You had never seen Aemond the way you had seen him this morning. 
Vulnerable, gentle, tormented. 
A knock on your door had you sniffling and wiping away any tear stains that may have lingered on your cheeks. You had stopped crying for some time but the need to wallow and lament had stayed. When you called out to ask, the guard at your door notified you of the Dowager Queen’s presence. 
Oh, seven hells. 
There was really no chance you could refuse her so you merely let her in and called a servant to bring some refreshments. Queen Alicent sat herself down but remained tense, carefully watching you as you took a place beside her. 
“Have you been crying?” Her concern was comforting. “I believe I know why.”
You straightened, not meeting the eye of the woman who reached a tender hand to your knee. Hiding behind a forced smile, you let out a breathy laugh. “I am certain the entirety of the Red Keep knows, Your Grace.”
“It has been known for some time,” Alicent was gentle, her cautionary gaze telling you that she was apprehensive about bringing her son’s misadventures up. You held your breath. “Since the first time he had summoned that Alys woman-”
“Alys? Is that her name?”
“You do not know?” There was a tense silence. Alicent couldn’t meet your gaze, pity swimming across her features. Aemond was her son and there were many things that she had let her sons get away with but her heart pained at the broken quiver in your voice. 
Alicent had noticed the change in Aemond since the night that you had found him with Alys. The second time. He had never paid much attention to you aside from what appearances required yet Alicent knew her son far more than he would be willing to accept. She had known that there was something in his heart for you, no matter how small and no matter how it dwindled until set alight. 
Aemond had done the wrong thing. She had no doubts about that. Alicent would have words with him once she figured out what to say to him. But he was her son and there were certain misdoings that she knew she had to defend them through. To protect his marriage, his image and his happiness. The Queen Dowager cleared her throat and reached for your hand, eyebrows furrowing at the way you stared down at your lap, the anguish you felt in your heart written clearly across your face. 
“I understand that you are hurting, my dear. Although my husband remained faithful to me until his death and I cannot quite imagine the pain in your heart–I see how you have love for my son, even if you nor him have known it, I do understand,” Alicent took a breath, closing her eyes. “This is the way of men. And princes–”
“Please, Your Grace, I mean this with utmost respect for you but I do not wish to hear your excuses,” you whispered. There was a prickly, breathless worry that had settled in your gut. What did you not know? Was this Alys someone who mattered? “But I would like to know what you are withholding from me about this woman. I believe I deserve that at the very least.”
Alicent stared at you for a moment, examining you. She could drive her son further into the ground with what she was about to say. “Aemond had a paramour–at least it was rumoured, he never spoke of such things with me. Alys Rivers, a wetnurse and servant woman from Harrenhal.”
“A paramour?”
“It was before you were married,” Alicent was quick to clarify. “I had assumed that Aemond wanted nothing more to do with her when she left–at his order, I believe. Some say she was a witch. Perhaps she enchanted him.” 
You couldn’t look at her. She was more than just a whore? Had he lied to you right from the beginning? Bile rose up in your throat. There was a thrum in your ears, the sound of your own heartbeat and you feared that you would be sick from the drop in your gut. 
“Did he love her? Could he still?”
Alicent sucked in a breath. “I do not know, my child.”
All you could do was nod pathetically. Alicent was a woman of great strength and dedication; you had once wished to be much like her one day. But as you sat beside her now, you wished she had been a liar and a cheat and a meddling gossip. That you could find a way to fault her words but you could tell it caused her great difficulty to speak of Aemond’s actions honestly. 
Ever poised and elegant, Alicent only leaned forward to you, her posture straight as a needle and her touch soft as linen. “I did not mean to upset you further. I only meant to speak with you about returning to Courtly activities, with the other Ladies and Helaena has been asking for you. And the Ladies speak–”
“They speak terribly of me,” you scoffed, allowing a humourless laugh. “I understand, Your Grace. I will return to spending my days in company other than my own.”
Alicent hated to pry but she felt that she must, now that she had dealt her cards against Aemond’s fate. “Perhaps you should speak with Aemond. He cares for you deeply. It would be a shame for your union to fall apart over such misunderstandings.”
If not for formality, you would have rolled your eyes. Again, you simply nodded, your mind reeling back to the woman that Alicent had given a name to. You would ask Aemond about her. It would be the less damning option rather than turning to Aegon once more but the idea of speaking to Aemond about a woman he may once have loved still made you want to crawl underneath the sheets of your bed and disappear. 
You thought of the woman who you had seen through the crack in the door and wished you had taken extra care in looking at her. There was little you could recall other than the darkness and length of her hair, the paleness of her skin and the perfection in her curves as she pleasured Aemond and as he did the same for her. 
As if she was familiar with all the things that made him weak. All the things that made Aemond weak. How she had touched him like she was an expert in his body. And you thought of Aemond, bare and comfortable with her. Aemond with his sapphire glimmering under the lamplight instead of an eye, a rawness and trust that you had never seen of him until that night. 
He trusted her.
Alys Rivers. 
.....................................................
Tagging: @padfooteyes @thedyingwriter @mamawiggers1980 @queenofshinigamis @ewanmitchellfanatic @nurtargaryen
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ganondoodle · 2 days
Text
okay i typed this in a reply but i need to say this more detailed here too, the way totk dealt with horses (and stables) is bad and worse than botw imo (yes i can rant about that too, these weird choices are in every little spot in totk, its almost impressive)
in a game that lets you build cars and stupid flying maschines, towers that shoot you into the stratosphere AND teleporting points all over the place, the chance is already low that you use a horse- though i would be one of them bc i love horses and hate building and didnt find it fun at all-
(also i almost never used any parts i had with me bc you cant put them back and your dumb vehicles despawn as soon as you dont look at them- also a negative thing about that system that reinforces the feeling of actually using it being more punishing than rewarding with the added bonus of the good ol saving your health potions forever problem)
-and something i DID like was that you can have more horses and the ... one.. new color (the lil spots but only AFTER you do that one quest in the spy post)
the stable points seemed like a neat idea, but like so many things, are utterly cheatable, imo the system should have only given you a point when you visit a new stable, so you actually have to go around and visit them all
(also .. add new stables, like mini ones or sth that dont offer beds- you dont need that anyway- so you have more places in which you can get them ... why did they remove some of them anyway, shouldn there be MORE now that the land is supposedly healing/being repaired? especially the one next to the big canyon, its so empty there it would have the perfect place for sth like a new settlement or a big boss arena but no its more empty than it was before, why?? and then putting yet another repeating annoying quest there in that weirld empty place?? i just dont get it)
letting you farm points by sleeping at a stable or bringing in a horse gives you LESS incentive to actually go around the world bc you can just farm it there
(and if that was done so youd 'discover' the malanya talks to you in your sleep 'secret' ... that is literally told to you, and if its bc you dont want to force players to go around and find every stable to get all those rewards ... why do you have 140 or whatver caves then with the majority of them being the literal same thing over and over ... to make people actually use the sleeping thing there? .. why, who uses that anyway, and farming points by sleeping there .. what the hell does that add? AND THEN the stupid sleep over tickets, probably the most nothign reward ever, dont count?? i dont think i ever used one- it just all doesnt make any sense, everything plays against each other)
the upgrading system for your horse is .. once again, a neat idea horribly executed, you have to go find malanya to upgrade them, and similarly stupidly like the fairies, they only tell you what food you need for what upgrade when you are there .. or when you are sleeping in the special tm bed at a stable, randomly, one food, bc the quantity changes too
which is just so ??????????? let me go and do a quest that rewards you with a lil booklet in which you can look up what an upgrade costs, or let the stables have that, either as a list or in the menu when selecting a horse or something?? (also why the hell is malanya in a different spot anyway, like, it feels like a modder just plopped them over there, their og spot is just empty now - except for yet again a stupid filler quest for .. another big horse and a yaaaaaaaaays crystal shrine quest- ... the spot is even still called spring of the horse god .... its so stupid, just like the fairy shuffling around, like you really couldnt think of a better way to reuse that concept other than to ... move it to a different spot in the same map and map level???? and not change anything in their og spot except idk, put a hole in the map ... for one of them like .. its like they moved them around last minute just to have the semblance of things being 'changed' with no regard what makes a change actually feel like one and what just feels like, pick up thing, click on random spot on map, drop thing- its like that for the fairies and shrines too, its so dumb and .. feels disrepectful to botw and how much thought seemed to have went into these spots that were clearly built about those things)
and like it couldnt get WORSE, they cut off the paths that horses follow automatically with one of those miasma buttholes (sorry its just a hole cut into the map, it doesnt even look like miasma burst through, it just .. cut out) a monster camp (that RESPAWNS, i thought those camps you clear with a quest would stay clear, but that would make sense, so of course it respawns and you can do the frame rate killer quest over and over yippieee) or otherwise like, with a big rock or a broken bridge-
and there is NO WAY to create a new path or fix or move anything in a game ABOUT BUILDING supposedly, like you needed more reasons to never use a horse????? i liked jsut hopping on and letting them follow a path and chill looking at the landscape, you cant do this here, and you cant even excuse it with 'its bc of the theme' as in, stuff is destroyed bc calamity 1.5 or whatever bc nothing in the game makes it feel like theres anything actually at stake, but the real crime is to make it not be fixable. WHY??? link moves entire buildings with ease but cant move one freaking rock that fell into a river?????? you swing around logs like a club but cant fix a bridge so your horse can get over it??????????????????????????????
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thisgirlnamedblusy · 2 days
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Hiyah! could I request Donna with a reader who has a really ratty old stuffed animal that they’re super attached to that Donna is a little (very) jealous of? maybe during a crisis Donna tears it apart and reader is inconsolable for days and won’t even speak to her, until one day Donna very carefully repairs that stuffed animal for reader again. love some angst with a happy ending!
Yesss!!!! Thank you for your request!!!! I hope you like it and sorry about the language mistakes!!!! :)))))))
A childhood friend
Pairing: Donna Beneviento x Fem! Reader
Warnings: Angst, fluff, Donna being Donna, Donna's POV
Word count: 7,770
Summary: How can I be jealous of a teddy bear...?
N/A: Sorry about the language mistakes!!! Requests are open!!! I'm waiting yours!!! I love you all!!! :))
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I would never have imagined that I was waiting for someone, that in the darkness of my bedroom, loneliness wasn’t my only company.
After so many years of loneliness, of so much crying, horror… Finally I wasn’t alone and I would never be alone again.
My life is of no interest to anyone, it never was. Maybe I could have the feeling that I really left the young and crazy Donna Beneviento to become someone important, so “lady” preceded my name and I would feel special.
No, that didn’t work. I will always thank the Black Gods, Mother Miranda, for having been chosen for a cause that I am still not sure of. I became a Lord, someone to be feared. Yes, that sounded much better than: the crazy and sick doll woman.
But thinking that something in my life would change after my transformation was only part of an illusion, a desire of my subconscious to abandon my loneliness.
Yes, I had power. I could do things I would never have imagined. Causing fear and suffering to those people who one day messed with me was a fun pastime, but it didn't last too long.
Power brings fear, and fear brings loneliness.
It's not that I wanted to suddenly find myself surrounded by people who begged to serve me, as my sister did. No, that false desire to share my life with someone was the only bit of sanity left in my sick mind.
No, I didn't need anyone. I had everything without having anything.
Thanks to Mother Miranda's gift I was able to give life to my partner Angie, my only friend, the only one who, even without existing, was by my side all those years. A miracle from the Black Gods, a gift I can never thank enough for.
But after years and years of thinking that perhaps loneliness would always be my condemnation, that, simply because I was born into my family, having spent my childhood, my life in that sinister village, I would no longer have the right to be a normal person.
You appeared as a coincidence, as something that shouldn’t be there and at the same time had to exist; a beautiful, perfect girl, daughter of the village weaver.
Were you really a coincidence? It was becoming more and more difficult for me to see it that way.
You had something I needed. You had fabrics for my dolls. At first it was unexpected. The Duke simply didn’t have what I was looking for. When I saw you… When I saw you I knew that I would never buy fabrics from that greedy merchant again.
I preferred to see you, to see your innocent smile, the lack of trembling in your body when I was near. You were different, you didn’t fear me, or you didn’t show it.
That was much more than I had in my entire life, someone who smiled at me, who didn't run away from me, who didn't beg for mercy. It was sudden, my heart started to move strangely, to pound when I got close to you. Yes, I never had the chance to experience that thing called love, so it took me a while to be sure that it was what I felt for you.
Longings, sighs, smiles… All those changes, those involuntary actions of my body were like a disease, one that I did like to have, for which there was only one cure: You.
After a while trying to put my feelings back together, assuming that I really loved you, that I visited you only to contemplate your smile, I dared to tell you what I felt.
I wanted you to guide me. I wanted you to tell me what those sighs meant, those smiles that you were unable to see through my black veil. I explained everything to you, with fear, fearing that you would think I was just stupid, a poor crazy woman who didn't even dare to talk to people.
Your smile grew bigger and bigger and then… Then you confirmed it for me. Those butterflies in my stomach, my mind ravaged by your beauty, the sighs, the desire to see you… It was love.
I wasn't surprised by your timid explanation but... When I lowered my head, ready to run away, so as not to hear your rejection, so as not to hear that I was just a monster, then you did it. Without fearing the consequences of your audacity you lifted my black veil. You didn't uncover my face, just a little bit of it, just enough for your lips to rest on mine.
A kiss, the first of my life but not the last, a kiss from those tender, brave lips that didn't flinch, that didn't hesitate... The best kiss.
You also felt something for me. Your body was sick in the same way, it was sick of love...
Explaining how little by little the kisses became routine, how my caresses became more and more emboldened by your skin would be too boring. Everything we lived always had an end, a bitter one, the moment when you had to go back home.
Desperate, being selfish and possessive, one of those nights I begged you not to leave ever again, to stay with me. You, always surprising me, said yes.
And that, that was the first night in which our bodies could embrace each other eternally, in which the warmth of your body remained in mine.
“Okay, I'm done,” you said when your usual clothes disappeared to give way to a nightgown, the clothes that would accompany you every night. “Donna?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, shaking my head, leaving that journey through my memories, that explanation I needed to know that you were real, that you did exist. “Come,” I said, patting the mattress affectionately.
“Wait, wait, something is missing,” you said suddenly, searching for something among your suitcases. “That's it...”
I blinked several times when I saw you with something in your arms, it looked like a teddy bear, or at least, it once was.
“What's that?” I asked pointing at that ratty animal as you got into bed next to me.
“It's Percy,” you said with an innocent smile, showing me the teddy bear and moving one of its paws comically. “Hello, hello”
“Percy?” I asked again with a frown, taking the bear in my hands.
The condition of that plush was terrible. It was missing an eye and the seams seemed to want to tear. The passage of time was evident in the old bear, it reminded me of Angie.
“Mm,” you murmured as I continued to look at that worn teddy bear. “I've had it since I was very young, it's important to me, you know, like a friend.”
“A friend…” I whispered with an inevitably unpleasant grimace.
 I hate broken toys.
“Yes, I've been sleeping with him for as long as I can remember, he's always been with me, you know...” you commented, sighing and looking at the gestures I made on the animal, trying to recompose one of his arms.
“You haven't taken good care of it,” I murmured, looking at you out of the corner of my eye. “It's destroyed.”
You simply shrugged your shoulders.
“Yes, well... I've always taken him with me on my adventures,” you said with a nostalgic tone. “Time passes for everything, but for me he's still the same.”
“The same? (Y/N), it's missing an eye,” I said with a mocking smile.
I wasn't used to joking, I didn't even know how to do that, I always failed and that time, you didn't even bother to fake a smile, you just crossed your arms.
“You are missing an eye too and I love you,” you said with a dangerous whisper, one that indicated to me that you weren't joking.
I looked at you quickly, offended by your comment. You weren't careful, (Y/N), you didn't know how dangerous it was to joke about my horrible appearance.
Well, maybe you did, because your face immediately changed and you bit your lip, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“Um, Donna, don't take it the wrong way... I, I meant it as a joke,” you stammered, with a reassuring tone.
I just nodded, taking one last look at that horrible bear and leaving it on the nightstand.
“Oh, no, no, wait,” you said climbing up my body and reaching out to grab the teddy bear. “Be careful, Donna.”
“Careful? Perché? I haven't done anything,” I said confused while you got off my body again, with that animal in your arms.
“Don't leave Percy anywhere, he’s fragile and... Well, besides, I already told you that I always slept with him so...” you said, placing the bow tie on that teddy bear, making me frown even more.
“Is the bear going to sleep here? In the bed?” I asked in a dark tone.
I didn't know why I acted that way, but I did, I had the need to do it, as if I myself considered that the bear was exceeding the limits of confidence.
“Yes... It's just that... Well, it may seem silly to you but... I continue, I continue sleeping with him,” you confessed a bit embarrassed, placing the bear delicately under the sheets, in a position that seemed horrible to me, between the two of us. “That way he could protect me.”
Ignoring the gesture of putting that plush to sleep with us, I laughed pleasantly, shaking my head and taking your hand.
“Come on, tesoro… You don't need it anymore, I'll protect you,” I said, moving the bear away from the bed.
You gasped, snatching it from my hands with a nervous, almost scared gesture.
“Um, I'm, I'm sorry Donna but I need it,” you said, looking away. “Well, unless… It's a problem for you… Be more careful, please…”
I blinked several times, trying to listen to your words over and over again and to interpret your serious expression as you returned the animal to that privileged place.
A part of me asked for tranquility, calm. The bear wasn’t something strange. I slept with my dolls, with Angie. I should know how important it could be for a person.
 The other part of my head, the one corrupted by hate, jealousy and madness, did nothing but scream at me to get that pathetic bear away from the place my body should occupy.
“Um, it's not a problem,” I said in a small voice, with an expression that surely didn’t show the intention of those words.
Does she prefer to sleep with that bear? How stupid you are, Donna…
“Taci!” I said out loud, startling you with the abruptness of my words.
Again I wasn’t careful. I let the voices in my head sound real, cloud my senses. Luckily, it was only for a moment, until your soft and reassuring hand rested on my cheek again.
“Honey, I didn't say anything,” you said with a nervous smile, with that tone you used when the shadows stalked me.
I was stupid to think that way, to believe that the pathetic bear could replace me. I wish I weren't condemned to madness, to imagine that, around every corner, there was a threat that sought to take you away from me.
“I'm sorry,” I said, rubbing my eye and kissing the back of your hand.
“Relax, I know the move has been stressful for you but...” you said, taking your hand away and lying down on the bed, guiding me to do the same. “I'm here with you now, my love...”
Your whispers, your words of love always served to soften my sharp soul. The day you were gone... I wouldn't want to continue living. Not even eternal life would be a gift. It would be a constant condemnation, a time in which your loss would never disappear from my wounded heart.
“Certo,” I whispered, forcing a smile, reaching out my hand to remind the softness of your skin, to remind myself that I wasn't living in a dream.
You laughed softly, like every time my imperfect hands touched your perfection. Not even the fact that my hand touched that teddy bear stopped me from enjoying your hand, getting a little closer to kiss your lips slowly.
“Careful, be careful, darling,” you said amused, harassed by the tickling my lips did on your skin. “Percy.”
I moved away as my smile faded, letting your hands leave me to take the plush out from under my body and position it again, ready to sleep.
“I'm sorry,” I whispered with a fake voice, glancing sideways at that one-eyed bear, one that seemed to enjoy its victory. At least that's what my mind interpreted.
It was our first night together, and the joy in my heart hid those irrational jealousies for a moment. Having your body sleeping next to mine, your deep, calm breathing reaching my ears like a lullaby... That was unbeatable, even with that disgusting Percy separating us.
I could barely sleep that night.
I couldn't sleep because I had you by my side, because my mind traveled from joy to sadness, then to fear, the fear as always irrational and almost psychotic. I thought when I dared to close my eye, I would lose you forever.
That didn't happen. I dared to sleep, to test my worries, and I won. Well, almost...
When the morning cold shook my body, forcing it to wake up, the first thing I did was to reach out my hand to you. You weren't there. The warmth of your body had abandoned me.
I quickly turned on the light and confirmed my fears. You weren't there, (Y/N), you were gone. My breathing became dangerously labored and my eye traveled all over the room until I lowered my head.
Of course, Percy was still there, looking at me with its one eye, mocking me. It wasn't what I expected to see when I woke up but at least... At least I knew that you weren't gone, you would never go without that filthy teddy bear.
Nervous because of that cold look, because of that bear's sinister shadow, I turned its head, its body, preventing it from continuing to laugh at me, even though it really wasn't.
“Good morning!” A high-pitched squeal made me stir.
Small, familiar footsteps walked towards the bed, jumping on top of it; my friend, my companion, my Angie.
“Don't shout, Angie...” I murmured, shaking my head. “Where's (Y/N)?” I asked curiously.
The doll laughed amused, climbing onto my lap.
“I think she's taking a shower,” she commented thoughtfully. “Did you sleep well?”
“No,” I said in a cold voice, briefly looking at the bear.
“Of course, of course, your conscience did its work,” Angie said with a haughty voice that made me frown.
“My conscience?” I asked, running a hand through my hair, constantly looking at the door, wanting for you to appear.
“Yes, silly Donna…” the doll said, putting a wooden finger on my nose. “I'm sure you felt guilty for having kicked me out of the room.”
“Oh, Angie…” I sighed, understanding the reason for that attitude. “We've already talked about it, you can't sleep with us. You disturb us.”
“Silly!” my doll shrieked. “That's unfair.”
“Angie, taci,” I said with a darker tone. “You have to accept that (Y/N) now lives with us, so do me a favor and behave, will you?”
“I can't behave with the silly girl who forced me to sleep in the office,” Angie protested, crossing her arms and letting herself fall on the mattress. “It's very cold there, Donna.”
“Stop complaining, you can't feel the cold,” I commented, shaking my head, refocusing my gaze on that bear and sighing.
The doll growled, mockingly imitating my posture until she noticed where my eye was pointing, until she noticed that strange presence on the bed
-Ohhh - she murmured curiously, cautiously approaching that teddy bear. -What is this filthy bear?
“It's Percy,” I said in a small voice, frowning and looking away. “It's (Y/N)’s.”
“Percy? Hello, hello Percy…” the doll said, shaking the bear's paw as if she was really greeting it.
I looked at her and couldn't help but smile at that scene. Angie was a demon, but sometimes she managed to look adorable. I don't know what would have become of me without her.
“Hey, you dirty bear! I'm talking to you!” the puppet said abruptly, indignant at not getting an answer.
I laughed amused, picking up the puppet in my arms and sitting her on my lap, fixing her messy hair affectionately.
“Ti voglio bene, Angie,” I whispered with my soul a bit calmer.
“Oh, cheesy Donna,” she protested, removing my hands from her face. “Hey, that bear is rude, he didn't greet me.”
I laughed again, leaving the doll alone.
“He doesn't talk, Angie, he's not like you,” I explained while the puppet examined the bear again with curiosity, shaking it comically.
“Che palle,” she complained. “Wait, wait, wait,” she said, as if she had just realized something. “I can't believe it Donna…”
“Mm?” I muttered, watching the door again in case you appeared.
“So, I, the wonderful Angie, the supreme Angie can't sleep here with you and that pile of dirt that looks like a bear can, right?” she protested, with an indignant pose, not leaving the poor bear alone.
I rolled my eye and sighed, relaxing my face again, turning it slightly dark.
“(Y/N) needs to sleep with it,” I explained looking down, remembering the conversation from the day before, those irrational thoughts that talked about stupid jealousy. “It's like... A talisman for her, or something like that.”
“How old is she, 5?” the doll mocked, laughing evilly. “Isn't she old enough for teddy bears?”
I sighed again, shaking my head.
“I can't judge her, Angie, until she came I slept with you,” I said in a low voice, taking the opportunity to remind myself that there was no problem with Percy.
“It's not the same, I can talk, and move, and be the best friend ever,” Angie said proudly, pointing at herself and sitting next to the stuffed animal. “Oh, look, look, he's missing an eye, like you...”
“Should I find that funny?” I said offended, crossing my arms. “It's (Y/N)'s teddy bear and she sleeps with it, that's all, there's no problem with it.”
“Are you talking to me or to yourself?” Angie asked, comically moving the bear's weak limbs.
I looked at her with a furious sigh, not having an answer for that accusation.
“I…” I stammered confused, but before I could try to defend myself, the footsteps on the wood indicated to me that, finally, you had returned. “Oh, (Y/N)…” I sighed with a smile as you leaned in to kiss me.
“Have you missed me, darling?” you asked laughing, surely due to my usual shower of kisses, a desperate one that tried hard to mark your skin. “Donna…” you said, pushing me away amused, kissing me for the last time and sitting next to me.
“I hope you slept well,” I said, forgetting for a moment about my dark thoughts, dazzled by your smile. “Have you been comfortable?”
“Oh yes, of course,” you said, nodding sincerely. “Besides, I already knew this bed…” you whispered in my ear, making the heat of my body move to my cheeks.
“Ugh!” Angie complained, interrupting unpleasantly. “Oh, my love, darling, give me a kiss, mooch, mooch, mooch…” the doll mocked, pretending to kiss Percy, something that made your smile disappear immediately.
“Hey! Don't touch him!” you screamed, moving nervously to snatch Angie's toy. “Don't touch him!”
“Ahhh!” Angie shrieked, fleeing from the unhinged fury of your words, hiding behind of me.
“(Y/N),” I said with a surprised look. I'd never heard you scream like that, I'd never seen you get that nervous. “Cal-calmati, amore mio…”
“It's not a toy, Angie, it's not for you to play with,” you said nervously, checking if my doll had caused havoc on that damn teddy bear.
“How dare you to yell at me?” Angie asked, peeking comically, pointing at you with her finger. “Say something, Donna, defend me.”
I should have, Angie was right.
“Behave, Angie, please…” I whispered, not sure that was what I meant. You looked at me gratefully, frowning, still holding Percy.
“Donna, you traitor …” the doll hissed moving away from me and getting off the bed. “I will get my revenge! You will pay dearly for your insolence! You and that filthy bear!” she shrieked before leaving the room, saying words that weren’t especially nice.
You shuddered, hugging Percy tightly, an image that my mind distorted horribly, making it not to look cute, but dangerous.
“Donna… She threatened me,” you said in a soft voice, getting a little closer to me with a scared look. “Angie won't hurt me, right?”
“Of course she won’t, tesoro,” I said, trying to reassure you with a sweet hug, with a soft kiss on your cheek. “Don't pay attention to her...”
“And Percy?” you asked nervously, moving away from my kisses, from my comfort, and hugging that stupid animal tighter.
I sighed discreetly, shaking my head and drawing your body towards mine again.
“No, tesoro, she won’t hurt Percy either,” I said reluctantly, trying not to make my passivity so obvious.
Luckily you were too preoccupied with the bear to notice the apathy of my words.
That's how our coexistence began, in a strange but satisfactory way. After all, you didn't leave, you stayed with me.
I tried to forget about that bear, I tried to pretend that it didn't accompany us every night, that you hugged it instead of my body. Meditating in the solitude of my workshop, I came to the conclusion that there was no danger in you finding refuge in a childhood companion.
Yes, I stopped thinking about it, or at least I tried. You were so perfect… Seeing you every day, being able to kiss you whenever I wanted, being able to tell you at any time that I loved you, that you were my whole life, was a better gift than the second chance Miranda gave me.
Always so cheerful, so happy, sitting next to me while we read, on my lap whenever I worked on my dolls… I spent all my time with you, all the time I could. The kisses, the caresses, the hugs… Those divine gifts were my new routine. I couldn’t say I got used to it, because I could never do that.
Getting used to it would be trivializing your presence. It would be provoking your kisses to stop causing me that incredible emotion, to stop worsening of my favorite disease, my love for you.
But, although everything was perfect, although the days passed with my body in yours, with my lips adoring yours, there came a time when I began to feel a strange discomfort.
It was like a sensation that made our loneliness, our intimacy disappear. It was like when Angie was around, like when kisses couldn't be diverted into passion. The feeling of being watched got worse as the days went by and, even though I tried to ignore it, I really tried, I couldn't do it.
That bear, that damn bear was always with us. It didn't matter what we were doing. Eating, sleeping, making love, walking... That damn Percy always accompanied us, silently, with that disgusting eye laughing at me.
Living with you was wonderful, but... Yes, I hated that bear.
Your arms hugged it every night, that piece of cotton and fabric had the privilege of feeling your warm body, separating it from mine. It could be an exaggeration, a jealousy that made no sense at all, but… If I couldn't hug you at night, why Percy could? Was he more important than me?
Maybe I was indeed exaggerating. Maybe my mental problems made me see that filthy bear as an enemy and not as one of my lifeless dolls.
Openly admitting that I was jealous of Percy wouldn’t be good for us, I knew it and that's why I decided to pretend that I didn't care about the affection you gave him, that I didn't care about the kisses you gave to that battered fabric, those caresses so different from the ones you gave me.
But time only proved me right, it only fed my darkness. My lap was no longer a place for you, yours was now the bear's favorite place.
It seemed to me that you were distancing yourself, that you gave him much more than you gave me. It could simply be that I didn't pay much attention to you when I made my dolls, I even came to think that it was some kind of revenge for something I didn't know I had done.
I tried, I really tried, but I couldn't take it anymore, not that night.
The kisses were hot, wet. The panting began to fill the bedroom with lust. My heart was beating fast, my hands were traveling over your body. I was in paradise.
“Donna,” you moaned amused by my caresses on your neck, by the way my hands climbed up your legs, ready to touch you, to make you mine, to love you madly…
I laughed, biting your earlobe, moving your body so it rested below mine while my lips began to go down your neck. My mistake was not letting myself get carried away by the voices in my head, by those voices that I began to ignore.
No, the problem was much simpler, I opened my eye.
On top of your bedside table was that filthy bear, the damn Percy. He was always there, always next to you, almost closer to you than me. Maybe that's why I wanted to make love to you desperately that night.
I stopped, catching my breath, staring into that lifeless eye, feeling intimidated, watched, as if that Percy hated me, as if he was capable of feeling the same jealousy as me.
“(Y/N)…” I sighed, sitting up a bit, relaxing the movement of my caresses.
“Donna, why are you stopping? Are you okay?” you asked curiously, running a hand through my hair. I nodded with a frown, looking away from that bear. “Come here, my love…”
Your tender words brought back the desire of my lips kiss yours, but it only lasted a moment, until my stupid eye opened again.
“Mm, no, (Y/N),” I said, moving away again, shaking my head.
You looked at me curiously, with a strange look.
“What's wrong?” you asked with a soft, understanding voice.
You were so perfect…
“It's just that… I, I can't,” I stammered, looking back at that disgusting bear. “It makes me, it makes me nervous,” I said in a low voice, pointing at the teddy bear with my head.
“You mean Percy? Oh, Donna, it's just a teddy bear,” you said amused, pulling my face back to your lips. I pulled away roughly, determined that you would listen to me.
“Can you take it away from there?” I asked, with a cold look. “I can't concentrate.”
“Don't pay attention to him, I promise he won't say anything,” you whispered seductively, silencing my protests with another one of your tender kisses. Not even the softness of your lips could comfort me.
“No, t-take it away from there, tesoro, please,” I asked more nervously, with a frown.
It was a kind request, (Y/N). I don't know why you had to refuse.
“Don't be silly, Donna, just don't look at him,” you said, with a slightly more relaxed look, trying to divert my face from your table. “Don't be childish...”
“Childish?” I asked offended, mouth agape. “Come on, (Y/N), don't be stubborn. Put it down for a moment...”
I reached out my hand to fulfill my wish, but yours stopped me.
“Stop talking nonsense and come here, forget about Percy,” you said with an impatient voice.
Nothing I say is nonsense, (Y/N)
I tried to let myself go again, but I was too nervous.
“Cazzo...” I growled, watched by that lifeless eye, oppressed by the pressure of that smiling expression that would surely laugh victoriously for having won. “Cazzo!” I shrieked, moving to hit the stuffed animal, to throw it to the floor in an unpleasant way.
“What are you doing? Have you gone crazy?” you asked startled, pushing me to get off your body, desperately throwing yourself to the floor to pick up your teddy bear. “Oh, nothing happened to it, right?”
“I can't believe it, (Y/N),” I hissed nervously, shaking my head. “Leave that stupid bear on the floor and come here.”
“It's not stupid,” you said with a look that pierced my chest. “I already told you that it's going to get dirty on the floor.”
“But... You, you...” I murmured, unable to say a word, controlling my increasingly sharp nerves. “Porca puttana...” I hissed, getting up from the bed.
“Where are you going, darling?” you asked, confused by my abrupt attitude. “My love, uh… Why did you do that? You know how important it is to me…”
“You know what, (Y/N)?” I said, turning quickly before walking out the door. Your eyes looked at me scared, terrified. I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what I wanted to say, but I knew it wasn't anything good. “I, I'm going to the workshop.”
My cowardice was useful for once. I wanted to tell you so many things… I wanted to talk to you about my absurd jealousy, about my fear about that scruffy stuffed animal taking my place but… I couldn't do it, you would hate me for it and that only meant my fears made sense, that the bear was much more important than me.
I would have to calm down, my hands were shaking. That time I managed to avoid the crisis, but I didn't know how much longer I could bear it.
The next day started like any other, a romantic breakfast, your body on my lap again while I worked… It seemed like that tense moment had caused you to realize what my concern was.
But the reality was very different. That bear was still with us all the time, even closer to you, as if you wanted to protect it from another one of my slaps. You hugged it, held it close to your body. It was even closer than me.
“You know? I've been thinking…” you murmured while we ate. My gaze shifted from Percy, accompanying us, as always, and went to your beautiful eyes.
I nodded with a slightly forced smile, one that stayed alive in the light of your smile.
“Tell me what you've been thinking, tesoro…” I sighed romantically, something that made you smile in the same way
“Mm, I thought we could go for a walk in the woods, it's a really nice day,” you said with that soft tone, with that shy smile.
“Yes, a walk!” Angie exclaimed, startling us both.
“Um, no, just me and Donna,” you corrected in a slightly abrupt but amused manner.
“I want to go too, I want to go too!” the doll protested, tugging hard at my black dress, making me almost choke on my wine.
“Angie, cazzo, lasciami…” I protested, pulling the garment away from her wooden claws. “No, you're not coming.”
“Oh, Donna said a bad word,” Angie mocked, in an exaggerated manner. I shook my head, rolling my eye and smiling at you amusedly.
That smile faded when I saw you look at the bear and shrug. It made me so nervous when you looked at it…
“What did you say? A bad word?” you asked curiously.
“Oh, well, Angie's right, you better not learn those ugly words, sweetheart…” I said, dismissing my outburst with a wave of my hand.
“Donna, silly, mean Donna, I want to go for a walk, I want to go!” the doll shouted again, causing me to sigh tiredly.
“I said no,” I said firmly with a stern tone. “You stay here watching Percy, mm?”
“What?” you asked, startled by my innocent words. “Oh, no, no, Percy is coming with me.”
“That's it, choose the filthy bear over me,” Angie whispered, with her hands on her hips. “Donna, tell her something!”
“Angie… Can we eat in peace?” you asked again, clasping your hands together in a pleading manner.
My gaze darkened again and the hand holding my wine glass began to tremble. I couldn't believe it, I just couldn't believe it.
What was supposed to be a liberating step, without stuffed animals or dolls, was nothing but a continuation of that horrible routine in which Percy was always present.
My hand squeezed the glass so hard that it broke, causing you to moan in surprise.
“Uh, wow, you're strong, huh, honey?” you joked, removing the two glass parts from my hands. “Wait, I'm going to throw this so you don't cut yourself. Percy, keep an eye on her.”
The anger could no longer stay inside me.
“Don't go, (Y/N),” I said, getting up from the table and getting in your way.
“Oh, do you want something from the kitchen?” you asked innocently, emptying the broken glass’ wine into yours.
“No,” I said abruptly, with my teeth clenched, with my fist wanting to break more glasses. “The bear is not coming with us.”
“What? Oh, um, why not?” you stammered, putting the crystals in a basket and looking at me confused. “Of course it’s coming.”
“Of course it’s not. The bear is staying,” I hissed, breathing more and more heavily.
“No, the bear is coming with us,” you said with a fake, nervous smile, as if I was saying something crazy. I wasn't, I was right. “What's wrong with you?”
Your words only increased my nerves. I couldn't stand it anymore. The madness was starting to make me lose control.
“What's wrong with me, huh?!” I screamed furiously, unhinged, letting out that contained rage, that stupid and absurd jealousy. “Qual è il tuo problema!?”
“D-Donna, you know I don't understand Italian,” you whispered cautiously, backing away slowly. “What's wrong with you? You're, you're very nervous…”
“How long are you going to keep laughing at me?” I asked in a lower tone, but just as dangerous. “Tell me, have you decided to make fun of me until I can't take it anymore?”
“What are you talking about? Oh, honey, you're losing your mind again… I'll go get your medicine,” you said nervously, passing by me. A bad idea, since my hand grabbed your arm tightly, pushing you back with a furious gasp.
“Yes, I'm losing my mind… Because of you!” I shrieked, clenching my fists tightly and approaching your side of the table, where that stupid Percy was resting. “I'm fed up, (Y/N)! I’m Fed up!”
“Donna, you're scaring me…” you stammered, grabbing the bear to hug it, to take refuge in it, instead of me. That was the last straw.
“Oh…” I growled furiously, snatching it away from you roughly.
“Hey! Give it back to me!” you shrieked nervously while trying to reach it, something impossible, since I was holding it above my head and you… You weren't exactly the tallest girl in the village… “Donna!”
“No! What's wrong, (Y/N)? If you love this stupid bear that much, what are you doing with me?”
“What?” you asked confused, jumping uselessly to reach your partner. “Donna, stop…. Donna!”
“Basta!” I screamed with more anger, pushing you roughly. “I'm sick of this filthy bear! Sick of you loving him more than me!”
“What the fuck are you saying?” you asked, furious, giving up and shaking your head. “Have you gone completely crazy? I knew you were jealous, Donna, really, I knew you were possessive but to be jealous of my teddy bear… It's too much, even for someone like you.”
“If you don't want me to be jealous, stop putting this stinky thing in my bed, stop hugging him at night!” I shouted, shaking Percy in my hand, noticing how the weak stitching on its arm slowly unraveled.
“I don't think you're the best person to accuse me of that. What about Angie?” you asked, pointing at the puppet, who pointed at herself and shook her head.
“Hey, don't involve me!” the doll protested.
“She's alive, (Y/N), this fucking bear is not, he will never be, he will never love you like I do!”
“You're going crazy. You must relax, give Percy back to me and go with your stupid dolls,” you said in a calm tone, getting a little closer to me. “When you get over that stupid craziness, we can talk calmly.”
I narrowed my eye, still breathing furiously as you extended your hand towards mine.
“Come on, Donna, be a good girl and give it back to me,” you said, with a demanding tone that ended up driving me crazy.
I growled, lowering the stuffed animal to your height but immediately removing it from your grip.
“Do you want me to give it back to you?” I asked with a dark look that was surely terrifying.
You nodded, you didn't seem moved.
“Come on, Donna, give it to me,” you said with an impatient gesture.
“Cazzo!” I screamed, grabbing the bear with both hands and doing the worst thing I could do, ripping it, pulling at those weak seams to tear it in half, to tear apart your most precious possession and throw it to the floor with a grunt. “Here is il tuo orsacchiotto di merda!”
“Donna!” you screamed, exchanging pride for the deepest sadness. “No, no, no!”
Screaming, you bent down to pick up the remains of the animal, bursting into tears that tore my soul apart completely. My madness didn't allow me to pity you, not even for a second. I thought I had triumphed.
“Why…?” you sobbed, trying to put the bear back together in a pathetic way. The cotton was sticking out of the tear and one of the arms didn't fit anymore. “Percy…”
I just looked at you, my gaze still dark.
“Donna,” you sobbed, hugging the parts of the teddy bear. “You are a monster,” you whispered, staring me straight in the eye, tears running down your cheeks.
You didn’t say anything else, not even that terrible insult made me stir until you ran out up the stairs and locked yourself in the guest room among horrible cries.
“Oh, Donna, Donna…” Angie sighed, coming closer when she saw the white on my knuckles disappear and I began to realize.
“Oh… What, what have I done?” I said, as if I had just woken up from a nightmare, running a trembling hand over my forehead, looking at a piece of cotton on the floor. “No…”
“Donna, my friend…” Angie sighed, hands on hips. “…You screwed it up.”
Angie was right.
My absurd jealousy, my sick mind forced me to break Percy, to take away your childhood friend. I hated myself, I screamed, I yelled, but none of that could ease my conscience nor heal my mistake.
You stopped talking to me, almost looking at me. You didn't even sleep with me. I had lost you.
But it wasn't a quick loss, you didn't abandon me completely. You were still in my house, you hadn't left me. What was initially a relief became the worst of my tortures. I could see you, but not have you. I could hear you, but not talk to you, I could look at your lips, but I couldn't kiss them.
I tried, I tried by all means to apologize, to beg you to forgive me, but it wasn't enough, it never would be.
“(Y/N),” I said when, as always, you sat down to eat with me. Your gaze was cold, annoyed, it seemed like you really hated me. My voice was soft, sad, apologizing with every word I said. It was of no use.
You didn't look at me or greet me. You just poured yourself a glass of water.
“L-look, I, I made lasagna… It, it's your favorite dish,” I said shyly, serving her a perfect piece that she reluctantly accepted.
“Do you expect me to thank you?” you asked, ignoring my gaze again. At least it was the first time in days that I heard you speak.
“(Y/N), per favore… Listen to me…” I said nervously, with a trembling voice and a tear in my eye.
“I don't want to listen to you,” you said in a gruff voice, dragging the chair. “If you don't leave, I'll go to my room.”
“Forgive me, I beg you, I'm, I'm suffering, tesoro, you don't know how much I am…” I said in a more pathetic tone, reaching out my hand to touch yours. You stood up with a cold look, without a smile, without the sparkle in your eyes.
“What do you know about suffering? You have no fucking idea about people's feelings, Donna. I'm going to my room, I'm not hungry,” you growled, getting up from the chair and walking back to the stairs.
“(Y/N)…” I sobbed when I lost sight of you, resting my forehead on my hand, letting the tear I was holding fall onto the table.
As if saying your name summoned you, you approached again, hurriedly, picking up your plate of food with an embarrassed look, making a proud gesture as you took that lasagna to your room.
A strange smile formed on my face as I shook my head. At least you were still enjoying my food.
“Is everything okay?” Angie asked, climbing onto my lap.
“No, it's not okay at all,” I said hoarsely, pouring myself some wine. “I'm losing her, Angie…”
“Well, you've broken her childhood teddy bear and hurt her feelings, you can't be surprised by her reaction,” the doll said. She was right.
“I don't know what I can do… I'm desperate,” I murmured, playing with my food. “I'll lose her forever, because of me.”
“You gain nothing by regretting it, silly Donna, do something,”  Angie said, guiding my face so I looked at her.
“What? I've apologized in every possible way, I've begged her and… It, it didn't help,” I explained while the doll listened to me, pretending boredom.
“If you think that by saying sorry you're going to fix things up, you're more stupid than you look, Donna,” she said, making me growl furiously, pushing her off my lap.
“Angie…” I hissed dangerously while a word stuck in my mind: fix. “Oh, wait… I think I got it…”
“What, Donna? What are you thinking?”
“Come, I need your help.”
The solution came to my head like a fresh breeze. Yes, it was true that saying sorry was absurd, that it wouldn't fix anything but… That only happened when there was nothing to fix. Fixing my mistakes wasn't something abstract, metaphorical. I could fix everything, really fix it. If I wanted to get you back, I should fix Percy.
With Angie's unmatched help, and with you not seeming upset with my doll, I managed to distract you so I could go up to your new room and get back what was left of Percy.
I spent two days in the workshop, without eating, without sleeping, searching for every piece of fabric, recomposing every part of that damn bear. If it had to be with us so I could enjoy your love, so be it.
Two new eyes, a restored bow tie, reinforced seams, clean and soft fabric, a rebuilt smile, he looked brand new.
“Well, there you are…” I murmured, running a hand over my forehead, yawning from exhaustion. “Welcome back, Percy. What do you think, Angie?”
“Oh…” the doll murmured. “It's amazing, Donna, I'm sure (Y/N) is going to love it.”
“Either that or she'll hate me forever… Is she upstairs?”
The doll nodded.
Slowly, I went up the elevator, with the animal hidden behind my back, walking slowly towards you, who seemed nervous, looking under the furniture, at least until you saw me.
“You! You crazy nutcase! What have you done with Percy?” you shouted at me, pushing me by the shoulders. I didn't move, I just shook my head. “It wasn't in its place... You threw it in the trash, right?”
“No,” I whispered with a hoarse voice, trying to keep my composure despite your angry pushes.
“Yeah, right, stop pretending, Donna. I'm sure you've gotten rid of it, how long do you plan to make me suffer?” you asked, pushing me harder and harder. “Talk, you crazy bitch! Tell me where Percy is!”
I didn't answer, no matter how much my heart hurt from your insults. I simply moved the bear from my back, holding it with both hands and showing it to you, who immediately froze, blinking several times.
“What…? Percy?” you asked confused, shyly taking the restored teddy bear. “What…?”
“Hello, (Y/N),” –I said without moving my lips, pretending to be the animal. You looked at me out of the corner of your eye and shook your head.
“It's, it's incredible… It's, it's like I remember it when my parents… Gods… What have you done?” you asked, looking at the clean bow tie, running a finger over its two now perfect eyes. The smile was starting to appear on your face.
“Donna fixed me up. She put a lot of effort into it. Look at me, I finally have two eyes,” Percy said again while I looked at you with a sad expression.
“I see…” you laughed with a sincere smile. “Look at the seams… It’s, it’s perfect…”
“Donna loves you so much. She’s tried so hard to fix me up to make you happy. She didn’t want to hurt you. She was just being silly, were you, Donna?” Percy said.
 I nodded slowly.
You shook your head and laughed amused, leaving the bear on a table and walking towards me, cupping my face in your hands.
“Donna, my love…” you whispered, with tears in your eyes. “Honey…”
“I’m so sorry, (Y/N), I didn’t mean to make you suffer… I, I just…”
You interrupted me the best way you knew, with one of your tender kisses, one that almost made me cry, one that you hadn’t given me in too long.
“I behaved like a fool too,” you said, playing with my hands. “I know the whole Percy thing was hard for you, Donna, but… Don’t, don’t worry, we’ll both make an effort to be a bit better, okay? I love you so much, my love…”
“I love you, (Y/N)…”
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starreyblueberry · 3 days
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Timmy Turners fate in the new series is one of the most anticipated/theorized aspects of the new show right now. We have multiple easter eggs towards him being a possible character in the new show, and due to the creator saying that Timmys kids could possibly be Cosmo and Wandas next godkids, I don't think Timmy has kids yet (aka the channel chaser ending might be on its way, but not happened just yet.) He is arguably going to either be a huge hit or miss, everyone has different ideas, fates, what he should be, what would be the best conclusion to his character. The lines between real genuine trauma and gags in the old show are blurry, as well as core aspects of his personality. It’s so hard to actually write him as an adult for the new show purely cause what exactly are you going to take from the show that MATTERS. Will you take the lovingness of his parents from season one? or the neglectful spiteful parents they become from season 4. Will you take the horrible grades as him actuallly being bad at school, or crocker failing him on purpose. Will chole even be his best friend? Or is it back to AJ and Chester? Or will his only friends be cosmo and wanda?
We’re Cosmo and Wanda parents to Timmy, or just godparents.
Its already proven that timmys magic somewhat stayed (aka Peris existence, Dale being a millionare, hell even dimsdale/fairy world being intact) If they will acklowdge that? The school mascot being Timmy turner adjacent, past fairy’s seeming to have remembered Timmy (The tooth fairy having a little card of Timmy, Jorgen hanging out w cosmo and Wanda more CAUSE of Timmy’s adventures etc). He’s somehow a crutal part of almost every piece of the show and he’s not even there. I fully believe they’re gonna explain why a lot of Timmy’s wishes have stayed (in my opinion so many of his changes have made the world in general a better place, and he has saved the universe so often undoing his shit would kinda change the whole fabric of space and time, thus making his magic stay, memories are more… iffy.)
I know a huge thing is also the family dynamic, the fact Timmy is their favourite, hell the HALL OF TIMMY!!! The fact they keep a picture of his room in their house, the fact that they reference him sometimes within conversations with hazel. Never actually spoken his name but implied that’s their Timmy (aside from one time) That the reason the world is right now the reason this problem or circumstance or blessing is happening is because of Timmy Turner.
The amount of pure power Timmy has over the show is something crazy, and I do trust the new writers to give us an ending that will satisfy us. He’s been so connected to many people’s childhoods, showing found family at its core. He’s snarky, loud, smart, kind, and more. People want to see him happy, people want to see him with his family. Who you count as his family is up to you. It’s already been semi-confirmed it’s gonna be connected to the channel chasers ending since most of the general audience has said they wished the show ended during that time ( I have my own opions about it but I digress.) It would be super cool if they did their own take, aka any unconventional Timmy future that we haven’t seen as a concept in the OG show. I know many people are rooting for too remember, for them to be united, and I really wish it happens. We also have to remember this is hazels story too, and we’ll be seeing the end of Timmy’s story rather then the middle of it. A special about him would be amazing though, especially if he’s either the hero, or the villain. Idk!!One day I’ll make a full post about every possible future Timmy and my preferences towards which ones, but for now I’ll stick with my analysis of the OG show.
All I know is that Timmy changed Cosmo, Wandas, and Peris life almost more then any other Godkid, and I like to think the show respects the impact he had. Not only as their godkid, but as their first kid to consider true family.
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mehiwilldoitlater · 2 days
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*throws a mooncake into your inbox* part 2 of the erlang x reader fic plsssss. Let our boy pine and long from the distance. Yuan Fen just KNOWS he caught feeling and is giving him the stink eyes. Maybe reader is unaware? up to you. LOVE YOUR WRITING AND HAVE A WONDERFUL DAYYY
((mooncake?....mooncake...this gave me setting...thank you!))
The mid-autumn festival, or the festival of the moon. You heard it back in your world, but you never thought that one day you would actually participate. After all, you showed some curiosity when you heard from the other monkeys that in the nearest city the humans were preparing everything for the festival, and it was natural for you to ask to be able to attend it.
What you and your companions didn't know was that you weren't the only not-so-human beings that were ready to take a free night for the Moon festival.
"And WHAT are you two doing here?!"
Yuán Fèn almost snarled at the two deities that looked so normal under their own spell and some normal robes. In front of you, Erlang Shen, THAT Erlang, and the third Lotus prince, Nezha, were just in that moment entering the city walls.
Even if under a glamour spell that made him look like a human, Yuán Fèn still held that small trait that didn't allora his tail to disappear, and it was currently moving like a snake around his torso.
"We have all the rights in the world to attend this celebration!" Said the younger one, snarling like your friend and showing some clean in his eyes.
"Of every city, this one?!"
"Yes! Something to say about it?!"
And while the two were arguing, you couldn't look straight in the eyes of the older deity. You remembered quite well what happened to that mountain in that illusion, and... well, it made you feel quite awkward since that was the last time you saw him. You played with the hem of your sleeve, looking from time to time at the man, maybe searching for a good way to green him.
"You look stunning, y/n."
Instead, Erlang couldn't take his eyes off you. Your hangu was of a sweet shade of blues and lilac; flowers aforned your hair and the silks, making you the most beautiful thing that his eyes ever laid on. But you could have been beautiful in everything to him.
Chang'e needed to be careful, because now she had a rival that night.
"oh!" You scratched your head from embarrassment, a little more nervous than before. "The dress?... it's just an old thing that a friend had borrowed me."
"The third sister?" He said it with a genuine but funny tone.
"Yeah! She said that I need to start tò Look like a lady from now on!"
"She has good taste."
He kept his tongue by making remarks about her being a Yaoguai. After all, you befriended many of them. On your behalf, you laughed a little, feeling the nervousness finally calm down. Then, you remembered that Yuán Fèn and that Sassu child were nearing a handfight, and you had an idea.
"Since we're all together, why don't we go as a group? Tò know each other better!" The looks of disbelief on their faces were priceless. "I mean, we should start to act as allies now that the time has changed. And it would be fun!"
Yuán Fèn wanted to say something. I saw your hopeful face. You really, really wanted to attend the festival without troubles, and if going with Erlang and Nezha was an option for that, then it was worth it!
"All right, if they're not against it."  Which he hopes they were.
Well, they weren't; they both agreed on the spot, and so here you all were, walking in the street, full of people, ready to start the celebrations with two deities, really important ones too, and the One that had hereditated all of Sun Wukong powers—a normal group.
What really caught your attention was the decoration around yourself: everywhere someone had hanged a lantern, on their house, on the streets, between the house and palaces. Children were running around, holding small lanterns made of carved melons, where the adults had cut shapes in the zest, then putted a candle inside. 
Music could be Heard from the taverns, in the streets, around some temples, and everyone seems busy to have a good time. Your eyes couldn't concentrate on one spot, so immediately they were caught by something else, and you were so distracted that even Yuán Fèn needed to pull you a little. And of it wasn't him; a certain child was now fully invested in the area sourranding him.
"There there! I bet they sell flying lanterns! Bián huá, led me some money so we can take a few for later!"
"Why should I? Firstly, my name is Y/n, and secondly, you have to ask for them!"
"Hey! Have you forgotten who I am? I can turn you to-"
"To nothing. Because if a certain emperor find out you both sneak here, you're in big trouble!"
It was funny seeing Nezha act like a brat with someone that didn't care about his status, and of course it needed to be you.
While he kept complaining or tugging at your sleeves to get your attention on something, a small crowd got your attention. The music and the dances were blasting; a small group of musicians was playing an old song about Houyi and Chang'e, girls were launching handkerchiefs around, and boys were trying to catch them as fast as they could.
"Hey! Over there! What are they doing? What kind of dance is that?"
"That? It's a matchmaking dance." Said nonchalantly Yuán Fèn. "Of the boy can give back the handkerchief to the girl who has tossed, they may get married in the future."
"Oooh, it's cute!" You got closer to the crowd and, without even noticing, a few old ladies, maybe caught in a joyful spirit, had already caught you and dragged you inside.
"Little help here?!" You tried to call for your friend, but he was stopped by the young one.
"Just throw the thingy! Who's going to pick it up anyway?!" He laughed about it, while you just stuck your tongue out at him.
Once you did what they told you, you were free and without your handkerchief.
"Wow, those ladies are crazy about it!"
"They just like seeing young ladies march with young men, even strange things like you!"
"Careful, or I'll ruin your makeup, boy..." The both of you were now making faces at each other, to the dismay of Erlang and the joy of Yuán Fèn.
"so! What now?"
"We should go and pay and offer to the moon goddess; it's her festival after all."
"Allright! Let's move!"
While you, Yuán Fèn, and Nezha started moving, you hadn't noticed a Swift of Wind between the crowd. When you turned around, Erlang was adjusting his robe and hair.
"Aren't you coming?"
"Ah yes. Sorry, I was just...thinking."
He deliberately avoided the monkey glare; the only one who knew that had noticed maybe.
///
After you all had offered the incense, prayed for some good fortune, and paid respect to the goddess, you all decided that it was the right moment to stop and enjoy some dinner.
"Why don't we stop here? It seems nice!"
"I wouldn't mind some crabs."
"I'm starving!"
If it wasn't just for the small details that the place was crowded like nowhere, it would have taken hours to eat something! And you still wanted to participate in other events! Especially when the lanterna would have been left free in the sky to fly! You bought a few without Nezha knowing—a small surprise for him. Your mouth started tò watering while you saw all of those plates full of food and delicacy moving between table to table, and you were really beginning to think that losing at least the lion dance could not be such a terrible idea.
Until you noticed the monkey and the boy eyes fixed on the door that seemed to lead to the kitchen. There, your thoughts start tò running.
"You really shouldn't do that!"
"They won't notice!" Said Nezha, ready already to sneak in.
"We'll leave a few dollars, so it won't be a real robbery. What do you think?" Yuán Fèn winked at you. Just before taking the form of One of the waiters was alongside Nezha, making his way towards the kitchen. You blushed a little, still a little uncostimed by his new-found cockiness that accompanying tò Bajie was provoked by his mind now clear about his love towards you.
"Yuán fèn or Sun Wukong, they won't change. Troublemakers Deep in Their Heart." Erlang sighed, observing the scene.
"I like him this way... He may be a troublemaker, but he got a big heart."
The deity couldn't shake that pounty feeling in his heart when he saw with what gaze you were looking at the monkey. Deep, really Deep, he wished that you could have spared those dreamy eyes for himself. Such a selfish desire, but he was selfish inside...
"I never got the chance to thank you properly for what you've done for me back there." You started again to play with your sleeve, looking at your feet with some shyness that, in his eyes, made you more precious than ever.
"You don't have to. It was my duty to do so."
"I know, but...thank you...for everything."
And there it was again—that damn smile. That smiled so full of kindness and life that virtually you could possess, one smile that could break everyone's heart, especially Erlang's. He looked at you fondly and started to search for something in his robe.
"Y/n, please, I would."
The screaming of the owner echoed in the crowd. Laughs and screams started, and two troublemakers were running out from the restaurant, holding some food and wine.
"THEY'RE NOT THAT GENEROUS!"
///
You were able to get away from the owner fast enough, and, with your spoiler, you were able to find a nice spot. Next to the river, the boat, all of them decorated with more lanterns, seemed like a celestial vessel with reflections on the water. The light played on the surface, the colors shone like the aurora, and the moon, now high in the sky, set herself to be admired by mortals, Yaoguais, and celestials on that peaceful night.
Everything was just nice, with some food, wine, and good friends. 
After a while, you and Nezha standard up and get closer to the river bank to spot more interesting lanterns, leaving Yuán Fèn and Erlang alone and together.
The night was peaceful, but between the two of them, the tension seemed palpable, and the brother of them wanted to open their mouth to speak up. Erlang proved no animosity towards the monkey; he had made sure of that, but it wasn't like he liked him anyway. But he was sure that that night, the monkey really didn't enjoy his presence at all.
"If you have something to say, then talk. Don't ruin the night with this."
"Then give me the handkerchief."
Erlang stopped tò eating his crabs. His expression seemed calm, for now.
"I can smell it from here. Hand it over."
"Are you afraid of some silly mortal tradition?"
"I'm afraid that another stunt from you will cause some damage that I REALLY don't want to fix."
Erlang was sure that Heard a well-hidden snarl from the monkey. He enarched his eyebrow, looking at him with an inch of doubt.
"I'm Sorry?"
"I could smell it... your scent that day... She was soaked in it."
"I tended to her for weeks. Is normal?"
"She told me you kissed her."
He didn't retract this time, preferring to avoid the angry eyes of the companion, while his first became White.
"...she told you?"
"She wanted to come clear to me, and so I am to you. Do not do anything that you would regret."
He chuckled, ignoring the desire of the monkey to just grab him and destroy him.
"It's a treat?"
"It is, if you'll go over the line. I want to protect her from what can hurt her, especially deities that can't keep their eyes on the ground? She already told me she loved me; she doesn't need confusion now."
Erlang couldn't hold a smile. He always loved some good challenges, but you weren't one. Or, at least, you were already being won.
Yuán Fèn stood up, readjusting his scarf and his neck.
"I won't tell you to stop your feelings; I can't do that. I just ask you to be concederate for your own well-being."
He reached his hand towards him, mimicking the gesture of handing over that small piece of silk. That monkey... he could be so cruel, even against a small and harmless tradition.
He gave it to the monkey, observing that stupid and small thing disappear in the monkey pocket. Before leaving to reach you and Nezha, the monkey stopped in his tracks. His eyes shining with a dark light, his teeth showing...
"I won't hesitate to destroy you to keep you with me...got it?"
The first thing that Erlang thought was that the Destined One and Sun Wukong looked so alike and so possessive.
When he keft, Erlang eyes kept in following him..and then you.
He now understands how It felt Houyi, something the man desired, yet he never reached.
@sun-jglim @crimsonflameproxy @everlastingmoonlightsworld @biankanoir
@miraclecherryblossomsblog @certifiedsimpinggalore @sleepingdramaqueen @cromboloni @masksandfeathers
@cinnamonroll-anon @justrandomlypassing @cute-angi @luckyangelballoon @dressycobra7
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@sleepydang @weaverworks @kishimiest @marcu-bug @thepoweroffiction
@riolu4 @angryvampire @s0rr3l
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inkblottzz · 1 day
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grins mischievously and rubs my hands together like a fly
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i think human ink would frequently get bored of his hair color and hair style, trying out lots of different things!! he would definitely forget to maintain the dyejob tho so his white roots get REALLY bad until he dyes it again LMAO
while his dads aren't japanese (zephyr is french and idrk about undertop), they enjoy ink showing them japanese culture and participating in traditions and such :-)
ink, since they're immortal, decided he would dedicate his freetime into learning a bunch of different cultures and languages! this always tends to surprise others, since ink's short-term memory is absolute garbage. nobody understands how he remembers EVERYTHING about EVERY culture 😭😭🙏 you CANNOT keep a secret from this mofo no matter what language you speak
i think they would keep a digital diary with a camera! he records important events/moments so they can always look back at them, since he forgets a lot. his camera is mostly filled up with memories with their dads 🫶
ink LOVESS to bake!! he enjoys trying out different recepies and pastries from all around the world, but his favorites are macarons. he enjoys cooking as well, but moreso appreciates baking because of the exact instructions/measurements. (he is autistic like me and needs clear instructions or he will combust real and true trust me on this)
he has WAY too many hobbies for a normal person to keep up with. flute, baking, drawing, painting, writing, dancing, crocheting, knitting, embroidery, singing, gardening, you NAME it. any form of art, they know how to do and are surprisingly good at it
ink struggles with keeping up with his own very very busy mind. they have so many projects he wants to execute, but can only push out a few at a time. he hates having unfinished projects, and will stick with something until the end—for better or for worse.
he loves to paint over his vitiligo spots, or just painting on himself in general. they think it's fun & interesting to see how the spots shift and change on his skin, never growing bored of them.
-> his spots shift whenever code for a new AU is created, soo it's never really consistent LOL
he loves all forms of music, but holds a special place in his heart for songs that include lots of different classic instrumentals, like violin. he loves artists like fish in a birdcage and sparkbird (yes im projecting and you can't stop me)
he sometimes will drink paint out of the blue in front of others just for their reactions. they are priceless to ink and ALWAYS make him crack up so bad.. and then he has to explain that "nonono my paint specifically is okay for me to drink guys im not gonna die dw" ☠️☠️
ANNDDD i should probably stop there.. this post is so long LMFAO 😭😭 honestly most of these are just my normal ink headcanons, human or not, so take these as you will 🗣️🗣️
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Jealousy (Sauron x fem!Elf!reader)
-> in which you know Sauron is only getting close to Mirdania as part of your plans, but it still bothers you
Warnings: evil reader who is Sauron’s partner in crime (it’s not exactly healthy but you match each other’s freak)
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If she’s not in love yet, she is awfully close to it. You can see it plainly on Mirdania’s face as Sauron—or, as she knows him, Annatar—cradles her hand in his, convincing her yet again to do his bidding with nothing more than a softly spoken word and a gaze that lingers just a moment too long.
“Can I trust you to make sure the others respect his wishes as well?” you hear him say from where you’re standing, only a few feet away. Mirdania agrees almost immediately, looking as though she might pick up a hammer and crush her own fingers with it as well, if her beloved Lord of Gifts only asked.
You are being dramatic, of course. It’s a good thing, having as many smiths of Eregion be vulnerable to Sauron’s deception as possible, but it’s awfully unfair that someone else should get to feel his touch so freely when you, the one with the most right to it, must restrain yourself until you are alone.
By the time they are finished conversing, you are glaring daggers in their direction. If Mirdania notices, you don’t know and you don’t care. It’s his gaze you meet and hold for a brief moment before you turn yours away and leave the courtyard, knowing he would follow.
He had better.
You’ve reached a corridor you know to be empty most of the time, and are striding down it when a hand wraps around your arm and pulls you to the side. You hold back a smirk as your back meets the wall and you stare up into Sauron’s eyes.
“Jealousy does not suit you,” he remarks sharply.
“Feigned innocence does not suit you,” you retort. “Yet you never fail to make it convincing.”
“Mirdania is hardly difficult to convince. And who can fault her?” he says, smugly. He likes to make your blood boil, and you like to let him. It stokes the passion between you. Usually. Now, however, it only serves to further your indignation.
“Who can fault her, indeed?” you say bitterly. “Perhaps she’s not the one worthy of my ire. It was, after all, the Lady Galadriel to whom you oh-so-poetically compared Mirdania not that long ago. Perhaps your time together in Numenor brought you much closer than you led me to believe.”
Your accusation diminishes his playfulness. He puts a finger under your chin, lifting it slightly to better fix you with a warning gaze.
“I do not care for this attitude of yours,” he says disapprovingly. “You were never quite so... irritable, before.”
“Before?” you hiss, removing his hand from your face and holding his wrist between you in a grip tight enough you hope it hurts. “Before you were taken from me without warning, and I was left alone in the world? Living amongst my kind as though nothing had changed, as though I still belonged with them. Playing the obedient little smith as if I was not meant to be so much more. Forgive me if, after all those interminable years awaiting my husband’s return, I do not care to see his fingers in some other elf’s hair!”
Your last words are practically a growl as you release his hand furiously, slamming it into his own chest. He glances at it, then looks at you, having the decency to seem somewhat contrite for a brief moment.
“Had I known it bothered you so...” The slightest smirk tugs at his mouth. “I’d have at least tried to touch her hair out of your sight.”
You shove at his chest, spitting out an adjective in Black Speech with a most indelicate translation in the common tongue. This time, you don’t want him to follow. It’s your full intention to storm away and treat him with nothing but silence until you’re satisfied you have frustrated him as badly as he did you.
You’ve taken a few steps when he catches you by the waist, pulling you with your back flush against his front in the middle of the corridor. You make a sound of surprise, your hands flying to his, but you don’t try to pry them away from you. His mouth is at your ear, hot and alluring.
“There is a purpose to my every word, gesture and touch,” he says, the low rumble of his voice traveling deliciously down your spine. “A purpose of which you are well aware. Our purpose. Do you truly believe a head of pretty hair would so easily sway me, when I spent centuries dreaming to taste you once more?”
His voice has dropped to a whisper, and his lips lower to your neck, pressing gently against your skin to soften you to him. It feels divine, as always, but pride demands you hold back from melting into his just yet.
“What you spent centuries dreaming of,” you counter flatly, “is ruling the world.” Your voice betrays only the tiniest trace of breathlessness as he gives your skin a light, warning bite.
“The two may coexist, and they do. You know that very well.” He turns you around then, holding your chin between his fingers once more. His thumb brushes your lower lip, eyes boring into yours with no trace of the teasing glint from before. “Cease your foolish doubts. Anger makes you impossibly beautiful, my love, but in this moment I’d prefer it if you were angry alongside me, rather than at me. We must stand united, now more than ever.”
That is... infuriatingly true.
Oh, damn him. With his flattery and his touches and his... rational thinking.
“I just...” You let out a sigh with a hint of a groan, your anger giving way to reveal the source of frustration which had driven you to such impulsive actions in the first place. “I’ve grown so tired of this pretense. This ridiculous charade, as if you were as much a stranger to me as you were to the other smiths before you came. Look at us, sneaking around like some rebellious youths exchanging forbidden kisses. They should know who you are. Who we are.” You cup his cheeks and lean in close, voice drenched in unbridled passion. “Husband and wife. King and Queen.”
“And so they shall,” he vows, pulling you against him in a tight embrace as he leans his forehead against yours, “once the work is complete. I shall put a crown on your head, and we shall stand side by side as the world bows at our feet. Before their Lord of Darkness, and my beautiful, terrible Queen. This, I swear.”
Your heart thunders in your chest at the images invoked by his words. Everything you’ve waited and strived for all this time, finally within your grasp. Being supreme ruler of Elves, Dwarves and Men alike. Knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you can never be torn from the one you love again.
“The day cannot come soon enough,” you breathe out, the last word barely escaping before your love captures your lips and kisses you with endless greed, perfectly matching yours. There is darkness within you, and it was always meant to become intertwined with his. One or both of you may be killed, as he once was, but no power in existence could ever truly part your souls. It’s a certainty you see reflected in his eyes as he pulls away just slightly, just enough for his gaze to set you even more alight with desire before he devours you with his kiss once more.
“Soon, my love,” he whispers against your lips. “Soon.”
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delulujuls · 1 day
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birds of a feather | joost klein
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hi, its me again. i know its been a hot minute since i posted here but literally i have no idea when the past month left.
anyway, im alive and i finally got a chance to write something, so here it is. its nothing that i used to post here i guess, but i it means a lot to me. while writing this i remembered all of those dark days that i managed to survive. and i guess, joost himself did too.
please, if you struggle with mental health or you just dont feel good at that moment, i do not recommend to read this. feel free to text me if you need to talk to someone.
remember that you are not alone. you can get trough everything as long as you have you.
je bent sterker dan je denkt
summary: joost is struggling with his mental health, but so do reader. but together its a bit easier to go through storm and its even better to look at the rainbow with someone dear by your side.
warnings: struggling with depression, ed, parents loss
pairing: fem!bff!reader x joost klein
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Snow fell throughout the night, so the next morning, all of Leeuwarden woke up under a heavy, white blanket.
However, some didn’t get the chance to wake up because they hadn’t managed to close their eyes at all. One of those people was a girl laying down with open eyes in her dark room.
Despite having no desire, motivation, or strength, after a while she sat up in bed more than an hour before her alarm was set to go off. She wrapped herself in the blanket and closed her aching eyes. It felt as if someone had poured two bags of sand under her eyelids.
Her room was in complete darkness, with only the warm, yellow light from a streetlamp filtering in through the uncovered window. The whole house was silent, and nothing outside suggested that anyone else existed in the world but her. She could hear her tear-stuck eyelashes pulling apart with each blink.
She sighed heavily and rubbed her face with her hands before finally getting out of bed. She couldn’t afford to skip class; she had already accumulated too many absences recently. The last thing she wanted was to deal with her teacher, who kept repeating the same thing over and over— that she should talk to her parents, that she would call in a psychologist. Just let me live, woman, she thought. Or better yet, let me die.
With a soft groan of displeasure, the girl pulled off her warm sweats and quickly put on an uncomfortably cold shirt and hoodie. The jeans she put on were also unpleasantly cold and stiff. The chill around her cut to the bone.
When she went to the bathroom and turned on the light, she squinted with a grimace. She shuffled over to the mirror and looked at her reflection. Nothing surprising stared back at her. Puffy, red eyes from crying, chapped lips, and skin irritated from a runny nose. She sighed and looked down, tying up her hair and turning on the tap, trying to make herself somewhat presentable.
When she finished, she didn’t look much better. The last thing she felt like doing was putting on makeup. A shower from the previous evening was the best she could manage. Before going downstairs, she grabbed her backpack and phone, glancing at the screen. Beside the clock, it was empty. Worried that maybe WhatsApp had failed, she opened the app and clicked on her last conversation. Joost hadn’t replied to her messages since the night before. She sighed and shoved the phone into her pocket. She knew she wouldn’t go straight home after class.
Not feeling like eating breakfast, she simply put on her shoes, jacket, and left the house. It was even colder outside, so she pulled her hood over her head and wrapped herself in a scarf. She couldn’t wear gloves—how else would she change songs, she thought, putting her tangled earphones in.
Even more snow had fallen than it seemed when looking out the window. It was still early, so the streets were covered in snow. The walk to the bus stop was exhausting. When she finally reached it, she realized she still had plenty of time to spare. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lit one, and took a drag. She pulled out her phone from the other pocket, changed the song, and opened her conversation with Joost again. Nothing had changed.
you could at least read my messages. that way, id know if you were alive 06:50
She typed with frozen fingers, holding the cigarette between her lips. The girl exhaled the smoke and sent the message, glancing at the cracked screen of her phone with faint hope. Nothing.
The phone that received the message vibrated on the bed. Its owner, however, wasn’t there but on the floor. Joost lay on the ground, staring at the ceiling. He tried to focus on breathing. Only on breathing. Only on surviving.
He had no idea what time it was, how long he had been lying there. Had he made it through the night, or was it still yesterday, or maybe already tomorrow? On both sides of his head were small, wet spots from the tears that had spilled from his heavy eyelids. He was like a defeated, fallen Gulliver, his tears carving out lakes.
He didn’t feel the cold, didn’t feel the pain in his back. He didn’t feel how badly his head hurt from crying or the emptiness in his stomach. He couldn’t remember when he last ate something warm, despite his sister and brother's urging, when he last took a shower, or held his phone. When was the last time he actually spoke to someone? A few hours ago? Or last month?
If looks could drill holes, there would already be a small but precise one in his ceiling. Only when he heard a knock on the door did he snap out of it. It was morning, and his room was filled with light. He had survived the night.
“I’m heading to work, want a ride to school?” his sister’s voice came from behind the door.
It took him about five seconds to remember how his vocal cords worked.
“No, I’ll manage.”
“Are you planning to stay home?”
Silence. On both sides of the door.
“I don’t want to have your school on my back, okay? You’ll go back to class after the weekend.”
Joost sighed in relief, closing his eyes.
“Thanks, really.”
“There’s breakfast on the table,” he heard her footsteps fade away. “Eat something!”
At that moment, he regained consciousness. With great effort, he managed to sit up and lean his back against the bed. He rubbed his face with his hands and clenched his fists in his hair. After a moment, he sighed and looked ahead. The clock on the bedside table showed a few minutes before eight. He hadn’t even heard whether his brother had returned from the night shift. It was as if he’d been in a trance all night, focused only on the passing seconds, taking minute by minute, hour by hour.
When he managed to climb back into bed, he pressed his cheek against the cold pillow and instinctively reached for the phone lying nearby. In the flood of notifications, he noticed more than ten messages from his friend. He felt a pang of guilt.
He swiped and entered their conversation.
you know we can always talk. you dont have to deal with this all on your own 00:21
i know. thanks 00:46
That was the last message he had replied to.
apparently you dont know, because youre doing it again 00:54
you always shut yourself off and dont let anyone in. why cant you understand that you matter to someone? 00:55
you act like youre deliberately torturing yourself, like you purposely want to take on all the fucking pain and show that only you are suffering. surprise, youre not the only one 01:00
im sorry. i didnt mean it like that. its just been hard for me too lately, and im worried about you. i didnt want to say that. im sorry.. 01:12
i want to help you, but i dont know how. how am i supposed to do that if you wont let me? 01:18
i cant imagine losing you, do you understand? 01:19
for fucks sake, theyd bury us together. i couldnt make it without you 01:20
let me help you, please. or at least dont shut me out 04:29
im worried, joost. please reply 13:54
Missed calls x7
you could at least read my messages. as it is, i dont even know if youre alive 06:50
im alive. im sorry 08:01
He replied, staring at the screen. He read her messages several times. He knew he could rely on her, that he mattered to her. But on the other hand, he couldn’t accept it. Him? Someone cared about him? Hey, wasn’t he just the funny, slightly chubby kid who always told silly jokes and made everyone laugh? That he had problems? What kind of problems could a teenager like him have?
She, however, knew that Joost had been through a lot. Losing his parents year after year can break anyone, let alone someone like him. Since she had met him in high school, Joost had always seemed like an extrovert, the center of attention, telling the funniest jokes with his booming voice. But beneath the surface, which he had built himself, lay an incredibly sensitive boy with a big heart. He was the kind of person children smiled at, and dogs ran up to for a pet.
Joost was like a gentle giant. He could pretend that nothing bothered him, that dumb jokes or words thrown around in laughter didn’t hurt. But every one of those words or situations lodged itself tightly in his mind like a pack of rats that couldn’t be driven out for anything. It was as if his body lacked the receptors for anger or aggression. He wished everyone he knew well, but the feeling wasn’t always mutual.
When he was younger, not long after his parents died, he was often mocked for being an orphan. The mean comments and jabs were so hurtful that he stopped attending classes. When someone pointed out that he seemed to have put on a bit of weight recently, he went a week eating nothing but apples, drinking water and smoking cigarettes.
Now, even though some time had passed since then, and he had been through several rounds of therapy, he still had periods like this. When all he wanted was to be alone and let the cold embrace of sadness surround him. To rest his head on the bony shoulder of depression and weep bitterly.
But it wasn’t to be, as he suddenly flinched, hearing something hit his bedroom window. He realized he had lost touch with reality again and had been staring at his phone’s dark screen for who knows how long.
Thinking he had misheard, he settled more comfortably on his pillow.
The girl squeezed the snow harder in her hands, forming a snowball. She took aim and threw it at his window again. When Joost replied to her message, she knew she had to seize the moment. She had skipped the last two classes and immediately went to her friend’s house. She wasn’t leaving until she talked to him.
She took aim again and threw another snowball at the window. This time with success, as moments later, she saw Joost looking out.
He wasn’t sure whether to believe his eyes, but his friend tapped her finger on her wrist, signaling that she had been waiting long enough. The corner of Joost’s mouth involuntarily twitched upwards, and he quickly went to open the door. He knew that if he didn’t, this psycho would keep throwing snowballs until the window broke, and she’d climb in through the tree. He preferred to avoid that.
He unlocked and opened the door, but before he could say anything, she threw herself around his neck and hugged him tightly. She was cold, and her hair smelled like frost, but she was so alive, so different from the bony arms of depression.
“Don’t do that again,” she mumbled, holding him close.
Joost felt all the air trapped in his lungs release as he closed his eyes. He wrapped his arms around his friend, resting his cheek on her head.
"You're letting the cold in," he said after a moment, trying to lighten the mood as the wind blew snowflakes inside. "Come on, get inside."
A few moments later, the two friends were in Joost's room. It was clear that cleaning up was the last thing on his mind. The girl glanced around and silently began picking up the scattered clothes from the floor.
"Please, leave it," Joost groaned, collapsing onto the bed. "I'll do it later."
"If you're not going to help, then go take a shower," she replied, putting the relatively clean clothes back into the closet and setting the dirty ones aside near the door.
"I'll do that later too," he mumbled, rubbing his face with his hands. Only now did he start to feel how utterly exhausted he really was.
"We both know how that will go," she said pointedly, casting a glance his way. He sighed, feeling her gaze on him.
"I'm too tired. I just can't."
The girl hung up his coat and sat next to him. Joost looked at her face. Only now did he notice her puffy, swollen eyes, sunken cheeks despite the rosy flush from the cold, and chapped lips. He recognized the look.
He immediately recalled one of the messages she had sent him. You're not the only one suffering.
"What happened?"
He furrowed his brows and sat up, studying her face carefully. She knew exactly what he meant. Joost saw the same exhaustion in her that she often saw in him.
She sighed and lowered her gaze.
"I haven't been feeling great these past few days. But you probably know what I mean."
This time, it was his turn to lower his gaze. He didn't know what to say.
He didn't need to say anything.
She moved closer and hugged him, pulling him into a tight embrace. Joost desperately hugged her back, holding her in a bear-like grip.
"I'm sorry," he muttered after a while, still holding her. His voice trembled. "I should be supporting you, but instead, I'm just a burden. It's the only thing I'm good at."
"You're not a burden, Joost," she protested, pulling back slightly to look at him, emphasizing her words. "We should be supporting each other. No one else will understand us better than we understand each other. We're in this together."
At some point during her words, two large tears rolled down Joost's cheeks. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.
"I'm sorry," he said, burying his face in his hands, knowing that those two tears were just the beginning. On top of feeling miserable, guilt now added to the weight. It's not that he was unaware of his friend's struggles with mental health—he knew, just as she knew what he was going through. On most days, both of them were cheerful and lively, the life of the party. But sometimes, for a few days, a week, or even two, their light would go out. Depression was a grim lighthouse keeper.
She hugged him again, holding him tightly. Joost clung to her as if she were a lifeline.
"Everything will be okay," she whispered, stroking his hair.
"Everything will be okay," he echoed. "We'll get through this."
They sat there in silence for an undefined amount of time, wrapped in each other's arms.
"I'm not joking about that shower," she said after a while. "I guarantee you'll feel better."
Joost sighed and pulled away from her, nodding. He stood up and went to his closet, grabbing some clean clothes.
"You don't have to clean up, really," he said, glancing at her one last time before reaching for the door handle.
"And wash your hair too," she replied, standing up and continuing to organize his clothes. She looked at him and gave him a small smile, nodding her head to tell him to go and not to worry about the rest.
"Thank you," he returned her smile and went to take a shower.
When he came back, he looked much better. He also felt better. His room no longer resembled a battlefield. Clothes and trash no longer littered the floor, dirty dishes were gone, and the bed was made. But his friend was nowhere to be seen.
Joost peeked out of the door and, hearing movement in the kitchen, went downstairs. His friend was putting dishes into the dishwasher.
"This is probably for you," she said, pointing to some sandwiches wrapped up on the counter.
"I doubt I can eat anything," he replied, glancing apologetically at her. After a moment, he wondered if she had eaten. She also had trouble with eating sometimes. "But I'll eat if you eat with me."
"That won't be enough for us."
"I know, but we can make pancakes."
The girl smiled at his suggestion and nodded.
A few moments later, the kitchen filled with the smell of frying pancakes and the sound of easy conversation. The kind of conversation that, after a storm, offers a glimpse of normalcy. Joost flipped the pancakes while his friend sliced fruit they had found in the fridge. The warm atmosphere began to chase away the heavy clouds.
They weren’t alone. Even when they craved solitude, they weren't isolated. They had each other.
The girl unintentionally glanced at her friend, and noticing his damp bangs falling into his eyes, she pushed them back from his forehead with a gentle hand. Joost smiled at her gesture, unable to help it. She smiled too.
Birds of a feather, we should stick together, I said I'd never think I wasn't better alone Can't change the weather, might not be forever But if it's forever, it's even better
Neither of them said it aloud that afternoon, but in the quiet corners of their minds, they both thought how grateful they were to have each other.
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lulunothulu · 1 day
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There's not many Glen Powell stories could you do one for me plz:)
So Glen and Reader have been dating about a year. she's not in the entertainment industry she is just a RN he ask her to join him for the press tour for Twitters overseas. She goes with Glen to do some interviews and over hears a conversation where people think she is just with Glen for the money and everyone sees it. She's never asked Glen for money or help but he does occasionally do things for her out of love. She starts to pick up alot of extra shifts at the hospital and dip into her savings to afford all that stuff for the press tour to the point she's passes out one day after working 3 doubles in a row. Glen shows up and ask why she has been working so much and she comes clean about what she heard and how she dipped into her saving to afford the trip. He comforts her and makes her feel better and let's her know he knows she loves him for him and not his money and he asked her to come on the trip bc he wanted her there and he loves her and he loves to spoil her that's not gonna change.
I absolutely LOVE this one 😭 as a former ER worker I live for this.
“Just ordinary”
Glen Powell x Reader
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“So Glen,” the interviewer asks. “Who are you bringing to the London premiere?”
Glen smiles, looking behind the interviewer to where you stand with his publicist behind the stage.
“I’m bringing my girlfriend, Y/N,” he smiles, winking in your direction.
You make a mental note to check how much flights would cost but smile back at him.
“Ooo! What does she do? Is she an actress?”
“She’s actually an ER nurse,” he boasts. “I’m so lucky to have her in my life and to be able to feel so safe with her around me.”
“I bet,” they say. “Having someone there to nurse you to health even if you’re not sick must be so rewarding.”
“It is!” He beams. “I love that she takes care of me and makes sure I stay healthy. It also helps when I get injured on the job.”
“That’s so sweet,” they tell him. “Well, that’s all the time we have today. Make sure you catch Twisters in theaters near you!”
After the interview, Glen walks up to where you’re waiting and interlaces his fingers with yours before pulling you close to kiss you deeply.
“We’re almost done, I just have to do some mini interviews outside and then we can head home.”
You nod, and smile up at him. You knew the drill. After an interview inside, there would be fans all over the place, begging for pictures, as well as other interviewers waiting outside.
You follow him out the building and mentally prepare yourself for the screens and flashing lights of cameras. Next to you, Glen holds your hand tightly—not only making sure you’re next to him, but also safe. Glen hands you off to his mom who’s waiting behind him before walking up to some fans.
You smile at Cyndy. “I don’t know how you do it all the time. It’s so loud.”
She laughs. “Yeah I don’t know either. But to see how happy he gets when they all flock to him is the highlight of it all.”
You smile. You knew exactly what that feeling was like. Seeing Glen in his element and interacting with the people that got him to where he is now, felt amazing to watch.
———
You both follow him down the line of people, chatting to each other until you hear someone to the left say something that makes your blood turn cold.
“Yeah, I don’t see what he sees in her,” a teenage girl says to her friend. “She must be searching for money or something because there’s no way Glen would be with someone so ordinary like her. She’s not even that pretty.”
“Yeah, I agree. She seems like such a golddigger. Like where did she even come from?” Her friend responds.
You stop in your tracks at that, Cyndy’s brows furrow in their direction and she wraps an arm around your waist.
“Don’t listen to them. That’s just jealousy talking,” she whispers in your ear.
You only nod, scared if you spoke, you’d cry. Instead, you and Cyndy walk toward the car that’s meant to drive you all back to Glen’s house and wait for Glen there.
By the time he joins you all, you’re barely speaking and holding it together. On the car ride back to his place, you text your charge nurse, Kathy, and ask her to put you in the schedule for the whole week.
Kathy: are you sure? That’s a lot of hours and you’ll be exhausted by the end of it all.
You: trust me, I need the distraction and the money. I’ll be fine.
Kathy: alright, you’re set up for the whole week.
You sigh to yourself, earning a light nudge and smile from Glen.
“Are you okay?” He asks.
You smile up at him and lean onto his shoulder. “Yeah, just got a text that I’ll be working all week.”
“Oh no,” he says. “Can you find a replacement?
“Unfortunately no,” you tell him. “We’ve been so short staffed, they’d barely let me leave for lunch.”
“Hopefully all that overtime means you can come with me to London next week.”
You only smile and nod.
The thing about dating Glen that you never got used to was the way that he’d pay for everything you two did. You knew there was an imbalance when it came to money but never brought it up because he’d always been so happy to pay for everything. But after hearing what those two girls were saying…. Your pride, or something like it, felt like it was wrong to let it continue to happen.
You didn’t want to seem like a gold digger after all.
With this week of twelve hour shifts, you’d be able to afford the ticket, maybe some souvenirs?
Maybe I should text Kathy to set me up for sixteen hour shifts all week.
You text her when you get back to Glen’s place.
———
By the time Wednesday rolls around, you know asking for a week of work plus adding four more hours to your shifts was a mistake.
Glen tried to stay up and wait for you, but he’d be fast asleep in bed by the time you got out of the shower.
On top of not being able to really see him, you yourself were exhausted. Your body becoming so tired, even sitting down was hard because you’d fall asleep. So instead of sitting down during your shift, you’d stand.
At the end of your shift on Wednesday, you could barely keep your eyes open on the drive back home. And when you did get home, you didn’t even bother getting out of your scrubs before collapsing onto the couch and falling asleep.
“This is normal, mom,” you hear Glen say faintly. “She’s working herself to death and I’m just…I’m worried for her.”
The next morning, you rub your eyes when your alarm blares in your ear. Sitting up from the couch, you race to the shower, peeling off your scrubs from the night before, and quickly showering to wake yourself up.
When you step out of the bathroom, you find Glen standing there with a cup of coffee ready for you.
“Good morning, baby,” he says, kissing you.
“Did I wake you?” You ask, taking the cup and sipping.
“No, I’ve been waking up early to make sure you get everything you need for work,” he tells you.
“Thank you,” you smile. You look down at your watch and sigh. “I have to get going.”
“I packed you lunch and extra clothes so that you don’t have to shower when you get home. Maybe you’ll sleep in the bed tonight?” His eyes are hopeful and you can’t help but feel so bad.
He’s doing all of this for you and yet you’re trying to avoid him—to an extent.
“I’ll try to,” you tell him. “I’ve just been so tired to walk up the stairs.”
“Then I’ll set something up for us before you get home,” he tells you. He kisses you before adding, “I’ll see you later.”
———
You’re halfway into your shift when you get the trauma of the day, maybe even the year.
You’re running, trying to grab the necessary supplies you need for the CPR that’s on its way when you suddenly feel the world begin to spin out from under you.
One second you’re stuffing you pockets with extra flushes and vials for bloodwork, the next your vision is blurring and going black.
When you finally wake up, you’re at the hospital still but in a room. The beeping of the monitor next to you grounds you in reality enough look around the room. Glen sits in a chair on the other side of you, worry and fear painted all over his face.
“Glen?” You croak.
“Oh my god,” he says, turning you and grabbing your hand. “Are you feeling okay?”
“For the most part,” you mumble. “What happened?”
“Kathy told me you fainted from exhaustion,” he tells you. “You shouldn’t have been working so many hours so close together. You could’ve gotten seriously hurt. You’re lucky someone was there to break your fall.”
He sighs, running his hand through his hair before asking, “What were you thinking working so many hours for so long?”
“I don’t know,” you lie.
“Yes you do. Tell me,” he urges.
You sigh, rubbing your eyes before looking at him. “I can’t afford to go to London.”
“I’ll pay for your ticket,” he quickly says.
“Glen, I don’t want you to.” This was going to be hard. “I want to pay for myself.”
“I don’t mind doing it, baby.” He searches your face before adding, “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” you answer. You squeeze your eyes shut before opening them and taking his hand in yours again. “I don’t want you to think I’m a gold digger.”
“Why would I think that?”
“Because you pay for everything!” You exclaim. “I don’t think it’s fair that you spend money on me and I can’t do the same for you.”
Glen smiles at you, kissing the inside of your wrist. “Y/N, there’s nothing that makes me happier than paying for everything. If I get to spoil you by taking you to London or paying for our dinners and rent, then that means I’m doing my job. I never want you to feel like you’re freeloading or being a gold digger around me.”
He tilts your head back to face him completely before continuing. “Baby don’t ever feel like that’s what you are because you’re not. I’m so grateful to do it for you. In fact, I love doing it.”
“Are you sure?” You ask.
“Very,” he tells you. “So you can stop with the extra shifts. I already talked to Kathy about giving the rest of the week off.”
Tears prick your eyes as you pull him in for a kiss.
“I love you so much.”
“And I love you more,” Glen says. “But don’t do that again. Please?”
You laugh. “I promise I won’t.”
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entiqua · 12 hours
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I love your artstyle!! Do you have any tips for drawing?
thank you so much! i'm really happy you like it!!💗 as for tips, what i would say would change drastically depending on what kind you're looking for, but some very general ones:
draw what you love and want to see most, regardless of whether anyone else wants to see it. if you don't enjoy what you're drawing it'll never come out as good or genuine as something your whole heart and soul is in. i mean you'd think this would be a no-brainer but sometimes i've had to sit back and ask myself 'if no one was ever going to see this except me, would i actually spend time drawing this?' and i was surprised by the answer
that said, it is also completely valid if your motivation for drawing is to draw for other people! there have been plenty of times where i was too artblocked to draw my own ideas but was still able to draw commissions or gifts and enjoyed it simply because making other people happy with my art makes me happy.
don't get too caught up in having a consistent art style. in my experience this 1000% hinders you
having your sense of anatomy degrade over time without you noticing because you keep drawing the same types of characters is a very real thing! if this is a concern to you be sure to draw a variety
follow a billion artists that you like the art of and you will have endless inspiration injected directly into your brain every time you open social media
my favourite practical tip for those who draw at a desk: keep a small mirror next to you at all times. absolute game changer for quickly referencing hands
if you're drawing digitally, make the canvas huge! in my experience this lets you draw messier/faster and you can't tell at all when you zoom out. if you tend to get stuck spending unnecessary amounts of time micromanaging pixels (me💀) keep it zoomed out while drawing
related to the above point, messy drawings can have far more expressiveness in them than neat and polished drawings. nowadays i never do lineart and go straight from 'barebones stickman pose' to 'varying-levels-of-coherent sketch' and use that as my lineart. sweet freedom from the sketch-looks-better-than-the-lineart phenomenon
if your goal is to improve, then you really do have to scrutinize your art, figure out what you're not satisfied with, and commit the time to focusing on it. 'practice makes perfect' kinda rubs me the wrong way because of how much i've seen it interpreted as 'just draw everyday and you'll magically improve' but genuinely it won't get you very far if you don't actively think hard about what you're trying to improve and take the steps to do it. is this a hot take idk. also hand in hand with this, not every artist is trying to improve and you shouldn't feel bad for this! maybe you just wanna make a little headshot doodle of your fave blorbo and that's your only drawing goal ever. awesome. maybe you know your art has flaws but it's passable enough to convey what you want and you're perfectly satisfied with that. (this is the stage i'm usually at). also awesome!
don't hesitate to draw something because you think it's out of your skill level. the worst that can happen if you draw it is that it comes out terribly but you learned something and can always redraw it better in the future. the worst that WILL happen if you don't draw it is that you'll never draw it. and then it will sit in the back of your brain haunting you for years. it's not like i'm speaking from experience or anything aha
look up 'hand stretches for artists' and do them if you draw a lot unless you wish to summon the wrath of the carpal tunnel demons
of course, these may not necessarily work for you, and most importantly(!) these are coming from the perspective of someone who is primarily a hobbyist. some of this won't be practical for people who need to build an audience, maintain a consistent style for work, etc. these are just things that have personally helped me over many years of drawing :)
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Transformers: One - What's In A Kneel?
!!!!!MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!
With the responsibility of leadership and the dangers of pedestals and hero worship being such major themes, it only makes sense that all three of the film's leaders would show their true characters, and in doing so seal their fates, in moments where they have to kneel/bow.
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Sentinel Prime essentially sets the entire second half of the film in motion when both the heroes and we as the viewer see him kneel to the Quintessons. It confirms everything that Alpha Trion was just telling them/us about him, and it's also the very thing that ends up getting broadcast to Iacon in order to finally expose Sentinel and turn the public against their False Prime.
For all his superficial charisma and his talk of looking out for the little guys, Sentinel himself is truly nothing more than a self-centred, spineless coward, who couldn't care less for the needs of the many and gladly bends to the will of bigger bullies/oppressors in order to keep himself in power.
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After learning of Sentinel's betrayal and being subsequently captured with the High Guard, D-16 makes a point to stand while in custody and adamantly refuses to kneel. Even when Sentinel begins beating and torturing him, D-16 makes it abundantly clear that he has no intention of bowing to him or anyone else ever again.
In better circumstances this could be a heroic trait, a courageous defiance and the willingness to stand up in the face of injustice. But it just as becomes a negative one, and it's one of the last warning signs to the kind of leader that Megatron is going to be.
He may have started out with good and heroic intentions, but because of this Megatron sees himself as superior, and whether by choice or by force, he expects his fellow Cybetronians to rally behind him just as they did with Sentinel. While he sees himself as a revolutionary, in the end he's just going to become another tyrant.
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And then we have Orion Pax. For much of the film, he's a far cry from the noble, legendary leader that we know and love from other iterations, but he starts to grow into it as he devises the rescue mission, and is tasked with rallying his fellow miners to help.
Having gotten a major upgrade since the last time he saw them, Orion now towers over his former peers and they're utterly awed by the sight of him. Rather than trying to take advantage of their admiration or even intimidate them with his new size and strength, Orion almost seems frustrated by the new height difference, and before beginning his speech he kneels down to literally speak to them on their level.
Orion doesn't make a point to do this, no one has to ask or prompt him to, in fact he himself doesn't even give that much thought to it, it's just his first instinct for how to best communicate. He may look larger and stronger now, but he still values the miners as his friends and his equals, and nothing is ever going to change that.
Gaining the Matrix later on may have gotten him the name, but it's this moment when Orion truly begins to embody the true core and heart of Optimus Prime. Powerful and inspiring, yet humble and caring. Or perhaps, as the legendary Peter Cullen himself has always said:
"Strong enough to be gentle."
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The Arrangement - Chapter 3
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Summary: Jake's done a lot of things to keep his sister, and then his niece, safe from his parent's influence and manipulation. If he wants to keep them safe, he has to marry you.
Warnings: Bad parents, Implied physical abuse. Let me know if I missed any!
Chapter 2 -- Chapter 4
Series Masterlist
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You spend the car ride in silence. If your brother taught you anything about angry men it's that you don't speak to them without permission. You wince at the memories of his wrath which you saw matched in the eyes of Jake, your husband, throughout the wedding. So you keep yourself quiet and small, dreading your wedding night together.
Jake kept himself silent. He could feel your disappointment with him as your husband. You were likely plotting how to control him, make him miserable. He'd let you have the control if that's what you wanted. He can play the role as you need, or as your families need. But it was the private stuff that had him wanting to break. Would you let him play his video games? Would you constantly make fun of him, like so many others, for being himself? How much of himself will he have to sacrifice for the safety and security of his real family?
He pulls into the underground parking garage for the penthouse and parks. Not wanting to get lectured so soon, Jake is immediately out and going to open your door. He doesn't know that you only didn't open it because you weren't given permission. You step out and keep your eyes down so as not to anger him. As much as he's not looking forward to a life with a woman who drains his soul, it still hurts that you're so disappointed in him you can't even look at him.
The elevator ride is worse than the car ride. At least in the car you had buildings and people you could look at. Now it's just you and your eyes on the floor. You should be grateful he hasn't tried to touch you, but the fact that he puts as much distance between the two of you as he can speaks volumes. Jake tries making himself small in the hopes that you won't yell at him for taking up your space. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge him tells him a lot. When the doors open, Jake rushes into the entryway of the penthouse, the silence and tension was suffocating him. You hide your wince and try to make yourself smaller so you don't make him angrier at you than he clearly is.
Clay is waiting for the two of you in the entryway. He smiles, "good to know my pinto's got better speed and mobility than that fancy model they got you driving." Jake scoffs as he unlocks the door, using a keypad with the code he wants to change but knows he'll never be allowed to. Clay turns to you, "I know we were introduced earlier, but the whole thing was rather rushed. I'm Clay, Jake's boss, for lack of a better term." He holds out his hand and you shake it, you try to smile so as not to appear to be rude, but the day is weighing heavily on you.
Jake holds the door open for the two of you.
It's your first time seeing the place and you're immediately saddened by how much of it looks like your mother's tastes and preferences. It's overly crowded with useless, gaudy, overpriced things. You want to throw it all out. It's supposed to be a space for you and your husband, but it's just another reminder of how much your family still controls you. Jake groans as he looks around. Pulling out his phone, he quickly finds several "Internet of Things" devices that are easy to hack. Of course his parents would put in the fanciest refrigerators and thermostats without caring about the security risks. Jake doesn't need his refrigerator to connect to his phone, dammit!
Jake's groan makes you freeze. Clay asks, "what's wrong now?"
"I gotta do some serious cleanup for the sake of security," he grumbles. "Gotta make sure no one else actually gets to set the temperature of the thermostat, that I don't get text messages from my fridge, that my damn toaster doesn't get hacked!" He looks at you, "if that's okay with you, of course." His tone is bitter because he hates that he has to ask your permission for something so basic.
You nod, "of course." You keep your voice small, afraid of angering him any further. He really must hate you.
Clay looks at you, "how about you make yourself comfortable, little lady? I know it's your honeymoon and all, but Jake and I need to talk and who knows how long he's gonna be fixin' this internet problem y'all got."
You look to Jake but he's still on his phone so you ask, "is...is that okay with you?"
He gives you a confused look, "of course."
You make an internal note that, whatever Clay says goes. He's Jake's boss so you're best bet is to keep him happy to make Jake happy.
When you're out of sight Clay turns to Jake. "You best be gentle with that one, Jake. I think she's been through her own kind of hell."
"She's the spitting image of her mother, hasn't said a single word, can't even look me in the eye," Jake grouses. "She hates me and I'm likely going to spend the rest of my life never being good enough for her."
"I ain't so sure about that," he muses. "I get the impression she's afraid of you."
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Chapter 2 -- Chapter 4
Series Masterlist
Tagging: @alicedopey; @ashdoctor; @delicatebarness;
@ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @ronearoundblindly
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yuri-is-online · 2 days
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Hey I'm the original person that sent that baby terrarium ask! I thought that it became a forgotten relic lol
I love the expanding you did! I wanna add that when I first wrote that I meant it to be for human/mer couples that don't want to transform. With the new info we got I think that Yuu and Jade would wanna raise their kids on land for the first years where they're still squishy and then slowly move into the water. Going deeper as their kids age.
The aquarium is necessary to stimulate the environment of the deep waters without the danger. Once the babies are old enough, they'll be taken out of the aquarium for short periods of time (sort of like when people take their babies out to the park in strollers) the way I think these particular mer/human hybrid babies work is that they have gills but otherwise appear completely human, if they're place in water for a long amount of time they slowly start growing out their mer features (like when humans get pruney our skin changes to have better grip) and any patterns they inherit from both parents start becoming more prominent (they'll get the mer patterns from one parent and moles,freckles,etc from the human parent)
As times goes on I think Yuu and Jade alternate between land and sea. Their kids are hybrids so they should be allowed to enjoy both sides of their family, sort of like how mixed kids are raised in our world (im speaking from experience, but usually a mixed person would want to explore both heritages in their lifetime. If they don't in childhood they'll try to in adulthood) I don't think Yuu or Jade are the type of people to deprive their kids from those experiences so they settle on having a good amount of sea/land potions on hand.
When jade was a first year he'd have no idea what's in store for him at NRC, it's almost funny, like the seven are humbling him for laughing at human/mer couples he saw online lol
Oh hello dearest friend, none of my asks are ever forgotten. Tucked away in a very dusty corner screaming at me to get back to them, but not forgotten!
I agree about mer hybrids looking human but having gills. I considered bringing up the idea of them being amphibious so I am glad to see we're on the same page ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧
As for the bit about these kids being mixed... that just adds a layer of tragedy to their existence. You are not from Twisted Wonderland. Your culture, your people, your history, all of the things your children might be curious about and wish to understand do not exist for them to see. Stories that you might tell them, people you might want them to meet, you can only recreate what you remember so if your memory is poor there's going to be so many questions you won't be able to answer. In a sense no matter who Yuu ends up with that will be a problem... but being part mer has got to make that worse. The babies will be alien no matter where they go. I agree they'd want to explore both land and sea as much as they could though.
Ah first year Jade... he was so naive back then. Humans are entertaining sure but to want to be one forever? Please only a fool would think such a thing could work. Good thing he likes being proven wrong. Sometimes anyway.
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terminuslucis · 3 days
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Story time! A little bit about my tiny Silver's family history.
It's a little sad.
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From the start, it was clear that little Silver resembled his father the most. Nobody was quite sure where his pale coloring came from, but that was fine. Genetics didn't always make sense.
His parents noticed early on that their son had some sort of magic. Odd things happened around him, and sometimes he laughed at an empty corner of the room. Nobody else in their family had magic, as far as they knew. Then again, there was nobody to ask. Neither of them had parents left. The only family was his father's little sister.
Maybe his gift was why his hair and eyes were so different. Whatever the case, they would figure it out as he got older.
That never happened. Before the child turned three years old, his parents were in an accident. At the time, he was in the care of his aunt.
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From her perspective, Silver waved at the door and wandered off to play in his room. A few hours later, she learned that her brother and his wife died. From his perspective, his parents came home and, some time later, his aunt started crying.
As his only living relative, his aunt was determined to look after Silver. It wasn't easy. She changed jobs often, chasing promotions and better schedules, so they moved a lot. Silver lost count of how many schools he went to. He didn't mind moving. There was always someone to play with, and his family was together.
Over time, his aunt realized that Silver was a little odder than she originally thought. It wasn't limited to the dishes moving on their own or his knack for knowing too much. His antics weren't just the rich imagination of a lonely boy. He saw things that she couldn't. He asked about things that shouldn't exist. He talked to her brother.
She tried to let it slide. She hated hearing only one half of a conversation with the only family she had, but Silver still had his parents, in a way...
In a way that she couldn't...
The boy grew up. The older he got, the more he resembled his parents, and the more his aunt hurt. She kept quiet about that. Of course he would look like his parents. It wasn't his fault that she missed them.
Meanwhile, little Silver saw his parents as clear as day. He knew they were dead, and his aunt was sad about that, but death didn't mean much to him. How could death be sad to someone who could look it in the eyes and hold its hand? But, when he mentioned them, sometimes his aunt looked like she wanted to cry.
Slowly, he stopped talking about the things his aunt couldn't see. He also stopped asking about things he heard without her saying them. He didn't want to make her sad. Over time, the gap between how they saw the world widened. His parents' ghosts could do very little to help.
Shortly after Silver started high school, his aunt caught a lucky break. They moved again, but that would be the last time. Silver made friends at his new school and their little family was finally stable.
And so, Silver mentioned his parents for the first time in years.
"Dad wants to say something."
His voice was almost a whisper as he braced for her reaction.
"What is it?" she asked.
"They have to leave soon. He wants to thank you for looking after me." He didn't know why his father said it like that when his parents had always been around, but he was asked to relay those exact words.
His aunt nodded, biting her lip before running to her room. She didn't say a word, but he heard everything regardless.
There was bittersweet relief, knowing her brother was with her for all that time, frustration and doubt as she questioned why Silver stopped talking about them in the first place, anger at herself because she knew it was her fault, and the sorrow of knowing that her family would be gone for good.
Silver had left many people over the last several years. To him, it felt as if his parents were simply the ones moving away this time. Why was it so different for his aunt? Why did his parents' smiles look so sad?
The day his parents' souls left, his aunt cried for the first time in years. Once again, Silver stopped talking about things she couldn't see, but only because they were no longer in the house. It seemed that last "goodbye" had changed things.
No, that was wrong. His parents said "goodbye" because things had already changed. They left because they knew everything would be okay.
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elumish · 2 days
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I talk about what writers should do a lot, so now I'm going to take a break and talk about some reforms that I think agents should make.
A caveat: I am not an agent! Unlike when I talk about writing, I am just talking about this as an author who happens to be in the midst of querying. If I have an followers who are agents who think I'm getting something wrong, please let me know!
That said, here I go:
Trad publishing is, fundamentally, about getting past a whole bunch of layers of gatekeepers, and agents are the first gatekeepers. With some very limited exceptions, you can't be trad published without having an agent. From what I can tell, being an agent is a bit of a thankless job--it's based on commission, so an agent only gets money if they are selling their clients' books. (Remember: the money flows towards the writer. If someone claiming to be an agent is telling you that you need to pay them to represent you, run.)
Because of this structure, agents have a massive amount of power over unagented authors, particularly because unagented authors simply do not have another option if they want to trad publish. It is my opinion that that power dynamic is part of the reason why querying actually sucks so unbelievably much for authors.
Now, part of why querying sucks is that it's a numbers game, which means that most of us will lose. Every writer is competing against a gazillion other writers, some of whom are better or writing things that are seen as more sellable or happen to be eariler or whatever. You are going to get a bunch of rejections, and that's not the fault of agents.
But here's the other problem:
There are, from what I can tell, no true industry standards and somewhat limited professional expectations for agents when it comes to how to deal with querying. Again, this is what it looks like from the outside--agents, if I'm getting this wrong, please let me know.
For example, many agencies and many agents will have different rules about what you can submit to them and how, and in many cases those rules are in somewhat arbitrary places, which means that querying authors have to hunt for them, and it's easy to run afoul of them even when you're trying. It's common for some agencies to say that you can't query two agents from the same agency at the same time, but some say that you can't query two agents from them ever--a rejection from one is a rejection from all.
But most agents' Twitter bios/MSWL pages/personal pages/etc. don't say that--which means that authors need to hunt through every individual agency's webpage and then cross-reference against every agent that they have ever queried previously, which can be arduous when many people are querying dozens or hundreds of agents. It also means needing to keep track of things like when agents switch agencies.
There are also no standard expectations for agents to actually respond to queries in any sort of time span, or at all, which complicates the above issue even more. But it also is just (imho) kind of unprofessional to ghost people who are seeking a professional relationship with you, when you have explicitly asked them to reach out to you seeking that professional relationship.
And to make that worse, many agents don't say whether or not they respond to all queries, meaning that authors are often left wondering if a 6-month or longer wait is a "no" or an "I haven't gotten to this yet but will definitely respond to you."
There are more issues that I could cite, but my overall point in this is that authors have no recourse here. There's not authors' union, no way to go on strike until agents change what they're doing.
And some agents are really awesome about this! But enough are not, and authors don't really know what they're going to get when they query someone.
So all of this is to say that, if you are an agent, here are some fairly easy changes I would love for you to make to your own behavior to make querying a little bit less of a nightmarish hellscape for authors (and thank you so much if you already do some or all of these):
Respond to every query that you receive
Tell people your general response times and be communicative if that changes. It's okay if it regularly takes you six months! Just tell us it regularly takes you six months, so we're not left wondering if we've been ghosted at four months
Outline all submission guidelines on Query Manager or where you accept queries, including things like a) rules about whether a rejection from one is a rejection from all, b) length expectations for things like synopses (I've seen a range), and c) any other expectations you have (e.g., you require trigger warnings). Don't make people hunt through 2-4 websites to find what you want
Stop asking or at least strongly rethink how you ask about Own Voices or why an author feels like they are qualified to write about a marginalized identity--I understand the impulse, but nobody should be expected to disclose medical or other personal information like that in a professional setting
Also, just to say (other than please don't reject my query because of this post), agents: authors really do appreciate the work you all do. I want someone to work with to get published, because I am very well aware that I am not the expert in this situation.
And again, please tell me if I got anything wrong or misrepresented anything.
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