#and if you claim you do then you do not deserve to be in spaces with other creatives

[arabella-syntax]

Update: Part 2

Paso a paso

They don’t move fast.

They move toward each other.

Paso a paso.

~ ~ ~ ~

Pairing: Alexia Putellas x Reader (Y/N)

Summary: A footballer still learning how to breathe after glory. A ballerina who knows her time is running out. A one-night stand in Ibiza that was never meant to last — and yet somehow, it keeps finding them both. Alexia Putellas meets a woman who moves like silence and secrets. But Y/N carries a truth she hasn’t spoken.

Word count: > 40k, one shot

Tone: 💔 queer love 💃 ballet x football 🧠 terminal illness 🕯️ no promises, just presence ⏳ slow-burn · soft angst · quiet intimacy

Rating: Some intimate scenes

A/N: Here’s the second part of the story. To read the first part, here’s the link.

Whilst I’m a trilingual, unfortunately, Spanish is not one of the languages I’m fluent in. So do allow some margin of error with the translation.

————————————————————————

Alexia

She didn’t ask for permission.

Didn’t send a warning text.

Didn’t overthink the logistics — for once.

She just packed a small bag, told Marianne she’d miss two meetings, and booked the next flight to London.

The idea came to her the night after Y/N’s birthday call.

She couldn’t sleep.

She kept replaying the way Y/N had smiled — beautiful, yes, but worn. Like she was trying to hold something together inside her bones. Like she was dancing on a thread too thin to hold weight.

Alexia had told herself not to interfere.

She’d promised not to push.

But there was something about loving someone like Y/N that rewrote the rules.

So she booked the flight.

Because sometimes, love wasn’t a grand gesture.

Sometimes, it was arriving.

She texted once, when she landed:

“Estoy en Londres. No es sorpresa if I say it now.”

(I'm in London. No surprises, if I say so now.)

No reply.

Fine.

She took a cab to Y/N’s neighbourhood. Bought coffee and stood outside her building like some awkward indie film character — hoodie, sneakers, and a tiny suitcase that looked ridiculous next to her very serious face.

She wasn’t nervous.

She was terrified.

Y/N opened the door in a robe, eyes puffy from sleep, hair messy and still perfect.

She froze. Blinked twice.

“You’re here.”

Alexia nodded. “Estoy aquí.”

“You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“You didn’t tell me it was your cumpleaños.”

Touché.

Alexia shifted on her feet. “Puedo entrar?”

Y/N opened the door wider. “You came all this way… what, for coffee and confrontation?”

Alexia walked in. Set down her bag. Looked at her.

“No. I came to hold you.”

Y/N didn’t answer.

So Alexia stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her.

It was awkward. Heavy with unsaid things.

But Y/N melted into her chest like a breath she’d been holding for weeks.

Later, they sat on the floor of Y/N’s kitchen, eating leftover pasta and drinking tea.

No music.

No performance.

Just quiet chewing and occasional looks.

“You didn’t have to come,” Y/N said finally.

“Ya lo sé.”

“But you did.”

“Claro.”

Y/N reached over and touched her knee. “You’re not scared?”

Alexia smiled. “Estoy terrified.”

“Of me?”

“Of loving you more than you’ll let me.”

Y/N didn’t flinch.

Instead, she leaned in, forehead touching Alexia’s.

“You’re ridiculous,” she whispered.

“And tired. And here. And… maybe in love.”

Y/N let out a slow, cracked breath. “Maybe me too.”

That night, they slept tangled up on her too-small sofa.

Alexia snored softly.

Y/N stared at the ceiling, fingers brushing against her ribcage like a tether.

Maybe she couldn’t promise tomorrow.

But tonight?

Tonight, she would let herself be held.

Y/N

Alexia had fallen asleep first, as usual.

She always curled toward Y/N in sleep, one arm draped awkwardly across her stomach like she was claiming space she wasn’t sure she deserved. Her mouth parted slightly, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands even in bed. Like a child, still too soft in a world that had tried to make her hard.

Y/N watched her.

Watched her breathe.

Watched the steady rhythm that belonged to someone who didn’t know the kind of countdown Y/N carried behind her ribs.

She didn’t sleep.

Instead, she stared at the ceiling.

Counted the months. December. January. February. March now.

Three months since she took the test. Three months of silencing the scream of truth beneath jokes and choreography.

Her mother had started fading in her early forties. The diagnosis came at thirty-eight. By forty-five, she didn’t remember her own daughter’s name without pictures.

Y/N had tested positive at thirty-six.

Same sharp handwriting.

Same lab in London.

Same faulty gene.

She hadn’t told Alexia.

Not that she took the test.

Not the results.

Not anything.

Because saying it out loud made it harder to pretend she could still have a future.

And Alexia? Alexia was a future. That was the danger.

Alexia stirred beside her, groggy.

“Mmh… qué hora es?” (What time is it) she murmured, voice thick with sleep.

“Late,” Y/N whispered.

“You’re awake still?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Alexia sat up slowly, eyes narrowing at Y/N’s face in the dark.

“Your brain too loud?”

“Too many tabs open,” Y/N said with a dry smile.

Alexia blinked. “You want to talk? Or distract?”

Y/N hesitated. “Talk. I think… it’s time.”

Alexia shifted to face her more fully, legs crossed, hoodie hood halfway up now like she was preparing for a storm.

“I never told you,” Y/N began, “about my mum.”

Alexia nodded once. “No. But I know you miss her.”

“She was brilliant,” Y/N continued. “English. Choreographer. Fire and thunder, but gentle with me. Until… she wasn’t.”

Alexia didn’t interrupt.

“She was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease when I was seventeen. It was a bleak outlook. It took everything from her slowly. Memory, mobility… humour stayed the longest, weirdly.”

“Lo siento,” Alexia said softly. “Mucho.”

Y/N exhaled. “I always told myself I wouldn’t test. That I didn’t want to know.”

“And then?”

“And then I met someone,” Y/N whispered, voice cracking. “Someone who made it all feel very… real.”

Alexia stayed very still.

“I took the test in December,” Y/N said. “Positive. Same mutation. Same progression. Same odds.”

A long silence.

Then Alexia reached out and took her hand.

“No me dijiste.”

“I couldn’t. I didn’t want you to… pity me. Or see me different.”

Alexia was quiet for another beat. Then she said, very softly:

“Yo no te miro diferente. Te miro más.” (I don't look at you differently. I look at you more).

Y/N looked at her, blinking fast. “I’m terrified.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to make you carry this.”

“I carry you anyway.”

“I don’t know what happens next.”

“Pues… vamos paso a paso. Step by step.”

They didn’t say much after that.

Y/N leaned into her chest. Let herself cry — not dramatically, just quietly, in the way only someone used to enduring finally learns how to release.

Alexia stayed.

Held her.

Didn’t offer any grand promise.

Just stayed.

And that was enough.

Alexia

The café con leche was too sweet.

Alexia stirred it absentmindedly, watching the spoon swirl in circles like it could make the ache in her chest less loud.

She hadn’t meant to come here. She was supposed to train. Stretch. Do something constructive.

But instead, she’d walked the familiar steps to Alba’s place — where she knew Marianne would also be, probably hijacking Alba’s terrace and drinking overpriced cold brew from her pretentious thermos.

Sure enough, when Alba opened the door in mismatched socks and a Barcelona hoodie, Marianne was already sunbathing with her laptop, doing something vaguely important for the foundation.

“Hòstia, tía,” Alba said. “You look like shit.”

“Gracias,” Alexia muttered.

Marianne looked up. “You okay?”

“¿Puedo… hablar?”

That was all it took. Alba stepped aside. Marianne closed her laptop. Coffee was made. Feet were curled up on chairs. And they waited.

Alexia took a deep breath.

“Y/N has Huntington’s.”

A beat.

Then Marianne blinked. “Joder.”

Alba frowned. “¿Qué es eso?” (What's that?)

Alexia blinked at her. “It’s… enfermedad neurológica degenerativa. Genética. Su madre la padecía. She just tested positive a few months ago.” (It’s… a degenerative neurological disease. Genetic. His mother suffered from it…)

Alba’s brows stayed furrowed. “So… like Parkinson’s?”

“Un poco. But worse - maybe. It affects movement, memory, mood—everything. Slowly, but… always.”

Marianne exhaled. “It’s brutal. There’s no cure, is there?”

Alexia shook her head.

Alba’s face shifted. “¿Y tú sabías que se hizo las pruebas?” (And did you know that she got tested?)

“No,” Alexia said. “I didn’t know she tested. I didn’t know anything. She just told me last week. En su piso. Late. Like it was casual.” (…In her apartment…)

“And what did you do?” Marianne asked.

“I didn’t freak out,” Alexia said simply. “I stayed. I held her. I listened.”

Alba was quiet now. Processing. “Joder…”

“She didn’t want to tell me because she thought I’d leave,” Alexia whispered.

Marianne snorted. “She clearly doesn’t know how stubborn you are.”

Alexia gave a weak laugh. “She doesn’t know how badly I want to stay.”

Alba reached over and touched her arm. “¿Y qué necesitas, Ale?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just needed to say it out loud. So someone else would know too. Because now… everything feels real. And heavy.”

“We’ll carry it with you,” Marianne said. “You’re not alone.”

Alba nodded. “Sí. No es un partido que juegas sola.”

Alexia exhaled.

Something loosened in her ribcage.

She still didn’t know what came next — but for the first time, she didn’t feel like she was standing on the edge alone.

Y/N

Her father was late, naturally.

She’d told him to meet her at the café near the park at eleven. He arrived at eleven twenty-two, carrying a paper bag of Russian pastries and his usual expression of amused disappointment in the world.

“You look tired,” he said, by way of greeting.

“Hello to you too, Papa.”

He kissed her forehead, sat down, and immediately began criticizing the table’s wobbliness.

“Do you know,” he said, unwrapping a sticky bun with alarming speed, “what you need?”

“Let me guess. To stop dating women with emotional depth?”

“No. To go blonde.”

Y/N blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“You already cut your hair,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward her neat bob. “Very tragic. Very French. But now you go blonde. Reinvent. Channel this pain into something fashionable.”

She snorted. “You think I’m having an identity crisis?”

“I think you’re boring. Blonde would at least confuse people.”

“Papa, I told you I have Huntington’s.”

“Exactly. Go out in style.”

Y/N shook her head, laughing into her coffee. “You’re so emotionally stable.”

“I am Russian,” he said, sipping his espresso like it had insulted him.

They sat for a while in silence, birds picking at crumbs near their feet.

“I told her,” Y/N said quietly.

“Alexia?”

She nodded.

His gaze softened. “And she didn’t run?”

“She stayed.”

“Good,” he said. “But you are still scared.”

Y/N didn’t reply.

“You’re waiting for the symptoms to shout. You think when that happens, she’ll change. But let me tell you something: love is stupid. It doesn’t care about science or timing. It just stays until it can’t.”

Y/N exhaled. “And when it can’t?”

“Then you grieve,” he said. “And you dye your hair blonde.”

She smiled despite herself. “You’re relentless.”

He reached across and patted her hand. “You are still here, malyshka (baby). Still dancing. Still drinking overpriced coffee. This is not the end.”

“I know.”

“But if you ever want it to be the end,” he said, “just know that I have room on my couch in Moscow. And vodka. So much vodka.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

She didn’t go blonde.

But she did go home, curled up in her flat, and opened the texts from Alexia — small, silly, steady ones:

You okay?

I miss your weird slippers.

Do you want me to send you a video of me trying to do ballet? I will.

She smiled.

And she wrote back:

No video needed. Your last attempt at plié is permanently tattooed on my soul.

Alexia replied with a selfie of her in a tank top and very dramatic pout:

Your favourite Catalan disaster still intact.

Y/N held the phone to her chest. Closed her eyes.

Still here.

Alexia

She had rewritten the message three times.

First:

Hey. My mami is cooking next weekend. You should come.

Too casual. Could sound like a trap.

Second:

My family misses you. Dinner at my mami’s?

No. Too much.

Third attempt included a GIF of a dancing empanada and simply:

Hungry?

In the end, she gave up and called.

Y/N answered on the third ring. “Hey, Catalan Disaster.”

Alexia smiled, relief pouring through her chest. “Hola, gremlin de Londres.”

They spoke in a warm rhythm — half teasing, half I-miss-you — until Alexia cleared her throat and said, in a rush of slightly broken English:

“So… next weekend. My mami makes arroz caldoso. Is kind of family thing. My sister also comes. And maybe… tú?”

Y/N paused. “You’re inviting me to dinner?”

“Yes. But more. Not just dinner. Like… proper thing. Not formal. But serious, maybe? You can say no. But no is illegal.”

Y/N laughed softly. “What if I’m a nightmare at family dinners?”

“You already are nightmare,” Alexia said flatly. “So no new information.”

That got a real laugh.

Then a pause. A real one.

“Are you sure?” Y/N asked quietly.

Alexia swallowed. ”Si. They like you, and want to spend time with you.”

Another pause. But this one was warmer. Steady.

“Okay,” Y/N said. “I’ll come.”

Alexia closed her eyes. Let the exhale slip out slowly. She hadn’t realised she’d been holding her breath.

“Bring slippers,” she added. “Mami is dramatic about cold floors.”

“Oh good. I was hoping to be judged by a Catalan mother in my socks.”

“You will be judged regardless. Better to be warm.”

After they hung up, Alexia sat in the quiet of her living room, phone pressed to her chest.

She didn’t say it out loud.

Not yet.

But something in her had clicked.

Something soft, and stupid, and maybe brave.

She wasn’t just inviting Y/N into her home.

She was quietly, clumsily, inviting her into her life.

Y/N

The smell of garlic and thyme hit her before she’d even knocked.

Inside Alexia’s flat — small, tidy, unmistakably hers — the sounds of sizzling and humming mingled like an old song. When the door opened, Y/N was greeted not by her girlfriend, but by her girlfriend’s mother.

“Cariño,” said Eli Putellas, dressed in a loose linen blouse and an apron that read “La reina de la cocina.” “You’re early. Qué bien.”

Y/N smiled, stepping inside. “You’re the chef tonight?”

“I don’t trust my daughter to feed anyone properly. She keeps vegetables like they’re souvenirs.”

Alexia’s voice called out from the kitchen: “¡Mentira!”

Y/N laughed. “Hello to you too.”

This wasn’t their first meeting — they’d danced around each other at Alexia’s birthday, shared polite glances and cautious affection. But this… this felt more real. Like family, minus the ceremony.

Alexia emerged from the kitchen with a wooden spoon in one hand and a smudge of tomato on her wrist.

“You’re here,” she said, cheeks pink with heat and something else.

“She’s early,” Eli repeated. “Which means I like her.”

Alexia gave Y/N a look. “I said six.”

“It’s 5:57.”

Eli waved her hand. “She’s punctual. You’re lucky. I hope you’re not feeding her frozen pizza when I’m not around.”

Alexia groaned. “Mami, por favor…”

Alba arrived twenty minutes late, naturally, wearing ripped jeans and eyeliner that belonged in a music video.

She entered the flat like a storm with opinions. “This building has no elevator. My thighs are screaming.”

“You’re dramatic,” Alexia muttered.

Alba waved her sister’s reply, tossing her bag onto the couch before spotting Y/N. “Oh look, the ballerina lives.”

“Alive and slightly wine-flushed,” Y/N said, lifting her glass.

“You’ve upgraded your position,” Alba said. “From party mystery to dinner guest. Impressive.”

“She brought wine and washed her hands,” Eli said proudly. “She’s already better than your last girlfriend.”

“Mami,” both daughters groaned in unison.

Dinner unfolded in Catalan chaos and Spanish sarcasm.

Eli kept insisting everyone take seconds — even though no one had finished their first.

Alba dominated the conversation with the fervour of someone who thought Twitter wasn’t fast enough.

Alexia remained steady and quiet, the eye of her family’s hurricane — occasionally tapping Y/N’s knee beneath the table like she was reminding herself this was real.

Y/N wasn’t prepared for how easy it felt.

How laughter came naturally.

How Eli would touch her hand and refill her wine.

How Alba would shoot her a half-smile when she made a joke in Spanish that landed.

It terrified her. And yet…she stayed.

Later, after Alba had gone and Eli insisted on scrubbing every pot herself, Y/N sat cross-legged on Alexia’s bed while the footballer toweled her damp hair and tried not to blush.

“She really does love you,” Alexia said, sitting down beside her.

“Your mum or your sister?”

“Both. But my mum will fight someone for you. Alba will just insult you more affectionately.”

Y/N leaned back against the pillows. “I don’t think I’ve ever… had something like that.”

“What, a chaotic Catalan dinner party?”

“A family dinner that didn’t feel like a performance.”

Alexia looked at her then — all soft eyes and stillness. “I’m glad you came.”

“I’m glad I didn’t run.”

Alexia reached over, laced their fingers together. “Then stay.”

Y/N hesitated, then squeezed her hand.

“I will.”

Y/N

It wasn’t a grand question.

Alexia asked it casually, like she was asking if Y/N wanted tea.

“Maybe you move here?”

The words floated gently into the quiet. They were in bed — not wrapped in heat or tangled limbs, but in the softness that came after. After dinner. After teasing. After brushing their teeth with the same mint. Just lying there, backs pressed to pillows, feet grazing beneath the blanket.

Y/N blinked. “Barcelona?”

Alexia nodded, fingers nervously toying with the edge of the sheet. “I mean… you already come a lot. You have a toothbrush here now. Shampoo. Slippers.”

“Slippers?”

“Sí,” Alexia muttered. “Very domestic.”

Y/N smiled, her heart doing that irritating thing where it both warmed and sank at once.

“I want to,” she said carefully. “You don’t know how much. But I have to finish the season, Ale. Royal Ballet won’t exactly replace a principal mid-run, and Giselle’s been sold out for months.”

Alexia nodded. Quiet. Still.

Y/N reached over and tugged gently at her hoodie sleeve. “I’m not saying no.”

“Just… not now.”

“Exactly.”

“I get it,” Alexia said. “I do. I just… sometimes I look at you brushing your teeth here and I think: sí, this is it. Stay.”

Y/N closed her eyes for a moment.

“I can’t stay yet,” she said. “But I’m thinking about after. Maybe Madrid. There’s more ballet infrastructure. I could look into teaching. Performing occasionally.”

Alexia’s face softened. “Madrid is not far.”

“No. And we’re already experts at distance.”

Alexia gave a little smile. “You’ll still get a key.”

“To the flat?”

“To the city,” Alexia said. “Barcelona owes you one.”

Y/N laughed. “So dramatic.”

“I’m in football. It’s required.”

They sat in the silence, both gazing at the ceiling like it might give them answers.

Then Y/N whispered, “This is new for me. Making future-shaped decisions with someone else in mind.”

Alexia turned to her. “We don’t have to rush.”

“I know,” Y/N said. “But I think I want to. For once.”

And just like that, something invisible settled in the room between them — not a promise, but a direction.

Alexia

She didn’t tell anyone she was going.

Not Alba.

Not Marianne, who would have grilled her for answers the moment she saw “LHR” on the boarding pass.

Alexia booked the flight late, on instinct — somewhere between missing Y/N’s voice and missing the way Y/N made her forget she was famous.

London met her with drizzle and muted traffic.

The city was grey and quick. Alexia stayed quiet in it.

She checked into a hotel she barely looked at, ate room service she barely tasted.

The theatre — the Royal Opera House — felt like a palace of silence. Velvet seats, hushed voices, chandeliers watching from above.

Alexia sat at the very back, hoodie up, sunglasses off. No one knew her here. She liked that. She was just a woman with something to lose.

And then — Y/N appeared.

Not walked, not entered.

Appeared.

Alexia had never seen her like this. Not in the daylight, not in leggings and sarcasm and coffee breath.

This was something else.

Y/N danced like her bones held ghosts. Like she knew the end of every story before it began. She moved across the stage with purpose and devastation, bending and breaking as Giselle, soft and dying and defiant.

Alexia didn’t understand ballet. Not properly.

But she understood grief. And hunger. And love that came too late.

And watching Y/N—

Her body so sure, her eyes so vulnerable—

Alexia’s chest ached with it.

This woman — with her sharp humour, her bob haircut that somehow made her even more impossible, her ability to slip past all of Alexia’s defences like water through fingers — was a storm wrapped in silk.

Alexia was helpless to it.

She waited until the curtain fell.

The crowd leapt to their feet. Bravos, whistles, flowers. A standing ovation that thundered like a football stadium — but with more mascara.

Alexia stayed in her seat.

She typed slowly.

Estabas hermosa. Estoy orgullosa de ti.

(You were beautiful. I’m proud of you.)

Delivered. No reply yet.

She didn’t mind.

Sometimes love was a quiet thing.

A hidden thing.

A thing you didn’t announce, only held.

She stepped out into the London rain. The same hoodie up over her head. Same hands in her pockets.

Her boots splashed through the puddles as she walked. Her heart was somewhere else.

Still on stage.

Still in the air.

Y/N

The applause still echoed when she got backstage.

A wall of sound that pressed into her skin even as she peeled off the layers of Giselle — tulle, grief, powdered death across her cheekbones.

Stagehands smiled.

Her dresser gave her a knowing squeeze on the arm.

Another dancer offered her half a protein bar and said, “You killed them out there.”

She laughed, breathless. “Just doing my job.”

But inside, everything was shaking.

The muscle twitch hadn’t come tonight.

But something else had — something just beneath the ribs.

A sharp flutter, like expectation with teeth.

She sat down at her dressing table, surrounded by white lilies someone had sent anonymously. She checked her phone.

One message.

Estabas hermosa. Estoy orgullosa de ti.

Alexia.

No emojis.

No drama.

Just truth.

Y/N stared at it.

And then, without replying, she stood up — still in her stage tights and rehearsal hoodie, makeup smudged — and ran.

Outside, London offered her its usual evening chill.

She didn’t stop for an umbrella.

Didn’t stop for a cab.

She knew where Alexia would be.

Not flashy.

Not front-row.

Back. Quiet. Watching. That was her.

And sure enough, just down the steps of the theatre, beneath the marquee lights softened by mist, Alexia was standing by a column. Hood up. Arms crossed. Looking like guilt and devotion had formed a woman.

Y/N stopped a few feet away.

She didn’t speak.

Neither did Alexia.

Then Y/N stepped forward, grabbed the front of that hoodie with both hands, and kissed her.

Not softly.

Not politely.

But like she had danced death and come back alive for this exact moment.

Alexia melted into her, hands landing on her hips, grounding them both. The kiss was wet from the rain and warm with something older than fear.

When they broke apart, Alexia whispered, “Hola.”

Y/N snorted. “You’re such a menace.”

“Only for you.”

Y/N let her head rest against Alexia’s. Her voice was quieter now. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“You deserved to be seen.”

“I always feel seen with you.”

Alexia let out a breath. “Then stay.”

“Not now,” Y/N said, brushing a strand of wet hair from Alexia’s forehead. “But I’ll come with you to the hotel. If you ask nicely.”

Alexia smiled. That dopey, ridiculous, adoring smile.

“Please.”

They were just two women in the rain.

Still aching. Still trying. Still choosing.

Alexia

She couldn’t sleep.

Not from jet lag. Not from excitement.

Just Y/N — curled up in her hotel bed, face half-buried in the pillow, the London rain still drying in strands of her hair.

They hadn’t done anything more than lie there.

No sex.

No rush.

Just fingers on ribs.

Just stories about stage superstitions.

Just laughter when Y/N found out Alexia once wore the same shin guards for five years “for luck.”

Now, it was midnight, and Alexia’s heart was louder than her breath.

She reached over gently, tracing the curve of Y/N’s knuckle.

“Can I ask you something?” she whispered.

Y/N hummed without opening her eyes. “That sounds dangerous.”

Alexia smiled, small and crooked. “Why did you leave that morning? New Year’s. Barcelona. You disappeared.”

The air shifted.

Y/N opened her eyes slowly.

“Didn’t think you noticed.”

“I did.”

“I left you breakfast.”

“You left pan con tomate and no goodbye.”

Y/N exhaled, staring at the ceiling now.

“I panicked,” she said. “You looked so… peaceful. And I felt like a storm. Like I was about to drown everything.”

Alexia didn’t say anything.

Y/N sat up, wrapped the duvet around her shoulders like a curtain.

“I knew something was off in my body,” she said. “The twitch, the fall in rehearsal. I hadn’t tested yet, but… I had a feeling. And I didn’t want to make you a witness to the collapse.”

Alexia sat up too. She didn’t reach for her. Not yet.

“You thought I couldn’t handle it?”

“I thought I couldn’t. Not if I looked at you and saw that pity.”

“Pena?” Alexia repeated, a little too loud. “Is that what you think I feel?”

“I didn’t want to find out.”

They were quiet for a moment. Long enough to hear the city breathing outside.

Then Alexia said, carefully, “You scare me sometimes.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow.

“Because you disappear. And I don’t know how to hold someone who keeps vanishing.”

Y/N didn’t flinch. She looked at Alexia with something raw.

“I’m scared too. This thing — my body — it’s not a maybe anymore. And I don’t know how to let someone stay when I’m not sure how long I’ll be… me.”

Alexia reached out then, took Y/N’s hand.

“You’re you now. That’s enough.”

Y/N didn’t reply. But she squeezed her hand. Hard.

Then softer.

Then she whispered, “I wanted to stay. That morning. I was just… still learning how.”

Alexia leaned her forehead against Y/N’s.

“I’m still learning too.”

They fell asleep like that.

Not in full understanding.

But in a fragile, deliberate closeness.

No promises.

Just presence.

And for Alexia, that was something like peace.

Y/N

The theatre lights had barely cooled before she was back at her flat.

Same coat draped over the same chair.

Same mug with the chipped handle on the sink.

Same faint ache in her hip — the one she no longer chalked up to bad landings.

But something in her had shifted.

Or maybe—tilted.

She had spent the weekend with a woman who loved like a lighthouse. Quiet, steady, always turning toward her even in the fog.

Now, her apartment felt like a life still clinging to an old season.

She opened her laptop.

Typed: Madrid ballet schools.

Deleted it.

Typed: Contemporary dance teaching positions Madrid.

Then: Dance pedagogy certification Spain.

Then finally: email@estudioballetmadrid.es

And she just sat there.

Fingers poised over the keys like a pianist who couldn’t remember the melody.

Until she finally wrote:

Hello,

I’m a current principal dancer at the Royal Ballet in London.

I’m considering relocating to Spain in the next year.

Would your school be open to a visiting artist or guest instructor position for the upcoming season?

Warmly,

—Y/N

No CV.

No big flourish.

Just an open door. Slightly ajar.

Later that night, her father called. FaceTime, as always.

“You look pale,” he said, “but dramatic. Good combination.”

Y/N smirked. “Been a long week.”

“You saw your Spanish footballer?”

“Yes.”

He squinted. “Did you cry again?”

“No.”

“Then it went well.”

She laughed softly, curling into the sofa. “I emailed a school in Madrid.”

His face lit up. “So the stubborn ballerina admits she might not live on stage forever.”

“I’ve never lived on stage. Just hid there.”

He nodded. “Madrid is nice. They have jamón. And sun. And maybe… future.”

Y/N looked out the window.

Rain again.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said quietly.

“You’re not dying yet,” he replied. “You’re just changing. That’s allowed.”

Alexia

Some traditions didn’t fade.

This little bar in Gràcia — the one tucked behind a bakery that somehow always smelled of anise and fried secrets — was one of them.

Tonight, they were six: Alexia, Marta, Irene, Caroline, Jana and Leila.

Vermut was on the table. So were olives.

So were memories that refused to get old.

“¿Os acordáis del partido contra Lyon?” (Do you remember the match against Lyon?) Irene was saying. “When Marta got that yellow for shoving someone twice her size?”

“No me arrepiento,” (I have no regrets) Marta replied, calm as sin.

“She stepped on your foot,” Caroline noted, unimpressed.

“She breathed near me,” Marta corrected.

Jana grinned. “Vibes-based fouling. I respect that.”

Then came Leila Ouahabi. She has missed a few of the recent gatherings, but she made it that day.

She walked in like she’d never left the game — long coat, AirPods still in, looking half-deal, half-chaos. But instead of cleats, she carried contracts now.

“Hola, mis reinas,” she announced, switching her AirPods off with flair. “Perdón. One academy deal in Paris, one striker in Bilbao crying about her TikTok clause.”

Alexia stood to hug her. “Eres insufrible.” (You’re insufferable.)

“Y tú, still dramatic,” Leila replied, kissing both her cheeks. “You still walk like you’re wearing the armband.”

“Muscle memory,” Alexia said, smirking.

“Retired, not erased,” Marta added.

They all laughed.

Leila slid into the booth beside Jana, unrolling her scarf. “So, what’s the chisme tonight? Or are you all behaving?”

“Mostly reminiscing,” Irene said. “Until someone—” she side-eyed Jana, “—decided we need another holiday.”

“Girls’ trip?” Leila asked, half a tortilla chip already in her mouth. “Yo estoy dentro. Ibiza or Mallorca?” (I’m in…)

“Ibiza,” Jana said, typing aggressively into her phone. “Aggie’s off-season overlaps. Y/N might be able to come. Patri’s in. Bruna replied to my text with thirteen emojis and a photo of a flamingo pool float, and Bruna sent a thumbs up.”

“That’s practically a blood oath,” Caroline said.

“Sí, sí,” Leila nodded. “I’ll bring the vibes. And sunscreen. And maybe one or two future clients. But not like… agent agent. Just… chill agent.”

Alexia raised an eyebrow. “There is no such thing.”

“True. I will absolutely poach Patri if Manchester City ever makes her an offer.”

Marta deadpanned, “You’ll lose teeth.”

Irene raised her glass. “To the agent life.”

Caroline added, “To aging disgracefully.”

“To remembering who we are,” Jana said quietly. “And who we still get to be. Together.”

Alexia looked around the table.

At faces that had carried her through years of glory and collapse.

At the women who’d seen her joy, her ACLs, her press conferences, her heartbreak.

This—

This was the team that still mattered.

And maybe, just maybe, it was time for Y/N to see this part of her too.

Y/N

She wasn’t expecting the voice note.

It came through while she was brushing her teeth, mid-scroll through nonsense — one ballet meme, one news article about Russia’s weather being too Russian, and a video of a raccoon stealing someone’s baguette in Paris.

And then: Alexia’s voice.

“Hola, mi amor. I want to tell you something. Is not serious. Bueno… maybe. Jana said we should do a trip. Ibiza. The girls, their… novias, parejas, lovers. You know. Aggie is coming. And I think… I want you to come too.”

There was a pause. Then:

“You don’t have to decide now. I just… quiero que lo pienses, vale? I want you there. With me.” (…I want you to think about it, okay…)

She stared at the waveform.

Replayed it twice.

She could still hear the tiny nervous smile in Alexia’s words. Like she was offering not just a vacation, but… entry.

Later that night, she replied.

How many flamingo floaties are too many?

Alexia responded instantly:

I will bring seven. You, only swimwear. And sunscreen. And maybe some grace for my English.

Y/N laughed. But her hand trembled as she typed.

The truth was, the idea of Ibiza — of being in close proximity to all of Alexia’s past and present — made her want to retreat into an orchestra pit and never resurface.

She imagined it too clearly.

The Barça legends.

Their perfect sun-drenched tans.

Their inside jokes and locker room Spanish and slightly terrifying emotional fluency.

She imagined trying to explain why she didn’t drink much, why she didn’t stay up late, why she flinched when her calf twitched even slightly.

Why she could dance Giselle until her soul bled, but couldn’t promise her body would last the next five years.

She imagined trying to be normal.

Trying to be enough.

And then she imagined Alexia’s hand in hers.

And how it had always been warm. Steady.

How she’d never once asked her to explain anything she wasn’t ready to say.

She booked the leave.

Ordered a new black one-piece that made her feel a little less like a ghost.

She told her father over FaceTime.

“You? Holiday? Voluntarily?”

“Shocking, I know.”

He sipped his tea. “Wear sunglasses. Spanish sun makes English daughters stupid.”

“And Russian fathers smug?”

“Always.”

The night before she flew, she stared at her suitcase.

Packed and repacked.

Then finally, tucked one thing in the side pocket — a book her mother used to love. Slim and dog-eared.

Just in case the silence got too loud.

Just in case the world tried to convince her she didn’t belong.

She texted Alexia before boarding.

I’m coming. Don’t let Jana schedule group yoga at sunrise. I will rebel.

Alexia replied:

You already belong. See you soon, mi bailarina.

Alexia

Alexia stood in her kitchen, phone jammed between her ear and shoulder, one hand trying to wrestle her suitcase closed while the other held a Tupperware full of sunscreen, mosquito spray, and — inexplicably — a packet of chuches she swore she didn’t buy.

“Leila,” she sighed into the phone. “Si Patri trae a su altavoz otra vez, I will throw it into the sea.” (…If Patri brings her speaker again…)

“Let her!” Leila replied, far too cheerful for 9:00 AM. “We need the energy. Ibiza is about chaos.”

“I need sleep. You need therapy.”

“Says la que brought the ballerina.” (Says the one who…)

Alexia paused. “She has a name.”

“I know, I just like watching you go soft when I mention her.”

Alexia nearly dropped the sunscreen. “Shut up.”

“¿Está confirmada?”

“Sí. She comes.”

Leila whistled. “Uff. Brave. You know this group is… not normal.”

“I warned her.”

“Still. I’ll keep Patri and Ona from interrogating her. No promises about Bruna.”

Alexia hung up before Leila could name-drop more group chats.

Later that day, Alba barged in.

“¿Qué haces con esa cara de funeral?” she said, plopping herself onto Alexia’s couch with a yoghurt drink. (What are you doing with that funeral face?)

“Estoy empacando.” (I’m packing.)

“Sí, I can see. You fold like an accountant.”

“You pack like an animal.”

Alba grinned. “I booked a ticket.”

Alexia blinked. “Perdón?”

“IBIZA, hermana. You didn’t invite me, rude. So I invited myself. More merrier, no?”

“You’re not bringing your date, right?”

“Too early. She thinks Ibiza is a brand of tequila.”

Alexia groaned. “Alba…”

“Relax. I’ll behave. Besides, someone has to make sure la bailarina doesn’t get overwhelmed by your football cult.”

“She’s not overwhelmed,” Alexia said — too fast, too defensive.

Alba just smirked. “I’m bringing cards. And sunscreen. And judgement.”

The group chat exploded that night:

LEILA:

All set. Villa confirmed. Bruna called dibs on the biggest float. Patri threatened to sabotage the AC if she doesn’t get the room with the sea view.

JANA:

Aggie just asked if we’ll see dolphins. I told her maybe and now she’s googling snorkels.

ONA:

Dibs on the hammock. I will fight.

ALBA:

Ya voy. Intenta no morirte de la sorpresa. Que alguien traiga sangría.

(I'm coming. Try not to die of surprise. Someone get sangria.)

ALEXIA:

This is not a retreat. This is a hazard.

Y/N:

I’m deeply underqualified but fully committed. See you all soon.

Alexia smiled at the screen.

Let her thumb hover above the keyboard for a second longer.

Then she typed:

She’s coming with me. I don’t need this to be perfect. I just want her to see the version of me that laughs this much.

And hit send.

Third person

Caroline and Marta politely declined - citing to many Gen Zs around - they prefer a chill getaway instead, knowing that it will be hectic. Irene uses her son, Matteo as an excuse - to miss the craziness.

Whilst the group was upset, the trip continued as planned.

Ibiza didn’t welcome them with glamour.

It welcomed them with wind, late luggage, and a taxi driver who refused to believe Bruna was over 18.

The villa was tucked behind terraced hills, sun-drenched and faintly smelling of sea salt, sunscreen, and too many women with too many opinions.

The rooms filled in minutes.

Leila and Patri commandeered the sea view, citing seniority and emotional manipulation respectively. Ona won the hammock by physical threat. Jana and Aggie tucked themselves into a room with matching swimsuits and playlists full of indie acoustic covers that made everyone else want to scream.

Y/N arrived later — the last to land — suitcase in hand, hair tucked behind her ears, and that elegant stillness she wore like a second skin.

She didn’t know what she expected.

She hadn’t expected this.

Not Leila teaching everyone how to open a bottle of wine with a sneaker.

Not Alba sunbathing in socks and accusing people of being mainstream.

Not Alexia looking like she hadn’t stopped smiling since Y/N stepped onto the patio.

“Hola,” Alexia said, kissing her cheek.

“You look… sun-kissed.”

“Burning,” Alexia replied. “But in a cute way.”

Y/N glanced at the chaos — the flamingo float deflating mid-pool, Bruna and Ona bickering over who could do a better underwater handstand, Patri setting up a Bluetooth speaker like it was her job. Jana and Aggie staring at one another with dopey smiles. Whilst Leila was on call, sounding agitated and desperate to escape. Alba was the surprisingly calm one, working on her tan as she was sprawled on the lounge chair.

“You weren’t exaggerating,” she murmured.

“No. They are… a lot.”

“I like them,” Y/N admitted. “They’re… terrifying.”

Alexia grinned. “They’re family.”

Y/N smiled faintly. It was the first time she felt it.

Not like an outsider peeking in, but someone being handed a small space in the noise.

That night, after a grilled dinner cooked by half the group in chaotic rotation, they sprawled across cushions under fairy lights. Someone started a game of “Who had the worst ex,” and Aggie won by telling a story that involved a parrot, an ex-girlfriend, and a football injury she refused to elaborate on.

Y/N found herself curled next to Alexia, wine glass balanced, the hum of Catalan and Spanish and broken English rolling around her like music.

She didn’t understand every joke.

But she understood the laughter.

And Alexia’s hand on her knee.

And the way Leila leaned over, smiled, and said, “You’re brave, you know. Not everyone walks into this circus and stays.”

“I’ve met worse,” Y/N replied. “I used to dance with a man who thought warm-up was for cowards.”

Leila laughed. “You’re one of us now.”

She didn’t know if that was true.

But for once, she didn’t need certainty.

She had sunburnt shoulders and a heart that wasn’t folding under fear.

She had Alexia’s quiet warmth beside her.

And she had tomorrow —another day in the sun.

Alexia

The others were laughing over something inside — Ona yelling “¡Trampa!” at Bruna while Patri accused everyone of cheating at a card game Alexia was pretty sure Leila had invented on the spot.

But she and Y/N had slipped outside.

No announcement. No fanfare. Just the silent kind of pull that required nothing but the act of following.

They sat on the edge of the pool, bare feet grazing the water. The stars were gentle overhead, not showing off, just there — like old friends who didn’t need to be spectacular to be comforting.

Y/N hugged her knees. She wore one of Alexia’s sweatshirts. The sleeves swallowed her hands.

“Too loud in there?” Alexia asked.

“No, just… I like outside better. Fewer rules.”

Alexia nodded. “And less alcohol.”

Y/N smirked. “Also that.”

A beat passed.

Then Y/N leaned into her side, shoulder to shoulder.

“I like your friends,” she said, softly.

Alexia tilted her head. “Even Leila?”

“She’s aggressively persuasive. But really sweet.”

“She was like that as a teammate too. Once kicked my shin because I didn’t pass her. Off the field - good vibes.”

Y/N laughed under her breath. “Romantic.”

Alexia looked over. “You’ve been quiet today.”

“Not sad. Just… full. Like my heart is digesting too much.”

Alexia didn’t say anything, but her hand found Y/N’s under the sweatshirt sleeve. Her fingers were always cold. Y/N’s, always warm.

She whispered, “Estás bien aquí?” (You’re fine here?)

Y/N didn’t respond right away. Just watched the water ripple, catching slivers of moonlight.

Then: “Yes. I feel like I’ve stepped into something that existed long before me… and somehow, it doesn’t spit me out.”

“You fit,” Alexia said. “Even if you don’t think so yet.”

Another pause.

A quieter kind of vulnerability.

“I know you’ll move to Madrid,” Alexia said eventually, “and I know is not… close-close. But is still Spain. Still hours, not countries. I’m happy.”

“I didn’t pick Madrid because of you,” Y/N said honestly.

“I know.”

“But I didn’t not pick it because of you either.”

Alexia let out a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding.

“Gracias,” she said.

“For what?”

“For letting this… be real. I know is hard.”

“It’s not hard,” Y/N said. “It’s just new. And I’m out of rehearsal metaphors.”

Alexia smiled, leaned in, kissed her slowly. It wasn’t urgent.

It wasn’t even about wanting more.

It was about anchoring.

“Te quiero,” Alexia murmured against her cheek. “No pressure. Just truth.”

Y/N didn’t flinch. Didn’t back away.

She just rested her head on Alexia’s shoulder and whispered, “You’re my favourite accident.”

Alexia chuckled. “That’s… not so romantic.”

“It’s deeply romantic.”

They stayed outside long enough for the crickets to take over the soundtrack, for the shouting inside to fade into lazy hums of contentment.

There was no rush.

They had time.

Even if the world didn’t promise forever — tonight, it promised this.

Third person

On the last day, the villa held a certain quiet.

Not sadness, not quite. But the kind of hush that follows a laugh so loud your ribs ache — when you finally sit still and remember your body.

There was sand on the kitchen floor. Someone’s towel hanging from the lemon tree. The flamingo float had deflated overnight — Bruna had dryly remarked it “died in service.”

Patri brewed coffee like she was trying to win an award. Ona was sunburnt and pretending she wasn’t. Jana had braided Aggie’s hair into some elaborate pattern that made Leila stare and mutter, “Too domestic, disgusting.”

Alexia stood on the balcony, sipping her coffee. Y/N was still asleep, curled in her bed like punctuation. She’d stayed up late the night before, laughing too hard at something Alba had said, then falling silent again — in that way she did when too much joy slipped in all at once.

From above, Alexia could see it all.

The way Leila sat with Bruna, haggling over whether or not Bruna should sign with her once her Brighton contract ended. The way Ona snuck bits of pineapple off people’s plates. The way Jana leaned her head against Aggie’s and sighed like she forgot anyone else was watching.

And for a moment, it was like time folded into itself.

Like every version of them — the champions, the heartbreaks, the teenagers in cleats and shin guards, the women in swimsuits and bare feet — all coexisted on this lazy golden morning.

Y/N emerged sometime after noon.

Hair still wild from sleep, sweatshirt stolen again. She found Alexia in the hammock, legs swinging gently, trying to read and failing.

“Join me?” Alexia said, pushing her glasses up.

Y/N slid in carefully, their limbs folding together without effort.

They said nothing for a while. Just the sounds of summer and Leila’s awful playlist bleeding faintly from inside.

“I liked this,” Y/N said finally.

Alexia turned. “Ibiza?”

“Your people. Your… world.”

“I liked that you came.”

“I liked that I stayed.”

A beat.

“I’m glad I’m not a secret,” Y/N added, softer.

“You never were.”

Y/N didn’t smile right away. Then she did. Small. Real.

Alexia leaned in, whispered something in her ear that made her snort, slap her shoulder, and kiss her nose.

“Still awkward,” Y/N murmured.

“Always,” Alexia said proudly.

That night, before they left, Alba found a Polaroid camera no one remembered packing. She made everyone pose in pairs or threes, demanding funny face, then serious face, then fake crying face.

When it was Alexia and Y/N’s turn, Y/N tried to refuse. Said it was silly.

Then Alexia made a face so stupid Y/N burst out laughing mid-shot.

Click.

The photo came out blurry.

They both looked ridiculous.

It would be Y/N’s favourite photo for years.

Y/N

The theatre felt different in June.

Sweatier. More urgent. More final.

She could feel it in the way the stage creaked, how the rosin stuck to her slippers, how even the silence between movements felt like it was saying goodbye.

One more month.

A handful of performances.

And then, Madrid.

She said it to herself the way some people whispered prayers. Madrid. Not London. Not Moscow. Not even Paris, where she’d once dreamed of finishing her career.

Madrid — chosen not for ambition, but for proximity to a woman who made her laugh without trying and cry without pushing.

Alexia.

And for once, the decision didn’t feel like a compromise.

She hadn’t told many people yet. Her colleagues assumed she’d simply be taking a sabbatical — a rest before the next season. She let them believe it. She wasn’t ready for long explanations or soft goodbyes.

Her body had begun to whisper small betrayals. Nothing drastic. Just tightness where there should’ve been ease. The occasional tremble. The ever-present hum of not knowing what day the real decline would begin.

She rehearsed anyway.

Danced like she still had twenty years in her.

Because that’s what it had always been — defiance disguised as grace.

The letter came tucked inside her suitcase.

She found it while packing rehearsal tights and a cracked water bottle.

Folded in half. No envelope. Just her name scrawled in Russian and English.

From Papa.

You are not running from anything, finally.

You are walking toward. That is good. That is brave.

Madrid is not a punishment. Ballet will miss you.

But it will miss the woman you were, not the one you are becoming.

Let it.

Also — tell the footballer I said to feed you more. You look like an elegant matchstick.

She laughed through a tear.

Typical.

The last dress rehearsal ended with a standing ovation from the crew — not for the performance, but because someone had brought cake, and dancers are creatures of sugar and starvation.

Y/N sat on the edge of the stage, hair damp with sweat, tights sticking to her skin. She stared at the seats, empty now.

She’d memorised every creak of this space. Every rigging line, every shadow. And she was leaving it.

Not fleeing. Not flinching.

Leaving. By choice.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Alexia.

Tienes tiempo para llamar esta noche? No es urgente. Just… miss your voice.

(Do you have time to call tonight? It's not urgent…)

Y/N replied:

Always. Let me wash off the theatre first.

Then she paused. Typed again:

I’m almost ready to begin again.

__________________________________________

Continue to Part 3

[thinkblotted]

Building a Better Star (aka, the Star Essay)

I like Star. I’m getting that shit out of the way right here at the beginning, just in case. I like Star, I like what she is, I think she deserves better writing. 

Also - these are my takes. These takes may not be your takes. We can have different takes.

Okay? Okay. Let’s go. 

For the purposes of this analysis and suggestion, I’m only going to be going off of movie canon Star, rather than book canon Star, because while they’re basically the same, there are a few background elements in the book that expand  on Star’s internal thoughts and relationships with the boys that you could only get from exposition in the book, and that’s not as available a source as the movie, so. 

Since I’m either posting this on tumblr for the four people who will read it, or filming myself talking about this like a normal person with normal hobbies, I won’t explain who canonically she is because that’s unnecessary for this audience of me and a discord server, but rather who she is as a character as presented.

The thing about The Lost Boys is that it exists as a double edged sword of characterization for all its characters. They’re all incredibly simple, and in that white space that’s left behind where deeper characterization would be put in other movies, here there’s just a void, leaving the audience to fill in the gaps however they see fit with whatever they can glean from the surrounding world. 

The vampires are the prime example of this - of all the characters, they get the least amount of dialogue and have the most void to fill in who they are as characters. Star is the runner up, having more character, but the same amount of void in her backstory. 

So who is Star? 

Star is The Girl of the group, a trope wherein you have a group of characters who make up the core of your main cast and usually they’re all male, with one or occasionally two exceptions being girls - if it’s two, one will be the ‘nerdy’ or otherwise ‘not strictly desirable by main male cast’ role, and the other will be The Girl, who is almost always the love interest of the main male, who, even though she’s more of a main character then the secondary girl, typically does less than them. As presented, Star fits this trope easily, as well as filling out the subtropes that it consists of. 

She’s soft-spoken, pretty, demure, stays out of most of the fights in the story, offers the protagonist advice but never tells him directly how to face the conflict of the story, offers support but never directly physically supports the protagonist. She’s an inciting incident all to herself, but never actually drives the plot forward except to be a shining prize on the mountaintop of the narrative that the protagonist must climb in order to claim. 

After being in the Lost Boys fandom for about two and a half-ish years now, there are some take-aways specific to Star that the fandom tends to play on the most. 

And I want to add in here, I do not have a problem with these traits being assigned to her. Star, like the rest of the cast, is a very malleable character. The void around her is just as vast as the other vampires, and this is fandom - we play with blorbos from our media like dolls. This entire thing is purely based on what I personally would like to see Star become, and since I’m a freak, I don’t just write fanfic, I also do this. Apparently. So take everything I’m saying with a giant grain of salt.

The traits that I most see attributed to Star are:

-She’s a shrinking violet, either unwilling or unable to interact directly with the conflict of the story

-She’s being held against her will to the point that leaving in any capacity is not only not an option, but would lead to physical harm/possibly death if she tried (ie, she’s an abused captive) 

-She cannot be held responsible for any bad decisions she’s made in the past or makes in the current story, or any bad turns the plot takes 

The first assertion is held up pretty well by the canon of the movie, and most of the fandom also agrees that it would have been nice if the movie actually did make Star a little less soft. There have been several outcries for Star to ‘vamp out’ like the Boys did, to at the very least give her a scary vampire face! Her tiny confrontation with Max at the end of the movie would have been a perfect space for that, but unfortunately, the movie has 80s-itis and being the female love interest and a victim in the plot, Star isn’t allowed to be aggressive in such a blatant manner. 

Star also hangs back whenever the Boys have presence on the screen. She’s never in the forefront, sharing the space, she’s in the background, watching them, only observing. The one time she directly contradicts them, ‘Leave him alone’ she’s told straight up to ‘chill out, girl’, and she doesn’t continue the conflict. When she does decide to try and be more forward with Michael, directly affecting things, she waits until there is no other persons of consequence around in order to do so. 

The second assertion of her being held against her will is a little trickier to pin down as a trait, but evidence of this is implied with how she contributes to the narrative - mainly, in asking Michael directly to save Laddie and her from the Boys, or at the very least, the situation she’s in. Though, it should be noted, that Star never makes a direct statement of what that situation is. She hedges that it’s being being driven to kill to sate the vampiric nature, but when taking scenes like David simply saying her name to get her to come to him, being told indirectly to back off when the Boys are hazing Michael, and backing away in a fearful manner when Michael is drinking the blood wine into consideration, there’s the darker notion that she’s being abused in other ways. 

Because the movie is meant to be a lighter flick, full of scary-yet-alluring vampire punk boys and over the top monster-hunting gore, billing it as a ‘horror-comedy’ excludes any deeper exploration or more explicit on-screen showing of verbal, emotional, or physical harm that Star may be experiencing. Doing so would take away from the fantastical and darkly whimsical nature of the story, grounding it too much, and making the Boys, though they be villains, into villains we wouldn’t love to hate.

Thus, the darker implications of what Star might be facing behind the scenes, when Michael isn’t around and before he came along, is left to the audience’s interpretation, as well as any ability Star has to struggle against them. The fandom frequently interprets as none, thanks to the plot of the movie being what it is. 

The third major assertion that the fandom tends to adopt is that Star is largely if not completely irresponsible for the missteps of other characters and for her own predicament. 

This given trait is the most difficult to back up with evidence directly from the canon as it relies heavily on filling in the blank spaces of Star and the other character’s backstories. Star is not responsible for Michael spotting her in the crowd at the concert or deciding to follow after her. Star technically didn’t tell Michael to accept David’s goading to race. Star told Michael she both didn’t know how to help him, and couldn’t explain it. Star is not responsible for Michael’s induction into the Boy’s gang because, well, she told him what he was drinking was blood. Star never directly acts to drive the plot forward until the beginning of the third act when she does admit to Michael that she needs his help, thus, cannot be held responsible even in part to Michael’s involvement. 

Lack or acceptance of Star’s responsibility for her own inability to leave the Boys is even harder to pin down, as we have no movie canon for what her life was like before meeting the Boys. The implication from the world around them is that Star is a runaway kid like many of the people seen in the opening sweep of Santa Carla, likely from a crappy home and was taken in by the Boys but soon got in over her head, but this is never directly confirmed. 

The idea that Star made a bad choice, and was not just manipulated and coerced after the ‘honeymoon’ period with the Boys is somewhat controversial as it paints Star in a less favorable light. She isn’t an innocent victim, but rather someone who made a bad call and refuses to acknowledge her own agency in that decision, instead placing any and all blame on the Boys. 

‘But what if she’s tried that already?’ Unfortunately, that lies entirely in the realm of off-screen possibilities that are not support by any canon. Star in the movie is never shown or implied to have tried escaping before, and in the book she merely has internal monologues about wanting to leave, not that she’s ever attempted it. 

Giving Star any one of these traits on their own isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Star is very much helpless in this situation - she’s in a den of immortal man-eating monsters while only being barely half of one herself, and refusing to take the option that would grant her more physical power to assert control in the situation, because the act required would be a shattering of her moral compass. Regardless of her involvement in how she got here, she deserves to be able to leave and make better choices. 

But giving Star all of these traits at once with nothing else to her flattens her completely. It does her, in my opinion, an incredible amount of injustice to absolve her of any kind of responsibility in her own problems and then rob her of any bravery to take a risk and change it herself.

And that’s not a good character. 

In order to build a better Star, we need to first accept a truth that might be a slightly hard pill to swallow: 

A good Star is not necessarily a protagonist. 

At least, not in the same way that Michael or Sam can be. Michael and Sam are protagonists in that they’re the heroes of the story. They face the main conflict head on and drive the plot forward with their actions, and are who we’re rooting for to win. We see them and their actions as ‘good’. They are absolved by the framing of blame in what is done to them. (Michael in getting in over his head with the Boys by ignoring the reservations and loose warnings of others, and Sam of murder with the fact that the Boys are man-eating monsters bent on getting back at them when one of their own is killed.)

If you make Star a protagonist in the same way, with her needing to be framed as ‘good’ in the story, but only keeping the character traits previously listed, then she’s a boring character. She becomes only nebulously ‘good’ just by virtue of not technically having done anything that could be considered ‘bad.’ Being counted as a heroine only by default. 

And that sucks. That puts her simultaneously on a pedestal where she can do no wrong, but is an empty shell that’s there to smile or cry and do nothing else. 

Often, when talking about female protagonists, antagonists, anti-heros and characters with grey morality or amorality, the added layer of them being women forces ten times the scrutiny on not just how they’re built as a character, but on their creators and why they’re choosing to build the character in the way they are. Any mistakes plot-pushing decisions made by the character aren’t as likely to be accepted as just the character acting in the story, but get traced back to the author. The audience constantly asks the question, ‘if it was a male character, would there be consequences for this act, or are you treating this character special because they’re a woman?’ 

In this case, it’s ‘Michael also fucks up, and yet is treated as a victim, deserving of sympathy and being saved by his brother rather than having to fight all on his own. Their situations are the same. Why not Star? The only difference between them is gender.’ 

This essay is not about whether or not Star is deserving of being saved, nor is it saying that she deserves being trapped in the situation that she’s in. But much like how Star reminds Michael that she did indeed tell him that it was blood in the bottle and he scoffed at her, Star deserves not to be a lifeless doll being acted upon, and a good female character deserves to not be a pretty, perfect Barbie doll that does no wrong and always looks pretty. 

So with the knowledge that a better Star cannot be purely a protagonist, how do we lower her from the boring pedestal? 

My suggestion: by inverting her three main traits

The first: If she’s billed as meek and demure and soft, then make her more aggressive and vulgar 

The second: If she seems to be kept at silent gunpoint, then give her more freedom to act

The third: Make her at least partly responsible for her own situation, regardless of whether or not she thinks she is 

The first revised trait is the most important in my opinion to building a better Star, as it will help direct and reinforce the second two. 

A large part of Star’s lack of presence in the movie is quite literally, a lack of physical presence. Star seems to hate even being near the vampires, and depending on what kind of story you wish to show her in, it could make sense. But chances are, if she’s given the shrinking violet trait, she’s been given the other two as well, and that makes a bad Star. She must be allowed to speak, and more than that - she must be allowed to show emotion. 

Let Star be angry. Let her be hurt in a way that’s not beautiful and languorous, a wilting agony of suffering in silence. And I’ll say it: Let Star say the Fuck word. As silly and simple as it may seem, such a small detail can transform a character. Star deserves to be as rough-edged and imperfect in her words and attitude as any of the rest of the Boys, possibly more if she’s in a situation that she hates! If she had the bravery to run away from home, then she should be afforded the bravery to be more than a pretty, silent, pure woman who doesn’t know what a cigarette is. 

The second revised trait is going to be the most fluid in interpretation because it relies the most on the author or artist or fan’s personal interpretation of what the relationship between Star and the Boys is really like. 

In the movie, Star seems to move with the Boys. She’s usually near them enough that they can keep an eye on her, as we see with David watching Star talking to Michael before the beach race. The only times we see Star distance herself physically is right after the bonfire, where she comes to the Emerson cabin to convince Michael to save her, or when she and Michael have sex. The first time, she seems desperate, like she may not have much time, and the second, she’s been left there on her own while the Boys go out and cavort, likely with the implication that she should stay where they can find her when they get back. 

Again, this is the trait that can be toyed with the most, but a good way to combat the feeling that she’s being held against her will is to give the notion that there are parts of being around the vampires that she likes. There are tiny hints of this in the movie, and the book expands on this. In the movie, there’s a moment during the race where Star seems to be enjoying herself while riding with David - at the very least, she’s enjoying the speed and thrill, if not the person she’s with. In the book, Star and Paul have the best relationship of any of the boys, with Paul trying to cheer her up and promising a ‘happily ever after’. To keep it from feeling like a full captive situation, give Star a reason to feel a bit conflicted over the pack. She’s there in the first place, after all. 

The third revised trait is going to be the most controversial, as it’s a hard thing to admit when people in real life do it. 

Admitting that sometimes, the problems we find ourselves dealing with, are our own fault. We make a bad call, we make a poorly informed decision or decide in the heat of the moment. Sometimes, we are lied to, but the lie is flimsy and we chose to swallow it because it’s what we wanted to hear at the time. I like to ask authors writing villains this - what’s worse and more compelling; a villain who lies, or a villain who tells the protagonist a truth they don’t want to hear? 

And, as backwards as it sounds, making Star partially responsible for her situation is giving her more agency in her story. It gives her a reasonable character flaw that she has to confront and defeat. 

Here is where I’m going to throw in an interesting observation about a specific scene that I think helps lend itself to this particular revised trait: the scene where she asks Michael for help directly. In canon, the scene goes about like this - Star comes to the cabin, Michael tells her that he knows about the vampires, and when he expresses that he thinks it’s basically done for him, Star tells him that it’s not, he’s not fully gone, and that she needs his help to save all three of them. Now, there’s something really, really interesting to me about this scene: Star is NOT a reliable narrator during it. At all. 

To say that she’s lying outright about everything would be untrue, but when you examine it, you realize that she’s being untruthful all the same. When Michael gets upset, accusing her of not caring about him because in his eyes she let this happen, she says that she DOES care about him, using physical touch to reinforce this. When she’s soundly rejected, by Michel slapping her hand away and demanding to know why she REALLY came, she very reluctantly tells him that she was hoping he’d help them. It’s her last answer, the last thing she wanted to say. Obviously hoping that the emotions would be enough to persuade him, rather than just saying that she needed help outright, which would be easier to say no to. 

Secondly, the WHY. Star states that Michael was ‘supposed to be her first, because it’s what David wanted’. When watching the scene, the delivery, the body language, and given the full context of the plot and how we’ve seen Star behave? We can only come to the conclusion that Star. Doesn’t. Know. That. 

Max’s ultimate goal is to get Lucy, and to get Lucy, he needs Michael and Sam to be on board, or at least BE vampires. Killing one of her children would hardly serve that goal. Given the ending fight, Max doesn’t give a dead rat’s ass about Star. And Star? She doesn’t even know Max exists. David telling Star to kill Michael to turn her into a vampire is not only pointless, but going expressly against Max’s wishes. We don’t know how much of Max’s plan David and the Boys know about, or given their personalities and implied relationship with him, even care about, but defying him in this instance doesn’t seem like the smartest thing to do. 

Not to mention - Star does like Michael. She hugs him at the end, she does give him a warning about the blood, albeit a weak one. She does attempt to fight Max in the end, even if she fails. As for her thoughts on David, those are more complicated. Whether the relationship is real, coerced, that she’s simply a pawn being used to tug Michael around or whether she and David did like each other at one time, is unknown, but it is clear that Star knows that David is interested in Michael, and doesn’t like it. So it would then be logical to assume, given this, that Star would assume, based on what she knows and has been able to observe, that she’d pain David in a worse light. Insinuating that it’s HIM who’s pulling the string, assuming what he wants and what his intentions are, even if she DOESN’T. KNOW. 

All this to conclude: Star is an unreliable narrator taking actions based on her own flawed assumptions. Which means she’s going to make mistakes, and miscalculate her position. She’s going to cast herself in a certain light, and like anyone, maybe not want to admit when that light is suddenly not a reflection of her best. 

So, how do I conclude this. 

Star is an interesting character, and I do enjoy her. If you managed to sit through this to get to here, and if there’s anything to take away from this, it’s that I enjoy Star and I want her to be a better…her. She deserves to cuss and spit, she deserves to be angry and sad at her predicament, she deserves to be loved as a whole person and not some untouchable angel. Let her fight. Let her bite. Let her bleed for her freedom and personhood.

Most importantly, if you allow the Boys room to be more than they are presented as on screen, then you can afford to give that to Star. 

Thank you for reading, if you did. 

@misslavenderlady (I almost forgot!)

[beclight]

im known for being THE bec light fan of the fandom, so i feel like im in the right place to say this: YOU DO NOT OWN FANDOM CHARACTERS AND CANNOT PREVENT OTHER PEOPLE FROM LIKING THEM JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DO, and if that makes you uncomfortable (which is fine, and for any reason), THE THING TO DO IS BLOCK NOT HARASS THEM!!!!!!! ive seen too many ppl in this fandom disrespect others over DARING to say, even as a joke, that they're the number one fan of X character. If someone having the same favorite group of pixels as you genuinely angers you, to the point of feeling the need to insult them and having concerning thoughts about them, then maybe it is time to log off

[uncreative-cryptid]

i cannot believe some people will excuse using GenAI as a "tool" for writing and claim it makes them better.

just saw the most insane take about it in a fanfic communities post and genuinely? you are not a writer. you do not deserve hate and harassment, but you have no place in a creative space like that. YOU are the reason so many people will begin to lock works behind several walls.

your castle is made of cards and built on a foundation of stolen works and lies.

you do not belong in a creative space.

you want more ideas? you want better ways to sort them?

consume more media and engage with them, dissect their themes and identify what you liked about it.

learn to put these themes and identifies down in a mess, make bullet point lists, and sort them later.

however you want to categorize them, do so. use discord servers, use your notes app, for the love of god learn to do your own thinking. you only think you're doing better because you have outsourced a necessary skill to a machine to do the thinking for you.

you have failed yourself fundamentally, i hope you realize that.

[m1ckeyb3rry]

i think it’s so funny when people decide that they see two characters who are friends as “siblings” and then they think it’s illegal to ship them. like at all. ever. if you do you’re problematic and don’t respect platonic relationships and also you suck and should go to jail. the end 💖

[landologged]

GG, Norris

Pairing: lando × gf!reader

Genre: graphic smut, oral sex (m → f) under a desk ;), semi‑public/twitch risk, brat‑taming, dom!lando & mouthy reader, humiliation kink, breeding talk, dirty talk, possessive behaviour, consensual power play, established relationship

Description: Lando’s been a gremlin all day—yanking your hoodie strings, tossing socks, and chirping over you every chance he gets. When he goes live, you crawl beneath the rig and silence him with your mouth while thousands watch none the wiser. He tries to keep composure; you dismantle it. Stream ends, revenge flips to punishment, and somewhere between the threats and the afterglow he whispers the kind of promise that could ruin you in the best way.

notes: im not sorry, word count is 5k

Lando’s been insufferable all day—mouthing off with that cocky little smirk like he doesn’t deserve to be dropkicked down a flight of stairs. He kept poking at you—tugging your hoodie drawstring when you were mid-sip of coffee, talking over you just to mimic your voice, tossing socks at you from across the room like some feral child. And now, the little shit’s live on Twitch, backlit in RGB glow like some overgrown gamer gremlin, laughing with Max like they’re both not moments away from divine punishment.

You slink past his racing rig and stupid ergonomic chair, a silent predator in sweats and a tank top that’s just a bit too tight. The headset muffles the rest of the world for him—he doesn’t notice the shift in weight behind his desk, doesn’t register the flicker of your eyes or the deliberate arch of your brow as you crawl under the desk like you own the fucking thing. 

Max is saying something idiotic through the tinny headset—Lando’s wheezing, practically giggling, “Nahhh mate, I’d still smoke you even if you had DRS in bed.”

Instead of answering, you let your hand drift down, slow and mean, gliding from your own knee across the dark stretch of space beneath the desk until your fingertips graze his leg. He doesn't flinch—yet—too caught up in his smug little monologue to clock the shift. But then your palm flattens against the inside of his thigh, deliberate, claiming. Warmth bleeds through the cotton like ink in water, slow and spreading, and you dig in just enough to let him know you’re not here to be cute.  The laughter catches in his throat mid-sentence. His voice jumps a full octave, cracking like a teenager's as he fumbles, tries to swallow the noise back before Max notices– which he fails.

Max pauses. “What was that?”

Lando’s legs stiffen beneath your hand. You feel the tension coil all the way up to his hip, a ripple of sheer panic trying to mask the unmistakable pulse already starting to throb under your fingers. His joggers do little to hide the way he’s swelling, thickening, betraying every ounce of self-control he thought he had.

“Uh—a hiccup.” Lando's laugh is sudden and high-pitched, edged with panic. His hand instinctively drops to his lap but stops short, unsure what to do with it. “I think I’m choking—on water. Gimme a sec.”

You hum, low and deliberate, a sound more vibration than voice, letting it roll up from your chest and sink straight into the fabric between his legs. Your mouth opens against the outline of him, plush lips parting just enough to press—not a kiss, not quite. Just heat. You drag your mouth along the length of him through his joggers, every inch a slow, possessive claim, like you’re mapping him out for future destruction. Tongue sliding flat, letting the fabric soak it up, just damp enough to cling to the shape of him.

His cock twitches, eager and betrayed, shifting under the thin material like it’s trying to reach you, to meet you halfway. You don’t speed up. Oh no, you slow down, mouthing him like he’s a lollipop you’re too mean to unwrap. Teeth graze, barely, just enough for nerves to spark awake and skin to goosebump beneath the cotton. The heat of your breath sinks in like a bruise, and when you do it again—open-mouthed, tongue curling under the head through the joggers like you’re licking sugar off the skin of an apple—he breaks. His breath punches out in a strangled hitch, hips jolting forward like the instinct’s not even his own. His legs tense around you, thighs stiffening against your shoulders, not to push you away, never that—but to brace, to survive whatever the fuck this is turning into.

You can feel the way he’s trying to keep still, failing spectacularly. The way his knees tremble just slightly, muscles locking like a man standing on the edge of something deep and slick and inevitable. And you haven’t even gotten his pants down yet.

“...You good?” Max again.

��Y-Yeah. Yeah, just—hydrate or die-drate, innit?” His accent falters on the last syllable as you tug his waistband down, just enough. Just enough for your nails to dig in a little, for your lips to ghost over skin that’s already twitching with anticipation.

You look up, watching his face from the shadows beneath the desk, the glow from the monitor painting him in sinful outlines—blue along his jaw, red flickering in his eyes like he’s caught fire from the inside. His lips are parted, plush and trembling, his tongue darting out to wet them like that’ll help him speak normally through the chaos boiling in his bloodstream. His eyes are glassy, lashes fluttering fast, and his jaw is clenched so tight you can see the tension twitch at the hinge, like he's physically holding himself together with spit and prayer.

He’s trying to look normal—like this is still just a stream, just banter, like he isn’t seconds from sliding out of his own skin. But he’s fucking awful at it. That smug little posture is gone, replaced with a boy unraveling in real time, held together by a desk and a prayer and your mouth hovering dangerously close to the one thing he absolutely cannot control.

He mutes himself with a frantic click of the hotkey.

“Are you fucking serious right now?” he hisses, voice low, shredded, already fraying at the edges. His breath fans hot over his mic. 

You smirk against him. “Keep playing, Norris.”

Then you sink your mouth around him, slow and possessive, and he keens—silent, jaw clenched hard as his head drops back against the chair.

Yeah. He’s not making it out of this stream alive.

You hollow your cheeks, tongue dragging slow and deliberate—like you’ve got all the time in the world and none of it belongs to him. Lando’s hips twitch, one foot knocking into the desk leg with a soft thud that rattles his fancy mic arm. Panic flashes across his face, barely contained, the kind that screams this is the best and worst idea we’ve ever had and I’m gonna cum in thirty seconds and Max is gonna hear it live.

“You alright, bro?” Max’s voice filters through the headset again, casual, cruelly unaware.

“Yup. Peachy.” Lando’s voice is an octave too high. “Just, stretching.”

“Sounded like your desk kicked back, mate.”

You almost laugh, the sound curling at the back of your throat, smothered by the weight of him on your tongue. He’s heavy, twitching, a pulse stuttering beneath the sensitive skin you're dragging your mouth along with surgical precision. But there's no room for giggles—not when he’s splintering in your hands like this, breaking down second by second.

His grip on the armrests is brutal, white-knuckled like the chair might fly off into orbit if he doesn’t anchor himself. Fingers twitching, veins standing out on the backs of his hands like cords about to snap. He looks like he’s bracing for a fucking crash landing, every muscle drawn tight, thighs trembling against your shoulders, breath locked high in his chest like he's afraid if he exhales, he’ll cum right there.

And his neck—oh, his fucking neck. It's flushed, blooming red like spilled wine, the color crawling up from beneath the loose collar of his hoodie and painting its way up the column of his throat to his jawline, delicate and obscene. Like someone hit him with shame and turned the heat to maximum. It’s arousal in high-def, the kind that leaves no mystery—just raw, visual confession. Every time your mouth moves, the flush deepens, his head tips back a little more, and you can see the exact moment he forgets what his own name is.

He unmutes for a second—rookie mistake. “So yeah, like, turn three’s actually—” inhale, hiss, muted again.

Your teeth graze just enough to make his whole body jolt. You can feel the curse bubbling in his throat but he swallows it back with the desperation of a man on the brink. He’s trying to look normal, trying to hold a conversation while his girlfriend is under the desk sucking the literal soul out of him. You feel the curse rise up in his throat, bubbling hot and mean behind clenched teeth. But he swallows it—forces it down with the kind of restraint that hurts to watch. He’s holding onto that last shred of composure like it’s a lifeline, trying to sit still, trying to keep talking, keep nodding, keep pretending this is just another stream.

You see it all—feel it all. The twitch of his stomach, the locked tension in his knees, the way his chest is rising faster than before like he’s run a lap with his mic still on. He’s dying. Glorious, twitching, overstimmed death-by-girlfriend, right there on Twitch dot TV.

Max is talking about tire strategies now. You could not care less.

Lando’s trembling like a leaf in a wind tunnel, one hand inching under the desk like maybe, maybe he can tap out, call a time-out, beg for mercy. But you swat his hand away, sink deeper onto him, and he fucking chokes.

You let up, just a little, lips slick, your voice hushed and syrupy sweet. “Something wrong, babe?”

“Y—You’re gonna be the death of me.”

You grin up at him. “Good. Maybe Max’ll do your eulogy.”

And then you go back down, faster this time, twisting your wrist just enough to make him arch off the chair like he’s been tasered. His breathing’s fucked—shallow, staccato, gasping like he’s drowning in it. Every exhale sounds like it costs him something, punched out in ragged little hiccups, broken up by the frantic clench of his abs as he tries—fails—to keep still. His thighs are shaking now, twitching against your shoulders, his hips stuttering forward helplessly every time your throat flexes around him.

You feel him throb against your tongue, thick and twitching, precum slicking the back of your throat as he tips further into sensory collapse. He’s close. Too close. He knows it. You know it. His body’s already betraying him, every nerve lighting up like someone tripped the emergency alarm.

He mutes again—fingers slapping the hotkey with blind desperation—and croaks out a whisper through clenched teeth, like he’s physically fighting his own orgasm just to speak. “You’re actually evil. You’re—fuck—this is—oh my god.”

Your nails dig into the skin above his knees. You want him to feel every inch of it. Humiliated. Helpless. Falling apart on stream with that good-boy face, talking strategy with Max while your mouth is swallowing his soul inch by inch. He wanted to be smug. Wanted to sass. So, he got what he deserved, streaming in front of thousands with that innocent little “I’m just gaming, guys” voice while his cock’s buried in your throat and his world’s turning to static.

Max keeps talking.

Lando continues spiraling. You, however, keep going, until his legs are trembling like Bambi’s on ice, until he clamps a fist over his own mouth and stifles a moan that might have gotten him permanently banned off Twitch.

“Fuck—fuck, I’m gonna—”

You don't stop. Of course you don't. His thighs are tensing around you like a vice, breath coming in ragged, clipped gasps, and all you do is suck harder—deeper. You flatten your tongue, hollow your cheeks, twist your wrist at the base just enough to grind against that sweet spot, right where your lips meet your hand, and that's it. 

His whole body seizes. One sharp inhale—then silence. His jaw drops open, eyes wide and glassy, pupils blown to hell, and the only sound he manages is this strangled, high-pitched gasp like his entire soul is getting yanked out through his dick.

He comes hard. Violently. No buildup left, no warning, no cool-off—just one catastrophic surge that hits so fast it nearly knocks his headset clean off. The mic light’s still blinking red, but it's not picking up anything coherent—just the wet, broken gasps of a man short-circuiting live on stream. His hips buck once, twice, a desperate, instinctive jerk that punches him further down your throat. His hand scrabbles at the edge of the desk like he's trying to grip onto reality. He doesn’t make a sound—and that silence is deafening.

You feel it—every pulse, every twitch, the thick, hot spurt flooding your mouth like his body’s trying to drain itself in one brutal release. You swallow around it, greedy and unrelenting, and he whimpers. Honest to god, a full-body shiver rips through him, like you just unplugged something vital and he’ll never reboot the same again.

When it's over, he slumps. Muted. Boneless. Useless.

“…You okay, Lando?” Max asks.

Lando clears his throat. “Just finished.”

There’s a pause.

“…The race?” Max says, confused.

Lando closes his eyes. “Yeah. That.”

You lick your lips and crawl back out from under the desk, smug as hell, like you didn’t just commit several crimes beneath the camera frame. You lean in, peck his cheek, and whisper, “Next time, don’t throw your sock at me.”

He exhales like he’s seen god. Or you. Same thing, really.

He shuts down the stream like he’s defusing a bomb—mouse click too loud, movements too stiff, the awkward silence after Max’s “alright, catch you later, bruv” hanging in the room like smoke. The second OBS fades out and the little red dot of "Live" disappears from the corner of his screen, Lando leans back in the chair with the slowness of someone trying very, very hard not to look like he just got soul-snatched under his own desk on the main stage of the internet.

His head rolls toward you.

That look of ungodly levels of boyish spite. The kind that comes from being publicly humbled in the most private way possible.

“You think you’re funny, huh?” he says, voice rough, lazy, dragging over gravel and sin. His eyes track you like you’re prey. “Think you’re clever, crawling under my desk like that, nearly got me banned.”

You smile. Innocent. Shrug like, what, me?

And that’s apparently the wrong answer. Lando stands up so fast his chair screeches against the floor, and you don’t even have time to register the chaos before his fingers are digging into your hips and he’s spinning you around, walking you back, back, back until the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed and—

You drop like a rock.

He follows, covering you in one smooth motion like a storm front rolling in, all hot breath and twitchy hands and revenge written across his grin.

“You wanna be a brat?” he murmurs, eyes half-lidded, already undoing the hoodie you stole from his closet like he’s got a personal vendetta against it. “Then you’re going to get treated like one.”

“You’re so dramatic,” you tease, breath hitching as he peels the hoodie off and tosses it somewhere across the room like it insulted his whole bloodline.

“I’m a victim, actually.” He pins your wrists down, pushes his knee between your thighs and forces them apart, slow and deliberate. “Live on camera. Absolutely violated. Twitch chat saw me ascend.”

“They only saw your face.”

“And you saw god. So now it’s your turn.”

You try to sass something back—I already did the work or you’re welcome or something equally stupid—but he cuts you off with a kiss that’s all teeth and tongue, no finesse, just need—raw and immediate. He bites your bottom lip hard enough to make you gasp, then chases that sound into your mouth like he’s trying to steal it. It’s messy, greedy, spit-slicked and heady, full of consequences you feel before you even fully register them. His tongue slides against yours, fast, dirty, dominant, like he’s fucking your mouth just to shut you up.

Your thoughts scatter like coins dropped down a storm drain. You barely register the way his hands move until they’re already on you—fingers sliding down your arms in a slow drag that makes your skin light up, trailing heat to your wrists, your sides, your hips. Then he grips. Not gentle. Claiming. Thumbs digging in just above the curve of your ass, yanking you into place with an ease that makes your breath stutter.

He adjusts your body like you’re just a piece of the equation he’s solving. Angles your legs wider. Tilts your pelvis. Lines your hips with his like a weapon locking into its holster. Every motion says mine. Every shift says you’re not getting away.

“No escaping this one,” he mutters against your mouth, already rutting into you like the world’s ending and it’s somehow your fault. “Gonna make you fucking feel it.”

And then he’s rutting into you, grinding hard, slow, mean, the thick line of his cock dragging against you through too much fabric, not nearly enough friction. His hips roll like he’s trying to fuck the regret out of you before he’s even inside, like it’s your fault the world’s on fire and he’s the only one allowed to burn you down.

His hand slides down between you like he’s tuning a high-stakes radio, all intent and zero patience, fingers greedy as sin and twice as confident. He doesn’t hesitate, just slides them under the waistband like he owns the access, the privilege—and fuck, he finds it instantly. Wet. Soaked. You feel the shift in him the moment he registers it—his whole expression flickering into something darker, meaner, more satisfied.

“Ohhh,” he purrs, dragging the word out like he’s tasting it, that fucking grin spreading across his face like oil in water. A menace. A brat. A smug little demon who just found gold under your panties. “Look who’s not so innocent now, huh?”

You scowl up at him, even though it takes everything in you not to arch into the touch. Your breath catches the moment his fingers glide between your folds, slow and maddening, like he’s just checking inventory. Like he’s confirming, with smug fingers and a smirk, that you’re soaked through and so goddamn ready it’s embarrassing.

“I was innocent,” you snap, biting the inside of your cheek to hold composure, “until you started acting like a fucking gremlin all day.”

He doesn't even blink—just grins wider, proud and wicked. “I am a gremlin,” he says, dipping just the tip of one finger in, a slow, cruel tease that makes your thighs twitch. His eyes are locked on yours, watching every flicker of reaction with sick delight, like this is his favorite game and he’s already ten moves ahead. “But you—you crawled under the desk, babe. You woke the demon up. You knew what you were doing.”

“I was avenging myself. It was emotional warfare.”

He laughs—really laughs, head tossed back for a second before he looks down again, still grinning but now it's dark, calculated. “Yeah? We’ll see about that, darling.”

And then he pushes in—two fingers, deep and sudden, no warning, no teasing, just a hard, unapologetic thrust that knocks the air right out of your lungs. The stretch is immediate, obscene, that thick press opening you up so fast your body has no time to think, only react. You gasp, sharp and strangled, hips jerking up into his hand like you’ve been electrocuted. Your nails sink into his arm on instinct, clutching like he’s the only solid thing keeping you from short-circuiting completely. Muscles flutter around his fingers, slick and clenching, already threatening to pull him deeper, to take more, even as your brain tries to catch the fuck up.

“Oh—fuck—Lando—”

“That's the one.” He curls his fingers just so, smirking down at you like a man who just found nuclear launch codes in his back pocket. “You sound so much cuter when you’re not trying to be a little shit.”

You shoot him a glare, trying to form something savage and witty to bite back with, but all that comes out is a broken whimper as he starts pumping his fingers in and out, fast, obscene, squelching sounds already filling the room like he’s making a fucking smoothie with you. You slap a hand over your mouth, scandalized.

“Oh no you don’t,” he growls, grabbing your wrist and pinning it beside your head. “You made me suffer silently on stream. Now you’re gonna sing for me.”

“Y-You’re insane,” you pant, legs spreading wider without meaning to, traitorous body arching off the bed into his hand like a slutty heat-seeking missile.

“Yeah,” he agrees easily, thumb flicking your clit now in tight, fast circles, the way he knows makes you go from sassy to needing an exorcism in under thirty seconds. “You made me come so hard I hit a Windows error sound. You don’t get to talk shit.”

You try. You really try to keep up the banter, to sass something, anything—but he thrusts his fingers in deeper, and your voice cracks into a moan that embarrasses you on a spiritual level. Like the neighbors are gonna know kind of level.

“Thaaaat’s better,” he murmurs, face hovering just over yours, warm breath brushing your cheek. “That’s my good girl. What happened to all that backtalk, huh?”

You hiss through your teeth, grinding against his hand now like a bitch in heat, shameless. “Y-You’re cheating—using your—skills—”

He chuckles, so cocky it hurts. “Uh-huh.”

He pulls his fingers out just as your legs start shaking, cruel bastard that he is, and you let out a noise that could get you arrested in three countries. He sucks those fingers into his mouth, exaggerated, obscene, humming like you’re fine wine and he’s a connoisseur.

Then he’s sliding his boxers down, slow and casual like he’s got all the time in the world—like his cock isn’t flushed dark and aching, already rock fucking hard, already glistening at the tip with precome that beads thick and lazy along the curve of him. It bobs up against his stomach as the fabric clears it, twitching with every heartbeat, a full display of just how wrecked he still is and just how far from finished.

You can’t stop staring. Can’t help it. The way he’s thick and veiny, that curve you know too well, the flushed red of his tip already wet enough to make your mouth water—it’s mean, the way your body reacts without permission, clenching tight like it’s starving for him. Your thighs shift, instinctual and desperate, a slow rub for friction he hasn't even allowed yet.

“What?” he says, tone light, mock-innocent, voice still gravel from groaning your name minutes ago. His hand wraps around the base of his cock and gives it a lazy stroke, slow enough to show off, smearing his own slick over the shaft while his eyes dare you to break. “You gonna apologize yet?”

He punctuates it with a little flick of his wrist—just enough to make a drop of precome slide down the underside, thick and slow.

“Never,” you spit. “Die mad about it.”

Your voice is sharp, but your cunt is soaked, needy, betraying every ounce of sass with a slick heat that clings to him as he shifts closer. He just laughs—low, smug, dangerous—like he’s already decided you’ll be swallowing those words in moans.

Then he lines himself up. His hand wraps around the base of his cock, guiding it down between your thighs with excruciating slowness. The head drags along your folds, thick and pulsing, smearing you open with the kind of pressure that makes your back arch off the bed on reflex. It’s not even in yet—not really—but your whole body shudders, already anticipating the stretch, the slide, the ruin.

“Oh,” he grins, cockhead nudging your soaked entrance, hips rolling forward just enough to catch—not push, not yet, just press. That dangerous little tease of what's coming. “I plan to.”

And he grinds it there, circling slow, obscene, just enough to coat himself in you. Just enough to make your breath stutter and your legs fall open wider, helplessly, hungrily, like your body’s given up on pride entirely. Your clit’s aching from the friction, nerves lighting up with every teasing pass of his swollen tip.

He watches you squirm beneath him, his grin sharpening like a blade. “Hope you’re ready to scream that apology when I’m buried in your guts.”

And then—he pushes.

Slow.

So fucking slow. Not even a thrust—just pressure, the barest push of the head breaching you, thick and deliberate, like he’s forcing your body to recognize him all over again. Like he’s marking every nerve ending with the stretch. Your mouth drops open but nothing comes out—just breath. Just need.

He’s watching your face the whole time, drinking in every flicker of it—your brows twitching, lips parting, that helpless little tremble that crawls up your spine when your body realizes what’s happening. That he’s really doing this. Slow-fucking you like a punishment. Not to be kind. To hurt you in the best fucking way.

The head of his cock pops past the tight ring of resistance, and your whole body jolts like a live wire’s been jammed up your spine. He hisses through his teeth at the way you clench, how fucking wet you are, how you grip him like you don’t want him to leave.

“Ohhh, f-fuck—look at that,” he groans, barely able to speak through the pressure. “She’s pulling me in already. What a fucking slut.”

Then he sinks in another inch—slow, torturous, dragging the thick weight of him against walls already fluttering in anticipation. You gasp, toes curling, nails digging into the sheets like you can anchor yourself to something, anything, before he breaks you. Every ridge, every vein along his shaft feels like it’s scraping against your sanity in slow-motion.

“God, you're tight,” he growls, voice frayed at the edges, forehead resting against yours now, sweat already gathering at his hairline. “You feel that? Every inch, baby. You asked for this.”

And still—he doesn’t thrust.

He feeds it to you, inch by aching inch, until you're stretched wide, stuffed full, practically shaking beneath him. Your cunt spasms around him, greedy and desperate, and the noise you make—high, cracked, needy—goes straight to his fucking ego.

“Fuck, you’re gonna break,” he whispers, voice all grit and glory. “Should I make it worse?”

And then—he slams forward.

One brutal thrust, all the way in, balls flush against you, the sound of skin meeting skin loud and filthy as it echoes through the room. Your scream is instant. He grins like the devil who just cashed a bet.

“Good,” he growls, pulling back just enough before hammering in again, harder. “Let’s see how long you last.”

Your scream barely fades before he’s thrusting again, harder this time, fucking you with that brutal rhythm that says he’s not pacing himself—he’s taking you. His cock slams into you again and again, thick and slick and relentless, dragging a fresh cry out of your throat every time his hips smack against yours.

And he’s talking now—low, filthy, breathless filth right into your ear, every word rough and ragged and soaked in something feral.

“Fuck—you feel that?” he grits out, his hips stuttering just enough to grind that thick cockhead right up against your cervix. “You’re milking me. Gonna make me come in you like it’s fucking biological.”

You claw at his back, eyes rolling, mind fogged with nothing but sensation—his cock splitting you open, heavy balls smacking your ass, every thrust punching your thoughts out through your mouth in gasped curses and broken moans.

He grabs your jaw, forces your gaze back to him. Eyes locked.

“Nah—look at me,” he pants, sweat dripping from his temple, lips wet, voice shaking. “Gonna make you mine for real.”

Then his grip tightens, hand splayed wide over your lower belly like he’s feeling himself from the outside, like he wants to watch his cock bulge under your skin.

“Gonna breed you,” he snarls. “Fuck a baby into you. You hear me?”

You whimper, thighs locked around his hips, cunt spasming around him like your body’s already begging for it—please, fill me, mark me, ruin me.

“I’ll fucking marry you,” he groans, burying himself to the hilt, holding there, twitching deep inside you. “Swear to god. Put a ring on your finger and a kid in your belly.”

Then he pulls back and pounds in again—once, twice, three savage thrusts—wet, deep, loud—and you feel it, that telltale twitch, that low growl in his chest, the way his abs seize against your stomach.

He’s close.

“Gonna fucking fill you up,” he growls, voice raw, ragged, forehead pressed to yours. “You’ll feel it for days—my cum dripping down your thighs, stuck so deep inside you, it’s not going anywhere.”

And then—he breaks.

One final thrust, deep, forced so far into you your legs snap around him and your body locks down, clenching tight—

He roars your name, hips jerking, cock buried deep as he comes—thick, hot, endless. Spurting in waves, flooding your pussy with so much cum you feel it seeping out around him, warm and filthy and perfect.

“Fuckfuckfuck—take it, take all of it,” he groans, shivering against you, cock still twitching, still pumping as he rides it out, thrusting slow and shallow, like he’s grinding his claim into your womb.

His body trembles above yours, slick skin clinging, muscle taut then gone soft as he slumps forward, breath crashing into the crook of your neck. Not all the way gone, not yet—he gives one last lazy grind, a roll of his hips that makes you twitch and sigh against him, the pressure just enough to drag a whimper from your throat.

The comedown hits you both like a sucker punch made of glitter and gravity—one second he’s practically growling into your throat, the next he’s collapsed on top of you like a glorified space heater, sweaty, heavy, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “fuckin’ deserved that, didn’t I…”

You wheeze under his weight. “You’re crushing me, Norris.”

“I’m post-orgasmic and vulnerable. Be gentle.”

“You just tried to breed me like a feral raccoon.”

“Yeah but emotionally?” he slurs, nuzzling his cheek into your collarbone like he’s recharging. “I’m a soft boy inside.”

You groan and reach up to push his sweat-damp curls out of his face. “Yeah, yeah, you are.”

[a-frog-in-a-bog]

every once in a while someone feels the need to "um ACTUALLY" on this post and it's always the same argument: that it was only a few aces saying mean stuff, or that all that homophobic stuff was probably just exclu trolls trying to make aces look bad, unlike those mean alloqueers who were a united front against asexuals and wanted to cause them harm and bully them for being ace. i'm tired of inclusionist aceblr refusing to accept the veeery prominent roll y'all played during all this. how is showing examples of ace homophobia cherry-picking and giving them an "outsized importance", but showing examples of gay acephobia evidence of large scale harassment? I take issue with your claim that one harassment was wide spread and inescapable, with the other being scattered and easily avoidable. i think that comes down to individual curated dashes, bc i had the opposite experience, but that doesn't mean i'm going to disregard your experience as fabrication. scroll through the notes on this post and you'll see countless other people (including queer aces!) sharing the awful things said and done to them by inclusionists during ace discourse, but were afraid to speak up for fear of getting backlash. this wasn't just people passing around asexual cringe comps and bullying aces, there was significant targeted harassment on your side, too.

I keep seeing posts about how damaging ace discourse was to aces and while I’m glad we’re talking about tumblr’s bullying problem I think some of you have selective amnesia bc the war was DEFINITELY being fought from both sides. For every post calling asexuals cringe or lonely turbo virgins there was at least one reply or comment or post saying shit like “ok have fun dying of aids” or “I’m a bi ace which is exactly the same as being bisexual except I’m not a slut” or “ace culture is not having to worry about spreading STDs”.

Nearly every post made by a trans woman discussing transphobia was derailed by someone making it about asexuality instead (unfortunately this is still common on tumblr) and posts about gay sex or attraction were flooded with comments about those nasty dirty allos. Lesbians who expressed frustration about not being able to talk about their sexual attraction to women without aces “fixing” their posts to make them pure and wholesome were characterized as mean dykes and aphobic. And the shit that people posted after the pulse shooting was thinly veiled homophobia— do you know how many posts I saw that were along the lines of “well maybe if you gays were nicer to aces we’d donate blood” or “ace culture is hearing about the pulse shooting and wondering who would want to go dancing at a sweaty club when you could be home reading”.

And idk if people realize this but kink at pride discourse was born from ace discourse. The sheer amount of posts that were like “stop sucking face at pride I’m ace and it grosses me out get a room” or “pride is supposed to be a safe space for aces too nobody cares that you like to get tied up and fucked in the ass” or “as an aroace it makes me uncomfortable to see people wear nothing but leather harnesses stop making pride sexual”.

We absolutely should be calling out the people who posted graphic porn in the ace tag or harassed aces by calling them broken and unloveable bc that’s fucking horrendous and unacceptable but don’t act like every asexual on tumblr was an innocent smol bean posting garlic bread memes and minding their business bc the shit thrown at lgbt people in the name of ace discourse was awful and damaging to see, especially as a teen coming to terms with my sexuality

[bunny-jpeg]

retired!price liked that you had daddy issues. aw, did someone not have a functioning relationship with their father as a child and now has to find that relationship in older men? aw, poor doll. price was more than okay with being called 'daddy' as long as you called him 'captain' too, especially when you were on your knees. while you got off to having an older man praise you, he got off to a pretty little thing calling him captain. you even went as far as to worship his strong physic, how easily he could bend, flip, turn and press into you.

didn't help that your pussy became a fixation for him.

he was close to fifty, his hip had a habit of locking from time to time. he had been hearing about it for years that it was time to have a family. even simon had managed to make a family, price was still hung up on young tail that he could bully his fat cock into. while most younger women were flavours of the week with no string attached. price made sure to attach every metaphorical string onto you. he had a copy of your apartment key. he added a profile for you on his streaming services. he knew on wednesdays you enjoyed pasta, but hated cooking on the weekend. he knew everything about his precious baby girl. you folded into his praise and always were eager to please. and that was what price loved about you. so imagine his shock (anger) when you told him that you thought you'd have to end your arrangement because you met a guy at your university. and when he asked why, you simply said, "i have to grow up at some point.", and that hit price in the head like an ice pick. if you wanted to grow up so badly, baby girl. there were other ways to do it.

the broken condom held weight in price's pocket while you had few drinks during your last 'date' together, he waited till you got all soft because of the wine. till you were on his side of the booth with your leg over his lap and your face pressed against his bicep. you ran your hand across his chest and giggled, "you're taking this whole break up thing so well." and he petted your head, watching you fold into him further, "like you said, you need to grow up." but you both had different definitions of 'growing up'. for you it meant getting over you daddy issues, but to him it was making him a daddy, for real. you giggled further while he gave you another glass of wine. when you tried to say no, he simply pushed it closer to you, "don't want to waste the bottle." and so easily you were in price's grip.

price took you three times that night. first was in the backseat of his expensive car. he pressed you into a corner, claimed that he needed more space for his larger body. your hazy vision was transfixed on the glimmer of his gold chain against his hairy chest in the low light. your poor body bent in such ways while he pace was relentless. he admired your unsteady gaze and your heavy breathing. he continued to move against you with such a pace that the whole car rocked. but don't worry, the parking lot was dead at that hour. you could scream your head off and no one would hear either of you. he did however put a tear in your panties. right in the crotch area. he sighed and said that he'd need to buy you something a little. while he loved the cheap pairs you owned, he thought his woman deserved something a little nicer. the future mrs. price needed to look next to perfection.

then he fingered you heavily in his bed and watched you squirm. he had to make sure every drop got deep enough before he bullied your sweet pussy once more. he loved the sight of you, still so fucked out from prior. you were in a daze in the car ride home. your breathing was heavy when he pushed the skirt of your dress up a little and teased your cunt while he drove. only to go further once you were naked on his bed. he watched your ass jiggle with each of his power thrusts while he took you from behind. he felt like a mad man while he fucked you. he was determined. he only got to where he was in his career because of grit and determination. he wouldn't back down to a challenge, especially when the stakes were so high. your pussy need to be bred, you needed to be with price. he never wanted to hear anything about another man ever again. price would hate to take drastic measures if another man tried to get in his way. if you needed a collar or a tattoo, the taste of his cum constantly your lips or leaked into your panties, price would do it all to ensure that you were his. the most effective way to ensure that was what kept him going through two rounds of sex without any pains. to get you pregnant. you had already forgotten about the broken condom, it still was in price's pocket! no use using it now, even bother giving the illusion that he wasn't breeding you.

the third time was when you tried to leave the next morning, he had you upside down on the bed. your bottom half on the mattress while all the blood rushed to your head as you tried not to fall on your head. price put bruises on top of bruises. your poor cunt was creamy with promises of the future. a future with him. the blood rush made you cum twice on his cock, adding fresh slick to his coated cock. you thought that older men were supposed to slow down with age. but it felt like price was even quicker than before. his pace brutal, almost like punishment for trying to leave him. but price didn't get to be captain because he followed one plan. he was going to ease you into married life, slowly make you the perfect woman for him. he was traditional that way. church wedding, the white dress, the vows. that would all happen, but might take a little longer. he wasn't too sure that a baby bump would fit nicely in a wedding dress. the thought of you pregnant, trapped to him made him eagerly finish in you two times. and when he got you back up onto the bed, you were fucked out. when you managed to collect your clothes and stagger out of his flat by mid-afternoon, you thought you made it in time to the pharmacy to get emergency plan b.

you prayed, and you never prayed. you promised three versions of 'god' that you'd convert to their religion if the pill worked. but three deities failed you and a month later price was in your apartment with his hands on the plastic pregnancy test. he scratched his beard and looked at you. he tried so hard to put on his best acting face. "that's a real shame, baby girl." he said in that rough voice of his that got you in trouble in the first place. he leaned back a little in your kitchen chair and placed the test back down on the table, "always wanted to be a father." he frowned a little bit, "never got the chance too. they said when i retired that the chances were low of me havin' a baby..." he looked at you. you should've known he was lying. his swimmers obviously weren't shot by how easily you got pregnant. you felt bad, almost like you were burdening him with getting pregnant. that it was your fault. you rung your hands and admitted softly, "we can try... we can make a family." and price smiled, "oh, doll." then got up to embrace you. you sniffled and cried a little in his strong chest. he held you in his strong arms. he was your protector even though his cock was straining in his jeans at the knowledge that he fundamentally changed you.

your body, your life, everything. when he released you from the hug, he got down on his knees. made a point to make a small 'huff' noise from being down on his 'bad' knee before he pushed up your t-shirt and pressed a kiss against your stomach. he said to you, "don't worry, love. daddy'll take care of ya." then gave that smile that wrapped around you like a vice. <3

[connorsui]

The scent of you lingers—soft, sweet, utterly misplaced amidst the steel and stone that make up his world. Jasmine and rosewater, clinging to the heavy hush of the corridor, weaving itself into the fabric of his being, staining him with something he will never wash away.

He should not breathe it in, should not let it settle in his lungs like something vital, like something he could not live without. And yet, here he stands, motionless, a knight undone by the mere presence of his queen.

You are close. Too ... close.

The space between you is a fragile thing, thin as the lace that drapes over your arms, as delicate as the breath that catches in your throat when his gloved hand twitches at his side, as if longing—aching—to reach for you. The flickering torchlight casts golden embers against your skin, makes a halo of your hair, tricks his mind into thinking you are something divine, something holy. And perhaps you are.

Lace whispers against cold metal as you lift a hand, fingers tracing the ridges of his armor with a familiarity that should not exist. A tenderness that should not be his to claim.

"You stand before me, silent as ever," you murmur, tilting your head, your gaze searching his with something unspoken. "Tell me, my love, has your tongue forsaken you?"

A slow exhale. You are toying with him, as you always do—sharp and knowing, your power lying not in the crown you bear but in the way you speak his name as though it is something sacred. He should not indulge this, should not stand here beneath your touch, should not let his resolve fracture like glass beneath your fingertips. And yet, he does.

"You tempt fate," he says finally, voice low, reverent.

A confession. A warning.

"And yet, it is all I have left."

His breath catches. The weight of your words settles heavy in the space between you, a truth neither of you wish to name. The world will take everything from you—has already begun to. The court has spoken. The match has been made. Soon, you will belong to another, to some noble born into a name that carries weight, to a man who will sit beside you on the throne that he himself has bled for.

Yet you reach for him.

Your fingers brush the worn leather at his shoulder, linger where armor meets flesh, as if you could undo him with a touch alone. And God help him, you can.

"Tell me you do not love me," you whisper, voice steady but for the way your fingers tremble against him. "Tell me your heart belongs only to your duty, and I will go. I will leave you to your honor, to your kingdom, to whatever lies ahead without me."

His jaw tightens. He sways, barely perceptible, as if your words have struck him like a blade to the chest. It would be the right thing to do, would it not?

To let you go? To be the man honor demands he be?

But honor has never known the way your voice softens when you say his name. Honor has never felt the warmth of your hand in his, delicate and desperate and pleading. Honor has never stood in the shadows, torn between love and duty, between a kingdom and the only thing that has ever truly belonged to him.

"No," he breathes, bowing his head, his voice raw with everything he has refused to say. "No, my beloved. My heart is yours, now and always."

A queen must wed. A knight must serve.

And yet, in this stolen moment, he falls to his knees before you—not as a knight, not as a man sworn to duty—but as the only fool who has ever loved you as you deserve.

[fawnindawn]

Taking Up Space

Jason Todd claims he doesn't take up space, because no one seems to ever consider him worthy of theirs.

Yet, you find him everywhere. When your friends cancel on you, he's there with pizza in hand and a movie you've been meaning to watch. When you feel down, he's right at your doorstep, patting the backseat of his bike for a night drive. When you pass out on the bed after an exhausting day, you wake up tucked in your blanket, your hair brushed out of your face and warm arms wrapped around you.

Quietly, he fills himself into the gaps in your life, and you don't know how he ever thought he wasn't capable of that. You don't think he knows how much you appreciate him, always knowing, always there.

"I love you, Jay, you know that?" You whisper to him one night, cuddled into his chest, his arms holding you as a safety net to the world.

His chest rises and falls as he looks down at you, lips pulling into a smirk to mock you for your sudden sweetness, but your finger goes to press his lips shut.

"I appreciate you. For being here, always trying your best because I know you do. I really am in love with you, Jay. You take my whole heart, and I wouldn't want it any other way."

His eyes watch you, and you see the rise of conflicting emotions, always there whenever you tell him you love him. Not because he doesn't want to hear it, but because he doesn't know if he deserves it. Still, when he feels your warmth in his arms and your adoring gaze, he thinks he can try to accept it. That he's worthy of this, of existing with you.

"You make it easy." He whispers to you. "Loving you, knowing you. It's as easy as breathing."

He really means it. You may have noticed all the ways he takes up space in your life, but you've never realised just how much you've changed his. He wouldn't have it any other way.

[archerdork]

it's been a decade but i'm still not over the insanity that is the movie Jupiter Ascending

spoilers ahead, but this movie was slammed when it was released. sitting pretty at a 27%/38% on rotten tomatoes, it was critiqued on essentially every single aspect by a large majority of viewers. almost everyone hated it. almost.

i can't speak for what the the wachowskis actually intended, but this movie is a homage to every 12 year old dreamer writing acidentally self insert stories with unrestrained enthusiasm.

the main character played by Mila Kunis is named Jupiter. no literally. Jupiter Jones.

movie opens with Jupiter living an uneventful, monotonous life. there's a montage of her waking up early, going to work as a house cleaner, waking up early, going to work as a house cleaner, repeat.

within 20 minutes of runtime she is about to be murdered by aliens but is saved bridal carry style by channing tatum rolling in on hover skates. yes exactly what you're picturing. he also has a laser gun that barks when he shoots it. no im not kidding.

channing tatum is a wolf man hybrid. his name is Caine Wise. yes, "dog man", exactly, his name is literally Dog Man. he has pointy ears. "bred for the military but that didn't work out for me". after he saves Jupiter, she is unconscious and wakes up with a gun next to her bc Caine "thought it would make her feel better". he is Guarded and Rough yet Kind and Gentle.

it is later in the movie revealed he used to have wings, pretty feather angel-wings looking wings, but they were ripped off because he broke the rules. he has scars on his back. it's all very man pain. the movie makes a poorly masked point of talking about how he's a wolf man without a pack while the camera is pointed at Jupiter.

Jupiter spends most of the movie alternating between fainting, being kidnapped and holding her own against people wanting to kill her. you know, she's Powerful and Cool and Kickass but also has hunky yet sensitive men saving her. at one point a man who planned to murder Jupiter insults her and Caine, pointing a gun at the guy, asks Jupiter "may i kill him" through his teeth but she says no so he doesn't. (she has a guard dog she literally has a guard dog im-).

she has several wardrob changes and she's either dressed in flannels, snassy space movie outfits or the most beautiful dresses you could imagine.

another character is Stinger Apini played by Sean Bean. he's a human honey bee hybrid. im still not joking. he gets little gold hexagon in his eyes sometimes. he uses "beeswax" as a swear.

while Caine and Stinger have a little "you betrayed me last time we saw each other" fight, a bunch of Stinger's bees start swarming Jupiter, following her movements like some kind of avatar water bending powers. this means she's royalty. because "bee's are genetically designed to recognize royalty" (sean bean says this with a completely straight face for which he deserves an award). Jupiter is space royalty. queen, to be exact. she's queen of a bunch of planets, including earth.

Jupiter Jones, normal human girl from a boring, monotonous life, is Queen of Earth.

she's one of the most important people in the universe and has a hot wolf man saving her at every turn. this movie was written for every little sensitive, creative child inside the heart of a adult clinging to their imagination and dreams.

the movie has about eight bad guys but oscar-winner and acclaimed actor eddie redmayne plays the top bad guy. eddie did this movie coming off the backs of Les Misérables and The Theory of Everything. i can only assume the casting director knew about a murder he’s committed and blackmailed him into doing this movie.

eddie's character name is Balem Abrasax (a fine, 'character name generator'-name) and he either whispers or blows out the speakers.

one hour into the movie it takes a break and does a 'space bureaucracy is like the DMV'-bit as Jupiter, with the help of a robot named Intergalactic Advocate Bob, tries to claim her title as queen. there's a montage where they are sent around to get documents so they can get other documents so they can get other documents only they can't get those documents before submitting the first document and-

jupiter gets a cool glowing tattoo on her wrist and then the movie jumps back into space opera and she's kidnapped and saved a few more times.

jupiter tries so hard to seduce Caine but he resist bc He's Broken and Dangerous and Does Not Deserve Her. the third act kicks off with Jupiter (the person) inside Jupiter (the planet) with Balem who will most certinly hurt her, so Stinger give Caine a pep talk about how much he loves Jupiter and he has to go save her.

mind, they've known each other for about two days and Jupiter has been kidnapped three times so they've only spent about half of that time together. but it's TRUE LOVE goddamnit. Caine looks like he's about to cry when Stinger tells him to go after the girl. then he sets his jaw very masculinely and proceed to fly a little spacecraft though the storm clouds dodging lightning

they kiss during the last fight, defeat the last bad guy and then movie cut to later. now Jupiter is waking up early and happily go about cleaning houses, only she pauses to look at the glowing tattoo on her wrist proving she owns Earth and after work she goes on a date with her wolf man boyfriend who got his wings back so now she uses the hover boots and they go flying together. the end.

movie has so many stupid little quips and bits and funny quotes. the amount of fanfic tropes used would kill you if you did a take a shot-game. it's so silly. so so silly. it's stupid and the pacing is atrocious and the dialouge is so campy it hurts sometimes and the action scenes are a mess of visual effects than nearly give you motion sickness and they are about ten minutes each which is nine minutes to long and i love this movie with all my heart.

it's the most comfort movie to ever comfort. it's little younger me sitting up at night dreaming up insane stories. it's younger me pretending to hoverboard alongside the car on long drives. it's wanting to feel special and loved and go on cool adventures. it's endless imagination wrapped up in a stupid little story with stupid little characters with stupid little names written with pure love for the child inside every creative person.

i will die defending this movie. go watch it

[hon3y-y]

Roomie!sukuna doesn't even get horny for anyone other than you anymore. You have the wettest, nastiest pussy he's ever seen- and he deserves the best so nobody but you will do. You're fucking so many other fine men now that you dont even give him a second glance when he walks out the shower in just a towel to tease you. And oh, his temper when one of your hookups pick you up and you don't come home for the weekend. Or even worse, they stay for the weekend. Sukuna has never let a girl sleep over at the apartment but now there are two colognes in the bathroom, two pairs or men's shoes at the door, and he can almost never see you in the living room without some other man hanging off your side

read the other parts here! : part 1 part 2 part 4

he’s literally so embarrassingggg it’s not even funny. he’ll walk around and flex his muscles, smirk on his puffy lips as the water drips down his ripped torso. he stands outside your open door, you’re looking down at your phone deciding on whether to spend the night at choso’s or nanami’s (pick choso, nanami gets up at like 5 am 🙄), “showers empty..” sukuna basically purr’s, resting his arm on the doorway.

and you literally could not give less of a fuck💀

you just nod, mumbling a ‘thanks’ as you focus on putting both their names in a generator and letting that choose your fate for the night. let’s just say sukuna was extremely angry when a motorcycle pulls up and you just giggle and hop onto it, kissing the stupid leather clad boy while throwing on the custom bikers helmet choso had made for you. and to top it off, sukuna had to physically restrain himself from blowing up your phone on where the fuck you are??

messages;

ryo<3: didn’t see you this morning

you: i’m staying with choso for the weekend! sorry, should’ve told you last night:/

you: i also won’t be home after wednesday satoru is taking me to this festival! i’ll send pics😋

ryo<3: have fun 👍

omfg he’s losing it. he literally will spend the whole time in the gym, refusing to be in the empty apartment for longer than eight hours for sleep. he feels like there’s a cement brick in his chest when you’re whisked away by these men. but nothing is worse than when he stays over.

he being satoru.

it was becoming a huge issue. his longest “sleepover” was a week. a week where you weren’t even home for half of it. but sukuna was. he was there for all of it.

there was now a third toothbrush taking up countertop space in the bathroom, he would find satoru’s clothes in the wash (which would always somehow be in there whenever ryo specifically had to use it??), and gojo absolutely loved to make out with you everywhere but inside of your room and sukuna started to hated it. publicly claiming you in front of the guy who literally made it possible🙄 unbelievable.

let’s just say you take a break from bringing satoru over, doing your best to settle the tension at home. but sukuna couldn’t let it go, not when he stares at the stupid fucking blue electric toothbrush and knows that it’s only temporary.

at this point he didn’t even give a fuck about the other guys, you can keep them as long as he’s added onto your roster.

it’s been a while since the two of you had a movie night. something that used to, at the very least, happen once a month has been delayed due to your extra activities. the two of you relaxed into the couch, the movie was a random one you found choosing whatever looked the best by cover and for the first time in a while, sukuna felt like he had you.

“did you buy the candy?”

“shit, yeah. i think i left it in my room?”

“go get it while i make the popcorn!” you smiled up at him, your eyes sparkling excitedly. you looked so cute and soft, and ryo got a glimpse of your cute pink panties when you bent over to grab something so he was feeling just as good. he could already picture the little damp spot he’d create after teasing you and then force you to beg and make it up to him.

he thought about it the whole walk to his room, picking up the bag and then back to the living room, fantasizing about what he plans to do. and just as he’s about to turn the corner, a head of white fluffy hair is laying on your lap, legs spread to take up the full length of the couch. and the only seat available? the one farthest from you.

“i hope you don’t mind, satoru said he missed us!”

us… sukuna looked down at gojo, looking at the content quirk in his lip while he snuggled into you more, moving one of your hands into his hair to play with it. ryo’s eye twitched before he put the bag down and went back into his room, the door slamming behind him. the noise makes you force satoru up, a pit forming in your stomach. you didn’t want sukuna to feel uncomfortable in his own house—

“damn, what’s he so mad abo- he got macha kitkats!? mmm~”

*bonus*

sukuna is literally in his room about to dry heave because??? what alternative version of himself gave him such bad karma?!? in his room like this;

but quietly, because he DEFINITELY doesn’t want you to see him like this. such a fein🤦‍♀️

a/n: i didn’t put smut because i didn’t want to get repetitive BUT should we finally let sukuna get a taste?? part 4 where he finally gets her?? lmk🫶

*not edited*

[harmonysanreads]

PUPPY PHAINON IS SO REAL OMG

i think it be so funny (extremely sexy) if he goes absolutely feral because his love got hurt on the battlefield

i'm talking absolute carnage, not a soul alive, people being genuinely scared because wtf man (bonus if his partner only got a minor flesh wound hehe)

Your lover has been acting... strange recently.

Though, the abnormalities have been so conveniently spaced, so intertwined with inconveniences that they could be brushed off as mere coincidences — in hindsight, at least. You'd be found guilty of this practice, as it becomes second nature to assume the best of people that can bear one's trust. There appears the occasional incident, where you find yourself second guessing that faith instead and question the normalcy of this particular genre of human behavior.

“Will you tell me now, who did this to you, melite?”

You find that you need to use force in order to push down the flinch that almost crawled all over your skin, unaccustomed to this tone of his.

You push yourself closer, your nails dig a bit harder into the fabric covering his arm ; sensing his gaze towards your direction. Your grasp is more labored than it should've been, you can feel the tendons beneath your grip flexing in barely held restraint. Murmurs follow their way to your ear, unintelligible in fear of feeding further the hero's wrath.

“I have been telling you this since the beginning, Phai.” in spite of your effort, exasperation bleeds into your words.

You glance from behind Phainon's shadow — pointedly at that — towards the knuckle tight grip he has on the fellow's skull. ‘Unfortunate’ probably does not suffice to describe this random pedestrian's situation. You're not given more time to ponder the validity of that claim as something reminiscent of a crack drifts to your ear, alerting you to hasten.

“It wasn't this man, it wasn't any human to begin with! You have to believe me, please.” you tilt your head and make sure to secure his gaze, ripples of discontent appear on the once placid ocean.

You knew it wasn't exactly unusual for one's protective instincts to be provoked in relation to a loved one, but for it reach this magnitude was concerning in your book. Especially so considering their increasing appearances, over the most mundane matters at that.

The Chrysos Heirs aren't known as without their fair share of eccentricities, you suppose they are suited for ones destined to be heroes. But every new scene over a scratch against a surface, a person standing too close, a different gaze lingering too long has you questioning if Phainon's ‘protectiveness’ can really be excused for long.

Perhaps the helplessness in your eyes had finally pushed through the layers of rage bubbling in his head and the contact with your skin had weakened the flames, as he loosens his clasp on the man's head, before shoving him aside with enough force to make you feel the kick of your heart against your ribcage.

You don't get to check the man's condition as Phainon takes your hand in his previously occupied one, his thumb ghosts over the scratch across its back, the swift difference unnerves you for a second.

You know not to waste your breath though, catching the implications. “It... was that pillar.” you avert your eyes upon feeling his caress halt.

“...Which one?” his curt inquiry alerts you. His fingers flex and relax around yours, you can no longer hear the crowd.

You bypass a breath to grasp his collar, caution clouds your mind. The abruptness of your action startles Phainon, as he meets your frown.

“Don’t.” you warn, the realization that makes itself known on his countenance at your order proves your hypothesis to be correct.

“But that pillar deserves it, melite.” something similar to a pout softens his face and at last you find traces of the Phainon you are so familiar with. “If it's hurt you once, it will do it again. Isn't it better to just remove it to avoid that scenario?”

You let go of his collar and rest your palm on his cheek, unable to restrain the sigh that escapes your lips, “Phai, the pillar is an inanimate object.”

He leans into your touch, you're certain he would've melted from it had it not been for the embers of his previous fury keeping his senses sharp, “So?”

You steer yourself away from face-palming, “So, I'm saying that you shouldn't make more of a scene than you've already had. I just want a peaceful evening with you, okay?”

He blankly stares at you for a moment, digesting each syllable. Only when the ‘with you’ reaches his ears does he seem to have sobered up. Phainon nods, taking your hand from his face to press a kiss on the scratch marring the skin. You notice his eyes straying, you would've missed it completely had you not been paying attention — a side-eye towards the fellow now scrambling away.

You've succeeded in preventing any major incident from occuring today, but your power in maintaining the consistency of this endeavor remains uncertain.

I tweaked the scenario a bit because it was funnier in my head orz but overprotective Phainon is so delicious, ty nonnie!

[ninikrumbs]

fluff with boyfriend satoru. thats it.

boyfriendsatoru who's weary and exhausted from the weight of the world on his shoulders, fighting curses day in and day out.

boyfriendsatoru who's favorite part of the day is coming home to you, to the soft hum of your cozy apartment. Your warm smile and open arms a perfect remedy to melt away the exhaustion in his bones, along with the smell of a freshly made meal or takeout depending on how tired you were from your own missions.

"Welcome home, Toru!" The tender tone in your voice made his heart warm. Despite your tired eyes, you still stood up to greet him by the door. You wear wearing his shirt and nothing else with your hair up in a messy bun. And to him you looked so beautiful it almost hurt. How did he ever deserve you?

He closes the distance between you two, wrapping his arms around your smaller frame, hugging you tightly like someone was gonna take you away.

Tucking his head in the crook of your neck, he breathes you in and melts into your embrace. "Im home."

boyfriendsatoru who's house is now so full of life ever since you came in the picture, apartment now filled with cute trinkets, scented candles, plants and cozy throw pillows. A stark difference from his once cold and empty house that he only uses to sleep for a few hours before carrying the mantle as the storngest once more.

boyfriendsatoru who makes up for his absence due to long missions every chance he gets. He now demands for days off like other sorcerers and spends those days trailing behind you like a little puppy.

boyfriendsatoru who doesn't know what personal space is when it comes to you. Wanna shower? he's right there with you. Reading a book in bed? his using your chest as a pillow, purring like a cat every time your laugh reverberates from your body, might even offer to reenact your favorite scenes. Need to pee in the middle of the night? You get startled when he opens the door, sleepy face yawning as he scratches his toned tummy while he waits for you to be finished. Claiming that he can't sleep without you. Doing skincare? He's right beside you, waiting for you to pat in your toner and moisturiser on his face. Honestly, he's just a baby who loves you and wants to be included in everything.

"Toru, not that I mind..."

He looks up from his place on your chest, looking so sleepy and satisfied that you almost didn't wanna disturb him.

He yawns before answering you, voice laced with sleep. "What is it, sweets?"

You thread your fingers through his fluffy hair, giving him head scratches here and there and he basically purrs like a kitty on catnip. "You know you don't t have to spend every waking moment with me. I know you feel like you have to make up for the time we're apart, but its okay to make time for yourself you know."

In typical Gojo fashion, Satoru juts his lips out as his eyes water comically. "Does that mean you don't want to spend time me?"

"What? No!" You were somehow panicked and amused at the same time.

"You should've just shot me instead, that would have hurt less!" He cries, tightening his arms around your waist.

You shake your head at his theatrics, laughing fondly, "I didn't mean that you big baby."

Sparkly blue eyes stare back at you, "But Im your baby."

You snort in response. If only the world could see him now, the stongest so soft like this. But truly you felt lucky that monly you could see this side to Satoru. A side to him that you could keep all to yourself. The world can have the strongest, you only ever wanted Satoru. "Toru, I only meant that you might get tired of me if you don't have your personal space."

He scoffs, looking so offended. "First of all, there's absolutely no chance of me getting sick of you and second Ive had enough alone time to last me a life time."

The way he said the last part made it sound like it was no big deal but the thought of him coming home to an empy house with no one to turn to made your heart ache. "Toru.."

Seeing the look on your face, he quickly gives you a smile, "Don't look at me like that, sweets. Im fine, really. Its all in the past."

You were unconvinced but you didn't want to breach deeper into such a sad subject so instead you made a promise to yourself to make sure he never feels alone ever again.

You pull him up and wrap your arms around his neck, he snuggles into you but makes sure not to crush you under his weight. His warmth seeps into your skin as you caress his back. You murmur softly into his neck, "You have me, Toru. Always."

Gojo had to blink back the tears and stop his voice from shaking when he spoke, "And you have me."

--

"Just to be clear, you don't like personal space?" You ask, teasing lightly as you looked down at Gojo on you lap.

He gazes up at you, arms circling your waist, smirking cheekily as he answers, "I like your personal space."

[snail-day]

Nanami doesn't understand Minecraft. The appeal. The garish colors, the jagged edges. A sky made of squares, a sun that moved in awkward, ticking motions. (Something you claimed to be lag?) It was like staring into a world that hadn’t finished rendering. No plot. No rules. No real purpose. Just…blocks.

He had better things to do. Things with structure, routine. A glass of wine, a warm light, a novel in hand. You tucked into his side while he read aloud, your body slowly going slack with sleep, trusting him to hold you there.

That was comfort. That was meaningful. Yet, when you’d asked him to play, with your voice bright and teasing and just a little hopeful, he didn’t say no. Your pout being rather convincing.

“The movie’s coming out soon,” you’d said. “You can’t go in blind.” “Ten minutes,” you’d bargained, tugging on the sleeve of his linen shirt. “Just ten.”

So here he was.

The gentle sound of footsteps in grass tapped from the speakers - flop, flop, flop. He moved through a clumsy world, bumping into trees, accidentally crafting buttons instead of planks. A cow lowed in the distance, slow and strangely calming. Nearby, soft music drifted in, simple piano notes, echoing into the abyss of the lonely world.

Nanami narrowed his eyes. He hated how his character’s arms flailed when he walked. Hated how the pickaxe floated in midair, like it wasn’t even touching anything. The game defying the natural laws. Was deforestation what you called a good time?

But you were leaning into his side now, draped in the oversized cardigan he’d folded over the couch for you. Your head rested on his shoulder, your body warm against his, legs tucked under you like a sleepy cat. You were watching him, tired, content, eyes starting to flutter closed.

He pressed another key.

The sound of mining echoed - chink, chink, chink. Stone cracked apart in perfect cubes - plop, plop, plop. Gathering each one carefully. When he’d collected enough, he opened the building menu, fingers moving slower now, searching through the recipes.

If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. Loading minecraft wiki on a tab.

The house came first. Something modest but stable. No asymmetry. No ugly floating roofs like the ones you’d shown him with pride earlier that day. He used cobblestone for the frame, added a wooden roof and glass windows, and placed lanterns precisely two blocks apart along the walls.

Inside, he built shelves. Lined with books and a small fireplace in the corner. The fire crackled, low and soft, pixel sparks dancing upward. The sound of it mixed with the slow, soothing soundtrack and the gentle sounds of squids swimming (more like dying) on the beach.

He planted wheat outside on a grass patch. A small, efficient garden. You claimed there was carrots, potatoes, beets. A search for another day.

And when he found a cat - tiny, pixelated, meowing once with a high-pitched chirp - he coaxed it inside with fish and told it to sit by the fire.

You shifted against him, murmuring something soft, unintelligible, your hand unconsciously finding his and curling around it.

His chest ached.

This game…wasn’t so pointless after all.

It wasn’t about the blocks. It was about the quiet in-between. The safety. The fact that he could create a space just for you, even in this ridiculous little world. A place where the light never went out and the cat always waited by the fire.

Nanami glanced down at your sleeping form, thumb brushing your knuckles.

You deserved that.

You deserved everything.

“…You’re lucky I love you,” he said softly, kissing the crown of your head, barely above a whisper. The cat let out a quiet mrrp. Nanami, with a ghost of a smile, planted a flower by the window.

[cesium-sheep]

I like having the kirblog as another place to vent. I do not like having her there. I am concerned that expressly requesting she stop looking will convince her there's something worth looking for and she will go behind my back with little hesitation. (or throw a tantrum that there's something that's not for her.) and outright disabling it outside of the app sucks for a lot of people. and I'm fucking tired of multiplatforming so I'm certainly not setting up a new one right now.