#it will come back full force with the new series I predict | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dearmantis · 2 years ago

Text

There's no love like our love

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova/The Darkling x wife!Reader

Summary: When the Royal Family finally turns on the Grisha, you find yourself caught in the crossfire. Alone, of course. You're always alone, it seems.

Warnings: murder, death, canonical persecution of Grisha, violence, mentioned death of children, sexual harassment, slutshaming, mentions of sex and cheating, suicidal thoughts, self hatred

Word Count: 6.6k words

Authors' Note: I DID IT! HERE IS YOUR PART TWO FOR A LOST EMBRACE! IT ONLY TOOK 76 YEARS! BUT I GOT IT DONE BEFORE THE END OF APRIL (this is also very not edited, and I'm still not a native English speaker).

Also, funfact: I cut the ending of this, just like I did with part 1. There was a whole other ending, but that was basically just a lot of fluff. I wasn't sure if people would want that from this series/twoshot specifically so I cut it. I can't tell of cutting the ending is a good or a really bad habit.

The title is from Lights are on by Tom Rosenthal!

Part 1: A lost embrace | Masterlist

The universe is filled with light. Billions of beautiful stars, all different sizes and temperatures, burning brightly and sending their energy out into the universe to bring warmth and light.

But there is even more darkness in the universe than there are stars, filling the space between the celestial bodies. An all surrounding nothingness that acts as a playing field for all of the beautiful, weird and wonderful things hiding in the endless sky. A canvas for everything else in the universe that hugs and surrounds all.

And one day, at least according to the most popular theories, the last stars will die and the universe will be entirely engulfed in darkness.

It began with a loud burst of light, and it will die quietly in shadows.

That knowledge used to bring you comfort and a feeling of belonging. The darkness became your new home, a special, safe place right next to your husband, but there is no safety and love to be found in the darkness now.

It was predictable, honestly. You should've known the second Vasily allowed the Darkling to travel Ravka to search of the Sun Summoner with only a few First Army soldiers for protection, but you simply didn't pay attention to the signs, too caught up in your own frustration and bitterness.

He didn't realise it either, it seems, because he simply left without even saying goodbye, leaving you behind to run the Little Palace in his absence. One night you fall asleep next to him, back turned towards him to visibly reject his presence, and the next morning he is gone, his side of the bed made and all of his most important belongings gone. No letter, no announcement beforehand, nothing.

Maybe his head was simply too focused on Alina to even remember that he still had a wife.

It doesn't matter anymore.

You're still awake when they come, three nights after the General left the Little Palace.

You're laying in bed, humming an old lullaby – one of the really old ones that you learned because he sometimes sings them to you when you can't sleep – while working on fixing the embroidery on the kefta of one of the younger students.

The disappearance of the Sun Summoner has led to chaos in all of Ravka, and there hasn't been a calm moment in the palace in weeks. You are forced, just like everyone else, to work until you pass out while keeping up appearances in front of the royal family. Everything needs to be immaculate despite the fact that the whole country is in a state of emergency, so you push small detail work like this into every free second of your day in hopes of doing something good.

You're so focused on your project that you don't even hear them approach your windows from the outside.

They sneak around, quietly taking out the guards until they're sure that they won't meet too much resistance, and then, suddenly, everything is very loud.

You don't remember what happens. Just flashes of memories. Little pieces that simply aren't enough to form a full picture, as if your body simply wasn't able to take it all in. Or maybe it refuses to remember.

Glass shatters, loud and unfamiliar steps echo like thunder through the halls of what was supposed to be your home, men with bad intentions are in your bedroom, in your house, in your garden.

And your husband is nowhere to be found.

The air smells like fire, panic and fear crackling in the air like electricity and the screams of the Grisha you swore to protect as if they were your own children echo through the building and outside.

Shots are fired in the distance, you're on the floor, the barrel of a gun pressed tightly against the back of your head.

There are more screams slicing through the night. You think you hear someone yelling your name, but before you can answer, one of the men who broke into your room slams their heavy gun against your head, and darkness welcomes you into it's familiar embrace.

When you finally wake it's to the sound of a gun shot ringing through the air, and though the bars of your new cage you watch through bleary eyes how one of your fellow Grisha runs away, his bright purple kefta unfortunately doing very little to hide his movements between the trees. You can't tell who it is, not in the dark.

A second shot gets fired. You see how it hits the Durast in the head, his body falling to the ground and staying there, unmoving. Nobody goes to check if he's dead or to drag him off and bury or burn his corpse. It's just left right there, next to a large ash tree.

Someone whimpers and sobs, begs for their life, but you can't take your eyes off the corpse. The way it just lays there, like it's nothing.

You haven't seen an actual battle in centuries. The Darkling is too paranoid to let you go, convinced that his enemies will target you in a fight and take you away from him. The thought alone used to turn his eyes cold and hard like ice, his whole body shaking with anger at the idea of you being in a dangerous situation. You haven't seen death like this, so fast and seemingly insignificant, in forever.

There is no triumph visible in the body language of the soldier that shot the Durast, but no shame either. A job done, nothing more. He doesn't celebrate or pat himself on the back. He just sits back down next to the fire in the middle of the camp and takes a sip of water, like the life he just took was worth less than even the life of a rabbit.

The other guards move to check the handcuffs of the others after that incident, making sure that everything works and no one is able to use their powers. Your heart races so fast it makes you dizzy, the fog in your head thickening and threatening to drag you back into unconsciousness.

It's hard to stay focused enough to take the whole situation in, but you try anyway, tearing your gaze away from the corpse. There are nine cages, including yours, one of them now empty.

The Grisha in the cages are, just like you, handcuffed with their hands far apart. Three of them are wearing their keftas - two of them being Alkemis, and you ask yourself if the Materialki were all still down in the workshops when the raid began - but the others, including you, are wearing whatever you wore to sleep that night. All of you are dirty, and you pray silently that none of them are hurt. It's hard to see with the lack of light. The cages all stand a bit too far away from the fire to truly see much.

The men who guard you, on the other hand, all look like they dressed up for a military parade. Their First Army uniforms sparkle almost, their faces clean shaven or decorated with carefully trimmed beards. This was planned. This whole raid was planned, probably for weeks, and you didn't notice. The idea most likely came up as soon as the General returned from the Fold, and no one ever picked up on it.

It feels like a relic from a time you're supposed to have left behind, a time you didn't even experience and only heard about from the Darkling and on rare occasions his mother.

The First Army doesn't hunt Grisha anymore. The king doesn't put you into cages. They just hate you, insult you, and harass you, but they don't physically harm you anymore. Yet... here you are.

Ravka isn't supposed to be like Fjerda, like Shu Han, like Kerch. The Darkling had made sure of that, worked for this one singular goal for centuries, and dedicated his whole life to it.

The thought of him makes your heart sting painfully, and you suppress the urge to worry for him, to wonder where he is and if he's safe. You have bigger issues than him right now. He's fine. There's no room for argument. He has survived wars and centuries of persecution. This won't kill him. He's probably out there somewhere, completely safe, trying to track down his sun summoner while you rot in this cage alongside the others.

After the handcuffs are checked you watch as four of the five soldiers walk to the cages of the two Alkemi, Ivanna and Ole, and pull them out, the fifth still sitting at the fire and watching the whole situation with mild interest.

You hear one of the guards make a suggestion on how to deal with them, and your stomach turns.

In your mind, you are 12 years old, hiding behind your mothers skirt. Her hand rests on your head, trying to soothe you as you watch with the other people your village how a woman gets dragged out of the cage they kept her in. You remember her face. She works as a seamstress. She gives you pretty ribbons to tie around your wrist or into your hair whenever your mother buys something from her.

The man – was he the mayor? The village head? You don't remember what he called himself – who pulled her out of the cage pushes her to the ground, right in front of a large rock, and motions for someone hiding in the crowd to come closer.

Another man steps forward, the blacksmith, in his hands the biggest hammer you have ever seen.

The woman starts screaming now, her voice breaking under the force of her violent sobs. Her body shakes horribly, and your own shaking hands dig deeper into the material of your mothers skirt.

"Please, please, I swear it. This is a misunderstanding. I did nothing wrong. I swear it. Please, just listen to me," the woman begs while the mayor grabs the thick rope attacked to her handcuffs and pulls her arms and hands to rest on the rock.

The noise the hammer made when it slammed down on her hands haunts you for centuries, just like her screams do.

Just like the screams of the Materialki probably will if you survive this when the guards push them to the ground. The only difference is that the soldiers have no large hammers to break their hands.

You can't move, can't speak, can't do anything, completely frozen in fear while the soldiers hold them down, each of them pressing an arm down onto the cold ground. The two have no chance to defend themselves.

The man at the fire finally stands up slowly, grabbing one of the rocks lining the fire to prevent forest fires, and walks over to the six people on the ground.

You watch him do it. You have to. You failed to protect your Grisha, and the least you can do is witness the horrors they have to go through because of your own mistakes.

Because you should've known. You should've known. Of course the royal family would turn on Grisha. Of course they would send the Darkling away before they raided the Little Palace. He is the last line of defence for the Grisha in this country.

You should've noticed the signs. You should've talked to the General about it, maybe even with Baghra. You should've started to prepare to evacuate the whole Palace, organized a place to hide with food and beds and water.

But you didn't. You didn't because you were too blinded by your own stupid quarrel with the Darkling. This is your fault. Every drop of blood that was shed that night, every bit of pain and suffering that your Grisha experienced, clings to you.

It's all your fault.

When the soldiers are sure that they broke every bone in Alkemis' hands, they put the cuffs back on and throw them back into their cages.

And then they walk back to the fire in the middle of the camp and begin to eat, ignoring the sobbing of the Grisha only a few metres away from them and the corpse still peacefully resting between the bushes and trees.

You wake up the next morning with aching muscles and the knowledge that you probably won't get out of this camp alive. Because as much as you would like to pretend otherwise, these people know you. If Vasily gives the command to have you killed, these men know that you're their target. And he would. You can't even blame him for it. You're the wife of the General, just as much of a symbol for the Second Army as the Darkling. Killing you would be a message to all of Ravka.

They don't treat you much differently than they treat the others, to your surprise. You get starved like the others, glared at like the others, and dehydrated like the others.

You could almost believe that they somehow don't know who you are if it wasn't for the insults.

Every Grisha gets insulted, some more creatively than the others. Especially the two Alkemi get made fun of for their broken, swollen, and discoloured hands by the soldiers, like they aren't the reason why they look like that. Other insults directed at other Grisha in the camp, on the other hand, are overused and boring, like when they asked Lena, an Inferni, where her spark is, why her fire has disappeared.

"I thought Infernis are always so hot-headed? Come on, give us a show!" One of the older men in the camp says to her on your second day awake, and it makes your skin crawl. You wish you could claw those mens eyes out, make them bleed.

But the insults they direct at you, those are personal. They prove that they know exactly who you are despite never saying your name once.

The Darklings slut. That's what you are to them.

His favourite toy. A bedwarmer. A plaything. A whore to entertain him. A distraction from the war. A thing he can let his frustrations out on.

That's who you are in their eyes. Nothing more. Certainly nothing that deserves respect or should be feared. The fact that you and the other Grisha can't use the small science makes them braver.

The worst insults are the ones they come up with after the third day in the cage, right after the soldiers get a quick visit from one of Vasilys messengers, because their words are suddenly no longer insults. They are observations and a horrible, new truth that convince you that their earlier insults are true, working hand in hand with the thoughts and fears you had before any of this even started.

"Don't look at me like that, whore. Everybody, even us fools in the First Army, know how enamoured your husband was with the sun summoner. How many times do you think he fucked her before she ran? Probably did it right behind your back in your shared bed, you stupid thing. I bet she was the last thing he thought of before the guards that accompanied him shot him in the head."

The soldiers celebrate the news of the Darklings death like they just won the wars with Fjerda and Shu Han and tore down the Fold with their bare hands, drinking alcohol and eating freshly hunted deer meat while you and the other Grisha grieve and starve. You don't allow yourself to cry like the others, but you can feel your soul rip itself apart.

You begin to lose yourself after that.

Your sanity runs through your hands like sand, your mind desperate to escape the smell of the Durasts rotting corpse that the soldiers never bothered to remove, the insults, the screams of the other Grisha when they get pulled out of their cages (one a day, always only one a day, like they're trying to drag it out), the desperate hunger that burns in your stomach, the thirst that tears your throat apart, the death of your husband: reality in all it's horrible shapes and colours.

First, you spend a few minutes caught up in a nice memory, like a short conversation in the gardens of the Little Palace, drinking tea and leaning on his shoulder while he tells you about his day. Then the daydreams get longer and take more control over you until you spend days staring at nothing, buried so deep in your own mind that you're no longer aware of what happens around you.

A small part of you hopes that they'll kill you while you're in that state, caught up in the past. Everything is better than reality, and with every second that passes when you're fully aware of your surroundings, that reality becomes more unbearable.

You love remembering the time before Alina the most. You know that her only sin is shining a light onto the lies, destruction, and rot surrounding you, but without her light, you were able to pretend.

You are good at pretending.

The light just makes it harder, and sometimes you slip up and accidentally sink into a more recent memory, your mind racing through different thoughts so fast that you're unable to stop it.

Like how the girl whose kefta you repaired that night, little Bibi, probably ended up dying without it after working so hard to prove to everyone that she earned it. And now her corpse lays somewhere in Ravka with no one to take care of it, to lay it to rest.

The kids are easily the worst thing to remember. Every time you do, it feels like the guilt eats your heart or whatever is left of it right out of your chest, ripping and tearing on the muscle like a wolf on a bone.

How many of them got out of the Palace in time and are now hiding somewhere, probably scared and alone with no one to help them and no idea how to get to other Grisha or back to their families? How many of them are stuck in cages just like you, starving and terrified of the First Army men who are only waiting to get the command to kill them? How many of them didn't even make it out of the Little Palace and died at the hand of the soldiers during the raid?

How many children were buried and burned that night?

Your husband isn't much better to remember either. The words of the First Army soldiers burn themselves into your mind like hot coals. You don't want to think about it. You've never wanted to think about something less in your entire life, but no matter what you do, the pain of losing someone you've known for almost your whole life feels like a knife stuck in your chest.

"... guards that accompanied him shot him in the head."

It's odd, really, how all consuming grief can be even if a part of you hates the person you lost. Almost surreal.

There have always been chapters of your life subtitled with "before the Darkling". There aren't supposed to be chapters subtitled "after the Darkling", not even a single one. It's wrong. It's entirely wrong. He's supposed to be a constant. Something that doesn't move, doesn't change, doesn't leave. He was supposed to be here until the end of everything.

He wasn't supposed to leave you behind. You can't do this without him. You can't lose him. This isn't right.

It's the last piece. The last drop required to convince you that giving up might not be the worst option. If they succeeded in killing the Darkling... what can truly be done anymore? What can you do? You can't free the Grisha in your camp, not with your hands cuffed so far apart from each other that your arms regularly start cramping, and a stomach so empty that it feels like your entire body is trying to collapse in on itself to fill the void. You can't convince the soldiers to free you. You can't save the children and rebuild Ravka into a safe place once more, not alone. You can't do anything on your own. You are nothing.

So why shouldn't you die? Why not join your husbands soul, wherever it may be now? What is left for you to do here? What can you do?

Death haunts your sense of smell and vision. It haunts your mind, and it haunts all of Ravka. Why not let it carry you off? Away from the pain, the suffering, the fear and grief and rot.

There is only more to come. More horrors that linger in the unpredictable future, and no one left to fix it. You certainly can't do it, Baghra - if she still lives, that is - doesn't care enough about others to even attempt to fix anything, and the sun summoner evidently can't do it either. All she can do is shine light on the evil lingering in the dark, but she's not strong or persuasive enough to improve and change the nightmares she exposes.

The Darkling could've done it. He would fight tooth and nail, drench his hands in blood and ash to free the others. He has fought his whole life, after all. He could've done it again.

But you can't. You can't take his position in this war, as much as you wish you could. You can't even get your hands out of your stupid cuffs, no matter how hard you try.

Baghra was right in the end, it seems. You really are too weak to stay at her and her sons side as their equal. You are dust, nothing more.

Now that you're here, stuck in a cage and unable to defend yourself in any way, you ask yourself once more how she and her son could've possibly survived this long. How did they not give up? What do they have that you lack?

"When the entire world hates you and wants you dead, the best thing you can do is live."

That's what she said back then, but you simply don't understand how she found the strength to keep going. You can't find it in you, no matter how much you look. Your whole life is gone. Your friends are probably all in cages or dead. Your husband is dead. Your home is gone. There is nothing left, no reason for you to continue.

Your husband would want you to keep going, a voice in the back of your mind answers, and you can feel the sharp stinging in your chest return at the thought.

You miss him. You miss him so much that it feels like you're being torn apart from the inside. And if you're really honest with yourself, you have to admit that you have been in this state for a while.

All of that anger and jealousy was just your bodies way to avoid facing the fact that you were lonely. No wonder you immediately fell back into routine like a desperate little cat when he finally gifted you some attention after Alina fled. Your entire being was begging to get him back.

And now you will never have him again because you were both too stubborn to simply talk with each other. He will never understand how much it hurt to see him obsess over someone else, and you will never know why you suddenly weren't enough for him anymore.

You will never hear his voice again, or knit him a new scarf for winter, or wash his hair for him after an exhausting day. You will never be comforted by him when you have a headache or watch the first snow of the year cover the grass outside of the Little Palace. You will never fall asleep next to him again, his arms wrapped around you and your face pressed against his chest as his heartbeat and calm breathing lull you to sleep.

He will never hug you again or surprise you with breakfast. He will never help you choose jewelry for an event again, give you his cloak when you're cold, kiss you, laugh at your horrible jokes, or moan your name into your ear, his voice raspy with love and desire while he tries to bring you to another orgasm before his own crashes down on him.

You will never do anything with him ever again.

Turning your head slightly, you stare at the soldiers sitting at the fire, eating some form of stew. You can't smell it. The stench of the decomposing body is too strong, and you wonder how the soldiers can stomach food in this environment.

You can barely breathe on some days without gagging every few seconds. It's so horrible that it drives tears into your eyes.

They talk and laugh about some servant girl, and you silently ask yourself what fate the servants of the Little Palace met. How many of them died that night? How many fled? Did any of them try to help the Grisha that might've fled? And saints, what happened to the Oprichniki?

Slowly closing your eyes again, you pray that the wind changes direction and starts blowing the smell away while you try to think of something that gives you strength.

The first thing that comes to mind is your amplifier.

You haven't thought about that day in a while, not since Alina came to the Palace and your heart and soul drowned themselves in jealousy and hate.

But it's not right to forget something so special. You should remember.

Who else in all of Ravka got proposed to, not with a ring but with a barn owl and a knife?

He has been gone for months, looking for something in West Ravka, choosing to trave through Fjerda and around the Fold to avoid going through it, and the constant worry that he would be discovered keeps you awake on some nights. He sends a letter once a month and promises you over and over that he would be back in the spring, but you still end up surprised when one of your friends drags you out of your bed in the middle of the night and ushers you towards the Generals quarters.

And when you open the doors you find him leaning against his desk, a knife next to him on the table and a barn owl sitting quietly in a cage, large eyes looking at you curiously, but you don't even see those things. Not at first, at least.

You just see him.

"You're back!"

Quickly jumping over to him, you throw your arms around him and press your face against him, a deep laugh bubbling in his chest as he moves to embrace you tightly.

"Careful, my love," he murmurs, his hands finding the back of your neck and pressing you closer to him.

You stay like that for a while, holding each other tightly while he whispers soft words into your ear.

"I'm so happy to see you. I missed you so much, little love. I hope you weren't too lonely without me," he coos, pressing a long kiss onto your head.

You're about to answer him when the bird finally makes himself known. Turning your head quickly you look at it, and the owl turns it's head to the side as if it's trying to do assess you carefully as well, it's dark eyes looking you over a few times. You feel a bit self-conscious in your night dress, but instead of shying away, you decide to let it look.

"Is that what you were looking for in West Ravka?" you ask, gazing back up at him.

"I did a lot of research over the past year, and I think this amplifier would be strong enough," he explains, his voice as soft as a feather.

"Strong enough?"

"To keep you with me. I didn't believe it at first either, but this little bird could give you forever. Time would no longer be able to take you from me. I could keep you for eternity."

Tears well up in your eyes, your hands moving to hold onto the front of his kefta as he reaches over to the knife and holds it out to you.

"You don't have to do it right now. You can get to know the owl and see if it feels right. Think about it for a while. It's a big commitment, after all." His empty hand moves up to cup your face, and the tenderness in his gaze makes your heart race. "If you chose the amplifier, I will stay with you. I will be at your side until the end of everything, I promise it. I will take care of you when you're hurt, hold you when you're sad, and laugh with you when you're happy. I will fight at your side, protect you with my life, and take care of you until I die."

Biting your lip weakly, you look up into his eyes, somehow darker than the night sky. "And if I don't choose to take the amplifier?"

"Then I'll still do all of those things. I will just have less time by your side, but I will cherish that time just as much, sweet girl."

You don't know when it happens because you start to loose track of time after the first week is over, but at some point in a random night one of the soldiers goes into the forest to get fresh water from a nearby river and doesn't return.

You're not conscious enough to notice it, and the soldiers are too caught up in their preparations for tonight's entertainment.

You don't even notice how they move through the camp, their eyes looking at each and every grisha they have, and judging who would be able to provide the most fun tonight. You just wish you were lying on the floor.

If you laid down, you could pretend that the heaviness on your chest is your husbands weight and not a heavy mountain of grief that tries to drag you down into the heart of the world.

He liked to do that. Lay on top of you to make sure that every single centimetre of you touched him in some way. You used to jokingly complain about it, but he never stopped. Every time he knew you needed comfort he would lay down on top of you, his heavy, strong body pressing you deep into the mattress while he talked, either asking questions about your day and whatever might be bothering you, or telling you about his, always carefully pressing small kisses onto your face and neck.

He must've known that his weight comforted you, made you feel safe. You've never wanted to be crushed into a mattress by him so badly in your whole life.

You don't hear it when they discuss if you're weak enough now to remove you from the cuffs. You don't even hear it when they open your cage, the old metal screeching loudly.

You don't realize that anything is wrong until one of the soldiers unlocks the cuffs and your body falls to the floor like a wet sack of flour. A loud groan leaves your mouth, your voice rough from lack of use.

The soldier grabs your ankles and drags you out of the cage, your upper body dragging over the floor. After being hung up for so long, you realise very quickly that you can't move your arms at all. The muscles start twitching as soon as you even attempt to bring them together, and a horrible, sharp tingling sensation makes itself noticeable. You bite your teeth together to stop yourself from screaming out.

A wave of panic crashes over you as soon as you fully understand what's going on, trying to kick the man dragging you closer to the fire, but none of your movements seem to really bother him.

As soon as you're close enough to the fire, someone flips you onto your stomach and buries their hand in your hair to pull your head up. Your back bends horribly, and you hiss out in pain as your eyes find those of the soldier who broke the Alkemis hands with a rock.

He doesn't say anything. He just looks at you, eyes taking in every flinch and twitch in your face.

You stay like this for a few seconds staring at each other, when he suddenly spits directly into your face, a wide grin splitting his face into two a few seconds later before he slaps you. Your head drops to the ground quickly.

"Let's get started. Markus can join us later when he's done," someone says. Three seconds later, before you have time to register what he means, you have a small knife in your back.

A blood curdling scream leaves your throat and tears well up in your eyes. You want to beg, to humiliate yourself even further and kiss their shoes in hopes of escaping this, but the last shred of pride left in you won't let you.

One of the soldiers steps onto one of your hands, twisting his shoe a bit in the process to make it hurt more. Someone else grabs your other arm and twists it behind your back until you scream out once more. This time, you scream your husbands name, unable to stop yourself in time. It's a broken, pathetic sound that echoes through the trees like a gunshot.

You know he won't come, but something about saying his name again feels almost cathartic, so you continue to scream it out with your full heart and soul. With every hit, every kick, and every stab wound, you scream the real name of the black heretic out into the endless night and beg death to bring you to him.

When the first gunshots get fired into the forest, you mistakenly assume that they're shooting at you and tightly close your eyes. Your heartbeat rushes loudly in your ears, and your mind replays the events of the first day when the Durast got shot. You can't even stand up and run. Your whole body is consumed by pain.

This is it, you think. Loud screams pierce through the air, gruelling, blood curling screams that scare you half to death.

Your mind races, trying to quickly find a last memory to remember before a bullet pierces your chest or head and kills you, something sweet and soft and perfect, like your wedding night, or your first kiss, or your-.

A loud scream rips itself out of your throat when a bullet hits you right into your leg. The man who shot it is dead seconds later, torn to shreds by darkness itself, but you don't see it, your eyes still rightly closed as you wait for the next bullet to hit you.

It never comes.

Instead someone yells your name, and you think it sounds familiar.

"Ivan!" the man screams, and a second later, someone carefully turns you onto your back and falls to their knees next to you, pulling your head up into their lap, their large hands cupping your face.

You don't want to die. You're not ready.

"My love, my love, it's me. Can you hear me?," he speaks. Fabric ruffles and something wide is dropped over your shaking, weak form, and your whole body feels warm for the first time in days. A familiar scent enters your lungs, somehow overpowering the stench of rotting corpse and fresh blood.

"Sasha?" Squinting your eyes, you look up, trying to focus on the blurry face hovering above yours. He's easy to recognize. The ink black lines over his face are unique to him, almost out of place in this world, just like him. You want to reach up and touch him, but you can't. Your muscles won't cooperate.

"I'm here, my little love. I'm right here. I found you. And I'm so proud of you. So, so proud of you. And I'm sorry," Aleksander answers. His eyes sparkle like stars, tears rolling down his face and dripping onto yours like raindrops. In the back of your mind, you realize that you've never seen him cry in front of people like this before. Only ever in private. Now his voice is almost breaking, his sobs so loud it drowns out the noise of your own hammering heartbeat. It must be a dream. He would never allow himself to show weakness like this.

Ivan appears next to him like a ghost, his hands covered in blood as he carefully lifts the thick black cloak Aleksander covered you with from your legs to look at the injuries there.

"Sasha," you rasp out again. You want him to hold you so badly, but you can barely speak. All you want is to be held by your husband.

"Right here. I'm so sorry, sweet girl. So sorry. I promised I would protect you, and I failed. I'm so sorry, I will never make that mistake again, I swear. I'll never take you for granted again. I'm so sorry for being late."

You want to respond, to calm him down, but he doesn't give you a chance to talk. He just continues with his panicked, slightly hysterical rambling, his whole body shaking under the force of his sobs.

"I'll take care of you. I'll make sure you're safe, and I will never leave your side again. No one will ever hurt you again."

His thumb strokes your cheek gently, and the love in his gaze almost feels like a punch in the gut. He looks absolutely in love and absolutely devastated as well. "I thought I lost you. I kept looking for you in every camp I found, but you were never there, and none of the soldiers would tell me where you are. I was so sure they killed you. I was so scared. I thought-"

Aleksanders voice shatters like glass, his body almost curling in on itself as he presses his forehead against yours. You recognize the breathing pattern he uses, an old trick he taught you a few years ago when you were still new to your position as the Darklings wife. He's trying to stop a panic attack from taking over.

"I'm so proud of you. You're so strong and brave, my darling girl. My lovely wife. I love you so much. You're so good, so good for me. I don't know what I would do without you. What I would do if they... I'm so sorry. I don't deserve you. I'm sorry."

He sounds broken, you notice. You've never heard him like this in your entire life. Tears flood your eyes, and you take a deep breath, more of his familiar scent entering your lungs. Rosemary and ash, with a hint of something sweet.

"I'm never going away again, I promise. I will never leave you again, sweet girl. Never again. You will never be able to get rid of me. I will bind myself to you, body and soul, until the end of everything, I swear it."

You're starting to get dizzy. Everything is so overwhelming.

"Am I dead?" You hear yourself asking, your vision dimming slowly, and you're sure you will be dragged back into unconsciousness by your body soon. Aleksander laughs, and it's oddly light and relieved, considering the context.

"No. No, you're alive. You survived. We both survived."

You smile.

Part 3: So I stayed in the darkness with you

Taglist: @savagejane1 @deadunicorn159

#aleksander morozova x reader #general kirigan x reader #darkling x reader

530 notes · View notes

theblackestvalkyrie · 2 years ago

Text

#2 - Hulk - Oneshot (Pipe Game Series)

Pairing: Hulk (Bruce Banner) x Giantess!Reader

Summary: Hulk comes back from fighting in the arena and you couldn’t help but get turned on by his performance. Unfortunately, he takes “Hulk Smash” a little too literally.

Warning: Kind of awkward smut, dubcon, rough sex, hulk’s fat girthy cock, sex positive reader, unrealistic cervix fucking, pissing/piss kink, painful sex, accidental/surprise orgasm, slight somnophilia, size difference, NO BETA WE DIE LIKE MEN

A/N: Keep in mind that there is no Bruce in this fic. It’s strictly Hulk in this one. Comic fans, y’all know they are NOT the same person like the movies try to make it so really, they should be in different tags but whatever. Unfortunately, the rating was 5/10 but I personally think he’d be a 9/10 just on size alone 🤤. Reader is sex positive Is that coded for whore? Maybe lmao. Don’t be offended as I am a proud whore myself and is also a giantess (when compared to other species). Kind of like Bilquis from ‘American Gods’. If you know you know 😏. I took this one too far and a bit off track but I am pent tf up sexually so please be easy on me lol.

PG Chapters: Tony //

Based on this post.

https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchbaby300/pseuds/theblackestvalkyrie

The crowd was electric. Their enthusiastic cries and cheers echoed throughout the arena rising and falling with the wins and losses of warriors as they fought for their lives in the arena. On any other night, you’d be on the prowl looking for someone to bed or drink with but tonight was different. The new champion was fighting tonight.

You licked your lips at the thought as you watched his enormous green figure leap around and smash through the opponents put in front of him. He had hardly debuted and fought just a handful of times but ‘The Incredible Hulk’, as he was introduced before fights, was someone who was quickly making a name for himself.

The Hulk wouldn’t be the first champion you had approached sexually but judging by how thick he was all around; he might just be the last. You couldn’t contain your sexually charged thoughts as you watched him from the seat of your aircraft hovering above the arena.

Tonight would be the night you would make your move. You had been planning and plotting the entire week while also remaining celibate. Going without sex for a week while not ideal, would be doable but that one week stretched into a month as your schedules never seemed to align. But tonight the stars aligned. You had no scheduled fights and Hulk only had one match scheduled. So, you suffered through the entire thing squirming with legs crossed and slightly out of breath from just watching Hulk fight. Your clit mashed desperately against the seat, pelvis tilting back and forth in wanton desire.

You gripped the steering wheel to stop yourself from shoving your fingers where you needed them the most. The fight predictably ended in Hulk’s favor with the crowd and the Grandmaster going wild. Waiting was the hardest part. It would take some time for him to make his way back to his quarters which gave you plenty of time to land, park, and make your way to his room. You arrived just a few minutes after he entered his apartment you didn’t bother knocking. There was no privacy on Sakaar.

The red and white theme of the room just screamed Hulk. Trophies, both gifted and taken from his opponents by force, littered the floor and made up what little furniture he had. His room even had a full bar of high-end quality liquors and other mind-altering beverages on a fully stocked cabinet.

The Grandmaster's favoritism was blatantly obvious.

There he sat, a warm washcloth draped over his face, arms draped across his heated bathing pool, not a care in the world. You let your eyes trace downward towards his muscular thick chest and the sparse dark chest hair growing there trailing down his abdomen and obscured by the water.

In an effort to make yourself fully known, you let your footsteps become louder making more noise. Immediately he sat up alert and uncovered his eyes watching you like a predator. You and Hulk had never interacted up close but had seen each other in passing so were familiar yet complete strangers to each other.

“You did so well tonight, Hulk. I wanted to help you relax after such a hard job. Will you let me help you? Will you let me be your tool?”

Silence sat between you both as Hulk tilted his head in deep contemplation. You could practically see the gears turning in his head as his dark eyes pierced right through you.

“Hulk owns you?”

You could have come on the spot at his response. This was better than you could imagine. He must have thought you were one of the contracted sex workers the Grandmaster employed, and why wouldn’t he when you showed up with no underwear, a sheer bodycon dress, and zero inhibitions? Having a sexual tryst for a night was good but having someone sexually own you was a new level to you entirely.

“Yes.” No hesitation on your part.

“Strip.” A forceful command that left no room for argument.

You eagerly shed the thin soft fabric of your dress letting it pool around your feet. You could feel his eyes roaming your body studying your perky hard nipples and the intricate design of your pubic hair.

“Come” He gestured waving a wet hand out of the water and splashing water around without a care in the world for the surroundings. The first steps up to the pool were nerve-racking. While he made no move up to come to you, you could see him shifting around in anticipation.

It only made you more excited at the fact that he wanted you just as much as you wanted him.

Once you were fully into the warm pool the water settled above your belly button leaving your breasts dry and fully on display. You stopped a little shorter than an arm’s length in front of Hulk wondering if this was too close. It was almost comical to be worried about personal space when you entered his room without permission on the basis of fucking his brains out.

Hulk’s hand rose out of the water and cupped your right breast in shameless desire. He looked to be studying your chest like he had never seen a pair before caressing them with a gentleness that betrayed his size. A sweet silence settled between you two as you enjoyed his soft touch but at some point, you started getting tired of the sweetness.

You wanted to get fucked through the floor.

In a move of pure seduction, you slipped a hand under the water and straight to his cock stroking smoothly thanks to the lubrication of the pool.

Your fingers brushed the fat mushroom head as you took in his size. The head was hot even under the warm water and you struggled to wrap your fingers around it. His entire length measured from the tips of your fingers to the end of your elbow and then some. So many nights of struggling because you were a giantess. Nights of accidentally killing men unlucky enough to get sucked up into you during sex and men too scared to partake after hearing the rumors. It all lead to this glorious moment.

Hulk took his cue from you and slipped his fingers between your legs as well just discovering and exploring to his heart's content.

“You a virgin big guy?” You purred squeezing his length lightly.

“Maybe.” He huffed, half in annoyance half in arousal.

You giggled wrapping your other hand around what you couldn’t reach with the other hand still pumping him but adding a little twist to your wrist.

“Will you let me take care of you?”

He nodded and that was all you needed. Apparently, this was all he needed before standing in the deep pool. The water glistened and rolled off his muscles and down his happy trail to the deep v- cut of his pelvis exposing him in all his glory.

Your mouth started watering at the sight of his curved length. It was even better than anything your imagination could conjure up.

His weeping cock head spread precum along your cheek and lips as Hulk prodded your mouth open with his member.

“You suck me.”

You were granted a few seconds to take in all his splendor up close before his swollen head was banging on the back of your throat in inexperienced thrusts. Even with your hands gripping his hips in a death drip didn’t slow him down and you doubted much would deter him from the warmth of your throat.

You could feel your vision going spotty the darkness calling you and you flailed in panic a little. Hulk pulled himself from your throat and you gasped and coughed for breath ignoring the way the mix of saliva and precum dripped down your chin and throat obscenely.

Hulk lifted you over his shoulder and lumbered out of the pool to his trophy bed smacking your ass once and then dumping you on the bed saturating the sheets from your soaking wet bodies.

Unceremoniously he split your legs wide and ground his bloated cock tip into you bumping the nose of your clit and sliding back between your slick lips to your taint and back up again. Sawing back and forth in slow calculated movements.

Back and forth.

Back.

And.

Forth.

“We fuck now.”

He wasn’t even looking at your face but between your legs at his lewd movements. It was like you weren’t even in the room.

Yes please.” You squealed gripping the sheets in anticipation.

He moved then splitting your vaginal opening bigger than your fist. The stretching burned like nothing you had ever felt and you wondered in the back of your mind if this was how giving birth felt.

“Please wait…...Too big… Please….”

He ignored you and continued to push past any tight resistance living up to his title as champion and hit the opening of your cervix. You cried out as his thick girth split you immediately regretting ever approaching Hulk. Thankfully Hulk had enough thought to stop when he hit the doors of your cervix.

His large green hands gripped your hips and overlapped around your smaller figure. You might have been bigger than everyone you came across but Hulk made you feel small this very moment.

The room filled with the wet squelching sounds of your pussy getting hammered all you could do was spread your legs and hold on. You couldn’t keep up with his pace and the fact that it was bringing equal parts pain and pleasure confused you yet brought a feral arousal like you had never known.

“Gods, slow the fuck down!”

Your flailing was starting to annoy Hulk so he pinned you down with his arms and whole body pressing you into the mattress breathing into the side of your face.

“Don’t fight it.”

Babbling in delirium as he worked you over on his shaft like a cock sleeve with reckless abandon. Again the fat tip of his cock was banging at the doors of your cervix nudging you open with every hit. You were helpless to stop him from taking what he wanted.

You could feel the beginning strings of your orgasm knotting up and building. You couldn’t even form words. Falling over the edge with a sob you could feel yourself releasing liquid all over the bed.

Holy shit you just pissed yourself.

You didn’t even have a chance to catch your breath or feel embarrassed as you continued to piss all over the Hulk yet this did nothing to deter him. In fact, it incensed his primal urges and made him go harder smacking into you at a bruising pace as he chased his climax.

Another orgasm hit you by surprise making your vision spotty. Your tightening walls were all the Hulk needed to slam past the opening of your cervix filling it with the swollen crown of his cock and continuing to pump into you sloppily as he came. Drooling into the sheets you faded into a blissed-out darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Coming to, the first thing you could sense was the wet squelching of your pussy still getting fucked. Unable to do anything but watch yourself get fucked in the reflection of the window. Fucking against the window so everyone can see. The Hulk growled possessively into your neck as he came into your stretched-out cervix with a groan.

“Mine…….Mine….”

#Pipe Game Series #hulk x reader #the hulk x reader #black reader #oneshot #marvel fic

191 notes · View notes

puppetgearing · 3 months ago

Note

((sending kou again))

- not being able to fit in, too human for the adepti, too adeptus for the humans, on top of that his autism makes him feel as if the whole world knows something he doesnt

- identity struggles, not understanding gender well so he struggled a lot with his transness, forcing himself to conform to being purely masculine before realizing he can be who he wants, now being gnc

- in addition to the last point, being so exhausted with explaining his identity to people, wanting to just... not be perceived so he doesnt have to explain himself

- lack of meaningful relationships before meeting gaming due to his anxiety and always feeling left out and targeted due to his autism

- after realising he was in love with gaming, forcing himself to get rid of his feelings due to extreme fear that if he confesses and gaming doesnt feel the same, he will lose his one and only best friend

"Thou art I... And I am thou...

Thou hast established a new bond...

It brings thee closer to the truth...

Thou shalt be blessed when creating...

...Personas of the Fortune Arcana."

Kou: The Fortune Arcana

Human characters of the Fortune Arcana are usually individuals with prodigious abilities who have lost sight of who they truly wanted to be as a result of too much pressure from individuals close to them, and need to rediscover the reasons for their chosen work by reconciling their past and present.

Fortune Arcana represents all manner of circumstances and benefits that the person receives beyond their control, whether good or bad.

- The SMT Wiki about the Fortune Arcana

Pressure from individuals close to them is usually the factor of the Fortune Arcana, but it's not exactly require, it could be pressure from just about anything that make them feel lost when it comes to themselves and their own identity and passion, and Kou does have this pressure due to his gender identity, his autism and just about him as a whole.

Him being born as an adepti in a sense should have been something that bemefits him in a good way, but because he's half of each (human and adepti respectively) this puts him in a limbo that what he is receiving is both good AND bad.

In Persona 4 and Persona 5, two characters has a prodigious ability that is good and benefits them, but it's always accompanied by something that pushed their full ability back: Naoto being a woman and feels the need to change herself to a man to be able to get a speck of respect in the police force, a job that is mostly male dominated and Chihaya being burdened by her more than talented ability to predict the future that she believes fate cannot be changed and only bad things are to come after her falling out with her best friend.

However the wiki also mentioned somwthing noteworthy that would fits Kou too:

Within the writing of the Persona series, it is demonstrated this can get out of hand, as Keisuke Hiraga completely gives himself up to the wheels of fortune, making him an awkward individual. He would later begin to complain about how his life is chosen for him and even reject his dream to become a doctor simply because it's given to him on a silver platter: he later decides to take charge of his destiny and choose how he wishes to live, striving to become a doctor regardless of his opportunities.

- The SMT Wiki about the Fortune Arcana

This means that in a way, a character CAN fall into their own ability, that it is also detrimental to even themselves in a bad way, being born half adeptus and struggling with autism, Kou fell deep into a situation he couldn't handle and because of that it changed him as a person, ridden him with anxiety and push others away because he just can't handle all that that was push into him.

In a way, Gaming does change his fate, slowly making him realize that things can change and it can be changed for the better, it's how Joker changed Chihaya's mind about fate being absolute for the better, giving her the courage to finally reconnect with her old friend ♡

#ask #🔗 - social links #HAHAAH THANK YOU SM FOR THE ASK NIKOOO

7 notes · View notes

starscreativity101 · 5 months ago

Text

Hello, I know I haven't been here in a hot minute, which translates to like a full year give or take. Burn out, depression, anxiety, and the loss of technically two spleens will do that to a person.

But beyond that I am back to squeal about the episode thats been in all our minds, episode 8 of murder drones! So spoilers ahead.

Omg omg omg space! I mean I was hyped from episode 7 because of Uzi ending up in space. And space is a special interest and hyperfixation of mine. But the fact that Glitch went all out with the details, makes me so incredibly happy!

Like aaaaaaaaa there's no sound when they're in it, or the spaceship is broken making the space come in! That detail made me kick my feet so hard.

The whole spaceship causing so much force

And don't forget about that burning falling scene!

The fact that the entire cast is robots hit me so hard, cause none of them had to worry about breathing, in fact them interacting with space, gravity acting wonky, etc. I love it, I have a new favorite thing I want to see more of.

Also new favorite thing

Cyn piloting Tessa like a flesh puppet. Like her ankle legits twists and it gets repaired in a split second, holy hell it's horrifying but I love it! She even fucking bleeds and tries to lick her own blood.

Also J! She knew! She knew Tessa was Cyn! She went along cause she thought it was inevitable, she thought you couldn't win against that force!

That whole fight where they're having to fight not only Cyn but the illusions she conjures? Amazing. The nightcore being explained in universe by being on an mp3, hilarious.

Also Uzi is now the new host for the absolute solver, and that eye palette makes her look so frigging cool, I have a new design piece I wanna add to my characters now.

They also get to go back to a kind of normal life, and that's sweet. Yes their world is very fucked because of Cyn, but it's not unlivable for them. They are able to survive and go on. They get to watch shows together

While I didn't predict Uzi and N ending up dating each other. I legit don't mind, they're cute together and balance each other out in the immense amount of horror happening to them.

Also Uzi giving her tail a voice, only for Cyn later to be that voice? Foreshadowing I wasn't expecting? Yeah alright that's pretty cool ngl

All in all, I'm glad I got to watch this show. Even if I never finished my breaking down of the episodes, I still got to theorize and watch this amazing show to its conclusion. Plus now that's its ended, I can finally make ocs for it, because I tend to stray away from series that are ongoing for a couple reasons. I think a slice of life for the aftermath would be entertaining to make lol

#murder drones #murder drones spoilers #murder drones episode 8 #murder drones ep 8 #tw horror #tw injury

5 notes · View notes

harmonyspopculturecorner · 7 months ago

Text

The Queen of Nothing

!!SPOILER WARNING!!

All of Jude’s hard work in the shadows and in the light comes to a conclusion in the finale of her’s and Cardan’s epic story. From the beginning the plot was non-stop…from fighting Grima Mog, to sneaking back into Elfhame as Taryn, and finally the culmination of Madoc’s treason against the crown. I combed through this book so quickly because it felt like new information was revealed or things changed so quickly with every turn of the page. My already favorite characters got even better, and characters I didn’t necessarily like before had growth that made them more bearable. Though, I’ll admit…I don’t care that Taryn killed Locke and is pregnant, she is still very selfish and didn’t fully redeem herself in my eyes. One of my favorite parts was having Jude and Cardan finally address their feelings for each other in full honesty. These two are so hopeless when it comes to love, but it makes them as a couple so endearing. The cruel boy who didn’t know what love looked like, and the mortal girl who was forced to grow in a harsher world…it makes sense they have difficulty showing their true feelings. The way everything came to a conclusion was not something I could have predicted. I figured that Madoc would try and bring war to Elfhame for the crown, but I was not expecting that Cardan’s breaking of the crown would turn him into a giant snake. Nor the way things would work out in the end for everyone. Madoc has got to be one of the best written antagonists I’ve seen. His actions are questionable, but his motives are endearing and understandable. Though I do also see selfishness in him too from his decisions, much like Taryn. Overall, this conclusion was a masterpiece. I have truly grown to love this series and will miss this story and characters, but I am glad to now know it fully.

#entertainment #pop culture #journaling #review #book review #the queen of nothing

2 notes · View notes

alexsfictionaddiction · 23 days ago

Text

Alex Recommends: September Books

As predicted, things have got super busy at work. The initial very quiet, slow couple of months are over and the students are back in full force! The good thing is that I feel equipped to answer a lot of things that they ask, which is awesome. I'm not sure how I'd have coped starting the job while this onslaught of enquiries bombarded me all the time. So, having that quiet summer to learn everything was really beneficial.

I have also finished and submitted my MA dissertation! Naturally, this month has been full of long evenings writing the concluding chapters and round after round of edits. I'm pretty happy with the final version and I do think it's as good as it was ever going to be. I guess now it's just a waiting game to see how I did! I'm right on the border of a Merit and a Distinction, so this dissertation really REALLY matters. Scary stuff.

Mark has begun his first ever teaching job. I'm so proud of him because he seems to be acing it so far. He has his own Year 7 form class, which he'll have throughout their time in the school. Getting to see them grow up and progress through their teen years must be such a rewarding part of teaching. It's a really tough job though, so I'll do my best to look after him.

I have read some amazing books this month and I'm excited to share them with you here. From whimsical romance to extreme horror, it's a real mixed bag this month. Of course, not all of these will be for you but these monthly posts always try to provide a variety of genres. I guess I'm lucky I have such a wide reading taste, so I can let you guys know about a little bit of everything. Until next month, enjoy!

-Love, Alex x

FICTION: The Last Devil To Die by Richard Osman.

The Thursday Murder Club have received some terrible news. An old friend has been killed and something he was guarding has gone missing. Throughout their investigation, the gang come up against drug dealers, art forgers and internet criminals. Can they solve the case and get justice for their friend? The fourth and final instalment in this wonderfully British cosy mystery series was possibly my favourite. The mystery itself was really gripping and there were a lot of clever schemes going on that really made me smile. These characters are so loveable and I'll miss them so much. The humour in these books is very British, which is why I think this series is less popular in other countries but I adore it. The finale features some lovely themes of friendship (as all of these books do) and the importance of persevering love as well as grief and the fragility of life. Pretty emotional but a wonderful way to wrap up the series.

ROMANCE: The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston.

Clementine is guarding her heart against pain, when she discovers a strange man in her recently deceased aunt's apartment. He's handsome, kind and loves to cook and Clementine knows that there was a time when she would have fallen for him. But he lives seven years in the past and Clementine lives seven years in his future. Her aunt always said there was something odd about the place and Clementine knows that she definitely cannot fall in love this time. I really loved The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston and I'd heard great things about this one. It is a very unique love story with a sweet clean romance. As you can probably tell from the nature of the story, it's very emotionally charged. There is also obviously a mystery around the magic that enables the time slip and that adds to the intrigue of the otherwise simple story. There is a repeated motif of love being all about getting the timing right and that's a sentiment that I can fully get on board with. A really lovely, intricate romance.

MIDDLE-GRADE: Alice Éclair Spy Extraordinaire: A Sprinkling of Danger by Sarah Todd Taylor.

The young baker turned spy, Alice's latest case sees her on a movie set at the Palace of Versailles. Big national secrets are being leaked by someone on set and it's Alice's mission to find out who. This is the third book in this fun, action-packed series and I'm still really enjoying it. This instalment features an engaging mystery with lots of intrigue and shady characters. These books are a fantastic introduction to the genre for children -Alice has an air of a young Miss Marple. There are also plenty of delicious baked goods in these books too!

HORROR: Maeve Fly by C. J. Leede.

Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world, portraying everyone's favourite ice princess but she also hangs out in LA bars, under the influence of misanthropic literary anti-heroes. When her best friend's brother moves to town, something within Maeve changes and she decides to evolve into something dark, dangerous and bloodthirsty. I haven't read a lot of extreme horror but I'm not averse to it. I spent my teens reading Stephen King, so gore on some level has always been present in most of the horror that I've read. I really need to warn you that Maeve Fly is full of extreme graphic horror, so if you're not OK with that, this book is not for you. Maeve is a very tragic but intriguing heroine. It is actually quite funny in some places -the scene where she tortures someone brutally while screeching along to Let It Go made me laugh. Uncomfortably obviously but it was still amusing. I really liked how the book exposed the dark side of the happiest place in the world (Disney) and I'd actually like to read more books that do that. The ending was a sad one but there was also a sense that Maeve could change her ways again. Strictly only for those with strong stomachs but much more digestible than American Psycho, which it does pay homage to.

THRILLER: None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell.

Alix and Josie are both celebrating their 45th birthdays in a local pub. It turns out they were actually both born in the same hospital too. When they meet again a few days later, Josie tells Alix that she wants to appear on Alix's podcast, as she feels like her life is about to change. Although she finds Josie quite odd, Alix agrees. As their conversations develop, Alix realises that Josie's life is full of dark secrets and Josie has now fully embedded herself in Alix's home and life. But then she disappears and Alix realises that somehow, both she and her family are now in danger. I am a huge fan of Lisa Jewell and will always read whatever she writes. I devoured this book and simply couldn't put it down. It's a thoroughly gripping, twisty thriller and I still didn't know what the truth was at the end! Josie was a very fascinating creepy character and I thought the plotting was so clever and intricate. I can imagine the pinboard absolutely covered in string criss-crossing everywhere during the planning for this one! A highly compelling page-turner that even seasoned thriller readers may be shocked by.

#september books #book recommendations #recommendations #books #bookworm

1 note · View note

wack-ashimself · 1 year ago

Text

Got to vent about the X-files. Would not read i a die hard fan...

It is overreacted. Sure maybe cuz I am watching it 20 years after the fact but….ugh.

I like it. It is like twilight zone in the 90s. But there is SO MUCH FUCKING WASTED TIME. HOURS over the years that add up to…waiting for them to do something.

No joke, I have gotten so used to their predictable (made for tv commercials) format, until the last ½ of the show, I can just have it playing in the background, listening, and I won’t miss anything important because the dialogue is almost the ONLY important aspect.

The special effects are cheap. ESPCIALLY the first couple seasons. The make up looked like it was done by high schoolers. You could see the glue, the bad fade between colors, etc. So watching for a monster scare usually ain’t fucking worth it.

And that’s ALL this show is: jump scares. I only keep watching cuz the plots/storylines are USUALLY solid. But to get there is 90%: looking at something, walking thru something, driving to something, slowly turning a corner at something, etc. It’s all hold your breath and either something scary or something that is NOTHING happen.

The acting is just one step (one TINY step) above a soap opera. I have no fucking idea how david D got and kept this job (kidding-he became a producer & writer. That’s how many of them keep this shit show going. Also found that’s why he left for so long-he wasn’t getting paid for also writing he claims). But after he leaves, it actually gets fucking worse! No joke, because of how bad everyone is after mulder leaves, not only are season 8 and 9 so far the worst things this show has EVER produced (so many plot holes and bad logics almost BREAK this series’ heart), but…I actually want him back? Ew. But the show was better when it was mulder and scully. Not fucking t2 bad guy & some mulder lady wanna be, with scully checking in for the paycheck.

I just have a rule when it comes to this shit. Most tv shows before digital were written explicitly to get 100 episodes (can’t get good rerun money till 100 is hit), keep people invested and watching (even if NOTHING is fucking happening) and always hit that 44:44 run time. So subtract anything that makes you go over and put in filler (ANY) to get to that time. Put in filler they did. I would say 1/5 of each episode is. And….hold your breath moment/traveling moments/investigating moments when ALL they are doing is looking around IS NOT WRITING, IS NOT INTERESTING, and is fucking lazy. HOW this show won awards is beyond me. Maybe cuz I watched it well after it aired but…this feels like the bare minimum of quality, not the max. I guess they didn’t have much competition in the 90s…

I will finish the series, and I don’t regret watching it. There are enough episodes with twists, turns, and I didn’t see that comings to make it worthwhile. The bare minimum I ask for is to be surprised, and this show usually turns that out. But…seasons 8 & 9 (ain’t looking forward to 10 & 11, tho I know mulder does come back) are what I would feel if someone was given all the past lore of the x-files, forced to use 2 new characters that…have no real depth, and said ‘make it as good as it was before.’ NO. You are giving me nothing to work with besides a budget; you ain’t giving me time or more writers. Ugh.

Twilight zone was way better tho. Their Special effects (for the time) were ASTOUNDING. And to this day (like x-files, I will admit) there are clear as day shows/movies totally stolen from these series. In the first….3-4 seasons of the x-files, swear to god there were at least….5 movies that I KNOW were heavily influenced if not outright stolen from the x-files. Nothing is original. Cuz a lot of these x-files were, go figured, based on the twilight zone. THAT is a series I need to watch in full. But I think they had even more episodes than x files….

Either way: X-files is solid sci fi, but with so much filler, and it going to shit after season 7, they honestly should have let it die…

I just want a sci fi/horror/thriller not to be majority hold your breath moments. They’re way too fucking easy, predictable (either something happens or nothing happens. Ain’t no fence on this one), and rarely add. I mean, seriously, how long are jump scares going to be scary? Especially when you see them coming…fuck it. Now I want to do the opposite: make a movie consisting ONLY of jump scares. But I heard that’s the conjuring so….

#xfiles #the x-files #mulder #scully

0 notes

firstdegreefangirl · 1 year ago

Text

July 2023 Reading Wrap-Up

Total books read: 6

Total pages read: 2,048

Days read: 24/31

Average star rating: 4.46/5

Challenge Prompts Filled: 8 in July; 74 total. Popsugar: 1(24)/40. Romanceopoly: 4 (22)/36. CRAD: 1(7)/12. BTBL: 2(21)/52

Mini-reviews under the cut!

Christmas Angels by Nancy Naigle ⭐⭐⭐(½) What a way to kick off Christmas in July reading! I wanted something that would read with Hallmark movie vibes, and this was PERFECT. Big city exec moves to a small town and takes over the family inn? Where she hires a handsome construction man to help get it ready for open? Sign me UP. It was funny, it was light hearted, merry and bright, and gave me warm fuzzy emotions in just the right places. I loved the motif with the angels coming up with a sort of spiritual reverence, but still finding a logical, yet meaningful closure at the end. Very cute, very sweet, made me want to give up my corporate hospitality job and go buy a tiny mountain lodge of my own.

Prompts filled: BTBL – Cozy read or cover; Romanceopoly – Winter/cover is blue, black or silver; or winter holiday book

The Christmas Wedding Guest by Susan Mallery ⭐⭐⭐⭐(½) I meant to get to this one back at the holidays, and I’m SO glad I finally made the time now. As usual, Susan Mallery hits it out of the park, this time with an added boost of holiday spirit! It’s a double romance – rockstar/small town girl and teacher/parent, two EXCELLENT tropes. I think it’s supposed to kick off her new series, and I can’t wait to see what else comes of the worldbuilding. There are a few characters I’m already eyeing for hopeful plots in the next stories. And yes, again, there’s a hotel at the holidays involved. What can I say? I have a type.

Prompts filled: BTBL – All the romance; Romanceopoly – Autumn/red or green cover; or has trees and leaves on the cover; or has a cozy vibe

Home for Christmas by Camille Isley ⭐⭐⭐ ⭐ ⭐ No hotel this time, but still lots of holiday travel! This was laugh out loud funny, sweet, romantic, grumpy, sunshine-y and everything in between. I blew through it in like three days and have already downloaded two other books by the same author. We love a writer romance, and a not-quite-only-one-bed, but definitely not enough beds forced proximity setup. This one was different than I usually read too, because not ONLY was there a romance budding, but family dynamics fitting together right out of the gate. It’s a predictable plot, but as we know, sometimes that’s exactly what I want. Give me a prank war with a guaranteed happy ending and lots of Christmas merriment, and I am a happy camper.

Prompts filled: Popsugar – A book that was self-published

A Very Merry Bromance by Lissa Kay Adams ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Listen. I knew I would like this one. Anyone who’s listened to me talk about my taste in books probably knew I would like this one. And I LOVED it. Bromance Book Club is possibly the best series I’ve read in a long time, and this one is right in line with the rest of them. It’s funny, it’s sweet, it’s … I mean, the romance goes without saying, but it’s romantic. And this one is Christmassy too, which just makes things better. It’s so fun reading not only the Bromance stories, but the little snippets of the stories the guy are reading throughout the book, but as usual my one regret is that those books don’t exist in full. I’d read the CRAP out of them. As it is, I’ve been thinking about Colton and Gretchen even DAYS after I finished the book. 15/10 recommended to anyone who’s looking for something bright and fun and festive, with just enough emotion to bring tears to your eyes, and always, ALWAYS a big gesture before the happy ending.

Prompts filled: None, I just really wanted to read it!

Christmas at the Island Hotel by Jenny Colgan ⭐⭐⭐ (¾) A last minute pick, designed to fit the CRAD prompt for the month. I own many Christmas books, but as it turns out, all of them are set here in the US. Ended up with this one as an eBook from the library, following some very specific search parameters. It was … alright, and I enjoyed almost every minute of reading it, but it’s not something I think I’d choose to read again. Generally I’m more romance, less women’s fiction, but this book was definitely more women’s fiction than romance. And sure, it’s good to read outside my comfort zone – and this was a good story, without a doubt – but I found myself frustrated a couple of times when it felt like the author was dancing around the romantic elements. The relationships are there, a couple of them are hinted at, but I would have liked to see them fleshed out a little further. That said, Isla and Konstantin are definitely one of the cutest relationship arcs I’ve read in a hot minute. I just wish the other pairings had gotten a little bit of that depth too.

Prompts filled: Romanceopoly – Post Office/set in a different country to where you live; CRAD July – set in a different country or world [to June]

The Christmas Wager by Holly Cassidy ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Alright, full disclosure: I technically finished this at like 1 a.m. on 1 August. But I hadn’t gone to bed yet, and the day isn’t over until I go to sleep, and I would have been done earlier if half a dozen things had gone differently over the weekend. And it was good enough for me to stay up past midnight, running on like three hours of sleep. Of all the books I read this month, it’s definitely top two (and that’s up with some tough competition). I loved the fun, silly competitions, and the heartwarming family dynamics. This book would make an EXCELLENT movie; I could picture so many of the scenes playing out clearly inside my head. It read just like a romance novel should, from start to end, and I’m already eager to find more of the author’s work to read in the future!

Prompts filled: Romanceopoly – Library/free choice

#katie reads #kr23 #july #katie christmases #christmas in july

0 notes

ultraericthered · 2 years ago

Text

Anime Update V2 53

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 - Wasn’t much feeling this one. The focus being on Mari isn’t quite as interesting as when it’s on Mirai, I guess.

Hunter x Hunter - Kite revealed he’s got a whole research team working with him as they, Gon and Killua along with them, start looking into the recent strange activities by the Chimera Ants. And oh boy do we learn more about them! This dumb kid named Kurt and his little sister get abducted, killed, and eaten by the ants and it’s through this that the Queen has developed a taste for humans. Spawning not just new ants but beast men who take on the features of whatever she consumed to spawn them, including Kurt now reborn as the winged “Colt”, the Queen is demanding more humans to feast upon!

Fruits Basket - The famed episode with the school play, titled “It’s Cinderella-ish!” (the episode AND the play itself) was both every bit as gloriously off-the-walls and entertaining as promised and also a bit of a letdown since the play lasts for only half the episode when I’d have rather it carried on for most of it, I was enjoying it so much. Not to say the content we got after the play was bad, but it inevitably fades from memory in comparison to what we saw in the first half.

Re:ZERO - Another set of three episodes, these ones covering the big chase and fight against the gluttonous White Whale that Subaru initiates by finally putting all the knowledge he gained from previous loops of trial and error to the best use, sucessfully negotiating with both the Crusch and Anastasia camps and uniting their forces to valiantly hunt the whale even at risk of all its horrors. In particular, Wilhelm van Astrea plays the Captain Ahab role when it’s revealed he lost his wife, the realm’s previous Swordsmaster, to the whale and has long yearned for vengeance and closure. This backstory sort of comes out of left field and it is impressive how much I gave a damn about Wilhelm here, it’s so well done in selling to you that all of these people have their own lives and own stories regardless of what Subaru does or does not know about them. Seeing Subaru actually figthing smarter and braving the odds against his own weakness, and that being a source of inspiration for others, was so satisfying. He’s actually growing up and doing better now! And how in the end he earned the respect of Crush and Wilhelm really warmed my heart.

Speaking of heartwarming - Rem! Yeah, last time I’d said I was not keen on how Rem’s feelings of love for Subaru got set up despite the payoff being specatacular, if semi-lacking. But now that said payoff has come and gone, Rem and Subaru get to settle into the sort of relationship they’ll be having from here on out, and it could not be more delightful. I love not only how selfless Rem’s love is but how comfortable she is with loving, protecting, fighting alongside, and simping for a guy she knows full well isn’t going to return her exact feelings and satisfy her romantically. It sets such a good precedent for Subaru himself to follow whenever he gets back with Emilia, and makes Rem very reliable as a sidekick. Subaru is truly blessed!

Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works - At the part where at school after hours, Rin finally makes her move to try and kill Shirou herself only for them to end up helping each other in an encounter with Rider outside, forcing another armistace between the two.

Symphogear GX - Just as I’d predicted, Maria wants to fight alongside Tsubasa and the others, and she’s taking this as an out for her forced continous idol career. Also learned more about how Carol does alchemy, how her doll underlings and the Alcanoise are made from it, and why her clone homuculus Elfnein defected from her - Carol seeks to complete some sort of super weapon to destroy the world! Hibiki is starting to get on my nerves in this series with her sudden “I don’t want to use these cool powers and arsenal to fight anyone anymore!” pacifism, but at least the episode gave me ever more Kirika and Shirabe goodness to offset this. Anything else? ...Oh. Oh yeah. The beef stroganoff song. What. even. WAS THAT?

Eureka Seven - Cracks are already beginning to show in Renton’s new life with Gekko State. He’s made to do chores he’s not used to doing, no one takes him that seriously, Holland ignores him, Talho is a busybody towards him, and he’s not even informed when he has to carry a box with a smuggled human organ! To be fair, he brings much of it on himself at this point in time and having absurd notions like that the little kids Eureka looks after might be her actual biological children does him no favors. Matthieu proves to be a really nice guy and I’m glad to have him, though Kirk Thornton voicing a black guy is something unthinkable in this day and age, so it’s a nice sort of time capsule effect. On the sidelines, the united federation council decide they’ll grant Dewey Novak freedom from prison and get him back in a position of leadership within the military. Real solid idea there, guys!

Gintama - Something about Shinpachi’s estranged childhood friend showing up as a member of a bike gang only he’s still just as bullied as he used to be, Odd Jobs fighting with the bike gang, and a big wacky race against the gang leader where it all came down to him VS Shinpachi, and Otae was also there being funny and awesome as always. Another silly episode but one that works surprisingly well as character development for Shinpachi too. Gintama can do both!

#Anime Update V2 #Anime Update

0 notes

soulmate-game · 3 years ago

Note

Daughter of wonderwoman au where marinette finds out her mother is actually Diana and somehow it ends up with her meeting/being introduced to the batfam maybe because she has super strength and is seen yeeting some bad guys who tried to mug her... Or something.

“... you are running from your problems, Mari,” Adrien’s exasperated voice reminded his best friend. Again. She ignored him, and he threw his hands up in exasperation. “Look, you don’t have to do anything about it! Nobody would hold it against you if you decided to just, ignore that you found anything out at all. But you need to actually think about what we just found out and decide whether or not you’re gonna do anything—“ he side-stepped a piece of trash that went flying in his direction. “—or if you’re gonna move on and pretend nothing happened.”

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” Marinette shot back, pushing her bangs out of her face and tying her hair back with one hand.

“No, you’re currently hiding away in Gotham to avoid your parents while you beat up every random group of idiots who thinks you’re an easy mark,” he retorted. Another wannabe kidnapper went flying in his direction, making him sigh and side step again. She had thrown that one with only her one free hand, showing just how upset she was. “You’re ignoring everything in your life, which is not what we meant we said you should get a little space.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Marinette dropkicked the last criminal into unconsciousness before stepping back and putting her hands on her hips. She looked over at the now seven passed out men in the alleyway, and the one very frustrated ex-model pinching the bride of his nose. “I think I’m coping just fine.”

“It’s better than being forced to suppress all of your emotions, sure,” Adrien reluctantly agreed. “But not by much. Your angry rampage through Gotham has already attracted more attention,” he raised his hand to point at a nearby rooftop. Several shadows lurked there, looming over the building’s edge. “Which, might I add, is exactly why I told you not to come to Gotham.”

“You’re the one who followed me here,” she shot back before turning to the shadowy figures above them. “Go ahead and come down! But it was self defense, and you can’t arrest or beat me up for defending myself!”

The first figure to drop down straightened your just as quickly, revealing the imposing figure of none other than Batman himself. The little white eyes on his cowl seemed to narrow on their own as he looked down at her.

“That might be true, but I’m sure you know my policy on metas in my city,” he grumbled back at her. He wasn’t necessarily threatening, but he definitely wasn’t welcoming either. With all of his limbs hidden behind the cocoon that was his cape, Marinette would never be able to predict his next move if he did decide to fight. Not that she seemed particularly worried about that as she crossed her arms over her chest and met his glare evenly.

“Oh, do you own this city now? I wasn’t given the memo,” she retorted. “And considering I didn’t even know I was a meta until last week? I think I deserve a little slack. I’m angry and if people think the tiny little girl in pink is an easy kidnapping target, then it’s their fault for making themselves into the perfect practice dummies for me to try out my newly discovered strength on.”

Adrien saw the eyes on Batman’s mask narrow even further. Marinette wasn’t exactly at her most charismatic at the moment, and Adrien didn’t wanna get the both of them into a bad relationship with the experienced superhero who always seemed to know things he shouldn’t know. So he stepped up quickly, getting in between Marinette and the Bat and holding his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Okay, Monsieur Batman,” Adrien started slowly, making sure his posture was impeccable and his smile bright. “She’s telling the truth, even if she’s not... the most tactful about it right now. She just found out some very concerning things about her origin and Gotham is the best place for her to hide from her problems and let loose a little pent up aggression. But— well,” he grimaced. “We didn’t intend to run into you guys, but maybe it’s a good thing we did.”

“How so?” Batman was clearly still incredibly suspicious of the both of them and wasn’t giving an inch. So Marinette rolled her eyes (she was still very moody) and leaned around Adrien so she could get a good look at the monochromatic hero.

“I thank my lucky spots that we ran into you, Batman!” She said monotonously. “Me and Adrien are paw-sitively excited at this opportunity.”

Batman. Froze.

Not only were those two lines the very first lines ever spoken to him by two foreign heroes a few years ago (with a few key words changed to protect identities), but they had become their code phrase for whenever they made calls to one another outside of their costumes. All at once it seemed to hit him— the golden hair and bright green eyes on the boy, the blue-black hair and normally super-focused bluebell eyes on the girl that were currently sporting very uncharacteristic frustration. Their heights. Their builds. All of this info flowed through his mind and compared to the information stored in his memory, and it only took the span of two seconds for everything to click.

Suddenly Batman was at full attention, back straight instead of looming over them and eyebrows clearly raised high under his cowl.

He knew Chat Noir and Ladybug would never take a random vacation to Gotham. Ladybug herself had nearly waxed poetic about how much the city depressed her just from the pictures she saw online. If she had willingly come to visit, it was more than to just blow off some steam.

“Batcave?” He asked, earning a relieved look from Adrien and a moody silence from Marinette.

“Please,” Adrien agreed. “You can probably help us, actually.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette leaned back in the metal debriefing chair, legs up on the table and looking for all the world as the picture of pure teenage rebellion and angst. Coincidentally, Red Hood was in the exact same position in the chair next to her.

Batman and all of his other bats and birds were in the cave with the two off-duty Parisian heroes. Everyone except Adrien and Marinette still had their masks on, since the two Parisians were still not privy to their identities. Yet.

To be fair, the bats hadn’t known the identities of the two miraculous users either before today.

“Cha Noir,” Batman started, only to get a head shake from the blond boy.

“Just call me Adrien. Chat’s out of the bag—“ he ignored the groans at the pun and soldiered on, “—so might as well use my real name.”

Batman nodded. “Adrien, then,” he amended. “Why are you and Ladybug really in Gotham?”

Adrien sighed. “I wasn’t lying, before. Marinette,” he gestured to his hero partner. “Just found out some distressing family news. Since HawkMoth is gone, she doesn’t need to repress her negative emotions anymore. But she also didn’t want to be around her parents while she processed everything. I told her to choose any other city— really, I begged— but she insisted on coming to Gotham.”

“The never ending cloud cover and constant rain seem thematic,” she finally spoke up, reaching into her big over-the-shoulder bag and pulling out a large envelope. She threw it to Batman, making the thin package slice through the air like a knife. To nobody’s surprise the seasoned hero easily caught the projectile between two fingers. He looked at the envelope and back to Marinette, silent questions floating in the air between them. Marinette decided to answer at her own pace.

“That’s what we found out. You see, one of my friends is a huge science nerd. A genius. And he wanted to compare DNA samples between us to see if there were any genetic components that determined a person’s suitability towards certain Miraculous or other magical artifacts over others. It was supposed to just be a fun side project that he didn’t expect any breakthroughs on. He mostly just wanted to satisfy his own curiosity. But instead of finding out if our DNA was linked to the miraculous, he found out that my parents are not biologically my parents.”

“Hence the whole just finding out that you’re a meta thing, right?” Nightwing spoke up, fully invested in the story. “Did they never say you were adopted before?”

“It’s not in the system,” she replied easily. “My parents have all the documentation to prove that I’m their biological child, except I’m not. When I confronted them about it, they caved and admitted that they had adopted me in secret and covered it up. Apparently a friend of theirs was involved in something illegal, and,” she waved at the envelope that Batman was now opening. “The details of what we were able to dig up are in there. The summary is this; their friend was part of a secret, illegal experimentation to create clones that could defeat the Justice League—“ the air seemed to get sucked out of the room as soon as those words left Marinette’s mouth. Everyone seemed to know exactly what she was talking about. “—a group called CADMUS. They made me, as apparently one of their early attempts. But I didn’t exhibit any of the powers they were looking for, or any meta traits at all, and my body refused to mature at the rate they wanted. They had no use for a seemingly normal human baby that they managed to clone, so they were preparing to kill me and start over. That’s when my parent’s friend stole me, not wanting to kill an infant, and begged my parents to take me in and pretend I was theirs. Low and behold, it turns out that my DNA just needed a very specific series of emotions to unlock it’s latent abilities.”

“Those emotions being..?” Red hood trailed off, earning a wolfish smile from Marinette.

“Intense anger, betrayal, and confused frustration closely followed by the desire to punch other people’s faces in.”

“That last one is just an assumption,” Adrien chimed in. “And maybe not accurate. But the first three, our scientist friend was able to confirm. The rapid experience of a lot of negative but action-oriented emotions released whatever had been holding back the powers in her DNA from expressing themselves,” he had switched to French so that he could explain everything exactly as Max had told it to them, but he knew all of them were fluent anyway so it was fine. They nodded along, processing the information.

The crinkling of paper drew everyone’s attention back to Batman, who had been flipping through the detailed break down of everything they had found about Marinette’s situation and how she was made by CADMUS.

“Uh,” Red Robin nervously spoke up. “What’s up, Batman?”

“Your genetic donors...” Batman breathed, getting a wink and finger guns from Marinette.

“Yup. Isn’t that just the most fucked up thing you’ve ever seen? They were clearly trying to make someone who could destroy the world.”

“That makes me nervous,” Nightwing admitted, getting up and going to get a look at the papers himself. “It can’t be that ba—“

When even Nightwing was left agape, everyone else who wasn’t in on it found themselves squirming.

“Just tell the rest of us, already!” Robin demanded after the silence stretched just a bit too long.

“The unknowing genetic donors that CADMUS used to make me,” Marinette spoke up, still with her legs up on the table. “Are a very mad-scientist’s-wet-dream combination of Lex Luthor, Bruce Wayne, and Wonder Woman.”

“We don’t even know why they added Bruce Wayne’s DNA,” Adrien admitted. “Although our scientist friend thinks it’s because of physique. His hypothesis is that, in order to support the genes of Wonder Woman, they had to add male genetics that could support the production of a very high muscle mass and would lean towards easy development of a very athletic body. Lex might be evil-scientist smart, but he’s a string bean. But if he added the DNA of another multi millionaire who just so happens to maintain a ridiculously fit body without putting any obvious work into it,” Adrien shrugged. “Then maybe the clone would be able to support Wonder Woman’s genetics and that of two human donors without falling apart.”

“So I’m ‘the clone’ now, huh?” Marinette snarked, earning an exasperated eye roll from her friend.

Batman just stared at the both of them for a moment. He walked away without a word, and came back with a fresh needle and a box. He placed it on the debriefing table.

“Can I do a paternity test myself?” He asked, his voice suspiciously less gruff than normal. “I trust the both of you, but I rather be safe than sorry with something like this.”

The both of them just stared at him in confusion. They traded a glance, and finally Marinette shrugged and moved to sit in her chair properly. Her shirt was already short sleeved, so she just held her arm out so Batman could easily get a blood sample.

“Sure, why not. But do you just have Lex Luthor or Bruce Wayne’s DNA sitting around to compare, or—“ she shut up when she watched Batman take off his glove and roll his own sleeve up. Realization slowly sunk in as he asked Nightwing to take a blood sample from him.

“Holy shit,” she breathed, eyes wide. “You’re— and Luthor doesn’t know— holy shit this is even worse than I thought,” Marinette rambled, not even noticing as Red Hood moved forward and took a small blood sample from her.

Adrien put a hand over his face and just laughed for a moment hysterically. “Oh my god,” he looked over at Marinette. “You could take over the world.”

“I have the blood of Batman AND Wonder Woman on MY side,” Marinette joked back, also hysterical.

When the bat’s high tech equipment was able to come back with a positive result only a few minutes later, Marinette and Adrien had to sit on the floor and just let it all sink in. Which Batman did not at all help by immediately unmasking himself and trying to make a proper introduction.

“I wanna go beat up random thugs again,” Marinette whined, pulling at her hair. “I’ll put on a mask, whatever, but just please let me punch people. I need to punch people right now.”

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #soulmate-game #dc x miraculous #dc x mlb #bio!mom Wonder Woman #Bio!mom Diana prince #bio!dad Bruce Wayne #Bio!dad Batman #idk what this is #but it happened #and it’s something

1K notes · View notes

bbq-hawks-wings · 3 years ago

Text

HAWKS HAWKS HAWKS HAWKS: Chapter 353-354

Hey, folks, we're finally at the end ready to review the latest couple of chapters after only... *counts* SIX full-sized posts in so many days.

By the way, kids, go look up what "scope creep" is some time. The knowledge might save your sanity some day, assuming you properly plan for it unlike me.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Shouto's victory over Dabi is an inspirational force among the heroes when the news rings out. All of the other heroes are facing enormous, existential fear on an individual level despite being more than willing to fight and that's understandable - they're only human. Nevertheless, a young, teenage hero who had barely received his provisional license faced his own brother - one of AFO's top fighters, nonetheless - and all but single-handedly took him down. It's a major morale boost which also understandably serves to rattle the opposition.

Btw, knowing that Spinner accepted AFO's offer to make him stronger before the strike, I really want to know how his story's going to play out. He isn't near Shigaraki, AFO, Dabi, or Toga, so this could be interesting to see him spotlighted alone once again.

I'm also excited to finally get some quality screen time with Tentacole whom I believe to be criminally neglected in the series as a whole. Rooting for you, Cephalopod Son!

The news of Dabi's fall reaches Endeavor and the other heroes facing AFO.

And now I'm so glad to have gotten these chapters all at once. Hawks knew going into it that AFO would taunt Endeavor specifically where he was sensitive exactly like he did, but I don't think he anticipated AFO being able to find any fodder that would actually get under HIS skin, and that will likely really come into play later, even if we don't see the results of the battle for a few more chapters, and that's where I predict anything new or unsure about Hawks and his feelings are going to come out.

Now, I love this interaction and series of events. We all know it was Hawks that rose me from my dormant state on this blog. Up to this point there's only so much we had to talk about, especially since what was being speculated in the discussions of leaks that I saw were really far off from what the official translation wound up to be.

The panel about him calling himself "crippled" when AFO tries to make him feel weak and Hawks just deflects it, AFO not getting anything out of him by calling him "Nagant's replacement", and the comment Hawks made about him making "a clean break" from his family history were very sensationalized and taken out of context when I saw them. So far, everything seems to be well within character for Hawks, and literally none of that stuff bothers him. He knows AFO is just the villain trying to get his way, and Hawks has already put on his armor for whatever he anticipated AFO to throw at him.

The only thing that AFO did that actually got to Hawks was wound Endeavor. Hawks' weakness far more than his need for prosthetic wings are those he cares about and his mission. And now, Endeavor has been impaled like the shish kabob.

Damn it, Endeavor. It's okay, though, this is actually the spot I wanted to catch up to, because this is where i think we get the best Hawks characterization crumbs of the chapter.

Up to this point, the main motivation for Hawks as a whole has been the same since he woke up in the hospital- "Finish the job I started as soon as possible because we're running out of time!" It's been weeks. Things have only gotten worse. The goal has never changed - only the logistics and limitations it took to reach that goal. He needs to end it yesterday. Hawks has long accepted that his death may be a necessary price in that equation, and he's at peace with that if it really will bring about the change he wants to see. Sacrificing himself so Endeavor can live and defeat AFO is more than reasonable to him.

These two, though. They weren't in the plan. They weren't in the calculations, ever, because unlike him these were never acceptable potential loses to Hawks. In the moment, he doesn't consider their abilities or the fact that they just saved his life. He can't risk losing them, so they were never a consideration in this fight before.

On the subject of mind games, I think it's safe to say that AFO is going to try to leverage Hawks' protectiveness of the kids to get him to slip up later on, but Tsukoyomi is the one who'll help him psychologically stay on task, while Earphone Jack plays more traditional power support. Tsukoyomi has experience keeping up with Hawks in real time, plus he has a good idea of how his teacher thinks. He also has known and worked closely with Earphone Jack as her classmate for more than two years now, and as she doesn't have to be the one maneuvering she can just focus on communicating with Tsukoyomi to set her up for success.

It's a clutch impromptu support team and one that only gets better if Endeavor is able to rejoin them. There's likely going to be bumps and hiccups, I predict predominantly on Hawks' end and difficulties keeping Jirou airborne, just because of the desperateness of the situation; but the actual important things here is we're going to hopefully get some real quality Bird Bros material in a moment and get to see the goths kids kill it out there. I'm here for it!!!

#bnha 353 #bnha 354 #she speaks #bnha chapter review #let's talk hawks

81 notes · View notes

niqhtlord01 · 3 years ago

Text

Humans are weird: Sewing Chaos: An Earl Von Morgan story

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

“We predict that within the next thirteen solar rotations our enemies will have reached our capital worlds.”

From the center of the dark room a projector ignited and displayed a map of the several surrounding galaxies. Each one color coded to match their respective claimants before the speaker hit a series of keys on the display terminal.

Several red lines began forming from different directions each one slowly pushing through the territories and arriving at the star mark planet signifying the capital worlds.

“These are the most likely avenues of advance they will take which will be coordinated simultaneously to ensure we could not bring our full might against any single thrust.”

“If we did combine our forces,” a robed representative from the Hadrion Confederation spoke, “would it be possible to defeat them?”

The figure at the display terminal entered new combinations of keys for the projection. It showed the military forces of each member state joining together to face a single thrust, and though the red line blinked out of existence the remaining lines still continued.

“If we did marshal all of our collective military might we would be able to stop one, maybe two, of the enemy advances; but as a result we would leave the remainder of our territory exposed and defenseless."

The small group of representatives murmured amongst themselves at this. They had been drawn into the conflict with the Jokonan Empire after a series of border conflicts had escalated into full blown war and now they faced the reality that they would soon become little more than puppet states to the Jokonan’s.

The speaker at the display terminal raised their hand and the conversations died down slowly as all eyes turned to one man.

“As you can see, our situation is rather dire Mr. Morgan; can you assist us?”

From the back of the room a figure rose to their feet and slowly made their way to the center of the room; the clanking of his cane echoing out like gun shots as he strode across the polished floor. As he stepped into the light of the projector he stopped and with his free hand removed a cigar from his jacket pocket and placed it in his mouth. He shifted his cane to his other hand and removed a lighter before swiftly lighting the cigar and returning the lighter. He gazed up at the star map before him and slowly began to circle it. He paced the display quietly, only so often taking an inhale of his cigar and puffing it out as he remained transfixed with the projection.

After circling the display for several minutes he stopped and casually spat out his cigar on to the floor. While the other representatives gasped he stomped it out with his foot before turning to the speaker still at the display terminal.

“I can.”

The mood of the room was a mixture of joy and hesitation at the human’s remark but before anyone could ask how it would be possible the human continued.

“I will need access and authority over all of your intelligence branches and military assets, the very best translators and speakers of the Jokonan language we have on hand, and the complete cooperation of every governing body present here without question.”

This statement was followed by a rash series of shouts and outcries from those gathered. They were shocked by the audacity of this human to walk into their council chamber and demand to be given near total control of all of their governments as if it was as easy as asking for a drink at a bar.

“Oh,” the human continued despite the uproar around him, “and I will need the best Jokonan historian as well.”

The speaker raised their arm again and the room quieted down once more. “And if we give you these things and privileges, you can stop these attacks?” the speakers said.

“I shall do more than that.” Earl Von Morgan said he turned and smiled at the gathered group. “I shall shatter the Jokonan Empire.”

*Twelve solar rotations later*

Morgan sat at his desk reading the latest progress reports when the doors to his office burst open. Each member of the council walked through and stood before the desk, each with a look on their face with a mixture of disgust, anger, and barely contained panic. The final member to walk in was no less the speaker themselves as the rest parted to allow them to stand directly before Morgan.

Morgan briefly looked up from his reports to scan the room before looking back down at them.

“Though my secretary handles my appointments I am sure I would have noticed the council on my agenda for today.” Morgan said dryly.

“It has been twelve solar rotations.”

The speaker’s voice was calm and collected, but Morgan was experienced enough to hear the undertone of hostility behind each word.

Morgan set down his papers finally and looked up at the assembled group. “Has it really been that long?” Morgan looked over at his desk calendar and gave a look of surprise. “So it has; time really does just fly by the older you get I suppose.”

The speaker stepped forward and placed their hands on the desk, leaning their head down so the swirling darkness of their veil was gazing down at Morgan.

“It has been twelve solar rotations,” the speaker continued, “and you have told us nothing.”

“You’ve doomed us all!” one of the assembled representatives shouted drawing cheers from the others.

“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted a human!” said another drawing even more adulation.

Morgan leaned back in his chair and clasped his fingers together. He showed no interest in the gathered mob before him and if anything appeared frustrated that his daily schedule was being interrupted.

“I have not felt the need to issue you status reports because I believed some among you,” Morgan said as his eyes wandered across the gathered faces pausing here and there on certain ones, “would not pass along that information to the Jokonan’s.”

This drew outbursts of anger from several members while others, those that Morgan had focused on, appeared to retreat further to the back of the group.

“You have the audacity to claim one of us is a traitor?” came a cry from a Funtak, his lips struggling to form the words as his three tongues clashed with each other to pronounce each syllable.

“I am a politician; it would be out of character for me not to suspect those around me of treachery.” Morgan chuckled as he shrugged his shoulders childishly.

The Funtak looked to continue the argument before an Ultoine put a hand on their shoulder and stepped forward.

“You and your inaction are the subject here, not us.” They said as they pulled out a binder and casually tossed it on to Morgan’s desk.

“In the past twelve solar rotations you have not only refused to engage the enemy but have in fact more often ordered the withdrawal of our forces when facing the Jokonan fleets; even going so far as to order some of the captains to surrender to them rather than fight.”

“If anyone is the traitor it is you!” the Funtak shouted.

At this Morgan appeared to take offense to. Rather than addressing the accusation Morgan merely grabbed a remote control off his desk and aimed it at a nearby tv. The tv flickered on to a news channel already in progress.

“Our top story tonight is the unfolding outbreak of what appears to be the beginnings of a civil war within the Jokonan Empire.”

Every representative’s face turned to the tv while Morgan continued staring down the speaker.

“What did they just s-“ one of them began before being shushed to silence as the broadcast continued.

“Reports are coming in that second prince Hafala Kajar has declared himself the rightful successor to the imperial throne and denounced his elder brother and the first prince Umba Jaka.”

The screen panned over the images of the two princes. Between the two of them Umba was more physically fit while Hafala standing easily two feet taller, but he lacked the dignified manner Hafala seemed to carry himself with.

“Several Jokonan officials, who have spoken to us unanimously, have stated that military forces loyal to each of the princes have already begun engaging each other in open conflict while Emperor Xar Moth has called for all combatants to cease fire immediately.”

Several video clips played with what looked to be Jokonan ships firing on each other, some even showing grievous damage to their hulls billowing giant clouds of ash.

While the council had their eyes glued to the TV Morgan threw his own folder on to the table, right in front of the speaker. The cloaked head finally broke its gaze with Morgan and slowly picked up the folder, opening it and flicking through the first few pages.

“For the last twelve solar rotations I have been using the resources you have provided me to drive a wedge between the first and second princes.”

Morgan reached for his cane and stood to his feet. He circled round his desk and stood before the speaker as they continued flipping through the pages.

“At first the second prince had no interest in ascending to the throne, he was content to remain at his post and serve his empire.”

Morgan reached over and tapped a certain file the speaker was now looking over.

“So you make those around him believe that he would be a better emperor then his brother, and get them to do the convincing for you.”

Morgan began working his way through the council as they remained transfixed on the tv.

“Whenever I knew the second prince was in a battle I made sure our forces were soundly routed and fled the battlefield, building the prince’s military victory tallies, making his men believe that he was some great tactician who made his enemies cower and flee before even setting foot on the battlefield.”

The speaker nodded, finally grasping the initial part of Morgan’s plan. “It’s one thing for outsiders to say you should be emperor, but another thing entirely when those you have trusted all your life begin saying it.”

Morgan smiled and tipped his head to the speaker as he continued to mingle through the crowd.

“The main offensive that was predicted twelve solar rotations ago was planned by the first prince himself and while we did engage in delaying battles with his fleets we made sure that at every turn the first prince was left humiliated.”

“Every battle ended in horrible losses with little to nothing to show for it as our own fleets engaged in hit and run missions, depriving the first prince of the large scale engagements his younger brother was reaping glory from.”

Morgan continued describing his plan as he made his way back to his desk as the tv was announcing that the second prince had officially declared his brother a traitor to the empire and called on all loyal Jokonan’s to rise up against him

“Next we began hacking into the Jokonan communication systems and broadcasting the second prince’s victories to the entire empire, editing the footage to appear like it had been offhandedly recorded by a waiting bridge officer or a soldier observing the space battles through a view port; and the civilian population lapped it up and over night Hafala became a household name.”

He returned to his seat and to the surprise of many touted a devilish grin as he explained the final part of his plan.

“The final stage had us sending forged documents for Jokonan senators, industrialists, members of great houses, and others in positions of power not openly defying the first prince, but suggesting that the second prince has the potential to be even better.”

“Of course these messages were also then leaked to the first prince who became understandably enraged and arrested many of them, who continued to pronounce that they never made such letters all the way to the gallows.”

“This pushed any supporters he did still have to become increasingly worried that they would be next in this mindless rampage and sought protection of the second prince, which in turn led to what we have before you.”

The news broadcast ended their segment with a Jokonan capital ship imploding like a pumpkin full of firecrackers as Morgan turned off the tv.

One by one the council began turning back to look at Morgan with a renewed respect in their eyes, but were unable to speak praise due to their previous outbursts.

“Not all wars are fought on the battlefield my friends.” Morgan began as he pulled out another cigar and lit it. “We could never match the Jokonan military, so, we turn their own military against themselves and watch as they eat each other alive.”

“Brilliant!”

To Morgan’s surprise it was the Funtak who issued him praise before continuing.

“While they are at each other’s throats we can attack and destroy them once and for all!”

Morgan let out a billow of smoke and to the councilors surprise shook his head in disagreement.

“If we attack now we give them both a common cause to rally behind and unite again.” Morgan cautioned. “We must continue to remain on the sidelines for now and merely stoke the fires of this civil war for a few additional solar rotations, at which point there may very well be no more Jokonan Empire to speak of.”

“It was wise to entrust our survival to you after all it would seem.”

The speaker set down the folder finally having read its entire contents and bowed to Morgan. The rest of the council quickly followed suit as a sign of respect and remained like this for several minutes.

“We shall continue to abstain in favor of your judgement in the coming solar rotations; should there be anything else you should require merely ask it.”

Morgan nodded his head to the speaker before looking back at the council. “For now all I need is for you all to respectfully leave.”

The councilors raised their heads in confusion at this.

“My next meeting is with a particular Hive diplomat I am rather fond of and we have pressing matters to attend to.”

The ease with which he seemed to casually dismiss them offended some, but they yielded all the same and removed themselves quietly as Morgan looked out the window at an approaching transport and smiled to himself.

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #scifi #story #writing

191 notes · View notes

lokiondisneyplus · 4 years ago

Video

tumblr

'Loki' takes over: Tom Hiddleston on his new TV series and a decade in the MCU

Ten years after Hiddleston first chose chaos in Thor, Marvel’s fan favorite God of Mischief is going even bigger with his time-bending Disney+ show.

Tom Hiddleston is Loki, and he is burdened with glorious purpose: After playing Thor's puckish brother for over a decade in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, no one understands the mercurial Asgardian God of Mischief as well as the actor. He can teach an entire seminar on Loki if given the opportunity — which he actually did during pre-production on his forthcoming Disney+ show. In conversation, Hiddleston quotes lines from his MCU debut, 2011's Thor, almost verbatim, and will playfully correct you if you mistakenly refer to Asgard's Rainbow Bridge as the Bifrost, which is the portal that connects Loki and Thor's homeworld to the Nine Realms, including Midgard, a.k.a. Earth. "Well, the Bifrost technically is the energy that runs through the bridge," he says with a smile. "But nine points to Gryffindor!" And when he shows up to the photo shoot for this very digital cover, he hops on a call with our photo editor to pitch ways the concept could be even more Loki, like incorporating the flourish the trickster does whenever magically conjuring something. The lasting impression is that playing Loki isn't just a paycheck.

"Rather than ownership, it's a sense of responsibility I feel to give my best every time and do the best I can because I feel so grateful to be a part of what Marvel Studios has created," the 40-year-old Brit tells EW over Zoom a few days after the shoot and a week out from Thor's 10th anniversary. "I just want to make sure I've honored that responsibility with the best that I can give and the most care and thought and energy."

After appearing in three Thor movies and three Avengers, Hiddleston is bringing that passion to his first solo Marvel project, Loki, the House of Ideas' third Disney+ series following the sitcom pastiche WandaVision and the topical The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Led by head writer Michael Waldron (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Heels), the six-episode drama sees Hiddleston's shapeshifting agent of chaos step out from behind his brother's shadow and into the spotlight for a timey-wimey, sci-fi adventure that aims to get to the bottom of who Loki really is. "I wanted to explore slightly more complex character questions," says Waldron. "It's not just good versus bad. Is anybody all good? Is anybody all bad? What makes a hero, a hero? A villain, a villain?"

Even though Loki — who loves sowing mayhem with his illusion magic and shapeshifting, all with a major chip on his shoulder — has never been one for introspection, the idea of building an entire show around him was a no-brainer for Marvel. When asked why Loki was one of the studio's first Disney+ shows, Marvel president Kevin Feige replies matter-of-factly, "More Hiddleston, more Loki." First introduced as Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) envious brother in Kenneth Branagh's Thor, Loki went full Big Bad in 2012's The Avengers. That film cemented the impish rogue as one of the shared universe's fan favorites, thanks to Hiddleston's ability to make him deliciously villainous yet charismatic and, most importantly, empathetic. The character's popularity is one of the reasons he's managed to avoid death many times.

"He's been around for thousands of years. He had all sorts of adventures," says Feige. "Wanting to fill in the blanks and see much more of Loki's story [was] the initial desire [for the series]."

The Loki we meet on the show is not the one who fought the Avengers in 2012 and evolved into an antihero in Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok before meeting his demise at the hands of the mad titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War. Instead, we'll be following a Loki from a branched timeline (a variant, if you will) after he stole the Tesseract following his thwarted New York invasion and escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. custody during the time heist featured in Avengers: Endgame. In other words, this Loki hasn't gone through any sort of redemption arc. He's still the charming yet petulant god who firmly believes he's destined to rule and has never gotten his due.

Premiering June 9, Loki begins with the Time Variance Authority — a bureaucratic organization tasked with safeguarding the proper flow of time — arresting the Loki Variant seen in Endgame because they want his help fixing all of the timeline problems he caused while on the run with the Tesseract. So there will be time travel, and a lot more of it than in Endgame. As Loki makes his way through his own procedural, he'll match wits with new characters including Owen Wilson's Agent Mobius, a brilliant TVA analyst, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw's Judge Renslayer. The question in early episodes is whether Loki will help them or take over.

"One of the things Kevin Feige led on was, 'I think we should find a way of exploring the parts of Loki that are independent of his relationship with Thor,' or see him in a duality or in relationship with others, which I thought was very exciting," says Hiddleston, who also serves as an executive producer on the show. "So the Odinson saga, that trilogy of films, still has its integrity, and we don't have to reopen it and retell it."

Yet, in order to understand where Loki is going, it's important to see where he came from.

Hiddleston can't believe how long he and Loki have been connected. "I've been playing this character for 11 years," he says. "Which is the first time I have said that sentence, I realize, and it [blows] my mind. I don't know what percentage that is exactly of my 40 years of being alive, but it's substantial."

His time as Loki actually goes a bit further back, to 2009 — a year after Robert Downey Jr. big banged the MCU into existence with Iron Man — when he auditioned for Thor. It's no secret that Hiddleston initially went in for the role of the titular God of Thunder, but Feige and director Kenneth Branagh thought his natural charm and flexibility as an actor made him better suited for the movie's damaged antagonist. "Tom gave you an impression that he could be ready for anything, performance-wise," says Branagh, who had previously worked with him on a West End revival of Checkov's Ivanov and the BBC series Wallander. "Tom has a wild imagination, so does Loki. He's got a mischievous sense of humor and he was ready to play. It felt like he had a star personality, but he was a team player."

Hiddleston fully immersed himself in the character. Outside of studying Loki's history in the Marvel Comics, he also researched how Loki and the Trickster God archetype appeared across mythology and different cultures. "He understood that he was already in something special [and] it was a special character in a special part of that early moment in the life of the Marvel universe where [he] also needed to step up in other ways," says Branagh, who was impressed by the emotional depth Hiddleston brought to the part, especially when it came to how isolated Loki felt in the Asgardian royal family.

There was a lot riding on that first Thor feature. For one, no one knew if audiences would immediately latch onto a Shakespearean superhero movie partially set on an alien planet populated by the Norse Gods of legend. Second, it was integral to Feige's plans for the shared universe. Loki was supposed to be the main villain in The Avengers, which would not only mirror how Earth's mightiest heroes joined forces in 1963's Avengers #1 but also give Thor a believable reason for teaming up with Iron Man, Captain America (Chris Evans), and the rest of the capes. Feige first clued Hiddleston into those larger plans when the actor was in L.A. before Thor started shooting.

"I was like, 'Excuse me?' Because he was already three, four steps ahead," says Hiddleston. "That took me a few minutes to process, because I didn't quite realize how it just suddenly had a scope. And being cast as Loki, I realized, was a very significant moment for me in my life, and was going to remain. The creative journey was going to be so exciting."

Hiddleston relished the opportunity to go full villain in Avengers, like in the scene where Loki ordered a crowd to kneel before him outside a German opera house: "It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation," says the Machiavellian god. "The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

"I just knew that in the structure of that film, I had to lean into his role as a pure antagonist," Hiddleston recalls. "What I always found curious and complex about the way Loki is written in Avengers, is that his status as an antagonist comes from the same well of not belonging and being marginalized and isolated in the first Thor film. Loki now knows he has no place in Asgard."

Loki did find a place within the audience's hearts, though. Feige was "all in" on Hiddleston as his Loki from the beginning, but even he couldn't predict how much fans would love him. Feige recalls the reaction at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con: "Did we know that after he was the villain in two movies, he would be bringing thousands of people to their feet in Hall H, in costume, chanting his name? No, that was above and beyond the plan that we were hoping for and dreaming of." It was a dream Feige first got an inkling of a year earlier during the Avengers press tour when a Russian fan slipped past security, snuck into Mark Ruffalo's car, and asked the Hulk actor to give Hiddleston a piece of fan art she created. "That was one of the early signs there was much more happening with this quote-unquote villain."

Despite that popularity, the plan was to kill Loki off in 2013's Thor: The Dark World, but the studio reversed course after test audiences refused to believe he actually died fighting the Dark Elves. Alas, he couldn't out-illusion death forever. After returning in Taika Waititi's colorful and idiosyncratic Thor: Ragnarok, Hiddleston's character perished for real in the opening moments of Infinity War. In typical Loki fashion, before Thanos crushed his windpipe, he delivered a defiant speech that indicated he'd finally made peace with the anger he felt toward his family.

"It felt very, very final, and I thought, 'Okay, that's it. This is Loki's final bow and a conclusive end to the Odinson saga,'" says Hiddleston, who shot that well-earned death scene in 2017.

But, though he didn't know it yet, the actor's MCU story was far from over.

Credit: Charlie Gray for EW

When Hiddleston returned to film two scenes in Avengers: Endgame in 2017, he had no idea where Loki portaled off to after snatching the Tesseract. "Where'd he go? When does he go? How does he get there? These are all questions I remember asking on the day, and then not being given any answers," Hiddleston recalls. To be fair, it's likely the Powers That Be didn't necessarily have answers then. While Feige can't exactly recall when the writers' room for Endgame first devised Loki's escape sequence, he does know that setting up a future show wasn't the primary goal — because a Loki series wasn't on the horizon just yet.

"[That scene] was really more of a wrinkle so that one of the missions that the Avengers went on in Endgame could get screwed up and not go well, which is what required Cap and Tony to go further back in time to the '70s," says Feige. Soon after that, though, former Disney CEO Bob Iger approached Feige about producing content for the studio's forthcoming streaming service. "I think the notion that we had left this hanging loose end with Loki gave us the in for what a Loki series could be. So by the time [Endgame] came out, we did know where it was going."

As for Hiddleston, he didn't find out about the plans for a Loki show until spring 2018, a few weeks before Infinity War hit theaters. "I probably should not have been surprised, but I was," says the actor. "But only because Infinity War had felt so final."

Nevertheless, Hiddleston was excited about returning for his show. He was eager to explore Loki's powers, especially the shapeshifting, and what it meant that this disruptive figure still managed to find a seat beside the gods in mythology. "I love this idea [of] Loki's chaotic energy somehow being something we need. Even though, for all sorts of reasons, you don't know whether you can trust him. You don't know whether he's going to betray you. You don't why he's doing what he's doing," says Hiddleston. "If he's shapeshifting so often, does he even know who he is? And is he even interested in understanding who he is? Underneath all those masks, underneath the charm and the wit, which is kind of a defense anyway, does Loki have an authentic self? Is he introspective enough or brave enough to find out? I think all of those ideas are all in the series — ideas about identity, ideas about self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and the difficulty of it."

“The series will explore Loki's powers in a way they have not yet been explored, which is very, very exciting.”

The thing that truly sold Hiddleston on the show was Marvel's decision to include the Time Variance Authority, a move he describes as "the best idea that anybody had pertaining to the series." Feige and Loki executive producer Stephen Broussard had hoped to find a place for the TVA — an organization that debuted in 1986's Thor #372 and has appeared in She-Hulk and Fantastic Four stories — in the MCU for years, but the right opportunity never presented itself until Loki came along. "Putting Loki into his own procedural series became the eureka moment for the show," says Feige.

The TVA's perspective on time and reality also tied into the themes that Waldron, Loki's head writer, was hoping to explore. "Loki is a character that's always reckoning with his own identity, and the TVA, by virtue of what they do, is uniquely suited to hold up a mirror to Loki and make him really confront who he is and who he was supposed to be," says Waldron. Hiddleston adds: "[That] was very exciting because in the other films, there was always something about Loki that was very controlled. He seemed to know exactly what the cards in his hand were and how he was going to play them…. And Loki versus the TVA is Loki out of control immediately, and in an environment in which he's completely behind the pace, out of his comfort zone, destabilized, and acting out."

To truly dig into who Loki is, the creative team had to learn from the man who knows him best: Hiddleston. "I got him to do a thing called Loki School when we first started," says director Kate Herron. "I asked him to basically talk through his 10 years of the MCU — from costumes to stunts, to emotionally how he felt in each movie. It was fantastic."

Hiddleston got something out of the Loki school, too. Owen Wilson both attended the class and interviewed Hiddleston afterward so that he could better understand Loki, as his character Mobius is supposed to be an expert on him. During their conversation, Wilson pointedly asked Hiddleston what he loved about playing the character.

"And I said, 'I think it's because he has so much range,'" says Hiddleston. "I remember saying this to him: 'On the 88 keys on the piano, he can play the twinkly light keys at the top. He can keep it witty and light, and he's the God of Mischief, but he can also go down to the other side and play the heavy keys. And he can play some really profound chords down there, which are about grief and betrayal and loss and heartbreak and jealousy and pride.'" Hiddleston recalls Wilson being moved by the description: "He said, 'I think I might say that in the show.' And it was such a brilliant insight for me into how open Owen is as an artist and a performer.'"

Owen Wilson as Mobius and Tom Hiddleston as Loki in 'Loki.'| Credit: Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios

Everyone involved is particularly excited for audiences to see Hiddleston and Wilson's on-screen chemistry. "Mobius is not unlike Owen Wilson in that he's sort of nonplussed by the MCU," says Feige. "[Loki] is used to getting a reaction out of people, whether it's his brother or his father, or the other Avengers. He likes to be very flamboyant and theatrical. Mobius doesn't give him the reaction he's looking for. That leads to a very unique relationship that Loki's not used to."

As for the rest of the series, we know that Loki will be jumping around time and reality, but the creative team isn't keen on revealing when and where. "Every episode, we tried to take inspiration from different things," says Waldron, citing Blade Runner's noir aesthetic as one example.

"Part of the fun of the multiverse and playing with time is seeing other versions of characters, and other versions of the titular character in particular," says Feige, who also declined to confirm if Loki ties into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and/or other upcoming projects.

Making Loki was especially meaningful to Hiddleston because they shot most of it during the pandemic, in late 2020. "It will remain one of the absolute most intense, most rewarding experiences of my life," he says. "It's a series about time, and the value of time, and what time is worth, and I suppose what the experience of being alive is worth. And I don't quite know yet, and maybe I don't have perspective on it, if all the thinking and the reflecting that we did during the lockdown ended up in the series. But in some way, it must have because everything we make is a snapshot of where we were in our lives at that time."

While it remains to be seen what the future holds for Loki beyond this initial season, Hiddleston isn't preparing to put the character to bed yet. "I'm open to everything," he says. "I have said goodbye to the character. I've said hello to the character. I said goodbye to the character [again]. I've learned not to make assumptions, I suppose. I'm just grateful that I'm still here, and there are still new roads to explore."

#Tom Hiddleston #Loki #Disney+#interview

518 notes · View notes

cinnamonest · 4 years ago

Text

Zhongli (Genshin Impact) - Yandere Profile

This man's voice has a POWER over me I SWEAR

tws: yandere, mentions of n/sfw

tws (under the cut): very ddlg-esque vibes, sorta? infantilization, noncon

I'm sorry I get such strong daddy vibes it unintentionally went in this direction, hope that isn't too bad lmao

I’m working on all the prompts I’ve gotten in! I’ve gotten a few so I’ll be working on those.

----------

What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

He's one that might be likely to misunderstand his feelings at first, think that he sees himself as a mentor or maybe even an authority figure, someone to guide you and teach you and serve as a dependable partner to your travels. As time goes on, and he begins to recognize how utterly flustered he gets around you, he's forced to acknowledge the actual feelings he has.

While some yanderes with a slight aloofness or pride to them get worse when in love, such as Childe or Kaeya, his drops completely. You bring out a softer side of him, really, one that's protective and tender and loving, so very loving, wanting to be around you, with you. He's certainly an obsessive, protective type, ultimately allowing his protective nature to get the better of him as he demands to know everything you've done, account for your location at every moment, constantly keep track of your habits, inquire about very personal details of your life. If he realizes you're bothered by it, he might draw back a bit, but he's convinced that that's just your perception, that it's necessary, truly, and not at all unusual.

Pet names. Particularly fond of love, darling, and angel. Sweet things that represent what you mean to him -- something precious, something to represent his adoration and idolization.

The primary form of delusion comes from a perception of you. He's obsessive, and idolizes you to an extent. He perceives you as pure, innocent, angelic. The thing is, this applies regardless of whether or not you actually are. If you are, it will solidify the idea, but even if you're not, he will find a way to see you so, anyway. No matter how wise you are, no, you're naive. No matter how capable you are, no, you're weak and fragile. No matter how experienced you may be, no, you're pure. He can always keep this delusion running by bringing into account age and comparison - you'll never be as strong as him, so you might as well be frail and weak. You'll never have lived as long as him, so really, do you think there's that much difference between you and a child, when compared to someone like himself?

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

Actually highly likely, and pretty quickly. As he observes you, it becomes very clear to him how very fragile you are, how naive you are, you are quite literally too pure, too angelic, to be living in this world with such beings as humans. Fragile, beautiful little things have a place where they belong - protected. Where do we put fragile, beautiful things? We put them behind glass, behind ropes, in pretty cages, in secluded rooms. It's only natural that you, too, need a similar environment.

He's one of the ones that will... Elegantly kidnap you, as odd as it sounds. He's not a brute that would do something horrendous like knocking you out or drugging you, no, he'll find an excuse for you to come to his abode, invite you in, and you'll walk in none the wiser. Only after your in, and the doors close, does he guide you to your new room, calmly explaining that he's come to the realization that you're too fragile to continue your journey, and ought to simply give up on your travels. He knows you'll be upset at first. Like a child being denied, you'll get pouty, moody, you might cry, you might lash out at him. It's predictable. He'll dry your eyes and calm you down, brushing off any harsh words you may have, holding your wrists in his hands when you try to push him away, softly reassuring you that it will all be alright, that you're safe now, and you'll learn to accept this with time.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape?

He would want something... elaborate. He's a man with taste for the most beautiful of things, including yourself, and he won't settle for something as simple as a chain or ropes. No, that would be too simple and brutish, and you, one of the finest things in his life, deserve something equally beautiful and delicate.

He's one of the ones that would go to a great deal of preparation for your arrival. He'd have a room prepared just for you, very ornate, beautifully tailored to you -- the walls your favorite color, the bed made of the same material as your old one, and the whole room completely filled with things you're certain you never even told him you liked. Clothes that fit perfectly to your body. It's frightening how perfect it is, because you know he had to go out of his way to acquire the information to achieve such perfection, but you have no idea how.

Everything about it elegant and detailed, right down to the series of ornate locks on the door. They're some of the sturdiest available, made with essentially unbreakable metal alloys and the most intricate lock systems to date. The windows don't open, and he'd certainly find some way to ensure escape through them isn't an option -- perhaps metal bars, perhaps an unbreakable glass substitute, perhaps merely locating your new home right on the edge of one of Liyue's most beautiful mountains, so that if you were to go out the window you'd plummet to the earth below. He's a bit delusional, but he's not stupid, and he will think through every possibility. Every little detail he needs to keep you safe and confined.

He's certain that, perfect as it is, this room is all you will ever need to be happy. Should you desire anything else, he can bring it to you. You'll never have to leave.

So it goes without saying that it would be exceptionally difficult to escape him. You'd have to find a way through the locks, for which your best bet would be to get some hair pins or tiny writing utensils. Even if you managed it, though, which would frankly be a very difficult feat, you'll have to deal with staying free. Zhongli has ties to the people of Liyue as a whole, and needless to say, he has eyes everywhere. You can't risk appearing in the harbor area, there will be far too many people who would immediately report you, and you'd just be walking right to him anyhow. The surrounding areas also have ties to him, so you'd want to try and reach Mondstadt, as far as it is, which is a difficult travel by foot all alone. You won't get far. He's faster, he's wiser, and he will find you long before you could ever hope to make it there.

However, he's not quite as angry as some yanderes would be about it. He doesn't take your escape personally, no, he blames himself, only calculating his own mistakes as to how it happened. He sees you as something like... a little runaway pet, so naive and dull that you don't know any better than to go wandering off. Or perhaps like a child, just sheepishly curious and wanting to explore, not knowing the dangers of the world. Or, perhaps...

"I haven't been giving you enough attention, have I? That's why you pulled this little act of rebellion... you're hurt by my negligence and wanted to be reassured of my care for you. I'm so sorry... I understand now, love. This was my fault. I've been so caught up with work... I'll delegate some tasks to my workers, and I'll be able to spend more time with you from now on, alright? Don't worry, I'm not angry, I'll take full responsibility. I'll be sure to make it up to you... now, let's go home."

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

Much like Childe or Venti or anyone who has been around as long as he has, you really don't stand a chance. He's an incredibly perceptive man. There's not much to say on the matter, as any attempts will be quickly shut down.

He'd find it amusing, really. Like a child trying to lie, but the evidence is all over their face and hands - it's that obvious to him. It's cute enough that he almost hates having to discipline you for it, but, you have to learn.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

He wants his little angel to be safe - and unfortunately, you, being so naive and empty headed, don't always know what's best for you. He knows rules can be hard to follow perfectly, but they're there to keep you safe.

Extremely strict, will want to monitor every moment of your life, every little movement you take, and will insist on watching over you in every task. He'll pick out everything you wear, everything you eat.

Occasionally, if you ask very sweetly, he may take you out for walks in Liyue. Honestly, he'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy taking you to what he knows are the finest locations, shops with the highest level of craftsmanship, restaurants with a high price tag and reputable food. He enjoys showing off his refined tastes and discerning selective abilities. And honestly? There's a certain... Powerful feeling to knowing you're made aware of the costs when he makes high purchases in front of you... even if you don't realize he's not always actually the one paying for it, or that he forgot mora again but promises the owner to pay later - but he'll make sure you don't know that. You hear the numbers, and your eyebrows raise, your eyes widen. You'd nearly faint if that total was on your responsibility, and he knows that. Which is why he'll simply smile at you, and tell you you're worth every last Mora. He'll buy you nearly anything you may desire. It seems like leniency, but in reality, it's his subtle way of locking control and dependency over you, making you respect him, making you love him.

"Don't worry, love. It's not a lot... Not to me, at least. Even if it were, my angel only deserves the best, no?"

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

Oh dear. Again, he's very strict, and wants to monitor everything you do, every little aspect of your life. He decides what you eat, portioning your meals to make sure you're eating enough, he worries about you going hungry during your travels, but luckily you'll never have to worry about that again. If you have a sweet tooth, he'll sigh and worry about your teeth and health, but he'll make sure to account for a little bit of sugar in your day, and will even pick up little treats from some of the most reputable places in Liyue.

He picks out clothes for you with each day. They're not... Normal clothes, per se. Certainly not what you'd normally wear on your travels. And it's not like anyone will see you except him - which is exactly why you'll have clothes he would never want anyone else to see you in. Frilly, lacey things, somehow both highly sexualized but also incredibly infantile, soft pinks, baby blues, gentle off-whites. They accentuate the curves of your body so perfectly, while just barely letting him see the parts of you normally kept hidden.

You'll have a schedule - a bath time, a bedtime, a wake-up time. He's weak to your requests, though, and may let you stay up a little late every now and then, or sleep in just a bit, if you make that soft pouting face and beg. He'll insist on bathing you, dressing you, so that you don't have to - and can't even if you wanted to - lift a finger even to wash yourself or put your clothes on.

He has a set of rules for you, very simple ones he hopes you can easily follow. No trying to leave. No doing anything dangerous. No talking to strangers when you go out. You must hold his hand whenever you're walking together, don't go wandering off.

He'll feel ashamed of the thought for a while, but eventually he'll cave and give into the desire, no, the security precaution, of a nice little collar for you. It's not too embarrassing, no, he went out of his way to find one that was delicate, almost like a necklace, made with fine materials, the engraving only visible up close. If you look closely, though, it clearly bears his name.

Breaking the rules is expected, he anticipates it. You're not the brightest, he might even view it as a mistake. A benefit is that you can easily pass it off as simply forgotten, or an accident. Hence, he's not too harsh - normally. He'll sigh, forgive you, and pat your head, contemplating how to prevent your access in the future.

Perhaps you wriggled out of his hand and ran off while walking? You were just excited, distracted, like a child. He might be able to procure a small leash, one that wouldn't be immediately obvious or embarrassing, to attach to your collar. Perhaps some cuff-like links to latch your arm to his.

You forgot the rule about not handling the kitchen knives and cut yourself? He'll have to get some kind of lock and simply keep them safely away from you. No big deal. Any measures are worth your safety.

If you push the limits, or have a defiant attitude, he might reach the point of punishment. As for not-unwholesome things, this would usually include taking away privileges, such as walks or sweets, but overall, punishment will mostly come in more impure forms.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

Not too much to say here - he has connections. He doesn't need to dirty his own hands. For all his supposed humility, if he truly dislikes someone, they're no more significant than an insect to him. He has no reservations about ridding the world of people who, in his mind, are obviously trying to deceive you, abuse you, corrupt you.

Thankfully, he is very capable of keeping a neutral face, even when he feels laughter building up. It would probably look strange if he were smiling over the newest body to come into his parlor.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

It's a slow buildup. He views restraint as a virtue, and looks down upon those who lack control over their own tempers. He's a man who strives to meet his own standards of character, and that very much applies to self control and ability to maintain a controlled demeanor, even when he feels a bit of frustration due to you being intentionally and deliberately defiant.

It's his responsibility to be a good role model for you and make sure you understand how to behave. However, in the end, he's very keen on properness and rules. If you have a tendency towards brattiness and pushing your limits, you may drive him to a boiling point.

However, even when expressing his anger, he's remarkably controlled. It's very mature, really. Nonetheless, he will have you shivering and tearful with his voice alone, booming with that depth that reverberates off the walls, that vibrates against your very core. His true anger is one that can strike fear even in the most courageous individuals - he's terrifying when he wants to be, fierce and intimidating, a sort of power just eminates from him.

Nonetheless, it's quick, he calms down very quickly, wipes the tears from your eyes, and sighs.

"I do hate having to be firm with you... but I can't have you thinking you can just act however you want. You understand that, don't you?"

So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

Both? It's difficult to describe. You're an angel to him. You're the finest work of art, the most intricate creation, the kind of person whose body and likeness deserves to be preserved in art and tradition, one of those women who should be renowned for beauty even centuries long after you're gone from the earth. It's almost goddess-like. At the same time, there's a beautiful, tragic duality to your essence, he thinks. A fragility and a dependency that leaves you in need, but an inherent status of perfection that makes you deserve the utmost perfect of care. You need to be coddled, cared for, protected, but you deserve it. Like a deity incarnated into a mere fragile human form, a queen that needs support to retain her grace.

Unlike some, he doesn't view his care and protection as some kind of favor that should be repaid with your gratitude, no, really, he is grateful that he is the one who is even deserving of being your caretaker, your provider, your lover.

Even if he is the one who determined that he deserves that role.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

He's convinced that he can show you that he is your protector, your lover, that it's fate itself that has locked you together, not just his own will.

And he is, above all else, patient. One of the most patient you could encounter. You think a year is a long time? It's nothing to him. A century for you? More than a lifetime. For him? Nothing. He can and will wait, as long as it takes, and he will never falter in his continual care. He'll remind you frequently, he'll shower you in affection, but if you don't return it? It's not that bad. He has all the time in the world to fix you.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

Moraless Sugar daddy

But in all seriousness, he is definitely of the gift-giving love language. He sees beautiful things, and beautiful things make him think of you! It's sweet, he thinks. So many little things he sees throughout his day make him think of you, and he has to have all of them, see your face when he gives them to you. He likes making you happy, for one, but he'd be lying if he said there wasn't a sort of satisfactory pride he gets from the power dynamic of it all. He wants to be the sole source of provision in your life, he wants your dependency.

If we're talking prior to the events of the game, it will be even more extreme. He treats it like it's truly nothing, throwing around massive purchases, seemingly as if he's not thinking about it at all. But he is - rest assured, he's taking it into consideration, at least, that is, how it will affect your attitude and perception of him.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

On the reserved side. He'd never conduct himself improperly in public, of course. It's out of the question. He cares about proper behavior and public image, and he'd never behave in a vulgar manner.

Even in private, he's certainly one of the ones that struggles with a certain guilt. To some degree, he would feel like you're so innocent and pure that he doesn't want to corrupt you. He goes through stages. First, he'll lie to himself, telling himself that the feelings he has for you are simply protective, platonic, a natural sense of responsibility for you. That becomes more and more difficult to convince himself of, the more excited he becomes around you, the more he finds his eyes drawn to whatever bits of skin are exposed on your body, finding himself drifting off to impure thoughts, trying to push them away.

Second, once he's forced to acknowledge the true nature of these feelings, he'll simply practice restraint, something he's rather good at in this area. He tries, he really does. He tells himself he can't do something so impure, that it would violate you, that he should be ashamed of himself for it. It becomes more and more and more difficult to restrain himself with time, the feelings rising and the thoughts become more difficult to push away, eventually entertaining the fantasies in his head in an attempt to rid himself of the urge in real life. It doesn't work, no, it only makes the urges worse, and he can't be around you without his body nearly commanding him to do something. And finally, he'll take a different stance entirely, telling himself that, no, it's not going to corrupt you, rather, it's taking care of you. If he really wants to love you, really wants to care for all of your needs, then surely that would include your physical needs, and therefore, really, it would be wrong of him not to help you.

As that shift in viewpoints goes on, he'll become more and more bold, hands lingering just a little longer, face coming just a little closer. It's a slow build of tension, just waiting to boil over.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

He understands you're nervous. Again, no matter how experienced you are, somehow in his head he makes it out to be insignificant. Even if you've had other relationships, he convinces himself - and tries to convince you - that they were inadequate, they didn't care about you, not like he does. And he'll treat it as that -- any resistance you put up is nervousness, nothing more, nothing less. He'll reassure you a million times that you won't feel pain, that he'll be gentle, that you'll feel good, even if his size and strength frankly is rather intimidating regardless of experience. He'll keep cooing in your ear, softly whispering reassurance, softly running hands over your skin, holding you in place as the last inch stretches you apart.

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

Infantilization

Again, no matter how smart, experienced, and capable you may be, you're none of those things to him. You're a fragile, little thing. He has to take care of you at all times. It may not be evident at first, and he himself likely doesn't fully realize it, but there is something highly sexual to this for him. Caring for you puts him in a position of dominance, control. It gives him access to your privacy, dressing you up, fingers running over your skin, bathing you, watching your skin glisten. He'll talk to you in this way, too, often softly, remarking every little way in which you need him, and even condescendingly so. He wants you to be his, not only in a sense of love, but of possession.

Oral

Primarily giving. Even on its own, he loves the taste, but the effect it has on you makes it that much better. He loves anything that forces you to depend on him entirely for pleasure, that puts you at his mercy. And he'll be torturous about it too, restraining your arms and legs so you can't control anything, hold your hips down so you can't roll into him, so that only he can determine exactly how much pressure and speed you get. And he won't rush it, no, he'll go so slowly it's torturous, and telling you very simply that if you want any more, you'll have to beg.

Edging

For a variety of reasons. The power trip is as exhilarating as it is pleasurable, but he also loves watching your body writhe. Each little muscle that moves under the flesh when your arms strain against his hand holding your wrists together, the convulsing of your stomach muscles, the way your toes curl and legs spasm and the sweet little whimpers you make when he draws back just short of your high. He's mastered watching your reactions, knowing exactly when to stop, even if you try to mask it. He'll want you to tell him, though, nonetheless, tell him when you're close, if for nothing else but the sense of you obeying his commands.

Collaring

Similarly to infantilization, it gives him something of a sense of control, of possession. He loves seeing his name engraved on it, marking the whole of your being with his ownership. In his somewhat rare moments of roughness, he'll want to pull on it, use it to draw you towards him, in a moment of your defiance, in particular. If you're being mouthy, whiny, disobedient, and you finally make him snap, especially if you try to walk away from him, he'll yank you back with force, pulling you close to him, and when the force of it shuts you up, changes your demeanor, forces you to acknowledge your submission - the satisfaction he'll get from that is incomparable.

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

As much as he likes the idea, to him, you're already like a child, naive and fragile. Could your body even handle a pregnancy, a birth? He'd likely try to avoid it, but in the end, if it happened by accident anyway, rest assured you'd be getting the best care of any woman to ever be pregnant in Teyvat, and he'd do everything in his power to ensure you were always comfortable, taking his caretaking to another level, almost never even letting you get up, insisting you stay still and calm and needy.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

He'd be one to pull the "it doesn't hurt you as much as it does me" line, but really, even if he refuses to admit it to his own self, having you bent over his lap is just as much for his own enjoyment as it is a disciplinary measure. It's more humiliating than it is painful -- he'd hold back, afraid of hurting you with his strength, but taking in every little flinch and whimper you make as he brings his hand down on your ass, keeping your head pressed down, kneading at the flesh. He'd insist it's the most effective punishment measure, but you can feel the hard-on digging into your stomach. The worse the behavior, the worse the beating, but every time, after it's over, he'll hold you upright, wiping the tears from your eyes and asking you if you learned you lesson, if you intend to do it again, and smiling when you insist you won't.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

Your skin. It's beautiful, and he loves the way that light from the moon and sun look on your naked form. He loves the way your skin feels, soft and delicate, smooth, so paper thin and fragile, and so, so deliciously prone to showing marks from the slightest of harm - a simple smack can make the plump flesh darkened and reddened, the lightest suckling will leave beautiful hickeys all down your neck and chest. There are so many ways to mark his property, to stake a visible claim all over you, it's irresistible.

He also will go out of his way, when picking out all the things he wants you to wear, to find colors that best go with your skin tone, in a contrasting sense - particularly lacey, sheer things that contrast very well, so he can see your soft flesh perfectly defined against the little lace patterns.

#yandere x reader #yandere genshin impact #yandere zhongli #tw: noncon #tw: dark content

1K notes · View notes