#the police barricade was too good to pass up | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

harry-sussex · 2 years ago

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This was, no joke, the best moment of my entire life. I have been waiting so long for this. I never thought it would happen.

I had originally planned to volunteer with the UK branch of my job today, but when I saw the announcement, I knew I had to do this instead. I decided to get dinner at the pub, Dog and Duck, last night to look inside and try it out - I got bangers and mash and some fish (sans chips) as an appetizer, and it was legitimately so good. I also tried the Timothy Taylor’s Landlord Beer – you can see William in the photos from today right behind the tap. My server’s name was Bernie, and you can see her in some photos with William and Kate today too – tiny woman, short gray hair cut into a bob.

I set earlier alarms this morning but due to the time difference / jet lag, I didn’t make it here until 10am. I popped into a Tesco Express on the way to grab some flowers at @avidroyalfan’s advice – yellow of course, the brightest bunch I could find.

I made it over to the area around the pub and there were barricades and policemen everywhere. There was also a black Range Rover parked at the far end of Frith Street – the street they mentioned in the press release yesterday. It thought it was mildly crowded when I got there, but it didn’t even begin to compare to the crowd that had gathered closer to their arrival.

I really had trouble picking where I was going to stand – I didn’t want to be behind anyone, I just wanted to be up against the barricade, but given that the crowd was so relatively sparse on Frith Street (as opposed to right across from the pub on Dean Street) when I got there, I wasn’t sure they were going to come my way. I was also praying that I’d be on Kate’s side of the road if they came by – you guys know I love William, but if I had a chance, this once in a lifetime chance, I needed Kate. I went with my gut, a little further down the road than where the crowd at the time had started to assemble, so I could be right against the barricades. From the moment I got to the barricade, I was literally shaking, and I am not exaggerating – you can see it in one of the videos.

I passed the time talking to some lovely people – some of whom planned to be there and some of whom happened to stroll by. I met a lovely woman, Cath, who took tons of photos without me even asking – she just saw how excited I was and took the photos to send to me. Another woman named Teri did the same – just out of the kindness of their own hearts. Those are most of the photos you guys are going to see – I took a bunch while Kate was walking around, but I didn’t want to put my own camera in her face if she was standing right in front of me.

I stood for more than four hours start to finish and I do not regret it in the slightest. I thought a lot about what I was going to say to her if I had the chance – I’ve thought about it so many times over the years, but what could I really say that would summarize more than 10 years of pure admiration and adoration in 30 seconds or less? What could I – an American in London all the way from New York – possibly say to the UK’s next queen to tell her how much she’s meant to me for all these years?

There was a policeman right in front of me – his name was Thompson – who was subtly dropping hints about what was going on. He couldn’t say much but he did hint at the time we could expect them to arrive – about 12:45pm. He ended up pretty close – he told me that he got randomly assigned to the event today and that he (and basically the entire police force) would also be at the coronation. He also confirmed that they would be walking down Frith Street, where I was, though he wouldn’t hint at which of them was going to be on my side of the street.

By the time they arrived, the crowd had literally quadrupled – maybe even more. People were on the rooftops and hanging out of windows. Very few of them had flowers. Businesses let people go on their steps to get a closer view. A helicopter was circling above for security. There were policemen and RPOs everywhere. I thought William and Kate were going to drive right up to the pub but instead they walked from the far end of the street – I suppose because they took the tube. Speaking of the tube, that’s the exact line I took this morning. That’s also where the (absolutely enormous) press pack was assembled.

I could tell when they arrived, even though I couldn’t see them right away, because the roar of the crowd and the sound of dozens of cameras clicking said everything I needed to know. As I was a bit further down the street, I didn’t get the greatest view, but it didn’t matter – you could see Kate from a mile away. That jacket was bright in and of itself but she literally glows. There’s just an inherent radiance about her that cannot be explained unless you see it in real life – she’s ethereal in photos, but they don’t even begin to do her justice. She’s radiant. Also, you can see that her hair is perfect no matter how far away you are. As they turned the corner to get to the pub, I was able to crane my neck a little bit to see them get closer to the door, and I saw The Hand with my own two eyes. William placed his hand on Kate’s lower back to guide her inside – we’ve seen photos millions of times, but seeing it with my own two eyes was unreal. Completely surreal.

They spent far less time inside the pub than I would’ve thought (unless time was flying because I knew they were coming), but again, you could hear them come out the door just by virtue of the roar of the crowd. Thompson the policeman then told me that Kate was coming to my side of the street. I thought I was shaking before – nope, not even remotely compared to how I was when I heard that she was coming my way. I saw William first across the street – he went through relatively quickly but I could somewhat hear him saying “nice to meet you” over and over, shaking hands, laughing, the usual. He’s huge – I always knew he was tall but he’s massive, tall and broad. You could tell from twenty feet away - he’s huge. At one point, I literally blurted out “he’s not wearing blue!” once I saw the brown coat. He was on the side of the road that had more people, and he moved along at a solid pace - it’s definitely true that Kate is a chatter, no wonder they gave her the side of the street with fewer people. She would’ve been outside for 3 hours if she was greeting the amount of people on William’s side. He’s honestly such a good sport – he was shaking hands, standing on his tip toes and craning over the barricades to greet as many people as possible. I could very clearly see the faces of the people looking directly at him – you can tell they absolutely love him. Such genuine smiles. The pure adoration and happiness in their eyes said everything one needs to know – those people absolutely love him like their own.

When Kate turned the corner from the pub towards where I was standing, I swear to god my heart jumped right into my throat and my stomach dropped. God, she’s beautiful. Like I knew this, it isn’t news, the entire world is perfectly aware that she’s one of the most beautiful women on the face of the earth…. but she still managed to stun me anyway. She’s radiant. Absolutely gorgeous.

Somewhere along the way, as she moved down the line of people in my direction, it occurred to me that I was legitimately going to meet, or at the very least greet, Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales, after all this time, after so many years… I am not exaggerating when I say I was physically shaking. You can see it on my face in the photos even as she approached, before she came near me – I wasn’t panicking, I was just in awe. I’ve always known she was real of course, but she’s… actually real? Do you know what I mean?

She was moving so slowly compared to William – I swear he was already 75% of the way through his side of the crowd by the time Kate got to me. That’s when I really noticed that she is just so chatty – I didn’t notice her just greeting someone and then moving on quickly. She was so engaged. Every single person I could see was like entranced by her very presence - she’s literally such a vision. It’s not just me, it’s not just us – people are completely fascinated by her.

And then.

She came closer and closer – as I was on her left, I could see the ring. It’s huge – like, it’s big on camera, but the thing is enormous. I could not believe for the life of me that she was right there. I made sure to stick the flowers out enough and stand up straight and believe me when I say I didn’t have to remind myself to smile or make eye contact – I could literally feel myself beaming (right before she got to me):

When she came over, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Before I knew it, Kate was reaching to shake my hand and saying “nice to meet you” and I literally still cannot believe it. I handed over the flowers and I said to her:

“It’s nice to meet you, I just wanted to tell you that I have admired you for so long and that I also studied Italian Renaissance art history just like you did.”

When I said that I admired her, she said “oh, thank you!” as I continued to ramble about the art. She was still holding the flowers. I cannot believe that there are so many pictures of Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales holding bright yellow flowers that I got for her while smiling ear to ear – she handed them off before she moved onto the next person, so she is definitely smiling at me in those photos.

She then asked me if I liked studying art, and I said of course – she responded “me too!” After that, she asked me if I used it in my career, and I said no (which I don’t) but my master’s was a passion project. She then asked where I flew from (the accent, I guess) and I told her that I came from New York. She said that it was such a long way to come and that she was surprised at how many people have traveled so far for the big weekend. She touched my arm so sweetly for like the quickest second; she then said that it was going to be such a big event and that she was looking forward to joining the celebrations and that it was going to be good for everyone.

The last thing I said to her was “also, I ate in the pub last night because I heard you were coming!” and she responded with “oh that’s great, how was the food?” It was legitimately fantastic – I told her so – and she said that they would have to come back and try it when there were fewer people around.

It was then time for her to get moving so I just said “it was so nice to meet you” again and she said “nice to meet you, have a nice day!” Right before she moved on and as she was saying goodbye, she handed off the flowers and went on her way.

The whole thing lasted maybe two minutes, but I will remember it for the rest of my life. Her eyes are so green and she’s just so stunning up close and I just cannot believe she was that close to me and that we were able to talk and she is everything I have ever dreamed she would be and more. Just so sweet and gorgeous and engaged in what we were talking about – she didn’t just say “hi” and “bye,” you know? She listened to what I said and responded back without generalities… everything I ever dreamed of and more. I thought I couldn’t love her more – I do now. She has made my entire day and my entire life and I will literally never forget the vision of Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales, Catherine Elizabeth, someone I have adored for more than a decade, standing in front of me.

I am so happy I could cry. I was stunned after - literally could not believe what just happened to me. Take a look at the video below - you can see part of our conversation and then just the pure shock at the end. My hands were literally shaking.

Once the shock wore off, I did in fact cry. They say never to meet your heroes – why not? How could you go wrong meeting someone you have idolized when that someone is Kate?

#my post #katie goes to london pt. 2 #prince william #prince of wales #kate middleton #princess of wales #I’m sorry for the shitty quality I did this from my phone in a Starbucks lol #also thank you all for being so sweet I literally could not ask for anything more #I love you all so much #Kate and Katie

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rosewaterandivy · 10 days ago

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—whatever's still to come [i.]

gif by @leahberman

summary: piercing like a golden arrow, laving like a tongue.

pairing: steve harrington x f!reader

wc: 1.7k

warnings: end of s1, upside down, henry creel jumpscare, allusions, nocturnal *ahem* emissions

notes: like i was going to break tradition and NOT post something on my beloved ash's birthday, as if! @big-ope-vibes happy birthday love, you're the greatest and bestest ily 💜

series masterlist | previous | next

i.: let all time slow, let all light go

This time, it begins with a light in the dark.

A solitary spark of something like recognition flickers down your spine.

Life, at long last, has returned.

Though, it isn’t seen through your eyes, not truly.

Bulbs strewn throughout the house blip on and off, accompanied by a cacophony of voices.

What, what is going on?!

The creature bays and flares its petals as it surmises its surroundings.

A keen familiarity swirls just beneath your navel, the dull sluggish beat of your heart thuds once, twice beneath the cage of your ribs.

The minion trills and cocks its head just so. But the mortals are fast, smarter than Henry’d wagered, and run to barricade themselves in a room elsewhere.

A deep sigh fills the vacant room. Silent, save for the sound of your bare feet against the cool marble of your throne, the soft swish of silk from your cloak.

You’d never cared much for his pets and predilections. At least they kept him busy and far from your hearth and home.

But now, well— they may have some use as of yet.

Unfortunate, that the beast saw fit to make sport of the mortals. And all too telling that this Steve reciprocated with a nail bat to its chest.

Wiley as ever.

Too good for you, as always.

And maybe, just maybe it was finally time to see what exactly Henry had gotten up to in your prolonged absence.

As it stands, there were other things, more pressing matters, that required your full attention.

Eyes slipping closed, you draw your focus to the three mortals in a small labyrinth. All having entered far too early and in entirely the wrong place.

A man rhythmically thumps against the still chest of a child, a woman at his side begging for him, Will, to wake up.

The ferryman is easy to persuade, and the shade of the child trails at your side dutifully.

“It’s not your time,” you say by way of goodbye as you bring him to the gate. “But I think you know that already.”

Will I see you again?

A rare smile quirks your lips. “In this manner? Not for some time. But, up top?” You give him a wink. “You never know.”

The boy, slight and wary, reminds you of someone from long ago. Second chances aren’t your forte, not really, but in your benevolence you do what you can.

He passes through the gate, only to look back with a small smile and wave, before he fades away.

Will comes to heaving and in a panic. He blinks to clear his vision, hearing the garbled voices of his mom and the police chief.

Everything feels slow, like he’s wading through molasses, and when Joyce clutches him to her chest he feels like he can breathe for the first time in weeks.

He doesn’t remember much after that. Hospitals, his friends, Jonathan and his mom. Will finds that he doesn’t even dream when he sleeps. But the doctors assure him that’s due to the exhaustion and not some prolonged shock or psychological trauma.

Yeah, right.

It’s only in the bathroom before Christmas dinner that it comes to him. When he coughs up that sludge from the Upside Down, watches its viscous slither down the drain. The lights flicker and for an instant he’s back there and it’s cold.

He blinks and remembers someone speaking in low tones to a man by a river. Decked in darkness, a living shadow. They look on him kindly and escort him to the gate.

Will can see the movement of their lips, can feel a cool hand, a steady guiding presence at the nape of his neck.

They seem kind, distant but kind. They tell him it’s not his time, not yet, that he already knows better.

“Will I see you again?”

He doesn’t ask for anything other than his own curiosity. Will didn’t know that there were… people in this place.

A smile, unlike any other, breaks across their face. And it’s joyful, or if not that then something pretty close to it.

Up top? You never know…

They don’t so much as leave as fade into shadow when he crosses the threshold. Will looks back with a smile and wave, in thanks and in the slight hope that they’ll maybe meet again.

He only regrets not asking for their name.

Will shakes himself awake and heads back to the dinner table. Tales of the latest campaign fresh in his mind, tripping off his tongue.

The rest of the year passes quietly, 1983 slipping into ‘84. Soon enough, school bells are ringing and alarms are blaring. The world turns in its petty pace, oblivious to any sleight of hand.

Nothing to see here, says the left hand of the right-handed thief.

And well, it wasn’t as if you hadn’t done your fair share of thieving in the past. It would be nothing to slink away from here and–

No, none of that. Not again.

Because it wasn’t a choice then, and you’ve learned your lesson by now. Or at least, you should have.

Besides, someone needs a talking to about manner and decorum, and you certainly can’t leave anyone else to it, simply because there is no one else. Sometimes, you really loathe bureaucracy.

Henry is where you’ve left him, off with his own devices. You pass the gates and meadows, ford the rivers and fields, and descend into the deepest night. It’s somehow gotten darker since last you’d visited, a lick of flame in the palm of your hand doing nearly nothing to illuminate the path.

He appears before you in a flash, pristine white against the void of darkness. All carefully cultivated façade and sharp teeth. A lock of blond hair artfully falls against his brow.

“My liege,” He greets with a deferential bow, his arm sweeping low enough for his fingertips to brush the ground. “I did not expect to see you so soon.”

“Yes, well,” You reply with a wave of your hand, flames still licking the cool skin of your palm. “What kind of ruler would I be if I didn’t check on my fiefdoms?”

Henry rises with a dark chuckle and quirked brow, “Touché.” His hand draws your attention to the surrounding area– dark and thrumming lowly with the toils of those in his charge. “As you can see, all is well.”

Surveying the empty corridor, you can’t help but be suspicious of his preoccupations. Those minions terrorizing children in a small town for seemingly no reason. You tell him as much.

“Your fascination with this place…”

“Hawkins.”

“Yes, it must cease.”

His silence is a poignant reply.

“I have far too much to worry about without you presiding over this domain like a boy playing at king. And you would do well to recall at whose behest you serve.”

He has enough sense to look ashamed.

He swallows audibly before saying, “Yes, my sincerest apologies, your majesty.” Swallowing audibly he continues, “It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t.”

Somehow, you fear that is not the case.

But, as it is, you’ve tired of this oft-forgotten country. The dark abyss of your realm, of it but not in it. Far enough for the cries and screams to not carry into your domain proper. Out of sight and out of mind.

It used to be a relief, to have it so far from mind. But maybe you’ve gotten lax in your delegation of duties. You file it away for further consideration later. As for now, you sigh beleagueredly and dismiss him with a turn of your heel.

Shadows trailed after you, a fading blue flame illuminating your shrouded form.

Henry watches your measured steps, bare feet traipsing along the gray stone path. A sneer works its way across his face, as you fade from his sight. He balls his fist at his side, striding off of the path and sublimating into the dark.

Back up top, night has fallen over Hawkins.

Steve dutifully dropped Nancy off at her house after their date and made his way back to the empty house on Loch Nora. He took a long, hot shower lingering longer than he should, mind awash with images he couldn’t rightly make sense of. They dog him as he slips into cool sheets and sleep beckons.

The haze of a figure, emerging from the darkest of depths. A flash of a smile, plush lips pulled taut against a beautiful mouth. Eyes that are seemingly endless, swirling with the flares and bursts of stars. They step forward, a solitary leg baring itself free from swirling shadows on a simple worn path.

He can feel the sun at his back, bright and luminous in the blue sky. He turns, arm held aloft to block the blinding rays, a bunch of flowers gripped in his hand. And he’s never quite seen anything like it before– something so beautiful, resplendent even, that it hurt to look at.

The figure laughs, a soft and joyful noise. And then, they reach out their hand. He watches as their lips move, a sonorous voice pouring forth. Their gaze was on him, piercing like a golden arrow, laving like a tongue. His blood churned with magma and rose higher and higher, coloring his cheeks poppy red.

And there’s no power of speech left within him. The silence too big and weighty, precipitously slipping and drowning you both in a boundless desire.

Come home with me?

Steve wakes to the finest edge of morning light, a shock slithering up his spine and walloping him into consciousness. He rests back on his forearms and blinks himself into being, eyes taking in the rumpled sheets and light sheen of sweat on his skin. Swinging a leg to rise from bed, the sheets follow drawing his attention to a sensation of stickiness clinging to his abdomen.

“Goddamnit,” He rasps into the empty air, turning to gather the rest of the sheets to launder. Cheeks blooming pink as he pours the detergent into the washing machine and slams the lid shut.

A shower, he decides, everything will be better after a shower. Maybe a cold one.

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #fic: wstc

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alphabetatoes · 11 months ago

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tennesee whiskey (n. kento x reader)

a.n.: this is basically a drawn out version of the prompt i posted earlier. fic title is in reference to the chris stapleton cover song (felt appropriate for the bar theme) (and and also also lets admire how cute the dividers i made in canva are) does this jump around in characterization? yeah maybe. go ahead, call the whimsy police on me! summary: nanami teaches you how to play pool c.w.: reader referred to using she/her pronouns, alcohol (reader is 21+), suggestive themes, smut if you squint, jealous nanami, and the ever-present risk of writing ooc. barely beta read (though what fic of mine is lmao) w.c.: 1.4k

You and Nanami were sent out to the middle of nowhere to exorcise a curse, in hopes of stopping it before it had the chance to propagate into something worse. Even though it was a Grade 3 curse, the higher ups deemed it safest for the two of you to go as a pair.. It was an in-and-out mission, the two of you making quick work to intervene. Soon enough, you were back in the car and headed back to campus. The simple pitter patter of raindrops hitting the windshield brought a strange sense of comfort. But the calm could only last for so long. A barricade of rain began to drop, bringing a swift end to the peace. He drove until the road was unnavigable, pulling off into an empty parking lot. The two of you were stranded. Your options were to either wait out the storm in the car, or attempt to find solace somewhere nearby. You chose to press your luck with the latter.

“Over there.”, he points out, pulling your attention.

Across the street, there was a dive bar still open despite the storm. The flickering neon lights were your own personal Eden. When you enter the bar, you’re immediately hit with warmth. A concoction of body heat and cigarette smoke fill the room. You can’t seem to mind it though. It draws the attention away from your clothes starting to form a second skin on your body.

“Now don’t you two look wonderful.” The bartender jokes. He bears a giant grin, and you can’t help but to feel unsettled by it. “If you got a change of clothes, restrooms are over that way.” Today was one of the days you were grateful for the spare set of clothes you kept on hand. Missions were unpredictable, and you never knew when you’d be stuck somewhere. You seize the opportunity and head to the restroom, eager to remove the soaked clothes. While you change, Nananmi orders two drinks from the bar.

“For you and your girlfriend?” “Hell, if she’s not spoken for, I’ll have to make her mine!” It’s not like he had a claim over you or anything. But as your partner, and even more so as your friend, he made your protection a top priority. It didn’t matter if they were one off comments. Nanami had lost too many to be careless.

“She’s fine.” Nanami’s tone is dry, unimpressed by the barkeep’s boldness. You return from changing, noticing the blond standing closer to you than before. It’s probably just a safety thing. Better to stay close together than apart, right?

“Drink this.” He hands you the other glass of whiskey. “It’ll help warm you up.” The liquor goes down relatively smooth, and you revel in the warmth of it. “How about a game of pool to pass the time?” You nod over at the table in the corner of the bar. The rain wasn’t letting up any time soon, and you figured it was a good way to pass the time. “You’ve played pool?”

“I’ve dabbled in it… online.” He rolls his eyes and hands you a stick. A hint of a smile crosses his face. That stoic exterior he fronts at all times slowly starting to chip away. “We could make it fun. Loser has to do something for the winner?” An opportunity for the adult of all adults to let loose. You were curious to know what was behind that rigid exterior. “If I win, you buy me a drink.”

“And what if I win?” A virtual win does not a professional pool player make, but you weren’t completely oblivious to the game. Even if the odds were stacked against you, you weren’t going down without a fight.

“Given the likelihood of that, I’ll do whatever you want.” He breaks, immediately shooting 3 balls into the pockets. Show-off. “Where’d you learn to play like that?” Of course the man of many secrets would turn out to be a semi-professional. Or he just really wanted a free drink. “Shoko and I used to play all the time when we were younger.”

It’s your time to shine. You step up to the table and ready your shot. “You’re doing it wrong.” Nanami smirks at your rigid form.You’re stiff as a board, awkwardly hovering the stick over the table. “Then show me, Mr. Professional.” Nanami moves from his spot across the table and positions himself right behind you. He places one hand on your stomach, arching your back out to him, and lets the other rest on your waist. “Now place your hands here.” He moves your right hand to grasp the pool stick; your left hand rests on the table forming a hand bridge toward the end of the stick. “Line up the shot and pull back when you’re ready.” He guides you to move, yet never adjusts his position from behind you. Hell, if you moved even an inch back, you’d ram right into him. You couldn’t say you minded though.

Just as instructed, you line up your shot and pull back. Once you release, the pool stick makes perfect contact with the cue ball. It spins for a moment, then promptly hits a striped ball into one of the six pockets. “Good shot.” His breath tickles your ear as he speaks. “Now do that about 8 more times and you’ll win.” You line up your second shot and- “Fuck.” The cue ball bounces off the side of the table and right into one of the pockets. “You’re overthinking it. Try not to be so stiff.” His tone is soft, sickly sweet almost.“Relax yourself.” He gives you a simple smirk as you relax, albeit into him. His strong hands hold on to your shoulders, kneading into them gently. Were you not in the middle of a game, you’d melt into his touch. Right here, right now.“

Easy for you to say. You’ve got like 4 balls left!” You whine, and his smirk grows wider. “Anything could happen.” Cocky. Such an easy claim for the blond to make! He was practically prodding a reaction out of you. And you would give it to him. A slap on the arm that he’d hope would linger for a second longer, but you pull away to align your next shot.

It had to be a fluke. The two of you were tied; it could’ve been anyone's game. But Nanami slipped up, knocking the 8 ball right into one of the pockets a turn early. Meaning you had won. Despite his banter with you about playing, he didn’t seem all that upset about the loss. “Alright, winner. Name your prize.”

“Kiss me?” You test the waters, careful not to scare him off. Be it the adrenaline rush from winning or the liquor, something emboldened your choice of prize. Nanami didn’t seem opposed either. His hands found their way to your waist, pulling you closer to him as you lean in. You can feel the heat radiating from his body, his touch sending shivers down your spine. Your arms wrap around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, as you lose yourself in the intoxicating taste and feel of him. Nanami is the one to deepen the kiss, pinning you against the table with his thigh. You let your hands fall to his shirt collar, playing with it and pulling him in closer.

As he cast a pointed look towards the bartender across the room, it became clear that Nanami had no intentions of letting anyone encroach on what was rightfully his. His lips trail down your jawline, leaving a trail of wet kisses in their wake, and finally rests against the sweet spot between your neck and shoulders. Nanami nips at the skin, deep enough to leave a mark. You pull away, trying to catch your breath. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you lost on purpose.” You smile, fixing the creases in his shirt collar. Nanami’s bruised lips pull into a cocky grin as he brushes his thumb over your lips. “Don’t doubt your ability. If anything, call it a newfound talent.”

“And what if I wanted to take this celebration somewhere more private?” You raise your brows, desperate to keep going but without prying eyes. Nanami picks up on your request immediately, releasing you from the pool table. Possessive, his grasp pulls you close. It’s firm but gentle, a simple comfort as he leads you. You both shuffle into the small bathroom and lock the door. And right now, more than ever, you’re grateful for the deep drumming of the thunder and the loud pour of the rain.

#this is kind of dialogue heavy but i still hope yall enjoy 😭#x reader #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento #jjk #jujutsu kaisen

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aokoaoi · 2 years ago

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▎chapter three : raccoon police department.

▎content warning : gore, blood, violence, character death, resident evil 2 spoilers.

▎character pairing : leon kennedy x fem!reader.

▎taglist : @phoenix666stuff .

"ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS;"

The sudden announcement from the radio catches everyone in the cars attention. Claire, who was at first slumped against the door beside her, the side of her forehead digging into the glass uncomfortably, was now wide awake– paying attention to whatever the man was announcing.

With one hand, you held up your fingers to the radio, turning on the volume as you reached the city.

"Due to the citywide outbreak, you are advised to take shelter at the Raccoon City police station. Free food and medical supplies will be provided to everyone in need."

"God, this is unreal.." Claire mutters.

You bit your lip in worry as your eyes casted around the city's situation, feeling yourself warm up uncomfortably. If this outbreak was city wide, that means your family was no where near safe. Just the idea of your parents hurt or harmed made your grip on the steering wheel tighten. Had they perhaps turned into those.. things..?

"You two are headed to the station right?" You turned your head around to look at them, watching as they nodded as an answer. "The stations not much farther, I'll drop you both there."

Both looked confused as to what you were implying, "You're not coming with us?" Leon questioned, making you indistinctivly losen your grip on the wheel.

"I'm heading home, I need to know if they're safe." It was recklessly dangerous and stupid, but they're your family.

Knowing who 'they' is, Leon shakes his head. "It's too dangerous, come with us instead." He protests, shoving another plan right in your head instead. You shook your head immediately as soon as his words came out of the dirty blonds mouth, exhaling heavily.

The two newly acquaintances of yours only watched you from the back, noticing how you've tensed up and how you're mannerisms looked like you were beginning to get frustrated.

The car comes to a stop when you've reached a barricaded road, with cars lined up unorderly on the other side. You cursed under your breath, finding this whole thing severely frustrating. Your house was far from where you are, if you're walking there you might as well just kill yourself right now.

"Fucking hell. Looks like we're walking.." the two heard your exhausted sigh, watching as you rubbed your face with the palm of your hand.

"More like running." You turned to where the two were looking at, noticing two undead feasting on another human. You pursed your lips, brows furrowing in annoyance. You hear shuffling behind you, and you see the two pulling out their guns.

"Good call." Leon curtly nods before a yell comes out of his mouth as an undead bangs on his door, followed by Claire who gets the same fate. You watched as your car gets surrounded by undead, ignoring the rotting cannibal banging its head on your window while you tried to steady your breathing.

Claire yells out your name, "You gotta back up!" She orders you, nervously scooting away from the door next to her as she was now in between the passenger and drivers seat. You did as what you were told, revving the engine and trying to back up. The whole this was hopeless as those things were in all areas outside your car, soon if you don't thing fast they'll be inside.

"What the—!?" Claire yells, looking behind her when she noticed the lights flashing. You turned to look behind as well, noticing the large truck you passed by from earlier. And it was now heading towards you.

"Fuck! Get out!" You hissed out, unlocking the doors and shouldering your door to get it open. The undead were jamming their weights and strength on all your doors, leaving you and the other two stuck inside. The truck was getting closer and closer, and in the midst of your panicking Leon yells out a loud 'hold on.'

You did as what he told, bracing yourself the impact heading. The truck suddenly swerved in another direction, but it still crashed into the side of your car. You yelled a groan at the impact, your car getting flung forward at the impact. You crashed in another car, providing another impact that send you back to your cushioned seat, knocking the air out of your lungs.

Kicking your door open, you threw yourself out of the car, clothed knees scraping on the rough road. You stabilized yourself up, coughing roughly as you held your stomach. You notice Leon not so far from you, and upon seeing you he looks at the gas truck in front of you.

"Shit, get down!" He yells, running towards you and shielding you from the explosion the gas tank causes as soon as Leon reaches you. A pained yell escapes you when your back collides on the car behind you, grunting when you fall right on top of Leon who rescued you from getting barbecued.

Leon loses his hold on you, his arm falling to the side as you tried to regain your focus after your life flashed right before your eyes and blacking out for half a second.

"You alright there?" He pats your lower back, as if trying to snap you awake.

"Fuck no, I felt like that explosion took five years from my life." You groaned, putting your hands on his covered chest and pushing yourself up. You looked around slightly before holding your hand out for him, watching as he accepted your gesture.

"Claire?!" You called out, uncaring that the undead are slowly starting to get back on their feet, groggily walking towards you and Leon.

"Yeah?!" You heard her respond, followed by three shots ringing in the air. "You alright?!"

"I'm alright, how about you?!" She yelled out, almost sounding out if breath. You were about to call put to her again until the man behind you take a hold of your wrist, aiming his gun at the undead surrounding you.

"We can't stay here, it's not safe!" He yells at you, but also at Claire as if trying to inform her something.

"Go on ahead! I'll meet you at the station!" She responds, and Leon looks back at you, curtly nodding his head. You bit your lip, "But what—" he grips on your wrist tighter, looking into your eyes.

"She'll be fine on her own, she can handle herself." He mutters. You looked hesitant, but looking around you there was no need to be wasting anymore time. You nodded, easing up to him as Leon lead you to where his destination is.

You tugged on his arm when he goes another way, catching his attention, you dragged eachother to an alleyway, an easy way to the station that wasn't on the road. Stopping in your tracks when you come across an undead, it was still rising up from the ground, and Leon brutally kicked it back on the floor, giving you time to run from it.

Going up a set of stairs, the sight of the station makes him exhale a breath he didn't know he was holding. "There it is, the station." He mutters. You looked around you, noticing the amount of undead all over the gate.

"There's so much of it." A frown overtakes you, your voice low that even you barely hear yourself.

"Let's make a run for it, okay? I'll cover." Leon perked up, catching your attention while grasping your hand. You nod nonetheless despite wanting to break down right then and there, pushing back the bile rising up your throat.

Leading the way, he runs to a clear pathway, shooting behind you when an undead gets way too close for comfort. You flinch when blood gets on your exposed skin, not finding the strength to look back at the dead bodies left behind.

Leon notices your quietness, feeling guilty but in your mind right now your batting the heads of zombies while your brother is pitching. Everytime you hit the head, you'd be cussing out as if singing a song.

You both finally reached the large gates, with Leon letting you go in first as he trailed behind. He shuts the door, locking it. He turns to you, looking at you worriedly. "You alright? You're awfully pale."

The question caught you off guard, your little gorey fantasy world shutting off as soon as his voice reached your ears. You nodded, "Yep, just reeling in everything." You mustered up a small smile that wrote 'wtf' all over it.

Leon decided not to poke more into your situation nonetheless, he bobs his head to the stations wooden door, as if waiting for your signal. You turned on your heel, removing your eyes from the sight of zombies in front of you and took steady steps towards the door. Leon trails right behind you.

Cold hands rested on the large wooden doors, pushing it open. The station looked exactly like the museum you loved to visit once a year when you were still a little girl. Same interior structure, but now a difference purpose.

The lights were awfully dim, and while you were looking around Leon had already found some important stuff.. like ammos.

You snapped your attention back, now walking towards the wooden counter. You stepped to the monitor that was flashing a bright red on the screen. Leon is now beside you, looking down at the screen as you pressed on a key. The CCTV control service pops up on the screen and you bent slightly down to focus on the screen better.

"There has to be someone here." Leon mutters. On cam4, revealed a man being trailed by another undead, he was a police officer, of course judging by his uniform.

"God, that's not good." You hissed worridly, your face scrunching when he misses his shots at the zombie.

"David! Marvin! You there?" His voice was rushed and uneven from how his breathing was unsteady. He looked into the camera, showing something you couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was. "I found a way out, It's in here!"

You stood back up as he was cornered by the undead, not wanting to look at the scene unfold anymore. "Send reinforcement, east hallway!"

"We have to help him." You perked up, catching Leon's attention after looking at the cameras. He nods curtly, "I'll find him, but you stay here and check anything that seems valuable." You furrowed your brows at his words, unhappy.

"Like hell I will—"

"Listen—"

"No, you listen, Kennedy. I am coming with you and I don't give a single shit if you say it's dangerous." You glared at him, watching as he only rose a brow. "Jesus Christ, alright." He huffs, lifting his hand up in surrender as if there was a fight in the first place.

You smiled, pleased by the outcome.

"Let's go."

"Heugh—! hah.."

You watched from behind as the blond in front of you push back a toppled over cabinet, the action making the metal storage clank down in the floor.

Your whistle catches his attention, making him turn to look at you.

"What?"

He felt himself burn up at your little smug smile, and you just brushed off his confused question. You both resumed walking, the heel of your shoe softly padding against the tiled floor as you trailed behind Leon, holding the flashlight he found in the gas stations convenience store.

Both of you come across a bloodied corner after turning from where you came from, and your senses heightened at the sight. Your ears rang as you heard a man yell from another direction, and you immediately sprang into action without a single thought.

"Open this God damn door!" You heard the man from the camera yell, banging on the steel door I'm the process. Panicked, bent down and held on the steel doors handle, using your strength to pry the door open. The door seemed as if it was jammed as it didn't want to open up more farther, so when the man's hand came into view you had no choice but to pull him in.

"I've got you! Just crawl—" You bit your lip, hard, desperately trying to get the man on your side. You could see Leon try to get the door to open again, only for him to pause when the man whose hand you're holding let's out a gurgled scream as blood seeped through his uniform.

You could feel your heart thumping on your chest, the sight making your skin crawl. "Fuck— shit, hold on!" You sniffled, pulling him in again as he only cried out. The scream was agonizing, and it didn't help how you could hear his flesh being feasted on from the other side.

Falling back on the ground roughly, the man was now pulled on your side of the door, only to be revealed that his lower body is missing. His organs were out in the open, his blood rushing out and pooling around his body, soaking the back of his uniform.

Your breath hitched at his state, your hand coming up to hold your incoming scream.

"..Jesus Christ." Leon mutters, looking down at the body as the man loses his consciousness. Leon then changes his gaze to the steel door, the sound of your sniffles being silenced by the zombie on the other side of the door. He sighs before picking up the notebook of the officer, opening it.

Leon turns to you after inspecting the notebook, his lips pursing as a loud exhale escapes his nose at your state. He crouched down at your slumped form, squatting in front of you as you're back was rested on the bloody wall.

You trying to muffle your sniffles was absolutely destroying, just listening to you right now made Leon's heart burn. But you've gotta continue moving.

"Come on, we've got to keep going." He pats your shoulder gently, listening as your sniffles slowly start calming down. Your head was hidden in your arms, disliking the idea of the man in front of you seeing your tears, yet hear you are breaking down after a man gets torn in half.

Another zombie from the door you went from started banging on the wooden door, catching your attention. Your head snapped to look at the sound, and as soon as the zombie breaks into the room you stood back up to your feet.

Leon stands up, shielding you from the undead that just broke in. The undead staggers unsteadily before lunging itself at Leon. The dirty blond man grunts, holding back the zombie with his hand around it, choking it. He pushes himself and the zombie back to the wooden door, only to throw himself to the side when the zombie tried to bite his hand.

The zombie staggered back from Leon's throw, growling and gurgling blood admist the silence. It's white glare on Leon shifted back to you, and you could hear it's flesh mushing together when it twists its body to your direction.

Before the rotting cannibal could throw itself at you, your hand instinctively grabbed the nearest thing you could use to defend yourself on the desk beside you. Which was a desk lamp. It's light shuts off as soon as it gets plugged off from your sudden force.

When the zombie runs towards you, at a safe space, you brutally swung the lamp at its head. A chunk of rotting flesh of the zombies head gets chucked off from the pressure of your hit.

The zombie hits the side of the desk, and before it could even fix its balance Leon had already shot at its head, blowing it up. Blood gushed on the desk, and without wasting anymore time Leon grabs your hand, snapping you out of your somewhat shocked-state.

You both stepped out of the room, and you could see another zombie banging on the window of the hallway. It breaks in, and Leon cussed out loudly at it, but instead of defending both of you he holds on your hand tighter. "Let's just run for it!"

Letting him drag you through the hallways, your footsteps were loud and echoing through the halls. Your head is dizzy and you don't bother to watch where you're headed, as if you've completely trusted your life on the hands of the man in front of you.

He comes to a stop, putting a hand on your shoulder and you've realized the familiar place. You crouch down and laid your body straight on the bloody floor as Leon tried to make the gap on the gate slightly wider, but not wide enough for a zombie to crawl in easily.

"Hurry." You could hear him mutter. You've now crossed the main hall, and you see Leon getting down, crawling on the space of the door. A zombie suddenly let's itself known, reaching for Leon's leg before you could even realize.

"Damn it!" He curses, looking back at the zombie behind him. He could feel your hand on his arm, pulling him from the zombie despite his heaviness.

Then suddenly you notice a pair of black shoes and the same colored uniform pants those zombified officers were wearing. "Careful—" You started, reaching out your hand to the man as soon as you made sure Leon was safe from the bloody hands grabbing at him.

"I got it." He gruffly speaks up, pressing his foot down on the steel door, crushing it's body from the pressure. You looked down at the crushed zombie before looking up at the man, exhaling lightly.

His hand was pressed up on the bloody wound on his stomach, his breath heavy with his chest heaving up and down. His back pressed up on the steel door, slightly sliding down, "You're safe, for now." He grunts, face scrunching up painfully.

"Thank you." You perked up, your face showing nothing but genuine gratefulness.

"Marvin Branagh." He introduced himself, which followed by Leon doing the same. You stated your first name to the new acquaintance, his uniform reminding you of a particular death.

"..–there was another officer, and i couldn't save him– he–" You felt a hand on your shoulder, the same hand who held yours earlier. You trailed off your sentence, the officers death flashing and replaying in your head.

"I'm sure you did what you could, little one." Marvin takes a step towards you, bobbing his head in acknowledgement, his words providing some kind of comfort and reassurance.

"He died... for what?" Your voice was small, weak and fragile. With the bile rising up your throat, you found yourself having trouble trying to breathe again. God, you hated feeling like this, just breaking down in front of people. You disliked feeling weak. You disliked being seen vulnerable.

But you couldn't help it anymore. That one particular death would haunt you, especially because it was your fault. You could've saved him if you pulled him through faster. If you got there in time. If you weren't so weak.

Leon pulls out a specific notebook after those words escaped your mouth, flipping through the pages to find the little map that officer drew. He shuffles beside you, catching your attention.

"Died for this."

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cloudwisp · 4 months ago

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https://www.tumblr.com/cloudwisp/756719421756686336/httpswwwtumblrcomcloudwisp756579631412445184

okeeee! arranged marriage vampire sylus x surgeon and musician reader. i am a sucker for mafia husband and doctor fmc where she looks like a sunshine but is secretly unhinged with her medical and chemistry knowledge.

sylus, of course, marries reader just to make himself look good to the public. he calls it strategic alliance.

reader also marries him to make herself appear softer to the public, as she is a high-powered career woman.

the two of them make a deal: she will wear the ring on the finger and attend his business meetings on the condition that he also attends her conferences and concerts.

reader figures out on day one that sylus is a vampire. let's face it: that guy is pale as hell with red eyes and nocturnal.

sylus, of course, is intrigued by her. he laughs that rich man laugh of his. "you are smarter than you look, kitten. that's why i like you".

kitten?! the nerve! the audacity of this guy! she sets out for him to be enemy number one.

sylus gives her his black card so that she can spoil herself rotten. but, of course, she would just buy a few trinkets here and there just to make the place less depressing.

much to her relief, she gets to sleep in a separate room.

she swallows her pride when she has to work with him in using her medical and chemistry knowledge to solve cases that some of the police officers would bring to her due to her expertise. after all, sylus has connections so, she needs him.

sylus, as usual, gets freaky as hell. "i don't mind being used by you. after all, i want to use you too".

he enjoys her incredibly flustered face.

sylus' respect for her grows when she can defeat him in boxing and shoot with guns.

"what? i'm a combat doctor as well, sylus! also, i'm tiny, sylus, so i can't rely heavily on my physical strength!"

"oh? you are smarter than you look, kitten," he always notes.

"sylus, i can take a man's life just as easily i can save theirs," she replies, raising one of her eyebrows.

his freak for her increases when they were being chased by his enemies. she took him in to the kitchen and barricaded themselves in.

"i hope that you have something in your mind, kitten," he sarcastically notes.

"shut up!" she hisses. she knows that she cannot rely solely on her evol, as she picks up several spices and wraps them together.

sylus' ruby red eyes gleam. she is building a bomb on the spot. this helps them escape with minimal effort.

like sylus, she is a night owl hence, her taking shifts during the night. when she arrives back at home, she passes out. sylus makes sure that a warm bath and a hot meal is ready when she comes home, as she would be way too tired to function.

making sure that she has a warm blanket when she sleeps.

flirting with reader constantly. moments where he would press his chest on her back and kiss her neck.

"you and i may be married but we are husband and wife in title only, sylus!" she once snaps at him, as she is preparing herself for a snack.

nevertheless, that does not stop sylus from flirting with his wife. he likes the fact that he is doing the chasing, unlike other women.

the twins, of course, notice the change in their boss. he is noticeably softer and kinder towards everyone. especially, towards his wife.

the twins would hear about how much he raves about his wife's beautiful singing voice and classical piano skills, as well as journals and papers she published under her name.

if reader has to admit, she feels warm and fuzzy when he prepares all of these things for her: a warm cup of tea, blanket and a hot meal after work.

cue sylus unaliving someone for undermining her authority in the medical field. that is when reader begins to allow the possibility to think that he might be a suitable partner for her.

throughout her time, the men she dated would feel incredibly inferior whenever she speaks of her accomplishments. but not sylus. he is always genuinely interested in her. but, having been wounded by men in the past, she decided to keep her feelings to herself. also, no couple should choose each other because of a strategic alliance.

that all culminated in one night when she says to him maybe he should find a replacement so that he can start an honest relationship with them.

much to her surprise, sylus looks vulnerable. "no," he says simply. "there is no one else like you, kitten. i don't regret you using me because i would never have met you".

that is when she kisses him. while sylus has kissed her in public for the cameras, she has never once initiated one yet. and that is the first time she takes the initiative.

"i have fallen you for a long time, kitten. and, tonight, i will enjoy my beautiful wife," says sylus cockily, as he wraps his arms around his wife.

OH I LOVE THIS!! And the twists and little moments you added to make the story feel like their own. This dynamic has got me thinking about many more things, like since MC is a doctor here does she find herself wanting to study the way his body is engineered as a vampire? Perhaps even let him feed on her when they grow more intimate? Also her being a musician, they have karaoke nights—no question about it. Even becomes a weekly tradition and making bets who scores higher would also be part of the fun. AAAA just so many thoughts tysm for sharing!! ✨

#cloud.asks

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checkxmaster · 1 year ago

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"The hell is your problem, dude? Did you seriously forget about me? Or what, you think I'm a clone? Be for real."

It was getting dark, so Chad pulled his armored vehicle over to the side of the road and set about preparing to settling in for the night. Over the years, he'd accumulated a lot of tech to help him survive, from computers and GPS, to motion sensors, timers, and alarms. Generators and power storage units were essential, as were solar panels and other methods of harnessing power as electrical grids began to fail seemingly everywhere.

Some of the tech he built himself, having raided hardware stores for parts, and others he'd acquired from abandoned police stations and homes. It passed the time, to sit and occupy himself with building computers, or to set up surveillance systems, or to create spreadsheets to catalogue all of his supplies, and he liked to keep his skills sharp. Why? He didn't really know anymore. Maybe it just kept him sane. He had about a million flashlights, flares, weapons, and a multitude of ammunition types, complete with all the batteries, solar chargers, hardware enhancements, additional parts, and optional adjustments he could store.

Metal boxes, backpacks, and duffel bags were stacked in an almost hedge-maze-like fashion inside the armored vehicle he'd taken over after it had been abandoned by the military. His bed was little more than a shelf nestled into all this organized chaos, but he found it strangely comforting to be boxed in while he slept... especially since he was alone most of the time.

Occasionally he joined up with some survivors, but he found it difficult to remain with them. Their goals were vastly different, with civilians wanting to find somewhere safe to hunker down and barricade, and Chad wanting to keep on the move to see what he could do to screw Umbrella over or help other people.

He'd gotten his motion sensor perimeter up around his mobile home, as it were, and had just taken his nightly dose of painkillers so he'd have half a chance of sleeping. The deep scars from where the licker had grabbed him as well as the pain of a few broken bones that hadn't quite healed properly from being thrown off the train on the way out of the Hive had him pretty much in near-constant pain. He'd learned to live with it, and as long as he was busy and moving, he could ignore it. At night, though, he needed some extra help from good ol' pharmaceuticals. Just over-the-counter, though, nothing too heavy. He couldn't risk not being able to wake up if something significant went down. And absolutely nothing with an Umbrella logo on the bottle.

That was when one of his alarms went off, indicating that something was moving in the near vicinity of the vehicle. "Really?" he groaned, his head falling to the right as he lay in his bed to look at the screen across the way. Sure enough, it was blinking. Sighing, he sat up and typed away, looking at the camera feed indicating movement. To his severe disappointment, it wasn't one of the undead. It looked like a soldier of some kind. "Just perfect," he said cynically. Grabbing a couple guns, he went out to investigate. What he found was... startling, to say the least.

It... it was Rain. His heart began to pound. No, Rain's dead. Don't get fooled again by those stupid clones. Man, they were creepy... Clones of his now-deceased friends and comrades that often times acted nothing like the originals. The Rain ones... were always particularly nasty. He lifted his rifle, leveling it at her. "That's far enough," he said coldly, assuming this was a clone. How can it not be?

But then she spoke, and almost simultaneously he began to notice that she looked a bit older. The clones always looked young, pristine. Swallowing hard, Chad found it difficult to breathe with how vigorously his heart was now pounding, rattling his ribcage. Faltering a little in his resolve, the tip of his rifle slowly dipped a bit and he stared incredulously at her.

"N-no, I-... Of course I didn't forget about you, but..." But you're dead. You've gotta be. Forgetting Rain - or anyone else he'd lost in the Hive due to his incompetence, poor planning, and cracking under the pressure - was never an option. He saw their faces almost nightly in the twisted horrors of his guilt-fueled nightmares.

Chad blinked, not knowing what to do. The rifle lowered just a bit more at the mention of clones. "Yeah, actually, that's exactly what I'm thinking. Wait, you're-... Are you telling me you're not a clone?" Oh, how he wanted to believe that, but he'd been fooled before, almost fatally. "Come on, don't fuck with me..." he said, more with a crestfallen type of exhaustion than with any sort of real intimidation attempt. "If you're not a clone... then prove it."

If this really was Rain, the real Rain, then he was about to feel like a huge jerk momentarily. But if it wasn't... he couldn't afford to let his guard down...

#wanderingaroundwithmysoul #kaplan rp #{ on to the next mission } ʷᵃⁿᵈᵉʳⁱⁿᵍ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ #{yassss let's get these two back in the saddle again haha}

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marypsue · 11 months ago

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I must know about leabian apocalypse robot tony stark

[from this meme]

This document is an original story that's settled into the title of Le Morte d'Artificial Intelligence! The document title comes from the title of this one comix recap copperbadge did, a title which promised much about a comic which delivered exactly none of it. I picked up the idea of an artificially-intelligent android (well, gynoid, technically, if you want to get personal) masquerading as an irreverent, deeply ADHD inventor and titan of industry and moonlighting as a mechanised superhero, and ran with it.

And then, while I was developing a superteam (and a villain) for her to have an It's Complicated with, I realised that I couldn't set a story with superheroes in the UK and not drag King Arthur into it. And then a couple of other ideas that I had floating around without homes (an artificial lifeform in the shape of a human woman falls in love with a human woman, who then turns out to be a changeling; an extraordinarily self-indulgent never-to-see-the-light-of-day f!OC MCU fic) dovetailed beautifully into a plot to go along with this premise.

Have a sample:

If Elin hadn’t already known what was waiting for her at Piccadilly Circus, it would’ve been immediately obvious as soon as she flew within shouting distance. Even if the unnaturally brackish quality to the air composition, the subsonic hum, and the flood of fleeing people – and, strangely, chickens – hadn’t clued her in, the tentacles were visible even before the heaving, buckling remains of the plaza drew into view.

“Dammit,” Elin muttered, pulling up to leave the street farther below her. She remembered too well from the fight with Morgan – huge and cumbersome as they looked, those beasties moved fast. And their reach was always just a little longer than she’d calculated.

In seconds, she was hovering over the plaza, assessing the situation. Definitely not stalling, whatever Goldfinger might say. The plaza looked like it had cleared out, and people in black tactical gear stood around the barricades that uniformed police had started setting up around the perimeter. Though, as Elin passed over, she noticed a little knot of people in street clothes still huddled behind a double-decker bus at the far end. She also noticed that there was only one of Morgan’s horrorterrors this time. Thankfully, it looked like a small one. Well, a relatively small one. As horrorterrors went.

The rip it had made in the world was relatively small, too, but growing wider as the creature’s assortment of mismatched limbs forced their way through. As she passed above it, Elin caught a glimpse of a knot of eyes and teeth, roiling and gnashing somewhere far below what the actual street could allow. Maybe the creature was bigger than it looked, then. Probably a good idea to get that rift closed up before any more of it got through.

Elin took a moment to wonder about that, as she scanned the radio frequencies for the agent and Arthur’s comms. They’d assumed the beasties had needed Morgan to open the hole that had ripped open in the London Eye, and with good reason. But she’d been under lock and key at Elin’s apartment the whole time this rift would have been opening –

Elin filed the thought into a subfolder for later consideration. She’d just caught a sliver of MI5 chatter.

“Rook. Arthur.”

It was a moment before the agent’s voice crackled back. “Motherboard. This is meant to be a secure channel.”

Everything in Elin’s database said that the emotion the agent was barely suppressing was relief. If the Motherboard had a face, Elin would’ve put a smile on it. “Then maybe you should give me access so I don’t have to keep breaking in. What’s your six?”

“Please stop trying to use military jargon,” the agent said, sounding still just a little too relieved to really be as annoyed as she was pretending to be. “You’re terrible at it. Arthur’s on the monster, he could use air support. I’m clearing these idiots -” Her voice dissolved into a muffled argument, before cutting off entirely.

Elin didn’t wait. She swooped low over the creature, at an angle she knew would make the Motherboard’s silver casing flash in the sun, scanning the many eyes below her to see if any of them fixed on her. At the last moment, when it looked like she was going to smash straight into a rising claw, Elin kicked in the Motherboard’s thrusters and shot straight upwards, spiraling between two reaching tentacles so that they wound around each other. One sharp shove, and they toppled over, smashing into the wall of screens that wrapped around one of the buildings encircling the plaza. In what looked like slow motion, every single light in the screen burst, with a cascading shower of sparks and a sound like fireworks.

The tentacles that had caused the damage had already vanished, disappearing into insubstantial soap-bubble shimmers and popping on impact. But, even as Elin watched the carnage of an exploding Coke ad, in the corner of her visual field, another tentacle began to reform. One moment, it was nothing but a patch of empty air delineated by the way the falling sparks bounced off and around it. The next, it was a horribly fleshy appendage covered in downright obscene-looking suckers, as thick around as Elin was tall and moving way too fast for anything that bulky.

And it was shooting, at top speed, straight for the double-decker bus. And – Elin zoomed in to confirm what she realised she already knew – and the little knot of people who were still trapped behind it. Including the agent.

Elin dove down through the air towards the tentacle, checking the charge on her laser cannon. She’d only get one shot at it before it reached its target –

Something slammed into her back, knocking her somersaulting through the air. Sensors screamed, her internal gyroscope frantically recalibrating and recalibrating, until she smacked, hard, into the side of a building.

Diagnostics flashed past – right foot thrusters operating at 67% capacity, outer shell not yet breached but integrity compromised, battery drain increased significantly. Oh, and she was upside down and halfway through a stone wall. Another hit or two like that one would put her out, easy, before she even had a chance to shoot.

She’d have to pay more attention to all of the creature’s limbs. Its…apparently endless assortment of limbs. That seemed, in defiance of all known laws of physics, to be able to appear from and disappear into thin air.

“Cake,” Elin muttered to herself, wrenching one leg free from the masonry the monster’s blow had half-embedded her in. “Total cakewalk.” She had to engage thrusters briefly to get the other leg free, and, for two ominous seconds, went shooting at top speed towards the pavement below. Headfirst. “Absolute piece of -” Elin executed a neat midair flip, and caught herself with her feet hovering barely an inch above the asphalt. “- cake.”

“Hungry, Motherboard?” Arthur’s warm, genial voice echoed over the commlink. If the Motherboard had had eyes, Elin would’ve rolled them.

“Only for victory, your royal highness.” She scanned the plaza, shaking out her right foot until the thrusters clicked up to 98% capacity. Still not perfect, but at least she wouldn’t be flying in circles. A glance told her that the double-decker bus had vanished, but Arthur and his gleaming sword had joined the people who’d been hiding behind it. Clearly he’d gotten to the limb Elin had been too busy getting her ass kicked to take care of. “Or – wait, I don’t remember. Is that the one you’re only supposed to call princesses?”

“I’ll let you both eat cake once we’ve closed this portal,” the agent’s voice cut in, sharply. “Need I remind you I’ve still got three civilians, and now no cover.”

“Gotcha,” Elin said, leaping back into the air. She ducked under an enormous scorpion stinger and wove around a whiplike limb with a ball of spikes on one end, spotting the bright red of the double-decker bus clutched in a tentacle high overhead. “Be as annoying as possible.”

“Motherboard -” the agent started, sounding exasperated, but Elin muted the comm. She wasn’t interested in a lecture. She had a distraction to provide.

And the Motherboard, flashy and dramatic as she was, provided such good distractions.

#chatter #mary writes #le morte d'artificial intelligence

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deepspacedukat · 2 years ago

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Okay! 😄Thanks for being patient with me and here is part two😋

The scorching desert air started to cool off as the sun went down over the horizon, though that’s not saying much considering that its Vulcan. The reader grumbled to herself mildly regretting her empty canteen as she goes trudging along, it was still hot, unbearably dry, and sand filled her shoes plus now she knew hanging around civilization wasn’t an option not after the incident with what she could only assume was the equivalent to a police officer or maybe it was a city border patrol? That fact wasn’t entirely clear however the point was she had been chased leaving the city limits and it didn’t help that there were armed patrols on the lookout for the escaped gladiator.

The reader stopped briefly to throw a look over their shoulder, ever since she left the city limits, she felt that she was being followed though that could also be paranoia kicking in as they had never been one to get into trouble with the law.

The darker it got the more apparent the fact that Vulcan had no moon was. That and with the size of some of Vulcan’s nocturnal predators it would be good to find shelter for the night. Scanning the rocky sand dunes was proving to be a definite challenge in the dark and to make matters worse a really nasty wind had started to pick up blowing sand up into her eyes. Suddenly a bolt of lightning struck the sand close behind her, dangerously close, the reader looked back and saw a massive sea of roaring clouds flickering with electricity behind coming her way. So, the reader takes off into a run frantically looking for a cave, heck she’d take a rock overhang at this point. The storm caught up to her in a matter of seconds and the wind contained a searing heat to it, pushing on her threatening to make her fall as she was dodging stray lightning left and right. Stumbling she fell to her hands and knees, sand pelting her, feeling like shards of glass at this speed when a hand grabbed her on the shoulder and a masculine voice shouted over the wind speaking in old Vulcan

“Sandfire storm! Come, quickly!”

Losing patience or maybe having none to begin-with he snapped grabbing her by the upper arm and yanking her to her feet rushing them both to a crevasse in the rock. The opening was a tight squeeze but led into a decent sized cave, one that would’ve been nearly impossible to spot even in the daylight at least for someone who didn’t know what to look for.

Once in the cave the Vulcan released her arm and whipped around, rushing to the entrance to stack up rocks to barricade the entrance while the reader stands there coughing up sand from the storm trying to catch her breath something the thinner Vulcan air doesn’t aid. A bolt of lightning strikes at the rock wall near the entrance, so she scrambled over to help the man stack rocks and barricade the cave opening.

Now with the entrance blocked off the cave is pitch black; the reader gives up looking around trying to see anything it’s impossible. A few moments pass with the only sound being the turbulent winds of the violent storm raging just outside, then deeper into the cave the ting of two flint like rocks being stricken together caught her attention, though all she could see turning her head towards the sound and squinting into the darkness was the faint glittering of sparks. Suddenly the sparks ignited a now visible crisscrossed stack of kindling and in the dim light of the fire she could make out the figure of the Vulcan man who helped her, it was the gladiator she freed though she guessed she shouldn’t have been too surprised at that fact.

Looking him over she almost huffed in discontent after noticing the bandages were soiled, dirt and sand mixed with the green blood stains bleeding through the wrappings. It figures though with the guy traveling through the desert and doubtlessly the reason she felt like as though she was being observed, not to mention the strain of him moving boulders to shelter them from the storm even with her help there was no question about him sooner or later aggravating the injuries. Her attention moved up from his injuries to meet his eyes.

The fire reflected in his amber eyes making it seem as if they were glowing, his stare cut through the dark of the cave with an intensity that felt predatory, scrutinizing her every move and never had there been a time in the readers life when she felt so much like a mouse frozen in place under a lion’s gaze.

Noticing how tense she was getting the gladiator’s expression seemed to momentarily soften and he tilted his head in a nodding motion inviting her to sit down by the fire with him. Making no sudden movement she sat across from him with the fire putting distance between them. She didn’t know if it was the same for him but the crackle of the fire and the sounds of the storm outside only did so much to quell the deafening silence in the cave not doing much to ease the tension she felt right then. Finally having enough, she racked her brain for something to start a conversation with then had to remember how to say it in Vulcan, eventually she spoke up.

“Thank you for getting me out of the storm back there. You saved me.” She smiled at the Vulcan gladiator but other than a brief glance from him, was met with silence. “I guess since we are somewhat aquatinted, introductions are in order.” She tried to start a conversation again but was met with more silence. “Hello, my name is (y/n). Nice to meet you.” Putting on the friendliest smile she could muster without it looking awkward and fake she had to stop herself from offering a hand to shake which the motion definitely caught his attention, a mixture of confusion and caution on his face. Quickly wanting to right her mistake she clumsily put up the live long and prosper hand signal in greeting.

“Avarak” He sighed sounding worn, almost grumbling when seeing her beam at him.

“Well Avarak-” He closed his eyes looking as if he already regretting sharing his name, regardless the reader continued in the same upbeat tone “Once again thank you for getting me to shelter from the storm. I don’t know where I am going but maybe we could figure that out together?” She asked him hopefully to which he reopened his eyes and paused thinking over his next choice of words carefully.

“I had a destination in mind and would have liked to be much further along by now.” Avarak was being as contemptuous as he was vague not wanting to give away any information.

“Well then you could’ve easily continued on if I was gonna slow you down.” She retorted mirroring his attitude.

“You would not have survived out there.” Avarak stated icily, words deathly serious, then rolled his eyes with his tone turning irritable “That was obvious.” He held herstare and without breaking it, took the time to toss another piece of timber into the fire. His gaze was forceful and unyielding like he was challenging her to disagree.

“Well, you know what? If it where the other way around, you wouldn’t survive out in the wilds where I come from.” The reader crossed her arms smugly until she realized just what she had said when Avarak watched her intently, tilting his head in interest.

“And where might that be…y/n?” he paused to test the foreign name on his tongue.

“Nevermind.” There was finality to her tone and with that the silence returned, neither in much of a mood to talk, with the reader worried she’d accidently say too much and Avarak not having the interest at the moment, taking the time to mull over the day.

The past day had taken a toll on them both and as the fire started dying out the reader with a yawn moved to the wall opposite to Avarak to lay down. Closing her eyes to try to get some rest she thought back to all she had heard about Vulcans and remembered learning that they felt emotions much more to the extreme, that’s why modern Vulcans turned to logic. She remembered a Vulcan ambassador by the name of Soval who had mentioned it took Vulcan society a few thousand years to rebuild after nearly destroying itself almost to the brink of extinction many times before Surak’s teachings of logic. Early Vulcans where emotional, impulsive, and paranoid like Romulans but with a lot less of the rules and restrictions that helped stabilize the Romulan descendant’s society. Her mind drifted back to Avarak he seemed so guarded and stand offish on the surface, but she’d also seen other sides to the Vulcan. He was curious but she had seen a hesitance to it like it would open him up to getting hurt,furthermore whether he had followed her and watched over her in the desert just to repay some sort of a debt or was secretly a kind soul, Avarak had braved the sandfire storm just to save her…that train of thought put the reader more at ease, her thoughts fading off as she drifted off to sleep.

Off on the opposite side of the cave the scarred gladiator kept watch as he struggled with an inner turmoil. Avarak came from a nomadic family who traveled the desert in quickly assembled tents with other nomadic family’s, they were all considered a clan, looking out for each other. But his family had been killed in a raid, a battalion put together by the very city state who enslaved him, under the cover of night all he ever had was ripped from his hands. After that Avarak hadn’t let anyone see anything else but this stone hard shell masked in fury nor did he ever utter a single word to anyone. A fact that often angered the guards, colosseum spectators, and even nobles that might have offered to sponsor him. The man nearly scoffed out loud at that thought, he didn’t want their money all he had ever wanted was gone now. Turning his thoughts back to the strange women who had set him free, he bristled as a wave of anxiety nearly overtook him. Who was this woman? This stranger seemed to be able to almost bring his walls crashing down, there was a warmth to her that made him feel safe but in a way unknown to him. Maybe the question should be what was she? He didn’t know but what he did know was not only did she not look or sound Vulcan, but he had known her for less than a day, letting his guard down around anyone much less a stranger was dangerous, a fact he had learned the hard way. Eventually he calmed but didn’t let himself relax enough for the possibility of drifting off into a light sleep until he heard that her breathing had evened out.

OOOOOH two parts in one night??? Azora, you're spoiling us!!!!

Part 2 of the Pre-Surak Vulcan Gladiator story!!! I love it!! 💙💙💙

#azorastarr #Avarak the Vulcan Gladiator #I love him your honor #he's a good confused boy

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ducktu · 4 months ago

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I love how I think this 100% would happened. I imagine this:

Bruce did foster Dick but he still didn't adopted him and maybe because of Teen Angst™ Dick still went away trying to find himself by exploring the word (New York lol) maybe knowing Bruce gave him money to survive maybe not to think that he was so independent and didn't need Bruce idk.

And then they kinda talk often on the phone and kinda reach a civil understanding and there's the hope of Dick coming back but then there's a newspaper article or a special on TV and that's how Dick learns that Bruce took in another orphan months ago and adopted him.

And Dick is just so mad, because he and Bruce have been talking to each other. Maybe not weakly or hell, monthly, but he should've said something! So Dick, mad as hell, comes back to Gotham to yell at Bruce and maybe see if the new kid is so much better than him that he did get adopted (Because deep down all he wanted was to know that Bruce didn't see him like a burden, that he loved him enough to adopt him and avoid to any means his sudden trip and just keep him in his home).

Cue a shouting match that made the mannor shake, brought tears to both of them (Wich neither recognize), and a lil' Jason hiding with Alfred on the other side of the mannor because he still gets all stiff when he hears a sound too loud. So, great first meeting with his new big brother right?

Jason just wanted to bond with Dick, he knew he was away because of a fight with Bruce (I'mma make Bruce a good adult here and let him explain in good detail everything that happened between them, because there's no Robin, so his first kid running away at the first chance he's got is just not a good look on him to his new very very abused son who still barricades his door at night) and just wanted to confide in someone his doubts and fears of Bruce and Alfred and who better than the child before him? And now he just learn Bruce didn't even told Dick about him! But he kinda understands why Bruce didn't, he's just not gonna talk about it, he's still afraid of antagonize Bruce too much.

Dick then just says everything he never said but in all they wrong and horrible possible ways and just leaves again, not evening looking at Jason while passing by.

All that emotional turmoil gets him to Blüdhaven and that's when he becomes a cop. Bruce still doesn't trust the police because they never found his parents killer, so Dick does it as a kinda fuck you dad too.

Months, many months later, Dick offers an olive branch (because no matter how good are Bruce's intentions he's still emotional constipated) and gets back at the manor for a few days to try to talk, because no matter what, he misses his dad just too much, and after thinking everything with a clearer head, maybe having a little brother it's not the worst thing in the world.

Surprisingly, everything goes kinda well, he had learnt Jason can't handle loud noises so didn't start his visit yelling at Bruce, just glare at him when he asked a little to much about his life. And he tries to make an effort to get to know Jason (tries being the key word because this man has never had the need to talk to a kid).

And then everything goes wrong.

It's a nice Thursday, breakfast went well, Jason finished early because he was late to school and he was so happy to go for once because Dick had promised to go pick him up at the end of the day to go for ice cream! Maybe there was a chance of them being pseudo brothers!

But as Bruce was preparing to go to WE he made a comment about Dick being a cop that just came wrong, so wrong that they started to fight again, and it was so big it ended in Dick storming off in his car to just get far from Bruce.

And while being brooding, both Dick and Bruce kinda forgot about Jason. (Alfred had hope on Dick ok? He thought he couldn't be that mad that he would stood Jason right?).

Jason wait for Dick for hours outside his school, his big brother is a bussy adult, he will come for him at any moment, he just had to wait a little more, right?

And then because he's the son of a billionaire of course there's always someone trying to make easy money, cue the kidnapping.

Now, was it just a quick, let's put you in a van and called your dad or is it a let's keep the kid a few days to make sure Bruce pays a lot of money?

Either way, it scares Jason to much, that when help finally came, he had lost all the hope on his big brother coming to get him.

And Bruce is so mad, at him for putting a child, his child, in danger just for being his, for being mad at Dick because he promised to be there for Jason and what if he just hadn't said anything in the morning? Would Dick still had stood up Jason anyway? And just that thought of not trusting him justs makes him more mad at himself.

Dick did calm down that night and when he came back to the mannor to try again he learned what happened to Jason, and oh god, that was his fault, he forgot his brother and now he's in danger because of him.

And when Jason finally came home (he's just shaken up, nothing extreme because my heart can't handle that) can't look at Dick, he just doesn't acknowledge him and goes straight to his room, just Alfred can come to see him the first few days (Alfred stills feels guilty because that's his grandson who got in the middle of a fight between his son and his other grandson and maybe he should've just go anyway to his school, at least should've called him, but he didn't and everything is wrong-). Bruce is allowed later but never Dick. So, defeated and with his days off raned out he just goes back to Blüdhaven again.

But he can't with the guilt, and he doesn't know what to do with it, so he works harder and harder every day, he calls Bruce constantly to ask about Jason, he comes back every weekend to try to mend their relationship but it takes time, so much time and too much effort, but he can't, won't quit, he already failed Jason once, he can't afford a second time, so he keeps going no matter how Jason hides in his room as soon as he hears Dick's car arriving. He stays outside his door all the time, not even trying to enter the room, just being there to make Jason know that he's there and will be there.

One day, half sick of hiding in his room, half high hopes, Jason opens the door and gives Dick a chance to explain himself, but not there, not in his room, not the mannor, so Dick finally takes him for his ice cream.

And first is just so awkward, there's a lot both want to say to each other, but being Bruce's kids, can't make the words, so they sit and stare at each other, Jason daring Dick to give up and walk away again and Dick not doing it because he needs Jason to know he will never do it again.

They make up in that afternoon? Absolutely not, not even close, but it's a start, even if it's a pitiful one.

But Dick tries again the next weekend, and the next, and the next, never backing out, never missing a day, maybe they talk about the kidnapping, or about Bruce and life at the mannor, and it's all awkward because they never had the chance to being brothers before everything went down, but they try.

And it takes so, so long but the day they finally share a laugh together, they know everything is going to be alright, it's not going to be great or quick and they will definitely fight along the way, but they will try again because now they now they're brothers, and always will be there for each other.

moody pinterest with dick and jay number 3 - i’ve been circling a civilian au around in my head - taking place around the idea of jason going missing(presumably kidnapped) after dick forgot to pick him up from school or smth while visiting the family. idk!! it’s kind of inspired by the arkham storyline - because i don’t wanna make it supernatural—-or maybe i do!!!ah!!! anyway this is my favourite art piece recently

#dick grayson #jason todd #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #batman #dc #fanfic #batman and robin #robin #au: no capes #trauma bonding #ice cream bonding #family bonding #brotherly bonding #dc comics #they're trying their best #they just don't know how

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dsandrvk · 8 months ago

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Friday, March 22 - Seville to Cordoba

We packed up and left Seville in the morning, winding our way through the old town until we were able to find a few larger streets in the newer section that led us to the train station. Although the official processions in Seville weren't starting until tomorrow, we did come across a children's procession, complete with "police" leading the way through the crowds.

Our train ride was short but crowded, as today starts the getaway for Holy Week, and everyone seemed to be moving on. Cordoba, however, is not as crazy as Seville, perhaps because the procession tradition isn't quite as strong here. Not that they aren't celebrating - there were a lot of red barricades waiting to be set up, and viewing stands in many places, but this is a shadow of the celebration in Seville. We won't be here for Holy Week as we will be in smaller places until the Easter weekend, when we will be in Granada.

Our small hotel is centrally located and we were able to check in before 2PM, which gave us plenty of time to wander around. We have tickets for the Mezquita tomorrow (the Visigoth church turned mosque turned Catholic church), so we decided to go to the Alcazar here today. Unlike Seville, there was no problem getting tickets at the site itself - in fact after determining we were foreigners over age 65, they gave us tickets for free. The palace itself is not terribly large, but the reception hall here was filled with Roman tile works found in the area. There was quite a Roman influence here long before the Moors came, and columns and capitals from the earlier times were widely reused in all buildings.

The Alcazar is titled the Palace of the Christian Kings, but it, too, had Arabic roots. The extensive gardens reflect a lot of Islamic design, and are still quite lovely. We opted not to climb to the highest tower, since it was so crowded, but did go into the tower bases, which were in the Gothic style inside. Like all good palaces, this place is a true fortress, and easily defensible.

Afterwards we wandered over to the Roman bridge, which is pedestrian only and quite impressive. Downstream there were originally four molinas, or mills, and although none are active, two are still in reasonably good condition. The one on the old town side still had a large wooden waterwheel. While looking closely at it, we saw three Siamese cats stretched out on the vanes, enjoying the view and the late afternoon warmth. We crossed the bridge and eventually made our way back across the river on another bridge, and worked our way back to our hotel as the sun was setting. We passed some lovely ornate casas, as well as a Roman Temple, which is currently undergoing some renovation.

Tomorrow we have tickets for the Mezquita in the morning. We wandered around the gardens there this afternoon and look forward to exploring the interior, which is a maze of columns and red and beige colored arches. We also want to stop by Tourist Information and get next day bus tickets out to an archaeological site west of town for Sunday. Cordoba seems to have lots of small winding streets that we also hope to explore.

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nataliesnews · 2 years ago

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Jerusalem day 18.5.2023

A piece of history before I say what I think of today. · On October 4, 1936, about 3,000 fascists who were members of the British Union of Fascists marched through the neighborhoods of East London, an area where many Jews lived. Days before this, an organization of Jews from the city signed a petition against the parade by about 100,000 residents. This did not convince the police who sent about 6,000 policemen to secure the march and above all to open for it the road that was blocked by the residents of the neighborhoods. Only the Jewish residents were not there alone. They were joined by over 100,000 communists, anarchists, Irish workers and trade unionists. Residents threw everything they could from the windows, they set up barricades and blocked the streets with their bodies. The fascist parade did not pass. Tomorrow the Jewish rioters are going to march in East Jerusalem. As in East London, the police are going to send thousands of officers to secure them and clear the way for them. Don't let it pass you by just like that. It's not free speech and it's not shoes, it's a fascist hate march just like Mosley's march in London. Resist.

And Daphne Banai wrote on facebook an answer to those who only march for ourselves, to stop laws which will affect us but want to hear nothing of the occupation and object to those of us who come to the demonstrations for both reasons:

"So before you demand democracy for yourselves, why don't you come, Kaplan protesters, blockers of Ayalon with your blue and white flags and stand, 100,000 people and no one in the way of the Jewish neo-Nazis and you will not allow, in your body you will not allow this abomination. I will come with you."

|So that is what happened years ago. You can read here about the UN united city of Jerusalem including videos of attacks on Arabs while a soldier looks on and more attacks by soldiers on Arabs.

This is one day on which my city is not my city. The city on this day revolts me. We demonstrated in a square. The only good thing that I can say about the police was that they did not allow the young hooligans of La Familia and Lehave into the area to attack us. Who knows if the time will not come when they will allow them to do so as they do when they attack Palestinians. Maybe the families we saw only see this as a really joyous day and do not realise what we are doing to the inhabitants of the Old City. I have had some conversations which make me realise how little people are aware.

For those who do not know what these organizations are....Wikipedia ias my source

La familia is nationalistic soccer group in Jerusalem which is notorious for chants insulting Arab players, and for displaying the flag of the banned Kach party.[4] Chants with lines including "death to the Arabs"[6] and "Muhammad is a homosexual"[10] are common.

Lehava which is is a far-right and Jewish supremacist[1] organization based in Israel that strictly opposes Jewish assimilation, objecting to most personal relationships between Jews and non-Jews.[2][3][4] It is opposed to the Christian presence in Israel.[5] It has an anti-miscegenation focus, denouncing marriages between Jews and non-Jews forbidden by Orthodox Jewish law.[6

We were warned early on not to wear shirts with slogans on them either anti-government or anything against the occupation and to try to walk in groups....especially not to leave the area of protest on our own. In the end, when we left the police escorted us part of the way. We did not march and I was told that it would be too dangerous for us. When I read what is written below I realised how sensible the organisers were

Haaretz reporter Deiaa Haj Yahia was struck in the head by a stone thrown by participants in the procession near the Damascus Gate. The marchers also unleashed barrages of stones and bottles ata group of foreign journalists, including Arab journalists. The attack left several journalists and photographers injured, with one sustaining a head injury, another struck in the back, and a third injured in the leg, leading them to vacate their positions for safety. . On-site medical treatment was administered to the injured journalists and photographers. The incidents took place in extensively documented areas" In other words the police can easily catch the attackers. WHICH THEY WON'T. I myself and friends were once attacked by a settler and the case was dismissed because of lack of interest to the public

Still, the contentious event ends without major incident as thousands of religious nationalists participate; some attack Palestinians and reporters, sing 'May your village burn' or "Muhammed is a pig."

https://www.timesofisrael.com/at-jerusalem-flag-march-chants-of-death-to-arabs-and-assaults-on-palestinians/

I wonder if the man who you can see being beaten up while a soldier does nothing and, I believe, landed up in hospital feels that it was not a major incident. He was beaten up and then lay on the ground while the marchers ignored him.

Such as the story of women who have more than once not been allowed on to buses because the driver decided that they are immodestly dressed. More and more of these guards....and I don't want to sound like a snob but I doubt that they have had much education.....are now acting as if they are part of the modesty patrol which is in Mea Shearim and Iran.

To end off here is another story about a pharmacy which is covering up the faces of women on the products

Pharmacy chain facing boycott threat after covering up pictures of women on products

Shufersal Be says move to put stickers on female faces at Bnei Brak branch meant to cater to ultra-Orthodox; activists post warning signs outside stores, turn stickers into a meme

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pharmacy-chain-facing-boycott-threat-after-covering-up-pictures-of-women-on-products/

and how women reacted complaining that the company is helping to hide the fact that women are a part of society

A-women

#Jerusalem day 18.5.2023

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tiesthatbind-tf · 4 years ago

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The movement is a rhythm to us Freedom is like religion to us Justice is juxtapositionin' us Justice for all just ain't specific enough

I swear to god this man’s sheet took up way more effort than initially planned but holy shit is he ever worth it all. IDW did you dirty, Jazz, but I sure as hell am not going to. So you know what you’re going to get buddy? A full background, connections, a QPP who sees you as their sun and a lead role as a Matrix holder and rebellion leader in the Functionist Universe arc because we go big or go home here, and no one deserves it more. Full story below the cut!

Jace was born out of wedlock in New York to a single-parent household and worked at the Red Hook docks in Brooklyn as teenager; He lived in a district redlined for Class 5 (manual workers) which he was immediately assigned to and never managed to finish his formal schooling as his mother, who was a factory worker, was maimed while at work and was unable to keep supporting the family as the breadwinner, so he stepped up early at the age of fourteen.

He is cousin to Shamar Wesley (affectionately named ‘Streetwise’) who is five years younger than him and was adopted by his mother when Shamar’s own parents passed away in a workers’ bus crash. Despite his education being cut short for sake of supporting his family, Shamar ended up helping Jace keep up by teaching him what had been learnt at school when he came home from his shift.

His mother, Nichelle, had a love for singing and from her is where his love for music (and his gift for it, as he claims) came from, and her death when he was 17 due to a chronic illness which they had no coverage for and he couldn’t earn nearly enough to mitigate, hit him hard.

To make things worse, Shamar was taken away from him because he wasn’t legally considered an adult yet, and even if he could argue in court for guardianship, he had a home life considered to be financially unstable.

With no choice but to surrender Shamar to the adoption system, Jace promised him that they would be together again once he was considered stable enough to provide a good home. In the meantime however, he found himself becoming more and more involved with unions as it became increasingly clear to him that people in his work class were being locked into a generational cycle of poverty that had to be broken.

With his innate charisma and alluring voice, he made connections and friends and became a visible youth figurehead of the union movement demanding for minimum wage and compensation for workplace injuries like the one which disabled his mother.

His activities didn’t go unnoticed however, and during a peaceful protest which was violently broken up by police, he was arrested on charges of inciting a riot and persuaded to give up his colleagues in return for a lower sentence and being given custody of Shamar.

However, a cop with a crippling guilty conscience, Barrin Caidel (Barricade) stopped him from commiserating over the deal and revealed that the intention from higher up had always been to punish him and his colleagues as an example, and that he was slated to be sentenced to Empurata like his older friends—-the only reason the procedure for him had been delayed was because of the red tape concerning his relative youth, and it had been cleared the same evening the offer had been made to him.

Urging for Jace to run, Barrin offered him enough money to take him across the Atlantic via a migrant smuggling operation at the docks to the UK where extradition would be a tedious process even if they could track him down, and Jace, torn between the horror of what was going to be done to him and the guilt of leaving behind Shamar, made a call to his cousin to explain the situation. Shamar wasted no time in echoing Barrin’s advice, asserting that this wasn’t goodbye and that they were going to see each other again.

Landing on UK shores a week later, Jace took on the pseudonym of ‘Jaden Tanner’ to hide his tracks and blend in with the working population. He found employment at the docks near Wapping and spent the next few years keeping an eye over his shoulder for every shadow and every face that seemed to linger on him longer than usual.

As his fear of being caught by US agents faded however, he began to properly integrate himself into the dock-working community and began pursuing music as a side career, joining a group of buskers on the streets after hours to earn a little extra income.

His gift caught the attention of the owner of Maccadam’s New Tavern in London’s Newham borough who offered to give him a bigger platform to perform for a night, which he enthusiastically agreed too.

On the night of his debut however, the career musicians on call staged a walkout after discovering that a manual worker would be joining their ranks as a vocalist, and for a moment it seemed as though his dream to make a real career out of music was in danger of being killed before it even began, until several patrons who were witness to the argument between Maccadam’s owner and the musicians offered their services to help him put on a show. It was here that he was first introduced to Omar Parvez (Optimus, who offered to take the piano), Omar’s close friend Morgan Trayton (Megatron, who offered to work the violin), Ramiro Vasquez (Ravage, who volunteered for the guitar) and Lara Soelberg (who made a beeline for the drums).

With the help of these four strangers, he managed to put on a show that earned him a weekend gig at Maccadam’s.

He continued to see Omar and Morgan sporadically on those weekends and became casually acquainted with them, until Morgan stopped coming entirely and the next time he saw Omar, it was when the man has been demoted from Constable to lost, confused and dejected dock worker for speaking up against systemic corruption.

Determined to repay Omar’s goodwill, he took the man under his wing and taught him how to work on and with the ships that docked in the area and during that time, became close enough friends with him that they ended up housemates in a shared apartment, and he ended up telling Omar his real name and the truth about his past.

When Omar was called on by Senator Sharifuddin Waseem (Shockwave) to investigate Senate corruption, he offered his services as well to connect to people on the ground and run infiltration exercises, having caught the glimpse of true revolution on the horizon and no longer willing to keep his head low and stay in hiding as the momentum grew stronger.

Once upon a time he’d been a teenager who fled a continent out of fear of how the government planned to break his body and spirit for lighting the the smallest of sparks on the bonfire of reform.

This time, the spark was a torch, and he wasn’t going to stand down until the old system was baptized in its flames.

#Maccadam #Humanformers #Jazz #Prowl #Orion Pax #Character Art #Art

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novoaa1writes · 4 years ago

Text

candles

image source

pairing(s): dark!wanda maximoff x reader

summary:

you’ve been feeling strange for the past month, particularly when it comes to dating.

you do your best to ignore it, thinking it’ll resolve itself on its own—given time, that is.

it doesn’t.

(and it’s got everything to do with wanda.)

[also available on ao3]

word count: ~5,300

rating: mature

warnings: dark!wanda, NON-CON spanking (with a belt), NON-CON BDSM play, mental manipulation, partial mind control, emotional manipulation, mental coercion, trauma bonding, toxic dynamics, drinking, possessive!wanda, non-con mind-reading, vandalism, adultery (not in reference to you or wanda), brief instances of slut-shaming

notes: [requested by anon] reader’s sexuality isn’t explicitly stated, but ex-partners of different genders are referenced/mentioned

— —

wanda uses a couple bulgarian terms of endearment for reader here, so below is a lil’ list in the order of which they appear.

*note: all of these are exactly one letter away from being precise matches to synonymous terms in russian. HOWEVER, the bulgarian alphabet and the russian alphabet are different—granted, in fairly minor ways. for one, while both are comprised of cyrillic lettering, russian has 33 while bulgarian only has 30.

— —

You have no fucking clue what’d gotten into you.

One moment, things were fine—good, even. And the next… well.

You’ll explain.

It was something like 11:30 on a Saturday night, and you were drunk.

Well, not drunk. More like buzzed.

But whatever, right? Considering the week you’d had, you deserved to let loose, even if only for a night.

Monday night saw a very angry and decidedly unhinged soccer mom banging on your door, screeching vehemently about the ‘two-faced slut’ who ruined her marriage and demanding to be let in so that she could ‘make her sorry.’ Turns out, the older guy your roommate had been sleeping with as of late was married—not that he’d bothered to share that particular bit of information with her, obviously.

The two of you spent the better part of the evening barricaded inside, passing a bottle of cheap wine back and forth while trying to explain to the 911 operator that you weren’t messing around, that there really was an angry soccer mom on your doorstep and you were actively fearing for your safety.

She eventually left around 10:00pm—no thanks to the police, since the 911 operator hadn’t even bothered to give them a call. It wasn’t until the next morning when you left for work that you saw the woman’s parting gift to the pair of you: the word ‘HOMEWRECKER’ spray-painted across the front door in obnoxious red lettering.

Bye-bye, security deposit.

That same night, you made your roommate promise to start dating people in a similar age range—because really, the both of you were stressed enough as it was without worrying about coming in between yet another middle-aged couple’s dying marriage.

The rest of the week wasn’t much better.

On Thursday, your balding creep of a boss had made yet another blatant pass at you in the workplace, making you seriously consider (and not for the first time) the prospect of just quitting and being done with it.

Then, at shit o’clock on a Friday morning, you awoke to an urgent phone call informing you that an ex of yours (one you were actually on semi-decent terms with) had gotten into a fairly serious car accident, and still had you marked down as her emergency contact.

30 minutes later found you showing up at the hospital just moments after your ex’s current girlfriend had arrived, which then prompted the whole ‘you still being your ex’s emergency contact’ revelation when the current girlfriend demanded to know what you were doing there, which ended up being… well, you’ll just say it wasn’t pretty, and leave it at that.

And your ex was going to be completely fine, anyways. She just had some minor cuts and abrasions, and would need to undergo a fairly minor (read: minimally invasive) surgery over the next couple days.

Before leaving, you instigated a quick check-in with the doctors to ensure they had everything they needed—which then turned into you providing a list of allergies, as your ex wouldn’t likely be conscious for another couple of hours, and apparently the current girlfriend didn’t know of her sensitivities to penicillin and phenobarbital… which the current girlfriend was less than happy about, if the daggers she glared at you were any indication.

Whatever. You were just trying to help.

You thanked the doctors, told them to feel free to call you if anything went awry, then asked if they might tell your ex to call you when she awoke. You thought about offering some words of comfort to the current girlfriend as she sat vigil at your ex’s bedside, but the murderous glower she shot you the moment you got within ten feet of her was more than enough to make you think better of it.

With that, you left.

So… yeah. It’d been a shitty week.

And now, here you were: a girls’ night out at the lively nightclub you and your roommate had scoped out just last weekend, tossing back $12 cocktails and letting the trashy EDM beat blaring over the speakers drown out the rest of your thoughts.

You’d been feeling a little weird all week—all month, really.

As far as you were concerned, this was exactly what the doctor had ordered.

So, when a cute guy wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt that was at least a couple sizes too big yet did well to compliment his well-muscled torso came up to you and started chatting you up at the bar, you didn’t blow him off.

The exact opposite, in fact.

He was nice, and funny, and had a gorgeous smile that made your chest feel warm for reasons that had nothing to do with the alcohol. When he flirted with you, you flirted right back.

You felt a little guilty for doing so, though you couldn’t exactly put a finger on why that was. Either way, you didn’t allow yourself to dwell on it for very long.

After all, you’d been feeling hints of that for the past month, if not longer. It seemed to happen whenever you flirted with a cute guy, or went out on another Tinder date with a pretty girl, or even hugged one of your close friends.

You’d get this painful tightening sensation in your gut, nausea roiling in your abdomen… a distant, lofty voice in your head telling you that this was wrong, that you already belonged to someone else.

Which was pointless, really. Stupid.

You were single.

Your last serious relationship (barring the one with your now-hospitalized ex-girlfriend) had been over seven months ago with an eccentric guy named Lukas. He was kind, well-meaning… a bit of a dork at his very core, but you always found that more endearing than anything else. You’d dated him for four and a half months before deciding to break it off; because as much as you cared for him and enjoyed being around him, you didn’t love him, and you knew by then that you never would.

You thought about him, from time to time—even missed him now and again.

And yet, the strangest thing about the shameful feeling you’d get whenever your roommate so much as brushed a friendly kiss up against your cheek—it had absolutely nothing to do with Lukas.

You didn’t know how you knew that, but you did.

Whatever.

This guy was not Lukas.

His name was Des—short for Desmond, you learned over your fourth sugary-sweet cocktail of the night. He was charming and slightly foul-mouthed, but conscientious and passably polite where it mattered. He didn’t grope your ass or stare at your tits, nor did he make any lewd commentary about your body in any capacity.

He also smelled… really good, like Old Spice and spearmint gum and the barest hint of cigarette smoke.

That was more than enough for you.

(Whatever, alright? Decent guys were in short supply these days.)

You smiled and let him buy you another drink, even after you’d insisted that he really, really didn’t have to. And when an obnoxious pop song with a beat that was far more catchy than you’d have liked to admit came over the speakers, you let him coax you out to the dance floor with minimal resistance.

It was… fun. You liked the way his hands rested on either of your hips—gentle, almost careful; holding you like he understood he didn’t have a right to your body, like he was more than content that you allowed him this to even think of demanding any more.

Despite the twinges of guilt flaring in your gut, you let yourself get a little more comfortable… dancing closer and closer to him amidst a packed crowd of writhing bodies, letting your breasts graze up against his chest.

It was teasing—provocative, even. A test, of sorts—one that Des passed with flying colors.

He didn’t do a thing to rush you, just kept dancing across from you with his hands on your hips and his darkened gaze on yours—seeming fully content to let you set the pace for the moment. And God, but the way he was looking at you… patient but eager, like he wanted nothing more than to crush your body against his own and grind himself into you like an animal—and yet, still, he held himself back.

You couldn’t help but find that attractive as hell.

Looping your arms around his neck, you let your body to press flush against his as you swayed to the beat of the song, not shying away from the slight stiffness you could feel growing against your hip.

That guilty, nauseous feeling in your gut pulled tighter.

You ignored it, and, when he leaned a little closer to shout over the deafening music, “Would it be alright if I kissed you?”... well.

You wasted absolutely no time in lunging up on the tips of your toes to capture his lips in a messy open-mouthed kiss, the strobe lights of the club fading into obscurity around you. His lips were warm and gentle against yours—tentative, at first, until you pressed a little harder and traced the seam of his lips with your tongue… and, yeah; that did the trick.

A moment later, his lips parted to let out a quiet groan directly into your mouth as he began to reciprocate in earnest, setting every nerve ending on your body alight with electrifying want.

And that’s when it happened.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a twisted sort of clarity hit you square in the chest—slowly, and then all at once.

The next bits were something of a blur.

You tore yourself away from Des, turned to forcibly elbow your way through a floor of grinding bodies. You thought you heard him call out your name, and more than a couple people on the dancefloor turned to glare at you as you rudely brushed past them without care—but, whatever.

You texted… someone, telling them you were headed back to the apartment, so they shouldn’t bother waiting up. The group chat, maybe?

And now… Now.

Before you can blink, the past crashes into the present, and you find yourself back outside in the pitch-black night.

It’s dark… chilly. A brisk wind catches you the moment you stumble out onto the sidewalk, assaulting every inch of your exposed skin like scores of needles piercing your flesh. You whimper, shudder, and hug your arms around your body—trying to warm yourself back up like a scared little kid who forgot their jacket.

For the first time that night, you regret the tiny black babydoll dress you’d chosen to wear for the evening—and that’s not even to mention the four-inch heels.

It’s miserable, to be sure, but you can hardly focus on it for very long.

No, you have to go somewhere. You feel sick, and cold, and wrong in a way you’re loath to even begin explaining to anyone else.

And your head… you’re positively aching for something—someone to make this better.

You need… Wanda.

Yes, Wanda is the person you’re looking for. She can make all of this better.

You don’t know why, but you’re sure of it. You just need to find her. Hopefully she’s spending the night in her apartment on that super cozy sofa of hers, drinking hot chocolate and binge-watching something on Netflix like the two of you did a couple weeks back.

A fond grin curves your lips at the recollection as you stumble off down the sidewalk, headed for the nearest subway station.

Another wintry gust of wind hits you square in the chest, and you pinch your forearm hard, silently willing yourself to focus.

The station should be less than a block down, if you’re remembering correctly.

At the next street corner, you manage to brandish your pepper spray in one hand while you rummage around in your purse for your MetroCard with the other.

It’s cold as hell, and you’re probably a little too drunk to be walking through the City streets alone right now, but you don’t much care.

All you gotta do is find Wanda. That’s all.

She’ll make everything better again.

— —

Where everything else is confusing, there’s one part that seems to make sense—Wanda.

You nearly pick a fight with the card reader at the subway entrance when it makes you swipe your card three times to let you through, and even the stairs leading down to the lower tracks are more of a challenge than they probably should be… and yet, somehow, the rest of it is blessedly simple. A no-brainer, really.

You know which train you need to take… the blue one that arrives in four minutes. You know you need to stay on it for five stops before getting off.

Once you’re up at ground level, you’ll have a short walk ahead of you—one that you know like the back of your hand despite only ever having been to Wanda’s a couple of times.

You’ll enter Wanda’s apartment building, take the elevator right up to floor four, and boom! Home free.

You do exactly that.

It takes a short time (thankfully) and there’s not an ounce of uncertainty within you all the while, like you’ve done this 100 times before.

In seemingly no time at all, you’re there—standing on Wanda’s doorstep, knocking a couple times just beneath the burnished bronze ‘4A’ nailed into her door.

Your head feels all light and dizzy; you’re still shuddering from the time you spent out in the cold; but—

“One sec!” Wanda’s muffled voice comes from inside, the mere sound of it washing over you like a soothing balm—promising relief.

You’re safe now.

You made it.

— —

The moment the door swings open to reveal a bleary-eyed Wanda Maximoff dressed in tiny grey pajama shorts, an oversized Star Trek T-shirt, and nothing else, it’s like everything falls back into place.

It’s like… like you can breathe again.

You’re still drunk, and shivering, and more than a bit confused; but now that Wanda’s awake and here and smirking like she knows exactly what’s happening even if you don’t, you feel… better, somehow. Not nearly so lost as you were before.

“Y/N,” Wanda greets, stepping aside and offering out a hand to help you inside. You’re quick to take it. “I was not expecting you,” she drawls, though everything about her demeanor is saying the opposite as she shuts and locks the door behind you.

You pay it little mind. “Yeah, I... ” you trail off, turning to face her even as an embarrassed flush warms your cheeks. All of a sudden, you can’t help but feel rather ridiculous for knocking on her door and barging in so late—especially without calling first. “I’m so sorry, I... I don’t know why I’m here.”

Wanda just tilts her head, appraising you curiously even as the ghost of a knowing smile curves her lips. “Are you sure about that?”

The heat in your cheeks seems to intensify tenfold at that. “I… I need to tell you something,” you hear yourself say, and the moment it’s registered, you realize that it’s true.

You feel… guilty, all of a sudden. Nauseous, too. Scared.

You danced with that guy—Des. You flirted with him. You let him touch you… You kissed him. Why would you do that?

In the present moment, Wanda nods, like that makes perfect sense. Like all of this makes perfect sense.

“Okay,” she acquiesces lightly, flares of crimson flitting through her measured gaze. “Is it something I’ll have to punish you for?”

‘Punish’ me? What—?

You feel Wanda’s presence in your head… inconspicuous tendrils sifting through your thoughts, worming their way through your scattered memories.

No point in lying.

“Y-Yes,” you hear yourself say. Much like earlier, it isn’t until the moment you’ve confirmed it aloud that you know it to be true. You danced with someone else. You flirted with him. You let him touch you… kiss you. “I… I’m so sorry, Wanda; I-I don’t know what I was thinking.”

You see the moment Wanda finds it—your memories of the nightclub. Meeting Des at the bar. Flirting with him… Kissing him.

The look on her pretty features goes from bemused to disbelieving to absolutely murderous in zero seconds flat, and the realization hits like a freight train that you’re really in for it now.

Fuck.

“Go to the bedroom,” she snarls, her typically blue-green eyes burning with scarlet light. “Then take off that slutty dress. I want you on the bed, face down, naked. Do you understand?”

Your head is spinning; confusion rears its ugly head in your gut even as every ounce of your being screams at you to just obey—‘cause if you can just do that, the rest of it will start to make sense. (Maybe.) “O-Okay.”

— —

You don’t know how you know the way to Wanda’s bedroom, but you do.

You slip inside a room shrouded in darkness, and no matter how it strains your eyes to look around, you don’t dare turn on the light.

It’s a modestly-sized bedroom with hardwood flooring, fairy lights along one wall, and an adjoining bathroom just opposite the entrance. There’s a tall, wooden dresser pressed up against the wall directly across from a large, king-sized bed. That’s pretty much all the detail you can manage to make out in the darkness.

Well, either way, you suppose it isn’t really your business.

Wanda gave you specific instructions, and you intend to follow them.

Not for the first time tonight, you’re quite happy about the babydoll dress you’re wearing—particularly for how easy it is to pull it up over your head and off, leaving you in panties and a strapless bra in a matter of moments.

You fold the dress neatly in your hands, then leave it atop the dresser. Your panties and bra come next. In seconds, you’ve formed a small, tidy pile.

As you step out of your heels and approach the neatly-made bed, you’re struck with the strangest sense of déjà vu… like you’ve done this before.

It lingers in the forefront of your mind as you crawl up onto the bed, biting back a groan at how easily the plush mattress gives way under your hands and knees.

God, you’d kill to have a nice nap in this absolute cloud of a bed.

You shake the thought off, simultaneously willing the haze of intoxication fogging up your brain to abate.

You’re not here to nap.

You settle face-down onto the bed, just like Wanda said. You’re careful not to rest your face on the pillows, though, since you have the distinct feeling that’s not something Wanda would want you doing without permission.

Instead, you fold your arms and rest your head atop your forearm, staring straight down into nothing. You scrunch up your features and let out a quiet huff as the black duvet tickles the tip of your nose.

It smells like her—all of it does. Cinnamon, vanilla, and something indefinable; something that belongs to Wanda, and Wanda alone.

You feel your body stiffen as a familiar set of footsteps draw near, approaching the room where you lie—naked and vulnerable atop Wanda’s bed.

The patter of Wanda’s gait becomes almost soundless as she enters, circling around the bed over towards the nightstand. You don’t dare to turn your head and watch as she pulls out one of the drawers, rummaging through it until she finds… well, whatever it is she’s looking for, you suppose.

A moment later, there’s the telltale chk! of a match being struck, and a hiss as the phosphorous tip lights itself aflame.

It’s quiet for a minute... then two. The only sounds you can hear are your breathing and the strike of a match every time Wanda lights another.

Gradually, gentle flares of light grow in your periphery, bathing the room in a dim, yellow-y glow. She’s lighting candles—a lot of them.

You’ve always loved candles.

A couple minutes later, she’s finished, and she returns to tuck the matchbox safely back in the drawer.

You lose track of her as she retreats once more, and your mounting curiosity is more than piqued when you hear her rummaging through the dresser near the foot of the bed; still, you don’t dare turn and look.

Instead, you wait, fetid nausea churning low in your gut, pinpricks of apprehension dancing across every inch of exposed skin. Your heart thuds painfully against your ribcage as she takes something out from the dresser drawer, then shuts it with an audible thud!

You swallow the lump in your throat and urge yourself to focus on your breathing.

In, out.

In… out.

“I’m disappointed in you, Y/N,” Wanda’s voice comes from somewhere behind you, genuine hurt coloring her hushed tone.

You have to fight the urge to shudder as a chill runs down your spine. “I… I’m sorry, Wanda,” you say meekly, pathetically, cheeks hot with shame.

And the worst part? You’re not lying.

You listen carefully for the sounds of her bare feet padding across the floor as she circles the bed once more, crouching down right beside you in the very corner of your periphery.

“Look at me,” she orders, gentle yet firm.

You do.

The moment you meet her gaze, you can’t help the errant thought entering your mind that she looks so pretty like this—face bare of makeup; long brown hair piled into a messy bun atop her head; dainty features cast into darkened shadows by the low, yellow light of burning candles clustered together atop the nightstand.

The muted light seems to soften her anger, her pain… allowing her to really look her age for the very first time since you’ve known her.

“You think too loudly, Y/N.” Wanda’s words are dry, almost teasing as they jolt you back into reality. “Focus on me, please.”

You do.

“You belong to me,” she asserts after a beat of silence, an uncharacteristically intent and almost solemn look splayed across her dimly-lit features. “I thought you understood that.”

The words confuse you even as they seem to resonate poignantly with some fundamental part of you… a part of you that categorically refuses to be ignored.

“Wanda…” you trail off, bewilderment and contrition warring violently within your chest until it aches to draw breath. “I’m confused, Wanda,” you whimper out finally, overwhelmed tears burning in your eyes. “I-I-I don’t understand what’s happening—”

Wanda cuts you off with a derisive snort. “Yes, clearly,” she agrees, her tone ripe with sardonic ire. “You’ve forgotten yourself. You’ve forgotten who owns you.”

You worry your lower lip between your teeth, desperately trying to make sense of it all. “Is that why…” You search Wanda’s eyes intently. “... I-I felt sick, an-and… guilty about dancing with Des.”

Something like anger flares in her gaze, hot and bitter, and you have to resist the urge to shrivel beneath it. “That boy had no right to touch what’s rightfully mine.”

“B-But then… why didn’t I remember?” you ask, utterly forlorn. “I-I felt it last weekend, too, but I… I didn’t—”

“Last weekend?” Wanda repeats, features hardening.

Oh, shit. You feel your cheeks get hot again. “I… I shouldn’t have brought it up, Wan’, I’m sorry—”

“What happened last weekend?” she interjects, her tone cold and hard like a double-edged blade. “You can tell me yourself, or I can start looking.”

You shiver. “I… I went on a-a… a date with a girl that I met online,” you admit, tears welling in your eyes even as Wanda’s jaw visibly tightens. “I-It was just the one time! A-And nothing happened; we didn’t even k-kiss! I just… I didn’t… I didn’t know—”

“Yes. You’re right; you didn’t know.” Wanda stands abruptly, then, and it’s at that moment that you see the folded belt in her hands—thick, worn leather with a sterling silver buckle.

An icy sense of dread blossoms in your chest, chilling you from the inside out.

Is she going to—?

“I was indulgent before… I let you get away with far too much. I will not make the same mistake again.”

With that, she turns to circle back around the bed, the belt buckle audibly jangling in her hands with every step.

“I have to punish you, принцеса,” she continues, her voice scarcely more than a whisper as she comes to stand near the foot of the bed—and somehow, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there’s no convincing her otherwise.

She’s going to punish you, and it’s going to hurt. Bad.

All at once, panic seizes you. You squirm, writhing in an effort to get up and off the bed—

Only to be stopped by tendrils of lurid crimson curling around either wrist, forcing them together just over your head like magic—glowing crimson cuffs holding both arms fast to the headboard. On a whim, you test your legs—tensing and pulling, only to be met with iron-clad resistance encircling either ankle in a tight, unrelenting grip.

Well, fuck.

“W-Wanda,” you plead, hardly paying any mind to the way your voice trembles. “Please, I—I don’t want—”

“I do not enjoy punishing you, мила,” she laments, almost sounding genuinely apologetic. It tugs at your heartstrings in a curious way—something you really don’t have time to examine right now. “But you did something bad. And when you do bad things, there are consequences. You understand that, don’t you?”

A tear trickles down your cheek, warm and wet as you steel yourself for the first hit. “Y-Yes.”

“Good girl,” Wanda lauds, and you can’t help the surge of warmth that washes over you at the simple praise—the pride that blooms in your chest at knowing you’ve finally done something right. “Now—try and relax, принцеса, okay?”

It’s all the warning you get before the first blow comes down upon your bare arse with a resounding Crack!

White-hot pain flares across your bottom, racing up your spine like wildfire and tearing a strangled whimper from your throat.

Jesus fucking Christ, that hurt—

Crack!

Holy fuck.

The impact of the leather against your naked cheeks leaves strips of fire burning in its wake, expelling all the air from your lungs in a choked-out rush.

“P-Please, no, Wan’,” you beg breathlessly, struggling in vain even as coils of vibrant scarlet hold you fast, “it hurts, please—”

Crack!

“This is for your own good, baby,” Wanda coos, sounding for all the world as though she truly believes every word of it.

Crack! This one lands directly across your sit spot, ripping a shriek from your lips as molten agony rocks you to your core.

“Wan’—Fuck, please, no—”

Crack!

“G—God, fuck, pleasestop, please—”

Crack!

“P—Please, hurtssobad, I’m—”

Crack!

“FUCK !”

Tears stream down your cheeks, wetting the black duvet beneath your face. You’re absolutely beside yourself with torment, your bare ass aflame with a pain unlike any you’ve ever known.

Crack!

… And the hits just keep coming—raining down stripes of blistering heat across your sore, bruised buttocks; pummeling your throbbing, exposed rear until it feels as though the entire area has just become one puffy, pulsating bruise.

Crack!

All the fight has completely gone out of you; now, your body completely slack—devoid of any resistance even as every hit seems to sear itself into your impossibly tender bottom like a third-degree burn… The pain is absolutely incredible, unlike any else you’ve ever known.

You’ll do anything—and you really do mean anything—to make it stop.

“P-P-Please, stop it, Wanda, PLEASE—”

Crack! Another hit directly across your burning sit spot rips a watery sob from your throat, followed by—

Crack!

It’s all you can do to keep yourself from hyperventilating until you pass out.

Crack!

Agony blackens the edge of your vision, fresh tears streaking down your cheeks as you await another strike…

But it doesn’t come.

Wh—?

“Have you learned your lesson, мила?” Wanda asks, and this time, her voice comes from closer… like she’s right beside you.

You don’t have it in you to be startled when a feather-light kiss lands itself between your shoulder blades, nor when one hand begins stroking up and down your heaving torso in soothing motions.

“Y-Yes! I—please, God, yes,” you babble, overwhelmed by the sensation of unadulterated pain branding every inch of your battered arse. “I promise I’ll never, ever, ever do it again, Wan’—Won’t ever be with anyone else—jus-just please stop hurting me—I’ll be so good, please—”

“Shh,” Wanda shushes you tenderly. You feel yourself twitch as the mattress suddenly dips beside you. “It’s okay, любима,” she soothes, coming to rest beside you. “Just breathe, okay? Breathe.”

‘Breathe’...

Your pulse thunders in your ears; your ass is on fire with an anguish far beyond your years; and yet, there’s something undoubtedly soothing about her words as they wash over you in gentle waves… something that tells you you’re safe.

Were you a little more lucid, you might’ve found that quite the nonsensical paradox—this feeling of safety and security with the woman who’d just beaten your arse raw without mercy no matter how you wailed and sobbed and begged for her to stop.

But as it is, you’re not.

Instead, you’re just broken and teary-eyed and in pain, and Wanda’s tenderness is a most welcome respite to alleviate that excruciating ache.

You take a deep, shuddering breath, even if it burns your lungs something awful, and force yourself to let it out slowly.

In, out.

In… out.

“That’s it, мила,” Wanda praises gently, tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear. “You’re doing so well… Just like that.” Her fingers come to rest beneath your chin, urging you to turn and face her…

And you do, far too exhausted to even think of doing anything other than what she tells you to. Your lungs burn; your nose runs; and the pain in your bottom hasn’t abated any—if anything, it’s intensified.

You’re more than happy to be given something else to focus on.

When you look at her, her blue-green eyes are wet—glossy with tears.

“Wanda?” you manage weakly, feeling your brow crease with worry. “You ‘kay?”

Wanda sniffles, huffs out a watery-sounding laugh. “Yes, Y/N, I’m alright,” she whispers, then leans forth to plant a gentle kiss upon the tip of your nose. “I’m just so very, very proud of you.”

Despite yourself, you feel a pleased flush spread throughout your body at that. “Really?” you mumble, exhaustion drooping your eyelids until it’s a challenge just to keep them open.

Wanda nods, a tear sliding out of her eye that you yearn to reach forth and catch with your thumb—but alas, you’re far too weak. “Really.”

You hum, burrowing your face further into the duvet beneath your cheek—even if it is still damp with your tears. “‘M sorry I was bad, Wan’,” you murmur, feeling darkness near on every side. “Didn’t mean’ta make you upset.”

“I don’t like punishing you, принцеса,” she says once more, and this time, you have no reason to doubt that she means it. Honestly, you don’t know how you ever could. “It hurts me just as much as it hurts you.”

You hum again. Your eyelids feel too heavy to open. “‘M sorry,” you say. “Gonna do better… make you proud… I promise.”

Wanda chuckles. The sound of it makes your chest feel loose and warm and happy. “You already do, darling girl,” she murmurs. You don’t know if it’s because she’s whispering, or you’re fading into sleep, but you can barely hear her when she repeats it once more: “You already do.”

Sleep descends upon you, then, and you succumb to it willingly, feeling safer and more at peace than you have in a very long time.

— —

tagging:

[marvel]: @normanijauregui

— —

end notes: yeah i don’t know what this is either. i was only aiming for maybe 1,000 words or something, but things happened and...

look. i haven’t been to therapy in a hot minute, ok?

link to masterlist

#stuff i wrote #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x f!reader #f!reader #dark!wanda maximoff #dark!wanda maximoff x reader #dark!wanda maximoff x f!reader #dark fic #mcu fic #marvel fic #scarlet witch x reader #dark!scarlet witch x reader #dark!scarlet witch #reader-insert #requested

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