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#still a few people without power
songbirdstew · 8 months
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ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
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It is finally warmer INSIDE the house than it is outside!
Not home yet, but hopefully very, very soon. We bought a new pump for the well and replacement pipes today. Curtis did what he could, then had to go to the hardware store for more parts and ran out of daylight. It's hard having one car. Technically he could drive the Saturn without the rear windshield, but it wouldn't start.
Glitch is so happy now that it's a humane temp inside. I really think she was suffering PTSD from when she was forced into being feral against her will. She was living in the blackberry brambles during the last winter storm. This week, during the coldest days, I would hold her in my arms and she would lay her head on my shoulder and just tremble. 💔 I was so worried about leaving her behind, afraid she would get so scared and stressed that she'd get cystitis again, and then she'd be in severe pain, all alone, and cold, and I wouldn't be able to help her. But she survived really well. Really unhappy, but she stayed healthy, and she perked right back up once the temps started rising. She was totally back to her usual pranks and mischief today.
Royal said school went well, even though the internet is out. That's right, they have to do school unplugged, just like we did in the barbarian days. Their history teacher gave them chocolate and they shared a piece with me.
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mueritos · 3 months
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a little strange to get dms from other trans people saying they agree with biden's dumb statemet that he doesnt want minors getting gender-affirming care. if you really think its such an epidemic that 13 year olds are getting their knockers blown off by surgeons every other day, then please point me in the direction of said 13 year olds that are somehow accessing gender-affirming care that literal trans adults can't even access.
like please be fr. we literally have privatized healthcare and insurance where not even people who go through the appropriate avenues can get approved for care they need to stay alive. what makes you think a trans minor is getting phallo or vaginalplasty. feel whatever you want about 13 year olds who want gender-affirming care, but dont parrot transphobic rhetoric that is based on no facts and a moral panic. they second they legitimize barriers to care for trans minors is the second they start finding ways to do the same for trans adults. dont be a buffoon.
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undead-moth · 3 months
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I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?
I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.
Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.
Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.
#The Bear#SydCarmy#I was like a casual fan of this show two days ago#and now seeing how little respect this show gets from it's fanbase I'm losing my mind#I mean I shipped SydCarmy before anyway but now it means so much to me#it means so much to see such a realistic and purposefully well paced romance take place#so many shows portray romantic relationships and their beginnings in ways that just don't really happen in real life#and this show very purposefully said no. These are characters who are strangers. who are working together. Who are in a tense environment#and each of them has problems - one of them the type of problems that makes developing new relationships pretty difficult#these two would not get together right away. It would take a long time. And there would be ups and downs.#And even when that's the case. Even if when it takes a long time and doesn't go smoothly and is hard -#it can still be beautiful. It can still be romantic. It can still happen and here's how#and I'm just so inspired genuinely. It is so difficult to write romance without being cliche and so difficult to write it in a way that#could actually happen in real life and I really do hope I can write something half as good some day#and then to know so many people have no appreciation for it at all#because they prefer the shows that have characters make eye contact a few times and then confess their love for each other like#it's just fucking sad. So sad that so few people have any appreciation for good writing especially the difficult of romance writing#like I really just don't even know what to tell you. In real life these two would not have confessed to each other yet. They would not have#kissed yet. They would not have even realized they have feelings for each other yet because those feelings would still be developing#and I also want to point out that given the disparity in power between Syd and Carmy in season 1 it wouldn't have been healthy for them to#get together much sooner. He was her boss. He was also her idol. Before they can even get together that needs to be balanced out.#And then on top of that don't you see the value in Carmy realizing the dream girl he's romanticized in his head - Claire - isn't actually#what he wants? Don't you see the beauty in him being disillusioned from that? And realizing that Syd is what he wants?#Don't you see the beauty in Syd having an idealized vision of what Carmy The Great Chef is like realizing she was wrong and that he's human#and flawed and then realizing - she loves him anyway? She loves him more for not being on a pedestal and for having his flaws?#Are you telling me that even thinking about this doesn't move you? Doesn't make your heart ache a little?#And again - ship and let ship - but what is Luca? What is Luca if not just what she was hoping Carmy would be when she wen to The Beef?#What is he if not just another man who she has not seen under pressure yet? Not seen reliving trauma yet? Not been her boss yet?#It's easy to look at him and think he's better than Carmy - and that's the point. That's the point The Bear is making.#It is easy to want someone you don't know. It's hard to want to someone you do know. But that's what love requires and that's the point
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God forbid anyone act like they have any value as a person in this country
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exhausted-capybara · 1 year
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So, I keep seeing a lot of posts about AI and how capitalism and a bunch of tech companies are doing massive ethics violations, and I do agree that we should be talking about these things!
But I've also seen people go a bit too far and just kinda not get why those things are bad. The problem isn't AI as a concept, it's how they were implemented and how they're being used.
For example, did you know that phone calls are AI powered? Yes, really. It's not even a new development, they've been using AI / ML models since at least the '70s. VoIP calls like Discord, Google Meet and Zoom use more or less the same technology, so this applies to them as well.
Realistically the only reason they've never been marketed as AI powered is because they come from a time where AI wasn't a giant household buzzword (and in some cases, it was after the first major AI crash, so AI was actively a dirty no-no word if you wanted to get funds). AI really just means "inputs a big ball of data, outputs a crude, but smaller, approximation" - it just so happens that for a bunch of problems, we've found very good small approximations. Which means that please, for the love of all that's unholy, DO NOT harass someone using something that has AI or Machine Learning or terms like that attached, without considering whether that technology in question is actually harmful.
Linear interpolations (any interpolations really, linears are just the most common and banal of them) are technically AI, and yet they're a staple of pretty much every 3D rendering engine. Sometimes they're a cheap hack that makes whatever extremely easier and cheaper to make without compromising on visual accuracy, sometimes they're just *The Right Thing To Do*, and sometimes they're just saving an animator / modeler / etc. that's probably already overworked anyways from doing extra busy work. And yet there have been sightings of people harassing animators because they mentioned using some kind of interpolation during the animating / rigging / modeling process, someone mentioned (correctly in a pedantic sort of way) that it was AI to them before, and they just saw "thing that is AI" and "art" in the same general space and went full "fuck AI mode" on the overworked artist.
The problems with AI we're seeing right now are ethical, but there is ethical usage of AIs (and in fact there is a non negligible amount of accessibility devices that are AI powered), and sometimes that includes industries where there have been the biggest violations so far (generative images, generative sound and generative text). If you don't know enough about the kind of AI / ML model that was used, how it was used in the workflow, how it was trained, etc. Please look into that before going around throwing accusations and making call out posts, because there's a fuckton of things that are technically AI in stuff you use everyday and there are people in the Internet ready to start drama just because it's Tuesday or because the partner of a cousin of a friend of a classmate of their roommate's gym buddy said so.
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ziracona · 2 years
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Do gotta hand it to FO4; there’s something very poetic about The Railroad, a group taking its name from a forbearer that also at great risk smuggled slaves to freedom, made up of this small, struggling, regularly brutally purged, yet defiantly resilient group of civilians and liberated slaves, during the course of the game, operating and living out of a little church of historical significance, a symbol of freedom in its own right, living out of the crypts beneath it, among the bodies and the graves.
#everything about them is poetic and sad. it’s poetic and sad the last scripted Dialogue for Deacon’s first mission with the player is ‘End#of the line.’ Said happily about reaching escape. but also the quest name of the quest where you’re asked to walking into HQ & destroy them#there’s something poetic and awful and painful about how Deacon’s first personal remark to the Sole Survivor is that he’d take it as a#personal favor if they wouldn’t betray them to the institute since he vouched for them. it’s said laughingly. friendly. and the last thing#said to Deacon if the player /does/ betray them to the Institute is Desdemona’s ‘I should have known better than to trust your#recommendation’. before his desperate ‘I swear this wasn’t me. what the fuck’ and before they all die. there’s something deeply tragic and#poetic in that one of the women in HQ gives Preston caps excitedly and thanks him for the Minutemen. in that if you wipe them out with the#brotherhood you storm a church to be met by desperate civilian begging you to just leave them alone as they’re cut down pipe pistols to#power armor and Gatlings. not anger like the other factions. fear and desperation. pleading. trying to buy someone else time to flee#in that if Deacon isn’t in HQ when you destroy it if you turn on them he will hunt you down and try to kill you to avenge them. a#trait unique in every faction to him alone. In that they only move on the brotherhood when attacked. in that they attack the Institute to#save people not to destroy a threat. In that you find safe house after safe house with dead civilians in cloth.#in the way they’ve died many times before and someone always cares enough to pick up the pieces. in that every route points you gently to#them. but there’s nothing to keep them safe except choice. that even if you abandon them but don’t attack Dez will let you walk.#in the fact Deacon’s character exists at all. they are truly deeply overwhelmingly tragic. and it’s beautiful. and simple. just people#trying to do something that can’t be done forever knowing that for the days they can. everyone is standing in a host of ghost’s shoes#even the PC is given a dead man’s gun and can take his name. is recruited becuase they’re falling without him#and they live in a church among the dead in the crypts far from the light and their symbol is a lanter#Mama Murphy calls them the light in the darkness. truly. surrounded by it. but better to light one candle than to curse the dark#and hundreds of people have done so and died so that a few others could live. and they’re still doing it. and they don’t regret#Deacon calls them a family. P.A.M. stayed and helped for love of Glory. Carrington says Desdemona’s flaw is her heart - evidenced by her#allowing the PC to join or leave despite the risk they represent when the clinical call would be to kill them or another extreme measure.#and he’s right. but it’s also why they have a chance to live. Everything about them is about vulnerability and heart. Everything#fallout 4#the railroad#the railroad fallout 4
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decaf-lesbian · 5 months
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everyone please read this and share if you can.
Brazil is going through one of the worst climatic crisis ever seen.
i live in the southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. we have been suffering from extreme, nonstop rainstorms for a week now. the rivers are flooding, reaching 4-6 meters above their natural level. people are being rescued by helicopters, neighborhoods are being evacuated. entire cities are slowly but surely becoming submerged in water. 60 people missing and counting. 32 deaths and counting.
and this is not new. last november also had a flood like this one. 50 dead, many material losses. it happened again this january, with thousands being left without power or water for days.
three catastrophical disasters within less than a year. three disasters only a few months apart.
this is not natural.
unsustainable agricultural practices and politics led to this. a complete disregard for nature led to this. greed led to this. always greed.
when it comes to the climate crisis, i cannot stress this enough: we need to act now if we still want to live. disasters like this are going to happen more often and they're going to be much, much worse. this flood is being considered the worst climatic catastrophe in the history of my state. i don't know how long it will take for another bigger one to happen and take its place. i just know it will be sooner than it should.
links to donate (if you can't donate, sharing already helps a lot):
link for non-brazilians (paybox)
link for brazilians
pix assufrgs
updated links are on the pinned post on my blog. in the meantime, pray for us.
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skinamarble hornets, i was like i hope my favorite skinamascene has been uplomarinked on youtube....reminds me of that season one marble hornets entry that's the First House Visit and how i saw it described somewhere as like "absolutely nothing happens, & it's terrifying" & it reminds me of the torment of watching as the series was released & Every Time something came out, no matter what happened in like setting, atmosphere, plot, scares, there'd be someone going "ugh another Nothing entry" over the most crucial &/or enjoyable shit so long as it didn't feature [& he's cookin hot dogs on the stove???] & didn't feature it like every other minute for good measure. as though a format that is predictable, like the promise of the same kind of scene in the same intervals of timing, would actually be scary or at all interesting. shoutout to these the entries, or even intervals of time within entries, where "absolutely nothing happens" and it's called suspense in knowing it Could, tension in an unsafe, uneasy, unsettling situation in the meantime, & then also potential followup recontextualization that only creates more tension for later similar material. ("absolutely nothing" happens (of course, actually, things happen, but) in the skinamarink scene save for the literal last few seconds when the "jumpscare" is a very brief change in audio & visuals which is neither actually that loud nor like showing anything scary(tm) (technically a la marble hornets i think people say you can like see an arm extend for a nanosecond but i never catch it if so lol) but rather hits at all because of 8 minutes of suspense & tension & Nothing Happening But It Could) (also bravely standing up like "it's fine that skinamarink has some jumpscares, including the obvious few even jumpier than this" like who cares if it's "easy" necessarily & also that Knowing such startlement can happen ramps up the tension even when it didn't, but it could've. like so)
#finally some Yeah Yayyy (horror i've seen that wasn't [all the stuff where at this point i may as well not even say i like horror])#i kind of do in the sense that i go Wheee at enjoyable [aaa tension aaa gripping the handlebars] like so. & some ppl don't#& that the genre can obviously express fun interesting things. skinamarink e.g. is one of the really few things where like#plenty of people can go ''so my avg tuesday as a four year old'' Like Me when you really don't see it portrayed well hardly at all#other like ''oh nooo the experience of child abuse'' in horror or in Anything is like. head in hands scream (not in a good way)#this has both the like often literal physical perspective of small children. the metaphorical perspective of small children#(like even if one's parents were Fine & not as much an omnipotent haunting temperamental presence either awol or insistently toying w/you#were you not likely stuck in a Living Space unless & until whichever adult you were landed with; tossup re: malice levels towards you;#decided to bring you out of it (or you had Official Transit somewhere like for school) & Even Then. stuck living with adult guardian#until legal adulthood anyways which Is literal multiple [live your Entire Life over again]s away when you're very small. & even then like#people generally can't actually up & Escape the instant they're eighteen. but anyways the One Zillion Years [Killing You] Loop applies#metaphorically. & the [Killing You] Loop Just B/c Someone Can applies to plenty of situations ppl aren't four but still lack power#anyways re: this specific clip my favorite element probably of this favorite scene are the perfectly quiet Technically Unthreatening audio#where the seeming parent voice is not Loud but is suddenly a) inexplicably close by & b) too Almost playful already#almost singsong; feeling just a tiny bit too slow. like that makes it Intrusive in this way & entirely unsettling & ominous lol. dissonant#& aptly resonates with [yeah i've had similar very young nightmaresque scenarios. about being called by parent figures]#apt when it's like & yeah growing up in the heck dimension trying to deal by fending for yourself or nervously catering to the entities#is like yes it's obviously The Horrors & it's also The Comedy (enough of the same thing)#also apt when the inspiration & evoked Experience is meant to be truly surreal. dream formatting#limited visuals in scope & depth & clarity; moving from one place or view to another without usual Logics of progression there. yolo#next favorite bit is the very end. avoiding having faces shown so much & then one as the only thing you see but very out of focus#and then nothing happens lol thee end. but you hold your breath peel off the armrests anyways! phone bit is great too. efficient#anyways still a hater over MH complainers ''ohh nothing happened oohh more trees'' like yeah yeah i'm sure you could pare it down#i'm sure you could pare down [looking at a wall] shots in skinamarink but who cares. It's Fine As Is & shaving it down risks ruining it#Youtube
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shot-messenger · 5 months
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things r so not good and there is no real sign of it changing any time soon
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demilypyro · 10 months
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So I've seen a few too many people on twitter talking about The Kiss Scene from the new Scott Pilgrim anime. People saying it's fetishistic and indulgent, people calling it male gazey, etc. And while the kiss itself is certainly a bit exaggerated, I felt like writing a bit about why I disagree, and why context is important, like it always is. But it basically turned into an extended analysis on the metatextual treatment of Roxie Richter. So bear with me. It's a long post.
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What really matters about this scene is not the kiss itself, but what precedes it. Not even just the fight scene just before it, but what precedes the whole anime series, really. And that's the Scott Pilgrim comic book, and the live action movie. Because in both, Roxie is a punchline.
She's a joke. Her character starts and ends with "one of the exes is actually a girl, I bet you didn't expect that." Jokes are made about Ramona's latent bisexuality, the movie especially treating it as funny and absurd, and her validity as a romantic interest is entirely written off by Ramona as being "just a phase." There's a fight scene, she's defeated by a man giving her an orgasm which implicitly calls her sexuality into question (come on), and the movie just moves on. It sucks. It really, really sucks.
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The comic fares a little better. It never veers into outright homophobia like the movie does, and while the line about Ramona having gone through a phase remains, Roxie actually gets one over on Scott when Ramona briefly gets back with Roxie. But Roxie is still only barely a character. Like all the other evil exes, she's just a stepping stone towards the male protagonist's development. She barely even gets any screentime before she's defeated by Scott's "power of love." But Roxie stands out, since she's the only villain who is queer, or at least had been confirmed queer at that point (hi Todd). In a series that champions multiple gay men in the supporting cast, the single undeniable lesbian in the story is a villain. She's labeled as evil, made fun of, pushed aside in favor of the men, and then discarded. Her screentime was never about her, or her feelings for Ramona. It was about the straight, male protagonist needing to overcome her. And that was Roxie Richter. An unfortunate victim of the 2010s.
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Fast forward to current year, and the new anime series is announced. Everybody sits down to watch the new series expecting another retelling of the same story, and.... hang on, that straight male protagonist I mentioned just died in the first episode. And now it's humanizing the villains from the original story. And there's Roxie, introduced alongside the other evil exes in the second episode, and she's being played entirely straight, without a punchline in sight. No jokes are made about her gender, no questions are made of her validity as one of Ramona's romantic interests. The narrative considers her important. In one episode, she already gets more respect than she did in either of the previous iterations of Scott Pilgrim. And this isn't even her focus episode yet... which happens to be the very next one.
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The anime series goes to great lengths to flesh out the original story's villains and to have Ramona reconcile with them. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Roxie gets to go first. While Matthew Patel gets his development in episode 2, Roxie is the first to directly confront Ramona, now our main protagonist. This is notable too because it's the only time the exes are encountered out of order. Roxie is supposed to be number 4, but she's first in line, and later on you realize that she's the only one who's out of sequence. She's the one who sets the precedent for the villains being redeemed. She's the most important character for Ramona to reconcile with.
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What follows is probably the most extensive, elaborate 1 on 1 fight scene in the whole show. Roxie fights like a wounded animal, her motions are desperate and pained. Ramona can only barely fight back against her onslaught. Different set-pieces fly by at breakneck speed as Roxie relentlessly lays her feelings at Ramona's feet through her attacks and her distraught shouts. And unlike the comic or the movie, Ramona acknowledges them, and sincerely apologizes. And the two end up just laying there, exhausted, reminiscing about when they were together.
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Only after this, after all of this, does the kiss scene happen. Roxie has been vindicated, she has reconciled with the person who hurt her, the narrative has deemed that her anger is justified and has redeemed her character. And she gets her victory lap by making the nearest other hot girl question her heterosexuality, sharing a sloppy kiss with her as the music triumphantly crescendos.
It's... a little self-congratulatory, honestly. But it's good. It's redemption for a character who had been mistreated for over a decade. And she punctuates the moment by being very, very gay where everyone can see it, no men anywhere in sight. Because this is her moment. And then she leaves the plot, on her own accord this time, while humming the hampster dance. What a legend. How could anything be wrong with this.
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thehmn · 24 days
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Never underestimate the power of subtle body language to help those around you without causing a scene.
I use “stepping in front of insensitive/nosey assholes to block their view of a person they’re starring at” a lot. No words exchanged. Just getting between them (sometimes while starring back at them if they’re being extra weird) and they always seem to either realize what they’re doing or be jolted out of it. Either way it has never ended in a confrontation, just silent looks.
A kinda weird use of body language happened some time ago while I was standing at a bus stop near a train station. Right next to me stood a very short woman who I guessed to be from India based on her looks and dress, and around us were nothing but men. I’m very standard height for a Scandinavian woman so I’ve never felt short or tall in any group, but she looked tiny next to all these men packed tightly around us. I’m not sure why but I felt like she was uncomfortable with all these men towering over her and for some reason my response to that was to subtly change my stance so my front faced her a bit more. Not full on, but the way most friends stand next to each other, while still looking away from her. I don’t know why I thought that would be comforting to her because it could just as easily have come off as threatening, but after a few seconds she moved a bit closer to me. And then a bit closer. And then slightly closer. All without anyone else in the group moving. We stood like that until the bus arrived and then we went to separate seats.
So never be afraid to silently signal to strangers that you’re on their side or that they can fuck right off. People tend to respond better to that than words in my experience unless they’re already looking for a fight.
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breannasfluff · 6 days
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“Tony’s Pizza delivery!” Danny knocks on a door and stands back slightly, waiting for the answer. Silence. He knocks again. “Pizza order! For…” he checks the box, “Rob!”
There’s the thud of footsteps behind the door, but it doesn’t open. It’s like someone walked right up to it and is waiting. The house itself has blacked-out windows and piles of trash on the lawn. Something about the situation feels…off.
Danny pulls out the taser, which he usually keeps in his pocket. The other hand tightens slightly on the pizza box. He doesn’t go intangible, not yet, but his powers bubble around his core, ready at a moment’s notice.
The door swings open. There’s a gun pointed at his face. 
Acting on instinct more than thought, Danny snaps the taser forward and presses the button when it meets the man’s arm. There’s a roar of pain and the gun is dropped. 
Keeping a hold of the taser, Danny drops the pizza box on the steps. “You owe us payment next time you order thank you goodbye!”
He bolts, grabbing the bike and wheeling it next to him instead of jumping on it. Pulling on intangibility it spreads to the bike as well. As soon as he’s around the corner, Danny goes invisible. His heart is hammering against his chest and all he wants to do is curl into himself. 
Still, he keeps a hold of the bike–no good if it suddenly pops into existence–and breathes through his panic. The taser worked. Sure, he didn’t get paid, but he also didn’t get shot. If Tony’s upset, Danny will ask him to take the cost out of his wages. 
After another few minutes of breathing exercises–thank you Jazz–he’s settled enough to flicker back to visibility and bike back to the shop. 
Tony glances up at him when he enters and does a double take. “What happened, kid?”
“Didn’t get payment for the pizza. Sorry.”
The owner’s eyes narrow. “This wouldn't happen to be because someone pointed a gun at you, would it?”
“Er…”
Laughter is not what he expects. Tony just grins at him. “Kid, I just got a call saying the delivery boy had a taser he wasn’t afraid to use and skedaddled without payment.”
Danny winces, waiting for the beratement. 
“Rob gave you a five-star review. Said it’s the smartest move he’s seen in a while. Paid over the phone for once. You’re good, kid.”
He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Do people often answer the door for pizza while holding a gun?”
A shoulder shrug. “Around here, it’s more common than you’d think. But if you think you’re in danger, you act to protect yourself, got it? The pizza shop will recover if someone decides to order elsewhere. Besides,” and Tony’s grin edges on feral, “they don’t get many other choices.”
Crime Alley residents, Danny decides, are a rare breed of people.
Read the rest here!
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inkskinned · 1 year
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no, actually, where is the whimsy?
my ex had a best friend named larry who asked me once: what do you think comes after irony?
we were at the bar where larry worked. it was a quiet night, and he'd hopped over to sit with us on the patron side. i swirled the lemon around my limoncello martini.
earnest positivity, i said, while my ex said, art self-destructs.
i stared at my ex. he stared at me.
his argument was the cinemasins argument: look how bad media is becoming! look at the loopholes and the dumb shit!
it was roughly 2011. galaxy print was still in. at the time, i had a favorite shirt that was a wolf howling at the moon. it got ripped in half in the wash and i honestly still mourn it. i dressed like effie stonem, because everyone did. and irony was the name of the thing. men liked MLP "ironically." the internet liked the kind of crass, "anti-mainstream" vibes of things like fuck romance, touch my butt and buy me pizza. we put cats in sunglasses everywhere, which was because we only liked things in irony.
and media had the same vibe in it: anti-hero white men would be "hard to love" and then storm off the scene. nobody was just earnestly trying to save the world: they were jaded, angry, unoriginal. mad you even asked them to try to help.
my ex ends up not being wrong. cinemasins becomes super popular. a lot of people start viewing media with this lens that is the cruelest, most jaded depiction. it's wrong for your character to have unexplained powers, even if the entire movie is about how strange it is she has unexplained powers - that is still considered a "loophole." characters make thoughtless, panicked choices? loophole. characters are actually kind people, despite hardship? loophole. features a woman doing literally anything without assistance? loophole. movies become hyper-aware of scrutiny, and now irony rules the media.
which means you go to a movie, and the character has to turn to the screen and say "beats me!!" or one of the side characters has to have some kind of quip like "are you seriously telling me that you think this is normal?" because nothing can happen in earnest. like a sitcom laugh track, we now anticipate the fourth-wall break: the moment that the media acknowledges it is telling a story. the media has to apologize for itself, or else someone like my ex rolls their eyes.
but here's the thing: i wasn't wrong either.
the difference might be that i am (and always have been) so soft-hearted that any crack in the light of this world will spear me into the ground. and i was the poet in the relationship. (he thought that was the same thing as being naïve and stupid). i was making things daily. i knew how all of us artists are driven by some strange desire to evolve. he notably liked to critique art, not to create it.
so yes, i've made things that are bitter and angry and even ironic. i've made long, sharp poems with all capital letters, and i've made poems about how the silence stretches out like a song. someone wrote once that we will spend our whole lives just circling the place we grew up. i think it's more that we spend our whole lives trying to remake a home. i think it's that as we age, it becomes less exciting to build the castle on the beach - we become aware of erosion, of windforce. we realize what we really want is to come home to our dog, castle or not.
and while art in the foreground is mired in white male violence and irony, and aggression, and not taking anything seriously - i don't think that's true of all art. i think more and more artists are leaning in to the things we love. the world has changed so much. they have taken so many things from us. the only thing we have left is love. at the bottom of the moving box - all we get is the faint sense that we have to appreciate what little we've got. i can't enjoy this stuff ironically anymore: what room do i have for irony? if it makes me happy, that is an amazing thing. there are so few happy places left for me. i want to be happy because of how leaves shiver beside each other like nestling birds. i want to be happy because of the color pink, and how magenta doesn't exist. i have spent so much of this life suffering, i have earned my right to a gentle ending. if nothing matters, i get to assign meaning to the nothing. i get to create meaning. i am an artist first and foremost, which means creation is my thing.
where is the whimsy? wherever i fucking put it. because if this is my last fucking chance to do any good in this world - i want to do it earnestly. i want to write things that make you happy. that make people feel heard and seen. what comes after irony has to be positivity.
it was close to my 21st birthday. in 7 years, i would end up writing a book about this relationship, which is hopefully coming out somewhere around May 2024. i come back to this bar scene in my memories a lot. i keep thinking of how pale my ex was. the look that crossed his face. how i looked back at him. how for a moment, both of us couldn't recognize the other person. like the gulf between us was a suddenly wide and cavernous thing. like we were alien to each other. he never took my opinion seriously, and he always seemed surprised whenever his manic-pixie-dream-girl ever broke free of the plot. like in the whole time we were together, i wasn't human enough.
this knowledge: where he said nothing comes after, my only instinct was what comes after is love.
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kneelingshadowsalome · 8 months
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Minotaur!König x Ariadne!Reader Theseus is dead. You’re escorting the Minotaur, more beast than a man, out of the Labyrinth. The problem is, he seems to be more interested in what’s between your legs than in his mission of killing the notorious king of Crete… (12 k. Minotaur is not an actual hybrid in this fic. Reader is Hecate’s initiate. Part 1 here.) Tags/warnings: Shameless smut mdni, dubious consent, extremely possessive behaviour, abduction, first time (König & reader are both virgins), hugs & cuddles, washing blood off your monster boyfriend, awkward flirting, semi-rough sex, shifting power dynamics, sexist insults & slurs (the citizens of Crete do not approve of your choices), implied cannibalism, fluffy ending. Mythical AU.
The candle goes out before you reach the surface.
To someone else, it would be the end of the world: to you, it’s only a hindrance, a nuisance, mostly. 
You’re not easily distressed. If you were, you wouldn’t be in the service of the greatest goddess of the Underworld. And you’re not mourning losing the sight of your warmly illuminated beast... You’re only worried about what he will do once the darkness descends. Whether he will forget about his vow, whether the baser instincts take over him once the darkness falls.
And darkness is not capable of making you lost: you can always follow the string in your hand. But without light, it’s difficult to predict the Bull’s moves: whether he decides to maim or fuck you against the wall, you can never tell. He hasn’t lived in the real world among people; he doesn’t know what’s right or wrong and what’s expected of him. Even the best of men can succumb to the demands of the flesh, so what power would a Bull Man have against his animal wants? No one ever taught him to respect the gods, let alone the maidens who serve them...
Then again, if a simple candle was the only thing that kept you alive, then what’s the point of lamenting the loss of it? Your life was already forfeit when you chose to descend here.
So you let it go: as always, the greatest lesson in life is to simply let go. Of control, of judgment, of fear, of hope. 
He doesn’t say a thing when the light flickers, then fades. The candle goes out in silence, and you let it drop before the remaining wax burns your palm.
And it’s not the absence of light, but strength, that forces you on your knees before even an hour has passed. There’s still a long way to go, and the yarn is like a thin string of hope in your hand, but you’re too exhausted, too worn out, too hungry and too tired to go on.
The Bull Man doesn’t object to your suggestion to lay down and sleep for a while. He has walked behind you in silence the whole day. Or night… You can’t tell the difference; you lost count somewhere along the way down here. The air is stale and humid, and there’s no torch, not a single candle anywhere and even if there were, you wouldn’t do anything with them without a flint. 
The horror is kept at bay only through your numerous exercises with the goddess who introduced you to darkness many, many moons ago. You were initiated during the dark Moon, the new Moon, the blood Moon, introduced to the mysteries of the maiden, mother and crone, to the secrets of both the living and the dead. You’re not afraid, but your body still warns you of danger: you just don’t know if it’s a memory from childhood or a reaction to the Bull, panting behind you – out of lust or exertion, you don’t even know. Someone who wasn’t a maiden probably could tell… At times, you curse the fact that there hasn’t been a single phallus inside you because men too possess knowledge. Taking a man into your bed would have initiated you to a different set of mysteries, but now, you are poking blind. 
The Bull Man is an animal, you remind yourself. The longer you stay in his company, the more he starts to resemble a human, even if he is a man of few words. How he even remembers them is another mystery: you thought he was sent down here as a young boy. He speaks oddly but eloquently, a remnant of his noble descent, perhaps. Or perhaps he has listened to the people speaking in the Labyrinth, eavesdropped his victims an hour or two before killing them. Whatever the reason, you have to constantly tie your tongue because there’s simply no point in talking to a beast. The less you know about him and his past, the better.
You ready yourself for sleep, but the cursed cold of the tunnels keeps your body awake. Your flesh is human even if your mind is forged to withstand hunger, thirst and pain. Endurance against cold was never your strong suit, and you miss the heat of the sun, the warmth of it on your skin, even the ample light it gives. You, a lover of the moon, missing the heat of Apollo… It’s a joke, surely.
On the stone floor, it’s even colder, the rough, damp ground making your very bones ache. How on Hecate’s name has the beast survived this place?
“Bull Man,” you speak into the darkness, thick like an impenetrable wall and thin like a virgin’s veil.
“Maiden,” he echoes with a dark, low growl, slightly amused by the name you’ve selected for him.
“Are you cold?” You whisper.
Perhaps he doesn’t quite understand the question or why you asked it. It doesn’t matter: you have to swallow your pride and ask for his help if you’re going to survive this dark prison.
“I don’t get cold,” he finally responds.
“Good. I need your heat.” 
The silence drags on, and you fear he has misunderstood you again, but then he speaks again, with the same slightly amused tone as before.
“Come take it.”
You’re not sure if you’ve completely lost your mind, crawling to him through the uneven floor of the Labyrinth. Who knows what he will do to you once he gets those arms of iron around you? You’re placing your maidenhood, your whole body at his mercy. And you’re not even sure if it’s a he, if this thing is human at all. 
Human or animal, your hand meets the bull’s head on the way to him. He has taken it off, then... It’s not a part of him, just like you suspected. Maybe he is just a giant, daunting man, born from whatever forbidden desire Pasiphae had. Who knows if she only went to a foreign lover’s arms when her husband was at war? Who knows if King Minos has trouble getting his phallus up… These things happen: women get pregnant from their lovers, they do desperate things to pacify their husbands. And you don’t need a bull to get yourself an heir...
You feel his heat before you feel his skin: the Minotaur is verily blazing. He has gotten used to the cold, it seems, his body like a small bonfire in the clammy tunnel. 
“Cold little female,” he comments when you snuggle towards him shyly, thoroughly aware of the uninviting chill of your body. 
You settle next to him, every muscle in your body tight like a bowstring, your breaths shallow when he gives you a welcoming rumble. Goosebumps prickle across your skin and your throat goes dry, the thick swallow in the tunnel echoing around you like a thief.
Arms like iron go around you, and his body is taut, just like yours, but for a whole different reason entirely. He’s not afraid or nervous; he’s just… big. Pure muscle, his whole body thick, the stock and heat of him remind you of the sun. A miniature sun down here in these dark tunnels, but while you start to slowly soften in his arms, a different threat is already emerging. It doesn’t take long before his cock stiffens against you, and with the scarce clothing you both have, you can feel its every excited twitch.
Artemis… Protect me from this beast. Turn him into a dog if he tries to penetrate me. Let him rip my throat instead… 
You’ve never prayed to the Virgin Goddess; you don’t know if she can even hear you from down here. But Hecate would only laugh if this Bull decided to breed you. No mercy would arrive from that direction: she would either send a disease of blisters upon the Minotaur for touching her chosen or then she would cackle like an old woman, thousand times raped.
“Thank you,” you whisper, hoping your kindness will distract him from what’s happening downstairs.
“My pleasure,” he grumbles, mimicking the words he probably heard as a child in his father’s great hall. 
It sends a chill down your spine and butterflies into your heart to hear him speak like a polite man of court. And again, you think of asking him about his childhood... His mother, his father, the things he remembers from the surface. How he survived here without water, if there are underground springs here somewhere. Whether he eats humans like they say... If he ever embraced the dead women he killed. 
“Can you do it again,” he rumbles against you, cutting you away from your grotesque thoughts.
“...Do what again?” 
“Touch me… With your hand.”
His words are blunt now, his speech clumsy. But the way he says it is not an order. It’s an odd beg, more like. Laced with hope and wishes far away from greed. This Bull is never greedy, per se… He’s just lacking. Starved, for so many things that you fear there’s not enough time nor kindness to give him what he needs.
Your pulse flutters when you slowly lift your hand and caress the strong cords of muscle that make his neck. The rumbling returns; it turns into a low purr as the beast relaxes under your touch. Something softens inside you when he sighs from relief. His unbridled happiness tugs at your heart, trying to yank open something forbidden. It’s the softest violation you’ve ever felt: to be held by a giant killer having a roaring erection, while the said killer clearly enjoys your caress like it’s the touch of Aphrodite herself…
You even stroke his face. His jaw, unclenching under your touch; his cheek, covered with what you suppose is simply a wild, overgrown beard. 
“Your hand,” he groans softly, “makes me sleepy and warm…”
The cold, uncaring goddess recedes. The burdens of past, present and future dissolve. Softness takes place in your heart; the iron locks give in like brittle brass. A smile plays on your lips as you continue to pet him softly, lulling you both to sleep with your voice.
“Then sleep, Bull of Crete...”
You wake up to his cock pressing against you.
Not against your stomach like when you went to sleep – that you could do with – but against your cunt, barely veiled by the thin linen of your dress.
The panic is soon wrestled down with reason: you tell yourself it’s just a cock. It’s just him. You’re simply in the Minotaur’s arms, and he’s sound asleep still; there’s no reason to buck and jerk and scream. 
The darkness feels like a safe womb now, but with nothing to lock your gaze to, you have to take a moment to ground yourself into reality. And the first thing you ground into is a thick cockhead, pressing fast into your nether lips. He’s practically at the gates, and you’re lucky he’s still asleep.
It’s perhaps your fault this happened in the first place: you notice you’ve dragged your thigh over his hip; as if wanting him to fuck you in your sleep… You embrace him like Helen of Troy, and he holds you through his sleep like a man in love, perfectly content with napping on the cold ground with you.
“Mm…” The beast stirs, probably noticing how the female in his arms is tense as a rod. “You smell like you want to fuck…”
“No I don’t,” you hurry to whisper.
Gods curse this man’s ability to smell everything from miles away. Blood and humans and, apparently, a woman at her most receptive. 
What if he can actually smell the wetness between your legs?
“We need to go,” you slowly remove your leg from on top of his waist, hoping it would go unnoticed that you were clutching him like a lover. You have no such luck: he grabs your thigh and draws it back, sets it safe and snug around his waist while adjusting his grip on you, now hugging you entirely like a lover would.
“I want to mate with you,” he says softly. “You want to mate too. Why go?”
He sounds so adorable when he’s still in the process of waking up to a new day. Drowsy and sweet, voice husky from sleep, body warm as can be, the hard-on between his legs happy and stiff.
“I thought you wanted to kill the king,” you try to point out. 
“This is more important,” he gruffs. “Urgent.”
The cock pushes further up and against you, now spreading your folds under the dress, trying to penetrate into your heat. Your eyes go wide as thick need pools down to meet his greed. His body, his cock makes your head go dull for a moment; you feel like you’re not even capable of thinking actual thoughts.
“No, it’s not. We need to get up.”
You stiffen in his arms, push yourself away, and to your surprise, he actually lets you go. Reluctantly and with a hollow grunt, but he lets you go. 
You rise with a wobble, and adjust your dress, your head spinning from his advances. You swear he becomes more man-like every day, every passing hour, even. Or is it just you who’s changing…? 
The Bull Man is up before you get to ponder on that thought for too long. Your heart and head struggle to find their footing for a moment, your legs are so weak you feel like fainting. He catches you before you fall, the warm, thick arms closing around you with stout affection.
“You need more heat?” He asks softly.
You look up out of habit, even if you can't see his eyes, covered by the carcass again because his voice is muffled.
“No… I’m hungry.”
He’s silent for a moment, probably thinking what he could do to help the situation. You fear he will suggest you go back to visit his “pantry” and eat whatever horrible, half-rotten man-flesh he might have in store there, but he only holds you close to prevent you from sliding back to the ground.
“Hmm. No mice up here,” he ponders. 
“You eat mice…?”
“Sometimes.”
You leave it at that: you don’t want to know what he’s had to do to sustain himself down here. You don’t even have a fire to cook the vermin, even if you would be ready to eat even those after another day or two without food. 
“Not a long way up,” he says. “We will reach the sun soon. Then I’ll find you something to eat.”
“How do you know that…?”
“The air smells different.”
You sigh and search for the string, your lifeline to the outside world. You can’t wait to get out of here, and with both hurry and an odd dread, you hike for what seems like another whole day. Tension, hunger and thirst distort your thoughts, and you’re sure by now that the time flows differently here in the Underworld. With no small amount of pride, you feel accomplished to have survived this place so far. Even gods have had to do some tricks to escape the nether worlds: it is no small feat to charm the Minotaur and then walk out of here unharmed. 
To your knowledge, you’re the only one who has ever escaped the Labyrinth. You haven’t even had time to think about what you will unleash with you… The demon that walks on your heels will take his revenge, not only on the king but on the city who threw him here. 
Well. It’s their problem now. Minos and Pasiphae simply have to deal with their successor. The world will simply have to deal with the Underworld’s wrath. 
And oh, how Hecate would laugh if she saw this monster prince of Crete escape his prison because of you – the feared Minotaur set free, only because he’s mesmerized by a woman. You suspect he would have his cock jumping for any girl, though. It's not because you're an exceptional sorceress that he follows you: it's your cunt he's after. And it shouldn’t make you feel jealous that he probably gets distracted the moment he sees a better offer walk by.
But it does. In your darkest wishes, you would keep the Bull Man all to yourself. Get him a leash, perhaps... Feed him with your own hands and let him grope you in the dark, watch him go wild from lust when you finally give him access to your cunt. 
Many would hardly think you’re a virgin if they took a peek inside your head. But the things you’ve seen and done, the white bulls you’ve slaughtered for the dark Goddess, adorning them with cypress wreaths before slashing their throats open, would turn any woman bleak and twisted like this. For once, you would like to save the bull from slaughter.
When you see the first evidence of light, your body lets out a sigh it has been holding ever since you arrived here. Seeing the sun gives you more strength than any food or meal, and you pick up your pace while the Minotaur behind you begins to hesitate. 
“It’s too bright,” he says before you’ve even walked out of the tunnel, now turning into a vast cave, the entrance to the Labyrinth. 
You turn around to look and stop in your tracks when you see the fear in his eyes is acute. It’s mixed with wonder, the curiosity wrestling away doubt slowly but surely. He only needs a little nudge, a gentle pull, an enticing little smile and eyes that he can trust.
“You’ll get used to it soon,” you extend your hand. 
He takes a step, then another, then another, until he reaches your outstretched fingers, and hand in hand you walk out of the Labyrinth and into the bright morning sun, burning over the kingdom of Crete.
He’s only a breath away from panicking, but covers it well. You wonder if it’s truly the light that’s too bright or if the feeling of being so exposed is what makes him so afraid. Clearly, the vast space opening up before him is intimidating. 
There are grassy plains as far as the eye can see, little hills that dot the horizon, and skies so expansive and bright it must hurt his eyes. Goats are grazing under the sun, trees are bending in the wind, the rustling of leaves and the sound of birds calling him to look in all directions as he tries to make some sense of his surroundings.
“It’s alright,” you give his palm a soft squeeze, and the way he looks there under the sun, so big and powerful and able, and still so utterly lost, is giving you heartache you haven’t known since you were a child.
“There’s… so many colours,” he says, looking at the blue summer sky, the deep olive greens, the dirty whiteness of the goats, the flowers upon the grass. A butterfly, flying past, yellow like the citrus that people harvest from a few miles from here. A big blackbird with an orange beak, swooping down to catch a cricket, the slate grey pigeons flying so close to the sun that he has to shield his eyes even if they’re already safe and sheltered under the bull head.
Seeing his wonder and awe makes you look at the scenery so differently that it burns, it actually hurts: there’s so much beauty in the world, and you have always taken it for granted. Cursed the rain and the storms, cursed the droughts, cursed the gods for sending down another famine, when in truth, the world was filled with abundance, of colours, of life and joy… And all you’ve done is worship darkness. Now the darkness is out: it’s standing next to you, watching the view of your mundane everyday life like it’s nothing short of a miracle.
And when you turn back to look at him again, his eyes are upon you.
“What?” You ask, freshly caught in your moment of weakness.
“You are pretty,” he says, eyes wrinkling with delight under the mask. 
Gods damn him… 
He doesn’t know that human men don’t act like this, talk like this, or if they do, there’s usually something vile involved behind it all. He doesn’t know how to play games, he was never introduced to the lies and deceit of the world.
The Bull of Crete only looks at you with soft fondness in his stare – he doesn’t understand that he should cover that softness as well if he intends to win. Any woman could put a leash on him before another moon has passed, but he doesn’t seem to care. And it’s not even heat or hunger that makes you weak this time... It’s those eyes, looking at you with more and more warmth.
“Nonsense,” you huff without a voice, and turn towards the old road with an adoring bull on your heels.
The cold sigh of the underworld is quickly left behind you as you walk up the old carriage road, nearly grown in with weeds. The Labyrinth is located miles away from civilization, but the people living in these hills are used to the cold cave by now. They trust that the Minotaur will never escape and only turn away their heads and close the doors of their huts when the screaming, crying human sacrifices are delivered to the mouth of the cave. Little do they know that the monster is now looking at their little hills and goats with delight, not bloodlust.
For the Minotaur is fascinated with your world: he has to touch every leaf, every tree, every blade of grass, it seems. The goats are afraid of him, but one small nanny is bold enough to come and sniff his hand. Perhaps it remembers that beings walking on two feet give her apples sometimes, and the giant studies this small white animal with gentle curiosity, allows the goat to smell his hand, only chuckles when the goat gives out a little scoff when she notices there are no treats to be found there.
The vision is more adorable than when you’ve seen children play with kittens, and no matter what you do, you can’t turn your heart into ice anymore. You were taught that the Minotaur is a monster who enjoys torturing his victims, creatures far more helpless than him. Now you see him watching the she-goat with warm curiosity, rumbling softly inside his helm, far from the ravaging beast that approached you in that tunnel what seems like months ago.
You watch him with tender sadness as he marvels at the sky and remembers how he used to sit in the shade of an olive tree when he was a child. He goes to sit there now and examines how the sun filters through the massive branches of the tree as if trying to recall the memory. 
He asks questions like: “How can you humans stand this heat?” or “Why is there only one road?” and listens to your answers carefully.
He says he can smell the sea, even if the salty water is miles and miles away, and gets curious about what’s behind that hill, or that one, what about that one… You wonder if he’s even interested in killing the king anymore and suggest that he could just forget about this cruel place and buy himself a sea voyage with that expensive sword. He could get rid of his helmet and ask if anyone needs a goat herd or an able-bodied man to help at construction sites or stables; he could get work from the docks any day, sail to Athens or some other big city, forge himself a new life. 
But he doesn’t want to.
He says he has to avenge his mother who always cried when he was little.
More wretched tugs pull at your heart as you approach the city. The lovely summer’s day turns into a nightmare once people see who’s on his way to the heart of Crete.
You don’t understand their screams, not anymore, while only a few days ago you knew they preceded death. The Minotaur doesn’t kill anyone, mainly because he doesn’t have to. Everyone flees before his wake, people rush to their homes and bar the doors, even soldiers slip away to be with their loved ones or run to warn the king if they have any loyalty left. 
You’re left to walk through the marketplace in settling dust and tense silence as the Bull Man explores the abundant samples of food on display. He has to have a taste of everything from all stands, but only after he has offered figs, olives, grain, grapes, grilled meat and fish to you first.
“Eat,” he says and shoves a handful of pine seeds your way. “You were hungry?”
“This is not the way to–” you ignore the food only through sheer willpower. “This is not right. People own these things. They sell them at the market, you need to pay for these.”
“Pay? With what?”
He looks at you for a moment, unable to recall what money is and how these things are supposed to work. He probably had his mother’s servants bring him everything he needed as a child anyway, so how could he know? 
“They will take your hands for stealing,” you try to explain with softly building despair.
“I will take their heads before that.”
“The next king will hunt you down and punish you,” you rush after him, and when he won’t listen, you seize his hand and finally get him to halt. He looks down at the weak palm around his wrist, then raises his gaze to you.
“Bulls don’t have kings.”
Your attempts to tame him are futile. The things they’ve taught him to be are now being used as a way to escape responsibility, and while it’s none of your business, you refuse to let him believe that he is nothing more than an animal.
“You are not a bull,” you wail in frustration. “You’re a man.”
He hesitates, only for a moment; the gentle, loving gaze makes your legs weak.
“You’re the first to think that.” 
Then he rips himself away from you, softly but sternly.
He doesn’t need directions to the palace: he knows he has to head for the most prominent building in the city to reach the king. The grandiose heart of Crete, white-chalked and beautiful under the burning midday sun is the pride of every citizen, even if it houses another monster.
You sigh as you watch him go: the Bull Man, the demon of the underworld, the one you thought would rape you bloody before you get to crawl out of the Labyrinth. The fact that he wanted to kill his father more than he wanted to be born again into a new life wasn’t a surprise, but that he chose to bloody his sword rather than his cock is somehow... insulting, almost. 
What actually haunts you is how your insides coil and turn when you rush back to your temple. It’s not like you thought the Minotaur would take you with him. Board some trade ship bound for distant shores, and ravage you ever so softly in the belly of the creaking hull. It’s not like you dreamed of petting him to sleep while you two embark on a new life. But the way your heart twists and wails inside your chest makes it clear that losing him is even more painful than losing Theseus and the life he promised you. 
You never even wanted Theseus; you only wanted him to take you away from here. His affection would have been the result of ample witchcraft at best.
He’s practically already dead, and your heart turns to stone far more slowly than you would prefer. It’s just your luck to first have the golden hero of Greece look down on you in disdain, and then witness even the Bull Man walk away from you like you never meant anything to him. Men killing each other is the oldest story in the world, and you want no part in it, but something in this beast has stirred you awake from a long, cold slumber. It’s infuriating that you can’t dispel a simple animal from your heart. Oldest story in the book, that one, too…
But oh, how you now yearn after some cruel, lowly, dirty beast… The Minotaur already owns you, and he never even had to plunge his sword inside you to prove that. Besides, you would’ve been perfectly willing had he decided to take you on the green grass, under the vast sky, while some noisy goats graze around you. You realize that that’s what you expected to happen, and when it didn’t, you’re left more than disappointed: you're left completely hollow. You always find out these things a little too late, it seems… The Bull is headed for the palace and will likely get killed after he slaughters his cruel father. There’s at least thirty spears in that building, and more will arrive when called.
You arrive at the temple, panting and with your body flushed and weak. The maidens at the entrance share a quick glance with each other before turning their fearful gazes back to you. They’re the youngest arrivals, not even initiates yet; one of them hardly even bleeds. 
“The King is dead,” you announce without bothering to even greet them, and the girls huddle up together like they’re a bunch of slaves about to get slapped.
You realize you must look like an animal with your dirty robes, dishevelled hair and your wild, alive stare. No wonder they look like they’ve seen a ghost... You basically are one, coming back from the dead like this.
“What?” 
A priestess arrives at the threshold like an image of Hecate herself, dressed in robes as black as the midnight sky, but you don’t shy away from her like you used to.
“Or he will be. Soon. The Minotaur is here.” 
“How did you… How did it...”
You’ve never seen the priestess in disarray. She’s always composed, cold and distant, but seeing you like the wraith that you are, freshly escaped from the Labyrinth, spat back from the bowels of the earth like the dark gods didn’t even want you there, makes even the greatest of Hecate’s servants a little uneasy. 
She gathers what’s left of her dignity and finds her most commanding voice. Sadly, it doesn’t have the power to shake the ground anymore.
“Where is Theseus of Athens?”
“Disemboweled… is my best guess,” you say in a listless voice, then turn your head toward the smell of fresh fruit.
Normally, you would walk these halls with dignity, but now, you simply barge in and grab the first piece of food you find. You ought to get whipped for your insolence, but no one dares to raise a hand against you. The maids and priestesses stare in shock as you eat and drink like a starved prisoner. You’re a living Hecate in certain aspects, your arrival the first toll of the bell of doom as the palace guards sound the alarm.
So…
The Minotaur has reached the king.
The priestesses deem it only logical that the King finally pays for his sins: the gods have been offended by the number of human sacrifices sent to the Labyrinth, and this is their way of exacting revenge. You were only an instrument of their will.
After a quick wash and some more food, you begin to feel like a human again. The maids bring you a new chiton, flowing and white: your old clothes are burned in a brazier as if that would help you forget.
And this might be the only place you don’t get blamed for unleashing a monster. You were at a crossroads with the Minotaur, and anyone would have done the same: try to talk him out of his killing spree, calm him down, entice him with a gift. No one expected that the beast could even speak, so your approach was unusual, perhaps, but it worked. Hecate guided you through the tunnels, even when the candle went out, she stilled the Bull’s loins until you reached the sunlight where the beast got distracted with other things. You leave out the Minotaur's attraction to birds, bees and butterflies because your story is unbelievable enough as it is.
But the Minotaur will be slain after he has done his deed: Minos is the one who should be punished, not the city of Crete. And it is only just to put down this beast, a mercy.
So when he appears between the pillars of temple, this time wholly covered in blood, people are bound to scream. Even the priestesses who are used to seeing blood, shriek like widows when the Minotaur steps inside the holy shrine of Hecate.
“Where is the maiden of the crossroads?”
He came back for you, after all…
The boom of his voice is familiar, and yet, you cower on the bench when you hear it. The Minotaur sounds like he’s an envoy of Hades himself, and while you’re not among those who scream and yell, it still sends shivers down your spine to hear him speak like that.
Or is it the excitement, a tiny flame of hope that makes you quiver like this?
“We all belong to the goddess,” someone peeps, the Minotaur now descending down the stairs.
The massive head turns, gaze like razor sweeping across the marbled shrine. You’re so far back that he can’t catch you, sitting behind many bodies and faces, and before you can force yourself to rise, the main priestess, the oldest, most crooked of the crones, steps forth to meet this beast.
“This is a House of Hecate,” she speaks. “No man is allowed to enter unless they are Death.”
The black carcass turns, but the priestess doesn’t waver. If anything, her spine turns into unbreakable metal before this man’s gaze.
“I am Death,” he says, far more gently than anyone would expect. Then he walks past the crone like she’s just a harmless elder. No one does a thing, because even the head of your temple is powerless now.
“She had a red string and a candle. Where is she?”
He grabs the first woman he sees, and you rise up before he decides it’s time to thrust his blade into someone to loosen the tongues of these women. 
“Please,” you take a hesitant step towards your Bull. “I’m here... I’m the one you’re looking for.”
The Minotaur lets go of the frightened initiate the instant he sees you. She’s shoved aside with little interest, the blue eyes behind the corpse now solely fixed on you. The way they soften into hazy ice makes your knees weak – that’s the stare of someone who recognizes their loved one among a thick, dull crowd…
“Come with me,” he extends a hand when he reaches you, strong legs swallowing tiles like he’s in a hurry to get back to you. You open your mouth, close it, and look at his hand, the rough, enormous palm held out for you to place your own little hand in.
“You belong to me,” he says with great weight when you don’t speak. It should spark the ire of the goddess for him to dare to talk to you like this… But mostly, your body sings. It tells you to take a step and take his hand: to let him have you, once and for all. 
“My place is here,” you utter, all power gone from your voice. All your dreams, all your fears are offering their hand to you with his, and the maidens, mothers and crones of this hall look upon your exchange with the Bull Man in stupefied silence. 
“You were sent down to me,” he presses on. “You are mine now. You belong to me.”
Your body is singing, singing, singing.
It’s not a request… Or a proposal. 
It’s a god, taking what’s his.
You swallow with nothing in your throat and look at the head priestess with helpless misery: she looks back with the eyes of a noxious Medusa, wholly dispassionate to the problems you brought upon yourself. And what could she even do? She’s unarmed against the claims of Hades: Death is now in love with you, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it. 
He doesn’t want to stay in the city, as enchanting as it is, saying that it stinks and that he’s tired of the screams. No one wants him here; he already knows that, and the task he was meant to do is done. He doesn’t seem to be much moved by it either, only asking you if there is a place where he can wash the blood off himself. 
People become more bold when they see you walk out of the city. Not even the sight of a crimson demigod makes them watch their tongues. Insults and slurs follow you through the streets, shouts such as “Kingslayer!” and “Beast!” are accompanied with curses such as “You are an abomination!” and “Go back to your lair!” 
No one treats him as their prince and savior, no one sees him as the man he truly is. And because hatred thickens in crowds, you get your share of the insults as well. 
What kind of a woman would follow a beast like him? Have you sold your soul to the demons of the desert, or has Hades himself forced you to be with this monster? Are you behind the murder of their king?
“Must I remind you?” You turn on your heels, standing tall and proud with the posture of a queen. “According to the old laws, the one who slays the king is the next to rule.” 
“You led him out of the Labyrinth, didn’t you?” the voices ask.
“Gave him your cunt, too,” they sneer.
“You’re worse than the bloody Gorgon,” they mock, but you have a thick skin: if anything, you take it as a compliment to be referred to the mighty slayers of men.
What cuts through your heart is the filth and hate they spit at him, the man who has known nothing but loath since he was born. 
“Hecate’s whore… I should kill you first,” one soldier shouts with spit running down his chin.
The citizens of Crete would never hail the Minotaur as their king, but none can say the deed didn’t prove great strength. Some would even call it justice. He is the queen’s son, after all: he’s more royal than any of these dung-stinking peasants will ever be. He should never have been sent down to those tunnels in the first place.
Before you know it, the Minotaur swoops past you in haste, diving towards the screaming crowd with hunched shoulders and a fiery breath.
“Stop,” you say, and he halts immediately, gaze still directed to the one who called you a whore. The soldiers back away along with the peasants and tradesmen, these poor, humble Cretes who act like they never meant to be so mean.
“Let us go in peace,” you command, voice unwavering and stern. “Or I will curse you all. You and your families, down to the seventh son and seventh daughter.”
That manages to shut them up. The threat of a curse frightens these poor beasts even more than the enraged Minotaur breathing fire through his helm. No one wants rot and puke to follow them wherever they go; no one wants to doom their offspring with illness, death and sorrow. They disperse in all directions and only hiss and whisper as they go.
You spit on the ground as your last gift to these people, leaving the city of Crete with the ever-adoring Bull at your heels.
“You’re even prettier when you’re angry,” he says while walking next to you, voice thick with genuine passion and awe.
You roll your eyes: any man would cower before Hecate’s curse, but this one? This one only gets more horny. 
“Perhaps you are part bull after all,” you retort dryly.
“It takes more than one spear to kill me,” he boasts, but you don’t need more proof of his prowess. Surely, people have tried to kill him in the Labyrinth, but he’s survived every single attempt on his life – for that alone, he should be a decorated hero.
The only thing that makes you annoyed, however, is this childish need to prove he could’ve taken the whole city by himself just because some man happened to call you a slut.
“Mother said I’m a monster instead of a man,” he says, completely unaware that your snap wasn't meant as a compliment. He says it like he’s partly proud of it, and you finally sigh and turn. 
“Your mother was heartless. And wrong.”
The Minotaur only looks at you with a building passion that goes straight to your loins.
“But you’re not.”
“...What?”
“Heartless.”
You feel stripped naked before him, the way his eyes seem to burn away your poor dress. But the fact that he unearths your most guarded secret, just like that, is a catastrophe of a far wider scale.
You’re not sure who’s tied to whom anymore… Or if you’re tied to each other, the gods now laughing in their wine as they look down at you two: a fierce and bloodied giant following the maiden he stole like it’s you who took him and not the other way around.
You reach the roaring waters of a waterfall in silence, the night wrapping the lands inside a dark blue veil. Stars will be visible soon, and with the moon creeping up to the sky, you won’t be needing candles tonight. The silver mistress gives plenty of light for you to admire your beast, and compared to the thick darkness of the tunnels you emerged from this morning, it feels like a generous blessing.
You sit on the banks of the small, clear pond, utterly exquisite at nightfall. The sun’s heat has turned into a warm, caressing breeze, and you submerge your feet into the water, giving out a satisfied sigh as the cool pond embraces your travel worn feet. The Bull sinks to a crouch some distance away from you, curious about your obvious moment of pleasure.
“Did you meet her…? Your mother?” You ask from the cool water lapping at your feet – how can a simple man make you feel so restless and shy?
“Did you… kill her?” 
“She cursed me,” he says, sullen and wholly unsurprised. Time and time again, you are shocked by the hatred his own kin shows him. How can a mother be so cruel?
“How could I kill my own maker?”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “For everything.” 
You swallow before such unwavering love. The same man who cursed the gods yesterday  honours the womb he came from so much that he won’t raise a hand against it, not even when his own mother spits curses at him. You don’t know if it’s his greatest strength or biggest weakness, but sometimes you wonder if he’s more human than humans, this beast.
“I’m not,” he retorts immediately. “The king is dead. Mother is safe. I have you... This is the best day of my life.”
You turn to look at him. Time and again, the lack of lies and deceit in this man catches you off guard. It’s more painful than any wound, to see how the Minotaur has no protective skin against the corrupted human nature, that he is human nature before it was defiled.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” you falter. 
The chiton pools around your ankles, and you wonder if the man even breathes anymore. You know your skin is glowing with the last rays of the setting sun, you’re aware that the water and moonlight play upon your skin and make you look like an illusion, powerful in its own way.
When have you ever faltered…? Back when you were a little girl, you reckon, the notion euphoric and eerie in your bones.
You rise up and undress before him nonchalantly, trying to ignore the fervid stare of your admirer. Unclasping the brooches holding up your white linen dress, you let it fall down and set you free, secretly reveling in the downright carnal stare now glued to your skin. 
Ripe for plucking, you think while stepping out of the pile of cloth and into the thin evening air. His gaze feasts on you: the plump breasts no one ever loved, the vulnerable navel down below, the dark triangle between your legs, the secret power it holds.
Heat pools into your core as you watch him: everything in your body turns warm and soft when you take in the utter heftiness of him. The mean, swelling phallus between his legs, the near inhuman strength those shoulders and chest possess. Your body is the complete opposite of him, ethereal, almost, compared to the absolute brute strength before you. 
His eyes linger there the longest until he rises too, stiff and dreamy, a beast entirely taken by a thrall. The loincloth is practically torn away, as if it’s only a nuisance he must get rid of immediately. His eyes never leave your shape while he bares himself, and the phallus, you notice, belongs to a human. It’s thick and wondrous, fully erect, adorned with dark curls and accompanied by a set of balls you’ve mainly seen on horses. Big, full and round but unlike animals, they’re covered in dark fur, almost black here in the evening light. Thick seed beads through the slit of his cock from simply seeing you, and the way his chest heaves makes it clear that this man is ready to mate as soon as he’s allowed to do so. 
“You need to take off your helm,” you lift your chin, thoroughly aware of your power over him, even if it’s laughable, a miracle that he doesn’t fuck you on the spot like the animal he is. “You’re a man, not a bull.”
His eyes don’t betray any kind of hesitation. He doesn’t seem to be interested in whether he wears his mask or not. He just blinks as if he’s indeed under a spell and nods.
“If you say so.”
The broad muscles flex as he takes it off, and what is revealed to you from underneath the head is both a surprise and a disappointment. There’s not a monster under there, only a man, a stoic, boorish, shaggy male who’s in desperate need of a wash and a comb. He’s somewhat handsome under all that facial hair and knots, actually, not bad at all – if you like your men rugged and wild. 
He lets the head drop to the ground with a thud as if it was never a part of him at all, and follows you into the pool like you’re his mother and he’s your cub about to get scrubbed clean. 
He seems to dwarf you, even when half submerged in the pond, leaning back with a sigh not unlike yours. If you’re afraid, your body has a peculiar way of showing it: even in the clear, glossy water, you can feel yourself get wet. Never have you seen such strength, not in any man: in horror and awe, you realize he could be a descendant of Zeus himself. As if providing proof to these claims, he looks up to the sky, mesmerized by the myriad stars dotting the vast, unattainable blue.
Using this momentary distraction to your advantage, you reach to pluck a handful of moss from the bank. With this soft little sponge in your hand, you hope to make it clear that this is indeed a bath, not foreplay. 
“They’re stars,” you say softly while slinking closer to him. “Have you ever seen them...?”
“Yes,” he rasps with his head lolled back, throat completely exposed. It always hurts your heart to see that he trusts you so fully. You are no threat to him – even if the gods changed the moss in your hand into a weapon of some sort, you wouldn’t pose any kind of challenge. And still, the way he allows you to creep towards him and wipe his rough hide with the makeshift sponge without so much as flinching is heartbreaking. 
“I have forgotten…” his voice drifts off as he examines the night sky, eyes filled with distant, glass-like delight.
“Beautiful, aren’t they...?” 
“Your world is pretty,” he brings his gaze back to earth and to you. “But you’re the loveliest thing I’ve seen so far.”
You almost freeze upon hearing that. His compliments always catch you off guard, but this time, something forbidden and long forgotten comes undone: a lost want, no, a need to hear such simple words of shallow praise.
“You do not scream... You do not run. Why?”
Your eyes are liquid, glass about to break as you set yourself on the task of scrubbing him clean. You refuse to get emotional in front of him: an initiate of the dark goddess, shedding tears when a horny man calls her pretty? What utter nonsense.
But then he grabs your wrist: not to seize back power, but to prevent you from escaping this fragile moment.
“You are different,” he agrees calmly, then releases you, but you reckon it’s mostly because he misses the soft rubs you were giving him. 
“Perhaps I’m crazy,” you breathe while looking at the damp curls on his chest.
Yes… That’s the only explanation for this madness. It has to be.
“Is that why you took me?” 
“I took you because you’re mine. I want you.”
“You can’t just take what you want,” you warn softly.
“Why not?” His head tilts a little to the side as he’s trying to make sense of you and the manners of your world. “Don’t you want to be mine?”
You lift your gaze and risk a look into his eyes, stripped from all facades as always. You even catch a passing wave of worry there: he had counted on you being as fascinated with him as he is with you. The hunger behind that want, the need to be something special to you, is a whole another issue that must wait until your head is more clear. Way more clear…
“Perhaps,” you confess.
“I have nothing to give you,” he shrugs, eyes looking slightly past you this time, out of shame or anxiety. It takes a while for you to understand he’s liking you to the goods at the market and thinks he’s expected to have money to be able to keep you.
“You don’t need to pay for me,” you smile, trying your best to disguise the soft amusement in your voice. His brows only furrow as he tries to calculate and think.
“I don’t understand the rules of this world,” he finally shakes his head. 
“I’ll teach you.”
For a while, he only looks on with fascination how you rub his arms and belly, basically massaging him with the wet moss. His eyes drift closed when you scrub the back of his neck, the stout erection only getting thicker under the cool water. You’re careful with his legs, not because you’re afraid he’s ticklish but because you try to avoid touching the huge cock already jutting up from happiness. It gives a few excited bounces when you wash his inner thighs, hopeful to get its needs satiated soon. 
“I can hunt for you,” he suggests. “Bring you food… Protect you.”
He’s visibly excited when figuring out a way to give you something in return. He wants to provide offerings for your company, your lore, and eventually, your cunt, too. You might be a virgin, but you’re not stupid: of course he wants the soft, wet prize between your legs. A pair of lovely tits to squeeze at night... Ears to groan hushed confessions into, thighs to nibble, bite and suck until you cry... 
“What do you think?” He asks, breath heavy from the bliss you’re already granting him by simply giving him a bath. “I could give you my heat. Please you...”
“You know how to please women?” 
“No. But you could teach me.”
The way he says it is not shy. Only tentative. A bear, walking on ice and hoping it would carry his weight. One wrong step and the ice will swallow him, spitting out his bones only in spring. 
And then…
“Do you know how to fuck?”
The ice holds, mainly because you’re too shocked to even slap or ridicule this man. His eyes bore into you with such unbridled greed that you have trouble keeping your precious pride intact.
“Of course,” you hear yourself whisper like it would be an insult to your intellect if you didn’t.
“Teach me,” he says, ever more greedily.
“I…”
Your jaw is left open, but not a word comes out. A strong palm closes around your wrist again, this time to bring you flush against him. The water laps at your skin, a distant crow cackles somewhere. Your hand is brought to his phallus, but he doesn’t have to wrap your fingers around it: you do it all by yourself, breath locked in your throat as you feel how hard and blazing he is.
“You want my cock,” he says, mouth only an inch from yours. “Don’t you...?”
You wet your lips – a mistake, because his half-lidded gaze darts to your mouth the instant your pink tongue lashes out. You’re in a predicament, but on the other hand, what else did you expect, taking your clothes off in front of a touch-starved bull?
“I’d give it to you happily,” he insists. “No female ever wanted to spread her legs for me.”
Or a leash. 
Your fingers tighten on their own, they mould around him. Like a bond…
“Really?” You breathe. “What fools they were...”
The cock gives a full throb inside your palm, exalted to be yours. But only a moment later, the dreaded Minotaur moves. 
You find yourself under him before you can even gasp for air: the soaked, hot body of a giant now pinning you on the grass and crushing you under it with ease. The weight of your error is fully pressed against you: he was never tamed, and you were a fool to think you could put him in chains.
The raw scent of earth and musk fills your nostrils, making the stars above you spin. His cock is trapped between your bodies, giving another rich pulse against your thigh. Gods, if he were throbbing like that inside you…
“You make my skin burn,” he growls into your ear, the heat of his skin now unbearable, the coarse hair prickling your skin from neck to thigh. “My loins, ache…”
“Are you a witch?” He asks, and you finally allow yourself to breathe.
If he only knew… But hexes and charms are of no use for you now: the only thing you can do is moan, apparently, as he dives for your neck, planting barbarous kisses on your skin.
Down, down, down he goes, pure avarice driving him to feast on every part of you. You’re too weak to stop him when he searches for the source of your intoxicating scent. Discovering it between your thighs, he dives nose-first into your sex, meeting your core with a hungry grunt.
Your back arcs with pleasure, your nails sink into his back: a funny thing to do when he’s already as close as can be. The trail of crude kisses leads him to your breasts, and you try to keep your whimpers in control, but a gasp erupts when he drags a hot tongue across your nipple. Massive palms close around your tits while you squirm in his hold: he doesn’t seem to be driven by the need to please you; rather, he wishes to study you first, examine how your body reacts to his groping. He leaves your breasts aching and sore, every bite and suck managing to make you wetter and wetter, your cunt screaming for attention by now.
“Gods...” you wriggle on the soft earthen bed, not expecting him to take you with his mouth first.
He withdraws, only a little, but his voice is surprisingly soft.
“Do I hurt you...?” 
“No… But this is not mating…”
“Even I know that much,” he says darkly, and grabs you by the waist, moves you around like a doll until you find yourself on your belly. 
He looks at you from between your thighs, demonic and keen. The broad shoulders force your legs wide apart when he’s seated there, waist-deep in the water, with you hauled to the shore like a siren.
Not a moment is wasted as he pulls you back to him by the hips: you’re drawn to all fours, a hot streak of cum dragging on the inside of your thigh from the cock that meets your skin. He grabs and steadies it with an annoyed grunt, and the fat tip is shoved straight into your folds, your nether lips parted with brute force almost. 
“Guide me.”
His voice is demanding, impatient as he drags the fat head up and down the entrance of your hole, coating his cock with your slick in the process. You wonder if it’s instinctual, if he knows that this is where he should poke and that it will hurt you less if he’s well-oiled. He’s about to rut you into oblivion the instant you tell him where to shove his cock, and the prospect only sends more sap flowing down your thigh.
“There…” you stutter when he finds it, the aching spot that’s leaking profusely. He pushes the head in, not by teasing but by bullying, almost forcing it inside from how tight and unreceptive you are.
“Tighter than my fist,” is his only comment, and it makes you shudder. “I will not last long…”
You wince from the burn, but the rest of it glides in like a dream, and suddenly you’re filled, to the capacity, one could say. He grunts just from the way your womanhood is hugging him, not sure what this foreign object inside you is – is it a good thing or a threat?
“Easy then,” you breathe a huff into the sweet night air, filled with fireflies and night birds who know nothing about the fucking you’re about to go through.
He doesn’t move – inside you, that is. Outside, he crawls forward until he moulds around you, heavy body enveloping you completely. The hairs on his thighs tickle the back of your legs, his chest scrapes your back just so as he demonstrates how you belong to him in every way. But when your cunt starts to squeeze him again, he swallows thickly.
“Does this feel good to you too…?”
You catch faint confusion and concern in his voice, astonished that such a soft, frail body like yours can take his cock just like that. Little does he know you’re still adjusting to his size, thanking all the gods that he doesn’t move yet.
“Yes,” you confess because it does feel good: his thickness inside you, stretching you both gently and violently, studying how it feels to be inside a loving, wet heat.
“Then I will fuck you every day,” his lips come to brush your ear. “Many times...”
You hear yourself whimper, more humble now than ever. No man would dare to take you on all fours, but here you are, like a bought bride about to get stuffed…
He withdraws a little, asks, “Like this?” when he returns with a rough, nasty thrust. The balls meet your mound, heavy on the tender nub you’ve flicked when you’re lonely, covering your mouth while you do it. Both your hands are planted on the ground now, your legs spread before this beast, cunt filled to the brim with his cock.
“Not so rough,” you warn, and he heeds your instructions to the letter until he’s moving in and out with a slow, delicious pace that allows you to feel every thick bump of him. Soaked now down to your thighs, the sounds of your mating is utterly sloppy and slick, and of course he’s curious.
“Are you always like this…?”
“Like… what,” you huff in between the slow, torturous thrusts.
“Soft,” he rasps. “Tight… Wet like rain.”
“No. It’s just when…”
“When you want to fuck?”
You whimper for an answer, mostly because he starts to slip from the agreed sluggish pace. His cock invades you with more urgency, chasing the eruption that must be generous from those thick balls that should belong to a horse.
“I knew it…” he says dreamily behind you. “Some women want to mate with bulls...”
He punctuates his newfound pride with a full, deep thrust, and you wince.
“You’re not a–”
“Keep telling yourself that, little maiden.”
He exhales a hot smile next to your ear, and you’re neck deep in love. Your mouth hangs open, your lids half closed and fluttering from the way he pounds into your poor, abused cunt. Heavy balls slap your swollen nub with careless abandon, making you squeeze his thickness every time he hits the end of you. His grunts become more animalistic with every thrust, and your cunt is a wild thing, leaking and weeping and throbbing until you fear there’s something wrong with you – no woman is supposed to be this needy for a beast…
I’m going to come… You realize in horror as the slick sounds of fucking overthrow even the coursing roar of the waterfall. The knowledge shoots your body full of dark, hot ink; it explodes inside your core like a liquid star, throbbing through your cunt currently being ploughed like you’re nothing but a needy, sloppy hole for him. You’re swimming in so much pleasure that it’s almost painful, the revelation some secret of the gods, no doubt. 
He growls when you moan, heavy arm snaking its way around your middle to keep you in place for him. The purr is eager and low, the rumble erupts from his chest like a thick, loving volcano, a statement of how perfect you are. He nuzzles his nose into your neck and rubs his scent all over you while fucking you through it, the divine rapture that leaves your throat dry from moans. 
He doesn’t need to be told what it means when you’re crying like that: he doesn’t need to be explained that his cock is giving you ample pleasure. It’s so desperate, how much he wants to both fuck and please you, just own you and fulfill you, that you start to shake, your frail body not capable of handling the orgasm he just gave you. 
Your strength fails, and you find yourself on your elbows, cunt even more exposed to him now, the cock pistoning into you with a relentless pace. He’s like a titan upon you, taking pleasure from your quivering, weak frame and the tight wet hole that belongs to it. You’re still in rapture when he starts to sound like broken, wounded man.
“You were made for me,” he huffs. “You were made...for me…”
His voice evaporates along with your thin, adoring mewls, just before he fucks himself over the edge. You can feel the hot, thick spurts, filling you as he roars into your hair, balls pressed flush against your sex, thighs meeting yours in a moment frozen in time. 
They can probably hear him all the way to the city, hear what a cunt like yours does to an invincible beast like him… But his cries are only met with silence; the night sky looks back with disinterest, the birds continue their songs when they notice it was only the roar of a mighty beast that filled the land. Before long, he’s groaning above you, using your hole more softly; loving it until the last drop is milked. 
When he stops, his whole body is trembling from release, but you’re not given a moment of reprieve. He forces you to the ground with him on your back, the rough, thick body never leaving yours. Coarse beard chafes your neck, his body trapping you completely under him, he even opens his jaw to take your shoulder between his teeth and bites you while his cock is still pulsing fat inside you. 
“I can’t get enough of you,” he pants into your ear, angry, almost.
“Good,” you breathe a smile, but he’s not satisfied.
“You couldn’t get enough of me too… I noticed.”
“You gave me pleasure,” you agree. “Lots of it.”
“That was a lot of seed… I haven’t spilled in days.”
He huffs into your ear, astonished and proud that he could do such a thing. You feel him shift to take a better look at you, fingers arrive to graze your temple as if to make sure you’re real, as if having his cock inside you wasn’t enough proof of that. They’re a little shaky, a little uncouth, but the touch is gentle enough, and sweet.
He's boasting again perhaps, you don’t know, but you give him a soft laugh, notice how he stops breathing momentarily when hearing the bright sound.
“I am filled to the brim with you, yes… It will take a while before I can take more.”
“...You have other holes in you,” he offers after a while, quite seriously, in fact. 
“Get off me, you beast,” you huff and squirm to get out from under him, but there’s a luscious grin on your face, a smile that tells him you would more than approve of his obscene ideas later. 
“This feels good,” he murmurs into your hair. “This feels right...”
He allows you to leave from under him, only whines when his cock gets exiled from your cunt. He misses the wet heat like a newborn child misses the womb, but you need to recover from the recent invasion. Seed gushes out from your hole, making a mess on the ground as he pulls you against him, wanting to cuddle you next.
You wonder if he even knows what cuddling means as you lie there with a sticky mess between your legs and the heat of an entire sun on your cheeks. You smile into the coarse, sweaty body hair tickling your nose, deciding it doesn’t matter whether he knows or not: the most important thing is that he wants to hold you like this.
“Yes,” you smile. “This feels right…”
Something blooms in your chest. An odd flower, persistent and sweet. 
The stars above are cold but motherly as they look down on you two: born again into a world that doesn’t want either of you. The only things that accept you now are flowers, birds, the wind and the rain, bees and salty sea, but that’s aplenty. That’s more than the whole of Crete could ever give you.
“Are you thinking about your hero,” he asks above you.
“What? No…”
“Good,” he rasps, so softly now that you start to fear he’s about to cry.
You are more than capable of lying, but Theseus hasn’t crossed your mind in hours: the last time it did, the memory was received with loath and disdain. Thinking about Theseus while you’re draped all over your Bull, his seed flowing out of your womb... What a ridiculous idea. 
The reason for his hardly disguised anger is laid out plain before you: he's just jealous like any other man. Somehow, it makes you feel even more glowy inside.You’re my hero, you want to say, but have no courage to spill out the words. He was balls deep inside you mere moments ago, but telling him this intimate truth seems to be too much.
It never occurred to him, then, that you would enjoy copulating with him. He fucked you with the impression that you needed thoughts of another man to make you wet… That perhaps with the help of the image of Theseus in your mind, you were able to come with his cock inside you. 
“My Bull,” you whisper. “Tell me your name. You must have a name…?”
His breath stops only for a moment, the heart in his chest gives an arduous beat before he answers.
“Asterion.”
Starry one…
Of course.
All monsters have names, usually the opposite of what they’re claimed to be. His birth is in heaven, in the stars; he belongs to the company of heroes and gods.
“Asterion,” you whisper it out into the night air while the animal an man both find their new home in your arms. “Your birth is written in the stars. Did you even know…?”
“Does that make me a hero?” He snorts, more old wounds torn open right before your eyes. 
You wriggle yourself out of his hold, but he avoids your stare. You lift a hand to bring those beautiful Olympian eyes back to you.
“It makes you immortal.”
Perhaps you should’ve known he would be enticed with an apple instead of tethers and deals. Or with a palm, held out with no intent to strike… 
It’s lovely, how he blinks every time he’s confused. You’ve yet to see him shy, but if he ever is, this might be the moment… You even catch him swallowing under that wild facial hair, an awkward blob right after that blink when his birthright is acknowledged.
But even more dumbfounded he becomes when he realizes you’re truly and veritably admiring him. When you whisper it to him – you’re my hero – and watch something shatter in him that was supposed to wrench itself free, that’s when he’s truly granted divinity.
Perhaps it was all about becoming animal again, allowing the other to have a sniff. Baring your throat and embracing the instinct to trust. Marrying your wild soul… The deepest magic of all.
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woolmasterleel · 1 year
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Tagashei/ Mad Rabbit can be so cruel
He can and will make you late for work
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yandere-writer-momo · 7 months
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Thinking about a Yandere Demon Lord. This is Part 1.
Yandere Head Canons:
Defying Destiny
Yandere Demon Lord x Isekai Saintess Reader x Yandere Hero
TW: Voyeurism, stalking, Somniaphilia, dacryphillia, dark content, etc
Part 2
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You were surprised to be alive after your cold fiancé pushed you into oncoming traffic when you got into an argument with him… all you had wanted was for him to show you that he loved you, but instead he killed you. Yet your life didn’t end… no. Far from it.
Rather than waking up in the supposed after life, you woke up in the Rerenth Kingdom. A fantasy kingdom in a magical world plagued with problems written in fiction novels. And the emperor explained to you, no, demanded that you to take on your role as Saintess to save them from the Demon King.
The demon king was now your enemy. Defeating him was the only way for you to go home… but did you even want to do that? In your last life and in this one, you were merely another unhappy pawn. The silk robes and dazzling abilities did nothing to shield you from the harsh reality of what your life has become once more… would you ever truly be free? Would you ever truly be happy?
The servants often spoke of the monstrous Demon King who controlled the forces of darkness that sought to destroy the light. A demonic entity none of the people in this kingdom had ever truly seen with their own eyes, but they believed him to be out there… how else were they to explain the supernatural happenings that plagued their kingdom? This entire ordeal made little sense to you since you hadn’t seen many disputes between humans and demons unless they were over territory. Vast majority of the time, it was humans that ventured into the demonic lands anyways. Was this perhaps some propaganda tactic? You didn’t know and you didn’t question it, you simply wanted to retire to a peaceful life.
It took a few weeks for you to be able to control your new holy power, but you were able to now harness it for barriers and for healing. Abilities that would be useless without a hero… a fact that the citizens soon realized so they began to devise another plan. To summon a hero!
Another few weeks passed by and they successfully summoned a valiant hero by the name of Reinhardt. His chiseled face was constantly covered by the taxidermied lion mask that adorned his face. The man was massive and intimidating, yet you couldn’t help but feel there was something familiar about him. You couldn’t place a finger on who he could possibly be since you didn’t know anyone else with an imposing stature like his but that gut feeling never left you.
Reinhardt would often glance you up and down when he thought you weren’t looking. His green eyes would bore into yours until you felt as if you’d be set ablaze. He was terrifying to you. Especially now that you were on a journey with him to defeat the demon king… along with a fox beastwoman fighter and an elven mage who had joined your party due to the emperor’s order. The Emperor didn’t see you to be enough aid to the hero on this important quest.
Both adventurers were quite rude to you at first since you had no offensive abilities. They often fawned over the hero who blatantly ignored their affections to instead watch over you like a hawk. A fact the two women didn’t really enjoy, but they accepted it as the weeks melted into months. And you still didn’t know their names since they never told you (and Reinhardt never spoke).
The three of them often fought and killed monsters and demons while you protected the supplies and healed their injuries. It upset you that your party ambushed them since the enemies usually were unarmed. Majority of the time, it was a one-sided slaughter. An endless bloodbath that you had no power to stop.
You often lied to your peers about monsters hiding, unaware that your small act of kindness would lead to a snowball effect in the future. You had now caught the eye of an entity much stronger than you and the hero’s party… all because you were merciful. You were kind and sweet. A true saintess.
Your softness had made your peers joke about you being a cry baby. The elven mage and beastwoman often jabbed their elbows into your side to joke about the tears you’d cry because they thought you were scared. The dense women never realized your tears were for the innocent monsters they slaughtered on a day to day basis too. You were never scared of the demons or monsters, you were scared of them.
Yet Reinhardt nipped the subtle bullying in the bud by shoving the other two adventures away from you with his strong arms. He always made sure you were safe before he offered his body for healing… which he’d just make gesture at you with his hands rather than speak. It seemed he was fond of you, a fondness you didn’t understand since he never spoke to you.
Reinhardt would often pick you up without asking you and tuck you into the crook of his large arm. It bothered you that he never took off his mask, but he had quite an attractive jawline with the slightest bit of stubble. There was not a doubt in your mind that Reinhardt was likely an attractive man, but that didn’t matter. Since he was creepy.
Reinhardt never uttered a word to you but would always dutifully stand by your side (or carry you like some sort of damsel). He often reminded you of your ex fiancé with his stoic demeanor and his bewitching green eyes. And the staring. You swore you felt bare under his gaze even if you had multiple layers on.
And it wasn’t just his eyes you felt on you, you swore there was someone else watching you in the shadows and the possibility of you having another stalker made your skin crawl. Had you finally gone insane from having Reinhardt be around you 24/7? Or was there something sinister amiss?
Maybe that’s why Reinhardt so dutifully clung to you? Whether his protection was out of obligation or simply because he lusted for you, his presence did little to ease the extra set of eyes. In fact, he made it worse.
Wherever you were, Reinhardt was never far. He was with you when you bathed to stand guard. He was carrying you if you couldn’t keep up with him and the rest of the hero’s party. Reinhardt even began to stay in your tent with you…
He didn’t utter a word when he watched over you whenever you had nightmares. Reinhardt never woke you up from the horrific dreams of the man with pitch black hair and sharp talons pulling you into his lap and having his way with you. No, Reinhardt instead dragged his tongue down your tear stricken face in delight.
Reinhardt knew his actions were wrong, but he couldn’t help but fawn over your helpless form. You were so weak without his protection… you were a lamb sent to a slaughter that luckily had a herding dog with you. You should be grateful Reinhardt had such an intense interest in you, otherwise you could have perished earlier on at the goblin camps. Or those other two party members would have likely broken a few of your bones from rough housing. You were a frail bird that needed to be locked up at all times and Reinhardt was willing to be the one to do that! He would keep you safe, even if it took you years to understand even an ounce of his magnitude of feelings for you. He was a patient man!
It wasn’t uncommon for you to wake up in your tent with Reindhart’s imposing form standing over you ominously. You’d cry every single time, but he’d make no move to comfort you. Only stare.
Over the last four weeks, you begin to receive little trinkets in your tent on the daily. Delicacies that Reinhardt would immediately pitch once he saw them, but it filled you with anxiety that he was not the one slipping you those gifts… who on earth could be gifting you such pretty rocks and wild flowers?
You were flattered, just the tiniest bit, by the small, temporary gifts. They were much more welcomed than the iron grip of Reinhardt’s arms. Even though the sender made you anxious, it was nice to know that someone took you into consideration. It was a small action that filled you with hope. Perhaps you would be saved from this fate?
Shame you didn’t understand just how much those tiny gifts upset the hero. Your eyes should only be on him. Your entire purpose should revolve around him. Reinhardt wanted to find the individual who sent you these gifts so he could rip them limb from limb. You belonged to him and he would show you that you had no way of escaping him. You were going to be his bride! Whether you liked it or not, the hero had chosen you as his destined one!
Recently, you’d wake up to him laying beside you in your tent with his large arms wrapped around you. His Roman nose buried into the crook of your neck. This was far worse than him lingering in your tent since he had become so physical.
And your peers did nothing about his harassment of you. To them, it was cute that the hero was so ‘enamored’ with the Saintess! You’ve even heard whispers of how the emperor will no doubt arrange a marriage between the two of you once the four of you eliminated the demon king. It terrified you even more because you knew you’d have little say in the matter… your life was spiraling out of your own control once more. This time, into the arms of some brute with attachment issues. You didn’t want to marry another emotionally constipated man! You wanted to have freedom!
You often cried yourself to sleep which only made Reinhardt even more overbearing. He now would press kisses to your cheeks and cuddle his body into yours. Even in your dreams, you couldn’t escape this massive man. If only you could be saved…
And when you drifted off into an unnaturally heavy sleep, your barriers deactivated. An action that allowed the Demon King to finally slip into your party’s camp and take what he wanted. You.
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