#then I tried mentioning that one thing where you go like {write fight scene here} and come back and replace it later | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hetalimagines · 9 months ago

Text

General headcanons for Alfred as a boyfriend (SFW)

Here's my first actual post on this blog, hehe... I can't find the ask but someone requested some Alfred headcanons, so here are my rambles about what I think he's like as a boyfriend!

He’s honestly not the most traditionally romantic person. Your relationship is more like friends who make out sometimes. But he does have his own little ways of showing you he loves you!

He’ll put together playlists of songs that remind him of you. They’re mostly loose connections, like maybe a song mentions your eye color, or the lyrics remind him of a date you went on together, or it just sounds romantic and makes him wanna kiss you. He likes to sit with you while you listen (to every single song), and he interrupts the songs a bit to explain why he chose them.

“This one had me thinking what if we were dancing in a ballroom together, and out of nowhere, bam! Zombies bust in. The door crashes to the ground! Our dance turns into one of those cool fighting scenes with the—oh, this part reminded me of the time I woke up early and you were about to fall off the bed. You had a cute bedhead.”

(You have no idea what the lyrics are at this point.)

Dates with him are pretty casual, more like “hanging out” than anything fancy. Maybe you stay at home and watch movies/play games, or you go out for dinner at a local diner, or you go do awful karaoke together, or you go and prank a friend together.

He’s happy as long as he’s with you. Bonus if there’s food and/or drink.

He occasionally takes you out to a more traditional restaurant and dresses for the occasion. They’re usually expensive, too. The food isn’t his preference (too complicated for his palate), but if it makes you happy, he’s all for dealing with it for just one night.

His primary love languages are acts of service and quality time. He’s always doing what he can to help you out (and feel proud of himself in the process). Whether he helps you run errands, runs a bath for you ahead of time, or fluffs your pillow before you get in bed, it’s all because he wants to make your life easier!

He gets a little jealous if you ever spend time with your shared friends without him, or if you spend more time with others than him.

He’s so excited if you take interest in any of his hobbies. Movies? He’ll ask if you want to co-write a script with him. (He’s very relaxed about what exactly ends up in the script.) Archaeology? He has so many random facts to dump on you, and he’ll be super impressed by any knowledge you have on it. Conspiracy theories? Time to watch a bunch of documentaries! He enjoys them despite their flaws, but lets you know exactly when something is false and what actually happened.

He tries to take interest in your hobbies, too, even if he doesn’t understand what you’re talking about. It could be the most boring thing and he’d still listen and ask you questions about it. If it makes you happy, he wants to know all about it.

Pet names from him consist of things like babe, dude (💀), honey, occasionally sweetie, (jokingly… mostly) prince or princess. It’s all over the place. He’ll call you honey and dude back-to-back sometimes.

He loves debating if you’re comfortable with it! But be warned, he gets very heated about certain topics. His sense of justice is important to him. Otherwise, he’s usually not serious about these debates and doesn’t care who wins.

He tries to keep things light and doesn’t usually let people see his more serious side. He’ll open up to you more over time, however. It’s really him letting a wall down and allowing himself to get closer to you.

Every now and then, he has days where he’s a lot quieter and calmer than usual. He just wants to relax, stay on the couch with you and watch movies or simply chat. Maybe a movie chattering in the background as he tells you about his childhood. He doesn’t try so hard to keep up this energetic, heroic persona.

He’s right back to normal the next day like nothing happened.

Likes to annoy you for fun. Not in a mean-spirited way. He just thinks your responses are cute and has poor impulse control. Poking your cheeks or ruffling your hair or playing an obnoxious song loudly on the stereo while he dances. But he’ll back off if you’re genuinely upset with him. He means no harm.

He loves if you’re willing to play along with whatever he gets up to. Maybe he’s decided he’s going to try and vacuum the whole house while doing a handstand on the vacuum. You can hold onto his legs to help him stay balanced.

This man is very impulsive and has a tendency to get himself hurt. Random bruises all over his body or a cut along his forearm. He bounces back easily, and doesn’t want to fuss over it, but he lowkey likes if you baby him about it. He’ll always say how it’s not a big deal and he can take it, but his heart does this little flutter when you show concern, and even more if you force him to take better care of himself.

He burns himself in the kitchen and you force him to run it under cold water. He’s swooning inside.

He likes to gossip about others, especially over breakfast. He can’t help it; he’s just nosy, and he always has an idea of what’s going on and how he can help out. Huge bonus if you gossip with him!

He loves to feed you, but the majority of the food he brings for you is burgers or tubs of ice cream. He likes to experiment with the burgers’ toppings and seasonings, but they’re all burgers nonetheless.

Every now and then, he does plan some big romantic endeavor. It’s like a surprise. You never know when it’s coming… You wake up one morning and find out he’s booked a week long cruise, your bedroom is filled with balloons, and there’s enough breakfast food on the table to feed an army.

He does this thing sometimes (often) where he swoops in and has to save you. A puddle on the ground? No need to fear! He picks you up and swiftly carries you over it. The safest place for you is in his arms. He’ll even lay down and let you use him as a bridge if you want.

A suspicious penny on the sidewalk? LOOK OUT, IT MIGHT BE A BOMB! Let HIM step on it before you get blown up!

He steps on it. Nothing happens. Better safe than sorry!

If you’re the more independent type, that won’t stop him from trying. He just wants to keep you safe and have you appreciate his efforts. Being disinterested or resistant will just make him try harder.

Says cheesy stuff like “happy wife, happy life” unironically. He’s also the type to use terrible pickup lines to flirt with you. Totally unaware of how bad they are until you start laughing.

He also doesn’t care that they’re bad. He’s just having fun.

Loves to give you his clothes to wear. Seriously. You want one of his hoodies? Try six of them.

You complain when one stops smelling like him so he puts it on, works out, then gives it back to you like :D! Fixed the problem!

He takes so many pictures of you guys. Videos, too. His phone storage is eaten up by it. His favorite thing is to take selfies together. Usually with some silly filter. Or an even sillier caption.

“me and the babe out shopping” and it’s a picture of you, holding a piece of fruit with the dog ears filter

He’s not the most physically affectionate, but he always gives you morning kisses and especially kisses before leaving the house. He also loves carrying you around (mostly bridal style) in his arms for no reason other than he can. A hand on your back, another on your thighs, your head pressed against his chest. He loves it.

He loves knowing you find him physically attractive! He worries sometimes about being too overweight, so any reassurance that you like his body helps. If you think he’s hot, and you’re hot yourself, that must mean he definitely is.

Has a tendency to call you hot, but he’ll call you other things if it makes you uncomfortable.

Occasionally brags about you and how lucky he is. Not as often as you might think. Though he gets oddly competitive if anyone acts like their partner is better than you and starts spouting whatever he can so everyone knows you’re the absolute best. No competition.

#alfred isn't one of my fave characters so i hope i did him justice ♡#hetalia #hetaila headcanons #hetalia imagines #hetalia x reader #aph america #hws america #aph america x reader #hws america x reader #america x reader #reader insert #sugar

267 notes · View notes

ghostboneswrites2 · 9 months ago

Note

Hello! First of all I love your stories so much💖 and hope you're having an amazing day. I wanted to ask if you could write something with this, feel free to decline if not 😊

I have this idea of Daryl and the reader being a thing before the apocalypse, Merle hated his girl and left her closed in a place with loads of walkers around without D knowing(something similar to what happens to him in Atlanta) but she manages to escape and survive thanks to what D has taught her. The group at the prison helps her after finding her tiredly fighting some walkers close to there. D and M are in the woods and the scene of D's back comes and says that the reader was his saviour for staying with him even after that and that they were planning to escape and get married. They arrive at the prison and she punches M in the face and well says to D everything that happened. M gets to see how D gets around Reader and before leaving the prison says to reader to take care of his bro and "sacrifices" himself going to fight the governor, D and r found him already turned and they both cry, promising to take care of each other.

I love the detail here! Plz forgive me, this turned out way longer than I intended. Nearly 5k words! I hope I did your vision justice! It was getting pretty long so I had to cut and tweak some things but I tried make sure to include all your key details!

Separated

Summary: You and the Dixon brothers are on your way to Atlanta to find that refugee center you heard about on the radio before they stopped broadcasting. When your journey is interrupted and you and Merle get separated from Daryl, Merle impulsively leaves you trapped and stranded in fear Daryl would choose you over him if it came down to it. When you're reunited with your love, you face tragedy together.

Note: There are some time jumps here. They're labeled to hopefully avoid confusion. Also some canon dialogue <3 A lot of your backstory with the Dixons wasn't totally necessary but I was trying to create a ~vibe~

18+ MDNI || Warnings: profanity, TWD typical violence, canonically moral deficient character, death and dying, mentions of alcohol and pills

the way he cowers and shrinks away from Merle's walker makes me cry every time omg

Then:

Things went south so fast. The three of you were traveling relatively trouble free. The guys could hunt, and Daryl had taught you a thing or two yourself, so food was never an issue. Finding water wasn't as hard as it would be later down the line. All the supplies left in homes and stores hadn't been completely ransacked yet. It was the beginning of the outbreak. With Merle's truck, Daryl's bike, some weapons and supplies, and the general survival skills you were learning from the two of them, fleeing to the city to find that refugee center had been as easy as something like that could get, until the water ran out.

It should have been an easy pit stop. The town was small. Your grandma would have called it a 'blink of an eye' town, because when you passed towns so small on a trip they'd fly by in the blink of an eye. There was a general store right on the corner, so that was where you decided to start the search. Just some water, maybe first aide and booze. Who knew what you'd find? The truck was parked right outside the store. Daryl wanted a smoke. He said he'd meet you and Merle inside. Then the growls started. Daryl could hear them from a distance, so he knew it was a big herd.

None of you had had much trouble with the big groups of them yet. So far, maybe ten or fifteen at a time. You killed the ones that got too close and fled as fast as you could. No unnecessary risks, that was the rule. Merle always said if he died it would be from something cool like a police shootout or a bank robbery. He refused to go out the way those things took people out. Daryl always said he'd shoot himself before he let them get the chance to eat him alive or turn him. He'd never be a walking corpse. You? Daryl always said you were too pretty to die. You just said you were too much of a badass.

Daryl popped his head inside. There were only two freaks inside and they were easy enough to take down, so you and Merle were just looting by then.

"Incoming. We gotta head out." Daryl announced.

"Just a second, baby brother. I'm lookin' for the whiskey." Merle said.

"Ain't got time for that. I can hear 'em comin'." Daryl insisted. You zipped your bag up with everything you had found so far, including the water, and walked toward your broody boyfriend with a half smile.

"There were exactly three waters left. How's that for good luck?" You said to him.

"Why'd'ya think I keep ya 'round? You're my good luck charm." He winked before slapping the window to get Merle's attention. "C'mon, man! No unnecessary risks!"

You slipped past Daryl and stepped outside, throwing your bag in the bed of the truck. You could hear the moans and groans. You turned your attention in the direction of the noise and you could see the heads peeking up over a hill. Your eyes grew wide as your heart sped up.

"Uh... Guys? We gotta go!" You called out, not taking your eyes off the herd that was slowly coming into view. You had never seen so many of them.

"Merle, come on!" Daryl was growing more aggravated and impatient as the seconds ticked by.

Daryl jogged back to the truck just as Merle was emerging from the little shop. With no sense of urgency in sight, Merle just looked over the bottle of Jack he had found as he casually strolled over to the driver's side. You scooted into the middle seat and Daryl hopped in the passenger spot and slammed his door shut.

"Hurry up, man!" Daryl urged his brother.

Merle grumbled some smartass remark about being afraid of 'a few dead bodies' as he cranked the engine and hit the gas, speeding away.

Now

You were so sore. So exhausted. So ready to just give in, but you couldn't. You refused to give in that easy. Someone told you once that you were too pretty to die, and you took that to heart.

You kept swinging your machete at them as they closed in on you. You were cornered between a building and a fence. What the hell were you supposed to do now? You had no idea, but you were determined to figure it out. You had gotten yourself out of worse situations.

Then

"Gon' have to circle back somewhere to get back on the interstate." Daryl informed, looking at the map.

"I don't need a second driver." Merle waved him off. You rolled your eyes. You were glad to be surviving something so scary with the man you loved, but the third wheel was getting hard to live with.

"Whatever, man." Daryl huffed, turning his attention to the window instead of paying his brother any mind.

You kept your attention on the rearview mirror, relieved to see the herd fading away as the truck rolled forward. Those things really freaked you out, especially when they were all together like that, stumbling and bumping into each other carelessly.

A mile or so down the road, you heard a loud pop and the engine started to sputter. "Ah, hell." Merle sighed.

"What?" Daryl asked, leaning forward to see his brother.

"Gas is empty." He replied, looking down at the dash.

"Are you kiddin' me?" Daryl asked incredulously. "Ya didn't think to check before?"

"I did check, but I thought we'd be back on the interstate by now. Plenty o' cars to siphon a li'l fuel from back there." Merle defended.

"Hate to raise the stakes even higher here," you interrupted. "But, that herd is gonna be catching up soon, so we need to figure something out."

Merle shot you a sideways glance. If it was up to him he would have just left you back home and fled with his brother, but Daryl insisted on picking you up. Now, he couldn't even hop on his bike with his baby brother and sail away to safety because there wouldn't be room for you and Daryl would never agree. He wasn't the greatest brother, but he wouldn't leave Daryl behind either.

"Wha's that?" Daryl suddenly asked, breaking the tense silence as the three of you considered your pressing circumstances.

You both turned your attention to what the archer was pointing out. Just beyond the treeline was a small wooden structure. Some kind of shack.

"A house?" You wondered.

"Nah. Shed or somethin'." Daryl figured.

"Maybe we can hide there and let the freaks pass by. They're pretty stupid, right? Maybe they'll just keep going straight if we don't draw their attention." You suggested.

"Won't even know we're there." Daryl agreed.

"Well then let's quit the yappin' and get over there before they see us." Merle drawled as he pushed his door open. Daryl got out and offered you a hand while you stepped out of the truck. Your posh parents never liked him much, but they never saw what a gentlemen he could really be. You had cut ties with them long before the dead started roaming.

Now

You were beginning to think maybe this was really the end. It really wasn't that many. Seven at the most. But you were just so tired. You lazily swung the blade into a skull and struggled to yank it out. You had climbed on top of a dumpster, so at least they couldn't reach you, but you were still trapped until you could get rid of them. You wondered how stupid it would be to take a quick nap. Surely one of them would reach you eventually. You decided against it.

Then

Without any spoken agreement, the three of you grabbed any supplies you thought you'd need and jogged over to the dilapidated structure. It was vacant and smelled faintly of mildew and rotting wood.

"It'll do." Merle sighed.

"Do? This is a mansion compared to the truck." You remarked, stretching your body. You were stiff from so much sitting.

The three of you watched silently through the cracks in the door as the herd stumbled by with their swinging arms and dragging feet. The smell was something you couldn't get used to, and with so many of them, it was strong. You gagged quietly. Daryl rubbed a hand up and down your back when he noticed.

The three of you really thought you were fine. You outsmarted the dead ones and soon you'd be on your way again. You had never been so wrong about anything before.

Merle got a little too comfortable given the situation. He went and dug through his duffel for his whiskey. He had been drinking so much you wondered if his piss could get someone drunk. The entire time you'd been on the road with them, the man had managed to find liquor everywhere he went. There wasn't a single day he hadn't been drunk, and if there had been, you were sure he'd have a stash of pills to keep him feeling nice. You guessed you couldn't blame him. Shit was rough nowadays.

When Merle found the bottle he dropped it and it shattered. After giving Merle a look that could kill, Daryl turned his attention back to the herd. A few of them were veering off. The sound had caught their attention. Only a few heard, but as they started walking toward the shed, more followed.

"Shit." You whispered.

"This place ain't gon' hold." Daryl added.

"My Jack." Merle complained.

"Hell with your booze, man." Daryl scoffed as some of the dead started to claw at the outside. "We gotta go."

"Go where, baby brother?"

"We could take down the few that are at the door and break for the truck." You thought.

"Nah, too many on the road. But we can run off that way." Daryl nodded toward the back of the shed.

"Okay." You nodded, throwing your bag over your shoulders and readying your machete.

Merle haphazardly hooked his duffel and cocked his pistol.

"No guns. Too loud." Daryl reminded him.

"Relax. It's a last resort." Daryl shrugged, tucking it unto his belt. With a nod to each other, you and Daryl kicked the door open and took down two walkers. Merle was right behind you.

Now

Tires screeched from ahead. You looked up and saw a car. A woman and a man got out of the vehicle and rushed over, taking down the walkers with ease and precision. Gee, you thought. Bet it's nice to have someone that has your back.

The couple walked over to the dumpster and eyed you cautiously, glancing at each other. "You okay?" The man finally asked.

"Could use an espresso." You quipped.

"What's your name?" The woman inquired.

"(Y/N)."

"I'm Maggie." She introduced. "This is Glenn."

Then

Only using your energy on the ones closest, the three of you darted deeper into the woods. They followed, because they saw you and now they wanted you.

Only, there were more in the trees than you anticipated. Usually the woods were pretty clear save for a few stragglers here and there. These woods were not. You wondered why, but there was no time to guess. You just kept running.

Eventually there were just too many. Daryl got pushed further and further away as more and more emerged from behind trees. When you realized you couldn't see him anymore you called for him.

"Quiet girl! He can take care o' himself. You're drawin' more to us!" Merle hissed. You reluctantly obeyed, because you knew he was right. Daryl probably evaded them somewhere and would meet you both back at the truck.

When the running began to take its toll and your chest started to burn, you put more of a focus on searching for somewhere to hide. To your advantage, there was an overgrown cabin not too far ahead. erle peered over his shoulder.

"We're losin' em. Let's get inside an' wait 'em out. Daryl 'll meet us back at the truck when it passes." He strategized well for his inebriated state.

"Okay." You breathed, just grateful for a chance to stop and rest.

Now

"Need some help? Maggie asked, offering you a hand as you slid off the edge of the dumpster.

"Thanks."

"You have a group?" Glenn wondered. Maggie gave him an unsure look. You noticed Glenn looked pretty beat up. You wondered what happened.

"No." You said lowly. You did have people, but you were left behind.

"Well.." Glenn trailed off, looking to Maggie as if to silently ask what they should do with you.

"You can come with us. Can't promise you can stay though." She spoke up.

Then

The cabin had been vacant for a long time. Some of the old dusty furniture remained so you both sat down and just breathed. You handed him a water bottle and sipped on one for yourself while you waited. It felt like hours had gone by. It had grown dark out. Merle peeked out of the window. There were a bunch of them all around, but they had no idea the two of you were in there. It seemed like they lost their lead and just stopped, staggering around in the same spot.

"There's a lot of 'em, but they ain't payin' attention. I say we leave out the back an' sneak back toward the road." Merle suggested. You thought for a second.

"Yeah," you nodded. "Okay."

Just as you passed it by, Merle suddenly shoved you in a closet and shut it behind you.

"Merle, what the fuck, man?" You complained, banging at the door. It wouldn't budge.

"Quiet, now. Don't wanna draw in any unwanted attention." He taunted. You sighed.

"Merle, c'mon this isn't funny."

"'Fraid it ain't a joke, Darlin. Truck's outta gas an' my bike only carries two."

Your heart sank.

"Daryl isn't just gonna leave without me." You reminded.

"He won't have a choice when I tell 'im 'bout how them dead ones took ya down." He mockingly lamented. "It was just terrible, ya know? They grabbed her. I couldn't pull'er away in time before they got to chompin'."

"The hell, dude? Don't do this!" You begged, banging at the door again.

"Look. Ya got your bag in there, got your weapon, got your wits. You'll figure it out." He reasoned.

"Not if I'm trapped!"

"I'm sure you can kick that slab o' wood down if ya try hard enough." He was getting further away by the sounds of it. "Jus' try not to be too loud. Don't want 'em hearin' ya."

Now

"I'd be grateful." You admitted. "I haven't had anywhere to rest in a while. I have some medicine here I'd be happy to share in exchange for a good night of rest."

"Watcha got?" Maggie asked.

"We actually came out her for medicine." Glenn added.

"Some antibiotics, some Benadryl, some stuff for pain. Oh, and I found an EpiPen. I'm allergic to bees, so."

"Antibiotics is what we need." Maggie said.

"Yeah, whatever you need. Thanks again."

They still hit a few stores while you rested in their car. Maggie made sure to grab the keys just in case you tried anything, but you were too tired to try even if you wanted to. When they had found everything they thought they'd need for the prison, they drove you back. Rick and the others were apprehensive, with everything happening with Woodbury and recently losing one of their best fighters. Daryl was also their hunter, their tracker, and generally someone they all relied on.

You explained to them that you were traveling with some people to Atlanta but they left you behind and you'd been on the move ever since. "I'd be glad to sleep outside if it makes you more comfortable." You said to Rick. "I can leave in the morning. I just really need somewhere to sleep."

Rick studied you for an uncomfortably long time before he asked, "How many walkers have you killed?"

"Walkers?" You asked. You'd never heard that term before.

"The dead." He clarified.

"Oh... I don't know, really. A lot."

"How many people have you killed?"

"None." You said honestly. "But there is one person I might beat to death if I ever see him again."

"Why?"

"He left me stranded, surrounded by the dead."

The Next Morning

Rick let you sleep in a separate cell block. He let you know you'd be locked in for a the night but that he'd come get you in the morning to talk. You didn't really care. You just wanted rest.

When he came and got you that morning you were offered a warm meal, which you gladly accepted. You made sure to give them the majority of your antibiotics as a show of gratitude.

Meanwhile, deep in the woods, two rednecks were hashing it out. Name calling, shoving, whatever it took to unleash all the pent up frustrations they had between each other.

See, in all that time Daryl spent with Rick and their group, he began to find a side of himself that was suppressed with his brother around. The only person to ever make him believe he could be good was taken from him before they made it to the quarry. Merle, on the other hand, only represented everything that Daryl was trying to put behind him. Merle was capable of hurting good people or looking the other way instead of helping someone in danger. If only Daryl knew some of the things Merle had really done.

"There was a baby!" Daryl defended as Merle laid into him for risking his own ass to save a family on a bridge.

"Oh, otherwise ya woulda just left 'em to the biters." Merle retorted.

"Man, I went back for ya. Ya weren't there. I didn't cut off your hand, neither. You did that. Way before they locked you up on that roof. You asked for it."

"You know what's funny to me? Hmm? You and Sheriff Rick are like this now." Merle said, locking his two fingers together. "I bet you a penny and a fiddle o' gold you never told him that we were plannin' on robbin' that camp blind."

"It didn't happen!" Daryl snapped. "And we woulda never had to if ya didn't let the truck run out o' gas! And my girlfriend wouldn't be dead!" Daryl's chest was heaving as his eyes stung, threatening to spill fresh tears at the thought of her. Merles eyes flashed something Daryl couldn't quite decipher.

"It didn't happen 'cause I wasn't there to help you!"

"When we were kids.. Who left who then, huh?" Daryl frowned.

"What? Huh, is that why I lost my hand?" Merle rasped.

"You lost your hand 'cause you're a simple-minded piece o' shit!"

"Yeah?!" Merle lost it. He grabbed Daryl by the shirt. "You don't know!"

When Daryl fell to the ground, his shirt ripped down the back. Merle froze. His chest felt tight as he stared down at the gruesome scene left on Daryl's back from years of abuse at the hands of their father. "I -- I didn't know --"

"Yeah, ya did." Daryl's voice cracked as he pushed himself to his feet. "That's why ya left. But (Y/N), she never left. She was always there, man. Always. She was the one who saved me. She protected me. Not you, man!" He wiped a tear as he took a breath between heated words. "We were gon' run away, gon' get the hell outta that town and get married, maybe start a family. I don't know, and I never will thanks to you!"

He did blame his big brother for the loss of his love, but not in the way that he should have. He blamed Merle's clumsiness, carelessness, and negligence. He had no idea that Merle trapped and abandoned you.

Later

Daryl went back home to the prison. Merle couldn't stand too watch him leave, so he followed. Guilt was starting to eat at him, gnawing away at his insides, mouthfuls at a time. He almost felt nauseous hearing about you and what Daryl had planned with you. He tried to imagine his battered baby brother in a nice little house with a wife and kids. Hell, he even tried to picture it for himself, but the image wasn't clear enough for it to seem possible. All either of them had ever known was violence and loneliness. That was why they needed each other. That was why he had to get rid of you.

You had just finished a tour of the prison. Rick told you that you could stay for a while, but he didn't know if he trusted you as one of them. He shared a little about a rival community with a crazed leader. You understood. You never expected to stick around, even if they offered. You couldn't see yourself trusting anyone after what Merle did to you.

You were sitting in the cell you slept in the night before, sharpening your machete and thinking about the things that you couldn't change. You heard distant voices echoing from the other block. It was some sort of confrontation from the sound of it. You snuck over to the cellblock where everyone stayed and peeked around a corner. Glenn and Maggie were blocking most of your view, but they seemed to be the most pissed off. Rick was off to the side trying to mediate.

"You can't let him stay. Not after what he did to Glenn!" Maggie demanded.

"He goes, I go."

You stopped breathing. That voice sent chills up and down your spine.

"Okay." Rick held his hand out, attempting to set forward a solution but the room fell silent as you stepped into view. Merle noticed you first. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

"Well, I'll shit bricks." He murmured in disbelief.

"(Y/N)?" Daryl breathed, almost inaudibly. Your eyes were welling with tears as you stood just feet away from the man you loved.

Daryl dropped everything and ran over to you, wrapping his arms around you and lifting you up. You couldn't even hug him back because your arms were trapped under his. All you could do was let out something between a giggle and sob.

"Daryl." You whispered. Your body felt so perfect against his, just how he remembered. Then, it dawned on him. He set you down and turned to look at Merle, a blend of betrayal and fury flooding his eyes.

"You said she was dead!" Daryl growled.

As everyone around you watched the scene before them unfold, they felt clueless. Daryl had never mentioned you because it hurt too much to bring up. Your feet began moving before you could even think. One second you were standing beside Daryl, then you blinked and you were inches away from Merle, rearing your fist back and striking his jaw with a force you didn't even know you were capable of. Merle stumbled and dropped to the ground holding his face. He moved his jaw around a little before he glared up at you.

"Okay. I deserved that." He accepted.

"Yeah, you did." You spat.

"Hold on. Someone care to explain what the hell's goin' on here?" Rick spoke out.

You turned to Daryl, as if it was he who answered the question. You didn't care to share with the class. Daryl needed to know.

"When we got separated in the woods.." You began, taking a breath. "Merle and I found a cabin. We hid there, waited for shit to blow over, and we were supposed to meet you back at the ruck. Merle figured you'd wait for us there."

"And I left her." Merle admitted from behind you. You glanced back at him momentarily. You were surprised at his accountability.

"In a closet." You added spitefully. "The place was surrounded. Took me forever to get out of there and even longer to get back to the truck. By then, you two and the bike were gone."

Daryl's nostrils flared with rage. His fists were balled up so tight his knuckles turned white against his tan skin. His shoulders rose and fell with each heavy breath he took. He was so pissed, so hurt. The weight of the revelation had weighed him down so heavily that his boots felt like they were nailed to the ground. Otherwise, he would have lunged at his brother and beaten the teeth out of his skull. All that time Daryl spent in pain, mourning the loss of someone who wasn't gone. All because his brother didn't like her.

"Why." Daryl growled.

"The bike only fit two, man."

That Night

You sighed contently as Daryl traced little circles over your shoulder. Once it was decided to leave Merle in a cell, and everything had been explained to Rick, you and Daryl retired to his own cell to enjoy your reunion in private. He was laying on the bottom bunk, one foot crossed over the other as he stared into space, enjoying the feeling of your head on his chest and your arm and leg draped over him.

"I missed you." You whispered, breaking a long, comfortable silence.

"Mm." He hummed. "I mourned ya every day. I shoulda gone back."

"Don't do that. We're together now. Don't blame yourself."

"Shoulda never believed 'im. I knew how jealous he was. Thought he'd get over it." He confessed. You smiled softly and nuzzled up closer, taking in a whiff of his sweaty scent.

"Me too." You agreed. "But he left me with my bag. He didn't want me to die. I think he was afraid if only two of us fit on the bike you'd leave him behind."

"Nah. Woulda had your sweet ass ride the handlebars." He teased, twirling a finger through your hair. You giggled, then you paused.

"Wow. I think that's the first time I've laughed since we got split up." You realized.

"Sure ya didn't find no boyfriends along the way?" He joked. He always did that when things felt too heavy between the two of you. You rolled your eyes, not that he could see it.

"You say that like I've had a lot of those. We've been together since we were like, twenty." You laughed.

The Next Day

Merle and Michonne had disappeared. You learned that the leader of the opposing community -- the Governor, as they called him -- wanted Michonne in exchange for peace, but Rick refused. Merle had likely taken her as a peace offering since he knew what the Governor was capable of.

You and Daryl left to search for him. He took you to a spot where they had previously convened for negotiation. The two of you did a brief sweep of the area before stumbling across some walkers. You each took one down after another until you were left with only one. You froze when you registered what -- or who -- it was.

A sob immediately escaped Daryl as he fell backwards. You blinked back tears as you crouched down behind him and pulled him against you, rocking gently as Daryl wept. Merle's dead body clumsily pushed itself off the ground and onto its feet. You stood first, hoping to put it down before Daryl had to do it himself, but Daryl was quick to push past you. He violently shoved the corpse. It sumbled back, but it walked toward him again. Over and over Daryl shoved what was left of his brother as he cried. Tears were freeling spinning down your cheeks.

When Merle's body fell on its back, Daryl crawled on top of it and plunged his knife into its skull over and over and over until he collapsed.

You wanted to intervene, to console, to be his rock, but something told you to let him get it out. He needed to. So, you waited until Daryl's blind rage simmered down and placed an assuring hand on his shoulder.

"Wanna bury him?" You whispered.

Daryl shook his head.

"Okay." You relented. You glanced around your surroundings and noticed a patch of wildflowers off in the distance. "I'll be right back." You squeezed him gently before jogging over and gathering each and every flower in the patch. When you walked back over to where Daryl was hunched over Merle, he looked up at you with wet, red eyes. When he clocked the flowers, he gave a single nod and stood up beside you. You split the flowers in half and handed Daryl a bundle. The two of you placed them each individually around Merle's corpse.

You thought back to a conversation you had with Merle the night before, when you couldn't sleep and went out of the cell to get some water.

"Take care of my baby brother, will ya?" Merle's voice echoed through the quiet block.

"I always have."

"We'll take care of each other." Your vice cracked as you spoke. "Promise."

"Promise." Daryl whispered.

Join the taglist! || Masterlist

tags: @kissmeunicornbaobei @thesadcatt0 @clairealeehelsing @duckybird101 @tmntfixationxreader @ryoujoking @blackvelveteen1339 @yondus-girl @ladylincoln @sunshinebug9 @saylum559 @yoowhatthefuck @duffmckagansbandana @celtic-crossbow

#daryl x reader #daryl dixon #twd daryl #daryl x female reader #daryl fanfiction #daryl x y/n #daryl x you #daryl dixon fanfic #the walking dead daryl #daryl twd

245 notes · View notes

nerdofthecentrey · 1 year ago

Note

Hi hi! So the lack of Sang-wook (sweet home) ficts on here is insane! So I was thinking if you could write something x GN reader (if possible) maybe something where like, sang-wook finally breaks after putting up that cold facade he always has and reader just comforts him (maybe reader being the only person in between the survivors that doesn't find him weird or scary? (Maybe a confession) take your time and feel free to ignore if you don't like this! (Just answer to it so I know if you don't want to write it I understand!)

I’ll Be There | Sang-wook x GN reader

Genre: Fluff, A bit of Angst

Summary: Sang-wook’s walls finally collapse and your the only one who understands him.

Warnings: Mentions of Killing, Normal Sweet Home Stuff

Unedited ( Will be editing tomorrow)

————————————

Sang-wook was dangerous. There was no denying his hard cold demeanor and his fearlessness to stand up for/ to anyone in the group. Everyone though he was a criminal but you knew that underneath that had to be someone that cared. Everyday you watched as he groaned and grumbled at everyone. You tried your best to make sure he was always taken care of because he was important more to you than anyone. Maybe it was a petty crush or perhaps it came from a place of understanding.

Everyone treated him as an outsider. Yet you would offer him food. He at first reacted like he didn’t care just walking away every time you tried. Slowly things changed. He would answer by shaking his head no sometimes he would take one piece before walking off as he started to warm up to you.

On a rather gloomy day rain fell hard outside, everyone already seemed to be in a terrible mood. But than a monster broke into the first floor. It tore through walls and damn near killed you all, luckily Hyun-Soo was quick on his feet to light it on fire before it could reach where everyone slept.

“ This is ridiculous we aren’t safe! That thing got down here!” Woo-Hyun shouted out. Making practically everyone jump beside Sang-wook who stood next to you.

“ Ya, I mean what if we were sleeping a-and it snuck down here and killed us all!” Gook-hee added pulling her dog closer to her. They had a point, but the way that they bitched about it didn’t help any.

“ Let’s all just take a breath-“ You started trying to regain some form of peace you’d all just lost.

“ Don’t tell me to breathe!” Woo-Hyun said walking up to you. Sang-Wook stepped forward as if he were protecting you. But Do-Hyun spoke before a fight could break lose,

“ The problem has been fixed we’ll have everyone check over certain spots so we can-“ Woo-Hyun cut him off grabbing his collar practically almost ripping Do-hyun’s white t-shirt in the process.

“ Your trying to kill us first you hold food from us and now this you-“

Sang-wook lightly pushing Woo-hyun back. His face turned to pure shock.

“ You dare put your hands on me! You thug!” He yelled pointing at him. “ Why is he even still here he’s a danger to us all! He killed a person!”

Sang-Wook face fell for second before harding back up. He stepped back as Woo-Hyun continued.

“ He’s a murder a psychopath-“

“ Stop it!” You shouted making everyone go silent.

Sang-wook shoved his hands in his pockets while walking away from the scene.

“ Walk away killer!” Woo-Hyun yelled point at him.

“ Would you stop!” You shouted smacking his hand down Woo-Hyun face turned in shock.

“ Did you ever stop to think that maybe he did it for our own good? Maybe that man was out to kill us or take our only things we have left.”

Woo-Hyun looked at you with a slightly deflated expression. “ Whatever nobody cares what you have to say! You don’t even speak half the time..” He muttered before walking away his wife trailing behind.

Everyone else followed their lead going off on their own. You decide to go after Sang-wook you weren’t sure what you’d find. But you saw the look in his eyes almost like someone had poked his heart.

As you turned the corner you heard the sound of breaking concrete and grunts. You saw Sang-wook standing over concrete blocks slamming them with a sledge hammer. Little piece scattering across the floor.

“ Sang-wook?” You said softly.

“ Go.” He muttered as he dropped the hammer on the ground his back towards you.

You start taking slow steps towards him asking, “ Are you okay ?” He didn’t reply instead he stayed silent you noticed his shoulders starting to shake by the time you reached his side you saw tears streaming down his face. It made your heart hurt to see him like this. You felt bad like you were seeing something you weren’t meant too but you weren’t going anywhere you wanted him to know that.

“ It’s okay.” He practically jumped on top of you wrapping his arms around your waist pulling you close gripping your shirt as he sobbed into your neck. His grip was tight like you would disappear if he let go. You wrapped your arms around his smoothing his hair as you whispering.

“ You can cry, it’s okay.” That he did. You practically watched as his walls came down you let him crying till the sun was setting by than you both found yourself sitting on the dirt near the window in a comfortable silence.

“ Thank you..” He muttered. You could help but giggle at his embarrassed tone, He gives you shocked look.

“ It’s okay.” You grinned. “I’m not judging you.”

Sang-wook’s eyes widen a bit at your statement like nobody had ever showed this type of care for him. Maybe you were the first in a while.

“ You don’t have to be strong in front of me.” You reassured him. You just wanted him to be okay to know that even if the whole world judged him you wouldn’t.

“ I don’t know what to say..” His eyes trailing down to the dirt.

“ Then don’t say anything, Just promise me you’ll let me be there for you.”

He nodded his head in acceptance of you and an acceptance of letting someone special in. You made him feel like there was more to this world than constantly having to watch your own back now he could watch what was right in-front of him.

———————————————————————

A/N: Hope you enjoy this. I wasn’t sure what kinda of ending I was gonna do. I was thinking about having Sang-wook tell the reader he didn’t kill them for a dumb reason. Or this ending where Sang-wook just tries to leave it in the past and move on with the reader which is this end. Anyways That’s all Much appreciation ❤️💚!!

#Sangwook #Sangwook x reader #Sangwook pyeon x reader #sweet home fluff #sweet home angst #kdrama x reader #kdrama #sweet home fanfic #sweet home x reader #Sangwook Pyeon fluff #Sangwook Pyeon fanfic #Fanfic #oneshot #Kdramaoneshots #gender neutral reader #Sweet home x gn reader

273 notes · View notes

harrywavycurly · 3 months ago

Note

Sarah so not that SC needs drama BUTTTT Thomas Rhett has a new song called Country for California and it so could’ve been written by someone from SC girlie’s hometown and I’m just imagining her hearing it and wondering if she should tell Harry? And then him not knowing how to handle it and imagine him writing a response track?!? 👀😳💓💓

Hiiii lovey!! Okay so I do love drama but I feel like my little Southern Comfort babies just need to be protected from it (mainly Harry he is enough of a mess ya know?) BUT I did do this in a fun-ish kinda way that you still see Harry’s reaction to the song and it ends fluffy so I hope you enjoy it! 💖

Find all things Southern Comfort here✨

Disclaimer: In this I don’t mention Thomas Rhett being the singer nor the songwriter, all that’s mentioned is your ex has an album out and it’s about you and I use the song mentioned above as well as the album it’s on so I’m in NO way shape or form saying your ex bf is Thomas Rhett ✨

CW: Language

A/N: Harry calls for an emergency meeting at the studio where things get a little out of hand, enjoy jealous Harry and the very first look at how you interact with the one and only Mitch Rowland✨

“I'll be sittin' right here at this bar with a drink, waitin' on ya,” Harry clenches and unclenches his jaw as the words spill from the speakers in the studio, he closes his eyes and tries to calm himself a bit as the song comes to an end.

“Oh If you find out you're too country for California” Once the music begins to fade out Harry hits the stop button as he chews on his bottom lip, he looks up at Niall who is standing next to him with his arms crossed over his chest and Harry quirks a brow when he notices his head still bopping to the beat of the song that Harry just played for him.

“S’good.” Niall says with a shrug as one of his hands fall to his hip while the other reaches over to the bin of cookies that’s sitting on the edge of the control panel that Harry’s sitting in front of. “You covering it or s’mthing?” He asks as he grabs a chocolate chip cookie from the bin and Harry has to fight the urge to smack it out of his hand. “Or did you write it? Tryin to get into the country scene are ya?” He questions once he sees the glare Harry gave him at his first question but when Harry just stands up with a huff Niall knows the answer to his questions are clearly a no.

“Her fucking ex wrote it you knob.” Niall raises an eyebrow as he takes a bite of the cookie in his hand as he watches Harry begin pacing around the studio. “He wrote a song about how he’s going to be there waiting for her when she realizes moving to California was a mistake…that I’m a fucking mistake.” Niall lets out a scoff making Harry turn and glare at him but Niall just ignores it as he finishes off his cookie before he takes a step towards his bestfriend.

“Harry this song has literally nothing to do with you mate.” Harry rolls his eyes as he runs both hands through his hair tugging at his roots and letting out a frustrated sigh. “I’m serious this song is just his way of saying that if she decides that this wasn’t a good idea he’s there for her and I mean s’kinda romantic if-”

“Romantic? You think some twat writing a song about how he’s waiting for my girlfriend at a bar with a drink and a smile is romantic? Get fucking real Niall.” Niall places a hand on Harry’s shoulder trying to get him to relax but all Harry does is shrug it off as he heads for his phone that’s on the little table in front of the couch that’s on the back wall of the small space.

“I think you’re blowing this way out of proportion mate I mean when was this even wri-”

“This year.” Harry snaps as he grabs his phone off the table and when he turns around he sees Niall rubbing his lips together and rubbing the back of his neck with his hand that’s not resting on his hip he thinks maybe now Niall understands why he’s taking this so seriously.

“Oh okay I mean still it’s just a song.” Niall explains trying his hardest to reason with Harry who is opening up his notes app on his phone as he sits back down in the chair he was sitting in when Niall walked into the studio not even half an hour ago. “People are allowed to write songs about their ex girlfriends ya know? You’ve done it yourself so you can’t really be that-”

“It’s a whole fucking album Niall not just a song it’s an album. Want to know the name of the album?” Harry doesn’t wait for Niall to respond before he messes around on his phone and brings the album up and shoves the screen in his friend’s face. “Something About a Woman…the woman he’s referring to? Yeah that would be my fucking girlfriend so I don’t want to hear how people can write about their exes because no shit of course people can write about whatever or whoever the fuck they want but now…now Niall I have to respond.” Niall’s eyes go wide as he looks from the phone screen that’s been aggressively shoved in his face to Harry who’s cheeks are pink and nostrils are flared and if Niall were to look at his free hand that’s resting in his lap he’d see it was clenched into a fist, all clear signs that Harry is pissed off.

“You-what? Respond?”

“Yes I can’t have someone writing albums about my girlfriend and not say something.”

“You’ve gone full fucking looney mate this album has nothing to do with you.”

“It has to do with her therefore it has to do with me Niall don’t be a wanker.”

“Harry be so fucking for real right now…this isn’t some rap beef okay? He wrote about his feeling for his ex that’s all…it’s not like he insulted her or anything.”

“That’s not the fucking point!” Niall rolls his eyes as Harry tosses his phone to the side letting it land on the table with a loud thud. Harry takes a few deep breaths and lets them out through his nose doing his best to calm down because Niall isn’t the one he’s upset with so he doesn’t want to take his anger out on him.

“I’m not sure I see the point Harry.” Niall tells him as he reaches for another cookie but this time Harry can’t help himself and he snatches the bin away just before Niall’s hand can reach it. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

“I swear to god I will ban cookies from the studio if you don’t start actually helping me figure out what to do.” He knows this is a dramatic way to get what he wants but he also knows that if there’s one thing that can get people to do something it’s his girlfriend’s baking.

“That’s harsh man.” Both Niall and Harry turn their heads to look towards the couch and see Mitch sitting there with his hands resting in his lap as he just shakes his head at Harry.

“When the bloody hell did you get here?” Niall asks with a raised brow making Mitch just sigh as he stands up from the couch and walks over towards the two of them.

“Been here the whole time..H said something about an emergency so..I showed up.” He answers with a shrug as he places a hand on Harry’s shoulder making him look up at him. “You know that if you really do want to respond to the song or album…which is a really bad idea by the way…it has to be in the same genre as the original right?” Harry purses his lips for a moment as Mitch’s words hit him and Niall can’t help but let out a little chuckle at the idea of Harry trying to come out with a country record.

“The fuck you giggling at? I could make a country record you bad knee having twat.” Niall rolls his eyes as Harry glares at him while Mitch just gives Harry’s shoulder a pat before he reaches down and uses Harry staring at Niall as a distraction and takes a cookie from the bin he has clutched in his hands.

“You’re very British.” Mitch states before taking a bite of his cookie making Niall’s eyes go wide as he looks from the cookie to the bin in Harry’s hands. Harry looks down at the cookie bin and then back to Mitch with a raised brow because when did he even grab one? How did he not notice it?

“Post Malone just dropped a whole country album.” Harry states as if it’s a valid argument and Mitch just takes another bite of his cookie before responding.

“Yeah but he’s from Texas and he pretty much sounds the same singing as he does when he’s rapping.” Mitch explains before finishing off his cookie and brushing his hands off on his shirt all while Niall is just staring at him with a hint of jealousy in his eyes because he could really go for another cookie but no way in hell is he getting one while the bin is still in Harry’s hands.

“I’ve sang country songs before.” Harry is grasping at straws now and he knows it but he refuses to give up so Mitch just nods before turning and heading back for the couch.

“I mean yeah you’ve covered them so they sound like your style of singing and not their original traditional country sound.” Niall watches Harry’s face as Mitch speaks and it’s like watching a balloon deflate. Harry slowly starts to slump in his seat as his shoulders relax and the corners of his mouth are dipping downwards in a frown and normally Niall wouldn’t like seeing him look so upset but honestly anything is better than how angry he was a few minutes ago.

“So you’re saying…I shouldn’t do anything about it then?” Harry asks as Mitch takes his seat back on the couch while Niall slowly reaches towards the bin that Harry has loosened his grip on.

“Take it as a compliment man.” Mitch says with a shrug making Harry roll his eyes just as Niall’s hand touches a cookie. “We all know she’s song worthy and I know it sucks someone else is singing about her but just let it go.” Niall’s hand freezes when he looks up from the bin and sees Harry glaring at him.

“Put the cookie down.” Niall lets out a loud groan as he drops the cookie back into the bin. “No more cookies for you since you didn’t help me at all.” With that he grabs the lid to the cookie bin but before he can close it Niall reaches over and grabs the bin from Harry’s hands and rushes over to the coffee table in front of Mitch and stands on it holding the bin just out of Harry’s reach. “Real fucking mature Niall.” He snaps as he stands up and places both hands on his hips as he glares at his bestfriend who just shoves a whole cookie into his mouth with a shrug.

“It’s a rational response.” Mitch defends making Niall turn his head and give Mitch an approving nod since his mouth is still full. “The cookies are the main reason half of us even enjoy coming to work.” Harry takes a step to the side so he can raise an eyebrow at his friend’s admission while Niall just takes a bite of another cookie before bending down and handing one to Mitch who takes it with a smile and a nod of appreciation.

“Oh and the muffins.” Niall adds looking at Mitch who nods in agreement because he does love when he walks in and there’s a basket of muffins on the coffee table.

“And the bread-“

“I get it okay? You lot only come for the damn snacks.” Harry says while throwing his hands up in the air out of frustration, not enjoying the two of them listing off the baked goods they enjoy coming to the studio for more than the idea of actually working on something with him.

“Don’t blame em you’re a right fuckin twat in the studio sometimes Harry and you-”

“Honey I’m sorry for-“ All three men turn to look at you as you walk through the door making you immediately stop talking when you see the scene in front of you. “Niall James Horan why the hell are you standing on the coffee table holding the cookie bin?” Niall’s cheeks go pink as you place a hand on your hip but then you take a step further into the room and see Harry who is doing everything in his power to avoid looking at you.

“Harry said I couldn’t have anymore cookies because I didn’t help him write a song.” Niall blabs as he remains standing on the table pointing at your boyfriend who is looking down at his feet. “Said he was gonna ban them from the studio.” He adds just to really make sure you understand the severity of the situation because in Niall’s mind this is a serious issue and this isn’t even his studio but he’s here enough that if there’s no more cookies he really just doesn’t see himself ever wanting to come back.

“Things have gotten a little out of hand.” You turn your attention away from the Irishman on the table and smile when you see Mitch sitting on the couch with his hands folded together in his lap.

“So I’ve gathered.” Mitch just gives you a small smile as you reach down and give his knee a gentle pat. “You mind giving us the room precious?” You ask and Mitch doesn’t hesitate to just stand up and head for the door giving you a little pat on your shoulder on his way past you. Niall follows him, quickly stepping off the table and heading for the door. “You leave that cookie bin on the table Niall James.” You hear a low sounding whine coming from behind you making you just roll your eyes at Niall’s dramatics.

“But I-”

“But nothin Niall you know you’ll eat yourself sick if I let you take the whole bin with you now be a good little puddin pop and close the door behind you please.” You don’t even look at him as you talk, too concerned with the way Harry is standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and looking down at his feet but you know Niall did what you asked when you hear the soft click of the door closing.

“I wasn’t really going to ban cookies from the studio.” Harry mumbles as you take a few steps towards him. “I know you enjoy baking them for everyone.” You smile at his words because of course he’d never ban your cookies or baked goods from the studio because Harry knows how happy baking them makes you.

“Sugar is this about the song?” Harry’s head snaps up and his eyes go wide as you reach out so you can try to grab his hands.

“You know about the song?” You give him a look and he just lets out a sigh and uncrosses his arms allowing you to grab his hands. “Of course you know about the song.” He half mumbles to himself as he feels you pull his arm around your waist, placing your hands over his so he keeps them there.

“It’s just a song honey.” Harry wants to believe you, he wants to just be able to brush it off as just some song but he can’t and he hates how it’s making him feel. “Harry.” His name sounding sweet and soft as it slips out of your mouth is what makes him finally give in, you smile when you feel him pull you into his chest making your cheek press against the soft material of his hoodie as your arms snake around his middle giving him a nice squeeze while his stay locked around your waist.

“I know you’re upset and that’s fine sugar because you’re allowed to be upset about this but please know it doesn’t meant anything to me okay?” You feel Harry place his lips on the top of your head as you begin rubbing his back trying to soothe him.

“I just hate knowing someone else is writing songs about you.” You can’t help but chuckle making Harry pull away from you a bit so he can look down at you and you just roll your eyes playfully when he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Oh come on honey you have a whole album written about you and you don’t see me all huffin and puffin.” You watch Harry’s face as he tries to think of an album that could possibly be written about him and you just laugh and go back to resting your head on his chest. “It’s a great album I’ll give you that much so maybe that’s why I don’t mind but also it’s Taylor Swift so what exactly am I supposed to do? Bake her an angry cake?” You feel Harry’s arms go stiff as it finally clicks which album you’re referring to so you just tilt your head so your chin is resting on his chest and you’re looking up at him. “You think she’d like a cake? Or maybe some cookies?” You ask in an attempt to lighten the mood and when Harry just looks down at you with a playful glare you know it’s worked.

“If you send her cookies I get to send him a strongly worded letter.” You bite back a laugh at his suggestion as you get up on your tiptoes making a small smile appear on Harry’s face when he leans down to meet your lips in a sweet little kiss. “Or maybe I’ll just let it go?” He asks as you try to pull away but he’s quick to bring one of his hands up to cup the side of your face keeping you from going too far even when you drop from being on your tiptoes. “Yeah I’ll just let it go.” He answers before he presses his lips against yours for another kiss.

“Smart thinkin sugar plum” Your voice is reassuring and Harry smiles as you turn your face and place a kiss to the palm of his hand that was cupping your cheek. “Have you written any songs about me?” You ask as Harry places a kiss to your forehead before standing up straight, he gives you a little smile as his thumb begins gently brushing against your cheek.

“Just a few hundred.” You want to roll your eyes and shove at his chest and tell him to be serious but something tells you he’s not joking or at least not totally. “But the fun is watching you try to figure out which ones they are.” He teases and you just stare at him for a moment and it’s as if all of a sudden it dawns on you that he actually has written songs about you and you can’t help but feel your eyes begin to get watery and your bottom lip starts to tremble.

“Oh my god.” Normally Harry would be panicked if he saw you on the verge of tears and heard your voice crack but he knows what’s happening and he understand it’s a lot to take in, the idea of someone caring enough about you to write a song about you is a lot. “You really like me huh?” Your voice is watery but it just makes Harry smile and chuckle a little as he brings his other hand up to hold the other side of your face.

“I do yeah.” He answers with zero hesitation as he leans down and kisses the tip of your nose. “I’m a bit obsessed with you baby.” He adds with a smile as you reach up and place your hands over his that are on your face just as he leans a bit further down and gives your lips a sweet kiss that leaves you with a grin when he pulls away.

84 notes · View notes

raven-at-the-writing-desk · 6 months ago

Note

HI RAVEN!!!! 🤔 kinda a random thought not really but would you consider ace and sebek to be like? RIVALS? or to have a strong dislike towards eachother compared to other first years/students? 🤔🤔 haven’t read much sebek stuff or book 7 so maybe it’s just the way I interpret things……..

🤔🤔 for me at least I feel like ace brings up sebek especially a handful of times? and to bash on him too or at least poke fun at him. can’t think of a lot off the top of my head but in ace’s birthday jacket vignette he picks at sebek specifically when going thru dorm choices. WHICH LIKE……. I DUNNO ITS GIVING VERY “I BEEF W HIM” VIBES. I figured it could just be because he’s a fellow first year but ?? jack or epel don’t get mentioned when he was talking about their dorms so i’m not sure 🤔

👁️👁️ but I wanna hear your take on it!!! are ace and sebek ACTUALLY beefing or was it all just a headcanon??? 😭😭 hopefully I didn’t yap too much. btw

Sorry for the lack of screenshots; I don’t own all the relevant cards in EN and didn’t want to include screenshots sporadically 💦

But!! I did my best to cite where I’m pulling my information from (main story, vignettes, etc.) and directly quote from the official localization. Hope that’s okay!

I mean… Sebek is pretty much always pissing off his peers because of the condescending way he talks to them. It’s no wonder why he rubs people the wrong way. As for Ace, he has indicated that he finds Sebek to be a pain in the ass. I don’t know if I would personally call it “beefing” though?? I see it more as Ace just wants Sebek to shut up and chill out (though Sebek would definitely shout at Ace and fight him) 😂

Point is, I don’t see Sebek having a particular disdain for Ace (he is abrasive toward everyone), but I do see Ace having a particular dislike for Sebek. They aren’t “rivals” in the same way that Ace and Deuce are, as Ace and Sebek don’t really compete for anything or get into many instances of bickering—at least not from what we see. That might just be a product of Sebek being formally introduced later than the other first years, but even counting vignettes and event interactions, it’s still pretty one-sided; often we see Ace commenting on Sebek but not the other way around.

According to Ace in 7-11, he knows Sebek because they’re in the same Magic Analysis/Enigmics (EN writes this class as both of these so it can get confusing) elective. He also implies (in 7-34) sharing other electives with Sebek. This means Ace has regular direct experience with Sebek compared to the other first years (except maybe Deuce?)… ie more opporunities to be annoyed by Sebek’s arrogant loner attitude.

Ace reports (again, in 7-34) that “[Sebek] insults people like, all the time. He even says stuff right to my face when we're in the same group, like, 'Don't you dare slow me down, human!' And he always finds some way to make every subject about Malleus, then drones on and on about how great he is." In regards to those intense feelings about Malleus, Ace says "[Sebek] takes it to a whole other level [...] I can see why people would idolize [Malleus]. But, like, you don't have to make it your entire personality, y'know?" Ace repeats these ideas in his Birthday Boy vignettes. “[Sebek]’s always yelling something or other about his precious Malleus. Oh yeah, and he talks down to us for being human. Dude's a total fae fanboy.”

In Sebek's School Uniform vignette, Sebek yells at Ace for running in the halls. Ace responds by calling him an "uptight nag" whose yelling will disturb other students. Ace also points out how pathetic Sebek comes across as after witnessing him trip over himself to apologize to Malleus. “Dude, nothing you say's gonna impress anyone after that sorry sight.” When Ace tries to leave the scene to make it to class, Sebek shouts at him. “You wait just a minute! I'm not finished! COME BACK HERE!” It should be noted that Ace is someone who always tries to find shortcuts or ways to get out of work whereas Sebek is strict and diligent. Their mindsets and values naturally clash.

This, I think, is a very good summary of most people's problems with Sebek. Ace is just saying what's on everyone's mind--and this makes sense for Ace's character, as he has consistently been the type of guy to call others out. He also encourages Yuu to do the same (in his Birthday Boy vignettes). This detail at least implies Ace finds it amusing on occasion to tease Sebek for his shortcomings.

We see Sebek’s behavior in class for ourselves in his Dorm Uniform vignettes. Ace actually appears in them too, remarking that Sebek is a “loudmouth”. This is something he echoes in his Birthday Boy vignettes; “Loudmouth doesn't even begin to describe him.” When Sebek starts arguing with his group members (some mobs) and refusing to work with them while simultaneously extolling Malleus, Ace says “Here we go again with Sebek and his ‘liege’… Man, imagine being grouped with that guy who […] All he had to do was play nice and let [the mob students] help. He CHOSE to make things harder. How does that guy even function in society?” Side note: In Ace’s Suitor Suit vignettes, he calls Sebek the “number-one worst contender” for a groom. Ace clearly thinks Sebek is unfriendly and annoying in areas extending beyond academics or school life. This is, of course, in addition to Ace finding his loud voice grating.

Later in the same vignettes, Ace and Deuce are forced to sit close to Sebek in the crowded cafeteria. Sebek insists to Lilia that his classes are going well, to which Ace starts snickering and reveals the truth: “Dude... No problems whatsoever? You've got nothing BUT problems, bro! Haha!” Deuce pitches in: “He got into a loud argument with some classmates during our defensive magic lesson. He called his groupmates ‘burdens’ and insisted on doing their entire project by himself.” Ace then says Sebek must think highly of himself and gets annoyed when his words are taken literally. “Do you not understand sarcasm either?” He tells Sebek to fix his attitude, but it doesn’t seem to work. Ace sighs and says he’s just wasting his breath on this.

Sebek’s Dorm Uniform vignettes illustrate Sebek’s general struggles to get along with all of his classmates, not just Ace or Ace specifically. Deuce notably also calls Sebek out for causing trouble for his peers, even stating “[…] as an aspiring honor student, I can't condone your behavior. Having confidence is fine and all, but you shouldn't make things harder for others. That's just being obnoxious.” Sebek pisses off the other first years in 7-34 too, calling them “shallow” and making a terrible first impression. Ace, who is also present, says that no one wants to be chummy with him anyway—not if he’s going to act like that.

In conclusion, Ace has explained his rationale for disliking Sebek many times over. Rather than saying Ace has a problem with Sebek, I think it would be more accurate to say that Ace has a problem with Sebek and is simply relaying the opinions that everyone else holds directly to Sebek’s face. (He gets annoyed that Sebek takes none of it to heart though.) As for the other party, Sebek chides Ace no differently than he would anyone else stepping out of line, not appreciating Malleus, or… just existing as a human 💀 He doesn’t seem to have issues with Ace other than his lax attitude (which could also apply to many other characters such as Leona).

In my opinion, Ace and Sebek are not rivals (at least not major ones), nor do they have specific beef with each other outside of one-off instances or whenever Ace is in the mood to lay down The Truth and embarrass Sebek. I see Ace and Deuce as your classic rivals and Sebek as like… a villain of the week who cameos here and there after his first appearance to cause shenanigans.

#twisted wonderland #twst #Ace Trappola #Deuce Spade #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #notes from the writing raven #question #Yuu #Malleus Draconia #Lilia Vanrouge #book 7 spoilers #Sebek Zigvolt

76 notes · View notes

astronicht · 7 months ago

Note

Heya, long time tolkien fan with almost no knowledge about old english writings whatsoever here.

Could you explain what the Iron House Motif is? Saw you mentioning it in one of your posts, tried to google it, found pretty much nothing?

I mean i can kinda see what you mean about that but if you have an explanation or any examples that would be great!

Also, i love reading your lotr posts, they add so much stuff and background knowledge :)

A few people asked this regarding this silly post, and yeah it appears "iron house motif" is not a super googleable concept (i ran into it in an academic publication from 1993). Fortunately @pethaucwiar has described what it is, better than I could!

To this I'd add two things, which is that it's also pretty common in Old Norse sagas, and that iirc it sometimes also includes a house literally made of iron, so instead of burning down around your enemies, you also have the option of sticking them in a giant forge and then closing the door. This will be important later. Though honestly, you can stop here, the rest is extras.

Regarding Eowyn, there are famous variants where a woman burns her husband/enemies in a hall for revenge, in an act of self-destruction. (So-- I know she doesn't! But you see a hall, you see a woman, you get told to leave your weapons--)

The problem is, the scene I was joking about in LOTR is very much set in Rohan, and any scene in Rohan is hitting you over the head repeatedly, yelling EVERYONE HERE IS SPEAKING OLD ENGLISH. WE ARE IN AN OLD ENGLISH STORY. And the iron house motif doesn't come up much in Old English. In fact, the general fan assumption seems to be that the hall of Rohan is supposed to mimic Heorot, the hall in Beowulf (Beowulf being, famously, a story in Old English involving a big pretty hall with a king who needs an outside hero's aid; pretty clear-cut) -- over here someone argued persuasively on the same post that it's supposed to be a 1:1 comparison, and thus doesn't suggest any burning halls or iron halls etc.

A little on that! First off, Tolkien braids together his storyworlds constantly, so I'm never going to be sure that he's not going to turn a Beowulf-y hall into a burning revenge hall. But even if you read Rohan's hall as strictly 1:1 Beowulf's hall, approaching it is still kinda a stressful moment. Especially bc Beowulf is actually a really really weird example of Old English stories, where revenge hall burning feels closer than in any other OE text. For lots of reasons! None of its stories are set where people spoke Old English -- they’re set on the Continent and In The Past, purposefully referring to Germanic and Scandinavian storyworlds (where people like Eowyn, lacking any other agency, might burn down everyone). Heorot is not a normal hall, either, bc most importantly for the defense of my earlier shitpost, Beowulf's hall is literally an iron house:

"but it was fastened within and without with iron bands, smithed with crafty thoughts."

(Rutgers transl. I was not joking about it being annoying to translate; unless forced I do not translate Beowulf)

Ac he þæs fæste wæs innan ond utan iren-bendum searo-þoncum besmiþod" (lines 773-4)

So that was the joke! And those iron-bands in the walls are actually being used to keep the monster in the hall so Beowulf could fight it. (Picture wattle-and-daub, but woven with iron rods instead of reeds. This was NOT a real thing archeologically)

Basically: even if Rohan's hall is Beowulf's Heorot, it can still be a medievalist horror film moment where you scream DON'T GO IN THERE if you try hard and love the game. But truly, it was just a silly little post at the expense of CS Lewis.

#astro lotr #yet another five paragraph explanation of my own shitposts sorry for being like this!!!!#ask replies #much more than five paragraphs….

76 notes · View notes

roadkillremi · 1 year ago

Text

Assistant to the Director

Kinktober, Bonus out of 11

Dilf! Randy X F!Reader

MasterList. Kinktober '23. Uncle Randy list

Summary:You're 25 and just got a starter job as an Assistant to one of Hollywood's biggest Horror Director at the Time, Randy Meeks. You knew he was a survivor of the Ghostface killings but you didn't know how H O T he was. Randy's around 33-37 making this around 2010-2014

Warnings: MINORS DNI, Corruption, Readers a Virgin, Language, P in V, oral (m receiving), praise, slight Degrading, sexual thoughts.

"I apologize! I was trying to find out where I was going!" You quickly explained. He looked down at you with a smile, "It's fine.".

You held your notebook tightly as you walked through the studio. Special effect workers went back and forth on set and to actors. You couldn't help but be amazed by the whole thing. You looked around for an office of sorts, you weren't paying attention when you ran into someone.

It was him. Randy Meeks in the Flesh. The man who single handedly changed Horror. You stared at him for a moment to take him all in.

"I.. Hi! I'm Y/N I was Hired to be your assistant!" You smiled. He nodded, "I thought you were too pretty to be the camera man." He jokes.

"It's great to meet you! So the office is through there! But we usually stay over here. Today's just some takes. Nothing big. I'll have you write down some stuff like if we're missing a prop. And My last assistant should've taught you how to contact anyone." He rambled. You were lost by his blue eyes, how could no one mention how hot he was?

"Uh, yeah. She did!" You smiled. He nodded, "Great, don't worry you are not the assistant to get coffee. I get my own coffee.". He went to sit down his designated chair.

"Can we get an extra Chair!!" He shouted. Someone got a chair and placed it beside him. You sat in the chair and looked at the set.

"What do you think?" He asked. You looked at him, his face was serious. He valued your opinion, "It looks great. A lot of green so I'm assuming run down.". He nodded, "Yeah, this is a take for a zombie movie they have me doing.".

"Why does this place have no zombies?" You looked at him. He paused staring at the set, "Good question.". He looked down at his papers, "It's about 5 miles from the city...so we probably should have some, huh?"

"Maybe" you smiled. He smiled back and walked over to someone. You sat still taking it all in, this was it. A better job with better people, you leaned back and opened your notebook.

"Excuse me? Wheres Meeks?" A blond stared at you. You looked up, "He went that way!". You pointed and smiled, she nodded and studied your features.

"Who are you?" She asked softly. Your stomach knotted, "I'm the new assistant.". She glanced over in Randy's direction, "Good luck.". She walked over to his direction leaving you. You squirmed a bit in your chair feeling weird not doing anything.

Randy sat back down beside you, "So we're gonna do some takes here then we have to go downtown for some different takes.".

"Got it." You smile. He smiled back, "Okay everyone! I need to see some actors in five minutes!" He shouted. You heard people yell back at him. Once the takes began you got to see him work. He leaned back his fingers on his chin. You glanced over noticing the veins on his arms. His beard was trimmed well and his blue eyes studied everything. You sat up and crossed your legs tightly hoping to fight some ungodly urge to jump him.

The day went by shooting scenes. You were in your new office which was besides Randy's. It was late and you typed at your computer looking almost dead. Randy came out of his office with an obnoxious yawn.

"Almost done?" He asked walking over. He sat in front of your desk, "Um, yeah.. just one more thing.". He grinned, "Alright, I didn't want to leave you here all alone.". You nodded with a small smile, "Are you liking your job so far." He tried to make conversation.

"Yeah, it's way better than my last one." You signed out of the computer and stood up stretching.

"Well I was gonna get a cheeseburger. If you wanna join." He offered. You smiled at his awkward attempt to ask you out.

"Id like that." You smiled. He smiled back, "Great, it's on me!".

You parked your car beside his in the parking lot. You got the car locking it, "Ready?" He called out. You nodded walking over to him and went inside. You ordered a Deli sandwich and he got a cheeseburger. You sat in a booth with a big window showing the parking lot.

"So what made you work in the film industry?" He asked before biting into his burger.

"Uh, I wanted to be a director but it's harder for females. So I was told to start from the ground up." You picked up your sandwich. He nodded, "True. But I can't say it's gonna be easier for you. It's a uh, throat to throat business. Like I met John Carpenter and he was threatened by me!" He complained.

"No way!" You exclaimed. He nodded, "Way.". You shook your head biting into your sandwich.

"Did you take film classes or something?" He asked with his mouth full.

"Yeah. I did film theory, screenwriting, special effects. All that stuff." You leaned back into the booth.

"How'd you like it?"

"It was alright. The theory class was about more recent movies. But I prefer older slashers though." You smirked. He pointed at you, "Ah, Good Girl! People need more classic horror movie lovers!". Your heart dropped, good girl, no one's ever called you that. You slightly smiled before taking a bite of your sandwich.

His blue eyes peered into your eyes, "Well I hope you stick around for a good bit. I enjoy your company..". You nodded in agreement, "I hope I can.".

"Well I'll make a deal. Every Thursday I take you to get burgers as long as you stay." He leaned back. You tilted your head to the side, "Do you do this with all your assistants?".

"Only the amusing ones." He smiled. You sighed, "Deal.".

Working with Randy was easy, he'd tell you jokes to keep the day good. He'd get you coffee when he got himself coffee. He'd make sure you were almost done when he left. Thursday nights were even better, you'd try to look nice. He'd pay for dinner and get to know you better. He never pushed or tried to be with you.

Oh but you wish he did. You wished he'd grab you with those muscular hands. The way he'd lick his lips before speaking. Something about him just turned you on in a way no one ever has. You knew it was wrong, he was your boss. But you wish he'd bend you over his desk and just have at it. Instead you just kept it to yourself and wrote notes in your notebook.

It was a late night and you were swamped with emails. The scene didn't go as planned, Randy and you were stuck in the office until ten pm. He slumped out of his office and glanced at you.

"Rough day, huh?"

"Yeah.." you mumbled. You sighed putting your face into your hands.

"You can go home. I got the rest. I'm sure your boyfriend, girlfriend or whatever is gonna be happy to see you." He took a sip of coffee. You glanced up at him, "I uh.. I don't have a partner.".

"Oh. Sorry.. I uh".

"It's fine." You gently sat up to get a better look at him.

"I thought a pretty girl like you was taken."

Oh he's smooth. Your heart skipped a beat. He was nothing like the geek in the stab movies.

"well I wasn't exactly Ms.Popular." you gripped the arms of your seat. Your heart is pounding against your ribs. He smirked, "Me neither. Well goodnight.".

"Goodnight.".

That's when the flirting began, it was subtle. Just compliments here and there. Once you accepted them and subtly flirted back it got more serious. Flowers on your desk, coffee always ready for you. Dinner for more fancy, his hand brushing against yours.

The movie was about to wrap up and you had to prepare for the premieres. You were busy scheduling times and dates for Randy. It was another late night and he shuffled out to the printer. You glanced up at him, his brown hair was a mess. Spikes of it out the side, you looked back at the computer. You bit your lip looking down at yourself.

"Um, if you want I can get take out delivered." You broke the silence. He turned towards you and smiled, "That'd be great.". You opened a drawer with take out menus. The previous assistant left them stating he always would ask for take out.

You grabbed some and brought them to him. He looked over and took them, you smiled and adjusted your dress. Maybe you were too dressed up for your job. But it was just for him, no one else. He'd glance at your chest before quickly looking away.

"Uh, Chinese is fine.. I'll be in my office just.. knock uh.. yeah" he left you alone by the printer. You looked down to see the papers he left. You stood there contemplating to bring them. You grabbed them and slowly opened the door. He sat in his chair almost passed out.

How could someone fall asleep so quick? You placed his papers down and looked at him. You cleared your throat waking him up. He looked at you and jumped, "Sorry!".

"You're fine. Randy I need to talk to you.." you sat down in the chair Infront of his desk. He nodded sitting up, "What's up?".

"I like you... a lot.. but I can't lose this job." You slowly explained. He blinked and slightly grinned, "uh.. I like you as well..". You smiled, "I understand if we can't do Thursday dinners anymore.". He then seemed disappointed, "Oh, I guess not.".

"But what if we did?" He asked. You looked up at him, "Randy.. I don't think you understand..". He looked at you puzzled, you took a deep breath.

"I like you in a sexual way." You cleared up. His eyes widened and face went pink. He leaned back in his chair, "Oh.".

"Yeah.." you looked down embarrassed. He fidgeted slightly, "What if I like you in a sexual way?".

"I.. would I be fired?" You panicked.

"No!" He quickly reassured. You calmed down, "I won't tell anyone." He said softly. You nodded, "I'm sorry.".

"Don't be. We don't have to act on it. We'll just be professional." He leaned back into his chair. Your heart sunk, "What if I don't want to.. keep it professional.". Randy went silent, you dug yourself in a deep hole. You got up and looked down at him.

"I never felt this way for anyone. I just.. I really want to be with you." You whispered. You bit the inside of your cheek hoping he'd agree. He stood up and looked down, "I don't wanna ruin your chances of becoming a director.".

"I understand.." you whisper.

"You're really smart and bright. And I'm just some geek that survived murders from years ago. Besides there has to be someone your age.." he tried to help. You sighed pulling him into a kiss, he slowly grabbed your waist.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" He asked. You nod, "Yes.. but I..uh before we do..". He studied your face, "What is it?".

"I'm a virgin...I've never.. done anything like this " you softly say. Randy's mouth twitched a bit into a smile. You looked up at him for a sign.

"That's alright.". He leaned closer pushing the back of your legs onto his desk. He pushed all his papers and knick-knacks into the floor. He laid you down on the desk and looked at your body.

"God.. you're so stunning.." he slid his hands up your thighs. Your dressed scrunched up revealing your already soaked underwear. He gave you a toothy smile, "so wet... haven't even done anything..". You felt embarrassed about your lack of experience. He glanced up at your face, "Have you ever.. touched yourself?".

You're face went redder, you slowly shook your head no. You never had a reason to, he bit his lip.

"I can show you.." he whispered. You nodded quickly, he gently grabbed your hand. He placed it on your clothed core, he gently rubbed it in circles. He watched your lips part slightly, he grinned.

"That's it.. it's okay to moan.." he encouraged. You nodded slightly, he slid your underwear off and moved your hand back. He placed his and your middle finger on the entrance.

"It.. may hurt.." he warned. You nodded and hit your lip preparing yourself. He pushed your fingers in taking both of them at once. You tilted your head back letting out an aroused moan. He leaned over your body as he continued to help finger you.

"Mm.. who knew my assistant was such a dirty girl?.. under all those cute clothes and hard work. Just someone who wanted to be fucked." He teased. You whined as you closed your legs around his arm.

"Are you gonna come already?" He asked softly. You weren't sure if you were, you blinked at him. Your stomach was already knotting, your opening throbbing.

"I .. I don't know" you whined. He nodded, "It's alright, you'll know when it's time.". You nodded as you let out a moan. You tilted your head back as a wave of pleasure washed over. He leaned down leaving a trail of kissing on your neck.

You tried to focus on the feeling of him. The feeling of Randy Meeks being on top of you. You wouldn't have guessed the same geek from the movies would be so talented at this. You lifted your legs up to his sides and arched your back. A giant ball of warmth formed, you bit your lip and gripped his desk.

"I think I'm.. I'm gonna.." you tried to form a sentence. He looked up at you and smiled, he entered another one of his fingers and curled them. He listened to your moans echo off his office walls. You shakily brought your legs down and breathed heavily. He stood up taking yours and his fingers out. You brought your hand to your face. The slick juice coated your fingers, you glanced at Randy. Who was licking his fingers off, he looked down at you and smiled. You lazily sat up, "That.. that was great..".

"..oh princess.. we're not done." He studied your face. You looked at him a bit shocked, "What?".

"I'm not done with you.." he leaned close to your face.

"Unless you want to go. Which is fine." He added. You shook your head no, "Please.. continue.". He smiled and unzipped the fly of his jeans. You looked down at them feeling a pool of arousal form. He snickered as he unbuttoned his pants.

"Can you get on your knees for me?" He asked politely. You nodded getting off the desk, your got on your knees looking up at him. He put his hand under your chin, "Ready?".

"Yes..." you whispered. He smiled taking his member out. You stared at it, the tip craved your touch, he craved your touch. He tilted his head down at you, "Know what to do?". You sat there and gently held it.

"My..my mouth?" You asked softly.

"Yes, baby. Your mouth. Can you do that for me?".

You looked down at it, you gave it a little kitten lick. He bit his lip waiting for more. You licked a long strip up before putting it in your mouth. He let out a satisfied sigh as you moved your head. He put his hand on your head to help guide you. He groaned grabbing a bit of hair as he guided you.

His cock hit the back of your throat multiple times, causing you to drool. You gripped his thighs for balance as he began to face fuck you. He pulled your head back sliding his cock out. You looked up at him, cheeks red and face covered in drool. He smiled and helped you up.

"You're doing so well...learning so much hm?" He rubbed your shoulders. You nodded, "Mhm.." you lazily hummed.

"Like what?" He wanted to hear all that he's done.

"How.. how to finger myself.. and how to give a blow job.." you weakly explain. He grinned giving you a kiss, "good girl.".

He sat back in his office chair looking up at your now wrinkled dress. You stood there looking down at him. You felt vulnerable and a bit excited. Randy grabbed your hips sitting you on his lap. He massaged the side of your hip through your dress.

"How are you feeling?" He checked in. You lean towards ur head down to his shoulder.

"Weak ... and tingaly." You breathed. He sighed, "Poor girl .. never got my cock inside of her.". You nuzzled your face into his neck. He smirked, "Do you feel alright to keep going?". You nodded slowly trying to steady your breath. He smirked pulling the rest of your dress off. You let him as if you were a ragdoll leaning back against him. He gently rubbed your back before standing you up. You wobble a bit as you stand he slowly turned you around bending you over.

Your heart raced, your fantasy was happening. Your cheek pressed against the wood, you darted your eyes up at him. He scanned your body running one hand up your back. You took in a shaky breath, he dragged the tip through your folds. You breath hitched up as your hole squeezed around nothing. He chuckled slightly watching it clenched for him.

"Ready?". You closed your eyes amazing the desk was a soft bed. Maybe your fantasy wasn't convenient for this sort of thing. Then again you didn't think Randy would like the idea of this.

"Baby?" He leaned down close to your ear. You opened your eyes, "Mhm..". He stood back up placing his hand in the middle of your back. He pressed in gently helping you adjust. You gasped clenching around him, he let out a low moan.

"you're so tight.." he breathed slowly thrusting into you. You whined feeling his thick length inside you. He picked up the pace pressuring his hand down more.

"So precious... such.. such a good girl.. letting me ruin you like this.." he moaned. You whimpered reaching the edge of the desk. You grasped it holding yourself still for him.

Your thighs burned as he pressed into you. Your brain felt foggy not being able to think of complete words. Just him, the feeling of him taking you. His arms wrapped around hips pulling you up. You leaned back against him trying to hold yourself up.

"Feeling alright?" He whispered. His breath warmed your ear causing you to lean in more. You nodded moaning softly, he slowed down his pace causing you to whimper.

"I think I should stop."

You tightened your grip on his arm and looked up at him. You wanted to say no to beg him to keep going. He raised his eyebrow looking down at you. You parted your lips to try to speak, he thrust into you. He chuckled as your face melted into pleasure. He laid you back on the desk continuing what he started. His grip on your hips burned as he squeezed them.

You choked on your moans feeling overwhelmed. His cock continuously hits your g-spot, he grunt softly.

"I'm.. I'm gonna come inside you. Is that okay?" He moaned. You nodded your mouth flowing with whimpers.

"Gonna make you all mine..." he whispered. You tightened around him feeling your stomach knot.

"Taking me so well... turning you into such a dirty girl..." he grunting releasing himself in you. You whined, your legs shaking beneath him.

"I..I'm gonna.." you tried to form a sentence. He continued at a steady pace leading to you to your orgasm.

"that's it .. just let it happen.." he whispered. You let out a deep breath grasping into the desk tightly. You tried to stand up but wobbled into him. He caught you, "whoa... how about you spend the night at my place?". You nodded and gave him a lazy smile, "Id like that.".

You softly groaned and blinked rapidly trying to adjust to the light. You sat up glancing around the room. There were horror movie posters evenly hung. A dresser with more collectable items from comic books. You looked down at Randy who was fast asleep. You ran your hand through his messy brown hair. He groaned leaning into your touch.

"Good morning" you whispered. He grinned into his pillow, "Morning..". You kissed his forehead laying back down beside him. He reached out for your waist pulling you closer to him.

"Randy?" You whispered.

"Hm?" He buried his face in the crook of your neck.

"Are we... together?" You whispered, your voice shook. He looked at you, "if you want to be.".

"I do. I wanna be with you .." you admitted. He smiled, "good.. we'll just have to keep it a secret. But it seems you're pretty good at that." He grins.

Tag list - @hurlonsororitygirls @sanzumylovee @katie-tibo @horneybeach1

Bonus Jamie Kennedy image -

189 notes · View notes

ageless-aislynn · 10 months ago

Text

Title: “15 Minutes” (9/?) Author: @ageless-aislynn Characters/fandom: Master Chief John-117/Reader, Halo the series Summary: You're in peril but don't be afraid, help is near. Series: How to date a Spartan (without even trying) Rating: T (PG13) Length: 2,568 (this chapter, 22,261 total so far) Spoilers: Set in the Silver Timeline of Halo the series, not the games or novels. Though we began with the events of Halo 1x06, there will be no more show spoilers. We are still firmly seated in the AU Warthog, merrily driving out to places where there’s only a passing nod to canon. 😉 Trigger warning: claustrophobia Disclaimer: Definitely not mine but I do enjoy borrowing them just for a bit! 😉 A/N: Text is both here in this post or available at AO3, however you like to read. Halo season 2 has finally arrived! However, this fic continues to zip along in the AU Party Warthog, so, while we began with season 1 way back when (and you’ll see a few more things from s1 along the way 😉), we’ll not be venturing into s2 territory at all. Unless s2 is going to take some verrrrry interesting twists, lol! Chapter 10 is in progress by hand but I hope to have it ready soon. 🤞😣🤞 The tags have been updated for hurt/comfort starting with this chapter. If you read, I hope you enjoy! ⭐💖⭐

Taglist: @pinheadbanger @mysardencut @laurenstacy610 @sporadicbelievernightmare @ultrablackwidower @bxmxtx @jellotherelol

If you would like to be tagged in my John/Reader fics, just let me know! I also write John/Kai, John/Cortana and Kai/male Reader, so I’m glad to tag you for whatever you’d like. If you would like to be removed from the taglist, also feel free to let me know, no harm, no foul. 😉 💖

Halo fic masterlist ⭐

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8

Trigger warning again: claustrophobia If you need to avoid the actual scene, skip the entire first section but there will be a lot of mentions of it again through the rest of the chapter, just so you're aware. I don't want to cause any distress to anyone so if you'd like a recap of what happens in this chapter, feel free to contact me here and I'm happy to oblige so you can stay in-the-know without reading something that could trigger a bad reaction. Stay safe, my friends! 🤗

You tried to gasp in a breath but there was a weight pinning you down. Smoke burned your lungs and your eyes. Your left arm couldn't move but you were able to bring your right hand up to wipe your face, trying to clear your vision. The only light in the rubble came from a shower of sparks a few feet away, emitting from a panel half-ripped from the wall. There was very little to orientate yourself by.

"Hello?" you tried to call but you couldn't take a deep enough breath to yell. The muffled ring in your ears told you that at least one of your eardrums had ruptured.

Evaluate, you thought in the tone you used when triaging patients, shoving down a wave of panic. You tried to squeeze out from under whatever was pressed across your back. No good, too much weight.

There wasn't a tremendous amount of pain but you worried at the numbness from your waist down, behind whatever was restraining you.

Evaluate.

You tested moving your legs, your feet, your toes. It felt strange but yes, you had movement.

Spinal cord potentially compromised but not severed, you diagnosed as clinically as possible.

Something overhead gave an alarming groan.

Alert help. Report your position.

"Hello? I'm by the crane operator booth. Can anyone hear me?"

You couldn't get the volume you wanted and you automatically tried to inhale deeper. You couldn't and had to fight another wave of panic. The animal part of your brain wanted to claw the twisted metal of the deck, trying to squirm free, but when you twitched, something above you groaned again.

You had no way to know how perilous the collapsed structure was. A wrong move could bring it all down.

A fresh wave of smoke irritated your nose and you coughed weakly. From far away, you heard the muffled sound of a woman saying your rank and last name.

"Here," you choked out. "I'm here."

A blue light shimmered a few feet away, the lower half of a blue-tinted woman, her upper body phased through the rubble. Then she shrank until she fit the space, adjusting like a camera lens. A hologram.

She repeated your rank and last name. "We have your location," she said, your damaged hearing distorting her voice. "Sit tight, a rescue crew is on their way."

You tried to respond but the smoke triggered more coughing, so you nodded.

"I'll stay with you for as long as the holo-emiter holds," she said, gesturing towards the ruined wall panel that continued to spark.

"Thank you," you managed to say. "Casualties?"

She glanced up and away as if receiving new information. "Reports coming in of injuries but no fatalities. Your alert gave enough time for almost everyone to get clear."

"Good." You made yourself slow your breathing down, taking shallow breaths since you couldn't take deeper ones. For a moment, your head swam and it felt like the floor tipped. Your fingers scratched for a hold on the crumpled metal.

The sound of your rank and name cut through the terror. "You're all right," the woman assured you. "You're not falling. Try to stay still. Silver Team will be back on site in a few more minutes. John will be here soon."

It gave you something to focus on other than bring trapped. The way she knew that the mention of John would comfort you, that she didn't call him Master Chief like most people did, even the mannerism of how she'd looked away, like someone was speaking in her ear...

"Your name wouldn't be Ms. Classified, would it?" you asked haltingly and tried to smile.

"That's... not inaccurate," she said and maybe it was your blurry vision but you could've sworn she gave you a fond smile, like she knew you. "I'm not supposed to tell my name."

You tried to say it was all right but couldn't draw enough breath.

"Ah, screw it," she said. "What are they going to do, fire me? My name is Cortana."

You must've blacked out because the next thing you knew, she was kneeling next to you, her small holographic hand resting atop your outstretched arm as she repeated your rank and name.

If you could get a breath, you needed a good, solid breath. Your chest instinctively fought to expand but couldn't beneath the pressure bearing down on your back. Something above you slid and the pressure abruptly worsened. You clawed, you fought, you struggled to breathe. To live.

"John, get here now! The support beam is failing!"

"Not his fault," you tried to say. "Tell him. Not his--"

Metal screamed and everything went dark.

You woke, grasping at nothing. You still couldn't get a deep breath but this time you were on your back and it felt like someone had laced a corset brutally tight around you.

"Easy there. You're all right," said a deep voice.

Your vision swam and then Spartan Vannak-134 appeared out from the dim lighting. You were still clawing at the air, trying to sit up, and he caught your hand a little awkwardly in his much larger ones.

"Where?" you gasped.

"You're back on Reach, in medical."

Once he said it, details emerged like a black and white picture filling in with color: the beeps of the monitors, the distinctive antiseptic smell. Your hearing was still deadened but not as much as before, meaning they had already begun healing therapies on your eardrums.

Anything you might've wanted to say dissolved like sugar on your tongue before the words could be spoken. Your head seemed too full. I'm drugged, you thought and that was the last thing you knew for a while.

Voices drew you from the murky depths and you tried to open your eyes but couldn't.

"Hold her hand," Vannak said in a quiet rumble. "She likes that."

A new hand gently folded around yours and your fingers instinctively gripped hold.

You woke, feeling the phantom press of metal bearing down on you, forcing the air from your lungs. You tried to sit up, your limbs flailed, uncoordinated and leaden. A second hand closed around yours and a feminine voice began to softly sing, a lullaby in a language you didn't recognize.

The room was blurry but you caught a glimpse of red hair -- Spartan Riz-028. You went under once more, dreaming of music that soothed your fears.

Later, there was a new voice to lure you up from the sticky darkness.

"Poor little thing. She looks so small."

"She'll heal. Hold her hand, it helps."

At some point, you jolted awake to find your hand cradled carefully within Kai's.

"Hey," she said, sitting up straighter in the chair next to the bed. "You need anything?"

Your head felt less stuffed with cotton than before but now that cotton seemed to have been transferred to your mouth. "Water?" you croaked.

She jumped up and returned shortly, carrying a cup with a straw in it. You intended to sit up but a searing pain in your ribs immediately convinced you that was a bad idea and you let her help you by holding the straw to your lips.

"Slowly," she advised.

Once you'd taken a couple of sips, you mumbled your thanks then promptly passed out.

You thought you'd closed your eyes for a brief moment but when they fluttered open, it wasn't Kai sitting in the chair, holding your hand.

As soon as John knew you were awake, he was on his feet, carefully brushing the fingertips of his free hand along the curve of your cheek.

You mouthed his name.

"Rest," he said. "I'm here. You're safe."

For the first time in what seemed like forever, you truly felt as if you were. Your mind let go.

"And how's our favorite mech, the Hero of the Pit?"

"That's not a very heroic name," you confessed, smiling as Maria and then Jamie entered medical.

You were sitting on the side of the bed in generic gray scrubs, waiting for Dr. Savannah to give you final instructions before your release. It had been two days since the explosion. Your hearing had, thankfully, returned to normal. The rest of you... not so much but you were on the mend.

They both gave you careful hugs.

"You look a lot less like you were squashed by a building," Jamie said sincerely and Maria punched his arm. "Hey, that was a compliment!"

"Don't make me laugh," you begged, holding your left side. They'd fused your broken ribs back together but the tissue damage would take longer to resolve. Still, aches, pains, limited motion and all, you knew you were very lucky.

"I hope they're giving you a nice vacation, at least," Maria went on.

"I should be ready for light duty in a week."

"Technically, I said we'd evaluate you for light duty in a week," Dr. Savannah corrected as she entered. "Afraid your friends will have to catch up with you later."

They said their goodbyes and, as they left, you started to stand. The doctor quickly said, "No, you don't. I don't want you walking on that leg."

"It's not broken," you argued.

"Not anymore," she countered. "Stay put. I got you a ride."

"I don't need to be wheeled back to the barracks." You tried to keep your tone confident but the truth was even that little bit of exertion had left you feeling twinges all along your left leg. Your left shoulder throbbed with each heartbeat.

"Well, good thing you're wrong on both counts," she said, winking. "And here he is now."

John came through the door, dressed in his undersuit as if either about to head to the Brokkr stations to have his Mjolnir mounted up or returning from having it removed. You didn't even realize you'd moved to rise again until Dr. Savannah put a practiced hand on your good shoulder to keep you down.

"I'll be sending PT to you twice a day, starting tomorrow," she said. "They'll help you to get your strength and mobility back. Around that, rest. Catch up on your reading, watch some thoroughly trashy movies, and keep your feet up. Not too far up, though. Nothing too strenuous. Make him do all of the work."

That got you to look at her and she waggled her eyebrows.

John cleared his throat slightly, a faint but definite flush creeping up from his collar. "Yes, ma'am."

"All right, see you back in a few days, sooner if anything else develops. You know what to watch for."

It wasn't until she stepped back and John approached that it clicked.

"You're going to carry me?"

"Yes, ma'am," he repeated in a murmur that shivered straight down your spine.

Since your left side had taken the brunt of the damage, he put your right to his chest and cautiously picked you up in a bridal carry. Despite the care, being moved set a thousand things to hurting and your breath hitched as he straightened.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," you said, your tone tighter than you would've liked. You thought, I hope nobody sees me being toted around like this, but, as soon as you left medical, you realized that no one was actually looking at you.

I think if Master Chief offered to drop me and pick up any marine, ODST or officer in this hall, they'd be hopping into his arms before I even hit the floor!

At the first turn he made, you realized the rest of it. "This isn't the way to the barracks."

"Nope," he said and you knew him well enough now to see the hint of a smile in his eyes.

You didn't have to wait for further clues, there was only one place, then, that he could be taking you. "How many strings did you have to pull for this?"

"Not as many as you might think," he demurred. "Your actions saved lives."

And they could've blamed you for failing to make sure a bomb hadn't been sent to the Pit in the first place. The curly tailed Warthog had been your responsibility, after all. You'd been curtly informed of all that when they'd debriefed you the first day you'd had your eyes open for more than 15 minutes.

You doubted they'd told that to John, though.

When you reached his room, he maneuvered so to get his thumb on the panel without jostling you too much. The lights came on as he took you through the doorway and then he paused.

"Kai," he rumbled, shaking his head. "She said studies show people heal better with color. I should've known she'd overdo it. Say the word and I'll have her in here clearing this out."

"It's your room," you said, "but personally, I love it."

The duvet on the bed and the pillows on the couch were now a rainbow of jewel tones. A tapestry with a field of sunflowers dominated the wall at the foot of the bed and you could've sworn there was a dusting of diamond glitter shimmering on every wall, sending tiny holographic rainbows through the air in all directions. But the main thing that caught your attention was overhead.

"She put up stars," you said, brightening.

"Ah, that one was actually me," he confessed. "You seemed to really like those in her room so I thought..."

You stretched up in his arms, inhaling a little sharply at the stab of pain in your left side, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I love them, John. Thank you."

A short time later, you found yourself lying on the bed in the darkened room, looking up at those stars. John had profusely apologized for not being able to stay after getting you settled in. He'd turned down the bed so you wouldn't have to, had put your padd close at hand on the nightstand to the right along with a bottle of water and a couple of emergency ration packs in case you got hungry before someone bought you a meal. He'd even procured you a set of unthinkably soft civvies to change into, exactly your size and in your favorite color.

You couldn't imagine that a Spartan had ever taken care of a sick or wounded person before, other than in a battlefield triage situation, so he'd probably found a checklist from somewhere to guide him. His earnestness to make sure he'd done everything right sent warmth flooding through you.

Before he left, he'd paused to kiss the top of your head.

"You know," you said, lifting your chin, "my lips aren't broken."

He hesitated. "The last time I did that, an entire base fell on you."

"Only the warehouse part," you said dismissively, "and there was absolutely no correlation, I promise."

He tried to smile at that but his eyes still showed concern.

"I promise," you repeated more seriously and he exhaled as if about to make a tremendous leap. His kiss was so soft and gentle, it was barely more than a whisper against your mouth.

Once he had left, you'd considered taking Dr. Savannah's advice and watching a holo, reading something on your padd, or doing any number of things to pass the time but ultimately, you'd wanted to appreciate his handiwork.

After all, it wasn't just anybody who could say a Spartan had literally hung the stars for them.

#halo #halo the series #halo paramount+#master chief x reader #x reader #john-117 x reader #fic: 15 minutes #series: how to date a spartan without even trying #ageless aislynn #aislynn's fics #aislynn's fic

99 notes · View notes

sarbear94 · 8 days ago

Text

Because Evan-

(It’s a long one…sorry not sorry 😘)

Okay…. I’ve been rewatching some old Buddie scenes because of the potential of Eddie moving back to El Paso and…. excuse my language but…. What the fuck?

It’s like the writers are new or don’t know what to do with Eddie anymore. Or like someway, somehow the episodes are out of order.

In THAT scene, Buck asks “he has grandparents, family” and Eddie reply’s “After Shannon left, they tried to guilt me into giving Christopher to them. It wasn’t what I wanted then, it’s not what I want now.” They then both agreed that no one would fight harder for Chris than Buck.

So WHY THE FUCK haven’t either of them gotten him back yet??

Eddie started season 7 with Marisol and Chris and everyone’s fine. Then Chris is dating multiple girls (Eddie is baffled and doesn’t know how to handle it so he asks Buck for help) and said it has to do with his mom to Buck and we get that EMOTIONAL shot of Eddie devastated after hearing this. Then proceeds to give him a letter to bring about closure for him. Eddie seemed to already have closure or at least repressed it.

Then Eddie meets Kim…. And the Eddie we have loved for 6 seasons is IMMEDIATELY GONE. He does the exact same thing that he told Buck about Christopher was not okay And needed to be fixed (he was BEGGING Buck for help).

Like, my dude, how did you think this was gonna go? You kept everyone in the dark. Your son, your best friend, your GIRLFRIEND and even Kim! What was his end goal? It doesn’t make any sense.

Like I understand that if Gavin wasn’t gonna be around next season, and you need to write him off but have him potentially come back, there were several ways you could have done that but still kept true to the characters. Have Chris go to a boarding school. Or a school trip. Or literally ANYTHING ELSE! Then season 8, keep the Kim storyline, but Chris is already gone and doesn’t witness it. Cause now that whole confession thing with Kim pretending to be Shannon and actually get closure was pointless. If they’d done that with Chris gone, he’d have the closure. Work on the PTSD crawling back up in an empty house, keep the Priest and finding Joy and then keep that for a bit and then heal.

That was a whole side tangent really for the main point I was trying to make, but why does Eddie- lose Chris, grow a mustache, grieve for not having his son, have an episode where a Priest says “let yourself have Joy,” then take it away in the next couple of episodes by saying “I’m thinking of moving to Texas” based on the words of a psycho actor??

Chris is a TEENAGER! Hell- he might still be a preteen, grow the fuck up and go parent your son. You’ve put your foot down before, why is this any different?? After a few weeks, I would have been like “nope, we’re done with this. I get I fucked up, but I’m still your dad so we are gonna talk about this and figure out some common ground.” I understand feeling guilty and not wanting to push him even farther away but you’re not even trying! Phone calls don’t show “I want you here with me,” it says “I’m okay with you being gone.”

You’re thinking moving to El Paso is a great idea… but it’s not. Your parents suck. You know this. YOU MOVED HALF WAY ACROSS THE US TO GET AWAY FROM THEM FOR A REASON! I get you patched things up slightly, but not enough.

ALSO! Why wasn’t Buck an option?!? Because of Tommy? I get because Gavin being out of the show(temporarily?) would have made that impossible but why wasn’t it even mentioned? I mean, He’s run to him before, he’s called him when Eddie had his breakdown and Chris didn’t know what to do. But like THEY HAD THE WILL, why wasn’t it even a factor in this. At the time, it felt like, at least to Chris, that Eddie was incapable of taking care of him, which means that Chris should go to Buck. Not his grandparents.

I just don’t understand what they are doing with these two. E and C. Bucks got his bisexual journey(relationship with Tommy). Bobby has multiple storylines. The Hans had the Mara and new baby storylines. Hen and Karen had the Ortiz/Mara and Denny/Halloween storylines. Athena has literally any storyline involving cops. And all those storylines make sense for each character. Eddie’s and Chris’s doesn’t. They keep pushing Eddie to be sad then happy then making stupid decisions. DEVELOP YOUR FUCKING CHARACTER! You’ve been dropping the ball since at least the network switch. Which I find super funny because yes, he does the emotional scenes super amazing but now it seems like his character is more open. He’s making more funny faces, he’s got the loose hair, he makes comedic jokes. But he’s almost(so close) to reminding me of Buck 1.0.. but it doesn’t fit with the storyline at all. At least to me…

Like does anyone agree with any of this? Am I just seeing things? Did the writers get told Gavin was leaving too late and made this story on the fly and rolled with it? Does Ryan want out of the show and they are keeping it under wraps? Like WHAT IS HAPPENING? Make it make sense!

Ps. I did not proofread this before posting so if something doesn’t make sense, let me know. I was just trying to get down all my thoughts on this. Currently me vvv

#911 abc #buddie #evan buckley #christopher diaz #eddie diaz #because evan #911 spoilers #911 writers #weewoo show #help my sanity #character development

22 notes · View notes

icey--stars · 17 days ago

Note

Hey I saw in your bio that your requests are open? Pls ignore if they aren't 🙏🏼 but I had this idea for Azris, and as the queen of Azris angst, I knew I had to at least share it with you

So I've been watching the Shadowhunters show (idk if you've seen it) but basically there's this seen where Jace gets possessed by some spirit thing and starts attacking his best friend, Alec. And they have a whole fight scene and it ends with Jace stabbing Alec with an arrow. All the while the ghost thing is talking THROUGH Jace and saying stuff like "Your boy's in there, screaming, begging me not to do this." And Alec is all like "it's ok, it's not your fault.". (I would highly recommend searching that scene up, it's the best angst inspo and I'm horrible at explaining)

Anyways imagine that buttt...AZRIS!!! What if after they are officially mated and everything, running their court, a new threat emerges that basically possess Eris who then attacks Azriel, maybe he stabs him, maybe there's a bit of burning involved (pls I'm sorry I know it sounds fucked up, but I love a good angst)

And then when Eris gets rid of whatever is controlling, how would they heal from that, like move on and stuff cuz I can imagine Eris would be feeling hella guilty and Az would want to forgive him but still be shaken up himself too...

Anyways if you do decide to write you can change it up as you like, I know whatever you come up with will be AMAZINGGG

You Would Never Hurt Me

Azriel is at a weekly family dinner when suddenly his bond with Eris alerts him to danger. What will happen when he realizes his mate is being controlled by another? What lengths will he go to? - 5.3k words of emotional pain.

Author's Note: Queen of Azris Angst? we sure? y'know what... i'll take it XD. I took a few creative liberties, but actually not too many... but I hope you enjoy :D

ouch my soul hurts. genuinely hurt me to write this but it just hurt so good. Also, I did end up changing the part about Az hesitating to forgive him because he was shaken up purely because the situation was so much more angsty with Az desperately trying to convince Eris everything is okay.

TW: Depictions of violence, mentions of blood, SEVERE burns, Azriel’s canon backstory, mind control trope, descriptions of severe injuries

also this was not edited very much. apologies for any mistakes!

{ ao3 link }

↢ 『 ☾ 』 ↣

The newest threat to Prythian had been biding their time for a while. Azriel wasn’t going to lie that he was nervous. He and his spies in both courts he had close connections to had been unable to find anything of use. The only thing that they seemed to know was that this enemy was intelligent and not without power. They didn’t even know if it was a fae from the continent, Prythian or even Hybern. All reports had come up useless in the grander scheme of things.

“Az, if you keep that frown on your face, it might just become permanent,” Cassian teased. He’d gone to the weekly dinner at Velaris this week. This time, without Eris. Normally he’d come along, but Eris had decided he wanted to finish up some of the paperwork and work on training one of the newest ghost hound yearlings some more commands.

Azriel couldn’t help but feel tense over the matter since he knew he’d seen more signs of the enemy closer to the Autumn Court than anywhere else. It had his metaphorical hackles standing on end almost constantly.

Cassian nudged his shoulder with his knuckles. “Come on, Az,” his brother urged. “Relax a moment. I know you’d rather Eris be here, but he’s going to be just fine. He’s a damn High Lord of fire. I think he can manage a night without your shadows surrounding him.”

Azriel sighed, nodding in agreement. “Sorry, Cass,” He mused. “Something just feels off tonight.”

“How so?” Rhys questioned from across the table, still facing Nyx as he tried to bargain with the child over eating his greens.

Azriel shrugged. “The shadows are jittery. The darkness doesn’t bring comfort. Something is just off,” he replied.

Rhys hummed in acknowledgement. Feyre replied, “Is it about that threat?” She asked carefully. The bags under her eyes were evidence that the little Heir to the Night Court was still having trouble sleeping since his visit to the Illyrian camps.

“I’m not entirely sure. But I’ve seen more signs of them near the Autumn Court than anywhere else,” he admitted. “I wish we knew what they were capable of at the very least.”

“Whatever it is, Az, I’m sure we can handle it,” Rhys said, looking up toward him. “We’ve handled far worse than one crazed individual. But if you’re nervous and you’re not even going to eat what’s on your plate until you get back to your mate, none of us will fault you for leaving.”

Nesta nodded from where she sat beside Cassian, but she was also just playing with her foot with her fork. “That, or you can kidnap him and force him to attend dinner and book club,” Nesta mused, smirking as she glanced over at him.

Azriel scoffed in amusement. “I’m not so sure he’d appreciate that, Nes.”

Nesta chuckled. “No, but it’d make your sorry ass stop brooding for five minutes.”

Azriel rolled his eyes, turning away. He put his fork down. They weren’t wrong to say he couldn’t stomach food with this… itch of some sort bugging the hell out of him.

Suddenly, the bond twitched inside of him. Not a good twitch either.

Azriel sat up straight immediately, putting a hand to his chest when more emotions began flowing through. Worry. Confusion. Fear.

Azriel stood up as quickly as he could, shadows flaring out.

“Azriel,” Rhys mused from the table. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s in danger,” Azriel breathed.

Rhys immediately stood up. “In danger? Eris? The Lord of Fire?”

“Don’t make jokes, Rhys,” he begged, breathing a bit heavier. “Don’t follow me yet. The wards will stop you. Just… keep a tab on my mind. I have a feeling what this is. And it’s not a nightmare.”

Then he winnowed, feeling Rhys gently prod into his mind to stay as a presence just on the outside of his mind so he’d know what’s happening too.

Azriel followed the bond, sprinting as fast as possible through the Forest House until-

Eris was in his office.

But then something stopped. The bond stopped. Empty.

Azriel burst in, panting terribly as he spotted Eris standing at his desk.

“Eris?” He questioned hesitantly.

Eris turned around, but his eyes were distant. Azriel’s heart dropped like a stone when he heard emotionless words come out of his mate’s mouth. “Eris is not here, Illyrian mongrel.”

Azriel squared his shoulders, pressing his already glowing siphon to form his armor over his body. He crouched down imperceptibly. “Eris, this is not a funny joke.”

That was just his denial talking though. Eris had never called him an Illyrian mongrel.

“Oh, he doesn’t?” The male asked hauntingly. “Are you so sure? I know you can’t be… being a bastard and all.”

Something slammed into his mental walls and Azriel stumbled back just as Rhys seemed to reel back in his mind.

Azriel gritted his teeth, forcing his eyes open as he stared into Eris’s eyes, waiting for the familiar clarity to come back.

“You’re pathetic,” Eris snarked. “One measly hit and it almost took you down? Weak.”

Rhys seemed to be doing something akin to building a second wall from within his mind, battling off something. Azriel couldn’t spare any mental energy to figure out what it was.

“Eris… you need to come back,” He said, but it really came out more like pleading.

Flames sparked on Eris’s palms and Azriel couldn’t help his flinch. Though his mate had been helping him overcome his fear as of late, something… something felt wrong about this.

“Eris,” he warned, eyes drawn down to the fire unconsciously. “What are you doing?”

“My name is not Eris,” he hissed, stalking closer. A dagger summoned to Eris’s palm, the flame lighting up the dagger’s edges as if it was some glowing blade. If he hadn’t been so shocked over the loss of his bond and the fear for his mate, he would’ve thought it almost looked cool. But right now? It was downright terrifying.

The male leapt at him and Azriel raised up his arms in defense, dodging to the side with only a few centimeters to spare. He didn’t want to hurt Eris. That was on the forefront of his mind.

But what was he supposed to do when Eris was trying to hurt him?

“Eris,” he pleaded. “Come back to me.”

Eris chuckled, one of the ones reserved for the lords in the council when they were pissing him off. “You know, your mate is putting up quite the fight in here. He’s been trained against people like me, but clearly not like you and your little friend protecting you.”

Azriel spared the moment of suspension to ask Rhys: What’s happening? Who?

Daemati, was Rhys’s only response and it was said as if through gritted teeth.

Shit. Eris was being controlled by a daemati. And though he had faith in Rhys, he knew that the male didn’t have much practice in fighting his own kind.

Azriel’s shadows rose like asps preparing to strike above his shoulders, as if sensing that this was not their beloved mate. No. This was an enemy this time. But he couldn’t hurt what was his.

“Let him go,” Azriel snarled.

Eris put a finger to his chin, tilting his head as if considering the prospect before scoffing. “No.” Then Eris leapt at him again. Azriel hadn’t been prepared this time- too much in shock to truly focus. His shadows reached out to cover his mate’s wrists in a desperate attempt to try and return him back, but it didn’t stop the dagger from lodging itself deep in his shoulder and twisting.

Azriel couldn’t help the pained groan that escaped him. He flared his wings and pushed forward quickly, grabbing Eris’s shoulders and pushing the male back. Though they were of equal strength, Azriel was stronger physically if they really tested themselves.

But the daemati had control over Eris’s magic at that moment and Azriel couldn’t help his yelp when the flames suddenly engulfed his hands. He wanted to scream and run, to get into the sky and never return-

He couldn’t though. This was his mate.

Azriel felt tears dripping out of his eyes as he pushed Eris back against a wall. “Come back to me,” he begged brokenly while staring into Eris’s beautiful fire-colored eyes.

“Please,” he continued.

Keep him held there, Rhys demanded in his mind. And release your shields.

Azriel really didn’t have the mental capacity to question Rhys at this moment, so he simply obeyed. The other daemati swept in, but Rhys met it head-on. Another presence joined the battlefield too- a softer type of darkness. Feyre.

A headache was beginning to bloom behind his temples at all the action occurring in his mind. More than anything though, his hands burned. The daemati was more distracted so the flames were certainly not as hot as they could be, but it still hurt.

Talk to him, Feyre ordered sternly. Bring your mate out of the fire.

Azriel let out a choked sob, his wings flaring behind him as he pressed toward Eris and rested his forehead against his mate’s. “Eris,” he begged. “I know this isn’t you. Come back to me. I know you wouldn’t-”

He cut off with a groan as the flames burned hotter. His flesh might be melting off to be honest. But he couldn’t let him go. Not now. Not ever. Azriel let another sob tear out of his throat as he pressed desperately into Eris.

“Come back to me,” he pleaded brokenly. “This isn’t you, Eris. You’re my mate. You’re mine. And you would never hurt me.”

Let go now, Feyre yelled over whatever clashing was occurring on the battleground between their minds.

“I can’t,” Azriel sobbed. He couldn’t let Eris go. Not like this. Not now. He needed his mate to know he was there and he would forgive him.

Az, let him go before your hands melt off, Rhys snarled harshly.

Azriel sobbed and stumbled backward. Eris remained standing against the wall as Azriel curled his hands toward his chest, shadows curling around them quickly, providing a soothing cold touch to them.

He kept his eyes open, watching Eris and watching his eyes. There was a flicker of fire there. Just a flicker.

“Eris,” he said again. The eyes went distant again and he snarled at the daemati, hoping the bastard could hear him over all the clashing. “Let him go. Let my mate go. Let Eris go, you-”

He couldn’t come up with an insult that could encompass all the hate he felt toward the being at this moment.

The bond flickered and Azriel clutched his chest. That put an idea in his head and he immediately brought all the love he felt for the male in front of him and shoved it down the bond as forcefully as he could. As well as some determination he hoped Eris would interpret as ‘You’re better than it. Fight back. You’re mine.’

Eris suddenly collapsed against the wall, body slumping into the floor. Azriel rushed forward before his head could slam into it as well. He cradled the male in his lap, tears still pouring down his cheeks. Everything was too much and not enough. He needed Eris, and that was about the only thing he could interpret.

“Eris, Eris, Eris,” he began repeating, pushing the hair out of his mate’s face desperately even as his shadows reported the door slamming open and Rhys with Cassian came running in.

They tried to grab his arms and drag him away but he fought harshly. “No! Don’t make me leave him,” he begged them. He needed to know his mate would be alright.

“We’ll get him too, Az,” Cassian said, pulling even more. “Rhys will get him. Come on, before your hands-”

Azriel held onto Eris even more, not wanting to leave his mate alone and afraid. Even if he was unconscious now, he would wake up and feel regret over something that wasn’t even in his control. He knew he would. But Azriel needed to be there so he could comfort him.

“Azriel,” Rhysand commanded sharply. “Let him go. Go to Madja.”

He wanted to disobey the command so badly, but his strength gave out and Cassian scooped him up onto his feet. Rhys picked Eris up into his arms and then they were winnowing straight into Madja’s clinic. Someone must’ve warned her because she already had a bucket of cold water that Cassian forced his hands into.

“Stay still,” Cassian ordered when he tried to twist and see where Rhys was taking his mate. “You’ve got to cool your hands down,” He told him. “Eris is just fine. He’s going to get checked out by Madja. You are going to get healed before your hands scar even worse with more permanent damage. Do you realize your skin is melting off?”

“But Eris-” Azriel tried to protest.

“Do not make me order you again, Az!” Rhys called from the other room. He saw Feyre winnow in as well, running toward where Rhys was. And Azriel was stuck here, useless, with his hands in a goddamn bucket. He couldn’t even feel the pain in the wake of knowing his mate was hurt.

He sobbed through his teeth. This was worse than his brothers burning his hands. This was so much worse than even the worst injuries he’s sustained in war or his line of work.

Feyre suddenly came up to him and her gentle presence ghosted along the edges of his mind before soothing something he didn’t even realize was tearing him apart from the inside it seemed like. The headache eased slightly.

“Is he okay?” He asked, looking up at Feyre. She had the most caring expression on her face and he wanted it gone.

“Rhys is with him right now,” Feyre told him. “Madja is there too, but you’re the main concern right now. He’s only going to have mental wounds. But Rhys can fix it, don’t worry,” she added on quickly when his face dropped.

“How?” He asked. “That kind of-”

“We caught it early and Rhys saw what was damaged in the fight. It’s okay, Azriel. He’s going to be okay. Now we need to make sure your hands are going to be okay, alright? Breathe and keep that even head I know you have. Eris is okay.”

Azriel sighed and slumped against whatever was nearby in relief. It ended up being Cassian. He trusted Feyre. Eris was going to be okay. And that was the only thing that mattered.

“Come on, Az,” Cassian urged, holding him up gently while still keeping his hands dunked in the water. “Your panicking will not help him if he wakes up.”

Azriel breathed and his shadows came up to whisper assurances that Eris was in the other room on a bed with Rhys and Madja. Cared for. He forced his body to come back from whatever super-adrenaline state it had gotten itself into.

“That’s it,” Cassian encouraged. “That’s good, Az. Do you feel any pain yet?”

At the mention, yes. His hands burned and not in any sort of good way. He didn’t dare look into the water. He probably couldn’t anyway since it was bloody. That probably wasn’t a good sign. The stabbing in his shoulder hurt, but it was duller than his hands at the moment.

“Yes,” he gritted out, huffing out some breath to suck more in anew as the pain now took over his being.

“I’ll get Madja,” Feyre said.

“No-” He said. “Leave her with Eris. I’m okay.”

“Eris is unconscious and Rhys is fully capable of caring for him. I’ll go over there too to help. But you need healing.”

Azriel sighed, knowing this wasn’t something Feyre would allow so he gave up on the argument early. “Okay,” he breathed. “Make sure he’s alright. Please.”

Feyre left and Madja was walking in quickly. “Get your shadows to cover your own eyes,” She ordered. The shadows, not completely under his will at the moment, took initiative and covered his eyes while she pulled his hands out of the cold water. They were numb in some places and burning in others.

Madja let out a harsh breath. “Do not lift that blindfold,” she told him and then the burning returned tenfold and he knew she was pushing healing magic into his hands. Cassian kept him restrained even as he tried to keep screams from bubbling out of his throat.

Alas, he could only stop them for so long and they soon spilled out. He lost any and all breath in his lungs all too quickly. Probably a good thing. Cassian kept him in a firm hold which grounded him somewhat but it hurt.

When he was finally given a reprieve, he was halfway towards passing out. When the pain mostly receded to a harsh ache, he finally drew in breath and slumped back against Cassian with his eyes closed.

“Come on, Az,” Cassian encouraged. “Let’s get you over to Eris, alright? Madja will wrap your hands there.”

Azriel could barely spare a hum of acknowledgement before he was being manhandled to his feet and forced to walk on shaky knees with droopy eyelids. His shadows had dropped back down to his hands, covering them from sight. Maybe that was a good thing, he decided. As soon as he saw Eris, he tried reaching out for his mate, but Cassian slapped his arm down.

“You are not using your hands, Az. Sit your ass down,” Cassian ordered. His brother helped him get out of his armor and leathers so he was just in his undershirt and pants.

He was forced to sit on the stool nearby, but was allowed to scoot it as close as possible to Eris to lean down over the bed and rest his forehead against Eris’s skin, breathing his mate’s scent in. It calmed his nerves just enough for him to finally take a deep breath.

Madja came in and forced him to hold himself up for a few more minutes while she wrapped his hands in white bandages as well as his shoulder. Then he was allowed to rest. Rhys pulled away from Eris eventually and he perked up, looking at his brother.

“He’ll be alright,” Rhys assured him. “At most, he won’t remember the fight, which I’d say is a mercy.”

Azriel sighed in relief and rested his head back down into Eris’s now cold palm since he couldn’t hold it properly. There, he fell asleep.

–––––

Azriel didn’t know how much time passed when he awoke. His hands ached like none other and if he had to be honest: everything hurt. Apparently, almost having your mate be gone to mind control by a daemati gave you some really bad tension to deal with. Specifically in his shoulders which were always the hardest to get at. Impossible now because of the thick bandages on his hands. The stab felt as if it’d already healed over. Perks of Illyrian healing, he supposed.

He lifted his head from wherever he was laying and squinted when he looked to his left and saw an empty bed.

“Eris?” He said aloud, sitting up and glancing around more. Someone must’ve moved him to the bed. But where was his mate? Azriel needed to be with him.

Suddenly, a burst of calm exploded from his chest and Azriel gasped for breath, not even realizing he’d been holding it. The bond. Thank the fucking Cauldron it was back. It meant that Eris was awake and okay enough to not be… well, dying.

Azriel groaned as he stood up, flexing his wings out behind him as he stared down at his hands. For Madja to have wrapped them so much he couldn’t even move his wrists… he must’ve gotten burned quite badly, he deduced. But, priority number one was finding Eris.

He tugged on the bond once, slowly wandering out toward where Madja usually sat in her clinic.

Eris was beside her.

Azriel breathed deeply at last, relief coursing through his veins at the sight of his mate being awake and even having a conversation with Madja over something relating to some sort of bright orange plant that looked like fire. He stumbled his way over there as quickly as he could, wrapping his arms around Eris and pressing his nose into the junction of his neck and shoulder to breathe in his scent.

Eris, however, had frozen. And that sent ice barreling through Azriel. What had happened?

“Hi Az,” Eris said hesitantly.

Azriel pulled away immediately, coming around to see Eris from the front to try and discern what the problem was.

For some reason, he had a guilty look on his face. Not a joking one- no, it was similar to the one he had when he figured out he’d accidentally forgotten something in court which led to the death of some farmers. A broken sort of regret.

“Eris, what’s wrong?” Azriel asked, brows furrowed in concern. “What happened? Did someone do something before I woke up? I’ll kill them for you with or without my hands,” he said, rage already pooling in his heart at the thought of someone making his mate feel this sort of guilt.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Eris waved him off, averting his gaze to the ground. “Nobody did anything besides that damned daemati.”

“I’m already killing him,” Azriel said to try and assure his mate. “I’m going to find him, tear his head from his shoulders and put it on a pike. Give the body to the scavengers and the head can be a personal trophy until it decays.”

A small chuckle came out of his mate’s chest and Azriel warmed up considerably, glad he could at least get that out of Eris. A chuckle was a start.

“Come on, Eris,” Azriel said, bringing his bandaged hands up to cup Eris’s cheeks. “Tell me what’s wrong. I’m not blind.”

Eris sighed and then gently grabbed Azriel’s forearms to hold his hands up. “This is what’s wrong,” he pointed out as if it was obvious.

Azriel’s brows furrowed. Then he realized. “Eris, these are not your fault. These are that bastard’s fault.”

“It was my fire that burned you, Az,” Eris argued, releasing his hands and standing up.

Madja stood as well. “I’ll let you two talk this out. Let me know if someone starts dying,” she says as she walks out.

Azriel looked at Eris, checking him from top down for any injuries or other apparent signs of his emotions. Both males had tells even if they were masters at hiding away.

“It was your fire controlled by that bastard,” Azriel argued, pressing forward. He paused when Eris backed up, even more concerned. It’d been centuries since Eris had backed away from his comfort.

“Eris,” he spoke softly. “I would’ve held you back even if my wings were burned off my shoulders. It is not your fault. Take away that guilt from your mind right fucking now. I could’ve let go the instant the daemati lit the flames, but guess what? I didn’t, did I?”

Eris looked sheepishly now and Azriel opened up his arms.

“It’s okay, Eris. You would never hurt me. I know that. You should already know that,” Azriel insisted. “My hands will heal in time. There’s a reason Madja is so esteemed as a healer. And I’m pretty sure she even got to the burns faster than the guards did when I was 8. The only reason I can speak about that night and not fear the flames is because of you.”

Eris now had tears running down his face and Azriel dared a step forward.

Eris didn’t move, but he didn’t come closer either. “I’m sorry,” Eris whispered, closing his eyes.

“You would never hurt me,” Azriel repeated.

“Your hands-”

“I don’t give a fucking shit about my hands,” Azriel cut him off. “I’d rather my entire arm be torn off than be in a world where you’re controlled by a daemati. Don’t you realize that? I would do anything to protect you. My hands being burned is the least of my worries.”

“Az, I still burned you. In the worst of places,” Eris argued.

“You did not burn me,” Azriel insisted. “You would never hurt me. Trust yourself on that, huh? Trust me on it at the very least.”

Eris choked on a sob and Azriel opened up his arms again. Finally, finally, his mate went stumbling into his comfort.

“I should have fought harder against his control,” Eris said, voice broken and muffled against Azriel’s shoulder. “I could have. But it was just so hard. It felt like everything in my mind had gone under ice, yet I could feel the heat escaping me. Burning you. I tried so hard and it didn’t work-“

“Shh…” Azriel hushed, holding Eris as tight as he could. “You did the best you could, Eris. The fact you even still remember the experience is a miracle in itself. Daemati can be very damaging. Can scratch memories. Rhys was able to repair them but I was so worried about you. You have no clue.”

Eris sobbed wetly into his shoulder and Azriel felt tears slipping down his own cheeks as well. He let his emotions flow freely over the bond. Eris’s were still a mix of guilt, but now it was more of a lost hopelessness than true guilt. More of a “I don’t know how to fix this” kind of look.

“There is nothing that you did wrong,” Azriel whispered. Eris hugged him tighter and he smiled, squeezing him back as well. His shadows were helping him give more force behind it since he was unable to use his hands and the damn plush of the bandages did not help.

“I don’t know what happened beyond the fact I burned you,” Eris admitted. “I was caught off guard since I was tired and waiting for you to come home. He just… snuck between my mental walls and latched on like a damn leech.”

“You need to rest more. Now that we know we’re dealing with a daemati, we need to keep mental shields sharp. But luckily we have some of the most powerful daemati on our side. It’s already two against one,” Azriel joked.

Eris chuckled and finally pulled away to meet Azriel’s eyes. “I’m going to help you heal your hands,” he declared. “I’ll help you with everything. Anything. Writing? Done. Massage or oil? Done.”

“If this is you trying to make up for a fake mistake, don’t,” Azriel said seriously.

“This is me helping my mate through an injury,” Eris replied, giving a small reassuring smile despite the obvious signs he’d been crying not even a few seconds ago.

“Good,” Azriel told him. “I’ll definitely take you up on the writing part. I’ve got to write down things about what happened. See if we can piece together clues. And maybe it’ll help you piece together your memory,” he added.

Eris nodded. “Anything,” he repeated.

“But first,” Azriel said, putting one bandaged hand up, “We’re going to bathe because we both stink.”

Eris couldn’t help the laugh that exploded from his chest and it made Azriel all the merrier. He loved making him laugh like this.

“Agreed,” his mate replied. “Maybe we should talk to Madja about the wrapping of your hands first?”

Azriel nodded in agreement. “Then a warm bath,” he added. “I may take you up on the massage you mentioned,” he joked. “My shoulders ache.”

“You were sleeping on a goddamn stool when I woke up,” Eris said, scoffing in amusement. “Of course your back is hurting, bat. You should have laid in the bed not even two feet away.”

“I needed to be close to you,” Azriel admitted. “I thought I wouldn’t sleep like the dead and be awake with you but…”

Eris chuckled. “You always sleep like the dead when your face is buried in my scent. Honestly, you shouldn’t have expected any differently.”

Azriel rolled his eyes. But the little banter also assured him that Eris was truly okay. At least for now, those thoughts of guilt had been warred against and lost.

Cassian came jogging in loudly suddenly and he sighed in relief when he spotted them. “Thank the fucking Cauldron you are both awake,” he panted. “Az? How are your hands?”

“Hurt, but they’re fine,” Azriel dismissed. “How bad were they?”

“You do not want to know,” Cassian replied.

“I would,” Eris spoke up. “After all, who knows how to heal burns better than the Fire Lord who deals them out?” He said. But luckily, his tone was lighthearted. No guilt to be seen. If there was, Azriel would’ve slapped the back of his head to reprimand those feelings.

Cassian hesitated, but then sighed. “Skin was practically melted off. Some parts were down to the bone. Bloody as hell,” he briefly described.

Azriel sucked in a breath, gazing down at his own hands. How had he not felt that? Apparently, his concern over Eris had been that powerful. Eris also seemed frozen in shock.

Cassian shrugged. “They looked better after Madja used all her healing magic on them. I think the only thing she was concerned about was the potential damage to your sense of touch, Az. Like, light touches.”

Azriel hummed in response. “It certainly wouldn’t be any different than the aftermath of my old injury,” he admitted. “Just takes a few years for it to return to normal.”

Cassian hummed. “Well, anyway, I was just coming here to check up on you,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his head.

“We’re fine,” Azriel assured his brother. After a moment of hesitation, he sighed and said, “Thank you, Cass. You kept a level head.”

Cassian scoffed. “Someone had to. You should’ve seen Rhys. He was practically catatonic with the mental battle. I’m surprised his or your head didn’t burst. Or Eris’s for that matter.”

Eris chuckled softly at that, but didn’t say anything. Azriel glanced at him before stretching his arms out best he could without the use of his hands. “Anyway, we’re off to get clean,” he declared.

“Tell Rhys the Autumn Court isn’t getting one of my brothers as ruler just yet,” Eris joked.

Cassian chuckled and nodded. “Don’t die,” he replied with a snicker before walking back where he came from. Wing beats told them that he’d actually left.

Madja was walking back in too. “While I’d rather keep your hands wrapped, Azriel, I do agree that you two need to bathe,” she explained. “I’ll unwrap them, but they’re going back on immediately after.”

The shadows floated towards her, some settling on the bandages of his hands as if in question to continue the order she gave them last time.

“I believe it will be alright if he sees his hands now, my friends,” Madja told them with a sweet smile. “Let’s get them unwrapped now.”

Barely fifteen minutes later, Azriel and Eris were sitting together in the bathtub, mostly just relaxing. Azriel pulled his hands up out of the lukewarm water (more strict instructions from Madja) to examine them. His old scars… were almost gone. As if burned or melted away. Instead, deep indents remained. His hands felt as if they had lost weight and he couldn’t move his fingers yet, but Madja had told him the muscles still needed time to realize they weren’t melted anymore.

Regardless, it looked odd. The skin was pulled tight. But something felt off about them.

Eris put a hand on his wrists to put his hands back in the water and draw his attention. “It’ll just take time,” Eris assured him.

“I don’t think I’ve heard of burns this bad,” Azriel admitted.

“I have,” Eris said. “Normally it took a few years, but they did eventually heal if they survived the initial burning.”

Azriel hummed. “Guess you’ll be doing the paperwork for a while,” he joked.

Eris scoffed, smiling. “Indeed I will,” he agreed.

↢ 『 ☾ 』 ↣

A/N: hope you enjoyed (and cried at least once because I SOBBED while writing this)

Tagged in all ACOTAR Stories: @bunnymallowo, @officiallyunofficialperson, @margssstuff, @rebloggiest-reblogger, @inpraizeof, @graciereads, @eos-princess, @bubybubsters, @fieldofdaisiies, @skyesayshi, @lilah-asteria,

Tagged in all Azriel Stories: @ladylokilaufeyson5, @marina468,

#acotar #azris #acotar fanfiction #acotar fanfic #acotar fic #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #azriel #eris vanserra #eris acotar #azris fanfiction #MAJORLY angsty #happy ending tho <3 #also theyre so fucking gay for each other OML ITS SO CUTE #I DESIRE VALIDATIONNNN (lmao)#mywriting

22 notes · View notes

angstbabyjae · 6 months ago

Text

Nona The Ninth Epilogue Analysis and Interpretation

I just finished rereading Nona the Ninth of the Locked Tomb Series with my dad and of course he was majorly confused at the epilogue, so here is my interpretation of what happens in it. For things said by the characters in old-timely English I’ve replaced them with my interpretations of what is actually being said, with the exception of lines that I think were said verbatim. Even though I think Alecto is actually talking in Shakespearean English during this scene I’m still going to write down my modern English interpretation of what she says, though keep in mind she is likely actually talking the way she does in the epilogue. There’s also a line down the road of Alecto’s that I keep as written because I don’t entirely understand it. Here we go!

Alecto wakes up after her and Harrow’s souls switch back to their bodies. She finishes her sentence from before John put her to sleep and breaks out of the chains, breaking her bones. She cries “ah, ah, ah!” and Ianthe shows up, having recovered from the Herald Bullet Pyrrha shot her with and goes to attack Alecto. Harrow, still injured and still laying on the alter begs Ianthe not to kill Alecto saying something along the lines of

Harrow: What you doing, Tridentarius? Touch her and our vow is void and I’ll kill you where you stand.

Ianthe: You’re gonna fight me? You’re half-dead.

Harrow: I’m half-dead, but you would be two-halves dead, bitch.

This one is nearly word for word what Harrow says. It sounds a bit more like something Gideon would say, not Harrow, but it’s definitely Harrow that says it. I think it’s further proof of Harrow and Gideon’s souls having an effect on each other after lyctorhood (even though they’re no longer lyctorally bound). Then Ianthe says

Ianthe: I’ll die only of longing for you, my sweet.

Harrow: Then perish.

Harsh as fuck, I love it. A reminder that Ianthe is still in love with (or at least has her romantic sights on) Harrow. Then Alecto gets up from the alter and backhands Ianthe into the water surrounding the tomb. I’m not sure if it’s hitting Ianthe into the water that triggers this or Alecto summoning them, or what, but what appear to be pre-programmed skeletons emerge from the to tomb’s wall. I thought that maybe Alecto didn’t summon them and raises her sword to scare them away, which works but I’ve also seen people say that she sends them to attack Pyrrha, Gideon, Paul, and Aiglamene on the shore, as she probably thinks they’re here to kill her.

As Alecto starts walking, the bones she broke when tearing out of her chains start to mend. Her current weakness is probably why she wasn’t instantly healing like we know she can, as she describes her body as “not fully awake” as she stumbles on the steps crying for John. Next she mentions the “crowd of dead children” on the tombs shore fighting with “living children”. Either the skeletons on the wall are the ones fighting them or the possessed corpses of the ninth broke into the tomb and attacked. All we know is that Pyrrha, Paul, Gideon, and Aiglamene are fighting dead people. They’re all competent fighters so I assume they’ll be alright fighting them. Alecto doesn’t understand why this is happening, so she likely, and unfortunately, doesn’t retain any memories from being Nona (at the moment at least).

Pyrrha shouts for Alecto from the shore and Alecto remembers her from before her imprisonment. It says “she was mightily dashed in the memory of Alecto, so that all their sleep was perished with noise” which I’m having some difficulty interpreting. She calls back to Pyrrha and tries to tell her about how John imprisoned her to appease the lyctors and that Pyrrha was “fed” to them by John to appease them as well (when G1deon became a lyctor). But he never did appease Alecto and only taught her how to die. Pyrrha can’t hear her over the noise.

Alecto remembers some vow she made before she was imprisoned. This vow confuses me, as she doesn’t seem to be referring to her vow to Anastasia, as this is before she realizes Harrow is Anastasia’s descendant. Strange and confusing is this chapter’s middle name, but I love a good puzzle so I’ll have to sit with this one for a bit. Alecto then turns to Harrow and raises her sword to attack her because she thinks she’s going to try to kill her like Ianthe did, but then recognizes her as someone she saw in a dream and stops.

Harrow: Oh corpse of the Locked Tomb, I have loved you all my life with my whole soul and strength. I hope to God that I find grace in your eyes, but you can kill me if that’s what you want because I love you.

This makes Alecto mad. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe she doesn’t like Harrow treating her own life so lightly. Or putting her life in Alecto’s hands. Maybe it’s because John (and her vow to Anastasia) puts her in the position of someone who serves others, not as someone who should be served. She then kisses her and bites down on her mouth because she doesn’t know how kissing is done. You’d think that Harrow would be all into this, but according to Alecto she is not “appeased” by this kiss, which confuses Alecto. It seems like Harrow is perhaps already becoming disillusioned with Alecto to me. She can taste through Harrow’s blood that she’s a descendant of Anastasia, which calms her down.

Alecto: You are a descendent of the tomb-keeper?

Harrow: Yes.

Alecto: Anastasia’s bloodline is unbroken?

Harrow: Through sin and iniquity, yes.

Alecto: I am very sorry about Samael.

This is referring to how John killed Samael to make Anastasia mortal again after she got the proper lyctoral process right. I don’t think Harrow knows about this so she doesn’t say anything.

Alecto: I remember my vows. As I swore to Anastasia I swear to you. I am in your service until you bid me the favor, and whatsoever you appoint I shall perform, and consider the vow rendered. This is what I promised, until such a time as you deal with me as you see fit.

This one was pretty hard to interpret so I just left the whole quote from the book in there. The last two sentences of this passage are what makes this passage so difficult. It’s undeniable that Alecto is saying she will serve Harrow, but she refers to the favor as something that’ll END her servitude to Harrow. She uses the word “rendered” to refer to what serving Harrow will make of the vow and I’m not entirely sure what that means. Whatever it means, it scares Harrow, who likely expected to become Alecto’s servant, not the other way around.

Harrow: My hands are too stained, and I am too lowly.

Alecto then places her sword in Harrow’s hands by the blade, which cuts her. Curiously, it seems this is not what causes Harrow to faint. The cuts on her hands “made the child exceedingly faint, but it did not swoon of weariness”. So she got dizzy, but not because she was tired. Which I could take to mean that her dizziness was from something to do with sword not because of her injuries or the fact she was cut. At this point we must assume Harrow’s limbs aren’t still sloughing off and that she was healed of at least her fatal wounds when her body swapped with Alecto. The “strength” she takes to not pass out pleases Alecto. Maybe the sword is supposed to make you pass out and for some reason it doesn’t work on Harrow? I dont know.

Alecto: Notwithstanding, I offer you my service.

Gideon, shouting from the shore: Get in line, you big slut!

Iconic. Clearly this sounds like a cavaliership pledge to Gideon, which she is pissed about. Despite Gideon being on the shore she seems close enough to hear Alecto and Harrow’s conversation, which Pyrrha wasn’t. So Gideon seems to have gotten away from or concluded the combat on the shore to make her way towards them and says this upon hearing them. We then get a time skip, with the only thing we know being that the next paragraph is “afterward”.

We know that Harrow ends up accepting Alecto’s blade and “thereupon” fainted, which means that the acceptance of the blade happened separately from when she placed the blade in Harrow’s hands. Harrow “did not swoon” when that happened and must have been awake when Gideon yelled at Alecto. I can only speculate on what happens after that, but if I had to guess I think Gideon probably charged at Alecto. She shouts “a very great shout” of anger when she calls her a slut, which knowing Gideon means she must have attacked right after. A confrontation between Harrow and Gideon is achingly missing from this epilogue, but to me I think it must have happened between the time skip. I don’t think Alecto immediately takes her and Harrow through the river when Gideon charges because Harrow is still awake and hasn’t “accepted the blade” yet, unless accepting to Alecto simply means having it in her hands. I’m thinking that maybe when Gideon charges Harrow stops her, which leads to a very emotional conversation between them which ends in Harrow accepting Alecto’s servitude and sword to the heartbreak of Gideon. I think Harrow will inevitably regret this. Harrow passes out, Alecto takes Harrow in her arms and into the river to what was once the Erebos and stabs John, yada yada yada. “Annabel, good morning” and all that jazz.

It’s very like Tamsyn to keep a Harrow and Gideon reunion from us until the next book. According to the excerpt of the first chapter of Alecto The Ninth that Tamsyn Muir read at TorCon last year, the next book will start with Harrow waking up from the same position she was left in in Harrow the Ninth: Laying in the tomb in Alecto’s place with the sword and skin mag on top of her. I don’t believe this to be the same scene as her actually waking up in her own body at the end of NTN. I think this is a flashback to her point of view in the river bubble/mindscape/dream (I really don’t know what it actually is) of Alecto’s memories with John. How she got from seeing what she did at the end of HTN (the tomb and the magazine) to what she does in NTN (Alecto’s memories of wandering the dead planet with John post-apocalypse, which somehow had John’s actual consciousness in it?? Who recognizes Harrow??? I don’t know, man). Since ATN will start with filling in gaps from before, I’m pretty confident we will also get this missing conversation between Harrow and Gideon.

About the vow between Alecto and Anastasia, this seems to have been made on Alecto’s part as a thank you to Anastasia for staying in the tomb with her despite it meaning her death. I suspect this is the case because in the previous chapter, after Alecto parts the salt water and walks to the tomb, she sees Anastasia’s bones in the curve of the rock. When it comes to Anastasia, the timeline seems to be that she starts building the tomb for Alecto on the ninth before everyone became lyctors. She has her child(ren?), maybe with Samael, on the Ninth, Pyrrha helps with the birth and paints the nursery. The disciples “discovering” the botched version of the eight-fold word John led them to happens after the tomb begins construction but before Alecto was actually sealed there, so it must have taken a long time. It’s so sucky to think about the disciples that told John to do this (which definitely includes Mercymorn) keeping this from Alecto at Canaan House while her tomb is being built so far away. Did Pyrrha know at the time? Did she find out afterwards while sharing G1deon’s body? Who knows. Then imperfect lyctorhood happens, Anastasia gets it right, John kills Samael, the tomb is completed, and a mortal Anastasia shuts herself in the tomb with Alecto to die watching over her. Fucked up.

That’s all I have for this post, I have another shorter one I’ll be posting after this going over a few key moments in the chapter prior to the epilogue. Hope you’ve enjoyed this analysis and I hope it helps people understand the epilogue more.

#the locked tomb #the locked tomb series #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #harrow the ninth #gideon the ninth #gideon nav #harrow nonagesimus #harrowhark nonagesimus #kiriona gaia #tlt #alecto #nona #my post

42 notes · View notes

kybelles · 1 year ago

Text

it’s incredibly disappointing and shocking to see how misogynistic and vile the capri fandom is towards jokaste even in the year of 2023, to the point of calling her “used goods” and “an opportunistic slut” (YES YOU READ IT RIGHT!) it gets extra depressing when you remember jokaste did what she did to save damen’s life and it wasn’t even acknowledged by damen or that she was really rewarded other than laurent letting her go instead of her being charged with treason.

the most common argument i come across is “we don’t know if she did it to save damen’s life! it was purely laurent’s theory therefore it’s ambiguous.” now i know media literacy has been a lost art for the longest time so it doesn’t necessarily surprise me but if you read this exchange, based on her reaction, it’s quite clear that laurent was correct in his assumption:

and if even this isn’t a solid proof for you, here’s pacat’s own words:

another arguments i frequently see are:

a- “why didn’t she try to warn damen?” damen’s literal best friend from his childhood days tried to warn him against kastor and he paid him no mind. you really believe he would listen to jokaste, someone he’d known for a shorter period than nikandros?

b- “did she really need to sleep with kastor?” …yes? do i need to remind you that damen’s entire household was killed? which would include jokaste if she wasn’t kastor’s mistress? not to mention she had to be close to kastor to save damen.

through the series, pacat intentionally draws parallels between laurent and jokaste; both appearance and character wise. remember this scene where laurent stopped the vaskian raiders from instantly killing damen?

jokaste played the same gamble. she had no way of knowing whether damen would survive in vere or not but she had to try because she loved damen too much to see him slaughtered like a pig in front of her eyes. and yes i use the word love because just look at the way she talks about him… oh my god… like while it is implied jokaste first got close to damen for personal gain, she obviously developed feelings for him after some point and had the utter respect for him. (i always think it’s quite sad us fic writers need to write her cheating on damen with kastor in modern aus for plot sake because under normal circumstances, jokaste would never let damen go)

i guess the horrible misogyny aside, what also drives me insane is the double standard. laurent had damen collared like a slave, drugged him, forced him to fight with the threat of rape if he lost, whipped him, sexually assaulted him by proxy and the fandom can still sympathize with him and love him (don’t get me wrong i love him too) but when it comes to jokaste, someone who had no choice and did the only thing she could do to save damen, people hate her passionately and call her awful names. it’s infuriating. it’s disgusting.

tldr; jokaste genuinely loved damen and made the only choice she could under those unfortunate circumstances to save him from a horrible death and while no one is obligated to love her, this appalling misogyny train needs to stop.

#meta #💬#captive prince #jokaste of akielos #her only crime is being too beautiful and yall hate her bc of that smh #the scene where laurent says ‘omg girl i get you sooo well i’d risk it all for damen as well 😍’ and jokaste tries to blow him with her mind #how can you not love her???

182 notes · View notes

physalian · 11 months ago

Text

Writing Tone in Fiction (Or, Pacing your Story, Part 2)

See this post all about pacing and as the two go hand-in-hand. If you read that, I may repeat myself a little here. Tone, and how abruptly you change it, how radically you change it, and how you break it whether on purpose or on accident says a lot about your experience as a writer, and how well you planned out your plot.

**Trigger warning for mentions of mature themes**

What is Tone?

“Tone” is the maturity of the work, signaling whether or not your characters have to censor themselves for young readers. It’s also restricted by the genre, whether this is a comedy and what kind – slapstick or gross-out humor – or a scary movie about ghosts, but not graphic body horror. It sets expectations about the amount and degree of romance readers can expect, if the scene will fade to black before anything happens or if you’re in for a raunchy sex scene, or somewhere in the middle. It also helps audiences gauge whether or not characters can die in this universe, and how graphically if they do beyond Disney’s tried and true “villain falling ambiguously from a tall height” deaths.

OSP recently did a piece on Tone Armor, a device similar to but less obvious than Plot Armor where the established tone means that, no matter how dire the circumstances, your hero won’t actually die, the world won’t actually end, and a happily ever after is on the horizon. Red also discussed what happens when you break your established tone with the shocking death or mistreatment of a character, but more on that later.

How to Decide Your Tone

Depending on your genre and intended audience, content for younger readers demand quite a bit of censorship (though can get away with many, many things worse than death). In the US at least, movies go through the MPAA rating system to determine what’s permitted by the rating given – how many swear words, whether you can show blood, topless women, graphic assault, graphic violence, if and how characters can be killed or how gummy and resistant to damage their bodies are.

If you’re writing for children, you both have less freedom to write violent carnage, and more freedom to get really creative within the limits of your tone box. I can expect the kid protagonists of my fantasy adventure to murder countless monsters that dissolve into gold dust, not bloody carcasses. I can expect the villain to perhaps die from a stab wound, but probably not get decapitated, disemboweled, or drawn and quartered, at least, not ‘on screen’.

If you’re writing for adults, adults do still expect a warning for how graphic anything can be, whether that’s sex scenes, fight scenes, murders, assaults, bloody battles, garish injuries, dead pets, dead children, etc.

Unless you’re already planning to break your tone, you need to know fairly early on whereabouts you want to set those expectations. If none of the characters even allude to sex and you write in a graphic assault, your audience is going to be pissed, and horrified. If none of your characters even allude to sex, and you hint that one was assaulted off-screen, you will still upset your audience if you don’t give them time to prepare for the possibility.

You can soften the violence and graphic content you’ve previously established and few might complain about it not being gritty enough, but going the other direction puts you in a very precarious position. Choosing more mature themes will inevitably alienate younger readers, those with triggers, and those that just want to have a lighthearted good time. The trade off? You’ll invite readers with a work that’s exactly what they’re looking for.

Establishing a Tone

I’m writing this post today because I finally sat down to watch Game of Thrones. One can’t avoid spoilers for a series as massive as that, so I was prepared for the graphic violence, all the gratuitous sex, the infamous Red Wedding, murdered kids, horribly bloody battles, and the like. GoT, the TV adaptation at least as I can’t speak to the books, establishes exactly what to expect in the very first scene: Three people happen upon the site of a graphic mass murder, limbs and body parts strewn everywhere, kids among them, who come back to life as ice zombies to kill them.

That episode continues with a beheading, incest, more incest, attempted child murder via defenestration, a brother selling his little sister into marriage, rampant nudity, and… I’m sure I missed something.

**Spoiler Alert for Season 4**

What I was not at all prepared for was the graphic death of Oberyn Martell (Pedro Pascal). It’s quick, it’s violent, it’s graphic and gruesome and incredibly well-acted… it was also far more horrifying than the Red Wedding, at least to me. Murder is murder but the way this character went out almost had me quit watching right then and there. Google at your leisure.

It wasn’t necessarily outside the realm of possibility, but most everyone else died via stabbing, arrows, beheading, burning, falling, eaten by wolves, crushed, etc. This was deeply unsettling, particularly because it’s live action, not a cartoon like Invincible.

It did its job, and it’s the only moment to feature in nightmares and make me lose my appetite, so… well done? In the following Previouslies (correct me on the actual word) they don’t even show it, cutting around the actual moment because it’s just that horrible.

This was four seasons into an eight season show and nothing like it had happened before. In a tone already as dark and explicit as TV can get, poor Oberyn pushed it over the edge entirely. It broke the established tone.

Amazon’s The Boys treads the same very thin line, only these people have superpowers for a whole new level of deeply disturbed body horror.

So, when you’re establishing a tone in the realm of “less graphic than Game of Thrones but still terrible,” you can go one of two ways: Horrify your audience straight out of the gate, or slowly creep up to it with allusions and hints until they’re fully prepared for it when it hits.

If your characters have free reign of every swear in the dictionary, start with the “f*cks” and “sh*ts” as quickly as you can as part of their vocabulary, whether you intend to use the words sparingly or after every other word in their dialogue.

If you’re writing a multi-series work that intends to ramp up the rating as it goes, you don’t have to cold open with a murder, but establishing that characters do at least die in this world is a start. Establish that assault happens in the background, that killing happens, or animal cruelty. Your readers with triggers will thank you for it and read something else.

Unless you intend to shatter the tone and shock your audience with it later.

Breaking Tone via Killing Characters

The most effective tonal breakage I can think of that wasn’t even graphic, just dark and incredibly well done: Disney’s animated Mulan. The movie had been your standard Disney musical complete with grand animation for its sing-along song. Soldiers singing, dancing, laughing as they march off to war, all for a girl worth fighting—

The singing stops. The score stops. Their smiles drop. Cut to the scene before them that has murdered this Disney musical in cold blood and it’s a decimated battlefield, the snow-covered and burned bodies of their far better trained and more competent fellow soldiers, and the love interest’s father.

Mulan only briefly reprises one track in the climax, but otherwise, this happy-go-lucky sing-along has rudely and horrifyingly become a war movie. It’s still Disney, so it doesn’t get violent or graphic, but they shattered the tone in glorious fashion.

Breaking tone happens all the time, for minor events and major character deaths. It doesn’t become an issue of “you just alienated your audience” unless the tonal breakage is the aforementioned sudden graphic assault or other sensitive triggers.

Major character deaths are a whole separate monster to tackle and I’d like to, but for today’s purposes I’m talking about killing major characters when the possibility of any of our heroes dying was never established.

For anyone who never read Lord of the Rings and didn’t know the curse of anyone played by Sean Bean, losing Gandalf to another ambiguous high fall was one thing, but Boromir straight up dies in battle. Sure the story is surrounded by death and darkness but you expect heroes in a world like this to have some pretty hefty plot armor – and Boromir had so much room left to grow. In the grand scheme of the story, though, Boromir’s death was as far from shock value fodder as possible.

Sirius Black is another heartbreaking loss, but not entirely outside the realm of possibility – killing off Ron or Hermione would have been. Any mentor figure is automatically doomed with rare exception, especially ones in fatherly roles.

Bianca di Angelo is a different matter. She’s not the first death mentioned in Percy Jackson but she’s a brand new character and despite all the dangers the heroes have already been through and the warnings from the prophecy, actually killing her off for good broke the tone. Suddenly this war was real and there were lasting consequences.

Game of Thrones’ “Red Wedding” didn’t just shock audiences because a bunch of people died, it was which people that died. Robb Stark, eldest son and heir to Sean Bean (so of course he’s dead) and one of the siblings of the “hero” family had been leading a war effort to rescue and then avenge his father. He gets betrayed and murdered, along with his mother and a fair chunk of his army, caught by surprise at a wedding, because he broke an oath and married for love instead.

I knew of the scene and knew that Catelyn Stark was there just from the one time I’d seen the clip years ago, and as it got closer I worried it was Robb’s wedding, but I still wasn’t prepared for the death of the hero of the show. Jon’s off in the north doing his own thing and so is Danaerys. This was the bright-eyed usurper, the avenger, the never-lost-a-battle upstart. No author would ever kill that hero.

They’d established that anyone can die, similar to the Walking Dead in some ways, but this was a whole new level of boldness, killing off Robb. At the time of this post, I haven’t seen past season 4, but I know more deaths are coming.

Deciding to murder your hero, in any other story, would not go over well with your audience. Killing any major character is a decision that should be made with a deep understanding of the consequences or else you end up like Walking Dead after they killed Carl for shock value and never recovered their audience viewership.

—

It’s not just dead protagonists, it can be worldly tragedies, the heroes actually losing a battle, or the war, a uniquely horrifying monster or cryptid or villainous act. Or it can be a character beginning to contemplate self-harm and possibly attempting to end their own lives. It can be the reveal of an abusive relative, or an incestuous relationship. It can be mental health problems, sudden and un-curable disease and disability.

It can be less-dire things too, but I’m not much for writing comedy.

Tone, like pacing, doesn’t have to remain consistent throughout the entire story. If it’s a lighthearted comedy, let it stay a lighthearted comedy if you want to. You can change tone progressively, with hints and near-misses, or drop a bomb on your audience with a big reveal. What you do and how you implement it is entirely dependant on the story you’re writing.

Most audiences expect a book that isn’t written for elementary schoolers to mature over time and most genres come with set understandings. But hey, I hear Animorphs can get incredibly dark with a bunch of mature themes.

In general, killing a character just for shock value is rarely worth it in the long run. In general, writing in triggering subjects without warning to an audience that wasn’t prepared for it also isn’t worth it in the long run — save it for a different book.

If fanfiction authors leave author’s notes everywhere warning about the subject matter ahead, published authors can do the same, in my opinion. Content warnings should be a thing and it doesn’t have to spoil the surprise. Include it as a forward to your book, letting potential readers know that such and such work they’re considering spending real money on contains mentions of, or explicit depictions of, any and all mature and sensitive themes. You never know who’s out there picking up your book expecting a good time. Do right by them and give a little heads up and you might gain a fan you wouldn’t have otherwise.

#writing advice #writing resources #writing tips #writing tools

101 notes · View notes