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back2bluesidex · 5 months ago

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Dear Darling - JHS [Chapter 1]

Pairing: Serpent king (imoogi)!Hoseok X Human!Reader

Theme: Angst, dark romance, smut, fantasy au.

Wordcount: 3.1k+

Summary: After his bride flees from his clutches and reaches the realm of mortals to reunite with her lover - Hoseok has no choice but to chase her. Upon his arrival to the land of obnoxious humans, he crosses paths with you. You are a small, driven mortal who walks with a load of despair on her back. You are nothing but a delicious meal to him and he wants nothing more than to suck your life out of you, find his runaway wife and return to his kingdom. But much to his dismay, you ruin his plans, make him do what he never imagined doing in 600 years of his life - like making him fall in love and keeping him bound to you.

Warnings: Toxic family dynamics, reader is depressed, mentions of self-harming and su*cide. NSFW!!

Accepting Taglist Requests.

A/N: Let me know what you think of it.

Prologue | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Epilogue

Masterlist | Patreon (Early access to the chapters)

People say snakes are the most poisonous creatures in the world.

They actually haven’t seen or met your family. For that, your own family members, your own blood, are the most poisonous creatures you have ever come across.

Your sister taps the butt of her fork on the glass table making an awful sound. Why is she doing so? Of course because she knows you have misophonia and these kinds of sounds trigger you badly.

“I should get going now” you announce, taking a last sip of your orange juice.

“Why so early, Y/N? It’s only ten in the morning!” your sister says in a whiney voice.

“I have work, unnie.” you reply calmly but don’t forget to emphasize ‘work’ because that’s something your sister lacks in life.

“Only if you listened to me and got married like your sister, you would be living a much more comfortable life.” your mother objects from the other side of the table.

“Mother, I am more comfortable in my lifestyle than I ever had the privilege of being. Yes maybe, I don’t have a hefty paycheck, or shiny cars like you all. But I earn, all by myself, and don’t have to beg my father or husband for parking fees.” The last part of your statement was directed to your sister.

She is way too proud of her beauty, her popular state among the wealthy-family-community. She often bragged about how she had thirty-two suitors at one time who were ready to bring her the moon if she had asked for it.

And she chose the most humble man among them (aka the wealthiest one).

Your sister scoffs at your accusations, “admit that you are jealous, Y/N. I at least have a husband who is ready to worship the ground I walk in. What about you? You are 28 and still alone? No one even approaches you since you decided to become independent. If I am not wrong, you had to buy yourself a cake this year on your birthday. Have you forgotten that already?”

Your grip on the glass goes tight at that. She is not completely wrong. You lost most of your friends one-by-one since you moved out of the house and denied inheritance over your father’s business. All of the guys who approach you knowing your family’s status are either unaware of your situation or just want to use your name as a pawn.

As a result - you are left alone.

Completely alone.

There are days when you think you should just end it all. Jump off a bridge and no one would actually care.

There are also days when you feel hopeful, when you like to believe that you, too, will find someone to love you, to call you their home.

There are days when you accept your fate of being alone. An unsupportive family, mean friends, unfaithful partners have already taught you enough lessons about how cruel life can be, so it’s better for you to just accept it all and move on - even though you hardly know where to move on, where to go, if there is anything to look forward or not.

“Move back to the house, Y/N. Listen to us and I promise I will revise my will.” Your father chimes in with his suggestion. His voice is so soft that anyone would think he is actually concerned about you.

But that’s a facade.

He only wants you back so that he can sell you off to a wealthy guy just like your sister. His business, which is a few steps away from being a conglomerate, will grow much faster. And that will be his key to more power, more money.

“If I had wanted your money from the start - I wouldn't have moved out in the first place.” you offer your final statement as you take your bag and storm out of the dining place, and then the house.

One more moment in this house with these people and you might kill yourself.

As if your family wasn’t enough to annoy you, now everywhere you look, all you see is: Couples.

Couples of various ages, various stages, but all lovey-dovey and cringey.

Reminding you how you are 28 and still so partner-less.

You usually love this little walk from the bus-stop to your workplace. You get to enjoy the fresh air, get to witness the changing colors of seasons, the setting-sun while coming back home and the stars if you end up over-working.

This is one of the few luxuries, feel-good materials that you allow yourself.

Other than these small things - there is hardly anything that excites you, makes you happy.

You shove your hands inside the pocket of your jacket and focus very little on your surroundings. Just when you are a couple of feet away from the building, you see a tall figure standing in front of the entrance, very probably, checking himself out in the glass exterior.

He is unfamiliar. So you initially decide to ignore him and walk past him to enter the building. But as you take a few more steps towards the man, you notice his side profile, his tall, lithe body, fitted dress suit and heeled boots.

Your breath gets stuck in your throat as you drink him in little by little.

He is immensely beautiful.

His chiseled jaw, perfectly mounted nose, sharp eyes, immaculately styled dark hair and full lips - everything makes him the most handsome man you have ever seen.

He is glistening in the sun.. as if there is an invisible outer layer added to his skin.

It’s not that you have never seen handsome guys - Kim Seokjin from the finance department and your uni friend Kim Taehyung are the epitome of beauty but you have never seen anyone as beautiful, majestic as this man.

You feel an instant, unexplainable pull towards him.

It’s something that drains all of your feminism out of your body. You want to walk up to him and sacrifice yourself on his feet even though you don’t know who he is.

Probably upon feeling your burning stare on his face, he turns his head to look at you. And he looks dead into your eyes. His stare is so intense that it feels he is reading you out like an open but untouched book.

You stand there dumbly, holding a boiling eye-contact with him, not knowing how to walk forward or how to even use your legs anymore.

The pretty heart-shaped lips of the man soon turn upwards, bending into a smile. A smile so beautiful, so addictive, so hypnotic that you find yourself gulping a lump that you never knew formed in your throat.

That’s when you realize that you are ogling at an unknown man like a creep. When men stare at you like you are their next meal in public places - you hate it. But the undeniable beauty of this has turned you into one of those people you hate.

So you gather your wits, look away from him and try to walk away from the man, only for him to stop you with his smooth voice, “Miss, are you an employee here?”

Your steps halt as soon as his words enter inside your ear. “Are you talking to me?” you ask dumbly. Of course he is talking to you, there is no one else close enough for him to direct his questions at.

But he seems to be kind. The man nods and murmurs a little, “yes”

“Yeah. I work here. Are you looking for someone?” you offer, trying not to choke on your own spit.

He steps closer to you, sun rays playing on his dark orbs.

Fuck! He’s even more beautiful up close!

“Not particularly. Can you, kindly, tell me where the executive office is?” He answers your query.

“Executive office?” you frown, “there is no such office but there is an entire floor for executives. Do you want me to take you there?”

“Yes. I’d be grateful if you would lead the way.” he replies softly.

Your heart leaps a little at his gentle voice. You can hardly remember when for the last time anyone has been this gentle to you.

Giving him a small smile you start walking towards the building.

During the small walk from the entrance to the elevator, the mysterious stranger gets all the attention of the spectators. You find some of the front desk employees squealing like high school girls.

Even though you cringe at such reactions usually, this one time you know it’s justified. You were very much spellbound a few minutes ago.

Thankfully the elevator is empty when you get inside it with the man following you closely behind. But all of your thankfulness vanishes as you stand there alone with the enigmatic man inside the metal confinement.

His fragrance envelops you.

Fuck. he smells so nice. You think. But it’s not the kind of smell that you usually get a whip of. Neither he smells earthy, nor like aftershave, nor he emits the strong manly fragrance.

He smells kinda sweet - no, not floral or fruity. It’s something you can’t quite explain. It’s hypnotic - dizzying.

“Are you here to see anyone?” You break the silence. Because you might faint from the overwhelming attraction that has started clouding your judgements.

“I am here to report to work, Miss.” he replies simply without even looking at you, while you are staring at his side profile as if he is one of those modern abstract arts pieces in art galleries that you find a hard time understanding.

“Report? W-who are you reporting under?” Is he reporting to someone from the executive floor? Then is he an executive himself? That makes sense because he is wrapped up in wealth from top to bottom - his suit dress, his shoes must cost six months worth of your paycheck.

“Min Yoongi himself.” he whips his head towards you and gives you one lopsided smile. All of a sudden your knees feel weak to withstand your own body weight.

You only nod, reluctant to say anything when he clearly isn’t much interested in conversing with you.

The fifth floor approaches, the elevator door opens with a ding.

“This is my floor, I must get to work now. You need to get out on the seventh floor. I have already pressed the button so you don’t have to.” you bow a little. When you stand straight you find him regarding you with those dark eyes. His irises are shining like black pearls.

“It was a pleasure to meet such a kind soul. Thank you for the help, Miss….” his sentence doesn’t end completely.

You take the hint and say while stepping out of the elevator door all while facing him, “Y/N. My name is Y/N.”

“Y/N” he says with a breathy voice. The fine hairs at the back of your neck stand in protest, “I am Hoseok… Jung Hoseok.”

“Hoseok…” You murmur under your breath, your heart rises inside your ribcage. Your chest feels tight, stomach feels light as you keep looking into his eyes until the elevator door shuts, parting you from the mysterious man who has very clearly encaptured you unlike anything you have ever experienced before.

Hoseok’s heeled boots clink against the expensive marbles of the executive floor. For a moment he dares to compare the interior decoration with his own palace. But the Mins would surely go penniless if they start decorating their office with the priceless stones and gold that serpent king Jung Hoseok’s palace boasts.

The receptionist at floor entry has shown him the way to Yoongi’s room and his super powers easily help him glide around the corridors without having to make him look like an unearthly creature.

So he finds the room rather easily.

He knocks before pushing the door to enter like the human he is pretending to be.

When Yoongi sees him, he stands up abruptly and bends half in a deep bow, “My king, you have arrived.”

“I have.” he replies, “so healthy, full of life and above all so pure, would make a perfect meal for me.” he speaks with a smile tugging at his lips as he recalls your face - a beauty indeed.

“May I have the pleasure of knowing what you are referring to, my king?” Min Yoongi gestures to Hoseok to sit down on the luxurious sofa before he takes a seat himself.

“I had the opportunity of coming across one of your employees. She lent one kind hand to show me the way.” Hoseok pauses and recalls your face, your eyes, the purity that spills through them, “I must admit, she is the purest creature I have ever found. You know Min, my lifespan can get longer with such purity. I need to feed on her, suck her sweet soul out of her body. Will you allow me to do so?”

A smug smile tugs at the corner of Hoseok’s lips. He knows there is no way his obedient servant will not allow him, he is just enjoying the flustered state of Min Yoongi’s pale face that his proposition created.

“Th-that goes without saying, My lord. You may do anything you please. This lowly creature is no one to object. However..” Yoongi bows his head a little more and continues, “May I ask who the employee is?”

“Her name is Y/N. Such a kind human she is. She lent me her lead and showed me the way around this building. But I could see her true self. How unhappy she is with the way this world works. So I have come to this decision of setting her free by feeding on her.”

The smile that now envelops Hoseok’s entire face is nothing but evil. Just the thought of having your soul and being able to live more, rule more already excites him.

He hasn’t felt this excited, enticed in a long time - not even when he found his perfect mate, Soojin. It was probably when he defeated the king of Gumiho and conquered his kingdom, that was the last time he vibrated with this much excitement.

Serpent king Jung Hoseok’s visit to the mortal world is going quite well so far.

“What do you think it is?” Segyeong asks from the seat beside you. You only shrug as a reply as you focus on the stage.

Every team lead and managers have received an email this noon informing that Min Yoongi has an important announcement to make. Hence, everyone who receives the email has to be present in the auditorium before 3 pm.

Since you are leading the strategic planning team of Min corporation - you were automatically invited.

You wait patiently as your colleague goes on and on about her boyfriend, his annoying habits and how much she loathes her life right now.

You are a good listener - you know. But there are occasions when you wish you could stop listening to everyone. You are their outlet, but who is yours? Who listens to you? Whose arms do you fall back on? To whom you go seeking warmth, some comfort? No one.

When will you have someone to love you? When will you fall in love?

Suddenly the question paints a very vague picture of someone in your eyes. It remotely looks like the man you met this morning. It remotely looks like Jung Hoseok.

You shake your head to get rid of the desire that has started bubbling inside your chest since the moment you have seen him.

All the chatters of the auditorium come to a stop when Min Yoongi walks inside the room and stands on the podium.

He clears his throat before starting with the announcement, “Good afternoon everyone. I hope your work has been going well. Today is a special occasion and even though I know it’s sudden, I couldn’t help sharing a very good news with you all.” he pauses for a brief second, as if scanning the room for once then he finally continues, “As you know, the position of Vice President is vacant for a couple of months now after Mr. Choi’s sudden demise. While the board of directors have tried to choose an eligible candidate to grace the position, there have always been one fall out or another. But finally we have come to a conclusion and chosen the next vice president of Min Corporation.” The room grows kind of loud with noises of surprise and whispers. You, too, can’t help but wonder who is going to be the next president. Segyeong is the office-gossip-queen. So, if there was an election going on, she would have known and naturally you would have known as well.

“However, the thing is that… he is not anyone from the company itself. He has been requested to take up the position because the Min Corporation you know would have been nowhere without his help. He is a close friend of mine, a mentor, a genius. Please raise your hand in applause and welcome your new Vice President Mr. Jung Hoseok.”

Your mouth opens on its own accord, your eyebrows shoot up to reach your hairline. Why hadn’t it clicked before? Hoseok said he is reporting directly under Min Yoongi! That definitely was enough of a clue.

Your brooding session comes to an abrupt halt when you feel Segyeong holding your arm in a vice grip threatening to cut blood circulation at any given moment.

“Fuck fuck fuck, Y/N! Who is this Greek god???” she squeals without averting her eyes from the stage.

A loud thunder of claps ring as you look at the man, now standing on the podium.

There he is, Jung Hoseok, standing as if he owns the world. His sharp features, expensive dress suit and million dollar shoes gleaming under the blaring lights.

“Good afternoon everyone. I am Jung Hoseok, and I am honored to be taking up the position of Vice President of Min Corporation. First of all thanks to Min Yoongi for thinking of me to be capable enough. Secondly, thanks to you all for joining me and accepting me. I am grateful to you all.” Hoseok dips his head in a small bow.

When he strengthens his posture, you find him looking directly at you, despite you sitting on the fourth row, despite the dim lighting of the seating area.

“Let’s get to know each other so that we get close.” he concludes his speech with a blinding smile. Something floods in your chest as you feel those to be oddly dedicated to you.

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anamericangirl · 4 months ago

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This is coming out of nowhere but I wanted to ask a Christian blog a question. I am a Christian. I just want to hear someone’s perspective/explanation on something. God created humanity with free will, because He wanted us to choose Him and not just be robots (as the analogy goes). But isn’t it a Hobson’s choice? Die to yourself but receive an eternity in Heaven vs burn in hell for all eternity. No one asked to be born, and yet everyone is given this ultimatum. Right? It’s technically free will and yet…I know as created beings we don’t get to say what’s fair and what isn’t, but this has been such a struggle for me in my mind. I know I sound a bit cynical right now. Maybe I just need some truth and encouragement.

You're definitely not the only one struggling with ideas like this and free will can be a challenging topic at times.

But no I don't think it's a Hobson's choice although I can see where you are coming from. This isn't a case of a choice between something or nothing, it's a choice between following God or not following God.

It's more like coming to a fork in the road and having to choose which way to go. You can go left or right. You only have two options but it's not an option between something or nothing, it's an option between two different paths.

We can't help or change the reality of the world we are born into, but we are still subject to the rules of the world we are born into and choice does exist in that world. We can make whatever choices we want, which is where the free will is, but what we can't choose is the consequences of those choices. And we are very blessed that God has already told us the consequences of choosing not to follow him.

Just because you have to make certain choices to get certain results or to get a certain place doesn't mean the choice doesn't actually exist.

Like, for example, let's say you want to go to the beach but there is only one road you can take that will get you to the beach. But even though you want to go to the beach you don't like to drive that road because it's long, there are speed traps everywhere and the traffic is crazy.

There's another road a short distance away from that road that is much more pleasant because the traffic is light, there are no cops on it and it's an easy drive but there's just one problem: that road will not take you to the beach.

You are still perfectly free to take that second road, but you are just going to have to be ok with not ending up at the beach because that road goes to a completely different location.

And that's more like what the choices are when it comes to free will. There are good choices and bad choices, wrong choices and right choices but still they are all choices you are free to make. At the end of the day, not all your choices will put you at the same destination, which is why it's important to use our gift of free will to follow God because that's not him just trying to give us the illusion of free will, he's literally given us the instruction Manuel that tells us how to use our free will to spend eternity with him. The rules he gives us aren't for his benefit, they are for ours. If we follow God it's going to make us to only be beneficial for us.

So you have the choice to ignore all this and do whatever you want but you just have to understand you are also choosing the destination this way.

You can choose God or you can choose to live your life separate from God and if you choose to live separately from God he will honor that choice and you will have eternity separate from him as well. And that's why hell is so bad. It's complete separation from God.

If you want to go to heaven and spend eternity with God there's only one way. Only one road will get you there. You are free to take other roads but they don't go the same place.

I hope that was helpful I feel like I went a bit all over the place.

#anon #answered

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mimicha-arts · 1 year ago

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Starry, Starry night

This new picture for the upcoming episode has been released, let's talk about it. Please remember, I live in delusion.

There are several posters on the wall, and the one next to Cheng Xiaoshi - 星空，refers to the film with the same title. Starry, Starry night is a 2011 Taiwanese drama based on a novel by Taiwanese author Jimmy Liao.

Hsieh Xin-Mei used to live with her grandparents up in the mountains. Then she moves to the city to live with her parents, but her family situation is not very good, and she tries to hide from reality in the world of her own imagination. One day, a new student was transferred to her school - a boy named Zhou Yu-Jie.

Despite the misunderstanding at the beginning, both of them are lonely and feel like outsiders in their own lives, befriending one another. When reality catches up, they try to escape to a world that belongs only to them, to see the stars. Do I have to tell you that this story is about grief and sorrows, "the end of summer", journey to adulthood, love across time and distance? About an accidental meeting and fate.

I think it's worth your time to watch, this film is very heartwarming.

You can read the full plot description on Wikipedia, although it will not convey the full meaning, since the film has many artistic images and interesting decisions that convey the story sensitively. If you want to watch it yourself, read no further.

Spoilers … And References. And some beautiful moments that make me THINK.

1. Time

One of the themes is time, the hands of the clock often tick in the background, and at some point the numbers themselves, which indicate train departures, not just stop - freeze.

18:42 - 18:50 - 18:55

Do I believe in coincidences? No.

2. Journey

Their path - an escape to their dream world - passes through a tropical wild forest. On their journey, they try, despite the difficulties, to find the right path to their dream.

Since s2e1, I've been thinking about how much the forest in the back of that vision, ED/OP, is a real forest, a real tunnel, not the symbolism of the "journey". But now, if such a choice is not accidental, I have received answers to my questions, at some point.

In fact, I lost my mind at the moment when they came to a fork in the road, they had to choose their path - they took the wrong path, and were forced to face the same choice, choosing a path, for the second time. Again.

But in the end, the path to the stars ends in a life-threatening situation where they have no choice but "return". Although they both know that this is the end for them, the end of their journey, and the end of their "summer".

3. Puzzles

This story is about art, not about photography, but about paintings and puzzles. Puzzles literally act as moments of remembrance. Although these are not burning photographs, deep in her sleep, Hsieh Xin-Mei follows the image of Zhou Yu-Jie in the night forest, and the entire world also collapses when the end comes.

When Hsieh Xin-Mei woke up from her dream, Zhou Yu-Jie was no longer here.

The search for the missing part for the puzzle based on the painting "Starry, Starry Night" - is fundamental, literally the core to the plot.

The connection of everything, through the years. It's like a promise, it's like an eternal memory of that time.

There are more things I could write about, but I don't want to make this post too long… Just. There is always something about stories with a sunshine-like person, curious, breaking boundaries, talking non-stop, and about a person who quietly looks at the first one, listening to everything with a smile. And it becomes life-changing. I would like to remind you that these are just my thoughts, I'm having fun, maybe seeing something that isn't there. We will see anyway.

But. For real. Put a detail like that into an episode and expect me to ignore it? No. Huh.

I'm just overthinking once again, but Interesting choice :)

#link click #shiguang dailiren #shiguang #mimicha.lc

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corellianhounds · 3 months ago

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I don’t want to have to write all the context and justification for the idea I have right now so I’ll just put this on the WIP stack (story of my life), but consider a Temporal Chalice storyline à la TAZ Balance. An artifact so powerful it holds command over time itself, confronting the cupbearer with their deepest fears, desires, flaws, and mistakes, and the ability to act on a crucial moment in the trajectory of their life, whether they realized it was crucial or not.

The chalice lies before them on a raised pedestal. The offer can only be accepted by one of them, and it comes with two caveats: All of time, from the moment they choose to change and after, will be altered.

And secondly: After they change fate, all of their present memories will be gone. History will be rewritten, and they will never be able to tell in which ways it changes or stays the same.

The Mandalorian is shown a fork in the road. A young family in red is suspended in time: to their right is the city street leading to an underground cellar, only empty for the moment. To the left, the street continues, and beyond it he spies the approaching Mandalorian jet squad. Before, his eyes had been so tightly closed he must have missed the momentary glimpse of their saviors in the distance. If he can manage to redirect his father’s focus, to force him to veer left instead, Din knows he can lead them to safety. He is being offered the chance to save his parents’ lives.

“… If my own parents don’t die, somebody else will,” Din says quietly. “I know what it’s like to lose them. I can’t wish that on somebody else.”

Boba Fett is shown the back of a Jedi approaching his father from behind in the arena stands. He is ten years old, and he has a gun in his hands.

“… My father was not a perfect man,” Boba said, his voice carefully devoid of emotion. “My path to this point in life would have been harsh either way. I don’t need a second lifetime of hardship to remember.”

“Disgraced magistrate Greef Karga” echoes at the back of his mind as he watches the scene unfold from a third person point of view. He is given the chance to exonerate himself of what he did before being stripped of his title and run offworld before arriving on Nevarro. He has time to escape and absolve himself of any wrongdoing.

There’s a long moment of consideration before Karga speaks, the veteran showman smile nowhere to be found. “I wouldn’t have become a better man if I hadn’t been caught,” he says grimly. “I would have continued doing what I did because I got away with it. The only reason I changed is because I was held accountable.”

Luke sees Dagobah, and an X-Wing. There are two figures outlined in the gloom, one corporeal and small, the other ethereal and old. If he chooses not to go to Cloud City and stays to finish his training, he will have the strength and knowledge needed to end the war sooner, potentially saving untold thousands of lives at the cost of those dear to him.

“… I don’t think I could make the choice any differently, even knowing what I do now,” Luke says softly. “My masters were training me to have the strength to kill my father. I don’t think I would have had the mercy to spare him long enough for him to redeem himself, and I would have lost what little time I did have with him.”

But what about those who may not be able to accept the present as it is? The ones who would have the knowledge and opportunity to right the wrongs of the galaxy and save innocent lives? To undo past mistakes?

Cobb Vanth is fifteen and has just arrived in the next settlement to pick up supplies. If he immediately returns to the orphanage his mother runs instead of staying the night, as he once did, he’ll be able to put out the fire and save a dozen young lives, and his mother won’t be forced to live with the survivor’s guilt for the following week before she ultimately makes the choice that will leave him an orphan too.

There’s a long arena with targets lined up at one end. Her sister, laughing, stands tall and confident in front of the back wall, hands on her hips with an apple balanced on her head. She is alive, and the girl not yet called Fennec Shand stands at the opposite end, her crossbow still pointed low as she squares her feet. She isn’t yet the marksman she’ll become, and she has the chance to avoid the biggest mistake of her life.

Cara Dune sees an office she’s never been in before, a high-rise view of Coruscant from the windows. There is a covey of New Republic officers poring over data showing the plot to frame and kill her entire crew for the crime they didn’t commit, and the evidence to frame her for it when she runs.

Una is standing at the back of the courtroom. It’s the two-sun rotation where Max Rebo’s band plays yet another encore for Oola to dance to, Jabba’s raucous, rumbling laughter spreading through the room with his odious breath. She knows there is a sliver of time before the next song starts, and if she can maneuver through the crowd fast enough, she knows she can coax her friend into playing along, just for the night. Right now, with the chalice in hand, Una sees the other girl who would arrive the following day and would have taken Oola’s place without Oola having to die first. Jabba liked fresh girls with braids to pull as much as he did the lekku of Twi’leks.

Ahsoka sees herself as a child, looking up at a young Jedi Knight with a scar bisecting one eyebrow. She knows this scene, has had it etched upon her memory for decades. She could decline his offer and divert her life’s course entirely.

Leia is shown the first time she ever met Lord Vader at age fourteen. She is standing beside the man who raised her as his own, the two of them across from the figure in black. Captain Antilles is next to her and he has a gun in his holster.

Grogu, a child, is given perhaps the most difficult choice of all: The ability to prove Palpatine’s treachery to his masters and prevent Order 66 from happening at all, perhaps preventing the entire war. The tradeoff is that he will grow up in the temple, and he will never meet the man who would become the Mandalorian.

Han Solo is shown the future. His hand is on the door. Leia and Ben are behind him.

#suicide mention #the mandalorian #din djarin #baby yoda #boba fett #Ahsoka tano #fennec shand #Cara dune #leia Organa #Cobb Vanth #Han solo #Greef Karga #Luke Skywalker #hounds speaks #my writing #star wars au #Now which of these reveals something about the author #Trick question there’s a kernel of truth in everything #I almost included Bo-Katan but I feel like hers is too easy of a choice for somebody like her #There needs to be some inner conflict #‘‘I’m not going to write this out right now’’ she says #and then she gives herself ten valid AU prompts in a row #I know there’s eleven but only ten of them will be truly tempted to go through with it #hMMMMM. much to think about.#Star Wars What If…? AU #I should note: the backstory details here for Cara Fennec Vanth and Karga are all original ideas #the rest are either canon or at least don’t break canon #fanfic #Star Wars fanfiction #The Mandalorian fanfiction

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092040 · 1 month ago

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The Great Loves - Part 3

It was your birthday a few days ago, K. Happy belated.

You are the one I continually write about through these words and thoughts in cursive, the one tied so close to the cosmic longing so far out of my reach in this lifetime, emotionally. I sometimes wish you would find these confessions and letters to you and confront me, the coward, and ask me why I didn't just speak up when I needed to.

I met you here, of all places, connected through writing and sharing silly posts. What a time it was to be alive, silly teenagers spending late nights dreaming of futures yet to come, to hold each other in the palm of our hands, through audio and cellphone waves. To dream of a potential future then—we were so naive, yet so in love.

I never forgave myself for the decision I made based on my so called "righteous" decisions then. I made a mistake, I admit it. I broke you, I broke us, I broke me. Even then, I was too ashamed to apologize and to ever speak the words that would make the 'could have been' been. You are so close, yet your heart now so far like the cosmic longing I feel buried deep inside my soul.

I wonder where we would be, if I had the courage to pick up the phone, apologize, and selfishly asked for your hand. The would be and could be possibilities fill my body like insects eating me from the inside out.

We will never know, will we?

We were just teeangers when K and I met, coincidentally on Tumblr.

Living in different time zones, good mornings and good nights became a usual thing, like lost souls reaching out into the darkness, holding onto whatever we could at the time. We turned the dark into our comfort, voices comforting one another.

Patiently naive, maybe even dumb, dreaming of one day meeting. How silly, two broke boys so far apart, clinging on to a promise not yet made, silly but still free.

We both felt it when I said those words. I remember your voice your words, and they repeat through my head, even over the years as we have spoken, you joked about it, but I could still hear the hurt in your voice. That was our time, probably our only time, when the stars aligned, when life placed me a fork in the road, I made the wrong choice. Things ended.

We watched as each other burned, rolled around in the fire of others, hurt, never speaking what we both knew were at the tips of our tongues, riding on our lips. Were you also scared K, or was it just me? Were you just waiting for me to apologize, to say sorry, to ask you to do the unthinkable and ask for you back? Or is this just all delusional fabrication of my mind, to make up for the shitty asshole of a person I am? Probably the latter.

It hurt, when you were hurting. When I could not do anything. It was like seeing you walk away slowly, chasing after you, but never catching up, wishing you would turn around, but you never did, did you? Or maybe you looked over your shoulder when I had stopped to catch my breath. I don't blame you K, what I did then was stupid.

We went on through constant cycles of one person being single while the other wasn't. Kept in touch through distant messages, checking up on each other once in a while. Phone calls while chained, unable to speak our truths.

K, I hated myself for letting you go. I can never forgive myself.

Through heartbreaks in New York City, I called you in the middle of the night, in silences, crying, selfishly, without a reason, you listened, you never asked, just waited until I stopped, and we'd hang up. During these nights, I wanted so bad to tell you K, that I wish things were different, that if I wasn't so stupid, so naive, maybe then, we would be on the same paths.

I never worked up the courage to tell you through the tears and I'm sorry.

Even now, though all tears have dried up, when I think of you, you are the only well of tears that are infinite.

I took you for granted K. I don't expect you to forgive me, as I won't forgive myself.

I wish you nothing but the best, the happiness you deserve.

I miss you K. Thank you for loving me and letting me love you from afar. The lesson of us has guided me to this day, to love unapologetically, to hold on dearly to someone because life is fleeting, moments woven in space, two threads momentarily crossing.

Thank you again.

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cassiasalas · 8 months ago

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❝ HOW DO I KNOW WHAT’S REAL WHEN I DON’T EVEN TRUST MYSELF ❞

STATS:

Name: Cassia Salas

Age: 31

Face Claim: Priscilla Quintana

Occupation: Paramedic

Neighborhood: Wrightsville Beach

Gender & Preferred Pronouns: Cis female & she/her

BIOGRAPHY:

trigger warnings: drug use, underage drinking, parental neglect

Every now and then the cosmos aligned just right and a soul was born into a name that proved fate to be something real. Cassia was born to Lara and Alejandro Salas, a couple who had married right out of high school and were going nowhere fast. The two couldn’t seem to figure out adult life and how to live efficiently; money was often squandered too quickly, often as soon as it hit their pockets or bank account so that they could enjoy young adulthood, forgetting they had a young child who needed proper attention and consistent care. Cas or Cassie as most called her, spent much of her time in the care of a neighbor while her parents worked and then burned through their paychecks. A latchkey kid was what she would soon become, finding she had personality traits all too similar to her parents — addictive like her father and hedonistic like her mother. Alejandro had a gambling habit, known locally as a bit of a card shark that would occasionally take a trip to large cities to hit up bigger games and bigger jackpots. Her mother, Lara, was into anything that made her feel good; whether that was dabbling in drugs and drink or getting in a fast car with a man that wasn’t her high school sweetheart turned husband, she was game for it.

It was two weeks before Cassia’s fourteenth birthday when her father never returned home from a weekend rounders trip up in New Jersey. Missing persons reports were filed and investigations eventually went cold after a month of not so hard looking around. Apparently Alejandro had a reputation in Jersey City and Atlantic City which caused the police to tell Cassia and her mother to expect the worst — he was no doubt gone and not meant to be found. Of course the young teen was devastated by the disappearance and permanent loss, though perhaps not so much as she could have been given the lack of depth to her connection with her parents. They had always been somewhat distant and absent, loving but too invested in themselves rather than creating a wholesome family like much of her friends and classmates at school had. Instead of grieving heavily, Cassia opted for fantasy, imagining that her dad was some explorer or an archaeologist working on a dig in some foreign and far away land. She did it because even then Cassia had the thoughts that there had to be more to life than this.

Coping well wasn’t something her mother did when it came to the loss of Alejandro. It surprised Cassia, she had believed they pretty much lived separate and distant lives. Given that she was the only parent now to put food on the table and provide for Cassia, Lara stepped up and cleaned up her act a bit. Nothing was given up in entirety, things simply slowed and didn’t happen as often. The absenteeism of boundaries and structure in her life set Cassia on a crash course for destruction and ruin for her own life, as it seemed every time life led to a fork in the road she always took the path less traveled — always made the wrong choice and went the wrong direction. It seemed she was determined to learn things the hard way, through mistakes and major fuckups. She wasn’t yet fifteen when she gave into experimenting with drugs, and like her mother — anything that got her heart racing. But Cassia always seemed to get caught or into more than she could handle.

After getting caught drag racing cars, it was determined by the state that she wouldn’t be able to drive a car legally until she was eighteen. Despite it being an ‘oh shit’ moment and quite the wrench in her youth, the minor brush with the law couldn’t set her straight. No, she continued to make bad decisions. At seventeen, Cas was expelled from high school for drug possession and if her own vices weren’t bad enough, the young brunette’s attractiveness also turned out to be a problem. She knew how to use her pretty green eyes, sun kissed skin, and sweet talk coming from glistening rosy lips to get just about anything she wanted from someone. Usually it was for a fix or a drink, older men always being the best targets — no matter her goals and dreams in life, Cassia just couldn’t seem to get it right. Holding down a job was laughable, giving up on her own hedonistic indulgences generally always turned out to be too big of a sacrifice, so Cassia went on bouncing through life one or more problems at a time.

The town just seemed to get smaller and smaller, too many people knew her and not in a way that would have Cassia holding her head high when sober. Her mother long gave up on her so the official freedom of eighteen sent the girl to the beach, finding Wilmington to be cozy and a fresh start. She managed to get her GED and enrolled in college, though again, a normal social structure and schedule was too hard to maintain and it took longer than the average for Cassia to earn an associate’s of arts in art — one of her dreams being a painter. It was during her time in college that the Salas began to pull out of society’s labeled boxes. College was also a time where dating a woman opened up to her and just another avenue of life she walked down the path of. Men and women were fun to entertain on the art scene. For some time, she was hardly around, traveling with other artists led her to adventures she wouldn’t soon forget. Such as the trip in New Orleans where she got mugged, or the sex party she somehow ended up at while in Los Angeles — the paths were never clear how she got from one place to the next but it sure as hell wasn’t the rational part of her brain that made the decisions.

Eventually when back in Wilmington, her addictions got her in trouble once again and with the threat of jail time looming over her head, Cassia yet again made a one sided pact with God that if he helped her out of the mess she would go clean and straight. The lesson would have been to take the consequences, sell out her dealer and do a little time then work to live life responsibly. She was beginning to edge near thirty and still hadn’t really begun living properly, something that had festered under the surface and nagged at her in the back of her mind. The DEA had another plan for her, one she stupidly took, and that was no jail time if she worked as an informant. What she didn’t expect was that she would find such a kindred spirit and someone she felt the need to help and take care of but also a man she would fall crazily in love with. Partly, she would tell herself that it was the drugs and the partying she did with him but Cassia had gotten very good at lying to herself. Eventually being between a rock and a hard place, she cracked, the pressure from the DEA and the love she had for the dealer sent her running away. She fed the DEA some fairly useless information and made up the rest, keeping all of the dealer’s secrets before leaving town for a couple of months.

It was one thing to break her own heart over and over again in life, it was another to have someone else’s heart in your hands and to take advantage and hurt someone you loved. Her new vow was to get her shit together, to finally live life as a real adult in the world should. When she came back home, Cassia put herself back into college while working as a waitress to barely make ends meet. She had all the credits needed already to meet the educational requirements as a paramedic, she needed course specific classes and training. When it came to it, Cassia actually surprised herself that she was good at it. She filled out her degree and earned an associates in paramedicine. For someone always on the go and needing such a constant state of stimulus, working in emergency and trauma care was a good fit, but it also was quite a bump in income going from waitressing to EMT and paramedic. With the means to do so she was able to move from her roommate situation downtown to her own place in Wrightsville Beach. Still without a clue what life is all about or how to navigate it, Cassia at least and finally had something going right and well for herself.

#wnc.intro #introduction — cassia salas.#biography — cassia salas.

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seydaseven · 9 months ago

Text

❝ HOW DO I KNOW WHAT'S REAL WHEN I DON'T EVEN TRUST MYSELF ❞

STATS:

Name: Cassia Salas

Age: 31

Face Claim: Priscilla Quintana

Occupation: Paramedic

Neighborhood: Wrightsville Beach

Gender & Preferred Pronouns: Cis female & she/her

BIOGRAPHY:

trigger warnings: drug use, underage drinking, parental neglect

#wnc.intro #introduction — cassia salas.#biography — cassia salas.

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lodessa · 2 years ago

Note

20. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written? 21. Have you ever deleted an entire scene after spending hours laboring over it? If so, why? 22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

Thanks for the ask <3

20. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written?

Mostly I just choose song lyrics (or a word/phrase that is vaguely the right vibe to me) but I actually came up with four different real/good titles for The Half-Life Fallacy (thanks to @romeorevoarchive who helped me brainstorm). They were as follows:

The Half-Life Fallacy (The winner, basically referencing the lingering impact of certain events and how they never actually disappear completely.)

Star Thistle Summer (kind of a double meaning, both because star thistle is painful, stubborn and resilient, but also because it is one of those plants that will take over after a wildfire. It really just worked well both for the initial Blackout vibe but also the relationship dynamics/Matheson characteristics.)

Manzanita Blaze (Leaning more heavily into the plants/wildfire metaphor. Manzanita is one of those plants that uses fire to propagate, it's also a very twisty tree. It is double catastrophe that brings and keeps them together, no matter how wrong and impossible it should be on paper. It just fit them.)

Forks in a Circular Road (Learning into the sense of inevitability of where the fic ends up, and also the framing of Bass' narration. This is an AU where you can take a totally different path, but in some ways you are going to end up on the same road.)

I'm also pretty happy with the title of my most current WIP: The Backup, which ties into the many different uses of backup/back up:

Providing support, backing.

A secondary choice, being “on the bench”.

To step back, go backwards.

To rebound, recover, “get back up”

21. Have you ever deleted an entire scene after spending hours laboring over it? If so, why?

I used to really struggle with this, so I developed an alternative method, where I just cut/paste the problem section into a new document instead of deleting it. Sometimes a scene just isn't taking you where you need to go to get to the next story beat, sometimes it doesn't really follow from what came before, but it is hard to get rid of something you wrote if you actually like anything about it. Taking it out of the context it isn't working in without trashing it made it so much easier for me to recognize when that was the case. Putting it in a new document sometimes means it just sits there, but I have had times where I ended up using it as the seed for a new fic, and times where later on it turned out if totally fit in the same fic I wrote it for, just in a totally different part of the story.

Right now I am actually debating this for a section I have written for The Backup that doesn't really make sense following what I wrote before it. I'm still trying to decide whether it just needs to be later in the story, or it needs to be in a different fic entirely.

*Putting a sneak peak at the end of the post under a read more if anyone wants to look.

22. Do you know how your fic will end before you start writing?

I usually have an idea of where a fic is going to end up, though the path there is often either murky or not the one I end up following. For some "current" WIPs:

k'war'ma'khon: Originally was just supposed to be a little flash ficlet, but once I decided to move beyond that, the inevitable ending had to be Georgiou (and Sarek and the crew of the Discovery) rescuing Michael (or I guess Michael breaking free). However, I definitely didn't initially think that Spock was going to show up or have any idea how I was going to get Michael out of Klingon prison.

Dragon Marked: The eventual ending to this one is very epic and complex, involving reincarnation, magic, science, conspiracy theories, politics, and dragons. I actually brainstormed the plot (not the what plot ;-P) part out with my husband. There's a lot of ground to cover before that though, so who knows what might change.

The Backup: Being canon divergent but set during season 3 gives me some nice boundaries. The reader and I know who the Heart Rapist is already. That's not the question, the questions are about how Veronica and Weevil who are now on a different path because of what's gone differently will solve that mystery, catch him, but also how they will manage the ways their dynamic has shifted. This fic started from the desire to have both of those things go in a different direction than canon did, so the ending is where I started with this one.

As promised, a scene I don't know whether I will keep in The Backup of not:

“Does it ever feel like nothing you do actually makes a difference?” V asks, at the bottom of the stairwell of Mac’s dorm.

Only every fucking day , he thinks, but at the same time he’s pretty sure that’s not actually helpful, and he wants to help Veronica, even though it all feels pointless most of the time. So he stays quiet and waits for her to say more.

“The world is a shitty place and it doesn’t matter how many answers I find, how many bad guys I take down. There’s always another one. So what’s the point? Why bother? Maybe I should just say fuck it and stop trying.”

“That I’d love to see,” he shakes his head, pausing before adding, “Veronica Mars standing idly by. Pretty sure reality might fold in on itself if you stopped digging at every mystery and hammering at injustice, V.”

“Doesn’t make it any less crazy that I do,” she deflects.

“Maybe not,” he concedes, but if she’s crazy what does that make him? “But if it helps people, I would call that the good kind of crazy, and you do help people, Veronica.”

Giving up is the logical response to hopeless situations, but if he did that what would be left for him? What would be left of any of them?

“You want to know a secret?” she asks and he thinks, I want to know all of your secrets.

“Is that a trick question?” he says instead.

“Most of the time, I don’t care about helping people so much as making the bad guy pay. I’m motivated by vengeance and the lure of secrets, not the good that comes from whatever it is I find.”

“Most of the time?” he questions.

“This case is different,” she owns, something he already had picked up on.

“And that’s a bad thing?” he responds instead of asking why even though he wants the answer to that question like a smoker fiending for a cigarette.

“Maybe. Honestly, I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Part of him wants to take this moment of uncertainty and push things a little, see if she would fall into his arms, turn to him for comfort not just security.

I’ve got you, querida, he could say, pull her close, one hand cradling the back of her head and the other wrapped around her waist. V seems so brittle and shaky right now and he wonders if there have been other times she was like this and he just didn’t know her well enough yet to see it: if he missed the clues or if she hid them better when he was a stranger.

This would have been easier, he suspects, if he’d seen that vulnerability two years ago, back when he was a gang leader and she was an outcast, and they were some sort of high school cliche. Back when she was an intriguing unknown.

But he didn’t see it then, and she’s not a stranger anymore, and maybe it is better they can both pretend he doesn’t see it now.

“Well then, my prediction is that you are going to take this asshole down and someone is going to erect a goddamned statue of you: Veronica Mars: protector of Hearst.”

“Okay, maybe my guess is better than yours, since that is totally not going to happen.”

#about writing fic #weever

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quietbluejay · 22 days ago

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Angel Exterminatus Take 2 #15

this time: as usual, both Bluejay and Perturabo want Perturabo dead, and we get the grand reveal about what's going on with Perturabo! (I mean. the fatigue. there's a lot of stuff going on with Perturabo)

time to flash back to the cliff

you know, from when his memory starts

buddy perturabo: maybe i should have just died as a child it would have been a net benefit for literally everyone especially me where do i even start with this

YOU IDIOT, YOURE GOING THE WRONG WAY oh actually fun fact this actually came up recently in a letter from the one substack i follow i don't remember the actual name for this fallacy but it's the "since what i'm doing is HARD that must mean it's the moral/correct choice, right?" "if i'm avoiding everything that could make my life easy, that's the best path"

Sky: Maybe the fact that Dorn didn’t engage in bloody trench warfare to the point of wrecking his legion should have been a sign to Pert that he didn’t need to and shouldn’t spend the lives of his sons like water? Bluejay: seee but that would have required actually thinking and changing course which is not something Perturabo knows how to do

"do you get it TRENCH WARFARE REALLY SUCKS" Perturabo's deeply salty that also nowhere in there were the IW commemorated by artists etc the Fists were, though! the one case was er

im laughing out loud for real here

incredible and that last line…

you mean, the past you're constantly haunted by?

perturabo's thoughts: i was heeding the warnings of the dead YOU'RE NOT, YOU DIMWIT

TemplarWarden: The funny thing is, could Fulgrim have escaped if he just abandoned him it's silly multidimensional stuff Bluejay: that's a good question

me about perturabo right now:

im rotating him in a microwave with a fork Perturabo meanwhile is pondering "she who thirsts" because

i- you know what, the jokes just write themselves i don't need to say anything is anyone surprised this is the case in the gamer legion Perturabo's reached the bottom though but not rock bottom! it's very pretty

very cool looking in various ways

oh yeah

green sun

this came out in 2016 we know McNeill is a weeb but was he also a homestuck? (i'm not saying this as an insult being both a weeb and former homestuck here)

Perturabo finds Fulgrim staring at the green sun

yeah im feeling some homestuck vibes here

i am the x. it is me.

back upstairs, forrix is fighting the ghosts and not doing super well

a thing of beauty when we've repeatedly talked about how ugly it is sure, whatever helps you sleep at night and it probably does! they're fighting like a well oiled machine but one that's starting to break down just like this metaphor oh okay, that's kinda cool Forrix tanks a tank

Forrix does almost die to a flamethrower though but Vull Bronn saves him at the last minute and it's time for Toramino to show up! but we're cutting back to the drama underground Fulgrim has started floating that's never a good sign he tells Perturabo that he always lacked vision which is correct

however, his terrible fatigue and weakness are back bro, i feel that

maugetar means harvester, it turns out yes as was foreshadowed, the stone has been draining him of energy this whole time!

Sky:

Perturabo Mightiest of us all

Wut Perturabo is a lot of thing, but the most personally powerful of the Primarchs???

Bluejay: he's got the most life energy that's what he means either that or Fulgrim just. miscalculated. perturabo isn't usually the first one who comes to mind when you think of endurance and internal reserves though yeah Sky: …but life energy in 40K is just either bioelectricity or warp energy Bluejay: of all the 40k rules this book has broken w.r.t. the Eldar, you think it's going to be consistent here? Sky: okay fair

Checkerheart: Fulgrim isn't usually the first one who comes to mind when you think of math skills and logical reasoning Bluejay: hey, fulgrim would like you to know he's smart! he knows what a fibonacci sequence is and everything second response: he's still smarter than perturabo

Sky: I’m just going to assume Fulgrim is lying again because it amuses him, and the real reason is that Pert was just the only Primarch dumb enough to be convinced to make this trip

Why is Fulgrim not using that to mock Pert? IDK, he’s on warp drugs or w/e

TinyGladiator: I could see if Fulgrim literally just doing this to fuck with Perturabo's ego

this is funnier because every time Horus thinks about Perturabo in these books he's going "ugh, him"

Sky: Lol imagine if Pert had died here

I don’t think Horus would be personally upset at losing Perturabo but he would definitely be upset at losing a Primarch and a Legion

And cracking Terra without Pert is…not impossible, given how much warp nonsense Sol was drowning in by the end of the Siege, but definitely harder

Bluejay: it's just funny he goes for Perturabo as being valuable because of being important to other people when he's the one that no one really cares about perturabo is also still dealing with the serious fatigue

Fulgrim: yeah so i'm not the same person you knew Fulgrim: it allll started with the Laer Fulgrim: turns out the gods they worship are real!

lol lmao also calling a keeper of secrets a god Fulgrim: yeah so i got possessed by one Fulgrim: ew Fulgrim: we eventually learned…compromise

fulgrim is now t-posing in midair and all the soulstones in the walls start flying towards him because that may as well happen with an effort, Perturabo manages to get to his feet, he'd rather die standing up and you know what, if i have suffer this so do you it's not that i think it's badly written per se but it makes my skin crawl

fulgrim, i'm begging you to be a little less weird about this

also i'm thinking about "why perturabo, specifically" a) he's dumb enough to fall for this b) he did in fact need him for labyrinth thing c) discount Ferrus

back on the surface, Forrix gets trapped under Perturabo's exploding car at least that's what i think is going on yep juuust as Toramino starts firing at them

you know, I genuinely thought Forrix died first time around I didn't know he had plot armour next time: some focus on my beloved son going full Khorne, and not one but TWO meme edits. Check out the next Iron Warriors Comedy Hour for more bad jokes and also Fulgrim caressing Perturabo's face before stabbing him. Maybe eventually we'll get to thanksgiving turkey soulstone fulgrim, but that's still a bit of a ways off.

#bluejay reads warhammer #warhammer 40k #horus heresy

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fantasystrangers · 1 month ago

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part I (possibly) {fade's pov}

❛Your path splits like shattered glass, young Fade.❜

I am not as young as I wish I could’ve been. Not anymore. And time is precious. But I cannot blame this stranger for not knowing. No one can know me. Not unless they prove they are worth my time... or I slip and make a mistake. I have done so before. I have allowed people too close to me for comfort. This is not like me.

❛That, I was already aware of.❜ The fortune teller, the same woman I have already tried to bribe with gold to leave the table and yet in response she has insisted on being given a name, and I, we have not sat close together... and yet our eyes meet in mere seconds. Despite the exhaustion in my bones being real and my throat being dry from the thirst of travel, I do not close my eyes. I cannot. Not now. Not out here.

The fortune teller sighs. My brows knit together. ❛I do not mean metaphorically. Literally, you will have to leave this world.❜ Tell me something I don’t fucking know. What a damn waste of time. ❛There is no one world where you truly belong; you are a person of many worlds.❜ If by this she means she has somehow figured out I’m not entirely human... that secret must die with her. People are only allowed to know before they die. I’ve had enemies use this information against me. I trust it with no one. Not anymore.

❛And where will I have to go?❜ I raise my eyebrows. My patience is wearing thin. With this woman, the scale of my patience is going to weigh in favour of me shoving them all out of my way and vanishing into the night, seeking home in the same darkness that I left to get myself a meal and some warmth. Not even ocean dwellers like me can stand a life with no sun. ❛To yet another world, perhaps?❜

❛Yes. And not one that you will choose. I am afraid that is among one of many choices that are out of your reach.❜ My blood starts to boil when she speaks. One, I am sick of this, sick of being dragged in trouble by people who claim to know my ancestors, sick of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sick of sticking out like a wounded thumb the way I always have. And two, who is this random stranger to try and see my fate? My fate is only what I will make of it.

❛The choice will be made for you. You have a friend who’s very dear to you that you lost recently.❜ Time has made the pain more dull. And I am not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing... ❛And you know what happens with people after they die, yes?❜ I feel my frown deepen further. ❛They are judged.❜ Ah, Christian bullshit, then. Marvellous. I force myself to hold back an eyeroll. ❛It’s only fictive, of course. Heaven and hell mean little to us and a lot more to humans like you.❜ She knows nothing of my true nature. Perfect. ❛But we still weigh her good and bad deeds. Just to see of which there has been more. People send us sacrifices. We must at least try to answer them.❜

Heaven and hell. Ha. Had I been a stricter believer in Christianity, in any of its forms – for my mother’s faith is Orthodox and my father’s is Catholic – I would have clung onto this belief harder. But neither fate nor this have succeeded in seducing me to their side so far. I do not think either will. Only those who do not believe in themselves enough for one or another reason decide to reach out to faith.

❛So my next stop is the path that forks towards heaven and hell?❜ The arm, resting on my sword, is starting to ache. There is, alas, no time to rest. ❛That, which not one and two people have been taught is kind to do, like gods are kind, and now the gods will judge my friend?❜ Faith is flawed. And this will be neither the first nor the last time in which that has been proved to my face. ❛Why must we trudge through this? I’d choose hell any day as long as they let her go.❜ The woman’s eyes widen. ❛I have become intimately familiar with it throughout my life, for good or bad.❜

❛It is not your task to decide–❜

❛She is innocent. Of deserving death, at the very least. Hers was neither an honourable, nor a deserved way to die.❜ My fingers lock around the sword’s hilt. ❛It makes no sense that she should be sent anywhere but to either her body or a grave. I know not all of her has already been decided for. That was lied to me about already.❜ I do not stop to let the fortune teller slip in any bullshit in case she still thinks there’s a chance for that. Hell, why her? Why was she sent to me?

❛So. Once again, now. My next stop is the path, forking to both heaven and hell, and my next task is to watch my friend’s soul be judged...❜ The feeling of the sword in my hand keeps me steeled in reality – steeled away from rage. Since when have I let this feeling burn this way inside? And why? ❛...instead of bargaining for her soul with the orisnitsi, whose job is to decide where it should go, and bring it back to her with me, as her death is an accident and ought not to have happened when it did. Is that correct?❜

Defeated, the fortune teller’s shoulders slump, and she sighs. ❛Yes. I suppose.❜

I get up from the table, unfinished drink in hand, and the tips of my fingers gently push a silver coin towards her. Only when I have turned my back to her does she shuffle in her spot, and I feel a grab at my coat. My anger is unreasonable – or is it, after I have been forced to hear such absolute bullshit for so long? – and yet impossible to control. My fingers clasp atop the others’. I can only assume it’s still her. ❛That will be all.❜

#🖋️ ( drabble. )#📱 ( status. )#☆ fade #☆ fíann #warming up some old ideas in the writer microwave

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poetry-by-quinn · 3 months ago

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To Be Determined

By Quinn B

I can tell I’m in the midst of beginning

A new stage of my life.

While I am anxious about

What my future may hold,

I’m also very excited

To see what is in store.

Not too long ago,

I felt as though I stood at a fork in the road

With infinite choices of paths to take

Countless different careers exist

And I can only pick one at a time.

Due to my habit of indecision,

Along with my consistent worries

That I’d choose wrong & waste time

As well as my pessimistic self expectation

That I’ll give up when things get difficult

(Grown from my past tendency of doing so)

I felt stuck in my feelings of inadequacy-

Believing myself incapable

Of commitment and success,

But I realized:

While these feelings were genuine,

They were mostly unnecessary

I was trying to find something

I never personally sought

Because I felt external pressure to achieve

More than I honestly wanted out of life

So I tried to rush the process

Of finding my way in the world

And just stressed myself out.

While the eventual choice

Of a more serious career

(And my frets and concerns

Surrounding my shortcomings),

Aren’t necessarily gone,

I recently came to understand:

I have already been walking

The way I want to go

For a good while,

And sometimes the best path for now

Is the one we have grown used to.

I don’t need to worry yet

About what to do next in life,

Although I do know I don’t like to stay

Stagnant for too long,

Because I do know I can get bored

And that often leads to impulsive behavior.

But I don’t feel that way here,

And I won’t invent a problem to solve

When there really is none.

There’s no need to search

For something new and better

When I already have

A functioning means to an end

That I’m perfectly content with.

I have decided to invest

A bit more time into

Working and making money

Than I’m usually used to,

But I know I’m more than capable

Of rising to this self imposed task.

In order to not drain my energy

And allow my positive attitude to dwindle,

I’ll be pickier with my free time:

I will only do things that I want to

As long as they also serve me.

No more drugs except weed,

And no smoking until I’m done for the day.

No more all-nighters.

No more hookups,

Unless I have the time and energy,

And even then I’d rather not risk it.

Romance will be on the back burner

(Where it’s mostly been recently),

And I’ll only nurture the friendships

That bring me consistent joy.

I used to lack the willpower

To maintain a healthier lifestyle,

But I recently realized:

The only one who can live for me

And make my life what I want it to be

Is me.

If I rely on others to dictate my choices,

Or if I make choices that actively defy

My best logic and forethought,

I’ll ultimately just be miserable.

All I want

Is to be happy and spread love,

So I’ll only make the choices

That will enable me to do so.

And while I’ll never be rid of

My worries and anxieties,

I can learn to manage them,

And use them as tools to better my life

So I don’t get stuck in my negativity.

There is no way to avoid negativity,

So my best option is to

Find the best thing to do with it.

So I’m excited and anxious

For what may come my way soon,

And I’m glad to say:

I truly believe I’m well on my way

To where I’m meant to be,

And I couldn’t be happier for myself.

I have no clue where I will be,

Or even an idea of what I hope to be doing

In five to ten years;

But that’s okay with me for now.

If there’s anything I’ve learned

From my elders, peers, and experiences,

Nobody has their life figured out

Until they suddenly do,

And even then

The story isn’t over.

There will always be things to experience

And people to love along the way.

Life goes on,

And since I’m here, I too shall persevere.

And I will strive to do all I can healthily do

To be and feel the best I am able to,

And make life as beautiful as I can

For myself and everyone I meet

While I have the fortune to exist as

The collection of experiences that I call me.

July 2024

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ohleander · 6 months ago

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7.8.24

Been thinking a whole lot today and also feeling a whole lot today. Mostly I am so tired and I just need to drop this odd filter I keep on myself. The more I try to delve, the more I realize how untapped and restricted I've kept myself. Its been challenging changing my own ways, and its got me real tired but also I know its gotta go back up soon. It always does, its my nature. Coming to terms with my realities and simply sitting with them for a while without trying to hurriedly manipulate or change them because I am ashamed to have them. I've always been ashamed of being flawed and yet.. and yet I really am not flawed. Whether one realizes it or not, as young as you begin, you start walking one way in the woods for a really long time, and things seem to be going well and just fine, but you're not arriving at any destinations.. its the same scenery over and over for a good long while.. at some point in the past, you took one side of the fork and today you realized that maybe this path wasnt the one.. maybe you realize you've got to back track some because you left something behind, or you're not feeling as whole as you would have liked to. Its frustrating to have to sit with that kind of realization and feelings of remorse and mourning for the time spent and the mistaken thoughts.. its not really mistaken though... time spent is simply time spent.. I have no idea what my goals are. I have no idea why I'm walking the way that I am so why do I mourn the "mistakes"? Why is backtracking so shameful? Why is it so bad to be wrong or to have made the less correct choice? Is it because at one time it felt unsafe? Yes, definitely yes. I've been walking with feelings of worry and fret for quite a while. Its nearly as if I suspected it all along and either wouldnt speak up or wouldnt listen to myself.. I didnt trust myself to be a safe space to feel my own thoughts. I treat meyself how I am treated, I mirror and I copy and this realization is extremely heavy to hold. But its okay to rest for a while. Still, I need to rest with it for what it is. I copy and I mimic and I pretend and I imagine sooo well.. I wonder why and I wonder what benefit this has for me. Being such a mimic but also being someone who is so fiercely independent.. Which one is the side I'm overcompensating with? I teeter back and forth between thriving alone, feeling the most myself when I'm alone and needing a very specific connection. Who is it that I miss? Is it me or is it someone else? Someone else I know but have never met? What makes me so nervous to simply be myself. Why cant I recognize when I am safe?

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synthetickitsune · 2 years ago

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Crescent Moons | Gumiho!Lee Soohyuk | [s]

Requested prompts: ➢ “Your heart is beating so fast right now.” ➢ Scaring them ➢ Supernatural/Monster!AU ➢ You have always wanted to caress every monster. ➢ I confuse instinct for desire - isn’t bite also touch? Word count: 4.7k Warnings: suggestive, blood & blood drinking, mentions of scarring ♫ The Fox's Wedding - Hatsune Miku & Gumi ♫ Supermassive Black Hole - Muse

The sun is setting, the evening getting darker. Purples and blues paint the sky, making it difficult to see. Therefore once you reach the fork in the road, you opt to walk the path along a meadow where the sky remains visible, and once the sun disappears, hopefully the moon will guide your way.

It’s quiet, the birds don’t sing and neither do insects perform their music. You’ve been taught that nature is never silent. If it is, you need to turn back to where you came from and run.

You don’t.

The unnatural silence nor the darkness stop you, you walk on, prompted by your curiosity. You wonder whether he’ll make the joke about the cat should you meet him. You think you might not, or maybe he’s just taking his sweet time.

The moon is weak. Its light does not suffice to guide you and you stumble. It’d be wise to turn back while you still can, but you’ve made enough bad choices today, so you keep going.

You keep going even as the silence deepens, so much so it’s deafening. You’re almost tempted to hum to yourself, if only to make sure you can still hear. To feel something other than the cold.

And you keep going even when you feel a sudden rush of air brush against your body. Not a leaf moves, there’s no breeze. Then it happens again and you hesitate. The third time there’s something solid nudging your body, featherlight and if you weren’t so hyper aware of your surroundings, you might’ve dismissed it as hallucination. It’s scary, of course. Nothing is quite as terrifying as trusting blindly - because what if you’re wrong. What if this is not him.

Your heart races in your chest, breathing becoming fast and shallow. Your body is ready to attack or to flee. Yet your mind remains curious above all, strong enough to will your body to keep walking slowly.

You don’t stop even as the blue fox fires appear and illuminate the path. You let them hover closer, trusting their wielder not to harm you. That might be the worst of your today’s choices yet.

“If they touch you, you’ll be burned to a crisp in a blink of an eye,” the gumiho speaks, his deep voice resonating somewhere above your head in the trees, “Body and soul.”

“Are they warm?” you smile, hand reaching towards one of the little flames. Despite the bravado, you’re trembling. There’s a hiss, and the fires disappear. All but a few that float around the figure you’ve been searching for.

He looks scary in the darkness like this, sharp features illuminated by fire only. Yet his eyes are as warm as ever - as warm as a fox's eyes can be.

“It’s nice to see you,” you greet the spirit, standing still. You never dare to make the first move.

“Clearly,” he scoffs, “Did you miss me so much you’d risk your life?”

You note the angry undertone in his voice. Soohyuk may try to seem cold - and he can be, sometimes - but most of the time all the complexities of his words and actions make you wonder whether it’s real. Maybe that’s the mask he chose for himself, or maybe that’s him. Either way, you live.

“I was just asking, I didn’t plan on touching the flame,” you sooth, smiling at him gently, “But I did miss you.”

He perks up, the black fuzzy ears on top of his head moving cutely. You don’t comment on it, though, knowing he wouldn’t appreciate it. His tail is barely visible in the darkness too, further blending in with the dark robe he’s wearing. You wouldn’t notice it if he didn’t slowly sway it to the other side of his body.

“Did you?” he hums, and he seems almost satisfied to hear that, “The little human got lonely? How’s that, when you’re surrounded by so many others.” You watch as he makes a couple steps closer to you, allowing you to see him better.

At first you thought he must be shy, talking to you without showing his face the first couple times you’ve crossed paths. Now you’re not that sure. It’s just as well possible he simply likes acting mysterious and playing with you. You must admit he does a great job keeping you on edge.

“There is such a thing as missing a particular person,” you answer, “Don’t you remember?” If he wants push and pull, you might as well play along. He smirks, circling you like a hawk. His fingers dance playfully along your bare arm as he passes behind you.

It’s especially nerve wracking, not being able to see him. And you know he takes pleasure in that.

“I’m not one for sentiment,” he shares, dipping his head to speak right into your ear. You doubt it. It’s yet another foolish act, to try to analyze his behavior and make assumptions about his true character, but you’re not afraid to make mistakes. You’re biased too, you admit, however it’s impossible not to be when the subject in question is Soohyuk.

“Then you’ll just have to take my word for it,” you shrug, suppressing a shiver as he finally stands in front of you, looking down into your eyes. His fingers slip down your arm, curling around your wrist to press on your pulse point. He studies you, tilting his head slightly for a second. Your heart is beating rapidly, your breathing signals fear too. But you’re not afraid.

"You should be careful. There's more of my kind roaming around than you know," he tells you as he lets go of you.

"I thought you said you were a solitary kind, and this is your domain, isn't it?" you ask. You don't dare suggest it should be safe for you then, because it isn't.

"Solitary doesn't mean we don't crave company, occasionally," he sends you a playful look. “Or that we don’t like causing mischief, provoke each other.”

“You should watch your tongue,” you hum, returning the playfulness written on his face, “If you don’t, you might make it sound like some rogue fox killing me would be asking for trouble, not a dinner invitation.”

“Wouldn’t it?” he wonders, “Other humans might come look for you and disturb me.” You laugh. You can’t take him seriously when he observes your reactions so closely. It’s almost like he wants you to take offense at his nonchalance. Then again, he is a trickster spirit. You never know whether he means his words or not.

“I’ll be careful,” you promise, “You made me swear only you would be allowed to feast on me anyway.” It’s his turn to laugh. The sound used to be tainted with malice, and perhaps it still lingers somewhere, but lately it just seems relaxed. Comfortable.

“Did I?” he tries to recollect. Truth be told, he doesn’t remember these details. With eons of memories and only so much will to collect them, he needs to choose wisely which to keep. And these words, this promise, it didn’t seem important back then. “Is that what you came here for? To be my dinner? What would you offer me to feast on, hm?”

“My body,” you answer, watching Soohyuk watch you. His eyes scan your figure as they did so many times before. Always with the same hunger. He licks his lips.

“And if that’s not enough?” he challenges. Even if his face remains stoic, his tail betrays him. It flows behind his body, but its tip is curling from one side to another. What is it that he’s feeling that won’t allow him to relax?

“Then my flesh,” you offer, “My heart, if you’d accept it.” His eyes squint, darkness threatening to overtake them before the usual teasing glint returns.

He moves faster than you can see then, and when you focus on him again, he’s so close. He swoops in front of you, his hands embracing your body so you can’t escape, can’t even take a step back. You wouldn’t try anyway, but it’s comfortable to have him hold you. He’s warm, and you might have underestimated the chill of the night.

"Ah ah ah, love," he chides as he tilts your head up with his fingers, "Haven't you heard? Foxes like to snack on livers."

He holds you gently, one hand on the small of your back, the other trailing down until it’s absentmindedly drawing patterns on the right side of your torso, just under your breast. Where your liver is.

He says that, but you know any piece of your flesh would satisfy him.

All the books you’ve read said that the gumiho are evil beings, man-eaters. Sometimes it could pay off to believe fairy tales.

You try to even out your breathing, but you were never good at controlling how your body reacts. Much less around him. You know you’re breathing ridiculously quickly, shallow breaths filling your lungs with his scent. The fox seems to enjoy it, watching you with a glint in his eyes. You’ve learned he likes to study all your reactions closely. It’s almost eerie, the way he’s aware of the effect he has on you, what the tiniest touch or any single word does to you.

He knows what to expect. So he’s already smirking, one sharp fang pulling on his lip, when you jump slightly as he caresses your bare ankle with his tail. He steadies you as you grab onto his clothes, pulling you closer until your chests are almost touching. His hand is still separating you, stroking from your ribcage to the center of your chest, resting there.

“Your heart is beating so fast right now,” he says with a voice that doesn’t match his expression. He looks playful, almost teasing, but his voice is soft and betrays his inner feeling of wonder. Affection, almost. “Are you scared?”

“You scared me before,” you chuckle, a little breathy, “But I’m not scared of you. You should know that already.”

“Prove it,” the challenge is whispered as tenderly as his question earlier.

You smile up at him, letting go of his clothes to lay your hands on his chest. He’s doing it again, you notice. Standing straighter, posture tense like a warrior ready to strike. You don’t know where his tail is, only that it lingers somewhere around your legs. He’s tripped you like that a couple times before, and while there is a possibility of him doing it again right now, you doubt he will.

You lean closer, but as you do, you feel his claws extend. Their sharp tips dig into the flesh of your chest only slightly, nowhere near enough to so much as tear your clothes, even if it'd be very easy for him to do. His eyes remain stoic, merely observing. Playing games as always. It’s nothing you’re not used to, and maybe you should’ve learned. Maybe you’ll wish you did.

Without hesitation, or anything that he could consider a warning sign, you lean further into him, your hands sliding up to cup his jaw. There’s pain, only for a second. You hear fabric being ripped, and in the back of your mind you realize you’ll miss this piece. You feel as your skin dents, and then the tips of his claws puncture the tissue and stab into the layer underneath. But as quickly as it all happens, he also pulls his hand away. Only five crescents where blood begins to pool left as a memory of his touch.

It stings a little. Then again, you’ve cut yourself deeper when cooking. Is it that you’re that bad of a cook or is he deliberately avoiding hurting you?

Now it’s you holding him, his hands wrapping around your wrists with utmost tenderness as he signals for you to let him go. His eyes fall to the front of your shirt, a couple red specks appearing. It’s only bleeding lightly. The cuts are not even that deep. So why does he look so panicked for a second before he blinks the feeling away?

He could easily free himself, your fingers are merely tracing his jaw and cheeks. Yet he doesn’t dare to part from your touch. His eyes glare at you, yet their fire is extinguished.

“Now you look like you’re scared,” you say to him gently, not missing the way his gaze hardens for a second. His ears twitch on top of his head. Perhaps you’re being too cruel. You know a lot about his kind, he’s explained enough to you. You know that what you’ve done was dangerous, after all you feel the blood trickling down your stomach. And with the way he visibly tries to hold his breath and not sniff around, you wonder whether perhaps you really will regret your actions.

“Foxes are unpredictable,” he’s told you once, “We’re always hungry. Blood drives us crazy.”

“Why would you do that?” he says, voice on the edge between fragile and hungry. But he’s made that joke enough - that you could very well end up in his bed or on his plate. So far he’s always let you go. Maybe you’re getting tired of that.

“Didn’t you say so yourself?” you smile gently, fingers never ceasing to caress his face, “That once I approach a fox of my own will, I must be ready to embrace death?”

Soohyuk hums, remembering the memory faintly. That was when he had no expectation of you ever coming back to this rarely traveled road after he appeared in front of you, much less of meeting you time and time again, and then the impossibility of… well, perhaps that’s better not said.

“Why lean into it?” he inquires, his ears twitching again. Remembering their softness, you long to touch them. They’re sensitive too. Maybe what you really long for is any sense of control. Maybe you just hope to see him vulnerable too.

“I was curious what will happen,” you admit, hands sliding down to his neck. He growls quietly, a soft rumble in his chest. Why do you risk so much this evening? You’re not sure yourself. “And what you will do.”

Your hands wrap around his neck. Not enough to choke him, but you’re surprised he lets you anyway. Perhaps he’s curious too. You trace the outline of his windpipe with your thumbs, grazing his Adam's apple with your nails. You still don’t use any pressure in your touches.

“And what do you think I did?” he says. You can feel the vibrations of his voice in his throat.

“I told you, didn’t I?” you chuckle softly, “I think you got scared. Just for a second.”

“And then what?” he muses. Much like you did, he also leans forward. You follow the movement, never allowing your hands to press on his neck. Your lips quirk up, eyes falling from his gaze to your hands. He offers you his vulnerability. Nonetheless, even in this position it seems like you’re just a helpless prey. You run your thumb over his Adam’s apple, acknowledging his gesture before letting your hands slide back to his hair. You won’t hurt him.

“Then you wanted to reach deeper, didn’t you?” you whisper, pulling yourself closer to him. He lets you, his own hands falling to your waist and wrapping around you. “You wanted to hold my beating heart in your hand.”

“Why would I want that?” he asks lowly, his lips brushing against your ear in this new position. If you a tremble didn’t pass through your body at his voice, it would at the light scratch of his claws on the small of your back.

“Because it’s the nature of foxes,” you murmur, “To hunger, to crave human flesh. Or maybe you just want to feel someone so close and so intimately you don’t know how to go about it any other way.”

“And that doesn’t scare you?” you hear the playfulness in his voice, but the caution too. It’s comforting. You close your eyes and lean on him more.

“Why would it? It’s you. It’s your nature, it’s just how it should be,” your hands travel up, carding through his hair until they brush against the base of his ears. He purrs, resting more of his weight on you. You’re careful, only delicately stroking the black fur of his ears with slow motions. “You warned me. That’s already more than I could ask for. Being scared of you would be just like being scared of the rest of the world. Anything I do or encounter in this life might get me killed. You’re at least honest about it.” He scoffs.

“It’s really more like poking a sleeping tiger,” he counters, “You’re bound to get eaten.”

“Then why’d you get scared?” you hum, a faint smile on your lips when you feel his body tense. It passes so quickly you’d miss it if he wasn’t leaning on you as much as he is. You feel the muscles moving his ears strain with effort for them to stay still. “You never once denied it.”

“What does it matter anyway?” his voice is light, unconcerned, “Haven’t I told you before? Everything’s just a plaything for foxes.”

“You don’t get attached to playthings,” you almost sound like you’re scolding him, “And you can’t get scared if you’re not attached.”

“What do you know, little human?” he huffs, “You’re still so young. You don’t know about the world.”

“Perhaps,” you accept. He might be right, or he might be defensive. Either way, you allow it. You let go of him too, giving him the freedom to pull away. He does eventually, after a few more seconds.

“What you’re doing is dangerous,” he warns again. His arms remain wrapped around your waist. “It will get you killed.”

“Eaten?” you smile. He watches you, mischief sparkling in his eyes as he grins right back, self-assured.

“Naturally,” he agrees, “You can never know what’s going on in a fox’s mind. Especially in one that’s clouded with the scent of human blood.”

“I can’t,” you admit, “Tell me? Teach me?”

His lips twist in a smirk. His eyes fall to the crimson patch on your chest and he raises his hand, using it to cover the spot. He pushes only gently, but it makes you grimace anyway.

Then, suddenly, he smooths his robe back and fixes his posture. Without breaking eye contact, he kneels in front of you. It surprises you, and he chuckles lowly at your reaction. He doesn’t let you step away, both hands holding you in place with a firm grip on your waist.

“Don’t run away from your lesson, little one,” he scolds this time, “You asked me to teach you, after all.”

You relax quickly. This is what you talked about. It’s just the way he is. It’s his nature to be unpredictable, and you accept it unconditionally. You nod at him, telling him you’re ready to listen.

“Some part of me wants to tear you apart,” he sighs, nuzzling into your chest, ruining your clothes further, “And the other wants to heal you.”

“I can imagine the pleasure,” a purr rumbles in his chest as he speaks. You feel it in your fingertips as you run your hands over his back. “Maybe I’d shift into a fox. Snuggle to your bleeding chest and soak my fur with your blood as I lap it up.”

“Perhaps I’d eat your liver first,” he continues, his voice getting thoughtful, if only for a second, “Then your lungs, the intestines, until you’re hollow. I’d crawl inside you, curl up there and sleep peacefully.” Your hands move higher, playing with his hair as he speaks. He’s rubbed his face against your chest enough for his face to be decorated with streaks of your blood when he looks up. His eyes are so dark and wide, almost entirely black. He’s not trying to cover his fangs anymore. You can’t decide whether he’s looking at you like a fool in love or a lunatic about to devour you.

“It’d be so warm. So safe,” he whispers while looking straight into your eyes, “After so many centuries, I’d feel at peace.”

You almost pity him. Such a powerful being, centuries or millennia old, kneeling in front of you. Your hand falls from his hair to his face, brushing away stray strands with all the love you have for him. You brush away the blood too, collecting it on your thumb before offering it to him, the digit resting on his lip for just a moment before he sucks it into his mouth. His eyes close, brows furrow, and when he lets go, he sighs as if he’s feeling pleasure. Yet he looks like he’s in so much pain.

“Why don’t you do that, then?” you ask, nothing but genuine curiosity and sympathy lacing your words. The gumiho leans into your hand that lingers near his face. Sometimes he really does resemble a little fox. Even his ears flatten against his head. You can’t resist running your free hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. Then you rest your hand on top of his head, carefully stroking the rim of one of his black fuzzy ears.

“What if I’m just confused?” he hums, nudging his nose against your hand, asking for more attention. It’s so strange to see him like this. Almost like he’s at your mercy, when it’s really the other way around.

“Confused about what?” you ask, gently stroking his cheek with the back of your hand. He enjoys your touch for a beat longer before his eyes open again and meet yours. You remember a biology lesson you’ve had years ago.

Foxes are predators.

“About the obvious, my dear,” he says, patiently, as if it really should be clear to you. His hands travel from your hips, up towards your waist and higher still. All the way up to where the fabric of your top was torn. His gaze turns questioning. Wordlessly, you give him your consent.

His fingers curl around the fabric before he tears it in half, cleanly from top to the bottom. He smirks at the gasp that falls from your lips. You shiver as the night air envelops your bare skin. Strangely, you trust him. You know he’ll take care of you, should you survive the night.

But while the shivers caused by the chill of night could be easily overcome, nothing could stop the tremors and shivering he forces out of your body with his mouth on your skin.

He laps at the drying droplets of blood, massaging the skin on your stomach and chest with his tongue to clean up the redness. He fights to keep his eyes open at the taste.

“What I’m confused about, precious,” he mouths against your skin, “Is how exactly I want to eat you.”

“But then again,” he sighs, chuckling a little, “I suppose it’s the same with your heart.”

“My heart?” you ask, nearly breathless. The tenseness in your abdomen tightens at the mirthful look he gives you.

“Your heart,” he confirms, something between a loving smile and smirk on his lips, “I contemplated whether to eat it or to cherish it.”

He hums as he returns to his task, licking up until he reaches the little crescent stab wounds between your breasts, right above your heart. “I took so long thinking about it that before I could make a decision, you just gave it to me. All pretty on a silver platter.”

“And what about now?” you swallow, somewhat uneasily, “Do you know what you’re going to do with it?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” he nuzzles into your skin, kissing all around the wounds. It's a sensitive spot, even more so now, and you hiss with each of his kisses. His tongue presses into the semi circles, drawing more pained whimpers from your lips. His hands sooth over your waist as he pulls away. He admires his work, both the moon-like indents in your skin and the blooming marks around them.

He looks hungry. Blood stains his lips, and you wipe it again once more with a patient smile. He seems amused by it. The smirk present on his lips even as he licks the ruby liquid off, tongue wrapping around your finger.

“You should taste it yourself,” he suggests, resting his chin on your stomach, looking up at you, a satisfied expression adoring his face.

“I know what my blood tastes like, and it doesn’t bring me any pleasure,” you shake your head.

“How ignorant,” he sighs, leaning back to look over the marks on your chest once more. You see something you haven’t seen before in his eyes. You can’t describe it, and you’re sure he wouldn’t answer if you asked. It’s a warm feeling, however, you’re sure of it.

“Let them scar,” he whispers, raising his hand towards the shallow cuts left by his claws. He runs his fingers over them gently. “So you’re always wearing my marks.”

“Does that mean I’ll get out of the woods alive tonight, Mr. Fox?” you tease, unwisely, “Does it mean, perhaps, that you’ve decided to cherish my heart?”

He smirks, tilting his head slightly. You recognize the fondness in his gaze, even if it only flickers there for a second.

“No, not tonight,” he tells you. Laughter spills from his lips as your face pales instinctively. Yet he knows you’re not scared - not as he wants you to be, not as you should be. He wonders how come you’re so ready to accept death at his hands. Why you’d risk your life, why you’d embrace him so. Perhaps one day he’ll ask you. Perhaps he’ll devour you right after getting his answers. Or perhaps he’ll spend the rest of your days pondering the unspoken questions by your side.

“Tomorrow morning, maybe,” he thinks aloud and takes a moment to take in the way your breathing quickens, “If you’re lucky.”

“There’s something I’m curious about though,” he continues with his fingers still caressing over the marks, “Can you make it until I make these into the phases of the moon?” You feel a shiver run down your spine at the suggestion, at all its implications.

“That would, of course, all depend on you, Soohyuk,” you reply, and this time it’s him who feels his body react to your words, to his long forgotten name being said aloud. You caress him again, fingers tracing his jawline. How is it that you don’t fear him? “As you said, foxes are fickle creatures and their moods can be dangerous. I’m a guest in your world, and I’ll only stay as long as you allow me.”

He smiles, closing his eyes and you know it’s so that you don’t see the emotion in them. For such a long time he was alone, without the need to hide his feelings, so now that there is that need, he lacks practice. It’s endearing. All the more so as he once more leans into your touch. His lips press a kiss into your palm.

“You’re a welcomed guest. For the time being,” he says. Is it a threat? Is it reassurance? Is it a fact? Or is he trying to persuade you of it, or maybe even himself? You’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter.

What does matter is him shifting forward, lips attaching to your bare stomach again, and his claws resting softly on your waist. His teeth graze your sensitive skin.

Fox’s hunger is hard to satisfy.

In the sky, the moon is waning. Ready to die and be reborn.

You watch it as he guides you through the woods. Maybe you’re the same, both dying tonight.

The memory of the moon as well as the night remains permanent on your skin. The fox makes sure the cuts he made above your heart decorate your body forever.

You leave his den with the sunrise, wearing his robe and his marks.

#lee soohyuk #lee soohyuk x reader #lee soohyuk scenarios #lee soohyuk imagines #fanfic #suggestive #requested

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spyglassrealms · 3 years ago

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apotheosis

/əˌpäTHēˈōsəs/

(noun) - the ascendance or elevation of a person to divine status.

They say I saved the world.

I have tried to tell my people that the world is not safe; that no world is safe. That no world could ever be safe, not forever. Safety is a tranquil pool through which the river of history flows. I know the truth, or at least part of it, thanks to the man I met that day. No one else knows about that man, and he may not have even been real, but I must speak of him all the same, for he taught me something I will never forget. He imparted to me, in a sense, the meaning of life.

He arrived, perhaps against his own better judgment, in a flash of light at just the right moment. And judgment it was, indeed; I had been given a choice that I could not bring myself to make, and he showed me what I had to do. He helped to fix the mistake that I had made, but he seemed so forlorn while he did so. I could not help but to ask him why: why he was helping at all, and why it made him sad. And when I did, he turned to me, and he told me a story.

Long ago, and very far from here, there was a man who lived on a small blue-green planet, under a small yellow sun, lost in the endless cosmic night. This man was gifted; his work alone accelerated the scientific advancement of his world by hundreds of years over the course of his lifetime. To his beloved people, he brought peace, health, safety, comfort, and most importantly knowledge. But it was not enough for him.

He did not seek power. He did not wish for domination, not over his fellow man or even over nature. What he sought was knowledge for its own sake -a nobler pursuit than power and control, but still dangerous. And as must always happen, one day... something went horribly wrong. He did not speak of what happened, not in detail, but in tinkering with the very fabric of reality, he became... sundered, splintered, undone, and then suddenly… remade.

He could, all at once, perceive the whole of infinity around him. He saw the great nothing at the bottom of everything, and the madness at the top. He experienced every iteration of every universe; all of time and space happening at once in an endless forest of infinitely-branching cosmic trees. He saw the space between and could channel the limitless energy from that aether to reshape reality as he pleased. He was, in an instant, more powerful than any god -truly omnipotent. He understood the meaning of existence and he knew, with omniscient certainty, that there was no meaning. There was no reason for existence at all, no purpose within being. Reality simply is. How does someone, formerly finite and mortal, cope with infinity in every direction, when there is no meaning behind that infinity?

The answer, he said, was joyfully simple.

Existence, he told me then, is a blank canvas upon which to paint meaning. And he added another revelation to help me paint my meaning: existence is not unknowing and uncaring, for we know that we exist, and we must resolve to care. We are each the universe made conscious, he said to me with humble awe in his voice, and the only thing missing from a universe without consciousness is compassion. Only that which has the ability to know and understand, can know and understand others. It was so clear to me in that moment: that consciousness exists to be the door through which meaning enters the universe, and that meaning must be kindness.

I asked him, then, why he was sad, for what he had said brought me tears of joy. He told me that every instance of an event with more than one outcome is another node in the tree, another fork splitting into new branches, each one with their own branches, unto eternity. There is no one true timeline, no one correct path. For him to create a new one through intervention was merely an infinitesimal drop in the aether, and he could see all the futures in which I had made a choice. He knew what would have happened without him -if, that is, the choice had been left to me, in my ignorance. He grieved that he could never ensure the permanent safety and happiness of a world, for that would be a task of infinity against infinity. To forge a new path for a world through kindness may not change much, he said, but it is noble.

But then he smiled, and he told me his secret: his purpose. For all his power and knowledge, for all his eternity, he confided in me that he was not infallible. The meaning he ascribes to his everlasting life, therefore, is to strive to be better, for this is a task wherein the goal is always one step further. The quest for compassion is as endless as he and the whole of existence. So, too, is his other task: to maintain the integrity of all universes -as he has seen, there are always some rare few who would seek nothing but destruction. He cares for every infinitely-branching tree of spacetime in Eternity, tends to their ills and encourages their growth.

He told me, then, that his work in this time and place was complete, for now, and wished me well as he left the same way he had come: in a flash of otherworldly light. But I have thought about him every day since then, as my world slowly heals, and I have come to appreciate who and what he really is. He did not create existence, but he bears its responsibility as though he did. He wanders the grand cosmic forest of times and spaces, sowing kindness where it must be sown and fostering compassion across the whole of existence, in hopes of watching it bloom like flowers in an endless summer sun.

I never learned his name, but I know what I will call him.

I will call him the Gardener.

#spy writes #had an existential spiral this weekend and banged this out in a couple hours #it's actually about a character of mine #not the narrator #I left the narrator vague on purpose #no the Gardener is a character of mine #spyglass’ realms #sphaeraverse #worldbuilding #writing #apotheosis

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the-swedes-knees · 4 years ago

Text

Time in A Bottle (Agent Mobius x Reader)

Summary: Everyone has a guilty pleasure. For Mobius, it's a slice of pie in a very specific slice of time.

Word Count: 1.8k

Located in the middle of Downtown, bordering on the corner of old-time druggies and newly gentrified condos was a moderate sized building with an exorbitant monthly rent.

It was a theme restaurant, if the theme was 'we opened in 1953 and we'll be damned if we change the decor'- done up in chrome and frosted glass windows that clashed against the surrounding brick and mortar. The neon sign bearing the establishment's name had burnt out years ago, but it wasn't the type of place one would seek out.

Unless you were Mobius, that is.

[09:45:00]

Technically, he shouldn't be here.

His unit was nearly a mile out, or, more accurately, they would be within the hour. Dates like this, where a simple flap of a fat pigeon's wing could ripple into Nexus event after Nexus event had a name. A proper designation in their severity and frequency of necessary resets.

But he just always referred to them as 'a real pickle'.

You glance up at the front door as the brass bell affixed to the frame jingles loudly. The man that enters looks around the place before making eye contact with you and smiles. He points to the empty bar and you nod your head.

Once you finish refilling the other customer's drink, you see that he's made himself comfortable in the middle stool.

"Hey there." You greet from the opposite side of the counter. He offers a sheepish greeting in response as you set a water down in front of him, balancing a plastic straw on the rim of the glass. "Can I start you off with some coffee? Just made a fresh pot."

"That'd be great, thanks."

You place the mug and matching saucer in front of him and pour. For a moment you look up at him, and he's smiling a very genuine smile- something very rare these days.

As soon as it's full to the brim you're reaching under the counter and grabbing a clean glass sugar pourer, placing it right next to his cup.

"How'd you know?"

"Customer service intuition, I guess." He thanks you before unfurling the napkin containing his flatware. Like someone with real proper manners, he drapes the napkin over one of his legs before stirring an ample amount of sugar into his drink.

You can't help but notice just how much he fits in to the whole aesthetic with his well fitted brown suit and slim tie. New York offered a multiplicity of personalities, and you'd become quite numb to anything and everything that would walk through that door.

Yet, someone about this man was intriguing, familiar in a way. Like in the past life he was a PI that you hired to confirm your husband's affair.

Both a confidant, and a stranger.

"Feel free to take your time, but, do you know what you'd like?" You note his closed menu pushed to the side. He raises his eyebrows and nods while mid-sip, and you pull out a notepad and pen from your apron.

"Sure do, could I get two slices?" He points the vintage rotating pie cooler to your left and specifies his selection.

Easy enough. You put two generous slices onto separate plates, and he declines your offer of whipped cream or ice cream on top.

"Good choice, this one's my favorite."

"You don't say." The knowing twinkle in his eye wasn't noticed as you busied yourself with refilling his coffee. He holds his hands up in mock defeat and sighs. "Well, I guess you'll have to join me." The ceramic scraped against the quartz tabletop as he pushed one of the plates across the bar, directly opposite himself.

"I'm on the clock-"

"Don't worry, another customer doesn't come in for-" He pauses to flex his arm, riding his jacket sleeve up just enough to check his wristwatch. "12 minutes and 43 seconds."

[09:52:16]

"Am I supposed to trust you on that?" You raise an eyebrow, and his only response is a slight head tilt and pushing the second slice a nudge closer to you.

It wasn't every day courteous men offered you a break in the form of your favorite desert. Your face screwed up in contemplation as you looked at the only other two patrons in the diner before giving in and grabbing a second set of flatware. "Well, it is slow-"

"For a Friday?" He has another bite before setting down his fork and dabbing at his face with his napkin.

"Is it Friday already?" You sigh, bent over the counter to take a bite of the pie. Delicious as ever. "Hardly feels like it, all the days are melding together."

"I think this one will stand out."

"What is the date, anyway?"

"May 4th." You make a hum of acknowledgement and he gives you a lopsided grin. "2012, incase you forgot the year too."

"I'll mark it in my calendar," You laugh, using your hand to cover your mouth as you continue to chew. "'The Day I Met-'"

"Mobius." He introduces himself, extending his hand over the counter and you shake it. His grip is firm, authoritative. Before you can reply with your own name, he refers to you by it while maintaining perfect eye contact.

You can't explain why, but it feels so right when he says it. Like it was perfectly made to be pronounced in his charming Texan drawl with just the faintest hint of gravel.

While you're fixed in a stunned silence his eyes deliberately dart to the lapel of your uniform. You follow his gaze and laugh at yourself for neglecting that you were indeed wearing a nametag.

"So Mobius... like, from maths?"

"Yeah, like math." He eyes his untouched water and picks up the plastic straw. His fingers move carefully, removing the straw from the perorated paper. You watch with curiosity as the man twists the paper once and pinches the two ends together with his thumb and index finger.

Mobius holds his opposite hand out to you, confident, waiting. With a bemused smile you allow him to guide your hand. His skin is warm, presumably from the way he had cradled his coffee mug, but it's comforting in a way. His rough hand guides you, your finger tracing the geometry of the paper-straw shape.

"A path that twists and turns... but always ends back at the same spot."

"I wasn't very good at math." You admit, and gesture around as if working in a place like this was a testament to that fact. "Why does it matter that it always ends where it began?"

"Well, that all depends on perspective. Maybe it doesn't matter. But to the one who observes it, it makes all the difference." You quirk an eyebrow, silently pressing him to elaborate. "Maybe that point's... where you got your first kiss, the feeling when your favorite football team scores a winning touchdown, a perfect sunset-"

Mobius catches himself trailing off, and looks down at his plate. He puts another bite onto his fork and cheers it to you.

"Or having pie in good company."

You look around the mostly empty diner before bracing your arms against the counter, leaning in as if you were to whisper some great secret.

"Has anyone ever told you you're a bit odd?"

[09:59:06]

"No-" His eyes crinkle as he laughs. "No, that's a new one. But you find it charming." He winked, actually winked, and leaned back in his stool, smirking into his coffee.

Your fork was halfway to your mouth as your just stared at him, frozen. You feel your mouth open and close a few times as you try to think of a somewhat dignified response.

"How would you know that?"

"I just know things." He shrugged.

"Like what?" You challenged.

"How about, Paul- over there." You crane your head to follow his line of eye, your coworker currently bussing a table that had just left. "Worked in this place five years, loves Coke- from the glass bottle, nothing else. Has a girl on the Upper East Side and runs a decent sized internet radio station out of his apartment."

"You're one of his listeners." You narrowed your eyes at him, a perfectly reasonable explanation.

"Oh, no. Hyperpop... not my style."

"Alright, BBC Sherlock-" You countered. You give a subtle head tilt to a woman sitting in a far off booth, papers spread out on the table around her pancake combo. Whoever she was, she definitely wasn't a regular. "How about her?"

"Mrs. Braverman. Youngest of eight siblings, English teacher at the charter school up the avenue. Actually prefers imitation maple syrup to the real thing."

You know very well Mobius could be talking out of his ass. But he's confident, nonchalantly so- like this was a game to him and he was obviously winning.

"What about me?"

"Thought you'd never ask." Your anticipation is palpable as he swallows his final bite, taking the time to wipe his face of crumbs before smiling softly at you.

"You are... a poem of a person. Charming, capable, when you walk into a room people notice- even if you convince yourself that they don't." His gaze is steady, patient, and he's looking at you as if you're the only person in the universe. "You have big dreams, far beyond all... this... and you're gonna make it."

[10:04:59]

The sound of the door chime breaks you out of whatever hypnotic state you had found yourself in. Sucking in a breath and blinking away the very beginnings of tears in your eyes you tell the new customer to sit wherever they like.

Mobius took this chance to check his handheld, sighing at the time and the ever-growing slope of the branch variation.

The reset charge would be set soon, with or without him there.

"Look at that. Duty calls." He stands up and pulls a billfold from his jacket pocket, not even counting as he puts the cash down on the counter.

Mobius turns to leave, but hesitates. He turns back around to face you and places his hands on his hips. Allowing himself to play into the fleeting illusion just a tad longer.

"One more thing I know about you-" Mobius rubbed his chin in careful consideration. "You have a date tonight."

"Ah-" You wag your finger at him and shake your head side to side, "got one wrong."

"Did I? Ah- well... How about we change that?"

You pause. The plates you had been holding found their way back to the counter as you set them down slowly. Once again in a very short time span, he had left you speechless.

"That... was possibly the lamest pickup line I've ever heard." Though you mean it to be snarky, it sounds more like praise coming from your smiling lips. "I get off at 6:30."

"Alright." He looks perfectly pleased with himself as he lightly knocks on the counter with his fist. "It's a date."

Walking out the door, Mobius gave one last look at the diner before reporting to the event site.

He knew would see you again, always at 9:45.

#agent mobius #mobius #mobius m. mobius #agent mobius x reader #mobius x reader #loki series #loki #marvel #marvel x reader #sorry for the interruption from my usual content #but I love time traveling men

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 4 years ago

Note

i love your metas! I just discovered them today and have spent all afternoon reading them. I have two part ask, if that's okay. Firstly, do you think a sensible version of bella could survive if she recognised early on that keeping on Edward's good side was her only survival option? and secondly, on the flip side, just how unhinged do you think bella could be before edward rejected her?

Ooh, both interesting questions, anon. Let's do this.

Sane Bella and the Yandere Simulator

Last time, on The Carnivorous Muffin's ridiculous blog, we covered what would happen to a sensible Bella who realizes the Cullens are not fluffy bunnies she should take home.

The long and short, Edward eats her.

Edward's romantic interest in Bella, the thing that has him fighting his own baser nature to keep her alive, is dependent on a few things.

One of those is Bella's interest in turn.

In time, if Bella truly was not interested in him, he would eat her. Alice tells us there's only two paths for Bella: death or vampire. Leaving her and walking away is never a true option for Edward.

So, Sane Bella loses Yandere Simulator because she doesn't realize the key aspect of Yandere Simulator: You Never Say No to Yandere.

However, you point out something interesting here, that this is a sensible Bella.

Sensible people do not immediately think they're playing Yandere Simulator. You don't run across people like Edward often, there aren't many of him, and while there are red flags early in Twilight Edward did a pretty good job of making them not particularly visible.

By the time we hit Eclipse he's pretty much thrown pretending to be nice and sane out the window. Luckily for Bella, that doesn't appear to bother her as much as it should.

Bella thinking "if I don't play along with this inhuman whack job he'll eat me", is paranoid lunacy. It is not the first conclusion a reasonable person would jump to.

That it happens to be the right conclusion is irrelevant.

But alright, I'll play ball.

Paranoid Bella and the Yandere Simulator

Bella is utterly paranoid and wearing her tin foil hat when she enters Forks. She remembers Biology very well and when Edward comes back and pretends to be nice she gives him a strained smile and thinks, "This motherfucker will eat me the moment my back is turned."

Bella considers travelling back to Florida, but that would be leading Edward to her mother, more it would be very easy to find Bella if he truly wished to.

Florida isn't an option.

Bella tries to keep her distance from Edward, hard when he sits next to her in Biology, but he seems willing to ignore her. Bella calms down a little, maybe this will work out.

Bella is nearly crushed by a van, desperately pretends she definitely did not see Edward fold that van like a pretzel. Nope, no siree Bob, Bella is concussed! She then stays awake all night in terror and OH GOD HE'S CLIMBING THROUGH HER WINDOW! HE'S GOING TO EAT HER IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT! HE KNOWS THAT SHE KNOWS!

Bella pretends to sleep, horrified, and Edward stays there all night. Staring.

(Edward, meanwhile, is realizing he's in love.)

Bella enters school a nervous wreck, waiting for that fateful Biology class and... Edward is studiously ignoring her. He doesn't even say hello.

Bella would be relieved, except he keeps sneaking into her bedroom at night, staring. Bella gets no sleep for weeks.

Then the blood testing happens and suddenly Edward is talking to her. He tells her they shouldn't be friends and he doesn't want to be friends, GREAT, EDWARD, THAT'S GREAT. But then it's very clear that he's after something, and Bella's spidey senses are tingling.

Edward doesn't want to be friends.

Oh, oh shit.

Suddenly, Edward sneaking into her room at night takes on a whole, new, sinister twist. First he'll rape her, then he'll eat her (or who knows, maybe vice versa, Bella certainly doesn't want to find out).

Bella is driven home by Edward (he insists) and enters the house to wheeze into a paper bag.

She thinks over her options.

Edward can crush cars, Bella trips over asphalt. Even if she wasn't Bella, there's no way she could outfight him even if she wanted to.

Edward was very concerned when he suspected that she knew, he likely still suspects and Bella's not a very good liar. Bella doesn't want to find out what happens to her if Edward realizes she really does know.

Edward appears to have a romantic interest in her. Does Bella really have the option of saying no?

Bella, still wheezing in her bag, comes to what seems like an inevitable decision. She must humor Edward at all costs. For the sake of her family, of her own life, she must play into his romantic overtures. Bella can't act but now, her life depends on it.

Well, Bella still can't act, but luckily for her Edward doesn't care.

Edward just thinks Bella's very jumpy, a little nervous and shy, and just plain weird (given he thinks Bella's just plain weird in canon this is not too far from normal events).

So Bella gets to live in terror for things like the meadow, where Edward talks about how easy it would be to eat her, how he contemplated murdering Biology in cold blood to eat her in the most efficient manner, how he loathed her for daring to smell delicious, how Alice warned him there was a good chance of him eating Bella in the meadow today, all while pressing his cheek against her hammering heartbeat.

"AH HA HA HA HA, EDWARD, YOU'RE SO CHARMING."

Edward invites Bella to the house. These creepy, man eating, people all meet her with smiles. Edward has composed her a lullaby. One of them, Alice, tells Bella they're going to be best friends.

"AH HA HA HA HA, EDWARD YOUR FAMILY IS SO NICE."

In other words, somehow, all of Twilight still happens because Bella is terrified of saying no.

At least, until Volterra. Given Bella's being hunted by Victoria, even had Bella not gone cliff diving eventually Alice would see her eaten and then black out as the wolves chased off Victoria instead.

Bella spends New Moon having a great time. Mostly. The Cullens are finally gone, she's free, she spends weeks on edge thinking they might come back.

Just when she starts to relax, fucking Laurent shows up and learns Victoria's trying to kill her. Because of Edward, because of course, it's always about Edward. WHY ARE VAMPIRES ALWAYS TRYING TO KILL HER?!

Regardless, Alice shows up and goes, "Bella, my god, you're alive!" And Bella dies inside. Alice Cullen is back. Oh no.

Bella pretends she's thrilled to see her. Alice, her best friend, her favorite demon. Hurray. Alice fills Bella in on the New Moon scoop, Bella pretends to be very invested. Then Alice gets the vision.

Edward has decided to commit suicide via the Volturi.

Bella has no problem with this, unfortunately, she realizes that Alice clearly has a problem with this. Alice fully expects Bella to run off to Italy to save Fucking Edward.

Once again, Bella isn't sure she's allowed to say no.

Bella runs to Italy, finds herself saving Edward's life, and then she's brought before the Volturi where she might very well be executed because Edward Cullen happened to involve her in this mess.

BELLA NEVER WANTED TO BE HERE.

Bella snaps. She's crying, she just can't take it anymore, and she finally loses her shit at Edward. SHE NEVER LOVED HIM! HE IS SCARY AND WON'T LEAVE HER ALONE! IF THEY'RE GOING TO KILL HER JUST DO IT NOW BECAUSE SHE CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE.

Aro watches Bella's mental breakdown in utter amazement. Naturally, while Marcus suspected something was funky with those two, Aro did not see this coming from Edward's perspective.

Aro offers Bella her out, it is unfortunately death or vampire, but vampire is very much an option and Aro will offer Bella sanctuary in the Volturi.

Bella takes that offer and runs with it.

Edward is devastated and blindsided.

Somehow, neither he nor Alice saw this one coming.

But to answer your question: Paranoid Bella survives Yandere Simulator By Defecting to the Volturi

How Unhinged Does Bella Have to Be For Edward to Dump Her?

He won't.

Remember, Edward in canon thinks there's something legitimately wrong with Bella. She doesn't think like normal people, she always makes the least rational choice, and he can't hear her thoughts.

Edward doesn't think Bella's gifted just that she's... different. (Bella, hilariously, immediately picks up that Edward's calling her a freak. Edward backtracks hard on that one.)

Bella's decisions also become increasingly ridiculous as the series goes on.

She stabs herself in the middle of a battle, she insists on having sex with him while human, she consorts with shapeshifters (to Edward this is lunacy), she picked up motorcycle riding, she threw herself off a cliff, she ran from his sweet protection to the reservation, she believes he doesn't love her, and she doesn't want to get married.

I imagine Edward thinks there isn't anywhere left for Bella to go. She's left the planet, unhinged is her middle name.

But none of that matters.

I already linked the Edward/Bella post I always link near the top so I'll just recap. For Edward, it's all about the blood, the silence, and the projection.

An unhinged Bella is still a delicious and silent Bella. He can still pretend she's Carlisle.

Even if Bella became addicted to cocaine, and ruined that sweet scent, it wouldn't tarnish her memory. He'd nurse her back to health, then eat her so she never relapses.

That's the trouble with Edward/Bella, it's not about Bella, not at all. You could replace her with sweet smelling cardboard and Edward would not notice a difference.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #edward cullen #anti edward cullen #bella swan #edward/bella #anti edward/bella #alice cullen #anti alice cullen #the volturi #aro #meta #headcanon #opinion

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