#and that flipping out was exacerbated by my realizing it was very probably in the original fucking text

[transtranslations]

Nobody Expects The Japanese Jooster: Some Fun Translation Notes

Hey, guys. Are y'all aware that in the Japanese translation of "Bertie Changes His Mind", the line where Jeeves says "I'm fond of Mr. Wooster" is translated as 「私はウースター様が好きでございます」 (or, "watakushi wa Wooster-sama ga suki de gozaimasu")? Because I'm sure not normal about this.

Tl;dr: this line now reads like a love confession. (If an amusingly keigo-ridden love confession, because even in his internal dialogue Jeeves is physically incapable of not sounding aggressively polite.) More under the cut.

Now, please note that I am not fluent in Japanese, so take all my words with a grain of salt. But I have, at the very least studied it for several years, am currently living in Japan, and have listened to a great number of Japanese love songs. And this is how I would like to share that if you "ga suki" a person, this can and very often does mean you are in love with them.

Technically, "suki" just means "like". If you like apples, you'd say "ringo ga suki". If say, tennis is your favorite sport, you'd say "tenisu wa watashi no ichiban suki na supootsu" - with "ichiban suki" literally meaning "number one like". "Daisuki", or "big like", is the one that is often used for love - but boy is just plain "suki" used a hell of a lot.

Take this translation of "Ano Yume o Nazotte" (or "Tracing That Dream"), for example. Here, the translator has written it literally as "I like you", but contextually the song makes it pretty probable that it's a confession of romantic love. Or have a look at the Project Diva translation of "Suki Kirai" ("Like-Dislike" or "Love-Hate"), which makes "suki"'s usage in romantic love quite clear. There's even a whole conversation about the subject of love confession and translation in The Great Ace Attorney - this links to a fan-translated Let's Play so the original Japanese dialogue is visible, but the conversation happens similarly in the official localized version, though it manifests a bit differently. Regardless, both versions discuss "suki" as used to confess feelings of love.

What I'm saying is, wow, holy shit, Tamaki Morimura made a rather strong choice when using "suki". Because no matter the intent, that potential implication is absolutely going to be present in a reader's mind. And if you're wondering why I know this in the first place, it's because this line is used (in very slightly altered form, as "Wooster-sama" is exchanged for "the young master") in the manga, Please, Jeeves, which in large part uses Morimura's translation for its text, and... well. Let's just say our good pal Bun Katsuta seems to rather leaned into that with the expression.

Yeah.

And this goes in tandem with other aspects of the manga, like an added line that, to my knowledge, is not present anywhere in the original text (certainly not in the story that chapter adapts, "Jeeves in the Springtime"), in which Jeeves says that Bertie's shortcomings do not prevent him from being "beloved as a person". Not to mention the other choices the manga makes, such as having Jeeves wink at Bertie incessantly, or occasionally having hearts float around Bertie when he talks about Jeeves, or the panel at the end of "Without the Option where I swear to God it looks like Jeeves is trying to reach for Bertie's hand.

So, between the official translation and the manga adaptation, I'm not saying we have a Spanish Destiel situation on our hands... but I'm certainly implying it.

(My final note is that this is one of the favorite book series of Empress Emeritus Michiko. Which, with this added context, is very funny to me. I wish she had an open email address so I could ask her if she thinks they're in love.)

[violentviolette]

is it normal when trying to research pds you might have to feel a kinda vehement denial about it? ive been researching aspd for years (finally got comfortable saying i have it) but just recently started looking into npd and it feels like every time i see a person talking about their experiences with it my brain gets really cagey about it. i'll go from "oh yeah i totally get x thing" to "i am absolutely NOT someone with npd" to trying to justify that thought to myself??? tbf i've gone through this before with aspd and having to slowly break down my hang ups about it but i'm just curious if this is normal or has some underlying meaning to it and isn't some crazy bought of internalized ableism that won't go away lol. i realize you might not be the best person to ask about this since you're professionally diagnosed iirc but i digress

oh yea i think thats absolutely a very common thing that happens and i think its kind of an expected part of the process, especially in the early stages. i think there's multiple factors and things that go into what builds those kinds of responses but i think its just kind of natural given the nature of all this stuff i never had that issue with my aspd diagnosis, because id been diagnosed with CD so early on i always knew i didnt have empathy and so i just didnt reject it like that. but the first time a therapist suggested i might have npd i flipped out about it internally lol i was like "oh absolutely not i definitly dont have that" and struggled and fought with it for a while. even once id accepted i probably did have it, i was still really mad about it i think it's kind of natural when uve thought about urself one way for a chunk of ur life, to at first reject anything that challenges that or says that u might be someone different and ur motives might not be what u thought they were. and i think this is exacerbated when u have a cluster b disorder because of all the stigma surrounding them and how much shame and negativity is just unavoidable

sometimes there's also the "uniqueness" factor. a lot of us experienced heavy rejection as kids and learned very quickly that we were not like others and our experiences were very different. this can create a kind of defensive bubble where we reject identifying with others in order to preserve that feeling of otherness/uniqueness/specialness because we have learned to find comfort in it and challenging that can break a lot of other maladaptive coping mechanisms we've built so we shy away from it. this can also go in the negative direction where we second guess ourselves by downplaying our own experiences and invalidating our symptoms. things like "oh well im not that bad they have it way worse i dont qualify cause its only a little" type of mindsets i also think for npd especially, there can be a kind of uncomfortableness with seeing our own symptoms reflected back at us at first. i have a hard time being close friends with other ppl with npd because when i recognize behaviors in them that i also do, i get really uncomfortable and embarrassed. it triggers a lot of my own insecurities and anxieties and so there's that initial knee jerk reaction to be like "im Not like that" even when deep down we know we are. i think thats understandable given our disorders and struggles and is just something that u have to work to slowly break down. npd comes with a lot of feelings of shame and rejection and so it just takes time to unwrite that instinct, but i do think it eventually goes away for most people especially if ur actively acknowledging it and working on it

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

May 2021 Wk 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

It’s a cray cray Friday when Vietnam gets its eng subs up before GMMTV Thailand. What alter-reality are we in? Well, the Vietnamese offerings are better right now anyway. (Oooo, feel that burn.) 

Ongoing Series - Thai

Top Secret Together Ep 2 - pulping it up in the best possible way. Sure sound and production values are pants, and in classic Thai fashion the editing in post is exacerbating (rather than fixing) pacing issues, but it’s still CUTE AF. I don’t even mind the added university storyline, because they’ve got good chemistry (and a confident gay fresher after a panicked gay hazer is an old favorite... what can I say, SOTUS was my first love). We aren’t spending too much time with any one couple, so it’s weighted a lot better than Brothers was, but also character development is slow. 

Siew Sum Noi Ep 2 - Unfortunately, it’s just too hard to find, plus no subs. I’m dropping it in the hopes it comes back on my radar some day. 

Y-Destiny Ep 8 - (Thurs) It’s rough having a ghost boyfriend, half your friends are scared, the other half think you’re crazy, and kissing shortens your lifespan. This was a cute couple even if I wasn’t wild about the surrounding story. 

Close Friend Ep 5: (Dear My Star/JimmyTommy) - about high school penpals. It had to rely entirely on voice over work as the actors only meet face to face at the end. It’s a good thing they are appealing screen presences on their own, with good vocal control. It’s hard to imagine any other BL pair carrying this kinda plot. It’s by far my favorite of the series so far, and I’m not even a big JimmyTommy fan. 

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 7 - no subs. Do we care? Not really. Because we have... 

Nitiman Ep 3 - currently my favorite out of Thailand. It’s the university Thai BL i’ve been waiting for since... when was the last good one? My Engineer? Yowza. Anyway we got: head on my shoulder, baby is a floppy drunk (but still wants to be in control), proximity alert, boyfriend’s closet, seme gets seriously jelly, and a cute twist on feeding him. There’s something fun and complex about Jin’s character. He’s not a panicked bi. He knows exactly what’s going on, he just hasn’t decided if he wants Bb or not. He clearly enjoys being looked after, the compliments, and the attention, but he’s not sure if he’s going to like what happens if he gives in. I like that twist on the usual tsundere uke archetype a lot, cautious rather than willfully obtuse or freaked out. We can see Jin realizing in stages: I like this person, I like that they like me, I like the romantic attentiveness. But in the background is... do I actually want to f*k him? It’s a dynamic we don’t often see on BL. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 10 fin - the most ridiculous show using BLs worst tropes in a sort of weird smoothie of bitter greens and too ripe banana. The ending was the sappiest cheesiest thing ever, like cheese syrup tapped from the cheese tree. So of course I loved it, but I’m pretty sure I giggled through all the bits meant to be profound. Because, in the end, to tolerate this show at all, you just can’t take ANY of it seriously. RECOMMENDED (with some SERIOUS reservations and trigger warnings.) Full review here. 

Be Loved in House: I Do (Taiwan) Ep 1-2 - I don’t mind a damaged seme character but this one is a bit weird for me. Like creepy Cheese in the Trap level weird. On the bright side, the story has given our tsundere uke good motivation for his angst and great existing friendships, loyalty, and likability. Plus I’m invested in the cafe owner/innocent puppy side dishes. So if it’s only the seme character I’m not jiving with, and he’s the most established actor, it should all turn out fine. I believe in you, Taiwanese BL. 

Papa & Daddy (Taiwan) Ep 6 fin - speaking of belief. This such a good show but they gave us a cliffhanger ending. Now we must hope against hope for season two. That’s never guaranteed with Taiwan tho. So, I’m docking a few points and saying, RECOMMENDED so long as you realize it’s a cliffhanger. 

Love is Science? (Taiwan) Ep 1-9 (BL subplot) - this is a good het romance, but the fact that the BL subplot is a beautifully acted disaster bi + confident gay means you’re hearing about it whether you want to or not. Plus they just added in some GL! Come on! I gotta support Taiwan normalizing queer to this extent. They are fighting the good fight and if I also have to watch a career lady and her much younger softest straight boi get it on, too? Twist my arm with that service sub subtext. Go on Taiwan, TWIST IT. It’s on Viki. Join the revolution.   * Incidentally if you actually like the D/s het dynamic of this show, I highly recommend Japanese Kimi wa Petto - career woman keeps a hot young dancer boy as a pet. Oh yes, an actual pet, that IS the pitch. Never doubt Japan when kink is on the line. It’s also on Viki. Go get your kink on, thank me later. (If it helps: That was not a request.)  

Most Peaceful Place 2 (Vietnam) Ep 2 (AKA 5) - love triangles aren’t my thing, but if you’re gonna do it short form, by all means bring in the lead’s other BL pairing so the chemistry is on point. Now I've no idea who I want him to end up with. Can’t they just be in a poly triad? 

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 7 - I’m still enjoying it a lot. It’s still unabashedly queer and the tension is ramping up. We now have secret identity, blackmail, femme fatale, faen fatale, and incoming seme confrontation. Best of all, the series is still airing, which makes it longer than any other Vietnamese BL I’ve seen (aside from Tein Bromance - which is just too weird to count). 

Gossip - Thai BL 

SEVEN PROJECT TEASERS

No one is entirely sure what Studio Wabi Sabi’s Seven Project/7Project will entail. 

It might be like Close Friend (1 episode per couple, no linking), 

or Y-Destiny (2 episodes per couple, loosely linked), 

or The En of Love (4 episodes per couple, linked but independent consecutive stories). 

They’re giving the couple’s arcs separate titles. So each one would be what? Seven Project: Once Upon a Time or the like? We’re in Taiwanese title territory people and NO ONE WANTS TO GO THERE. Anygay... 

Once Upon a Time is the BounPrem (og UWMA) anchor story, and seems to be the most dramatic and likely saddest. These two can handle most of what’s thrown at them at this juncture, so it should be good. 

Vs Love is a BoomPeak (og Make it Right) university vehicle. Since I thought Boom was done with our nonsense, I couldn’t be more thrilled and surprised this pair is doing another show together. I don’t think either of them are the greatest actors but I find Peak very endearing and Boom charismatic on screen, so I’ll watch. 

Would You be My Love is the hotly anticipated SantaEarth launch. They’re a (cultivated) IRL ship and Earth is an established BL actor. They have great chemistry and high energy so this could be lots of fun. 

We are also getting a GL from this series from established BL actresses Samantha and Pineare. Nothing teased yet on that, but I’m looking forward to this installment the most. Also curious to see how the ladies handle the branding and promo side, not to mention the culture. (Thailand variety shows gonna force *girls* to play the Pepero game?) 

Secret Crush on You upcoming Thai BL with no release date, co-produced by and featuring (but NOT staring) Saint and directed by Cheewin (sigh) with all fresh faces. (Previously known as Stalker the series.) It looks like pure pulp and I’m not wild about the plot but could be better than expected as it’s adapted from a novel. Cheewin is an okay director when he has an actual story to follow. 

Don’t Say No the series. Coming from the producers of TharnType this is the JaFirst vehicle many have been waiting for. Friends to lovers + a good boy/bad boy pairing on a sports romance foundation. It’s basketball so they tapped Meen as well (he’s semi-pro). The bad news? You get one guess as to who is writing the darn thing? Yep it’s MAME. So, ya know, expect some slam dunk kidnapping, a light dribbling of rape, and me turning into a basketcase. AKA... 

Will I have to live blog this series in order to survive it? That seems to be the only way I can. So probably. Which means the bad sports puns will continue. Look, if I’m suffering, SO ARE YOU! 

Rumors of a new YinWar vehicle The Best Story (mini series) coming in July. Also rumors that their previously announced Love Mechanics (full length series) has either been delayed, is facing money issues, or is moving studios, or all three. 

Breaking News 

DELAYED (I’m talking these three off the watch list until we get new airing dates) 

Love Area’s release was pushed out but it got a trailer. 

Golden Blood was supposed to drop Weds but comments in MDL report that it is delayed due to C19.  

Love’s Outlet (Taiwan) is supposed to have started a 50 episode run (only 3-5 min each, what utter nonsense). Sadly, this delay is due to a surge in cases in Taiwan which was doing so well, but also doesn’t have many inoculations. 

Bad Buddy has started workshopping at GMMTV actual. 

Kang Insoo’s BTS for Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding is SO FLIPPING CUTE. You have to watch it. Trust me, I don’t rec behind the scenes stuff often. 

Next Week Looks Like This: 

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

[shihalyfie]

Kizuna itself vs. the two versions of the novel

Written on request from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. This is more of an editorial than a meta, and while I usually have a policy of “this is an analysis blog, not a review blog” it goes into more of my personal impressions and opinions than usual, but it’s something I write hoping to be helpful.

There are basically three “official” full versions of Kizuna: one being, of course, the movie itself, one being the Dash X Bunko version of the novel, and one being the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of it. While it’s certainly not to say that any of the three is an “incomplete” version of the narrative, if you really want as full of a picture of the story as possible, somehow, each of all three versions of the story happens to have really important information that the other two do not. If I had to pick only one of these three versions to recommend to people, I would of course pick the movie itself; it’s obviously the base story everything else is based off of and was the one the production centered around as a priority, but the novelizations have a surprising amount of info that provide a lot of insight into the movie’s story and themes.

I get the impression that the creation of Kizuna involved making a lot more story and background details than could fit in a 95-minute movie, so these novelizations, which were based directly off the original movie script, ended up being an outlet for a lot of these details (and as much as I could be harsh on the movie itself for being a bit “reliant” on extra material, I have to admit that Adventure and 02 were both like this too -- a lot of our current understanding of the series comes from the Adventure novels and drama CDs -- so frankly I’m thankful we at least got this with a 95-minute movie instead of a yearlong series). On the flip side, while I'm not going to say that the novels are completely and utterly inaccurate representations of the movie, in a perhaps too-close approximation of Adventure and 02's writing style, this is a movie where even the nuances in a single line or split-second moment carry heavy implications, which become much blurrier or harder to identify when they’re presented differently (or not even presented at all) in the novel’s context, especially when they emphasize very different things from what the movie itself was emphasizing.

The short version of this is that I believe the Dash X version contains the greater amount of “plot and story” information but significantly misses out on the emotional themes and presentation, whereas the Shueisha Mirai version abridges and cuts chunks of content but is much better at conveying the intended message. More on this below the cut. (Note that the following post spoils Kizuna’s plot events.)

The movie itself

Since the following parts are more “in comparison to the movie”, I’m not going to go too much into this in this section, but one thing I will say is that the official English subtitle translation for the movie is really not great. Even if you take out nitpickiness about the fact it misses several significant nuances (the difference between “unchangeable fate” and “changeable destiny”, or the fact that Gennai refers to partnership dissolution as a “case” and not like it’s something that happens overall) at really plot-important moments, some lines (thankfully, usually not plot-important ones) are just straight-up incorrect. And worse, there’s evidence the official English dub was based on that translation! (I’m not faulting the people in charge of the dub for this, but whoever handed them that translation to work with.)

The dialogue in the Dash X Bunko version is transcribed effectively word-for-word from the dialogue in the movie (or perhaps vice versa, given that the novel is based on the original script), so I highly recommend checking that version as a reference for dialogue or if you want to do any intimate analysis on it. I don't want to go as far as to suggest not supporting the official version of the movie because of this, but at least please be aware that the translation used there is not entirely reliable.

Dash X Bunko

If you talk about “the Kizuna novel”, this is the one that people usually tend to be referring to, for two reasons. Firstly, it was translated shortly after the movie’s release, and due to the unfortunate circumstances of Kizuna being delayed in accessibility outside Japan for several months, this basically served as the only comprehensive source of info about the movie outside Japan for a very long time. Secondly, in Japan, this one was marketed as “the one for adults” in contrast to the Shueisha Mirai one being “for kids”, which meant that a lot of people assumed that the latter one was just an incredibly stripped down version that was otherwise disposable or replaceable. (This is very, very much not the case, and is extremely ironic when it comes to a movie that partially centers around the dangers of looking down too much on things associated with childhood.)

When it comes to “plot and story info”, this is the one that probably serves as the best reference (especially for fanfic writers or those who need a refresher on certain plot events or to look up something quickly), and probably has the most “comprehensive” listing of plot events surrounding the movie. The dialogue in it is a word-for-word recreation of the movie’s script, and actually includes more scenes than the movie itself does, including two that I suspect to be deleted scenes (a detailing of the specifics behind the initial plan to pursue Eosmon, and a conversation between Koushirou and Tentomon) and adaptations of the first and second memorial shorts within their context in the movie. It also contains some interesting background details and extra context for some things in the movie that you might think would normally be animation flair or something, but take a very interesting implication of story importance if they’re going out of their way to write this in the script. (There’s a scene where Agumon and Gabumon appear in front of their partners when they’d been behind them a minute before, and it’s easy to think this might be an animation error, but not only does the surrounding context make this unlikely, the novel itself actually directly states that their positions had changed.) Given that, I think it was very fortunate that this novel was available to us for those outside Japan waiting for the actual movie to come out, because this level of detail was very important to have on hand rather than fragmented spoilers on social media.

However, the part where I think the novel is significantly deficient in compared to the actual movie (and also to the other version of the novel) is that it describes the plot events in too blunt of a manner and doesn’t bring out its themes very well. (It’s kind of like having a long and very detailed Wikipedia article plot summary; it definitely got all the hard facts down, but the emotion is gone, which is still a pretty significant issue when media’s all about the feelings and message in the end.) While “considering the movie to be more cynical than it’s probably meant to be” happens regardless of which version someone’s working from, I’ve talked to perhaps an unnervingly high number of people who started with the novel and were absolutely convinced that the movie’s message was about adulthood sucking and needing to just accept it, until they saw how the actual movie pulled it off and the surrounding atmosphere and realized it definitely was not. (I think one really big factor here is that a lot of the visual imagery makes it extremely, extremely hard to miss that Menoa’s mentality is completely screwed up and her way of seeing things was dubious to begin with; prose descriptions really just don’t capture the way they slam this in your face with visual and musical cues during the climax of the movie.)

You can figure this out from the novel itself, but you have to really be looking closely at the way they word things, and on top of that it’s hard to figure out which parts you should be focusing on and which parts aren’t actually that important -- in other words, the “choice of priorities” gets a bit lost in there. Even the little things lose a lot of value; it’s theoretically possible to use the novel to put together that Daisuke is wearing his sunglasses indoors during his first scene, but you have to put together the context clues from completely different paragraphs to figure this out, none of which compares to the actual hilarity of visually seeing him wearing the thing in a very obviously dimly lit restaurant because he’s our beloved idiot. (For more details, please see my post with more elaboration on this and more examples of this kind of thing.)

I wouldn’t say that the movie itself isn’t guilty of (perhaps accidentally) having some degree of mixed messaging, but I would say this problem is rather exacerbated by the novel’s way of presenting it due to its dedication to dropping every single plot detail and event without much in the way of choosing what to contextualize and what to put emphasis on (as it turns out, treating practically everything in the movie as if it has equal weight might not be a great idea). So, again, for that reason I think the novel serves as a good reference in terms of remembering what happened in it and knowing the movie’s contents, but I also feel that it’s really not the greatest deliverer of the movie’s message or themes at all.

Shueisha Mirai Bunko

The second version of the novel was not translated until several months after the movie first released, and shortly before the Blu-ray and streaming versions of the movie itself came out anyway, so my impression is that on this end a lot of people don’t even know it was a thing. On top of that, even those who know about it often dismiss it as the “kid version” -- and to be fair, it did baffle quite a few people as to why this version even exists (Kizuna is technically not unacceptable for kid viewing and its plot is still understandable regardless of age, but since the movie is so heavily about the millennial existential crisis, it’s not something kids would really relate to). So a lot of people tended to just skip over it...which is really a shame, because it contains some interesting things that actually aren’t in the other two versions at all. For instance, did you know that, as of this writing, this is the only thing that plainly states the specific explanation for why Yamato decided to become an astronaut, for the first time in 20 real-life years?

While there are still some things that weren’t in the movie proper (mainly the Eosmon initial plan and the adaptation of the second memorial short), for the most part, the actual events are somewhat abridged compared to the movie and the Dash X version, and other than a few stray lines, there’s not a lot of extra information that would be as helpful for referencing the events of the plot. The version of the novel here is rather broadly interpretive of the scenes in the movie, so several things are condensed or taken out (and, amusingly, because it’s assuming that the kids reading this don’t actually know the original Adventure or 02, it has to describe what each character is like in a quick one-liner).

However, interestingly enough, it’s because it’s so heavily interpretive that it illuminates a lot of things that weren’t really easy to glean out of the Dash X version. For instance:

Some scenes are described with “other perspectives” that give you info on someone else’s point of view. (For instance, we see more of Yamato’s perspective and thoughts when he has his first phone call with Daisuke, or a bit more detail in the process of how Eosmon kidnappings work.)

We get a lot more information on what’s going through everyone’s heads during each scene, and what emotions they’re feeling at a given time. (This is something that you could at least get to some degree in the movie itself from facial expressions and framing, but would often be a lot blurrier in the Dash X version; here, it’s spelled out in words.)

When things are abridged, you get a clearer idea of what the intended point and theme of the scene was because it’s stripped down to include only that part. In one really interesting case, the scene with Agumon finding Taichi’s AVs has a “censored” equivalent where Taichi’s pushed to a corner because he can’t find anything non-alcoholic in his fridge -- so when you look at the two versions of the scene and what they have in common, you can figure out that the point isn’t that it was a lewd joke for the sake of it, but rather that Taichi’s forcing himself into boxes of “adulthood” that are actually meaningless and impractical.

Some of the descriptions of the characters, scenes, and background information make it a lot more obvious as to their purpose in the narrative (it outright confirms that Miyako being in Spain means that her personality is getting overly enabled there).

The scene where the circumstances behind Morphomon’s disappearance are revealed makes it significantly less subtle what the point is. In the actual movie, a lot of this involved visual framing with Menoa seeming to become more and more distant, but in this version of the novel they basically whack you over the head with the final confirmation that Menoa is guilty of neglecting her own partner, which contradicts her own assertions that “they were always together” (maybe not emotionally, it seems!) and helps clarify the commonality between her, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora in what exactly led to their partners disappearing.

Bonus: this version of the novel really wants you to know that the ending of the movie is about Taichi and Yamato fully having the determination to turn things around and lead up to the 02 epilogue. (The movie’s version of this involves the extended version of Taichi’s thesis and the credits photo with Yamato obviously next to a rocket, while this novel’s version involves more detailed fleshing out of how Taichi and Yamato decided to use their experiences to move onto their eventual career paths and what kind of hope they still have at the end. The Dash X version...didn’t really have a very strong equivalent here.)

In other words, while this version of the novel isn’t the greatest reference for plot or worldbuilding, it does a much more effective job being straightforward about the intended themes and message of the movie, and even if the scenes in it are much more loosely adapted, it’s much better at adapting the emotional nuances of the things that would normally be conveyed via visuals, expressions, and voice acting. (Although I would still say that the movie itself is the best reference for that kind of thing, of course.) If you just want lore or plot ideas, I don’t think it’ll help you very much, but since this series is so much about characters that had their ways of thinking fleshed out in such incredible detail, and about strong theme messaging, this is all still very valuable information in its own way.

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

I Melt With You - Bakugou Katsuki

All Parts:

Part 3:

“Okay, so that’s about it.” You smile brightly, pressing a band-aid into the  boy’s skin. “Thanks for being so brave for me!”

“Mhm. I’m the bravest!”

The child before you beams, all teeth gaps and kicking legs as he bounces in his seat. You’d just given him a few routine vaccinations, and true to your praise, he had been very brave about it. All he’d done was sit there, holding his breath until his face went red, and trying not to grimace. It reminded you of someone else you’d recently treated- someone else who was currently blazoned in all his snarling glory on the little boy’s shirt.

“Oh, I’m sure! Just like Dynamite!” You agree enthusiastically, gesturing to his clothes. You turn your head, catching his mother’s eye from where she sits next to him. “Isn’t that right, mom?”

“Oh, not if I can help it.” She smiles something a little exhausted, but ultimately fond as her son starts making explosion noises. “Not if I can help it.”

If you’re being completely honest, you sort of agree with her. Just a little bit- actually, on second thought a lot.

“If that’s everything and you have no other concerns for me, then we’re about done here.” You say gently. “Do you know where you’re going? I can point you toward reception again if you need it.”

“No, we’re alright, thank you!” 

You nod, holding the door open for them as they leave. 

When the door closes, and you’re swept back up into silence, you can’t help but think of that interaction as just more proof- more proof that no matter where you were, no matter what you were doing, you absolutely could not escape Bakugou.

When you weren’t actively thinking about him, then you were seeing his face everywhere. He was on television, and he was on the cover of newspapers, and as evidenced, he was printed in perfect grumbling, snarling accuracy on children’s t-shirts. It didn’t help either that every day brought another civilian who was saved by him, and every night brought another small-time criminal who was beat to hell by his fists. You swore he was responsible for a solid 70% of all of your hospital’s traffic- it was pure insanity when you really started paying attention. 

You quickly come to realize that Bakugou is a plague; and a horrifyingly effective one at that. You’re not sure how you never noticed it before. 

Still, you can’t help but find yourself worrying a little bit. When you think of him, all you can see is his face covered in blood, the pallid hue of his skin under the hospital’s sterile lighting, and the deep-set bags under his eyes. You remember the way he practically fell asleep, laid out and injured on a hospital table. The way he was drifting while you were digging a needle and thread through his skin. 

Thinking back on it always makes you a bit sick. No one who wasn’t absolutely exhausted would ever fall asleep in a hospital- especially not in the middle of being sewn up. When you match that to the anger and terror you’d felt, that very first night you’d ever met him, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. You come to realize that even if Bakugou was an asshole to you, you still wouldn’t wish that kind of mental torture on anybody. 

Your rest of your week goes by quickly after that, and by the time Saturday rolls around, you’ve gathered quite a few bones to pick with him. It seemed the amount of criminals you were patching up was only increasing, and their injuries were only getting worse too. Each passing day only brings more lowly criminals and thieves flooding into your hospital, all covered in the same scorch marks, broken bones, and dark bruising. It was overkill, plain and simple, and you knew exactly who the culprit was. 

You began to think that, even if it was Bakugou’s job, he really shouldn’t have been digging graves for people who were just stealing purses. There was a massive difference between a super villain and a petty thief, but he didn’t seem to understand that. Dynamite punished everybody just the same. You saw that first hand.

Still, you try to shake off those lingering frustrations. You were on your way to take out his stitches, and you didn’t want to accidently bring them up. Bakugou only mildly tolerated you the last time around, but you were sure that generosity would cease the moment you criticized anything about him. True to his quirk, Bakugou had proven himself to be a teetering powder keg- just a little bit of friction, and he’d explode on the spot.

“On your way to help his majesty?” Your superior remarks, smiling sardonically as you pass her. “Good luck, I’ll be praying for you! Try your best to come back with your head still intact, yeah?” 

You nod, smiling uneasily, but your stomach turns a little bit. 

That had been another reoccurring theme that week- jokes about how your impending doom was imminent. Apparently, Bakugou had been making a name for himself for years now- a name that was a lot less loved by your hospital then it was the rest of the outside world. You’d been hearing horror stories for days now; tale after twisted tale of nurses and doctors getting chewed up and spit out by his bad temper. It always read as a little strange to you though; in every story you’d heard, he was either hardly injured or on his death bed- no in-between whatsoever. You figure that it didn’t really matter though, the result was always the same. Relentless, explosive anger. 

Which you sort of begun to think you were in for, when you opened the door to his scowling face.

“Hey!” You greet unsurely, trying to walk into the room with a confidence you didn’t really feel. Moving past him, you rinse your hands, drying them and then slipping on a pair of latex gloves. You then pull the medical cart over to him, taking out the blood pressure cuff. Just like his last visit. “You ready to get those stitches removed?”

“Yeah. Obviously. Why the fuck else would I waste my time here? Witch.”

Yep. There it is- just what the other nurses and staff were warning you about. His attitude.

“Oh. Okay, so I see we are still using that nickname. Great.” You mutter wrapping the cuff around his arm. You fall back, crossing your arms as you wait to jot down his vitals. There’s angry tension rolling off of him, and you smile uneasily, trying to discharge it with a subject change. “On an entirely different note, though, I did want to congratulate you.”

Bakugou just scoffs, turning up his nose. A beat passes and then he folds, minutely nodding at you to continue.

“You’re not covered in any blood this time! Congrats!” You say breezily, unwrapping the cuff from around his arm. “Guess the third time really is the charm for us, huh?”

Bakugou just looks away, hardly even acknowledging you as he rolls his eyes. You think you see his lip twitch though- just a bit, and it only lasts half a second, but you count it as a success.

“So, any worries about the stitches? You been cleaning them as instructed?” You ask, gently taking his forearm in your hands. You remove the bandages and gauze with feather-light touches. “Wow, you must’ve been. They look pretty good to me.”

When you look up at him, he’s got that same prideful smirk you’d seen before; it doesn’t distract you from his condition though. His skin somehow looks paler than before, skin purple and darkened under his eyes. You see the cut on his head, still hardly healed and scabbed over. He’s overworking himself, but you didn’t need to have any medical background to see that.

“Obviously they look good. You think I’m fuckin’ stupid?” He says.

“No, but I really did think you would’ve exacerbated them by now. Especially with all the hero work you’ve been doing. Which, believe me, I know is a lot.”

“What- you stalking me now or somethin’?”

“Not exactly. Me or somebody else here always end up treating all those people you save.” You tell him, setting his arm down on the empty surface of the medical cart. You try to keep your voice light, keep it entirely void of anything accusatory, but you can’t help your next words. “And every person you beat into the ground.”

Bakugou’s eye twitches when you look at him. He breathes deep, eyebrows creasing.

“Oi- somethin’ you wanna fuckin’ say to me?” He utters, eyes glinting like blistering wildfire. He leans forward, flipping his palm up towards you as it begins to crackle. “Better choose your next words real fuckin’ carefully.”

It’s his tone that catches you off-guard.

You knew it was a stupid move, your comment, but the pure poison in his response surprises you anyway. His voice is dark and angry, smoldering like a low heat as he stares you down. The words are vicious thing, a gripping threat that drips from his mouth, seeming to bite back around his teeth as he speaks it. It makes you shrink. You think that it would probably make even the strongest people shrink.

“No. It’s- I wasn’t. I’m sorry.” You apologize professionally, pasting on your best appeasing smile even as you fight off the anxiety. There’s nothing left to do but try to defuse the situation- so you turn away from him, busying yourself with grabbing a discard tray and your stitching kit. “It’s really wasn’t my business. Shouldn’t have said anything. Sorry.”

Bakugou just huffs at that, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. He somehow looks even more annoyed than before and you don’t know what he wants from you. Doesn’t he know how intimidating he is? Why does he even bother acting surprised when people fold for him? Especially if he chooses to address them like that?

You wish you were the sort of person who could stand up to him- the sort of person who could put him in his place. After all, there was no room for arrogance in a hospital, and you’d always thought egotism to be a selfish waste of valuable time. But, even so, you just couldn’t be that person this time. There was a lot you could power though, but you’d never seen hot-and-cold anger like his before. He wasn’t like any of your other difficult patients- none of their threats ever sounded like promises. 

There’s tense silence as you start removing the stitches, only the sound of your scissors and Bakugou’s own breaths. You try to keep your hands steady, try to keep focused, but you’re finding it hard to keep still under his intense gaze. You feel he’s looking right through you again, waiting for any excuse to blow up again.

You’re almost done removing them entirely when he huffs, rolling his eyes as he shifts uncomfortably.

“You’re so fucking sensitive, you know. It’s pathetic.”

You stiffen.

There’s a lot you’re willing to put up with- being underappreciated and overworked was pretty much your entire job after all- but Bakugou was really wearing on you. He wasn’t the first patient to insult you, and his comment was far from the worst thing you’d ever been told; but it’s something in the way he spits the insult. Sly and challenging like he knows something you don’t. It makes you look up at him, and all you see are his sharp canines. His smirk and the way he looks down on you.

He’s picking a fight, but there’s no threat. He’s testing you.

It makes your blood boil.

“If you don’t like me, and the way I do my work,” You bite out, staring right back and speaking through own clenched teeth. “Then you shouldn’t have asked for me. No one made you come back.”

“I told you, witch. No cutting corners. You put the fuckers in my arm, you take them the fuck out.”

“Why are you fighting with me?” You ask, swallowing as you try not to shy away from his glare. “I told you last time, if this works better for you silent, then just say that.”

He flares his nostrils at that, setting his jaw. When he goes silent, you go back to snipping away his stitches. At this point, you just wanted to finish as quickly as possible.

“Silent is fuckin’ boring.” He grits, flexing his fingers. It makes the skin on his forearm shift, throwing off your work. When you look at him in frustration, you can see he did it on purpose. “It’s wimp shit.”

“Pardon?”

“I said-” He leans in close, voice low and venomous. It feels like he’s trying to paralyze you with his stare alone, sitting up straight until he’s glaring down at you. “Silence is boring. You’re fucking boring.”

You’d had a long day- you’d had a very long day and he was being extremely rude and your patience was wearing thin hours ago. That’s why you let him break your careful composure- at least, that’s what you tell yourself.

“Oh yeah, I’m boring?” You ask in frustration, entire face warming in fury. “I’m boring? Really! At least I don’t spend my entire day blowing things up and beating people half to death!”

Bakugou blinks. He blinks, sucks a breath, and then you watch his smirk crawl slow and sure across the entirety of his face. He got you. He got you to break, and he won, and he knows it.

He knows it and he settles back on his good hand, leaning away to get a better look at your flustered face. He cocks his head to the side, studying and analytical for a moment. He nods.

“There. We’re fuckin’ even.”

“Excuse me?”

“Even. You shouldn’t have fuckin’ pried around in my head and not expected me to pry in yours.”

“That’s what this is about?” You sigh incredulously, putting your scissors down on the medical cart. “Really? You’re still on that- how- how does this even tell you what’s in my head? You’re just insulting me. It doesn’t!”

“It does.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then why are you so fuckin’ pissed right now? Hah?” He squints his eyes, voice smooth and dripping with arrogance. “It’s cause I’m right. You’re so fuckin’ boring when you play nice all the time.”

“Play nice? What the hell are you even on about? You don’t know me.”

“I know that you piss me the hell off bein’ fake. If I fuckin’ irritate you then say so. Don’t put on your fuckin’ kid gloves and try and be professional. It’s weak.”

“No. It’s how I keep my job. Which you know, you wouldn’t understand, because you literally pick fights for a living!” You huff, pushing the medical cart off to the side and stepping back from him. “Actually- you know what, no. I’m done with this. This conversation. Your stitches are out, and you can leave since you obviously can’t stand me and would rather be anywhere but here.”

You watch him flare his nostrils again, a snarl ripping from his mouth. He slams his closed fist down on the hospital bed, eyes like blazing conflagration. Bakugou looks pissed, but more than anything he looks vulnerable. Worn raw.

“I can’t.” He grits.

“Yes! You actually can! Just walk out! Literally just walk out an-’

“God, you’re so fucking dense! I can’t leave without figuring out how the fuck you do it!”

“Do what?” You nearly scream, your owns hands beginning to clench into fists.

“I need to know.” He repeats again, hopping off the hospital bed.

His feet hit the ground, steps like rolling thunder as he nears, broad shoulders and muscular arms casting an intimidating shadow. Bakugou looks like an angry bull storming toward you. Like he’ll obliterate you given even half the chance.

“Take your fucking gloves off.”

You’re scared now, eyes darting over to the door. You knew nobody was doing rounds in the luxury wing right now, and sound didn’t pass through walls that were made to ensure silence. Heart racing in your chest, you size him up, try to think of a way to escape but he’s so close to you and he’s built like a linebacker and-

“Jesus christ. Not like that. Fuckin’ idiot.” He growls, hand pinching the bridge of his nose. He stops a few feet in front of you, sneering. “You’re not my fuckin’ type, so don’t flatter yourself. Now, grow the fuck up and take them off before I do it for you.”  

You’re not sure what makes you listen, maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s something else, but either way you listen. You pull a glove off, just barely dropping it on the counter before Bakugou speaks again.

“I’m gonna touch your hand- but do not use your quirk. Don’t even think about using it. Just fucking stand there. And don’t freak the fuck out and put up a fight about it. You’re just gonna waste time.”

You nod, hand shaking as you extend it. Bakugou seems to roll his eyes at that, but he surges forward anyways, fingers meeting yours. 

You feel it almost immediately. Your heart speeds up, but just slightly, beginning beat against your chest where it had just barely been grazing it before. You breathe deep, close you eyes, focus in on the buzzing of your skin- the way your bones sing of subtle fire. It’s barely there but it feels like warmth. Reminds you of that night, with Bakugou, when you were burning alive. Reminds you of how your bones felt too large and your skin felt too small and there somehow wasn’t enough room in the entire world to hold the weight of your rage.

“You ambient fucking bitch.” Bakugou swears under his breath. When you look at him, he’s fluttering his own eyes open, dropping your hand like it burned him.

Then he steps back and you’re gasping for air. It’s not entirely back again- but it’s reminiscent. There’s an inkling of that bone-deep exhaustion. That weariness that so often stole the air from you lungs and the ground beneath your feet. 

“Your quirk. It’s ambient. Through your skin.”

You shrink back even more, blinking owlishly up at him. 

“What? You didn’t fucking know? Jesus, how clueless are you?”

“It’s-I-” You drop your head, running a hand through your hair. “I never- I always wear gloves. Always. And long sleeves. Since I was little. Never wanted to take the chance- how did you even know.” 

Bakugou seems to turn his nose up at your question. He steps back, further and farther until his back hits the hospital bed. There’s distance but somehow he keeps the air just as charged, averting his eyes when he speaks next.

“Went to sleep. A week ago. When I saw you-”

“What? Bakugou that doesn’t- you’re not-”

“If you’d let me fuckin’ finish,” He glares down at you again, trying to beat you into submission with eye-contact alone. It works and you fall silent, holding your breath as he resumes. “You put me to sleep. Then and three months ago. I haven’t slept peacefully like that in fuckin’ years. So obviously you used your quirk on me. It’s easy. A fuckin’ moron could’ve figured it out.”

“No- but I didn’t touch you! Well, the first time, yeah, I did, but not a week ago. I was wearing gloves and I-”

“When I told you to do the splint over, the sleeve of your coat rode up.” He grits out, cheeks slightly flushing as he averts his eyes. “Then I almost fell asleep. Not like the first time, but still. Asleep. So obviously it’s your fuckin’ skin.” 

Suddenly, the ground is ripped out from under you.

Your entire life you’d always been tired. Day in and day out, constantly dragging your feet like you could never get enough sleep. Like there wasn’t enough hours in the day for you to live and be rested. 

Was it your quirk this entire time? Were you somehow ambiently draining people of their pain- even if you just accidentally brushed their skin with yours? 

You don’t know how you never realized it. How you never put two and two together. 

You’d spent your entire life purposefully using your quirk to help people-  had then sacrificed days and weeks of your life afterwards tucked away in bed and sleeping off the exhaustion. When you used your power on purpose, depending on the severity of someone’s pain, it would debilitate you. But you still did it- over and over and over again because you wanted to help people. Because you knew you could and that became the only reason you needed. 

You’d always just assumed your constant exhaustion to be aftershocks of how often you used your quirk- you never even considered the possibility that it was something you were doing unintentionally. That you were draining yourself with every hug and handshake and high-five that should’ve made you feel better.

You’d always sort of disliked being touched. Somehow always walked away with your skin prickling uncomfortably for as long as you could remember. You just never knew why until now. 

“Oi- I thought I told you not to freak the fuck out.”

“It’s- how the hell am I not supposed to freak out about this?” You gasp, hands braced behind you on the counter. “I didn’t know! My entire life! And you met me like, what, twice and you figured it out and- Are you falling asleep right now?”

In your spiral Bakugou had somehow ended back up on the hospital bed. He was still sat up, but his shoulders were completely slumped over and his eyes were half-lidded. He looked completely drained of all previous anger, swaying slightly as he blinked himself back to perfect alertness.

“Yeah. Probably.” He grumbles. “It’s your fuckin’ fault.”

“You barely touched me! How the hell is-”

“Don’t ask me, you fuckin’ leech.” He yawns, hand closed into a fist as he rubs at his eyes. “You’re the one with the stupid goddamn quirk. Not me.”

“That’s- sorry. I didn’t know. Holy shit,” You curl arms around your stomach, eyes widening. “Have I been doing this shit to everyone? My entire life?”

Bakugou groans. Audibly. Loudly.

“You’re the stupidest goddamn idiot on the face of the planet. Swear to fuck, I don’t get paid enough for this shit.”

“You’re not helping!” You exclaim. “It was rhetorical question! Excuse me for freaking out right now- I’m sure you’d freak out too if you suddenly found out you were osmosis-ing people’s emotions your entire life!” 

“Heh.”

“God, and just what the hell are you laughing about? This isn’t funny!”

“Osmosis.” He reiterates, mouth drawn up into a shit-eating grin. “Change your quirk name. To osmosis. Alleviate is shitty and stupid and it makes you sound fucking dumb.”

You bristle again, suddenly shaking any and all tiredness, rounding on him as you seethe.

“You- you are a goddamn asshole! You know that?” You start, stopping just a few feet in front of him. “You come in here, and insult me. Call me boring! In my own fuckin’ workplace! While I’m literally taking your stitches out! And then you tell me how my quirk works- somehow have the audacity to be fucking right about it, and now you’re insulting me? Again?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re just sitting there, completely fine, smiling like there’s something funny! This isn’t funny! I’m not funny! This is my life- which you literally have been bulldozing through for months now- are you falling asleep? Again? No! No! Not in my- wake the fuck up! Asshole!”

You’re snapping in his face, just inches away from his eyes, and Bakugou hardly even blinks. He just sits still, calm and sated as you seethe just inches away from him. You huff in absolute hatred and that finally shocks some life into him. He smiles. Tiny and barely-there, but he smiles.

“See, not so nice anymore. Knew you weren’t. Fuckin’ liar.”

You want to scream. You want to tear your hair out and maybe take Bakugou’s too, and scratch and claw until you’re bathing in all the rage you’d accidentally stolen from him. You can’t though- you can’t because suddenly the sun starts to set. It falls behind the horizon line, seeping the gold from his skin and drowning him in sterile, white, artificial pallid-ness. His skin goes translucent and the only color in the entirety of his image are the bags under his eyes. Well, the bags under his eyes and the stark red of the barely-healed slice on his forehead. 

You curse your own heart. Nearly collapse under the weight of your own sympathy. Bakugou was an asshole, an absolute, irredeemable dick, and you still wanted to heal him. Help him. Somehow. Miraculously.

So then you’re centering yourself, rubbing a hand down your face to soothe your wound-up features.

“God, you actually do look pretty bad.” You say, all attempts at grace and keeping it professional completely gone. “You really weren’t kidding about needing to sleep, huh?”

“No shit. Leech.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. That’s fine. Trade one mean nickname for another- I mean, hey, at least this one’s accurate right?” 

Bakugou does actually exhale a laugh at that remark, limbs a flurry of chaotic movement when he throws himself back on the bed. His head hits the pillow and it’s only seconds before he’s shutting his eyes.

“So, what, you’re just, like, sleeping now?” You ask, rolling your eyes.

“Yeah.”

“You can’t.”

“I can.”

“This is a hospital, Bakugou.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” He mumbles, yawning into his hand. “‘m fuckin’ Dynamite. I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”

“I’m sorry- do you, do you actually think you can ego your way out of rules? Seriously? You can’t sleep here! Not unless you’re critically injured and need like, round-the-clock care.” 

He stills, breath evening and you think he’s fallen asleep. Then he’s lazily bringing a hand up, pointing it loosely at his head.

“I’m critically fuckin’ injured.”

“No- you’re not. That’s a cut and it’s already healing and-”

“I need round-the-clock care.”

“Oh my god, are you kidding me?”

“No.” He grunts, flopping as he turns away from you. Then he’s facing the wall, nuzzling into the pillow. “I’m tired.”

“It’s-” You start, but then you’re once again falling victim to your own empathy. One look at his translucent skin is all it takes. “Fine. You know what? I don’t give a shit. Do what you want, I guess. Nobody else is using these rooms.” 

“Okay. Leave.”

“Excuse me?”

“Get the fuck out.” He slurs, cheek pressed up against the pillow as his eyes flutter beneath his eyelids. “Bein’ too loud. Leave.”

“Fine. Enjoy your sleep. Jerk.”

“Leech.”

You nearly punch him in frustration- until you realize that would probably only relax him more; because apparently this really is Bakugou’s world and you were the unlucky one just living in it.

He’s out before you’re even finished packing up. You’re wiping down all the surfaces either of you had touched, just about to leave, when he starts snoring. It’s a soft, almost kitten-like sound, just barely audible over your own breathing. It pisses you off. Boils your blood in your veins because it’s so goddamn humanizing even when he acts like the anti-christ with an even worse temper. It’s stupidly endearing and ridiculously sobering and incredibly, incredibly irritating. 

That stupid sound is why you double back upon leaving the room. Why you’re suddenly choosing to reverse instead of moving forward, why you’re suddenly reaching into the cupboard instead of shutting the door behind you. 

When you carefully unfold the blanket, settling it gently over his sleeping form, there’s only one thing on your mind.

Fuck being an empath.

--/--

taglist:  @fluffyviciousbunny @definitelynottrin @imsuperawkward @i-need-air @ahbeautifulexistence @brennabooz @jazzylove @flattykawadoorusmilkbread @katsuki-bakubabe @sorrythatspussynal @bakugouswh0r3 @cloudsgathering @un-limit-edd @thekatsukisimp @pollayra21 @the2ndl @officialtrashbusiness 

[modernpaw]

Endorphins

Dan Jones x Female Reader

Summary: While running around The Capitol one morning, you chance upon Dan from work.

CW: Mentions of sex, a little swearing, implied unsafe sex, AFAB reader

Words: 1.8k

This day is not going well, and it's barely even begun. You sigh as you hobble over to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, keeping most of your weight on one ankle. You came here at the break of dawn to get some exercise, to stimulate the production of those elusive endorphins, which you were then hoping would help you manage the mounting stress at work. But because you're not an active person in general, and because you're still getting used to your new running shoes, you ended up landing awkwardly on your left foot and twisting your ankle. So much for stress relief.

Maybe it's just slightly sprained, you think as you carefully lower yourself on the steps. You try to rotate the affected ankle and wince when you feel a twinge of pain.

Okay, definitely sprained.

You're not sure how you're going to walk back to your car, much less drive back home. The worst part of it all is that you haven't even been running long enough to make the injury worth it.

The view of the Washington Memorial looks beautiful though.

You lean back on both hands, deciding to enjoy the peace and quiet, before you allow yourself to continue worrying. After all, it's not like you can change anything. What was that quote you saved on your Pinterest board just the other day? The only thing you can control is how you react to things out of your control.

At 5:30 in the morning, and on a Saturday at that, the entire area is devoid of the usual tourist crowd. There are a few early birds, but because they know how not to hurt themselves within the first 20 minutes of their run, none of them linger around in one spot for too long.

Certainly none of them are paying you any attention. Except maybe for that one person who looks like he's headed your way.

Great. Maybe if you make yourself look as nonchalant as possible, he wouldn't realize that you've twisted your ankle. The last thing you want right now is to be given unsolicited advice. You already get a lot of that from work, thankyouverymuch.

He gets closer and closer, and to your mortification, you realize that it's not a stranger at all, but someone you actually know.

Oh for heaven's sake, you think exasperatedly. You came here hoping to find a solution to your work stress, not to exacerbate it. Why the fuck is the universe sending you Dan Jones right now?

It's probably too much to hope that he hasn't seen you.

Dan is one of the staffers at the Senate office. You may have harbored a tiny bit of a crush on him when you first started working in an adjacent office, but that kindling of a spark was promptly extinguished when he challenged you to rethink your stance on an environment policy and basically implied that you were naive and idealistic. The thing is, he wasn't even rude or obnoxious about it. He was just right.

And you didn't like that. Well, not specifically the fact that he was right, but that you were wrong. You still don't. You worked your ass your entire life just to avoid being in that situation, and it took Dan all but one minute to dismantle all your hard work. Okay, that's a bit melodramatic, but he did shake your self-confidence a bit. I mean, it was your first week at work!

Had he been mean or awful about it, your ego might have forgiven him more, might have found solace in the fact that there are one or two things that are deplorable about him, but he wasn't and there aren't. And so you tamped down on that crush hard. Made sure it never reared its ugly head again and worked your ass even harder to make up for that initial embarrassment.

Now, though, it looks like you're being served another slice of humble pie.

"Hey," he greets out in a friendly tone. "I thought that was you."

"Hi, Dan," you greet back. "Er, fancy meeting you here."

You try not to cringe at the response you just gave. It sounds like lazily written dialogue in a spy movie, or worse, the first 20 seconds of a cheap porno.

Dan is, of course, unaware of your private turmoil. "Oh yeah, I come here most mornings," he answers, casually pulling his right leg up from behind with his opposite hand to stretch his quads. "I didn't know you run as well."

You try not to stare at his thighs, but you can't help it when they're right in your line of sight.

"Oh I don't run often," you say. And then not knowing what possessed you, you add, "To be honest, I don't run at all. This is probably my first time running in, I don't know, five or six years."

Dan does the same quick quad stretch with his other leg before settling down next to you with his knees to his chest. As he interlocks his hands over them casually, you turn your head to look back at the Washington Monument, so that you don't accidentally get caught staring.

Jesus, does this man ever not look good? Anyone can look dapper in a properly fitting blazer, but Dan is just wearing a nondescript hoodie and running shorts.

He says something, but it doesn't register, so you ask him to repeat it again.

"I said would you like to run together?" he says. "No pressure though."

Reminded of your predicament by his choice of words, you wonder if you should just tell Dan that you sprained your ankle.

"I can't," you answer weakly.

You can tell that your own choice of words has confused him, but he doesn't press, only nods his acceptance. He moves to get up, and your brain, probably drugged up due to a belated release of endorphins, pushes you to say something.

"I twisted my ankle!" you blurt out.

A look of concern passes over his face and he moves a few steps down to sit right beside where your feet are currently stretched out.

"Which ankle?" he asks.

"The left one," you answer and you wince again as your injury makes itself known. Is it just your imagination or did the pain get worse?

"You should have said something earlier," he murmurs. Before you can react to that, he hovers his hands over your left ankle. "May I?"

Once again, your traitorous self answers and you nod your head.

Dan carefully unties your shoelaces, taking the time to loosen them all the way up before gingerly cradling your ankle with one hand and oh-so-gently removing your shoe with the other. As he proceeds to remove your sock, his fingers lightly brush against your skin, and a gasp escapes you.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs softly, mistaking your response for one of pain. "I'll be fast. I just want to see how swollen it is."

You give him the green light, and he continues to divest your foot of the white cotton. The more skin he unveils, the more the two of you realize just how serious the sprain is. Your ankle has practically doubled in size, confirming your earlier suspicion that you won't be able to drive back home.

"We should get this iced and then elevated," he says, looking back up at you.

"I don't really have anything with me," you answer.

He gently lowers your foot back down, but doesn't take his hand off it. In fact, as he takes a moment to contemplate something, you feel him caress your ankle reassuringly. The pain on your foot gradually blurs, and you barely manage to hold in a moan of pleasure, pumped up on endorphins as you are.

"I have an ice pack in my car," he volunteers. "It's not that far. I can go get it now, but I also think it's best if I drive you home, so you can rest properly."

Oh, you think to yourself, surprised. While a part of you probably knew that he wouldn't just leave you alone, you didn't expect him to go so far as to take you home. Then again, it's also the most Dan thing he can do. Your mixed reaction must have shown on your face because he quickly backtracks.

"But, uh, perhaps there's someone we can call to pick you up?'" he asks, a bit of red creeping up the sides of his ears. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to overstep."

He looks adorable like this. Dan is normally such an infallible force at work. In the last 12 months since you met him, you've never seen him appear this flustered once, and your stomach can't help but flip flop at the possibility that this is all because of you.

"No, I'm good," you say with a smile. "I did bring my car though."

He still looks a bit red, but you see some of his composure returning. "We can come back for it later. Right now, though, this foot is our priority. It's criminal how long we've allowed it to remain untreated."

Is Dan Jones flirting with you? You decide that the only way to find out is to flirt back. "That's a serious allegation, Mr. Jones," you remark coyly, not missing the way his breath hitches ever so slightly at the way you addressed him. "Perhaps this warrants an internal investigation"

"Oh I'll even lead it, ma'am," he answers, his eyes darkening as he meets your gaze. "And I'll make sure to be very thorough."

You shudder at the implication of his words. There's something about Dan that makes you think that he could be a gentle lover, but would also not hesitate to literally fuck you six ways into Sunday if you ask for it. You feel yourself getting wetter by the second. God, it feels like the endorphins are really working your body double time.

Dan turns his back to you and bends his knees slightly. "Get on," he says, tapping his shoulder with one hand, further cementing your theory that this man will absolutely ruin you in bed. "I'll give you a ride to the car."

You lick your lips and do as you're told, resisting the urge to recommend a better preposition. Once he's certain that you're secure, he extends both of his hands behind his back to hoist you up, and slowly stands back to his full height. He then tugs his elbows closer to his hips, so that not all your weight is on his arms, inadvertently making you rub your already sensitive folds against his back. A soft whimper escapes your lips, one that you're certain did not go unnoticed seeing as you practically moaned right into his ear.

You hear him swear in frustration and he gets a move on. Each step has you rubbing up against him, giving you some modicum of relief one second and then wrenching it away the next, but you bite your lip and you hold you tongue. You know it'll be absolutely worth it when you get to his car. You just hope to fucking god that he's parked it in a secluded spot.

Tagging: @paper-n-ashes

If anybody else wants to be tagged in future adcu stories, just let me know! :)

[babyybitchhh]

This is the anon who commented about yami! I didn't like nozel at first but I can't lie, he kinda grew on me and he's fine asf. I couldn't look at magna in anyway until I saw him with his hair down. Now I'm like 👀👀👀. More than anything, I just want yami to ruin me. Spank me and call me a good girl pleaseee

Yessssssss

Yami was BUILT to be daddy. So strong, so rough around the edges but with a big soft heart, so beefy ��🥴💗

Words: 3937

Warnings: daddy kink, alcohol, drunk fingering, vaginal fingering 

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27172960

❤️❤️❤️❤️

You probably should have known better than to start drinking with them. No, not probably. You definitely should have known better.

Hindsight was always twenty-twenty though, and you could see now just how grievous a mistake it had been to accept Vanessa’s invitation without stopping long enough to consider the consequences but, well ... she was one of the only other women in the squad and she seemed to like you well enough. You wanted her to keep liking you, of course. So you’d foolishly jumped at the chance, far too eager to be included in this decidedly unorthodox team bonding exercise of theirs.

The Black Bulls were, by nature, sufficiently rowdy enough on their own but adding alcohol to the mix only seemed to fan the flames. They were the very definition of unruly. Clothes had been shamelessly discarded, more cigarettes smoked than you would have thought possible, arguments over nothing at all turned heated with alarming frequency only to be immediately forgotten and you, you were stuck in the middle of it. Thoroughly lost in your own world and floating serenely through the hazy bog of consciousness without a second thought to what chaos was going on around you.

It was kind of nice, actually. Liberating.

“Remember, ya’ gotta’ have at least three matching pairs to discard,” Magna reminds the assembled party as he quickly deals out a fresh hand. “Or you can do the same suit if ya’ want, but it has to go in order. No incomplete sets.”

The worse for wear table everyone had initially gathered around started off cramped, a tight fit for so many people and with little elbow room to spare. As the night wore on, however, most of the plucky squadron had gradually called it quits and retired until eventually only four remained. You were proud of yourself for outlasting the others but you also knew just how in over your head you were with this particular group. Yami could likely drink anyone under the table and Magna appeared to keep up with him just fine. While Vanessa didn’t exactly hold her liquor well , she could certainly put it away. There wasn’t a doubt in your mind that you were on your last leg here even if you were, for all intents and purposes, having a good time.

“Alright, lets see what ya’ got.”

Feeling simultaneously as light as a feather and sluggish under the weight of heavy, invisible chains, you slowly flip your cards over. It was hard to tell which way was up anymore, especially when your inner vertigo was so off kilter. You were warm, too. Almost unbearably so. Clammy in the worst possible way and you teeter forward in your chair, struggling to focus your swimming vision on the cards spread out in front of you.

It was a shit hand.

Grumbling under your breath, you distractedly tug at your clothes. A soft, fitful whine claws its way up your throat when it does absolutely nothing to alleviate just how stiflingly hot you are and, in fact, only seems to make it worse. You were absolutely burning up and this card game was its own special brand of torture, you decide with nothing short of woozy contempt.

“What the hell’s your problem?” Yami asks mildly from his spot beside you.

He was infuriatingly collected despite having consumed even more alcohol than you had, guzzling down mouthful after mouthful while you’d taken your time sipping on the fruity concoctions Vanessa made special just for you. You’d lost track of how many cups he’d emptied quite some time ago but you were still only on your third. It didn’t make sense. How were you so damn tipsy already?

“Hot.” You groan, not bothering to look up from what was possibly the worst hand you could have been dealt. Letting Magna shuffle the deck was, unsurprisingly, yet another mistake to add to the ever growing list.

Turning his head, Yami glances over at you and you catch the movement from your peripheral but still refuse to divert your attention from the cards. Maybe if you just stared at them long enough, hard enough, they’d morph into something you could actually use. You weren’t a magic knight in name only, right? Surely your grimoire was good for something .

“You’re drunk.” He suddenly announces, loud enough to make Vanessa whip her head around.

“M’not.” You grumble.

“Bullshit.”

The inebriated witch inserts herself into the fray before you can respond, wrapping slender arms around your shoulders and pulling you in against her bosom. “Awww, honey! Did’ju really like my drinks that much?” She coos at you sweetly. “I wasn’t tryin’ to get you drunk. Promise.”

“M’not drunk.” You insist, louder this time, much to Vanessa’s giggling amusement.

Heaving a clipped sigh, Yami leans across the table and taps your cards with a thick finger, slowly drawing your attention back to them. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” He says around the cigarette in his mouth. “But someone who isn’t piss drunk would probably know better than to lay their hand out on the table like this. Do you even know what game we’re playing right now?”

Mouth tugging into a frown, you wrack your muddled brain for the answer to that question. “Go fish?”

Magna inelegantly snorts at that. You can feel yourself starting to flush in embarrassment as Vanessa begins fussing over you, softly petting your head with murmured, nonsensical endearments. She definitely wasn’t helping matters and you sincerely hoped none of them could see your fluster.

Yami doesn’t seem to miss it though and he purses his lips, pinning you with an unimpressed glower. “That’s what I thought. Sorry, sweetheart, but you’re officially cut off. No more booze tonight, okay?”

Both you and Vanessa groan in unison. Your head immediately starts to spin in earnest now and you slump against the other woman even as she grabs your drink and holds it up to you as if she were bottle feeding a baby. The notion that she might accidentally dump it all over your head when she was just as intoxicated as you doesn’t even cross your mind and you obediently open your mouth to accept her offering.

“Come on, captain! At least let her finish her dr-drink first! I worked really hard to -”

Yami cuts across her babbling with a huff, standing and grabbing hold of the cup so he can pull it away despite Vanessa’s best attempt to keep it in her fumbling grasp. You watch it go, feeling an odd mix of disappointment and relief. The giddy, jovial mood you’d been imbued with was nice, yes, but realistically your body probably couldn’t handle much more. It was likely for the best.

“Just knock it off.” Pointedly setting the drink down towards the center of the table, Yami turns back with a furrowed brow. “Are you trying to kill her or something? What all did you even put in that?”

Vanessa hums a noncommittal sound of guilt, winding a strand of your hair around her finger.

He scoffs and moves closer with an accompanying shake of his head. Your heart gives a little jolt when you realize he’s coming towards you, not Vanessa, and you can’t help the anxious tinge that sparks in your chest. He was probably mad at you for getting so drunk. He looked mad. You didn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of his lectures though and you lean further into the softly swaying witch next to you in search of protection.

Much to your faltering surprise, however, Yami’s tone sounds closer to exacerbated than angry when he says, “Alright, brat. C’mere. You get to sit with me for the rest of the night so I can keep an eye on you and make sure someone doesn’t try to sneak you anything else.”

You blink, thoroughly confused, and it feels like even something as simple as a muscle twitch takes a small eternity to accomplish. Yami either doesn’t notice or he doesn’t care though.

Shooing Vanessa away, he bends at the waist and curls big hands under your armpits, hauling you straight up out of your seat. You outright squawk, flailing weakly in Yami’s grasp when you suddenly find yourself much further from the ground than you were used to. But your panic lasts only a terrifyingly brief moment and you relax when he draws you close, allowing you to curl your limbs around his thick frame. With a slight jostle, he adjusts his hold and secures you to the front of him. You instinctively nuzzle further into his arms, drunkenly whimpering as you tightly lock your elbows behind his neck.

“You’re no fun …” Vanessa whines on your behalf.

He clicks his tongue. “I’m thinking ahead. You’re not.” He says, those rumbled words reverberating inside your skull and further grounding you by some margin. “But if she gets sick, you’re the one who’s gonna’ clean it up.”

With that admonition, he moves back to his own chair and sits down again. It takes you a moment to get situated on his lap, still unbearably hot and fussy now after forcibly being removed from the fun. The last thing you want is to look like a lightweight in front of your teammates but he finally stills you with a large, mindful hand against your lower back. The silent warning in that innocuous gesture is enough to make you quit while you’re still ahead and, mewling something unintelligible, you press your warm face into his neck so you can settle in to pout.

Magna says something then, successfully distracting Vanessa from the subject, and the game carries on without you. The three of them don’t seem to mind the loss one bit as they seamlessly pick right back up where they’d left off.

It's hard to shake the feeling that your presence at the table was nothing more than an afterthought to them, or maybe a simple nicety, and it stung a little. There was no denying that. But you were much too hazy and disoriented to linger on it for more than a moment, molding yourself to the firm weight against you and going pleasantly slack in Yami’s arms. He was surprisingly comfortable, given his hard physique. A little too warm for your liking when you already felt swelteringly hot, but ultimately comfortable.

The even rise and fall of his broad chest is almost enough to lull you into dozing off right then and there with your head resting on his shoulder. Yami’s rough fingers tracing nonsensical, soothing patterns across your spine is the only thing that keeps you tethered to reality and you sit there, eyes closed, just listening to the slurred conversation going on at your back. It sounded far away now. Muted, as if your ears were stuffed with cotton, but you didn’t mind that too much. Magna was loud enough when sober and even worse when he was drunk.

A long moment later, Yami removes the cigarette from his lips and turns towards you when the other two start bickering about the validity of a certain card sequence. “How you feeling, squirt?” He asks, pressing his mouth against your hair.

“Good.” You murmur dreamily.

He laughs, very quietly, and gives you the briefest squeeze. “Yeah? You’re deadweight, baby girl. Sure you’re not gonna’ pass out on me over there?”

“Mmhmm.”

With a soft click of his tongue, Yami focuses back in on the game. The hand resting on your back slips lower, inconspicuously giving your behind a playful tweak that seems to go unnoticed by the table's other occupants given that they keep talking without pause. Magna would more than likely look away, politely pretending he hadn’t seen it, but Vanessa … if she’d caught so much as a glimpse, you’d be hearing about it right now. That was at least one reason (of which there was many) why what you had with Yami, whatever it was, still remained a secret to the rest of the squad even though it was probably a miracle they hadn’t caught on already, especially when he was so damn handsy with you.

Normally you’d err on the side of caution for that reason alone but you felt just daring enough to give him little push back. Emboldened by the liquid courage sitting hot and heavy in your stomach, confident that he wouldn’t have initiated this had it not been safe to do so, you discreetly roll your hips into him. The drag of your pussy across the front of his pants makes your breath hitch and he stiffens underneath you. That’s all the reaction you get for your trouble though, prompting you to lift your head from his shoulder and lean close to Yami’s ear.

“ Daddy …”

It’s nothing more than a tiny, breathless sigh but the effect it has on him is instantly noticeable. Steel chorded arm tightening around you, he breathes out a terse exhale and pulls you more firmly against his chest until you can scarcely breathe. A wavering puff of air slips from you as your thighs flex around his waist, silently trying to urge him on. It doesn’t work though and a shudder works its way down the length of your spine when he turns towards you again, growling right against the outer shell of your ear.

“Watch it.”

You whine, bucking against him more insistently. “ Nooooo .”

Yami snorts and swivels his attention back around to the cards clasped in his other hand. Pressing your face into the crook of his neck, you take a deep breath until the naturally heady scent of him swarms your senses like a fragrant, masculine cocktail. You can taste him in the back of your throat and it just makes you want him all the more.

Another wiggle of your hips is all the incentive he needs, calloused fingers slipping further down to grab a pinching handful of your ass. Roughly nudging you to sit a bit higher up on his thighs, he reaches lower and snakes his hand under your skirt. You squirm at the first touch against your panties, whimpering softly into his skin. Yami merely tightens his arm around you as he ever so carefully pulls the thin layer of cotton aside just enough to slide those sinfully long digits past the flimsy barrier.

“Spoiled brat,” He murmurs fondly, just loud enough for you to hear. “Already so damp and needy for me.”

You bite down on your tongue to keep yourself quiet, shuddering when he casually traces the length of your slit with abrasive fingertips.

Magna abruptly cackles about something and the sudden noise makes you jolt. Yami, to his credit, remains perfectly still though and merely waits a torturously long beat before continuing in rumbling hushed tones. “How long were you sitting over there in your own mess, hmm?”

“I - it’s not a mess.” You warble into his shoulder, your cheeks flushing hot.

“Oh? This certainly feels like a mess to me …” Pausing, Yami dips a finger into the meat of your labia and the slick quality of your pussy suddenly makes itself known. You hadn’t noticed until now, either because you were too caught up in your inebriated stupor or simply too focused on pouting to pay it any mind, but you were absolutely soaked. It wasn’t exactly surprising. Your body always responded eagerly to being manhandled by the captain but even this seemed a bit excessive.

Whining low in your throat, you decide you don’t want to play this game after all and try to angle your defenseless little cunt away from his searching hand. But Yami puts a stop to that quickly enough and shifts his legs further apart, forcibly spreading your thighs until you can’t find the leverage needed to wriggle out of his hold. You lip quivers when he takes advantage of this vulnerable position to worm a finger into the tight, squeezing heat of your body, gummy walls contracting around the intrusion with a pleasant flutter. It takes everything you have not to throw your head back and unabashedly moan up at the ceiling.

“Can’t you feel that, baby? You’re so wet I didn’t even have to work you open.”

Hiccuping, you shove your face against Yami’s neck again. “Dah - daddy … please .”

“Shh.” He warns even as he starts up a slow pace, sedately pumping into you. “Keep quiet or I’ll have to stop.”

As if on cue, Vanessa says something to him then and Yami effortlessly diverts his attention to the slurring witch as if nothing about the situation were out of place. You dig your nails into the broad expanse of his shoulder blades and bite back a groan, suddenly feeling ten times hotter than before. Even with all your concentration focused on keeping as still and quiet as possible, you find yourself imperceptibly arching to give him better access to your sticky cunt. It was certainly a blessing in disguise that she was just as drunk as you were, otherwise she might have given the whole thing a second thought. The way you were sitting on his lap. The smallest twitch of your hips to accompany the shallow quality of your breathing. It was so obvious what you two were doing. How had they not noticed already?

The table.

Neither Magna or Vanessa could see over it unless they came around and stood right next to the chair. You were essentially safe from the waist down and a fresh spark of confidence alights throughout your whole system with this realization, doubling and then tripling your arousal. It was still risky doing something so brazen right in front of them but you were just drunk enough not to care.

Loins twisting and curling, you carefully rear back to meet his shallow thrusts. You’d never felt more uninhibited in your whole life. “Oooh, daddy,” You whisper, choking on it. “Right there.”

Yami doesn’t miss a beat, easily keeping up with the conversation as he allows a second digit to slide in with the first. You feel the stretch in your bones and you quietly seeth, lashes fanning against the apples of your cheeks when it pushes you to just this side of discomfort. Even being as wet as you are, his fingers were just too thick for your eagerly clenching passage to accommodate them without some resistance and you hedonistically bask in the searing burn. It felt good. Almost good enough for you to lose yourself to the pleasure but, somehow, you manage to keep your wits about you instead of shamelessly writhing in his lap.

You may as well have thrown caution to the wind though. Discretion hardly mattered anymore. You already felt like a blatant little slut and the shock of how much that turns you on has your pussy drooling obscenely all over Yami’s hand.

“Hah - harder, daddy … nnghh, harder, please.”

Rather than obliging, he actually pauses his ministrations and you quietly mewl at the loss of friction. You squirm on top of his muscular thighs and desperately try to fuck down on his digits, panting like a bitch in heat against the captains neck. He shifts underneath you, says something to Vanessa that makes her direct a chiding tone at Magna. Their bickering starts up again and with the rise in volume, Yami gives his wrist a good twist that shoves his fingertips into your upper wall. Static electricity shoots through your system at the sudden pressure on that pulsing sweet spot and the tension in your gut immediately starts to toe the line of unbearable.

Your mouth drops open in shellshocked ecstasy but nothing comes out. It’s hard just to draw breath when the dizzyingly sharp jolt of arousal has your toes flexing uselessly in the air and you tremble, quaking in his arms. Unperturbed by the effect this is having on you, Yami takes his time caressing the velvety soft lining of your insides with sedately smooth motions. Those worn fingertips gradually curl up in the general direction of your belly button and press in deeper, harder, making your cunt absolutely gush around him. You weren’t going to last much longer at this rate.

“Oooh god !” You gasp, clutching him in a death grip.

Turning your head, you press your cheek against Yami’s shoulder and fix your gaze to a random spot on the far wall. The room looked like it was tilted on its axis - - spinning, spinning, spinning - - and all you can do is whine and shake when he scissors his fingers, making more room for himself within you.

You weren’t just overheated anymore. It was as if you’d caught flame, burning from the inside out, and it only gets worse when he flexes his hand, jabbing at the spongy soft spot again and again.

A choked off squeal rises in your throat, just barely held back by tightly clenched teeth. You’re almost positive you can hear the greedy, slopping clicks of your pussy sucking him in deeper just below the surface of the enthusiastic argument going on behind you but they don’t seem to notice. They just keep shouting back and forth at each other, oblivious to what was going on at the other end of the table. You have no idea how you’re getting away with this - aren’t even really sure if you will get away with this when all is said and done - but that’s the very last thing on your mind anymore as you haltingly roll your hips into the blinding pressure.

“Ah - ahh - d - dah - ahh - ddyyy !”

“Do it.” Yami murmurs, his mouth pressed tight to your ear. “Come now , baby. Do it while you have the chance. Come on.”

Your eyes roll back in your head and you give your pelvis one good little twist. The drag of your throbbing clit across the front of his rough pants is the last push you need, the resulting friction searing your veins. It sends you spiraling right over the edge into doped out bliss and you squeak, jerking against him when full bodied tremors grip you in earnest and make you shake.

Riding out the cresting waves as discreetly as you can, you blink back an onslaught of reflexive tears. Your pussy squeezes tight, milking your orgasm on his fingers, even though the effort of forcing yourself to remain quiet nearly breaks your resolve. But you manage, somehow, to breathe through it even as your hips weakly buck in unmitigated pleasure, subduedly twisting in his arms. It felt like you were drowning in it, choking on immense, all encompassing relief.

But Yami doesn’t immediately let up on his concerted attack, continuing to work you over until the spasms start to subside and you whine in frazzled distress. Digits finally stilling inside you, he offers a brief kiss to your hair and it makes you breathe out a tired sigh. You immediately slump, going boneless on top of him, now even clammier than when you’d started. The sweat clinging to your skin has you feeling worryingly damp but you were also satiated and comfortable. It was an acceptable tradeoff, as far as you were concerned.

“Such a good girl. You even managed to stay quiet for me. I’m proud of you.”

Smiling at the hushed approval in his tone, you snuggle further into Yami’s musclebound frame. You were floating on cloud nine, no longer concerned about being removed from the card game; not when the pleasant afterglow and the reassuring presence of your captain - your daddy - had you feeling so at peace. There would always be a next time.

[catty-words]

it's me again! i haven't really seen any analysis/meta/discussion abt NHIE (i'm pretty new to the fandom) and i really liked your last answer to my q so i was wondering if u had any thoughts on ben/devi as a relationship (not necessarily just the romantic aspect of it but like as a whole) and paxton\devi as a relationship as well and like ur thoughts on all that. sorry if this is werid!

The short version? I love them both and find it really cool that season one gives both relationships a complete arc. As for the long version…

Devi/Paxton: Popular guy gradually comes to appreciate all nerdy girl has to offer is a cute trope, right? Right. Of course, the thing I love the most about it in Never Have I Ever is that behind that cuteness is a lot of dysfunction. Devi chooses to pin all her post-trauma hopes and dreams on Paxton not only because his image holds enough power over the school to overshadow her stint in a wheelchair, but also because he has no idea who she is. He walks past her without seeing her at his swim meet. He’s clean across the parking lot and has not even the tiniest inkling of an idea that he’s about to distract Devi from her trauma long enough to get her walking again. He doesn’t remember that she sits behind him in history class.

And that appeals to Devi because, at the beginning of the season, she’s not looking for intimacy or true connection with Paxton. She’s looking for the image of normalcy. She’s looking to rebrand. So when Dr. Ryan convinces her that getting a boyfriend, any boyfriend, is not the way to do it, Devi—not wanting to completely give up her plan and fueled by Ben’s recent exacerbation of her insecurities—swerves right past the true point of Dr. Ryan’s words to set her sights on having sex.

I adore the way the first season is driven entirely by Devi’s unabashed horniness. She thinks Paxton’s hot and gets to openly gaze at him. She has wholesome ‘I know nothing about sex other than I want this shirtless boy in my bed’ sex dreams. And I adore the way that, on the flip side of that very straightforward and relatable feeling, is how focusing exclusively on her desire for Paxton is shown to cause a lot of her problems. She both gets to indulge her fantasy and get so lost in it, it becomes actively harmful to her life.

Meanwhile, on Paxton’s side of things, we get to see him become very quickly interested in intimacy and true connection. When it becomes clear that Devi’s not actually able to indulge in casual sex—because as much as she might not be looking for true intimacy, she sure cannot bring herself to relax into the surface intimacies hooking up requires—Paxton draws the line for her (no, we shouldn’t keep trying to meet in my garage) but continues to seek out her friendship. Shortly after calling off their attempts to hookup, he chooses her to be in his group for a class project. He’s excited to see Devi show up for Trent’s party. He asks her what Ganesh Puja means to her. Moreover, he opens up a very vulnerable side of himself to her in his relationship with Rebecca.

So, yeah, there’s an obvious imbalance of power in the relationship, and it’s actually not weighted in Paxton’s favor as the trope would initially have you believe. Paxton falls for Devi’s boldness and her YOLO approach to living. He cares about her well-being, as demonstrated by him asking if she’s okay post-pool fall. For Devi, on the other hand, it’s not especially clear whether she realizes just how much she keeps looking at Paxton and seeing only her fantasy, only what he can offer her, instead of the hints of a real person with his own shit to deal with he keeps trying to give her. Look no further than the narration after their kiss—“She just snagged her first kiss from a teenage Adonis. As far as Devi’s concerned, that car ride just solved all her problems.” By the eleventh hour of the season, Paxton is well and truly interested in building a relationship with Devi, while Devi’s excited for their kiss not because Paxton has shown that he cares about her. She’s excited because what she’d wanted this whole time—the image boost of being with him—is well within her reach.

Now, it probably sounds like I think Devi’s callous for this, but not so!! I think it’s impressive, the way the season manages to clearly show Devi’s motivations as sympathetic while also refusing to fully endorse her actions. She’s for sure using Paxton, and it’s not an especially good look. But her desperate desire to be seen as normal—to be talked about for reasons of her choosing and not because life decided to knock her out with some serious shit for a while there—is so, so heartbreakingly accessible to me. Wanting to control your own narrative is a fascinating theme for a fictional character to explore. And the packaging this theme comes in—Devi’s witticisms and Devi’s yearning to have more time with her dad—is charming as hell, is human and heart-wrenching. I love Devi with all my heart. So I don’t dislike her for using Paxton. Also, I love Devi with all my heart, so I can totally relate to the way Paxton falls for her.

Devi/Ben: Rivals to…an undefined something else. Not as cutesy of a trope, which works perfectly because Devi and Ben—though they certainly have their moments that make me squeal—are not cute with each other. Their relationship is about challenge, about being held accountable because messing up is grounds for mockery. And with that accountability and that constant attention paid—I mean, even the point I made earlier, about Ben’s “unfuckable nerd” comment being present in Devi’s mind when she decides to ask Paxton if he wants to have sex, is proof of the way Devi and Ben constantly exert an influence on each other—comes unexpected vulnerability and intimacy.

Which, again, Devi is not looking for. But unlike with Paxton, Devi doesn’t have unrealistic expectations of her dynamic with Ben to get in the way when actual intimacy starts to develop, and therefore she has no readily accessible place to hide. For this reason, she actually ends up leaning on Ben a lot, leaning into the growing compassion between them, and accidentally stumbles into some mortifying ordeal of being known shit. All throughout season one, Devi is honest with Ben without being cornered into that honesty. He reads her mood in the second episode and surmises that her plan to “get railed” didn’t go well, and she lets him offer his Ben-flavored wisdom when just a couple minutes before, she made the choice to mislead her best friends. Ben is the first person she tells about not actually having sex with Paxton, where she has to be put on the spot by Eleanor’s mom to actually make the confession to Eleanor and Fabiola. She asks Ben if she can move in with him and spends a lot of the final episode talking out her feelings about her fight with Nalini and saying goodbye to her dad with him.

So yeah, there’s certainly an imbalance in their relationship, too. Devi leans more heavily on Ben than he gets to on her. Of course, she does have a lot more going on in her life than Ben does. Plus, this imbalance is not quite as insurmountable as the stuff with Paxton. Navigating it won’t be as big an obstacle. As it is, Devi gives Ben the sympathetic ear he needs on more than one occasion—in the kitchen in episode six and at the party in episode eight. He may have to specifically ask for her to shut up and listen in episode six—“I’m trying to be vulnerable here!”—but I think that’s more proof that they’re accidentally really well-suited for each other because of the way their rivalry has built accountability. Stop being a dick for a second, I have something important to share with you. It’s a parallel sense of isolation and image-contentiousness you’re battling. Doesn’t that make the burden of feeling these things just a little bit lighter?

Triangulation: In summation—Paxton kisses Devi to show her that he cares, that he’s not done with her, and she totally misses that in favor of idolizing the relationship they don’t fully have. Devi kisses Ben because he showed her he cares—he stayed!—and she wanted him to know she got the message. Which means, next season, Devi gets to make a choice between something she spent all of season one wanting and something she hadn’t at all expected to want. But, in either case, she gets to explore a relationship with a boy who cares deeply about her—which makes me really excited for her because, you guessed it! I love Devi with all my heart.

[mercury-retrograde-concept]

Mark and Haechan relationship: February 2021 tarot reading

A few days ago I received an ask about Mark and Haechan’s current relationship. Today I finally had the time to do that reading!

Note: Due to the question I received, this reading is centered more around attraction rather than friendship. I’m using the concept of ‘attraction’ in a very broad way. If you’re close to someone - as these two appear to be - there’s something that draws you to one another, and sometimes it’s totally platonic. Likewise, you can also be physically attracted to someone as annoying as hell. Basically I’ll go into this type of reading with an open mind, but if I see indicators of physical attraction I will note it (but I’m not assuming it either!)

Disclaimer: This tarot reading is for entertainment purposes only. All speculation comes from my interpretation only.

Current state of relationship: Three of Swords, The Magician

Clarifier card: Five of Swords (Reversed), Eight of Cups

Recent past: The Hierophant (Reversed), King of Swords Near future: Three of Pentacles, Knight of Pentacles Mark's role in the relationship: Student Archetype Card What Mark finds attractive about Haechan: Knight of Cups (Reversed), The Emperor (Reversed) What Mark finds unattractive about Haechan: Page of Swords, Judgement (Reversed) Haechan's role in the relationship: God Archetype Card What Haechan finds attractive about Mark: Page of Cups, Two of Wands What Haechan finds unattractive about Mark: Nine of Swords, Two of Pentacles

Uh, so... They had some conflict recently, again. Imagine that sheepishly smiling/sweat drop emoji here.

I don’t know if it was that big a deal though, at least relative to the 2017 conflict. I did go “ohhhh boy” when I pulled Three of Swords as the very first card, admittedly. For those who are new to tarot imagery, Three of Swords is a card often associated with heartbreak and in Rider-Waite imagery it looks like this:

Except, I’m using the After Tarot deck for this reading, which takes imagery from the Rider-Waite cards and shows the images a few moments later. Consequently, this is what I actually got for Three of Swords during this reading:

An image of the first few steps of healing. And I did pull a bunch of cards around this one that indicated reconciliation. From what I was able to ascertain, it looks like the blandness of life during COVID was wearing them down and they were picking fights with each other. There might even have been Words about how they would definitely not renew their contracts in a few years if it means being coworkers. (Seriously, where is that sweat-dropping emoji when I need it.)

Eventually, though, they realized that boredom and stagnation was their real enemy. They also seem to have become frustrated with SM’s controlling ways in general, and are mutually determined to take more control over their creative output. Kind of strikes me as a delayed rebellious teen phase. They also focused on channeling some of that frustration into their work. They have some passion projects they plan to bring to fruition, and the near future will involve them working away at this. Very curious about their next comeback to be honest.

Mark’s role within their relationship/friendship seems to be constantly in flux. He’s very in tune to Haechan’s ways and moods and will shape his behavior accordingly (or - if he’s pissed off - deliberately do the opposite of what Haechan probably wants.) While this means Haechan holds a lot of power in the relationship, it can sort of difficult for him to get a grasp on what Mark is really like.

Haechan’s enthusiastic nature is probably the thing Mark finds most attractive about Haechan. Haechan is dramatic, passionate, and full of stories/gossip. He can be incredibly fun to hang out with when work is otherwise grueling and boring. He can also be quick with comments and flattery, which Mark enjoys. It’s a nice balm to all the critiques he inevitably gets from management, because Mark always takes those seriously. On the flip-side, though, Haechan can also be exhausting. He won’t let anything go and is very prone to arguing, just for the sake of being right. He can also be scatterbrained when Mark just wants to focus. Furthermore, whenever Haechan is feeling insecure, it tends to exacerbate these same qualities that Mark finds deeply annoying.

As for Haechan’s feelings towards Mark ... well he does seem to find Mark’s base personality very cute, haha. For Haechan, Mark is an idealistic, sensitive presence, but he’s also assertive enough about his own career to be decisive and willing to take risks. I feel like Haechan thinks a lot of people fail to notice Mark’s confidence/occasional implacability. Haechan is very aware of it, meanwhile. In fact, he likes to encourage these tendencies in Mark, because a lot of people in management tend to treat Mark like a workhorse. Yes, Mark can seemingly do it all, but Mark also has ideas of his own and Haechan appreciates that aspect of him. As I stated above, Mark can sometimes be something of a emotional shapeshifter with Haechan, so it’s kind of a personal victory for Haehan whenever he can get Mark to be decisive about something.

All that being said, Haechan also dislikes Mark’s tendency towards moodiness. Haechan doesn’t know why Mark gets overwhelmed so easily and takes so many things to heart. Sometimes Haechan is sympathetic, but sometimes Haechan just interprets this as Mark thinking he’s the only one with issues. This seems to be something rather irreconcilable between these two because I got similar vibes for my reading for their 2017 fight. It looks as though they handle things in a more mature way, now, but this will always be a fundamental point of contention between the two of them maybe.

Looking at these cards as a whole, it’s pretty interesting. I’m getting the vibes of a relationship where they do not get each other in a lot of key ways. Sometimes these differences are deeply annoying, but they also find these differences engaging and exciting a lot of the time, too.

[cstormsinukagblog]

Fast Food Thief

A/N I do not own Inuyasha or any characters. This is not an original idea. I read a post a while back and the idea popped into my head to do it Inukag style. The idea is here. This is a modern day Inukag au. I hope you enjoy. I needed a pick-me-up. Have a good Saturday!

Tags for people who have requested it:  @akitokihojo @alannada @mamabearcat @Cammysanstuff @eternalnight8806-3 @feudalpriestess98 @hinezumi @Juliatheanimelover7 @keichanz @littlemissinukag @noviceotakus-blog @petri808 @shinidamachu @Stuckinthewrongworld @witchygirl99 @xfangheartx

This day was going to suck. Her coffee pot was broken, so she was going to have to stop somewhere. She goes to get dressed to go to work, and apparently the dry cleaners failed to get the ink stain out of her favorite blouse. She stomps her feet like a young child throwing a tantrum. But it did relieve some of the irritation. She selects another outfit, gets dressed in a hurry, then rushes out the door. She parks on the street and heads into the cafe on the way and realizes too late the line was too long. She tries to wait it out, but is definitely going to be late. She gives up after the line seems to have barely moved after ten minutes. She is almost there and actually it doesn’t seem like she is going to be late until she hears sirens. She pulls over diligently and sees fire trucks zoom past her and stop a little ways ahead of her. Traffic is not at a standstill. She was only 18 minutes late, and it didn’t seem like anyone had noticed. She sunk into her desk just in time for her boss to yell her name. She jumps up, and he is glaring at her. 

“Yes, Mr. Naraku?” Her voice is still slightly out of breath, which is exacerbated by her nerves.

His glare almost seems to get worse, “in my office, please.”

Her head sinks as she nods in response, then follows him to his office. He motions for her to sit in the chair across from his desk and she barely sits on the edge of the seat, terrified of what he wants.

“You need to stop making it such a habit to waltz in late, Miss Higurashi. Why don’t you tell me why I shouldn’t fire you?”

Her eyes went wide and she could feel tears welling, which she struggles to blink back. Her voice comes out in a rush, “Mr. Naraku, this is only the second time I’ve been late in a year. I am so sorry, but I am always on time. It’s just been a very bad morning. There was a fire in an apartment building and traffic wasn’t moving.” 

Her head sinks to her chest, and she misses the evil smile spread across his face. Her heart is pounding and she can’t breathe.

His voice comes out with a greasy quality, “Very well. Do not be late again. If you do, we will have to let you go. You already have 2 write-ups. I should give you your third today. But I’m feeling generous. Perhaps after work you can come talk to me about getting those write-ups removed. I’m sure we can work something out.”

She can feel his eyes travel up and down her body and she represses a shiver. “If I have time after work, I will come back, Mr. Naraku.” She is hoping so hard that he won’t know she’s lying. She knows exactly what he wants, and she would rather lose her job than do what she’s sure he’s insinuating.

She works through her first break, only stopping to run to the restroom. She had to avoid any chance to be alone with him. She didn’t want to lose this job, but she would have to start job hunting tonight. Her lunch couldn’t come soon enough. Her stomach was grumbling. She went to the breakroom to grab her lunch from the fridge to find it gone. This day seriously couldn’t get any worse.

She leaves to try to run to the fast-food restaurant down the street, but she’s only halfway there and she knows she’s never gonna have time. She stops into a little corner store and grabs a pop and a bag of chips and runs back, barely making it in time. Before she sits, she sees Mr. Naraku glance at his watch and give her a look as if to say, “cutting it close.”

She slumps at her desk and sets her head down for a moment. This day is terrible. After a few seconds she calms her breathing and sits back up getting back to work. She opens her bag of chips and starts snacking between typing. The rest of the day seems to be uneventful, and she is so relieved by that. She sees Mr. Naraku staring at her as she finishes closing up things for the day. Once she shuts down her computer and cleans up her station, she clocks out, and pretends to get a phone call.

As she walks by his office, she tries to look guilty and apologize, “I’m sorry, Mr. Naraku. It’s my mom. She needs me to come help her. I’ll be on time tomorrow, I promise.”

He sneers in irritation, “If not you might as well not come in at all Miss Higurashi.”

She nods and looks down as she walks out of the office doors, then she practically sprints to her car. Her stomach is cramping from not having any real food all day. She stops in at the drive thru for the WacDonald’s on the way home. She tried to order her usual, but apparently there was an issue and they had a recall on their chicken patties. As she is sitting there debating on what to order the car behind her honks.

This is definitely the last straw. She glances back in the rearview window and she can see white hair and dog ears on a very handsome face, sitting in a convertible.

Fuck him. She places her order and drives forward to wait her turn to get to the pay window. She debates for a minute, then remembers a post on something similar. She’s usually not so mean, but this has been enough. When she gets to the window, she tells the cashier she wants to pay for the order for the car behind her, but she needs a receipt for both orders. The young kid smiles and mutters something like, “that’s nice of you.” Which she tries not to laugh at. What she is planning is not nice at all.

As she pulls up to the food window, she tells the person that she has 2 orders and shows both receipts. She gets her order and his. Pulls up a bit, flips him off and drives away. Fuck that guy!

~~~~~~~

Inuyasha is in a hurry. As usual. His day hasn’t been bad, but he needs a fucking vacation. Not that he couldn’t take one. Hell, he could take a 3 month hiatus and still be fine. But he needed to work. If he didn’t work, he thought too much. So he worked about 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. He liked to be kept busy. He pulled into the WacDonald’s and was irritated to see so many cars in the drive thru. He could go in, it would probably be faster, but fuck that. He didn’t want to get out of his car. So he pulled in behind this purple sedan. He needed to get home. He had shit to do.

After a couple minutes, the cars hadn’t moved nearly as fast as they needed to. When the purple sedan finally got to the mic to order, the dumb bitch took forever. He could feel a growl rumbling in his chest and he honked his horn at her. He could see her glare at him in her rearview mirror, but at least it made her put in her stupid order. He pulled up and put in his order, quick and easy.

He pulled back up behind her at the pay window and saw her and the cashier send a look back at him. Was she really telling on him? What is this elementary school? He let out a “keh” and waited to pull up to pay. When he pulled up to the pay window, he had cash ready, but the cashier looked at him and seemed all lovey dovey.

“The lady in front of you paid for your food.”

His hand dropped. Wow, he was an asshole. He honked at her because she wasn’t ordering fast enough for him, and she decided to be nice in retaliation. Damn, what a classy lady. Here he was calling her a bitch in his mind, and she was definitely nicer than he had expected.

He saw her get two bags of food. No wonder it had taken her so long, she was ordering for a group. He really was an asshole. He pulls up to the window and says quite calmly what his order was, and the cashier looks confused.

“The lady in the purple sedan just paid for it for me.”

The cashier’s mouth drops, “Umm… She paid for 2 orders and showed me the receipt. She took both orders.”

Inuyasha’s mouth drops open. She wasn’t classy, but damn was she fucking brilliant. He pulled out and jumped on the road, following the purple sedan. She drove to a local park and went and sat under a pavilion. He held back a bit so she wouldn’t know he had followed her.

As soon as she slumps down on a bench, he jumps out of his car and stomps over to her.

“Hey, Bitch! You fucking stole my food!”

She looks up, absolutely shocked, and slightly terrified. 

“That was my fucking order at the WacDonald’s. Now give me my fucking food!”

She seems to recoup quickly and snaps back at him, “Excuse me, but you didn’t pay for anything, that is your problem. I paid for food and I get to have the food. Your loss, loser.”

He growls low at the word loser and fights to keep his anger in check. “Bitch, that isn’t fucking fair. You paid before I got there. But I ordered the fucking food and you will give it to me.”

She just glares at him, “You should have gotten back in line at the drive thru. It’s not my problem. Sometimes mistakes are made. I placed an order, paid for food. And got all the food I paid for. Maybe if you weren’t such a jerk, you wouldn't have these problems. But no, you have no patience, like the 2 minutes I spent putting my order in slowed you down so damn much. How much time have you wasted following me all the way to the park and now yelling at me. You could have got back in line, ordered your food and been on your way. So you weren’t in a hurry, you were just being rude. You deserve it. Besides, you didn’t pay for it so I didn’t steal it. I bought it.”

She stands up and walks back to her car carrying both bags of food, “Now I’m going home. If you follow me there, I’ll be forced to call the police.”

He growls at her, then stops mid growl and bursts out laughing. Everything she had said was completely true. He could have been home sitting on his soft comfy couch, and eating trash food, but here he was yelling at a stranger. For food he hadn’t even paid for.

She seems more afraid of his laughter than his growling. “You’re right. I was an asshole. But I have to bow down to the bigger asshole. You, wench, are a much bigger asshole than I am. I cannot compete. Now, if I pay you for my food, will you give me the damn bag?”

She seems to contemplate it for a minute, then nods. “On one condition. You cannot ever honk at someone in a drive thru again. I need to know you at least learned your lesson.”

He smirks at her and he feels his fang peek out. “Yeah, alright. I won’t honk in drive thrus anymore. What an important lesson. I am so glad you taught me right from wrong.”

He pulls out the money he had for his order and she trades him for the bag. After he turns to walk back to his car, he can detect a change in her scent. He turns back to see her entire body deflate as she sinks back onto the bench. Then the scent of tears hits him. Fuck he wasn’t that much of an asshole was he?

He rushes back, “Hey. What the hell, wench?”

She sucks in a breath and tries to compose herself as he stops next to her. She clears her throat and mumbles a “What?” in response, and for some reason her tears are killing him.

“Was I that much of an asshole? What did I do to make ya cry?”

She shakes her head in response. “It wasn’t you. Just go. Just take your stupid food and go.”

He drops the bag on the ground at her feet and sits down next to her. “Yeah, I don’t think so. What happened to the spunky woman who just let me have it? I’ve never been so intimidated by a human before. Now you’re gonna let my opinion of ya fade so quickly?”

She growls pretty impressively for a human, “What the fuck should I care about your opinion of me? I don’t even know you, you jerk!”

He doesn’t know why, but he instinctively wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into him. He hears her gasp against him. Fuck, what was wrong with him? He is practically molesting some woman he doesn’t even know! Then her head turns into his chest and her arms come up around his back. He can feel her tears through his shirt, and his heart is breaking slightly. This strong, smart, and wonderful woman is in his arms sobbing, and grabbing his shirt like her life depended on it. He holds her until her sobbing stops. He doesn’t say anything about it, and just sits holding her until she pulls away.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t even know you. That was definitely terrible of me. Please forgive me.”

He cuts her off, by gently placing his hand against her cheek being careful of his claws, “Are ya better now?”

She nods slowly and gives him a watery smile. “Yes, thank you. For everything.”

He nods back and his smirk returns, “Anytime. M’name’s Inuyasha. Maybe we can do this again sometime. Maybe even without all the yelling, and rude names.”

She snickers in response then nods again, “My name is Kagome.”

He shakes his head at her, “Nah, I like Wench better.”

Her smile disappears, “You are such a jerk! Why are you still here?”

He feels his smirk spread, “I can’t resist a Wench in Distress.”

She rolls her eyes, and the smile comes back. “You know what, I think I’ve dated too many jerks. I think I will have to say no to getting together another time.”

“Keh, dating. Aren’t we presumptuous?” Her mouth drops open, and she resembles the cutest carp he’d ever seen. “I mean we barely know each other and you already want to date me. I know I’m a catch, but damn wench. Slow down.”

“My name is Kagome. Ka-Go-Me! Get it right.” She stands up and stomps over to her car and climbs in, slamming the door. He glances down and sees her bag of food and proceeds to grab it, dangling it in front of himself so she can easily see it and he can hear her frustrated scream from inside of her car. He can’t stop himself from opening the bag and stealing one of her fries. Now her frustrated scream has become an angry growl. He pulls out a pen and writes something on the bag. He walks over to her car and puts the bag on the hood of her car. Climbs in his car and speeds off. She’ll call. He absolutely knows it.

She gets out of her car and grabs her bag. His writing is a lot neater than she expected.

Ok Ka-Go-Me Call me Inuyasha and his number.

She was definitely going to have to call him...

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

Off Day: Seventeen

Bucky stared at his phone and felt a little light-headed from the speed at which blood had poured into his erection when he opened your message. It was a picture, one that he had asked for on his “To-Do List” that he made.

He knew you liked to torment him, however sweetly. You’d embraced flirting with him quickly and had just as quickly embraced sending him flirty pictures. This one though. It was filthy. One of the things he had put on there that would take you some prep time if you decided to take it for him. A way for you to stay distracted if you got overwhelmed. Or sad. Or any of the other feelings that tended to exacerbate your symptoms.

It made his mouth go dry and his fingers trembled as he tried to type a response. It was a pin-up photo. Artful but undeniably sexy. You were kneeling in front of a mirror in the middle of putting makeup on. Nude but for a pair of heels and the choker he’d bought you. The one with the blue jewel set in gold on a piece of black velvet ribbon. You’d fallen in love with it and protested him buying it. But, it was worth it. You’d changed the jewelry in your nipple piercings to match it. Your thighs were slightly parted and he could just barely see the pink of your folds. But the thing that made him throb was when his eye was drawn down to your plush bottom. He could see the wink of a jewel. Of a toy he’d told you to use. It was beautiful. It made him feel like he was standing behind you, waiting for you to get ready. Watching you. Admiring you from afar.

“Barnes,” Clint said snatching his phone, “Quit lookin’ at porn. You’ll be home tomorrow.”

Clint glanced down at his phone and recoiled, “Oh shit,” he tossed the phone back at Bucky like he’d been shocked, “God. What? Fuck. How do you get a girl to do that?”

“Ask nicely,” Bucky said blushing a little. 

“Do you think Nat would do that for me?” Clint asked

“Do what? Nat asked sitting across from them.

“Take dirty pictures and send them to me,” Clint said.

Nat shot Bucky a look, “Bucky!”

“I didn’t show him,” Bucky protested, “Clint took my fucking phone.”

“Was it at least pretty?” Nat asked clint, smirking.

“Very artistic. She put some effort in. I mean. In another life she woulda made a good alt model.” he said, cheeks coloring a little. 

Bucky can’t look at either one of them right now. He feels a little like he might have betrayed your trust by Clint getting a peek at you. He promised they’d only be for him. 

“I’m not tellin’ her I saw shit though,” Clint said, “I just thought Bucky was watching porn hub. I didn’t know he was doing some freaky shit with his girl.”

Nat snorted, “Oh,” she said, “So you did make a list.”

Bucky nodded, smiling a little, “Yeah,” he said, “thanks for putting that idea in her head.”

Nat grinned, “You’re welcome... We were talking about her doing makeup to distract herself... I was kinda kidding when I suggested dirty pictures but it worked. She likes making you happy. Or teasing you. I’m not sure which.”

“Yes,” Bucky answered nodding. Still blushing. But, it was nice knowing that you and Nat did girl things. Nat didn’t spend much time around women. They irritated her. At least. Most of the women in the bar did. They were pretend tough girls. Bitches. They might ride bikes and drink but they were really boring to her. She liked women that were smart and individual. Not mean girls. She had enough of those in High School. 

Nat snorted, “Nice,” she said, “I knew she was a keeper.”

Bucky picked up his phone to message you back, saving the picture for later in the secret file on his phone

He lavishes praise on you. You’re beautiful and perfect. That picture is hot. It’s so sexy he doesn’t know how he’s gonna sleep tonight looking at it. And thank you so much for showing him.

_______

Bucky is glad to be home. It’s chilly outside but it’s warm inside the clubhouse. He’s missed you and he wanted to go straight to White Rabbit to see you but you made him promise not to. You had something you were working on for him, apparently in a back room and didn’t want him to see it. He was itching to see you. It had been three days and he hadn’t slept well the whole time. He’d not realized how used to you he’d gotten. How much better he slept next to you. He sipped his beer and watched the clock, counting seconds until you’d wander through the door. 

You were always welcome, even when Bucky wasn’t there just by virtue of being a sweetheart who always paid her tab in full. And by being friendly to Nat and generally patient when waiting for a drink. They all liked you. Even the ones that didn’t remember you from school. If only because you did what they couldn’t do and got Bucky out of a bad relationship. He finished his beer and ordered his second, going to join Steve and Sam at the pool table, trying to kill time until you would be there. It worked. He’d hardly looked at the clock.

He was honestly surprised when you burst through the door, wearing a green pleated skirt and white blouse. Hair up in a bun behind your head and pretty red lips. Knee socks and cute little heeled oxfords. You look like a librarian. Out of place in the bar. Still, when you bolt into his arms and wrap your legs around his waist easily, he chuckles against your lips as you tangle your hands in his hair. He can’t stop you and he doesn’t want to. He hefts you up and ignores the jeers and whoops. There’s nothing but you. Your perfume. The feel of your eager, hungry lips against his. When you come up for air he grins, “Miss me?” he asked, teasing.

“So much,” you say smiling, a little breathless.

“Is this outfit for me?” he asks, kissing your nose.

“Do you like it? I did some shopping when I was up in Red Key.” you look uncertain and he smiles. You have an aesthetic. One you never had enough money to dress for. He really likes watching you build your dream closet a little at a time. Even if he has to threaten to punish you if you don’t buy whatever you’re drooling over occasionally. You deserve it and he likes knowing you feel pretty. He also likes wrapping his leather jacket around you when you’re chilly. He likes how big it is on you and the way it clashes with your neat, pretty style. 

“I love it,” he rumbles, “You look real good baby girl. I’m a lucky man, coming home to such a beautiful girl.”

You flush at the praise and he kisses your nose again, “Did you buy yourself anything else?”

“Some pretties and I got my nails done,” you tell him. 

He whistles softly and smiles, “Good to know the money I gave you to run around with went to good use, Princess,” he praised. You hadn’t asked but he’d made sure to give you a little something just to entertain yourself with. He’d left it on your dresser in the jar you kept to save up for this or that. 

You tilt your head, “Oh no. I used that to get you something,” you say smiling, kissing his cheek. “I had a ton of money in my Princess fund so I used what you left me for something else.”

“Y/N,” he scolded, “You were supposed to use that on something for you.”

“I did. It made me happy buying you something,” you murmur, cheeks coloring. 

He swatted your backside affectionately, “Why’re you so sweet, huh?”

“I dunno,” you answer, wiggling to be put down.

“Nuh-uh,” he said, shifting you onto his shoulder and carrying you over to the bar to sit with you on his lap, “Have a glass of wine with me?” he asked. 

You sigh, “Not today,,” you say shaking your head. Bucky kisses your head and signals to Nat to put it on his tab as she pours a coke for you. She kept a four-pack of Mini bottles and one wine glass. You were the only one that drank wine, when you did drink and it tickled her.

“Thank you,” you tell her, smiling and raising your glass in toast. “I still don’t understand how the fuck you walked into a biker bar and ordered wine,” she teased.

“Well, you stock it now don’t you?” you answer.

“Only because it’s you and we feel bad making fun of you.”

You shrug, “Much like the sloth, my plan for survival seems to be being as pathetic as possible so that bigger badder people leave me alone.”

Natasha snorted. She could appreciate that you were yourself. You didn’t like beer and wouldn’t pretend to fit in. You’d sip your glass of wine and crack quiet jokes.

“Pathetic?” Sam gasped scandalized, teaching across the bar to grab another bottle, “You’ve successfully whipped the most unrepentant man whore I have ever met AND you get to talk back to Natasha and live.”

“He wasn’t a man whore,” you say leaning against Bucky’s side, “He just didn’t know better.”

“And I’m pretty sure she’s the one that’s whipped,” Steve snickered.

Your cheeks burn and Natasha winces sympathetically, “Steve,” she says, spraying him with seltzer, “You’re fucking Stark so you should probably let the two of them just have their French vanilla sex and enjoy it.”

Bucky tilts your chin up and kisses you softly, cuddling you close and casually flipping off the guys that are D’aww-ing loudly. He’s never understood why guys act like assholes to their girls in public. You deserved soft all the time. You deserved to be able to look to him to feel safe whether or not his friends could see him.

“Shut up, ya animals,” Nat sighed. 

______________________

Bucky walked into the house and set his bag down by the door then set you down on the table, standing between your legs and putting his chilled hands on your thighs, rubbing tenderly to warm them up. You shiver and he chuckles, “I missed you, Princess,” he murmurs, kissing your nose.

“I missed you too, daddy,” you answer, hiding your face in his abs.

“You were a handful while I was gone,” he chuckles, “I loved all the pretty pictures you sent me.”

“You did?”

“I did,” he praised, “Lost a lot of sleep wishing I was here to admire how perfect you are in person.”

You beam up at him and he takes the pins out of your hair carefully, letting it fall down to your shoulders. “You’re so perfect,” he hummed, kissing your nose.

Your cheeks color and you nuzzle his abs again, “Can I give you your present now?” 

He chucks you under the chin, “You mean the present I told you not to buy?”

“But-” Your face falls and he tickles your side, making you giggle.

“No, no being sad,” he tuts, “Of course you can Princess.” He helps you off the table and listens to your shoes hit the floor outside the door and then listens to you scamper up the stairs. You’re excited. Thrilled about whatever this is and Bucky braces himself. Even if he hates whatever it is, he’s not gonna tell you. Not ever. You’re too sweet and he knows that whatever it is you saw it and thought it was perfect for him. That’s enough.

He helps himself to a beer and waits, listening to the rustling coming from upstairs. He shakes his head and settles into a kitchen chair waiting. When you come back downstairs with a black gift bag in your hand he smirks. You always tried so hard not to make things too feminine for him. He appreciated it but honestly, he wasn’t phased. He’d carry your purse and not even blink. He was a big scary biker. Ain’t no one saying shit. 

“What’s this, huh?” he said pulling you onto his knee and taking tissue paper out of the bag and tossing it aside.

You’re practically vibrating with excitement and he pulls the gift out of the bag. It’s a leather jacket. A tiny leather jacket. Like baby-sized. Bucky stops and looks at you. Your hands are over your mouth and you’re watching him waiting on his reaction. “Princess,” he said, not quite able to breathe, “I don’t think this is my size.”

He definitely can’t breathe. He can’t think. If you’re telling him what he thinks you’re saying he has to protect you. He has to keep you safe. 

“Bucky I-” you start and he can hear the anxiety in your voice and that hurts. He forces himself to smile and wipes a stray happy tear off your cheek. 

“I thought you were on birth control,” he said, feeling like his lips are numb.

“And they put me on antibiotics for my sinus infection- I- I’m sorry. I didn’t- I’m sorry.” You’re starting to cry in earnest now, springing off of his lap and covering your face with your hands. 

“Sweetheart,” he soothed, holding his hands out for you to take, “I just- I’m surprised. I think- I think I might have gone into shock for a second.” It’s breaking his heart to see you cry. He hates it. He can’t. It makes him think about all the times you cried and he wasn’t there to dry your tears. “Please, baby girl,” he coaxes, “Please don’t cry. Not like this. I’m sorry. I’m happy I promise.”

“No, you’re not,” you sniffle, wiping your eyes on the back of your hand and wrapping your arms around yourself.

He crosses the floor to you and passes you a clean handkerchief from the inside pocket of his jacket. You take it and he kisses your head while you bow your head and try to rein in all your emotions. Something Bucky still appreciates about your crying. It’s always real. He gives you the time you need before he starts talking again. Taking just a second to decide what to say. And rein in his own panic. His own irrational fear. His dad left. He didn’t know how to be a dad. He could barely take care of himself. How would he teach his son? And oh god, what if it was a girl? What would he do? 

When you look up at him though, he can’t think about that. All he knows is he has to fix this for you. You’re his. This baby is his. And this isn’t about him. Not really. You’re trusting him. Giving him this. You could have had an abortion and not told him and he’d never know. You’re looking up at him, uncertain and scared and he realizes with a jolt that he wasn’t the only one that was scared, you’d just had some time to adjust to it. Some time to decide you could do this. With him. 

“You’re right,” he says softly, “I’m not happy. I’m terrified.” He kneels in front of you and nuzzles your belly, kissing gently. You pet his hair, waiting. “I don’t- I don’t really know what to do with kids ya know? My dad left- a bunch of times. I don’t really know how to be a dad. I mean. Until recently I was drunk every night and fucking a bunch of different girls.” He looks up at you and smiles a little, “But if I can do this with anyone, Y/N, I can do it with you.”

“Really?” you whimper,  tucking hair behind his ear.

“Really.” 

“Promise?” you hold out your pinky and he links his pinky through yours, pressing his lips to your thumb and pressing his thumb against it to lock it. 

“I promise, Princess,” he said getting to his feet slowly and wrapping his arms around you, “I only get one chance. I’m not gonna fuck this up. Not now that I fooled you into thinking I’m a nice guy.”

You roll your eyes but giggle, making him swat your bottom affectionately. “When did you find out?” he asks softly, setting you on the counter and taking a cool cloth to your face gently.

“About 15 minutes before the girls showed up with pizza for our sleepover,” you murmur. 

He kisses your nose, “Have you seen a doctor?”

“Not yet but. Three tests on three different days seemed pretty definitive... I wanted to tell you first before I did anything.”

“We need to get you an appointment, Princess,” he murmured, kissing you softly, “We just got you healthy. I wanna keep you that way. Both of you.” He swipes at your nose gently with the cloth and you smile.

“You’re gonna keep me?”

“Of course I am,” he murmured, “You’re my Princess, and this is for both of us to handle, okay? Just give me some time to process it all. I promise. I’m okay. It was just a shock, baby.”

“Can we have a cuddle?” you ask, needing some comfort.

Bucky nods and helps you gently off the counter, “And snacks. I’m hungry.”

You nod and bucky Listens to your little white socked feet on the wood floors as he glances towards the tiny jacket on the table, “Ma is gonna kill me,” he murmurs rubbing the back of his neck.

Tags: @lancsnerd @etherealwaifgoddess @stevieang @blameitonthecauseway @wellfucksorrymum

[inmyownlittlecorner5]

Moonlight Chapter One: An Unexpected Encounter

A fanfic Novel by la_topolina

Rated for Mature Audiences

Warnings: Language, Violence, Sexual Content

Chapter 1/26

Moonlight Masterpost+

Chapter 2+ >>

-----

Professor Severus Snape hated summer. He hated the heat. He hated living in his house at Spinner’s End. He hated the idle time. It was not due to lack of imagination of how to fill this idle time that he hated it. He researched and improved potions and spells. He read copiously. And he spent a good deal of time maintaining his balance on the ambivalent knife between Lord Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore.

It was this last project that exacerbated his hatred of the summer holidays. They were long enough for him to become bored and begin to contemplate how precarious his balance was on that knife’s edge. During the school year, he had enough extra work at Hogwarts that he did not have time to think about his double life. He also had plenty of people around on whom to sharpen his wit and relieve his often gloomy temper. He did, of course, hate being around people too. If it were up to him, he would choose solitude over company. Unfortunately, when he was alone it was all too easy to fall into ruminating about his past. Thinking about how he had come to this point in his life was dangerous and interrupted his focus. And he needed to stay focused on the task at hand.

That evening, Severus was striding irritably away from Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, half wondering if he should have stayed for dinner. The smell of Molly Weasley’s cooking had made him realize that he actually was hungry. He hadn’t had a proper meal since the feast at Hogwarts two days earlier. He often forgot to eat during the holidays, yet another reason he hated them. He supposed he should return home and wondered if he had any food in the house. It was late enough that the horrid Tesco on Main Street would be the only option for supplies. He detested the place due to its obnoxious size and overwhelming amount of merchandise. Why muggles required twenty-five choices for mustard he would never understand. With that in mind, he decided that he would rather take the risk of going hungry and wait for Reed and Bell’s on River Lane to open in the morning. Surely he had a tin or two of something in the pantry and, either way, he had his potions to distract him. He was working on an universal anti-venom. Considering the amount of time that he was spending with Nagini, he liked to be prepared.

His mind returned to debating the amount of unicorn horn he should add to the anti-venom as he silently stepped into the next dark alley to Apparate back to Spinner’s End. He glanced around to ensure he was alone and, almost immediately, he realized he was not.

“Just play along,” said a female voice with a distinctly American accent.

In the next instant, the owner of the voice had wrapped her arms around Severus’s neck and was kissing him thoroughly. He inhaled sharply and his hands snapped to her shoulders with the intention of pulling her away from him. However, in the brief time it took for his hands to reach her, part of his mind had registered that her kiss was the perfect balance of tease and promise. If it had been an age since Severus had eaten, it had been an eon since he had been kissed. The less rational part of his brain began to demand control and his hands slid down to explore the exquisite curve of her waist.

She released his mouth and trailed her soft lips across his cheek to his ear.

“Kiss my neck,” she ordered throatily and Severus found that he was only too happy to comply. She rewarded him with a delightful sound rather like a purr.

“Good…” she murmured. “Now, when I count to three, you get down and stay there.”

Severus’s rational mind attempted to assert itself. “Who in the name of Merlin…” he hissed, but she cut him off, suddenly focusing her attention entirely on something else.

“One…two….three,” she counted in a tone that left no room for argument.

Severus had been in enough strange situations throughout the course of his life that he knew when it was time to debate and when it was time to obey and question later. His instincts told him that this was one of the latter occasions, so he ducked and the woman neatly vaulted over him. He whirled around as quickly as possible while still crouching, feeling like a complete idiot. His eyes widened slightly as he saw a creature, fangs and claws bared, flying at the wild woman.

Vampire, his mind supplied as he reached for his wand. Before he could bring it into play, the woman and the monster met in mid-air. There was a sickening thud, the two landed, and Severus found himself covered from head to foot in ash and blood.

“Ugh!” grunted the woman, scrambling to her feet and pulling her own wand out of her soot and blood covered tunic. “I hate it when that happens! It must have just fed. When they’re dry, you just get covered in the ash. Much more pleasant.”

She sounded cheerful, as though she were discussing gardening rather than monster killing. She conjured a box from thin air and with a flick of her wand began blowing all of the ash into it. The task took long enough for Severus to realize that he was still crouching on the ground like a fool and that he still had not drawn his wand.

What is wrong with me tonight? he wondered.

She snapped the box shut and concealed it with another wand flick. “Tergeo,” she said lazily, passing her wand over the street and the walls of the buildings. The vampire blood flew into it like a fountain in reverse. When she finished, she returned her wand to some interior pocket, and offered Severus a grime-covered hand. He took it, a bit stupidly, and rose to his feet.

“Sorry about that sir. I usually work alone, but you were in the right place at the right time. Thanks for being a good sport,” she said politely.

Anger flooded into him, displacing his confusion and he glared at the strange woman. What the hell was she playing at?    

“Not at all,” he said caustically. “I can think of no better way to spend the evening than covered in gore.”

She did not seem disturbed by either his glare or his tone.

“Me either,” she quipped back, rummaging in a pocket. Eventually she found what she was looking for and removed what appeared to be a palm-sized diary. “This is a port-key,” she went on, snapping it open. “I think we should head somewhere more….ah…private so that we can deal with this mess.”

“There is no ‘we,’” he snapped. “And you must be completely mad if you think that I am going anywhere with you.”

She smiled at him, but her tone was firm. “I’m afraid I have to insist. You’re covered in vampire ash. I’m sure you’re a very competent wizard, but I have to collect all of the ash and bury it within three days or the vampire will rise again. Then I’d be back to square one and very irritated to boot. It’s not the sort of job I can entrust to a civilian.” She eyed him and asked, “You don’t have a wife or someone at home waiting for you, do you?”

If possible, his glare became even blacker. “No,” he answered tersely.

“Good. That makes things easier.” She looked up at the moon and then back at him. “Listen, I’d love to stand here arguing with you all night, but there’s a No-Maj cop due to come ‘round on his beat in about five minutes and I’d rather not have to obliviate him.”

“You don’t appear to speak English. What are you talking about?”

“A policeman. He’s on his rounds.” She gave Severus an exasperated look. “What if I make a show of good will. Here.” She drew her wand and his hand flew to his pocket.

“Whoa, steady there,” she said, a note of laughter in her voice. “I’m trying to impress upon you that I’m not going to hurt you. At least, not at this particular moment.” She tossed her wand lightly in the air to flip it around and offered it to him, handle first. “Now, will you come? Surely you’re not afraid of little ol’ me.”

Even in the shadows, Severus could see that her eyes were twinkling with mirth. His lips were still tingling from her kiss and he had to admit that his evening had become much more interesting than it had been twenty minutes earlier.

“I can’t imagine being afraid of a mad-woman such as you,” he said silkily, taking her wand and putting it in his pocket.

“You’ll learn,” she bantered, holding out the port-key again. “Shall we?”

“Very well, but I will do the counting this time.”

Her smile returned. “You probably like to be on top, too.”

His eyebrows went up at that. “My, you are vulgar, aren’t you?” he commented dryly.

“Only some of the time,” she replied easily. “The rest of the time I’m a perfect lady. On three?”

He found himself suddenly very curious to know how she believed a lady behaved. His eyes glittered at her and he counted, “One…two…three.”

They touched the port-key together and the world spun away into darkness.

Moonlight Masterpost+

Chapter 2+ >>

[archiveofidentityconstellations]

(Preferably all batfam related else I'd be clueless :P) 4, 8, 15, 29, 30, 37, 40 alternative ending to 'On Fashions & Small Fry' 💜💜

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

I literally just had an idea this morning about little snapshots in which Damian crawls into Dick’s bed to kind of show the break of outer and inner lives and what we project to the world (day) and how we feel inside (night). That sounds like a lot of hogwash bc mostly I just wanted to do a cute thing with Dick and Damian being brothers

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

from birds all sing:

Several minutes passed, Tim looking at the man he had known as a father for several years, brow furrowed in consideration.

"What else?" Bruce finally said. He let his voice soften. "What else do you need?" Tim met his eyes. Bruce's fists clenched.

So young.

"...The roti."

What?

"What?"

"The roti bread?" Tim repeated. "I was thinking maybe the zucchini but no, I definitely want the roti."

Bruce stood there, adrenaline seeping out of his bones.

"That's it?" he asked brusquely, not a little annoyed to be put through the emotional ringer in under five minutes.

"Yeah," Tim nodded. He almost beamed at the thought of the upcoming food. "That's it. Thanks, Bruce!"

"Don't mention it," he growled, marching out the office.

It’s not perfect, but I like it because it makes me laugh. My humor has a lot to do with timing, so when I manage to get the timing right I find it very funny

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Good question! I wouldn’t really choose any of my fics to be filmed, but I would love my “version” of batcat to have a film presence. Other than that, I would probably want either bratkid or star wars domestic AU to be filmed, but I would make them original work. I like the idea of family coming together and getting to love one another. It’s an after school special!

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Oh man I’m kind of shit at imagining things beyond what the author intends. My friend Hobbs has a world she lets me play in sometimes, so I write little snippets of fanfic of her stuff.

30. Do you accept prompts?

When I say they’re open, yeah, kind of. I don’t get paid for writing, it’s not like a commission, so if I like the idea I’ll do it or incorporate it into whatever I’m writing. It’s free real estate babey

37. Talk about your current wips.

There’s too manyyyyyy

I’ll talk about what I need to do

birds all sing: start the first fight. make it organic, not off the cuff. don’t be overt but not too subtle.

crack fic: research you dumb bint. you are literally not writing this because you don’t want to research. why. normally you love research. you just don’t want to look up what writing up reports looks like. it’s probably online. just do it.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

OHO, okay! Long answer

This was actually supposed to be a full fic, I had a lot planned for it but it got so large that I was like “hmmm” and didn’t do it. It had like 4 “acts” as to how the story went

Anyhow, the fic starts out how Damian wants to go to Sacramento with Bruce, because Bruce said he would take him last week, but then Bruce says no. He won’t explain why, but he’s obviously not mad at Damian, so Damian can’t figure it out. Damian ends up facecalling him and he can see Talia in the background. He promptly flips out, throws his phone at the wall, breaks it, destroys the room, then kind of has a breakdown wherein he just sits in the tub fully clothed with his shoes on 😅

Tim sits with him, then Damian basically falls asleep so Tim goes to get Dick and Dick puts his boy to bed

Second act: Several days go by, and Damian is better, but as he’s sitting on the counter while Stephanie is cooking, she accidentally says something they were all keeping from him: Bruce went to Sacramento so that Talia could sign off on custody rights, lawyers are involved and everything.

Cue to Damian being like “what” and marching off. Damian then concocts this scheme in which he tells Dick that he really wanted to see Dallas, that father was going to take him, please he wants to see the rodeo, etc. Dick gives in and decides they’ll take a brotherly bonding road trip! Yay!

But things start to go sour when neither one of them can mind their business in a seedy motel, and their relationship issues come to light. After this:

"No, damn it!" Dick slammed his hand against the doorframe. It rattled at its hinges. "You got your time, that's it, done, over. I take care of you, got it?"

"We're partners," Damian said, weakly.

Dick's eyes softened. He struggled inside himself, Damian could see. But just as a bubble of hope rose forth, it burst the next millisecond. Dick lowered his hands, head tucked low and shaking softly. "Not anymore we're not," he sighed.

then Damian uhhhh how does one say, drugs Dick so he can sneak out and take a plane to Sacramento.

He bursts into whatever meeting place Bruce and Talia are at and lambasts them for lying to him and such. Talia is like “hi sweetie” and Bruce is like “b o i” and Damian ends by saying he gets to leave first because they always leave whenever they wanted, so now he gets to leave THEM

So he angry-walks to a park and sits down on a bench and stews

Then Dick BURSTS in and is like “is he here?????” and Bruce is like “you let your eleven year old brother get on a plane himself?!” and Dick is like “that little SHIT drugged me, I didn’t let him do anything” and they all sort of talk about the best thing for Damian

Damian comes back after a day on the town in which he really doesn’t have all that much fun, and comes back and everyone is like “okay let’s all be mature about this and talk, no secrets”

And it turns out

Talia is dying

So Damian is bewildered and mad that he can’t be mad, she’s dying, she’s dying and she doesn’t even get to see him without Bruce’s approval, etc

So they work out what would be best for Damian WITH Damian’s input, thank you very much

(also Bruce is like “We acknowledge that we weren’t the best but if you EVER do that again—”)

Third act is in which the new normal is strange, because Damian is visiting Talia but it’s like when he was a very young child again, because she’s not trying to impart survival wisdom, she’s just his mom. And Damian is sort of dealing with the remnants of trauma, and is upset because why couldn’t it have been like this all the time, but he CAN’T be upset because she’s dying and despite his unwillingness to go back over his trauma it crops up and Talia has a lot to make up for. Ra’s appears in his crazy old way, because she’s his favorite child and she’s dying and Damian and Ra’s basically get to sit in a hospital waiting room together and have a stilted conversation on who they are and what family even means

Anyhow Damian is really starting to get along with Talia, which concerns Bruce because. she’s dying. Damian is going to be gutted. So he slowly kind of tries to make it so Damian isn’t as attached (dumb but it’s Bruce) and Damian gets angry and runs away to visit his mother in the French Riviera. They have a wonderful time but then Bruce goes to get him and Damian is mad at him. But Talia says “you need to listen to your father” and Damian realizes that Bruce is the only parent he’s going to have, he’s not going to have his mom anymore.

So yeah, there’s still another act that I didn’t finalize but that’s a rough summary of everything!!

And Talia was going to have an illness exacerbated by the Lazarus pits, like caused by it. It was basically going be Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease equivalent in the DC universe. So yeah, she can’t come back lol

[toonstarterz]

BECAUSE I’M NOT POPULAR, I’LL READ WATAMOTE: CHAPTER #164

Hey, not dropping the ball actually worked!

We’re just a hair’s length away from summer vacation, but unlike last year when Tomoko approached summer with not much consideration, she’s now taking a proactive role in deciding how to spend her last summer in high school. At first glance, Tomoko appears to have become a responsible, young lady. But as we soon will see, that can-do attitude may not be as refined as it looks on the surface.

Chapter 164: Because I’m Not Popular, I’ll Do My Best Starting From Summer Break 

There’s that time period during the day when most students have already left but school hasn't quite closed up. It’s pretty creepy, even more so before summer break when you’re expected not to stick around.

Have I mentioned Itou is a cute? ‘Cause she is.

It’s usually her looking after Komiyama, so it’s really sweet to see the dynamic flipped around like this. Despite, well, everything, Komiyama is a good friend.

Assuming that cheering for the baseball teams is optional, it’s endearing to see Itou go through with it. Even though baseball isn’t her thing, she’s likely doing it to support her bestie, which I can 110% get behind.

Ah, right. Dude’s in the manga club. That said, I wonder if their plans are for just being attendees, or if they’ll actually be manning a booth and selling their work. With his skills and, er, preferences, I think Hatsushiba could do the latter.

Don’t be so modest, Tomoko. There’s no slouching either when you’re a three-year veteran of the Going-Home Club. 

Studying during summer break? Outrageous!!

It’s intriguing to see just how Tomoko’s study habits have evolved throughout the series. The early days would see her spend summer goofing off on her hobbies, with bare minimum concern for academics. But now, Tomoko is actually considering studying on her own accord. Sure, it’s more-or-less a fallback when she has nothing else planned, but the thought itself is still worth mentioning.

Is that one of those mini-fans that you can carry around in your bag? I love those things.

Study camp, huh? Any other day, Tomoko would be apathetic to the idea, leaning more on the side of brushing it off. But having Katou bring it up makes all the difference, ‘cause let’s be real. Katou could ask her to sign up for a hostess bar at the Red Light District and Tomoko would still seriously consider it.

Miss you, Yuu-chan.

I second that, Komi. Fourteen hours of studying a day is brutal, even if that’s to be expected in what is essentially a boot camp. I’ve always questioned the efficiency of cram schools and the like, mostly because they seem to prepare more for short-term memorization than long-term understanding. But even it actually works in principle...

...I’m not sure Tomoko will be able to handle it.

Perhaps it’s just me, but it feels like Tomoko is overestimating her discipline for studying. She already struggled with Katou’s flashcards and study sessions that a whole training camp feels like it would have a more detrimental effect on Tomoko than a positive one. “Work hard, play hard” was never meant to be that extreme, Tomoko.

That’s...genuinely uplighting. Tomoko has missed out on several of the key “memorable” high school moments, and she usually lets it go with only mild regrets. But here, Tomoko’s actively trying to gain what she once lost. Sure, she’s trying to “game the social system” a little, but what did you expect? She’s a person, not a saint.

This was Yuu’s only line in this entire chapter. My girl deserves more than this.

Will the 2% of Tomoko’s personality that is tsundere ever realize that if you really “didn’t care either way”, then you wouldn’t have asked the question to begin with? Doubt it.  

That romaji tho.

It comes to the surprise of absolutely no one that Komiyama has some pretty...vivid fantasies about Tomoki. But what stands out to me is how deep into the relationship her thoughts go. Most people fantasize about their crush first in their sexual attractiveness, but only a few ever dream beyond that. Ironically, you know your crushing has gone off the deep end if you start thinking about them in domestic, SFW ways. Least Komi’s committed, yeah?

Gee, I wonder what’s that “and stuff” Tomoko’s talking about?masturbating

Nothing like a fresh bowl of Grossi-Os and Gross Juice to start the day!

If what Yuri says is true, then that would mean that she and Ucchi have probably walked to school together several times before–more than the couple of times we’ve seen, at least. And even so, it doesn’t look like they haven’t gotten much closer as friends, if at all. Some people just don’t click, I suppose.

Not sure how blind Ucchi is because anybody with a pair of eyes (beady or not) would see that Yuri has friends, even if you only count Mako. Poor girl just can’t accept the truth even when it's right in front of her face.

Ah, Yuri. Why can’t you just drop the “savior” act and just admit you want to spend time with her?

I’m inclined to agree about Yoshida, but who knows? She’s surprised us before. Mako's a safe bet, though. Especially if the former’s going. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Boy, does that take me back. It still blows my mind that all of Ucchi’s problems originated from one night of misunderstandings. The art nerd in me really appreciates the subtle improvement in Niko’s art style. The character models feel “weightier” and more consistent without compromising the stylization. 

You don’t see it in the previous panel, but Ucchi was totally blushing at the prospect of reliving her trauma/dream. Perhaps she was also looking to live out that ping pong match she never got.

I’m not sure if there was some kind of wordplay in the original text. Either way, it kind of sucks for Yuu-chan that she got such a “flattering” nickname when she wasn’t involved in that scenario whatsoever. Though it sure is a tad classier than Miss Akari “Dick Sister Jr.’ Iguchi.

It’s kind of (read: absolutely) frightening how Katou’s envy towards Yuu feels a lot more intense than Yuri’s. Perhaps it’s because Yuri’s so transparent that you know how to deal with her. But with Katou, that air of secrecy feels like a nuclear bomb about to go off. 

I always wondered where girls picked up that thing where they intertwine their fingers as a sign of affection. It’s precious.

Praise modern technology for convenient storytelling.

Wow, Fuuka’s already made her mark on Tomoko’s “bitch” list. Though exactly why she’s on that list now is kind of odd. I mean, yeah, she asked Tomoko about the whole fondling thing, and she unintentionally presented herself as a pervert for the whole “hair” thing, but Fuuka hasn’t really done anything all that terrible. If anything, Tomoko is probably expressing a rare bit of jealousy towards someone else supposedly perving on Katou besides her.

The most striking part about Fuuka’s inevitably failed plan is that she describes Tomoko’s appearance as “sudden”. It was touched on before, but it further emphasizes that Tomoko’s friendship with Katou was just as unexpectedly quick in-universe as it was for the readers. And in doing so, it brings us one step closer to the real mystery over why Katou is so enamored with Tomoko in the first place. 

Ya’ll know Sayaka’s got her homegirl’s back on this one. Let’s see (hopefully) how Akari screws it up. 

Chapter 58, mothereffers!

I don’t know whether I’d say Nico Tanigawa has been playing the long game, or if they just found a convenient throwaway to capitalize on. But the acknowledgment itself is very much appreciated. Tomoko may have forgotten, naturally, but us overzealous fans certainly never did! 

The chills, man. Chill’s right up the spine.

It’s certainly true that Tomoko’s words can be interpreted in a good or bad way, so it’s pretty telling that Katou’s gut reaction went for the latter. It suggests that Katou may actually have some insecurities that can easily set her off. Then again, a defining part of Katou’s personality is that she takes everything Tomoko says at completely face value, so maybe she’s starting to see Tomoko’s negativity even if it’s not there. Just more of the enigma that is Asuka Katou.  

Not a bad save, Tomoko. Countless battles with shame have made her quick on the fly. Unfortunately, while she’s improved at starting a save...

...she still doesn’t know how to end it.

It would’ve been a clean getaway if Tomoko had just ended about half-way in the above panel. But because Tomoko’s anxiety causes her to try and cover all the bases, she ends up rambling suspiciously. The part about Nemo isn’t even that relevant, but in her burst of defensiveness, Tomoko ends up saying things that could just exacerbate the problem even further.

Fucking shit, Katou is damn scary.

The one fortunate thing about Tomoko’s defensive rambles is that once she starts to cool down, her honesty starts coming out more organically. Self-deprecation becomes self-reflection, and brings to the forefront Tomoko’s endearing side.

Only Tomoko could spout such a cliché moe line and sound so pure of heart. Must be the irony. 

Aha. Ahaha. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

–that totally didn’t happen.

Tomoko, girl, you’re in the CLEAR! Stop trying to fan flames that have already been put out.

But on that note, it does affirm that while Tomoko is honest with Katou about certain things (perversion, laziness), she isn’t quite ready to be honest on anything that would paint Katou in a bad light. I’d say tha’st about 85% due to fear.

Death Flags raised all around.

I had a feeling that Nemo would take the plunge this time and invite Tomoko out somewhere during the summer. It seems like such an insignificant gesture, but considering that this is the very first time a classmate has asked to hang out with her during the summer, it warms my heart.

Hey now, Tomoko. Don’t get cocky when you’re maximizing your own goof-off time by taking a study camp.

The easy guess is that Nemo wants to go to Comiket. But really, it could be anything that Tomoko would have an interest in. And because it’s implied that Nemo is going for research purposes, it could be anything from a seiyuu panel (the last one went so well) to a hot spring to a hentai game company. Hope they bring Okada along...

Mama senses her daughter’s giving in to peer pressure.

Not gonna lie. This hand gesturing from Rena made me think that she was thinking about doing...something else.

Damn mind-in-the-gutter.

Even though Anna doesn’t appear to be the studious type, it’s pretty cool to see that she can respect people who are. Also, I dig the way she wears her tie (or is that a ribbon?). 

Emoji II really has become an honorary delinquent and it fits her perfectly. 

I guess no matter how much more grounded Tomoko becomes, she still thinks reading manga is legitimate practice for playing in real-life (though tabletop games may actually allow for some truth).  

Sub!Tomoko confirmed.

What a way to end a chapter. For the longest, Katou had always viewed Tomoko through a pair of rose-tinted glasses, always seeing the girl’s faults as endearing “quirks”. But as her soul-piercing gaze seems to indicate, Katou has reached a revelation about Tomoko that she can actually disapprove of. Whether or not it’ll shatter her illusion of Tomoko is still unclear, but how she treats Tomoko from here on out may finally give us a deeper look into Katou’s psyche. 

160+ chapters we’ve followed Tomoko, and we’re still learning new things about her. The very extent of Tomoko’s agency has always been a tad murky. She’s good at (poorly) executing short-term ideas, but hardly does she plan out and follow up on her long-term goals. Even her greatest milestone of making friends involved a lot of pushing from outsiders (Ogino, the most obvious case). That said, having to take charge of herself for once is inescapable with college on the horizon. How she goes about it amongst her various mom-friends may end up being Tomoko’s biggest personal challenge yet.  

[argyle-s]

Still me. Thank you for sharing your story. I know how hard it can be to open yourself up to a public forum that could either support or condemn you just for stating your truth. I've never been in an abusive relationship, but I had a friend who was and she killed herself to escape it. She never told anyone. We only found out about the emotional abuse when her parents found a diary of some sort. That wasn't enough to prove that her ex-girlfriend drove her to suicide, so the courts set her free.

It’s been years, but to this day, I ask myself if there had been any signs of abuse and I missed it. Her parents once told us that none of us would have realized anything because, based on her diary, their daughter believed in her heart that she was in a good relationship and therefore wouldn’t have acted as if there was something wrong. That bitch manipulated her into thinking bad is good, kept control over her, until her mind couldn’t take what her heart so willingly ignored and she ended it.

I guess that’s why I get so angry at how they let Lena’s bullshit slide, consequence free. I don’t want young, impressionable minds to think that her friendship with Kara is normal because it isn’t. It’s one-sided, unhealthy and practically victim-blaming on Kara’s part, especially with the promo where Lena says she’s not a villain because she doesn’t want to kill Supergirl, she just wants her to experience the same pain that she’s felt. Seriously? On what planet is that a not-villain reaction?

Good people would try and reach out to their best friend and talk to them, let them explain their side of the story. Good people would be hurt, because of course it hurts when your best friend keeps something from you, but wouldn’t hurt them back just because. Remember, they don’t owe you anything, especially when you don’t realize or, God forbid, ignore or deny the fact that you’ve said and done horrible things that have scared them off and shown them that it’s not safe for them to tell you.

I don’t want people, especially the teens and young adults, to think that there’s no way out once they realize what kind of abuses they’ve been taking from someone who supposedly loves them, whether it’s a friend, partner, etc.. We already live in a society that has built-in excuses for abusive behavior, so seeing it in a show that’s supposed to portray proper relationships of any kind between women is appalling. The bullying that goes on in the fandom exacerbates that even further.

The thing is, sharing my story has been part of my healing process.  The biggest difficulty for me what even admitting that I was being abused.  It took me years to get to that point, but the moment I called my ex on it, she kicked me to the curb, which was honestly the nicest thing she ever did for me.

That won’t work with some abusers, admittedly, and it almost didn’t work with my ex.  I don’t think she believed I would actually leave until the uHaul was loaded.  I actually drove away, and then came back because I forgot to get a check for her to return my share of the rent that I’d already prepaid.  That’s when it finally sunk in that I had no intention of begging her to let me stay, or let me come back, and that’s when she flipped her shit.  That’s when things turned really ugly.  She burned my degree, which I had accidentally left behind.  She tried multiple times to get me fired from my job.  I had to block her on all social media.  It was ugly.

But the thing is, people who are abused are very, very good at hiding that abuse.  When I was with my ex, pretty much no one know anything was wrong in the relationship other than my sister in law (she’s the one who convinced me I was being abused, and honestly, saved my life).  I was incredibly protective of that relationship, because I was convinced no one else would ever love me, despite all evidence to the contrary.  I was terrified of being alone for the rest of my life, so I kept secrets like you wouldn’t believe.  I didn’t tell anyone about the names she called me, about the horrible things she said to me, about the violent rages where she would destroy things, where she would slam furniture into walls, or any of the other horrible things that went on while we were together.

With your friend, I’ll be honest.  There were probably signs, but unless you have been a victim of abuse, they were probably not signs you would recognize.  Not all abuse victims walk around with black eyes and stuttering stories about walking into a door.  My sister in law realized I was being abused because she had been in a horribly abusive marriage before she married my brother.  She saw me doing the things she used to do to hide the damage and talked to me.  She made herself a safe space for me, and it took YEARS for her to convince me I was being abused.

So, no, it’s not your fault.  It’s no one’s fault but the shit bag who abused her and manipulated her and destroyed her hope.

And that is exactly why Lena, and to a lesser extent James, are both so incredibly triggering for me in their canon incarnations.  Because they both exhibit the some behaviors my Ex used to control and abuse me.  I worry about it less with James, because there aren’t any people holding James and Kara up and screaming “relationship goals”.  But a lot of people are doing that for Lena and Kara.  They are pretending that Lena and Kara is this tragic romantic Romeo and Juliet story, while forgetting that Romeo and Juliet’s affair lasted six days and five people died.

[deidrescarbrough-blog]

Dos And Don’ts To Contemplate Prior To Employing A Divorce Attorney

Many couples go through a stagnant period, and thus the Our Webpage in this state is booming. I feel that it crossed the fifty % threshold a extended time back previously. This helps make solitary moms and one fathers the new norm. I do not assume that their little ones come to feel like it is usual. They possibly offer with it and set on a entrance, but I consider there is a direct correlation among our existence and the numerous burdens that we location on the little ones' shoulders. So what do we say to a good friend that tells us, I just do not enjoy her/him anymore and am imagining about leaving? It is dependent how good of a friend they are, suitable? I don't feel that numerous of us would know what to notify them, as several our possessing the very same thoughts ourselves.

Strengthen the family members- Work on strengthening the connection between moms and fathers, parents and little ones, brothers and sisters. In some segments of modern society, as quite a few as 70%twenty five of homes are headed by a solitary guardian. And with the Our Webpage at previously mentioned 50%twenty five the broken property is starting to be the norm. When damaged households are fixed all the measurements of a healthful culture increase. The family unit is like a brick. Disconnected individuals are like grains of sand. We're considerably a lot more productive when we stand collectively.

Hypnosis can be extremely powerful and liberating. By way of hypnosis, these reminiscences that utilised to have these kinds of a damaging stronghold on you, now will flip tranquil. Hypnosis bypasses your essential school of intellect and enables new, supportive facts to make their way to your subconscious. When that comes about, you are in a position to make positive and lasting modifications in your life.

To guarantee that your rights are protected you should verify that the attorney has the time available to operate on your situation. You do not want them to consider on your case and go away it on the base of their in box mainly because one more case is additional crucial. If you are comfortable that they have the sources readily available to function on your case in a well timed fashion, they are probably the divorce attorney for you.

Before you retain the services of your law firm, check with them how they program on communicating with you and trying to keep you current. Will they get in touch with you whenever development is created with your scenario? Send out you an e mail?

The key to having a great romantic relationship regardless of your temperament form is to realize the discrepancies in the techniques that you and your partner see relationships. Realizing which temperament you and your partner have will right away convey to you how you can relate to them and what they could be considering just about every time you have an argument or difficulty.

Getting extremely emotional in a condition like this will not support the final result and I recognized this just in time. The very best way to get your relationship to keep jointly is by searching for outside suggestions. In my case, I located the tips I wanted on the Web, but they are other reputable sources that you can count on like a loved ones member, friend or marriage counselor.

It is doable that you have been unwittingly exacerbating some of your spouses less fascinating behavior. But you would want an unbiased witness this kind of as a marriage counselor to see if that is the case. As you are the a single who has to stay with these habits, you are the only one who can say regardless of whether or not you can set up with them. I guess that there could be factors that you can deal with which would make good friends or household appear at you in amazement. But it is your lifestyle, if you are content with how things are then that is your enterprise, who cares what everyone else thinks, all that issues is that you are pleased.

A Partner's Transforming His Intellect About The Divorce Reveals That He's Uncertain And This Gives An Option To Save The Marriage: Listed here's an observation that the wife was lacking. As irritating as it was that her partner was changing his brain all of the time, at least he wasn't dead established on a divorce. The truth that he was staying so "wishy washy" as she referred to as it, intended that he wasn't positive that he genuinely wanted a divorce. I incredibly often hear from women who have already been served divorce papers or who have husbands that gained't even consider conserving the relationship. So, as frustrating as this circumstance was, it was most likely workable.

There is always a url between divorce and mistaken selections prior to relationship as a final result of societal pressure. The Our Webpage is at its peak now than in advance of. The two most critical factors that seem in practically just about every divorce certificate is possibly irreconcilable variance or absence of interaction. Adore on your own is not what can make marriage very last. Accepting a proposal that get in your way owing to stress without required thought about your intending spouse, compatibility, have confidence in and efficient conversation will undoubtedly conclusion up in the dim.