#hate the colouring on this but the process was interesting
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#saya iida#stardom#stars#joshi puroresu#my gifs#first try getting back into gifmaking w/o photoshop#i have a gifset or two in mind i want to try but needed to do something simple first#hate the colouring on this but the process was interesting#image description in alt
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Negotiations
a/n: This is Day 2! So sorry it's late, I was hospitalised over the weekend which put me behind! I'm working hard to catch up hehe
Pairing: Ambessa Medarda x Fem!Reader
Prompt: Write a scene without any dialogue
Warnings: smut, vaginal fingering, public sex, alcohol drinking, slight dom-sub vibes, mentions of violence, mention of blood
Summary: Ambessa hates negotiating, no matter how important it is for her rule. Perhaps she will make herself some entertainment to find it more enjoyable...
Word Count: 1.1k
18+ | MEN AND MINORS DNI | 18+
You know Ambessa finds these meetings the most tedious part of ruling over Noxus. She finds little meaning or use in negotiations, far more used to greeting political rivals and ambitious warlords with her sword at their throat than breaking bread with them. It is a preposterous notion to her, attempting to appease her perceived enemies. As she presides over the emissaries and nobles at the head of the table, you know she is listening keenly, identifying weakness, and sniffing out any hidden agendas. Noxian custom is steeped in violence, and there was a time that Ambessa would be demanding fealty or these peoples’ heads.
But things are different for her now. Now, her daughter Mel has agreed to remain in contact with her and visit Noxus more often with her consort, Jayce. Ambessa can breathe easier knowing that rebuilding the bridge between herself, and her daughter will secure her legacy and ensure that a Medarda inherits the throne upon Ambessa’s death.
She has you now. Seated to her right, close by so she can always see you. Her consort, the love she never thought she’d find again. You’ve dressed yourself in a scarlet red ensemble tonight, complete with a gold medallion belt accentuating your hips. Red and gold, her favourite colours. The colours of war and victory. Conquest. You’ve already caught her more than once tonight, her eyes raking down your figure, her eyes hungry and her tongue darting out to wet her lips. When your eyes meet, she flashes you a fanged smile, no doubt envisioning the many ways she will take you when this insufferable night is over.
You’re drawn to one of the visiting emissaries booming laughter as he gulps down wine and flirts boisterously with the serving girls as they refill his plate and his cup. You try to suppress your smile as you take in Ambessa’s disgust, knowing she’d want nothing more than to pick up the lout like a ragdoll and smash him into the ornate mahogany dining table, likely shattering it in the process.
The image sends an unexpected but not entirely unwelcome rush of heat between your legs. You squeeze your thighs as you imagine her leering down at the man, twitching as blood leaks from his head and then turns to you with her signature smirk. The very same smirk that ushered you into her bed three years ago, at another function where Ambessa was more interested in the wine selection than the purpose of the gathering. The scandal had rocked the court of Noxus, their esteemed leader engaging in an ill-advised relationship with a younger woman, and the daughter of an insignificant noble. She had silenced their doubts in her usual way, with threats of broken bones and removed tongues.
At first, you were convinced that she wanted only for your body, the way she tasted and marked your flesh during your visits bruising you with carnal possession. She was a tornado of fire, and you were blessed to be at the heart of the inferno. Countless nights you found yourself in awe of her, in awe of your luck. Nights spent with shaking legs, dripping with sweat and your own release as she made you scream her name for her over and over again. She was never satisfied with hearing your desperate pleas and devoted prayers to her only once. You never feared her, and knew she would never hurt you, not unless you asked her to.
But she soon proved to you that she wanted more, much more, than what your body could give her. She wanted you by her side always, listening to her stories of long-forgotten battles on distant shores, showing off your new dresses, massaging away her troubles in the bathhouse. She had fallen hard for you, an unexpected light leading her out of the darkness.
You’re startled out of your reminiscing by a hand creeping up your dress, invited in by the high riding slit at the thigh. You gulp as Ambessa’s face remains completely impassive as she sips at her wine, but you don’t miss the quick glance she sends your way, and you know exactly what she’s trying to say.
Be quiet. Don’t move. And enjoy.
Her hand climbs higher, and you hear her try in vain to supress the deep rumbling groan that threatens to emanate from her throat when she finds no underwear to stop her advance. You’re already wet from your earlier fantasising, and your clit is throbbing, begging for her attention. As she drags calloused fingers through your folds, you grit your teeth and grip the table tightly. You’re in for a ride, and regardless of the social setting, Ambessa will expect you to take what she gives you.
She wastes no time in gathering the slick pooling from you, coating her fingers before she pushes one inside. Her fingers are thick, and no matter how used to the stretch you’ve become, you relish in the burn as your pussy eagerly welcomes her inside. Your knuckles are white with how hard you’re holding on and you’re fighting to keep your breathing even, lest one of your guests suspect something’s wrong. Ambessa would hate to be interrupted.
She’s adding a second finger, smirking into her wine as she can feel you tighten around her. You can feel the pressure mounting in your belly, your entire body aching for release. You shoot her a pleading look and feel her curl her fingers in response. You start to see spots at the edge of your vision as she brings you closer and closer, all while engaging in dull conversation. Gods, you were going to make her pay for this later. Her thumb is pressing roughly against your clit in swift, calculated circles, you can feel her determination to send you tumbling over the edge. Soon enough, you are doing just that, but you’re hurtling not simply falling. Your orgasm hits you like a searing meteorite, burning through you with force and it takes all of your self-control not to cry out, biting down on your lip so hard you draw blood. You cover it up quickly by taking a sip of wine, dabbing at your mouth with your napkin and glaring at Ambessa reproachfully. She takes no notice, leaning back in her chair with a self-satisfied grin.
Shaking your head, you try to reintegrate yourself into the conversation, though none of it holds your interest. Instead, you find yourself consumed by thoughts of your handsome warrior, trailing over each scar you can see and thinking fondly of all the ones you cannot but know intimately. You will reward her mischief with a soothing massage and relaxing oils tonight, it’s been far too long since you’ve caressed her bulging muscles. But you will deny her the taste of your flesh until she begs, a fitting punishment for tonight’s shenanigans. After all, no matter what the nobles of Noxus or the visiting emissaries of foreign lands may think, no matter how imposing Ambessa may appear, you know that there is only person she will fall to her knees for. Tonight, you will make her remember why.
#my writing#arcane fanfic#lesbian#arcane#ambessa medarda#ambessa x reader#smut#female reader#fem reader#writing challenge#arcane ambessa#fanfic#dom/sub#no dialogue#slight blood
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Is That a New Guy or Am I Losing My Mind; or, A Beginner's Guide to Finding Headmates
Written by Roger de Camden of the Draconic Wizard Workshop
Hello, everybody! This is an essay for both plurals who might struggle finding, identifying, or confirming headmates, as well as people who are questioning whether or not they’re plural. Certain pieces of advice may apply better to questioners than established systems, and vice versa, but rest assured, it is intended for both!
This essay will be broken into several sections for various “phases” of discovery and working things out, but a disclaimer before we get to that: this is heavily based on our own experiences. This is not a one-size-fits-all kind of guide. I’m going to try to make it such, but, well, I can’t make any promises, because there are infinite ways of being a system out there, and everyone’s a little different. This is just what I’ve found works for us, and, to a large extent, many of our system friends! That being said, if you try to start syscourse or invalidate other systems for any reason in response to this essay, I’m going to block you and that’s that.
Also, sorry if I go between spellings for words. I’m English, but the body is American and that means that I don’t know how to spell certain words anymore.
So! Onwards, towards discovery!
Step One: Getting an Inkling
The first step to figuring out whether or not you’ve got a headmate (new or otherwise undiscovered; I’ll mostly be calling them “new” as in “new to you”) is having an inkling that one might exist. This is mostly a passive process, and you’re probably familiar with it if you’re reading this guide. Maybe you felt something scuttle through headspace (if you have one) or through the back of your mind. Maybe you felt a presence looming behind you, mentally, that bolted when you “looked.” Maybe you had a very strong emotional reaction to something that makes no sense for you to react to, but would make sense for a character you’ve been really attached to in a show. Or maybe you slipped into an unfamiliar accent, had a loss of memories and woke up with nail polish on in a colour you hate, or just felt an opinion about something that doesn’t match your usual one. Sometimes, you may even “hear” comments about things going on in your mind.
There are a lot of little things that can tip you off. Most of them are going to be things that are misaligned with your own perception of yourself, your opinions, and your behavior. This is usually a sign that someone is co-conscious or co-fronting with you without you being aware of it. Some headmates are very sneaky this way, and some may not realise that they exist at all while doing this! Don’t hold being hard to notice or get a hold of against your headmates—many of them don’t realise that they exist, don’t know how to not be this way, or are doing it for what they perceive to be a good reason (this last one is especially common in disordered systems). Maybe they’re scared, or just not ready to be confronted yet. Don’t worry—remember, you have your whole lives to figure out everyone who’s in there, and the time will pass anyways! Take it easy.
One specific thing that tends to tip us off to a new fictive is that we realise that… no one is aware of running a character that we’re playing in a tabletop roleplaying game. Maybe someone started off running them, but they sure seem to be doing their own thing now! That character may be hard to “turn off” or “put on the shelf” when you stop playing them—and they may continue to make comments and have opinions about things in your life. This is a dead giveaway! Sometimes when we think about a character, we feel a “movement” or interest somewhere in our mind that doesn’t match anyone else’s pattern of thinking or interests, which also can be a giveaway that they’re scuttling around somewhere. Also beneficial, for us, is our synesthesia—every headmate has a colour associated with them, and when we get a thought pattern that seems to match someone but the colour is off, it can make us realise that maybe there’s someone else in here. For example, if someone were to be really interested in jellyfish, we might think that it’s Caspian, but if the colour comes back as red and not blue, then we know for certain that it’s not him.
This first inkling of a new headmate may be obvious or it may be subtle. You may question yourself repeatedly, but remember: if you feel like you are “accidentally faking,” that’s not how faking works. Faking must be done intentionally and on purpose. You could be wrong, yes, but being wrong isn’t inherently bad. It’s just that you were mistaken about something. Nothing wrong with that! We’re all mistaken about all kinds of things every day! Be kind to yourself while trying to figure things out.
Step Two: Are You There, Headmate? It’s Me, Your Other Headmate
Steps two and three are interchangeable in order, but I thought I’d put this one first because it tends to be the one that’s hardest and most distressing, rather than step three, which is about identifying who the hell your headmate is. We’ll get to that, never fear!
So, let’s say you think there might be someone in there. How can you tell for sure? How can you open communication? How can you get them integrated okay?
The bad news is that this depends heavily on the system. The good news is that there’s no need to panic, rush, or be afraid, because once again, you’ll figure it out eventually, and it will be okay!
My first suggestion is to take note of everything that’s made you think there might be someone else in there. Write it down, if that helps! Write down everything that seems to get the entity’s attention, if anything. Write down anything that might help you identify who it might be! In some instances, you might have a character that seems a little independent but you can’t tell whether they’re really a headmate or not. In my experience, this is often how many non-disordered systems (but it’s not exclusive to them!) realise that they’re plural. Knowing who it is will make this step easier, but it isn’t necessary! After all, if you know who it is, you can also write down things that might bait them into responding. Interests and friends of theirs are good examples.
Your goal in this step is to try to draw them out into doing things, speaking, or acting in ways that will give away that they are for certain there. For systems with heavy amnesia or dissociative barriers, this might be significantly harder, but my best suggestion there is to jump straight to trying to communicate, however you can—and this isn’t a bad approach for other systems, either. You can try internal communication, although you might get no response, or an abnormal one, if the headmate is new. For example, with us, new headmates usually respond to direct queries with anxiety—which, while not good for communication and not ideal for the headmate in question, does help us key in on the fact that they definitely exist. You can also try external communication, if internal communication isn’t working or is difficult for you. Write a note in a journal or a sticky note, or even in a notes app or a private Discord server. Sometimes, headmates can find replying over text to be easier. If you’re a high-dissociation and high-amnesia system who is trying to figure out if it’s someone old or new who is fronting and doing things while you’re unaware, leaving sticky notes places asking people to write down who’s fronting when they see it (if they even know who they are) might be helpful. Keep experimenting, and do what works best for you!
As a last resort for uncertain, new, or inexperienced systems, you can try something called “puppeting” on a suspected headmate, especially if you know who they are and just aren’t sure whether or not they’re here. A warning: this is rude and not advised under most circumstances, but sometimes it’s the only way to make absolutely sure that someone is in there with you, especially when you’re not used to it. Have an apology ready and mean it. Puppeting is when you try to force a headmate to do something, especially something unusual or out of character for them. For example, if I thought I might have my character Gorka as a headmate, but I wasn’t sure, I might try to call up a scenario involving Gorka and then try to imagine her doing something wildly out of character, that she would never, ever do. If I couldn’t get a response out of that, or if I had no idea who this new headmate might be, I might just try to make them physically do something—strongly imagining them doing a stupid dance or similar! No response doesn’t necessarily mean you do or do not have a headmate, but a strong response—usually of anger, offense, or “slapping” your “hands” away—indicates someone separate from yourself! Apologize immediately and then attempt to engage in communication once they’ve calmed down a little, or try to transition into it through an explanation.
There are a lot of reasons that a headmate might not respond to puppeting, though. They might be non-confrontational, or hiding their presence from you intentionally for any number of reasons. (Maybe they’re nervous, not ready to exist yet, afraid of how you might respond, afraid of accepting that they’re in a system—it could be anything.) In cases like this, you might just get discomfort instead of a strong response, which is easy to confuse for being your own rather than theirs. Try to sort out whether you just feel strange doing it, or if it’s someone else’s discomfort bleeding through. I know it’s hard, but that’s a difficult thing to give advice for, I’m afraid! Other reasons may be that they just dip from the front when you try (removing themself from your sphere of influence completely), or if they’re a character you frequently play, they might be so used to being pulled around into doing things that it doesn’t bother them, or bothers them so little that you don’t notice.
Usually, if you’re at the point of trying puppeting, there’s enough signs that this person really is a headmate to dissuade you from trying it once you’re a little more used to it. It’s a temporary and unideal tool that should leave your toolbox as soon as you become confident enough to identify new headmates without getting grabby with them. Undoubtedly, trying to establish communication is a better approach, if you can get it to work.
Usually, once we’ve properly spotted a headmate and made it clear to them that we know they’re there, one of two things happens: either they come sit in the front for a few days or weeks to settle in, let us identify them, and get used to being a full active member of the system, or they realise that they exist and have a panic attack. This “new headmate panic” can last anywhere from a few minutes to multiple days, and may fluctuate in strength. Sometimes, a new headmate might seem fine early on, but have this panic after a few days, weeks, or even longer. Be gentle during this time, especially if you yourself have a strong reaction—be gentle with both, or all, of you! Realizing that you’re in a system can be very distressing, as can realizing you have a new headmate, so try to be gentle, let yourself feel what you’re going to feel, and work through it in the best way you have. Try not to direct any anger or negative feelings towards anyone else in your system during this time, and just let the storm pass before really trying to get to know each other.
Step Three: Who Is This Guy, Anyway?
Once again, you can do this step before or after step two, but I put it here because I decided to include some tips for getting to know your headmate, not just identifying them (if there is anything to identify). If your system is introject-heavy, or if you’re asking yourself if you’re just really interested in a character or if they’re a new headmate, this is an important step! Who is this? Are they an introject of some kind? Are they something or someone else? Is there anything to identify, per se, or is it just a situation of getting to know a whole new person? This is a very, very different step depending on your system, and is going to skew very much towards my own experiences. I’m sorry about that, but I will do my best!
If you’ve already established communication with this headmate, even if it’s shaky, you can try to get information from them that way. They might be willing to give you a name, a code name, a colour, an aesthetic, likes or dislikes, something you can use to familiarise yourself with them or identify them from a list of “suspects” if you have such a thing. (We always do, because we’re almost all fictives, and we know our own patterns at this point.) For us, new headmates almost never actually identify, and just sullenly sit while trying to figure themselves out and will only confirm who they are once we figure it out. It’s sort of like playing a mystery game, assembling clues based on a myriad of factors. If you have some suspicions, just like the previous step, you can try to bait out responses by doing things that might interest who you suspect this headmate might be.
Again, I suggest writing things down! Write down likes and dislikes, things that get their attention, interests, even things that make them anxious or afraid. Whether it’s a case of identification or just getting to know them, this is invaluable information for interacting with someone sharing a head with you, and it may even be helpful for them as they get their feet under them.
Another invaluable tool is talking to people outside of your system. They can help you identify when you’re acting unusually, when you might have someone unfamiliar riding co-conscious, and even who that person might be. You may be too tangled up in your own feelings, your dissociation, or the desperation to understand who is in your head with you. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds and lose sight of the big picture, but another friend, especially another system that knows you well, can be extremely helpful! One of our system friends has clocked many a headmate of ours before we were even certain they were there—just “hmm, you’ve been very much like X lately” and they were absolutely right.
Regardless, taking notes on your new headmate, asking them about themselves, and sharing things about yourself are all important steps to getting to know them! They may be uncomfortable, they may distrust you, they may be afraid—or they could be friendly and excited to be here! It really depends on who it is and their comfort level. Don’t push—if they’re not comfortable talking yet, don’t make them! Let them adjust at their own pace and get to know them as they’re willing to let you. I know it can be distressing to have a totally unknown entity co-fronting with you, but sometimes it’s one of those things that you have to take a deep breath and carry on through until they’re willing to talk. I know you can do it! Talk through it with someone outside of your own head if it’s difficult to give yourself some fortitude if you need to. I know it helps me.
Step Four: Now What?
Let’s say that you’ve confirmed that you do have a headmate, and either have or are on the road to identifying them, if applicable. Now what?
As I’ve said before: be gentle with yourselves! Especially for a new or inexperienced system, and especially for someone who is just realising that they’re a system, this can be overwhelming, distressing, or any other number of emotions. Remember that having or gaining headmates isn’t inherently a bad thing, and while this all might take some getting used to, it’s going to be okay. You’ll figure out an equilibrium eventually, and it is absolutely possible to live a long, happy life with your headmates. Remember that you’re all in this together, and you’re a team.
People may not want you to notice them, may not want to be in the system, or may avoid attention as best they can for a lot of reasons, and trying to make them feel at home, or at least more comfortable, is essential. It can be scary being in a system all of a sudden, especially if they’re an introject or otherwise had a life outside or before this one. Maybe they don’t like the body, or are afraid of another headmate, or are terrified of a negative response from you or someone else. Don’t force these people into situations they’re not ready for! If you’re looking for someone, trying to identify them, or trying to help them, and you’re just causing a lot of distress, back off for a while. Let them calm down and come to you in their own time. Sometimes, you have to do the system equivalent of leaving cookies out on a plate and turning your back to them so that your new headmate can take them without being watched. Take things at the pace that you’re all the most comfortable with, and as always, be kind.
I really do suggest talking to someone about this process, if you can. Journal if you’d like, especially if you can’t trust anyone with this, or don’t feel comfortable doing so yet. Getting your words out of your head helps you sort them out a lot, especially in the case of systems, where a lot of people’s thoughts can get jumbled together. Writing them all down, even if you don’t know whose they are, can be helpful. We find that talking to other system friends is of the most benefit, and our new members are far more likely to speak to them first rather than us, because there’s a degree of separation and that’s more comfortable for them. Whatever works for you, do it! The idea is to get comfortable with each other, and with being here together.
Find things that your new headmate likes doing. Goratrix has a whole panel about this aimed at fictives, but essentially, if your new headmate doesn’t have reason to front and isn’t interested in anything, you probably won’t see much of them, and they may end up miserable. Make sure you engage with them and their interests. Let them make friends if they’d like. Get them snacks. Again: whatever works! This is going to depend very heavily on your system, so follow your gut instinct on this one, I think.
Absolutely essential, though, is to not repress anybody. I know sometimes getting a new headmate can be scary, especially if they’re unfamiliar, frightening, seemingly monstrous, or a persecutor, but remember: they’re probably just as freaked out as you are, if not more so, and they need patience and understanding. Statistically, if they’re doing something troublesome, they’re trying to help and just don’t know how, or are misguided on what “help” looks like. Be kind, and try to find a solution that works for everyone.
Past that… just get to know each other. Figure out how to live together and how to make your combined life the best life it can be. For us, there’s so many of us that someone new can almost always find a fast friend in someone else, and sticks with them for a while until they’re more used to the system and more confident fronting and doing things without their buddy. Other systems may be able to mimic this approach, or may need to do something very different. Again, again, again, do what works best for you! If parts of this guide seem unhelpful or counterproductive, ignore them! This is based on our experience of plurality, not yours. Always do what’s best for you, what helps the most of you, and what causes the least distress while still letting you function as much as you need to.
Being plural is a very personal experience, in a lot of ways, which is pretty funny because sometimes that personal experience is spread across two or twenty or five hundred people. It’s also a very personalized experience, meaning we’re all quite different. Your “now what?” might look very different from ours, and that’s okay. We can only do our best, and that’s always good enough.
I hope this is helpful to someone! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask, and I may edit this guide in the future if it seems that I left something out or think of anything to add. =)
#tans journals#de camden's essays#plurality#endo safe#i MEAN IT THOUGH. NO SYSCOURSE.#and i'm sorry if this guide doesn't apply to your system or is unhelpful!#i could never hope to write something that is helpful to all systems of all types#this is just how we do it and how a lot of systems we know do it#so hopefully this is helpful to someone!#this is also up on our website in a less shitty format as is goratrix's panel i mentioned
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Blood In The Water
Void!Stiles Stilinski x Fem!Reader
Beg me for mercy - admit you were toxic.
Now I am the violence, I am the sickness.
Won’t accept your silence - beg me for forgiveness.
We’ll never get free, lamb to the slaughter.
What you gon do when there’s Blood In The Water?
Summary:
Being Stiles's best friend, you are incredibly worried about him when you figure out that he is quite literally not himself - and that the thing currently occupying his body could be destroying it in the process. When you approach him to show this concern, Void takes a particular interest in you. He's not capable of love, or even fondness, but he likes you.
And he likes the way your fear spikes when you talk about Stiles. So he makes you a deal - he'll agree to take care of this fleshy, mortal host, in exchange for something more precious, more rare, and more delicious than the meal you have brought for Stiles.
He wants your pain. He wants your tears.
Void!Stiles Stilinski x Fem!Reader. Pining Best Friends. Extreme Emotional Angst, Hurt No Comfort. Set during Season 3 (with flashbacks to Season 1, Episode 11).
Word Count: 11,700
Teen Wolf Masterlist | AO3 Link
Full list of warnings and author's notes below the cut.
Warnings: as it says above - this is pure angst, hurt NO COMFORT, please heed that warning, if this is not something you are into, please leave now; this is set during Season 3, but not during any particular episode; I guess I need to put warnings for demon possession and identity theft (even though for the entirety of the fic, the reader does know that Stiles is not himself on the basis of knowing him so well, and she is talking to Void ernestly); this fic is about Void and the Reader interacting and discussing the relationship and feelings between Stiles and the Reader; the reader and Stiles have had mutual romantic feelings for each other for a long time but never acted on them, and at the point when the fic begins, their relationship is described as long-term best friends; the reader uses she/her pronouns and is mentioned to wear a dress and high heels to the winter formal dance; the reader's race, hair colour, size or looks in general are not described in any way (Void does call the reader 'little' but it is meant to be emotionally condescending, rather than a description of her size); this fic DOES use Y/N (proudly so); mentions of Stiles not eating/being starved because Void refuses to participate in 'human pleasures' (and he considers food to be one of those); Void is a demon who is fed by pain and he enjoys the Reader's fear, sadness, embarrassment, emotional pain, and other negative emotions, and he can feel those emotions in the air as she experiences them, so he is encouraged to do and say things that prompt negative reactions from her; Void calls the reader 'sweet thing' and 'darling' and 'little girl'; passing mention of Stiles watching porn (but the general tone of this fic is not sexual); Void compares the reader to Stiles's 'mommy' (because she is the only one who has ever given him soft, 'maternal' comfort and understanding) - but it's not a Mommy kink thing (or maybe it is for Stiles, you don't know that); mentions of eating diary and meat being 'cruel' (but I am not a vegan, it's just Void commenting on the way humans do things); the reader considers cutting herself with a knife to 'feed' Void her physical pain (but Void wants emotional pain instead); Void asks the reader to relive a painful memory by telling him about it, therefore feeding him with her emotional pain; Void threatens the reader with physical harm and even murder (to make her more fearful, and to taunt Stiles, who is forced to witness all of this); there is flashbacks to the winter formal episode in S1; mentions of the reader being jealous because Stiles took Lydia to the dance (and the reader hates the jealousy it evokes in her because she doesn't want to pit herself against Lydia and she wants to be happy for Stiles); mentions of Lydia being attacked by Peter Hale (as is canon); mentions of alcohol - the reader takes one sip of alcohol but does not get drunk during the fic; mentions of drunk driving (the reader drives after that sip of alcohol and questions if this 'counts' as drunk driving, and other people are accused of driving drunk, but in this fic, drunk driving is not actually the cause of any accidents); Stiles gets into a life-threatening car accident - mentions of blood and grievous bodily injury; mentions of Stiles needing surgery due to the car accident; mentions of blood; graphic descriptions of a character being stabbed. I believe that's it?
A/N: I have a lot to say here, so strap in. First of all, you're probably wondering why you're seeing this now. That is because I have been going through a very bad patch of mental illness (fuelled by multiple things, including the state of my physical illness) and when that happens to me, I become like a big spinning top of agitation and bad energy. And I feel the need to work on a project to avoid bad practices like self harm. And after a lot of whirling around and only working on certain projects for a few minutes at a time, I was cleaning out my files just to keep my mind occupied, and I came across the pictures I had saved to make the moodboard for this fic and I was like 'I can't delete those yet because I wanna use those to make the fic cover'. So I decided to make the fic cover, and it spiralled into me editing the whole fic just to keep my agitated upset mind busy and focused on something other than the fact that I am upset. So - good for you guys. You get a new fic. As for the actual content of this fic - I wanted to mark it as both Void x Reader and Stiles x Reader, but I figured that wouldn't make sense to most people. Because this is about Stiles and the Reader having mutual crushes on each other for a long time, and Void enjoying the embarrassment of taunting them about it, as well as the pain that comes from their pining and the potential of hurting the other and forcing them to watch. And Void does take a kind of 'liking' to the Reader, but because he's a demon, it's not necessarily romantic? Idk. I just have a lot of fun writing demon characters as complete bastards (I will never get people who write characters like Void, Anti, Dark as secret softies - like please, write a villain as a villain. It's more fun that way). So please - enjoy my take on this awful bastard. I had a lot of fun writing it. (Also I would like to note that I wrote this before I saw the end of 3A so I thought the 'crashing the Jeep' thing was a totally organic idea on my part lmao.)
...
“Stiles hasn’t eaten in days.”
You stated it very matter-of-factly, rather than asking if he had eaten or theorizing about it. It was something that you knew concretely.
Usually, Stiles was someone who was very passionate about food. He complained about missing lunch and hated being rushed to eat rather than getting to enjoy his food if you were nagging him about being late and had somewhere to be.
The only time you had ever seen him miss meals was when he got particularly sucked into his reading and researching. And usually, when his concentration finally broke, he would whine about his stomach hurting and only remember why when the smell of curly fries came under his nose because you had put the bag in front of him.
But even in that case, he had never missed more than a single meal.
You had never seen him go days without touching a single bit of food - without so much as mentioning something greasy he was craving or talking about a destination take-out spot that the two of you needed to go to on the weekend.
You had to guess that it was around the time that He had taken control. Or at least, around about when He had stopped caring to pretend to be human. When He had stopped putting up a front.
“Observant little thing, aren’t you?” He titled his head in that way that was so distinctly un-Stiles, giving you a small smirk as his words penetrated you with that utterly mocking tone.
It was strange, staring at the face of your long-time best friend and referring to him in the third person. Starting to think about him as though he wasn’t even there when you were staring right at him. Though it had only been a few days, you had long since given up the hope that you were talking to Stiles. You knew that this was someone else - something else entirely.
You were still clinging onto the hope that you could get Stiles through this and he wouldn’t be entirely damaged beyond recognition on the other side.
Hence, why you were trying to feed him now.
It had been at least four days since you had seen him take a single bite of food, and you had been carefully observing him the entire time. So you had arrived at his place today with an armful of Stiles’s favorite foods. You felt lucky to catch him alone while the others were out chasing leads - or perhaps, unlucky. Perhaps he would have eaten in front of them just to prove that he was still himself. But you were hoping to tempt him with the smell, at the very least.
Surely, he had to be hungry?
Laid out on the table in front of you was a variety of things - all kinds of things you knew would have had Stiles gorging himself in minutes. A disgustingly large and greasy double cheeseburger with curly fries and a strawberry milkshake, an extra large supreme meat lover’s pizza, an entire pack of Honey Buns, and a grocery store birthday cake - chocolate with vanilla icing. All of which elicited oddly painful memories for you, now that your best friend was being held hostage by a thousand year old demon.
Everything from movie nights where the two of you would share a pizza and argue about what kind of toppings to get, to the times that the two of you would buy a birthday cake like this and eat it in his Jeep with no such occasion for it - just because you wanted to celebrate life and didn’t want to need a reason for such a treat. Nights when balancing it between your laps and eating with plastic forks was all the joy in the world that you needed.
Nights before your life became so hellishly complicated.
“Let me guess… you’re trying to tempt me?” He posed, moving his finger across the icing of the birthday cake, and then looking at the white glob on his finger with intense disgust before moving to wipe it off on a napkin.
Of course, he wouldn’t even consider eating that small amount. He was taunting you. He knew that at this current moment, it was your greatest desire to see your friend eat - to know that even though you were entirely powerless against such a complicated and mysterious demonic force, you could do this one small thing in your power to take care of him.
You couldn’t save Stiles, but you wanted to care for him - just for a moment. You wanted to make a difference - even if it was as small as a grain of sand in an hour-glass. You thought it would help.
“Even you have to eat, don’t you?” You returned with a question. “You can’t risk your host dying, right?”
It was something you had wondered.
You hadn’t seen him drinking water either, and you didn’t think that he had slept at all. As far as you knew, he hadn’t attended to any of Stiles’s human needs. But according to the sallow, almost gray nature of his skin and the dark bags under his eyes - he wasn’t exactly in perfect health right now. So perhaps he did run the risk of actually killing Stiles altogether because he didn’t know how to take care of a human host.
Void smirked as he felt that flash of fear - the utter terror that overcame you at the thought of Stiles dying from neglect.
“Need I remind you, sweet thing?”
He started, the nickname causing a shiver of creepiness down your skin, like the feeling of walking into a spiderweb.
“I don’t eat the same deep-fried, fat filled crap that he does.” He looked across the table with disdain coating his features once again. “I feed upon the suffering of others.”
These words caused a wicked chill down your spine.
It was something that Scott had warned you of, but you hadn’t actually considered what it truly meant.
“So by depriving Stiles of his worldly pleasures - his music, his laughter, his pornography - which he watches far too much of, by the way.” Void let out a devious chuckle at this, and you didn’t even have time to think about the implications of this before he continued. “And especially by depriving him of food and sleep, I get to feed off his precious suffering.”
It was a terrible paradox. Void thrived while Stiles withered.
“And as of late, I have been so deliciously full.”
A lump formed in your throat - if you knew any words apt for this situation, you wouldn’t have been able to get them out anyway. Void’s smirk grew wider. Indulging in your suffering, in your fear for your best friend, your horror at these realizations - Void continued.
“But - among all those things, you know what he misses most of all?”
He posed, talking slowly, his voice calculated, mocking you with another head tilt. It was as though he was looking down upon you even though he was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table and you were standing across from him on the other side of the room.
You choked on a miserable syllable - no words came out. Part of you wanted to know the answer very badly, and part of you wanted him to shut up. You simply shook your head in reply.
“He misses you.”
Void whispered these words as though it was a precious secret. And then - he let out a grand cackle of a laugh, bordering on a howl as he continued to mock you.
Your insides shook, and you became foggy with confusion - how did Stiles miss you more than he missed food or water or sleep? How did he ‘miss you’ so much when you were standing right here in front of him? Did the presence of this horrid being keep Stiles from seeing you or hearing you? Was he trapped so terribly inside his own body?
Was this like a coma for him? Would he not remember any of this when it was over?
You could only hope that was the case.
“He begs and pleads every time I won’t let him touch you.” Void grinned, letting out another laugh - clearly pleased by the idea of Stiles’s misery. “He is so damn desperate to hold you. It’s hilarious, really. Especially because - at the same time, he’s terrified of what I’ll do if I get too close.”
These words put a terrible knot in your stomach.
You could only imagine how terrible it was for Stiles - he was a naturally touchy person, and now, someone else was controlling his body, keeping him from participating in the physical affection that he craved. Threatening to put his loved ones in danger if he did get the love that he desperately craved.
You didn’t want to know what Void would do if you walked across the room to hug Stiles. But at the same time, it made you yearn to hold him, to squeeze him tight, to give him the comfort he was clearly so badly in need of. Especially now that you knew his consciousness was still in there, alert and alive, fighting to get out.
“He’s so pathetic.” Void remarked softly. “He misses his Mommy, and… well, you’re the only one who ever treated him like a Mommy would. Isn’t that right?”
This sentiment confused you entirely.
You stared at him, gape-jawed, waiting for an explanation, and luckily - he did give you one.
“You held him close, and kissed his boo-boos. You… you were the only one who told him he was good enough when he never fucking was.”
You instantly wanted to argue this point, but you were more caught up on the overarching metaphor that Void was making.
All of the individual points were true. You had done all of those things for Stiles. But you didn’t see how that made you Stiles’s Mommy. It just made you a good friend.
“My Stiles is good enough.” You argued weakly, finally finding your words. “He’s a good person, and you can’t change that about him. He’s still in there. And he’s still going to be a good person after all this.”
Void tutted his tongue, giving another mocking smirk.
“Still at it.” He laughed. “You’re relentless, aren’t you?”
You didn’t care to respond to that.
“Beautifully relentless.” Void sighed, sounding almost dreamy as he said this. He sounded as if he admired this quality in you.
Which he did. But he admired this about you for one specific reason.
“See… that’s what makes the fear so fucking delicous.” He continued on, explaining. “When someone so bright, so full of hope finally gives up. When their spirit finally breaks. It permeates the air better than the smell of a rotting corpse - and it’s so fucking beautiful.”
You chose not to respond to this - baffled by his words, and slightly frightened.
Instead, you wondered something else.
“What happens if Stiles doesn’t eat?” You asked. “You said that you’re full, but he’s still human. It’s still a human body. A body that you’re currently living in.”
Void clapped his hands together a few times, slowly, giving you dry, sarcastic applause for your cleverness.
“Good question. Clever little girl.” He congratulated you, causing another wave of ‘ick’ to roll through you at his condescending tone. “He is my host, but currently, I rule all. I give him strength, I eliminate all his weaknesses. I turn his pathetic human form into the ultimate weapon. With me inhabiting his body, he does not need to eat, sleep, or drink. He does not need such tiny fallacies as comfort.”
“And what happens when you leave?” You posed.
“If I choose to leave.” Void smirked at you.
“When.” You ground out sharply, arguing, feeling braver the longer that you stood there and talked to him.
To you, he wasn’t all that scary.
Scott had warned you that Void was clever - that he would manipulate you and try to hurt you. But thus far, you hadn’t seen the route to any tricks. He seemed very straight-forward and honest. He seemed very plainly painted in his cruelty.
“If I choose to leave this host and move onto another, then… I suppose that he’ll collapse.” Void shrugged, speaking about it as if it were no more interesting to him than a fly in his peripheral. “Without my strength keeping him alive, all the exhaustion, all the hunger, all the thirst - it will hit him, all at once. He may even die from the shock alone. His body will be too weak and fragile to handle it.”
A surge of terrible anger flooded you. Perhaps it was fueled by fear, but either way, it drove you to smack your hand down onto the table, nearly smashing the birthday cake before you screamed out, finally lashing out on him.
“Motherfucker!” You called Void the first cruel name that came to mind, and he didn’t give any indication of reaction at your throat scraping volume. “You stupid bastard! You are gonna get out and give Stiles his body back, and when you do, you’re gonna return it in good fucking condition! You understand me?”
Void simply smirked, seeming entirely amused by your outburst.
Of course, he wasn’t scared of you - a powerless human. You had nothing to threaten him with. Even if you had the powers of a werewolf, he still wouldn’t fear you.
“There’s that spunk he’s always talking about.” Void said, an odd kind of fondness peeking through his voice that didn’t suit him. “You know, it’s almost… cute. I’m starting to understand why he likes you so much.”
You only became more pissed off at being called ‘cute’ when you were so boiling angry. It was entirely aggravating - someone being so condescending toward your rage.
Then, it hit you that the ‘he’ Void spoke about had to be Stiles. Did the two of them have conversations? Why would Stiles bother to praise you to a thousand year old demon?
It caused more of your affection for Stiles to bubble up inside you, and you hated it.
“Look, darling, because I like you, I’ll make you a deal,” Void posed, giving you yet another pet name that made you feel oddly disgusted.
Stiles had called you plenty of friendly nicknames before - he had even called you ‘babe’ jokingly, on occasion. But ‘darling’ had never spilled from his lips toward you. It was just another horrible reminder that he was so terribly not himself. That the thing wearing his face, puppeting him around was not Stiles.
“What deal?” You replied.
It was best to move on and start thinking of ways to take care of Stiles - ways to get him out of this mess.
“I’ll eat something for Stiles if you do something for me in return.”
You knew that he kept his wording purposefully vague. And you knew that this was likely what Scott had talked about - his intention to trick you. But Void had you right where he wanted you - desperate, fearful. He was manipulating you using emotions that he didn’t have.
“What do you want from me?” You dared to ask.
He smirked.
“I’ll tell you after Stiles has been fed.”
You took a moment to consider it, knowing that it was likely a terrible idea to agree to anything when it came to him. But he had you backed into a corner. He knew that he could get you to do anything while holding the culpability of Stiles’s wellbeing over your head.
“Oh no,” Void said, using an oddly soft, pained tone that varied so much from the emotionless, mocking tone he had been using before. He gripped at Stiles’s stomach, and let out a groan of pain that you knew had to be fake, as he professed before that he made Stiles’s body strong and invincible. “He’s begging for you to help him! You’re right, he hasn’t eaten in days, and he’s really feeling it now! It’s killing him!”
He was using your empathy to manipulate you.
“Stop it.” You protested, and it came out much weaker than you had intended - sounding much more like a plea than an order.
He clutched his stomach tighter, and then, he looked up at you with the saddest water eyes you had ever seen - for a moment, a single breath of a moment - you saw Stiles, your Stiles break through.
“Please, Y/N.” He said, crying out your name breathlessly. “Please, I’m so hungry.”
“Fine, fine!” You cried in return, barely realizing how close to tears you were, seeing Stiles beaten down, weak, begging for you to help him. “Fine, you’ve got a deal!”
In a moment of weakness, rushing to help Stiles, you reached out your hand to shake on it, signifying your promise - and in an instant, Void’s face shifted from that soft, vulnerable boy you knew back to that horrible demon, glaring at you as he reached out and grabbed your hand. You knew that many stories cautioned against making a deal with the devil, and you supposed that making a deal with Nogistune was just as bad.
But it was done now. All you could do was hope that Stiles would benefit from this.
A short while later, he had scoffed down a very large piece of cake and was halfway done with the cheeseburger, with you intently watching the whole time to make sure that there were no tricks involved on his part. You thought that the meal would mostly be silent, but he finally spoke up again, looking a bit less intimidating with some remnants of the meal smeared across his face.
“You know, one thing I can credit humans for…” He said, swallowing before he picked up one of the fries. “Their talent for cruelty. Grinding up an animal, frying it in its own melted fat and then covering it in the stolen milk meant to suckle its babes - that is something I can admire.”
“I’m sure vegans would love you.” You mumbled quietly, to yourself, not entirely sure if he could hear you.
“You should join me.” He remarked after another bite - motioning toward the table full of food. “It’s more polite than standing over me like a statue, gawking at me the whole time.”
You knew that with him holding Stiles hostage, you were in no position to refuse him. So you played right into his demands, pulling out the chair across from him without a word and flipping open the pizza box to grab a slice. You began eating in silence, and naturally - Void continued speaking.
“This is almost like one of those little dates that you used to have with him, isn’t it?” He spoke quietly, mocking you once again. “At least, that’s what Stiles called them. Dates. He was deluded enough to believe that if he didn’t speak it aloud, his affection for you would simply be known.”
This punched you in the gut, and you bit your tongue as you took your first bite of pizza. You sputtered with shock and Void continued to look amused. You never thought it was true. Scott always said that Stiles had feelings for you, and Lydia said so too - but you thought they were just theorizing.
You had never, ever thought that your best friend and long time crush - the person you were in love with - would ever feel the same way about you.
And you had to find out from a fucking demon.
You remained silent, busying your mouth with eating as you tried to process the shocking news.
“But we both really know what it was, huh? He was so pathetic… he didn’t want to be rejected by you, so he never even asked. He was never brave enough. Always so pitiful, and small. Your boy is just a coward.”
Again, you didn’t say anything. Not playing into his game - unaware of the fact that he could feel your annoyance in the air. He didn’t need you to voice your emotions in order to gain satisfaction from mocking Stiles in your presence.
So of course, he kept on going.
“But not as pathetic as he is right now. Sweet and pathetic, begging for your life. Begging for me to spare you. It’s almost like a song. He keeps on telling me to stay away from you as if he has any power over this.”
“Just shut up and eat.” You told him, sharp and even.
He nodded and continued, seemingly content with the deal you had made - for now.
And he finished the burger and fries, and two of the Honey Buns before scrunched up the wrapper on the last one, and then wiped his face with an utterly contented smile. Then he said:
“Now, time for what I want.”
You wiped off your face and hands with a napkin, done with your pizza - not having much of an appetite anyway with the situation at hand. There was a flash of worry in your mind. Wondering if he might ask you to kill someone for his benefit because they wouldn’t be expecting it to come from you. Or perhaps he might even ask for something sexual -
He let out a bright chuckle - almost as if reading your mind and highly amused by your thoughts.
“No, no. Don’t worry, darling. Nothing like that.” He told you. “I feed off of suffering. Precious pain. Anxiety, heartache, fear. Now it’s time for me to eat.”
You thought he might say something like that. And you had come prepared with that in mind - prepared to give up anything to get Stiles back.
You reached into the pocket of your jeans, pulling out a small pocket knife. It was one that Scott had given you shortly after you found out that he had become a werewolf. He had never wanted to hurt you, so - it was silver plated steel, and he had Stiles burn Wolfsbane smoke over the blade to poison it - just in case you ever needed a weapon against one of his kind. It would be useless against Void, and the Wolfsbane wouldn’t poison a human like you.
But the blade was more than sharp enough to cut you. It would hurt you. It would provide the pain that Void desired.
You shoved your sleeve up to your elbow and poised the blade at your skin, but Void reached out, stopping you.
For a heart-stopping moment, you thought that somehow, Stiles had regained control.
But when your eyes flickered up to his face, you saw nothing but Void’s dark amusement lingering in those eyes. This left you confused as he took the knife from your limp grip.
“As amusing as that would be, sweet thing, it’s rather… boring.” He declared tiredly. “I had something else in mind.”
Your throat dried up, and you didn’t even realize that you were trembling as you stared him down with terrible, anxious anticipation, waiting to see what he had in store for you.
Void licked his lips, practically lapping up the delicious, sweet taste of your fear.
He pocketed the knife and walked around the table toward you. You resisted the urge to get up and run away as he bracketed so close to your side, leaning on the table and tucking his face close to your cheek. Being this close to him, as close as you had been to Stiles since he had been taken hostage - you could almost be tricked by the faint smell of the familiar body wash coming off his skin, by the warmth that you knew to be so human.
But this wasn’t Stiles. A thought that only made it all feel so much worse.
It caused you to hold back tears.
“No, no, darling.” He whispered against your cheek, causing your throat to clench up again. “If I wanted your pain, I could have it. I could take it.”
Fuck. What had you gotten yourself into?
You held back a fearful whimper, and Void joyfully continued.
“I could smack you, punch you, make you bleed.”
He went on - the confidence of his words causing your trembling to become more apparent as your heart pounded in your chest. You considered running, but that would mean abandoning Stiles. You came here to check on him - to fight for him. You couldn’t chicken out now.
“I could take your pathetic little knife and stab you, over and over again while Stiles screams and begs for mercy. I do love it when he begs for your life - he’s so much more desperate when it comes to you.”
Dear god. Would he actually kill you just to force Stiles to watch? Did Stiles have to be conscious for something like that?
Would he force Stiles to live for the rest of his life with the guilt of not being able to stop your murder? With him in control, would Stiles even live that much longer?
“But no. That’s not the game I want to play. Not right now, at least.”
You hated that he likely saw the breath of relief as it flexed from your chest.
“What -what do you want, then?” You asked, your throat still clenched by fear, making your words come out choked and weak.
He put a hand on your cheek - one that felt all too familiar. The hand you had held while walking to class, or cuddling on the couch. The hand that dismissively waved in front of your face when you told him that he had come up with another horrible idea. Void turned your face toward him, and you were then up close and personal with the horrible sight of a pain-fueled demon wearing your sweet best friend’s face.
“I want your tears.”
Of course. Emotional pain, rather than physical. You would dare to say that it would be even more potent.
Good thing you were already so close to crying.
You would just have to spend a few more minutes thinking about Stiles trapped in there, helpless-
“Tell me about the accident.” He declared, smirking, finding the whole ordeal very satisfying.
“No.” You immediately replied.
It was too painful. You couldn’t even think about it, it was too much-
“No?!” He screamed in your ear, causing you to flinch. “Nobody tells me ‘no’! You promised me something, you stupid little bitch. Now hold up your end of the deal.”
Sadly, he was right. You had made a deal with him - and if this was part of carrying it out… you would have preferred the pocket knife.
Even just thinking about that night - the blood, the twisted metal, the terror you had felt. The anxiety, the waiting. It had all been so horrible. It had been hell. A worse hell than a dinner date with a demon who was wearing your best friend as a human skin suit.
Already, Void felt a deep satisfaction as those emotions began to permeate the air around the two of you. To him, it was the most beautiful kind of poison. He took a deep whiff, and then leaned in close again, running his nose along your hairline to sniff you.
You shrugged away from the touch, but didn’t have far to go without falling off your chair completely. You were happy when he pulled away again - feeling used and wishing for nothing more than Stiles’s comforting touch and assuring words.
“Perfect.” He mumbled quietly to himself. “You know, Stiles hardly remembers any of it. The night is almost completely blank in his mind.”
You didn’t know that. After the hospital, the two of you had never bothered to talk about it in order to compare stories. Like you always did, the two of you just moved on. You looked forward to brighter days, thankful that your friendship was still intact.
“But I know that you remember everything. Every. Single. Last. Detail.” Void said, giving another terrible laugh.
He grabbed onto the back of your chair, and using a strength that you knew didn’t belong to Stiles, he roughly tugged on it, forcing it away from the table and spinning you to face him. He came back around to stand in front of you - now, he would be the one standing to loom over you, watching you while you provided him with a delicious meal.
“So, come on,” He prodded. “I want to hear the whole story. And you better not leave anything out.”
He stood there in complete satisfaction, his arms crossed as he grinned down at you with a devilish smile.
You took a deep breath, fidgeting with your fingers for a moment. You gathered your courage, and then you began to speak.
This is for Stiles, you assured yourself. For Stiles.
“Well, it was the night of the winter formal.” You started off. “And when I saw Stiles screech out of the parking lot in his Jeep at top speed-”
“No, no.” Void shook his head, cutting you off. “I said start at the beginning.” He scolded you sharply. “That’s not the beginning, is it? I want all the details. Go back to the beginning of the night.”
“Are you serious?”
At first, you were utterly confused. He asked you to tell him about the accident. What did a high school dance have to do with a car accident?
“Of course, darling.” He smirked at you.
Then, it hit you. He didn’t just want the gorey details. He wanted every ounce of your suffering. He wanted Stiles to suffer too. Especially if he said that Stiles didn’t remember it. He wanted you to recount the entire night to Stiles from your perspective. It was why he had brought up Stiles’s ‘affection’ for you.
He wanted both of you to suffer in the misery that you had been in love with each other for so long and not been together. The stupidity that you were both blind idiots who kept each other from happiness the whole time.
So you took a breath, and you told your story how he wanted to hear it, starting from the beginning of the night.
…
You were utterly miserable.
It was one of the biggest dances of the year (well, aside from Prom and Homecoming…) and you didn’t have a date. You had spent a huge chunk of money, your savings from a crappy minimum wage job waiting tables, on a gorgeous dress and shoes, hoping that Stiles would ask you to the dance. But he was going with Lydia.
You guessed that you had to be happy for him. He had been crushing on her since the third grade, and he was finally going on a date with her. A good best friend would be happy for him.
But naturally, you were still trying to look your absolute best, maybe, selfishly, in the hope that he would see you from across the room and realize that he had made the wrong choice. Lydia was an amazing, sweet girl - and you genuinely hated the type of jealousy that this was making you feel.
You knew that logically, you had no claim over Stiles. He was just your friend, and he was more than free to go on dates with other girls. It was downright toxic of you to not ask him to the dance and then get upset when he happily went with someone else as his date.
But you tried not to think about that as you put the finishing touches on your look. You had gone all out with your best hair and make-up to compliment your expensive crystal blue satin dress. Whether it was to make yourself feel better or to try and capture Stiles’s attention - you still weren’t entirely sure.
“Lip-gloss?” Allison appeared behind you, holding a hand out, looking for the aforementioned product.
You handed it to her and she leaned down, looking into the mirror of your vanity while applying it. She had told you that getting ready at her own house would have simply been ‘too weird’ because she was fighting with her family, and she wanted some calm down time. So she had asked to get ready with you, with the offer that Jackson could give you both a ride from there.
“Look, I’m sorry.” She said, feeling too awkward in the silence as you applied your mascara, focusing on your work and not looking at her in the mirror. She knelt down beside you, guilt written across her face. “If I had known that you liked Stiles, I wouldn’t have set him up with Lydia.”
“It’s not a big deal.” You remarked. “Like you said, you didn’t know.” After a moment, you added on: “It’s kind of… good. Like a relief. I almost feel like it’s less pressure.” You shrugged. “I can just go and have fun without worrying about impressing him.”
You had been lying to yourself. You absolutely hated it with every fiber of your being. You didn’t want to be angry with Allison, but you knew that she was better friends with Lydia than she was with you. That’s why she hadn’t known about your feelings for Stiles before now. When she had asked why you seemed so upset about the news that the two were going to the dance together, you told her, and she explained with a sour, sad face that she had set them up.
You hated it, but you couldn’t help thinking that this was the first step to Stiles and Lydia becoming a thing - the first act in them dating for long months while you resented Lydia for stealing something you once saw as yours.
And you hated yourself for being that kind of person.
Allison chuckled at this.
“Yeah… Well, Scott’s not going at all, so none of us get to go with the person we want to be with.” She said in a deeply sad tone, obviously aching from her own problems.
…
“It’s a shame, isn’t it?” Void commented, drawing you from the memory. “A pretty girl spends too much money on a dress, trying to impress some moron who won’t even notice it.”
He was mocking Stiles again.
“And then you had to see him with her.”
You nodded.
You could picture it so perfectly in your mind. Getting out of Jackson’s car and seeing Stiles rush to open the door for her - the way he smiled at her, the way he looked at her like she held the world on the edges of her lips. You wanted nothing more than for him to look at you like that. Her perfect ‘strawberry blonde’ hair fluttering in the wind as they walked arm-in-arm across the parking lot.
It caused the most awful aching pain in your chest that you had ever felt. You didn’t truly know how precious Stiles was to you until you saw him with someone else.
You knew Jackson was aching too, for much the same reason. And when he had offered you a swig of his drink, you took it. But it wore off too soon for your tastes and you didn’t have more. So for the better part of the night, you were forced to feel your pain while his was drowned out by the booze.
“Tell me. Tell me how it made you feel.” Void egged you on, wanting you to say it out loud even though your pain was all too palpable in the air.
“Like I was dying inside,” You answered, your throat tight but - still no tears yet. “Like all good had drained from the world. Like I had lost the most precious thing in my life and I would have to sit at the sidelines watching a perfect story play out when I was supposed to be a part of it.”
Void took a deep breath, sniffing the air again. And then he chuckled.
“Your pathetic teenage angst is… so amusing.” He grinned at you, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do tell me more.”
You had no clue that somewhere inside of there, Stiles was hit with his own wave of intense sadness - something else for Void to feed off of. He had no clue that you had been in love with him for so long. He had no clue how many opportunities he had missed out on to tell you about his feelings - how long he could have been happily dating you.
He hated how much time the two of you had missed out on.
Void sat contently between Stiles’s complicit misery and your renewed angst as you continued the story.
…
You had moped around all night.
You thought perhaps the only person more miserable than you at that dance was Scott - stuck hiding in the shadows, forced to watch Allison dance with Jackson while pretending he wasn’t even there.
But eventually, he too got his way after making a huge scene that even stopped the band for a moment - and left Coach feeling embarrassed when everyone thought that he went off on a homophobic screaming tirade because Scott was dancing with Danny. Good thing Beacon Hills was pretty progressive.
After spending all night on the bleachers on the verge of tears, you decided to leave to get yourself a chocolate bar from the vending machine - nothing goes better with sorrow than chocolate, right? Well, perhaps Jackson had a point in pairing his sorrow with liquor. But you weren’t at that point yet.
You were considering just calling it a night altogether. But you saw Stiles standing by himself, sans Lydia, and you figured it was a good time to make your move, if you were going to make one.
You wandered over to him shyly.
You had been feeling so down about yourself, you didn’t notice the way his eyes traced over every inch of you with awe - the way his lips parted with slight shock and wonder at how beautiful you looked that night.
Just as he was about to tell you so, you spoke up.
“So… where’s Lydia?” You asked.
“Oh, uh - she went to go find Jackson.” He said, disappointment seeping through every single inch of his voice.
“Naturally.” You replied.
You wanted to rant and scream about how she wasn’t good enough for him if she was going to ditch him for a guy who supposedly didn’t even want her anymore.
Your eyes strayed over to Allison and Scott on the dance floor, looking at each other with nothing but affection - clearly, only thinking of the other person, so caught up in their own little bubble. She didn’t care that Jackson had ditched her. A small flare of jealousy went through you.
You wished that could be you and Stiles.
“Do you wanna dance?” You asked Stiles, hoping that you could have your moment, even if it meant stealing him away from Lydia (when she clearly didn’t care).
He gave you a shy grin. “Okay.”
You grabbed his hand and led him out to the dance floor, and his hands found a natural place on your hips while you softly draped your arms around his neck. The two of you swayed to the slow music for a moment before you spoke again.
“This is nice.” You commented, smiling.
Though it had felt impossible only an hour ago, you actually felt happiness creeping in. Standing there underneath the coloured lights, dancing with the one person you had wanted the whole time. It was nice. There was still a lick of mourning lingering in your chest. You knew that Stiles still only viewed you as a friend, and you weren’t sure if you could ever gather that courage to take the leap and tell him about how you truly felt. As much as you wanted to just pull him close and kiss him.
“You know, you were the one person I actually wanted to dance with tonight.” You continued on. “And-” You cut yourself off with a sigh, not wanting to sound too vulnerable.
“Yeah.” Stiles replied - though he sounded oddly distant and thoughtless.
When you looked at his face again, you realized that he was staring at something over your shoulder, and you craned your neck to see that he was gawking at his watch.
“Ugh, really?” You scoffed, pushing him away. “Is dancing with me so awful that you feel the need to time it?”
“No.” He shook his head furiously, hating what you were accusing him of. “That’s not - look, Lydia’s been gone for over ten minutes! I’m worried.”
You shook your head, sighing deeply in defeat. Of course he was still thinking about her.
“Did you ever consider that maybe she found Jackson? That maybe they’re off somewhere making out? That she just ditched you because she doesn’t give a shit about you?” You argued, full of pain, your voice raising in volume to the point where you attracted stares from others on the dancefloor.
A look of pure pain streaked across Stiles’s face at your words.
“Whatever.” Stiles shrugged. “I’m going to find her. Because I actually care about her. And because I trust my gut.” He sharply bumped your shoulder as he passed, leaving you feeling more rejected and horrible than ever.
You turned and fled from the room, scurrying away from the many eyes on you once you realized that people were still staring.
…
“His gut.” Void chuckled. “He always did have good instincts, didn’t he?”
He did. Stiles had amazing instincts.
Because you had been assuming the worst - believing that Lydia had ditched Stiles to go and make-out with Jackson, when in reality, she had been bleeding to death on the lacrosse field. Stiles had been more than right to go looking for her.
Given, that was before you even knew about the existence of werewolves and all the other bullshit that ran ramped in Beacon Hills. But it didn’t make you feel like any less of a horrible person when you found out.
“Did you ever consider what a selfish bitch you are?”
Void continued on when you didn’t speak, seamlessly picking up with his mocking. Of course, he knew all the weak spots to hit. He could feel right where you were soft and vulnerable - right where you flexed with hurt under his taunts.
“Whining about not getting to dance with some dork while an innocent girl was bleeding to death? Talk about priorities.”
“I didn’t know.” You replied, your voice stiff.
You knew it was a poor excuse. You knew that ultimately, you were selfish. You should have gone with Stiles to look for Lydia. You should have helped.
Distantly, caged up inside of Void - Stiles was eternally thankful about that argument. He was thankful that you had been distanced from all of it, kept away from Peter Hale’s hungry claws. He would have gone insane, having you and Lydia in hospital beds, side by side, not knowing what the fate of either of you would be.
“Yeah, you can just keep telling yourself that same bullshit, sweetheart.” Void said, his voice a low whisper. “But we both know what you are. Maybe in reality, you’re not that much different from someone like me.”
Maybe that realization hurt more than anything.
Maybe that was his intention - to hit you with a truth that would wound you.
“You know… he still thinks about you in that dress.” Void spoke quietly again, carefully, painstakingly choosing each word. “How… beautiful you looked. His perfect rare crystal.”
He put emphasis on each word in a way that sent chills down your spine. His sharp gaze coming from Stiles’s honey whiskey eyes felt infinitely darker, and rather than feeling treasured as something good, something valuable like you usually did when Stiles looked at you - you felt filthy. You felt a sense of fear, knowing that Void would use Stiles precious appreciation of you to hurt him. To hurt both of you.
“That was the night he knew for certain that he was in love with you.” Void let out another laugh - dark and low. “The night he knew that he loved you more than he ever loved Lydia. She was laying in front of him dying, and still - all he could think about was protecting you. Protecting you from the threat.”
Your throat clenched up, and anything you were going to say was lost.
“I guess he’s selfish too, isn’t he?” Void posed. “You two are perfect for each other, I suppose.”
Then, he put on a weak, small, wobbling voice, and began to mock the unique, crippling fear that Stiles had experienced that night.
“Where’s Y/N? I need to find her. I need to protect her. Is she next?”
Nausea tightened in your stomach.
A unique tightness clutched at your chest.
Stiles had known he was in love with you that night.
He had been trying to protect you.
Is that why he had fled from the dance so suddenly?
“Ask me the question.” Void grinned, entirely excited now that you had put it together, made the realization. “Come on, ask me the question. We both know you want to.”
“Why are you doing this?” You choked out.
This was not the question he wanted.
But still, he indulged you.
“I told you.” He said firmly. “I like pain.”
He took a step forward then, leaning down, bracketing his hands by your hips on the wooden kitchen chair’s seat, his face tight in your personal space once again.
“Now… ask me the question.”
You took a shallow breath.
You hated how intimidating he was. You hated knowing that if it had actually been Stiles who was this close to you, it would have given you butterflies or even turned you on, but instead - you felt anxiety having him this close.
You couldn’t help but to give him what he wanted.
“What really happened that night?” You whimpered out, terrified of that answer. “Why did Stiles leave the dance?”
Void grinned.
“What a brilliant question. You are such a clever girl.”
…
All of it happened so fast.
Stiles spotted Lydia from afar - her red hair very distinctive. Then he saw it - a humanoid shape transforming into a big, black beast. Razor sharp teeth and claws.
He begged for her life, and he had been given one chance to spare her - a single call to Jackson. Luckily, the asshole picked up. (It was the one time in Stiles’s life that he had ever been thankful for Jackson’s existence.)
And then, he was being kidnapped, forced into his own car and being forced to drive to God knows where.
Of course, he was far too busy with the panic of it all, and he didn’t notice you.
He didn’t notice you - stumbling into the parking lot, looking for him in order to apologize for what you had said. He didn’t notice you watching with suspicion and confusion as his Jeep pulled out of the parking lot at top speed. He didn’t notice you going into your purse for your phone, looking to call his dad, considering making a report to him about it - only to find Jackson’s keys in your purse from earlier that night. Because when you had spotted him still drinking more than an hour into the dance, so sloshed that he could barely stand, you had demanded his keys from him, telling him that you wouldn’t let him drink and drive.
Stiles hadn’t noticed you getting into Jackson’s car and stealing it in order to trail behind him to see where he was going - just in time to miss Jackson running through the parking lot screaming for help with Lydia’s limp body in his arms.
Stiles was too busy with panic and anxiety to notice any of that, far too busy wondering if he was going to get out of this alive. And now, he was driving down a deserted backroad with Peter Hale in his passenger’s seat, who was making entirely sexist remarks about how Lydia would end up ripping his throat out ‘twice a month’ if she survived The Bite.
“You know, you didn’t have to protect her from it.” Peter droned on, increasing Stiles’s anxiety and annoyance. “It’s going to make her whole life better. She’ll thank me for it when she’s ready.”
“You should have just left her out of this.” Stiles bit back. “Lydia is a good girl. She doesn’t deserve any of this.” He huffed. “If she dies, I swear to god, I’ll-”
“You’ll what?”
Peter chuckled, grinning, seeming amused by Stiles’s vague, likely unbackable threats. Stiles ground his teeth, not responding - hating that they both knew he wouldn’t be able to follow through on anything he threatened. Not when Peter could kill him with one clean swipe of his claws.
“You’re protective. I do admire that in a man.” He paused, thinking. “Though, I suppose… you’re not quite a man, are you? At least not yet.”
Stiles bit his tongue, not wanting to make any further threats that he couldn’t live up to. He had seen what Peter could do, and unfortunately - he knew that he didn’t have the physical force to fight against him.
So what the hell could he do?
That was the question that made Stiles’s mind tink on anxiously, convincing him further that he just might end up dead tonight.
“What about your other pretty friend?” Peter wondered aloud, changing the subject suddenly in a way that confused Stiles. “Are you just as protective of her?”
“What? Are you talking about Y/N?” Stiles’s heart began pumping even more viciously with anxiety, absolutely terrified that you were on Peter’s radar.
He hated that he knew Peter could hear it - that spike in his heart rate that indicated his fear, his weakness.
“The one in the blue dress.” Peter told him, seeming almost disinterested in the conversation as he picked at his nails. Stiles’s heart thumped harder in affirmation, and Peter continued. “She wears that lovely vanilla perfume-”
“Leave her out of this!” Stiles screamed at the top of his lungs, rage overtaking him so suddenly that he almost swerved off the road - Peter reached over and corrected this, rolling his eyes at the outburst.
Stiles clenched his jaw tightly and looked ahead at the road, fuming.
(Driving behind him in Jackson’s car, you wondered why his driving was suddenly so erratic.)
“You leave her the hell alone.” Stiles huffed, praying that there was some finality to his words.
“That would be a little difficult, considering that she’s been following us for half a mile.” Peter grinned. “I am going to have to speak to her about this whole matter when we arrive.”
Stiles thought that Peter was bluffing - trying to use you as leverage to get him to co-operate, just as he had done with Lydia. But when he squinted into the rearview mirror, he saw… Jackson’s car? And a flash of blue in the driver’s seat that must have been your dress.
Fuck.
He was so screwed.
“What do you mean ‘speak to her’?” Stiles questioned, entirely panicked.
“Well, we can’t have her running back to the Argents to warn them.” Peter smirked. “Perhaps, I can convince her how beneficial the Bite would be to her-”
“No!”
Stiles screamed, his voice filling up the entire cab of the Jeep with the might of his protection toward you.
“Enough! Okay? Enough. You can do whatever you want with me - I’ll do whatever you want, I swear. And then you can kill me when you’re done with me so I won’t blab.” His voice tightened up around these words, slightly frightened to resign himself to this fate, but he was willing to do whatever it would take to protect you. “Just leave her the hell alone.”
“And if I don’t?” Peter asked, taunting, clearly enjoying the emotional reaction prompted from Stiles trying to protect you. “What can you possibly do about it?”
Think. Stiles wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel. Think, think, think, Stiles! You’re supposed to be the clever one.
An idea popped into his head.
It wasn’t clever. It wasn’t good. But it was the only idea that he had.
And when he took one last glance in the rearview mirror and realized that you were about twenty feet back - more than enough to hit the brakes in time - he resigned himself to it.
He put his seatbelt on, and then - he harshly turned the wheel toward the nearest tree and - he gunned it.
…
The crash shocked you.
You slammed on the brakes as quickly as you could, and came to a stop a few feet behind the tree that Stiles had rammed into. You stumbled out of the driver’s side door in shock, tears in your eyes as you wandered toward the Jeep - which was now nothing more than a heap of twisted metal, smoking, the horn blaring loudly where it was crumbled against the tree.
“Stiles?” You called out, praying that he would answer you. “Stiles?”
You slowly came around the car, finally able to get a good view of him through the smashed driver’s side window.
He was entirely still, collapsed against the air-bag that had emerged from the steering wheel, blood smeared all over the white material. So much blood. It painted the smashed front windshield, dripped through his shirt. He was so still. He wasn’t moving. He-
“Stiles?”
When he didn’t respond, you let out a loud sob.
“Stiles? Come on - you - you have to-!” You couldn’t contain another sob as it tore through you, making you utterly breathless.
You had been so distraught that you didn’t notice the passenger side door was wide open, even though there was not a single trace that anybody had been sitting there. Even if you had noticed, you likely would have chalked it up to the door being flung open from the force of the crash.
Your ears were pounding with blood from the shock and you didn’t even notice the wolf-like howls echoing into the night above you.
…
“I thought he was dead.”
Your body couldn’t contain another sob when you got to this part in the story - finally providing Void with the tears he so desired.
As you went over the horrors of that night in your mind, they now poured freely down your face. Your pain was made even worse with the stunning realization: Stiles had done it all to protect you. Put himself in danger, gone through so much pain - all to protect you.
Void smiled at you - a terrible, haunting grin that he mocked you while wearing the face of the man you loved the most.
“So beautiful.” He hummed, reaching out and wiping your tears - not to comfort you, of course. He gathered the wetness on his fingers and brought it to his lips, licking it. At this, he gave a satisfied sound. “So much pain.”
“Are we done now?” You asked, wanting to be alone to wallow in your pain.
Truthfully - you wanted nothing more than the comfort of Stiles. You wanted him to hold you and tell you that everything would be okay in the soothing way that he always did. You wondered if hugging Void would feel the same. You wondered if you could close your eyes and pretend, even for a moment.
“No.” He told you, enjoying the extra little bit of anguish he could wring from you by telling you this. “Because that wasn’t the worst part, was it?”
…
“Look, Noah, it’s probably nothing.” Melissa said firmly, doing her best to try and soothe the fellow parent. Sheriff Stilinski had already been at the hospital to take a report on what had happened to Lydia when something else came over the radio - a car accident report about a crash involving a blue Jeep. “Stiles isn’t the only person in this town who drives a-”
Before she could even get the words out, the paramedics came bursting into the ambulance bay, wheeling in a bloodied, unconscious Stiles on a stretcher with you walking beside them, holding his hand.
“My boy.” The Sheriff sobbed, rushing to reach them.
Melissa knew that the doctors would likely need to get him up to the ER with the kind of condition that he was in, so she moved to escort you and the Sheriff to the waiting room. She wrapped an arm around your shoulder, and you refused to be pulled away - you refused to let go of his hand.
“He needs me.” You bawled, tears still steadily streaming down your face. “He needs me!”
“Let them work, sweetie, just-” Melissa argued gently, trying to be understanding about the kind of shock you were in.
“He needs me! He needs me!”
She held you back, tearing your grip off of Stiles so that he could be escorted to the ER. Melissa began to cradle you comfortingly, rubbing a hand on your shoulder.
There was only a short moment of silence before-
“What the hell happened?” The Sheriff turned to you, barking the words loudly, obviously yearning for answers about how Stiles had gotten hurt.
“I - I don’t know.” You answered meekly, feeling intimidated by him.
“Was he drinking? Were you two partying?” He screamed, getting closer into your space.
Quickly, Melissa stepped between the two of you, putting a hand on Sheriff Stilinski’s chest to keep him at bay.
“Noah, stop it-”
“Was he drinking?” He pressed, forcing the words out slower, as though you were too dumb to understand.
“What? No!” You quickly replied. “Stiles doesn’t drink!”
(That had been a lie. You had seen him drink a few times at parties. But you knew that he was a firm proponent of designated sober drivers because of how many accident reports his father had filed from drunk drivers that involved death.)
“Even if he was, I would never let him drive! Stiles would never let anybody drink and drive because that’s what you taught him!”
You felt a slight bit of guilt, knowing that you had sipped on Jackson’s bottle and gotten behind the wheel. You wondered if that one single sip made you guilty of the crime that Stiles was so very much against.
Before you could dwell on it too much, you continued.
“I took Jackon’s keys from him to keep him from drunk driving! That’s how I followed Stiles in the first place.”
“You used my car?” Jackson appeared behind you suddenly, taking on an accusatory tone.
Everyone ignored him.
“Well? Where was he going? What was he doing? How the hell did this happen?”
“I. Don’t. Know.” You ground out slowly. “It’s not like it was my fault!”
…
Void let out another astrid laugh.
“Oh, but it was.” He grinned. “It was all your fault. How did it feel lying to a police officer about the fact that you almost killed his son?”
“I wasn’t lying.” You replied, your throat gripped by tears. “I didn’t know.”
You were glad that you hadn’t known the truth at the time. You weren’t sure if you could have faced the Sheriff, knowing that Stiles’s near death experience had been all your fault.
“Would you look the Sheriff in the eyes and tell him that now?” Void asked. “Or would you apologize? Tell him that it’s all your fault that stupid, infatuated Stiles crashed his car into a tree trying to save you?”
“I-” You choked out, truly unsure what to say. “I don’t know.”
“Would you have taken his place?” Void snipped, quick to berate you with more questions.
“What?” You parroted back, slightly confused.
“Would you have taken his place?” He repeated. “You - caught up in that heap of twisted metal, carted off to the hospital to be poked and prodded by doctors, cut up, barely alive? Him - crying at your bedside like a pathetic idiot?”
You had never considered it. You didn’t think it was wise to dwell on the past or mull-over hypotheticals like that. But truthfully - you thought that what had happened to you was worse. You thought that Stiles got the better end of it, sleeping through most of it while you had to steep in your pain.
“Y-yes.” You said, hesitating slightly, feeling as though this was the proper, kind answer - saying that you would have taken the physical pain for him - that you would have laid in the bed and taken all of it in his place if you could have.
“Uh-oh.” Void said, shaking his head. “Nobody likes a liar, Y/N.”
How he knew that you were lying, you had no clue.
But you were eager to move on from it before he prodded you about it any further. So you quickly moved on with your story.
“And then, there was the waiting.” You told him. “We had to wait hours for him to come out of surgery, wondering if he was going to live. And then I waited for weeks by his bedside, wondering if he was ever going to wake up.”
You swallowed around a painful knot in your throat as you remembered it.
“So perfectly pathetic, isn’t it?” Void commented. “The way that you showed up to that hospital every single day - spent nights sleeping beside him in an uncomfortable plastic chair, just waiting… every single day waiting to see if he was going to wake up. Or rather - seeing if he was going to finally slip away. Waiting to see if he was finally going to die.”
You let out more tears and Void sniffed the air again, taking a deep breath, enjoying the depth of your pain.
“I wish I could have been there.” He remarked. “Every single day, you mourned over him. You cried for him. What a waste of sweet suffering.”
He let out another laugh. You go do nothing more but sit there and let him mock you, let him indulge in the suffering that you had promised him.
“You showed up every single day and he didn’t even know it. You talked to him, read to him, played him music… not even knowing if he could hear you. Thinking that he could hear you, but just… hinging it all on that tiny ray of hope.”
You thought for certain that Void would confirm then and there that Stiles had never heard you when he had been comatose, because before he had said that your hope being broken was ‘delicious’.
But what he did next hurt so much more.
Because of course, he knew the worst, most perfect ways to hurt you.
“You read him The Velveteen Rabbit… because he said that his Mommy used to read it to him.”
Void said, mocking deep in his voice. And then, he put on a shrill impression of you as he spoke again - repeating word for word what you had said to Stiles when you had been at his bedside. Private words that had been meant only for Stiles.
“‘Stiles, you have to wake up. You have to wake up so we can be together again. Look, I know I messed up before, but… I really like you. I might even love you. Fuck it - I do love you. I’m in love with you, and you - you have to wake up so that I can spend the rest of my life loving you.’”
He burst into laughter with these last words, cutting right through you.
“Well, newsflash!” He screamed, startling you with his sudden volume, shaking you. “Stiles isn’t going to wake up this time. He’s never coming back again. You’re going to spend the rest of your life alone.”
“He will.” You said weakly, knowing how defeated you sounded. “He’ll come back. He’ll come back to me, I know it.”
You and Void both knew that you were trying to convince yourself with these words.
Void pulled up his shirt, showing off the long, jagged scar in the middle of Stiles’s stomach - the scar he had from the accident.
“See this? This is his human weakness.” Void stated. “I came along and I made him into something so much better. I made him strong. I made him-”
“You ruined him!” You screamed, finally standing from your chair, hyper charged with your own rage now. “You took away everything that made him good - his sweetness, his kindness, his empathy. You-”
“No, sweetheart.” Void grabbed your face, shutting you up and causing sharp shocks of pain across your head as he roughly jostled you. “Those things have always been his downfall. His stupid kindness and empathy caused him to crash himself into a fucking tree tyring to protect you. You - a dumb bitch who is still willing to put herself this close to a demon who could gut her in a second without a single care.”
You held your breath. You waited for him to do something more - to truly attempt to harm you.
And then, after a paralyzing second of staring into those dead eyes - he let you go again. You took a step back. You should have run - you should have run, and run, until you found Scott or someone else. But he was right. You were a dumb bitch. Even now, you couldn’t abandon Stiles.
“You know, it’s even the same thing right now.” Void grinned. “The minute he gets back the slightest bit of control, he keeps trying to crash the damn car. He keeps trying to protect you!”
He burst into laughter again, and your insides shook with fear.
You knew that Stiles ‘crashing the car’ this time would only end with him dying. And you weren’t sure which was worse - him living in there, trapped and tortured while a demon controlled his body - or him killing himself to end all potential harm that Void could do to you and anybody else.
“Even now, he’s begging me to shove this pathetic little knife into his neck,” He said, taking your knife out of his pocket and raising it up to his jugular. “Just so that there won’t be a single chance of me hurting you.”
Your chest jumped.
Upon instinct, you stepped forward and grabbed his wrist, attempting to pull the knife back - but of course, Void was much stronger than you, and his grip didn’t budge. Not even a slight bit.
Your heart raced as you began to panic.
“Please, don’t-” You muttered out, knowing that begging was likely your only course of action, whether Void or Stiles was the one in control.
He grinned. “What are you going to do to stop me?”
You had an idea. A terrible one.
You leaned in, sealing your lips onto his - feeling chapped skin against yours and for a moment thinking that you had a one-way ticket to getting stabbed. But then, you felt the stiff, tense form underneath you soften up. You felt a gentle sigh, a sigh of relief leave Stiles’s lips as he pressed back, pushing into the kiss as though he had been yearning for this for centuries.
The hand holding the knife to his neck shook - sharp spasms going through the muscles as he battled with himself. And after a moment, he dropped the object to the floor with a quiet clatter. Then, he brought that hand to smooth across your back in a gentle, comforting way that could have only been Stiles.
You pulled away from the kiss after a moment, and when you looked into his eyes, you knew for certain that it was him. The softness, the sadness, the apologetic mourning.
“Y/N-” He croaked out, releasing a few years of his own.
“Hang in there, my love.” You told him, reaching up to gently grasp at his cheek.
And then, just like the sun peeking through on a cloudy day - he was gone.
Void’s horrible grin took over once again, and all the life dropped out of those eyes.
“You truly are pathetic.” He said, giving another horrible laugh.
Perhaps he was trying to convince you that Stiles had never been there, that it had only been a trick, but - you knew what you saw.
Void hated it.
It was something that he absolutely hated to admit, but you gave Stiles strength. You were likely the only person in town, likely the only thing on earth that could have given him - a weak, stupid, pathetic human, the strength to overpower the epic thousand year old demon that had taken control.
In that moment, in an instant, he decided that you had to be eliminated.
Void didn’t hesitate to reach down and pick up the knife.
“No-” You gasped out.
Before you could blink, he grabbed your shoulder, shoved you against a nearby wall, and plunged the small blade into your stomach. He didn’t stop just once - he stabbed you again, and again, and again - creating a flurry of blood and mashing flesh that caused you to gasp from the pain and sheer shock that overtook your body.
It didn’t hurt as much as you expected it to. It was like a simple pinprick - nothing more painful than a needle piercing your skin for a routine blood sample. But when you felt the intense hot waves of blood pouring out, soaking your clothes - you knew that it was bad. You were already shaking from the shock and you knew that him pressing against you was the only thing still holding you up.
Void took a tight hold of your face, both your cheeks in one blood-coated hand, and pressed his forehead tightly into yours.
“Look at her.” He growled out, his voice as sharp and frightening as ever. “Look at her. Look at her while she’s dying.”
You knew in an instant that he wasn’t talking to you.
“Look at what you’ve done, Stiles!” He screeched, his voice harsh, almost distorted. “All that begging… all that begging - all for nothing!”
“It’s okay.” You huffed out, reaching up, your hand surprisingly bloody, trying to touch his cheek in comfort. “It-it’s okay.”
You were determined to survive this. Or - at the very least - you didn’t want Stiles living with the guilt if you didn’t.
“Stiles-”
Void wouldn’t stand for it. This comfort.
He quickly stamped out this truth with a few more quick, violent jabs of the knife into your gut, forcing Stiles to watch as he violently eviscerated you.
Then, he tossed the knife aside and let you slump to the floor before he walked away.
He left you for dead, all too pleased with how utterly the sight of you bloodied and limp tortured Stiles.
He left you there, not knowing that he left you with just enough determination - just enough life left you to drag your shaking body to the phone and get a bloody hand wrapped around it.
...
Please keep in mind, this is a oneshot, so there will not be a sequel or a 'Part 2'. If you enjoyed this fic, please consider reblogging it to show your appreciation, commenting on this fic, or you can take a look at my Teen Wolf Masterlist for more of my fics from this fandom.
However, please do not comment on this fic asking for a sequel or asking for more - I generally consider that stressful and impolite. If you are going to comment, please comment about the body of work that has been written.
Because I ended the fic the way I did, I do have some ideas for a potential sequel, but it's not something that I am rushing to write, and it's not something that will be on my schedule anytime soon. If you would like to, you can come into my inbox and chat about my ideas for the potential sequel - but right now they are just ideas and they will stay that way for a long time before becoming a full realised story (if they ever become one). I hope you enjoyed this fic as the capsule story oneshot that I always intended for it to be, and that you enjoy my other works if you do check them out.
#sundrop writes#teen wolf fanfiction#void!stiles x reader#void!stiles#stiles stilinksi imagine#stiles stilinksi fanfiction#stiles x reader#stiles stilinski#stiles stilinski x reader#teen wolf#teen wolf x y/n#teen wolf x reader
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3D Gillion WIP
RAAGGHHH I have been in blender hell for like 3 weeks and I have nearly finished this low poly model of Gillion!!! Features a responsive 2d facial animation rig :3 I just have some bones to finish adding drivers to (and a sword and environment to model and texture) and then he is ready to animate!!! (nerd shit rant under cut)
I have been having a lot of fun learning blender!! in comparison to my first model in March of this year I think I have certainly come a long way!
Bonus: I am finally starting to understand the evil spaghetti
Here is the nodes for the 2d facial animation rig in all their glory! it's a whole process but a lot of fun I was using principled BSDF for shading up until the point of actually making the face rig which... does not work if you add a bunch of colour mix nodes so I had to switch to diffuse BSDF. If you're interested in learning how to make a rig this is the tutorial I followed it only covers the eyes but you can just copy the steps for making the eyes and use it to make additional bones for the mouth & eyebrows, adding them through colour mix nodes with alpha channels set to your textures like in my image!
I have also been using the pribambase plugin & aseprite to create my textures which I highly recommend! asesprite honestly is such a wonderful and intuitive program I had never made pixel art before starting this project and I know I certainly could be doing better (I am fully aware the model has mixels but I honestly don't hate the look personally which I know isn't the common take but whatever) but for my first time doing pixel art I'd say it's not too bad! Pribambase is a bit of a pain to set up now since the original creator has discontinued it and is no longer supporting it but it is still possible to find and use I am happy to teach anyone who would like to know!
Once the model is done I will be releasing my blender files & texture files as free to use for anyone who wants to animate with it or just play around & deconstruct! (with the exception of my animations) I am only learning myself so idk how useful they'll be but I would not have been able to make this model if it wasn't for kind modellers online who have released their files to deconstruct and learn from.
I have many plans for future blender projects all currently jrwi related (the brainrot is intense rn) & I am very excited to keep learning as I go! I currently have plans to make low-poly models of all the riptide pirates, the pd & the godslayers with animations in mind :p and I really wanna try some 3d sculpting (and maybe 3d printing) which I have wiwi in mind for... if any of these ideas get finished I will also release those models for free :)
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Kiss It Better
Seven minutes in heaven with Ethan Landry turns out to be the therapy you both needed.
(Ethan Landry x Reader)
A/N: My first (overdue) Ethan fic! Pre ejac with Ethan is one of my guiltiest pleasures…Minors/Ageless blogs DNI
Word count: 1.5K
Tags: SMUT / Fem! Reader / Enemies to lovers / Handjobs / Fingering / Premature ejaculation / Virgin! Ethan + Experienced! Reader / Dirty talk / Dom + Sub elements, if you squint
Ethan didn’t know how he’d gotten here; back pressed against the narrow walls of a shoe cupboard whilst he fought the process of perspiration, which seemed damn near impossible given the stuffiness of the frat house.
His heart pounded in his chest as he squirmed uncomfortably, desperate not to look you in the face. You, the bane of his existence, had become stuck together, counting the seconds as the time passed for the dreaded seven minutes.
It was a Friday night, and expectedly, Chad had dragged him to another party, filled with cheap alcohol and set to the aura of low, coloured lighting. He hadn’t expected you to show up - people usually only showed up to parties for one thing, and you were already dating Bryce, someone who happened to be his classmate.
To put it simply, Bryce was an ass. He was a self entitled econ student, with a Fortune 500 father and a future budding stint in jail for fraud - should he ever be caught - though guys like Bryce never did.
Two things made it worse - One, the fact that he seemed to target Ethan himself, and two, that you, his girlfriend, never seemed to do anything about it…to the point that it was encouraged.
There was never a moment where Bryce hadn’t threatened Ethan for ‘help’ (it was much, much more than that) to the latest assignment, or made a snide comment towards him in the hallways. He hated it, but he’d always been kind of a pushover.
So wasn’t it ironic that you’d ended up rolling him at a game of ‘Spin the Bottle?’
“I’m sorry,” Ethan said, clearing his throat. “I know you probably wanted someone like Chad…”
You snorted.
“He definitely wouldn’t have hurt,” you sighed, staring up at the ceiling, likely begging for someone to rescue you. “But I’ve been there, done that….plus, I’ve already got a man,”
Ethan raised his brows at your flippant admission. Chad hadn’t mentioned that before.
“…Does Bryce know you’re here?” he stammered.
“Yup,” you said nonchalantly, popping your tongue. “He didn’t stop me, so I guess our chapter’s closed,”
“Y-You broke up?” Ethan said, throat dry as he choked on his own words. This probably meant that the bastard would be even more of an ass to him, if that were even possible.
You nodded.
Ethan stared at you with wide eyes, about to speak when you raised a finger.
“I don’t need your pity. It’s just a college fling, I’ll move on to the next.”
He raised his brow and puffed his cheeks at that statement. He’d heard the exact opposite, but who was he to speak about someone else’s relationship?
It was silent for a few moments, with you finding a particular interest in your nails before you looked up at Ethan, studying him intently. He was rather big for a nerd; tall, with surprisingly wide shoulders and arms - a direct contrast to his boyish curly hair. He’d always been nothing but shy and polite - something even Bryce had echoed - but you’d never really taken him seriously. At most, he was just some dude from Econ who happened to room with one of your past flings.
Still, whether it was the liquor induced haze from cheap alcohol or the fact that you were moping over your breakup, the little dork seemed rather appealing. After all, what was a better way to get over a failed relationship?
“Look, I’m sorry for how that came out, okay?” You huffed, making eye contact with him. “I’m a little hurt, and I can be a total ass sometimes…Just like Bryce. I’m sorry for how he treated you. Totally not cool.”
You tried not to giggle at the way the boy's eyes widened.
“Y-You don’t have to apologise, it’s not really your fault!” the boy stammered. “Bryce is — He’s Bryce. And I actually liked doing his assignments, they’re kinda fun when you’re really into the topic…! I-I mean not to—“
His rambling was silenced by your lips on his, taking charge as you smeared the taste of your lipgloss across his lips, consuming every one of his stifled gasps. You pulled away, unable to hide a smirk as he ran a hand through his hair; face flushed and panting. He was so animated in his actions that it was hard to believe he was real.
“Y-You kissed me…”
“Sorry,” you hummed. “I won’t do it again,”
“No! No, I liked it…” Ethan said desperately. “A lot…” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t think you’d be into a guy like me…”
You smirked and shrugged your shoulders.
“You’re pretty cute for a nerd. Besides, it’s pointless to waste our time here, isn’t it?”
“I-I think time should be up soon —“ the boy continued to stammer, but you rolled your eyes and placed a finger to his lips, silencing him.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” you whispered, draping your arms around his neck before you began to kiss him again, this time running your fingers through his hair, your graceful fingertips sending chills down his spine. He reciprocated, opting not to go too far and settling with his hands on your waist, tracing the curve of your spine as he relaxed into the motions of your lips against his.
Was he dreaming?
His somewhat emboldened move made you smirk, and you pressed your body against his, breasts pushing against his chest and thigh rubbing along his crotch, causing him to gasp.
“Shit…” he mumbled, pulling away as he tried to adjust himself. “I’m sorry, I —“
“Ethan,” you sighed, cupping his cheeks. “You don’t have to be sorry, I like it. And as long as you do too, I’m down. Just relax, okay?”
He nodded, mesmerised as you took his hand, and interlocked your fingers, guiding them from the soft mounds of your breasts to past your thighs, eventually slipping them under your skirt. Ethan’s fingertips had pushed your panties to the side with ease, and the boy almost choked as he enveloped his digits in your folds.
You were warm and wet, and so his movements inside you came easy. If the fact that he was touching you weren’t mesmerising enough, it was your unwavering eye contact that made his heart clench. You were taking control, and yet you were still submissive enough to let him explore you - solidified by the entranced look in your eye.
He must’ve been doing something right.
“Feel good?” you hummed, not really listening out for an answer. Ethan’s low, ragged breaths told you everything, and you almost took pity on him for what was to come.
Sliding your hands down his torso, you stopped at his jeans, cupping his bulge and giving it a gentle squeeze. He gasped; involuntarily pulling you towards him as his head draped slightly on your shoulder. He was practically keeling over and you’d barely even touched him.
Smirking, you skilfully unzipped his fly and dug around in his briefs, gripping your hands around his cock before pulling it out. His precum dripped tip grazed your thigh, twitching as you began to stroke the vessel, admiring its girth.
Ethan whimpered, shutting his eyes as he parted his lips, lost in the flurry of sensations. He’d just found your clit, and he revelled in the way you’d moaned as he rubbed it, causing your walls to clench on his fingers…and now here you were, jerking him off.
“Is this your first handjob, Eth?” you purred into his ear. He could barely fathom an answer, instead nodding vehemently, tousling his hair in the process.
“Aw,” you giggled, giving his balls a gentle squeeze as you kissed his reddening neck. “I’m so lucky to be your first…I bet you’ve been dreaming of this for a while, hm?”
Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, gasps slowly getting louder as he took deeper breaths. He withdrew his face from your shoulder to look at you, a beautiful devil, eyes clouded with lust as they glimmered in the dim lighting of the house around you. In this moment, nothing mattered, and he took the opportunity to kiss you - to which you eagerly returned.
His movements became more frantic as you squealed at his sudden aggression, your mixture of shock and fear somehow turning him on even more. It reminded him of all the screams of fear when he —
“Fuck, Eth,” you whined further, drawing him from his thoughts. “You’re so big, no wonder why Bryce hated you…” you mused before letting out a chuckle. “…You know, I’ve always secretly had a thing for nerds.”
Whether you were being genuine or not, Ethan immediately spilled his load at the statement, moaning loudly in your shoulder as his body convulsed and fingers twitched. His rich cum coated your fingers, and you laughed as he writhed against you, riding out his high. He’d only lasted three minutes, but they were the best three minutes of his life.
He hid his face shyly as he looked back up at you.
“That quick, hm?” you giggled, licking the excess off of your skin. “You continue to flatter me, Landry,”
“Let me make it up to you,” he said boldly, wholly serious as he stared you in the eye. You cocked a brow, expecting him to be apologetic, but you couldn’t help but admire his newfound confidence.
Fixing your clothes, you nodded and curved your lips into a smile.
“I think I will,” you hummed, taking his hand in yours. “Your place or mine?”
#florence writes!!#ethan landry smut#ethan landry x reader#ethan landry imagine#scream x reader#ghostface x reader#scream iv x reader#scream iv imagine#scream smut
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oh we’re still so young, desperate for attention
this was super experimental so i will talk about my process (+ clearer version) under the cut
i’ve been looking at a lot of “messier” or more textured painting styles recently and an artist that stuck out to me is clariondeluna ! they posted a self-portrait recently that i really liked and i was super interested in the brushwork seen in their work. i love all the textures and how the shapes feel so loose yet everything is so detailed.
that’s not a method for me at all!!!! i cannot paint like that at all and the stuff i like to paint is very different to theirs. which is okay!!!! i had no intention to copy this artists style so closely like with what i tried to do in my raiden painting, i just wanted to try this style out :^)
it’s been a goal of mine to avoid over-rendering like i tend to do a lot, and i think i’ve been doing good with that recently! the mindset i’ve got going on right now is that if i find myself staring at it too hard for too long, i have to leave it and move on. if there’s still something wrong with it, i can fix it later once ive got a fresh view!
i’ve been trying a lot of things with my art this year. i always try to challenge myself with each piece, and to end the year off i wanted to be as uncomfortable as i possibly could be with this painting. i let myself draw whatever i wanted because i still wanted to enjoy it, but everything i did in this process was new, including parts of the subject matter.
i’ve never drawn a head at an angle like this, and i struggle with drawing mouths open. i don’t do bold lighting like this, and if i do, it’s not fire. i’ve never drawn fire! i also rarely work with warm colours and i hate using green, so i combined those to be my colour palette. i like working cleanly so instead of having a dozen different layers for one section, each section only had 1-2 layers for rendering. instead of clipping masks i would simply paint over things loosely and clean it up later. i never like having limbs cut off in a drawing so i had his other arm go GOD knows where. i don’t like weird patterned backgrounds so i made myself figure out how to like it!
IS THIS MY FAVOURITE PIECE OF ALL TIME. no. absolutely not. but i’m very proud of how this came out with all the challenges i put on myself. i WANTED to get better at these things and be more broad with my art, both in terms of the styles and subjects i portray.
okay let’s talk about wtf this drawing is
for those who don’t know, the design in this painting is my fatui/“Father” lyney fan design (read the design post here). the concept isnt super complicated and i don’t really have much explanation for it, but i wanted to combine the story of how lyney wanted a delusion before getting his vision, fire eating circus acts and how olympic medalists will bite their medal to prove it’s real??? don’t quote me on that i’m like 75% sure that’s a thing that happens. i don’t watch sports though so im just believing someone i heard on the internet ages ago.
anyways. i think fire eating acts are cool. and i think the fact that lyney wanted a delusion is very interesting to me. scratches my brain in the right places. and yk as a magician lyneys character revolves a lot around fooling people and creating illusions so i guess what im saying here is that lyney is trying to prove to himself that this power he’s been bestowed is real. bc his whole life his only constant has been lynette so he is trying to see if he can trust this new power. cause i guess this is an alternate universe where lyney does eventually become “Father” but he never got his vision ??? idk im not making lore for this i just wanted to dress up this funny little guy.
ok i’m done
thanks for reading
here’s my dog
#my art#fanart#genshin impact#genshin fanart#lyney#genshin lyney#lyney fanart#digital art#artists on tumblr#artists of tumblr
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Can you share what your art-making process is? What software and tools do you use?? I'm falling in love with your work!!
Thank you, I'm so happy you like my work and are interested in the process. The short answer is I mostly use Adobe Animate.
I hate how I'm using an Adobe product (although I still regard it as a MacroMedia Flash product), but there's just no other software that compares to its jankiness. Perhaps it's just my long familiarity with the program, but nothing I've experienced matches how it simultaneously feels like drawing in MS Paint and using Microsoft PowerPoint vector shapes. The result is something that feels in-between the two; handmade yet computer-generated.
Typically, I'll start with a hand-drawn sketch, often beginning as a thumbnail done with pencil and paper.
I'll then do a mix of hand drawing and vector shape tool rendering. I use the Paint Brush tool to hand draw strokes, and the line and shape tools mixed with transform to make more geometrically accurate shapes. The design is rendered into divided closed loop shapes, ready to be filled with a solid. The strokes are kept or removed depending on the design.
These fill shapes are then either coloured and rendered in Adobe Animate, using fills, gradients, or a more complex process of masks and effects.
Alternatively, I'll bring all these vector shapes into Photoshop and use them as clipping masks. The vector shapes act like masking taped areas or shields to maintain sharp edges, while the brush is like an atomized airbrush used to build soft volumed forms.
Please excuse all that horrible Adobe Cloud and AI bloatware...
And there we go!
Variations in the process include just using MS Paint, index color in Photoshop, or 3D programs.
Very old works of mine were almost abstract, just exploring digital mark-making, which was a trend I was following in the mid 2010s that I loved. This kind of stuff.
While my current work uses its digital material specificity as an intermediary to the subject in the illustration.
For example, #ersatz.world parodies clip-art and flash edutainment styles but imagines the characters living within that kind of world. The designs are meant to be cute, easy to read, light in computer processing, but also irreverent, janky, and generic too.
People typically regard this sort of clip art style as ephemeral trash, but I always found them charming. I use Ersatz World primarily as a satire vehicle, parodying educational formats to spoof corporate explainer content and digital media.
However, part of the problem with Ersatz is I've made it look too polished, complex, and I've grown too attached to the characters, which I imagine is a typical issue with overbuilding a world. So recently, I've made an even jankier Ersatz-like set of characters to play about with, using an even simpler style with less cohesion. I like to try and use slightly different styles and digital material styles to relate to the property at hand.
That’s why #autonymus has a bitmap digital material and a denser feel to it. Unlike Ersatz, Autonymus is not meant to be an overt semi-meta fiction. It’s not exactly pixel art, but the pixels are just about visible, as the intention is to create a digital expressionist depth to the setting. Although it’s still stylized and not realistic to our world, I definitely still want to evoke semblances of our world. That’s why there’s attention to landscape, plant life, and implied life beyond what you see in the frame with the characters, etc. But I'm still making a cartoon, and I still want it to feel at ease with itself being a digital material work. Characters are therefore flat, simple, stiff, and the speech style is like a bad Shakespeare parody. I like to balance between ugly and appealing, simple and complex, familiar and unfamiliar.
In regard to things like inspiration, references, and my relationship to aesthetic genres; these things certainly factor into my work, perhaps I'm even overtly dependent on them. My work can definitely be post-modernist in method; creating new, ironic, or fragmented interpretations through deconstructing a mix of various styles or methods. But at the same time, I'm still trying to make a digital gestural representation where the aesthetic is driven by my relationship to the software and techniques directly—not simply in an attempt to reference a style. For example, I like drawing lines in sweeping strokes, not to a point of geometric perfection, but just in a way where the curves are smooth and simple. But if I want perfectly curved or straight lines, I'll use the vector tools.
Working this way, you can sort of learn why certain styles and design choices in past vector aesthetics were made, as they would have also needed to make similar choices. That’s why I’m more mindful of using digital material specificity as a foundation to build narrative and subjects upon these days.
For example, genre references like cyberpunk clichés for #cyberhell or late medieval design for #autonymus or 2005 to 2015 era subculture fashion for #gradientgoblinz.
I think it’s important to take inspiration and reference from a wide variety of sources, but I think they’d mean nothing without having something to say or express. Autonymus, although it is a collection of tropes and clichés, isn’t just about that. It’s a story about the tensions of socially constructed systems and how that shapes faith, technology, and the natural world, or at least that's what I'm aiming for anyway.
But despite all that, I think there’s a danger of locking myself into the past by using these methods. For example, using nostalgia and references to past aesthetics can result in just recreating the past in a form of role-play. To avoid that, I try and evoke the past through a messy, inaccurate pastiche rather than caring to accurately re-enact anything. I’m probably not always successful at communicating the deliberateness of this, and it can certainly get very frustrating and pedantic. To be honest, I do kind of hate aesthetic labels (terms like Y2K, global coffee house, utopian scholastic designs from a pre-9/11 world).
I do not believe that a project aimed solely at mapping history through aesthetic styles is worthwhile. Sure, they can be handy for organizing style trends, but they can also be reductive and ahistoric. Who are these people to define the history of these design eras? The result is a kind of suffocating simulation of design history but removed from context, perfect for moodboardism. I wish it felt more tongue-in-cheek, less absolute of itself in its own practice. Instead, it acts to legitimize and engender those making these labels, almost giving them ownership of the design styles. It’s similar to the logic and process of generative AI and its databases in a way, just done manually.
I’m very inspired by artists like Oneohtrix Point Never in this regard, as I think he’s able to create an aesthetic portal to all kinds of memories, feelings, and worlds reminiscent of the past, while still being in the present. It’s more a reflection of how timelines are messy now, like a memory or dream, rather than an audacity to say the past was actually like that, or to try to actually map some kind of timeline.
I think the benefit of this process is how it avoids the other side of the spectrum—being locked into chasing the cutting edge of digital processes. I don't necessarily think using an old digital process means your work inherits the semiotics of old aesthetics. Non-digital mediums don’t have this issue to this degree, as you can still paint in oils and be considered contemporary, or at least it's not frowned upon to such a degree. And I also don't think anyone in the heyday of Flash ever made work the same as I do, especially as computers are more powerful now so can handle more. I probably shouldn't boast too much about that though, as artists at the time probably just had more sense than to use Flash like a painting program! So then, why is my use of Adobe Animate critiqued as obsolete and an aesthetic dead-end? Because to whose standards is this process obsolete? If you value digital aesthetics as an apparatus in industry practice, then sure, my work is redundant.
But as wonderful as the latest tech can be in creating new aesthetics, I do feel it can be overtly dependent on the trends and directions of tech corporations, and therefore act as an indirect propaganda tool to their hegemony over digital aesthetics, such as the ever-demanding processing power needed for simulated realism. If anything, work that does follow in the direction of the latest tech trends is ironically the quickest to date once the trends move on.
I've noticed I've not really described what my work is about, just the process, in this text. But I don't know, maybe I like Flash because it is regarded as redundant. No one really cares about it, so I feel free to make whatever I want, and can decide on form myself, to my own standards, the quality of my work. As fun as making images is, I find it difficult to put into words what it is exactly I'm expressing in my work, and perhaps that would spoil it anyway.
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He has traveled around the worlds and collected many memories and keepsakes. He made many friends along the way while he did both mundane and epic heroic things. And in every town there was another lover (or two) to be left behind.
You all know we're talking about Icarus Ibarra, Iker for friends (and he has many - one cheerful introduction and you're BFFs). His recent adventures made him realise that it might be time to settle down. And that doesn't mean he won't be going from world to world anymore. He will, he'd just prefer to do it with that one special someone by his side. And what better way than to find that someone in style?
Watcher Studios Inc presents...
SUBMISSIONS ARE CLOSED More info under the cut.
We probably don't really need to introduce our bachelor, but here's a quick recap:
Full name: Icarus Nicodemo Ibarra Reyes Age: 28 (young adult) Traits: Romantic, Music Lover, Bro, Active, High Metabolism Aspirations: Party Animal, Romantic Explorer Likes: Activities - Dancing, Fitness, Gardening Guitar, Handiness, Mixology, Photography, Snowboarding Colour - Blue, Green, Yellow Music - Alternative, Latin, Latin Pop, METAL, Singer Songwriter We're not sharing compatibility likes/dislikes or turn-on/turn-offs (TOTOs), because that would take the fun out of the challenge.
In case you're not entirely up to speed on Iker's previous adventures, you can find them here.
Still interested? Good. If you want to apply, these are the essentials:
Read the rest of this post carefully. If you still want to enter your Sim after reading, then comment that you want to submit a sim.
I've made another post that further specifies some choices you have. I'm asking you to prepare this before submitting your Sim. That will make it easier for me to play it out when it comes up in my game. I know it looks like a lot, but all you need to do is make a Sim, dress them nicely and make a few choices. Then I'll do the hard work.
This is The Grand Scheme. Save the link, it'll be handy when you create your Sim. And even if you do not intend to submit a contestant, I don't mind sharing my nefarious plans ;)
There's a maximum of 12 participants (and a minimum of 7 or it'll mess up the schedule), first come, first served. One of these spots has been reserved for @zosa95. Because, if I hadn't submitted Iker's sister Neia to Branson's Bachelor Challenge, I would not have had Iker. It seemed only fair to do this in return.
Practical considerations:
No CC (minor exceptions: x and x)
I have all packs except Batuu. As for CAS Kits, I only have Simtimates and Moonlight Chic.
You will need Growing Together and Lovestruck for the personality likes and TOTOs. If you do not have these packs, you can still participate. You just need to let me know how you want to fill these and I can set them for you once your Sim is in my game.
1. Requirements:
Age: Young adult (give a 'real life' age if you like, anything from 18 to 30 is acceptable).
Gender: Male or Female.
Pronouns: No custom pronouns that are intended to be silly (such as 'His Evil Highness' or 'Her Colourful Ladyship' or whatever you would use to refer to your favourite pet (or Sim)). This is basically to prevent me from making mistakes while posting. Too many different pronouns and it's gonna go wrong at some point. Please use something short (and easy to remember).
Sexual Orientation: Must be romantically attracted to and interested in woohoo with men (whatever else you check, is your choice).
Romantic Boundaries: Set them as you like, Iker's player trait should overrule it (if not, I'll set everything to no jealousy).
Occult: Human preferred. No Werewolves, Vampires or Aliens (Iker is still processing the Moonwood adventure, which also made him hate vampires. After StrangerVille, though unfounded, aliens are bit of a touchy subject too).
Traits: Bro and Unflirty are not allowed (there's a rule about bros, and unflirty will just make it incredibly hard for your Sim).
Likes/dislikes:
No more than 2 music likes (because those still dominate wants).
Decor and Fashion are optional (i.e.: Dream Home Decorator and High School Years are not required).
Conversation Topics and Sim Characteristics are required to be set.
TOTOs:
Way of Life and Characteristics are required to be set.
Romance styles: 2 turn ons and 1 turn off, the other 2 will be neutral (I'll do this for Iker too, for a more interesting experience).
Hair Colour: Black hair turn on is advised.
Outfit colour/Fashion categories are optional.
Your Sim can be CAS created or born in game, skills are allowed, there won't be skill based challenges. They can have additional self-discovery traits if you've played them. However: the romance skill and hidden woohoo skill are banned (Iker doesn't have those either, yet) and charisma is capped off at lvl 3.
Fame is not allowed - I'll just keep all Sims out of the spotlight.
2. Outfits:
There will be lots of themed parties, outings and dates, so I've got an entire outfit scheme set up. To give you a chance to express your Sim's personality through their outfit choices (and get creative with NoCC CAS).
First, look up the outfits on The Grand Scheme. Then choose one of the following:
Easy Street: Set your Sim's standard oufit for each category, copy it to all listed slots. Then adjust the two mandatory second outfits.
The Middle Road: Do as above, adjust any other oufits you like.
All the Way: Set all oufits as requested.
Know that not all of these outfits will be used if your Sim is eliminated early on. But hey, at least you'll get a nice NoCC lookbook from it! Another thing to keep in mind (though entirely optional), the show (mostly) takes place in Ciudad Enamorada and Oasis Springs in Spring and Summer. So, big fluffy sweaters might look a bit out of place. If you accidentally use an item from a Kit that I do not have, I will try to replace it with something similar. If you do not set outfits for the themed activities, I will dress your Sim as I see fit.
3. Dates:
For three of the dates, there's a choice to be made by the contestant. Look this up in The Grand Scheme and let me know through DM what your Sim would choose for their perfect date(s).
4. One Final Question:
In case your Sim is eliminated, should they:
be returned to you (I'll save your Sim after elimination and upload the tray files and send you a private link);
live on in my save file;
be deleted;
remain in limbo forever (I'll store the tray files somewhere)?
Not answering this question defaults in the last option.
I know this is a lot. I hope you are not deterred by it. I just want to do something interesting with the new date system. And then this massive plan formed and now I'm stuck with it.
Anyway you have at least until 21 September 2024 to submit your Sim. If you need more time, or I'm not ready with the preparations, that date may move to somewhere in October.
Let me know in the comments and/or through DM if you want to submit a Sim. I'll put your name on the list. If I've added your name to the list and you no longer can/want to submit a Sim, let me know. There might be someone else who can take your place.
If you have any additional questions, do let me know. (if you think I've made any weird typos, let me know as well. I've checked the post a several times, but something might still have slipped).
Thanks for reading and I hope you're as excited about this as I am!
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Hey im @holmsister tumblr is tumbling as usual.
About the Maizuru complaint and bad faith interpretation: I feel the same way about POC in this fandom. I didn't really engage in fandoms that have many canon POC because most of my reading in the last years has been historical and classical European lit and nonfiction so like. The racism is baked into the source so to speak. AND im super white so im not going to try and speak out of turn. But moving into a fandom for a recent work of art in which there are important characters of colour has been... enlightening (derogatory). Also not naming names, but the way white characters are extended grace for things the POC are criticised extensively is... enlightening (derogatory). Maizuru, being at the intersection of being a woman and POC, is obviously going to get the brunt of it. Especially because yeah, she's not exactly a pleasant character - yeah, the way she treats the other retainers is not nice. But she is basically a sex slave. Like we can mince our words as much as we like, add in everything about how she is clearly being well-treated and not resentful, etc etc, but she's there to entertain Nakamoto and she can't say no if he comes to her room. All of her privileges are dependent on her pleasing him. That doesn't mean that she can't be abusive in her own right - but like. How old was she when she was taken in by Nakamoto? She's been around since Toshiro was little, remember? Hell, her obsession with being a good retainer with Toshiro might be a way to safely "escape" Nakamoto - after all, if she's following Toshiro around, she's not in her parlour waiting for his father's next visit, and if Toshiro, who has no interest in her, became the next head of the household, she would be allowed to live out her last years in peace. Like this is speculation of course, but it's based on what we know of the character in much the same way any other speculation is - I'm choosing to give her the benefit of the doubt the same way I do for example Laios choosing to join the army.
Sorry for the vent, it's just. The complexity of the characters is a good thing! Stop trying to find a bad guy, you're missing the point! (And showing your ass in the process). everyone has complex motivations!
Truly, people hate nuance and it seems like internalized misogyny and racism amplifies that.
I feel like at least for the racism one there's more awareness and people speak more about it? But I usually see misogyny arguments being dismissed a lot more so I got specially angy at it.
I guess I wanted to find a reason outside misogyny to justify how people treated these character's cause I've seen lots of people being mad about that before about other characters and even thinking myself "It's surely not that bad/widespread, this character is the one that sucks" but when you have a more general view of reactions it becomes painfully obvious.
Thankfully I didn't see the racism against Toshiro (maybe cause I barely post about him) but I can only imagine.
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hey, i see you have been answering!! so i just wanted to say i LOVE your art, i just love how effortlessly swift your lines look + i enjoy the colors you use.
i was wondering if you had a specific process when rendering the artwork cuz i would be interested&honored to see/know!!!
much love and have a nice day!
Hi anon and thank you!
Here's the general workflow of how I colour in CSP. I usually spend most of my time on lineart, as I enjoy it most, so I keep my rendering simple. Sometimes I skip some of the steps below :)
Step 1: flats. I add a 'Multiply' layer on top at 10-20% opacity and fill with single colour, usually peach-y one since I like my colours to be warm.
Step 2: gradients. Here I add some variation to the flat colours. I use airbrush for this, or sometimes low-opacity brush that allows colour mixing (Magda). I add blush and gradients to hair and clothing using similar but darker colours.
Step 3: shadows. I use solid round brush (G-pen) and just block in shadow areas on a separate layer set at 'Multiply'. Sometimes I use different colour for skin/clothing/hair.
Step 4: smooth parts of shadow where needed. Not all shadows are sharp and I use Blend tool to soften some areas.
Step 5: adding colour variety. Essentially, I improvise and play with adding different colours until I like it (or hate it and delete everything). I use 'Soft light' and 'Hard lights-out add different colours, usually with airbrush. And add accents (reflections) on 'Overlay' layer.
Hope it helps! Here's the time-lapse:
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Hello! I have a fantasy story in early planning stages; it relies a lot on fantasy trope subversion, so I gave one of my main characters the typical 'over the eye' facial scar with the intent on approaching it as realistically as possible. As such, the character has lost that eye. During the story, the character heals from the trauma that caused the scar/eye loss. I would like to physically show that process in connection to the scar/lost eye; the current plan is to switch from a pitch black eye prosthesis (symbolizing anger at the world, intended to make people uncomfortable) to one with flowers (very personal motif, symbolizes renewed love for the world and the life he has, partly gained through that trauma). However, I've been iffy on that from the start, since it's not very realistic and falls into some tropes. The character does not hate himself or his scars, but I feel like with the current set-up it would be too easy for readers to make that assumption; he has a congenital limb difference he has a normal, healthy relationship with and I'm planning on incorporating more characters with facial differences, but I'm unsure if it's enough to mitigate the issue. I'm also worried that the lack of realism may alienate readers with missing eyes/facial scars, which is the last thing I want. Is there a way to physically show this trauma healing process as connected to his scar/lost eye that is more realistic and less trope-y? Or should I drop the idea altogether?
Hello!
It's great that you're wanting to incorporate more characters with facial differences and approach it realistically. The main thing that stands out for me is them starting off with the pitch black prosthetic and actively wanting to make people uncomfortable.
There's already a lot of stigma around people with visible disabilities, especially limb and facial differences, and perpetuating that stigma in a narrative about a character gaining acceptance of their differences doesn't feel quite right to me.
That said, there are certain characters that this trope could potentially work with. Take a character like Wednesday Addams, for example. Her entire character is based around the 'other' and she has strong interests in the macabre, strange, and unusual. If she were to lose an eye, a reaction like this wouldn't be out of character for her.
Another thing to consider is that the first prosthetic eye most people get is rather ordinary in appearance. Custom prosthetic eyes are available but they are (Caps) EXPENSIVE (End Caps) and, in a lot of cases, insurance* is fairly picky about which eyes to cover. Many insurance providers will consider anything custom made or even just somewhat unusual (Such as the pitch black eye here) to be purely cosmetic in nature.
Personally, I think there are better ways to go about this in a way that's more realistic and doesn't alienate your readers with low vision and/or facial differences.
One way you could do this is by having your character start out hiding their missing eye with a very ordinary prosthetic, maybe one that very closely resembles their original eye colour and matches their remaining eye. As they grow more comfortable and begin to heal from the connected trauma, they might begin to play around with different prosthetics and start to have some fun with it. If they're able to financially, they might get a custom prosthetic! This could be where your flower patterned prosthetic comes in.
There are ways to keep the essence of the character's journey and development while still keeping with realism and not playing into the stigma against people with facial differences.
Cheers,
~ Mod Icarus
Just hopping in to say that you really don't need to give your character a prosthetic that makes others uncomfortable, 99% of people are already uncomfortable with facial differences existing.
If anything, an aesthetically pleasing cosmesis would make others more comfortable. In my experience, these (ridiculously expensive) prosthetics tend to have more of a "wow! so cool!" effect, while a person with an empty socket tends to be seen as "gore" or just simply "disturbing/gross". One is frequently seen as a fashion accessory, the second is a disability that's a bit too visible for most people's liking.
That is, of course, if your intent is to write a character with a plotline that centers on how uncomfortable able-bodied people are with visible disabilities - if you don't want to tackle that, you should probably leave it out.
mod Sasza
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Tbh i really hate when ppl act as if Jiang Cheng was "rotten from the start" and never actually cared about Wei Wuxian as a brother. Like, in the latter's case we can see he cares very much but that care is very much mixed in with many negative feelings, it's like when you love someone but they hurt you but you still love them, you want things to go back to the way they were before but they can't and they won't. On the former it's pretty much canon that he was an ok if high strung young man and losing everyone he ever loved in very close proximity to each other is what made him be the way he is today, he's not evil (he'd be hotter if he was) he's just angry and bitter for very valid reasons
I think it takes an extreme case of Protagonist Bias to think that. And not even following the actual protagonist's thought process - just being biased on their account in some sort of a projection. Kids these days got to used to having their bad guys colour-coded.
People are so desperate to cast a villain to the Happy Couple they will grasp at any straw to justify their opinion. They will ignore every piece of text that explains in detail why things are happening and why he's acting the way he is - even to the point of ignoring the protagonist explaining what happened and how. They will literally ignore the protagonist they're wanting to stan just so that they can have their villain. Wei Wuxian needs to be massively nerfed and woobifed for the whole shitshow to start making sense. Literally, a man with no agency! Poor helpless victim! The poorest little baby, no one suffered as he did!:(
Meanwile, Jiang Cheng's biggest sin in the novel?
He's not nice.
That's it. He tried to protect Wei Wuxian from his mother. He did all he could to bring Wei Wuxian home after the war against his best interests. He walked away from Lan Zhan being a dick when he could have easily caused him problems. He only ever fought Wei Wuxian when it was either staged or he was attacked first (in the much brought up ancestral shrine scene that people don't seem to have actually read).
But he's not nice about it. He's not even stoicly stiff like the ever-amazing Lan Wangji (who only ever cared about one thing in his life, and it's the man he wanted to fuck roughly in the bushes-_-).
It was barely a decade from having his whole extended family horrifically murdered, so obviously he should be fine by this point. (We can ignore the main plot of the decade-in the making-revenge-plot, that's not important, that's not a theme at all!) At least he should learn to repress his trauma! Because that ended great for the protagonist, right?:)
You need an intense case of lack of comprehension to miss the fact that, until the very moment of the Core Reveal, every bit of information Jiang Cheng had available to him pointed directly to Wei Wuxian being at fault for the tragedy his life became. The only doubt cast upon that conclusion was the spark of love that he could not kill. JC trusted Wei Wuxian for as long as he could. He trusted him - against a myriad of signs that he maybe shouldn't have - until the man killed his brother in law.
That's where any sane person would stop and reconsider.
And yet he was still willing to be convinced otherwise - until his sister died in his arms.
Like, this is what it took for JC to snap.
If someone says that Jiang Cheng was "rotten from the start" that only tells me they have skipped the whole fourth of the book that tells us in detail why Jiang Cheng wasn't a bad kid and how much he loved his family and Wei Wuxian. It tells me that they are here only for the romance and can't see anything else, certainly not character development (why would they? Wanxian don't develop throughout the story in any impactful way except of "oh, hey, we can be together and not care about anyone else - just like we did it before, but now with fucking included!"). It's like people who don't read books cannot comprehend the fact the author thought about this shit and put it there on purpose. It's not something that just happened to fill the pages between the Romance bits for the word count. That's, like, the actual meat of the story? These people have the critical thought capacity of a fucking tiktoker-_-
The author is telling us: look at these kids that were raised in a broken family and how it affects them as teens and young adults. How it affected their relationships with the people they love and demolished their self-worth. Look how a broken family can leave it's children scarred for life!
The idiots online: one is an innocent angel that never did anything wrong and the other an evil, selfish and hateful brat, got'cha! I am very smart!
-__-
#i said what i said#mdzs#jiang cheng#wei wuxian#getting tired of people who can't comprehend plot more complicated than a 4-panel cartoon going 'you didn't read the novel!'#as if that means their shitty takes have any relationship with reality#there we go
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Hello! I really enjoy your posts they are really nice to read or re-read! I was wondering if you could do Fyodor headcanons (you could add chuuya dazai and more if you’d like) but fyodor x Gn!reader headcanons and how they would get ready for the holidays? Maybe make gingerbread houses or set up lights together? Feel free to ignore! :3
your ask just made me realise how close Christmas is goddamn~ I loved writing this. hope you like it anon♡♡
🎁
𝑫𝒂𝒛𝒂𝒊, 𝑭𝒚𝒐𝒅𝒐𝒓, 𝑨𝒏𝒈𝒐 𝒙 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓
𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆: fluff♡/ silly
°☆○
𝑭𝒚𝒐𝒅𝒐𝒓
☆ I'm gonna start off my saying that Fyodor most likely isn't particularly interested in the winter holidays, but he enjoys spending time with you. as long as he sees you smile, he's happy
☆ he's a big fan of baking; gingerbread, cupcakes with white and red frosting, deer shaped cookies. he loves it. although he doesn't always get involved, he spends hours on end by your side in the kitchen
☆ as for lights I think he likes those simple golden fairy lights; the flashy ones exhaust him fr
☆ hates to admit but he lowkey enjoys christmas movies; there's something extraordinary soothing about watching those sappy, same script films. it's a break in his routine
☆ I see him playing christmas music on the cello; but don't make him listen to commercial songs on the radio, he'll throw it out of the window
☆ he tells you stories about Russian christmas traditions or any other culture really
☆ he loves cuddling up to you under fluffy blankets while you two enjoy a cup of tea
☆ he's a sucker for the scent of oranges and cinnamon, so he'll buy some scented candles and place them around the house
𝑫𝒂𝒛𝒂𝒊
★ you guys know those advent calendars with little chocolates for each day of December? yea, he has one of those
★ Dazai has never had the luxury of doing such mundane things as a kid; the Port Mafia isn't exactly a place to celebrate Christmas. so he puts a lot of effort into everything
★ loves to hang colourful lights around the house and other little ornaments (striped socks, christmas globes with that fake, glittery snow)
★ one evening he shows up with cookie shapes and asks you to make gingerbread with him
★ a marathon with Christmas movies is a must; you two sprawled on the bed with a mug of hot chocolate while the films roll in the background
★ he kisses you under the mistletoe every morning to "practice for the Christmas evening kiss"
★ he definitely wears a santa hat or reindeer horns while decorating the house. and knows "All I want for Christmas is you" by heart (it started off as a joke but he can't stop)
★ keep the mulled wine away from him
𝑨𝒏𝒈𝒐
☆ because of work he's often too busy to help you decorate the place, but his heart swells with joy when he comes home one evening and finds your shared apartment nicely adorned with lights
☆ I feel like he also prefers more dimly lit lights, or even candles
☆ does his best to find time to bake something with you. he's a big fan of Panettone and sweetbread with sugar frosting
☆ buys you early presents for sure, to compensate for his absence
☆ look me in the eye and tell me this man doesn't wear fuzzy Christmas socks
☆ loves listening to jazzy music while you two spend time together. period
☆ he may not be that involved in the decorating process, but he does spend Christmas with you and does most of the cleaning after
#bsd#bungou stray dogs#bsd x reader#bsd fluff#bsd dazai#dazai osamu#dazai bsd#bsd headcanons#bsd x you#dazai x reader#fyodor x reader#bsd fyodor#fyodor dostoyevsky bsd#fyodor x you#ango x reader#ango bsd#ango sakaguchi
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The broken family bond between Harry and Petunia!
wow while usher was dancing his socks off at half-time you were thinking about petunia dursley née evans' malicious treatment of everyone's favourite grouchy knobbly-kneed jock... what does this say about you anon? look inwards
i feel terrible that i do not have too many thoughts about the broken family bond between harry and petunia but i DO have thoughts about what harry represents as a challenge to the nuclear family unit and its associated class connotations that petunia cares so much about. one thing i have been thinking A Lot about recently is petunia's description of snape as 'that awful boy' in ootp (which ofc, at the time, harry thinks is a reference to james), and how petunia's ideas about class and social mobility colour her view of wizards and, by extension, her resentment and contempt for harry. sooo i have talked about that instead......... ctrl + f neoliberal renders 2 results below i'm so sorry
when we meet petunia in the canon timeline, she's a parody of a tory home counties suburban housewife, striving middle class in the very thatcherite neoliberal sense, all about the house prices and the pension pot, with her perfectly maintained peach home decor and pristine garden, with a husband who has made his money through a managerial position in industrial manufacturing, who sends her son to private school and monitors the material wealth of her neighbours and associates very acutely. we know that young petunia wanted to join wizarding society and was rejected by it, and we know that adult petunia now holds wizarding world and its culture in open contempt. we particularly know that petunia hated snape, and that, other than lily, snape was the first wizard she ever really met. to young petunia's eyes, snape had all the visible markers of poverty and of being working class ("They live down Spinner’s End by the river," she told Lily, and it was evident from her tone that she considered the address a poor recommendation.') nevertheless, by virtue of being a wizard, this shabby poor-looking boy was elevated above petunia as something particularly special, and sneered at petunia as lesser than him as a result. i think this is interesting, because i think young petunia processes her rejection from magic by starting to think of magic and wizarding culture as a perverse subversion of the class system she knows and believes in, where a visibly working class person can somehow be special and worthy. (we can speculate what she would make of james potter as her son-in-law - james, while obviously wealthy, is old money posh coded - he doesn't work for a living! - aka not at all invested in the hard-work discourse, keeping-up-with-appearances that the new money suburban types that petunia strives for).
why does this matter? i just think it's very striking that petunia's complaints about harry are so often expressed less in terms of the danger of his magic, than his threat to external perceptions of her and her family, and, especially, as a challenge to their class position
petunia makes critiques of harry's messy appearance, his misbehaviour at primary school (caused by his magic), his association with the criminal (sirius black) and the shabby (the weasleys), and his refusal to respect or show any deference to vernon and the family despite their great attempts to maintain the trappings of respectability. the particular horror of harry's presence in the dursleys' life, in petunia's mind, is that his existence makes her family an alternative blended family, which compromises all that petunia holds dear in terms of the trappings of middle class respectability that puts a great deal of social capital on the nuclear family unit and no deviation from it. i don't mean to suggest petunia only perceives magic as a class threat, or that she doesn't fear harry's magic as something dangerous. her response to dudley's dementor run-in proves how much she fears what magic can do (and, ofc, she knows what happened to lily). but what's striking in DH is that petunia is still umming and ahhing, as vernon is, about whether to go into hiding. unlike movie!petunia in that deleted scene, book!petunia still isn't convinced about 'what these people are capable of'. for this reason, i think petunia has come to think of wizarding culture in terms of a fundamental challenge to the class system she understands and upholds, and to the primacy of middle class new money neoliberal suburban identity that is petunia's entire worldview. and that's really the source of her beef with harry: not his threat to her safety, but to her class identity, which is adult petunia's whole world.
#petunia’s favourite usher song is love in this club#meta#the dursleys#petunia dursley#banging on about class again i am SO sorry
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some musings about character dynamics going forward (and s2 introspective)
This is a long post because I have a lot of thoughts about this.
For the record: I did like S2 a lot. But I want to specifically talk about character relationships and dynamics which is one department where it was lacking in comparison to S1 imo (with the notable exception of Sauron/Celebrimbor). I find it interesting that S2 has been praised by some demographics and corners of the internet that hated on S1 and I do worry about what that might mean for the direction of the show but I'd rather focus on the storytelling. So let's go into that a little bit.
Season 1 vs. Season 2
The writers were clearly cooking something in S1 with all the different interactions: Elrond/Durin, Elrond/Galadriel, Galadriel/Sauron, Nori/Gandalf, Nori/Poppy, Míriel/Galadriel, Arondir/Bronwyn (RIP), Elendil/Isildur etc. It's what I loved most about the show. So many colours of friendship, mentorship, adversity, bonding. S2 gave us that with Sauron/Celebrimbor in a very twisted version and, to a lesser extent, Míriel/Elendil with chaste romantic implications. The rest was more surface level or under-written (including Valandil's exit and his quasi-parental relationship with Elendil or Kemen and his relationship with Pharazôn and so many other dynamics that needed time to breathe, although what we got there was good, don't get me wrong; and Durin III/Durin IV were the parental exception here, continuing their strong fraught father-son dynamic, the best scene of which is still the one in S1 where he strips him off his rank imo but the S2 finale coming in a close second). But back to the main point, I found this most egregious with Elrond and Galadriel where I liked the resolution and the basic tenets of the conflict but don't think they nailed the tone of their exchanges except perhaps in the boat workshop and then in Robert's brilliant silent acting in the finale.
Elrond and Durin? Leaned heavily on the groundwork from S1 because they got one measly little scene and that despite canon (= the totality of Tolkien's written works) actually providing the writers with a very clear narrative template in this case, with the Dwarves securing Elrond's retreat from battle, something that I expected to be one of the defining emotional and epic moments of the show after S1. Instead it barely received any attention. I don't mind the twist of not arriving in time but having Durin not come at all very much felt like sacrificing character for the sake of subverting expectations.
Sometimes you do have to cash in on the groundwork you have laid and they did the opposite with essentially all of the non-familial relationships that had a lot of strong foundation-building in S1, only to find them borderline abandoned in S2. Payne & McKay had a line in their House of R podcast interview which gives me pause, where they said that they prefer switching up character pairings and it sounded more like a creative writing exercise than something strictly speaking dictated by the organic flow of things, although I like them so I will assume they meant the latter. By all means, do switch up character pairings – I for one can't wait for Galadriel and Gandalf to meet up! – but don't do it just for the sake of it. Don't fix what ain't broken and in the process, break the things that do work.
The Sauron/Celebrimbor scenes were excellently written and acted and even they felt truncated and in fact would surely have been even more impactful if we had seen more of Halbrand/Celebrimbor becoming buddies in S1. As it was, it felt more like an office romance with a psycho co-worker gone wrong than a betrayal of a genuine friend and it speaks to the strength of the actors that it still worked; but due to the distribution of storylines and narrative attention, it did feel (in this case and in other cases) like the writers did not tap into some of the deeper wells that they easily could have (if just given slightly more time or making different choices about the breadth of the storytelling). There are no shortcuts with character interactions, you have to keep building them and you have to focus on these connections and how they shape the actions of the characters.
Characters like Gil-galad who's been very much on the backburner for two (!) seasons now can't just be elevated to protagonist status out of nowhere in S3. I mean, I very much hope it happens, and different characters should get the spotlight at different times, but S1 managed its ensemble well and you had multiple meaningful, deep relationships (from scratch) and I don't understand how S2 failed to capitalize on that. It were mainly the new connections that popped. Sauron/Celebrimbor, Elrond/Círdan... but why not tap into the S1 relationships? We got good continuation with Durin/Durin, Durin/Disa and Míriel/Elendil, so close (quasi-)familial relationships basically where characters stayed close together geographically. That obviously makes sense. But travel isn't a real impediment on the show, to the point where some people complain about the logistics of it (which I personally don't care much about but distances shouldn't be arbitrary, of course, and ideally inform character interactions; so I enjoyed the Dwarves figuring into the Eregion storyline more strongly due to the proximity). And in any case, Elrond and Durin IV did meet, albeit just once, briefly.
If Elrond and Durin had gotten an actual heart-to-heart, like an actual conversation, perhaps even with a cameo from his children or Disa, instead of just a quick "hi and bye", that would have gone such a long way to reframing their experiences during S2 and would have worked as a mirror of their initial S1 setup – meeting again after having missed important events in each others' lives, bringing each other other up to speed, leaning on a friend to gather strength. (I would like to imagine they had that conversation and that it did play a role in Elrond accepting having to use Nenya in the finale – the moment felt earned but I have seen people question Elrond's trajectory and I can't blame them, when so much of it was only explicit at the start of the season. I understand that there was a certain urgency to the situation but you can also have an urgent conversation between them, e.g. as Elrond is already preparing to leave again, having made his request. So many things you could do. Although, to be fair, I don't want to overemphasize this point as it is fairly negligible in the grand scheme of how these arcs were set up for these characters this season.)
Galadriel and Adar meeting again was... okay but somehow also failed to capture what it would actually mean for them to go from animosity to reluctant allies. Galadriel had such a strong aversion to him in their barn scene but then when they meet again, all the tension... is muted? (I did like the very brief kinship over their experiences with Sauron, as well as the scene she had with Celebrimbor where they were allowed to feel a kinship over being victims of his manipulations – excellent scene, but just one scene and with not much to build on in terms of an established Celebrimbor/Galadriel friendship.)
Sauron and Adar not even having a single personal conversation/confrontation before Adar's demise was such a waste as well...? It's all perfectly set up but then... they go for the mirror image instead of an actual confrontation like the one that was teased/promised in episode 6 of S1? (And the promise renewed with the flashback at the start of S2.) The irony of Adar being killed by his own 'children' is not lost on me but surely there was more to it than that. The dynamic between Adar and Sauron, so brilliantly explored in the S2 premiere in the scene where Halbrand is held captive, deserved more realization on the part of Adar (in the moment of his death). This also, in fact, applies to Adar's realization that Halbrand is Sauron. Surely should have been an actual thing on-screen and not off-screen? How do you not seize on such a moment? Even if he suspected earlier, he must have had some moment of final realization and confirmation? If it really was only during his conversation with Galadriel, then what was it that tipped him off? It rather seemed like he already knew. Maybe he knew since ep 6 of S1. But it was crazy that they left his perspective on that unexplored.
The same goes for Mirdania being killed unceremoniously which served its narrative purpose but again prioritized a shock or twist moment (literally, twist of the hand) over centering the perspectives of the characters. It was all set up perfectly for a reveal, horror dawning on her as she realizes what she has done and whom she has served and... we just never got it. Not even from the guards who switch their allegiance back to Celebrimbor without us even getting so much as a reaction shot as they witness the scene between him and Galadriel that may have been enough to sway them. The issue isn't that this happens – the question is whether the show wants us to live with these characters in those moments and inhabit their mental landscapes or not; the more the show allows this, the more immersive it becomes, which, for a fantasy show, is the primary objective (think of the S1 scene where Galadriel enters the ship in Númenor and Isildur and the others stand in awe – there are ways to sketch these surrounding characters of a central interaction without taking too much time... and seeing more of a close-up look at the realization of these guards and their renewed loyalty would surely have heightened the impact of their subsequent murder, as well as, perhaps, clarified the spell they are under and why it allows Sauron to manipulate them more so than those who have not (yet) given themselves to his power.)
Gandalf and Tom Bombadil could have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship but instead the writers very much got it in their head that this had to be Luke on Dagobar training with Yoda (Payne & McKay explicitly state this in several interviews) and then when they realized in the edit that that wasn't working, they cut back on it. Which is fine, but it makes me question where they start developing these dynamics from, having certain situations or moments in their head and wanting to get to those instead of letting the characters themselves drive the story.
S1 was more of a slow burn but they did such a good job setting all these character dynamics up and right when it feels like things should start coalescing in S2, I felt like they were chipping away at their own building blocks instead.
Having said all of that (and I'm sure there's more to say but I'm not one to typically write meta), here's my thoughts on some dynamics that I would like to see explored or established further or that I just have thoughts on in any case:
Galadriel/Sauron
Let's start with the obvious one. I know some people are sick of it, while for others Haladriel is essentially the whole appeal of the show. For me it's neither – I mostly like how it's handled in the show and mostly dislike the discourse surrounding it (especially from the haters but also from the AI-crazed shippers; I know there are sane people on either side of the fence). Their fans got crumbs in S2 to the point that it felt cruel so I have no idea who the show wants to cater to post-S1 (marketing being its own, often misleading thing). It'd be crazy to me if they drop this dynamic altogether though.
Their conflict was personal from the start with the way it was tied to Finrod's death and Galadriel's quest to avenge her brother, but it's now personal for entirely different reasons. Namely her shame and his obsession, the flipside to her initial pride and his indifference (to the fate of any particular person, illustrated by letting the nice old man drown).
Both are rooted in the strange companionship they experienced: He was in her heart and she is on his mind. She would like to forget (how close he got) and he cannot (forget how close he got to a power heightened in the presence of her).
Surely there's still something there to mine. Whether it's them crossing paths as she goes further East to recuperate in what will become Lothlórien and him going on a roadshow to recruit Men for his Nine rings or whatever. Frankly, I want her to go to Lindórinand and start her journey of becoming more powerful in her magic. Sorcerer versus 'witch'? Yes please. Let it be all-out psychological war between them but let it be something.
Galadriel/Gandalf
I know that it seems like they've set up Gandalf for a conflict with the Dark Wizard (whoever he is; they are certainly still trying to be coy for some reason, saying stuff like "I don't see how he could be Saruman" – well, you're the writer, you tell me! lol). I would personally be very much in favor of him crossing paths with Galadriel. I think this is needed at some point and I'd rather they get to it earlier than later. Reason being: His purpose is to defeat Sauron. Her quest has been to defeat Sauron. He has the destiny, she has the drive. They can take baby magic steps together.
I did like the Stranger storyline in S1 but one thing that S2 failed to do, in my opinion, is actually giving Gandalf a strong feeling of who he is and what he is supposed to do, which is ironic given that this was supposedly his season of self-discovery (or at least him choosing his name at the end would imply as much). But really, what has he discovered? The mystics mentioned the name Sauron to him and then Tom Bombadil just laid it all out but do we have any sense of Gandalf actually knowing anything about Sauron beyond him being a vague evil force and feeling some type of way about it beyond his own general good nature?
If not through meeting Galadriel, Gandalf will have to face the consequences of Sauron's actions in some other way and the conflict will have to become more personal. Whether and how Tom Bombadil or the Dark Wizard figure into that is another question but I rather think Gandalf needs to become a person in his own right and not just a chess figure to be moved across a board.
Círdan/Gil-galad
Give them one meaningful interaction. Please, I beg of you. That's all.
Elrond/Míriel
Now, call me crazy but hear me out. I know S3 is probably about establishing Rivendell for Elrond and perhaps being drawn into the Dwarven succession drama. But I'm all for breaking up the isolation of storylines and I really rather want Elrond to make it to Númenor at some point. It's difficult to see how that would work once Sauron is captured and taken there (presumably at the end of S3), so part of me wants him to journey there as the herald of Gil-galad to try and open diplomatic channels and negotiate about the presence of Númenor in Middle-earth (see colonizing efforts by Kemen) as well as an alliance to defeat Sauron. This could then lead into Númenorean forces setting off to Middle-earth instead of a letter calling for help. I know this is rather out there but I want S3 to contain a flashback to Elrond and Elros and I want Elrond to meet Míriel and for her to be encouraged in her faith in the old ways because nothing good is coming for my girl and I want her to have that small comfort. (An Elrond/Elros flashback could also be a S4 opener, if that's the fall of Númenor season, but I rather think such an opener should focus on the people of Númenor while anything with Elros should be more about Elrond imo. There's nothing saying such a flashback couldn't open a S3 episode of Elrond going to Númenor. Doesn't have to be the season opener. For a S3 opener, maybe do a flashback with Gil-galad to the First Age. Or with Morgoth. Either or, for S3 or S5, however it relates best to the themes of those seasons.)
Elendil/Gil-galad
I think this might be something for S4, rather, since Elendil will presumably spend some time in S3 reconnecting with Anárion and perhaps, eventually, Isildur, though if the fall of Númenor is only at the end of S4, then that will only leave S5 to have any relationship between them, since obviously Elendil has to stay until the fall (not ready for the Míriel/Elendil tragedy... especially with his first wife having drowned...). Actually, maybe in the first half of S3 he can reconnect with Anárion and then in the second half through Elrond's arrival (that I'm willing into existence) and secret communications with Míriel learn about what's going down in Middle-earth and become a pen pal of Gil-galad or something. Or maybe they can zoom via palantíri. I have no idea but this is one of those relationships that the show really has to try and build up properly and not just toss in for the last season.
Sauron/Kemen
Time to start recruiting underlings and unlike many, I don't think you have to be cool to qualify for becoming a Ring-wraith. The more pathetic, the better. I wonder if Sauron will pose as the King of the Southlands again and how he will worm his way into the colonies if not through brute force, which he could, having access to Adar's orc armies now. It'll be interesting if he turns his persuasion on the son first and then in S4 on the father. He could also go East to duke it out with the Dark Wizard for a while but maybe that would be for the first half of the season. Whichever way I think about it, I feel like next season really needs to have more episodes and be one of two halves since there's so much for everyone to do, places to go, characters to meet.
Míriel/Eärien
Kinda burying the lede but my biggest disappointment with S2 was the relative lack of female characters and meaningful relationships for those we still retained. That was in part due to Bronwyn's departure but Nori and Poppy also had much less screentime and focus and characters like Míriel were much more tied to male characters unlike in S1. I do like Míriel/Elendil, just saying. They are now parted anyway and I hope we can see Eärien take on an interesting dynamic with Míriel, since she is not without empathy but torn between her allegiances. I foresee a bad end for her but I want her to go out fighting, maybe becoming a spy for the Faithful or in any case redeemed before the end. Unlike Kemen, who will surely not be redeemed and possibly even abandoned by his father to his fate, whatever that might be.
Celeborn
If he shows up, I want him to be a sweetheart. The ultimate wife guy. I have nothing against him or his inclusion, I just struggle to see how we'd have enough time to dedicate to his introduction to make it meaningful enough. And I don't think Galadriel needs a husband to be complete. That would be a bad look. On the other hand, if they handle it well, I wouldn't mind it, because I liked the way she talked about him in S1. But it's all a question of how it's framed narratively. Certainly, if anything, him showing up in her life should not "domesticate" her as some misogynists are hoping but rather empower her to become an even more assured independent figure.
Last Thoughts
I love Durin and Disa and the Dwarven storyline was one of the strongest in S1 and again in S2 (although I felt some redundancy there, but episode 5 handled it excellently, as did episode 8 with the beautiful payoff in the Balrog scene). However, the more I think about it, the more I feel like the Dwarves as well as the Harfoots need to take a backseat in S3. Unfortunately, the Dwarven storyline was the only one explicitly set up with mention of Durin's brother – okay, fine, introduce him if you have to but please do not do that to the detriment of the characters we already have and kind of desperately need to see interacting and growing if this show is to have emotional depth (and it showed in S1 and S2 that it can have that depth). Like, we have to go deeper, not broader. Stop expanding the cast, aside from minor characters who help populate the world and colour in some social white space. I like that we got Círdan this season and his interactions with Elrond were meaningful but since he's not part of the core constellation of the conflicts set up in S1, these types of additions run the risk of being novelty creations, meant to hype or appease lorebros in particular, without necessarily helping to advance the overall emotional arc. Now, it did work with Círdan, not least of all because Ben Daniels did excellent work, and Círdan has a role to play in the War of the Last Alliance, but I am a little apprehensive about the calls to add Celeborn, as mentioned, and Glorfindel. I do want to see the latter but leave it to S4 or S5. Concentrate on (1) Númenor, (2) Sauron's rise in Middle-earth and the opposition to his rise (by Galadriel, Gil-galad, Elrond), (3) Gandalf's mission intersecting with point 2.
That's it. That should be S3. The War of the Elves and Sauron. That's what should be reflected in the character dynamics. I hope we don't get ghost!Celebrimbor haunting Sauron, as I've seen suggested, much as I loved Charles Edwards' performance. An allusion is fine but let's keep it focussed on the living characters and how the events may yet shape their world. If anything, the overwhelmingly positive reaction to Sauron/Celebrimbor should show the showrunners that people are clamoring for juicy character drama and interactions, not necessarily action and battles. Put two compelling characters in a room and let them do their work, you don't need an expensive vfx extravaganza like the barrow-wights scene, you need to serve character and then, like in the Balrog scene, awesome effects can enhance that, but the emotional interest needs to be there and that's the first and arguably most important part. (Although, please, by all means, do continue with the awesome visuals!)
The plot should be exciting, of course, and I think this helped sharpen S2 towards the end with a sense of urgency and momentum that many enjoyed (myself included), but this only works so long as it is grounded in an emotional reality we can recognize amid heightened fantastical settings. I love this world and I love so many of the creative decisions Payne & McKay and the team have taken and I'm sure some restrictions (like the episode number) are somewhat out of their hands but I hope they can refine and remember the vision they had when they started S1 without it fraying at the ends or buckling under the pressure of former haters who don't even make up the majority of the audience nor were ever mature enough to articulate their hate for the storytelling choices in S1 beyond basic sexism/racism and a fundamental misunderstanding of themes that were dear to Tolkien. Adaptations always invite comparison and discussion but at the end of the day, The Rings of Power is a television series and while it does not have to – and in fact should not – bow to every trend and trope constituting what is seen as respectable "gritty" prestige TV, it should, in my opinion, strive to be dark, twisted, wholesome, whatever it wants to be.
Give me unexpected interactions, give me friendship, give me knights and queens and powers and magic, give me loyalty and deceit, light and dark, monsters and men, slow burn and pay off, arcs spanning seasons.
In short: Give me fantasy and give it to me raw. But give it to me like a novel that unfolds page by page, not something chopped up to make room for xyz demand from a focus group. I'm in it for the characters and what is true to them. I hope that center holds. The door for S3 is wide open in many directions for many of the characters, so I think it'll really be the season that makes (or breaks) the show. Even at its worst, I would probably still enjoy whatever they cook up, but part of me really wants to see them reach those higher dramatic heights (of character drama) that are right there for the taking.
Anyone agree or disagree? I ask, as if anyone has made it this far lol Well, thanks if you did, I guess I needed to get some things off my chest. Here's to hoping.
#the rings of power#rings of power#trop meta#rop meta#rop spoilers#midnight ramblings#... this got long#mainly i need s3 to do better by galadriel and arondir and a few other characters not even gonna lie#still love this show with all my heart#and feel good about its future
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