#i really need to make a post with my links or something
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Now, more than ever, we need to be careful about spreading misinformation and rumors
I can guarantee that over the next few months, we'll be hearing about a lot of alarming things going on here in the US. Some of those things will be true, and some won't. (And some will have both true and false or exaggerated elements.)
It's going to be absolutely vital that important information is not drowned out by misinformation, rumors, and ragebait.
That means, when you see something that would be important if true, before sharing, you check whether it's actually true.
In library world, we use the acronym SIFT:
STOP: Don't spread the information, or get caught up in your emotional reaction to it, before you've checked it out. INVESTIGATE: Who is saying it? How do they know? If there are links or sources in the post, do they actually say what the person is saying they do? FIND other coverage: Do an internet search for key details: quotes, people's names, specific locations. If something major is happening, there will normally be a lot of coverage. TRACE claims, quotes, and media back to their original context.
Usually you don't need to do all four things: just STOP and then pick what makes sense from the other three. If you decide to share the information, you can also say what you did--"This is a firsthand account from XYZ protest; it lines up with what the local TV station is saying, but has a lot more details about what the cops did," or whatever.
The more urgent the information seems, the more important it is to make sure it's reliable.
If we're hearing every other day that this or that vulnerable group is in immediate, life-threatening danger--but 49 times out of 50 it turns out to mean Trump rambled somewhere about something which, if actually implemented, could end up having the described consequences at some point down the line--then people aren't going to know the difference the one time in 50 when the danger really is immediate.
Think, here, things like immigration crackdowns, CPS investigations into parents who affirm a trans child's gender, or demands that health care providers report miscarriages to law enforcement. We all know that these are things Trump World talks about a lot and would like to be able to do, in some form. For the sake of the people affected by these topics, we need different ways of talking about, "Here they are, back on their bullshit," versus, "This is a policy proposal for a real thing that could happen," versus, "Holy shit, grab the kids and run."
We cannot go to "Holy shit, grab the kids and run" every time Trump, or someone in his inner circle, decides to bloviate about something that could disastrously affect people lives. The people who are most in danger can't stay at DefCon 5 every day of their lives, and when they do really have to grab the kids and run, we need that alarm to be heard over the constant background hum of dread.
The same goes for action items--whether protests, ways to help, or little things people can do to stay safe/sane. There's going to be plenty going on, and nobody is going to be able to do everything, so do your part by passing along those things that you can vouch are true and important, and skipping the things you aren't sure about.
I'll leave you with an example. Remember how a few years ago, we were all-in about hand hygiene and disinfecting surfaces? And then it turned out that those were not actually very important in terms of preventing the transmission of COVID-19, and what we really need is better air filtration in public spaces--but, at my work at least, we still have canisters of surface-disinfecting wipes sitting around, and tattered old signs up about hand hygiene, and no air filters.
At the time, early in the pandemic, we were sharing the best information we knew about how to stay safe, but people got a little too fixated on that initial advice--remember how people would wipe down their groceries? And those little sticks for pressing elevator buttons?--and then when the advice changed, they didn't want to hear about it.
Distrust, fatigue, superstitious attachment to the old grocery-wiping ways--there were a lot of reasons, but the key thing to take away is that attention, energy, and goodwill are all finite resources. Try to avoid wasting it with grocery-wiping--or worse, shilling for the guy selling little sticks to press elevator buttons with.
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The Suppressants
Alpha! Joel Miller X Omega!AFAB!Reader
Part One, Part Two
(( it won’t let me post the URL for part one, so please visit the link below to my Master List where you can find Part One!))
The complete Collection: Apollyon’s Master List.
Summary: What do you do when you run out of heat suppressants? You turn to the only person who can possibly get you more medication; even if it means airing your biggest secret. But when Joel doesn’t have what you need you must travel together to meet another dealer. Surely you’ll get more medicine score your heat starts… right?
Warnings: 18+ content, post-apocalyptic world. A/B/O alternative universe, (A/B/O dynamics including: Scenting, Marking, Knotting, Heats) age gap (Reader is 26, Joel is late 40s), reader has been on suppressant most of her life, Joel teaches reader about guns, parental lost (not depicted on page), he falls first, angst(?), gore and violence. SMUT: Fingering, PIV, no use of protection (wrap it up y’all!), slight breeding kink if you squint, knotting, marking, heavy praise kink. ((Please let me know if I missed anything))
The day creeps on into the late evening, and as stars begin to speckle the sky you finally draw yourself away from the window, unable to see anything but your own reflection. Joel sits by the fire, trying to make it seem as if he wasn’t watching you the whole time your back had been turned. He shuffles his legs, picking at the ruminants of the rabbit on his plate.
“He’ll be here.” Joel glances up as you pace over, biting at your thumb nail as you stare into the orange and blue embers.
“Yeah, yeah I know.” But there’s a catch in your voice, your smile wavering slightly when you catch his eye.
He holds your stare for a moment, and you’re unable to hide the pinch of worry between your brow, your smile falling further. “Come on, sit.” Joel nods at your sleeping bag, sliding the rest of the rabbit towards you. “Gotta eat, kid. It ain’t gonna do you any good to make yourself sick while we wait.”
He has a point. You slide your bag closer to him and the fire, crossing your legs as you sit, pulling the plate into your lap. The silence stretches between you, filled only by the pop of the logs in the brick fireplace. You dare a glance towards Joel, finding him leaning back on his hands, legs stretched out and staring into the fire. Both of you lost in your own heads, wondering what could have happened to make Mark so late.
“Let me ask you something.” You’re caught staring, your cheeks flushing as Joel turns to look at you.
“W-What?”
“How long have you been on this medication?”
“Oh um… Eight? Nine years, maybe.” You shrug your shoulder, popping a piece of meat into your mouth.
Joel stares at you, stunned. “That long?” His thoughts turn instantly to how the medication could have affected you, how your body works, down to your biology. He can’t stop the spark of horror showing in his eyes before you notice.
You blanch slightly, stammering over your words. “Well… well yeah. I mean I couldn’t let anyone know, obviously. It’s… mom explained it like it was pretty much birth control. Never have a heat, never have to worry.” You try to shrug it off but Joel shakes his head, turning his body towards you.
“Yeah, but even then birth control isn’t supposed to be used your entire life… Are all of your instincts suppressed?”
The look on his face, how his eyes have grown wider, it makes you fidget. “Um… I guess so. I don’t really know what though.”
Joel shakes his head slightly, finally resting his gaze on the fire. “How come you never decided to find an Alpha to settle with? Someone you trusted?”
Your cheeks grow warm, the plate long forgotten in your lap, staring at Joel as the firelight dances across his features. “Well, I…” You don’t advert your gaze when he looks back at you, your heart steadily beating faster. “I thought about it… but I’m… I’m scared. I’m scared that the moment an Alpha finds out that he’ll use me, strip me of everything I am until I am nothing more than my biology…”
Your words are heavy in the air, the two of you staring at each other as the logs shift and crack in the hearth. Joel sits up a little straighter, resting his arms on his knees and glancing you over, breaking eye contact first.
“You told me.” His voice is gruff, underlying emotions caught at the back of his throat and your eyes widen.
“Of… of course I did-You’re…”
“Different?” He offers, eyebrows lifting, gesturing with a hand. You nod, suddenly all too aware of how close you are to him, how his eyes burn into your own, how he’s a larger than life presence in the room and that…
It doesn’t scare you, nothing about Joel has ever scared you. Unlike most of the Alphas you had the misfortune of crossing paths with.
It’s a startling realization, stealing your breath as you turn away.
Joel is different. He’s always been different.
“Y/n?”
You set the plate down clumsily beside him, the clunk loud on the wood floor, before you stand with your bag.
“I’m tired… do you mind taking first watch?”
Before he can answer you’re walking away, setting your bag down near the wall farthest from his. You crawl in and turn over, the pounding of your heart keeping you up for most of the night.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Day one of staying in the safe house slowly rolls into day two. Then those hours bleed over into day three and the anxiety that was pumping through your veins has morphed and transcended into pure terror.
There is still no sign of Mark as you and Joel pick at breakfast.
There is still no sign of Mark as you pace back and forth across the house when Joel tries to convince you to sit and eat lunch.
Now the sun is beginning to set, and the limitations of your calm have reached a breaking point. The empty pill bottle lays by your bag, an orange beacon of what is to come should Mark never show. The heaviness of the situation is slowly suffocating the air from the room, and there is nothing either of you can do as you wait, and wait, and wait.
Joel watches you from his spot by the window, lines of stress carve your face, your body jerky with how tightly strung your muscles are as you fold another blanket from the pile you had found in one of the back rooms. He isn’t sure what more he can do, though his instincts beg to comfort you, to take you in his arms and soothe your fears. But he knows it would be a lie, that as soon as the medication begins to work out of your system you’ll go into heat at any given moment, if not immediately.
He glances out the window for what feels like the hundredth time, willing the short blond man to materialize on the empty street.
Your breath is staggered in your lungs, panic slowly tightening its grip around your neck by the minute, no matter how hard you try to keep it at bay. You toss another blanket onto Joel’s sleeping bag before bending to pick up the next, shaking it free of the dust that had gathered over the years. You try to focus on the feeling of the soft material beneath your fingers, or the way the particles float through the air, catching the sunlight. You count the blankets in each pile, trying to even them out.
“One, two, three-“
“Honey.”
You jump at Joel’s deep voice, turning to find him staring at you, his arms folded across his chest, his eyebrows pinched once more. “Y-Yes?” Your eyes flickering to the door expectantly, a spark of hope wishing to fan to life.
Joel rolls his lips together, adverting his gaze. “Ya might wanna take all those blankets into that back room… Make somewhere comfortable for yourself later.”
Your heart plummets into your stomach, the feeling flooding from your hands as the blanket falls to the floor. “W-What? Why?”
“I don’t think Marks going to make it.” Joel watches the color drain from your face in an alarming amount of time, his back stiffening as he pushes off the wall, suddenly afraid you’re going to faint as you sway on your feet.
“N-no… No.” Denial takes a head, your eyes becoming watery. “He said he would be here, he-he has to be here!” Despair makes you raise your voice, and the look of pity in Joel’s eyes only makes the feeling worse. “Why isn’t he here?”
Shaking his head, Joel runs his hands through his hair. “Darling I wish I knew. There’s a number of things that could have happened. From him deciding what I was trading wasn’t good enough to he could have possibly been attacked.” Joel’s words hold reason, and you want to accept them, you want them to make you feel better, to understand that this journey was a risk with no guaranteed reward.
“I can’t go through this Joel. I can’t.” Your voice breaks as he becomes blurry, tears burning your eyes that refuse to fall just yet. “I can’t go home, I can never go back to the QZ.”
“Baby… Yes you will.”
“No I can’t! The moment I get remotely close to those walls an Alpha is going to hunting me like I am some kind of-“
Joel is suddenly before you, gripping your shoulders, and his solemn features are extremely clear as the first tear falls. “Ain’t no one, and I mean no one gonna lay a finger on you. I wont let that happen.”
“I’m an unmated Omega, Joel…” You whisper, trembling under his grip. “I’m prey.”
The words are heavy, laden with the truth. Where as the few mated Omegas there are, are relatively safe in the presence of their Alpha or pack, an unmated Omega is injured prey in a room full of predators.
Joel cusses, his grip tightening ever so slightly, fingertips digging into your sweater. He ducks slightly, bringing himself to your level, and this close you can see the slightest specks of colors hidden amongst the brown in his eyes. Golds and greens swirling together. You get so lost in the depths of them for a moment that you start slight when he speaks.
“Listen… I’ve been thinking about this and I just… You need to hear me out, alright? You know I’d never do nothing to hurt you, but this is the only option I see.”
Hesitation bubbles uncomfortably in your stomach, your nod small as you suddenly realize how close you both are, how strong his smell is growing.
Joel swallows thickly, searching your eyes. “Let me mark you.”
You gasp, pulling away and Joel lets you, raising his hands in the air as you stare in growing disbelief. “What?”
Joel rushes to explain, sensing the rising fight that is about to ensue. “After. After you get through your heat, when it’s time for us to leave let me lay a mark on you. It wont be a mating mark, just a claim. Any Alpha that dares to come near you will scent me immediately.”
A trembling hand flutters to your throat, the most traditional place for a mark of any kind. “That’s… That’s a really big commitment Joel…” You breath, looking up at the older man. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t ask that of you.” The thought of bearing Joel’s mark though makes the blood in your veins feel thick, something deep in your stomach clenching as you imagined what it would feel like, how his mark would appear on your skin.
“You aren’t ask anything of me, Y/n. I am offering you a solution.” Joel insists.
A solution.
Is that all it is?
Though claims are not as strong as Mating marks, Joel’s scent would be imbedded into your very being; and as he said, not a single person would dare mess with you. Him being one of the most powerful people in the QZ… But there is something whispering at the back of your mind, a fleeting feeling of disappointment that startles you.
Is this just a man doing whatever it takes to uphold his bargain?
“I mean… I understand. It-It’s just… what if there is someone you find later on, they aren’t going to be happy that you have already marked another person.” You feel stupid just saying that, but apart of you wants to know, some part that is is suddenly feeling small and insecure as you stare at Joel.
Joel’s smile is bemused, the corners of his lips hardly lifting as he cocks his head. “I ain’t been worried about such things for a long time, darling.” There’s a gleam in those brown eyes as he looks at you, “Is that a problem for you?”
Your skin flushes, the color filling the apples of your cheeks, and you can no longer hold his stare. Joel takes a testing step forward, and when you don’t retreat, he closes the distance. He curls a thick finger under your chin, tilting your head up with no where else to look but at him. Your pupils are blown out, covering the beautiful color of your irises, and he feels the slight bit of weight as you seemingly, unknowingly press your chin into the warmth of his hand. “Hmm?” He prompts, easing a little closer, the toes of his boots brushing yours, and you squirm in place. His presence is overpowering, making you feel small in a way that has your breath hitching. “Got someone you’re sweet on?”
The low rumble of humor in his voice makes you blink, stuttering your answer. “What? No-No of course not…” You think back to the conversation just a few nights ago, how you realized that you found more than comfort in Joel presence and you suddenly feel as though you’ve been doused with cold water.
His smile grows with your silence, a dimple peaking through the scruff of his beard, those crows feet reappearing by his eyes as he slips his hand along your jaw. “No one? Not a single soul?” He teases, his voice soft like the stroke of his fingers over the back of your jaw. You push his hand away, turning your back to him as you shake your head in embarrassment.
“I’ll consider it.” You mumble over your shoulder, a shudder ripping through you.
“That’s all I am asking for.”
*~*~*~*~*~*
As the sun dips past the rising building, needs you’ve never felt before begin to surface with the creep of night. Sitting on the floor of the back room, you readjust blanket after blanket to your liking. Every one that Joel lays out you have to pull and tug into the right place, wadding up some and discarding others.
Joel watches you, patient as he follows your instructions on how to help as you make your bed. You worry your lips between your teeth, sitting back on your heels as you stare at the mess before you. “It’s alright, your instincts to nest are starting to come out. It use to be that when Omegas lived with their Alpha’s they would have specific rooms designed just for their nests.” His voice is calm, trying to quell your anxiety.
“Really? That must have been nice…”
“It was. The space was sacred to an Omega, it was completely filled with things that they desired and found comfortable as well.” An intrusive thought fills Joel’s mind, an image of you, curled up amongst soft blankets and pillows. Your face no longer pinched with fear, instead soft with contempt.
Your voice breaks him from his thoughts, a sheepish look crossing his features as you shake your head. “Something is missing… It doesn’t smell right… I need…” You whisper dies off as you look over, catching Joel’s stare. Your eyes move lower slowly, zeroing in on the dark green flannel he has thrown on over his t-shirt. Joel follows your gaze in confusion, cocking an eyebrow.
“Whatcha’ need, sweetheart?”
You swallow, his scent had been filling the room over the last few hours, calling to you, blanketing your nerves. He smells of pine woods, and whiskey, and the way a campfire clings to your clothes the next day. It’s intoxicating, a mouth watering scent you could easily become addicted to.
“Could… Could I have your flannel?” You can barely get the words out, embarrassed by the need for his scent to feel comfortable in your nest.
Joel stares at you in surprise, his eyes widening. “My shirt?”
You smooth out a wrinkle in the blanket you’re sitting on, unable to look him in the eyes as you stammer. “You… You smell good and it-it’s been comforting this entire trip…” Whatever you could possibly say to justify your request dies in your throat, sizzling with shame.
The room is quiet for a long moment before Joel moves out of the corner of your eye. He rolls his shoulders back, working the garment off his arms and handing it over. “There ya go.”
Your hand trembles minutely as you take it, his eyes locked with yours as you draw it to your chest, your heart pounding in your ears.
Joel’s next breath is cut short, a sweet smell beginning to permeate the air and he realizes your medication is leaving your system. Your natural scent is sweet, like peaches and chocolate, and something fresh like the first rain of spring.
It makes Joel’s stomach tighten, fire starting to kindle low in his groin, and he realizes he needs to put distance between the both of you while he can.
“I’m going to get you some food.” he stands from the crate and your gaze follows, traveling up the expanse of his body. Past his long legs clad in dark denim, past his tapered waist; further up his wide chest and corded arms until your focus is finally of his face.
You’re noticing things you hadn’t before, like how his salt and pepper beard has a heart shaped patched just under his jaw. The wild way his hair curlers, framing his face, and once more you’re drawn to the set of his lips. They look soft, warm, like they would move perfectly against your own.
“Honey?”
Joel’s thick accent washes over you, and a blazing heat licks up your spine making you whimper. Pain rips through your abdomen, your body suddenly feeling wound tight full of sudden need that leaves your panties slick.
His eyes widen, hit by the full volume of your scent as it perfumes and envelopes the room.
“Fuck, I’m-“
“You’re in heat.”
*~*~*~*~*~*
If you had to take a bet on who would be the first to break, you would have bet on yourself.
And you would have lost.
48 hours of hell.
48 hours of crying and silently begging for anything to end the pain.
Your fingers have hardly dented your heat, whatever relief you can bring yourself is too short lived, the agonizing pain eating you up until the point you’re certain you will die in this cramped little room. Joel’s flannel is damp with tears as you burry your face into the wad of material, the scent bringing you as much comfort as it brings you pain. The need for him is becoming too much.
You want to scream for him, beg for him to fix it the only way an Alpha can, but you force yourself to bite your lip.
The floorboard creaks suddenly on the other side of the door, and you know it’s Joel, checking on you once again, unnecessarily taunting you with what you can’t have. You whine, frustration eating at you as your hand cramps once more between your slick thighs, forcing you to stop rubbing cruel circles around your clit. You stare up at the ceiling, tears spilling along your temples and catching in your damp hair as you count the cracks in the drywall. Anything to focus on that isn’t the pain and need between your legs, or the way your skin sticks together with sweat.
The moment is to short lived and your body is moving, trying to find a comfortable position as you roll onto your knees, pressing your chest to the mound of blankets. You groan softly, letting your weight rest on your chest as your knees slide apart, your hand once again finding your pulsing clit. Burying your face into Joel’s flannel you huff a sigh, working yourself towards a quick high when the sound of the brass doorknob turning catches you off guard.
You shoot up, wrapping one of the loose blankets around your naked form just as Joel steps into the room.
Embarrassment and shock keep your tongue glued to the roof of your mouth as you stare at each other. The dying sunlight in the room casts him in shadows, his tan skin appearing darker, but his eyes shine as they rake over you.
He is quick to note the change in your smell, how the stress and pain have caused your scent to become overly sweet like turned fruit. The next thing he notices is his crumpled shirt, and the bright flush of your cheeks as you tighten the blanket around you, sweeping the garment underneath. Joel steps closer and you lean back, your breath hitching at the hunger in his eyes.
“Joel…” You try to warn, but he cooes softly and your cunt clenches at the noise.
“baby doll…” Tears fill your eyes at the softness of his tone, and he hurts to ease your pain. “Let me help you, sweetheart.” His voice is rough, ragged like he hadn’t spoke in days.
“No-No… I’m okay, I’ve got in under control.” You lie even as your body begs for the help.
Joel gets to his knees before you, hands clenching over his thighs. Your cheeks are bright red, your hair in a tangled mess on top of your head from where you had tried to tie it up. He has to keep himself from follow the beads of sweat that roll down your jaw before disappearing down the curve of your neck.
“I can’t sit out there a moment longer, listening to you crying and whimpering. It’s just me, you know you’ve always been safe with me.” You don’t reply, your eyes squeezing shut as a sharp shudder rips through you and it tugs at his heart. “Can I come closer?” You freeze, realizing that he’s asking to come into your nest. A delicious feeling of comfort rolls over your muscles at the idea, and you nod slowly.
Joel’s knees pop and creak as he climbs onto the pallet behind you, where he grips your shoulders and digs his thumbs into the tense muscles.
A small sob rips from your chest, leaning heavily into his grip. “I’ll do whatever you need, just say the word. If I need to leave I will, if I need to just sit here a while and talk you through this I can. But I can’t sit on the other side of that door and listen to you cry.”
His words simmer through your mind, stinging your already aching heart, and another sob is forced from your throat. Joel hushes you softly, his rough palms slipping up your neck then back down, as he pulls you back letting you rest against his chest.
Joel’s warmth bleeds into your own but it feels different, soothing. His scent is the strongest it’s ever been, filling your lungs with each shakey breath, and you feel something shift. Hushed words muddle together in your ears, your head leaning back against his chest as a breathy moan leaves your throat.
Without thought your hips begin to grind slowly, need pulsing so hot and heavy between your thighs that your hand travels down thoughtlessly. Your breath hitches as your fingers swirl around your swollen clit, slipping through your lips and pressing into your opening.
“Little Peach.” Joel’s voice is gruff, and another sob spills from your lips.
“I-I’m sorry… I didn’t ask for this Joel, I didn’t ask to be born like this.” Before you can snatch your hand away, horror flooding through your body, Joel is there. His hand finds an opening in the blanket so loosely wrapped around your body, gripping your wrist stopping you.
“I know… I know you didn’t but there ain’t no reason to fight it now baby. It’s said and done.” His clauses are rough against your skin, and you hold your breath as he covers your hand with his own. “Use me. Take what you need, whatever it is.”
Your eyes are droopy with lust when you turn your head to look up at him, the softest whimper leaving your lips when Joel shifts behind you , pressing the hard ridge in his pants against your back.
“I…” You swallow, thighs trembling as you feel your laced fingers brush the thatch of curling hair covering your pussy. “I don’t want to make you do anything…”
When he chuckles the sound reverberates through your back, “Darlin’,” He drawls the word out close to your ear, “You didn’t make me stay, you didn’t make me come in this room. And you certainly aren’t making me do this.”
He emphasizes his point by tracing the drenched slit of your cunt, earning a high pitched squeak. “Fuck, peach… So wet, she’s just fucking dying for some attention isn’t she?”
Your head, feeling heavy, falls back against his shoulder, eyes squeezing shut as bliss fills your body. Joel tugs testingly at your blanket and when it slips from your fingers, Joel pulls it away revealing your body to him.
Joel sucks in a breath, his pupils dilating as he drinks in the sight of you laid out between his legs. Your chest rises and falls with each quick breath, the sheen of sweat gleaming on your body in the dim golden light of the room. “Look at you…” A hunger permeates his words, his breath growing more ragged as he draws a delicate circle around your clit, eliciting a gasp. “You are beautiful, so very, very beautiful.”
Your hips circle, seeking more of anything he is willing to give you. “Please, I need you… I need you, Joel.” You turn your face into his neck, your breath fanning over his skin.
“Ain’t gotta beg, pretty girl. I’ve got ya.” His fingers draw lazy patterns around your clit and you moan, slow and drawn out, hips bucking as he keeps a steady pace. Joel works you up easily with a few expert swipes, your back bowing as your orgasm crashes through you. Your cries of ecstasy are muffled against his throat, thighs squeezing his hand.
He shushes you as you float back to reality, gasping for breath as you relax against him; your muscles loose, bones feeling like jello. “Atta girl, easy Peach.”
You try to catch your breath, reviling in the small reprieve he’s given you. “peach… why peach?” You whisper, making Joel chuckle softly.
“It’s all I can smell ever since your medication wore off. Peaches and chocolate .”
You hum, a small smile playing at your lips. “Are you sure the chocolate bar didn’t melt in my bag?”
Joel smiles, lazily dragging his fingers across your stomach. “Yeah, I’m sure. Bakers chocolate doesn’t smell this sweet.” He presses a kiss to your forehead and your heart flutters, a calm washing over your mind at the same time a spark flairs to life in your stomach.
You lean back, eyes hazy, lids heavy matching the look of his own. The few seconds you spend staring at each other feel like an eternity before you close the gap.
It’s hesitant, as most first kisses are, a little puff of surprise between your lips before they seal together. Finding the rhythm that works so well as one moans softly and the other swallows the noice. Your hand slips up his chest, feeling the wild thump of his heart before it travels up his neck to rest against his jaw.
Joel helps you as you turn, never letting the kiss break as you shakily straddle his lap, pressing your body tight against his own. The spark catches quickly, setting fire to your body as you grind against the hard bulge in his pants. His hands grip the dent of your waist, encouraging your movements with soft squeezes, while you tug fitfully at his shirt.
“More.” You mumble against his lips, letting your heat take the lead, turning off all thoughts of shame as his shirt slips up and you lay your hands on his bare skin for the first time. He pulls the shirt off completely and you lean back, admiring him with lust blown eyes. Joel sighs softly, his head dropping back as your fingers run through the dense curling hair across his chest. His body is strong, sculpted by years of manual labor and survival, yet his stomach is a little soft with age. You scratch your nails down his stomach lightly, following the trail of hair down to the buckle of his jeans and Joel closes his eyes.
“I want you.” You lick your lips, salivating at the thought of what lies just below the thick blue denim. Joel moans again, his chest rising with the need for air as he nods.
“Gonna need to work you open for me, honey.” He breaths, his eyes falling to where your hands fumble over the button of his jeans.
“Just… I just need you, it’s okay.” There’s a frantic note to your voice, all logic thrown out the window at this point, need and instinct pushing you forward.
Joel sees this, and slips his hand around your throat, squeezing softly and forcing you to sit back, ignoring your desperate whine. “Ima give you what you want, but you’re gonna listen to me little girl. Am I clear?” There’s a touch of command in his voice, forcing your gaze to his and waiting until you finally nod your understanding.
He keeps his eyes locked on yours, sneaking his other hand between your bodies, stroking your pussy. You groan, eyes fluttering closed as your grind yourself against his hand, supporting yourself by gripping his arm. “That’s it… go ahead baby…” Joel’s voice is hoarse, his pupils dilated as he sinks two fingers into your heat. You gasp at the sudden stretch, the burn of his thick digits spreading you open. Your jaw falls slack, eyes rolling up as bliss radiates through your body. “Fuuuck, baby girl…” Joel pulls his fingers out before sinking them back in, the calluses he’s built from years of working with his hands rub along your sensitive walls, reaching places you never thought possible. “Y’er so tight… squeezing my fingers like that.” Joel’s Texan twang seeps into his words as his arousal heightens, his cock throbbing painfully in his jeans as he works his fingers in and out, faster and harder, mesmerized by the way your hips buck and twitch; climbing towards your next orgasm. “Come on baby… cum fer me darlin’.”
Your body sings for him, the force of your orgasm shaking you as your back bows and light explodes across your vision. Your thighs quake, Joel’s name falling from your lips as you sob, rutting against his hand as your cunt squeezes his fingers with each radiating wave of pleasure.
The soft, comforting sounds of his approval reaches your ears, his grip slackening around your throat as you slump against him. “So beautiful, cumming all over my fingers like that. I need to see you cum on my cock baby.” His words have you preening, his voice husky as you lean back, your grin lopsided and your eyes glossed over. Joel strokes a thumb over your cheek, and you turn your head, kissing his palm. “Lay back for me. Let me take care of you.”
With much effort you manage to lay back in your nest, your legs spread, hips circling invitingly as Joel climbs to his feet, finally stripping off his jeans. All that remains in the way of what. You need the most, are his thin pare of threadbare boxers. Your mouth salivates at the bulge in his underwear, giving you a good peak at the size of his member hiding just underneath. “How do you want me?”
Your voice is so soft, yet wrecked with lust, ready to please Joel. He smiles, his cock twitching. “why don’t you roll over for me huh? That’s right, goood girl.” You follow his instructions, knees slipping on the blanket, head resting on your arms as you try to catch your breath through the thickness of your anticipation.
Dropping his boxers he groans as his cock springs free, bobbing between corded thighs as he takes his place behind you, hands steadying himself on the small of your back. He sighs deeply, cock twitching and knot swelling slightly at the sight of your drenched cunt, inviting him to sink into your heat.
You wiggle your hips impatiently, turning your head and catching sight of him leaning over you, the predatory hunger in his gaze. “I know… I know you need this little one.” His voice drops to a husky vibration in his wide chest and all you can do is nod, your tongue feeling thick in your mouth. “It’s alright baby, I’ll make it better.” Gripping his cock, Joel glides his fingers over the long length of his shaft, teasing the throbbing vein running up his cock before slipping the flushed tip through your folds.
“Please… Please Alpha.” You beg through thick tears, gripping the faded purple blanket below you as Joel notches his cock against your entrance. He presses his hips forward, both of you moaning loudly as he sinks into your warmth. “Joel…” You simper, rocking your hips back, attempting to take more of him. You thought his fingers had been a stretch, now you understand why he was so adamant about opening you up. His cock is long and thick, spearing you open and stretching your walls in ways that feel like you might be ripped in two at any moment.
“Fuck… fuck y’re so tight.” Joel breathes raggedly, his focus torn between not busting right here and now and not thrusting into you savagely. “Easy baby, gotta stretch you out nice and slow.” You mewl, your eyes squeezing shut as you feel him slipping deeper and deeper with small thrusts. every ridge and bump rubbing across your sensitive walls, working you higher and higher.
A hand travels up your bowed spine, gripping your neck and pressing your face into the blankets. “This sweet pussy must have been made for me, huh? the way she squeezes me so tight.” Joel curves over you, his weight settling against your hips as he drives forward, burying himself to the hilt. You squeal at the sudden force, your legs shaking and weak profanities spilling from your lips.
Joel chuckles quietly, bracing his weight on his hands, trapping you below him. “You can take it can’t you baby? You’re doing so well.” He rocks back, sliding out a few inches before burying himself back into you, a gruff moan falling from his lips. He continues his shallow thrusts, like he can’t stand the thought of leaving your drooling cunt for to long.
“Y-yes, yes Alpha.” You stutter, the euphoria coursing through your body threatening to break your mind, as the engorged head of his cock presses against a sensitive spot along your gummy walls. “Please… Please I’m gonna-!” Your muscles lock, mouth agape, as your orgasm suddenly begins to crest.
With a growl, Joel presses his forehead between your shoulder blades. “Cum for me.” He grunts, already feeling his heavy balls drawing tight as your cunt starts fluttering. “Cum for me and I’ll give you my knot.”
A shrill scream bubbles out of your throat, your body jerking below his as you fall into that black pit of pleasure. Joel’s hand slaps over your mouth, muffling your cry of pleasure as his head shoots up, eyes locking on the window for the briefest of moments. “There you go baby, let go for me.” He breathes into your ear, pulling you tight to his chest as he plows himself into your pliant cunt. Fat tears spill over your cheeks, your desperate whines and whimpers caught in his meaty palm as his thrusts become harder, deeper, faster.
“This little pussy, she’s just begging for my cum.” The rhythmic sound of his hips snapping against your ass fills the room, just below it is the sloppy sound of his cock spearing into you. You nod weakly, working your hips back to meet him thrust for thrust and he grins. The look almost triumphant. “Yeah she does… Gonna let me breed her, huh? Gonna let me fuck her full of me?”
Joel drops his hand, circling your throat holding your head against his shoulder. “Yes! Yes oh god, cum in me, cum in me please!” Your cry is all he needs, his control snapping as he bully’s his cock against your cervix.
Joel grunts, his eyes closing and head tilting back as the first jet of cum paints your walls. You squeal, a noise so high and piercing that Joel jerks slightly. His knot swells stretching your cunt beyond what you think you can take, locking you to Joel.
“Fuck baby… you can take it, let go and relax.” He whispers, nipping your shoulder as he grinds his hips against your ass, his spend filling you to the point it has no where else to go, your stomach bulging ever so slightly before it leaks past his knot.
You whimper softly, your thoughts dissipating completely as Joel pants above you. He slowly rolls you both on to your side, cradling you close as he pulls a blanket across your shivering body. Smoothing the sweaty hair from your face he rains kisses down on your shoulders and neck, hushing your whimpers with praises, even as his cock still twitches in your depths.
“I’ve got you, rest baby, I’ve got you.”
*~*~*~*~*~*
“Hng- Joel… oh god…” Your head lulls back, Joel’s hand keeping you from hitting the floor as he cradles your neck. Fingers twitching around locks of grey hair, you moan Joel’s name as he drags his cock from your sodden pussy, only to press back in a second later.
Fingertip shaped bruises and dark red love bites littler your body, mirroring Joel’s. A new one popping up every few minutes, consequences of how you’ve spent the last four days.
Even now, Joel circling a pebbled nipple with the tip of his tongue, laving the delicate skin before pulling it into the warmth of his mouth. Your jaw drops, back arching in a silent plea for more, which Joel is happy to accommodate. His teeth scrape over the sensitive peak, sucking deeply before twirling his tongue around your nipple.
You bask in the feeling, your senses having finally starting to become your own as your heat subsides. You tug on Joel’s hair, pulling him from your breast with a wet pop, his brown eyes meeting your own. They’re heavy with lust, soft pants falling from his lips as he grinds against your core. Snuggly wrapped in your wet warmth, his hips barely move as he languidly fills you with every inch he has. The course hairs at the bottom of his shaft, made sticky with the mix of your releases, rubs against your swollen clit; giving it the right amount of friction to keep you on the edge of bliss.
You drag Joel’s lips to your own, moaning as he sweeps his tongue into your mouth, tasting you in the same manner as which he ravishes your body. Pulling back Joel stutters for breath, taking in the rose color of your kiss bitten lips, the seemingly permanent stain of color on your cheeks, how your eyes shine with need as they never leave his.
You lean up, pressing kisses along his jaw, down his neck tasting the salt on his skin. Joel’s hand moves from its place in the bend of your knee, to the plush of your hip, holding you as close as he can. He can hear you breathing in his scent with soft little whimpers, your hands gripping at him as if he is likely to disappear at any given moment.
Joel knows the feeling too well, it threatens to cave his chest in, to pull him into an inky void of loneliness if you decide, by the end of this, that it was all a big mistake. His long fingers tangle into your hair, pulling you from the crook of his neck with ease to stare into your laden eyes.
“You look so pretty like this.” Joel’s voice is thick, sticking in his throat. You make a soft noise of appreciation, rolling your hips to meet his shallow thrusts.
Joel’s pace slowly increases, his cock sliding further and further out before finding home again. Your lashes flutter, gasping quietly as he presses his forehead to yours.
“J-Joel…”
“I want to mark your pretty little neck, I don’t ever want to let you go.” A whine falls from your lips at a particularly hard thrust, your pussy becoming more sensitive, your bud grinding against his pelvic. “Want to keep you all to myself, keep you covered in my scent and filled with my cum.”
Joel moans as your cunt flutters, your legs starting to shake, nails digging into his shoulders.
You nod your head, bliss building under your skin. “Joel… Joel!” He leans closer, practically bending you in half as his grip tightens on the back of your neck.
“Say it baby, tell me I can mark you. Tell me your my Omega.“
“I’m yours! M-Mark me Joel, please!”
With a harsh thrust Joel sends you spiraling, dropping you over the edge into oblivion as his teeth sink into the thin skin of your neck. Your eyes widen, your grip tightening around Joel as the new sensation washes through your body.
For the briefest of moments you can feel everything Joel does, though his emotions pelt you so rapidly you can’t catch on to any of them before he draws away. There’s blood on his lips, a needy manic look in his eyes as his hips falter, moans falling off his tongue as he fucks into you. Joel grips the backs of your thighs, bending you in half, letting gravity work with him as he bears his teeth and molds your pussy to the shape of his cock.
“Mine, my sweet Omega. All mine.” Little whimpers and babbled prayers leave your lips, too limp and compliant below him to do much else. You watch his face twist, his nose scrunching, lips pulling back from his teeth, eyes closing as the first twitch of his cock sends a jet of seed deep into your cunt.
Knot catching, plugging your dripping hole, Joel collapses, hardly catching himself from crushing you under the heft of his weight. Your thighs burn from the stretch, your limbs loose and yet tight all at once as he nips and peppers your jaw and throat with kisses. Your head falls to his chest, a wave of exhaustion crashing into you as Joel rolls you both over, welcoming your weight on top of him.
*~*~*~*~*~*
“We’ve used up most of our food, but that doesn’t mean we can’t hunt down a few rabbits to hold us over until we get back.”
Joel squats by the packs, sorting through them, transferring all of the lighter things to your bag. You watch from the center of your makeshift nest, now fully dressed in your travel clothes, your eyes trained on each item he rearranges as your fingers pick at the blanket below you.
A large part of you doesn’t want to leave this room, it wants to stay buried in your nest with Joel beside you. Never to emerge again, growing oblivious to the world outside. But you know that isn’t how it works, that you have to take the next steps and navigate this new life ahead of you.
Joel doesn’t need to look at you to see your discomfort, your scent gives you away. The sweet smell now is too strong, bordering on sour. He looks over his shoulder, catching your eye. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“Is it?” You look like your verging on tears, your lip starting to tremble. Joel sets the bag down, his eyebrows furrowing as he turns fully. “I’ve never… I’ve never lived as an Omega, Joel. I-I mean, yeah I have been an Omega this whole time but I’ve lived as a Beta, I didn’t have to worry about going out of my apartment, I never had to fear an Aloha taking interest in me. I-I don’t know what to do with all of these emotions and-and feelings burning in my chest.” Tears spill over your cheeks and Joel quickly moves to you, sitting on his knees in front of you. You suck in a harsh breath, a sob threatening to swallow your words. “I don’t want to leave my nest.”
“Baby…” Joel pulls you into his lap, cradling you as he smooths a hands down your back. “I’ve got you baby girl.” He whispers into the crown of your hair, your sobs wracking your body as you cling to his jacket. “You aren’t alone, I’m here and like I’ve said, I ain’t gonna let a thing happen to you. You’ll still live your life just as you did before. We just need make a few changes is all.”
You sniffle with a nod, closing your eyes as you inhale his scent. “I’m sorry.” You mutter timidly.
“Ain’t gotta be sorry. Just need ya to trust me, okay?”
“O-okay…”
*~*~*~*~*~*
The sun is so bright after being locked inside the house for so long, you squint at your surroundings as Joel ushers you outside and down the steps. You look around at the sunny world, the bright lights and hues of approaching fall. It all feels so conflicting with the turmoil of emotions you feel inside.
You start down the walk way, Joel’s presence at your back, he’s talking about the trip home, how often you both will need to stop, the things that need to be restocked. Vaguely you are listening, your focus drawn to everything around you, something wrong scratching at your bones as you turn onto the street.
You draw to a halt, your breath leaving your lungs in a whoosh before you stumble back, knocking into Joel.
“Oh my god.” You gasp. Joel goes ridged, seeing the body splattered across the road at the same time you do. His gun is drawn in seconds, coming around you, instantly scooping the surrounding areas and you are following suit. Your gun trembles between your palms, your heart pounding in your ears as Joel takes steady steps towards the corpse. “Joel…” Your voice is hardly a whisper, your eyes darting away to the darkened openings of the building on every side of you.
“Fuck…” Joel’s voice is louder than you expect, your skin prickling under your clothes.
“Wh-what is it?”
“Mark.” Widened eyes shoot to his, your mouth dropping open in shock. Joel glances at you briefly before crouching down, grabbing Mark’s bag and dragging it to his side. Quickly looking away you swallow the growing vile rising in your throat at the glimpse of his desecrated body. Despite the hefty distance you can smell the copper tang of Mark’s blood, can see the pool of it dried against the black asphalt and the flies that buzz about his body.
“Your pills are here.” Joel’s knees pop as he stands, heaving the bag over his shoulder as his gaze snags on you. Your body trembles like an unsteady fawn, eyes riveted to the ground before you as you gulp in lungfuls of air. He sighs, glancing down to step around the dealer as he speaks. “Hey, it’s al-“
His next words are lost in a flurry of motion, a yell erupting from his throat as he’s slammed to the pavement, sliding across the rough ground as a weight lands on his body.
The rotting stench wafts into his face, just before graying chipped teeth gnash mere inches from his throat. A scream rips from you at the same time the creature shrieks, struggling against the handle of the shot gun pressing into its throat as Joel struggles to fight against its weight.
Without thinking you raise the gun, the crash corse you learned running through your brain all at once. You aim and fire, the first bullet whizzing past its head feet to the left. The thing claws at Joels thick jacket, looking for a hold to retch itself closer as Joel kicks out his legs, tangled in the bag he had dropped.
The next shot burst into the ground, a foot above Joel’s head and you cry in frustration, anger filling your bones, burning your nerves as you scream. “FUCK!”
You step forward, one arm lifting as you aim, twisting your wrist as you squeeze the trigger.
Everything goes still, your heart, Joel’s breathing, as the zombie drops. the ruminants of its head splattered across the ground and Joel hefts its body to the side, rolling out from under it. A nervous laugh builds in your throat, your hand trembling worse than ever but you can’t bring yourself to lower your gun. Joel looks up at you from the ground, his chest heaving and eyes wide as he takes in your stance.
“D-Does he l-o-o-ook like a BITCH?!” Your voice rings off of the surrounds walls, hysteria making you stutter as you recall the only line you could think of. Joel springs to his feet, despite his bodies protest, and quickly makes his way to your side. Slowly he pries the gun from your hand, turning you away from the body of the cordio before he scoops up the fallen bag and drags you from the bloodied mess.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The fire crackles lowly, just barely lighting the area around it as night descends over the forest. You sit on the moss covered floor, knees tucked into your chest as you stare at the glowing embers, watching as they flicker in and out. Joel is across from you, his knife chipping away at a branch, whittling the wood down into a small figure, hidden in the width of his palm. The boarders of the QZ sit just a mile away, waiting for your return, but what is it you are returning to? The trip back had been far quieter than before, you had retreated into yourself, haunted by the question.
The bottles of pills are a reminder every time they jostle and make noise in your bag. Would you go back to taking them, only to risk reliving this trip all over again? What is your life now if you don’t take them? Do you live with Joel now or on your own? The mark on your neck burns at the thought of being separated from your mate, a concept your hormone free brain is having a hard time understanding.
“I can hear you thinking.” His gruff voice makes you jump, your eyes darting to his, blinking away the bursting dots of light that cloud your vision from staring at the fire for so long.
���What?”
Sighing he tilts his head to the side, pinning you with the inky depths of his stare. “I can practically hear your mind working itself into a tizzy. Plus you’re flooding me with your emotions, darling.” You blanch, mumbling an apology as you shift in your spot. Joel watches you, like he had the entire way home. The dark circles under your eyes, the dullness of your skin, the soft scared whimpers you’ve made in your sleep these last several nights.
He knows worrying like this will only make you sick, physically and mentally, being an Omega only makes it worse. “Come here.” He opens his arm, signaling for you to curl into his side and its like your body is wired to follow his commands. You move without a second thought, tucking yourself against his side, a weak sigh slipping past your lips. Being this close your muscles relax, your thudding heart slowing to a steady beat to match Joel’s own. “Talk to me, pretty girl.” He whispers, kissing the crown of your head as you shuffle impossibly closer.
After a long moment of silence, basking in the way his hand runs up and down your back, you finally relent. “I am so scared.” You breath, your gaze traveling to the luming walls in the near distance. “I-I know you will do anything to keep me safe but… but there is only so much you can do.” Your words sting, the hushed way you whisper them against his flannel nearly unbearable. Joel tightens his grip on your shoulders, about to deny your claim but you press forward. “Should I take the pills? Save us the trouble? But then we will have to do all… all of this all over again and I just… I don’t know if I can.”
Tears fill your vision, turning your face into his chest as you sob quietly.
“Y/n… baby girl.” He drops his knife to the ground, carding his fingers through your hair, pulling you in tighter. Almost as if he could press you into his very being, keep you there so that you never have to fret or worry again. Joel lets you cry, lets your tears soak through his shirt until there is nothing left but a few soft hiccups in your breath and your sagging against him for support.
“Look at me, peach.” His fingers sweep under your chin, lifting your face to his. Your eyes are swollen and red, your face blotchy but he cooes softly. His heart hammering against his own ribs but he can’t let you see that. Not yet. Not when there is still so much you have to face and need his strength for. “If you want to take the pills that is entirely up to you, I don’t have a say in the matter.”
“But you’re my-.”
“No. No matter what I am to you, I don’t have a right to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your own body. But,” He holds your stare for a moment, searching your tear stricken face. “But if you decide not to take them, you need to trust me. My scent is already marred into your skin, anyone can tell you are mine with or without being able to tell you are an Omega under neath. I’ve got you, you just need to trust in that.” Joel holds so much certainty in his words,so much need for you to trust and understand what he means, what he’s hoping to convey in the silent moments that follow.
You swallow, your throat working and Joel can’t help but to look, to see the mark that rings the side of your delicate neck. Whipping the remnants of your tears with the sleeve of your jacket you give a shallow nod, Joel had always protected you, had always made sure you were never without. Deep in your heart you knew he would hold true to his words, he would do everything in his power to keep you from falling prey to anyone else.
You just needed to trust him.
“Okay…” You breath, nodding your head as Joel does.
He leaned down, pressing his forehead to yours, sucking in a deep breath. the fire crackles and pops in the silence that follows, both of you lost in the comforting presence of the other. When Joel leans back there’s a smile playing on his lips. “You’re wrong by the way.”
“Huh?”
“Jules never shoots his gun like that. You’re thinking of Menace To Society.” Your mouth drops open, eyebrows furrowing in disbelief.
“Yes he does! When he has that guy kneeling on the floor!”
Joel laugh with a shake of his head. “Nu-uh sweetheart. You’re wrong.”
You glare up at him, and his smile broadens, “We will just have to see about that.”
Your challenge only earns you a deep chuckle, before he pulls you in, planting a soft kiss on your lips. “What do I get when I prove you wrong?” The suggestion in his words reflect in his eyes, the deep dark brown swimming with excitement. a flush works up your neck, your hand tightening on the front of his shirt. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Too bad we will never find out.” Joel lets out a little growl, squeezing your waist playfully making you squirm.
“Just you wait, little one. You’re in for it.”
*~*~*~*~*~*
Tag List: @halfburntout @scorpionsaintt
#smut#apollyonsdarksecrets#joel miller smut#joel miller#joel miller x female reader#joel miller the last of us#joel miller x reader#joel miller x y/n#the last of us smut#smut writer#alpha!joel miller#alpha!joel miller x omega!reader#alpha x omega#hbo the last of us smut#the last of us#joel the last of us
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Linguistics time *Sebek got jealous because I made a post about Skully and hadn't made one about him :( *OP is delusional and loves making connections out of literally nothing
Some notes on Sebek
Ancient origins Starting with the obvious origins: in ancient Egyptian culture, Sebek (also Sobek, Sebeq, or Suchos in Greek) is a deity associated with strength, protection, and fertility. Often depicted with the head of a crocodile, Sobek is the crocodile god, revered as a powerful guardian of both people and the Nile River. His name is thought to mean something akin to "to impregnate" or "fertility" linking him deeply to creation and life. Well, when Sebek is around, things are lively...
Anyway, there's quite a bit of information about this on Wiki
Russian Purely phonetic resemblance here. In Russian, sebe (себе) means "oneself" or "for oneself" and it can express self-reflection or introspection. For example:
"Я позволю себе лечь спать поздно" Ya pozvolyu sebe lech spat' pozdno "I'll allow myself to go to bed late"
"Признаюсь самой/самому себе в этой провинности" Priznayus' samoi/samomu sebe v etoi provinnosti "I admit this fault to myself"
This introspective aspect feels very Sebek-ish - reflective and self-aware, qualities Sebek definitely needs to nurture as part of his character. I like this connection.
А пока что он (and for now) - "Сам себе Себек" Sam sebe Sebek or "Sebek doing his own thing" No deep meaning, it just sounds good :)
Hungarian In Hungarian, Sebek resembles the word seb, meaning "wound" or "injury". The plural form would be - sebek. I think it evokes theme of his resilience or the scars ( both emotional and physical) left by experience. Suggesting both strength through challenges and the healing that follows. like in my Sebek fics It also fits my headcanon that Sebek has lightning scars from using his Unique Magic :)
Japanese I don't really want to include too obscure terms, so I'll just add the word セーブ (seebu) - borrowed from English to mean "save" which hints at protection or guardianship. セべはセーブするでしょう Sebe wa seebu suru deshou Sebek will probably save you :)
P.S.
I also wanted to go further and include a delulu connection with the name Sebastian (bc Seb yea) but decided not to
Thank you for reading :)
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The Vampire and The Devilspawn
our first Anzurin chapter :) pls enjoy ! || Chapter Navigation - a post with a link to each posted chapter
3270 words
Chapter 2 - Anzurin
Cautiously, Anzurin pulls back from the fledgling, tensed and ready to grab her again if he needs to. She stares at him with wide eyes, brown tinged red, her auburn hair in a tangled, bloody mess, and pure rage dripping out of every pore. He doesn’t know why exactly she’s so angry, aside from the hunger that’s surely gnawing at her, but he wants to know. What has happened to her? Clearly something.
She’s wearing a tight, turtle-necked, long sleeved shirt that covers all but her hands, and a loose pair of cargo pants, but on the little patches of skin that are visible, Anzurin makes out many faded scars, some jagged, some clean and uniform, as if done deliberately, but not medically.
Like someone had sliced into her.
“Where were you before you showed up at Velur’s coven today?” he asks. If she has indeed been a fledgling for months like he dreadfully suspects, then it’s likely that someone has been holding onto her the entire time. He hasn’t heard anything about any fledglings going wild on the surface in the last few months. A couple rogue vampires that weren’t much to deal with, but nothing about a fledgling like her.
Magdalena, once released, quickly snatches the bag of blood from him, and immediately squeezes at least half of it into her mouth. “Dunno,” she murmurs around the plastic spout.
Anzurin takes a single step back, wanting to give her space, but not trusting her with much. Something about the vacant look in her eye urges him to ask, “Don’t know, or don’t remember?”
She only hums, “Mhm,” as an answer, which doesn’t really answer anything. She’s entirely focused on the blood and not much else.
“Well, how about this,” he tries. “Do you know how long ago you were changed?”
Her brow scrunches in the middle as she thinks. “Mm. Three.” She gives a little nod, as if affirming the answer to herself.
“Three what? Three days? Weeks, months?”
“Mhm.”
“Which one, Magdalena?”
She blinks for the first time in a few minutes, pulling off of the spout to look around the room. She looks at the door, then at Brem, and the bag of blood in her hands, and finally, she looks at Anzurin, confusion etched into her gaze. She looks at him as if just realizing he’s there. “What?”
Anzurin sighs, abandoning his line of questioning. She can’t answer anything. Or she just won’t. He’s not sure which it is, but is leaning towards can’t. There’s definitely something off about the look in her eye, how it bounces between vacant and frantic and angry. Something happened to her, and he’d like to know what.
“Velur had better return soon with whoever brought you in,” he grumbles angrily, losing patience with the devilspawn already. “In the meantime, I’d like to take you to my doctors for a full examination. Maybe that’ll answer some questions.”
“Or create more,” Brem laughs nervously, taking a step back. “Do I have to … tag along?”
Anzurin studies the fledgling. Magdalena Pierce, supposedly. The only thing she seems to know. She’s calmed down considerably, but he’s sure that any little thing could set her off again, and he has no idea what might cause her to lash out. An easier question might be: what doesn’t.
“Well, I suppose you can,” he answers Brem. “Or, if you’d rather, you can go figure out absolutely everything you can about her life before.”
“I’ll do that.” Brem hurries out of Anzurin’s office, leaving him alone with a rabid fledgling.
Surprising him, she lets out a small sigh once the door closes behind Brem, and then she closes her eyes as she empties the blood bag. Anzurin quickly pulls the next out of his pocket and opens it, holding it out to her by the time she realizes that she’s finished the one she has.
She snatches it away from him and drinks it just as desperately as she drank the last one. Giving her a little faith, Anzurin takes multiple steps away from her, letting her have the space she most likely wants, but he does tell her again, “I’d like to take you to be checked out by the doctor, Magdalena. Can we do that? I’ll keep feeding you as long as you need.”
To prove it, he walks over to his minifridge and takes out two more bags to put in his jacket pockets, hoping that they’ll warm up before she’s ready to drink them; cold blood can’t taste great. Her thirst is unlike anything Anzurin has ever seen, except for a couple of very rare cases. She has the hunger of a vampire that hasn’t fed in weeks or even months, and he knows first hand what that looks like.
Magdalena nods, wide eyes pinned on his every move.
“We’ve got to set some rules before we leave this office. You can’t be attacking us. I get that you’re hungry, and we’re going to do what we can to make sure you’re sufficiently fed, but there is an order to this coven that we have to keep. You disrupt that order, and you will be dealt with appropriately.”
She drags her thumb across her neck.
“If we have to,” Anzurin answers, “though, I’d personally prefer not to. Believe it or not, I don’t find any joy in having to kill a vampire, and I’ll explore every other option before we get to that point, but if you keep trying to kill everyone, you’ll force my hand.”
She opens her mouth to poke at her blood-coated fangs. “Wanna bite.” She gnashes her teeth together and her gaze drops down to Anzurin’s still bleeding arm.
He’d nearly forgotten. Anzurin brings the wound to his mouth and licks it, the devilspawn magic in his saliva healing the entire mangled mess in less than two seconds. As for his neck, he grabs his handkerchief out of his pocket, spitting on it before pressing to his neck until he only feels unblemished skin under his fingers.
“I’ll let you feed from me again later,” he tells her, not sure if he really means it. “Right now, you’ve already taken a lot of blood from me. Any more, and it may be the end of me; we can’t have that.” Slowly so that he doesn’t frighten her, Anzurin steps closer to Magdalena, coming to stand directly in front of her.
He doesn’t really like using his abilities on others, but he rations that it might be necessary this time, so he drops his head to look her in the eyes, stretching his power out towards her. It dips into her mind, tentatively testing the edges before it assaults her thoughts. The feeling of touching someone else’s mind always makes Anzurin’s skin crawl and his bones itch, but he pushes on. This needs to be done if he wants to keep everyone alive.
He ventures into her mind, finding the intrusion to be easier than expected. Most people have a wall around their mind, much like a mental skull, making Anzurin put in an effort to venture into their heads, but Magdalena’s is defenseless, and he sinks into it too easily.
Her mind is not much different than what she presents on the outside, a muddled mess that either focuses on nothing, or jumps from thought to thought before one can even fully form. It runs without form, like a river released from its channel and pouring over the land. It begs for some type of order, for direction.
Magdalena stares up at him with wide eyes, likely unaware of his exploration of her mind, sucking down blood like it’s the only thing she cares about. Maybe it is.
“You’re going to behave,” Anzurin tells her, the command winding its way through the folds of her brain and embedding itself.
She nods, accepting the guidance easily. Fledglings need someone to follow, they need direction, or they’d run wild and kill everything in their path. It’s written into their very beings, so it’s no surprise that Magdalena seems to listen to him so easily. Albeit, a little too easily, but she listens nonetheless, and Anzurin counts that as a win.
Pushing further into her mind, he tells her, “We are going to go see the doctors. They are going to examine you without issue. You will not attack them when they try to look at you. Yes?”
“Yes,” she echoes, her voice muffled around the blood.
“If you feel like you have to bite someone, you bite me. You –”
Anzurin cuts off as he finally hits a wall in her mind, not where it should be. He thought that it was a bit too easy to tunnel through the empty channels of her mind, and now it makes sense why. It’s already been burrowed into. He can’t be sure how long ago she was manipulated, or who did it to her, but her mind has most definitely been poked and prodded by a devilspawn other than himself. And whoever did this to her constructed a new wall within her mind, one that she can’t even seem to penetrate. Anzurin tries to get a look behind the wall, but he can’t sense anything on the other side of it.
He pokes at the misplaced wall until Magdalena begins to show discomfort. She scrunches her nose and looks away from him, down to the blood filled pouch in her hands.
Unsure what to do with her mangled mind, Anzurin eases out of it and takes a step back, blinking. “Just behave, please. Alright. Let’s go. Walk next to me.”
Hoping she listens, he turns for the door and leaves his office. Thankfully, she does, traipsing along at his side down the hallway, slurping happily on the blood as her eyes dart around, looking at anything and everything.
There isn’t much for her to look at in the hallway that leads to Anzurin’s office, a few portraits of him and the other coven leaders lining the dimly lit, sage green walls, but nothing else. She glances at each painting, grumbling at them except when she reaches Velur’s. She stops in her tracks in front of his portrait, teeth bared at it as if he were really standing right in front of her.
Anzurin steps up behind her, also staring at Velur’s portrait, but he’s wondering what it is about him that she hates so much. What has he done to her? Is he that one that’s muddied her mind? Is he the reason she’s so broken and confused and angry?
He’ll have to talk to the spawn later.
“Come on, Magdalena,” he urges, a hand on her arm to lead her away from Velur’s portrait. She looks down at his hand and snarls at it until he removes it, but does in fact turn and follow him.
Her steps scuff softly across the floor, walking with near silence, while each of Anzurin’s heavy steps echo around them. Apart from their footsteps, the only other sound is her slurping, once again reaching the end of a blood bag at an alarming pace.
“Another?”
Maggie nods, looking up at him with large eyes, cheeks hollowing as she sucks out every last drop of blood. Anzurin pulls the next bag out of his pocket and takes the cap off of the spout. It’s bordering on worrisome, how much she’s drinking. Any fledgling, even a newly turned one that hadn’t yet fed, wouldn’t drink this much. The last time he saw anything this bad, it was a fledgling that had been turned but then buried in a coffin before they woke. The poor guy had been stuck there for three weeks before his creator finally stopped seeing humor in the situation and let him out.
That was only three weeks of starvation, and Magdalena has already drank more than he did on his first day of freedom. Reasonably, she should have been satiated after draining Herra, and especially after drinking from Anzurin, but she’s still going. Still starving.
Anzurin glances at his wrist, fine now, but where she’d shredded his skin with her teeth before. While he’s not as educated on the fledgling stages as his team of doctors are, he at least knows the basics, and judging by the size and sharpness of her fangs, he’d estimate that she’s a couple months old.
But he doesn’t want to believe that that’s right. It can’t be. He hates to think that she has, in fact, been kept somewhere and starved for months at a time. He hates to think that she lost a large portion of her time as a fledgling to … to … to wherever she was, whatever happened to her.
She growls and snarls at the few devilspawn that pass them on the short trek through the manor but doesn’t try to attack them, much to Anzurin’s relief. What is it about Anzurin’s fellow devilspawn that she hates so much that just the sight of them sets her off? Most, if not all, of the fledglings in the coven are asleep, as Magdalena should be, as Anzurin wishes he was.
By the time they reach the medical wing of Anzurin’s coven, it seems like Magdalena might actually be calming down. She’s sipping a bit slower on her pre-packaged blood and that starving edge in her eyes is beginning to soften, being replaced by a cautious curiosity as she takes in everything around her.
Anzurin stops in front of a heavy wooden door and knocks, a wary glance at Magdalena as they wait.
After only a few seconds, Inessa Lucra, a vampire and Anzrun’s lead doctor, swings open the door, rubbing her eyes as if she’d just awoken. The pajamas she’s still wearing tell the same story. She glances between Anzurin and Magdalena, who doesn’t make a single noise, not so much as a grumble.
Inessa’s red eyes widen at the sight of Magdalena covered in blood, gasping, “Oh, dear! What happened?” She grabs a jacket from the hook right next to her, slipping it on over her camisole as she steps out into the hallway with them.
“New fledgling. Special circumstances. I’d like to put her through a full examination.”
Every new fledgling does get a complete examination upon intake, so it’s not an odd request, but it’s rare that any come in covered in blood, and it’s even rarer than Anzurin himself comes to ask for one at this time.
Inessa leads them back the way they just came, towards her offices. “So, what’s the deal?” she asks over her shoulder.
“Not entirely certain.” He looks at Magdalena, who is looking at the bag of blood rather than drinking from it, tilting it back and forth. “Velur brought her in just a little bit ago. She was at his coven and killed a devilspawn, apparently. I’m not sure how old she is, but I’m estimating a few months. Velur should be bringing whoever is in charge of intake, so maybe they can tell us how long ago she was brought in.”
Jamming a key into the door handle, Inessa uses her hip to bump it open when it gets stuck on the doorframe. “We’ll take a look at her. See what we’re dealing with.”
“I compelled her to behave while you look at her, but … well, she likes to bite, Ness. She may still try to attack.”
“Seems alright to me,” she says, glancing at where Magdalena stands motionless, eyes wide, and the pouch between her lips. Inessa ushers them through the waiting area and into an examination room. “Alright, let’s get you up on the bed and we’ll take a look at you.” Inessa points towards the plastic covered contraption that can hardly be defined as a bed.
She doesn’t move, or even show that she heard Inessa at all, really.
Anzurin says her name to get her attention, and she slowly blinks at him, that look in her eye once again as if she’s just realizing where she is. “This is Inessa,” he tells her cautiously. “She’s a doctor. She’s going to examine you, which means she’s going to have to touch you. Okay?”
She nods jerkily and Anzurin allows himself to feel a fraction of relief at her cooperation. Only a little.
He pats the plastic cot and nudges the step stool with his foot. “Sit up here, please.”
Magdalena nods and does as he requests, and Anzurin finds it a bit endearing when she starts to swing her feet. What a gentle and joyful movement for a creature as bloodthirsty and vicious as her.
Inessa steps forward, first walking a circle around the cot as she looks at Magdalena from all angles. She stops when she’s back in front of Magdalena and smiles warmly at her. “You like biting, right? Show me your teeth.”
Magdalena bares her teeth as asked, tongue pushing against the back of them. They’re still coated in a thin layer of blood with red flesh stuck between some of them.
Inessa pulls on a pair of blue gloves while she visually inspects Magdalena’s teeth, and asks, “May I?” before reaching towards her face.
Magdalena freezes for a moment, then looks towards Anzurin, who gives her a small nod. Hesitant, she pulls her lips back even further and leans in towards Inessa, and – surprising Anzurin – she squeezes her eyes shut. She hardly even blinks, and the only time he’s seen her close her eyes was when she was so completely engrossed in feeding, but now, the way she squeezes them closed… well, it reminds Anzurin more of a grimace. Or a flinch.
Inessa pinches Magdalena’s upper lip gently and pulls it up to inspect her gums, poking just above her fangs, then does the same to her bottom lip. Moving on, she presses her fingers just under Magdalena’s jawline, prodding.
Finally, she pulls away, and Magdalena’s shoulders slump as she releases a breath and opens her eyes.
“At least three months, maybe even four,” Inessa says, confirming Anzurin’s worries. “Her fangs are almost fully down already, and it feels like her venom glands are just starting to form.” She retrieves an instrument from the cabinets against the wall which she uses to look in Magdalena’s ears, noting, “Slight damage to the left side. Right looks fine.”
Anzurin’s curiosity climbs. “Before or after being made?”
“Before, I think. Hard to say for certain. You want the entire package, right? Labs, x-rays, all that?”
Nodding, he says, “Better safe than sorry. We don’t know anything about her right now, and there’s clearly something to be known.” He checks the clock ticking away on the wall. Velur better return soon, and he better have some answers.
Inessa performs a few more minor tests on Magdalena before she has her stand up for even more poking and prodding. Just when she’s beginning to look uncomfortable and like she might be feeling the urge to bite again, Inessa steps away.
“Alright,” she sighs, clapping her hands. “Let’s go make sure everything’s alright on the inside. I’ll go get everything set up if you two want to give me a few minutes.”
“No rush. A break is probably a good idea.”
As Magdalena’s gaze shifts to his neck, he pulls the last pouch out of his pocket, and her eyes light up, her hand shooting out to grab for it. She doesn’t even bother taking the cap off properly, biting it off instead, and as she squeezes the blood into her mouth, she keeps her unblinking stare pinned on his throat.
---
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#xena talks writing#writeblr#writers on tumblr#writing#writerscommunity#the vampire and the devilspawn
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I’m feeling bold and chatty today, usually I’m pretty quiet on tumblr and my chatter is saved for my artfol. I even posted some artwork which I rarely do outside of my art sites just, out of fear i guess? But I got the good vibes going today so I guess that’s finally been put towards posting on here for once.
I hope y’all out there who see this have a good day too, sending positive vibes your way!!
#random fox rambles#i really need to make a post with my links or something#someone remind me in like a week if i dont do it lol#nobody will but someones gotta remember and that def wont be me lol#memory go brrrrbrbrbrrr#for now tho I'm Cloudfox on Artfol if anyone wants to see more of my art in the meantime
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Idk who needs to hear this but time and time again isn't over!!!
Webtoon removed the "time and time again will return!!!" Banner and I don't know why, but it's not over!!! There's still another 1/3 of the comic to go! There's a lot more stuff that I'm working on and it'll be coming back soon!
Please be patient with me, I know it's been a long time... But the stuff I'm making is really good and there's a lot of reasons it's taken this long. I promise I want it back more than anyone.
I'm trying to come back around the end of October. I'm doing my best to get everything ready in time, so no promises, but I'm on track to do so! I'm just one person writing and drawing everything, and my editor was fired so I'm not even getting any notes anymore. It's literally just me. I'm doing my best I promise!
#im so frustrated that banner has been gone#and people think the comic is over because of that#which is reasonable to think#but it... idk#its already an uphill battle to try snd retain audience after a hiatus this long#let alone when webtoon is actively building thr expectation that theres no need to come back...#im so frustrated#every day there is something new with them its so exhausting#this isnt even the thing I've been majorly stressed about this is a fresh new frustration#i feel like they're not just being unhelpful#at this point i feel like theyre actively sabotaging my career.#im not allowed to promote my books#i can't make my links too big so no one can find me#people dont even know i have a patreon#i can't make any announcements on the comic#and now people think th whole thing is over and it isnt!#im so ;_;#im so frustrated and demoralized#and people complete reasonably are losing patience and interest#and. ah... it's fine. like genuinely it is fine.#it will come back soon and i am doing a good job#and everyone who sees it's back will be happy with what ive done#cause it's good. its really good...#but. yeah. idk. webtoon has been actively keeping me down since the beginning and im so over them#I've been so mistreated aysudjejjdjdjdj#i just want to finish the series and go ;_;#taking all my power to not **** ******#just gotta power through and get the fuck out#text post#update
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Linktober Day 8. Tunic
#linktober#linktober 2024#the legend of zelda#wind waker#ocarina of time#loz#loz ww#loz oot#link#josh art tag#had a lot of fun with this one despite how annoying it was to draw#oot link was at a difficult angle and i also just could not shade this for the life of me. restarted the shading like 3 times#i think im reaching that point in the cycle i typically go thru with my artstylr where ive grown tired of my shading style#to the point that i forget how to do it and it never quite looks right#so if my next post features changes to my artstyle thats why lol#but i enjoyed making this despite that cuz i like the ideas behind it!#i normally wouldve redesigned ww!link's outfit but i purposefully drew it accurately#to highlight how its more like a costume. cuz thats kinda what it was! and its modeled after the hero of times clothes#but is pretty innacurate. which i think is cool.. shows how much time has passed and how the view of the hero of time has warped#so i also purposefully made oot link wearing my redesigned outfit for him (even if you cant see much of it at this angle)#to further emphasize how ww!link's outfit is not only essentially a costume but is also quite innacurate#i like having ww!link ditch the costume for something else to show how he stops being some kid in oot!link's shadow#and grows into a true hero of his own#hence my ww!link redesign where i put him back in the lobster shirt. but i do keep some green and something similar to the hat#to have him fit in with the other links while still being unique#look i have a lot of feelings about ww!link and oot!link#i wish zelda would do more stuff like this... i think having oot relate to wind waker makes the story more interesting#and makes ww!link more interesting! cuz he cant be the hero of time they want. but he does become the real hero they need#the oot ww tp trio is so good... and they all work great as standalone games but their connections do really add something
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Round 7
Round: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
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#detective conan#music#polls#detco posting#my stuff#ok in the process of making this post but i need to say this: butterfly core IS SUPER GOOD#and while i don't like the music video that much (too much CGI for me)#i still picked that bc VALSHE's look in is *CHEF KISS*#something about the energy reminds me of annie lenox in the sweet dreams music video#as in: HOT AS FCK#so there you have it#also only 4 songs into this round and full of bangers... well good luck picking everyone i would have already lost this round#god so many of these are such big BANGERS#shuffle is truly evil#but BUT......... i have to admit if mune ga doki doki gets a very low amount of votes i will be very disappointed... the original banger...#really hoping that it'll win... bc that is the banger of our nation isn't it?#(sorry revive and all the rest of you... mune ga doki doki is special all right)#have fun everyone!#also adding the links of the other polls#and i will do that for all posts#for easier access#just haven'T had the time for it till now
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Hmmm....
Thematically i kind of liked that.
But man that plot was... not good.
#Doctor Who#DW Spoilers#Doctor Who Spoilers#Empire of Death#DW Negativity#(another rare tag in case anyone wants to avoid)#might be my least favourite finale tbh#sorry but need to do some random ranting (and I'd rather do it here than in a full post of negativity because that's not my vibe)#like... the champion of life teases#the meaning we put into things#those were ok#the callback to 73 yards was neat#plus the connection to the perception filter#as were all the references in general#but Sutekh has been hanging on to the TARDIS for that long?#and the TARDIS / House just never noticed him in TDW?#they make it sound like he latched onto the TARDIS immediately after Pyramids so doesn't make sense#when did he hide in the Void?#the Time Vortex is linked to the Void but they're not actually the same thing#also when did he “evolve”?#the reason why Ruby/her mother were so powerful/resistant doesn't actually make sense without some other influence#especially with time literally changing#there's a lot of mysteries in the universe - what makes this one so important?#also no elaboration on the memory TARDIS?#I thought we'd at least get a nod to Tales#also how does Sutekh being pulled through the vortex undo what he did?#since everyone actually seems to see the consequences / partially remember it - are there just piles of sand all through history now?#the TARDIS has some laser weapon system now!?#(come on RTD why not just make it the heart of the TARDIS or something?)#also the genealogy thing still doesn't really make sense either
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Sam: "Look at me. Hey- look at me a second. I know. I know you're tough. I know how strong you are. You have every right to be proud of that. But being able to handle somethin' doesn't mean you should have to. Least of all when I'm right here trying to help. Please let me help. If not for you then for me, because I don't like knowin' you're hurtin', especially when there's somethin' I can do about it."
Me, shaking my head, fighting back literal tears: "B-but it's gonna give you another headache!"
#redacted sam#redacted audio#redacted asmr#redactedverse#redacted fandom#[Sam's name doubles as a link to the specific lines i quoted btw. just for full credit/transparency & for anyone who wants to (re)listen]#Sam's deep-seated need to heal vs my inability to accept help would be a battle for the ages. unstoppable force vs immovable object#wait Sam already mentioned the force vs object thing to David during the inversion didn't he lmao 'they call /me/ Immovable Object'#he does suit Immovable a little more than Unstoppable i guess. i mean he can def be both imo but ykwim. anyways i digress#listen. i'm not a Marriage kinda guy. but good god the way some of Sam's lines make me wanna take a fucking knee and propose#i'm love him ur honor. he is comfort incarnate#can't believe i waited so long to listen to the Valentines Vampire Attack audio. it's got so much of that sweet sweet hurt/comfort#very reminiscent of their 2nd audio given all the healing he does for them & the consent checks before moving clothing and whatnot#which makes it a top favorite for me bc that's probably my most replayed Sam audio. and the one that initially hooked me#i didn't put off listening to it bc i thought i Wouldn't like it btw i just procrastinate everything for no real reason#listening to it now tho actually worked out well bc i could uh. definitely use it. so maybe i was subconsciously saving it for hard times#this post isn't a joke btw it really does hurt to hear him put himself in pain for the sake of healing Darlin' :(((#anD PAINKILLERS DON'T EVEN WORK ON HIM!!! ough man i would struggle so hard to accept his healing if i were in Darlin's shoes#like yeah there's other reasons i'd struggle to accept it too but him being in pain as a result would be one of 'em. the Guilt bro i can't#rp audio stuff#Seven.txt#(Seven blorbo-posting at 2am when they should either be doing something productive or sleeping?? more likely than you might think)
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POST MORE SWORD OF FATE PLS IM BEGGING
i have very little in terms of actual art LMAO but i CAN explain the sword thing because i checked and i did in fact never make this plot point public. i struggled for a while with creating a villain for this story until i realized that. i put "sword" in the title of the game. of course it has to be about the fucking sword. DUH.
so i want SOF to deal very heavily with religion, specifically the way in which hyrule's religion forms post-sksw but pre-reincarnation. i've placed it on the timeline directly after sksw, making it the first actual reincarnation in hyrule. what this means is that there's no actual proof yet that the reincarnation thing is real and not just an insane bluff on demise's part, and so several key characters including link and zelda barely believe in hylia or demise at all when the story starts. my thought with this setting's version of ganon is that he's the polar opposite of the nonbelievers. The gerudo don't really exist as of now, but he DOES come from the desert region of hyrule--specifically, he was raised in a cultlike offshoot of the sheikah religion which interpreted the hylia/demise myth completely literally and believes that a doomsday is coming, heralded by the foretold return of demise. Because of this, he knows more about the cycle and how to set it in motion than basically any other character. Crucially, he and his people are some of the only ones at this point aware of the existence of the master sword.
ganon finds. a sword. a sword which he THINKS is the master sword. and this theory is only reinforced when the sword begins to speak to him about his destiny and the salvation of hyrule. unfortunately it is not the master sword and he ends up basically a pawn in the greater plans of what's left of demise & ghirahim within that sword, manipulated into attempting to revive demise and destroy the reincarnated hero and princess. he remains in denial until basically the very end of the final battle, completely convinced that he is the true savior of hyrule and LINK is the one being misled. ghirahim is a very good manipulator lol
#i know that the sword like dies with demise in sksw or whatever but this is my game and i can do whatever i want so ive decided it survives#because i need a plot device. ok. work with me here#asks#loz: sword of fate#anyway the religion thing is something that i really wanted to explore bc it fascinates me. bc obv in later cycles everyone believes#because they KNOW its true and have like. historical evidence of it. but what about the first few times it happened? post-sksw they had no#way of knowing if demise would make good on his promise or not. i can see belief vs nonbelief being a very strong dividing factor among#early hylians. its fascinating to me. lol#anyways zelda specifically fully believes that the hylia shit was made up by her great great grandparents or whatever as a power grab lmao#link is kinda like whatever. sure the goddess exists i guess ill pray to her sometimes but like did she actually found hyrule? probably not#and ganon and his people are HARDCORE believers. like to-the-letter. because of this they have one of the most historically accurate#accounts of hyrule's founding (which no one BELIEVES is accurate at this point. but it is) and have managed to hold onto records of both#the master sword and demise when society at large has basically either forgotten or decided to ignore them#wow. i forgot how fun sof is to write about. holy shit
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"Ai, living has no answer."
"When we're in pain, we search for an answer to feel better. A concise, absolute answer. But if you really want an answer… it's that there is no answer. There are no absolute in this world. Even if we think there is, in the end, it'll only make us feel better for a moment.
If there are no absolute, then what's left?
Bonds. Bonds between individuals. Bonds between one another. That's all there is.
That also changes with time. A huge trigger can cause a huge change. Bonds may be severed. But new bonds can also be formed. So living is a series of bonds.
That's what life is.
I have to do that forever?
Yes.
That's a lot of work.
Yeah.
I'd need to be so strong.
That's why people become stronger. That occasionally leads to conflicts. But even if that happens, we have to keep fighting. Keep searching for bonds, even if there's no answer.
You can't rush living."
So I saw on MyFigureCollection that October 13 was maybe possibly Yusaku's birthday, although I couldn't find any reliable source for this. I'd have loved to do something nice and light-hearted for the occasion, but I'm still feeling too strongly about it all. So here you are instead: Happy (maybe) Birthday, Yusaku! Please have some trauma to go with your trauma. Here's to another year of fending off expectations and looking for your own life and its non-answers with eyes wide open and always filled with hope.
#yu gi oh#vrains#vrains spoilers#SPOILERS#how do you tag so it really really doesn't show too obviously because seriously I'd feel horrible for completely spoiling#but I still wanted to share it because I KEEP CRYING#i told my *therapist* about it and we had almost a whole session about bonds and what they mean in terms of support and pressure#I also posted the quote on Facebook last week for my birthday with no explanation and completely out of context#and it was so amazing to have people compliment me on it and ask if they could reuse it#those were the same people who told me that anime would make my brain rot 20 years ago so that's nice turntable and all#i really want to write something heartfelt about it but i'm just rambling and honestly the quote is self-sufficient#i guess i'll just have to find a way to get it tattooed somewhere on my back now because it feels like the only way for me to recover#“I get it now; if you have bonds no one will forget you.” “I won't forget you.”#Vrains quote#VRAINS FEELS#i can't wait for more post-canon in Duel Links#maybe beginning of 2025 if i calculated correctly?#hoping for Akira Zaizen and his Tindangle deck that I'll be happy to destroy with my Revolver deck#and i also have kilowords upon kilowords to write about EVERYTHING but i still need a bit more time#okay that's too many tags i'm done gonna cry a Nile and a half now bye#edit HEY I FIGURED OUT THE “READ MORE” THING I feel less afraid of spoiling now but seriously if you haven't watched Vrains yet stop readin
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No you don't understand, Anne and Marcy third-wheeling Sasha during the dinner episode (and Sasha third-wheeling herself during battle of the bands) is so important to me. Anne and Marcy have come so far having left Sasha behind. They're happy and confident and strong and closer than ever, all because they were finally free. Because Sasha wasn't there to stunt their growth. Despite how much they love Sasha and how much they don't want to admit the distance helped them, it's true: Anne and Marcy were both victims of a toxic friend and they're learning to move on together. Ik it sounds like I hate Sasha because whenever I write about her I make her out to be a massive piece of shit but that's because... she kinda was! And I love her for that! I love these three, I love their story and their drama and toxicity (I was soooo happy when it was revealed Marcy wasn't as great as she initially seemed like - yes! The CONFLICT is CONFLICTING). Like yes marcanne is my obsession, I have marcanne brain worms, but I think one of the reasons marcanne works so well is because of Sasha. Their past, present and future with her have such a huge impact in Anne and Marcy's relationship with each other and with themselves. You can't separate these three and I love it, how easy it is to ship two of them without making it weird by leaving the third one behind (ironically, Sasha the Character is included by leaving Sasha the Person behind).
Marcanne to me is about two childhood friends living in a toxic situation healing together after leaving, only able to fall in love now that they are free and more comfortable with themselves and each other. They couldn't fully connect with each other before - not really. Anne didn't see the importance of listening to what Marcy had to say nor did she take it too seriously, and Marcy was simply not in contact with real people in the real world at all. None of this was Sasha's fault entirely, but she did third-wheel Marcy and she was possesive with Anne and was just a generally terrible influence on her, while reminding Marcy that, well, she didn't really matter all that much to anyone. Removing Sasha from the equation is not enough but it's a necessary step towards knowing each other better and the fact that they so easily became closer than ever just shows their eagerness to be together for real this time. Marcy's increased confidence and Anne's newfound empathy and admiration for her friend wouldn't have been possible with Sasha's domineering influence present. If they were to fall in love, it'd be because Sasha wasn't there to stop it.
I imagine that, once she finds out, she'd be furious, but mostly just devastated. Her friends only found love once she was gone. As if they think they'll be better off without her.
#amphibia#marcanne#anne boonchuy#marcy wu#sasha waybright#marcanne meta#my posts#i saw a lil drawing one time. it was anne and sasha kinda swordfighting#and anne was protecting marcy like holding her in one arm while pointing her sword at sasha w the other one#but it was like a sketch and in a screenshot alongside like 6 other drawings without links or credit or anything#but from the context of the post I thinkkkkkkk it may have been a doodle made by someone who worked in amphibia??#if that's the case I'd love to know. because i'd love to draw it#idk if I feel comfortable stealing some other fan's fanart idea tbh#but that tiny pixelated little thing was so adorable! i can't get the image out of my head#the CONCEPT of Anne defending Marcy from Sasha! a whole swordfight right there!#only believable if marcy is like injured or something ofc because she'd just try to like intervene to keep the peace. or escape. or try to#immobilize sasha peacefully#but if she's half-conscious or injured or something#(NOT inconscious because i want her to see the fight happen 👀)#oooooh boyy#anne choosing marcy over sasha! sasha realizing they REALLY are more important to each other than she is to either of them! marcy realizing#theres no hope for their friendship because sasha never wanted what was best for all of them and didnt really want her and anne to be happy#i needed a real marcy-sasha confrontation so bad i was so sad we didn't get one 😭 mostly I want marcy to realize sasha was horrible to her#maybe she's in denial maybe she's holding back tears repeating over and over again that sasha is their friend while anne softly tries to#talk to her. to make her see both she and sasha treated her like she was nothing. to make her understand she didn't deserve that#until marcy finally breaks and begins to cry ;-;#i have a whole fanfic in my head you do not understand
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🌹 Happy Rosie Day 🌹
If you’re able and want to send me a little gift to celebrate you can find my links -> here 🫶
#I don’t really have the energy or motivation to make a cute post but wanted to add my links#juuuuuust in case anyone wants to send me a little something something#my cashapp/venmo#and I also included my throne wishlist#Ngl tips mean the world to me since I’m unemployed and getting dangerously low#but I also included some clothes cause I also really need some new clothes#been wearing the same shit over and over again#thought about adding a crown or two but I stopped myself#let’s be honest as much as i desperately want more crowns#where am I going to put them???#it’s also not like I’m in a mentally healthy spot where I even feel like putting them on tbh#not sure when I put my crowns/tiaras on last :(#I’m rambling now#I’m hopping into the shower and then going to go over and see Maya puppy for a little bit#I haven’t seen her in sooooo long I can’t wait 😭😭#why does time keep going by so damn fast how is it already 3pm????????? dumb#what’s up rosie
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The Greek Mythos Project: What We Accept Within Submissions
Hello everyone, it is once again Camila here and I am writing this post because I decided I should probably clarify things sooner than later. I know I and quite a few other lovely people can struggle with open barriers within things, especially in such a large and "imposing" project, so I decided to write down the general specifics of things to lessen everyone's anxiety. This can and will definitely be improved if we are given more information/questions/asked for clarification so feel free to check every once in a while or reach out if you don't see a specific question you have answered. This is once again here to promote better communication within things and break down this large project to more manageable things. So, let's get into it!
[Note: This post will go from the broader, more unspecific, topics to the smaller, more specific ones so feel free to scroll down or up as you please :)]
The Biggest Thing First! One Singular POV. This is something that I, Camila, want for the project and therefore, it will be the most enforced thing within here. Don't worry, though! We will be releasing a Second Work alongside this main project consisting of things that didn't quite fit into the original project, such as works that aren't exactly (or at all) one POV but still want to be recognized or OC pieces that are like reincarnations of various gods/mortals/characters which I'll get into later. So you work has a place with us, I promise you <3.
Anyway, back to the One Singular POV thing. It genuinely does not matter whether the piece is First Person, Second Person, Third Person, or something within those parameters as long as the setting, scene, thoughts, and work are being described in that one character's thoughts/experiences. A great example of this in Third Person is in the Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan, a popular YA Book Series centering around Greek Mythology in a Modern Setting told by their Demigod Children, where the narrative is in Third Person POV but it only ever follows whoever's POV it's in. Such as we do see the character's actual name and "he/she/they" instead of "I" but we're not privy to anything other than what the character is experiencing.
That is what I am asking for, and I am asking for this mostly for myself!) As we all may know by now, this project was created because I--Camila--took one look at my goal to rewrite the entirety of Greek Mythology in my search to learn more about the Greek Myths, was like "yeah... no," and then proceeded to make this public with the intent to bring out those niche writers, gain a community, make friends, and generally learn more about the various communities and ideas surrounding such a vast and deep thing such as Greek Mythology (remember, people not only know this across the globe, but across centuries. It's not just our ideas and the original texts, it's the Roman Empire's thoughts, the Rise of Christianity, all of our forefathers, and even those who we have read dissecting these things and creating academic papers or other works. It's just so interesting how much character and change and even how much influence various things have had on our modern perceptions). But, this is also a Project, this is also mine, and so I am very politely asking for it to be One POV of a Greek Mythological Character--However Niche They May Be--Only.
Thank you so much for understanding and, again, I will be hosting a Secondary Fic for all the things that don't quite fit under this Main Project but may still want to have the recognition/community that this comes with <3.
Note!! Because this post ended up being a little long and would be hard to properly organize going further, the rest of it will be comprised in reblogs <33
#The Greek Mythos Project#Greek Mythology#to do a quick and basic summarization of the rest because I don't know when I'll be able to get it out there:#yes OCs can be included as long as the POV is of a canonical main character#yes you can reuse old published works (& you can also provide their links so we can give the original posts some love)#AUs are undecided on where they will be placed among here#(they'll either be clearly labeled within the project or have their own Work)#will definitely be rewriting all these posts later down the line but they should serve as something#and we all deserve some human error over here don't we#and sorry if I'm being really repetitive#...they kind all revolve around the same thing#just let me know if I need to actually clean up this post or clarify something bc I cannot trust my own perception of myself#I am; and I quote; “my own worst asshole” and it can be applied to me doing stupid shit to myself or being a perfectionist <3#but yeah#hope this helps and yeah#once I write most of these little posts clarifying things I'll definitely rewrite everything to make them more cohesive#bc we learning as we go along too!!#/pos /gen#...did I miss anything?
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probably going to rework my human bellum design again
#surprise surprise im still not satisfied with it but i think i have the base down#might just rework his clothing a liiiiitle and maybe like. give him at least slightly darker skin#he still comes off as edgy or some shit to me. i still want to stick with the violent delinquent sorta angle#i just feel like its a bit much or whatever. he just seems too unremarkable but also too detailed#or something. with the scars all over. maybe its bc i cant picture him v well in the game artstyle? but ive never cared much abt that#tho looking at the comms ive gotten of him. he seems fine. the x on the eyepatch might be a bit much#maybe he can customize it when he materializes it idk and the x is a default. its made of sand when you inspect it#it might also help to write him more. force myself to think abt him in situations#in other news im thinking abt damien possible post ph healing magic. i like the idea i have#i really need to fiure out more defined post ph arcs it does bother me how aimless it is#i know vague stuff but very little specifics. it needs a fucking plot#i do want to keep bellums human form making him look closely related to link. i like that#its funny if nothing else#salty talks#damiens fine hes just a guy he doesnt need anything too fancy. if i think abt it too long my certainty dissolves#wow i love being insecure ablut my ideas. i love rsd. ohhhhhhhhh boyyy#now its a minor vent. w/e. at rhis rate im. gonna start talking abt how my job scheduled me on a shift#with the literal bare minimum number of scheduled workers so if its slightly busy its going to be a living hell#at least i get paid for closing so when closing inevitably takes over an hour bc i have to do it alone im getting paid more#if i wasnt motivated by money itd be so fucking over for me in the workforce
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