#sorry for the descendants posting on main

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Where we go from here...

It took me awhile last evening to get my mind in the right place to do the baking I had to do. I thought I would put on some music on my little radio station to kick my head into work mode. Tried some Glenn Gould playing Bach (always a go-to for morning coffee music), and it didn't hit right.

So I dialed up the huge mix I have titled "1969-72" and almost immediately started the long road back to feeling like myself. After about a half-hour, I was in the groove. Listened to the mix far into the night, after I'd finished working.

I managed to keep my focus and got the cookies all baked, and kiddo's mom happily packed them up and just left for her party, and I'm over here for the next couple of nights, sadly for my back. Two nights of "No Mattress For Old Men" and I'll need a week to recover, but hey...

Wanna thank all y'all for your comments and messages when I posted that I was prolly just gonna go black. Y'all loved me back off the ledge. Posted in a moment of true despair...something I haven't felt in awhile. I am hurting for all of us...and all of you. I have never in my long life been scared for the nation until now. Or at least that's what I thought. This feeling of complete despair, the emotional pain of millions of people, the hopelessness, the fear for the future...after I sat with it awhile I realized yes, that I have felt this same combination of toxic shit before.

In the 65 years I've been on this stinkin' rock, I've been through a number of particularly devastating previous elections, most notably the two Bush2(Dumbya) regimes. I remember the night of the 2004 election...Americans were posting tearful photos taken by their webcams, with them holding up signs saying "We're sorry."

I saw first-hand all the fights for rights that we have gained from the early '60s onward. To find ourselves set back to square one, 50-60 years later, when we had finally gained some footing toward fairness, is cruel. And cruelty is what they will wield as their main weapons in the coming days, as we suddenly find ourselves in the same predicament as 1963-65 when a virginal Joan Baez and little Bobby Dylan changed protest music forever.

So yes, I have felt this same way, and no, the nation didn't die or descend into complete chaos. Our lives went on, essentially as they had, with a growing pile of "things we can't do anymore" heaped atop via the collective wounding of 9/11.

This is another collective wounding--an intentional collective wounding. The next few months are going to be chaotic, they will try to push through their agenda as quickly as possible come january.

I may not post much overtly political stuff from this point on, but if I do it will be refocused on positive news. I don't know for certain how long that might last, but I can't take a 24/7 barrage of bad news and outrage bait. I'm probably gonna unfollow a few blogs, but don't think it's personal...it is Mental/Emotional Health Care.

And yes, I've been in the trenches with y'all a long time...we are all Family at this point...Brothers and Sisters in arms. I'm not leaving, but my presence/role will be different, out of the renewed sense of self-preservation this has thrust me into.

I woke up disoriented, but quickly remembered I'd gotten what I needed to get done done, and had a slow re-entry, sipping my coffee for a couple hours. I kept remembering how well the music had helped me last night, and then the beginnings of what this might turn into began to coalesce. Concepts of a plan. lulz.

As the day went on, I've been on a roller-coaster, emotionally, with seemingly hopeful leads on a roommate not materializing, on top of my craigslist ad for a roomie getting flagged and deleted. Pretty goddamn hopeless as far as this situation is going.

Looked at the huge box of cookies I'd managed to bake last night and it hit me. I've been reblogging the "Gooood Morning, TUMBLR!" graphics every morning up until the election. The image of Robin Williams being in character calling up the role of the military DJ.

Back when I did my cafe in the mountains of NM, a friend lent me a book called "Radio Venceramos", about South American rebels who had a radio transmitter and clamped the leads to the barbed-wire fences to broadcast their signal/programming to their fellow rebels.

Still not sure how the format will work out, but I've decided: my new role is going to primarily be the voice of inspiration over the air-waves to my fellow rebels. Not sure if it will be a second blog or if it will be a continuation of PTSD, but with no further ado, I will become the Voice of my fellow rebels with:

I may make a second blog out of it, but until then I guess I'll make it a series of posts. Tumblr will let you blog up to ten videos/post, and that may be how I start things out. Consider them like stacks of 45s and LP tracks from my paul-shaffer-brain...meant to help keep spirits up and keep the focus.

Made a couple of graphics, will probably try others in the course of it.

So the message today was "You did what you had to do. Heal up for what's ahead."

I will probably start this new focus in the morning...I'm still chewin'.

[gaypirate420]

I always liked Chad he was so sassy and stupid. When I was younger I swore I could fix him.

[shellyseashell]

@panthera-tigris-venenata and @tiredflowercrown asked for this so here’s an explanation of my demon hunter au!

the basic idea is, when beast brought together all the fairytale worlds, it didn’t just bring villains back from the dead. it brought back demons that had been previously killed or locked away (many of whom were villains anyway, but the point here is they’re stronger). having so many powerful demons/sorcerers/whatever (chernabog, the horned king, zhan tiri, chatana, and maybe maleficent i haven’t decided which version of her i want to use are the biggest threats, but then there’s the other villains, many of whom are still magic) throws all magic into wack, meaning it’s stronger, wilder, and there’s practically no barrier between the natural world and the otherworlds.

this leads to the creation of the king’s guard, a special order meant to take down the demon lords. initially, many of the more magical kingdoms (avalor, camelot, kumandra, corona, etc.) that are threatened by them ally with beast to trap/kill them. they end up trapping them on the isle, built off neverland. it was meant just for demon lords and their allies, the biggest threats, not the villains that yeah, are magic, or dangerous, but they’re not near gods in power (like, the evil queen is a threat, but still human, so she doesn’t necessarily need to be on the isle, for example, charmington can deal with her just fine). but to make the isle, beast had to trap and kill plenty of innocent people, many of whom were magic, which is a thing i like to call foreshadowing.

after the demon lords are locked up, beast turns on all magic users and creatures. in his mind, all magic is dangerous, and has the potential to be just like the demons they just locked up. and well, locking up the demons didn’t really calm magic or make demons vanish, so really, he’s just finishing the job, right?

all the magic kingdoms that had previously allied with beast split, formed their own alliance known as just the rebellion or the guild. leaders include elena, phoebus, jasmine, ariel, repunzel, raya, and arthur. if their kingdom is highly magical, chances are at least some of their people joined.

they fight, and slowly, beast slowly forces the rebellion to surrender. most of his success comes from having some very fanatical people on his side, mainly: frollo. i wasn’t going to make it a religious persecution type story, but the idea of frollo working for beast but so does phoebus and the dynamics that brings basically wrote itself so here we are.

anyway, most of the rebel kingdoms are forced to surrender with heavy consequences to them, one constant being sending most of their magic users to the isle (many of whom are characters we consider villains anyway for consistency of why they’re there). the only ones that are allowed to stay are those who either hide and escape the hunts, or who join the kings guard, now the only organization allowed to use magic.

when the rebellion is successfully defeated, frollo is sent to the isle to ensure it remains so. many on the isle helped build it, they know best how to take it down. i’m not sure if those on the isle will maintain any contact with those off the isle, but either way there’s still very much so a war happening on the isle.

which is the situation the villains kids are born into. there are three alliances they can be born to: the king’s guard (many human villains like gaston ally with frollo. they were thrown on the isle because if magic users are criminals, what’s to say criminals aren’t magic users?), the demon lords, or the rebellion. many drift to the rebellion eventually.

no matter where the kids are born, they’re brought up for war. the king’s guard trains within themselves, usually parents teaching kids. a few are sent to auradon to train, but never kids of major prisoners, always kids of guards that were stationed there. they send kids into war at 16 at the youngest, legally, but on the isle some kids are sent in even younger (either because they’re prodigies, or because they’re hated, like gil, and their families are hoping they’ll die in action). they hoard any supplies sent to the isle, and they kill indiscriminately. to them, their job won’t be done, and the world won’t be stable again, until everyone the isle is dead. not many kids end up leaving.

most kids born to demon lords are raised to bring an era of darkness to the world, to amass as much power as they can. many of the magical villains who weren’t rebels are allied with them (evil queen, Jafar, etc). they’re isolated, usually, but not always. this how many, like jay, are able to leave (in jay’s case, he wandered into rebel territory and ran into the 40 thieves, who adopted him on the spot). it’s brutal, and most don’t have a choice in what they do. they’re the ones most often killed by their parents. they’re usually some of the most powerful magic uses on the isle, too. many kids from this group escape eventually, and join the rebels.

the rebels are a majority of the isle. not many of them actually fight, but plenty of magic users were sent to the isle unfairly and are under their protection. like the kids in the other groups, they’re raised for war, but it’s much more a community effort than and isolated thing. the schools, dragon hall, serpent prep, and the witch academy are run by their gangs and are very military focused. they send kids into the field at 15, but that’s a recent rule and many of the older kids have been fighting much longer by necessity. the rebels is the alliance many of the canon gangs fall into. those who ran from the other alliances often fight, but only after they’ve proven their allegiance.

there are villains who don’t really fall into any group, like hook, and other never land pirates, who were just vibing before everything happened, or the de vils who just wanted to run a crime empire why are they in the middle of a war now.

in auradon, things are only slightly better. they’re not necessarily in a total war, but the isle if anything made the demon issue worse. the prep is a school meant to train king’s guard knights, and the former rebel kingdoms are forced to send their royal kids there to keep an eye on them and keep the kingdom in line. kids who aren’t royal are allowed to attend, but even they have king’s guards in their family. they start training officially (but many have trained longer at home) at 14 and ends at 18-20. (the reason 16 is the legal fighting age for frollo’s men is because at 16 trainees — squires, as they’re called — begin going on hunts with senior students) the reason they can afford sending people into the field when they’re older is because they have more people, and can afford the wait for more soldiers. the isle doesn’t have that luxury.

magic users are hunted and executed regularly. some are still sent to the isle, but beast finds just killing them is quicker. they focus more on killing witches than demons, or figuring out and ending the source of the issue, believing if they just kill all witches then the world will right itself. therefore, many illegal hunting groups formed, who hunt demons (and often still witches) instead of the organization meant to do that.

so what’s the plot? ben still gets kids off the isle. how? well, his argument is that they’re sent into the field before they’re legally old enough (by auradon standards) and therefore the rebels are committing war crimes and the kids shouldn’t be there. it’s flimsy, and the kids who he chooses to come over are all rebels, but it’s on purpose.

growing up, ben is mentored by phoebus, captain of the kings guard in order to protect the romani (in paris at least) for as long as he can. beast intended it to be a “see what happens when you rebel” type thing, but instead phoebus adopted another son and made sure he knew exactly how horrible his father is.

so ben brings kids over, knowing and hoping they’ll bring their rebellion with them. and also, because of the fighting on the isle, the barrier has been slowly eroding, and many of the remaining rebels in auradon are starting to think that’s the issue.

[jennablackmorebooks]

I think at some point, if she didn't already have one, Mirdri would acquire an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner. She might try to show Otto — after all, he has his own special ring — but I don't think it would be the best experience of his life. Can you clean an eye in an ultrasonic machine? I think Otto's ring would require a bit more delicate care. I'd like to draw this, but it's almost 4 am and I have a headache, so this maybe serves as a reminder to draw it when the daylight hours return.

[fairuzfan]

I don't want to add it to the post (bc I don't want to get into it with assholes) but! I'm literally Japanese-American, and I would say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are similar to Gaza and Rafah not just in the amount of firepower directed at them but in that they're both CIVILIAN POPULATIONS. it's not about the nuclear weapons (reading comprehension website.jpeg) it's about the inhumanity of the collective punishment in service of US interests. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not individual or unique events -- look at Laos, look at Cambodia, look at Vietnam and Korea and what the States did there!! it doesn't "lessen" the horror or tragedy at all to compare them to Palestine now, especially if that comparison will help to stop it. I need white ppl to shut the fuck up about Japan permanently I stg anyways sorry people are being weird and fuckshit about this.

I think people are stuck on the differences and not willing to look at similarities when it comes to Gaza. Like when we compare its not in an effort to dismiss the differences and "triviliaze" (hate when they say that) but to show "Hey remember when something really bad happened back then? And everyone today is like I can't believe that happened? You can stop something like that from happening today by helping here" which people are allergic to doing for Palestine because they're so caught up in the minutae that they can't see the big picture. I've seen descendants of survivors of Vietnam say this is exactly what happened to them. I've seen Bosnian Genocide survivors say the gaslighting is similar to what they experienced. Holocaust survivors and their descendents! Even Hiroshima in the modern day is drawing parallels! We need to make comparisons to examine similarities and contextualize events in history. Why else learn world history if not to understand the patterns of operation in the modern day? You have beliefs surrounding certain atrocities, things like "I won't let that happen again" or "I would fight that" and that's why people are drawing parallels. To make people take action.

And this isn't limited to just Gaza, people do the same with Sudan and DRCongo. And people who do it for sudan even claim to support Palestine! Even though Gazans are asking people to pay attention to Sudan because they see themselves in their struggle! No one is paying attention to the main idea "stop this before it gets worse"!!!! It's already so bad for all these places and that damage is irreversible in that people live with it for the rest of their lives but yes! We can stop it before a complete erasure happens! It's possible! These comparisons are necessary and important!

[cosmonadarovicarts]

Theory: Carmilla would be Eve?

Among so many crazy theories (and I love it!) after this season, I'm going to bring my (crazy) theory. As the title already reveals, what if Carmilla Carmine was our missing Eve? Before you throw hate, here are some points:

-In some versions of the myth of the creation of Adam and Eve, Eve was condemned to hell (while Adam went to heaven). If the series goes down this path, the character wouldn't be in heaven;

-Carmilla's name: Originated from Hebrew culture. Carmila/Carmela/Carmilla/Carmile means garden, orchard. Well... I don't think it would be too much of a coincidence for the name to mean that (garden... Garden of Eden...).

-Eve was created from Adam's rib. Here I come up with the theory that the exorcist angels guided by Adam (including Vaggie) were created from his ribs (like Eve). This would explain the similarity in appearance of Vaggie, Lute and Carmilla.

--Carmilla's personality: she is super protective! The super mom of the series (so far). It is to be expected that Adam's second wife, mother of humanity, would be maternal./ "but she was presented as the mother of only two characters" man, she still seemed super worried about the day of extermination (she called a meeting with the Overlords precisely to think of ways to stop this), after all, the sinners were their descendants! (I'm not going to talk here about Adam's relationship with sinners, that would be worth another post) And, the same time, the exorcists would be like her sisters who she was reluctant to kill. I would also like to add here, I think Zestial could be Cain (one of his main sons and, precisely, the first sinner, as he killed his other brother Abel), this would explain the affection that Carmilla has for Zestial and for them both being the oldest Overlords! (Cain died before Eve in many versions of the myth) /Sure, they might just be good friends, but to me it made a lot of sense, my bad

-Her appearance: I've already commented on her resemblance to Vaggie (the two even duet two songs, expressing similar feelings), but now let's compare her appearance with her hair down with Eve's silhouette in the first episode (just look at the image I posted here) , it's identical! And of course, the second wife would have to be beautiful, and Carmilla is said to be beautiful.

--"ok but it is much more likely that she was one of the exorcist angels, taking into account her appearance and knowledge, why would Eve have an appearance similar to these angels?" Precisely because they came/were born from the same place, Adam's ribs! When Eve died, her demonic form still assumed that of a beautiful woman with large hands (representing her need to be able to hold, care for and hug everyone). Maybe Adam knew or didn't know how Eve was doing, and made his female army similar to his ex-wife (For me, this part would have several possibilities, like, him purposely making the appearance of the exorcists or it would just be because they were all born from the same place)

-In the final episode, when the news reports about what happened at the Hotel, the reactions of several characters appear, and there was one (emphasis?) in Carmilla's reaction to Adam's death (I imagine that, because she was against the extermination of sinners (her descendants) while her ex-husband, who lived in heaven, led this extermination, she should not have good feelings towards him).

Final note: Even if she is not Eve, probably she was one of the exorcist angels (as many already theorize), as she knew about the angelic weapons, knew of Vaggie's identity and her appearance.

(Sorry if there are a lot of grammatical errors, English is not my native language)

[sanyu-thewitch05]

I’ve been always been obsessed with myths, legends, and fairytales. And one thing that always stood out to me was that how various cultures all seem to have tales about magical women bathing, a man spotting a particular one with interest, and then either marrying her, or dying/having some cursed downfall eventually. So…can I request a story like that…but with a twist of course. Male Yandere X Female Nymph Reader

So broad premise…Darling is a nymph (or some general magical maiden) bathing in a body of water, combing her otherworldly super long hair, and just living her best life. Yandere stumbles across her and starts to stalk her over the course of some time, falls in love with her, etc. But Darling has played this game many times before and thinks this is dumb schmuck nth, and continues her innocent/ignorant/helpless act, thinking that she’ll be able to lure this man to kill him in a few days (for food, riches, or something, idk). What she doesn’t know is that Yandere is a lot more smarter and is also putting on his own act in front of her. Cause the twist is that Yandere is partial/descendent magical creature of some sort, and thus Darling’s magic doesn’t work on him. (He’s also had training resistance against magics of sorts or something). Anyway…confrontation happens, Darling thinks she’s gonna successfully drown him, but Yandere reveals his true colors and does some ritual that binds the two of them together for eternity (like some f-ed up magical matrimony), and of course takes her away to some magical residence? (I don’t know what this man does for a living, nor what his home would be like since I want to leave up what partial/descendant magical creature he is to you) where he proceeds to consummate their eternal marriage. Cause in his head, a magical eternal chain isn’t enough…no this man needs to see lots of babies. The literal “fruits of his love.” (Forgive me…I like babies/pregnancy/breeding/baby trapping in Yanderes. That stuff makes me go feral). Can’t wait to see what magical children are produced from this union. LOL.

This idea just seemed fun to write about…two manipulative main characters, each thinking they have the upper hand. Sorry for the long post. Hope you can have fun with the story! <3

TW: Dubcon, Impregnation kink, drugging, forced marriage, blood,

Monday

Being a water nymph of mixed ancestry is one of your favorite things about yourself. Everyone expects you to be the helpful water nymph to help sailors from sirens. Little did they know that your dad was half-siren. Of course, he didn't show any traits because the gene that makes sirens sirens is on the second X chromosome. So when your half-mermaid-half-nymph mom had you and your five other sisters, every single one turned out to be sirens with the tail of a mermaid and the trustworthy face of a nymph.

The best part is that your innocent face helped you lure sailors. Everyone is warned to be suspicious of the woman with a beautiful face and an alluring voice. Nobody expects their angel of death to be a maiden who looks like they're supposed to help you. This earned you many new bones for decorations and combs. Along with many treasures to keep. Plus, the sea creatures let you live in an otherworldly part of the beach hidden away from humans in return for killing a few fishermen. It is truly the dream of a maiden of the sea.

"La, la, la!" You joke around, playfully singing to a romp of otters.

Your long, pastel, aquamarine, wavy hair blends in with the water. The seashells decorating your hair make it look like your personal halo. Your striking blue eyes look like they could pierce through anyone. Your long dusty lilac, coral, and beige tail swishes in the water.

"So, what should I do next?" You ask the otters, going deeper into the water.

The otters swim up to you, then stop. They all stare at something behind you. You turn around and see nothing. You can't help but roll your eyes. Every so often, some human man will come along and watch you. Then, he'll confess his love to you, hoping you'll be his mythical legend wife. You accept, bring him in for a kiss, then bite him on the jugular or drown him.

"Don't worry, I'll have him gone before the weekend," You whisper to your otters.

You go underwater and swim to your grotto for rest. Planning to kill men takes a lot of work.

Tuesday

You sleep until the morning sun shines through the water. You swim to your spot and do your daily routine.

"Let me the morning sun. So much stuff has to be done," You sing, moving your long hair out of the way to expose your bare breasts.

The old topless mermaid trick. The oldest one in the book and usually worked in luring men to their deaths. You pull yourself out of the water and transform into your human form. Your hair covers your naked backside, and you venture into the woods. You hear a branch move nearby and enact your plan.

"What pretty berries," You say, bending down to show your entire bottom and pussy.

More branches move, and you smirk to yourself. You pop a berry into your mouth, and suddenly, your memory goes blank. When you wake up, your body feels so tired you decide to return to your grotto for the day. When you reached the bed, your demeanor had changed from tired to horny. You couldn't help but pleasure yourself. Every nerve on your pussy felt alive when you stroked and fingered yourself. You were seeing stars and the Milky Way when you came. You fall asleep and transform into your mermaid form.

Wednesday

When you wake up, you swim to your spot again and brush your hair. You don't even notice you're not wearing a top. A flower blooms next to you with a golden comb with a letter.

To the sweetest maiden in the sea,

My love, I've been watching you for a long time. I love the way your being becomes one with nature. Though, you should be careful about what berries you eat. Eat too many random ones, and you might not come back.

Your admirer, L.

You laugh. The love letter is cute. So is the comb. But the flower trick really impressed you. You might get a mage's loot this time instead of some fishermen's or hunters. You brush your hair with the comb, and it shows its magical properties. The comb instantly made your wet hair wavy. Usually, it would take a couple of hours for your hair to get wavy after being in the water. You hum a song while combing your hair and sink into the water while relaxing. The branches rustle and twist into a tall, pale figure looking at you from the brush. You can't see its face. But you can tell it's a man. You wink, and you sink deeper into the water. Flowers bloom a path to the water's edge.

Thursday

You sing a siren's song to lure your suitor to his death faster. Nothing happens except the trees twisting, turning, and breaking. Some even bloomed flowers. When you open your eyes to see the chaos you've done, a hand that's disappearing is reaching out to you. You try to touch it, but it vanishes like it is magic. You groan in disappointment and swim out to sea hoping for something to entertain you.

Friday

Your admirer finally showed himself. He was waiting for you at your spot. His silver hair reached his back, and his skin was so pale it shimmered. His blue-green eyes were mesmerizing.

"Hello, my sweet," The man says, pulling you out of the water. "My name's Lochlan and you're going to be my wife."

"Of course," You lie, sweetly going into his arms.

He carries your merbody in his arms, and you bite him in the jugular. Blood splatters all over the grass. His body tumbles into the water, and you hold his head underwater. Lochlan's body finally stops moving, and you let him sink into the water. You dive in, preparing to rip him apart. You can't see his body. It's gone. A hand shoves some sort of berry paste down your throat, and you gag. He slips a silver ring with a blue gem on your finger.

"Did you seriously think I would die from that? I'm half-fae. I don't die easily," Lochlan says, dragging your merbody to the shore's edge.

Your body feels hot, and you want nothing more than to return to your grotto.

"Feel familiar? You ate the key ingredient in our aphrodisiacs," Lochlan states, holding your body as it transforms into its human form. "Don't worry, you'll feel better later."

His hand keeps a steady hand at teasing your pussy. Your watery home slowly disappearing. You can't take it anymore and cry until you pass out.

Saturday

"Ahh~" You moan, climaxing again from Lochlan's fingers.

"That's it, cum again," Lochlan coos, slowing down his pace as you cum.

Ever since Lochlan took you from your beach, he's been pleasuring you. Turns out that the ring he slipped onto your finger bound you to him as his wife forever. Or at least until he wishes to divorce. But that's not going to happen.

"Are you enjoying our honeymoon, my sweet? How does it feel to be Mrs. Caspian? The next queen of the sea fae," Lochlan asks, taking his fingers out of you and sticking his cock inside you. "I waited for you for so long. You even made a cute show of singing your song just for me. I admit it got to me, but I managed to teleport myself away before it was too late."

"Nessie!" You scream, taking his cock for the 5th time today.

"Keep calling me pet names based on the Lochness monster, and I'll breed you till your stomach bulges," Lochlan growls, thrusting faster and cumming into your pussy again. "I can't wait for you to have our babies. They'll be so powerful they could rule every portion of water on Earth."

Before your wedding ceremony, you were locked inside a room the size of a small closet with Lochland. In his culture, a bride and groom must whisper their secrets to each other, then into a conch shell. Then, the conch shell is sent to sea to start the marriage with no secrets. Though you didn't need to whisper your secrets into a conch shell. Your tears meeting a body of water would automatically send your pain through it.

"Just try it, my pretty pearl. A couple of whispers can't hurt. Besides, I want to start this marriage on the right track," Lochlan pleads, clasping your hands.

You relent and bring the shell to your lips.

"I wish I could be with my sisters and family. I wish I could see my precious otters again. I wish I never met him. I wish I never had to marry him!" You whisper, eventually turning into a yell.

Your yell vibrates through the shell, almost cracking it. Lochlan snatches the conch shell from you as you cry. He looks at you with pity and lets you weep on his chest. He brings the conch shell to his lips and whispers his secret.

"I want to be the best husband for my wife. Even if she hates me for eternity. I want to return to the sea to visit my mermaid mom and her family," Lochlan whispers, noticing you looking at him.

"If I marry you, will you return me to the sea with my family?" You ask, looking into his eyes.

"Of course. Anything for you."

And that's how you got to the present. You and Lochlan fucking in his private underwater palace near both of your families. It was a nice compromise and made you feel more at ease.

"I'm about to cum, Lochy!" You moan, feeling your legs about to give out.

"Me too, my pearl!" Lochlan screams, holding onto your hips tight.

You feel him cum in you one last time and fall to the bed. Lochlan falls on top of you and snuggles with you.

"I love you, my pearl," Lochlan pants, kissing your neck.

Sunday

Lochlan is sitting with you in bed and combing your hair.

"This comb really works wonders on your hair, my pearl," Lochlan compliments, enjoying the golden comb turning your hair into beautiful waves. "Are you doing ok? I know being pregnant in your mermaid form isn't easy."

"I'm fine, Loch. I'm really tired, though," You answer, rubbing your slightly big stomach.

It's been three months since you married Lochlan. Since your honeymoon, you've been pregnant with his kids. Admittedly, he's been a great husband and is making sure your pregnancy is going well. Not only that, but you've been able to see your family.

"Lochlan, can you get me some grouper? Maybe some lobster too? I'm having bad cravings."

"Of course, my sweet."

Lochlan leaves your bed and comes back with a plate of fish and lobster.

"I brought some extra lobster for you. Eat up. You and the babies need nutrients."

"You really care for them, don't you?"

"Of course, I do. A proper king should care for his queen and future heirs. Now, eat. You need to rest during this pregnancy."

Lochlan kisses your head and feeds you.

Headcanon post

[anm3mi]

BAD HABIT ─ NETEYAM ⊹ ִֶָ

contents. fem!reader, hidden injury, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, confession

notes. this is crap, but i wanted to post something for my birthday as a gift to myself, also i didn't mean to do lo'ak so dirty in this, i'm sorry💀

the scene below rapidly evolved, full of fire, explosions, gun fire and loud war cries. harshly biting the inside of your cheek, you silently wish you could help your people in the fight, but you couldn't. you were ordered to only observe, not engage, and as a warrior, you had no other choice than to obey commands.

as the grip on your ikran tightened, you let out a shallow breath, soon interrupted from your thoughts by the duo on your side. "bro," lo'ak called out, his eyes switching between neteyam and you. the trio that was rarely seen apart. a few years ago, thanks to your own reckless behaviour, you quickly became friends with lo'ak, and soon neteyam came into the picture.

when the two of you were younger, you would often sneak out with lo'ak, messing around and causing trouble. but as you matured, you came to the realization that was not the way a warrior should behave. you realized you had people to protect, and with that, you begun to work on your behaviour, becoming less careless and more thoughtful about your actions. deep down, you were still a free-spirited child, curious to discover everything there was to, but you had people to depend on you and you couldn't disappoint them.

with your new mindset, you got into arguements with lo'ak more and more, as you became more like his brother, neteyam. always obeying the rules, being the perfect little warrior. you would no longer sneak out and mess around every night, instead, you would spend most of your time training.

neteyam took a notice of the obvious change between lo'ak and his friend. after witnessing one of your fights, neteyam carefully approached you, as you were more than glad to have somebody to rant to about the younger sully brother. from that moment, it didn't take long for the two of you to grew closer. it started with simple conversations about lo'ak, because even though he'll forever have a special place in your heart, he knew how to get on both your and neteyam's nerves.

after spending more time together, lo'ak was no longer the main topic of your conversations. you would talk about you interests, ideas, neteyam's duty as an older brother and your goal of becoming a warrior. and even though you were working on acting more mature, sometimes you needed at least a bit of freedom and to feel like a kid again, which lead you to talking neteyam into sneaking out. after reminding you countless times of how that was not a good idea, he gave in. but instead of running around the forest, causing trouble like neteyam expected, the two of you sat down on a patch of grass underneath a big tree and talked about the future.

after that night, you couldn't help but feel bad, as sneaking out to the woods in the middle of the night was your and lo'ak's thing, but you made sure to make it up for him. soon, the trio became less irritable when together. because even with all the heated arguments and disagreements, there were moments where the three of you would forget your differences. you adored those rare memories the most.

"we have to get down there!" lo'ak demanded. "no!" "no way, dad would skin us!" you and neteyam shouted over one another with clear disapprove written on your faces, as lo'ak glanced between the two of you once again, holding back a small smirk. you recognized the expression little too well. "lo'ak--" but before you could even finish your sentence, the younger brother was already descending towards the ground. without wasting a single second, the grip on your ikran tightened and you followed lo'ak, ignoring the now distant calls of your name coming from neteyam. even though you've tried to change - there were still moments where you wouldn't think before acting.

abandoning your ikran, you desperately looked around, clutching your bow close to your chest, after loosing sight of lo'ak. a lump formed inside your throat, but before you could let the uneasy feeling sink in, you gulped down and took a deep breath, letting out a war cry. you managed to catch the attention of a nearby human, who wasted no time, before pointing his weapon at you

but you were quicker.

within seconds, an arrow landed in the middle of the soldier's chest, causing him to drop on the ground with a thud. your chest was filled with pride, as you took out another arrow, scanning your surroundings. the sudden shout of your name caused you to snap your head around towards the source, your face lighting up at the sight of lo'ak, who had a huge grin on his face as he held a rifle and neteyam, who appeared almost relieved at the sight of you. running up to them, you let out a long breath you were holding, quickly throwing your arms around the two boys' head and bringing them closer.

your three heads butted against each other's. "we have to get out of here, before we get in more trouble." neteyam loudly announced over your loud surroundings, glaring at lo'ak. "we are already in trouble." shrugging your shoulders, you begun to back away, taking out one more of your arrows, grinning at the two brothers. the three of you were already disobeying the commands, so why not help your people while you were at it?

neteyam quickly followed, grabbing you by your forearm to stop you, almost sending you crashing into his chest, as you looked up to meet his eyes. before either of you could say anything, an explosion went off. your body harshly colliding with the ground was the last thing you felt, before everything went blank.

it didn't take long before you regained your senses. the first thing you noticed was the intense ringing in your ears, as you placed your hands on the hard earth, grounding yourself. harshly blinking your blurry vision away, you lifted yourself up from the ground way too quickly, causing you to stumble forward a bit, yet you managed to stay on your feet. a sudden way of pain coming from you lower abdomen caused you to let out a groan, but you choose to ignore it.

instead, you glanced around in a search of your weapon. you managed to find neteyam first. unconscious neteyam. with wide eyes, you let out a quick gasp, before stumbling to where his body laid. you fell down to your knees, ignoring your own pain, as you desperately scanned neteyam's entire body for any serious injuries. you let out a long shaky breath, when you didn't find any fatal ones.

gently placing your head on top of his chest in relief, you muttered his name, earning a low groan in response. your head shot up, noticing neteyam's eyes fluttering open. "hey, you're okay. you're okay..." you lifted your hands off his chest, muttering assuring words more to yourself than neteyam. opening your mouth to speak, you placed neteyam's arm over your shoulders as carefully as possible, but was soon interrupted.

"neteyam! y/n!" at the harsh loud call of your names, you looked towards the source of the sound, noticing jake quickly making his way towards the two of you. shit, you mentally cursed to yourself. "what the hell are you two doing here?!" kneeling down, jake eyed neteyam just like you did barely a minute ago, before taking him off you and throwing him over his shoulders. "i'm sorry- i'm sorry..." neteyam begun to mutter under his breath, yet got no response.

you quickly followed, but the burning sting on your stomach caused you to stop dead in your tracks. for the first time since you woke up, you decided to take a look at your injury. a hiss escaped your lips, when you noticed a long gash along your abdomen. placing your hand over the bleeding injury, hiding it, you bit your lower lip, almost drawing blood.

catching up with jake and neteyam, you were hit with a sudden realization. "where's lo'ak?!" you cried out, worry lacing your tone. "he's already on his way back." announcing, jake got on his ikran, still holding neteyam. you were able to swallow the lump forming in your throat, but what you weren't able to simply shake off was the uneasy feeling building up inside your stomach.

the last few minutes felt like a blur. there was fire everywhere, followed by constant war cries and shouting. you gulped down, as the adrenaline slowly, yet surely died down.

you called out for your ikran, one of your hands still on your stomach, while following behind jake and neteyam. you had no idea what to worry about first - lo'ak, neteyam or the fact all three of you were in huge trouble with jake, the toruk makto himself. the person that has been giving you orders for the past years and the person that took you under his wing, helping to raise you, when your parents weren't available, which happened quite often as they were busy with their own duties. to you the sully's were like your family you deeply cared for.

jumping off your ikran with a grunt, you patted the side of your ikran's head, before turning your attention towards the commotion. you awkwardly made your way towards jake, who was already scolding lo'ak and neteyam, with neytiri, kiri and tuk standing near them, ignoring how light-headed you felt. "you're supposed to be spotters!" angrily pointing his finger at neteyam, jake explained as lo'ak joined his brother's side, both of their eyes stuck on the ground.

"jesus, i let you three geniuses join a mission and you disobey direct orders!" you now stood beside lo'ak, your eyes switching between the ground, the brothers beside you and jake. eyes meeting neteyam's, you furrowed your brows - silently asking him if he was alright. in response, he sent a small nod your way, as you did the same to assure him. biting your tongue so hard you could taste metal inside your mouth, you were barely paying attention to what jake was saying, as you tried to stop your heavy eyelids from falling down. the pain started to become unbearable, as your knees were shaking.

"ma jake, your son is really bleeding." neytiri gave her mate a look. "mother, it's nothing--" shaking his head from side to side, neteyam stuttered. as he averted his gaze from his father, you managed to catch his eyes. his brows furrowed in confusion at the notice of your strange state, but before he could question it, jake begun to talk again.

"and you y/n," jake held back a sigh. "i expected this from lo'ak, but you? i'm disappointed." his words echoed inside your mind, as you looked at jake through your eyelashes. "i'm sorry, sir. i--" your words were slurred and before you could even finished your sentence, your head spun and you harshly fell to the ground.

the last thing you heard before blacking out was neteyam's call of your name. as you fell to the ground, your hand fell to the side, exposing the still bleeding injury. at the sight, jake's eyes widened. "get her inside!" he ordered, and neteyam wasted no time before picking you up as gently as possible, carrying you inside the healing hut, where his brother was already being healed.

"what happened?" with a worried expression, lo'ak called out. "she's loosing blood, she needs help. immediately. " jake explained, not taking his eyes off the your unconscious form. you were placed on the floor, as mo'at begun to take care of your wound. "is she going to be okay?" glancing at his grandma, neteyam demanded, but got no answer.

"bro," placing a hand on his shoulder, lo'ak murmured. neteyam glanced over his shoulder at lo'ak's unreadable expression. shaking his head from side to side, neteyam swiftly pushed his brother's hand away, "this is your fault." neteyam pointed his finger at lo'ak's chest, before storming off. "neteyam!" kiri shouted after him, but her calls fell on deaf ears. quickly picking up a few supplies, she hurried after her brother. after all, he was still injured and needed to be taken care of.

"she's going to be alright, i feel it." kiri softly announced, after finding her brother. he wasn't far from the hut, already feeling guilty for leaving your side. "she's strong." kiri added. "she followed him. she followed lo'ak down to the battlefield." trying to swallow the guilt, neteyam looked up at his younger sister. he only felt more guilty after realising she was hiding her injury from them. from him. "you know y/n, she doesn't want us to worry about her. always putting others first." kiri sat down next to her brother, nudging his side, thinking about your bad habit of putting needs of others first. "she's amazing, isn't she?" a smirk made its way onto kiri's face. "yeah," letting out a long breath, neteyam simply agreed. "she is."

"now let me help you." pulling her supplies closer, kiri announced, earning a quick nod from neteyam, as he turned his back to her. a hiss escaped his lips, when kiri harshly pressed on his wound. "sorry." she muttered, but neteyam knew she didn't really mean it. it was his sister's way of calling him stupid for obeying direct orders from their father.

"the first thing she did when we arrived was asking me, if i was okay. me." neteyam sharply inhaled at the burning sensation, as kiri smeared a paste along his injuries. "you should talk to her. i'm pretty sure y/n has something to say as well." shrugging her shoulders, kiri announced. silence fell over the two siblings, as kiri continued to mend his wound and neteyam sat in silence, confusion smeared across his face upon hearing kiri's words.

the day was long gone, as the stars now occupied the night sky. the village was quiet, everyone peacefully asleep in their homes - everyone except for neteyam. after kiri took care of his own wounds, he made a straight beeline towards the healing tent, as he was met with your unconscious body, your injury now stitched up and covered.

slowly, he sat down next to you, his grandmother's presence going unnoticed by him, until she decided to speak; "she needs to rest for two weeks. the cut was quite deep." mo'at suddenly explained, almost startling neteyam. he looked at her with widened eyes, as she continued to grind herbs together, before glancing back at you. "she won't like hearing that." neteyam admitted, earning a simple hum from his grandmother in response.

mo'at exited the tent in silence, leaving neteyam and you alone. carefully, neteyam took your hand and placed it in his lap, as his thumb caressed over your bruised knuckles. he was rarely seen like this - uneasy, lost deep in his own thoughts and neteyam was aware of the affect you had on him. the way his stomach would flutter with butterflies at your simple touch or the way his heart would beat hard against his ribcage when you were in danger. as much as neteyam preferred to be in denial about it, he knew he was head over heels for you.

and with how deeply he cared for you, he couldn't help, but be a bit angry. not only at lo'ak, but you as well. if you wouldn't have followed his brother into the battlefield, you wouldn't be injured - you wouldn't have to hide your injury, which was another thing that upset him. letting out a long shaky breath, neteyam gently placed his head on your thigh - the only part of your body that was uninjured, and with your hand still in his, he soon fell asleep.

the eclipse was near and his parents grew worried. they knew where their son was, but most importantly, they knew no matter the amount of pursuing, he wouldn't leave your side - not until you woke and the two of you could finally talk.

his slumber was interrupted by a murmur of his name, as he let out a small groan in response. "neteyam, i can't feel my leg." this time, you spoke more clearly, startling the boy awake. with wide eyes, neteyam looked down at you, before glancing towards your leg, where he managed to fall asleep. "y/n! i'm sorry--" "it's fine, just next time please don't use my legs as your personal pillow." your voice was hoarse, laced with sleepiness. leaning onto your elbows, you attempted to sit up, but neteyam's hands gently pushed you back down at the sound of a painful hiss coming from you. "you're on a bed rest. two weeks." he announced, earning a scoff in response from you. "yeah, no." you muttered, before rubbing your tired eyes. your whole body was sore and in pain, yet all you yearned to do was get up and properly stretch.

"neteyam?" raising a brow, you glanced to your side at the boy, who was staring at you with an unreadable expression. "neteyam, what is--" you opened your mouth to speak, but was interrupted: "you didn't tell me." he suddenly declared. "what?" you attempted to sit up once again, and this time there was no pair of hands stopping you, as neteyam held his hands back. "when we came back yesterday, you didn't tell me. you didn't tell any of us." neteyam continued to explain, while you carefully studied your bandaged injury. his was voice low, yet stern - almost emotionless.

"you could've died, y/n." upon hearing the sudden crack in his voice, you froze. finally, you peeled your eyes away from your body and met his eyes. tears were threatening to spill, yet neteyam used all his remaining strength to not let them. "you need to stop following lo'ak, because then it ends up with one of you being injured and me having to clean up the mess." neteyam blurted out, yet soon regret his words at the sight of your hurt expression.

"is this what this is about?" you insisted, fury lacing your tone. "i am not one of your responsibilities, neteyam." the way you said his name with such venom caused his stomach to tighten. "i didn't ask you to cover for me, i can take care of myself. as you can see - i am alive, so i don't see why you're still here--" ignoring the burning pain across your body, you continued to rant, irritated by your sore body, headache and the guilt you felt.

"because i care about you!" silence fell over the hut, as you could only hear the echo of his words. with glossy eyes, you stared into his, before biting your tongue. "yesterday, when you fell unconscious, for a second i thought you were going to die and-" neteyam begun to explain, his eyes switching between yours and the floor. you slowly realized this was the first time you saw neteyam almost nervous during a conversation, unable to keep eye contact and stammering. that was the affect you had on him - you made him nervous, in a good way, of course. but you also made him scared. scared of loosing you.

"-and i didn't know what to do. i felt so guilty for not trying harder to stop you from following lo'ak and i still do." your expression softened, as you felt your heart tug. "neteyam..." you softly whispered, as you reached to hesitantly cup his face with your hand. "i'm sorry for worrying you, i truly am." your eyes did not once leave his, as honesty laced each of your words. neteyam's eyes stared into yours, before bringing his hands up and placing it above yours that still caressed his face - his skin burning upon your comforting touch. "i care about you, too, you know?" you added, voice barely above a whisper.

without a word, neteyam slowly nodded in response. "never scare me like that again, please." pressing his forehead against yours, he whispered. biting the inside of your cheek, you mentally braced yourself, as your heart beated harshly against your ribcage - threating to escape any second. closing your eyes, you quickly pecked neteyam's lips. "i won't." opening your eyes, you were met with the sight of neteyam's flustered and shocked expression at what you couldn't help, but grin.

"do it again..." he whispered, slightly leaning closer, his hand sneaking towards the back of your neck. "what was that? i couldn't quite hear you, nete." you teased, your thumb caressing his cheek. "kiss me again, please." with determined, yet soft eyes - neteyam repeated his words. you let out a small chuckle, before leaning in once again. this time - it wasn't a simple peck. your shared kiss was filled with comforting warmth, as your stomach went crazy with butterflies, just as neteyam's.

as you pulled away, neteyam unconsciously chased after your lips, causing a heartfelt chuckle to rise from your throat. your geninue moment was interrupted by a sudden painful hiss. with wide eyes, neteyam's hands left your body with the worry of hurting you, before searching your body for any source of pain. using the palm of your hand, you covered your wound carefully, the harsh movement of your body disturbing in.

"i'm okay." eyes shot closed, you let out a shaky breath through gritted teeth, assuring neteyam, yet he didn't seem convinced. "you have to rest." neteyam announced, brushing a strand of hair out of your face. in response, you rolled your eyes and let out a small groan. "i don't know if i can just lay here for two weeks." you admitted, before laying down. neteyam followed, resting on his side next to you. "well, you have no choice." with a small smile, neteyam explained, as you suppressed another eye roll.

"promise you'll visit me?" looking at him through your eyelashes, you asked. "of course i will." neteyam assured, causing you to let out a small, relived breath. silence fell over the hut - but it wasn't uneasy, rather comforting, as you carefully studied neteyam's features up close, before you felt your eyelids become heavy. even with your eyes closed, you could sense neteyam's eyes glued to you and you could feel your face burning underneath his stare.

"i really like you, nete. you know that, right?" you muttered through a yawn. "i know, y/n, i like you too." shyly, neteyam admitted, softly caressing the top of your head. the corners of your lips tugged into small, as neteyam's expression mirrored yours. using one of his arms to support his head, his other one was lightly placed over you - the two of you asleep within minutes. you knew the next couple of weeks are going to be rough, you still had to scold lo'ak and apologize to the sully's for scaring them, but now, you could only savor the moment with neteyam you were in.

[voxlvrr]

could you do adam with an incredibly insecure and nervous reader? i'd love to see your hcs abt it! (comfort hcs would also be amazing even though it seems a bit unlikely, since it's adam we're talking about)

⋆⠀҂҂⠀Adam with an insecure and nervous!reader hcs ๑⠀، ୭

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ First request ahhh!! 💗💗 hope you enjoy <33 , and sorry for not posting for months on end.. motivation striked

ꕥ ; Honestly It’s Adam Here, When He first noticed this he thought it was fuckin HILARIOUS. he would poke at you for fun, but he wouldn’t go far as to point out your insecurities and make you even more insecure. he might be a asshole but he’s not like a total douche! Also if you’re nervous to be around other people and you can’t speak, he’ll finish the conversation for you, and Whenever you both go out into the main area of heaven he’ll hold your hand, if you’re nervous when going out into public. and if your incredibly insecure with your looks and have anxiety before going out, he’ll try to distract you In some way from those thoughts. he’ll even trying encouraging you in some way, “Y/nnn, we’ll be fineeee i promiseee “ and whines about it til you end up going.

ꕥ ; Adam doesn’t play about you or your feelings, he doesn’t give a shit who it is either making fun of you or making your insecurities worse, he doesn’t care where you both are, even in heaven he has no problem sending those fuckers to hell for you, sure he has a reputation to uphold but he doesn’t give a shit or if sera gets on his ass about it. he doesn’t wanna admit this but he cares, yes the first man adam. caring about someone in his life? absolutely unheard of. even lute knows but Adam threatens her not to tell anyone, she never thought of it. and she knows how much you meant to him so she’ll keep her mouth shut.

ꕥ ; whenever you cry due to being insecure or angels made fun of you for being shy, adam doesn’t know how to comfort at all, but he’s seen emily take care of other sad pathetic angels, so he knows some comforting words, but doesn’t wanna seem to emotional in front of you but he tries and trusts you anyways, he probably has good hugs due to his robe being made out of soft fabric and silk, and somehow has a very sweet scent, despite him killing different types of demons, surely it had to lose its smell a little, but either way it calms you down a lot and slows down your tears and sobs, whenever you come crashing down into his arms he says concerned “ what the fuck- shit what happened now?? “ letting his golden guitar slip from his hands, catching you instead and holding you upright so you don’t fall, once you tell him what happened, he’ll say “ what the fuck - y/n fuck them, you don’t need those fuckers telling you that shit. oh fuck - it’s okay - “ trying his best not to let his ego slip.

ꕥ ; at the end when you finally calm down, and go back to your room to rest, he decides to pay sera a visit, surely she wouldn’t mind letting him send a few false angels to the filthy gates of hell, killing them is also an option but decides against it due to sera finally having enough with him, but does give them a hard blow in the face before making them descend thousands of feet down to hell, and said to lute “ cmon lute wasn’t that fuckin’ awesome !” laughing his ass off before quickly disappearing into the dark clouds of heaven making his way towards your balcony, yes he’s too lazy to use the actual door. but hey you wouldn’t mind a cuddle session outside would ya? but in end, Adam does love you he just doesn’t wanna admit it in your face, so he does the dirty work for you. he’s definitely inviting you down for another extermination.

[destinationtoast]

Hi, I would like to know how to make a list of all the ships in a fandom on AO3. For example, I use the Tag Search on "Transformers - A Media Types", but it shows that Jetfire/Starscream is the most popular with 641, but it is actually only the 6th with 1074. Furthermore, it quickly drops to showing Relationship with a single digit when I know that there are dozens of Relationship with hundreds of Works! Why don't most Works appear? Do you know of a way to find All the ships of a fandom on AO3?

Hey! Sorry for the slow reply... I was traveling and then covid knocked me flat for several weeks. :P

So let's talk about AO3 Tag Search. In general, I'm very excited about recent improvements to this feature... There didn't used to be any way to find the top ships (or characters, or freeform/additional tags) across all of AO3. But now you can* by doing a tag search and sorting by uses (descending order):

*In practice, though you won't exactly get a trustworthy list of top tags (and, as you pointed out, in some cases tags may even be missing! we'll get to that later). You will get a list where the numbers are not correct, sometimes to a bizarre degree:

For example, when you click through on the Derek/Stiles tag, you find far fewer works using the tag (note that these are the public works -- if you're logged in, you see a somewhat higher number, but not as high as in the above screenshot):

I will be posting some stats soon that show different numbers (and a different order) for all of the above top ships. But why is there the discrepancy? Here are several guesses about why some works are wrong in Tag Search (and then I'll get to why some ships are missing and what to do about it):

TAG INFLATION #1: The above numbers probably include tags used in AO3 bookmarks, which increases some of the numbers quite a lot. [Evidence: if you search for top freeform tags, you get tags like "To Read" high on the list, and authors don't use those tags.]

TAG INFLATION #2: The above numbers seem to include draft works. [Evidence: I just tested this out by finding a rare tag with only one use... I created a draft of a new work using that same tag, and even though I didn't publish the work, Tag Search now showed 2 uses of the tag.]

TAG DEFLATION: The above numbers do NOT seem to take tag wrangling into account. Some AO3 tags have a lot of synonyms or subtags, but I think only exact uses of the tag get counted in the above list. [Evidence: I found at a tag with only one use according to tag search, but two works when I clicked the tag (Peter Gabriel/Mike Rutherford). I found that one of the works contained a synonym of the main tag ("Mike Rutherford/Peter Gabriel (Imagined)"). That would match with Tag Search only listing one of work for "Peter Gabriel/Mike Rutherford." And when I created a new draft work that used the main tag, it increase the count in Tag Search for "Peter Gabriel/Mike Rutherford" -- but when I created a new draft work that used the synonym tag, it did not.]

There may also be other factors affecting the overall Tag Search numbers.

Okay, so I suspect #3, tag deflation due to no tag wrangling, is (helping to?) create the unexpectedly low numbers you are seeing for ships like Jetfire/Starscream. I suspect that many people do not use the full canonical tag "Jetfire | Skyfire/Starscream (Transformers)", and those other uses don't get counted in Tag Search. The only way to address this issue is to click through on a tag returned by Tag Search and find out how many works the tag has once you look at its list of works.

But why aren't some ships showing up at all? That's a different question. Here, I suspect the answer again is related to tag wrangling. Every (?) canonical ship tag has at least one parent tag that is a fandom tag (as well as the relevant character tags). You can see the parent tags for Jetfire/Starscream on its tag page:

Skyfire (Transformers), Starscream (Transformers), The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers (Dreamwave Generation One), Transformers (IDW 2019), Transformers (Marvel Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007), Transformers: Armada, Transformers: Beast Wars (Cartoon), Transformers: Cybertron, Transformers: Cyberverse, Transformers: Energon, Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Shattered Glass, Transformers: The Headmasters, Transformers: War for Cybertron (Video Games)

Jetfire/Starscream has "Transformers - All Media Types" as a parent tag, and I suspect that is why it shows up in the Tag Search for that fandom. I would guess that some of the bigger Transformer ships do NOT have that broad fandom as a parent tag. Let's check the parent tags of Megatron/Optimus Prime:

Megatron (Transformers), Optimus Prime, The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers Animated (2007), Transformers: Armada, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2001), Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)

Megatron/Optimus Prime does NOT have "Transformers - All Media Types" as a parent tag. I suspect that's why it didn't show up in your tag search.

So what can you do? Unfortunately, I think the only way to be sure to find all the Transformers ships is to do a Tag Search within each of the different Transformers subfandoms (and I know there are a lot) and then combine the lists of ships you find for each. And then be sure to visit the tag works page for each resulting tag to get the actual number of works, as discussed above. I also discussed other ways to get the find the top relationships here, but I think they're all either less reliable or more arduous than this method, at least for a big fandom like Transformers.

Best of luck!

[onlyonetifosi]

Behind the camera -> chapter 5

<- previous series masterlist my main masterlist next ->

author note1: im sorry for the absence have been very ill but im better now i have some things to post that i will be posting these next days and weeks

uthor note2: if you want to be in the taglist comment it or send me a message <3 and i hope you like it

banner from @reveriesources she does incredible things

The sun dipped below the horizon, casting a warm glow over the winding streets of Monaco. Yn and her twin brother, Charles, were at the heart of the glamorous city, surrounded by the energy of high-speed life and the whispers of the Mediterranean breeze. The twins had decided to gather their friends for an evening of laughter, chatter, and exploration.

"Come on, Yn, we are going to be late! " Charles said, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Yn, twirled in front of the mirror, trying to perfect the balance between casual and stylish for the evening ahead.

As she rushed to finish her makeup, Charles lounged on her bed, an amused grin on his face. "You know, Joris won't notice if your eyeliner is perfect or not."

Yn rolled her eyes, and hurriedly applied a final stroke of mascara, glancing at the clock with a hint of panic in her eyes.  "Maybe I just wanted to look presentable for once, Charles, not like you” she says, feigning nonchalance.

"You know, you're not fooling anyone. We all know you're taking extra time to impress him tonight."

Yn scoffed, trying to deflect. "Oh, please. You're imagining things"

As the two siblings descended the stairs, they joined a group of friends gathered in the living room. 

"Salut, tout le monde!" Charles announced as they arrived, drawing everyone's attention. 

Riccardo, a lively friend with a perpetual grin, greeted her first, "Bonjour, Yn! You look ravishing tonight."

Yn blushed, "Merci, Riccardo. You're too kind"

The group set off for a stroll around the glamorous streets of Monaco. The air was filled with laughter and the excited chatter of friends.

Unbeknownst to Yn, her friends, including Joris, were well aware of her not-so-secret crush.

Joris, a boy with a charming smile and kind eyes, walked alongside Yn.

As they walked, Yn caught glimpses of Joris, the object of her secret affection. She stole shy glances in his direction, catching his eye a few times. Unbeknownst to her, Joris couldn't help but smile every time he caught her looking.

"Alors, Yn, did you pick your outfit for Joris or the entire population of Monaco?" teased Marta, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Yn blushed, "Marta, you know I just like to look good"

Riccardo winked, "Sure, Yn. Whatever you say"

Their journey continued through the bustling mall, and the group split up. Marta and another friend insisted on exploring a flower shop, while Charles and the rest wanted to visit the tech shop nearby, leaving Yn feeling torn because Yn wanted to go to her favorite boutique. Joris, sensing her hesitation, offered to accompany her.

"I'll join you, Yn. It seems we have similar taste," he offered with a charming smile.

Their friends exchanged knowing glances, teasing smiles hinting at the unspoken feelings between the two. As Yn and Joris explored the shops together, their interactions became a dance of laughter and shared glances.

Inside the shop, Yn couldn't resist trying on a beautiful jacket. Joris couldn't help but admire her. "Tu es magnifique," he whispered, and Yn's heart skipped a beat. {You look beautiful.}

The warmth of his compliment ignited a blush on her cheeks. They exchanged shy smiles, the air thick with unspoken emotions. Yn blushed, fumbling for words and she stammered, "Uh, thanks. I mean, merci." And their interaction left them both feeling flustered and giddy.

As they rejoined the group later, Charles pulled Yn aside, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "You know, you were redder than that jacket. What happened there?"

"Nothing," Yn mumbled, avoiding eye contact.

Charles chuckled, giving her a playful nudge. "Sure, sis. Whatever you say."

As evening approached and the temperature dropped, the group decided to have dinner at a cozy restaurant.

"Let's grab dinner, it's getting late and chilly," Charles suggested, pulling Yn closer to him protectively. "What do you all think?"

Agreeing nods and murmurs of approval filled the air as they made their way to a nearby restaurant.

"Smile, everyone!" Charles called out, holding up his phone. The group huddled together, flashing their brightest smiles as the camera captured the moment.

Charles, in his usual teasing manner, orchestrated the seating arrangements, placing Yn next to Joris. Throughout the dinner, their friends exchanged knowing glances, subtly encouraging the connection between Yn and Joris.

The warmth inside enveloped them like a comforting embrace. They settled at a large table, with Yn finding herself next to Joris, a quiet and reserved boy she'd known since childhood.

"Que veux-tu manger?" Charles asked Yn, scanning the menu with her (What do you want to eat?)

" I think I'll have the grilled chicken" she replied, deciding on the grilled chicken.

Amidst the banter, Yn noticed Joris stealing glances her way. She smiled at him, not realizing the subtle yet kindled connection forming between them.

Joris, seated next to Yn, couldn't help but steal glances at her while savoring his food.

"Tu aimes le plat, Yn?" Joris asked, his eyes showing a mix of nervousness and curiosity.

"Oui, c'est délicieux," Yn replied, appreciating the effort he took to engage in conversation.

As the dinner progressed, the group shared stories, laughter, and occasional glances. The warmth of friendship melted away the evening chill, but it was evident that the night was advancing. Charles suggested, "On devrait commencer à penser à partir, non?" (We should start thinking about leaving, right?)

The group agreed, settling the bill and heading out into the cool night. They huddled together, waiting for their parents to pick them up.

In the midst of the shared warmth and camaraderie, Joris mustered up the courage to speak to Yn. "Uh, Yn, je voulais te dire quelque chose." (Uh, Yn, I wanted to tell you something)

She turned towards him, curious. "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"  she asked. (What is it?)

"Je... euh, j'aime bien passer du temps avec toi," he stammered, his cheeks tinged with a hint of pink. (I... um, I really like spending time with you)

Yn's eyes widened in surprise, a smile forming on her lips. "Moi aussi," she responded, not realizing the depth of his feelings. (Me too)

Joris hesitated for a moment, then finally blurted out, "Euh, je t'aime bien, Yn. Et, euh, je me demandais si tu voudrais peut-être… passer du temps avec moi le week-end prochain?" (Um, I like you, Yn. And, uh, I was wondering if you might want to... hang out with me next weekend?)

A smile tugged at Yn's lips, her heart warming at Joris's shy confession. "J'adorerais, Joris," she replied, her eyes meeting his. (I’d love to Joris)

As their parents arrived to pick them up, the group bid their goodbyes. Yn and Charles climbed into the car, sharing a quiet moment on the way home.

As they drove home, Yn turned to her brother, gratitude shining in her eyes.

"Ça va, Yn?" Charles asked, glancing over to his sister with a grin.

"Oui, tout va bien," Yn replied, exchanging a playful smile with her brother. “Merci, Charles. Merci pour cette soirée," she expressed, overwhelmed with a sense of appreciation for the life she had. (Thank you, Charles. Thank you for this evening)

Charles smiled, understanding the unspoken emotions. "De rien, Yn. Always here for you."

Little did Yn know, the events of the evening had set the stage for a budding connection with Joris, a connection that held the promise of more adventures and moments yet to unfold.

i hope you liked it and if you want to know more about joris and yn and the adventures they are going to follow stay tuned (also the annoying ballet girls are coming back but they are going to know who not mess with)

taglist: @love4lando @gcldtom @im-mi @topguncultleader @celesteblack08 @reblog-princess @sunf1ower16

[multifunctionalnitroglycerin]

The Locked Tomb Series- Alecto Theory

Brace yourselves this is 3000 words of me connecting dots that aren't even there.

First things first, this post is an amalgam of various brilliant theories I have seen posted on Tumblr, so if anything feels familiar, that will be the main reason. I am just going to present my own take on this, and hopefully add something new to what we already have.

                The subjects of today’s conspiracy theory are Alecto and Anastasia -and Cassiopeia in part, the vow to Anastasia’s bloodline and what could very possible be, Dios Apate MAJOR.

                So let’s start with what we have from the books, and feel free to correct me or add sth I might have forgotten.

                Anastasia and Samael are the only ones of the original Lyctor batch, that didn’t complete the Lyctorhood process, thanks to - in no small part – John, and/or possibly Alecto. (“I am sorry about Samael”). Which could mean that Alecto was somehow involved in the whole process going wrong, and thus she feels responsible for Samael’s death, or that she was close enough with Anastasia and Samael, that she herself felt Samael’s loss, or she felt for Anastasia’s grief. (I like to believe that they did have a tentative friendship even before the vow thing happened.)

                Anastasia is also the only one of the Lyctors we know, so far, to have had children. Which is an important bit on its own, (Can full Lyctors, have children? If so, are they different from other children, necromantic or not? Is there a reason that in spite of biological capability- if it exists-the other Lyctors have chosen not to have children? Even with Augustine’s and Mercymorn’s plan we see that in the end Gideon is conceived with Wake’s material – John is a whole different story as far as Lyctorhood goes so he doesn’t count.)

Back to our discussion though, Anastasia’s bloodline was so important to the Ninth House that it has been preserved for 10.000 years. We do not really get a clear picture on whether the Reverend Family knows why the continuation of the bloodline is important, Harrow certainly doesn’t, but it was so deeply ingrained to them that Anastasia’s bloodline must remain intact, that they effectively committed genocide, dooming the House’s future, in order to produce one more direct descendant of the Saint that wasn’t.

We do get a hint, a rather big one, on why the preservation of Anastasia’s blood is so important, in Nona’s Epilogue. Alecto states that Harrow is “the blood of the tombkeeper” after kissing her and drawing blood. What did she taste on Harrow’s blood I wonder? And how did she recognize the taste, as the taste of Anastasia’s line? Did the vow she initially made to Anastasia herself involve them drawing blood? Did it bind them to one another, so deeply that they ingrained themselves into each other on a molecular level?

To add to this, young Harrow, young desolate Harrow, who had had enough with her life and was prepared to die, young Harrow who opened the Tomb for that express purpose, loves Alecto from sight. And decides to keep living for her. And there is something exceedingly weird to just how much Harrow loves Alecto. Alecto is probably the most attractive person Harow lay her eyes upon to that day, true, but this instant infatuation, and its persistence throughout the years has something more to it, don’t you think? As Gideon points out, both to herself and to Ianthe, Harrow’s heart belongs to the dead cold body in the Tomb. And said cold dead body in the Tomb, recognizes Harrow from sight when she wakes “Alecto recalled her, for it was a face once dreamed in Alecto’s dream.”

And this line begs the question. Could Alecto dream, in the tomb? If so, how? And what did she dream of? Did she dream of Harrow? Why did she dream of Harrow if that is the case? Or did she dream of Anastasia, and the resemblance is that great? On the other hand, if this refers to Harrow first opening the Tomb, and looking at Alecto, does that mean that she was in some form conscious throughout that stasis? Does this mean that she could have heard and felt Anastasia while they were both locked in the Tomb, for however long the other woman lived?

(The scene where Nona describes the feeling of Anastasia's hands in the water and feeling safe. I am going to cry.)

I do have an interesting theory about Alecto’s “dreams” but we’ll get there in a bit.

Something else that is fishy, is that the Ninth, is the House of the Sewn Tongue. It sounds a bit like too much flesh magic for a bone magic house to specialize in, right? The cure to the Sewn Tongue on the other hand? Removing the mandible and all that? That sounds like a Bone Magic solution to a flesh magic problem. And I wonder if the fact that the Ninth House’s emblem is the Jawless skull, insinuates that the Ninth is not so much a house where many secrets are kept – though this is undoubtedly true, as the Ninth is known as the House of secrets by the other houses – as much that in the Ninth, all secrets are revealed. Where the sewn tongue is healed, and the truth comes to light. And I’d like to point out that it sounds a bit like foreshadowing, and a promise. Anastasia has been betrayed by John and sworn to secrecy, and then locked in the Tomb to die and take his secrets with her. I feel like the jawless skull acts as a constant reminder, that even with the sewn tongue, all curses can be broken, and all secrets will eventually come to light. And it feels like a promise to John, that her House, the house of secrets and unspoken truths, will be the one to rid of the sewn tongue and bring the truth he so fears forward. And this aligns a tad too well with the Sixth’s mantra, Six for the truth, over solace in lies.

And you know what else fits here, in this concordance of the Sixth and Ninth Houses? Cassiopeia and Anastasia’s friendship. Their alliance if you will. We know they both worked closely together trying to figure out the perfect Lyctorhood process, and it is possible that Anastasia made her attempt a bit before Cassiopeia. The exact same attempt, that performed in perfect conditions ended in failure, with John ultimately killing Samael.

 We also know that Cassiopeia left contingency plans in place, should the emperor become a hindrance to the empire. And from what we have seen of Cassiopeia in the books, it is safe to assume that she is driven, determined, exceedingly intelligent, perceptive, logical, and excellent at planning. She is also the one to point out John’s less than favorable qualities pre-Resurrection such as his interest in taking vengeance on those that wronged him being bigger in his interest to save lives.

So, we have, Cassiopeia and her logic driven, truth seeking brilliance, and Anastasia, the thorough, overly methodical researcher. We have them both working on perfect Lyctorhood, and we have them both, in one way or another, being betrayed by John. Chances are, that they were the first post Resurrection to notice John’s flaws, the first to concoct a plan against him. But contrary to Cytherea, Mercy and Augustine, they are more subtle than those cannonball attempts. No, I believe they planned. And they planned long term, and together. Cassiopeia left her House a note, left them instructions, she was preparing them for when John would become a liability. And then an aforementioned amount of time later, Anastasia is asked to design the tomb.

We do not really know anything about Alecto’s relationships with the other lyctors apart from the fact that most found her revolting, a “monster” in Mercy’s words. So here is a thought, perhaps Anastasia, the one of the original Eight to never ascend, perhaps the one whose failure Alecto was involved in – “I am sorry about Samael” – finds kinship in John’s unnerving pet, his undead “cavalier”, the one he betrayed first, the soul of earth. Perhaps they even became friends. Perhaps she and Cassiopeia realize the extend of what John has done and realize that Alecto is the key to undoing it. When John refuses to kill Alecto to appease the others, the plan fully forms.

So, they construct the tomb. And Cassiopeia is well-known for building mechanisms within houses, so maybe her and Anastasia create secret passages, and mechanisms with extra access to the tomb that would be independent of John sneaking in, or whatever he planned to do with that blood-ward.  And hear me out, we know that Cassiopeia stayed 7 minutes in the river before being torn apart by the resurrection beast – at Mercymorn’s account at least, not sure how reliable of a narrator she is. But what happened during those seven minutes? Paul says he thinks he knows how to get to the Locked Tomb via the River. So, the river and the Tomb are connected. What did Cassiopeia do, I wonder? (Here I’d like to say that my other theory is that she did eventually die, or rather was consumed by Varun the eater, much like Judith Deuteros was. The RB burned through her in what, a couple months? How long would a Lyctor last? Perhaps that was the reason that Varun didn’t resurface until 100 years after Cassiopeia’s presumed death. She could have been alive and slowly wasting away, while still making failsafe within failsafe until she lost her sense of self and eventually wasted away)

To recap until now, the first part of my theory is that Anastasia and Cassiopeia dissatisfied with the world John had made and the truth he had served them, probably worked together to find the truth. And they worked together from the shadows, to create a plan, a long-term plan, with which they could bring John down if the need ever arose, and undo what he had done. And Anastasia’s bloodline and their secrets are really bloody important to that plan. (Also, some nice symbolism about the Ninth being about secrets revealed, rather than secrets kept, and that functioning as a bit of foreshadowing.)

Now into the second part of my theory. Anastasia’s bloodline is so important because she has bound her bloodline to Alecto. And I think this happened in the premise of the Vow Alecto has made to her, or they have made to each other. This might be part of the initial vow, of which we know nothing about, apart from the fact that Alecto pledged herself to Anastasia, and that it is important enough that she pledges herself to Harrow, or a failsafe within it. A failsafe to ensure that should Alecto wake after Anastasia has passed, she will not be fooled by any imposters, or anything else John might have planned. Or perhaps, a failsafe to ensure that even if John changes his mind and finds a way to rid of the body within the tomb, to “kill” Alecto, she will not be completely gone, she will keep existing within Anastasia’s line, thus ensuring that the plan for John’s demise can still be enacted and that the soul of the earth will not be dead.

That plays really hard in the Alecto is within Harrow from the beginning theory. And I will explain. I believe I saw something that looked like this in Twitter by lesbian_mothman, but I do not really remember so I apologize if all this has been said before.

In all the dream chapters with John, we relive memories from just before and after the resurrection, and John talks to Harrow as if she is Alecto “You always say that Harrowhark” as a response to “I still love you.” Or when Varun recognizes the Earth’s soul “green thing” within Nona in the car chase scene, or when Judith regaining consciousness asks “Harrowhark?” and Nona replies, “No, and I never was.” So that begs the question of how much of Harrow is Harrow, how much is Alecto and how much are the 200 souls within her? (And there was a crowd of dead children there. They were striving loudly against living children on the far-off shore of the tomb. CHILLS)

In Nona we learn that Palamedes and Camila on the one hand and Pyrrha on the other have two different theories about who Nona is. The Sixth believe that she is an amalgam of Gideon and Harrow, and Pyrrha believes she is Alecto, golden eyes and all. And I am more inclined to believe that it is indeed Alecto, or at least a part of her, that resides within Harrow, and took the wheel when both Harrow and Gideon were gone. Think abt it. Gideon is back in her body, and we have no idea what the hell happened to Harrow, only that she doesn’t have the wheel, and Nona acts nothing like Harrow or Gideon did. It’s like she is learning how to be human for the first time. She learns how to love and be loved for the first time. So with no soul to govern the body, the part of Alecto within Harrow takes the wheel.  

And then there is the candle metaphor in NtN. Alecto’s soul is the candle passed from one necromantic heir of the Ninth to the other.

So long story short, part of the vow, if not all of it, is that part of Alecto will always live within Anastasia’s descendants, so long as they are necromancers. And here comes the part of Alecto’s dreams. Because if indeed she lives within the souls of Anastasia’s necromantic descendants, does she see through their eyes? Does she feel through their hearts? Does she dream of their lives, while locked in the Tomb, while a part of her lives in them? Is she conscious within them? Or does the whole thing act like a cavalier- lyctor sort of connection, where she cannot take the wheel unless the other soul in the body Is gone?

 Part of her soul is bound to Anastasia’s line, and they are bound to her, and over the course of 10.000 years do they spill over? Alecto to Anastasia’s descendants and they to Alecto.  Was this part of the plan to have a failsafe within Anastasia’s line in case something happened to the body in the Tomb? Was it a promise Anastasia made to Alecto, to give her a chance to live, to be human, through the lives of her own descendants?

All in all, I guess I could some it up in a few concise points.

Cassiopeia and Anastasia worked closely together, they were friends and allies and saw in John, the unfulfilled promises he made, and all the faults he tried to cover with rewriting his own version of history.

They decide to make a plan, a long term one, a detailed one, for when John is more a liability than it is worth. And thus, Cassiopeia creates the mechanisms in the Sixth and leaves the protocols for the rest to find. Truth over solace in lies.

Meanwhile Anastasia attempts to ascend, and John kills Samael. Alecto might be consciously or unconsciously involved and harbors guilt over Samael’s death.

Anastasia probably befriends Alecto or finds kinship with this strange being that is the soul of a planet that no longer is.

The planning continues and John after being asked to kill Alecto decides to lock her in the Tomb instead and has Anastasia design it. He later asks her to stay in the tomb and guard Alecto. (Antigone style)

Anastasia designs the tomb, probably with Cassiopeia’s help, probably with a few hidden mechanisms of its own and or a secret pathway through the river, an extra way out.

At some point, Anastasia sires a line, and she makes her vow with Alecto.

The vow probably is in regards of bounding Alecto to Anastasia’s line so long as there are necromantic heirs. A part of Alecto is constantly alive within each descendant of Anastasia’s.

It might work a bit like the lyctoral process, because Alecto only takes the wheel when there is no Harrow and no Gideon in Nona’s body, aka when there doesn’t seem to be another soul guiding it.

Alecto dreams. Whether she dreams of herself within the tomb and that’s how she recognizes Harrow on sight – from the memory of Harrow first unlocking the Tomb – or her dreams are glimpses of the lives Anastasia’s descendants lead I don’t know.

Alecto is thus bound to Anastasia’s line by blood. She recognizes Harrow by her blood, tasting either Anastasia, or the part of herself residing within it, when she kisses her. It also ensures that the line is intact the vow is intact and it’s not a pretender trying to fool her.

Anastasia and Cassiopeia planned to bring John down by opening the tomb when the time was right and leaving her to Alecto’s (and the RB’S???) mercy. There is still a lot left to be explored.

The tomb is to remain closed until the time has come God has to die. We can all see how that can be misinterpreted to > if the tomb opens God will die. And instead of a promise to be fulfilled it becomes a terrible terrible thing, that will spell everyone’s doom.

The freaking skull of the ninth is a threat, a foreshadow and a promise. The Ninth was a house that should have died with Anastasia in the tomb. But it didn’t. It continued existing its bloodline unbroken for 10.000 years. Nine for the tomb and all that was lost. The Ninth is predominantly I feel a house of mourning – the whole nuns, all black, and skull makeup thing. But it is also a house of secrets. It is a house represented by the cure to even the tightest secret held. So the Ninth, the house that should never have been the house that should have died with its secrets in the tomb of its inception, is the one that will break the sewn tongue, and reveal all the secrets, bringing the truth to light.

[artficlly]

smog & spirits: the premonition (mini-series)

Marvel 1920s Gangster/Peaky Blinders Inspired Fantasy AU

gangsterboss!bucky x witch!reader

Bucky Barnes, the leader of Sootstone's Smog Boys, needs a favour. A nasty curse has been cast on him, and he needs a witch to help him break it.

Warnings: 18+ content minors dni, fem reader, angst no comfort, graphic wound description, blood/gore, graphic descriptions of stitching, religious punishment (lashings), cults, criminals & crime, 1920s street gangs, witchcraft, visions, horror, bucky barnes has issues, bucky barnes is a dick, vaguely british setting??, no use of y/n, lmk if i've missed anything

Word Count: 5.7k

A/N: this was supposed to be longer but i've decided to spilt it into two parts, so sorry you just get angst but the next part will have more comfort/fluff. i'm not super happy with this chapter but i didn't intend for it to be a stand alone part, so it's a lot of doing and not much feeling/reflection lol. i just wanted to get this out because i'm going back to studying full time (as if the first degree wasn't bad enough lol) so the next few weeks might be a bit quiet. sorry for any typos - not proof read and edited while half asleep lol.

taglist: @nash-dara @sebastians-love

main masterlist | series masterlist

There was a large, white wolf in your kitchen. 

You didn’t remember descending the stairs of your small flat or your bare feet leading you into the cramped kitchen. The wooden panels felt cool against your soles, and dust glittered in the air. A short candle flickered on the dining table, illuminating the beast.

It was huge, towering over your benchtops and oven. Its shoulder would have easily reached your waist. Its stark, white fur was matted and stained, covered in ash and filth. In the dim light, you could see deep gashes beneath the pale strands of hair, dripping fresh crimson blood. The blood pooled on the floor, creeping into the cracks of the wood.

The wolf panted, taking hard, shallow breaths that rattled its considerable mass. Its pink tongue dripped pink, a mix of blood and saliva smeared along its yellowing teeth. You could’ve sworn it smiled as its lips pulled back, revealing large, pointed canines. It let out a deep, thunderous growl that vibrated through your chest and rattled your small, latticed windows. 

You found yourself unable to question the absurdity of it. A wolf. In your home. 

Your home had been heavily warded for weeks, if not months. After what had happened… it was the only way to keep out prying eyes and scum. Bucky’s boys would walk up the stairs, quivering as they reached for their hands to post a letter, knock on the door, or pick the lock. They would try with all their might, only to be filled with an overwhelming sense of dread. They would run, tails tucked between their legs. Not even Natasha Romanoff could make it past the threshold. The redhead who dripped with malice, who could make men sweat with fear with just a single look… too afraid to even leave the pavement. 

Your feet don't touch the floorboards as you float forward, ignoring the canine's raised hackles. You look into its big, blue eyes and understand it is in pain, in danger. Your fingers spread, splaying out across its forehead as you run a hand through its matted fur. Ash catches under your nails, and blood stains your skin.

Another reason it was absurd to find such an animal in your home was because wolves were extinct. You had heard tales of these beasts in old folklore—frightening stories to tell children at night, fairytales, and such. Some speculated that these creatures might have roamed the land before the forests were cut down to make way for cities and civilization. Perhaps, out in the wilderness, deep in the forests away from Sootstone and the city of Blackstone, such animals could still exist. Maybe even across the seas, in far-off lands still being explored.

“I fear I’m in a dream, friend.” You murmur to the wolf, touch sweeping to cradle its large, bleeding head. “It’s probably best for us both to wake up.”

The wolf blinks its large, blue eyes at you. Its panting is still ragged, blood sticky across your floors. Deep in your soul, you knew it was a warning. A calling. 

Someone was in danger. 

It is a loud clattering downstairs that startles you awake. 

The sharp clanging and dinging of pots and pans ring through your small abode, as if someone had knocked them from your dining table. In your bleariness, still tangled under your sheets, you blindly search for a candle and match. 

The ruckus below continues, with chairs scraping across the floors, cabinets rattling, and a distinctly male voice muttering all types of obscenities. Your intruder seems to have impulsively walked into your home, knocking over all of your possessions. 

The dream, the premonition—it must have distracted your mind. You could feel your wards were down, the peaceful bubble that had once safely cocooned your home was shattered. The remnants of its invisible wall crunched beneath your bare feet as you thundered down the stairs in your nightgown. 

It must be one of Bucky’s messenger boys. The poor lad must have gotten lucky when he pried open your door and stumbled in just after the ward had fallen. You’d noticed how Bucky’s dogs worked like clockwork; at least three times a day, his boys would try to deliver you a message. You had never intended to find out what that message was. You highly doubted it was an apology, likely just another summons as if you were his pet to call and dismiss as he pleased—

As you rounded the corner into your kitchen, you were met with a sight that made your blood run cold. 

Bucky Barnes, in the flesh, was bleeding and dishevelled in your kitchen.

His face was swollen and mottled with deep purple-black bruising. Dried blood crusted along his temple and brow. His hair, usually neatly slicked back, was now a tangled mess, laden with ash and filth, sticking out in all directions. Gone was his usual suit jacket; instead, he wore a simple white button-down shirt, now barely recognisable beneath the grime. It looked as though he had been dragged through a sewer, with mud and filth clinging to his skin and clothes.

Amidst the caked-on mess, fresh blood seeped from multiple wounds on his back, staining the already dirty fabric with a deep, alarming crimson. Each breath he took seemed laboured, his chest rising and falling with visible effort. He lifted his head to look at you, offering you a haunting grin. One of his eyes was nearly swollen shut, a puffy, dark mound overshadowing his battered face. His bottom lip was split wide open—a deep, jagged tear. Despite his condition, there was an unsettling glint in his one good eye, a spark of something unbroken within the wreckage of his body.

“Your wards were down. Didn’t think you were home.” The gangster wheezes, and his legs give out. 

One of his hands reaches out to brace against your dining table, but his skin, slick with mud and grime, causes his hand to slip, and he plummets forward. In an instant, you rush to his side, grasping the man just before he crashes face-first into your hardwood floors. His weight is staggering—almost too much to bear—as you wrap your arm around his middle, muscles straining as you let out a grunt of exertion. With effort, you manage to push him back into a sitting position. Exhaustion radiates from him as he leans against you, barely able to hold himself up. Your candle has been knocked to the floor, wax dripping onto the floors. 

The flame snuffs itself out, and the two of you are cast into darkness.

“What’re you doin’ here, Barnes?” You mutter demandingly. He responds with a weak chuckle, the sound rough and hollow. His head lolls to the side as he struggles to lift his chin, trying to meet your gaze. In close proximity, the stench on him becomes unbearable—an acrid mix of raw sewage, mud, and the metallic tang of blood. 

“Trust me, I don’t wanna be here either, doll.” Blood gurgles in his mouth as he laughs. You scowl at him, shoving him away so he leans up against the leg of your table. You get to your feet, glancing down at your now filthy nightgown in disgust. 

“You’re really that disgusted by me?” You say under your breath. Your words catch the attention of the gangster, whose amused expression falters. 

“What gave you that impression?” He asks. You frown hard, wavering near his feet as you assess the best way to get the hulking man off your floor. His stocky frame, well filled out with muscle, is almost twice your size. It would be a task to lift him yourself

“Last we spoke. You called me a whore.” You remind him. You don’t meet his eye as you crouch down, wrapping one of his arms around your shoulders. Wrapping one of his heavy arms around your shoulders, you place your hand on his back, feeling the heat of his blood seeping through his shirt. His weight is staggering, and you can feel every ounce of it pressing down on you.

He doesn’t reply to your claim. You can tell he is somewhat floored by your confession, surprised that you are still upset. Gritting your teeth, you start to push upwards, immediately feeling the strain in your thighs, calves, and back. His body is like dead weight, almost completely limp except for the occasional twitch of pain. Every muscle in your body protests, but you dig your heels into the floor. The gangster grunts beside you, and when you look over, you see his jaw ticking. You’re unsure if it’s from the pain or your words.

With one final, desperate push, you feel his weight start to lift. He lets out a pained groan, and the muscles in your legs quiver. Using every ounce of strength you have left, you manage to get him onto one of the dining chairs. He flops backward with a sigh, the chair creaking under his weight, and he winces in pain as his gashed back meets the hardwood. You step back, panting heavily, and take a moment to catch your breath. His emotions are hard to read under all the swelling, bruising, and blood that mar his face. 

“So much for an apology.” You dare to say, words dripping with bitterness. The gangster finally peeks at you through his swollen eye with a disapproving look, his gaze hard.

“Apologisin’ is bad for business,” he says, his voice rough but earnest. “But I can admit when I am wrong. And I was wrong for sayin’ that.”

His words catch you off guard—a rare moment of humility from the hardened criminal. But the walls he’s built around himself are quick to rise again, and you can see the familiar defiance creeping back into his gaze. You don’t linger on it.

You suck in a sharp breath, angling your head as you try to process the situation. “Is one of your boys wanderin’ about nearby? I can get a message to Steve—”

“No.” He interrupts, his voice rough and strained.

“No?” You echo. 

“I had a… let's say a run-in.” He replies, his tone clipped. “The street’ll be crawlin’ with ‘em, lookin’ for me. Best my boys lay low.”

“A run-in with who?” You press.

“Does it matter?”

“You’re gonna bleed to death if you stay here.” You retort, your eyes narrowing as you assess the severity of his wounds.

“You’re a witch.”

“And?” You snap back, folding your arms defensively.

“Heal me.”

You pause, head tilting in disbelief as you look down at him. “Heal—? Gods, you know I’m not a healer—”

“I never said it had to be good. Just stop the bleeding.” He presses.

“I’m not your pet witch, Barnes. You can’t summon me at your leisure.” You snip. Magic was broad in its uses, of course, but your speciality was never any type of healing magic, and Bucky knew that. You had always been one foot between the living and the dead. Your skills lay almost entirely in the territories of spirits and chaos magic. You knew how to look—how to feel—through the veil and channel it’s energy. What you did not know were healing charms, herbs, and potions.

Bucky leans forward, wincing in pain, and looks at you with a seriousness that catches you off guard. “You must know how it’ll look if my men find out that I bled to death in your home?”

“Are you threatenin’ me?” You ask, brow quirking. The gangster has a scowl across his face.

“No. I’m askin’ you.” His dark eyes peer up at you through bloodied lashes. Thick clumps of copper have hardened around the strands. “What do you want? Double your rate? Triple?”

“I’m no healer.” You repeat and let out an irritated sigh, biting the inside of your cheek as you waver in place. Hesitantly, you approach the filthy man, taking his face in your hands as you delicately analyse the damage. You can feel his throat bob as he swallows hard. “Just… don’t get your hopes up.”

You withdraw your touch, the skirts of your nightgown swirling around your ankles. You blindly fumble around your kitchen, locating a match for the candle that was still discarded on the floor. “You would’ve been better off going a few streets over to Isolde Briarwood. I’ve heard her potions are the best in the lower districts.”

The gangster contemplates your words. “I needed discretion.”

Smoke fills your nostrils as you strike the match, lighting the candle once more. You frown as you look over at Bucky. He looks even worse in the dim lighting. The cold, wet filth must have been sinking into his bones. You notice how he shivers. “I suppose you’re right. Isolde has never been known for keepin’ her gob shut.”

Bucky snorts.

Your gaze sweeps over to your narrow stairs, a pang of worry in your gut. “Do you think you’ll have enough strength to climb the stairs? I have a fire goin’ up there, and I’ll need to boil some water to clean those wounds before they start to fester. I should ‘ave enough coal to last us a couple hours—”

“I’ll be fine.”

Bucky hauls himself to his feet. You gape at him as his strength seems to momentarily return. A part of you wonders if the fall had all been for show, a reason to get you to touch him, but you notice his movements are slow and laboured. Every step seems to take a monumental effort as he pulls himself up the first stair. His hand grips the bannister tightly, knuckles white. 

You follow closely behind him, holding a candle in one hand, its flickering flame casting a soft, warm glow on the dimly lit staircase. Your free hand hovers near his back, ready to catch him if he stumbles. The light dances across the walls, illuminating the stains on his shirt and the sweat glistening on his brow.

"Easy now," you murmur, your voice soft yet steady. 

Bucky nods, his jaw set in determination, but you can see the exhaustion in his eyes. His breath comes in short, ragged gasps, and each exhale sounds like a painful rasp. You can tell he's using every ounce of his willpower to keep moving forward.

As he reaches the fourth step, his leg buckles slightly. You immediately step closer, your hand pressing gently against his back to steady him. The contact is brief, but you can feel the heat radiating from his feverish skin. You knew your hand would be bloodied when you withdrew it.

He grunts in response, a sound that might have been a chuckle under different circumstances. His hand slips on the bannister, and for a moment, he teeters dangerously. You instinctively move to support him, your arm wrapping around his waist.

"Why is your house so damn cold?" Bucky grumbles, his voice strained.

"Coal boy didn't come," you reply, a hint of frustration in your voice. “And we both know the Warrens aren’t particularly known for holding warmth.”

"Shit, doll," he mutters, his voice thick with weariness. "If I survive this, I'll buy you a new flat."

You try not to think about the possibility of him dying in this situation or the implications of such an offer, focusing instead on the task at hand.

You can see the effort it takes for him to lift his leg and place his foot on the next step. As you reach the halfway point, he falters once more. This time, his leg gives out completely, and he collapses against you. The sudden weight nearly knocks the candle from your hand, but you manage to keep hold of it, the flame sputtering wildly.

"Whoa, easy," you say, your voice gentle but firm. "Lean on me. We’ll make it."

He nods, his head hanging low. You can feel the tremors running through his body, the sheer exhaustion that threatens to overwhelm him. With a deep breath, you adjust your grip, taking more of his weight onto yourself.

"Okay, Barnes, here we go," you say, steeling yourself for the final push.

Together, you take the last few steps, the candlelight guiding your way. Each movement is slow and measured, the stairs creaking under your combined weight. You can feel Bucky’s breath against your shoulder, hot and laboured.

Finally, you reach the top of the stairs. Bucky sags against the bannister, his body wobbling from the effort. You keep a firm grip on him, not willing to let him fall after all this. 

“Here, next to the fire.” You murmur as you usher him into your room. The fireplace crackles lazily, casting a welcoming glow. Bucky lowers himself with some effort onto the rug in front of the fire, his movements slow and deliberate. The warmth of the fire seems to offer him some small comfort, and he leans back slightly, letting the heat seep into his battered body.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back,” you say, your voice soothing despite the urgency in your movements. You watch him for a moment, making sure he’s stable, before turning and rushing downstairs. Your heart races as you grab a pot, filling it with water. The stream from the tap seems to echo loudly in the silent flat. You try to steady your breath, but your fingers won’t stop trembling.

“Get it together,” you whisper to yourself, gripping the counter for support. You can’t afford to hesitate now. Taking a deep breath, you lift the pot, returning to Bucky’s side as quickly as you can.

When you reenter the room, Bucky’s eyes are closed, but his breathing is still laboured. He opens his eyes as you approach, watching you with a mix of pain and curiosity. Setting the pot on a metal stand over the fire. The flames eagerly lick at the bottom of the pot, and you watch as the water begins to heat up.

You kneel beside him, your hands still trembling slightly. “We need to get you clean first. And dry,” you explain, meeting his gaze. He nods, a grim determination in his eyes.

As you move to peel away Bucky's clothing, the reality of his injuries hits you with full force. In the brighter light of the fire, the mud, sewage, and dried blood caked onto his clothing are worse than you remember. The fabric sticks to his skin in a second, grimy layer, with the fibres melded and mashed into the lashes, which are partially visible through the torn sections. The smell is overwhelming—a nauseating mix of sweat, blood, and decay that catches in the back of your throat. 

“Who did this?” You press the gangster. “I didn’t think there were many high up enough to touch you, Barnes.”

Bucky grunts, his breath hitching as you begin to peel the shirt from his back. “I have plenty of enemies, doll.”

“Like who?” 

“You really want to talk business right now?” He snips. The shirt clings stubbornly, the dried blood acting as glue. Each inch you lift reveals more of his battered skin. The gashes on his back are deep, angry wounds, raw and inflamed. You have to work slowly, carefully prying the shirt away from his flesh to avoid tearing the wounds open further. Bucky’s muscles tense and twitch under your hands, his jaw clenched tight.

“I just don’t understand. How did this happen? Why were you alone… do you really have enemies powerful enough to jump you in your own streets?” You babble, the words distracting you from the nerves that were quickly climbing your throat.

“Arcana Castigatio ring a bell?” Bucky says gruffly. 

“You mean The Penance Boys?” You baulk. The lashes suddenly made sense. The Penance Family were a crime family that had founded a cult based on the religion of Arcana Castigatio. They believed in purification through suffering, administering lashings to themselves and others as acts of penance. They view lashings as a necessary act to purge sin and achieve spiritual purity. “I didn’t think they had business dealings in these parts.”

“They don’t. They’ve been pushin’ their luck, pushin’ their beliefs on workers in the Smokestacks, tryna recruit them for the factories over the river.”

“Gods, Bucky,” you whisper, more to yourself than to him. When you finally pull the shirt free, you see the full extent of the damage. His back is a mess of deep lashes, some oozing fresh blood, others scabbed over and encrusted with grime.

“So you went to deal with them alone?” You turn your attention to his pants, which are equally soaked through with mud, sewage, and blood. Your cheeks flush with awkwardness, but you know the filthy clothing needs to come off or the cold will never leave his bones.

“No. I took some boys with me.”

"Lift your hips a bit," you murmur, your voice barely above a whisper. Bucky complies. You work quickly, trying to remain clinical as you peel the wet fabric away from his skin. The pants slide down his legs, revealing more bruises and scars. He’s left in just his undershorts, and you both pointedly avoid acknowledging it. “Didn’t go well, I take it?”

“Let's say I’ll have a few mothers to visit in the mornin’.”

You frown hard, swallowing dryly. “I don’t think you’ll be quite on your feet in the mornin’. You already feel like you’re developin’ a fever.”

Bucky grunts, clearly in agreement but unwilling to admit it outright. With the worst of the clothing removed, you turn your attention to the task of cleaning his wounds. You take a clean cloth and dip it into a bowl of hot water from the pot, wringing it until damp but not dripping. The heat from the water stings your fingers.

You press the cloth to his back, starting with the worst of the gashes. Bucky hisses through his teeth, his body jerking involuntarily at the touch. You work as gently as you can, but each swipe of the cloth brings fresh agony. The warm water loosens the dried blood and muck, the cloth coming away dark and filthy with each pass. The more you lift, the more you notice that the skin untouched by wounds is equally scarred, as if this lashing had not been the first occurrence. 

His eyes close as you work, and his face contorts. You move methodically from one gash to the next. The wounds are deep and numerous, crisscrossing his back in a chaotic pattern. Some are long and jagged, others short but vicious. 

Finally, you finish cleaning the last of his back wounds. The cloth in your hand is filthy, the water in the basin turned a murky red-brown. 

“There,” you say softly, your voice laced with weariness. “That’s the worst of it.”

You stand up, stretching your aching muscles, and grab a clean bowl from the nearby shelf. You fill it with fresh water from the pot that is already over the fire. Kneeling beside him, you gently tilt his chin up to get a better look at the damage.

“I’m assumin’ the Peance Boys won’t be gettin’ away with this?” You ask, starting with his forehead, carefully dabbing at the cuts and bruises. The cloth quickly darkens with the mix of blood and dirt, but you continue, your movements precise and gentle. As you wipe away the grime, the extent of his injuries becomes more apparent. His face is a mosaic of bruises, some fresh and angry, others older and fading to a sickly yellow. His left eye is swollen nearly shut, and a deep cut runs along his cheekbone.

“You’re not wrong,” he replies, his tone rough and weary.

Bucky’s eyes open and meet yours, and for a moment, the room feels even smaller, the air between you charged with unspoken tension. His gaze is intense, a mix of pain, exhaustion, and something else you can’t quite place. You hold his gaze, your heart pounding in your chest. Your cheeks flush, but you don’t look away.

“Hold still,” you whisper, trying to cover for yourself. He complies, though his muscles tense with every touch of the cloth.

“What’ll you do to them?” You ask, moving to his jawline, the cloth gliding over the rough stubble and the bruised skin beneath. His jaw clenches, a low growl escaping his throat as you clean a particularly painful cut. You hum soothingly, trying to ease his discomfort.

“They’ll pay. With time. I need’ta think on it first,” he responds, his voice a low rumble. His eyes flicker dangerously.

“That would be wise. I don’t think you’re in the condition to start a war.”

When you finally reach his lips, you hesitate. His lower lip is split, swollen, and red. You dab at it gently, your hand trembling slightly. Bucky’s breath hitches, his eyes darkening. “I don’t think it’ll be a war… more like… a massacre.”

His lips twist into a bitter smile despite the pain, and you pause, absorbing his words. Unease settles in your gut as you consider the weight of his intentions. You have always known Bucky to be analytical and sadistic in his methods, his revenge was cold and calculated. The word massacre echoes in your mind, and you can't help but wonder what horrors he will unleash. His wrath won't be a simple act of retaliation; it will be a meticulously planned and bloody spectacle. 

“You’re doin’ great,” you murmur, your voice barely more than a whisper, masking the unease that nearly slips through. Bucky’s eyes soften slightly, a hint of gratitude breaking through.

You finish cleaning his face, the cloth now completely stained. You sit back, taking a moment to breathe. Bucky’s face, though still battered, looks a little better, the dirt and blood no longer obscuring his features.

Dumping the cloth on the ground nearby, you rise to your feet. You’d have to do another cleaning pass later with some soap. His hair was still slick with filth, the unmarked sections of his skin stained. 

Your head tilts as you observe him.

You needed to get those wounds shut as soon as possible.

“The best I can do is stitch up your back and use magic to seal it.” You explain as you wring out your fingers, wavering near the fire. “It’ll hurt. Badly. And the scars won’t be pretty.”

The gangster waves a hand at you half-heartedly, wincing as the movement pulls the torn flesh on his shoulders taut. “I’ll live.”

With hesitant steps, you dip behind him deeper into your room. You only needed two things—some strands of your hair and a needle strong enough to pierce skin. Later, you could make up a poultice or salve for his back, the wounds would be hot and inflamed once you sealed them, a paste could soothe them. You would also need to make up a remedy for his pain—a tonic of some kind. A tea would be best to shake off the cold.

You return to Bucky with your hairbrush and needle in tow. He gives you a quizzical look as you settle beside him. 

“Do you want me to talk while I work, or remain silent?” You ask.

“Talk. I have a feeling that I’ll need a distraction.”

You nod and pick up the brush. A clump of your strands are woven between the bristles. With deft fingers, you isolate a single strand and pull it from the mass. “I will use my hair as thread,” you explain.

“I can channel my magic through parts of myself.” You take the strand and briefly pull the fibre through your lips, wetting the end. “I’ll stitch your wounds and use my magic to seal the skin back together.”

You thread the needle with ease, pulling your hair through the eye in one gentle tug. “The magic will flush out any infection, but the scars will be painful for some time.”

“Will it break the fever?” The gangster asks. You frown, head cocking to the side as you pull your eyes from the needle to his skin. His face is rosy and flushed with heat. A thin layer of sweat glistens in the firelight.

“No.” You sigh, twisting the needle in your grip. The curved metal glints. “I fear your fever is from the cold, not your wounds.”

“It’s partly good news, though, it will be easier to break than a fever brought on by infection.” You shift so you are positioned behind him, staring directly at the criss-crossed lashes. Blood and fluid ooze from the tender flesh.

“This’ll hurt.” You remind him.

You start with the worst of the gashes, threading your hair through the jagged edges of his torn flesh. The needle punctures his skin with a sickening pop. Bucky’s body tenses, his muscles bunching as a low growl of agony rumbles in his chest. A slew of curses leaves his lips, incoherent through his grit teeth.

The smell of blood and sweat fills the air, mingling with the faint scent of smoke from the fire. Each push of the needle is nauseating. The skin resists each stroke of the sharp metal. With each pass, you can feel how your hair grows taut, and you are careful not to allow it to snap as you drag it through the skin. The raw edges come together with an uneven, painful precision.

“I did warn you, I’m no healer.” You murmur. The gangster does not reply. His hand grips the edge of the rug, knuckles white. 

You push through the process, your hands steady despite the horror of it. The strands of hair weave through his wounds, stitches wonky as they barely cinch the skin shut. Your lack of experience shows, but you decide it is not the time to comment on it.

Bucky’s low growl turns into a pained moan as you work on a particularly deep wound. His muscles twitch, and he nearly pulls away from you, but he forces himself to stay still. You coo at him soothingly, your fingers stroking across an untouched patch of skin in a silent gesture of comfort.

“Just a little more,” you whisper, your voice gentle yet strained. The tension in the room is thick, every sound is amplified by the silence between you.

You quicken your pace, your own heart pounding in your chest. The last few stitches are the hardest, Bucky’s body is writhing in agony beneath your touch. His growls turn into cries, raw and guttural. The smell of fresh blood is overpowering, and you fight the urge to gag as you finish the last stitch.

Finally, you tie off the thread, your hands shaking from the effort. The wounds are closed, but you still need to fuse them shut.

You take a deep breath, gathering your resolve for the next part of the process. The stitching is done, but now you need to seal the wounds with your magic. Holding your hands over Bucky’s back, you focus on the strands of hair threaded through his flesh. Slowly, you begin to channel your magic, feeling it surge from within you and through your fingertips.

The feeling of chaos sweeps over your skull, your scalp prickling as the electrifying feeling cascades down your spine. The strands of hair start to glow, a soft, eerie light emanating from them. Bucky tenses immediately, his muscles bunching and his back arching as the heat begins to build. The glow intensifies, with the strands heating up and melding with his skin. The smell of singed flesh fills the room, acrid and nauseating.

Bucky’s reaction is immediate and visceral. He lets out a guttural scream, the sound ripping through the quiet. His body convulses, his hands clawing at the rug beneath him. He cries out, but any words he is attempting to speak are incoherent through his agony. You grit your teeth, fingers curling as you hesitate, but you know this is the only way.

"Hold on," you murmur, your voice trembling. "Just a little longer."

The glow from the hair brightens further, the heat reaching its peak. Bucky’s screams turn into a hoarse, ragged howl, his body writhing in uncontrollable pain. It’s as if molten metal is being poured into his wounds, searing the flesh and fusing it together. The skin bubbles and sizzles, the magic knitting the torn edges with brutal efficiency.

You can feel his pain as if it were your own, each scream and shudder resonating through you. Tears blur your vision, but you force yourself to stay focused. Your hands hover just above his back, fingers trembling as you pour every ounce of your will into the spell. The glow begins to fade, the heat dissipating as the wounds finally seal shut.

This magic, your magic, was not meant for healing. It was not life magic or kind magic. Your magic had never been empathetic, never gracious or soft. Your magic was death, violence, and destruction. If you pushed the blinding white heat any further, it would tear him apart entirely.

You held onto something otherworldly—a power too wicked and cruel for a mere mortal. It lay between worlds, a focus of chaos invisible to the naked eye. 

It was not right to bend and force chaos to your will. 

Yet you could.

Bucky collapses onto the floor, his body shivering uncontrollably. His breath comes in frantic gasps, his voice hoarse from screaming.

"It's over," you whisper, your own voice barely more than a breath. "It’s done."

Without thinking, you rush to his side, dropping to your knees. You grasp his face in your hands, feeling the heat of his fevered skin against your palms. His eyes are half-lidded and glazed with pain, but they lock onto yours. For a moment, everything else fades away—the wounds, the blood, the horror of the past hour.

Your thumb strokes gently across his jaw, then his cheek, tracing the rough stubble and the bruised skin beneath. His breath hitches at the contact, his eyes softening just a fraction. "Bucky," you murmur, his name a fragile whisper on your lips. "It’s over now."

His gaze holds yours, a fleeting tenderness passing between you, but the tenderness is short-lived. You steel yourself, pulling your hands away and standing up. The scent of burnt flesh seems to linger in the air.

“Stay still. I will make up a poultice, it should stop the burning.” You explain to the gangster. 

But he does not reply. 

His eyes seem to have rolled back into his head.

PART FOUR

[nattikay]

Hello, my name is NattiKay, and welcome to my blog! Before you follow, there’s a thing you should know about how I do fandom.

Basically, it can take one of two forms. The first is casual fandoms—this includes various media I enjoy and will like/reblog posts about, maybe even doodle for on rare occasions. I can have several of these simultaneously.

But the second—and much more visible—is a “main” fandom, which you can also call hyperfixation or special interest if you wish. I only have one of these at a time, it lasts for years, and it pretty much takes over my life and blog during that time. Once every few years or so my brain will latch on to a new “main” fandom—I don’t know what triggers it to switch, and I have zero control over when it happens or to what.

My current special-interest fandom is Avatar (James Cameron/blue people), with a bonus mini-fixation on the Na'vi language. My favorite characters are the Sully family and much of my art focuses on them right now.

Previous special-interest fandoms that I’ve had during my time on tumblr are, in descending order of recency:

Trollhunters/Tales of Arcadia Miraculous Ladybug Inuyasha

I make this distinction to say that if you recently found this blog through fanart of one of these previous fixations and followed hoping for more, I’m sorry to say you’re going to be disappointed.

When my fixation switches, I loose interest in actively creating content for the previous fandom because all my energy gets dedicated to the new one. This does not at all mean that I no longer like the previous ones—I may still reblog posts about them here and there—just that I no longer have the inspiration to be producing a bunch of art/comics/etc for them the way I used to. They’ve essentially moved from main fandom to casual fandoms. Yes, this will happen one day for my current fixation too, though I have no way of predicting when.

I will not be offended if you follow me during one fixation and then unfollow when it switches. I will also not be offended if you recently found this blog through my old content from previous fandoms and then choose not to follow because of this post: like I said, if you follow hoping for new art from those, you’re gonna be let down 😅

[writingwarden]

can i request some keegan x fem!reader where she gets herself hurt trying to protect him and keegan gets all overprotective and worried over her 🙏🙏

[A/N]- Hi yeah sorry this took so long! Writers block is hitting me hard lmao. Sorry if formatting is weird, posting from mobile!

Keegan x Fem!Reader

TW- Minor character death, being shot, blood, Canon typical violence

Word Count- 1.6k

Callsign- RED

The forest is alive around you as you lay prone, looking through the binoculars onto the Federation camp. Around fifty federation soldiers mill around the camp, unsuspecting of the threats in the cliffs above where your team layed. Watching; waiting for the signal to descend onto the crowd.

Keegan shuffles from where he sat crouched next to you, “Well, Red?” He questions.

You don't look away when you answer, “Next patrol should be passing in the next five minutes.”

You, Keegan, and a few selected soldiers were there to scout the guard rotations and then enter the camp, shoot any federation, and retrieve data from the commander's tent. In and out. Keegan was there to ensure the mission was completed and watch your back.

If you didn't know better, Elias had shot you a wink when he announced the mission. He always paired you two together on missions, something about both being sneaky. Nevermind the fact you and Keegan had been secretly dating for months now.

Handing the binoculars over to Keegan, you crawl backwards, waiting till you were concealed by the bushes to stand up on your knees. Looking around at the soldiers around you, nodding at them.

A whistle sounds from where you just were, it's time.

Climbing back to the edge of the cliff where you had perched, you ready your rifle. It would start after everyone got into position. A voice crackles through the comms in your ear, “Kick this off, Red.”

Taking a deep breath as you aim, the recoil causes the gun to bump back into your shoulder as the first guard falls. The others don't have time to react as the rest of the team moves in. Body by body, the Federation soldiers fall, the team spreading out like discussed.

Using your scope you follow each teammate until you can no longer see any one of them. It was your turn to enter the fray. Slinging the rifle over your shoulder, you begin the slide down the cliff side. The landing shocks your knees enough to pop them but you keep moving.

It was up to you now to reach the main tent where Keegan would be waiting with the Federation Commander in custody. Bringing a hand up to your radio, you announce your entry into the camp to the rest of the team. Holding your rifle up as you reach the edge of the camp. Ready to fire on any enemy that crosses your path.

Gunfire rings out in the distance as the Federation soldiers try to fight back, the echoes of the others ringing through the channel as they push further into the camp.

Moving from crate to crate, dispatching any poor souls you come across. The latest one falling out of the tent they attempted to shoot you from.

Rounding a stack of crates, the sight in front of you makes your blood turn cold. Keegan held at gunpoint by the commander you were sent to eliminate, another soldier standing behind him, gun trained on him. Shit!

Aiming quickly, the soldier drops with a single bullet through his throat. Turning to the commander you were too slow, his barrel already pointed at you. The small and bright burst of a bullet exiting the weapon in your direction.

The world pauses, ears ringing as heat spreads through your stomach. Surroundings in slow motion as Keegan begins to scream and lunges at the commander. Looking down at your body, the blood spreads across the fabric of your shirt, your hand covered in your own blood. Ringing in your ears as you stumble to your knees, desperately but poorly attempting to aim your gun at the enemy.

Through unfocused eyes you see Keegan snap the guard's neck and tackle the commander, retching the gun from his hand and firing, the body landing with a solid thunk against the muddy ground, hole blasted through the skull.

There were unfamiliar voices shouting, getting closer, the gun falling from your hand onto the ground next to you.

Keegan whips his head around to face you, taking in the sight that you are. It was almost cartoonish the way he scrambles over to your kneeling form. His hands are on you, lifting you shakily, just enough to prop you halfway up against the crate a few feet behind you.

“Shit, Red!” Keegan yells, panic lacing his words as he crouches over you pressing his hands to the wound, trying to keep the blood in. The heat turns into hellfire as you lay writhing against the crate, his touch causing shooting streaks of electricity to shoot through your heart.

Weakly you try and push his hands away, but instead he takes them under his own and uses them to put pressure on the wound. It's then that one of his hands leaves, reaching up to his radio. The words that fall from his lips are muffled by the ringing and blood rushing through your ears. You can make out the vague demand that the others regroup at the main tent, the one you lay outside of.

You can feel your body slipping further down. When did it get so cold out? Keegan notices your rapidly slipping consciousness and places a hand under your chin, shaking your head. It jostles your eyes open enough to watch a federation soldier round the corner behind Keegan.

“Behind-” your voice comes out in a harsh rasp. Painful coughs follow the word like a punishment.

Keegan grabs the pistol holstered on your side, turns around and fires rapid shots. Another body falls.

Everything in your mind screamed at you to stay awake, or maybe that was Keegan desperately trying to keep you lucid. A fretting look over his features, eyes were frantic, mask moving around like he was talking.

Sleep had never sounded like such a good idea until now. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to rest your eyes for a minute? Eyelids fluttering shut, the last sight you saw was the hand of your teammates gripping Keegan’s shoulder. The last thing you felt before the dark welcomed you was being lifted off the muddy ground.

…

The smell of hospital antiseptic sharply fills your nose, the bright white lighting causing you to scrunch your eyes close again. The beeping of various vital monitors mix with the soft snores coming from your left. Turning your head towards the sound and opening your eyes, your breathing stutters at the sight in front of you.

Keegan sat in the chair next to the bed, head leaning against his shoulder as he slept. His arms crossed over his chest, breathing shallow. The watch on his wrist read 9:23, how long had you been out? Your eyes roam over his sleeping face, taking in the dark crescents under his eyes. He looked worse for wear, but you suppose that comes with the job.

Lifting the thin hospital blanket reveals bandages wrapped around your abdomen. The area around the gunshot wound is completely numb, not that you're complaining. They probably had you on all sorts of fun painkillers.

Setting the blanket back down and looking at the bedside table, you see a water bottle. Shakily you reach for it but your hand barely grazes it, causing it to fall over and roll off the surface. It lands on the floor with a dull thud as a frustrated noise leaves your throat.

This causes the man next to you to stir, blue eyes slowly flickering open. Those beautiful blue eyes widen in surprise at your awake state. Sheepishly you smile and point to the fallen object.

“Clumsy.” He says as he bends down to pick the water bottle off the floor. You expected him to just hand it back to you but instead he twists the cap off and holds it up in front of your face.

Wordlessly you let him help you drink. When you had enough he moves the bottle back to the table, this time within your reach.

“So,” you begin, ignoring the horrible way your voice cracks, “How long was I out?”

He looks down at his watch then back to you, “You got out of surgery around five hours ago, so twelve hours. Honestly surprised you woke up this early.”

Twelve hours? A myriad of questions fly through your thoughts but you settle on the first one. “Did you get the Intel we needed?” Business was always first to you no matter the situation.

An amused look crosses his face at your question. “Yeah, I got it before he caught me. Everyone else is fine, minor injuries but they'll live. You on the other hand?” He runs a hand through his hair, “You were touch and go for a while. It's honestly a damn miracle that the bullet only managed to graze your stomach.”

He rolls his eyes before looking down at your body, “Are you comfortable? I can go get the nurse. Are you cold?” He begins to stand.

Grabbing his hand prevents him from leaving. He slides back into the chair as you bring his hand up to your face, kissing each knuckle. Worry is replaced with softness and a sigh.

You nod your head as a small silence fills the air between you two.

“You didn't need to do that.”

You frown and shoot a questioning look at him.

“Thanks anyway. But if you get hurt again I'll throttle you.” He had a serious look, brows furrowed. He stretches his arms above his head before continuing, “Love, if you would have died I would have never forgiven you, probably would've dragged you back to the land of the living myself just to smack you.”

Before you could retort he leans over you and places a quick kiss on your lips. Any protests you had died on your tongue, a grin replacing the frown as he pulled away. “No promises.”

[A/N]- edit to fix tags

[viesantewrites]

𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝

(𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧)

Robert Fischer (Inception) x Reader

note: Hey guys, I‘ve rewritten this story a bit and decided to post it on my sideblog. I've changed some of the themes and also that the main character is no longer an OC named Victoria, but the reader. I think this story is kinda difficult to write, which is why I've rewritten it several times. I love plots like Shutter Island and tried to do something similar here & it‘s also a story about parasocial relationships and unrequited love.

summary: The reader is hopelessly in love with her boss Robert Fischer, but he doesn't seem to be interested in her. By an unexpected coincidence, they meet in the city and his sudden intense affection for her confuses her. The reader begins to suspect that something is wrong, and when she finally uncovers the truth about her encounters with Fischer the heartbreaking reality is revealed to her.

you don‘t have to watch the movie to understand the story.

age gap, but the characters are both adults. Robert is 37-39, is divorced and has a child. The reader is about 28/29.

word count: 5000+

warnings: topics like mental illness, depression, this is a quite dark and heavy story

It was just half past seven when she heard the familiar footsteps in the corridor approaching the office next door. A key was inserted into the lock and a moment later the door opened.

Glancing around to make sure her workspace wasn't too messy, she threw an old paper cup into the bin before her boss poked his head through the door.

"Good morning, Miss YLN, so busy already?" he asked with a tired smile. "It doesn't reflect well on me as a boss to have my assistant here before me. I'm sorry, Monday mornings are always a bit stressful for me."

"No problem, Mr Fischer. I've already sorted the mail for you, it's on your desk," she said kindly, watching him as he took off his coat and hung it on the coat rack, a little damp from the rain.

"Thank you, I can count on you."

He was a very elegant, handsome man, about ten years her senior, with dark hair, blue eyes, high cheekbones and an elegant black suit. She must have stared at him a little too long, because he turned to her with a questioning smile.

Immediately her cheeks flushed and she turned back to her computer screen, but by then Mr Fischer had already approached her and put some documents on her desk. "Please scan them all and email them to Mr Parker, he's been waiting for them for days," he said to her. "It would be best if we sat down together later and quickly discuss my tasks for today, there is a lot to do. If I'm not mistaken, I have a client meeting at three today."

"At two, sir," she corrected him, handing him a planner with today's date thickly underlined.

He started to grin. "You see, this is exactly why I have an assistant."

Fischer disappeared into his office.

She sighed slightly and went to work scanning the documents. She had been working for Fischer Morrow, one of the world's largest energy companies, for barely a month. Their headquarters had moved from Sydney to London after the death of their CEO, Maurice Fischer. Her current boss, Robert Fischer, was a direct descendant.

She liked Fischer Jr a lot. He was friendly, supportive and didn't get angry when things didn't go to plan. But in some ways he always seemed so unapproachable. For example, he never talked about his private life and YN had no idea who he was outside of work. Then again, he was her boss and his private life was none of her business. But deep down she admitted that she was very interested in him.

The days flew by and she finally felt as if she had been employed by Fischer Morrow for an eternity. But who Robert Fischer really was remained a mystery.

One evening, as she was about to leave, she quietly opened the door to Fischer's office. He was sitting in front of his computer, his chin resting on his hands. "Have a nice evening, Mr Fischer." He jumped slightly, obviously not having heard her come in, but then he smiled. "Thank you, you too."

YN looked at her watch. "It's almost half past seven, don't you want to finish your work soon? Don't you have a wife waiting for you?"

Mr Fischer shrugged. "I've been divorced for a few years now, and I only see my daughter at weekends. The only thing waiting for me is an empty, dark apartment."

YN held her breath. It was the first time he had told her anything about his private life. But in the same second, he seemed to regret his words.

"No one waits for me either," she said. "Except for my cat."

Fischer raised an eyebrow with a smile. "At least that's something."

Finally she said goodbye and left the office. But all the way home, she kept thinking about her conversation with Fischer.

Was he perhaps as lonely as she was?

Tired, YN lay in bed. She didn't even have the strength to change her clothes and remove her make up. Although she wanted nothing more than to get out of that itchy, uncomfortable dress and tights. A quiet meow sounded beside her and she felt something soft brush against her arm. Smiling, she pulled the cat closer and buried her face in its white fur.

Since leaving her small home village for London, she had no one to talk to. Her old friends had all left her and moved on with their own lives. Robert Fischer was the only one she spoke to regularly, though it was far from a friendship. With the cat in her arms, she turned to the other side. But what if she had feelings for him?

Maybe she should tell him. But wasn't that too much? He was still her boss, after all, and there were probably plenty of women who were interested in him.

She quickly pushed the thought aside and closed her eyes.

Robert Fischer turned curiously when he heard the quick clicking of heels in the corridor. Panting, his assistant opened the door and dropped her bag on the desk.

"Miss YLN, are you okay?"

Her hair was messy, her coat hung loosely over her shoulders as if she hadn't had time to put it on properly, and her lipstick was a little smudged.

"I… overslept," she said, panting. "I'm sorry."

Fischer looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "It's okay. But it shouldn't happen again."

"Of course not, sir," she replied immediately.

He quickly disappeared into his office and returned with a thick stack of papers and a folder.

"Would you be so kind as to sort these documents alphabetically for me? They've been on my desk for days and I haven't had a chance to get to them. I know it's not an exciting task."

She nodded and took the heavy pile from his hand. Fischer thanked her and hurried back to his office.

Sighing, she set to work. But with each page, she found her concentration fading and her mind wandering. Her head ached, her eyes burned and she felt incredibly tired. But she tried not to show it, kept working as hard as she could and finally put the sorted file back on Mr Fischer's desk.

Exhausted, she walked back to her office, sat down in her chair and buried her face in her hands. She was shivering and her ears were ringing. Was it because she had forgotten to take her medicine today?

"Miss YLN?" she heard her boss' voice.

She turned immediately and forced a smile. "Yes, Mr Fischer?"

"I have an job interview scheduled for ten, would you be so kind as to prepare the conference room for it?"

"Of course, sir."

He stopped halfway and looked at YN questioningly. "Are you okay? You look so pale." She nodded quickly, forcing a smile. "Everything's fine, Mr Fischer." Fischer looked at her, raised his eyebrows, then handed her the key to the meeting room and disappeared back into his office.

A strange feeling of dizziness spread through her head as she walked down the long corridor leading to the conference rooms.

What was wrong with her today?

When it started to get dark outside, YN finally turned off her computer and reached for her bag. The strange dizziness had improved during the day, leading her to conclude that she simply needed a break from work. Fortunately, it was Friday. She knocked gently on Fischer's door, as she always did before leaving, to wish him a pleasant evening. He was sitting there as usual, his chin resting on his hand, deep in thought. He glanced up briefly and nodded politely, noticing her in the doorway. He looked stunningly handsome today, even after this long and exhausting day.

"I didn't ask you how the job interviews went this morning," she asked curiously. Fischer shook his head. "Terribly," he said. "None of these people I'd want in my company." His voice was cold and dismissive, and for a moment she thought he was referring to her, even though she knew he meant someone else. She smiled awkwardly and shrugged slightly. "Well, maybe the next one will be better."

Fischer remained silent.

"Have a good weekend, Mr Fischer."

"You too, Miss YLN." He gave her a friendly smile.

"Do you have any plans for the weekend? I know a good restaurant, would you like to join me?" The moment she realised what she had just said, she bit her lip, her face turning red. Had she completely lost her mind? She desperately hoped he hadn't heard what she'd asked, but it was too late. She could see Fischer raise his eyebrows in confusion and stare at her.

"No, Miss YLN. I'm not interested. I keep my work and personal life strictly separate." She immediately looked down, embarrassed. Thoughts raced through her mind like a rollercoaster and her cheeks felt as if they were on fire. "I'm sorry, Mr Fischer, I shouldn't have asked you that." She finally grabbed her bag and left the office without another word, feeling Fischer's gaze on her back.

It was drizzling lightly as she walked through the busy streets of London. The cold air did her good and she felt her head clear a little.

Why had she done this? It had been clear from the start that a man like him would reject her. But the words had come out of her mouth as if she had completely lost control. She felt a tear roll down her cheek and quickly wiped it away. She didn't want to have a mental breakdown in public, even though it felt like Fischer had torn her heart into a thousand pieces. Suddenly the strange dizziness returned and her vision blurred slightly. The sounds of London became muffled, as if she were incredibly far away.

"Miss YLN, wait!" she suddenly heard a voice behind her that seemed to be getting closer.

She turned around. The dizziness had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Startled, her eyes widened as she saw the person in front of her - it was Mr Fischer. What was he doing here? Had he followed her? She tried to speak, but all she could manage was a hoarse stutter.

"I wanted to apologize, Miss YLN. It wasn't very nice of me to brush you off like that," he said with a gentle laugh. His voice sounded strangely different, softer than usual. Wordless and spellbound, she stared into the pair of light blue eyes before her, apologetic and gentle in their expression. She knew Mr Fischer had blue eyes, but she'd never noticed how incredibly bright they looked.

"It's okay, don't worry," she managed to say, her knees shaking with excitement.

"No, no, Miss YLN. I'll think about the dinner offer, okay? Just because we work together doesn't mean we can't have dinner together, does it?" Fischer suggested, and she nodded slowly, then smiled.

Why this sudden change of heart?

"Well, see you soon." He waved goodbye and YN, still completely confused, raised her hand in response. But before she could form another thought, he had disappeared into the crowd.

Carefully, YN pressed the shutter on her old camera, focusing the lens on the small lake in front of her. Satisfied, she lowered it. She was confident that this snapshot would turn out well. This park was a place she often visited to clear her head and pursue her passion, photography, as it offered many beautiful subjects. Especially now, in autumn, when the trees were covered with colourful leaves and the silence was slowly descending, with only the occasional pedestrian passing by.

Her dizziness had eased a little, but not completely. Fortunately, it was Saturday and she had the whole day to herself. YN sat down on a bench under a tree that looked to be at least a hundred years old.

She sat there for a while, lost in thought. Eventually she got up and made her way to the West End. The streets of London were noisy and busy as she walked, looking for a warm place in a café and something to eat. Crowds of people rushed past her, music played from somewhere and loud voices filled the air. Exhausted, she rubbed her temples. Maybe she should have stayed home and rested.

Suddenly she held her breath as she spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Dark hair, high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. Fischer. But before she could think, he had already noticed her and started to smile at her.

"Miss YLN, how nice to see you! What a coincidence!"

It was the first time she had seen him in his casual clothes rather than one of his business suits. But this was no less elegant and stylish. He was wearing a well-fitting black coat, a grey knitted jumper underneath and black trousers. It was so strange to see him outside his office at Fischer Morrow Company. Suddenly he didn't seem so unapproachable and distant anymore.

"What are you doing here?" she asked curiously.

He paused for a moment. He seemed to be considering whether or not to tell her.

"I took my little girl to her friend's house for a sleepover. She's been asking me for weeks because her mum won't let her."

"So you're a cool dad," YN replied.

Fischer rolled his eyes. "I'm the one who lets her get away with everything. We had to turn back twice because she realised she had forgotten her favourite stuffed animal and her toothbrush."

She laughed softly. In a strange way, she enjoyed him talking so openly about his life.

"Oh wow, that looks amazing. It's quite old, isn't it?" Mr Fischer pointed to the camera around her neck. "From the 1960s. But it takes incredibly good pictures for that time," she explained. Fischer seemed genuinely impressed. "Do you have more like it?"

"I have quite a few. From the 50s to the 80s, actually, and of course some modern digital cameras. Photography has been my passion since I was a child," she explained. Fischer looked at her with an interested smile. "So there's actually film in there that needs to be developed?" she nodded in confirmation. "Some photo shops still offer that service, yes."

Mr Fischer seemed genuinely interested in her hobby, asking her questions about it as they walked side by side through the streets of London. She felt incredibly comfortable in his presence and hoped he wouldn't leave so soon. Finally he pointed to the camera again. "Would you take a picture of me, please? I'd like a 60's style photo of myself." YN's heart began to beat faster in her chest. What had he just said?

"Of course, Mr Fischer," she replied nervously. "Robert. My name is Robert," he replied. Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks, completely surprised. No one at Fischer Morrow Ltd called him by his first name, and outside the company she had only heard his uncle, Peter Browning, call him Robert.

"Let's find a nice spot for the photo," he said, letting his gaze wander until it settled on a beautiful fountain.

Carefully, she picked up the camera, took a few steps back and held it directly in front of Robert's face. "Smile, please," she instructed him, finally pressing the shutter.

A pedestrian who had just passed them looked at YN with a confused expression and shook his head. Frowning, she looked after him before carefully tucking the camera into her handbag.

Are you hungry?" asked Robert. "We could go to a restaurant."

Surprised, she looked at him. "I don't know…" she said hesitantly, biting her lower lip. In fact, she had never expected to be asked such a question.

He looked at her with raised eyebrows and she could see the disappointment in his eyes. Finally, she worked up the courage to say what was on her mind.

"It's just… To be honest, you told me yesterday that you were someone who kept your work and personal life strictly separate. Maybe it would be better if we did. After all, I'm your employee."

As much as she wanted to spend time with him, she was afraid of developing even more feelings for him. Robert nodded slowly and shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

"I really like you. I just never wanted to show it, that's why I was so reserved with you and told you I wasn't interested in you".

She closed her eyes and let out a sigh as a ton of thoughts went through her head. Robert finally nodded at her with a slightly disappointed look on his face and turned on his heel.

"Wait!" she called after him.

He stopped immediately and looked at her hopefully.

"Let's give it a try, shall we?"

"YN… is that a French name?"

Robert's voice sounded slightly tipsy as he grinned curiously at her, twirling his wine glass casually in his hands.

He had taken her to a rather fancy and expensive place, the walls were dark wood panelling, the chairs were covered in red velvet and soft jazz music was playing on one of the radios. Robert looked hauntingly beautiful that night. His skin seemed incredibly soft and flawless, his jawline even more prominent, and his blue eyes shone almost ghostly in the dim light, almost like he wasn’t real…

She smiled, nodded and took a sip from her glass. "My father is French. I grew up in France but moved to England when I was 15."

He nodded with interest, rubbing his chin with his finger.

"And you? I heard you're Australian," she asked curiously.

Robert laughed and ran a hand through his dark hair. "Well, my accent makes it obvious."

YN blushed and looked down at her plate. What a stupid question.

But Robert didn't seem to mind too much, because he started talking about his life in Sydney, how he had finally moved to London after his father's death, and she listened with interest.

But suddenly he stopped and looked at her thoughtfully. "But I'm probably just boring you."

YN immediately shook her head. "No, you're not," she told him. "I find it really interesting to find out all this about you."

At that moment a waitress came to their table with a smile and asked YN in a friendly tone if she had enjoyed her meal. But the waitress paid no attention to Robert, YN noticed with surprise. Perhaps she was just being extra polite to the lady.

Robert pulled out a black leather wallet and rummaged through it. Quickly, YN pulled a few notes out of her habdbag and handed them to the waitress. "Keep the change," she said.

The waitress looked at her with wide eyes, "Thank you, ma'am," she said gratefully, "have a nice evening.

Then she turned and left the table.

"You didn't have to do that," Robert said. "As a gentleman, it's actually my job to pay."

She shook her head in amusement. "I bet that's never happened to you before, has it?"

Robert shook his head and took the last drink from his glass. There was a moment of silence between them.

"Okay. So what's the plan for the rest of the evening?"

She looked at him in surprise. As soon as he said the words, she felt a tingle in her stomach.

The church clock struck twelve as she crossed the street hand in hand with Robert. It was freezing, and she had pulled her scarf so far up her face that only her eyes and nose were visible. Her date looked at her with amusement. "Are you going to rob a bank?" he asked, laughing out loud.

"Shh!" she snapped at him, putting her fingers to his lips. "You'll wake up the whole neighbourhood."

Although it was quite dark and she could only make out Robert, she knew that his typical mischievous grin was back on his face. She pulled him firmly behind her until they reached the small white building.

"Is this where you live?" Robert asked.

She put her finger to his lips for a second time until Robert stopped talking and looked silently into her eyes. Her heart was beating in her chest as she finally stood on her toes, put her arms around his neck and placed her lips on his. Robert returned the kiss without hesitation and gently pulled her into his arms. YN could hardly believe what was happening. It was everything she had secretly wanted for months. They remained like this for a moment before she finally let go of him and reached for her key.

She felt for Robert's upper arm and finally pulled him into her apartment, closing the door behind him. She immediately wrapped her arms around him and began to kiss him again. His lips were a little cold and tasted of wine. Together they stumbled backwards into her bedroom, taking off his coat, which she tossed carelessly to the floor.

Robert's fingers stroked carefully along her hip and fumbled a little with her belt while she was busy putting little kisses on his neck. With slightly trembling hands she pulled his jumper over his head and Robert took her hand.

"Are you nervous?" he wanted to know. She remained silent.

"Don't be," he whispered softly into her ear, taking her in his arms again and pulling her onto the bed. Breathing softly, she clung to his chest, leaned back and finally closed her eyes as she felt his warm skin against hers.

The sun shone through the half-open curtains, creating a narrow, bright streak across the floor. Blinking, she opened her eyes and stretched. But immediately a sharp pain shot through her head again and she held her forehead tiredly. Confused, she sat up and tried to remember what had happened yesterday.

But when she heard soft breathing next to her, she turned quickly and all the events of last night came back to her. Smiling, she looked over at Robert, snuggled up next to her in her beige blanket, sleeping peacefully. Tenderly stroking his messy hair, she lay down beside him again and then began to caress his bare chest. Perhaps what they had done was wrong. After all, they were two people who should never have fallen in love. But it had happened, and it felt so right. They remained in this position for some time, Robert asleep and YN lost in thought.

Her eyes swept through the bedroom until they settled on a small white box on her dresser. Quickly sitting up, she reached for it and put a small pill into her mouth. Eventually, Robert began to move a little beside her, opening his eyes tiredly. Smiling broadly, she gave him a small kiss on the tip of his nose.

"Good morning," she whispered.

"Good morning," Robert murmured in a raspy morning voice.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

"Yes, wonderfully." He yawned loudly and took her into his arms as she laid her head lovingly on his shoulder.

"Wait, what time is it?" he suddenly wanted to know.

"Quarter past ten, why do you ask?" she replied.

"Shit," Robert muttered as he let go of the hug, jumped out of the bed and started to pick up his clothes, which were strewn all over the floor.

"Wait, wait, where are you going?" she asked, looking at him in confusion.

"I should've picked up my daughter by now," he replied, hurrying to get dressed.

Sighing, she pulled the blanket around her a little tighter. "Can't it wait? Can't you stay for breakfast?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm sure she's already waiting for me.“ Robert dodged her questions, grabbing his coat on the floor and sighing when he saw her disappointed look.

He walked slowly towards her, stroking her chin with his finger, and finally whispered: "We can catch up later." Then he put a soft kiss on her lips before turning around and disappearing through the door. She sank back into the pillows and pulled the blanket over her head.

The rest of Sunday flew by. Mostly because her mind was on Robert and she could hardly wait to see him again tomorrow at work. She had probably never looked forward to a Monday in her life as much as she did that day.

The next morning, YN carefully applied her lipstick and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She noticed that the collar of her white blouse was a little crooked and quickly adjusted it. She wanted to look her best for Robert today, so he wouldn't change his mind and lose interest in her.

Humming softly, she put on her black high heels and grabbed her handbag. She quickly put another pill into her mouth and put the box in her bag. Her headache was completely gone and her head finally felt clear and light again. In a good mood, she breathed in the fresh morning air and made her way to work.

Her heels clicked on the floor as she walked down the familiar corridor of Fischer Morrow. The lights were on in Robert's office. She ran a final hand through her hair, smoothed her blouse and opened the door to her own office.

The air was stuffy and hot. Coughing, she ran to the window and opened it.

"Good morning, Miss YLN, I hope you had a nice weekend," a familiar voice sounded from behind her.

Startled, she turned to see Robert's face as he stuck his head through the door, as he always did.

Why didn't he call her by her first name? Confused, she stared at him, trying to form a clear sentence. "But… But… we spent it together…" her voice finally broke. Her head suddenly hurt again.

He seemed so different again. Not the Robert she had spent the weekend with, not the one who had apologised for being too rude to her, not the one who had made her laugh and told her about his life. He seemed more like the one she had worked with for months, the one who never revealed anything about himself.

"Miss YLN? I haven't seen you since Friday, when you left my office after… asking me that question."

Her heart almost stopped. Suddenly her knees gave way and she sank to the floor.

"Are you okay? Are you feeling unwell?" Concerned, he bent down to her. "Do you want to go home and rest?"

She nodded slightly and wiped a tear from her eye, which had turned her fingers black from the carefully applied mascara. Then she got up and left the office.

At home, she lay motionless on her bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. She couldn't think straight and her throat felt incredibly dry. The door to her room, which was only ajar, opened gently and something small and white slipped through. Sniffling, she stretched out her arms and lifted her cat onto the bed.

Everything that had happened that weekend had been fake. She had made it all up. And all of this happened because she had forgotten to take the pills against her delusions. Robert hadn't really followed her on Friday evening; it was all a figment of her imagination. While his real self was still sitting in the office, probably not thinking about her at all. Everything suddenly made sense: why Robert looked a bit different, why his voice sounded different, the waitress who ignored him on Saturday because she couldn’t actually see him, the pedestrian who gave her a confused look because she was talking to herself while taking the photo.

The photo.

She immediately got up, put on her shoes and ran to the photo shop where she had left the film to be developed. Her heart raced as the staff handed her the envelope with the photos. Trembling, she finally grabbed the Saturday night photo, without looking at it herself, and held it up to the staff's face. "What do you see?" she asked.

The young man looked at her in confusion, but remained polite. "The fountain at Piccadilly Circus. Great picture, it turned out really nice."

"Anything else?" she asked.

"No, ma'am," he replied, and it felt like a slap in her face. Fischer had never been there with her. Only her lonely and sad mind had led her to believe that he was interested in her and loved her. Tears welled in her eyes and she left the shop without another word. When she got home, she immediately took the white box of pills from her handbag, rushed into the kitchen, opened it and poured the pills into the bin.

Crying and with burning eyes, she finally lay down on her bed and buried her head in the pillow as her cat purred softly beside her. She must have stayed like that for hours, as the sun began to set again outside her window. When she finally lifted her head and wiped the tears from her face, she saw a dark haired man sitting beside her bed, looking at her lovingly with his pale blue eyes. A smile suddenly appeared on her face and she began to laugh, pulling the man into a tight hug.

some explanations because i know that story is kinda mind-fucking:

• Is Robert Fischer all a creation of the readers mind?

- No he actually exists, he’s her boss and she‘s in love with hin but she imagines dating him.

• When is he real, when is he fake?

- - The Robert Fischer in the office is real, he turns her down when she asks him out, leaving YN heartbroken. The moment she leaves the office, she starts to imagine what it would be like if he apologised to her, so the man who follows her is just her imagination. The real Robert Fischer is still in his office at Fischer-Morrow.

When she visits the city on Saturday and meets "Robert" and goes on a date with him, it's also just her imagination. That's why other people react to her with confusion, because she's basically talking to herself all the time. On Sunday morning, when she wakes up next to him, he's still fake. When she takes her pills, he quickly "disappears" (he says he has to pick up his daughter...) because they stop her delusions.

On Monday morning, when she gets back to her office, the real Robert Fischer is there again, who hadn't seen her since he had rejected her on Friday evening.

When she gets home, she throws away her pills and her delusions start again. The man who sat next to her on the bed and comforted her is again the imaginary version of Robert.