#other than elektra but i only mention her :(

[farfromstrange]

Is It Over Now? | Matt Murdock x Reader

Masterlist

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Reader ; (hinted) Frank Castle x Reader ; Elektra Natchios x Matt Murdock

Summary: Matt cheated on you, and you are trying to navigate through it.

Warnings: Angst, no happy ending, break-up, mention of cheating, song references (Taylor Swift), inspired by 'Is It Over Now?', (some) Matt "slander", (somewhat) suicidal thoughts, alcohol consumptions, hint at smut

Word Count: 1.7k

A/n: 1989 TV came out and I am losing my shit. Is It Over Now? Is my new favorite song and I just had a brain fart that made this. You can read this if you're a Swiftie and catch the references or just read it without listening to the song. It works either way.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

To be fair, there was a time when you thought it would never end. The thought of ever having a last kiss with him would have killed you back then. 

He told you that you were the love of his life. You believed him. He was yours, certainly. You can’t deny that.

You were happy, you laughed and cried together, and part of you figured that if you ever broke up, you would find a way to work through it somehow. 

Maybe in another universe, you are still together. Maybe in another universe, you two are still friends. Maybe in another universe, you never had to lose each other.

In this reality though—in this brutal, unforgivable reality—everything changed in a matter of a day. And there is nothing you can do about it now.

Your flower was withering in secret, and you didn’t realize what it was doing to you. Every time you woke up alone, every canceled date, every time he called you and told you he wouldn’t make it home tonight, it was sure to build up to this. 

But this, whatever the hell this is, it hurts beyond compare. 

He said you were a rose, but now that you look in the mirror, you only see a rotten mess.

The past few months have done this to you. He has done this to you. The paper airplanes crashed and burned. There is nothing left but pure bitterness and this hatred you have toward yourself and him; you just want to land your fist in his face, and then maybe your own because how could he hurt you like that after making you love him so very much? 

You loved him so much, but now you doubt he ever loved you back. 

Date after date, coffee after coffee, nights spent together on his couch and in his bed, sharing laughter, sharing tears, it all feels like a hoax now. 

You held him when he was unconscious, stitched him up and told him he was going to be okay. Where was he when you were bleeding out from your own battles? You wonder.

His smile used to be your safe haven, the epitome of innocence and strength, but now it only makes you angry. It makes you resent him. You shouldn’t, you really shouldn’t, but you still do.

So much has changed, and all it took was one day. 

One day. 

Three hundred days, all wasted in one. 

If you think about it, you spent almost an entire year attached to each other’s side. You moved in together. You kissed, you had sex, you shared secrets you wouldn’t have told anyone else. You helped him hide away from the world, from his enemies, made the world go quiet, and comforted him while he cried. You waited up, you worried, and you almost lost him more times than you can count, and you still stayed.

When no one else would take a chance on him, when he felt everyone was against him and going to leave him, you acted as his rock. You stayed.

You thought he was the one. 

And then it just… ended. 

You gave him the benefit of the doubt when you found her in his dress shirt on his leather couch. The very same couch you two often shared passionate nights on, but at the same time it used to be a symbol of so much more than that.

You let him explain. He explained that she got seriously hurt after showing up out of nowhere, and he just wanted to help without putting you at risk. You believed him because that is the kind of man he was in your head. He was going through some things, things you couldn’t possibly understand, and she was the connection. You tried to understand. In the process of understanding him though, you lost yourself. 

That is something you will never forgive him for. Making you care, making you love him, and unintentionally making you give up on yourself while he continued to break your heart.

You never wanted this to end, never wanted him to go, but in the end, it was the only way. Sticking around wasn’t an option anymore, you have to remind yourself.

He did the one thing he promised he would never do. He broke your heart and your trust into a million pieces that you are now left to pick up on your own. 

You didn’t want to see it before. You were too in love to open your eyes.

He wouldn’t do such a thing, right? You remember repeating that to yourself, to your friends, to Foggy and Karen, but Karen saw him with her, too, and she gave you little hope.

Still, you believed in him. You believed in his morale and his faith. You had faith in him, not even in God but in him and the man he pretended to be—and somehow, he still picked up the knife when you weren’t looking and buried it in your back. 

There were so many signs, but you were blind. So many flashing lights. Red flags. Screaming voices in the back of your head begging you to think. You were in a forest full of trees, yet you saw nothing.

When you came home to find his lips on hers, that’s when you knew. Too little, too late.

He called your name. He told you, “This isn’t what it looks like!” But you lost count of the times he used the same line in relation to her.

To anything, really. He always knew how to talk his way out of something when you were together, although back then, it was mostly harmless.

“I trusted you,” you remember saying. You couldn’t even cry. “And you turned right back around and fucked her!”

“It was just a kiss,” he argued. 

“Are you sure about that? ‘Cause if I ask Elektra, I’m sure she will tell me the truth.”

“No,” Matt was adamant because he could hear your heart breaking.

The way you spoke to him was so eerily quiet. That was how he knew he lost you, and he tried to fix it with nothing but his hands. 

But that is not how you fix a broken vase. That’s how you make it worse and hurt yourself in the process.

You remember him opening his mouth, having the audacity to apologize. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

“No. Fuck you, Matt!”

You tore the necklace with his initial off your neck and tossed it at his feet. You couldn’t even look at it. You wonder what happened to it after he picked it up. 

“I trusted you. I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I was there when no one else was, and this is how you repay me?” you said.

You should have never let him fool you.

At least you had the decency to keep your lonely nights to yourself.

“Sweetheart, please,” Matt tried to beg again. 

You wouldn’t let him. Thank God you were strong enough to withstand the tears in his eyes. 

“You’re a fucking traitor, Matthew Murdock,” was one of the last things you said to him. “I wish we’d never met.”

Three hundred days. You fell in love. You finally knew what love felt like, and then…then he turned around and fucked it all up. 

“We’re done.”

Some days, you still regret it, but if it was so easy for him to toss all this time together down the drain, he probably wasn’t worth it. 

But God, you were so in love. 

Sweet nothings whispered in your ear are gone now. You’re all alone in your bed. No one to cuddle, no one to touch. It has been a while since you heard someone say, “I love you,” and mean it. You felt loved until you didn’t. Until the life he led ate him up. 

Instead of talking, instead of fighting with you, he drove you into a tree. A car that didn’t need sight, and still he crashed. It was winter then, the snow painted red by the blood of your broken heart. Your favorite dress torn up as you tried to escape. He reached for you the same way you reached for him, but you weren’t there. And he wasn’t there when you needed him most.

Part of you feels bad. You could have worked through this if he hadn’t kissed her. Or maybe you wouldn’t have. In the end, it killed you. It killed him. 

You killed each other. 

Though there are still days when you think about jumping off of very high somethings just to get his attention. Just for him to see you. To come to rescue you. It is a hurtful and selfish thought. Yet, you can’t help it. 

He was your first true love. 

Your mind keeps repeating the same sentence: It wasn’t supposed to end like this. 

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he told you once. 

He searched for something greater in the bed of someone he loved before. You weren’t his first love. You should have known he would say that and not mean it.

But when exactly did you go wrong?

Was it over when he stopped coming home at night? Was it over when he forgot your anniversary? Was it over when he canceled your birthday dinner? Or was it over when he shoved his throat down his ex-girlfriend’s throat in front of you and acted as if it didn’t matter? Was it over then?

“Another one for the lady,” a voice pipes up beside you. 

Your empty glass of tequila disappears, now replaced by a full one. In your drunken haze, you see a head of brown hair, and his smirk makes you wonder if there’s more to him than he lets on. 

“Thank you,” you murmur, tipping your glass to the stranger. 

“Nah, don’t thank me.” He sits down next to you. “You look miserable.”

“What if I am?”

“I’d tell you I know the feeling.”

You huff but offer the stranger your hand with a mention of your name.

He smiles. Your name rolls off his tongue effortlessly. “Frank,” he introduces himself in return. “Castle.”

“Nice to meet you,” you say. 

Broken people make bad decisions, but whether it was over when he took her right there on his couch, or it was over when you told him it was doesn’t matter. 

It is over now, and all you want to do is forget. 

You need to forget Matt Murdock. 

And if this stranger called Frank needs to unbutton your blouse to help you do so, you will gladly follow him home. 

Matt Murdock Tag List: @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @itwasthereaminuteago @mattkinsella @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @thychuvaluswife @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @ravenclaw617

(also, I keep tagging you in stuff, but I also think you might like this @blackshadowswriter)

[rebelliousstories]

Shadowy Past

Relationship: Remy LeBeau/Gambit x Reader

Fandom: X-Men

Request: Yes by Anon

Warnings: Fluff, Brief Angst, Mentions of Death and Alcohol

Word Count: 1,221

Main Masterlist: Here

X-Men Masterlist: Here

Summary: One after another, he lost her. Maybe this time will be different?

Consider Donating: Here

Gambit sat in the hideout messing with a playing card between his fingers. On the chair in front of him was her coat draped over it. Not his version though, rather another version that got sent to the Void. This version he had lost just like the others that came before her; taking on Cassandra alone to find a way out. Each time he tried to warn her, but she never listened to him.

Which is why when this new version came, he did not have high hopes for her.

She came in the middle of the night. Dumped in the Wasteland like some many others. It was by pure dumb luck that she had been dropped near where their little hideout had been placed. Sneaking in, she began to look for anything familiar, but only found lamps burning brightly in the night. Taking a bag of chips, the woman began looking around as she was eating. Muffled voices were heard, which sent her on edge. Before she could hide herself, a man stumbled in; and he was heading right to where she was. However, he stopped when he saw her.

“Chere, dat you?” Remy asked, wondering if he had finally found his lover.

“Remy?” Her voice was thick with bewilderment. ”You’re dead. How are you here? What is this sorcery?”

“No, chere. Ain’t dead yet. I’m assumin’ your Gambit is though.” He was dejected as he realized that this was just another variant.

“Yeah. He is. I’m assuming you have a me in your world then?” Remy nodded, grabbed a bottle of whiskey, and began to leave.

“Ya welcome t’ stay, chere. Just try not to go after Cassandra this time. It’s startin’ to get old.” With that, the Cajun left as soon as he had entered. But she still had questions that needed answering.

“Wait,” came her call as she caught up to him. “Where am I? Who’s Cassandra? How are you alive?”

“Chere, it’s been a long day, yeah? Jus’ wanna enjoy a drink without you deciding to go all hero on us. But if you promise not to do dat, you can come meet the others.”

“Others?”

Before her, surrounding the fire that blazed ahead, were four other people. Each one looked worse for wear, and held a somber expression. She tried to place their names to their faces,but she was just drawing a blank.

“Who’s this?” The older woman inquired, with her hand resting on the hilt of something on her hip.

“Who else? Seems like the universe wants t’ punish me for somethin’. Gotta say though, this one seems much calmer than the others.” Remy grumbled, uncapping the bottle and taking a long swig. Afterwards, he passed it to Johnny, who eagerly downed the liquid.

“Hi. I’m not too sure why I’m even here. Or where here is exactly.” She muttered, feeling shy as everyone’s eyes were on her.

“It’s called the Void,” Johnny started, passing the bottle to the woman in red. ”It’s where you go to die, or if you don’t play well with the multiverse. Welcome, again.”

“Well is there any way out?” Suddenly, she noticed how tense everything had gotten. The Cajun that was in front of her rested his elbows on his knees and drew in a shaky breath.

“Cassandra Nova would be the only person to get you out. But it’s a suicide mission. Trust us, we know.” Elektra stated, passing the bottle back to the Cajun who looked like he really needed it now. Without hesitation, he downed several gulps extraordinarily quick.

“So we’re stuck here?” She asked, feeling her heart drop with each second.

“‘fraid so.” Elektra stated once more. She watched what the new person was going to do for a few minutes as she processed the information.

“Is there anymore room, and anymore alcohol?” Coming over, she sat on the same log as Remy who passed her the bottle.

The rest of the evening was filled with introductions, and explanations about what was going on. She was not familiar with the concept of a multiverse, which Johnny was all too happy to explain to her. Throughout all of this though, she could not help but notice how distant Gambit was being. He was hesitant to get involved with any of her conversations, but did keep throwing her looks all evening.

When it came time to sleep, Remy offered her his bed, while he could lay on the ground. But she quickly shot it down. Instead, she offered that they could both sleep in the bed. It was certainly large enough for the two of them. But even with her that close, he could not sleep. Remy could feel the warmth seeping from her body through the pillow wall they had constructed. And that also meant that he could feel when she eventually rolled out of bed in the middle of the night.

She had stumbled through the unfamiliar territory and made her way outside where she could feel the cold seeping into her body. It felt refreshing after she tried to sleep near Gambit. She was constantly telling herself that this was not her own. Her’s had died years ago. This could not be him.

“Chere, whatcha doin’ out here?” He whispered, walking out into the moonlight that they found themselves in. It was so bright that they could have mistaken it for the sun.

“Nothing, Gambit,” came her reply. “Go back to bed. I’ll be fine.”

But he did not listen. Remy came, and plopped himself right next to her on the stone steps. Taking a deep breath in and out, he placed his hands behind him and leaned back.

“Ya know, when I was with my version of you, she would always tell me dat she was fine. Even when she knew dat I definitely saw through it. She always did it because she didn’t want me t’ worry ‘bout her. But it jus’ made me worry more.” He confessed. The evening was pulling from him things that he was sure he had not been able to feel in a long time.

“My Remy, he, um-” she stammered, “he would make me write when he couldn’t get me to talk for whatever reason. Going mute was always a warning sign. I don’t trust easily, and he knew that. When he died, I kind of lost it. I lashed out. But then a little voice popped into my head, and it sounded just like him. It brought me back, and has kept me sane since.” She admitted to the man that she had known for less than a day. But there was something about this Gambit that made her feel safe like her own.

“You travel t’ da Shadowlands anytime recently?” He wondered aloud, looking over at the woman who was watching the moon quietly.

“No, my Remy wouldn’t like it if I did without something or someone to pull me out.”

They got quiet as they allowed the moment to pass over them. Gambit was still staring at her as the night went on. Scooting closer, he pressed his shoulder against her own in a little bit of comfort. Thankfully, she leaned her head against his body, just like his had done. Maybe this was how they always functioned, in every universe.

[shiorimakibawrites]

Hi Shiori!! Can I request a “Grab Your Tissues” for either Matt or Frank? Whoever you’re feeling more for the prompt: “I can’t sleep”

Hi Sapph! I hope you enjoy this (as well as your trip!)

Tags/Warnings: Insomnia, Low self-esteem, Mention of Stick, Referenced child abandonment Taglist: @loves0phelia, @nowheredreamer, @beezusvreeland, @yarrystyleeza

Can’t Sleep

Matt couldn’t sleep.

Not an unusual occurrence for him. His sleep schedule was terrible. Had been for years. Ever since the accident. Even with Stick’s training, he couldn’t seem to shut out the world enough to sleep sometimes. Tonight was one of those nights.

It seemed like every little sound in this building kept drilling into his ears. Foggy’s snores. People talking in the rec room. Other students in their dorms having sex or arguing. Or in the case of Jimmy and Amanda two floors up, both at the same time. People watching a movie or listening to music. The buzz of the lights, the rattling of the pipes, the flushing of toilets. The list went on and on. All perfectly normal sounds, typical for the student hall at night. No one was being particularly loud but for some reason Matt just couldn’t tune it out.

It didn’t help that his bed was uncomfortable. The laundry service had gotten backed up. So when Matt had accidentally spilled dinner all over his sheets, he didn’t have any fresh ones to put on. Foggy immediately offered his spare set so Matt wouldn’t have to sleep on a bare mattress until he got his spare sheets back. Or dirty ones got washed. Whichever came first.

Matt appreciated it. Really he did. Foggy was a good friend. A better friend that someone like him deserved. But all the gratitude in the world wouldn’t change that these cotton-poly blend sheets felt like sandpaper on his skin.

He was out of practice ignoring the sensation. He had gotten used to silk. He could hear Stick calling him a pussy for allowing himself to become so dependent on something like silk sheets. And maybe he was right. But it had been so nice, being comfortable while he slept, for the first time since the accident. He had thanked God for leading him to that girl’s bed during his first semester. Her silk sheets had been a revelation. So much of one that Matt had taken some of his precious cash and immediately bought two sets.

Foggy had teased him about it a little, joking that he was turning their dorm room into a brothel. They ended up pondering the logistics of such a venture, one of those bizarre yet thoroughly entertaining conversations he often had with Foggy. Sometimes it felt like he could tell Foggy anything.

Matt rolled over, trying to find a less uncomfortable spot. Another reason he couldn’t sleep. A debate weighed heavily on his mind. An argument he had been having with himself for months. Should he tell Foggy about his senses? His training? What really happened the night Elektra dumped him?

He wanted to. Sometimes it was all he could do to keep it behind his teeth. To only give the barest of hints, hoping that Foggy would pick up them. Put two and two together. It was possible. Foggy was a smart guy. Far smarter than he liked to give himself credit for. Sometimes it seemed like he had, from some of his questions.

But another, equally powerful part of his mind, dreaded Foggy learning those things. That Hey buddy would transform into Get away from me freak.

No matter how many times Matt tried to tell himself that Foggy wasn’t like that. He wasn’t cruel. Convince himself that Foggy wouldn’t reject him for his abilities. Remember how Foggy had gotten in people’s faces for being homophobic or racist or any number of things. He had protested bills targeting mutants. Every logical part of his brain said telling Foggy was safe.

And yet the terror remained. The knowledge that he was so awful that even as a baby, his own mother couldn’t stand him. The phantom sound of Stick’s retreating footstep clogged his ears. The ghost of Elektra’s perfume and that man’s blood filled his nose. All of it froze his tongue in his mouth. Seized his jaw in crushing grip.

He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk losing his friend. Matt was too weak. He needed that connection, craved the easy affection Foggy gave him as easy as breathing. He couldn’t lose it. He couldn’t . . .

“Matt?”

Matt started. He had been so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even heard Foggy wake up. Or sit up for that matter.

“Hey Foggy,” he said. “What are you doing up?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Foggy said. “It’s 3 AM.”

Matt shifted so he was facing the direction of Foggy’s bed. “I can’t sleep.”

“Why? Bad dreams?”

“Nah . . . just worried about that final in Dr. White’s class,” Matt answered. It wasn’t entirely a lie.

“Buddy, you shouldn’t be worried about that. You got that philosophy junk backwards and forwards.”

“It’s not junk,” Matt retorted automatically, sitting up himself when he heard Foggy moving. Getting up. “What are you doing?”

“Grabbing my laptop,” Foggy said. “Since neither of us can sleep, we’re watching a movie.”

“You were sleeping just fine.”

“Oh contraire mon ami, I was as restless as you were. You ain’t the only one worried about finals.” Foggy said. It was a lie. Matt didn’t need to hear the little skip in his heart to know that. And yet . . .

“What movie?”

“Do you really have to ask? The Princess Bride.”

“Haven’t you seen it a million times?”

“And I’ll see it a million and one.”

Matt let it go. It wasn’t worth arguing with Foggy about it. He recognized that tone. Besides he liked The Princess Bride. Listening to it one more time wouldn’t hurt.

[toadinthechest]

WARNING! LONG POST WITH LOTS OF DRAWINGS!

First thing first! Some context:

Last year I've been introduced to Epic the musical which reignited my childhood obsession with greek mythology. Since then a lot of my themed drawings have been piled up. I don't think I will draw anything related anytime soon due to some "in real life stuff". So I decided to post most of them here dividing in two.

And this is the first post, which mostly contains drawings with Iris!

Why Iris? Let's just say I have never heard of her before, but after reading the Illiad I LOVED the idea of two Olympic messengers who counterpart each other.

As you can see in this take on their designs I wanted to give Hermes rather dusty and faded color scheme, while Iris is the burst of colors! However *headcanon!* their character is completely opposite to their appearance. So while Hermes is very lively, energetic, outgoing and chaotic, Iris on the other hand is collected and composed, calm, kinda a withdraw person (brooding even over something *cough* Titanomachy *cough*).

Speaking of the Illiad, while reading I've noticed that Homer used an interesting adjective to describe a brunete person: violet haired. So here's random portrait of young Zeus:

But let's get back to Iris. Her origins are also very interesting. I wouldn't ever guessed that she's rather sea goddess than anything! You see, her parents are Thaumas (sea god who personified the wonders of the sea) and Elektra (cloud-nymph of the amber-trim), and grand parents accordingly: Pontos, Okeanos and Tethys.

Btw I already talked how different scanners affect your drawing. It took me several days to convert next two pieces into digital format... Because I literally needed the SUN to do that. Why? Because the first scanner "ate" the colors from drawings and i couldn't restore them. And the second one made them incorrigibly dark. So I waited days for sunny weather and make a photo with phone. I have no idea what am I going to do in winter. But I hope I will come up with something!

I'd like to tell more about these two drawings. On the first one I pictured several celestial gods: Hemera, Helios, Selene and Eos. Looking at them now I realize I actually want to change Selene's design (it's just waaay too simple) and maybe I'd like to make Eos a little bit chubby or curvy. By now you must have already realize that Helios's design is basically humanization of sun in sunglasses (I know it doesn't really fit his character in myths, I just thought it would be more funny and interesting). As for Hemera... I will explain hers and few other gods designs in second post.

The second picture is... Well... Iris and her twin sister Arke the traitor. Look now... I know that there is only one literary source where this character is mentioned, which dates back to the 1st-2nd century AD. So I'm not entirely sure that it can be considered part of ancient Greek mythology. Basically, I just like the idea of ​​such character and how her existing would affect other characters.

Anyway. Iris is also a sister to harpies! (I will show their designs in next post) So I was thinking what Iris would look like if she herself were one?

Congratulations! You made it till the end of the post! Here's some scribbles of Olympic messengers:

[girlfromenglishclass]

What's your opinion on Electra? I've just finished Jennifer Saint's book and I was reminded why I've always disliked her. She didn't seem to be upset her elder sister is dead, her father is a saint in her eyes and Clytemnestra is suddenly the bad person here?

I'm VERY glad you asked this question, because it gives me a chance to talk about the saddest girl with nobody to love her.

For the record, I do NOT believe Jennifer Saint did justice to Elektra in her book. I strongly prefer Claire North's depictions of her in The Songs of Penelope. Saint did her dirty. She simplified her into a girl who doesn't like her mom when Elektra is much more. She's really the only bystander in the complex web of the House of Atreus, the moral problem presented by the acts.

Let's look at what Anne Carson says about her.

Elektra has reason to be loyal to her father. From her perspective, he is the king of kings, and she is his daughter. He's been gone long enough that she only knows his mythos. His evil is removed from her, but Clytemnestra can be blamed because she's present.

The most important thing across Elektra's characterization is that she's alone.

In the years of war, Clytemnestra's grief has clearly grown around her in a way that makes her inaccessible to her children. Now, I love Clytemnestra, I will never not love her, but the reason why I love her is that the House of Atreus is deeply cursed and everyone is beset with darkness.

Even the chorus thinks so

Elektra's grief over Iphigenia isn't really addressed, but it's implied that she's too young to remember her. What she does remember though is what was left of the house when her father left. So it makes sense that she pinned all her hopes on happiness on her father's return.

Something I've mentioned in other posts is that the logic that Orestes uses to justify killing Clytemnestra is the same logic that Clytemnestra uses to kill Agamemnon. They killed my kin, so I kill them; it's justice. What we as Clytemnestra lovers have to admit is that if she is right, so it he. It's the nature of the bloodcurse.

The hypothetical love of her father is preferred to the distance of her real mother. Even if we love her, Elektra does not. Elektra would rather be with the dead than the living.

[chvoswxtch]

Hi! I’m so so sorry about all the blackwidow!reader requests, but I just had this idea. I’m not sure if you write for Elecktra but I was wondering if you could do a fic where Elecktra and the reader are sparring together and there’s obviously a little tense that leads to a makeout session?

hi nonnie! please don't apologize, I am loving all of them!!

thank you SO MUCH for requesting elektra. i've been wanting to write for her, but I hadn't had any ideas, so thank you!! I hope you don't mind i'm doing this one next, but as soon as I read your idea it hit me like lightning and I got really excited and admittedly carried away. 🙃

warning: contains mentions of blood & swearing. word count: 2.7k

get me.

“You’re not paying attention.”

“You’re being a pain in the ass.”

“And do you think your opponent is going to be tolerable? Would you find me more endearing with my blade against your throat? Surely, that would make you focus.”

Why the fuck you had agreed to train with Elektra in the first place? Oh right, you hadn’t. Jess had pawned you off on her since she was caught up in a case. God you would’ve rather trained alone than with her. The smirk that tugged at the corner of her mouth and the smug look plastered across her perfect face only fueled the anger simmering in your blood. You lunged forward to strike, but she was too quick, and with a swipe of her foot she sent you tumbling right on your ass with a grunt.

“Am I pissing you off?”

“Figured that out all on your own, did you?”

You grit through your ground teeth, pushing yourself up onto your feet as you pushed loose strands of hair away from your sweaty forehead.

“You’re letting me get to you.”

“You have a talent for that.”

Elektra’s lips quirked upwards in another proud smirk, tilting her head to the side slightly as her dark eyes traveled over your form. You’d been at this for at least two hours, and she hadn’t even broken a sweat. As much as you hated to admit it, she was good. Really fucking good. Deep down you knew she could teach you things the others couldn’t; things the others wouldn’t. Because as good as she was, she was also ruthless. She was the one you wanted to learn from, but you’d never tell her that. 

“What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?”

A shiver skyrocketed through your body when her velvet voice suddenly sounded right by your ear. When the hell did she move behind you? How did you miss that?

“How the f-”

“I told you, you’re not paying attention.”

A huff fell from your lips as you turned around to face her. Mischief was dancing around in her eyes, and for some reason that infuriated you further. This all seemed to be one big game to her, but you weren’t sure what the prize was.

“Why are you here?”

“Why are any of us here?”

“Cut the shit, Elektra. Why are you helping me?”

“Jessica asked me to.”

“And what’s in it for you?”

Elektra rolled her eyes as she took a few steps backward to lean against the ropes casually, giving you a pointed look accompanied by a dazzling smile.

“Do you really think so lowly of me, moonlight?”

You instantly tensed, furrowing your brows in confusion at the pet name. Elektra quirked one of her brows in return, lips splitting into a full blown charming grin.

“Sunshine doesn’t fit you. You’re too grumpy. But, still just as pretty. Now, shall we continue?”

“What’s in it for you?”

Elektra pursed her lips, letting out a deep exhale through her nose as she pushed herself off the ropes and stood in front of you.

“Is it really so hard for you to believe that I just want to help you?”

“Considering you have a history of being egotistical and self-involved, yes. Not to mention you nearly laid my ass out the first time we met.”

“Oh please, that was a love tap. And a complete accident, we’ve been over this. Get in position.”

“Elektra-”

“Get. In. Position.”

You dug your nails into your palms as she stared you down, tilting her head slightly in challenge. Deciding to disobey out of pure spite, you swung your right fist towards her jaw, letting out a cry of frustration as she caught your wrist and twisted it behind your back. She grabbed a handful of your ponytail, yanking your head back roughly against her chest as she spoke lowly in your ear.

“If you don’t start listening, I’m going to stop playing nice. Anger clouds your judgment. It makes you sloppy. Let it fuel you, but don’t let it consume you. Focus, Y/N.”

You hated the way she said your name. You hated how nice it sounded coming from her lips. Was it the accent? The cadence? The confidence in every word she spoke? Was it just her?

You yanked your hand away as she released it, rubbing away the soreness in your wrist as you closed your eyes for a moment and took a few deep breaths to steady yourself. She was right. You weren’t focusing. Granted it was hard to focus when she was the one you were supposed to focus on.

Let it go.

Once you felt like your head was finally clear, you opened your eyes and turned to face her. She stood up a little straighter, giving you a slight nod.

“Ready?”

“Ready.”

“Good. You know what to do. Show me you can.”

Let it fuel you. Don’t let it consume you.

You threw two punches that Elektra blocked easily, quickly stepping back before she could land a hit on you. The ghost of a satisfied smile crossed her lips as she watched you, circling around you like a predator. Your eyes darted fervently between her face and her footing, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. As she lunged forward, you sidestepped and landed a quick blow to her chest. She stumbled back only slightly, shaking her head slowly as you retreated.

“No. You’re not trying to last a round. You’re fighting for your life. One of us isn’t leaving this alive. Who’s it going to be?”

This was the difference between Elektra and the others. They were teaching you to protect yourself, and to use force if necessary. Elektra was teaching you to strike first. Eliminate the threat before they even have a chance to be a problem. They were teaching you justice. She was teaching you survival.

She showed you no mercy as she threw blow after blow to your chest, taking you down with a rough kick that nearly knocked the breath out of your lungs. You coughed as you tried to take in oxygen normally, turning your head to look at her with narrowed eyes. Her patience with you was clearly running thin. You could see displeasure cracking through her exquisitely carved features.

“Get me.”

Pushing yourself up to your feet, you lunged at her again. The two of you fell into a dance of sorts, trading punches and kicks to a tune only your ears could hear. Blood dripped from your nose after her fist collided with it, causing you to grimace as you took a step backwards.

“Quit holding back. I won’t hesitate to hurt you, and you shouldn’t either.”

“Yeah, I can fucking see that.”

Elektra’s hand was suddenly around your throat, nearly cutting off your air supply as she pulled you in so close that your noses were barely a centimeter apart.

“I won’t tell you again. Get. Me.”

Why were you pulling your punches on a woman that could kill a man with her bare hands? Why were you holding back? Whatever reason you had went out the window when you saw the ferocity burning in her eyes. She wasn’t going to let you off easily. You weren’t giving her what she wanted. You were barely even trying. She wanted you to prove yourself to her, and as much as you hated it, you wanted to prove yourself to her.

And this might be your only shot.

Grabbing onto Elektra’s wrist and the back of her neck, you headbutted her harshly, bringing your knee up to force her backwards as it knocked into her chest. She blocked one of your punches but you quickly threw another with your opposite, sending her back further with another powerful kick to her stomach. Once there was a distance between you both, you ran towards her to gain momentum, locking your legs around her neck as you flipped both of your bodies to bring her down onto the mat in the black widow move you had been practicing.

Elektra stared up at you with wide eyes as you had her body pinned beneath you, both of your thighs still locked around her head. Both of you panted heavily, silencing lingering for a few moments. Feeling a powerful surge of pride, you cocked your head to the side as you stared down at her with a smug half smirk.

“Got you.”

Elektra’s lips parted into a wide grin, and you noticed that her pupils had dilated slightly. Her hands moved upwards to grab onto your thighs, slender fingers digging softly into the material of your leggings.

“Where on Earth did you learn how to do that?”

“What, they didn’t teach you that in any of your fancy classes?”

“You really have been holding back on me.”

“They don’t teach me everything. Some stuff I have to learn on my own.”

“Well there’s a very important lesson they clearly haven’t taught you.”

“Which is?”

Elektra’s grip on your thighs tightened as she suddenly flipped you both over, quickly positioning herself on your hips as she pinned your hands tightly above your head. The wicked grin was back on her lips as she took in your shocked state, leaning in so close that your noses were almost touching again.

“Don’t assume your opponent is down for good until you put them down for good.”

Blinking a few times, you swiped your tongue over your lips, still tasting the metallic tang of blood that had been wiped away. The movement caught Elektra’s attention only for a split second before her eyes were back on yours.

“Yeah…they uh, didn’t teach me that.”

“I’ll teach you everything.”

“Why?”

Elektra shook her head slowly as her eyes wandered over your face, her features appearing softer than you had ever seen them before. The fire in her eyes was still there, but it was burning differently. 

“Oh moonlight, you really don’t pay attention, do you?”

Before you had a chance to jumble the pieces in your brain into a somewhat cohesive picture, Elektra was leaning in to brush her lips against yours. You instantly froze, the movement so soft, you weren’t even sure it had happened. Her eyes flickered up to search yours, lips still hovering above your own. You weren’t sure what answer she was looking for, or what you were supposed to give her, but she must have found something.

Her lips were firmer this time as they pressed to yours, more certain as her hands gently squeezed your wrists to signal for you to relax. You slowly unclenched your palms, letting her hands snake up to take them, interlacing your fingers together in a delicate pattern. You gripped onto your bound hands tightly as your lips moved together in sync, lifting your head up slightly to be even closer, to reach even more of her. The scent of her ridiculously expensive perfume invaded your surroundings and made you feel light headed, or maybe that was just her. Elektra’s dark hair fell over you like a curtain, blocking some of the dull light in the old gym, making it feel like the two of you had snuck away to some place only meant for the two of you.

The warmth of her tongue gliding along your bottom lip, gently demanding entry, had you gasping into her mouth. A hushed giggle vibrated against your lips, and suddenly, she was gone. Your eyes snapped open, staring up at her above you, bathed in amber light like an ethereal goddess of some kind. She let go of one of your hands, lightly tracing her fingertip along your cheekbone as she started down at you.

“Does that clear things up for you?”

You couldn’t find your voice. The past few minutes felt like a fever dream, and you weren’t sure they had been real. You nodded your head slowly in response, unable to break her hypnotizing gaze. 

“Did I break you?”

Elektra inquired with a playful tone, arching one of her dark brows as she continued to outline your jaw with her index finger, a knee-weakening smile splitting her lips.

“No.”

“She speaks!”

You closed your eyes for a moment, letting out a deep exhale through your nose as you tried to regain your bearings and figure out what the fuck just happened. A gentle tap on your nose had your eyes fluttering open as you stared up at Elektra curiously.

“Hey, I wasn’t making fun of you. I’m just as breathless as you are. I promise.”

“I can’t tell.”

“I kissed you, if you recall.”

A nervousness settled in the pit of your stomach as you stared up at Elektra. You weren’t sure what this meant, if it meant anything to her at all, or where to go from here. There were a lot of uncertainties swirling around in your head that you couldn’t silence.

“So…what now?”

“Well, I’d say we’ve both earned a nice, long hot shower. And considering you did so well today, I think you deserve a little extra treat. Don’t you?”

Your lips parted slightly as scarlet spread furiously across the tops of your cheeks and over your slightly heaving chest. There was an undertone lingering beneath those words Elektra wasn’t even bothering to mask, and it made you dizzy. Clearly pleased with her affect on you, she leaned in again to gently brush her lips over yours, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“Tell me, moonlight, have you ever seen New York City from a penthouse?”

[konigsberg]

would you consider (if you havent already) making a rec list for books/authors/poets/etc? your breadth of classics knowledge and the source material you draw inspiration from always intrigues me.

I'd be happy to, but I think I might (accidentally) give the impression of being more familiar with a lot of these things than I actually am haha.

I'll focus on classics or classics-related recs, but there are some things I'll throw in here because, even though they aren't classics (or classics in the sense I think you probably mean, as in directly related to ancient Greece etc.), they've influenced what I’ve written in some way. I should also be clear, I haven’t read all of these things, sometimes only pieces, or they’re things I’ve been meaning to read and keep putting off but people might be interested in. And I’m definitely not an expert. I’m not properly educated on these topics, so I’m not sure if anything I include might be considered a bad resource by someone with a background in this field.

Also, as I was putting together this list… I was gawking at the prices of so many of these. Like 90% I grabbed at my local secondhand bookstore and I would encourage anyone interested to try to get these used (Thriftbooks is an online store to look at if you don’t have a good local store, though I’m not sure where all it ships to) or from a site like Project Gutenberg etc. Libraries are always good too, of course (some might be on Archive.org, which is a place where you can check out books online). I may be able to help you find ways to get your hands on some of these sources if you’re struggling to find it.

Fiction

Aethiopica by Heliodorus (tr. Moses Hadas) - An ancient Greek novel. “The Aethiopica tells the story of an Ethiopian princess and a Thessalian prince who undergo a series of perils (battles, voyages, piracy, abductions, robbery, and torture) before their eventual happy marriage in the heroine’s homeland.” Summary from here.

An Oresteia (tr. Anne Carson) - Carson’s translations of Aiskhylos' Agamemnon, Sophokles' Elektra, and Euripides' Orestes. Literally anything Carson touches is gold, please just read everything translated or written by her here, even if you’ve read other translations. “After the murder of her daughter Iphigeneia by her husband, Agamemnon, Klytaimestra exacts a mother's revenge, murdering Agamemnon and his mistress, Kassandra. Displeased with Klytaimestra's actions, Apollo calls on her son, Orestes, to avenge his father's death with the help of his sister Elektra. In the end, Orestes is driven mad by the Furies for his bloody betrayal of family. Condemned to death by the people of Argos, he and Elektra must justify their actions ― or flout society, justice and the gods.”

Arete: Greek Sports from Ancient Sources by Stephen G. Miller - All about the concept of arete. Exactly what it says on the tin.

The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece by John J. Winkler - Another that’s exactly what it says on the tin. “For centuries, classical scholars have intensely debated the "position of women" in classical Athens. Did women have a vast but informal power, or were they little better than slaves? Using methods developed from feminist anthropology, Winkler steps back from this narrowly framed question and puts it in the larger context of how sex and gender in ancient Greece were culturally constructed. His innovative approach uncovers the very real possibilities for female autonomy that existed in Greek society.” (My friend has another book from this collection (?) called The New Ancient World, which I want to get if I ever actually… finish reading this one. But that one is called One Hundred Years of Sexuality, I think, and there’s another called Games of Venus, which also looks very interesting so I want to mention them.)

The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) by Apuleius (tr. E.J. Kenney) - This is another that feels like it might go without saying, but whatever. This is where the story of Cupid & Psyche is told. If I understand correctly, this is the oldest (surviving, and possibly only?) extended account of Eros & Psyche’s myth, though art of the two appears much earlier so I assume Apuleius was drawing from older sources. “Written towards the end of the second century AD, The Golden Ass tells the story of the many adventures of a young man whose fascination with witchcraft leads him to be transformed into a donkey. The bewitched Lucius passes from owner to owner - encountering a desperate gang of robbers and being forced to perform lewd 'human' tricks on stage - until the Goddess Isis finally breaks the spell and initiates Lucius into her cult.” Actually, this is the physical copy I have and I got it just because I really wanted a physical copy, but I haven’t read it. I read a version for free online years ago when my obsession with Cupid & Psyche first took shape and I… have no clue who translated that one. But, well, here we are. You can definitely find this on Project Gutenberg, probably by a different translator, though.

Greek Fictional Letters (edited by C.D.N. Costa) - “This book explores a relatively unfamiliar and under-appreciated area of Greek literature: imaginary letters written between about 100 BC and 500 AD. Many of them are light-hearted and funny, and describe the lives of ordinary people--fisherman, farmers, courtesans. Others look at more serious and philosophical aspects of life. All the letters are translated, and the notes offer help to both expert and less informed readers.”

Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides (tr. Anne Carson) - Carson’s translations of the plays Herakles, Hekabe, Hippolytos, and Alkestis. “Herakles, in which the hero swaggers home to destroy his own family; Hekabe, set after the Trojan War, in which Hektor’s widow takes vengeance on her Greek captors; Hippolytos, about love and the horror of love; and the strange tragic-comedy fable Alkestis, which tells of a husband who arranges for his wife to die in his place.”

The Iliad by Homer (tr. Robert Fagles) - Do I need to include this? I’m including this, if only to say this is the translation I have.

Medea by Euripides - This is, of course, the play depicting what happens when Jason attempts to remarry, betraying Medea. I can’t find my copy right now to specify which translation, but I didn’t particularly enjoy it anyway (the translation, not the play to be clear). Here’s a copy on Gutenberg.

The Odyssey by Homer (tr. Emily Wilson) - Again, just noting this is the translation I have more than anything.

The Voyage of Argo: The Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes (tr. E.V. Rieu) - Covers Jason’s quest. You can find various translations for free on Project Gutenberg.

Nonfiction

The Black Andromeda by Elizabeth McGrath - This is a paper about Princess Andromeda’s race and how it has been depicted throughout art and literature. It’s relevant to the Aethiopica and how it handles or fails to handle race.

Burial customs, the afterlife and the pollution of death in ancient Greece by Francois Pieter and Louise Cilliers - A research paper covering exactly what it says it does. I haven’t read much of this even though I really should and the parts I have read are so, so interesting.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece by Carlos Gómez - General history.

Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay by Anne Carson - All about love as the ancient Greeks conceptualized it. I beg you all to read this. This is the one I’ve posted a bunch of my notes on to twitter. “A book about romantic love, Eros the Bittersweet is Anne Carson's exploration of the concept of "eros" in both classical philosophy and literature. Beginning with, "It was Sappho who first called eros 'bittersweet.' No one who has been in love disputes her," Carson examines her subject from numerous points of view, creating a lyrical meditation in the tradition of William Carlos Williams's Spring and All and William H. Gass's On Being Blue.”

The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology by Marcel Detienne (tr. Janet Lloyd) - I haven’t read much of this, but I know I need to. “Rich with implications for the history of sexuality, gender issues, and patterns of Hellenic literary imagining, Marcel Detienne's landmark book recasts long-standing ideas about the fertility myth of Adonis.”

Granddaughter of the Sun: A Study of Euripides' Medea by C.A.E. Luschnig - I’ve also been posting screenshots from this as I read it because it makes me super unhinged. All about Her… “By looking at aspects of Medea that are largely overlooked in the criticism, this book aims at an open and multiple reading. It shows that stories presented in the drama of 5th century Athens are not unrelated to human beings who actually exist.”

Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion - “This collection challenges the tendency among scholars of ancient Greece to see magical and religious ritual as mutually exclusive and to ignore ‘magical’ practices in Greek religion.”

Portraits of Grief: Death, Mourning and the Expression of Sorrow on White-Ground Lêkythoi by Molly Evangeline Allen - Someone’s research on funerary vases. I haven’t read much of it, but I came across it while trying to find other info and it looked interesting.

Poetry

Ovid: The Erotic Poems (tr. Peter Green) - Ovid is a Roman poet, but I think his work might be of interest. “This collection of Ovid's poems deals with the whole spectrum of sexual desire, ranging from deeply emotional declarations of eternal devotion to flippant arguments for promiscuity.”

Ovid’s Poetry of Exile (tr. David R. Slavitt) - More of Ovid’s work.

Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works (tr. Diane J. Rayor) - Please… Please… any translations of Sappho you can get… read them…

Miscellaneous

Desire, Discord and Death: Approaches to Near Eastern Myth by Neal H. Walls - Obviously not Greek, but I feel like anyone interested in ancient mythology about queerness, love, death, and sex would find this really interesting. “The three essays presented in this volume reveal the symbolic complexity and poetic visions of ancient Near Eastern mythology. The author explores the interrelated themes of erotic desire, divine conflict, and death's realm in selected ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian mythological narratives using contemporary methods of literary analysis. Topics include the construction of desire in the Gilgamesh epic, a psychoanalytic approach to 'The Contendings of Horus and Seth', and gender and the exercise of power in the stormy romance of Nergal and Ereshkigal.”

Erotism: Death and Sensuality by Georges Bataille (tr. Mary Dalwood) - I haven’t read much of this and I know based on Bataille’s fiction (my man was really on some shit)… this is sure to be really unhinged. But it’s all about life, death, religion, and sex. “Bataille challenges any single discourse on the erotic. The scope of his inquiry ranges from Emily Bronte to Sade,from St. Therese to Claude Levi-Strauss and Dr. Kinsey.  The subjects he covers include prostitution, mythical ecstasy, cruelty, and organized war. Investigating desire prior to and extending beyond the realm of sexuality, he argues that eroticism is ‘a psychological quest not alien to death.’” I feel like… there probably needs to be trigger warnings for this one, but who knows what lol. This is actually the main book I’ve been using to help me learn French too, which is… a choice on my part for real, but that’s getting really off topic.

[dhampiravidi]

my review of deadpool & wolverine

spoilers under the cut!

Overall, I liked it. I'll give it a 7/10.

OK so, I didn't make it through ANY of the Deadpool films w/o falling asleep & not bc I'm narcoleptic. I just got bored, which SUCKS bc Wade's my favorite Marvel character (at least in the comics/other media). I had hopes for this movie only bc of the lead actors' commitment to their characters & bc putting them in what's essentially a buddy cop movie was smart as fuck. At the same time...the MCU hasn't put out a satisfactory movie (aka 1 w/o plot holes or simply disappointing bits) since...maybe Winter Soldier? Eh, I don't remember. ANYWAY!

Considering that I didn't really see Deadpool 3, it was fairly easy for me to understand the beginning. Yes, I was a little confused at first, because I didn't know that he time-traveled & ALSO hopped universes...but I figured it out eventually. I like that they made his motivations 1) saving his found family & 2) wanting to do something worthwhile. That being said, I never wanted Deadpool to have a love interest unless it was maybe Shiklah or Lady Deadpool bc they actually DO "match his crazy" & they're interesting on their own. I also didn't know who "Pete" was until I looked him up, bc MCU!Pete isn't the same as comics!Pete. I'm used to poor fucking Bob from HYDRA 😅

Onto more plot...I knew as soon as that guy introduced himself as "Mr. Paradox", he'd be evil, bc the whole point of time is that you don't want paradoxes (if that wasn't clear). I got confused thinking that Wade was from a different universe than Logan* SO that made me think Wade was his own timeline's anchor being...yeah I realized that wouldn't make sense. The fight scene w/the TVA people was a little long but satisfying, at least in that it was as bloody & creative as a Deadpool fight scene should be.

I got worried when they mentioned The Void, bc I only made it through a few episodes of Loki before I got bored & confused. I can keep comic timelines straight if you let me read through & get to know each Earth individually, but not the way the MCU deals out timeline lore. HOWEVER, it was decent! I already knew about the Johnny cameo (stupid headline spoiler) but I was happy for Chris Evans (especially during the end credits scene) & I liked the Mad Max reference. The end credits scene was especially important bc Deadpool doesn't usually hand people over to be killed unless doing so will prevent HIM from getting into a lot of trouble. He's a merc who WILL & DOES kill, but typically he lets innocent people go.

Fuck Nicepool for being boring (but I think that was the point) & no, I did not like Channing Tatum's Gambit (I know he's from Louisiana but I HOPE that accent was bad on purpose, the headpiece was too chonky & I am loyal to the canon film Gambit *blushes*). That aside, I absolutely loved what we got of Laura, Elektra & Blade. Loved their fight scene, even though it sucked to see them go.

Cassandra Nova was appropriately sociopathic, as per the comics. I kept screaming for them to kill her, bc I KNEW she wasn't gonna turn good all of a sudden, but it made sense why she let them survive. I don't know HOW she can stick her hand into someone's head w/o killing them while they STILL feel pain (or how she didn't die after being stabbed; IDK maybe they're saying she telekinetically healed herself?). I liked how they brought back the Doctor Strange finger-thingy (wait, so does that mean the TVA has a constant problem of amateur magic-users going into different timelines on accident??).

As a comics fan, I was SO EXCITED seeing all the Deadpool variants. There were a bunch of references to Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, which is where (if you don't know) a version of Deadpool is psychically attacked. But instead of being brainwashed, his thought boxes (which act as his companions & consciences) disappear, only for him to realize that he's in a comic. Yes, he usually breaks the 4th wall. The problem is, he reasons that his friends keep suffering for the amusement of our world, so the only way to stop the cycle is to kill all the heroes, THEN kill the people who write the comic. ANYWAY! Killpool (I think that's what he's called) ends up getting confronted by mainstream/Good!Deadpool, who's assembled a Deadpool Corps of AU-Deadpools to fight all of the OTHER recruited Deadpools. Said DPs on the good side include Kidpool, Headpool (zombie head) & Lady Deadpool.

In other words, I rioted upon seeing all these versions who definitely have some cool backstories. When Logan & Wade went through them, I got pissed OFF ("wtf why didn't they heal?"). I thought they were gonna debate needing to kill Babypool (adorable), when everyone started waking up. I also liked how they showed someone growing back limbs, which is important considering the whole regenerative factor.

I do wonder how antimatter reacting w/matter didn't blow up the whole underground + 10005's version of New York or wherever, but there's always a plot hole. Besides, they've had lots of alien attacks. Maybe they build their undergrounds like nuclear bomb shelters.

All in all, 7/10.

*Is this Logan/Wade's universe the Fox movie universe? Bc we saw Captain Marvel's buddy, aka MVP of the shitty CM2, land there...so I assume the Fox universe is fine...but it CAN'T be THIS MOVIE's universe, bc their Logan wouldn't be that old! Also Logan isn't as old as Wade, but I'm pretty sure Wade shouldn't be chronologically just 30...? IDK if that was implied. TL;DR my precious Fox universe is fine. Thank you, nostalgia, The Good X-Men Casting & poor beloved misused Taylor Kitsch!Gambit + Anna Paquin!Rogue 😭

[sixamese-simblr]

Alien Invasion: Family trees 25 years in

It's been 25 years since the invasion of Pleasantview and Strangetown started. Since Tycho is technically born in-game and he had a baby with Lucy Burb, the first born in-game generation is now complete for my alien invasion hood!

PT was really busy early on, but his jobs have slowed down lately. The rule was to only summon him when a human man rolled a want for a baby. Among his kids are Tycho, Vidcund Jr., Loki's twins Atom and Ceres and their younger sister Elektra (number 7 in the row), and finally John Burbs 3 alien kids Jane, Joe and Jack. Tycho already has a child of his own, little Joule with Lucy Burb.

Stella has a relatively modest number of kids at 4. Her eldest, Aster (pictured second), was born from her short-lived marriage to Cassandra Goth, and Deneb (pictured first) was born about a year after, from the affair she had with Darren that ended that marriage. She has two girls from her marriage to Vidcund: Violet and Cundy Sinclair Nova.

Chloe is happily married to Ripp, and has three children with him: Melanie, Bruno and Flavio. Outside of her marriage, she has three more: Azzura Goth, Alexander's daughter, Junior Oldie, Herb's son, and Rina Singles, the daughter she had with Nina. Only Junior and Rina have any alien DNA, although it remains unexpressed in Junior.

Lola has only two kids, Sitara and Parveen Loner in a previous marriage to Ajay. Sitara, the younger of the two, possesses recessive alien genes.

Jill has 3 kids, 2 with her longtime fiancé Buck: Jeff and Jess. Additionally, she has a toddler age son with Beau: Bill Broke. Jess has her grandfather's green skin, and Bill has latent alien DNA.

Johnny has done one hell of a job, with no fewer than 9 children. From eldest to youngest, we have Gertrude Nigmos, with the late Ophelia, Esmeralda Broke with Dustin, Diana and Dzvezda Smith with Dirk, Beelzebub Pleasant with Lilith, Justina Smith with Dina, twins Arma and Colt Grunt with Tank and finally baby Eric Davis with Johnny's most recent ex-husband Aldric. Of these, Justina is homozygous for alien genes, making her the first full blood alien to be born in the neighborhood.

Dina has a modest 4 children. Her eldest two are the twins Dino and Regina Goth with Mortimer, followed by her son Michael with her wife Angela. Finally, she had Justina with Johnny, as previously mentioned. Michael has latent alien genes.

Unfortunately, Nina and her husband Don passed away when a cockroach-borne epidemic swept SimCity. With him, she had two daughters called Jezebel and Carmen Lothario. Outside of her marriage, she had 5 more kids: Laser Grunt with Buzz, Rina Singles with Chloe, Paul Curious with Vidcund, Nino Pleasant with Daniel and Ulysses Beaker with Circe. Of these, Rina and Ulysses have alien skin, and Nino has recessive alien genes.

In total, this means the next generation consists of no fewer than 42 sims. 24 of those have alien skin, with one of them being a full alien. 5 sims have recessive alien genes, and 13 are fully human.

For the upcoming generation, I will be focusing on pairing off the half-alien offspring with each other. Hopefully, by the next generation we will have arrived at the final stage of the alien invasion, and we have at least one fully viable court consisting of a queen and several drones, each fully alien.

[murdockmeta]

What runs of DD do you recommend? :D

oh gosh okay so that's a complicated question. I want to start by saying that no daredevil run is perfect by any means, especially when it comes to disability representation

but

as far as properly handling Matt's disability goes, Waid does some of the best work in his run which is vol 3 and 4. there's still ableism in that run, particularly internalized ableism from Matt and Matt thinking he's "better" than other disabled people because of his abilities. there's also some pretty serious fatphobia in that run and nasty antisemitism in vol 3 particularly that can't escape mentioning

but Waid does a fantastic job illustrating Matt's radar sense and how it isn't actually a replacement for his vision. he does a fantastic job at touching on Matt's depression. He does a great job at writing Kirsten after he introduces her. He handles Matt's characterization well and calls back to older comics. He reminds you of Matt's personality instead of just throwing Matt into a bunch of horrible situations and even goes so far as to touch on the trauma Matt has acquired from said situations.

If you know nothing about Matt's character, then there will be a few confusing moments but nothing major. And I also think vol 3 and 4 can be a fun place to start because it gets you interested in Matt's actual character but, after reading earlier volumes, it can be a joy to come back to because there are new things you get to pick up on (if that makes sense?) like Waid genuinely tries to put in a lot of easter eggs for seasoned readers while still making it beginner friendly to an extent.

if you need a good solid introduction to Matt's character, I'd suggest reading Daredevil: The Man Without Fear by frank miller. Miller, if you don't know, is one of the most (if not the most) notable daredevil writers. idk if you'd call tmwf a run, it's more of a short series (five issues). But it gives you a thorough rundown of Matt's backstory and explains why Matt is the way he is. it also feels like rinsing your mouth out with mouthwash after consuming the shit zdarskys been writing.

I will say, as far as elektra goes, tmwf isn't great. miller loves turning elektra into a sex demon that's only there to be hot and murderous. but everything else is, frankly (pun not intended), fantastic. also, miller doesn't handle matt's disability very well. but a lot of his work is valuable to matt's characters as a whole.

anyway, that's about it! i will tack on the disclaimer that I haven't read all of daredevil! not even close. I've read a few short series, vol 3, 4, 5, and part of 6 and 1. but not nearly everything, not even all of the more revered stuff lol, so do with that what you will

thanks for the ask!!

[mari--lace]

Going wild because I can’t restrain myself—3 and 16, 20 for Clairedevil, 20 for Matt/Jen, and 35 and 44 for ShinShi 😇

👀

3. One emotional aspect of a ship that always gets you

Not sure how to put it in words ghfhfjfjfjf like. When they understand each other in a unique way??? (Am I saying Shinichi and Shiho being the only ones—Mary doesn't count—going through having to fake being kids while they're in mortal danger makes their bind unique and beautiful? Yes yes I am) So like, I love when they have similar circumstances BUT are still pretty different. (I've mentioned Conan and Ai, I could go on about Matt and Natasha!! Matt and Elektra, too. Matt and Frank have very different pasts and motivations for their vigilantism but still somehow fit, if that makes sense!)

16. One thing one character likes about their partner(s).

Claire loves Matt's determination to save and help people 🥺 could probably do without all the guilt and lack of self preservation, but no one's perfect Ig

Matt also loves Claire's dedication to saving people, probably thinks she's so much better than him since she heals while he hurts and ghhhh I can't

20. Who’s the ship’s biggest in-universe supporter?

Foggy, hoping Claire can force some preservation instinct into his bestfriend lol and also really liking that she saved Matt's life.

20. Who’s the ship’s biggest in-universe supporter?

I'd say Jen's parents LOL her father took one look at Matt and went "it's expensive raising kids in LA" (Morris I love you but pls calm down)

35. Describe one date.

An escape room, with Shiho acting very annoyed and bored at first but then getting invested in the mystery and finding hints while Shinichi smirks not-so-subtly bc he was right (also they have to solve it faster than Hattori did)

44. Give each character a color.

Shinichi is very blue, Shiho gives me red/orange vibes. 👀

Thank you, this was fun 🧡

[farfromstrange]

Interview With The Vampire | Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader

-> Main Masterlist

Pairing: Vampire!Matt Murdock x F!Reader (she/her)

Summary: You are the first journalist to interview Hell’s Kitchen’s resident vampire vigilante after he requested you personally to tell his story. He’s offering you a way out of your miserable job—to make your voice be heard. You’re desperate and curious, so you decide to take the risk. Most people only know him as Daredevil, but you are about to learn who’s really behind the mask. How hard can it possibly be? As it turns out, interviewing a vampire is a lot more complex than you expected it to be, and Matthew Michael Murdock has set his mind on ruining you for any other man to come.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), alternative universe, blood play, marking, scent kink, slight Dom!Matt, unprotected p in v, oral f!receiving, biting, vampirism, angst, religious imagery & symbolism, Catholic guilt, mentions of violence, allusions to suicidal thoughts, lots of plot, age gap

Word Count: 12.2k (this is a beast)

Other Characters: Vampire!Elektra (mentioned), Ben Urich (mentioned)

A/n: I finally got this one edited. This is a beast, y’all! I drew inspiration from Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, but particularly the 2022 AMC series (I fell in love with it then and there), but it’s not based on it, so I just played around with the idea and this came out. It’s a lot, but it wasn’t enough for a full-blown series, so you’re getting a big ass One Shot instead. I used my usual Smut tag list, but since this is slightly Dead Dove Do Not Eat, heed the warnings and proceed with care! Don't read it if you don't want to. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Read Me On AO3!

The sun has long set over the Big Apple. Artificial neon, cars, and ceiling lights burning in the highrises along the riverfront cancel out the darkness that has befallen the country’s east. Noise melts into a flood that rolls over people’s senses, but most in New York City have grown numb to the city that never sleeps. 

Sirens follow cacophonies of screams. Teenagers get into clubs with their fake IDs, adults get drunk in bars or go to work the night shift at their underpaid jobs, and the other half cry themselves to sleep, knowing they will have to get up in the morning and go through the same hell all over again. 

Life has become a miserable existence, and it leaves human beings wondering, ‘How much longer do we have to endure this before we all finally drop dead?’

The system fails them. The law fails to protect them. All they can do is lie down and wait to die. And they will die sooner or later. That’s inevitable. 

In Hell’s Kitchen, in a penthouse with a view of the Hudson through colored windows that gloss over during the day and show the city throughout the night, resides someone who most of the city only knows by an alias—Daredevil. 

If anyone crosses him, he will suck them dry. It’s not a metaphor, I’m afraid; his reputation precedes him. Criminals fear the red eyes that come with fists and a sharp set of teeth that will surely run them into the ground. The rest of the city feels a little safer with him, but so far, no one has dared to question his nature. 

Fear is known to work as a paralytic. And this man living in the penthouse by the Hudson is the personification of what one might consider fear-inducing. Without the fear of others, he would not be thriving. 

An apex predator like him lives for the thrill of the kill. When the adrenaline spikes, it makes the prey start running and the blood taste so much sweeter. It is to a creature of his kind what a good glass of century-old red wine would be to a human being; he savors every last drop of it.

Two years out of your Master’s degree at Columbia University, you have become one of those hard-working adults who fall into bed later than they should, and you lie awake at night, wondering how much longer you have to exist before you can live.

You interned at the Bulletin; you ran the true crime and mystery column for over a year before the newspaper shut down. A billionaire from downtown Manhattan bought it to start his own magazine, and you were the only employee he didn’t fire. Instead of relying on your top-tier education and experience though, he has banned you to the lifestyle and beauty column. He’s a beast if you have ever seen one. 

On a Monday in June then, after the sun has risen and is now falling again, you find an envelope on your desk. You glide your fingers over the fancy paper. The letters are written in handwriting that resembles the old letters from the 18th century you had the pleasure of using as research material for your Bachelor’s thesis.

Your heart skips a beat. Could it be…

It is no secret that vampires exist.

Over two decades ago, scientists published papers on the existence of blood-sucking creatures after years of valuable research, and now governments around the world have set out to burn the inhuman species out before they can cause any more damage. Vampirism though is older than humanity itself and unless law enforcement has evidence of homicide, vampires have the right to exist amongst humans. 

They are excellent at hiding their true nature, that much is true. The lore that has been passed down since the beginning of time is only partly true. They know how to adapt and rise from the ashes like elegant phoenixes. The misconceptions surrounding their existence stem from fiction, horror, and fear, but they persist. 

And a rule has been established in society ever since the truth was revealed: don’t talk about vampires! 

Don’t talk about them unless it’s in a fictional context. Don’t put your research out there. Don’t fraternize with them. Don’t risk becoming prey. Don’t be fascinated by them, and God forbid, don’t you dare write articles about them for the public records. If you want to know about vampires, you have to dig, and you have to do so quietly or society will deem you crazy and a freak. 

The worst thing to be is not a flying android or a super soldier with a shield; the worst thing you can be, in this day and age, is a vampire. 

You were a curious child who turned into an even more curious adult. At times even a bitter one because she couldn’t get the answers she yearned for and had to do it herself. So, of course, the We Don’t Talk About Vampires rule came across as rather absurd, learning about it back when you were merely a teen. 

You started researching, and you found out more than you thought you would—more than you thought you could. You wanted to cover the issue in the Bulletin back when you still worked there, but since humans were raised to fear the very mention of vampires in the real world, no longer romanticizing the concept but rather running from it, the truth shall remain hidden. Again, that seemed absurd, but you had to accept it to get ahead. 

You kept researching to the point you convinced yourself you could be one of them if you tried. You felt like you understood them, but nothing could ever fully answer all of your questions to the point it felt truthful. Honest. Real. 

Growing up, everyone told you dead things aren’t supposed to walk. They aren’t supposed to breathe and exist among the living. They are cruel, and vampires are killers that leave trails of bodies the government is hiding from us. Greediness exceeds common sense. The human mind tends to get sick and twisted, and those who don’t fit in hardly ever stand a chance.

Hell’s Kitchen is particularly quiet on the issue. Rumor has it that the vigilante chasing criminals at night and leaving the worst of them dry at the shore of the Hudson while, at the same time, surrendering those he deems worthy of rehabilitation to the authorities, is one of those vampires. 

They call him Daredevil; the savior of innocents and the downfall of the vile. Only a handful of people know who he is. The truth is caught in a spider web of lies, unable to come out unless someone were to tell his story for the world to hear. 

That Monday in June when you open the mysterious envelope on your desk, everything changes. 

He addressed you personally. Your name resembles a masterpiece, the letters swirling at the edges. 

You don’t know me, but I know you.

It’s strange to read your name out of the mouth of a stranger.

I must admit, Miss, I’m a big fan of your writing. And I’m not talking about the lifestyle and beauty column Mr. Doherty of the ‘Silver Lining’ has confined you to.

No, I am a big fan of the work you used to do for the New York Bulletin. I remember your name headlining many articles on crime here in Hell’s Kitchen—a column my late friend Ben Urich used to call his home.  

It’s a shame that the paper was shut down. I tried to prevent it, but the disappearance of half of humanity and Wilson Fisk’s irreparable damage to the city’s foundation tied my hands. 

The token female journalist reporting on unsolicited beauty advice and lifestyle choices no one is going to follow in the days of social media and fake marketing. It must be frustrating, right? Not having a story to tell. Not getting recognized for your impeccable talent. The Bulletin gave you a platform, but Mr. Doherty and his goons took that away from you.

What I’m asking myself is, are you satisfied? You were probably imagining a different future for yourself. A woman of your caliber must want to be more than a mere object used to make a bottomless magazine look better on the market. 

Excuse my overstepping. I read one of your essays on the magical and the mythic—lore versus reality—the other day, and it inspired me. My life has been taking quite a few turns lately, so I required some new… let’s call it insight. 

You don’t know me, but I am one of those creatures you are fascinated by. I’m the kind of creature people have been telling you not to write about because the weak minds of the public would not receive it well. The Catholics, the church, the fragile and fearful human beings that can’t imagine anything in fiction being real and want to remain the superior species—trust me, I know what it feels like to be backed into a corner. To be abandoned. To be underestimated. Not quite like you, I admit, but I have a few years of experience in and with this world to show for myself. 

I imagine you’re tired of your position. I imagine you’re dissatisfied with human idiocy. You crave answers to your questions. Questions you have been asking yourself ever since college failed to answer them. My kind is being censored—partly for good reason—but that doesn’t sit right with you, does it? To live life in a monotone line with no clear way out of this boring rhythm you have had to fall into? 

I can offer you a different path. A story. Answers to your questions. And the unfiltered truth of a 242-year-old man. 

You are going to find a card with my address attached to this letter. I can assure you, sweetheart, we both want the same thing. I will wash your hands if you wash mine. Think about it, and come find me when you have made your decision. Preferably after the sun has set. 

Yours sincerely,

M.

The paper crumbles in your hands, but only at the corners. Your eyes are glued to the lost drops of ink, the blue blood of an old fountain pen caving under too much pressure. 

He chose his words carefully. Every paragraph circles around your head. You breathe in, and it suddenly feels as though the whiff of the unknown is an inhalable drug, twisting your brain inside out. 

The pull threatens to submerge you in a stormy ocean. You’re flailing your arms around helplessly, but there is nothing for you to hold onto. All buoys have drifted into oblivion, leaving a sea of utter emptiness behind, and in the midst of it, there you are, drowning.

In a moment of clarity, you fold the letter back down on the desk. It lands with a thud, and you look around frantically, checking if anyone is watching you. They aren’t. 

M. That’s all he’s giving you. And the fact he is over two hundred years old proves the rumors to be true. He’s standing by it, but only to you. He wants to reveal himself to you, show you his true face for a story, but he’s a vampire. 

You’re alone. You can wash his hands, but is just showing up enough for him? You don’t even know him. 

You’re in trouble. This time though, you didn’t even do anything. You did your job, and he caught an interest in you. How does that work? 

Your heart skips another beat. It should not, but it does. The danger is exciting. It shouldn't be exciting. You hate what your body is doing, but how can you make it stop? You can’t. You can’t do anything but take it.

This stranger has got you in a chokehold, but in his hands, you might as well surrender to your certain demise. You don’t consider vampires inherently evil, but there is a reason people warn you not to walk alone at night in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s dangerous, no matter his nature, and he is not supposed to lure you in the way he does.

But you’re a curious kitten, and he is offering you the holy grail of answers to questions you have been grappling with for years. He hit the nail right on the head. And it doesn’t even scare you how well he knows you. 

This is a gold mine. Realistically speaking, telling a vampire’s story could make or break your career as a journalist. If you do it for the magazine, you’re done before you can even bring your words to print, but if you do it individually and you do it well, people will certainly eat it up. The question is just, are you going to play your entire life safe, conforming to your boss’s view of you until you get the freedom you crave, or are you going to take the risk and fly? 

The answer is as clear as day, but it takes you a moment to process. It’s as though someone is in your head, steering you in the direction of whoever this M is. Daredevil. This vampire who wants you to interview him, and for what? That’s still an open question you don’t have the answer to. But you do know what to do.

You scramble for your laptop, your notepad, and the letter in the envelope. The clock strikes four. You have another two hours on the clock, but you can’t be bothered to stay. 

Upon hearing the sound of your shoes hurriedly scraping against the linoleum floors, one of your colleagues turns in her chair. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“I, uh, have somewhere to be,” you tell her as you brush past her.

“What, now?”

“Yeah. I forgot I had an appointment.”

“What about Mr. Doherty?”

You stop on your way out, looking back over your shoulder. “If everything works out,” you say, glancing through the window to his office at the other end of the hall, “He’ll have my letter of resignation by the end of the week.”

She gasps softly. “You’re quitting?” her voice is barely above a whisper.

Almost sinisterly, you chuckle. “That’s the plan, yeah.”

“But—”

“Tell your daughter Happy Birthday from me. I gotta go.”

Your steps echo for minutes still, but you are long gone with the wind.

Silver linings are considered an advantage that comes from an unpleasant situation. The name has proven to be entirely unfit for the magazine that replaced a big piece of Hell’s Kitchen’s history. The Bulletin had cultural value as much as it was laden with decades of the city’s stories told to the average person. 

Wilson Fisk was the dynamite that sent New York alight. The Bulletin’s destruction was mere collateral damage in the fight to get the city back on track. You have had so many reasons to leave presented to you, yet you never took them. If you had, maybe you wouldn’t be here, making bad decisions on what started as just another Monday in June. 

The fact is though, you didn’t leave, and you are here now. Facts are what matter. They count. Your hypothetical past, present, and future have no place in this reality because you can’t travel back or forward in time. Vampires may exist, and the Avengers time-traveled to save the world, but things aren’t quite as easy once you look at the bigger picture. You are not a superhero, you’re just a journalist chasing the kind of story that will finally make her voice be heard. 

You know that Ben Urich, at least, would be proud of you.

His address weighs heavy on the small card you pulled out of the envelope earlier that evening. You passed it on to the cab driver, and he began to navigate the dark streets of Hell’s Kitchen. The luxury condominiums in this part of the city can be counted on one hand. You know exactly when you’re there. 

The sun has once again set over New York City. You’re wide awake, not quite sure though if you’re ready to face what you are walking blindly into. Even your driver refuses to take you past a certain point, and that is how you know that you’re not dreaming. This is real, and it’s supposed to be terrifying. 

How come you’re not scared then?

You slip twenty dollars to the cab driver, then climb out of the backseat. The salty air from the Hudson River a few blocks down wafts around your sensitive nose. In the distance, you can hear waves crashing into the docks as the wind picks up in speed. The boats must be moving wildly by now, swaying from side to side and possibly even making the fish in the depths of the water seasick. You would be if you were them. 

With every step, you grow closer to your target. On second thought, maybe you should have brought more than just a pathetic bottle of pepper spray and your precious laptop. You could have brought your grandfather’s cassette recorder, at least that would leave a mark if you hit someone over the head with it. 

Do vampires get concussions? That is another question you can add to the seemingly endless list in your mind. It’s a confusing place as of late, and the weird sense that someone is playing with the controls won’t leave you alone. Either you are overthinking, or you are worse off than you originally thought. 

The apartment complex the card directs you to stretches high above you. You look up, seeing not a single light on. That’s odd, you think, but then again, you are meeting with the city’s most notorious man. If he is who everyone says he is, and if the rumors are even true, that is. 

As you are about to approach the entrance, your fingertips start to burn. A gasp escapes past your lips. Staring down, the cubical piece of paper goes up in flames. You are mere feet from the door, nowhere near close to an open source of fire, and the card starts to burn like a wildfire. 

You pull back, your heart hammering against your ribcage. The ashes fall to the ground, but before they can hit the asphalt, they vanish.

“What the–” before you can finish, the doors before you swing open toward the inside. The lights turn on. Someone even has called the elevator for you. 

Another step forward, and a voice stops you. “Fourth floor, down the hallway, first door to your right,” the voice says through the speaker. Only then do you notice the lack of a doorbell. 

Everything in you is screaming for you to run, but you are rooted in the spot. He dragged you here with a mere letter, and you were more than ready to jump. Desperation was the only thing that drove you here. Your brain seems incapable of rational thought.

What if that is what he wanted all along? To get you complicit by playing on what you so desperately need, which is a story and a way out of this boring everyday life that is threatening to slowly kill you.

He’s like a siren, luring you into his deadly trap, but even knowing all of this, you still can’t find it in yourself to run. 

The second you enter the building, the door shuts behind you, and your only way out is officially locked. You made the decision; you have dug your own grave, possibly quite literally, and now you have to lie in it. It’s better to die chasing a good story than dying at a desk in an office that doesn’t respect you.

You are a disgrace, you can hear your father’s voice in the back of your mind. He always warned you not to be too reckless or your bad decisions will eventually catch up with you. He always taught you not to trust strangers, and to stay the hell away from those who disgrace God, but you have never cared much about being a good girl. 

Your thoughts are as morbid as your obsession with the walking undead. It is time you embrace what people are already saying about you.

The elevator ride feels like an eternity. It goes up and up and up until it finally stops on the fourth floor. The walls smell like nothing but a faint hint of bleach. It’s clean, parquette not carpet, and the walls are kept in a shade resembling a mixture between crimson and maroon, and it is blending into a sort of marble.

The metal doors slide open. Again, you hesitate. A sweet whisper echoes in your ear, dragging you toward the edge. You breach the border between the elevator and the hallway that waits behind it. The voice is distant, and it doesn’t sound human—it reminds you of a siren’s song, calling for you. He is calling for you, and a fog settles over your mind. You’re not in control anymore, he is. 

You imagine him to be an old man, possibly middle-aged. Vampires stop aging when they’re turned. Their mind doesn’t. You’ve read the research plenty. They are wise beings, more intelligent than human beings could ever fathom. That makes them dangerous. 

Their venom rivals the intoxicating feeling of heroin, you’ve heard, and it heightens your senses to the point all you can feel is the one who bit you. Research suggests it’s a million times stronger than an orgasm, for both the vampire and the human being. 

Part of you has always wanted to try it. Part of you wants to know what it feels like to be sucked dry. You want to know what it feels like to be carried into a new dimension by someone who knows how to play the human body like a fucking piano, eliciting the sweetest melody through your very essence and the symphony of your moans.  

This M—Daredevil—is inherently dangerous. He’s as mysterious as they come; a man in a mask lurking in the dark corners of Hell’s Kitchen every night, turning the fight for justice into his hunting ground. 

It’s as though he curled his fingers, and you followed. 

You walk the dark hallway down to the door on the right. Paintings litter the walls. Masterpieces, blotches of white, red, and color. You recognize the red marble as a decorative theme on the wallpaper. Tracing your fingers over it, the rough drywall scratches at your skin. 

You reach out a shaky hand toward the golden knob. Before you can turn it though, the door already flings open. It must be witchcraft. 

Red appears to be his favorite color. At least judging from the hallway, that is true. When you step into the room with a pounding heart and blood pooling in your cheeks though, the inside of the room is a lot more… human. You wouldn’t have guessed it from the gloominess surrounding you on your way there.

A leather couch and armchairs stand in the middle, facing toward the window front. Colored windows, as you have gathered from the rumors. They are see-through now though, showing the city skyline and the moon up high. The chandelier on the ceiling is the only piece of furniture you would consider old. Browns meet hues of blue and dark green, a forest at midnight, and you suck in a sharp breath. The apartment is beautiful. 

You look to your left and see a bookshelf stretching the length of the wall. You can’t help but run your hand over the backs. You would have expected original editions from the 18th or 19th century, but when your fingers trace over the bindings, you are met with the bulging of Braille underneath the elegant golden writing of the titles. None of them seem to have collected dust. It surprises you to only find a mere handful of classics that haven’t been transcribed in Braille and a realization you did not expect starts to crawl its way forward.

“I stole that one from a library in Paris.”

Your racing heart stops beating. The book you’ve been holding falls to the ground, its worn-out leather cracking further around the spine. The thud is deafening. You gasp, turning around. Your shoulders fly up as the tension ripples through every last muscle in your bone. Your bones ache just from how stiff you’re standing, but you can’t move.

The man before you moves as quietly as a mouse. You didn’t hear him coming. The moonlight reflects off his dark brown hair, making it appear almost ginger. He’s wearing a simple suit without a tie, and the white of his shirt is as pristine and clean as the cut of his beard. You can see chest hair poking out from underneath the two open buttons, as dark as the locks on his head. His jawline is irresistibly sharp, leading up to a pair of plump lips he is wrapping around the brim of a crystal glass filled with rum.

Your heart remains frozen. Not a single drop of blood pumps through your veins, yet your cheeks burn brighter than a bonfire on a pitch-black night. 

But his flawless appearance is not what catches your attention the most. Looking up into his eyes, wanting to know whether they are as red as those set into the devil’s mask, you find nothing but your terrified reflection staring back at you. It’s as blurry as the picture of your face in a still ocean’s water, your wide eyes staring back at yourself. 

The red glasses are all you can see. Round with a black rim. Silver would have looked better on him, or maybe even gold. The black reminds you of an endless pit, a sinister embrace of vampire stereotypes, but you can’t look away from the maroon that won’t allow you even a glimpse into his eyes. They are shielding him from the world, and his eyes from curious, stupid humans like you.

He nods toward the ground. “You gonna pick that up?” he asks. His voice reminds you of rumbling gravel. 

He looks like a man. He talks like a man. If you didn’t know better, you would say he is human. There seems to be blood in his cheeks and air in his lungs. 

You have to pull yourself together. Clearing your throat, you bend down and pick the book back up.

“Thank you,” he utters your name. “It’s been a while since I’ve received visitors that don’t work for me.”

You put the book back on the shelf. Your lips are sewn shut; you can’t find the words. Every time you open your mouth like a fish on dry land, you close it again, and it is embarrassing to be standing in front of him with your guard down. 

“Welcome to my home,” he says. You wish you could see his eyes to know if he’s mocking you. “Do you want a drink, or do you need another minute to process?”

He is mocking you. His tone is gentle, as is his voice, but he smirks like a smug motherfucker, and your anger boils to a tipping point. The candle is about to burn out. 

“I–” you stammer. Internally, you curse yourself for being such a fool. 

“Another minute it is then.”

You don’t need a minute though. “You’re blind,” you blurt out. 

The beautiful—deadly—stranger nods. “Yeah.“

“How?”

“Accident when I was a kid.”

“But you’re…” you leave the missing part of that sentence hanging in the air like a noose. 

“Say it,” he murmurs. You want to say it sounds like a growl, but you’re not sure. He isn’t asserting dominance or trying to force you into submission by scaring you away, but he is toying with you regardless. 

You take a deep breath. The word, the truth, numbers your tongue and your lips with its weight. “A vampire,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, matching his. 

His smirk broadens. He pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek for a moment, then releases it as it darts out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m a blind vampire, yes,” he answers. “We’re rare, but we do exist.”

Blind vampires. In all of your years of fascination, that has never crossed your mind. You used to believe that they had healing abilities that far exceeded your own. You were wrong. He lost his eyesight before he got turned into a vampire. He lived as a blind human being and didn’t regain his most crucial sense when he died. 

He came back to life, but he died. It is surreal to stand across from him. He’s not just letters on a piece of paper, he is very much real. And he’s blind. 

“Oh, my God,” you curse.

That elicits a soft chuckle from him. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he says. 

“I was considering not to.” 

He sees right through you with those empty glasses. “That’s a lie.”

“How would you know?” you counter. 

“I can hear your heartbeat. The blood pumping in your veins…” His head tilts ever so slightly in your direction. You take a step back. It’s an instinct. “Your pulse picks up when you lie, or when you’re nervous, or both,” he states. “When you first saw me, your heart skipped a beat. It did again when you lied to me.”

Your eyes trail down to his thick thighs perfectly fitted in his tailored trousers. His thick digits pat the rhythm with his fingers on the fabric. Thud-thudthudthud-thud. You place a hand on your chest. He wasn’t wrong; your heart is racing. 

His smirk turns into a smile, but only briefly again. It’s a glimpse of humanity he doesn’t want you to see. “I like that sound,” he says. “Has anyone ever told you that you smell good? Sweet, sour, and a little salty. Natural. You don’t use a lot of artificial perfume, but you like cherry chapstick.”

You swallow, taking a whiff of your arm. Besides your deodorant masking the scent of your nervous sweat, you smell nothing. How good must his nose be? His hearing? His sense of taste? 

“Right now, sweat is dripping down your back, and your muscles are tense enough to strain against your bones every time you breathe. Your heart just skipped a beat again. You find it weird,” he muses. “I can’t turn it off, but I get it must be strange for you.” 

“You–” The blood has collected in your head, pushing the temperature in the room to an all-time high. “Get out of my body!” you snap. 

He laughs. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d hear.”

“And I never thought you would ask for an audience with me, but here we are.”

“Here you are.” 

You want nothing more than to wipe that smirk off his face. He looks so smug, standing there with his drink, wearing a suit too fancy for his own home. He’s fully in his element. It’s scary how alluring he is, too. You don’t want to think that way, but as soon as your eyes gaze upon him again, your chest contracts, and you forget how to breathe. 

He’s a wolf, and you’re a lonely little sheep that doesn’t know any better. That lonely little sheep just wants to be a part of something bigger, even if that means surrendering herself to the big bad wolf. He wants a taste of her, and the sheep would give him that in a heartbeat if he just asked. 

You blink. There is a voice in your head, and it isn’t your own. Far from it. You don’t want to be associated with this stranger. She thinks she knows you. She thinks she knows what you want—the sheep in the eyes of her natural enemy. This voice is the most irrational you could be, and you need to stop letting her win.

And yet you—not just the voice of the lonely sheep you appear to be—would follow this man anywhere, even to hell if he asked you to. 

Your eyes drill knives into his skull, but they are also full of curiosity. Can he hear your thoughts? Your heart beats in your throat. You can taste it on your tongue. If you bit your lip, you would bleed, and he would probably fall into a frenzy. Still, your teeth dig into your bottom lip. What if he can hear your thoughts—hear how fucking needy you are? You’re pathetic. What he must think of you, standing across from him, smaller than human life itself. 

You want to read him, but he is far from an open book. He’s not Braille you can run your fingers over, and even if he was, you don’t know how to read it. He’s an enigma. His face is set in stone; an iron mask you can’t penetrate. 

His chest heaves with another chuckle. He sets the crystal glass down on the coffee table, taking a step forward. “No, I can’t read your mind,” he says. 

You flinch. “What?”

“Your breathing pattern. The way you look at me. I can sense that you’re thinking about something.” He adjusts his glasses. “It’s just… Most humans ask me if I can read their minds, you know. I can’t. Some vampires can, but my senses are the only heightened ability I have.” This time, when he chuckles, a hint of bitterness dances in his voice. 

“At least you’re not in my head then,” you say. 

“No.”

“Good.”

A pregnant pause follows. You clutch your bag to your chest, your fingers digging into the frame of your hidden laptop. 

“Can I offer you a drink?” he asks, pointing to his empty glass.

You wave him off. That’s the last thing on your mind. “No, thank you.”

Sometimes at night, you fantasize about diving into the abyss of darkness. It looks and sounds a terrifying lot like him. You want to know him. You need to know him. When it comes to him and this—whatever this is—the lines between want and need are blurring into an unidentifiable mess. It’s an ocean of emotions with no land in sight. A total eclipse of the heart, if you will. You’re losing your mind.

“What you can do–” You straighten your shoulder, hoping it will add height to your beaten confidence. “You can tell me your name. Sir,” you say. 

He nods. “I suppose it would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, it would.”

“Matthew. My name’s Matthew.” The softness of his features as his lips move to the rhythm of his words takes you back anew. His eyebrows raise slightly, and you catch a glimpse of a pair of beautiful, unfocused hazel eyes that steal your breath away. 

Matthew. It is a name that easily rolls off the tongue. It suits him.

You repeat his name aloud. “That’s an odd name for a 200-something-year-old man,” you point out. 

Matthew scoffs. “My parents were both Catholic.”

“I suppose you’re not?”

You hit a sore spot. His head dips, fingers running over his nails and tongue tracing his teeth. “Not anymore,” he says.

God died for him a long time ago, and all churches burned down.

Your grip on your bag loosens. “Then why Daredevil?” you ask. 

His lips part. “I, uh, have the Bulletin to thank for that one. After centuries of existing in this world, and being despised for no matter what I do, I’ve decided to embrace it. I am Daredevil, not even God can stop that now.”

Matt grabs his glass, turning away from you. He doesn’t use a cane to navigate from the couch to the mini bar on the other end of the room. You carefully follow his movements. One of his hands remains at his side, snapping his fingers as he navigates the familiar terrain of his home. 

He uncaps a half-empty bottle of Whiskey to pour himself another glass. 

“You know, Matthew,” you prompt, daring to step forward an inch, “as big as your reputation is in this part of the city, Silver Lining is not the kind of magazine that would cover your story.”

“You still came,” he says. 

“I could lose my job if anyone knew I came here.”

“And yet you’re here and not where you should be.” He turns his head over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t risk losing your job if it wasn’t important to you, would you?”

You stammer, “I–” He’s got you. You’re a fish with a hook in her mouth. 

“If Silver Lining Magazine won’t cover my story, why are you here?” Matt turns back to you, leaning back against the shiny Mahagoni of his minibar. It offers a beautiful contrast to his strong physique and the slight paleness of his skin. “Could it be because you’re fascinated by the mythic?” he asks, teasing. “By werewolves and witches and vampires?”

It’s your turn to scoff. “I won’t confirm or deny. My boss wouldn’t let me write a vampire vigilante exposé even if I begged him to.”

“And that’s why Mr. Doherty doesn’t deserve you.” Your body visibly recoils when he pushes forward, moving just an inch toward you. “Your curiosity is a virtue,” he purrs. The moonlight sets your reflection in his glasses alight. 

“Is that why you lured me here?” you ask him. “Because my curiosity is a virtue and you consider yourself better than the people in my life?”

“I didn’t lure you here, and I think you know that. That’s not what this is.” The distance between you starts to shrink, backing you into a corner. “I believe you came here because the thought of interviewing a vampire and sharing your findings with the world on your account excites you,” he says. “You want to be heard. You want to be taken seriously as a journalist, and you want to make people happy.”

The only way for you to come out of this with your pride and dignity still intact is to put up walls before the already existent labyrinth of walls keeping your heart guarded and your soul safe. “Again,” you ask, “why me?”

“Why not you? As I stated in my letter, I’m a fan of your work.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, about that. How did you write that if you’re blind?”

“I didn’t, my secretary did.”

“Of course.” Of course, he has a secretary. “I… I just don’t get it,” you say. “You’ve been hiding for so long–” 

Matt cuts you off with an urgency you didn’t expect, “Things have changed. Circumstances…” he trails off. 

“Wouldn’t it be a suicide mission?” 

His answer is silence. You let out an exasperated sigh. “If you want me to interview you, you have to be honest with me.”

“I’m not on the record yet.”

“Right. Maybe you can answer this though—off the record, of course—how can you be certain I didn’t call the cops or the FBI before I came here?”

His eyes crinkle. “I’m not stupid, sweetheart,” he says. 

He’s amused. You’re amusing him. 

“Don’t call me that,” you growl. 

He’s spreading you open, holding up a mirror for you to look into. It’s your miserable self in all its glory, and he knows you better than you know yourself. 

You ignore the sharp pain in your left ribcage as you pull the arrow out of your heart. “Unless someone holds up a sign that they are pro-vampirism, how would you even know I’d listen to you and not just refer you to the Journal of Psychiatry?” 

“Are you telling me you don’t believe in vampires?” Matt quips.

“That’s not… Answer my question!”

The sound of your heartbeat must sound almost like the rapid firing of a machine gun, that’s how fast your pulse is racing. Your veins threaten to burst with the excess blood. It’s a heat like no other. You’re a witch at the stake, and Matt is holding the torch to your gasoline-doused body. 

He clears his throat. Your face falls at the words that tumble out of his parted lips, and the rapid firing turns into a deafening silence and a monotone line on a heart monitor. 

“After what I’ve learned from reading Dr. Rice’s research on the phenomena of vampirism, I can confidently say this species is no different than an animal like the great white shark or the Homo sapiens sapiens—our kind,” he recites. “Vampires are a medium of fiction and propaganda to induce fear, but they are also a widely misunderstood species that is being silenced rather than heard. Our species, the human species, likes to consider themselves superior, even when we’re in a position of being someone’s natural food source. Dr. Rice’s research is based on a comprehensible set of facts, and isn’t that what we have been relying on ever since the beginning? Our psychology makes it possible for us to change the narrative in our favor, and more often than not, we ignore the very facts deemed by humans as an intellectual importance to spread the message of an entirely different agenda. Dr. Rice’s research only proves that egotism and humans themselves will be humankind's certain downfall.”

“My investigative journalism essay,” you breathe out. 

“Published by Columbia University.” 

Your heart restarts with a rush of adrenaline. “How… how do you know all of this?”

“I may be blind,” Matt says, “but I know how to read between the lines.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

The alcohol in his drink seems to have little effect on him. “I know you have questions, and I’m willing to answer them if you promise to publish a detailed report somewhere other than Silver Lining Magazine.”

You look down at your bag, then back at him. “Ben Urich could have told your story in a way that would’ve made people listen,” you murmur. “I don’t have an impressive career like him.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, “but you could have easily written ‘Attack on NYC’. Ben was a good man, an even better journalist, but he could not have written your college essay. And he could never have been you.” 

Your name rolls off his tongue—not a pretentious nickname that makes you want to vomit but your name, and it flicks a switch within you. 

You glance around the spacious living, pulling your laptop out of its confines, and you bridge the distance between you, finally. You notice he smells of sandalwood cologne and scentless soap. “Okay,” you cave. “Where do you want me to set up?”

Session 1.

The spacebar clicks underneath the tip of your index finger. The white of your screen fills with a series of red sequences as the microphone takes in every little sound around you. Except for the two of you and the fading footsteps of one of Matthew’s assistants though, the world has fallen silent in the dead of the night. He’s sitting across from you, legs crossed, head tilted; your life is about to change.

“So, Mister Murdock,” you begin, “tell me. How long have you been dead?” 

His mouth opens in a wide grin. “242 years,” he answers. 

“And what happened the year you died?”

“Well, it was 1782. I was a good few years out of law school. I was a good lawyer, but I wasn’t successful. That year, I met a beautiful woman at a banquet. I wasn’t rich—trust me, I was beyond penniless—but she had been adopted into a wealthy family, and that made her one of the richest women in the room. Everyone wanted her, but when I sensed her across the hall, she only had eyes for me. And she was the first woman to not see me just because I was blind.” He chuckles sadly. “I thought she was the woman of my dreams, the love of my life, but a few weeks later, after letting her into my life, I realized that she didn’t look at me that night because she was interested. She was hunting me. El— Miss Elektra Natchios…”

The year 1782 becomes apparent before your inner eye. As he tells you about the night he met her, you can see the dark-haired beauty making her way across the ballroom. Red lips and a gown to die for. Her dark eyes were full of mischief, but the passion in them could have knocked a grown man off of his feet. And that is just what she did to poor Matthew. 

“I was going to marry her,” he tells you.

He went to church regularly. His knees were bloody from praying, his senses already heightened before he died. God’s soldier, that is how he puts it. He was told that the accident that left him blind happened for a reason, and he had to fight a war that went beyond the country’s fight for independence. 

That summer, Elektra drained him. He didn’t know what she was. She fooled him. He was obsessed with her. Her dark eyes he couldn’t see lured her in, and it was the venom in her blood that became his downfall after she dug her teeth into him.

Matt tried to beg his priest for forgiveness, but he didn’t even make it past the marble stairs before the doors locked. He knelt in a pool of blood—both his and that of the first human he ever sucked dry to survive as a newborn vampire—offering an eternal sacrifice to Catholicism, but God abandoned him on his doorstep. 

The church walls would have been set on fire if he had touched them from the inside. 

You look up from your notepad to find him now standing at the window. He’s not looking out, of course, but he seems so deep in thought, the memories that aren’t your own but his start to dissipate, and you’re brought back to the here and now.

Matt poured his heart out to you. You expected answers, but not this kind, and certainly not of this magnitude. You see him in an entirely different light. He’s vulnerable, fragile, and human. He has endured trauma that killed him, but he couldn’t die because the woman he loved made him immortal. It’s a bigger curse than growing up with the belief that an accident made you God’s soldier. 

He lost everything. For centuries, he has had to live with that. It’s killing you, feeling his pain, the pure agony that radiates off him. 

Your voice is quiet when you ask him, “What was it like?” You don’t have to say it out loud for him to know what you are referencing.

Matt chuckles, the sound a mere breath in the atmosphere. “Like she took my soul from my body, setting fire to my belief system and already heightened senses,” he says. 

You swallow. “That sounds… overstimulating.”

“It was. Is. My heart stopped, but when that happened, something else awoke inside me. The hunger… the hunger was the worst part. It’s insatiable. One hour passes, and you feel like you’ve been starving for weeks.”

“Like you’ve been possessed by a demon?”

“Like I am the demon.”

“But you’re not.” You should stop the recording. You’re not on track; you’re incorporating your feelings into Matt’s story, but you can’t help it. The words tumble out of your mouth without a second thought, a train that cannot be stopped. 

He raises his eyebrows, you can see it in his reflection in the windows. “Are you religious?” he asks.

You shake your head. “This isn’t about me.”

“Are you?”

The veins on the back of his hands bulge as he balls them to fists at his sides. Your throat is a desert, and your heartbeat resembles a storm that burns right through it, sending the sand flying in all directions of the horizon.

You adjust in your seat, crossing one leg over the other. He takes a whiff. He’s smelling you, and that doesn’t help the speed of your pulse to calm down. 

Tapping your pen on your notepad, you watch the red sequences fill the white space of the recording program. It moves with the sound of your voice when you finally dare to answer. “It’s a complicated question because there is a difference between believing in God and believing in the church,” you say.

“Do you believe in God then?” Matt asks. It’s as though he’s trying not to seethe at the mere mention of someone he used to worship. You make a note of that.

“There is so much bad in this world. So much cruelty. I can’t…” You take a deep breath. “I don’t know how to believe in a God that would let the things humans do to each other happen. If God existed—if he was as merciful as Christians like to claim, he wouldn’t let this happen. And I’m so sick and tired of people using their faith, and their beliefs in God and the church as justification to be disrespectful. I don’t understand it. How can anyone? Why is someone who has to drink blood to stay alive—someone who didn’t even choose this life—worth less and the devil’s breed when humans do worse things to each other? Why would God allow us to start wars that kill innocent people? Children? It’s just not fair that we treat ourselves and others as though we are already in hell, and we’re just supposed to accept that God doesn’t care—” You stop yourself, the tears burning behind your eyes. 

Matt turns back around. You can’t look away. “When I was still human,” he murmurs, “I used to believe everything that happened to me was God’s will. The accident, God’s will. Me going blind, God’s will. I went to confession, prayed until my knees were bloody and bruised. I tried convincing myself that every scream I heard from down the block, every person who lost their life or their innocence was my responsibility. God made me this way for a reason, right?” The scoff is as bitter as the liquor in his glass. “I fell apart, you know. I was a kid, so I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand what was happening to me,” he tells you. 

You hold your breath. The glasses slip from his eyes as he takes them off with shaky fingers. You are met with the most beautiful pair of hazel eyes. Emotions dance a heated tango in a tornado. If you look closer, the green specks bring life to his eyes. It’s human nature in the purest sense of the word. 

Your reflection stands in his irises, his unmoving pupils, and the tears glisten in his eyes. They’re as red as blood, watered-down crimson essence. You want to reach out and stroke his cheek, but that would be crossing a very big line that you can’t bring yourself up to touch. 

“I studied law because I thought it would change something,” he continues. You listen. It’s the only thing you can do—listen. “It wasn’t enough. Nothing I ever did felt like it was enough. I lost my father. Jack. I didn’t know my mother until it was too late. Maggie. I had no one. No money, no prospects, just me and those voices in my head, telling me I was supposed to be God’s soldier.”

“You’re not,” you cut in. 

He shakes his head. “I prayed; I crawled up the stairs of the church, and I spent hours repenting for my sins. I bled myself dry for Him. I sacrificed myself. I sacrificed my youth, my heart, and my soul, and I got nothing back. I begged for help until my voice was sore, but nothing… God, nothing was ever good enough. Until Elektra came around,” he says. 

“She changed everything for you. It makes sense. She turned you into a vampire, but she also loved you.”

“She did love me, in her own twisted way.”

“It’s what you deserved,” you say.

He isn’t yours, but the pang you feel in your chest is treacherous. Your heart cracks like a porcelain vase, jealousy creeping in like a parasite of toxic waste.

In response, Matt only chuckles bitterly. “She made me believe again, then took my soul and crushed it in her hand.” The correction makes your shoulders slump. “Instead of feeling like my world ended though, I felt at peace when she sucked the blood out of my veins and fed me her venom,” he says. “It’s sick, I know. I was aware I died that night, that she turned me into a devil who could only survive if he drank the blood of others. The Catholic in me struggled to accept it, but I had no choice but to embrace what she made me.”

“And where is she now?” you ask.

“Gone.” The light in his eyes has fully disappeared now. “I stayed with her for a while until she died in my arms. She showed me what love is, and she showed me heartbreak. She made me hungry for blood, awakening the devil I’ve been trying to tame. She taught me how to feed, how to hunt, and how to chase. But she also cursed me,” he says. “I only exist for myself now. I only bleed for myself. No God, no church, and no more religion. I’m not Jesus, I’m Judas, and I retired the cross the day I was crucified.”

You have run out of questions to ask. Too overwhelming is the sight of his walls crumbling down, this stranger you now know better than any living being seems to. You no longer see money in this, or a story to chase, you only see Matthew, and the halo above his head he still believes is a pair of horns. The world broke him. His faith in God broke him. It crushed him, and he lost everything. How broken he must be. 

“Not such a pretty story when I say it out loud, huh?” He scoffs.

The spacebar clicks again. The recording comes to a sudden halt. One hour and fifty-eight minutes, the first session of your interview with the vampire. You need to put a halt to it now because what you are about to say or do as you reach your hand out to brush his cold, dead skin is not something that should be found on a record. And you won’t ever tell.

Matt pulls away when your warm fingertips brush his. You’re standing across from him now, so close he can smell, hear, and feel all of you at once.

Your touch is the holy water that burns his skin, but the fire sustains him and shoots straight to his core the same way the blood rushes to yours.

“It’s not a pretty story, no,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, “but it did tell me what I already knew.”

“And what’s that?” he asks.

“That you’re not evil. You’re not the Devil. You’re misunderstood. You’ve been beaten; you’ve been abandoned, hurt, and broken. That doesn’t make you a monster. Trying to make this city a better place does not make you a monster.”

“If you only knew the things I’ve done…”

“I know the rumors suggest that you were the one who fought Wilson Fisk and got this city back where it needed to be. You’ve saved countless women from the worst of fates. You are the reason the innocent people of Hell’s Kitchen feel safe. By picking up that mask, you became a hero, not a villain, and that is the story I want to tell.”

In lightspeed, he has moved you from the window to the other end of the room. Your back hits the wall. 

Matt towers over you in all of his intimidating glory. His eyes spark red, but you hold his unfocused gaze. He has such beautiful eyes. This pull between you is far from human; it’s unhealthy, and it is exactly where he wanted to get you. You’re trapped, pinned underneath him like a deer caught in headlights. 

Exhaling, your breath strokes his cheeks. He closes his eyes, savoring the taste of you. Every particle in the air, he inhales. His tongue darts out to lick his lips. Oh, what you wouldn’t do to suck that tongue into your mouth. 

Your pheromones play his head like a puppeteer pulling the strings of his marionette. He growls. “Do you have any idea how dangerous I am?” 

The moonlight catches his sparkling white teeth. This time though, you come face to face with the sharp edges of his previously concealed fangs. Your jaw drops open. He’s ethereal. 

“I could snap your neck—” Matt places his hand on your neck, “I could make that heart stop beating, take the air from your lungs. I could eat you…” He traces the vein in your throat from your jaw to your collarbone. “I could bite you and suck your blood until you’re empty. I could kill you, sweetheart. My kind is your natural enemy. You shouldn’t be here.”

You shudder. His nose brushes the sensitive skin below your ear. He’s so close you can smell him. On inhale, and his scent consumes your senses. He is all you can feel now. You reach out to hold onto his arms, his muscles tensing under your teeth. He’s big and strong, and those hands have a mind of their own as they begin to wander but never where you need him most. 

You shouldn’t be here, yet you came. He asked you to him, and you complied. Is this your fate now? Chasing after your big bad wolf like the helpless sheep that you are?

Your walls clench around an agonizing emptiness, your swollen clit brushing against your soaked underwear. Whatever he is doing to you, it’s the cruelest form of torture. 

A strangled noise breaks out of the back of his throat, rumbling in his chest. “You have no idea how badly I want to taste you,” he breathes. 

“Do it,” you beg. “Taste me.”

He utters your name again. “Stop.”

“Please.”

Your tone shatters him. When he kisses you, finally, fireworks explode in the universe around you. All the stars seem to finally align. Your heart opens, and it sucks him right into you. Your soul yearns for him. He’s so close yet so far away. 

The moon stands between you, but you cross even that ocean as you push against him, forcing your tongue into his mouth. He takes like heaven and hell; he’s the apple Eve bit into and cursed her for all eternity. But he’s also the snake, the one who compelled you to take this journey of bad decisions and jump right off the cliff’s edge. You melt into him like a broken candle. 

He pulls away. Those fangs are alluring, as sharp as a knife’s tip. You want to know what it would feel like gracing your skin, digging into your as he thrusts his cock into your tight cunt. The thought alone sends your mind into a spiral.

Your lips are swollen, but he has yet to draw blood. Matt looks as though he wouldn’t dare, his eyes darting around in a darkened conflict he feels might cost him more than your dignity. You are begging for it, as is your body, but he’s holding himself back. He’s the one who tied himself to an invisible pillar, keeping his hands locked behind his back. But that is not the Matt you want. 

You lean your head to the side, exposing the length of his neck. All control has slipped from your fingers. It’s in his hands now—you are. He cups your head gently. A mere few inches lie between your fountain and his lips.

You press a kiss to his calloused palm—a desperate and needy kiss, tracing your tongue over the lines that tell his life’s story in a way no interview can retell—and it is then he is forever done for. He’s doomed, and you are the second woman to pull him under the pits of hell. 

Saliva drips from his fangs. You hold your breath. He hisses, a weak admission of surrender; the words die miserably on your tongue when his lips close around your pulse point with all his might, and his teeth drive home. 

You moan aloud. Your fingers tangle in his hair, forcing him deeper as he sucks the dark red essence out of your vein. The sensation is more than you bargained for. It’s a drug that wrecks your system. The synapses in your brain backfire with all their might, and what follows the initial explosion of pleasure shooting white hot through your being is complete and utter silence as this God of a man feeds on you. 

The invisible string between you glows a bright crimson. It slings around you, tying you together like the roots of a tree. It’s an eternal sacrifice. You are giving your all to him, the very core of your existence that is now flowing into his mouth. You swear you can hear his thoughts mingle with yours. Yes, more, please. You taste so good. Your knees buckle, but you remain standing strong. He makes sure you don’t fall. Don’t slip away from me. I need you. 

A tear rolls down your cheek. You could sob. It feels so good—too good to be true. In that moment, you become one. There is no telling where one begins and the other ends. The coil in your stomach tightens, and the only pain you feel is the pleasure threatening to overwhelm you. He’s taking everything as you give him everything, but it is not enough. It has never been enough. 

When your body struggles to catch up with the lack of blood, he pulls away. His fangs drag out of your neck agonizingly slowly. You whimper at the sudden loss.

Matt catches you as you stumble into his arms. “You okay?” He cradles your face, brushing the hair out of your face. Your blood stains his lips. Blinking up at him, the force of your metaphysical connection slaps you awake. 

You cease to exist in all solar systems but his. 

He pokes the tip of his index finger with the sharp edge of one tooth, sliding it over the two holes that are pulsating with the work of your heartbeat.

“I shouldn’t have—” he begins. 

“No,” you say. “You did exactly what you should have.”

“I couldn’t stop.”

“But you did.” You wipe the blood from his mouth. “And I felt you. I only felt you.”

The living room passes by you. Before you know it, your back lands on something much softer than a concrete wall. He’s not a monster, that one, but he surely is an animal. 

You taste your blood on Matt’s luscious lips as he devours your tongue. It tastes of copper and a little bitter, but that is what makes him moan. That sound is the last thing you could ever grow tired of. 

His palm rests on your chest. Your heart pounds against his palm. “You’re so alive,” he says.

You cradle his face in your hands. “And you’re more human than you think.”

If he wanted to pull your heart out and hold it, you would let him in a heartbeat. 

He leans you back. He strips you bare. He kisses down your body like you are a fucking masterpiece for him to explore. That is how he sees you. 

Your head falls back. The kisses wander from your hips to the inside of your thighs. Every kiss brings his breath closer to your center. Matt pulls them apart. He opens you up to him. Your scent clouds his senses, and he groans, but he doesn’t touch. 

His fangs graze your skin. “Mine,” he growls. 

You gasp. He bites into the sensitive flesh. Hard, passionately. Your legs wrap around his head, trapping him there. He sucks, and he sucks, and he drinks, and the wetness pools out of your cunt in an obscene amount. This is foreplay to him. It drives you toward the edge leading to an abyss you are afraid you might never be able to crawl back out of. There is no bottom, it is just a pit, and he’s pushing you closer and closer, and—

Your back arches, but he pulls away before the coil can snap into a million butterflies. He pries your legs away from his head, spreading them further on the mattress, as far apart as they will go. 

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner have been served on a silver platter. He breathes in. The scent of your soaked pussy sticks to the hairs in his nose. It isn’t enough. He breathes in again, your arousal sweeter than fiction. You’re everything and more. He wants to taste that part of you more than anything, suck up the slick that is soaking the sheets—and you didn’t even think that was possible—but he waits because he needs to savor it. He doesn’t want it to be over too soon. neither for him nor for you. 

The blood is still dripping from his tongue and his fangs, and the raw inside of your thigh. He runs his finger through it. The sting runs from the wound to your folds, then back down. Still, he doesn’t touch. He plays with the blood, sucking on his fingers until they’re clean, and then he dives back in for a taste. He doesn’t bite, he kisses and sucks, but he doesn’t push it further. He doesn’t hurt you. 

You’re his saving grace; he has to worship you. Pain only has a place in pleasure. 

“Matthew,” you moan. 

He chuckles, kissing where his fangs left deep indentations. “No one will ever touch you again,” he purrs. “I’ll make sure of that.” 

You try to protest, but the words die on your tongue when he leans in, capturing your clit with his hungry mouth. The wound on your thigh closes. The blood from his lips mixes with your juices, and you cry out at the intensity of it all. 

He eats you with the ferocity of a man starved for weeks. He eats your pussy like he ate your blood, savoring every drop but still feasting for the taste to spread out in his mouth like wildfire. Sour, sweet, and copper. He sucks your sensitive clit into his mouth. His tongue drags through your folds, up and down, and then the tip slides inside, tasting your walls. He grows bolder as your moans accelerate. 

Matt cradles your thighs. He forces your hips back down to the mattress, stronger than the average human man. You have to endure his beard scratching and burning, and the pace he has set.

The orgasm creeps up on you. Before you know it, he has plunged his tongue into you, and your body convulses around him. You scream into a pillow as you come. 

You are each other’s forbidden fruit. No prayer in the world could keep you apart. 

Faintly, you can hear him say, “Good girl.” Your legs quiver. He pulls away, then comes right back like a boomerang. 

He’s warm now. He was cold before, but when he kisses you this time, he’s warm. He’s hot. You run your hands over his bare chest, the scars that lie under the dark strands of hair. You tug at it, and he moans. You can tell he is a little insecure, but by pressing your lips to one of the cuts on his shoulder, he relaxes. 

What he must have endured, what he must have lived through before he died and was resurrected in the same breath, just without a beating heart—you don’t want to think about it or you will break, but you can still feel him through the crimson tie that holds you together, and you know that he has suffered enough for more than two lifetimes. You wish you could take it all away from him. You wish you could have saved him before it was too late, loved him more than the woman who turned him, but turning back time is an impossibility. You are both acutely aware of that. 

“Hey.” Matt tilts your head toward him. “Where did you just go?” he asks. 

“Thinking about you,” you murmur. 

“Me?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be your salvation.”

You. His salvation. He kisses you, softly this time. He pours gratitude into his lips and bleeds them out in poetry as they slide into your mouth, and you swallow every last drop. 

If someone had told you a week ago where you would see yourself on that particular Monday, you would have laughed at them. And if someone had told you a week ago that you would be making love to the devil, you would have called them crazy. But it’s happening. 

He thrusts into you without a warning. His thick cock fills you like nothing and no one ever has before. Your cunt has been molded to fit him, you’re sure. You take him in, and you moan at the stretch. It’s a pain so delicious you could fall apart right then and there just from the feel of him inside you. 

Every thrust drags the tip of his cock along your sweet spot. Every added sensation drives you closer to your death. 

Your body tingles. He explores your face with his lips rather than his fingers, moving to your neck again. You cling to him, oh-so-desperate for him. He likes you like that, and you like him like that. 

“You’re fucking with my head,” he tells you. “Offering your pussy to a vampire. Letting me drink your blood. Begging me to fuck you. You’re in my head, baby. Can’t get you out of my system. Fuck.”

You are his downfall, his salvation, but he is all of those things to you as well—all of those things and more. If he could read your mind, you would tell him that. Words can’t do justice to how you feel. Not right now, maybe not ever. 

“Bite me again,” you beg.

His thrusts falter. He searches your body for any sign of regret. His fangs come out, and he buries them deep in your jugular vein. The floodgates open wide. Your walls clench around his cock, your clit pulsates, and the wave crashes into you. 

You come as he devours your neck and your blood. You transcend into another dimension, far away from everything and everyone but never him. Never Matthew.

The sensation of you wraps around him like a weighted blanket. His balls tighten, your blood unfolding its taste on his tongue. You are all over him, inside of him, everywhere at once. He falls head-first, dragging you down with him. 

He comes with a shout that is only muffled through his teeth buried in your flesh, his cum spurting into you and filling your cunt to the brim. Your eyes roll back. You’re flying and falling all at once. 

Oh, how good it feels to be consumed by him. To be fucked and sucked dry. You would have never expected this to come out of your week, let alone your life, but now that it has happened, you are floating on cloud nine. 

Dizziness threatens to take over, but before you can pass out, he forces himself away, allowing your heart to catch up with the lack of blood in your system. He collapses on top of you. His cock softens, but he stays inside. You need him there. You want him there. And that is the only place he wants to rest tonight. 

He heals the wounds on your neck. “You have a mark,” Matt rasps, tracing your skin with his finger. 

You choke out, “Yours.”

“Yes, you are.” He kisses you there. Once, twice, even a third time. “Mine,” he says.

You’re his. He’s yours. It doesn’t get any better than this. 

The minutes tick away on the obnoxious clock on the wall. Matt pulls out eventually, wrapping you up in a blanket. He coaxes you to drink, but you’re barely lucid. Only when he begins to stroke your hair you start coming back to yourself. You thought you might regret it, but as you look at him, his almost guilty eyes staring back at you, all you can do is reach out for him. 

“Session two tomorrow?” you ask.

He chuckles and retorts, “Have I not scared you away?” There is some truth to it though.

He’s covered in your blood. It sticks to his lips, his hands, and his chest. It’s sickeningly intimate, in a way.

You shake your head in response. “You could not possibly.”

He listens to your heartbeat. You’re as honest as they come. 

“Okay,” Matt says. “Session two tomorrow then.”

That night, you fell in love with the Devil, but he also fell in love with you, his angel in the form of a reckless journalist, and the only blood he ever wants to taste again until the end of his miserable, cursed days. 

Matt Murdock (Smut) Tag List: @shouldbestudying41 @theradioactivespidergwen @cheshirecat484 @1988-fiend @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @mcugeekposts @itwasthereaminuteago @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @etanordoesbullsh1t @thychuvaluswife @harleycao @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @sya-skies @amberritonicole @ravenclaw617 @pigeonmama @bohemianrhapsody86 @a-girl-has-n0-name @winkev1 @callsign-ember @chittaphonstar @buckyyyismahhlife

[hysteria-entertainment]

INFATUATION PART 2

SUMMARY: After an icy encounter with Tan during the Intergalactic festival, LJs infatuation causes some tension within the group. 

Mentions Tan @ravebys and Kay @elektra-world​

A door slams shut and LJ was pushed towards a chair forcefully. The two figures practically holding him hostage stood in front of the study room door, arms crossed and faces pinched with anger. "What was that shit you pulled, Jaehwan?" Alexander growled.

Van stepped forward, chewing the inside of his cheek as he tried to choose his words carefully. "You embarrassed our group. And you disrespected a junior. Can you not let your fascination with Kay go?"

Alexander scoffed, rolling his eyes. "He has a thing for girls who are off-limits," he waves his hand in the air. "We went through this with Jihye, remember? And Jieun-Noona! You think you're hot shit, right?" He snaps.

There was a history between the two that left a sour taste in Alexander's mouth. The sneaky flirts and constant comments about Jihye had caused tension between the two members. And LJ even had the audacity to come at his own Hyung about dating another trainee at that time.

"Can't I just have a little fun, Hyung? There's no harm in it." LJ mumbles, not bothering to look his members in the eye. He was like a cat playing with a mouse.

"Don't be dumb," Van says, his voice raising an octave. "What you're doing is weird, bordering on sexual harassment. Do you really not see that? Why did you touch her after being explicitly told to back off?"

During the final artist performance at the festival, LJ had stood particularly close to her and at one moment, his hand brushed her back when he walked behind her. "I told you! She lost lost her balance and I was reaching out to stop her from falling!" He says loudly, the usual smug look on his face was gone. It was the truth - Kay's heel had hit a bump in the stage and caught her off guard. He instinctively reached out, not even thinking, and had no nefarious intentions.

Alexander sighs, sitting down before speaking. "Then why get all cocky about it to her boyfriend, huh? Do you get off on that crap or something?" He wanted to keep his cool but it was hard. All he could think of were the times he went around flirting with Jihye. Even after he found out the two were dating, he still made some comments to Alexander here and there.

"Its just harmless fun. That Tan is annoying and thinks he's all that."

Van snorted, rolling his eyes. "Hi-larious coming from the man whose ego is bigger than his own dick." Jaehwan tilts his head, a snicker leaving him as he leans back in his chair. The boys often ribbed each other like this so he took no offense.

"Jai is too nice to ever say these things to your face, so I'm taking the initiative right now: you're going to stop this crap. Stop messing with girls who deny your advances. Stop thinking you're hot shit who can make any woman leave their man. You're a better person than this and I fucking know it. I'm going to Yuri and the others about you because you need to be knocked back a few steps." Alexander was stern and his furious gaze dug into Jaehwan like hot fire pokers.

"What? You know what will happen of you do! We have a comeback soon!" He says, his voice raising in frustration and disbelief.

Van gives him a sympathetic look. "Yeah, I know. It blows - but maybe use your time off to think about how you've been acting. How your actions affect others, yeah?"

Jaehwan huffed, growling softly as he stood up and began to pace. "You make me out to be a predator!" He yells, though shame was starting to consume him.

"You're used to fans accepting every little wink, thrust and flirt that leaves you. It's gone to your head. Not every woman wants that." Alexander says, surprisingly calm. "You ruined my relationship with Jihye, you know? Your advances made her so uncomfortable that I had no choice but to break up with her so you'd leave her alone!" It seemed foolish at the time, but LJ had only started moving in once he realized she was off the market.

"Hyung -"

"No," Alexander intercepts, standing up as the younger boy spun around, "I don't want anymore excuses. My mind has been made up. This is your final chance to redeem yourself otherwise you will be gone and we'll make sure of it."

The left Jaehwan standing there, stunned. He paced the room a bit more, releasing a frustrated growl before finally calming down and leaving the room a nearly a half an hour later.

It didn’t take long after that for him to receive a text from his manager demanding he visit the CEOs office at once.

[ravenwrlds]

So whenever you ask me again how I feel, please remember my answer is you

RAVENS RELATIONSHIPS (FT @elektra-worldorld )

KAY + TAN

The maknaes in love

Sweetest couple ever

Even though he looks like a powerhouse on stage, with Kay, he's so sweet and soft for her

She calls him Tannie often and even though he says he hates it, he really doesn't

He will buy her little gifts and drop it off to her at her place, mostly matching couple items or more

When she buys him matching clothes, he's more likely to wear it during lives or vlogs so she knows he's thinking of her

He will often surprise her with dates, either picking her up from her schedule or from her place

Kay is his most frequent visitor, having her own space in his closet and in his bathroom

Calls her "babe" often, and will occasionally call her "my love"

He often asks her for feedback on his performances, valuing her words more than anyone else.

All in all, he loves her more than anything

YUA + ROMEO

beast boy and raven

Romeo looks at Yua like she's the brightest star in the sky

He always invites her over and plays video games with her, only to just stare at her

Lets her play with his hair and trace his tattoos; they also vape together

No matter the situation, he runs to be by her side and does anything she needs

She's kinda like a mama bear to her members and he admires that about her. He wants to be a leader like that in his subunit.

She will occasionally join him in his stupid ideas, mostly taking pictures of him being stupid

If they were around each other, he's either staring at her or holding her hand

Whenever she has comebacks, he always listens to it and plays it on repeat, smiling whenever her part comes on. They also have studio dates often where they make music together (or just cuddle)

CHANRI + FUJI

classy girl and bad boy

Fuji is the bad boy that is mostly in Wattpad fics (he street races at night, and owns lots of underground clubs). Chanri is the only person he told that he does that

He likes to give her money that he makes from his races and from the clubs. He also likes to buy her expensive gifts and spoil her

Both are naturally flirty people, so they flirt with one another a lot

Chanri is the apple of lots of idols' eyes, which sometimes makes Fuji jealous but he trusts her

When he goes away on business trips in Japan, she always gets nervous and will be until he calls her or comes back. He always feels bad for it, making up for it by buying her something or spending lots of time with her

They have sex. A lot of it. He had to get an apartment away from everyone else bc he used to get lots of noise complaints

But besides the money and sex, he truly loves her. He always talks about how much he loves her and wants to show it constantly (which is usually through gifts).

JENNA + JUNHO

muscle bear and softie

Married couple pt.2

Junho swears Jenna makes him soft every time they see each other

She'll go with him to the gym and she just watches him. When he mentions that she should be working out too, she just blushes and then continues staring at him

Junho takes care of his Niece MinMin often, so Jenna helps too. He swears up and down that MinMin and Jenna are partners in crime

When he's not taking care of his niece, he's taking care of Jenna in between her schedules. She takes care of him when he works too hard in the gym or in his schedule, which he appreciates

He may come across as sometimes uncaring, but he actually does. He'll make her breakfast before he leaves in the morning and makes her dinner when he comes home. He's even made her food in the middle of the night because she started craving food.

He loves her with all of his beings and is glad that he married her

SORA + JAE

mom and dad

Married couple #1

They were the couple who started it all. He met her after he said that she was his ideal type two years ago and ever since then, it's all been about love

They do have twin children together named Baekhyun and Chaeyoung. He loves them almost as much as he loves Sora.

If he had to, he would give his life for his wife and kids, promising to provide for them forever

Which is why he works in his studio constantly and makes music all night long. Sora will occasionally come in and give him food or water and check in on him, making sure he's alright.

Jae will take night shifts with the kids since he's already up, giving Sora a chance to sleep. He doesn't want to leave Sora all alone without his help as he had done when she was pregnant. She was alone at home a lot while he was out with his group and he hated doing it.

But, besides their kids and all that, he loves her and she loves him

He looks at her with such adoration and will do anything for her

[harrowscore]

best books read in 2022 by yours truly, in no particular order:

the seven deaths of evelyn hardcastle by stuart turton (technically started in 2021 but finished in early january 2022, so it counts). murder mystery + time loop + redemption themes = perfect mix, 10/10 recommend

this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar & max gladstone: space lesbians but what if they were enemies? lovely, lovely prose. one flaw tho: more of a ~i'm being poetic for the sake of being poetic~ than a character story. still, interesting read.

the plague by albert camus: i couldn't not include him. 5/5 stars, he's easily becoming one of my favorite authors.

hygiène de l'assassin by amélie nothomb: a female journalist succeeds where everyone else fails and interviews an old misanthropic and cynical nobel-winner author. but not everything is as it seems... insane little book, great characterization for the female protagonist. perfect ending. i couldn't put it down, thankfully it's quite short.

carmilla by j. sheridan le fanu: this doesn't need introductions, does it? :)

hedda gabler by henrik ibsen: a play revolving around a woman - daughter of a general, unsatisfied by her current circumstances and marriage. a fascinating female protagonist, especially for the time; the kind of writing you usually get for male characters, and a role every actress would give everything to play at least once.

salomé by oscar wilde: one act only, but it stays with you. particularly incisive adaptation of the biblical story; wilde's writing as usual is stunning.

an oresteia (agamemnon by aeschylus, elektra by sophokles, orestes by euripides) by anne carson: another read that doesn't need introductions.

the hours by michael cunningham: somehow based on mrs dalloway, it is about one day (and the life) of three women in three different time periods; among them, virginia woolf herself. lovely prose.

the cycle of earthsea by ursula k. le guin: series of 5 books (including one of short stories) masterfully written by ms le guin. the first book is a sort of fantasy buldingsroman about a young wizard named ged who, because of his hubris, makes a peculiar sort of enemy... the next books follow ged as he becomes an adult, a middle-aged, and an old man + a varied cast of characters (most importantly tenar, introduced in book 2). original worldbuilding and story (especially for the time - the first novel was published in the 60s), lovely prose and themes (light/dark as yin/yang, necessary to each other's existence - sw wishes it had what earthsea has) + beautiful love story in the last volumes. bonus: most characters in earthsea are very much not white. again, very avant-garde for the 60s, and something all adaptations deliberately ignored.

grendel by john gardner: based on the beowulf poem - the story told by the antagonist's point of view. just striking, and oh my god the themes. couldn't stop thinking about it for days.

in the night garden by catherynne m. valente: a girl trapped in a garden spins a labyrinth of fairy tales for a boy - the only person willing to listen to her - a la scheherazade. told in the usual beautiful prose made in valente, amazing settings and atmospheres.

the sundering duology by jacqueline carey. (thanks for the rec, @queen-zimraphel ❤️) basically a lotr retelling told by the Bad Guys' povs. the inspiration is clear but also it's meant to be a mirror and say 'what if?'. grey morality everywhere, elegant but simple prose + death and the maiden vibes from the local tormented dark lord/the beautiful elf lady. (tho the main love story is not about them specifically... but still.) a great tragedy, but masterfully told - this is how characters who were dead from the beginning and given a role to play in the narrative by a fate larger than them should be written.

honorary mentions to áqua viva by clarice lispector, waiting for godot by samuel beckett, enrico iv by luigi pirandello, and then there were none by agatha christie, sharp objects and gone girl by gillian flynn, in the margins by elena ferrante, ficciones by jorge luis borges, and obviously demons by fyodor dostoeveskij <3

[elliedearest]

I've never seen Daredevil in my life (i know I know it's ridiculous especially when I've seen Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and the Defenders) so the little I know of him is through The Defenders and She-Hulk and the pilot episode. A little some second hand knowledge from people here and fandom Wikipedia too.

But I have a story idea, and I haven't seen any one try to write it yet so far. Too many people wanna fuck Matt Murdock, i guess, which is completely understandable.

I'll probably write it, but I would love someone more experienced in writing fan fiction to do it.

Anyway.

It's just the idea of being in love with Matt Murdock since meeting in college, but him constantly choosing Elektra.

Main character has been friends with Foggy and Matt since college. More Foggy's friend than Matt, but since those two are attached at the hip, Matt becomes a dear friend too. There's an attraction between the two that eventually ends up with them dating during their time in uni. It's casual and fun, and the Main Character is so into Matt, and there's a huge possibility they'll finally take the next step and become serious. Like a proper serious relationship.

Until Elektra shows up. Matt likes the main character, a lot, but Elektra makes him feel like he's flying. She was someone who he can fully be himself. Someone who also embraces his dark side. Main character only knew Matt, the cute and snarky blind guy. The main character agrees to break up, convincing themselves that they didn't date long enough for this to be such a big deal. And for a bit, things are awkward in their friend group, but the MC gets over it. They start to date, other people.

And then Elektra leaves. And while MC and Matt don't try to date again, the dynamic is almost how it used to be. They don't really flirt with each other anymore because there are protocols after an end of a relationship (even though technically they were never serious) but there's still that undercurrent of something that is hard to ignore sometimes.

Years go by, Matt and Foggy are lawyers and starting their own business. MC is an art curator for a private gallery (or choose whatever.) Karen has entered the friend group.

Sometime after the Chitauri invasion, and Matt as Daredevil, they try again. And things are going well. Despite neither knowing the other's secret (Matt being daredevil and MC? Well, I like to think they're hiding powers. Maybe they're magical and while they never used their magic near him, there's a certain scent that magic has like the smoke of a fire, fresh soil, or the moment before rain strikes, but he obviously can't tell it's magic-there's no reference to that- and just assumes that's just specific to them), they're happy. They're taking it slow. And they haven't really mentioned it to Foggy though he's suspicious.

But of course, Elektra shows up again. MC doesn't actually know she's back. Elektra is Daredevil's world. But then they find her in Matt's bed and Matt has to explain it all anyway.

MC is understandably upset and asks if it's even a good idea for them to continue when they can clearly see how Matt is not over her. Matt insists there's nothing going on. He's just helping her out. MC doesn't really believe him about being over her (they had heard from Foggy about what a mess he had been when Elektra left him) but decides they'll trust him to help Elektra solve whatever danger she's in. A relationship is about trust and communication, right? and they needed to start somewhere.

Elektra dies. Matt is distraught but trying not to let MC know. They obviously know and try to be there for him. They talk, and slowly, they patch over whatever cracks there had been. It's hard to date someone who has lost someone they loved previously, and MC has contemplated breaking up with him to give him room to breathe, but they don't want to and when they sort of hinted at maybe taking a break, Matt flatly refused, telling them that yes while he's sad he couldn't save Elektra, he liked MC and didn't want to give them up. He made a mistake once back in college and didn't want to repeat it.

Then, the whole Defender fiasco happens. Elektra is alive. Immortal secret club is trying to take over the world or destroy it (it's all the same, really). And Matt is presumably dead.

MC wasn't actually in the city when it happened. They were busy with work( and/or magic-relate business. ). When they came back home, Foggy was the one that sat them down and told them what had happened. They demanded that Jessica meet them to give MC the full details. They refused to believe that Matt was dead.

It feels like the ground is slowly breaking apart from underneath them. Jessica does meet them, uncomfortable and for once not spiky, and tells them about Matt's final moments. About Elektra.

MC waits for Jessica to leave before they react. Truly, they can't process it. Matt gone. Matt choosing to stay behind to fight Elektra.

They know the truth, though. Matt chose her over them again, and this time for the final time.

Matt couldn't live in a world where he had to choose to watch Elektra die again. Even if it meant leaving them behind.

Over the months, Foggy and Karen still hold out hope that Matt is alive. MC doesn't and grieves. Tries to come to terms with not only the loss of a dear friend, but also loss of a relationship as well.

When Matt does eventually come back, he's different. He's angry and determined to bring Fisk down once and for all. He doesn't approach Foggy and Karen or if he does, it's for Daredevil purposes. He wasn't planning to run into the MC, but he does.

The interaction is painful and biting. MC is holding a lot of sadness and rage herself. Things are said. Matt doesn't reassure them of their thoughts and assumptions because it's better this way. In his point of view, Matt Murdock is dead and the only thing important to him right now was taking down Fisk and protecting Hell's kitchen. MC, after learning his plan, says this isn't really about him getting justice or protecting people. This is him destroying himself. He wasn't a hero.

So he lives to fight Fisk. And it's final. Maybe Foggy comes by and updates them on what happened and invites MC to eat with them just like old times. Maybe they join the final fight and save his behind numerous times. A call back to the Defenders and how he could have called them for assistance but didn't. Maybe Matt tries to apologize or maybe he knows its futile, whatever it is, MC declines and decides they need a clean break from Matt Murdock.

The story would end somewhere here. None of those may be the actual ending specifically, but their relationship should have imploded by the end of the story.

This is all speculation, but Matt is beautiful, funny, and charming, but he holds a lot of baggage he's never really attempted to resolve. He's reckless with his life and single-minded. He loves his friends, but sometimes takes them for granted. And his relationship with Elektra, though beautiful and sincere, is destructive and dark and so impactful it ruins any other relationship he could have.

The MC has always denied being in love with Matt Murdock, but they were and have been since college. Maybe they should have known better than to accept a date from Matt Murdock, but they never thought they would be dealing with Elektra again. And it took a building falling on their boyfriend for MC to finally break this toxic cycle.

Idk what do you think? I would definitely need help writing this if I tried to pursue this.

If someone, however, does decide to write it, I would love to read it. I would appreciate being tagged!