#I know kindness isn't transactional

[knight-intraining]

It's really annoying to me when people act like you shouldn't ask for attention or validation as a need.

Or when you give them an opportunity to reciprocate something nice you did for them, and they just don't.

Like, it was nice for you when you got the attention and validation, right? Well I want it too because it's a normal human need and I'm human. So like, maybe you could help me get it, yeah? Like I did for you.

[irisintheafterglow]

itoshi sae has no idea how you do it.

classwork, homework, midterms, exams, two jobs, and a lively group of friends? it all sounds so unnecessary to him, these things that would be distractions from his dream. but for you, it sustains you and encourages you to keep going. how differently our minds work, he thinks to himself when he has a rare day to spend on your couch and you're typing away at some assignment on your laptop.

"why do you do that?" you don't respond the first time he asks and he gently calls your name, even though you're barely three feet away. you turn to him with a tired look and something pangs inside his chest. "why bother doing that?"

"bother doing what?"

"whatever it is you're doing right now." he nods at your glaring laptop screen filled with words he can't even begin to understand, some final before your university goes on winter break.

"because it's part of my degree?" there's no malice in your words, just genuine confusion, just like there's no accusations in his words, just concern. "if i fail this class, i don't graduate."

"why do you need to graduate, or have a degree in the first place?"

"because i need a job, my love," you explain patiently. "we've had this conversation before. going to school means i can get a well-paying job to sustain myself."

"why do you need to sustain yourself when you have me?" you blink at him and his blank face. the only sign of emotion is the slight pinch between his eyebrows; he was truly puzzled why he couldn't just set you up for life. dating itoshi sae is like being an unwilling sugar baby.

"i'm not going to leech off your earnings," you chuckle in disbelief. "i'm not going to use you to make sure i have a comfortable life. i love you, and my kind of love stays whether we have money or not." he shifts awkwardly in his seat and his mouth pouts the tiniest amount. he obviously didn't like your reply.

"whatever i'm doing, it isn't enough for you," he states quietly.

without another word, you exhale through your nose and shut your laptop. you place it on the coffee table before crawling over and maneuvering your way into his arms. he gladly accepts you, sliding down the couch's armrest so that you're nearly lying on top of him. it's quiet for a few moments, not in an uncertain way but in a way that said both of you were figuring out how to articulate your thoughts.

"i just think that--"

"you don't need to--" you both begin your explanations at the same time and the huff of his laugh vibrates against your cheek. "you go first," you tell him.

"i was saying that, if you wanted me to," he inhales and tries to tiptoe around what he wants to say before deciding to just crush it with his foot, "i can take care of you without you needing a degree." a certain selfish part of him wanted you there for every single victory and ladder rung he ascended, not because he thought you owed him, but because he owed you. you, who weathered his darkest of moods and harshest of snaps. he owed you for dealing with his bullshit, so he figured, why should you need to lift a finger when you've already done so much for him? "i owe you that much for everything that you've seen me through."

"you don't owe me anything, itoshi sae. loving you is not transactional, nor have i ever wanted it to be."

"everything is transactional, mi amor," he argues and the pet name makes your heartrate increase. "give and take, it's how the world flows. shouldn't your university classes be teaching you that?" your eyes have fluttered shut on his chest, but you still hear the smirk in his joke.

"believe it or not, mister 'fame is the only thing that matters to me,' there are transactions beyond material goods."

"i know that," he says indignantly. "i also know that you're wrong."

"am i?"

"yes," he affirms. "i don't only care about fame. i care about you too, obviously."

"see, sae? give and take. i give you all i am--"

"and you take all i am."

"body and soul?"

"and everything in between," he finishes, pressing a kiss to the top of your head before settling into the pillows. "rest, mi amor. you've paid more attention to school than to me lately, and that's an unequal transaction."

[neverendingford]

.

[afterthelambs]

How I interpret Joker Persona 5

Since Joker is a silent self-insert protagonist it can be hard to get a reading on his characterization. He can make inconsistent choices gameplay-wise that clash with what was set up. He's supposed to be the righteous leader, and yet... you have the option to cheat on girlfriends, or sell your friends out to Yaldobaoth and become Evil, or doom the world for a selfish wish. It's easy to dismiss all that as 'not the true ending' but to me that would be boring and a cop-out. These are treated as equally-valid choices in terms of player input, so I think any interpretation of the character has to account for that. Like he is definitely a little unhinged.

Is Joker evil? No because he spends most of the game being a good guy and can choose to be a hero till the end. The desire to do the right thing is ingrained in his character.

So is he inherently good? No because it's coded into the game that he can betray all his morals. In P3, Makoto at worst betrays his team to protect them from pain. He never turns sinister the way Joker can in the Yaldobaoth-deal ending. P4 has an accomplice ending but even then you at least have collaboration of some sort, as opposed to Joker who is alone in his fall from heroism. The good ending being the 'true' ending doesnt erase the fact that Joker has the potential to go dark in a way the other protagonists dont. This is also a part of him, which I think makes him wayyyy more interesting.

So how are you supposed to reconcile all these inconsistencies into a cohesive characterization? Is it just 'out of character'?

Ironically, I think the best way to understand Joker's character is to first understand Akechi. If you accept that they are two sides of the same coin (and the game beats you over the head with that lol) then that means they share a lot of internal rage and pain about the world. It means Joker did not have his emotions together nor a healthy outlook on interpersonal relationships, at least in the beginning. It explains why a lot of Joker's confidants start out transactional. The main difference (asides from Akechi being more marginalized) is that Joker has the opportunity to respond to his traumas in a healthier way. He channels his rage into a good cause, and he can choose to do so til the very end (ie the true ending). It also explains how he can reach a breaking point and go down a darker path instead, similar to Akechi.

This is my preferred way of interpreting Joker in light of all the wildly different directions he takes in the actual game. It's why I personally like my Joker characterization as a little unhinged, a little dark, very emotionally troubled and evasive, AND very kind + empathetic to others despite that. He knows he's a little fucked up inside and that's why he's desperate to do the right thing. Joker isn't just good by nature, he actively chooses to be.

If you need any more proof, look at Maruki. He's the only other character that gets this much parallels drawn with Joker. But the ways that Joker's characterization can be derived from Maruki is a whole other post. I'll probably get to that some day, but it's interesting that when the writers decided to make a parallel to Joker for an extended story, they went with another unhinged antagonist that understands him on a deeper level.

[theempressofthenile]

astro thoughts : short n sweet <3 the beauty of venus

Venus in the 1st house wants to be loved for more than their appearance. They have the gift of gab just like their mercurial friends. You can forgive them easier than any other person because of their charm holding their appearance/personality together. Much more easier to like, but they do have a dark side no one knows about.

Venus in the 2nd house does not play around when getting to the money. Entrepreneurs by a long slide. But they don't tell you how they get their money ;) Sugar daddy placement, much like the 8th house, but its a little different. Its transactional only. Relationships usually need them to be on the receiving end only for their satisfaction. Have an appetite for money making tactics a lot more than any other second house placement (mercury & saturn being runner ups).

Venus in the 3rd house has a whimsical energy tied to it. Individuals with this placement have a lust for live, just the drive to their destination can bring them joy. Its like they live every day in the moment, inspiring us with what they find in the process.

Venus in the 4th house has a beautiful family. There relationships with family members could be up to par, they could be the favorite sibling or they generally just get a long with everybody. The downside to this placement could be that their family has full of secrets as this is a private house normally. They normally keep a lot about themselves at bay from the public (opposite to the 10th) and most never know them unless you are REALLY close to them, even then its just a mystery.

Venus in the 5th house are the charismatic personalities people adore. There players and can have anyone they want and its usually all fun and games until they meet their match. These are the royal lovers so their very choosy. What I like about this placement is they do not mind constantly getting to know people. They are almost always talking to new people as the dating scene is their playground.. its really what they came here for. They are meant to live a life full of playfulness, inspiration, and luxurious lifestyle if they allow themselves to get it.

Venus in the 6th house are powerhouses when they go for what is meant for them. They need a new routine to make themselves feel good. If they gotta get up and do their makeup to make themselves feel better than that'll do it. If they gotta workout everyday to get that dream body, then their up for the challenge. They love to be of service to people, but they have to remember they cannot always help people with their responsibilities.

Venus in the 7th house are truly popular individuals and they can be well liked by mostly everyone they come across. The thing about this placement is that I have noticed is that they can typically get in a lot of disputes with others. Could be seen as fake and wishy washy to some, but the best friend to others. It doesn't matter there kind of isn't a in between. They do have a nice personality and can keep up the charm with a lot of people. Can get what they want out of others in personal relationships mostly.

Venus in the 8th house have a deep bond with themselves and this chemistry have with their individualism is seen by others and it changes the way people view them. Others may like them for what they do for them and they can feel pretty used up if they are not careful. People want them for their looks and this can be annoying somethings. They gave a transformative bond with their relationships for better or for worse. If they focus on themselves this energy can work for their benefit and theirs alone.

Venus in the 9th house has a deep bond with the universe in a way that makes them more transparent with themselves and they way they feel about life. They live a long time finding the true meaning of life but in each day, each hour, each moment they can find the gift in what the world brings. They are capable of finding that their is more than what meets the eye, and their inspirational in the conquest of it all. Their gift is in the eye of jupiter, in which they see things in a whole nother view than others. And they have a way of sharing that information that they get from just walking outside or being home alone with their thoughts.

Venus in the 10th house are very well known for their beauty, the compassionate nature, their ability to meet their eyes with the crowd and just borderline energetic individuals. Even if bad news comes out about them, the public usually ignores this and focus more on their talents and personality. I feel this placement is a life saver. Can keep these people from the wrong energy at times, even if its impossible to get away from.

Venus in the 11th house can show a potential for having good company around them. Very sweet and compelling natives, their hearts are super big and can be really helpful to others on a day to day basis. Can genuinely be a people pleaser but this can work out for them some days. Could be popular on social media.

Venus in the 12th house have an alluring nature to them. These are the type of people that can hypnotize you and suddenly youre somewhere you have never been. They can take you on a journey with just their mind alone. They are gifted in the arts, a lot of celebs tend to have this placement. They are a gift to be around and not everyone is allowed to be around them. They can be sort of obsessive when it comes to something or someone they love. This is where the good art can come from. Very mysterious creatures, they move like a siren.

[dresshistorynerd]

The Morrisian case against fast fashion

Today I discovered that H&M made a William Morris collection some years ago. The heath death of the universe can't come quickly enough. We can stop now. Satire is dead and we killed her.

It's not just the whole concept of H&M using William Morris' designs for their fast fashion which is insanity inducing, but also the critical response it garnered. Like sure, people did realize this is insane and there was a lot of think pieces about it at the time, but I read several of them and they all seem to still miss the point in spectacular way.

The basic premise of these think pieces go along the lines of: "Would William Morris spin in his grave with a speed of light because of the H&M collection of his designs? A difficult question indeed. William Morris was a complicated man. He wanted art to be affordable to everyone. Isn't H&M affordable? That kinda fits. Though probably he would have some concerns about H&M's practices."

On the surface - yes - but like in reality - fuck no. There's no nuance in this particular issue. He talked about many times what he though of the H&Ms of his time, the retailers selling poor quality industrially produced "fashionable" bullshit. We know exactly what he would have thought of H&M. Here's couple of quotes from his 1884 lecture "Art and Socialism", which makes it very clear.

"It would be an instructive day's work for any one of us who is strong enough to walk through two or three of the principal streets of London on a week-day, and take accurate note of everything in the shop windows which is embarrassing or superfluous to the daily life of a serious man. Nay, the most of these things no one, serious or unserious, wants at all; only a foolish habit makes even the lightest-minded of us suppose that he wants them, and to many people even of those who buy them they are obvious encumbrances to real work, thought and pleasure. But I beg you to think of the enormous mass of men who are occupied with this miserable trumpery, from the engineers who have had to make the machines for making them, down to the hapless clerks who sit day-long year after year in the horrible dens wherein the wholesale exchange of them is transacted, and the shopmen, who not daring to call their souls their own, retail them amidst numberless insults which they must not resent, to the idle public which doesn't want them but buys them to be bored by them and sick to death of them."

He is describing the birth of consumerism, which was taking form during his lifetime in the late Victorian Era, which fast fashion is the extreme logical conclusion of, and he fucking hated it. He specifically railed against endless consumerist products, which H&M is the perfect representation of. It was definitely not the art and beauty he believed everyone required and deserved. He makes the distinction often.

"Now if we are to have popular Art, or indeed Art of any kind, we must at once and for all be done with this luxury; it is the supplanter, the changeling of Art; so much so that by those who know of nothing better it has even been taken for Art, the divine solace of human labour, the romance of each day's hard practice of the difficult art of living."

"And here furthermore is at least a little sign whereby to distinguish between a rag of fashion and a work of Art: whereas the toys of fashion when the first gloss is worn off them do become obviously worthless even to the frivolous—a work of Art, be it ever so humble, is long lived; we never tire of it; as long as a scrap hangs together it is valuable and instructive to each new generation. All works of Art in short have the property of becoming venerable amidst decay: and reason good, for from the first there was a soul in them, the thought of man, which will be visible in them so long as the body exists in which they were implanted."

When he thought of popular Art he thought of the craftsmanship of the common people. The art people have made from useful everyday objects with skillful handicrafts. This is what he means by "divine solace of human labour". It's not reverence of Puritanical work ethic, on the contrary, it's the reverence of creation, of the earnest joy people feel when they get to express themselves through their creative pursuits. He certainly didn't believe in work for work's sake, work needed to be worthwhile and enjoyable. He summarized his own position on what labour should be thusly:

"It is right and necessary that all men should have work to do which shall be worth doing, and be of itself pleasant to do; and which should he done under such conditions as would make it neither over-wearisome nor over-anxious."

He urged his middle class audience to reject consumerism (the lecture was for a very much middle class atheist society):

"For I say again that in buying these things: 'Tis the lives of men you buy! Will you from mere folly and thoughtlessness make yourselves partakers of the guilt of those who compel their fellow men to labour uselessly?"

I think it's glaringly obvious H&M and fast fashion in general is what he would consider luxury. Rags of fashion that are just churned out and discarded without thought and produced by compelling people to labour uselessly. It's not popular art that's made by workers and craftsmen, who are able to express themselves through it. There's no agency for the abused workers in H&M's sweatshops, they are not expressing their joy of creation, they are simply labouring uselessly.

Morris didn't shame workers for buying affortable things even if they weren't Art with big A, because that's the problem he despised the whole economic system for, for taking away the popular Art from people, making it inaccessible, and selling back mass produced products with very little practical or aesthetic value. So I don't think he would have problem with people who can only afford fast fashion today. They are the victims of capitalism too, because Art has been taken away from them. But the idea that some of these think pieces had that perhaps the H&M's Morris collection can be good actually if you squint, that H&M has the capacity to bring the art and beauty Morris advocated for for the people, is level of stupidity that's hard to express in words.

Morris didn't believe anything made with exploited labour could be truly beautiful, truly art. In his 1879 lecture "The Art of the People" he put it like this:

"That thing which I understand by real art is the expression by man of his pleasure in labour."

The way I understand this, is that art is communication. Through it we communicate feelings, ideas and thoughts, that is it's purpose. So for that communication to work, for it to be imbued with message, the person making it needs to feel passion and love for it's creation. How can there be love and passion if the hands making the garment belong to a tired exploited worker who has no agency what so ever in their work and can only think about survival to the next day?

Beyond the fundamental exploitativeness of H&M and fast fashion, this collection would still get zero points on aesthetic values from Morris even with his own designs. Because the work itself was such an important part of art for Morris, good design was nothing without good craftsmanship. Good design in his mind was always relative and dependent on it's purpose.

"For everything made by man’s hands has a form, which must be either beautiful or ugly; beautiful if it is in accord with Nature, and helps her; ugly if it is discordant with Nature, and thwarts her; it cannot be indifferent." (The Lesser Arts, 1877)

Here when he says nature, he means the nature of the thing that is made - basically it's purpose and function - and the nature of the materials it's made from. Basically, the design must always be made to bring out the function of the art and the qualities of the material it's made from, not fight against them. This is because he believed handicrafts were uniquely suitable for expressing the love of creation, therefore superior labour, and to really bring out the qualities of the craftsmanship and enjoy the creative process, the design should be suitable for that craft. The other side, which was the joy of using and experiencing art, required the craft to be selected for the suitable purpose. Using poorly functioning furniture for example is not very enjoyable, nor is using clothing that's made from materials that are not suitable for the climactic conditions it's supposed to be used in.

H&M of course utterly fails in this. They use Morris' designs in fully unsuitable ways. They print patterns made for example for wall papers on poor quality fabrics with synthetics dyes they weren't made for. This line from one blog post I came across really got me: "Therefore, without cheapening the artistic value of Morris’ designs, H&M’s collection offers an unparalleled potential for accessibility to them." No. Fuck no. They do in fact cheapen Morris' designs in every single way possible. Literally this is atrocious.

Despite the popular depiction, Morris wasn't in fact against industrial machinery or industrial art even, or at least he wasn't once his views on art and politics matured. He did think technology was useful, but he thought the people should use industrial methods for the benefit of all, not be enslaved by the industrial machine.

"I have spoken of machinery being used freely for releasing people from the more mechanical and repulsive part of necessary labour; and I know that to some cultivated people, people of the artistic turn of mind, machinery is particularly distasteful, and they will be apt to say you will never get your surroundings pleasant so long as you are surrounded by machinery. I don't quite admit that; it is the allowing machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays. In other words, it is the token of the terrible crime we have fallen into of using our control of the powers of Nature for the purpose of enslaving people, we care less meantime of how much happiness we rob their lives of." ("How we live and how we might live", 1887)

However, he thought that the designer should approach it the way they approached any craft, by designing for the strengths of the machine work.

"But if you have to design for machine-work, at least let your design show clearly what it is. Make it mechanical with a vengeance, at the same time as simple at possible. Don't try, for instance, to make a printed plate look like a hand-painted one: make it something which no one would try to do if he were painting by hand..." ("Art and the Beauty of the Earth", 1881)

He did use some machinery for fabric and wall paper printing, but he was very intentional about their use. Still his designs weren't made for the type of methods these modern H&M machinery uses and he did for example use natural dyes. Particularly insulting is that some of the H&M clothes are made from viscose, rayon made with viscose method. Viscose method is extremely toxic and is known to cause long term health consequences for the workers and the people in surrounding areas. This has been well proven knowledge for ages. William Morris' wall paper factory in the beginning used the typical method used at the time which involved arsenic, but once he learned this could pose risks for the workers, he changed the method. Many of the new synthetic dyes were toxic at the time, which is the major reason he so favoured natural dyes, known to not cause health issues for workers or pollute the environment.

The question many of these think pieces about the H&M Morris collection posed was, would Morris disapprove and should we care? The first part of that is very easy to answer. Yes. Of course Morris would disapprove. He is currently powering the whole of British Isles with purely the kinetic energy his grave-spinning produces. Should we care though? If you care about Morris' art, if you want to see more of that kind of art in this world, you should care. Morris' art is not about the superficial qualities. Copying his designs and aesthetics and styles, will only lead to hollow imitations, that are exactly what he described the rags of fashion to be; as the shininess of novelty wears off they will reveal themselves to be soulless, useless and utterly empty. This collection is just that. To see more of the kind of art that makes you feel like his art makes you feel, not just something that reminds you of that feeling, you should focus more on the way the art is made and less on the specific aesthetics. If his vision of labour and art was realised, all art produced of course wouldn't be loved by every person, but all of it would be loved by someone, even if that someone was just the maker. And that would be more worthwhile than every single rag of fast fashion.

I will stop William-Morris-posting now and return to my thesis.

The full texts I quoted here:

Art and Socialism The Art of the People The Lesser Arts How We Live and How We Might Live Art and the Beauty of the Earth

[roanniom]

There's Something About You

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4k

Warnings: 18+ ONLY, NSFW, handjob, dirty talk, inexperienced!Eddie

If one thing is for certain, it's that Eddie has no idea how he's found himself here. In the bedroom of a cheerleader honor student goddess who shouldn't even know he exists. Yes, you've smiled at him from a distance in class. From time to time he's caught you giving him a little wave from across the cafeteria. But to be quite honest with himself, Eddie always assumed you were fucking with him. Throw a wink at the school freak and watch him get an embarrassingly unprovoked boner.

Yet here you were. Sitting next to him on your bed - disarmingly pink and covered in soft cushions and frills and all things girly and diametrically opposed to all that is Eddie Munson. Dark and crass and bumbling and weird Eddie Munson.

"If you flunk out of Mr. Flout's class one more time, what's going to happen to you?" you had asked him casually earlier in the day as you'd walked by him staring at his test marked with a big red F. Eddie had looked up at you, shock quickly melting into an indifferent smirk.

"There's always trade school, baby," he'd shrugged and thrown up a peace sign.

That was when you suggested he come by your place that evening for tutoring.

Eddie is no fool. He knows what girls like you want. So he'd made sure to come equipped with his trusty lunch pail full of treats that would take the edge off being Miss Perfect / Daddy's Little Girl / Goody Two Shoes - whatever mantle it was that you wished to pluck off your head and cast gently aside for one blissful night. He assumed maybe a downer, maybe an upper, maybe a combo of both. He didn't know you well enough to assume. You seemed happy enough when skipping down the halls with your gaggle of friends, but maybe there was a secret side of you that wanted to disappear. You seemed focused when you were working on papers or quizzes in your shared classes with Eddie, but maybe you needed something that would give you that much more of an edge. Something to help you lock in.

Or maybe you just wanted to be able to turn your brain off for a bit. Eddie knew what that was like.

Sitting in your room now, however, Eddie was less sure. You hadn't closed the door behind him and immediately asked to check out the merchandise. You hadn't proffered up cash in an attempt to speed along a transaction. Instead you'd sat him down with a textbook and a notepad and actually started studying. It was weird. Eddie wasn't used to this kind of drug dealer foreplay. He assumed you were just nervous, though, so after a while, he decided he would have to be the one to make the first move.

"What's your poison, princess?" he asks, after a few moments of silence has settled between the two of you. You look up from your own book and furrow your brow. When you don't speak, Eddie continues. "Upon which journey of medicated oblivion do you wish to depart?"

That doesn't seem to make it any clearer for you.

"Huh?" you ask. The way your nose wrinkles in your confusion is kind of cute, but Eddie does his best to ignore it.

"Drugs. What drugs did you ask me here to sell you?" He speaks plainly because apparently you aren't ready for euphemism. Wow, you must be really new to this space.

Surprise ripples across your face, followed by immediate amusement.

"I didn't ask you here for any drugs. But you're welcome to partake if you like, of course." You gesture to his pail, proving you had known what was inside all along. Eddie shakes his head.

"I don't sample the goods, sweetie. I just sell 'em."

You snort in response, a decidedly unladylike reaction.

"You and I both know that's bullshit, Munson. I've seen you in class. Nine times out of ten you're high as a kite."

Eddie smirks and runs a sheepish hand through his hair. Oh you'd seen him, huh? You were looking?

"Guilty as charged. Then what did you ask me here for?"

"To study," you answer simply. The look on your face, however, implies that isn't all there is to it.

"And...?" Eddie presses. Your smile grows wider and you close your book. You shift on the bed beside him in a way that shifts your skirt, baring your thigh. Eddie's eyes go straight to that exposed swath of skin, right on cue.

"And...if we fool around a bit, that's a nice bonus." You say it as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. Obviously that's an additional thing that would happen on a study night like this. As obvious as a round of flash cards or a homemaker mother coming in with a tray of cookies and juice.

Which reminds him...

"Aren't your parents around?" Eddie asks. He adds a lilt of humor to his voice, though he means the question seriously.

"They're in Indianapolis for the night. I'm here all by my lonesome," you say with a faux coquettishness that causes an ache to begin forming in his throat. "You're here to keep me company."

All of a sudden the closed door to your room emanates with a kind of vibrating anticipation. A rushing begins in Eddie's ears, followed by a high pitched ring. Is he going to pass out?

You take the book from his lap and place it on the floor.

"So what's your poison, Eddie Munson?" you ask.

This is it. Eddie is actually short circuiting. He swallows but the sound resonates as a cartoon gulp.

"We don't have to...that's...we don't need..."

You place a hand on his shoulder and it just about burns through the fabric of his shirt.

"I know we don't need to do anything. What do you want?"

Eddie hesitates, but you read it as him not wanting to push, so you take matters into your own hands. Literally.

'Wait, what are you - oh fuck." Eddie's eyes blow wide as you sink to the floor in front of him, kneeling between his legs with one hand on his thigh and one hand on his crotch.

"I'm narrowing down the options for you, Munson," you say with a grin. "Helping you make a decision. I know it was hard to decide what you wanted. Really hard, it seems." You put more emphasis on your innuendo as you begin to stroke him through his jeans. You're right. He's hard. Just from this fucking teasing conversation he is hard as a rock. His cheeks and ears burn with humiliation. 

“That’s…fucking…”

“Well I wouldn’t say it’s fucking. But maybe a version of it,” you chuckle. Before he even understands what’s happening, you’re unbuttoning his jeans and lowering the zipper. If he hadn’t been wearing relatively constrictive boxer briefs he knows he would have all but sprung out the moment you freed him from the denim. You cup him through the fabric of his underwear and slide your hand up and down. “Now what have you been hiding from me, hm?”

Eddie can’t speak. He truly can’t form words. This can’t be happening right now. The amount of times he’d fucked his fist to the thought of you…this was absolutely absurd. He must have smoked too much weed and slipped into a catatonic state, trapped in his own erotic fantasies because what the actual fuck. 

Eddie’s continued lack of response does start to unnerve you, though. You slow your hand on his clothed cock and look up at him, trying to keep humor in your voice. 

“What’s going on? You’re acting like you’ve never had a girl on her knees before.”

“Um…”

“Stop messing with me,” you snort. But when Eddie continues frowning, you drop your hand from his lap. “You mean to tell me…”

“You can get up for this conversation,” Eddie says quietly, reaching out a hand. He doesn’t like the juxtaposition of the power dynamics. You on your knees in front of him. A situation that should objectively make him feel powerful, and yet all he feels right now is small. You take his proffered hand and allow him to pull you up to your feet. When you take a silent seat beside him on the bed, Eddie knows he’s going to have to explain. 

“So…yeah. I’ve never ‘had a girl on her knees’ before.” You nod understandingly, but Eddie knows you can’t possibly fully understand yet. “I’ve never ‘had’ a girl…period.”

A beat passes.

Another beat. 

Eddie had been staring down at the leather bracelets encircling his wrists, fiddling with the frayed edges. But at the continued silence he looks up to find you watching him, eyes wide with comprehension. 

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t realize, I wouldn’t have pressured you -,”

“No!” Eddie says a little too emphatically, making you jump. He grabs your hands to keep you next to him. “You didn’t pressure me at all. I want…this. I want…you. I just…”

“You just…?” you prompt, dipping your head down to force him to meet your eye despite his dropped chin. 

“I just don’t know what I’m fucking doing here, babe,” Eddie forces out with a humorless chuckle. You bite your lip to keep from laughing along. 

This is uncharted territory for you. Yes you’re experienced, but you’d really only ever been with guys who had way more experience than you. It was kind of where your forced confidence and teasing personality came from - a little bit of a fake it till you make it mentality. It usually kept guys from bowling you over or taking too much if they got the sense that you knew what you were doing. That you knew what you wanted. 

This is a completely different situation. You look at the shaggy-haired metal head in front of you and your heart throbs. Before this evening you’d seen him as a fun little roll in the hay. A cheeky little ‘fuck you’ to your overbearing parents and to the pristine nature of your wholesome image. Eddie was brazen at school. A loud-mouthed, swaggering, innuendo-spewing class clown with a guitar and a million things to say. You’d thought he’d be a decent ride, if nothing else. But now you see him, uncertain and shrinking into your bed, and you realize that you don’t know him at all. And based on the way he’s looking at you with fear and shame, he clearly doesn’t know you either. 

“That doesn’t matter to me, you know. Especially since I know what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, that I can tell, sweetheart.” Eddie’s laugh is genuine this time. He adjusts himself at the crotch, an action that calls your attention to the bulge still protruding in his boxers through his open jeans. He’s still hard. In spite of all the embarrassment and discomfort. Eddie Munson must really want you. 

Well good. Because you’ve decided that in spite of everything, you really want Eddie Munson.

When you reach down and push aside his hand, Eddie recoils only for a second. Your hand closes around his cock and he melts into the touch. 

“Jesusfuckingchrist,” he exhales. 

“That feel good?” you ask. 

“That better be rhetorical. Because this feels better than anything I’ve ever felt in the goddamn world.”

“That’s an exaggeration, Eddie,” you say, rolling your eyes. 

“No, it reeeeally fucking isn’t.”

“Well then you’re gonna explode when I do this.” Before Eddie can even realize what’s happening, you’ve peeled down his underwear, exposing his cock to the cool air of your bedroom. Your hand wraps around his length, feeling the velvety skin over his throbbing hardness and Eddie all but yelps. 

“Holy FUCK.”

“Yeah?”

“Ok now that is better than anything I’ve ever felt.”

You lick your hand and bring it back down to glide more easily along his shaft. You watch Eddie shudder.

“You do realize it will only escalate from here. You can’t keep saying that.” 

Eddie grips at the denim on his own thigh and grits his teeth. Your hand has begun to pick up speed. 

“Little newsflash for you, babe. I’m not exactly in control of the words coming out of my - GAH.” 

You smooth your thumb over the mushroom head of his cock, pleased by the wetness gathering at the tip. 

“You touch yourself, don’t you Munson? This can’t be so revolutionary.” You’re teasing him but you love how responsive he is. Love the way he looks at you like you’re made of shining gold. 

“My hands don’t feel anything like this and you know it.”

You lift one of his hands with your free hand and smooth your fingers over his skin. 

“Yeah. These calluses from guitar?” 

He can’t believe you’re speaking so casually while still continuing to jerk him off into oblivion. He’s the one being stimulated, sure, but how can you remain unphased when it feels like all of the heat in the universe is being concentrated in this room right now. Surely he can’t be the only one whose every molecule is on fire. 

When Eddie doesn’t respond to your callus question, you decide to take escalation into your own hands. Or rather…Eddie’s. 

When you place his hand on your breast, it has the exact effect you think it will have. Eddie’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline and his jaw drops to the floor. 

“Uhhh….” 

Dumbstruck. 

You decide that’s how you like him. 

“You gonna just sit there?” you ask playfully, dropping your hand and marveling at the fact that Eddie’s remains light and motionless when you left it. 

“What…can…how…?”

“Play with them,” you reply with a little shrug. When Eddie hesitates, you nudge him to move back up the bed. Once his back is up against your pillows, you straddle his thighs - just before his knees - and immediately get back to work on his cock. 

This time Eddie reaches for both of your breasts, and this time his grip is a little more firm. He begins to squeeze and release. When he finally gets adventurous enough to lightly twist your nipple through the fabric of your top and your unpadded bra you reward him with a moan. 

“So that…felt good?” Eddie asks hopefully. 

“You watch porn, Eddie. What do you think?” 

“I think I want to take these puppies out, let them breathe.” Eddie looks up at you with the biggest shit eating grin you’ve ever seen, clearly finally feeling more comfortable. 

“Ah, there’s the little shit I know and love,” you laugh. Your words send a zing through Eddie’s bloodstream but he suppresses it. There are more pressing matters at hand. Like the way your blouse simply falls away after he unbuttons it. And the way your breasts sit up in your bra - plump and ready for him to have his way with them. 

And so he does. 

When Eddie’s hands engulf your breast this time, their grip is definitive. You inhale sharply with the strength of his squeeze. Finally some stimulation. 

“It does feel good,” Eddie smirks. Your pleasure must be clear on your face. 

“Don’t get cocky,” you try to admonish him. It’s time to up the ante, so you wrap one hand around the base of his cock and begin moving your other hand faster up and down. 

“Holy shit.”

“There we go,” you say, satisfied. You’ve enjoyed being in control. This is such a rare luxury for you and you’ve decided you like it. The wet warmth blooming between your thighs definitely indicates that. 

“Hey…slow down…”

“Too much?” you ask, immediately slowing your motions, worried you’d pushed him too far. Eddie’s hands grip your breasts, almost as if to ground himself. 

“No it’s fucking amazing I’m just…I’m gonna cum - oh!” 

You immediately pick up the pace right back to what it had been a second ago. 

“That’s the idea, handsome.”

Eddie is lost in a flurry of sensation. Nobody has ever called him handsome before. But nobody has ever jerked him off before either, so maybe that’s not the most pressing thing for him to ruminate on. There you sit straddling his thighs with your hands moving on his cock, your breasts bouncing in his hands. He feels like he’s going to pass out if you don’t stop immediately. 

“Take off your shirt.”

“Huh?” Eddie asks, squinting up at you. Your words make no sense in the haze of his pleasure. 

“Take off your shirt,” you repeat, relatively urgently. He does as he’s told, ripping his shirt off by the back of the collar. When the fabric pulls up and over his face, he is greeted by the sight of you now without your bra. 

“Holy fucking shit.” 

You spit in your palm and begin stroking him again in earnest. With both of your hands focused on his length, your arms push your breasts together. Eddie moans on the verge of agony. 

“I’m gonna fucking cum.”

“This your first set of tits, Munson?” you ask, amused. This language is much more crass than you’d usually use, but there is something about Eddie - his lack of experience or maybe his unabashed enjoyment - that makes you feel comfortable speaking this way. 

“The first set that I can actually physically touch, yeah,” Eddie replies with full honesty and roguish smile. He surprises you by getting a big handful and pushing them together. His thumbs play with your exposed nipples and your hips begin to move against him. 

“You’re so turned on right now, aren’t you,” Eddie says through gritted teeth. His eyes squeeze shut against the divine pleasure of knowing that you’re rocking against him just as much as he’s rocking into your hands. 

It’s a glimmer of the dirty talk you might eventually be able to get from him. You like it. Like the teasing quality and the way it matches up to the way you’ve been addressing him. It does things to you and you know it would balloon his ego to know that you’re soaking through your panties right now. 

So you say the one thing that you know will throw him over the edge. 

“I want you, Eddie Munson. I want you inside of me.” 

The sputtering of words catching in his throat matches the way his hips stutter, cum spurting up and over your fists. It splashes hot and wet against his abdomen, which you had thankfully had the foresight to make him bare. Eddie lets out a guttural, shuddering groan. 

“Are you…fuck…jesus…are you fucking kidding me?” His hands fly off your breasts to cover his face. “God DAMN it.” 

Surprised by the sudden tone switch, you lift your wet hands from his leaking cock. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s….that was…I didn’t get to…” Eddie sounds confused and frustrated and breathless all at once. When he drops his hands from his face he looks up at you with a crumpled expression. “What about you?”

You have to bite your cheek to keep in the laugh that you know would hurt his feelings. 

“You just had your first handjob and you’re worried about me?” 

Eddie furrows his brow. 

“Well yeah. I want you to cum.” 

You shrug and gently dismount him. Reaching for your bedside table you grab a couple tissues, one which you hand over to Eddie. 

“That’s a hit or miss kind of thing, so don’t even worry about it.” 

Eddie wipes gingerly at the cum on his stomach and around the base of his flagging cock. 

“You mean…you don’t always cum?”

“Not always. But that’s normal.” You glide around your room, picking up your discarded clothes and dropping them neatly in your laundry basket. You open the top drawer of your dresser and pull out a gauzy white nightgown that, when pulled on, floats just to the upper middle of your thighs. You drop your skirt off your hips, leaving you in just a pair of panties beneath the delicate fabric. 

Eddie watches from his seat on your bed, still bedraggled from your shared sex act, shirtless with his jeans and boxers pulled down and his member now resting on his belly. It twitches with interest, however, at the sight of your nipples peaked through your nightgown. 

“I…I’d like to help you with that.”

Your face, and heart, soften at the earnestness in his voice. This poor, sweet, inexperienced weirdo in your bed wants to help you cum. Something that countless jocks and hot guys never even gave a passing thought to. Eddie stumbles to his feet and pulls up his boxer briefs and jeans. 

You climb back onto your bed into the space he’s now vacated. 

“Yeah? You want to help me cum, Munson?” You tease him as you lay against the pillows, one hand on your breast while you plant one foot on the mattress to bring your knee up. Your nightgown just barely covers your center, meaning Eddie can see a small swatch of your panties. Light pink. He feels his jeans tighten immediately. 

“I do.” He’s eager. It’s adorable. Eddie places a knee on the edge of your bed, mesmerized by the way your hands move over your body. 

“We’ll get to that,” you say quietly. Your voice breathy and inviting. 

“We will?” 

“Want to know the first step?” you ask. Eddie nods emphatically, eyes still trained on your hands, one of which has migrated to the apex of your thighs. 

“You’re gonna go home -,” You’re interrupted by a disagreeable harumph from Eddie. You smile. “You’re gonna go home and I’m going to touch myself to the thought of your cock.”

You can physically see the way the wind is knocked out of him. 

“Okay?” you prompt when he doesn’t reply. Eddie shifts restlessly. 

“Or I could help you now.” 

“No,” you disagree firmly. “We’ll build up to that.”

Eddie frowns. You know he’s disappointed, but you can feel your heart rate increase as you swirl your fingertip over your clit through your panties. Orgasms are hard for you to come by - pun intended - so you felt the urge to chase this one without additional variables. 

“Next time,” you add, hoping Eddie can see the promise in your face. He watches you silently for another moment, committing the image of you laid out and touching yourself to memory, before he nods and takes his knee off the bed. 

“Next time.” 

When Eddie leaves a few minutes later, the sound of his noisy van shuddering to life and peeling out beyond your window, you finally indulge yourself in the feeling you’ve been waiting for all night. 

You enjoy sex, sure. It wasn’t something that you had given much thought to. You’re pretty in a small town. You’re a cheerleader. It came with the territory that you were an object of lust and desire. Other young men enjoyed getting you naked and emptying themselves of their pent up hormonal tension. You found pleasure in the weight of their bodies and the knowledge that you were wanted. But there had never been much more to it than that. They rarely focused on pleasuring you beyond a tepid rub at the general vicinity of your clit. Their cocks sometimes rubbed a long neglected place deep inside of you, but the friction was always short lived. The occasional orgasm was always welcome but always fleeting. Even in the privacy of your own bed you found that they were often more work than they were worth. 

But tonight, you’d had a different experience. The man was beneath you, not on top of you. You had helped him reach a peak he’d never known before. And he’d looked at you like you were a goddess. 

When your fingers delve deep inside of you, you’re barely able to reach the place that aches with the promise of deeper pleasure. But for once, you have the feeling that somebody might be able to get you there.

When you cum from vigorously pressing on your clit, you cum with the vision of Eddie Munson in your mind’s eye. 

Next time, you think as you ascend. Next time. 

~*~ 

-

--

---

I really hope you enjoyed this. PLEASE tell me if you did and what you liked about it. I want to see if it is worth doing a part 2 <3

[takes1]

tsukishima and yamaguchi are incapable of sharing you

is this a big metaphor? maybe. i dunno. it's steamier this way. read between the lines or something. two weeks of having a cold? or covid? or the flu? idk what it was but it burnt me outttttt

warnings. suggestive, minors DNI

details. fem!reader / suggestive fluff / love triangle? love shape? / fighting over reader / unrequited crushes / suggestive touching / touch starved!tsukki / touch starved!yamaguchi / sports massage, hot / best friends / girls team!reader / sadomasochism clawed its way into my fluff fic / tsukki is transactional / boyfriend material!yamaguchi / brotherzoning, friendzoning / daichi has canon aura / 4.1k words

links. my masterlist. more haikyuu. my ao3. my imagines.

"Oh, wow--," Tsukishima's cruel and quiet snicker at your expense was inevitable. He pushed one side of his headphones off of his ear.

His brow raised in amusement at your exaggerated wobble, how you were unable to stand on your own.

Yamaguchi kept his arms stretched out for you to grab and help yourself up, a master at utilizing any excuse he could to hold you.

"Isn't this- I dunno- kind of excessive?"

He sighed, palms flat against your back as you stumbled into his chest.

He expressed no real urgency to let you go. The guy was -generally- touchy with all of his friends, so it was never worth raising any color flag over.

"We-- hah-h," You gripped his forearm when you tried to take another excruciating step on your own. You sunk to the floor so fast he didn't even think to try and catch you.

It spurred another rare, genuine laugh from Tsukishima.

You cleared your throat with some attitude, and attempted to gather your dignity before trying to get up again.

"-We did lose."

Now, especially, you could truly appreciate his tendency to help. This practice had been group punishment for losing your last big game.

Sparing the gruesome details, it left most of the first-years in horrible condition. Even the more experienced girls on the team were ambling away at a slower pace, wincing, under the weight of their own bodies and struggling to take one step down from the gymnasium.

"(Y/n)!!"

You all stiffened. That was Michimiya's voice- you thought all the upperclassmen had gone, but she popped her head out from the exit and sounded just as intimidating as usual.

"Yes ma'am?" You called, a grimace all over your face.

The two boys shifted further away. They weren't technically supposed to be here, yet, and kept their heads tilted to the floor, expecting to be scolded for not going straight home.

"Head to the training room and roll your legs out-- I need you better before Friday! You two--," She hesitated before telling them to leave, vaguely aware that you were all buddies. "Help her, please."

"Yes ma'am!!"

Just like that, she was gone. Your eyes were shining. You were needed. For the team.

"Oh my gosh..." You bit your lip.

"That's awesome!" Yamaguchi laughed, excited for you. If Daichi had told him something like that, he'd be over-the-moon happy.

Tsukishima crossed his arms, unable to relate, and now tied to this place even longer.

He didn't validate your silent request to be helped. He only came across as cruel, but his real reason was objectively worse.

Thankfully, Yamaguchi was there to fill in the gaps of his awkward, ill-timed difficulty. You smiled at his light concern, an 'okay' of sorts to let him know he could find your condition funny, too.

"Th-anks-- hh-ah... shit,"

It was so much worse now. You wished you had listened to your teammates, to not sit down ten minutes ago, no matter how much you felt like you needed to.

Tsukishima watched, hands deep in his pockets with no intention to be of free service. That sound of struggle was almost as satisfying as hearing you ask for help.

You didn't let go of his hands for a few seconds. The weight of your body was a lot to handle- you kept his palms squeezed hard in yours and were beyond grateful he stayed, unbothered by it.

They were technically tasked with getting you to the training room, but you only had faith that Yamaguchi would see it through. Tsukishima might go as far as to get on the first train home, all alone, because that's how much he hated waiting on other people.

Yamaguchi, however, shared in your experience. His eyes were bright and his smile always waiting to agree, or laugh, or ask you something.

"Can ya walk?" He giggled.

His freckled hands stayed, attentive, at your sides, as you laughed with him and tried.

Moving was doable, but only in little, shuffle-y, painful, half-steps. Your hamstrings were like guitar strings, pulled too tight from your ass to your knees, your quads as stiff as set concrete, and everything was burning hot to the touch. You worked up another sick sweat, just moving 20 steps.

The two friends shared a look as they slowed down for you. It was worse than they thought- and though they had confided in you earlier, telling you that this was normal, they weren't exactly sure anymore. They hadn't yet been pushed this hard at their own team practices (they actually won their games).

Tsukishima's chortle was mean, targeted, in nature.

"Am I gonna have to carry you?"

Your exhaustion blocked any of your usual retaliation. The suggestion was, unironically, very appealing. He had to ability to take some pain away and was 'offering.'

"Oh!" You groaned, palm on your hip after taking a few tiny steps to get to the wall, "Would you? Please?"

It caught him off guard for an imperceivable second.

He rolled his eyes, his fair skin inadequate cover for the blush you had inspired.

Yet, always the master of masking his emotions, he swung his body in the direction of the training room to evade suspicion, instead, "Hell no."

The multiuse training room was thankfully spared of any life, except for you three clowns. There wasn't even the athletic trainer, paid to stay later for hurt athletes. Most teams were finished up already and all the gear -the weights, the tires, the specialty equipment- was in its proper place.

You glanced to Tsukishima, who was second to make the connection that this was an even bigger waste of his time-- unable to take the sound of him picking on you again, you waved your hand at him, dismissive at his catty sigh.

"You can go home, Tsukki, I know you've got better things to do."

Yamaguchi smirked at the light pink that dusted the fair tips of his ears. He followed close behind you towards the mats, near the recovery gear.

'Reverse-psychology' almost always worked on him, outside of a match.

"Pff- whatever," He cleared his throat, shoving his hands even deeper into his pockets, "It's not a big deal or anything."

It was, in fact, a big deal.

You couldn't take even the softest of featherlight touches, or stretches, or damn near anything that was suggested by your teammates to try.

"You can't just give up," Yamaguchi said, softly, trying to encourage you to try the massage gun again.

"You're just being a crybaby--," Tsukishima shrugged, as if he didn't insult you, and took the thing in his hand, "If you can't do it, one of us should."

Without a second of hesitation, you swiped it from him. That thing was a weapon, with the wrong head attachment and in the hands of somebody with as little sympathy as him.

"Yamaguchi-!" You grew warm, handing it to the nicer of the two, "If- um, one of you has to do it for me. I want Yamaguchi to."

It was the most efficient tool for the job prescribed to you. Break up the lactic acid, promote healing, warm the muscle up for some stretching.

That list seemed so much simpler when pain was not part of the picture.

Having one them subject you to forced recovery was, regrettably, more doable than trying it on yourself. That didn't mean that it was easy.

Yamaguchi knelt atop your legs whilst you lay on your stomach, trying his best to ignore your pleas (as you had asked of him). He kept your leg still as he prodded the machine into your damaged tissue.

It was excruciating. Why did you play this sport?

"Stop-stopstopstop!!"

At last, your begging was met with a precious grain of sympathy. Yamaguchi looked nothing short of conflicted, unable to help without hurting you, but unwilling to let you leave without doing what needed to be done.

He gritted his teeth and looked back at you- to check if you were okay, because you weren't saying anything.

The rapid rise and fall of your ribcage was all he needed to see.

"I'm sorry- I-I can't--,"

He groaned, not knowing what to do, and set the massage gun down by your left leg.

"Oh- my- godddd." The blond boy groaned, horribly impatient in an instant.

The sound of the machine getting turned back on made you jump, but you got squished down before you could even think that there was a need to move faster.

Tsukishima sat backwards on top of you. He wasn't using his entire weight but it was enough to keep you immobile in the ways that mattered. Your muscles seized against your will at the primal realization that he was not going to be nearly as gentle or attentive.

Your shrieking become muffled in your sleeves, but it would've gone just as ignored if you hadn't taken that initiative.

"What are you doing?" Yamaguchi sighed, a bit mean and confused at how he just took over instead of talking about it first.

If he was doing something wrong, he at least wanted the chance to fix it. But that wouldn't fly in this company. Tsukishima was never the type to give people, even his best friend, that much faith.

"I wanna go home dude. I'm--,"

His pressure on the inside of your calf sent you into a full-on seize. He flew to keep your ankle to the ground with a pissed off groan and a heavy thump.

"-Getting- this done."

"You don't have to help!"

Yamaguchi was technically yelling at him, but it didn't sound like it. His voice was raised, a tiny bit louder than the massage gun, and that was about it. It was almost impossible for him to come across as angry. Maybe passive-aggressive, which was, admittedly, jarring enough.

He was met with a signature scoff but didn't back down from it. Yamaguchi had too many reasons not to shy away. If he was that bothered by staying longer, he could go home alone. The chance to hang out with you alone, not to mention the perfect opportunity to touch you, wasn't lost on either of them. Tsukishima knew about his feelings for you. Until now, it was never a topic that needed to be explicitly addressed.

Tsukishima threw a narrowed, cold look through his lashes to him.

That was oh-so-intentional, and a painful thing to process as he barks at you to stop whining so much. His hands are giant, wrapped all the way around your shins, weighing you further down so you can't kick.

You were almost getting used to it- how much it hurt- as you feel Yamaguchi settle next to you and place a reassuring hand on your back.

You're panting, hoarse and labored- you were going to thank him, but Tsukishima makes his way up to your hamstring and you flinch again with your face slammed back into your arms.

"Augh-! Dude!! Ha--Ah!"

Absolutely no remorse in his voice, "Tadashi, c'mere and hold her ankle. I can't do both."

They shared another charged glare behind your back, but Yamaguchi wasn't going to intentionally make things more difficult than they had to be. He wanted to go home too, and wanted you to feel better quicker- this was a necessary evil.

Part of your hoodie sleeve was soaking wet from where you were biting down, grimacing. You were slick with cold sweat, trembling, and could not wrap your head around how torturous this whole ordeal had become.

For a moment, just one tiny, fleeting moment, he took the machine off and you were able to gasp in a non-labored breath. He adjusted to sit on top of your butt (without asking if you were comfortable) and slipped a warm hand between your thighs to grasp your inner leg to keep you still. Yamaguchi's grip on your ankle felt after that- harder.

The pleasant sensation it sent down into your tummy became quickly interrupted by the worst of it.

"Mm-h-!!" You groaned into your clothes.

"Ohh- yeah, you're fucked," Tsukishima laughed in shock at how he could feel the tension, the spasms, under the skin once he placed that godforsaken thing back onto you.

You mostly blocked the rest of the experience out of your mind- it was nauseating, and long, and arduous. Tsukishima made no efforts to make the process any easier by asking you what you wanted, if you needed a break, or if you were okay.

It made the last of it that much sweeter. The training room was quiet, again, once the buzzing was gone.

"That should do it," He muttered, pushing the heel of his palm down the now compliant, though aching, muscle of your hamstring. It was practically mindless.

"Y-eah-," Yamaguchi rolled his eyes at the shameless display.

Tsukishima glanced at him. He cleared his throat and pinched you, just for good measure, then decided for you, "Yeah, that feels better."

You rolled your cloudy eyes just to yourself, unable to lift your head from your weak arms.

"Okay! Jeez! Get off of me."

Another ill-intentioned snicker was almost enough to make you look back. It, instead, only motivated you to tense up your shoulders.

"Did you forget that you have a second leg?"

Yamaguchi would've laughed with him, had he not been so pissed off that he was getting- for lack of a better word here- cucked.

Barely able to peel your chest up off of the ground, you huffed and pushed the stagnant tears from your face.

"You are not doing that again!"

It was another way of saying that you couldn't take it, which, in his twisted mind, was reason enough to smile. He had to adjust himself pretty plainly in front of his freckled, grumpy friend before getting off of you.

You rolled, heavy and slow, onto your back, and didn't spare him any looks. You spoke to the ceiling. "I'll do my own calf. Tadashi,"

His face was softer, attentive, at how you sighed his name. Every word afterward was a lot sweeter, lighter, than the ones that were meant for Tsukishima.

"You get my other hamstring. I can't reach it."

Now 'unemployed,' Tsukishima reclined against his bag, pushed his headphones up, and played on his phone.

You flipped back onto your tummy and pulled down on the hem of your shorts, for some bit of decency. All it did was make Yamaguchi's eyes wander. Tsukishima had already been stealing crystal clear glances.

Those practice shorts left little to the imagination, especially hiked up the way you liked to wear them for training. It did not go underappreciated in this group.

Yamaguchi tried not to stare- he really, really tried. His eyes were bouncing back and forth between where to adjust over you, and where he desperately wanted to cop a feel. It's just that you were turned around, with no way of knowing, and there was nothing too wrong with looking.

Neither of them were bold enough to bring up that your glutes -realistically- were the most worked muscle group that needed to be attended to.

Yamaguchi mirrored his hand placement to where Tsukishima had done it, earlier. He was not prepared at how intimate it felt at all, because his friend had given zero indication that it was such a big deal.

You flinched at the contact even though it was hundred times softer than you had been touched earlier. His palm was unsure, and varied in firmness as he tried to palm your thigh the 'right' way. You were grateful nobody -especially that blond idiot- could see how embarrassed you were, as you buried the side of your face harder into your clothes.

"I'm gonna try to be less gentle- so," He lost his train of thought, captivated in the sight of your softness filling the gaps of his long, tanned fingers, "Um... yeah."

Not-gentle was a good way to describe that massage gun on your stiff leg. But it wasn't a stabbing pain, like how forcefully and suddenly Tsukishima had started.

And yet, you couldn't help the reflex to bend at the knee, and almost nailed him with a powerful kick.

"A-ah! Sorry--," You couldn't quite get the apology out, between gritted teeth.

Since Tsukishima had been too busy peeking out of the corner of his eye to admire the space between your legs, the curve of your ass, and all the shaking, he was quick to grab that free ankle and pin it down.

They shared a mutually surprised expression behind you that, if anything, helped ease their nasty, competitive, and degrading attitudes.

Yamaguchi's face was very warm, his legs, his grip, had to be readjusted-- his fingers felt indescribably good in the midst of so much discomfort. He put more of his weight on you, having underestimated how much you might throw him off.

Neither of the two were saints, but if it were a competition, Yamaguchi at least tried to repress things.

He wanted to be seen as good, as nice, and sweet. Getting brother-zoned all the time sucked but at least it spoke to his positive qualities.

Tsukishima did not care all that much about looking like a good person. Being 'cool' was different, and just as performative, but still, different. He had less internal struggle when it came to checking you out behind your back; his only worry was getting caught, because it made him look interested. Being interested, to Tsukishima, was worse than being a 'nice guy.'

All that to say: He pushed your ankle a bit further to the outside, craning his neck to see just how much those safety shorts actually covered down there.

If he could get Yamaguchi to move his hand out of the way--

"You're doin' it wrong," He sighed, sounding flat- bored, even though he wasn't.

You spared Yamaguchi the responsibility of responding to him.

"You're- ahh- ridiculous, Kei. Fucking-- ridiculous."

His nose wrinkled at your assertion that he could possibly be wrong, "The fact that you can talk is evidence enough."

That made your face multiple degrees hotter, and kept you biting a rude reply into your shirt- it pissed your nicer friend off, on your behalf.

"Dude, shut up," Yamaguchi mumbled.

It was ironically something that sounded like it would come out of Tsukishima's mouth, in tone and phrase. He could've told either of you to shut up at any given moment, on any given day, and it wouldn't be a big deal. Coming from Yamaguchi, though--

The blond stiffened, his mouth curled into an absurd grin, but his eyes were fixed and brutal behind his glasses.

All the implications under their words, their jagged tones, were so plain and out in the open. To them. You remained disadvantaged, partially deaf (from the loud massage gun) and mostly blind (turned around), still preoccupied with your physical inability to stay on their conversational level or that emotional space.

To you, they were only trying to help, and the situation had not degraded so much.

You were busy thinking about how Tsukishima could not have been more wrong about Yamaguchi's 'technique.' The pressure had grown, making for a more intense experience than before, with all the new compensation.

An awful, bitter comeback was on the tip of Tsukishima's tongue.

"Woah!" A new voice, one you didn't quite recognize, was at the entrance to the training room, "What're you three still doing here? It's late!"

"Daichi!" Yamaguchi sighs, breathless, for a couple of different reasons.

You winced at his weird readjustment on top of you- and the terrible, sinking feeling that this was inappropriate and semi-public.

Was there no safe place for a bunch of underclassmen to hang out anymore? Since when did the seniors linger for this long? They usually were the some of first out the door, and the guys' team had been done for almost an hour, now.

His grip softens, flittering away, for a moment. A rush of strength finds his legs and he's safely hovering, instead of sitting, on you.

"Oh! Taking turns with the gun? Man-," Even his laugh is leader-like, all punctuated and deep, "Must be pretty bad, huh?"

When he clocks that their captain isn't there to scold, he keeps one palm safely on the mat, instead.

"Do you--," You push yourself up to your elbows again with a groan and a scrunched up face. It helps, to reiterate that this is not some kind of debauchery, "-Have any advice?"

Daichi was there to return some gear. He placed a bag on the table closest to the door, then hung up some keys. All that you could think was how responsible he looked.

He hummed aloud to himself, "Advice...?"

Yamaguchi slowly moved off of you, so as to not look suspicious, but his nervous demeanor always made him look a little bit guilty of something. You waved off his soft apology in favor of staring, curious, at the new presence.

You were able to roll over to your back and sit up, with marked effort- then stilled as their team captain joined your spot on the mats.

He took a second to look between all three of you, face impossible to read, then seemed to recognize you.

"You must be that rookie Yui was talking about," He doesn't realize how important that off-handed statement means to you, "It's nice to meet ya."

"You too," Your voice was ghostly soft, eyes wide, when he sat down to take you through some handy stretches.

His team jacket looks really worn in. His thighs are giant from years of playing. He knows what he's talking about. And your two idiot friends are silent, for once, so he must be super cool. You listen very carefully.

"So, if it's just soreness that you're dealing with, what you wanna do is--,"

"Man-," Tsukishima mutters, an incomprehensible 'What the fuck,' under his breath at those stupid puppy dog eyes you were giving their team captain. Great.

He threw a glance to Yamaguchi- his face was all screwed up, pissed off, too. They looked at each other with mutual, gloomy attitude.

Little did they understand that Daichi could've broken this up in a less civil way if he deemed them as any less credible in their actions.

It was their 'harmlessness' that kept them spared from a talking-to.

You were slower to understand that you were infatuated. As your long-time friends, they often read you quicker than you could understand your own emotions. It had been three minutes since the last time you blinked, and you didn't realize it, yet.

His stretches, and little tidbits of advice, rang familiar but more memorable than the second-year's recovery tips from the end of your practice.

"Thank you," You muttered, uncharacteristically quiet.

Tsukishima rolled his eyes so far back, so slow, that Daichi caught it.

"Of course! Happy to help."

You watched the incredible lines in his legs dance as he stood up and briefly wondered if he had ever suffered like this, before. Surely the answer was yes.

"Well-- It's great seeing you all take care of each other. Hang onto that!" Daichi kept one last, somewhat reminiscent, look on the three of you, and was on his way to the door.

"Oh-,"

You shivered, holding yourself as he turned around.

"Make sure to lock up when you're done!"

When he was gone, the door fully shut, you collapsed onto your back with a dreamy sigh. Yamaguchi was the first to stand up.

He was disappointed that you were so easy to impress, yes, but otherwise unfazed.

"You guys wanna go get something to eat?"

Tsukishima got to his feet, too, and had his bag slung at the ready-- usually not so food-motivated, but he was starving, at this point. The sun was low in the window. You nodded at the great idea.

Head still tilted to the closed door, you asked, "Does- uh, does he... have a girlfriend?"

Yamaguchi avoided your eyes, an easy task at his height, and took both of your hands to lift you to your feet. It was solely out of curiosity. He was so out of your league.

Tsukishima rattled off a blatant and well-done lie.

"Yeah. He's dating Michimiya- you didn't know that?"

It helped to cushion your feelings. You nodded, smiling at the way Yamaguchi kept you steady again with his hands in yours.

"Ohh, right. Right. That makes sense."

☆VIP☆

@integers @paradoxicalwritings @yuchacco @megapteraurelia

my masterlist. more haikyuu

[lost-romantique]

Ghostfuckers Massive Lore Dump & More...

I'm stuck at work doing the graveyard shift, so I decided to make a list of all the lore that we learned in Ghostfuckers. Plus some extra cuz my fave character is Blitz, and I love him...

It has been one month since the events of Apology Tour. Blitz and Stolas have been NO CONTACT for one whole month.

I.M.P is on the verge of bankruptcy due to Blitzø’s poor spending habits. Past Due Notices are pasted on the whiteboard. Millie confirms later on that Blitzø has not paid her in a month.

(Honestly same, I also cope by buying stupid shit, but sweetie you gotta pay your employees)

Confirmation that Blitzø (at least by the beginning of Ghostfuckers) has given up on pursuing a relationship with Stolas.

Millie confirmed that there is only Heaven or Hell, there is no such thing as Purgatory. And there is no such thing as Ghosts.

The fact that Millie had to stress it out several times, even to Blitz that ghosts don't exist... is insane.

Confirmation that Blitzø is still following M&M on their dates, and that once again... Blitz sees love and relationships as a transaction.

Blitzø’s illiteracy and possibly having dyslexia is the gift that keeps on giving.

(Fun fact: Brandon Rogers is confirmed dyslexic)

Confirmation that Blitzø has genuine fears of M&M getting hurt when they do go on missions.

Blitzø’s mom is confirmed to have died from the fire, just in case it wasn't obvious already.

Confirmation that Moxxie met Blitz before he met Millie, and by extension, Blitzø adopted Loona before he met Moxxie.

Further confirmation that Blitzø owning his own business as an imp makes him an outlier.

The fact that Blitzø has to stress to Millie that he does in fact own his own business, but she keeps denying the possibility that, that even exists is insane.

Confirmation that I.M.P began the moment Blitzø was in possession of the grimoire. Therefore, Blitzø had Millie, Moxxie, and Loona to provide for by the time he met Stolas

So much of Hell's Hierarchy and the suppression of imps in general, is ingrained into Millie that she genuinely believes that she isn't deserving to work in an old ass building located in the Pride Ring (where the sinners live)

Confirmation that imps (and by extension hellhounds) are expected to work for someone higher up, whether it be the Sins, the Ars Goetia, or even other sinners and hellborn

Confirmation once again that Blitzø is genuinely considered an outlier among imps. Him owning a business gives him a sense of prestige among others of his own kind.

Confirmation that Millie's entire life is all thanks to Blitzø: a husband, a career, a future, a best friend. ❤️

Further confirmation of the existance of Blitzø’s mask. (People were genuinely surprised when they realized that there was more to Blitzø than asshole)

Confirmation of the existance of infestor demons that are presumably from the Envy Ring.

Confirmation that Cash Fuckzo was an abusive piece of shit that not only manipulated his own child, but physically abused him when he had fresh burn marks on his wrist

Confirmation that Cash Fuckzo was the man that kept Blitzø and Fizz apart for so long, essentially the reason why these men hated each other for 15 years.

Confirmation that even seeing M&M happy and in love genuinely hurts him because (in his mind) he could never have what they have.

Confirmation that the events of Seeing Stars hurt Blitzø’s feelings and reignites that fear his daughter hates him.

The amount of remorse, guilt, and regret this man feels is so palpable that it can power an entire fucking city.

By the end of the episode Blitzø makes a promise to Millie to stop trying to become their "third". Millie is shocked by his answer and genuinely did not expect it.

Blitzø confirms to Millie that he does indeed have feelings for Stolas, but he's aware enough to know that he still fucked things up with him.

The character development that Blitzø showed this episode was actually insane, and I am so proud of him. He has a long way to go before he could forgive himself for the fire and hate himself less, but nonetheless I am so proud of him.

Also, in case you were wondering my favorite part of the episode was Millie's apology to Blitzø.

[litsenn]

Hi, I hope it's alright to ask your thoughts on something about Astarion. I just think your posts always show a very deep understanding of Astarion as a character, especially in regards to his complicated views on sex and intimacy, and I really appreciate and respect your analyses. I'm only on my second playthrough, so I like to hear from people who have played a lot more than I have.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Astarion’s state of mind in the first sex scene in act one (I'm currently writing about it). The more I think about it, his experience seems to be a very complex mixture of both positive and negative that exist simultaneously. These are just some of my current personal thoughts (all of this in the context of the PC being someone who treats him well and is generally a good person):

This is the first time he's getting to have sex on his own terms in 200 years, and that's probably liberating, in a slightly terrified and overwhelmed way. He is likely trying to convince himself that he feels more empowered and in-control than he actually does, because he needs that feeling. 

He knows the PC better than he ever knew any of his past targets, but he doesn’t yet believe that they truly care about him, either.

The sex ends up meaning more to him than he thought it would, but I also imagine it isn't exactly enjoyable for him, given his dissociation, feelings of disgust, and the fact that this was all just supposed to be an act. 

He is also probably struggling to reconcile the fact that he’s growing to genuinely like the PC with his belief that they are fetishizing him (this also connects with your incredible post about Astarion’s feelings about feeding on the PC at this point, and how biting during sex can be enjoyable for him, though still uncomfortable in that he views it as transactional) 

He feels like his performance here is important to his survival, because in his mind he is using sex as currency to get the PC on his side. The transactional nature of it is probably comfortable in its familiarity, yet no less disgusting for him.

 So what I’m ultimately trying to ask is: 

In your opinion, how much of this experience feels positive to him vs negative? 

Which of the feelings mentioned above do you think are at the forefront of his mind going into the encounter? Which ones “win out” over others? Are there more factors I forgot / didn’t list?

(I hope I made this sound somewhat coherent. I’ve had a hard time articulating my thoughts about this scene.)

First of all, thank you so much for your kind words 😭 I’m always very touched when people say they enjoy reading my stuff. I don’t know if my understanding of the character is so relevant, all I can say is that I relate to him on many levels, and therefore I analyse him from my personal perspective. Which also means that my posts are just one interpretation among many others.

Now, concerning this scene, there’s a lot to unpack. And I first have to say that there is no clear answer to the question "Did he enjoy it or not?". IMO, it will always be yes and no. And I'm only offering a personal analysis of this ambivalent situation.

Proceed at your own discretion because I’m going to talk about trauma, SA, sex-work and complicated relations to sex in general. Be careful.

Please, keep in mind that al of this is pure speculation (and forgive the typos😅)(and this post is long and chaotic, sorry).

I globally agree with all your points, and I love that you mentioned the complexity of his feelings during this scene. We can all agree that he has contradictive feelings about sex in Act 1. It's not just disgust, not just hedonism, not just attraction, not just manipulation: it's all of this and more.

And that’s one of the things I love about the writing of this character.

Sex is always complex (for everyone) but for survivors it’s even more complicated. And I love that Astarion’s narrative stands against the “perfect victim” tropes and the idea that SA survivors are incapable of enjoying sex. Despite the decades of SA, Astarion still enjoys it and wants it, but his desire is tainted with self-loathing, with fear. He deals with those through defence mechanisms and what I’d call “automatisms” from his former experiences and obligations.  

That's why before I answer your questions, I want to add one point which can also work as a foreword to the rest of the post: Astarion is attracted to the PC.

He says it during the confession scene, and there's no reason for him to lie at this point. Likewise, if the PC tells him they can be together without having sex, he's indeed relieved, pleasantly surprised, but he jests about it being a challenge.

I think there's some truth in those words: it will be somehow challenging. First because sex is the only kind of intimacy he's known for 200 years; it's will be difficult to "quit the habit", to discover and get used to new ways to get close to someone. Secondly, because he does find the PC attractive and probably wants to be able to have sex with them without feeling bad about it.

After all, it seems like he enjoyed sex very much before Cazador turned him, since at the beginning, he thought he could still enjoy having sex with his targets.

Meaning sex wasn’t something that disgusted him before all this. He might be able to remember (deep down) that sex can be 100% enjoyable.

Yet, it doesn’t necessarily means he’s now incapable of enjoying it; it only means that it’s going to be more complicated. He needs to rediscover how to fully enjoy it again – on his own terms – now that he’s free to give his consent.

Take the brothel scene for instance; if the PC has sex with Astarion and the Drow twins after dealing with Cazador, he's at first very excited about it. And I don't see any lie here, he's genuinely enthusiastic.

Unfortunately, during the orgy, he realises that it’s not for him ( not yet at least). Being with many people, and/or with someone that is not the PC is still an experience that triggers his trauma. But he didn't know that, he wasn't expecting his trauma to manifest. He wanted to do it, he wanted to enjoy it.

Not only he falls back into his old mechanism: sex as a performance, Astarion as an entertainer who must give the best performance to his partners, paying no attention to his own desire and needs. Followed by dissociation, which is something that happen automatically. You don't decide to dissociate. It's your brain switching off because the reality is too uncomfortable. It's survival.

Anyways, this bad experience is typical of what can happen to someone who's healing. It's normal. You want to explore your sexuality, and sometimes it works perfectly well, and sometimes not. That’s what healing is about. It's not linear, and sometimes it's messy.

It is true that some SA survivors are perpetually sex revulsed. And some of them become sex-addicts. And for most of them, it’s somewhere in-between. Still capable of enjoying sex VERY MUCH, but also finding themselves disgusted by sex sometimes for reasons they can’t really explain. There’s no rule as to how survivors experience sexual attraction. 

All of this to say that it is clear to me that Astarion experience sexual attraction, that he is attracted to the PC and that even in Act 1, an important part of him wants to have sex with the PC.

Back to your points.

Control, habits and defence mechanisms

I like how you said he “is likely trying to convince himself that he feels more empowered and in-control than he actually does, because he needs that feeling.”

There’s definitely something in his mind that still thinks as a slave, something which believes that he must have sex to be safe. Because it was the case for as long as he can remember.

Seducing people, sleeping with them without thinking about his own needs, that's part of his habitus. His body has been a tool for so long that he still sees it as such.

It’s ingrained in his mind, and even if he’s regaining his agency, some of the seeds planted by Cazador persist in his mind (and will until the Act 2 confession). Astarion says it himself, it's instinctive. And as you put it, it's somehow comfortable, it's charted territories.

A part of him tells him his only value relies on his sexual skills. Therefore he associates sex to a “safety net”. But he probably hasn’t acknowledged that yet in act 1; he prefers to lie to himself and to pretend he’s sleeping with the PC because he has become the puppet master. It's easier to think that way. But in fact, it was just a automatism, his survival instinct. So even if he’s really attracted to the PC, Astarion is still driven by fear and by a need to control how the PC feels about him (precisely because he's so afraid to lose control over the situation). And sex is the perfect tool for that. His body is the perfect tool.

[I can recall a few numbers of times when I had sex with people while lying to myself and pretending I 100% wanted it, pretending I was the one in control, when in fact, I had sex with those persons for reasons that had nothing to do with my own desire. It doesn't mean I didn't find them attractive, it doesn't mean I regret having sex with them, but it still means that my motivations weren’t what I thought they were, that my decision to have sex was still controlled by something else in my mind, something different from my actual desire. I acknowledged it months and sometimes years later.]

When Astarion welcomes the PC in the clearing, he’s performing. When I say he’s performing, I mean in the way he presents himself as as a person craving for sex, and he expresses his desire as such. He puts on the mask of the “mysterious sexy vampire”, keeping his voice low and his smirk sharp. He plays his part, the one he's played for years. He pretends to be the lover he thinks the PC wants him to be, the overly seductive vampire with his exaggerated declarations.

I think there are several ways to explain why he feels the need to perform:

It has always worked with his target up to now

That's the only way he knows

The exaggeration is also a shield behind which he can hide his vulnerabilities

Let me explain that last point : Saying a simple “I’m attracted to you, I want to be with you tonight”, without all the grandiloquence, is not something he would do at this point (even if that's how he feels), because that would make him look vulnerable. That would mean being honest with himself and with you, letting you see his raw desire, so to speak. It would feel too real (I purposely insist on that word and you all know why), and it's easier to exaggerate the whole thing and to pretend to be the hedonistic and over-the-top vampire. After all, he’s confident, he’s been doing that for years. He knows it works. He knows he’s hard to resist.

But when you think about it, he's obviously lying, saying he wanted this to happen since his first meeting with the PC... Come on, the first time they met he was ready to kill them.

It's a lovely lie, just like the "I love you" during his second proposition for sex (I talked about it here), but when you look into it, it's far grimmer.

Once more, there's a parallel between sex and death: "to have you"= Killing you. I already talked about that connection here, so I'll just quote myself: "It's possible to see Astarion's offer to kill you as a foreshadowing of him offering you to have sex with you. And considering what sex means to him at this point of his life - a tool to manipulate, which can lead to his partners to death - the parallel between the two in early act 1 makes a lot of sense to me."

But oh! µTav/Durge survived that first night with him! The PC is still here in the morning! That's new! It never happened to him before, waking up next to his partner. He needs to control this unusual and terrifying experience! Quick!

So I tend to think that the little remark about the PC being loud all night falls along those lines. He displays his (exaggerated) hedonistic and over-confident part of his persona, as a way to reassert that he’s the one in control. As if saying, reminding them: "I made you (the leader of the group) scream all night because I decided to, and everybody knows about it. I’m the one calling the shots.” 

But I think it's also as way to hide how he really feels about that night. So instead of opening up and saying how he feels about it, he teases the PC about their own enjoyment. Another defence mechanism.

And yet, the mask cracks a little bit when he asks if the PC wants to lose themselves in him; he suddenly looks terribly sad…

he asks for a consent he was never able to give before that

That’s probably a line he’s said thousands of times before and those who agreed did get lost… in death

It brings him back to the feeling of being a toy for others to enjoy, for people to use so they can "lose themselves"

The look on his face here is what he's trying to hide during this scene. He's wearing that mask (which will come back later if you ascend him), because he needs to protect himself. I'm not even sure if he acknowledges it at this point. It's an automatism.

But I believe that, as the night unfolds, he finds himself enjoying it.

Maybe it's just me, but I tend to feel like he’s getting more like his playful and silly self when you let him bite you. Whereas if you trust him to not bite, he keeps on performing, in control, like he was told to do by Cazador. 

If you let him bite you, you roll on the ground and he looks pleasantly surprised. And I think he starts to have fun here.

(Shadowheart, please)

And I think he can enjoy it even if he dissociates. As I said, the switch is automatic when the brain finds itself in a situation that represents some kind of danger or discomfort. For two hundred years, Astarion experienced sex in a way that was all but comfortable, sex he didn’t really want. It makes sense that his brain automatically switches off. Even though he’s having a good time here, intimacy itself is a trigger, no matter how much he's enjoying it. It’s instinctive, just like flirting is instinctive to him, paradoxically.

And I find the way he explains it quite interesting: he pretends it’s because of his bloodlust, because he didn't want to get carried away.

You see in his eyes that he’s lying. And I kinda like it because it’s sooo relatable. Finding excuses to justify dissociation or plain detachment during sex? yeah, that something I did, with answers along those lines: “I didn’t want to hurt you/I didn’t want to be too intense/I didn’t want to be too loud/I didn't want to scare you/I'm a little tired/etc."

And I still think he enjoys it even if he’s not 100% into it. He keeps his distance (mentally, emotionally) and it’s normal because he’s careful, because he doesn’t really know how to let go. And (healthy, happy) sex is about letting go completely, it‘s about trusting someone and allowing yourself to be completely free from your mental and physical restrains and automatisms.

It’s easy to understand why he can’t fully let go: he’s afraid, because he’s not 100% sure he can enjoy this, because he doesn't know how the PC will behave, and because he must be in control to feel safe.

His body knows how it works, so he lets his body act automatically,  that body which have danced the same dance thousands of time. He doesn’t have to think and it’s easier not to think. Easier and apparently safer than following his true desires. Here again, it's an automatism: his body knows, he can switch his mind off, protecting it from potential bad memories, protecting him from his own desire and feelings, protecting him from the temptation of being himself.

He can’t let go, he has to be in control. if only to make sure he will offer his partner the best performance. Even if he's enjoying the moment because the PC is respectful, playful, gentle or whatever you imagine for this first night, he can't let go.

As you said, he’s convinced the PC is only here for his looks – But think about it: Astarion himself never offered anything other than sex, he didn’t pretend he was in love with the PC. He only offered his body. By doing so, he's also protecting himself from potential feelings (theirs or his) of attachment and affection.

It's like saying “Don’t get attached to me. It’s just SEX”. He pulls up his own walls to keep the PC outside. It's another contradiction: he suffers from being seen as a beautiful and shallow individual who’s only good for sex, but he says upfront that he won’t give more than sex. He keeps the PC away (emotionally) while suffering from it. That’s another defence mechanism, combined with the fact that he probably still sees himself as a "mean to an end" (unconsciously), unable to see that he can be someone else than the "hedonistic and heartless vampire."

Besides, it's probable that he doesn’t believe it’s even possible for anyone to care about him. So he anticipates a potential emotional disappointment by saying that it’s only sex, convincing himself as much as to convince the PC that there’s nothing more to expect from it.

Positive/negative experience

You asked how much of this experience feels positive to him vs negative. Let's recap.

Positive feelings:

Excitement (first time having sex on his own terms + he’s attracted to the PC)

Physical pleasure (sex + blood if the PC lets him bite them)

Fun

A sense of freedom

Relief and a sense of pride (they fell into his trap)

A newfound affection (they trust him, they respect him)

Good surprise (he can still have fun while having sex!)

The PC being who they are (more about this later)

Negative feelings:

A sense of obligation

Fear

PTSD

The need to perform and make sure they enjoy it

Habits that make him serve instead of just enjoy the moment

Guilt

Shame

Confusion

Disgust

Feeling of being used (even if the PC isn't exactly "using him"; they accept his offer and they're not to be blamed for it)

One could think that the negative feelings are more important, and true, those bad feelings can be destructive. But I don’t think the unbalance is so evident, maybe because the positive feelings are all completely new to him, therefore they may be particularly powerful.

But in fact, they're all entangled and messy, and I believe Astarion himself can’t really make sense of them.

And later, he sums it up all on his own.

What we know, is that a few days later, he remembers that night as a good experience. And exceptionally good experience.

And tbh I think that’s what matters: What he makes of this night, how he digests and, remembers it, and how he looks back at it. It was special. Special enough for him to admit it.

He admits it feels different with you, it feels good with you -- but he can't yet get rid of the negative feelings sneaking in the back of his mind, ruining what should be a lovely moment.

As for the main feeling at the forefront of his mind… I don’t think it would be one feeling, but more a motivation: “I must stay in control” (whether he succeeded is up to discussion). In the end, I think he manages to suppress his main fears, to keep a certain distance, while at the same time finding himself surprised to be enjoying it.

Questionable motivations and enjoyment

As a SA survivor myself and a former sex-worker, there are so many things that fall close to home both in terms of ptsd, of performance and habitus. I perfectly see how desire, obligations, attraction and disgust can mingle until they become difficult to set apart. {Mind you, I’m not saying that sex-work and sex-abuse are one and the same, far from it. One can be a sex-worker and have never been abused].

In the case of Astarion, he’s first and foremost a survivor, and even if he compares himself to a prostitute a few times, he had no choice in doing it. Therefore, it's not sex-work, it’s human trafficking.

Yet, it's still transactional, and just like a sex-worker, he had to perform, to let the partner(/client) believe that he wanted them, that he wanted it, that he was enjoying it, even when it wasn’t the case. Remember how he made Sebastian believe he was head over heels for him.

During the first night with the PC, Astarion decides to have sex without anyone forcing him to do it. But he doesn’t do it out of sheer lust and attraction. He does it because he wants to keep himself safe and he thinks that’s the only way. Which is, imo, closer to what a sex-worker would do: having sex for money because they need that money to pay the rent or whatever they need to survive. No one is forcing them, except the material conditions and (in Astarion’s case at least) cognitive bias (the belief that he’s “only good at that”) + long terms habits.

And just like a SW, he has to make them believe that he's totally into it (believe me, client don't enjoy it as much if the SW doesn't pretend to be attracted to them).

Look at him, he’s performing. He's said those lines multiples times before. Even the movement of his hand: it’s theatrical. It’s planned and calculated.

This too is instinctive. He's done that for years and he is good at it.

Look at the shift, look how easy it is for him to put on a smiling face to "open a lot of doors" (and legs).

And after pretending to be attracted to those persons, he had to pretend sleeping with them didn't affect him. That too falls close to home.

That line in particular. SO FUCKING RELATABLE IT HURTS.

In my experience, there had been bad experiences. But you go on, because you need to. And to protect your own sanity, you stick to the idea that it's fine, that you can do that again. That it doesn't matter.

But it does matter.

And yet....

In the case of SW (which should always be consensual), being with a client can be a nice experience. Some clients are attractive, some clients are very sweet and respectful, some clients are very good fucks, some clients are all of this (and some clients are bastards but we’re not talking about them here). In any case, they are still clients. As a SW, I didn’t see them as potential ‘real’ lovers, and I wouldn’t have considered sleeping with them in any other situation. It doesn’t mean the experience was bad. I had genuine O with some clients and really enjoyed the company of some of them.

It seems contradictory, but it's real.

Back to Astarion: at the beginning of the meeting it ultimately starts with a performance, like the SW pretending they really want it (whereas they're only do it for money), but it might turn into a really good moment for everyone involved.

And IMO, that's more or less what's happening here with Astarion.

It's a tricky thing to explain because I really don’t want to look like I’m promoting forcing anyone to do anything. Sex should ALWAYS happen in a situation in which all the persons involved are 100% sure they want to do it, and 100% sure their partner(s) want to do it.

But there are exceptional situations (such as sex-work or what Astarion’s going through here, and I can think of other cases), where sex remains enjoyable even if the original motivations weren’t that clear. It’s not fully incompatible. Clearly, that’s NOT a healthy way to deal with your sexuality!!! But it can happen. And the main point here is that it still relies on consent. The person fully consents to do it, but they do it for “questionable” reasons (whether they acknowledge it or not), and they enjoy it in spite of having questionable reasons to do it. It can happen.

I think that’s what happens to Astarion at this point.

(That being said, I repeat it: ALWAYS make sure your partner is fully into it, and NEVER force yourself to have sex if you’re not 100% sure you want it!)

From a transaction to something else

It’s interesting to notice that if the PC refuses to have sex with him in the clearing, he doesn’t really seem to care.

He’s probably disappointed because his plan failed, but his reaction is very different from the reaction you get if the PC rejects him after the first night (my post on this matter here) when he seems really sad to be rejected. It means, I think, that this first night was REALLY meaningful – his heartfelt reaction to your rejection to spend another night together makes it clear. That first night was special since his reaction to your refusal is so very different.

In any case, if the PC refuses during that first night, he says he thought you had an “understanding", and it somehow evokes me something like a transaction (as you rightly mentioned in your message).

And it's not the first time he compares sex with the PC to a transaction. The first time he offers them to sleep with him, he presents it as a reward for letting him bite the PC. It's transactional: You let me feed, I give you sex.

He thinks that’s what sex is about. He has never known anything else, or maybe he did a long time ago but can’t remember.

I wrote that long post about how feeding him can be quite problematic given how he might see it as a transaction (here and here): Offering the the vampire bite kink in order to be fed and survive. It’s the same here.

He knows the PC enjoyed being bitten, he’s convinced they're attracted to him, and by being the one who gives "a reward", he presents himself in a position of control. I “allow” you to have sex with me, since you want it so much: I’m the one making that decision, having more power over you.

After all, in his mind at this point, sex is a question of power. (And if he ascends he undeniably falls back into that pattern; treating sex as a reward, as something to use to better control the PC)

You put it rightly in your message, there's also some sort of familiarity with that transactional system that is deeply comforting.

I won't lie, back in the days, it was sometimes difficult for me to be with someone who wasn't a client, because my partners then didn't expect anything from me. Whereas clients always expect something specific, if only in the SW's behaviour, or/and concerning the acts themselves. And it was comforting. I knew what I had to do to please them. But as I said, it didn't always keep me from having a good time with some clients. It's not incompatible. That's why I think Astarion can still enjoy it even though he's performing, and can get attached to the PC even if it started as something more or less transactional.

And that's precisely why it must have been so destabilizing for him!

After all, when that first night together happens, he appreciates the PC (you need enough approval to sleep with him). As you pointed out, they've already spent several days/weeks together, shared a lot things... That's new to him, sleeping with someone he knows and appreciates.

As a SW, I had defined through the years a clear line between people I met for the job, and people I met outside of it. There was no confusion between the two, even for the long-terms clients – even for the clients I cared about. I liked them, but we weren’t friends, we weren’t partners, we weren’t lovers. And we would never be.

I would say that in the case of Astarion, that separation exists, but it’s not as well defined because, despite his experience, all his partners were destined to end up dead (for all he knew) and he barely knew them anyway. He didn’t have to clearly define that separation because there was no opportunity, no room for him to get attached to them. He saw a target, seduced them, slept with them and they disappeared forever.

It was “easy”, he didn’t have to question the nature of his relationship with them. Whereas after that first night with the PC, they’re still there, alive, and they’re still being this great leader who cares about him and his needs, who values him as a person, someone whose company feels good. His habitus is all messed up and his mental pattern is no long relevant.

{From personal experience, and SW put aside, many years ago, before I really started working on my traumas, I forced myself to believe that I didn’t need affection, tenderness, care. I would never allow myself to cry, I refused to get attached to people (except some very close friends). Because I wanted to be in control of my feelings, I thought it made me look stronger, not showing any kind of vulnerability. I was 27 or 28 when I first experienced genuine tenderness and care while having sex and I realized that there was a softness inside me I had hindered for years and that I actually loved tenderness. Before that, I would run away at the first sign of affection, because it made me feel deeply uncomfortable (and vulnerable).  And when I finally accepted to experience it, it was completely destabilizing. It felt good, but I needed time to adapt.}

Astarion realizing that he wanted something real, soft, and gentle with the PC might have had the same kind of effect, but worse.  Because he was supposed to be manipulating the PC, to pull the strings, and he suddenly found himself being “manipulated” by his own feelings.

It must have been terrifying for him, realising that he could feel something like this. Because it means he doesn’t control himself (his feelings) as much as he wants to, as much as he thought he could. He "falls" for the PC, the expression itself being one of vulnerability.

For him, falling in love = falling into a trap. He was supposed to be the one crafting that trap, and he ends up being trapped by his (uncontrollable) feelings.

That's why he can sound so cynical about your affair. This banter is from Act 2 if you romance him:

He feels uncomfortable, not because you had sex, but because it actually means something, and he doesn't not how to deal with it. It's easier to joke about it than to admit that maybe he's not so much in control.

It's not the PC's fault

He’s hurt, he has PTSD, but he can now think by himself and make his own choices, for better or worse.

It’s normal for us, fans who know the rest of the story, to worry about him and to not want to have him do something he's not fully into. But we should give him some credits and let him experience sex his own way.

When you’re a survivor, sometimes you have great sex experience, sometimes your PTSD will ruin it, and you won’t be able to go through with it. Sometimes you have sex for bad reasons, sometimes you regret it and sometimes you’re proud of it. Sometimes you have healthy sex and sometimes you use it to hurt yourself. It’s normal. That’s what healing is about and how you learn to define your boundaries.

Astarion didn’t have any body agency for two centuries, it’s coherent that his first experience as a free man is driven by questionable reasons. You can’t expect him to immediately find a healthy way to deal with his sexuality.

For instance, if you don't sleep with him at the party, he spends the night with Lae'zel, and imho it's even worse.

She shamelessly uses him like a toy, and he knows about it. But it's still his decision to sleep with her, even if his motivations aren't "good". You can't take that away from him on the pretext of protecting him. He doesn't need that kind of infantilisation. Same thing when he decides to sleep with the PC.

The thing is that the PC can’t know. As benevolent and respectful and selfless as the PC is, it’s part of Astarion's storyline that they don’t notice anything. He does his best to keep the mask up because the last thing he wants is to look vulnerable to you.

And he knows it's not the PC's fault. He slept with them for questionable reasons and he feels bad about it; not because he thinks they hurt him, but because he knows he mostly hurt himself, and he feels bad for manipulating the PC.

He doesn't blame the PC for it, and I'm sure it's not because he's deluded by his sense of guilt. After all, he never blamed his targets for sleeping with him, even the "villains" among them. They're not the enemies.

Those who hurt him didn't hurt him because they accepted to sleep with him, but more probably because of their behaviours during sex.

Besides, if the PC uses the confession dialogue to trick him into sleeping with them again, Astarion accepts before realising how disgusted he feels about it, and there he blames the PC for it, because here they explicitly abused his trust, using his vulnerabilities against him. It's still difficult for him to say no, especially to someone he respects, but he can say no when he's not taken aback in his most vulnerable moments (again: he doesn't sleep with the PC at all if there's not enough approval). Sleeping with him that first night doesn't make the PC an abuser.

In act 1, the PC has no way to know how Astarion is feeling about sex, The PC is one that fool who wanted to love him...

Trust

I already mentioned how pleased he looks when the PC let him bite them, and I think it has to do with trust. They accept to spend the night with him although they know he's a vampire and they trust him not to drink too much. Look at his reaction if the PC warn him not to bite.

He's really disappointed, enough to put an end to this affair. The tone he uses here doesn't seem 100% genuine, though, masking indignation? frustration? sadness? I don't know, but the "it's about pleasure" sounds so fake to me.

He nonetheless decides to not sleep with the PC - he listens to himself and realises he doesn't want to spend the night with someone who can't trust him. The PC has taken back their trust and reduced him to his vampiric nature (as something bad). Whereas if they sleep with him, they show him that they accept him.

That’s what makes that night so special: not thanks to some sort of “collective ecstasy” but thanks to mutual trust. The PC trusts him not to hurt them. Astarion trust them not to abuse him. He’s not ready to be vulnerable, but he allows himself to enjoy that moment with the PC, despite his plan, despite his past. Because they've both come this far and the PC has proved him multiple times that he could rely on them. It’s a fragile trust at this point, but it’s still more than  what he’d ever had before.

An essential step

IMHO this scene is essential in the romance route. I know some players wished there could be an option to romance him without sleeping with him, and I perfectly understand why. Realizing that he might have not be totally into it is painful. It’s uncomfortable. I also understand that if the PC is demi-sexual/ace, it makes the romance road a bit awkward. And it’s a valid feeling.

You can romance him without sleeping with him as Karlach origin, and that's because it's Karlach. The tension arises from the fact she can’t and wants it so much (for good reasons), whereas Astarion can and wants it somehow (for questionable reasons). That road is specific to them both because they are a mirroring one another.

Karlach aside, the thing is that in terms of narrative growth and storyline, this first night is the starting point of his healing journey. For the first time in 200 years, he has sex in a safe environment. For the first time, he finds a partner who trusts him enough to sleep with him even though they know he’s a vampire who could bite them. For the first time in his existence he can have real fun while having sex, he can be silly and roll on the ground. And maybe during this moment, he’s no longer the “sexy vampire” but just a man frolicking in the forest with someone he's attracted to. And again, it's still his decision, no matter how "bad" his motivations are. We should give him some credit.

I think it’s a brave move from Larian to put the players in that situation, to make them face the harsh reality of trauma. The harsh reality of being with someone who has such complicated feelings towards sex because of their trauma. It’s real. Very real. And it feels good to be seen.

You don’t always know the past of your sexual partners. You don’t always know what’s in their mind when you’re sleeping together. And if you happen to learn the harsh truth, it stings.

The Act 2 confession wouldn't be such a powerful scene without the first night. Astarion wouldn't have appeared so brave. Telling the PC about his former motivations must have been incredibly difficult, telling them "I wanted it but wasn't really into it" is freaking brave, and it's a token of trust he gives to the PC. Without that first night, it would have fallen flat. The PC would have just felt some kind of pride for not falling for his flirting and...that's it. Good, have a medal. Instead, the narrative puts the PC in an uncomfortable position, asking them: "Can you accept that? Because that's what trauma looks like and it's ugly."

That first night is inherent to Astarion's storyline, and to its message. That man goes from someone whose only reason to exist is being a sensual, sexual being in a cruel environment - someone who cannot connect with others without sex - to a man who finds out that he’s more than that, that sex doesn’t have to be dangerous, that’s it’s so much more than a game of power. And when you compare his grandiloquent attitude during that first night to his behaviour in the graveyard scene, it’s even more telling.

Those two scenes need to exist side by side to make sense, to reveal the evolution.

Everything about him in the graveyard scene - his body language, the look in his eyes, his voice - is a reversed image of that first night. He’s at peace, he doesn’t have to use those stupid lines about “mutual ecstasy” and how he will “taste you”, he doesn’t look down on the PC or look away. He looks into their eyes and tells them with his own words that he’d love to have sex with them.

But you have to experience both situations for the graveyard one to be so powerful. To witness that beautiful evolution. And Astarion too; he has to experience a “not so real” night with the PC to know that he wants something real with them.

It makes it all the more meaningful and sweeter. And imo, the graveyard scene is so freaking hot! Much more than that first night! Because it's genuine. It’s simple. He knows what he wants, his motivations are clear. It’s a man telling his lover “I want you”. A man who's learning to decipher what he really wants and to express it. And it’s more than enough.

[Let’s be honest, it’s been quite challenging to write all this. I rarely talk about my past online (for obvious reasons) and this scene means so much to me. Analysing it feels a little bit like analysing myself. And if you ever went through therapy, you know how hard it is xD In any case, that’s still my pov, based on my personal experience. I don’t pretend I hold the keys to a universal truth about it. We all have our own experience and sensibilities, and all of them are valid, even if we don’t agree in our interpretations.]

Thank you again @rivereverie for giving me the opportunity to dig into all this. I hope my humble opinion will help.

Last thing, some time ago I wrote a short fic about Astarion’s preparing himself for that first night, and it’s here.

[midnightshindig]

omg hi, you're like... the only person I've seen make content for Multi Paul, and I need that man BIBLICALLY!

so I was hoping perchance could I request an x reader where he always follows through with his missions because he basically has a reason to get back home alive? reader is just constantly keeping him motivated, and when he gets back to them, he just melts and gets all pampered and loved, among other things

Reader is just overall really chill and optimistic, and Paul just gets to live in his lil bubble with them

if this is too much, I'm sorry! I'm really new to making requests anyways byeeee

Multi Paul x Reader!

mmmmokay i really like this one

the whole "come home to me" is some odysseus ass shit and I live for it

BY THE WAY- i'm in love with Epic! Odysseus. that's not relevant but wtv I love him

hcs under the cut!!

Being an assasin for The Order is MISERABLE work

Paul has to go through so much shit and violence and harassment to do his job

and it's so not worth it

there were times where he'd think "this is it, I'm so over, this is how it ends" and he'd find some peace in it

until he met you

You met casually, on one of Paul's rare grocery runs. He usually was too busy bouncing from job to job to have need for groceries, dining and dashing wherever he wanted around the globe.

but this had been a slow month and Paul needed cotton candy grapes

So, obviously, he goes to get some cotton candy grapes

and what does he find there but the prettiest person he's ever met

How... domestic?

He can't help himself, he chats you up

and he's sooooo full of himself, but so inexperienced at the same time

but, fuck it, he's cute

The transaction ends with an exchanging of phone numbers and a promise to meet later that night for drinks.

And so you do!

and then you meet up again

and again

until you've been "meeting up" twice a week for three months

you don't know that Paul has been hauling ass to make it back to your city between jobs

You don't even know Paul is an assassin for The Order.

he sure as shit isn't going to tell you

It's six months into this mess that Paul realizes he loves you

like.... loooooves you

This realization comes when a victim's bodyguard comes at his head with a sledgehammer, straight to the skull and knocking him down

He almost wavers, a familiar feeling of "oh, is this it? am I done now?" washing over him

before he remembers he's supposed to take you to dinner tomorrow night and picks his ass back up

He can't DIE, he has to go find out what kind of cologne you think smells best and get a haircut and invest in skincare for you

He can't die.... he has to take you out tomorrow

So, with a sudden rush of adrenaline, he finishes his job and sets off to make the best date of your life

He picks you up in a borrowed fancy car, calling in a favor from Machine Head, whose surprisingly on board with the whole thing

Like full "oh yeah I love love, go get laid man" type shit

give him the BMW beep beep hop In loser

But he's actually turning into quite the gentleman

"Y/n!! Hop in!" He grins at you, with a stupid, cocky veneer overlaying it all

and so you do, smiling as he leans over and opens the door for you from the inside

tonight should be perfect

"Oh, is that.... vanilla?" you asked with a smile, a familiar and comforting presence

"Your favorite scent!" he beams with smug pride, you have no idea how anal he had to be about colognes this morning, he's glad you like it

The date goes smoothly, and you're impressed with all the care Paul is obviously putting into this

"So.... Y/n.... You know how I'm just a normal dude?"

You raised an eyebrow, popping a mozzarella stick in your mouth "Is this about your powers?"

His jaw goes slack "Psshhht- wh- what? My powers?" he's losing grip on this, fast

but you gracefully dip your mozzarella stick in marinara, taking another bite "Uh, yeah, I've seen you on the news."

You chew in silence as Paul processes

"Oh- don't worry i'm not like a spy sent to kill you or anything. I don't really care that much." You eye him, narrowing them skeptically "but like.... you gonna make it official or what?"

He's thrown for a loop again

you've uncovered his secret and asked HIM out when he had plans for both scenarios

You were really something

God he loves you.

"Oh- Uhm-" he coughs into his elbow, looking back at you, his eyes darting around "Can I be your boyfriend?"

You smiled smugly, returning the cocky grin he's been giving you the last six months, and nodded "Yeah, sure"

It's a smug response, but the affection is palpable

He gets soooooo efficient at his job

now that he has you to come home to <3

[lullabyes22-blog]

Real talk because you are THE resident Silco expert and all your headcanons are 100% correct: why does fandom think Silco would be good in bed? (Or good at sex at all?)

I've seen headcanons about him being a giver, and about his dick game being fire, and while he's a sexy, charismatic man, I feel like he's too... selfish, insecure, and just not a romantic guy. He's also a very bitter, lonely, and angry dude. Idk, it makes sense he would have some kinks but I feel like he'd be too much of a bitch to care for anyone else in bed. I guess he'd want it rough, and I've read some fics where he's a sadist, but I feel like it'd just be a quick fuck to satisfy himself, not a slow, passionate, sensual thing.

idk, do with this what you will.

I agree - with nuance 💗

Silco - at least as I write him in FNF - is principally a headfuck. If he's demonstrating an interest in you, then he wants something from you. If he's nice to you, there's a bottom line. No act of generosity comes without strings attached, and every small kindness comes at a terrible price. That aspect of cold-blooded calculus is never far away from his base nature, which splits the world into assets and liabilities, and his own actions into a transaction of cost versus reward.

With that in mind, he excels, not at sex, but at getting his partners to do what he wants them to do. For him, it's one of the many fluid ways of expressing power, and demonstrating his mastery over the subtleties of the human body and mind.

A few readers have noticed that he comes across as very detached and controlled during FnF's sex scenes - and that they read as weirdly voyeuristic. That always delights me, because it's an intentional choice. He doesn't really see his partner as anything beyond a medium to his goals, so his focus is entirely on their physical responses and his own actions. His narration is distant, observational and impersonal, because he doesn't experience sex as something that involves an emotional or empathetic connection. Rather, he's gauging how his target's responses play out on a physical plane, and he's calibrating his own actions to maximise their impact.

To give credit where credit is due, he's very intelligent, patient and observant. There is also some realistic backing to the running gag that Good D is invariably attached to Bad Men. More specifically, Bad Broke Men. Silco has not grown up in a position of privilege or wealth. He has been forced to make use of every available resource. He has survived by the skin of his teeth on a constant knife edge of deprivation, hunger and fear.

He's a scrapper. He's a survivor. He's an opportunist.

And to be any of those things, you need to know your way around people: their wants and weaknesses. That's the foundation for the idea that he's good in bed - that he can anticipate his partner's desires, and respond accordingly. The difference is, his actions have no romantic underpinning. It's a matter of pure pragmatism and self-interest.

In terms of technical skill, he's likely very good at finding his partner's pressure points, both literal and figurative, and exploiting them. But if it were up to him, he'd find a way to turn the thumbscrews with nothing more than a well-chosen word and a cold look. The sex is just a generality, and his enjoyment a function of their compliance.

When it comes to actual intimacy?

My friends, he'd be spectacularly bad.

Not just bad, but skittish, hostile and hopelessly inept. He'd feel like an accomplished stage actor who has to step out onto the boards for an improv class. He hasn't got the right lines, he isn't dressed for the part, and he isn't even sure what role he's supposed to be playing. He'd be so awkward, he'd actually have trouble looking his partner in the eyes. The sum total of his sexual ouvre would devolve into the following comedy of errors:

"What the fuck is this?"

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Don't touch me there."

"This is going well, right?"

"Why can't I get it up?"

"I can't do this."

"Leave me alone."

"Where are you going?"

"Don't leave me."

"They always leave me."

"Why does everyone leave me?"

And he'd only spiral deeper into self-loathing and isolation. To submit to intimacy is to open oneself up to the mortifying ordeal of being known, and the constant risk of rejection. To Silco, it is anathema. Actual emotional vulnerability during sex would be not unlike attending his own public execution.

But.

Silco is not a one-note villain, much less a one-trick pony. He has a human history riven in deprivation, bloodshed and betrayal. He's remade himself from a 'weak' man into the premier kingpin of Zaun, but that predatory bracing still hides remnants of the soft-natured idealist he once was. In fact, he's the product of a deeply embedded internal conflict between two distinct versions of himself. The one who seeks to burn his enemies, and the one who seeks to save his city. He's also, as demonstrated by his love for Jinx, capable of profound devotion, loyalty, and a deep-seated longing for companionship.

That means the potential for romance exists. It's just buried deep, deep, deep down beneath years of abuse, neglect, trauma, and self-imposed barriers. If he meets someone who can dismantle those barriers, or bypass them altogether and earn his trust, there is a ray of hope.

Sex would still be frightening and uncomfortable, and it'd involve a lot of trial and error. But it'd also have the potential to be deeply healing. Not because Silco would become a better man, but because his partner would make him want to try. He'd also bring the same intense focus, intelligence, and determination to the task that he applies to his criminal empire - which means that, once he does have his sea legs, Silco would have the potential to become a truly giving lover.

It's all about context.

And the context is always: will he take the gamble when he has nothing to lose, and everything to gain?

[dontbesoweirdkira]

Hi! I love your interpretation of the yan batfam so much bdnfbfkjfnd I was wonderong how you think Dick and/or Jason would react to a rather compassionate batsis?

She's definitely not on board with their obsession but she can understand where their coming from and gives them like ACTUAL compassion.

Ik you said Dick enjoys having a positive image in front of others most of all his younger sister, so how would he react to her seeing his flaws but still, being kind? Jason strives to be "normal", so much so he spirals sometimes, but like what would knowing/experiencing genuine closeness (not pity or false pretenses) change?

Idk if either of them would redeem their bad habits, but am curious to know what being truly seen and accepted would do to them, especially by someone they care about so much. The bats can have their walls pretty high up after all

A/N: sorry about the late responses. I've been out of it the past few days.

context dick context jay

Okay so when you are dealing with yanderes... you are dealing with extremely unstable people. There are so many ways thus could go but here's just one

Dick

Maybe your compassion makes Dick chill out a bit with his unhealthy tendencies. I think initially he'd still be uncomfortable and bothered that you can see right through him. You can see all his flaws and you don't revere him like the others which is bad. It will still anger him and he'll try manipulating you into loving him like everyone does at first.

A heart to heart with him could work. You acknowledge you know he's crumbling and has really horrible coping mechanisms but that doesn't mean that you don't love him. That you respect him even more because you see just how much passion he puts into everything that he does. It isn't his fault he craves so much validation when he had the upbringing he had but he doesn't have to pretend to be someone he's not to please you. That even if he doesn't smile as much or be selfish sometimes that you won't love him any less. You give him a space to be authentic with you with no judgment.

"erm,,,okay. I'll keep that in mind."

He's a bit taken back by it and doesn't know how to exactly process what you just said. I've mentioned before that he doesn't exactly know how to just be himself because for most of his life he was always being someone that others needed.

He's still on guard for a while. He will dip his toes in the waters by maybe not smiling as much with you or rescheduling your hang out session to go out on a date just to see your reaction. Did you truly mean it when you said he was allowed to be selfish? He was fully expecting you to hate him but seeing just how unbothered you were made him go...oh!

I think this shifts his obsession with you. He's still very much yandere but i think he's much more child-like ? I mean Dick still is obsessed with you and all that jazz but before, he wanted to be the best older brother/father figure. His happiness was dependent on how much you needed and revered him. But now you're becoming his safety blanket for when he's stressed, tired or upset. WIth you he can just lay on your shoulders without speaking and you won't even mind. He can be kind of assholey or dark and you will understand he's just in a mood and what he says never leaves the two of you. You won't take away your compassion or love based on how he acts...the first non-transactional relationship he's ever truly and it's pretty great. He finally feels like a brother and not like he's playing house anymore.

Don't get me wrong, he's still your older brother who gets on your nerves but there's just this mutual appreciation there that lacks with the others.It's clear to the others that he loves you just a bit more than the rest. When it's movie/game nights, he will allow you to sit it out or not tag along to restaurants. He's very protective and defensive over you. He doesn't feel as much of a need to do all that stupid crap with you because if he wanted your time, he could have a peaceful moment on the rooftops with you instead.

Jason

Hmm..i think Jason will just always feel a bit outcasted. There are plenty of people who do care about Jason in the comics but it's hard to relate to someone who's been through what he's been. It's just so unique to him. He knows you don't truly understand what it's like to have spirits of the Lazarus haunting you in your sleep. He knows that you cannot feel the pain of being replaced by someone you're now forced to see as a brother.

When i wrote my last piece a few people took it as me saying the reader found Jason to be odd. Really what it was is that Jason put those thoughts into his own head because he internalized the joke because of his own insecurities. The reader was perfectly fine with Jason being a little off...it made sense as he would've just come back from being dead and is trying to find a bit of normalcy.

It's funny though because while he's trying to be "independent" it's painfully clear he's still very much attached to you and is still unknowingly mimicking you.

I think though if reader sat down with Jason and explained he doesn't need to change or be "normal" because you love him the way he is, maybe he will relax a bit. But i think there would always be voices in Jason's ears telling him he needs to be perfect. My version of jason is around 20-ish year old who is a bit emotionally stunted and disoriented because he's just coming out of the pit. After a few years of being integrated back into the family he'll understand that you actually do love him as a brother and he serves a great purpose even if that purpose doesn't look the same as Dick's.

[kefiteria]

Denial: As If It Were a Choice

Azul Ashengrotto x Reader

tags: fluff, inspired by azul 2024 bday card voiceline

summary: Azul was in complete denial. Your genuine interest and honesty about pursuing him romantically left him utterly confused. A date at the local fair? This had to be some kind of love scam—or worse, an elaborate mlm scheme. Right?

“How wonderful love is. It creates so many problems for folks that they have to come to someone like ME for help.”

Hypocrisy at its finest. Even Daedalus, the master craftsman, would laugh himself into the sun at the tangled mess Azul had just stepped into. Even Orpheus, after failing to retrieve Eurydice, would pat Azul on the back and say, “That’s rough, buddy.”

Because he, Azul Ashengrotto, was supposed to be the schemer. The one who spotted every loophole, exploited every weakness, and ensured that no deal was ever made against his favor.

And yet—

“You’re working hard as always, Azul!”

Azul flinched. He had been so engrossed in reviewing contracts that he hadn’t even noticed you enter.

“How did you—? Who let you—? How did you get in here?!” he snapped, immediately sitting up straight.

“Oh! Jade said I could just enter.” you replied, smiling like you hadn't just shattered every security protocol Azul had in place.

Feeling the betrayal seep into his bones, he knew those damn eels had sold him out. But before he could even begin plotting revenge, you spoke again—

Completely derailed his entire existence.

“I'm pursuing you!”

Azul instantly short-circuited. His brain did the mental equivalent of a blue screen.

“You’re WHAT?!”

“Romantically!” You clasped your hands together, beaming like this was normal human behavior. “That’s why I’m inviting you to the fair this weekend. Oh! They have fried chicken, by the way! I know you like it.”

Azul’s eye twitched violently. What— what was this?

A love scam? An elaborate multi-level marketing scheme? Some previously undiscovered pyramid scheme where he was the target instead of the orchestrator?!

No—NO. That wasn’t possible. He would have noticed the signs. The recruitment tactics. The suspiciously friendly invitations.

… Wait.

Was this one of those forbidden love spells he had always been so careful to avoid?!

Or worse.

Had someone abused a loophole in a contract he hadn’t accounted for?

His hands flew to his coat, patting his pockets as if a cursed contract would fall out. Did someone sell his own heart to this absolute menace in front of him?!

Is this how it feels to be scammed! IS THIS HOW HIS CLIENTS FELT?! Azul folded his arms, narrowing his eyes at you like you had just offered him a fraudulent stock investment.

“What’s your angle?” he demanded.

You blinked. “Huh?”

“This—” He waved a hand wildly between the two of you. “—This business transaction—!”

“Confession.”

“—This confession transaction—”

“Just confession.”

“—This blatant attempt at fraud—!”

You tilted your head. “It’s not fraud? I just like you. That’s it!”

He now felt something deep within his soul fracture.

“You’re too honest.” he muttered, rubbing his temple as if trying to ward off the migraine of the century.

“Yep!” You nodded enthusiastically. “Gotta make a good foundation, y’know?”

Azul’s soul nearly exited his body. A good foundation.

A GOOD FOUNDATION.

WHAT WAS THIS, A BUSINESS MERGER?!

WHAT SORT OF ADVANCED EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION TECHNIQUE WAS THIS?!?!

“This isn't how romance works.” Azul hissed, as if saying it aloud would somehow reverse time. “Where’s the fine print? The hidden agenda? The careful deception?!”

You blinked. “Oh! I mean, consent is cool! And so are choices! You can totally reject the date if you don’t want to. No pressure! Just lemme know once you’re done thinking, okay?”

“Done thinking—” He exhaled sharply, gripping his desk as if it were the only thing keeping him tethered to reality. “You—you expect me to think about this?!”

“Well, yeah! Big decisions need proper thinking time!”

BIG DECISIONS.

Azul can feel a second overblot forming, all from this nonsense.

You gave him a cheerful little wave. “Alright, see you tomorrow, Azul! Take your time!”

He sat there, paralyzed, as you exited like you hadn’t just tossed his entire worldview into some deepest trench. This had to be some kind of conspiracy. It had to be.

There was no way someone would just walk into his office, declare their romantic pursuit, and leave. So he just stared at the contract on his desk. The ink had smudged from how hard he had been gripping his pen.

His hand was shaking because the horrifying, gut-wrenching truth was—

You were being completely serious.

Azul had absolutely not come to this fair for a date.

Absolutely. Not.

This was market research. Yes, that’s all it was. He was simply here to observe seasonal trends, analyze consumer behavior, and assess potential menu additions for the Mostro Lounge.

The fact that you had invited him was purely incidental. The fact that he had dressed well was merely a reflection of his natural sophistication. The fact that he had spent far too long thinking about what to say to you was… irrelevant.

This was a professional outing. Nothing more.

At least, that was what he kept repeating to himself, right until the moment he saw you waving at him, beaming with an enthusiasm so bright it made him squint.

“Azul! You really came!”

Your excitement was unreasonably infectious, and before he could even formulate a proper response, you were already standing in front of him, looking genuinely happy to see him. He cleared his throat, adjusting his gloves as if the motion alone could help him regain his composure.

“I had business to attend to.�� he said smoothly.

You raised your eyebrow, questioning his reply. “At a fair?”

“Yes.” he replied without hesitation. “As an entrepreneur, it's only natural to study popular market trends and analyze consumer interests.”

“Right, right, of course.” you nodded, completely unfazed. “Well, thank you for accepting my invitation!”

Azul froze like those fishes in the mostro lounge freezer in the kitchen. No. No, no, no—

He had, in fact, accepted your invitation. Which, by definition, meant— THIS WAS A DATE.

A headache bloomed in his temples as realization hit him like a tidal wave. He had been so focused on maintaining a logical excuse for being here that he had overlooked the most crucial detail: he had willingly agreed to spend time with you outside any contractual obligation.

This wasn’t a negotiation. This wasn’t a business meeting. There was no deal to be made.

So why was he here?

His thoughts were spiraling so quickly that he barely noticed you taking his hand and tugging him forward. “Come on! No pressure, let's just walk around and enjoy the fair, okay?”

No pressure? No pressure?! Azul wanted to scream. What kind of business tactic was this? You were just walking in, completely unarmed, with no ulterior motives? What kind of hidden agenda was this?

He had spent years mastering the art of deception, yet here you were, casually obliterating his defenses with nothing but pure, unfiltered sincerity. It was unnatural. Suspicious, even.

The fair was lively, bustling with chatter and laughter, but Azul was beginning to wonder if he had made a critical mistake in coming along. Everything had been manageable so far—mildly inconvenient, sure, but manageable—until you suddenly stopped in your tracks, eyes lighting up like you had just found buried treasure.

“Oh! A mushroom stall!”

Azul’s stomach dropped.

You practically skipped over, marveling at the selection of freshly foraged mushrooms, mushroom skewers, mushroom pies, and— Azul's blood ran cold—wild mushroom soup.

Why? Why did it have to be mushrooms?

Of all things, why did it have to be Jade’s most beloved fungi, the very ingredient Azul and Floyd had fought so hard to exile from the Monstro Lounge?

Before he could even think of an escape route, you turned to him, eyes shining.

“Want to try?”

Azul had never regretted a decision faster in his entire life.

Mushrooms. He hated mushrooms.

Not just in a casual, mild dislike way—no. This was a deep-rooted, visceral loathing forged from years of being subjected to Jade’s endless, borderline cultish enthusiasm for fungi.

Jade had force-fed him so many varieties, ranted about textures, aroma, umami, and gods-knew-what-else that Azul had developed a knee-jerk reaction to the mere sight of mushrooms. It was to the point that he had banned them from the Monstro Lounge entirely.

So when you enthusiastically ordered a bowl of mushroom soup, took a careful sip, but— your damn smile. Blasphemy!

Not just any smile. That smile. The one that made Azul’s mind go blank for a second too long, the one that messed with his judgment in ways he refused to acknowledge.

He should’ve just said no. He should’ve walked away.

Instead—

“Right…" Azul found himself saying. WHY? WHY WAS HE LIKE THIS.

You beamed at him like he had just agreed to some sacred pact of mushroom enlightenment. “See! It’s amazing, right? Fresh mushrooms have a way better depth of flavor!"

No. He did not see. There was no flavor except suffering.

Though somehow, Azul was now holding a spoon.

He stared at the soup like it contained his entire downfall. The rich, earthy scent mocked him, reminding him of every terrible mushroom-related experience Jade had ever inflicted upon him.

With the grace of a man walking to his execution, Azul lifted the spoon to his lips and took a sip.

… It was tolerable. Barely.

But before he could think better of it, before he could stop himself from digging his own grave even deeper—

“It’s good.” he said. Lies. Deception. Betrayal—his own betrayal.

And then, Jade’s voice echoed in his head.

“Oh? It seems you’re finally appreciating mushrooms, Azul. How delightful.”

A chill ran down his spine. He nearly dropped the spoon. He had to get out of here and need a palate cleanser after this.

As the two of you continued strolling, who had been quietly observing—suddenly tilted your head. “Are you tired from all that walking? I think merfolk might feel slightly weird after walking too much on two legs.”

This was an ambush!

He immediately straightened his posture, adjusting his glasses with practiced ease. “A businessman must always be prepared to handle different environments. This is hardly enough to affect me.”

Before you could press further, he quickly redirected the conversation by gesturing toward a woodcarver’s stall. “Look at that craftsmanship. A fine display of artisanal skill.”

Your attention shifted as you spotted a pair of octopus-shaped keychains carved from driftwood, complete with tiny pearls embedded in their tentacles. Your eyes sparkled with excitement as you grabbed them. “Azul! Matching keychains!”

Azul internally winced. How many times had he convinced love struck customers to buy exactly this kind of sentimental nonsense at Mostro Lounge? This was an absurdly cliché romantic gesture.

Nevertheless, his fingers moved on their own, smoothly retrieving his wallet and paying for them before he even processed what he was doing. “Wait. What?”

Why did he do that so naturally? Where was his resistance? This was a scam. A love scam. Brand new tactics!

Meanwhile, you simply smiled brightly at him. “Now we match! Thanks, Azul!”

Azul sighed, rubbing his temple. Too late to back out now.

To make matters worse, you suddenly turned toward a food stall and, without hesitation, bought a portion of fried chicken—with your own money. You returned with an eager grin, handing him a bag. “Here! Since I mentioned this when I invited you, it’d be unfair if I didn’t fulfil it!”

His pride was hurting. Both as a businessman and as a man in general. He was the one who should be paying. He was always the one in control of deals. Yet, here you were, giving him something so happily, without any ulterior motive.

“… Thank you.” he said, taking a bite. “Damn it, it was delicious.” he thought to himself.

The next stop was an exotic animal stall, where vibrant birds, fluffy rodents, and even small reptiles were displayed. Azul found himself absentmindedly discussing the market value of rare creatures.

“These birds—while striking—are often smuggled illegally, making them highly valuable in underground auctions.” he remarked, adjusting his glasses. “Of course, with the right contacts, their worth could—”

He stopped mid-sentence when he noticed your expression. You were simply chuckling, utterly amused.

“What?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“You sound like a merchant debating rare treasure, but you mean well.” you replied with a knowing smile. “It’s kind of charming.”

Azul felt his face heat up. This was dangerous. This definitely a scam. A perfectly crafted, terrifyingly effective love scam. And the worst part? He had willingly walked into it.

As time passes, the sky had begun its slow descent into dusk, painting the fairgrounds in warm hues of gold and violet. Lanterns flickered to life, their soft glow reflecting in Azul’s glasses as he found himself still by your side, a realization that should have alarmed him more than it did.

You turned to him, expression bright despite the long day. “Did you have fun today?”

Fun? That wasn’t something he usually factored into his outings. Business, market research, calculated investments—those were justifications. But fun? He was supposed to be scrutinizing every stall, noting trends, mentally categorizing what could benefit Mostro Lounge.

Hypocrisy shines through, here he was, hands full of a wooden keychain, the lingering taste of fried chicken on his tongue, and an entire afternoon that had somehow slipped away.

Before he could even conjure up a proper response, you smiled, cutting through his internal debate with infuriating ease. “Thank you for spending time with me! I appreciate it a lot. Can I invite you again?”

Azul’s breath hitched? No, perhaps hyperventilating at this point. His instinct screamed at him to analyze, to look for the loophole, the hidden terms of this ‘invitation.’

But his mind betrayed him, replaying the way you had laughed at his muttered grumbling over mushrooms, the way you had beamed when handing him the fried chicken, the way you had listened—actually listened—to his ramblings about exotic animals instead of brushing them off.

He should have walked away. He should have redirected, refused, twisted the situation in his favor.

Instead, he exhaled slowly, adjusting his glasses as he spoke.

“... No.”

The way your face faltered for a second almost made him smirk. Almost.

“Come to Mostro Lounge next Tuesday.” he continued, clearing his throat. “11 PM, after closing.” His fingers ghosted over the keychain you had chosen for him. A ridiculous, hand-carved octopus that he had somehow ended up paying for. “It’s… late for dinner, but I want it to be just us.”

It wasn’t an agreement. It wasn’t an answer for the confession. Just yet.

But the way your eyes lit up made him feel like he had already lost.

[emmafrostyyy]

y'all sleeping on Astarion/Lae'zel bc this moment is so...the way the flippant demeanor drops and he doesn't hesitate to call her out for sticking with her version of Cazador like their relationship is so underrated fr...

sitting down writing this bullshit like let me peel it like an onion a bit and elaborate why this pairing is fascinating to me

It's really interesting how during the most cathartic, life-altering moment in Astarion's questline, the reactions of the other companions are more about the moral wrongness/guilt of sacrificing innocent lives. Lae'zel doesn't do that and instead relates to his hurt.

She knows what's he's feeling, the lack of control, the unfairness of being powerless for too long. This is a woman who just found out her entire life purpose was built on lies, discarded and hunted by her own people after outliving her usefulness, and groomed to basically die for an insane power-hungry lich queen. She knows all too well that power isn't always real freedom. Her first instinct is to empathize with Astarion to steer him away from his hate and resentment.

Astarion/Lae'zel is so interesting to me because they're such a classic "can we make each other worse or make a better person out of the other?".

They both have genuine appreciation for violence and respect each other's ruthlessness. Astarion was used as a weapon of seduction while Lae'zel was of warfare. Sex with people is meaningless and not real intimacy for them, and while both have little understanding/experience of interpersonal relationships beyond the physical, they still feel and love very deeply. They have no frame of reference for things like friendship and warmth, but they badly want all of that and more, even if they don't know it yet.

In-game they can sleep with each other, which is basically the foundation of the normal Tav/Astarion romance. Lae'zel saw him during combat and got horny, who knows. Astarion who's used to luring people with his charms, takes up Lae'zel's blunt offer because she's a strong hardened warrior that can provide protection and be a worthy ally, and he doesn't know how to say no. Navigating the complications between one who wants to be seen beyond as a sex object, and one who comes from a totally alien culture with no concept of love/family/connections and only sex is honestly really compelling to me. It's a transactional, mutually beneficial thing with no emotional expectations. Once you get past the skeevy rockiness of their early relationship, I really like the idea of them slowly seeing something past the exterior and realizing they may have harshly misjudged the other, an unspoken friendship blooms, and in comes the realization that they are essentially loners longing for kindness and a comforting touch in the most desperate of situations.

Lae'zel is prideful, direct, has no sense of courtship talk, and doesn't hold back her thoughts the slightest--she's not sweet/agreeable and what you see is really what you get, which I imagine would be disarming for Astarion who's used to vacuous flattery and has difficulty trusting others. But she's also insanely protective, passionate, loyal, and an initiator-- every romance scene is triggered by her first and she's always showing effort towards her relationships, which would mesh well with Astarion who does need someone to nudge him.

She doesn't purposely suppress her feelings, she's just simply at loss at how to express them sometimes due to her wildly different upbringing. She stops the sparring match you agree to and an easy vulnerability slips instantly out of her: "I don't want to hurt you. I want to protect you, and for you to protect me." and "Thus far I've taunted you, devoured you, battled you. Now I want more than anything to soothe you." are romantic as fuck and Astarion of all people really needs to hear that tbh.

Astarion is also someone who struggles with reinforcing his boundaries, and a key theme in Lae'zel's romance is that she encourages and wants you to challenge her and learn to stand your ground. It's not gentlest method, but hey, relationships are about having to make an effort to learn each other's language.

I think he also would take pleasure "educating her on the matters of Fay-run" (I believe there's a whole banter with him teasing her and teaching her pet names) and would get a kick out of coaxing Lae'zel out of her shell with her shyness at showing public affection, and making her blush. Also it simply would be fucking funny to see Astarion who's used to easy seduction, trying to pass a persuasion check just to get a smooch and generally having to work to earn regular kisses from Lae'zel lmfaooo

Lae'zel also initially struggles to see her chains as chains. When she learns about Vlaakith's betrayal, she copes instantly through denial and shuts it down. Astarion is NOT having it and calls her out, he knows her well enough to recognize that she would value blunt honesty above all.

I imagine he also despises her lack of self-preservation, the way her entire identity is tied to duty and being in service of others, and doesn't understand her desire to still help/liberate the people that want her dead and are hunting her down. He wants to make this duty-bound soldier realize that looking out for herself, and putting herself first may not be the worst thing in the world.

They're so similar to each other but are also polar opposites in some ways that make a more equal, balanced romance I think. It's not a simple, one-sided, feel-good "she/he can fix her/him" fantasy because both of them have to earn each other's love, actually cut through the other's flaws, and actively motivate each other to be better versions of themselves.

They're not at all the other's ideal guiding hand. It's rough, jagged, and imperfect, but that's how healing goes. It's so far from being the healthiest relationship -- but even if their belief systems differ, their moral compass does often align. I imagine it's a slight relief for them to have a partner where there would be less shame and judgment when they expectedly, occasionally slip up and fall into their bad habits.

Also, man, the "You showed me the betweens and beyonds. Beyond war and peace, beyond passion and obsession, most importantly, you showed me freedom.", "First you were my wound, now you were my cure.", "But you saw something else in me - someone else I could be. Someone who could break the cycle of power and terror that started centuries ago.." lines really hit hard when applied to them.

Of course, they can also make each other worse, feed into the other's negative traits that will bring out the worst part of themselves. It's this duality of their pairing that is very interesting to explore, the way it can steer in either direction because it's an intense, fraught relationship at its core.

[narxcisse]

— Dark Choco NSFW alphabet

CW: explicit sexual content, mdni, possible slight angst (depictions of internalized shame, insecurity, and anxiety related to intimacy + references to past negative sexual experiences)

English isn't my native language.

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Extremely gentle and very quiet. He’ll silently clean you up, lie beside you, and wrap an arm around you like he’s afraid you’ll vanish. It takes him time to ask if he did okay, but he deeply craves your reassurance—even if he’ll pretend he doesn’t need it.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His favorite part of himself is his arms. He feels most grounded when holding you close, even if he’s insecure about his strength. His favorite part on you is your waist/hips. He’s fascinated by the softness, the curves, and often finds his hands resting there without realizing.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

He’s embarrassed about it. He usually finishes with a strained groan and immediately goes stiff and awkward, unsure of where to touch or look. He prefers cumming inside if you’re safe/agreeable—it makes him feel close—but always checks for consent.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Sometimes when he wakes from dreams about you, he touches himself without even thinking. He’ll never tell you about those dreams, though—you’re too precious to sully with the kind of thoughts that haunt him.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Technically has some experience from his time as a prince, but he hated it, it was mostly out of obligation. It felt cold, transactional, and invasive. Now, he's clumsy, shy, and easily flustered, but he's deeply attuned to your responses and very eager to learn.

F = Favorite position

He prefers missionary or spooning—anything with deep eye contact or where he can wrap himself around you protectively. He likes to feel like he’s sheltering you, especially when his emotions start to spill over.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? Are they humorous? Etc)

Almost never goofy. He’s solemn and anxious, and if anything goes wrong (like fumbling with a clasp or misreading a signal), he’ll shut down unless you gently coax him back. However, he finds your laughter disarming in the best way.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? Does the carpet match the drapes? Etc)

Well-kept but rugged. He trims himself mostly out of habit from royal grooming standards, though he’s not obsessive. His body hair is dark and modest—less wild than you’d expect.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? The romantic aspect)

Emotionally intense. He treats each moment like it might be the last you’ll want him, so he gives everything in return. He murmurs low apologies, praises, and confessions, often trembling with how hard he’s trying to hold himself together.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

He does, but with shame and restraint. His fantasies are rarely explicit—he imagines your warmth, your smile, your acceptance more than your body. He finishes quietly, often swallowing guilt with his release.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Praise kink, hand-holding, and emotional vulnerability. He thrives on being told he’s doing well, that he’s good, that you want him. Light bondage also intrigues him—he finds comfort in you taking control now and then.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

He feels safest in bed, preferably somewhere dimly lit and private. He could be tempted in warm places like a hot spring, but only with absolute trust and zero risk of being seen.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Touch. Soft kisses on his neck, a quiet “I want you,” or even just falling asleep next to you in thin clothing is enough to stir him. The feeling of being wanted, not needed, melts him.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Anything non-consensual, degrading, or overly performative. He despises the idea of being watched or recorded. He also dislikes dirty talk that ventures into humiliation—it triggers his deepest fears.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

He prefers giving, nervous but gentle. He takes it seriously, trying to memorize what makes you react. As for receiving: not against it, but is extremely flustered and will grip the sheets like it’s the end of the world. He almost always asks if he can return the favor afterward.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? Etc)

He starts slow and hesitant, building into something steady and deep. The more he trusts you, the more rhythm he gains. He prefers emotional build-up over roughness, though his strength can show if you beg sweetly.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc)

Rare. He gets overwhelmed too easily and prefers taking his time. Still, if you’re both tucked away and the mood strikes—say, on a lazy stormy day—he might indulge in something soft and heated.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? Do they take risks? Etc)

Not very risky. He worries too much. However, if you’re the one proposing something new, he’ll try it for you—especially if you gently walk him through it and let him stop if needed.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? How long do they last?)

He can last a fair while if he’s calm, but mentally, he's overstimulated fast. One or two emotionally charged rounds is his limit—then he needs cuddles and silence to decompress.

T = Toys (do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Doesn’t own any and would blush furiously if shown one. That said, if you introduced toys for your pleasure, he’d watch and assist with equal parts awe and bashfulness.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He’s not naturally a tease, but once he learns what gets you desperate, he can be coaxed into slow touches, whispering with that low gravelly voice—just to hear you whimper his name.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc)

Quiet but strained. Grunts, gasps, deep breathy moans when he starts losing control. His voice drops an octave when he’s trying not to beg.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

He sometimes prays before touching you—not to any god, but to you. You are his absolution, and he treats your body like sacred ground he is afraid to tread on but desperate to stay in.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

His dick isn't thick, but long, and curved slightly upward. His hips and thighs are stronger than they appear—he holds back a lot.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Medium-high. He doesn’t act on it unless you initiate, but the craving simmers always. Even just sitting beside you is enough to awaken something in him, though he won’t speak it unless invited.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He doesn’t sleep easily, even after sex. He stays awake holding you, watching the rise and fall of your chest, and wondering if he deserves the peace he feels with you.