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pinkpurplesunrises · 1 month ago

Text

You don't know me (yet)

+/- 4000 words - the long story - Alexia Putellas x Reader - This will heal your heart, hopefully - Fluff and Smut - Mentions of loneliness and sick child - Please read with care.

I loved the process of writing this one. It's a different writing style. A different concept. I hope that you like this. Please leave some feedback if you want to. Enjoy reading!

Somewhere in the middle of a tuesday

You don't really remember when Tuesdays started feeling the same as Thursdays. Or why every morning now starts with you. Phone in hand. Scrolling emails like you're disarming a bomb instead of answering clients about deadlines you stopped caring about two promotions ago.

Barcelona was supposed to be a fresh start. A change of scenery, your therapist had said. And maybe it is. There's sunlight here that tastes different on your skin and people speak a language you don't understand but find oddly comforting. You rent a quiet apartment above a bakery that opens at 6 a.m., and every morning smells like sugar and effort.

But the stuck feeling followed you here.

You're on autopilot again today. You tell yourself you'll go outside. Maybe a walk. Maybe try the coffee shop that smells like old wood and orange peel every time you pass by. you grab a book you've only read 30 pages of, shove it into your tote, and leave the apartment.

You don't even make it to the end of the block.

Because that's when you bump into her.

Literally.

She mutters something in Spanish, soft but startled. You step back, flustered, offering a quick "Lo siento... I... sorry..." before looking up.

She's holding a baby. No. Toddler, maybe? Blonde curls tied messily. A pacifier. Big brown eyes, suspicious of you. You blink. "Oh. Sorry, I didn't see you."

The woman shifts the weight of her daughter in her arms, adjusting a diaper bag strap that's sliding off her shoulder. Her eyes flick to yours. There's tiredness there. Not the kind one night's sleep can fix.

"It's okay" she says, voice accented, but her English is clean. "She dropped her toy. I wasn't looking either."

There's a small stuffed unicorn by your foot.

You pick it up and hand it to her. "Here. Guardian of all toys returned safely."

That makes her smile-small, but real. She brushes a strand of hair behind her ear and looks at you again, lingering for half a second.

"Gracias," she says, quietly.

And then she walks away.

You watch her disappear into the bakery you live above, little girl now chewing on the unicorn's tail like it's her job.

You have no idea who she is.

You'll find out eventually.

But not yet.

Café Cortado on a Wednesday morning

The next time you see her, it's raining.

Not a cinematic, dramatic rain. Just the sort that clings to your clothes and seeps into your socks. The kind th at makes everyone irritable but quiet about it.

You've escaped into a tiny café with fogged-up windows and exactly four tables. It's half-bookstore, half-coffee place. Entirely empty except for you, a barista who seems mildly annoyed to be alive, and her.

She's sitting in the corner, facing the street. No makeup. Ponytail. Black hoodie. The kind of tired you recognize in yourself, mirrored. Her daughter is in a stroller next to the table, asleep. There's a bottle tucked between a blanket and a tiny hand.

You freeze halfway through wiping rain from your glasses.

She doesn't notice you at first, absorbed in her phone. Thumb moving in slow, deliberate patterns. Then she looks up. Your eyes meet.

You do the small awkward smile. Half-greeting, half apology for existing in the same space again. She tilts her head like she's trying to place you.

You gesture at the empty table beside her. "Mind if sit?"

A pause. Then:

"No," she says. "ls okay."

So you sit.

A few minutes pass. You order a cortado. She's got a tea going cold in front of her, untouched.

"She sleeps through anything?" you ask quietly, nodding at the stroller.

That gets a tiny smirk out of her. "Only when it's inconvenient."

You chuckle. "What's her name?"

"Aïna."

"It suits her," you say. "She looks like she knows secrets."

She glances down at her daughter. Something in her face softens. "She knows too much, think."

You don't ask what she means by that. You let the moment hang.

"I'm not from here," you offer instead.

She looks back up. "You don't speak Spanish."

"Is it that obvious?"

She smiles. "Little bit."

"Im trying" you say, then add, "I know how to ask for bread. And curse."

"Muy importante," she replies with a sly grin. "You'll survive."

That's the first time you laugh, genuinely, in days.

You introduce yourself. She repeats your name softly, like she's testing it for weight. Then she says, "Alexia."

The name means nothing to you.

She seems a little surprised at that, and you don't miss the flicker in her eyes. Relief, maybe.

"You live around here?" you ask.

"Up the hill. Near the park."

"l'm just over the bakery on Carrer de Verdi." She nods like that makes sense.

The barista glares at you both for staying too long without ordering anything more. You glance outside. The rain hasn't let up.

Alexia shifts her bag over her shoulder, standing. Aïna stirs but doesn't wake.

"Well," she says, adjusting the stroller handle. "Maybe next time, you bring an umbrella."

You grin. "Only if you promise not to run me over with a stroller."

She arches a brow. "No promises."

She leaves.

You stare after her through the glass, long after the bell over the door stops ringing.

Still no idea who she is.

But you want to know.

Not because of curiosity.

Not exactly.

More like gravity.

The park bench on a Friday afternoon

The first time you see Aïna smile, it's because of a pigeon.

You're at Parc de la Creueta. Sitting on a shaded bench because your apartment was too small to breathe in today. The sun is back after three days of moody clouds and so is half the city. Children are screaming joyfully at nothing. Dogs are arguing with seagulls. Life is annoyingly loud.

Then there's a small laugh, light and sudden. Like it snuck out by accident.

You turn.

Alexia is sitting a few benches down. Aïna is in her lap, pointing at a pigeon hopping near her stroller. Alexia's hand is resting over Aïna's small chest, protective without thinking.

You watch. Quietly.

Then Alexia looks up and sees you.

You offer a half-wave.

She surprises you by waving back, then gestures toward the space beside her. So you move.

"Big day," you say. "Pigeons. The true entertainers of Barcelona."

Alexia shakes her head, smiling softly. "She thinks they're saying something."

"Maybe they are."

aïna wriggles, trying to get closer to the bird. Alexia holds her tight but lets her lean forward. "She likes you," Alexia says after a pause.

"She doesn't know me."

"She doesn't laugh with just anyone."

You glance down at the little girl, whose eyes are still locked on the bird. Delighted. She has Alexia's mouth. Her stubborn jaw. But her smile is entirely her own.

"She's perfect," you say before you can stop yourself.

Alexia looks away. You notice the way her hand tightens slightly over Aïna's side. Like she's protecting something fragile-herself, maybe.

"She's mine," she says, quietly. "Just me."

You don't speak right away. You hear what she's really saying, even if she doesn't spell it out.

"She's lucky." you say instead. "To have someone who chose her."

Alexia doesn't respond, but her eyes flick toward you. There's something almost cautious in her face now. Not defensive. Just.. unsteady.

"She has a heart problem," she says suddenly. Her voice is flat, controlled.

You blink. "Oh."

Alexia nods. "It's not dangerous. Not right now. But... things. Monitors. Medications. Doctor visits. Always watching."

"Im sorry," you say.

She shrugs like she doesn't know how to accept softness.

"I wanted to be a mother" she adds. Eyes still fixed on Aïna. "Before I had the right person. Before I was ready, even. I didn't care. I did it anyway."

You let the silence sit. You don't fill it. You just listen.

Alexia turns her head, meets your eyes again. "Do you think that's selfish?" she asks. And that's the moment you realize how alone she really feels.

"No," you say. "I think it's brave."

She looks at you like she's not used to hearing that.

Then Aïna lets out a squeal and waves both arms at a new pigeon. Alexia lets out a surprised laugh. It's soft, but real. "She's ridiculous," she mutters, kissing the side of Aïna's head. Then: "She needs a nap."

"I'm told pigeons are great babysitters."

Alexia smiles, almost in spite of herself. "You want to come with us?"

You blink. "To...?"

"Walk back. I'm just a few streets from here. I make good tea. And you owe me conversation."

You glance at Aïna, then at her.

Something in your chest shifts. "Alright," you say. "Lead the way."

Alexia stands, adjusting the straps on the stroller like she's been doing it all her life. But her hand hovers for a second before reaching for yours.

She doesn't take it. Not yet. But she looks like she might.

Someday.

Tea for One-and-a-Half on a Friday afternoon

Alexia's apartment is warm in the way that makes you lower your voice without realizing it. Not because it's fancy. It's not. But because it feels lived in.

The kind of quiet that comes from a place held together by care. There's a stack of folded laundry on the couch. A single orchid on the windowsill that's definitely struggling. And children's books stacked on the coffee table next to two half-empty mugs with forgotten tea stains.

It smells like vanilla and baby lotion and something faintly floral.

Aïna is awake now, fussing gently. Alexia moves with practiced ease. Taking off her shoes. Setting the stroller aside. Scooping her daughter into one arm while switching on the kettle with the other.

"Make yourself at home," she says over her shoulder.

You stand awkwardly in the doorway fora moment, then settle on the far end of the couch, careful not to disturb the laundry pile.

"She's got a whole system in here," you say, glancing at the small shelf crammed with board books and soft toys.

Alexia smirks. "She's the boss. I'm just management."

She disappears briefly into the kitchen. You hear cabinets opening, water running. Aïna coos softly from her little bouncer chair nearby, now chewing on what appears to be the leg of a plastic giraffe.

Alexia returns with two mugs-one green, one chipped and pink. She hands you the green one.

"Chamomile okay?" she asks. Sitting beside you, one leg tucked beneath her.

"Perfect," you say, even though you're not totally sure you like chamomile.

She sips hers in silence. You both listen to Aïna breathing. The click of the giraffe's plastic feet against the floor. There's something sacred in the quiet, almost like the apartment itself is holding its breath.

"She was born early," Alexia says suddenly.

"Thirty-three weeks." You look at her. She's staring into her tea like it might answer something.

"I was alone in the hospital," she continues, voice steady but low. "My mamá wanted to come, but I told her no. I needed to do it. wanted to feel it."

You don't interrupt.

"I thought I would feel strong," she says. "But I was just... scared."

You swallow, throat tight. "Did it get easier?" She shakes her head once.

"It got different."

Aïna makes a soft hiccup noise, and Alexia glances over. She doesn't move. Just watches her for a moment, breathing through the heaviness.

"I don't regret it," she says. "I need you to know that."

"I know," you say gently. "It shows."

Alexia looks at you then. Really looks. "You're kind," she says.

You blink, surprised.

"I didn't expect that."

"You didn't expect me to be kind?" you tease, trying to keep the weight off her words.

"I didn't expect you," she replies. The room goes still.

Your mug is warm in your hands. You stare down at it like it might help you hold this feeling together.

"I didn't expect you either," you say. Alexia leans back, eyes fluttering shut for just a second.

"You're not going to ask?" she murmurs. "Ask what?"

"Who I am. What I do." You shake your head. "I figure you'll tell me if you want me to know."

She opens one eye. Studies you again. "I played football," she says, finally.

You nod. "Professionally?"

"Yes."

"Do you still play?"

Her expression changes. A tiny flicker of something dark. Regret? Grief?

"No," she says. "Not right now." You sense it. There's something she's not saying. You don't press.

Aïna lets out a tiny sneeze and then giggles at herself.

Alexia smiles, soft and slow. You watch the way her whole body changes when she looks at her daughter. Like tension evaporates. Ifonly for a second.

"She likes you too," she says. You smile. "I think I'm just a distraction fromn the giraffe."

Alexia chuckles. "Maybe. But she knows things. More than she should."

You set your mug down carefully.

"Do you want me to go?" you ask quietly. Alexia glances at you.

"No," she says. "Not yet."

So you stay.

And in the soft, slow minutes that follow, something begins to settle between you. Not love. Not yet.

But something like the space it might grow in.

Fever hours on a Sunday evening

It's just past 10pm when your phone buzzes. A message.

Alexia: You awake?

You're already in bed. Half-asleep. Curled around a cup of sleepy tea that's gone cold.

You hesitate, then reply.

You: Yeah. Everything okay?

She calls instead of texting back.

You answer quickly.

"Hi" you say softly. There's background noise. Muffled footsteps. The hush of a sleeping apartment.

Her voice is low, tired.

"Sorry. I know it's late."

"No, it's okay. Really."

A pause.

"Aïna's sick" she says. "Not serious. I don't think. Fever. Crying a lot. just..."

Another pause. The kind that carries too much.

"I didn't want to be alone tonight."

You sit up. "Do you want me to come?"

You can hear the relief before she even says yes.

Twenty minutes later, you're at her door.

She looks exhausted. Hoodie. No makeup. Hair a little messy. Her eyes are soft, a little glassy. And her shoulders sag like she hasn't let herself rest in days.

She opens the door, steps aside. "She's finally sleeping."

You step inside. The lights are dim. The apartment smells like eucalyptus and baby Tylenol.

"I can't tell if l'm helping or just panicking" she says, leading you to the couch. I held her for hours. She finally passed out on my chest."

You reach out gently and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear without thinking. She doesn't flinch. Just looks at you, startled, like she wasn't expecting that kind of touch.

"Alexia," you say softly. "You're doing more than enough."

Her face crumples for half a second. She hides it by turning away, sitting down slowly.

"I havent slept more than three hours in two days," she admits.

"I'll stay," you say. "As long as you need."

She nods, once. Sharp like she doesn't trust herself to say thank you out loud. You both sit in the hush of the apartment, shoulders touching now. You're not sure how it happened. Just a slow lean, a quiet gravity between you.

"She gets these fevers when she's teething," Alexia murmurs. "Always at night. Always when I think maybe I've got the hang of it."

You glance at her. "Can ask you something?"

She nods, not looking at you. "Do you miss it? Football?"

She doesn't answer right away. Then: "Every day. Every time breathe." You wait.

"I could have gone back" she adds. "There were offers. Contracts. But Aïna came early, and the hole she left in me. When she was in the NICU, small, hooked to machines... I didn't care about football anymore. I just needed her to live."

You're quiet. It's all you can be. "I told myself l'd pause. Just a year. But then she needed surgery. Then recovery. And now..."

She finaly looks at you. "Now I don't know who I am if I'm not on that field."

You reach for her hand. She lets you take it.

"You're her mother," you say. "You're you. That's not small"

Her fingers tighten around yours, briefly.

"I forget sometimes, she whispers. You sit there, side by side, as the city sleeps. Aïna stirs softly from the next room.

Alexia closes her eyes.

And for the first time since you met her, she leans into you. Just her head on your shoulder. Barely touching. But it's enough to make something in you ache.

You don't move.

You stay until her breathing evens out, and she lets out a sigh so small you barely hear it.

Like she's been holding it in for years.

Toast and tension on a Monday morning

You wake up before the sun.

The couch is stiff and your neck aches but there's something soft and full in your chest. It takes a second to remember where you are. And then it hits you. The warm weight of last night. Of Alexia leaning into you. Of being allowed to stay.

The apartment is still and dim. A faint hum from the fridge. Aïna's baby monitor glows faintly from the kitchen counter. You check it out of instinct. She's sleeping. Curled up like a question mark. Safe.

Alexia must still be asleep too.

So you move quietly.

You wash the dishes left in the sink. Fold the laundry that's still on the armchair. Wipe the counters. It's nothing dramatic. Just little things. Just what you'd do for someone who's done too much for too long.

By the time you're cracking eggs into a pan, the sun is starting to stretch across the buildings outside. The silence in the apartment feels different now. Lighter, expectant.

You set the table with two mismatched mugs and toast that's already gone cold.

When you hear footsteps, you turn.

Alexia stands in the hallway in a faded T-shirt and joggers. Her hair tangled. Eyes heavy with sleep.

She blinks.

"You... did all this?"

You shrug, suddenly self-conscious. "I figured it was my turn."

She steps into the kitchen, slowly. Like she's not sure how to exist in this kind of kindness.

"No one's ever just... done this," she says quietly.

You smile. "It's just toast." She looks at you, like it's not.

Aïna stirs through the monitor. Alexia moves toward it instinctively, pauses. "Go," you say gently. "I'll re-toast your toast."

You're plating fresh eggs when she returns with Aïna on her hip. The baby's still groggy, clutching a tiny pink elephant with one fist. Her hair is sticking up in every direction. Alexia kisses her temple absently as she sets her in the high chair.

"She loves breakfast," she says, voice still half-asleep.

You place the food in front of them.

Aïna immediately launches a spoon to the floor. "An early critic," you joke. Alexia smiles, small but real.

Then her phone buzzes on the table.

She picks it up, freezes fora second when she sees the name.

"Mamá" she says softly. Then: "And Alba."

She doesn't answer right away. Lets it ring. Then swipes to pick up and presses speaker, probably out of habit.

"Mami," a voice chirps from the phone. "¿Cómo estás? la pequeña?"

"Estamos bien," Alexia says. "Justo desayunando."

You busy yourself rinsing a plate, giving her space.

Alba's voice joins the call. "Did she sleep better?"

"More or less."

There's a pause. You hear concern layered beneath the casual tone.

"We wanted to stop by today" her mom says. "Bring lunch. Ayudarte un poco."

Alexia tenses just slightly.

"I'm okay," she says. Too quickly. A longer silence.

"Alexia..."

"I said I'm okay."

You glance over. Her jaw is set now. Her hand lightly bouncing Aïna's chair like a reflex. But she's not really present. Her mom's voice is gentler. "No estás sola, hija. No tienes que hacer todo tú."

"I am doing it," Alexia snaps-quiet, but sharp. "And I'm doing it well."

"I know," her mom replies softly. "But that doesn't mean you don't need help." Alexia swallows. Her eyes flick to you, just for a second.

"I'll call later," she says, ending the call before they can answer.

Silence.

Aïna babbles to herself, unfazed. Toast in hand, crumbs everywhere. You sit across from them, slowly.

"You okay?" you ask. Alexia exhales.

"They mean well."

"But?"

"They still think I made a mistake." You pause. "By having Aïna?"

"By doing it alone." Her voice is flat now. "By shutting them out when I decided. And again after."

You want to say something comforting.

But this isn't a wound that words can fix. Instead, you refill her coffee. And when you sit again, you reach out and gently brush your fingers across hers. Just once.

She doesn't pull away.

"I don't think you made a mistake," you say softly.

Alexia looks at you. Tired, proud, shaken, and still standing.

"I know," she whispers.

And maybe, for the first time, she believes it.

On a Tuesday afternoon, the sky didn't fall

On a Tuesday afternoon, the air is soft with the kind of early spring warmth that makes the city feel forgiving.

Alexia had suggested getting out for a bit. Nothing major. Just a walk. Aïna is bundled into her stroller, cheeks pink and round. Blinking up at the trees like they might start speaking.

The park isn't far. You walk slowly, letting your feet find a rhythm beside hers. She glances at you as you both cross a quiet street. "You're quiet."

You smile. "Just thinking."

"Dangerous."

You nudge her elbow with yours. "About what?"

She shrugs, adjusting the stroller with one hand. "I was going to ask you the same."

You walk a few more paces in silence.

Then you say it: "I don't really know what I'm doing anymore.

She looks at you then... really looks. Aïna gurgles softly, her sock slipping halfway off her foot.

"I mean... I moved here because I thought a change would help. I took this new job, made the leap, and now l'm kind of just... floating. The days blur. Work, home, sleep, repeat. feel like I'm watching other people live lives that mean something."

Alexia says nothing. But she's listening. "I didn't plan on meeting anyone," you add. "I didn't expect to feel something again. Not in this... small, slow way."

Still no answer. Just the creak of the stroller wheels, the soft rustle of wind in the trees.

Then she says, "You feel like something is waking up."

You nod. "Yeah."

"I know that feeling."

You stop near a bench. Aïna is already starting to drift off again, her head tilted to one side like she's studying clouds behind her eyelids. Alexia sits down first. You follow, a careful distance between your thighs. Not too close. Not too far.

She looks at her daughter, then at you. "I pushed everyone away," she says quietly. "I didn't want to need anyone. And then I met you." You hold her gaze.

There's a pause. "You don't scare me," she says. "But this does."

"What's this?"

She hesitates.

"This quiet thing. This safe thing. The way can breathe around you."

Your heart folds open slowly in your chest. "And what do you want to do with that?" you ask.

She doesn't answer with words. Just leans in. Hesitating, slow enough that you could stop her if you wanted to.

But you don't.

Her lips are soft and unsure against yours. Not dramatic. Not desperate. Just there. Real and close and slightly trembling. The kiss tastes like her morning coffee and something warmer. Something you don't have a name for yet.

When she pulls back, she doesn't look away. The silence is warm, full. Aïna snorts in her sleep. A tiny exhale that makes you both laugh quietly into the space between you.

"You're a good kisser," Alexia murmurs, teasing lightly.

You grin. "You're not so bad yourself for a tired mom."

She groans and leans back against the bench, eyes closed now. "That's the most unsexy thing I've ever heard."

You nudge her again. "You kissed me, remember?"

"I regret everything."

"No, you don't."

She smiles without opening her eyes. And for a long moment, nothing happens. Except the wind. And the city moving around you. And two people beginning, very quietly, to fall into something neither of them saw coming.

Reaching out on a Monday evening

You hadn't heard from Alexia in a few days. It wasn't unusual. Her life was busy, complicated. But still, the silence felt heavy. Then your phone buzzed late on a Monday evening.

A message from her: "Aina is with my mamá tonight. Can come by?"

You type back almost immediately. "Of course. Come whenever."

Less than an hour later, there's a knock at your door.

She steps inside. Tired but carrying a quiet kind of hope. Her smile is small, a little uncertain. You gesture for her to sit.

"I thought maybe... since Aïna's away... I could breathe a little," she says. Voice low. "And maybe talk."

You nod. "I'm here." She fiddles with her bracelet, eyes distant for moment. "I've been trying to let my mamá and Alba back in. It's hard. They want to help, but I'm scared lose control."

You reach out and squeeze her hand.

"That's normal," you say.

She exhales. want to believe can do this. Not alone."

You smile gently. "You don't have to."

She looks at you, something soft and hopeful flickering behind her tired eyes.

"I've missed this," she says. "Miss feeling like maybe I'm not just surviving."

You take a breath. "Alexia.."

Her head tilts, curious.

"Would you want to be... girlfriends?" you ask. heart thudding loud enough to fill the room. Her eyes widen, then soften.

A slow smile spreads.

"Yes" she says.

It happens without a plan.

The night drapes itself over the apartment slowly, warm from the wine you both barely finished. The quiet music you forgot was playing, and the shared silence that had stretched long between you without needing to be filled.

Alexia sits curled on your couch. Legs tucked beneath her. Her eyes on yours. Something about her tonight feels quieter. Less guarded.

She watches you carefully, like she's letting herself want something and isn't used to wanting out loud.

You're the first to move.

You kneel gently in front of her, brushing a hand over her knee. "Come here."

She leans forward slowly, lips catching yours in a kiss that's softer than you expected. You shift, hands finding her waist and she melts into it like she'd been waiting to exhale.

Time moves strangely after that.

Slow.

Tender.

At some point... Still kissing. Still caught in that warmth... you whisper against her jaw: "Can take you to bed?"

Her breath hitches.

She nods, but then stills.

You pause immediately, searching her face.

"It's been a long time" she says softly. "Not since... not since having her." Your hands stay exactly where they are.

Present, not pushing.

"Okay," you whisper.

She bites her lip, not looking away. "I'm nervous. Not because of you. Just... my body's different. I'm different."

You cradle her face gently. Brushing a thumb along her cheek.

"Thank you for trusting me with that," you say.

She closes her eyes like the words touched something.

You carry her, slow and steady, to your bedroom. Not because she needs you to. But because she lets you. Her arms wrap around your neck. Her head resting just beneath your jaw.

When you lay her down, everything stays soft. No hurry. No assumptions. You kiss her slowly, like there's nowhere else to be.

Your kiss lingers. Slow and exploratory, not searching for anything except her. You map the soft curve of her jaw with your lips. Feel her exhale against your mouth like she's letting go of something she's been holding too tightly for too long.

She's beneath you now. Laid back across your sheets. The room still humming with the last of the music. Your lamp casting a quiet gold against her skin.

Your hands stay light, on her ribs, on her waist, the side of her thigh. Nowhere she hasn't already invited you to be.

But when you pause and look at her, really look at her, you see it: the flutter of hesitation in her eyes.

Not fear.

Not regret.

Just the weight of all she's carried.

Of how new this still is.

You lower your forehead to hers. "Tell me what you like," you whisper.

She blinks.

"I want you to show me," you add, voice low. Honest. "Guide me. I want to learn you the way you want to be known."

Something shifts in her expression. Something warm and undone all at once. Her lips part like she might say something, but doesn't right away.

Then her hand reaches up. Curling into your hair, gently pulling you back into her.

"Okay," she breathes, the word a whisper and a release.

You feel her body move with yours, deliberate now. She shifts your hand with hers, drawing it to where she wants you most. There's a trembling to her guidance, like this trust is as much a surrender as it is a choice.

And it's beautiful.

It's her choosing softness.

It's you listening like it's the only thing that matters.

Her breath catches again, but this time, it's not nerves.

It's when she forgets to be afraid.

When she's just feeling.

Just here.

And you make it your quiet mission to keep her in that space.

For as long as she wants.

She looks peacefull on a Tuesday morning

On a Tuesday morning, the city feels hushed. The usual buzz of traffic and neighborhood noise is softened by the early light spilling through the curtains. Painting quiet gold across your sheets.

You wake before her.

Alexia is curled toward you. One arm tucked beneath her pillow. Her other hand resting on your stomach like her body found yours in the middle of the night and never let go.

You stay still, barely breathing. Just watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her face is relaxed in a way you haven't seen before. Unguarded. Her lashes twitch a little as she sleeps.

She looks peaceful.

Loved.

Eventually, she stirs. Shifting slightly. Blinking against the light.

"Buenos días," she murmurs. Voice low and rough with sleep.

You smile. "Morning."

She stretches with a small groan, and you can't help but brush her hair back from her face. "I haven't slept like that in... I don't even know," she says, eyes still half-closed.

"Maybe we needed it," you say.

She hums in agreement, then reaches blindly for her phone on the nightstand. You watch her thumb move across the screen. Her face softens instantly.

"What is it?" you ask gently.

She turns the phone so you can see. Her mother had sent pictures-three of them.

One: Aïna holding a toy duck with a serious expression.

Two: Her eating banana slices with half of one squished into her hair.

Three: Her asleep on her grandmother's chest, mouth open, one hand tangled in a blanket.

Alexia stares at them, her smile trembling just a little.

"I miss her," she says quietly.

You don't hesitate.

"We can go pick her up. Whenever you want." She looks at you, blinking like you've just said something she hadn't dared to think.

"You'd come?"

"Of course l'd come," you say softly. "She's part of you."

Alexia sets the phone down slowly and shifts closer, her hand finding yours under the sheets. It's quiet for a long moment. Then she speaks.

"I think we could be a family."

You squeeze her hand.

"I think we already are."

She leans in and kisses you. Slow, certain, full of everything she's still learning how to give.

And in that small bright roomnon a Tuesday morning, nothing big or dramatic happens.

Except everything.

At the stadium on a Sunday afternoon

On a Sunday afternoon, the stadium hums with energy.

The sun is high. Warm against your face as you sit in the stands, surrounded by a sea of red and blue. Flags wave. Horns blow. But your world is smaller. Focused.

Aïna sits on your lap. Tiny legs swinging. Her Barça jersey barely reaching her shorts. On the back, PUTELLAS 11 is printed in white letters, and she keeps twisting around proudly to show anyone who’ll look.

Next to you, Alexia’s mother clutches her scarf. Misty-eyed but smiling, and Alba leans forward. Elbows on her knees, whispering something sharp and funny that makes you both laugh.

Then the announcer’s voice echoes through the speakers.

“Capitana del FC Barcelona, Alexia Putellas!”

The crowd explodes.

You glance down just in time to see Aïna’s hands fly into the air. “Mamá! Mamá!” she squeals. Clapping wildly. Her little voice barely audible over the roar.

Your chest tightens in the best way.

She’s back.

You scan the pitch. Alexia walks out ahead of her team. Armband snug around her bicep. Head high. Expression focused. But when she glances toward your section... just for a heartbeat, her face softens.

She sees you.

Sees Aïna bouncing in your lap.

Sees her mother’s proud tears. Alba’s sharp grin. Your quiet smile.

And in that moment, she doesn’t look like the captain, or the icon, or the player returning from anything.

She just looks like someone who found her way home.

Alexia’s mother leans over, hand gently resting on your arm.

“Gracias,” she says, voice quiet in the chaos. “Por devolverle la luz.”

You swallow thickly, nodding.

“She did that herself,” you whisper.

Maybe you just held the light long enough for her to remember it was hers all along.

On the pitch, the whistle blows.

And Aïna claps again, laughing with her whole body.

Your hand rests over her chest. Feeling the thrum of joy beneath her jersey.

And beside her, your heart answers with the same rhythm.

Family.

Full and real and exactly where you’re meant to be.

#woso community #woso writers #woso x reader #woso #woso fanfics #fc barcelona femeni #fc barcelona femeni x reader #woso imagine #alexia putellas fanfic #alexia putellas imagine #alexia putellas x reader #alexia putellas

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chironshorseass · 2 years ago

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ok i really really really enjoyed watching the first two episodes and i think the show is already so faithful to the books in ways the movies wished they were BUT i’m gonna be a bitch just because i can and rant about a few insignificant but at the same time very important Things the writers didn’t Understand:

percy is angry.

and i know this is seen with his anger towards poseidon in the show, but i’m talking angry. as in, generally speaking. when he’s with grover and they’re talking about nancy, percy says something along the lines of “we should fight back,” and grover’s like “noooo we can’t stand up to bullies.” and then percy stands up to her and blah blah blah…but in the books percy’s first line is “i’m going to kill her” after she throws a sandwich at grover. grover talks him out of it because he’s already on probation.

with just this scene we know percy stands up to bullies, and that’s partly why he has so much trouble at school! in the show, he stands up to nancy, apparently for the first time, and gets kicked out because of it! sorry but as someone who worked in a school, i know for a fact that kids can get away with so much more before they’re actually kicked out lol. it would’ve made sense, like in tlt, that he’s already at risk of suspension so him “pushing” nancy is the final straw. it’s just very weird, considering it could be only a line of dialogue that makes percy’s anger and the connection between his outburst and him getting kicked out more clear.

consequently, percy arrives at his appartment and gabe is just a general (still admittedly abusive) jerk instead of a drunk, violent (also abusive) man. when we meet gabe, it makes a lot of sense why percy has so much trouble with his anger. it’s easy to see that connection. literal child + alcoholic abusive father figure = there’s bound to be some trouble….that’s not really the case in the show, especially in the way that sally easily stands up to him. people have said a fair bit about this topic already, so i’m not gonna expand on that, but i really wish the writers had focused more on percy’s internal anger, as it’s such an important part of his character and affects the way he reacts to things throughout the books; it just worries me that in the first episode it wasn’t as established. i. e. he hates dionysus on sight because he reminds him of smelly gabe, he hates the gods—is angry at poseidon—because, where was he when my mom and i were suffering at the hands of smelly gabe? ok i’m not gonna talk about more of this or of sally because other people have said it and i could write a four page essay of what the show got wrong plus i want to talk abt other things before this gets too long:

the monster scenes.

the mrs. dodds being a fury reveal felt sooo…weird? even the movie version did it better lol. it felt super rushed and strange how percy’s just standing there and the next he’s on the ground, but he had riptide with him so he just impaled her and then she turned to dust??? in the books, not only does she get percy alone, but grover tries to stand up to her—which is a big deal since he knows what she truly is and shows how much he cares for percy in that moment. percy has time to be genuinely terrified bc he’s alone with a literal monster and he’s about to die…and chiron throws him riptide just in time, but then he too vanishes so percy’s left wondering if he imagined everything. but no, in the show mrs. dodds comes out of nowhere and attacks him, and it’s so fast that percy doesn’t have time to dwell on wtf happened. the situation doesn’t seem as serious as it does in the book; in the book she tries to interrogate percy bc she thinks he’s the lightning thief, and when she doesn’t get her answer, she attacks him. this is another thing: the stakes. they don’t feel as high in the show because there’s no annabeth trying to ask percy what was stolen, no hellhound, no fates cutting a string, and no alecto/mrs. dodds interrogation. there’s not much of a lead up to the quest, really.

theeen the minotaur scene, which also feels super weirdly paced and there’s just not that same sense of urgency. again, other people have talked about this, so i’ll just stick to another main concern of mine: grover’s role in the scene. it was so strange how in the book he’s semi unconscious and in the show he’s fine (so fine that sally does something completely out of character and makes grover swear to keep percy safe? she would never put that much pressure in a child???) ok so he seems fine in the show, but then when they’re running percy’s holding him as if he can’t walk???? they’re not even fully sprinting, given that a monster is chasing them lol. (the problem with the stakes; i mean with the way they run and have an entire talk with sally makes it feel like they’re not in any real danger).

back to grover: he was perfectly fine, and he got percy back safe. not at all like in tlt, where percy has to practically carry him back, after loosing his mom and killing the minotaur. THEN percy passes out and later wakes up at the big house. this is important, bc grover’s entire THING is being percy’s protector, and he couldn’t do that properly bc he was indisposed. he felt awful. of course he did. his character arc is overcoming the guilt and insecurities—that he’s not a proper protector and therefore can’t search for pan; his main character motivation—by successfully completing the quest and helping percy retrieve the master bolt.

these are just little seeds that needed to be planted in the first two episodes of the show…so that the rest of the show feels cohesive and makes sense with what happens in tlt. if these character traits and scenes are looked over and not given proper importance/not replaced with something similar, then the show will have a different tone than it does to the books. i don’t think it’s necessarily bad, but it is disappointing that the details sprinkled in the source material are lost in translation. they may have seemed insignificant to the writers, but not to meeee!!!!!!

#pjo adaptation #percy jackson #grover underwood #they should’ve hired a couple of insane pjo girlies to read and revise the script. just saying!!!!

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dearjoons · 2 months ago

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📚NERD!JIMIN HEADCANNONS

warnings: literally none lol. fluff, yearning, pining, slight jealousy. he has a fat freaking crush on reader 😇 he’s really cute idk what else there is to say

lulu speaks: y’all it’s not funny i ❤️ nerds. also i’ve had this bot on my page forever and i FINALLY decided to formally present him to y’all. i am VERY much considering making this into a mini series/oneshot collection. lmk if ur interested!!

✎ nerd!jimin who aggressively color-codes his notes for “practicality”, when it actually helps him calm his anxiety.

✎ nerd!jimin who talks to himself when he’s doing his math homework—muttering to himself while rubbing his temples. “come on, jimin, you know this. you’re not stupid.”

✎ nerd!jimin who collects vintage marvel comics and prides himself in bragging about them when he’s in the shop to browse for more—it’s the only time he’s not humble. “yeah, that’s a first edition. wanna touch it?”

✎ nerd!jimin who takes forever to fall asleep because his mind is a constantly-running think machine. 24/7. does he fix his mom’s laptop or the wi-fi router first? did the bidding go up for that original fantastic four comic?

✎ nerd!jimin who is a true momma’s boy at heart. not in a creepy way, but in the way where he’ll lean into her warm hugs and let her fix his ruffled hair—but also shy away from her cheek kisses in front of his classmates.

✎ nerd!jimin who subconsciously memorized your schedule. he wasn’t even trying to be creepy—he actually hated he did. he just happened to see you walk in and out of your classes, and it stuck with him.

✎ nerd!jimin who changes his route on campus to walk past you. he’s missed his bus on multiple occasions because of this.

✎ nerd!jimin who gets nervous when someone mentions your name in passing. cheeks all pink and warm, heart racing, knee bouncing up and down.

✎ nerd!jimin who owns every type of rubix cube under the sun. his favorite? his first 3x3 cube. the paint’s all chipped, but he loves it just the same.

✎ nerd!jimin who bought a copy of a book he overheard you talking about. he has yet to read it, only because he’s scared he’ll get too attached to it if he loves it. (spoiler alert: he would love anything you love).

✎ nerd!jimin who gets jealous of your male friends. he gets in his own head. like, “who even is that guy? why’s she laughing? is he funny? i’m funny. i think.”

✎ nerd!jimin who likes your posts within the first two minutes, never commenting. just lurking.

✎ nerd!jimin who wears cologne because someone said you liked guys who smelled nice. hyperfixates on it, his search history filled with things like “how much cologne is too much?”

✎ nerd!jimin who has practiced what he’d say if you ever found out he likes you. has never gotten past “so… uh.”

✎ nerd!jimin who wonders if you’d ever like him back. decides probably not. gets sad. listens to sad violin lo-fi.

✎ nerd!jimin who absolutely yaps his friends’ ears off about you. they’re sick of it, but will always be around for his one-sided girl problems.

✎ nerd!jimin who told his mom about you. that precious, cardigan-wearing, kimchi-jjigae-making lady always giving him the same piece of advice; “just go talk to her, jimin.”

✎ nerd!jimin who once got so flustered he said “I love y—you’re… you’re welcome.” then didn’t sleep for three nights.

✎ nerd!jimin who fantasizes about holding your hand. just your hand. and then he has to physically pull himself back into reality, eyes back on his chem textbook.

lulu speaks pt2: focus on school kicking my ass ❌ write another jimin au ✅

cai bot. masterlist. navigation.

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wintrcaptn · 7 days ago

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Apples and Butterflies part 6

Joel Miller x Reader

Summary : You caught your bf in bed with another girl two months before winter break. Now with no where to go for the next few weeks, your roommate invites you to her hometown so you don't spend the holidays alone. But you never expected her dad to be the guy who pretended to be your date so you didn't look pathetic in front of your ex. The same guy you can't stop thinking about...Joel miller.

Part one | Part two | Part three | Part four | Part five

A/N : so I wrote 31 chapters for this so far. Im going to add more to each chapter, change names, and eventually turn it into a book but writing it as a fanfiction really helped me haha

Your POV

Sarah and I had officially declared a holiday hibernation. We spent hours buried under blankets on the couch watching everything from The Holiday to The Grinch, sipping cocoa and making up commentary for the movies that made us snort-laugh until our sides ached. Joel would sit in that leather chair of his, tucked in the corner. He never joined in the chaos, but he never left the room either. That was his thing; being present without actually being in it.

Still, I caught him smiling at the screen once or twice. Just barely. But it happened.

Sarah and I had also taken trips into town, mostly for her gift runs. I wandered behind her like a lost puppy, struggling to figure out what to get her and Joel. Not sure if I even should get him anything.

We'd bump into Mason here and there, and Sarah would go from cool and casual to full-on flustered in three seconds flat. It was hilarious, watching her turn into a complete marshmallow around him.

"He's not into me like that," she told me in the car yesterday.

"Uh, he is constantly bringing up old memories with you. That's literally 'small-town man is low-key obsessed with you' behavior," I'd shot back.

She'd rolled her eyes, but the way she bit her lip and stared out the window said it all. Girl was smitten. Bad.

Joel had been working a lot. Long hours, often gone before the sun was fully up and back when the sky was already dark. But there was always food in the fridge. The thermostat was always adjusted so the house was warm before we woke up. Towels were folded. Wood was stocked by the fireplace.

It didn't go unnoticed.

Neither did the moments right before bed, when he'd walk through the living room, hair damp from the shower, shirt tugged low over his chest, pajama pants slung low on his hips, a glass of water in hand. I'd be curled up on the couch, pretending to be engrossed in whatever book I was holding, even though I had read the same page three times.

It was hard not to look at him. To want him the way I did. And everyday, he made it harder for me to fight these feelings.

———

I woke up before the sun even touched the frosted windows, the world outside still wrapped in a blanket of soft gray. I lay in bed for a moment, staring at the ceiling, the chill in the air making me pull the comforter up a little higher. But I couldn't go back to sleep—not when my mind was already moving.

I wanted to do something for them.

For Sarah—for opening her life to me so easily. For letting me into her home, her family, her memories. And for Joel—for taking me in without hesitation, even if he wasn't always good at showing it. They didn't have to welcome me like this. They didn't have to make me feel like I belonged here.

But they did.

And I wanted to say thank you the only way I really knew how—through food, through baking, through warmth.

I tiptoed out of bed, careful not to wake Sarah as I passed her room. The floor creaked beneath my socks, the sound oddly comforting in the early stillness. I made my way to the kitchen, switching on just the small light above the stove—enough to see by, not enough to disturb the quiet that wrapped around the house like a lullaby.

It felt like a sacred kind of quiet.

I worked by memory, by instinct—pulling eggs, bacon, flour, cinnamon, sugar, and apples from the fridge and pantry. These were the ingredients of my childhood. I tied my hair into a messy bun, loose strands falling into my face as I rolled up my sleeves. I didn't bother with anything fancy. Just comfort. Just care.

I hadn't baked like this in a while. Not since a year after my mother passed. But something about this kitchen—the old cupboards, the subtle creak of the drawers, the hum of the heater kicking on—it felt safe. Familiar. Like maybe she was here, watching over my shoulder, smiling in that quiet way she used to when I got flour on my nose.

I liked being up before everyone else. It reminded me of holidays at home, when I'd wake to the smell of apple and cinnamon and find her already at the stove, humming a song I never knew the name of.

Now I was the one humming.

The eggs sizzled quietly. Bacon crisped on the stovetop. A fresh batch of apple-cinnamon muffins rose golden in the oven, filling the room with their warm, spiced scent. I moved around the kitchen with a kind of rhythm, phone resting nearby with music playing low—something soft, something calm.

I wasn't trying to impress anyone. I just wanted them to know I saw them. That I appreciated them.

I lost myself in the rhythm, flipping bacon, scooping muffin batter into little crinkled liners, wiping flour off my nose with my wrist. My shoulders relaxed for the first time in days. It made me feel like I was somewhere between dreaming and remembering.

And I did remember. Her smile, her laugh, her hands.

My mom's hands in the kitchen; tough in places but soft when they held mine. Her humming as she swayed back and forth while stirring batter. Her hair always tied back under her favorite knitted blue and white bandanna she'd worn every morning. I could still hear her voice, faint like the wind.

"Don't overmix the batter, honey. Let it breathe. Baking's about love, not perfection."

I smiled before I even realized it. That ache in my chest softened just a little.

It felt like she was here. Just for a second.

I was dusted in flour, barefoot, and humming to myself when I reached for the tray of muffins; perfectly golden, just like she used to make. That's when I heard the creak.

I turned around quickly.

And there he was.

Joel.

Barefoot in gray sweats and a dark T-shirt, hair messy, his body still sleepy and solid. He looked like he hadn't expected to see anyone either. But there was something in his face, his eyes tracing me in the soft kitchen light that made the air shift.

———————

Joel's POV

I was halfway through brushing my teeth when I smelled it—apples. Bacon. That warm, buttery kind of scent that made your chest ache a little. Like memories. Or comfort.

I wiped my mouth, tossed the towel on the counter, and padded out of the room. The house was still quiet. Too early for Sarah. But someone was definitely awake.

I rounded the hallway and slowed just before the kitchen.

There she was.

Y/N.

She moved like she was alone. Like this space was hers. Cracking eggs. Hummin' soft. Her hair was tied up, messy and loose, with pieces falling into her face. She was barefoot, and grinning to herself about God knows what. She looked happy.

And for some reason... that just about knocked the wind outta me.

I didn't mean to stare, but hell, I did.

She didn't know I was there yet, and I wasn't sure I wanted to interrupt her—just stood there like a fool, watching.

Until the old floorboard beneath my foot gave a soft creak.

She whipped around fast, her eyes wide and alert. Caught in the act like a kid stealing cookies.

"Oh, hey," she said, blinking, a smear of flour on her cheek.

"Mornin'," I said, voice lower than it should've been. "Smells like a whole bakery in here."

She smiled, sheepish. "I couldn't sleep, so... figured I'd cook a little something. Hope that's okay?"

I nodded, stepping into the room finally. "Yeah. 'Course. You are welcome to anythin' in this house." I said, "but you didn't have to cook for us."

"I wanted to," she said, brushing her hands on a towel. "It's kind of my love language."

I sat on the stool at the counter and looked at the spread she was still arranging. It felt like too much. Like it should've been for something bigger.

But she didn't look like she needed a reason. Just... wanted to give.

"You do this often?" I asked.

She glanced at me, brow raised. "Cook for people?"

"Yeah."

She shrugged, placing the muffins carefully in a basket. "I used to. For my mom. It made her feel better on her bad days. Made me feel better too."

There was a pause. Not a heavy one. Just enough to understand without needing to ask more.

"Well," I said, clearing my throat and nodding at the muffins, "damn good way to wake up. I'll give you that."

She laughed. And it hit me in the chest again. Like it always did.

"I hope you're hungry," she added.

"Starvin'," I said, tryin' to keep my voice steady. "Didn't eat much yesterday."

She glanced at me, concern flickerin' behind her eyes, and I looked away. I didn't want her readin' too much into me.

I leaned back on the stool, arms crossed, just watchin' her. Couldn't stop if I tried. That's when she turned and made her way over to me.

"Here," she said, holding something small in her hand.

She stood just a few feet away, her eyes bright, hopeful, her flour-dusted fingers cupped around one of those damn muffins she'd just pulled from the oven. The top was golden, still warm, steam curlin' from the soft break she'd made in the center to check if it was done.

"Try it," she said, lifting it toward me like it was some sacred offering.

I raised a brow.

"I promise I didn't poison this one," she said with a smirk. "I can't promise the others are safe."

I huffed a laugh. Couldn't help it. The way she looked up at me, eyes playful, chin tilted just a little higher than normal—she was teasin', but there was somethin' else there. Somethin' soft.

I glanced down at the muffin. Still warm. Her hand holdin' it steady, she didn't move. Just waited.

I leaned in slow, eyes locked with hers. She didn't look away either, not once. My breath caught for a second, then I sank my teeth into the bite she offered. Her fingers were close enough to graze my lip, and my hand twitched like it wanted to wrap around hers.

Then the flavor hit me.

Apple—sweet and sharp. Cinnamon—warm and spicy. The muffin was soft, like a memory you didn't know you still had. Vanilla lingered on the back of my tongue, and a bit of brown sugar crisped across the top, stickin' to my bottom lip just slightly.

I chewed slow.

"I think I'm fallin' in love." I said, but my eyes slightly widened at the realization of what I had just said.

Her breath hitched.

And then—God help me—she smiled.

Not the polite kinda smile she gave strangers. No. This one lit her up from the inside out. Made her eyes crinkle just a little. Made her nose scrunch, and her whole face softened like she'd just been told a secret she'd always wanted to hear.

And I swear right then and there, I never wanted to see anything but that smile again for the rest of my life.

I don't know what it was, maybe it was the flour on her cheek, the way she smelled like cinnamon and coffee and apples, or maybe it was just the quiet look she gave me like she saw through me...but I wanted to kiss her.

Badly.

More than I should.

I wanted to taste that smile. Feel her laugh against my mouth.

But she blinked and stepped back, clearing her throat like she'd just remembered we were still standing in my kitchen. "So... what's the plan for today? Since you're not working?"

I took a step back too, trying not to make it obvious I needed the space. My hands flexed at my sides. "Tommy's comin' by. Him and Maria—his wife. They're gonna bring their kid, Benji. Watch the game."

"Maria," she repeated, like she was tryin' to confirm somethin'.

"You watch football?" I asked, trying to steer the conversation, give myself somethin' else to focus on besides the feel of her so close.

She wrinkled her nose, biting her bottom lip. "No. I mean, I've tried. But I don't understand it. At all. Too many lines and yelling."

I chuckled. "That's 'cause you've been watchin' with the wrong folks. I could teach you....if you want."

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing slightly. "Would you be patient with me?"

I smirked. "I'd try not to yell at you like the guys on TV, if that's what you're askin'."

She stared at me then, eyes dark and curious, lips parted just slightly like she was weighing something else behind the words. And in that stretch of silence, the tension between us grew heavy again like humidity before a storm.

"I might take you up on that," she said finally, voice low, soft.

Something in my gut twisted.

I nodded once. "Anytime."

She smiled again, but smaller this time.

And then she turned away, and I was left standing there in the kitchen, wondering how the hell a girl with apple muffins and sad eyes had gotten into my blood stream so damn fast.

I stayed rooted where I was, hands in my pockets, pretending to breathe like normal.

But everything about her wasn't normal.

She moved like she belonged here. Like this kitchen had always been hers. That soft sway of her body as she moved between counter and oven, the sunlight catching in her hair just enough to make it glow. She didn't know it, but I was memorizing the curve of her smile. The way she tapped her fingers along the countertop to the rhythm of the music.

I had no business watchin' her the way I was.

But I did.

I couldn't help it.

Then—footsteps padded down the hallway, slow and lazy.

Sarah appeared, hair a mess and hoodie too big for her shoulders. She looked half asleep and completely content.

"Mmm," she moaned, dragging a hand across her face. "It smells so damn good in here. I'm starving."

Y/N turned and beamed at her. "Sit. Coffee's hot, muffins are warm, bacon's almost done."

Sarah collapsed into the chair, mumbling something like angel from heaven under her breath while clutching her phone to her chest.

The second that screen lit up, she perked up. I could tell by the twitch of her mouth that it was him—Mason.

She looked up at Y/N, hopeful. "Mason just texted. Asked if I had any plans today."

I felt Y/N's gaze slide toward Sarah, interest peaking in her face. "Tell him to come over," she said casually, flippin' a strip of bacon in the pan. "Game's on. Easy excuse."

Sarah bit her lip, clearly nervous, but typed anyway.

I sipped my coffee, tryin' not to listen. Tryin' being the key word.

A moment passed, then her phone buzzed again. She let out a breathless, excited laugh.

"He said he'd love to," she said, looking up at Y/N, her eyes wide with disbelief. "But... he's got a friend with him. He doesn't wanna leave him hangin'."

Y/N stopped what she was doing for a moment, "tell him to bring him. I mean I can keep him company or something."

Sarah's eyes lit up. "You sure?" She asked.

Y/N chuckled but nodded. "Yeah I don't mind."

"Oh my god what if you two hit it off? What if he's cute?!"

I froze.

Just for a second.

Sarah kept going. "We could double date and everything!"

A low hum started in my ears.

Double dates.

Y/N. With him.

That same smile she gave me this morning, the laugh she gave me on the Ferris wheel, the way she looked when I bit into that muffin like I was the only man in the world—she'd give that to someone else?

I didn't like that.

No, I hated that.

My stomach knotted. Something dark and unfamiliar twisted in my chest. I didn't even know the guy and I wanted to knock his teeth out already.

Jesus Christ.

Was I... jealous?

That couldn't be right. I was too old for this kinda childish shit.

But the feelin' was there anyway, diggin' in like splinters under my skin. I could feel it rising—tight in my chest, heat crawl across the back of my neck.

I set my coffee down a little too hard on the counter.

Both Y/N and Sarah looked at me.

"You okay?" Y/N asked gently, her eyes searching my face.

I forced a nod, clenched my jaw. "Yeah. Just remembered I gotta check the garage before Tommy gets here."

And I walked out before I said somethin' I'd regret. Before I could look at Y/N again and see her considerin' someone else. Before I had to sit there and listen to more plans that didn't involve me.

I didn't know what to do, but I needed to be somewhere I could breathe.

I needed space.

Because if that boy walked through my front door and laid eyes on her the way I had—God help me—I wasn't sure what I'd do.

#pedro pascal #joel miller x reader #joel miller #joel miller imagine #the last of us #tlou #tlou hbo #joel miller fanfiction #joel tlou #tlou2

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linksfunroadtrip · 4 months ago

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Link's Fun Commentary - Prologue!

+ sailor design commentary. link's fun extra

Twilight Field, War of Eras...

Sailor starting in Hyrule Warriors and being dropped immediately into Shepherd's era is actually the second pitch for the beginning of the comic, the very First pitch being the first two pages of chapter 1.

More than anything we just wanted to get it done, but we didn't really know what we were doing . We cobbled together a custom font and got right to it. My Fun Facts: All the grass is the same image reused over and over except for when it isn't . Literally all of the smoke was just repeated/moved around. We didn't even really know how to use gradients effectively...

... Which can be seen in these next two panels. LOL.

The work split on this batch set a precedent for sure. @islandlobster took up lining and flat colors, and had the Hard Job of harmonizing our styles, processes, and experiments. Do you see a lot of small, long-form comics with grainy, textured line-art? Maybe no? Well we found out why.

These panels also feature the Only Two Triforces we remembered to draw !!! Oh My God!!!

As much as we struggled, things moved pretty quick from the get-go. Since the prologue is only a handful of pages we didn't really run into the issues we would with chapter 1, especially regarding our complete and utter lack of script. This went straight from thumbnailing to the final result!! (NOT A SUSTAINABLE WAY TO DO A GROUP PROJECT...!)

I wanted to mention though that when I wrote the line above, I wasn't sure if this was how you would spell it for like . a Soldier Troop or a Performance Troupe. Which I just looked up now and found out I Absolutely got them mixed up. so umm. Sorry. Sailor is not in the circus yet.

Cia was just defeated in the main campaign! I felt like such a smart cookie for this one.

She doesn't even know she wont be going home yet‼️ laughing and pointing ‼️

It was an Early idea that Sailor would conveniently miss the time portal transporting the field (with her in it!) back to its era. This was supposed to be a reoccurring bit, but we didn't commit to it too hard going forward, so who's to say if that'll be realized.

The pirate charm plays a big role in the prologue. A little funny because we were absolutely sick to death of drawing it by the end, as well as the fact that it is there in lieu of her red-gem necklace that we forgot to draw. it is Welcome and Unfortunate that it doesn't work anymore, especially because having the chance to name drop like this was very indulgent.

The era of twilight ! Including the locations and times was in the original sketches, but when we found out that our inexperience with backgrounds wasn't lending itself to establishing Where we were, it came in handy. We Agonized over placing the castle and argued* for like a week about how forested the area should be. Luckily we use noclip now, so things have improved as we've moved into chapter 2 :]

Either way, hopefully it wasn't too confusing, and as we introduce new characters the picture will be clearer. We've talked a little bit about returning to the prologue to spiff it up a bit, but we feel we aren't far enough into the comic to make it worthwhile.

and now over to Pea with the weather:

my name is pea islandlobster and you can't tell that it's me because we are writing on the same post but trust okay 🤞 I am here to talk about SAILOR!!!

Sailor has been my baby brainchild before LFRT was even a blip in our minds eye (my proof) and it has been a beautiful indulgence for me to both put her in AND have her be the first Link we meet. YAY!

I have two designs for her, for which I have helpfully made a diagram just for you..! Labeled and everything..!

A: pheww my big one that I have been sitting on forever. Sailor's necklace was constructed over the course of her adventure, initially only having her red gem (given to her by King Daphnes, from his own crown). Four pearls were later added, parting gifts from Oshus and the three spirits. Also intended to mirror the three Goddess pearls from Wind Waker..! and an extra yellow one i guess. triforce? idk

B: Sailor's chipped tooth is a funny one that I will have to make a small comic about at some point. It's not even anything from her adventure. A couple years before WW, Aryll was pretty upset about losing her first tooth, and in typical Link fashion she thought the best way of comforting her was to ALSO lose a tooth. Grandma was not happy.

C: Most Links have a triforce mark, and each one we are giving a reason towards ^.^ Sailor's mark is entirely scar tissue, specifically it is hypertrophic. She held her triforce for only a few days and got it (maybe quite literally) ripped from her by Ganondorf, so take that as you will. Tetra and her are matching yayyy..!

D: Giving her hero outfit it's own section so I can tuck it out of the way lol. A modified version of her original hero outfit, courtesy of shipmate Nudge (guy in the top left). She was a little upset over having to alter Grandma's hard work, but she preserved it where she could. Like her seashell belt! ^_^

E: SIDEBURNS! Not present in the prologue because it has been a recent development but I figured it was worth bringing up. During WoE, as she grows her hair, her sideburns resemble little lobster claws. Cute! In LFRT as grown out as it is, I thought making them swirly as a reference to pretty much every cloud/wind effect used in WW lol.

From a combination of outgrowing stuff and missing home, Sailor was christened with Lobster Shirt 2.0 as we know and love today. Who made it for her? I dunnooo..... let's sit and think about this one.

Phewww. This was a long one - and no doubt the next will be longer - but this is all for now! Feel free to send any questions you might have ^.^ Thank you for all the support! Chapter 2 part 2 soon!

#lfrt q&a #lfrt #links fun roadtrip #links meet au

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suzukiblu · 2 months ago

Note

How did you spread your Ko-fi/ comms? I've had a Ko-fi of my own set up for a little over a month now but I'm struggling to get any commissioners. Do you have any tips?

disclaimer: This is what worked for specifically me and my specific situation/style/etc and I don't know your specific audience or how you typically interact with them, so take or leave what I say in terms of what seems like useful or helpful information to your own situation. I do have some more specific advice for you in the back half, just I'm gonna be starting out with the "this worked for me" stuff.

Anyway actual answer/info behind the cut, hah. God, this is so long and only mostly organized, I apologize, I just get INTO it sometimes when I get asked this kind of thing.

First and foremost, for clarity's purpose and all: I have been on the internet for literally twenty-five years and am WELL established in fandom, as well as someone who has been reasonably popular and/or well-known in multiple fandoms on multiple sites at multiple times. There are literally people following me who were reading my stuff ten or fifteen or even the full twenty-five years ago. Given your profile says you're in your twenties I may have LITERALLY been online longer than you have been alive, haha.

So like, I've been at this a minute and have a LOT of experience in engaging and maintaining an active audience because that's a thing I value having and therefore do my best to encourage; it just works best for my process. So if you're feeling a little vexed with the response you're getting, know that this is all coming from a much-experienced Old(tm) who has had issues getting commissions and attention several times themselves and just currently has a decent chunk of followers and a very communicative "yes and" writing style and is, as a writer, WILDLY prolific. Like. WILDLY prolific. Genuinely, I am not trying to brag or talk myself up here or anything, I just straight-up feel like I haven't written at all if I don't break 2k in a day ( and even 2k feels kinda low to me at this point ), and I write EVERY day.

Literally. Literally every day. Like I missed two days after I got COVID and solo-drove four hours and needed to sleep for a week to recover, and I missed one day at the beginning of this month because I was real burned out from writing 32k more than usual last month and just needed to veg for a day. That's it, that is it all. Those are literally the only days that I have not written in like, the past SEVERAL months. Like, the high end of "several", to be clear. Occasionally I have a lighter day and only write a few hundred words, but typically I do somewhere in the range of 2.5-3.5k, and on my more productive days I can break 5 or 6k easy. That is the kind of person that you have asked for advice here, haha. 😅 So like . . . I'm low-key a freak, productivity-wise. Like I am the living embodiment of that one interview where George R.R. Martin is staring at Stephen King with visible fear in his eyes as the dude describes how many billions of pages he writes a day like it's no big.

tl;dr: I write SO. SO. MUCH. So much, and ALSO I have a backlog of something like two million words on AO3 and definitely hundreds of thousands more words under my tags list on here on top of that. People get a LOT of content when they get into me, I am MADE of content. I have built up a lot of momentum over time, that's just what's worked for me personally.

Also I'm cheap, ngl. I'm just--I'm very affordable, Ko-fi-wise. So I am sure that helps, considering!

ANYWAY. Some of this advice is not going to sound relevant to Ko-fi, but it is relevant to how I personally use Ko-fi, so yeah, here we go:

Always remember: everyone on the internet has social anxiety. Yes, even the people who don't actually have social anxiety. Just go into everything assuming most people you meet on here are gonna be shy or nervous or just feel awkward striking up a conversation with you out of the blue, especially if they've never really spoken to you before. It doesn't matter if they don't actually have social anxiety, thinking that way just puts you in a mindframe to be mindful when you're talking to them and being mindful in your communication makes people more comfortable with things like messaging you with questions and the prospect of going through the commission process with you.

Generally just assume the best of people's intentions whenever possible, and when their intentions are clearly not the best, just move on and don't engage. It is a lose-lose situation; you are not gonna convince them of anything and you're just gonna look like a dick to people who don't have the context and leave a sour taste in their mouths. Which, long story short, people are just way more likely to enjoy your stuff and WAY more likely to commission you if you're putting your best foot forward whenever possible. I definitely try not to get too negative on here myself; like I'm not doing any toxic positivity or anything, just I am here to vent some feelings and make some friends and enjoy the process, and I wanna cultivate a setup where other people can benefit from that too.

Link. Link link link. How easy is it to find your Ko-fi link? Make it easier than that. Keep it in your pinned post and on the front page of your actual blog and in your back pocket and stapled to your sleeve. When you post a commission, link your commission info in the description. When you talk about your art in general, link your commission info in the body of the text--like for example, "I'm trying to use my Ko-fi more" or "I finished up my last commission, I have some slots open again". ( used my own Ko-fi links for reference here, obviously, hah, but specifically linking to your main page OR just straight to your actual commissions page are both useful options. linking your main page introduces you as a person more effectively, while linking straight to your commissions page removes a step for people and makes it easier for them to find the info they're looking for. )

Communicate! Remind people that your Ko-fi/your commissions exist every now and then. Like, definitely not daily or weekly, but depending on how often you update your blog in general, maybe once every month or couple of months give people a heads up if you've got commission slots open/available. That way they're not awkwardly peering at the pinned post you put up months ago wondering if you're still actively open or just forgot it was in your pinned, and also it gives a heads up to people who might've been thinking about or meaning to commission you that you're available for work.

Post consistently in general; not just about commissions or Ko-fi, obviously, just like making yourself available and open to people and hanging out WITH people. Answer as many asks as you have the spoons to. Talk about stuff you like and stuff you're excited by and into. Like obviously not everyone can do this but I personally post a lot on here and I definitely UPDATE a lot on here; generally speaking if someone swings by my blog once or twice a week, there's gonna be at least a few hundred to a few thousand words of new stuff for them to read ( or SEVERAL thousand, even ). Or to look at, when I'm feeling arty.

Answers asks and make personal posts. Like I'm not saying trauma-dump on your followers or use Tumblr like a diary, definitely, but it's a good idea to give people a bit of an idea about yourself in terms of things like talking about your dog being cute or if you're going to be out of town on vacation or how your process works or just new or different things that you're trying out/experimenting with/interested in. Bluntly put, you want people to remember you are a person who wants to hang out with them and not just a Content Generator to be "liked" and then scrolled on past, and you want to engage with them and try to talk to them when they talk to you and generally be, like, approachable. In my case I just do my best to assume the best of every interaction and try to notice who's regularly popping up in my notifs and remember what I can about them. This does not always work for me because my memory is swiss cheese, but I do what I can there because I very much appreciate people engaging with my stuff ( and also my me, haha ) and I think communicating that kind of thing to people usually makes them feel good, and in turn you feel better about what you're doing and how people are responding to your work, and then you're more motivated TO work and maybe they catch some mistakes for you or have good ideas that vastly, VASTLY improve what you had in mind. The circle of fandom! The life cycle of a WIP!!

Which leads us into: you need to be doing things that are very recognizably You(tm) and cannot just be picked up for free just any random anywhere. Which like, that can be an issue with fanart, obviously, because the internet is FULL of free fanart, so what you probably want is to be looking to court people who are looking for art of their fics/AUs or their own original characters. Like your style is very distinctive for sure, that's definitely a good thing, so leaning into your personal interpretations of characters is a good idea, and it does look like you're doing that with the stuff of yours I've seen. I would just say lean into your own designs and own little quirks of styling and stuff you really love to draw and go hard on all of it. Once you really feel it out, the stuff you are REALLY vibing with is the stuff that is gonna resonate with people the most significantly in the long run, in my experience. Even if it doesn't always get the same level of response as less niche stuff does, it'll very likely get a more DEVOTED response, and people who'll come back for more of it. I did not write so dang much of Darcy Lewis in my MCU days because her fans were uninvested in seeing new content for her, put it that way.

Also, I AM in fact cheap; I have a few different price options on my Ko-fi and two-thirds of them are five bucks or under. The nature of how I personally do Ko-fi means I'm adding words to already-established stories, though, so people are coming in invested and more willing to donate so they can find out what happens next. Which, like, is obviously not something that works with art commissions, unless you're doing something like "when I hit this donation goal I will draw the next page of this comic script I have written in thanks for hitting the goal". But honestly, sometimes doing a limited amount of projects and getting people interested/invested in said projects is more cost-effective in terms of your time and energy and less overwhelming than doing a million different things all at once. Plus it gets your audience more story to chew on in the long run and I have NEVER met anyone who complained about a fuller narrative happening to them.

Mind, I don't actually know if you're the comic-making type, comics are just the first example I thought of, but also you do have to make sure you're giving people enough content to be invested in to begin with. Sticking with the comic example, people aren't gonna donate to see more of a comic if they don't know they LIKE your comics, so doing some shorter ones and posting a nice selection of those first and THEN doing a donation goal is more respectful of your audience because you're clearly actively interested in them and want to make things you can share with them, not just, like, collect their Ko-fi donos, and at the same time it's also just better advertisement for you. Ethical marketing, basically; there's plenty of content you shared freely, and you're also posting the things that get crowdfunded for everyone to see and not paywalling anything, and ideally building some community and making some friends along the way. Which, like, obviously substitute whatever works for you for "comic" here; I personally just find having overarching narratives/stories/settings helps people get invested and enjoy themselves more with your stuff, and also be likelier to REMEMBER your stuff. Come up with an AU, do some little comics or illustrations in it or some design work for it. Just make a thing that is very specifically YOU and what you like.

On that note: get niche. Get weird. You REALLY don't wanna be making stuff that is not as You(tm) as possible and can just be picked up anywhere. You wanna make the kind of stuff where people go "I wanna see more like this, fuck, who else is even MAKING this, alright OP please do me a solid and have more of this on your blog--fuck YEAH you do, look at all this, okay I live here now". In fandom terms: yes, everyone loves Timkon, Timkon'll get likes, it'll probably even get comments, but if you really want to find the diehards who are gonna lock in and ENGAGE, you wanna make sure you also do the niche shit that you're telling yourself everyone else is gonna think is too weird or just not be interested in. Shut up, imposter syndrome, people LOVE weird! People WANT weird, this is fandom, we're a largely queer subculture that's reclaiming our modern mythologies from capitalism, we're not here for the normie shit! We'd be rereading canon again if we just wanted the normie shit!

Seriously, being openly weird and leaning into said weird is a VERY definite reason that people recognize and remember my writing as opposed to, like, just consuming it and moving on without even noticing there was an author involved. If people vibe real hard with the themes you get really into working with or really like the unique parts of your style/voice or appreciate the way you handle certain subjects/characters/weird niche shit, they're a lot likelier to remember you and either come back or just stick around from the start. Like attracts like and your "like" will be delighted to have found you, and you will get to enjoy the benefits of BEING found by your fellow niche weirdos and all be thriving together! Everyone wins!

Also, I have some more specifically tailored practical advice/critique that is based off my immediate reactions to what I saw when I clicked over to your blog/Ko-fi, which definitely take with a grain of salt because I am giving it without being familiar with your process/situation/audience and from a different position. I'm just trying to be less general and offer some stuff that might be more specifically useful to you. So like, please feel free to hit me up in DMs or asks if you wanna talk about any of this in more detail or get some clarification on anything I'm saying here, this is just what I've got from my initial impressions and off the dome.

Also-also, again, this is all based on what's worked for me personally, so I'm sure there's some stuff that might not be applicable to or just not vibe with you because of that. So like please don't take this as me trying to smack down what you've been doing so far or anything, I'm just trying to be thorough in building on it and also, like, my graphic design experience definitely slipped into some of this, hah.

So to start I took a quick look at your blog to see how easy it was to find your Ko-fi and then a quick peek at your Ko-fi itself to see how it was set up. I found your Ko-fi immediately, which was good! Having it in both your bio and your pinned is definitely the right idea. I did have to expand your bio to find the link that was listed in there, which not everyone will do while scrolling past, but that's just like, nitpicking on my part since you do have the pinned post directly beneath it. I just am very much "make literally everything as easy as possible for everyone ever in every possible way".

It'd probably be helpful to mention that you're open for commissions in the "about" on your Ko-fi's front page so people don't have to scroll too far or click any links to find that out/have that confirmed. You may also wanna either slim down the descriptions in your commissions listings or break them up into paragraphs; you wanna do your best to avoid big solid blocks of text because people are likelier to only skim those and therefore less likely to absorb the information.

Skimming is also bad because it means people are less likely to notice that something you're describing appeals to them, and are way MORE likely to end up confused. "Confused" ups the chances that they just decide they don't wanna bother you by asking for clarification, given they might feel stressed by asking or pressured to buy or just like they're bothering you.

Avoiding text blocks is also just gonna make your descriptions wayyyyy easier to read for people who are dyslexic or have vision problems or possibly didn't learn English as their first language ( depending on their fluency for that last one, obviously, but you never know so yeah ). Basically you wanna make the commission process as quick and effortless and A-to-B as possible for people; your goal is "how can I make this process as close to one-click shopping for people?" Your goal is to become the Occam's Razor of commissions.

Your promo sheet on Tumblr I'd say could be an issue in the sense that it's a little difficult to read; you want people to not have to think about it to clock it as what it is. I only immediately knew it was a commissions sheet because I went in looking for one, and you want people to INSTANTLY know it is a commissions sheet. Like, before they even process anything about it, they should have the instinctive recognition of "this is a commissions sheet" and be primed to read a commissions sheet.

The main issue I see is that the sheet's layout is pretty dense and lacks visual flow in its composition; the prices are scattered and the font on the header is hard to read at a glance; my reflexive assumption from the moment it took to recognize it as text and the overall layout of the graphic was that it was a border, not a header. And like, I figured it out like half a second later, yeah, but that first couple of seconds can disorient or confuse people or just make them just scroll by without stopping to read, because it's not a tall image and the image is ALWAYS your best chance to catch somebody's eye, especially when deliberately going for art commissions.

The first thing I actually read off the sheet was "X no NSFW GORE", which I was initially unclear on the meaning of and had to reread to realize what you meant, but either way is not the first thing you want me to read; it should definitely be on the sheet and very visible, but not positioned to be the first thing someone's eye goes to. It belongs off to the side in a lower corner or just over on the right-hand side. Right now it's too high and too emphasized in comparison to the actual header, which is very much what you WANT people reading first.

There's almost no negative space on the sheet and some of the example art you've included is shrunk down so small that it's REALLY hard to read unless you've seen the larger pieces before, so I think considering doing two or three complementing slides so you can spread out your offerings/pricing and make your examples bigger would really be helpful there. I think it's a really good idea to include multiple pieces as examples, it shows your range and makes it clear what people are gonna be getting for their money; that's definitely the way to go imo. You just also wanna be sure that people can see the details and get the full vibe of your art and the work you put into it. Like, I REALLY love that pic of Match you have down at the bottom, full disclosure I realize we have like never spoken but it is literally my phone background and has been since the day I first saw it ( my lock screen being the complementing Kon pic, natch ), but you can't see any of the cool little details I know are in it with it shrunk down that small. I wanna see his eyes and the detail in his hair and the phone cord wrapped around his throat and the heart freckles, I LOVE those dang heart freckles! And like, those are also interesting little quirks and creative things that will make people think, "oh, I like how that looks, if I commission this person I'll get a cool pose or creative styling or fun details out of it!", so they are definitely the kind of thing you should make sure to show off when you are showing off your work.

I personally tend to go for vertical posts over horizontal ones, given Tumblr is meant to be scrolled and it's more important that people's eyes get caught by something in the scrolling process than that your graphic expands across the screen in the best fit; a lot of people won't even click on the image to expand it anyway. You do want to make sure it'll stay readable if they DO click, of course, so I'd personally recommend stacking two or three horizontally-composed sheets on top of each other to make the POST'S composition vertical. Scrolling down is how people traverse this site; you want to lean into presentations that read well when they're being scrolled down.

The accompanying text below the actual sheet is also not as neatly balanced/formatted as it could be, so it looks less . . . hm, less INTENTIONAL, maybe? Less thought-out than it could be, at least. It makes it harder to read at first glance and doesn't give off a professional vibe. Using bullet points or indents or headers can help with that kind of thing and just make it easier for the eye to follow along and for people to read/focus on what you're saying. ESPECIALLY when you're doing promos/price lists you want to have the most stripped-down and functional version of the text you can manage. You wanna get your point across as clear and succinct as you can and make sure there's negative space around your text so the words can be read quickly and the text itself can breathe, visually-speaking. Negative space is your friend.

Yes I realize talking about the VISUALS of text is a little weird but listen man, you're an artist, you get what I'm saying here. You wanna make the actual first-glance look of your text aesthetically appealing and easy to follow through at the pace and in the order you want it followed. Which like, takes some practice, obviously, but again, I have been here for twenty-five years, haha. Just this is a very visual site and very scroll-oriented, so you wanna do your best to be eye-catching! That's why I frequently post my finished fics with a little accompanying image, just to make sure they stick out to people in the tags.

uhhhhh okay this was a lot, lol, sorry for dumping a ton of info all at once there, but hopefully some of it will be helpful to you! Even if some of it probably sounds weird and way too concerned with curb appeal, haha. Sometimes you just gotta put in some grind and build your momentum, sometimes it's really just that; in the meantime, just try to be approachable and enjoy yourself! If you build it, they will come.

#artisicallya-rambo #rinquiry

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vinylmango · 8 months ago

Text

Flower Delivery (pt. 3)

ex!Nicholas alexander chavez x ex!black!reader

Warnings: obsessive behaviors (cont’d), he’s your scene partner…turned kinda lover (kissing only), Ryan Murphy jumpscare (yikes), mentions of episode 4 of grotesquerie (just one scene)

Requests:

no cause you’re most recent nicholas chavez fic ATE DOWNNN girl pls write another i beg. or literally just other nicholas chavez fics cause your writing is incredible!! - 🍒

And

I know you literally just posted flower delivery part 2 but I need part three! It’s sooooo good!!!! - anon

Description: Just when you think your life is back on track and you landed a new leading role, he’s thrust back into your life when you find out he’s in the show too. Now as you start filming, you aren’t really sure what you want anymore.

Word count: 2.9k words

Note: Sorry for the delay on part 3, work has been working lol, but I really appreciate all of the kindness and love everyone has been showing my posts/page <3 I ended up writing this four different times before I finally decided I liked it lol and I decided to make it longer to make up for my lack of content since I posted the last one.

Also I know the timeline is a little wonky in this in terms of Nicholas’ filming schedule for Monsters and Grotesquerie, so let’s just pretend he finished filming for Monsters completely before starting filming for Grotesquerie.

Thanks for the request 🍒 and anon!

part one part two

masterlist

You couldn’t believe it, it was almost too good to be true. There hadn’t been any surprise deliveries or week-night break-ins for the past six months. It was almost like he just disappeared for the past six months, and part of you was relieved since you no longer had to worry about his annoying and unhinged behavior; but another part of you secretly missed him, although you had been trying to convince yourself that it was only because you had gotten so used to his presence that now it was just…different.

Since the last time he had showed up at your place unannounced you had finished the project you had been working on and landed a new lead role in a brand new Ryan Murphy project, Grotesquerie.

Although you were well aware of the controversies surrounding the director, your new agency convinced you to take the role. It was so different from anything you had ever done before, and you had been wanting to try the horror genre. It was so new, in fact, that you hadn’t even had the opportunity to meet the rest of the cast since you hadn’t auditioned in the traditional way and Ryan himself had asked you to take the role.

You were up bright and early to be on set for the first day of filming for Grotesquerie. You arrived on set at 6:30 and headed straight to the hair and makeup trailer after briefly saying hello to Ryan, the production team, and the other writers that were on set. You still hadn’t seen your scene partners, assuming they were in hair and makeup as well.

You fell into a comfortable conversation with the hair stylist and makeup artist, telling them about your other project and how you were a fairly new actor.

“Girl, don’t talk down about yourself like that. Everyone starts somewhere.” The makeup artist, Darryl, told you squeezing your shoulder as Keisha, your hair stylist, nodded in the mirror.

“Thanks.” You smiled at the pair of them before you all turned when your trailer door opened. A woman with bright red hair and green eyes walking in with a small smile on her face.

“Hey Sue!” Darryl and Keisha smiled and waved at her.

“Hey D. Hi Keisha!” The middle aged woman smiled. “Hi (y/n), it’s great to meet you. I’m Sue. I’m just here to make sure your wardrobe is correct for the upcoming scene.” She explained as you nodded. “We had a slight change to the filming schedule to work around scheduling conflicts for some of our crew so we’ll be filming a little out of order today.”

“Oh ok. No worries.” You smiled. “What’s the change?”

“Our intimacy coordinator has to pick her son up from school early today so we have to get the scenes she’s involved with out of the way first.” She explained. “When you’re done with hair and makeup and have your wardrobe on then she’ll quickly meet with you to discuss the way it will be filmed.”

“Ok. Thanks for the heads up, Sue.” You smiled again, though Darryl and Keisha could tell you were becoming anxious when Sue left.

“Don’t be nervous, (Y/n). Sarah, our intimacy coordinator, is amazing.” Keisha reassured you.

“And I know this is obviously your job, but the actor is…hot.” Darryl added after a slight pause. You and Keisha laughed as he pretended to fan himself.

Hair and makeup finished shortly after that and you were dressed and ready to go after Keisha made sure that the habit you wore in the scene was placed correctly.

You exited the trailer as you noticed a dark haired woman with curly hair was talking to a tall, broad man, dressed in a jacket with a thick white towel wrapped around his waist…your scene partner. Darryl was right. At least from the back, the man was hot and muscular.

Your hands grew clammy as you walked up to them, Sarah smiling and waving you over. You wore a small smile as you approached. The smile was replaced with your jaw nearly dropping when the man who was to be your scene partner turned around causing you to almost stop in your tracks. “(Y/n) have you met Nicholas yet?” Sarah asked as you joined their conversation.

“Yeah. We’ve…uh…met before.” You said, fighting against the lump in your throat that was forming. Your mouth was so dry it felt like you might choke. You swallowed visibly as Nicholas smirked at you.

You glanced over his appearance. Although the jacket he was wearing was pretty loose around him and pretty much hid his upper body completely, you could still tell he was way more muscular than he had been when you saw him last.

“Great!” She smiled with a clap of her hands. “Let’s head inside and talk through the scene then.” You and Nicholas nodded as you followed her inside the filming location. “Alright so the way the scene currently lays this out is (Y/n) you’ll come from the doorway to sit in this chair, Nicholas you’ll come from the bathroom there and then walk over to the door, close it, and then stand in front of the chair. You’ll say your lines and then (y/n) you’ll stand and you’ll walk backwards until you get to here.” She stopped at the dresser that was sitting below the cross that was on the wall. “Nicholas you’ll lift (y/n) and put her down sitting on the dresser and then the scene will play out…any questions about that?” She asks as you both shake your heads no. “Alright. Anything either of you don’t feel comfortable doing?”

“I’m ok.” Nicholas said, though you could feel his eyes burning into the side of your face.

“I’m good.” You agreed, looking at Sarah instead.

“Great!” She smiled. “And the intimacy garments are ok? Do either of you want a different one?”

“This one is ok, thanks Sarah.” You told her as Nicholas agreed.

“It’s good, thanks Sarah.”

“Alright, great. Thank you guys. I’ll be behind the camera the whole time so if we need to do a few takes I’ll be here to help with anything. If you want to try something else at any time we can do that too.” She explained as you both nodded.

How did you always manage to get yourself into situations like these?

She excused herself, telling the pair of you that she was off to get the production team and Ryan to let them know you both were good to go. Nicholas turned to you, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, and an almost wolfish grin on his face.

You had to admit that he did look really good. The way he was leaning allowed you to see his abs between the gap in the jacket since he hadn’t zipped it up. “You’re staring.”

“You’re the one smirking at me.” You redirected as he stood up off the wall and took a step closer to you.

“Like what you see?” His voice seemed deeper, huskier, as his dark eyes scanned over you before settling back on yours. He sent you a wink as Ryan and the production team followed by Sarah came back and Nicholas walked past you to his mark, handing his jacket to an assistant as you went into the hallway to wait for the scene to start.

“Action!” You heard the sound of the water shut off and you peaked your head into Father Charlie’s room before coming to stand in the doorway.

He glanced back before walking to stand a few paces in front of you next to the bed, the towel low on his hips and water droplets cascading down his chest. His hair was pushed back from his face and wet as if he really had just gotten out of the shower. “You were watching me. Earlier in the rec room.” He paused, watching your expression but you remained neutral. “Anything worth seeing?”

“It…It was…” you paused for a moment, letting out a breath. “An exhalation of God’s glory through physical prowess.”

“Yeah?” Nicholas sat on the bed, his face turned slightly down but his eyes raised to look over at you. A slow smile appeared on his face. That was not scripted, you knew that for sure. “It’s kinda become my side hustle.” He said after a second. Back to the script. He said his other lines as you continued to sit in the chair, back stiff against the back of the chair as your hands laid in your lap.

“They say…it’s a sin of the flesh, but, I say-“ he began to say as you cut him off with your lines.

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, which is in you? Therefore honor God with your bodies.” You responded softly as he nodded, breathing out a simple ‘Yes’.

He stood up from the bed and stopped to stand in front of you, your gaze following him. He smirked at you, something the camera didn’t catch, before dropping the expression and walking to the door and closing it. To say your heart was beating fast would’ve been an understatement.

“This is exactly what they’re talking about right now at the Vatican.” You zoned out for a moment after he started delivering his lines, walking to stand in front of you again. You zoned back in when you heard the end of his line “celibacy, for those in the cloth.”

He reached over to you as you sharply inhaled when his fingers played with the cross necklace you wore. That wasn’t scripted either. You could see that he enjoyed catching you off guard and no one was yelling cut because the extra touches made sense for your characters.

“That’s…That’s difficult to imagine.” Your voice caught and he smirked as you looked up at him and swallowed thickly. It was an honest mistake on your part, but Nicholas was eating it up. At moments it was hard to tell whether he was currently in the mindset of Father Charlie Mayhew or Nicholas Chavez.

He licked his lips, still holding onto the necklace, his voice lowering. “Is it really so difficult?” He said more but you zoned out again when his hand released your necklace and unbuttoned your vest. He was delivering his lines while standing to the side of you, bent down in your face, so your faces were only inches apart.

You dropped the newspaper in your hand as he continued unbuttoning your vest, slowly. You hadn’t meant to, but no one yelled cut again, so you assumed it was fine. “The church is dying, Mother Eva.” He said as you breathed out again, not breaking eye contact. You could see in his eyes that he was amused, he definitely was enjoying this scene.

He delivered more lines and bent in closer to you and you couldn’t help your instinctive reaction. Your lips parted as if you were preparing for him to kiss you, like he used to do. All of this was like a flashback to how it used to be, and yeah, he had been unhinged but there was no denying that he was incredibly passionate.

“They know that change must come.” He said softly, your nose touching his before he stepped back completely from you, this time standing directly in front of you. He looked down at you as you took the opportunity to look over his body before looking down at the towel like you were supposed to do. You followed the scene instructions and pulled the towel from around his waist, letting it fall to the floor with a soft thud. You looked back up slowly at his face, your lips slightly parted as you watched him.

“It is still a sin.” You said as he picked your hand up and kissed your hand and wrist. He walked you over to the dresser like the scene outlined.

“We are…and we always will be.” He backed you up into the dresser, your shoes hitting it causing it to bump against the wall.

“Sinners.” You finished, practically whispering as your eyes looked over his face as he picked you up onto the dresser, his hands running down your sides as he stood in between your legs and your lips practically touched.

“So fuck it.” You could feel the movement of his lips against yours as he spoke, pulling the vest from your arms as you pushed your chest into him to get the vest off. He began unbuttoning your shirt and pulled the edge off one shoulder as he began to kiss there, your hands going to his hair.

Someone behind the camera coughed and the loud “Cut!” pulled you both completely out of the scene. You let out a gasp as Nicholas pressed a lingering kiss to your neck before stepping back.

You blinked a few times, your hands holding onto the edge of the dresser, as you let out a breath. You didn’t miss the way Nicholas wore a smug expression, but your smile widened when you pointed down subtly.

Nicholas raised his shoulders in a shrug as he secured the towel back around his waist. “Let’s take 15 and run it again. Thanks Jerry for ruining that take!” Ryan called passive aggressively. Jerry, the man who coughed, looked as if he wanted the earth to swallow him up.

You slid off the dresser and walked to your trailer, not noticing the way Nicholas excused himself just after you, easily falling into step behind you.

You fell onto the couch with a huff, annoyed at yourself for being reminded of the past. You were over him, there was no way you were going to entertain him again. All he did was bring chaos into your life.

“He broke into your apartment, remember?” You whispered to yourself, eyes widening when your trailer door opened and in walked Nicholas, closing and locking the door behind him.

“I know you still feel the same way I do.” He started as you shook your head. He stepped closer to you, standing in front of you much like the scene you had just had.

“You’re wrong.” He shook his head, smiling at your stubbornness.

“I saw the way you were looking at me. You got into it. It wasn’t just acting.”

“Says the guy who just tried to give me an unscripted hickey.” You retorted defensively, standing up suddenly and poking him. He caught your hand, intertwining your fingers with his as he pulled you closer, leaning down so he was only a couple inches away from your lips.

“Tell me you don’t want this.” He whispered as you remained quiet. “Tell me you don’t want me to ki-“ He was cut off by your lips crashing into his. You weren’t even thinking at that point. He was intoxicating, everything about him was intoxicating and you knew that you should just stay away, but it was him. It was hard to make rational decisions when he was so close and his very presence cleared all of the rationality from your brain.

He pulled back after the heated kiss, a smirk on his face as he looked at you. “So I was right.” He remarked, there goes the cockiness.

“Oh my God, just shut up.” You rolled your eyes before he obliged and pulled you close, his hands traveling up and down your body as yours ran through his hair and held onto his shoulders and biceps. He broke the kiss again to plant kisses from your lips to your neck, his teeth scraping against the sensitive skin on your neck, surely leaving a mark that you weren’t sure how you would explain.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.” You said, but you didn’t pull away from him. “The camera is going to see all of the marks you're leaving and we won’t be able to explain it away.”

“We’re filming a sex scene. It’ll be fine.” He decided as your nails ran down his arms, careful of the makeup and special effects on his back.

He groaned against your lips when a loud knock at the trailer door interrupted your activities. “They’re ready for you on set. Hair and makeup is just going to do some touch ups before we shoot again.” An assistant called as you placed a hand on his chest and stepped back.

“See you on set.” You said before stepping out of the trailer and walking over towards where Keisha and Darryl were waiting to do touch ups.

“(Y/n), why is your makeup so messed up around your mouth? Y'all didn’t even shoot a kiss yet.”

Let me know what else you’d like to see or share any ideas you might have!

#vinylmango #black!reader #nicholas alexander chavez #nicholas chavez x reader #nicholas chavez x black reader #nicholas chavez x poc reader #poc reader #nicholas chavez #nicholas chavez x black!reader #nicholas chavez imagines

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kirbyoutofcontext · 4 months ago

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KIRB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, 20 ISSUE CHAT

I've now read 20 issues of the Fantastic Four. aside from reading Watchmen, this is my first foray into the world of comics and so far it is absolutely incredible.

I have had several issues now where I had to take a walk after reading it because it was so good. sometimes this shit fucking goes.

If you are trying to get someone into comics, start with the fantastic Four. I mean my god, #4 alone is an all timer but hitting that insane run on 13-16 with #17 making me feel like I was actually on FIRE. UUUURRGH it's GOOD.

And you get #9 Namor Financial Humiliation! You get Ditko inking space monkeys!!!

AND ISSUE 6. I ALMOST FORGOT 6. It was INSANE watching Namor and co in Space with Doom!

Yes, there are a handful of issues with the writing. It was the '60s. I don't think Stan Lee understood communism or women very well. I also don't think he saw the vision that Kirby had for Sue Storm. I see it but I'm not the one writing for her.

anyway, god damn, I have been through casual funnies and gut-wrenching emotions and tense action and even more tense arguments. No wonder people are obsessed with the Fantastic Four

a personal note under the cut

I started reading these comics just literally right before I came out as a woman to my friends.

Obviously Benjamin Grimm stands out as a very powerful representation for dysphoria and Susan Storm is the only woman on the page

But she's more than just a woman on the page to me. When Kirby is at his best, You will see it. She did it in issue 17 and that's part of what made this so good for me. She also did this against the super skrull which was 18? I think? And she had a failed attempt for the first time ever against molecule man in issue 20.

Susan Storm basically has no power. her only ability is to turn invisible which is something that she already possesses as a woman. They point this out all the time with Dr Doom. Always underestimating her, always highlighting her femaleness in the ways that he dismisses her. but Susan Storm does not care. She knows that she has no defense, she knows that she doesn't have fire or super strength or rubber flesh. She is just a woman. but she will always be the first one to say "let me get in the most dangerous position. put me in a mission critical spot and I will get the fucking job done" And she does.

When Kirby puts her in impossible situations, whenever she overcomes those impossible odds all by herself, it is amazing. She fucking radiates on the page. She becomes so real. And it never feels like some kind of fan service. It feels like part of her character, her core traits. She is always doing this She is always looking at a dangerous spot and saying I need to be there because I know I can do this.

In issue 17, she has two entire pages that are just her and Dr Doom engaging with each other And she fucking obliterates him. And not only that but Kirby draws him being terrified. his words are bold but his posture is so so weak

He is scared of this woman. He's scared of this woman because he knows that he might not be able to stop her.

And that's just so powerful to see as someone who just came into herself as a woman for the first time in 33 years

#fantastic four #jack kirby #kirb your enthusiasm

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sc0tters · 2 years ago

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In The Alley | Mark Estapa, Ethan Edwards, Luca Fantilli, Rutger Mcgoarty

summary: when you are left on the closing shift that the bowling alley the guys who are left on the final lane invite you to join the most memorable game of your life.

request: sort of?

warnings: sexual themes, p in v, oral (m receiving), fingering, slight degradation (whore or slut are mentioned once or twice), swearing

word count: 3.17k

authors note: my brain is sore after writing this one but it was fun. That Luca plot was choppy because I literally had written 1000 words and rather than pressing copy I pressed delete. I’m tired rn too so I can’t be bothered to rewrite that part… with that being said I hope you enjoy what I wrote today!

You seemed to be the only one in the alley that didn’t care for the boys bowling games.

They had been there for hours and it meant that you had gotten through the majority of the book you were reading “can we get another game?” Mark asked pulling your attention from between those pages.

Quickly you shut the book as your cheeks grew flushed looking up at the boy “huh?” You furrowed eyebrows.

Mark smirked as your thighs squeezed together “another game princess?” He repeated his words as he rubbed his hand against his jaw “could join us if you want.” The hockey player added as he shrugged.

As you were on closing tonight you were the only worker left as the alley was meant to close in the next twenty minutes “wouldn’t want to impose.” You shook your head as you sighed running your fingers through your hair.

The hockey player leaned forward to snatch the book from your lap “Mark!” You groaned getting up in an attempt to get you book back “play and you get it.” There were only four of the players left counting Mark.

You sent him a pout as he matched your stance “fine,” the book was something you didn’t exactly want him to see as your bookmark was in the middle of a sex scene “add your name to our list!” Mark cheered seeing you the some things onto a screen before you followed him out.

Mark wrapped his hand around your shoulder as he smiled “you’ll enjoy it I promise.” he spoke into your ear sending shivers down your spine. Things had been weird between the two of you as you were in most of his classes on campus “nice to see you finally join us.” Ethan smirked realising that Mark’s effort to get you to join worked.

The boys had to say that they were surprised that by the fifth set you had yet to score anything less than a spare “I think you’re cheating princess.” Mark crossed his arms as he stared down at you.

You smiled as you shook your head “warned you that I could do this.” A string of confidence seemed to shoot through you as you took the spoon from his ice cream letting your lips wrap around it as you swallowed the cold vanilla goodness.

Rutger watched on as he let out a groan causing you to grin “you’re up freshie.” You motioned to him to take the space. You comfortably slotted into the seat next to Luca who hadn’t taken his eyes off of you “somethin’ on my face Fantilli?” You furrowed your eyebrows as you waited for his answer “nope.” The boys cheeks grew red as he realised he had been caught.

The game went on as Mark looked at you with a grin when you got your first 6 on a set “not as good as we all thought you were huh?” Mark smirked running his hands along his pants “uh uh baby.” He added tapping his thigh when you were about to sit in your own chair.

You listened comfortably situating yourself on his thigh “you want s’more?” The hockey player asked pointing to his new serving of ice cream “yeah,” you nodded letting your teeth sink into your lower lip as you looked down to see the bulge in his shorts that was quickly forming.

A smirk formed on your face as he scooped up some of the ice cream from his cup bringing the spoon to your mouth “open up,” the boy smiled at hop responsive you were to him “keep that in there until I’m back.” Mark mumbled as you wrapped your lips around his spoon.

The hockey player left you sat by yourself as he got up to complete his turn. As saliva built up in your mouth mixing with the quickly melting ice cream you were tempted to swallow and just get more ice cream “don’t even think about it baby.” Ethan warned as he sat across from you legs spread on his couch.

Your eyes went wide locking with his “be a good girl and we will reward you.” The Canadians words caused your thighs to close as your cheeks turned red “you listen to me?” Mark asked as he walked back to you seemingly happy about the eight pins that he had knocked over.

Your jaw grew loose as you showed him your mouth “good girl,” the boy smiled running his thumb over your lower lip “you can swallow it now.” He added watching your throat as you let the sweet goodness slide down into your stomach.

Luca cleared his throat watching the interaction “don’t keep her all to yourself Estapa.” The sophomore grumbled as he watched you stare up at Mark like he was the only man in the world.

You turned to the boy with a smile “there is enough of me to go around Lu.” In that moment they all thought you didn’t know the gravity of your words “don’t mind being shared.” Your confession made your cheeks hot as you stared at the floor “oh shit.” Mark had a groan that got caught in his throat “she’s a dirty little whore.” He blurted out leaning over you to grab your book that he had placed on the table.

Before you could try to stop him the page flipped open as his eyes traveled over the line you didn’t want him to read.

Elijah’s hands ran down my bare body “please.” I cried out needing more “be a good girl for me before James hears you.” He warned knowing that his roommate was in the room next door “bit late for that.”

Ethan had walked over to see what his teammate read “you want to be a good girl for us?” The hockey player asked smirking as you looked up to him with big eyes “all of you.” You croaked out the words as the bowling game now seemed a mere distance thought.

Within a couple of minutes your throat felt raw as it took in Luca’s cock “you enjoying sucking Luca off whilst Ethan fingers you baby?” Rutger cooed watching your hips grind against Ethan’s fingers “yeah.” Your words were muffled as his cock hit the back of your throat.

The Fantilli boy locked his fingers into your hair making a makeshift ponytail to hold it up “shit I’m gonna come.” Luca announced gasping as his vision grew blurry.

You weren’t far behind as you moaned “she’s not far either.” Ethan mumbled bringing his thumb up to play with your clit causing you to be pushed over the edge.

It was hot as Luca’s come shot onto your tongue “swallow it baby.” The sophomore ordered making you nod as you listened to him following those actions as you swallowed his come before you stuck your tongue out “good girl.” Luca smiled bringing your lips up to kiss his.

You huffed out trying to recover from your orgasm as your hips still jerked on the older boys fingers that hadn’t let up “greedy little whore huh?” Ethan smirked as you finally stopped your hips movements “shit Ethan!” You nodded blinking as you tried to focus.

His fingers slid out of your cunt giving your clit a soft tap “go easy on her.” Mark joked helping you up onto a couch “you good?” He asked brushing your hair out of your face.

It made your heart warm how he cared for you like that “yeah.” You nodded pulling him by his jacket “go win the game and I’ll make sure you come next.” You mumbled into his ear as you pressed a kiss on his earlobe.

Mark grunted looking at you “what do we say we get a competition between all of us?” He asked turning his attention to the boys who nodded “winner gets her pussy and runner up gets her mouth.” The hockey player licked his lips as he watched your bare pussy glisten up at him.

You nodded giving the boys the green light that you were comfortable with the idea “I’ll come back for this pussy soon enough baby.” Mark mumbled into your ear before his lips moved to hover over yours “gonna take this for now though.” He mumbled letting out a groan as your tongue slipped into his mouth.

Before Mark could get too comfortable he remembered that he was around the other boys causing him to pull away from you as he smirked Rutger had been watching you as his cock grew even harder than it already was “c’mere Rut.” You croaked letting your eyes go up to his face “want to give you some attention too.” You intended on tasting his cock as the mere sight of it in his boxers made your mouth water.

Rutger shook his head as he smiled “think you deserve another orgasm.” The sophomore shifted around you on the couch as he sat you on his thigh “such a pretty little girl.” He cooed as he leaned forward to capture your lips in a kiss. It was surprisingly more forward than Marks as the Jets draftee took the initiative to be in control “you like that?” It didn’t take Rutger long to feel the wetness of your core as it soaked up his shorts “yeah.” You gasped as your sensitive clit rubbed against the sewing marks of his pants “want to ride my thigh?” He smirked hearing the little jumps your breath made as it got used to what was going on between your thighs.

When you stayed still for too long Rutger let his hands land on your hips guiding you through the motions “it’s just us baby.” Ethan called out smirking at how your head dropped to Rutger’s shoulder “let us all hear and see you.” He added causing all of the boys to stop and watch as they waited for you to listen.

However the sensations that shot through body causing your nipples to ache and your mind to grow foggy “look at me princess.” Rutger ordered as you continued to ignore him.

To say that it pissed him off that you were totally focusing on your own orgasm as you were in your little world was an understatement “listen to me when I talk.” The sophomore barked as his hand slid from your hip to throat “sorry Rut,” your lips formed a pout as you melted into the pleasure that he made you feel.

Your hand wrapped around his as you began to focus to focus your hips on helping you ride his thigh as it occasionally tensed beneath you making you moan each time you hit your clit at a different angle “I wanna come.” You begged feeling the sensitivity from your first orgasm as you never fully came off of that ride.

Rutger’s jaw clenched at the thought “beg,” his tone was serious, fingers squeezing at the vein in the sides of your neck “please Ru-” your whine echoed off of the walls.

Someone’s hand locked into your hair making you gasp as he pulled your head back “he said beg, not act like a brat.” Luca scoffed as your chin titled towards him “please let me be your good girl tonight boys.” Your plea was like music to their ears as Rutger nodded.

Your orgasm made the boys smile as your moan was swallowed by Luca’s mouth as he forced it onto your lips “who could have thought that she could be such a slut?” Mark let out a grunt with his ego fully blown after getting his third strike in a row “it’s always the quiet ones.” You had two classes where you had both boys and you sat in the back corner for both of them, not letting out a peep usually.

Rutger smiled at you as your hips began to slow “I gotta go pretty girl,” his thumb massaged on the skin on your neck before he released your neck placing you on the arm of your chair.

It was attractive watching the boys continue to play through the game letting their competitive sides shine through “how do you want your prize?” You smiled as the game drew to a closing point since the results had been determined.

Mark thought to himself as he nodded “I want you bent over.” His confession made you clench your thighs together.

With tension in the room at an all time high you five practically blacked out and before you knew it, Mark was behind you teasing your clit as he drove his cock over it. Ethan was in front of you watching on as you continued to kitten lick his cock “want you to fuck my face E.” You announced before you let your lips wrap around the boys boner. On either side of you then to top it all off Rutger and Luca were stood with their cocks in their hands waiting for the heads up of how you wanted to deal with them.

Mark smirked taking the opportunity to thrust his cock into your soaked cunt “think she has thought about this before?” Ethan asked directing his attention to his teammates like you weren’t even there “of course she has.” Mark laughed digging his hands into your hips as your pussy clenched around his cock at the boys words.

You took the moment to hold your hands out to the younger boys quickly replacing their own hands that had wrapped around their cocks “fuck she’s good.” Rutger groaned as it felt like he was getting fucked by your pussy or your mouth rather than your hand.

Luca couldn’t help but feel a little bit jealous as he would have preferred to be back in his original position that he had earlier on when your mouth was taking his cock instead giving him the chance to choke you with his thighs. The Fantilli boy knew that he was going to have to use that material as he thought about something to replace your hand with.

But another part of him wondered if he would get the chance to have you again, alone. Where your moans that you were letting Ethan’s cock swallow could have been heard echoing off of the walls. Sure this probably wasn’t going to be the best thing for team dynamics in the long run, but it wasn’t clear if any of them truly cared about that “god this pussy is perfect!” Mark blurted out as if it wasn’t for his need to keep you standing then he would have melted.

Mark had to admit that he had been eyeing you up since the third month of sophomore year, so if you were telling him from back then that he’d be fucking you in a bowling alley with three of his teammates Mark would have had an early death.

Your pussy squelched as the boy had his way with you “you feel me in there baby?” Mark asked pressing his hand on your stomach where his cock hit “fuck yeah!” Your words were muffled as Ethan’s cock but your throat.

It was a hot sight to watch as the four men used the girl with the oldest two getting off from your warm wet holes with Mark grunting at the way your pussy perfectly wrapped around his throbbing cock and Ethan was stood forcing his cock further into your mouth with each thrust of his hips. Rutger and Luca were both also taken care of by your hands that worked effortlessly to get them off as you seemed to focus more on the boy’s orgasms than you did your own “she’s close,” Mark announced feeling your cunt clench around his cock.

The hockey player’s hand went to your clit as he felt like he was close behind “we gonna make her beg for it again?” Ethan let out this laugh that was enough to almost terrify you as you truly didn’t think that you had it in you to form a coherent sentence “huh what do you think about that?” Mark applied more pressure to your clit to make you respond.

All you were able to do was shake your head as your knees began to buckle under the force of Mark’s thrusts “we can be good to her this time.” The boy proposed making your soaked cunt squeeze his cock.

Luca and Rutger were the first two to come as they swore you had done enough to show them the stars causing both boys to move to couches were they got to watch the climax of the main show “keep doing that baby.” Ethan groaned locking his fingers into your hair as the boy smirked seeing you look up at him with hooded eyes.

You hollowed your cheeks letting the boys cock find its perfect home in your mouth as you swirled your tongue around his cock “shit, shit, fuck!” Ethan repeated clenching his thighs together as his hands forced your head to swallow his entire cock as his warm sticky release coat your throat.

As his cock slid out of your mouth giving him the chance to pull your face up so that he could kiss at it “you want Mark to make you come?” Ethan asked squeezing your cheeks between his thumb as his pointer finger forcing you to look at him.

A cry left you lips “p-p-please Mark.” You nodded wanting nothing more than to come at that very moment “okay baby fuck!” Mark’s eyes screwed shut as he wished he had you in his bed so he could watch as you came.

You had already been so vocal but Mark’s mind wondered how you looked as your eyes rolled back in your head “right there oh-” your hands handed on Ethan’s shoulders in an attempt to steady yourself. If you thought that the American was going to slow down as you came then you were horribly wrong, in fact his thrusts probably sped up as he began to adjust to the way your cunt suffocated his cock “shit baby!” Mark threw his head back as his orgasm came shortly after yours.

He was careful pulling his cock from your cunt that not a drop of his come left with it as he was quick to use his fingers to scoop up any of it before he shoved it back into your pussy “what do you say we help her close up before heading back to campus?” Mark spoke reaching down to grab your panties so that he could help you back into them.

The boys nodded in agreement getting themselves all dressed. Your attempt at closing tonight was half assed but as you left the alley with Mark’s arm wrapped around your waist helping you walk back to his car the memory of that night was only going to live on in your brains.

Because whilst the alley would live on to remember this night as a one of a kind event, it wasn’t the place to reveal your secrets to anyone.

#mark estapa smut #Ethan edwards smut #Luca fantilli smut #Rutger McGroarty smut #hockey imagines #hockey imagine #hockey smut #umich smut #umich boys #imagines #oneshots #amber writes fics

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whencartoonsruletheworld · 1 month ago

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Hey this is so random, but I've seen you all over the place on tumblr and only recently clicked on your blog (because of your awesome Lilo and Stitch post lol) and figured out that you're Midas touch of angst?? Are you kidding me???? I was sooo obsessed with every fic you'd ever written back when you were writing the fic about the stranger things kids being superheroes!! Shatter I think!!! And then all of its sequels and then all of the asoue x stranger things fics.

I absolutely loved your writing. It was literally the only thing I thought about for a year. Everyday I'd frantically check if you had updated and if you had i always read the chapter at least twice. I didn't have an ao3 account then so I had all of your fics bookmarked on my home page, and I must have seriously spent every single day of that year reading and rereading everything you wrote. I'm not even exaggerating I loved your fics soooo much.

I loved how you wrote the characters, they all seemed like such great friends and the mysteries were so cool and intriguing. In Shatter I was so obsessed with what the heck was going on with Mike, and then the update at the arcade!!!! I actually lost my mind I think. Also when Nancy figured out that "Mike" had been at the lab. And the way you did the super powers stuck with me so hard, I remember I tried to write a superhero story of my own because of it but I couldn't think of a way to do the powers in a way that wasn't just blatantly ripping off yours lol. You had completely cornered the market in my mind.

A scene that also stuck with me was when El saw Bev cutting her hair and Bev said "my dad liked it long" and then El just said "my dad liked it short" like AUGH ITS SUCH A POIGNANT TWO SENTENCES OF DIALOGUE IT MAKES ME CRAZY. I was literally just thinking about that exchange last week lol. I think I've brought it up in a creative writing class before.

I honestly think your fics are the reason I love stranger things so much. When season four came out I rewatched the whole show for the first time in a while and was really struck by how little everyone seemed to get along, even when they weren't in high stress situations (so like. almost never lol). It still had all my favorite characters and cool scenes and whatnot, but it seemed like it was missing something that was so fundamentally stranger things, which honestly might have just been your characterization of them. Even when everything was horrible you could tell how much everyone loved each other. They felt like real kids!

Also I legitimately need to know how on earth you had such a fast update schedule. Back then I didn't think it was that weird (mostly because I was 100% sure I'd die if updates were too far apart) but now, looking back, the daily updates were insane. How did you do it. Was the story consuming your thoughts as much as it was consuming mine? I know it's been eight years or something (eight years?????) but I still feel so indebted to you for all those awesome chapters so fast.

Also I think I for real screamed out loud when you started doing the asoue fanfics I was that excited lol.

I'm not sure how many comments I left back then, so let me retroactively say thank you so so so much for all the writing you did, and for posting it online. You really made such a huge impact on my life and I can't express how much I appreciate it. You've got some awesome stories in your head and some awesome ways to tell them!! You seriously rule. I hope the past years have been treating you well :)

HI OP I AM KISSING YOU ON THE MOUTH I AM THIS KERMIT PICTURE RN

literally means SO MUCH to me as an aspiring professional writer. i pumped out so many fanfics pre-covid lmao. Literally I'm gonna cryyyyyyy

Also to answer the daily updates, here's my secret: I was always scared I'd leave a fic unfinished, so I would pre-write like 25-50% of the fic before deciding to post, so I just had a whole backlog. Gave me plenty of time to edit too lmaooo

I was doing that with my Sonic fanfic but I caught up and right now I'm struggling through actions scenes lol

#mine

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 2 months ago

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tuesday again 4/29/2025

made one of the best thrift store purchases of my life this week

listening

mental health watch: new mother mother single out and i have had that shit on loop basically all week. i would describe their (alt rock for chronically depressed girls resistant to most treatments) overall sound as “slippery”, but this song is slippery in the way the seaweed in miso soup is slippery. hope that makes sense. i heard the lyric “head shaker” as “exchequer” and this exact wording was stuck in my head for basically an entire shift at work.

reading

still having a tremendous amount of fun with Charlaine Harris’ Gunnie Rose series. just finished the third one, i think whenever you can get away with a character that you can genuinely and seriously call “the tsarina of all the californias” you should push that as far as it can possibly go and she does!!! it is so refreshing to read a book by an author who knows what they’re doing. who knows how to write and pace a longer series and who knows how to effectively play with dramatic tension. the bar is So low but i have been wrestling through these horrible lesbian novels and (new for me) trying to take three or four of the little scifi paperbacks ive been hoarding to work every week to stash in my desk to read when it’s slow. all of them have been bad so far. like gang rape page two bad :/ love scifi the best and worst genre

yet another frustrating week in the lesbian mines. finally finished Flight Risk by Kim Baldwin and i do not think i can fairly review it, bc i tried to read it at work in tiny tiny chunks over too long a period of time (two weeks) and got really frustrated with it bc i forgot something that happened in the first chapter. im sure its a perfectly fine book if u read it in fewer sittings but now it is like. contaminated by several unpleasant work shifts and i simply don’t want to look at it any more. also they fucked in the literal last five pages which i find tremendously annoying.

Second You Sin by Scott Sherman (also mid-aughts) is about a nyc callboy (gay) who keeps accidentally stumbling into murder mysteries. i could easily image every line of dialogue by every gay character delivered by ru paul so it was not a book for me.

and then by far the most annoying book, Change of Heart by Linda Hill (1999 published by my worstie Naiad) bc it does not read like the author has ever been in any sort of relationship. even though she is married. to another woman. it’s hard for me to review this one fairly too due to my own massachusetts experiences.

At the age of 38, British supermodel Julia Westgate watches in panic as her career begins to decline -- and she realizes she is truly alone in the world. Deeply closeted, Julia has always limited her encounters with women to secret trysts and one or two night stands. While on a shoot in Boston, Julia carefully disguises herself so she won't be recognized, then sneaks out to a secluded lesbian bar. There she meets local journalist Cory Hayes, who is celebrating the publication of a hard won story. After spending a passionate weekend with Julia, Cory is devastated when she wakes up to an empty bed.

(ed note: they do nothing more than kiss in the entire book. it’s truly debatable if there was even tongue or not)

Weeks later in a supermarket check-out line, Cory's jaw drops when she sees an exquisite face on the cover of a fashion magazine -- a face that looks more than vaguely familiar. Thus begins an all-consuming game of hide-and-seek, with Julia trying to run from herself and her uncertain future -- and Cory willing to risk everything to find her.

(ed note: cory does some light snooping to discover her last name, makes some phone calls for a single afternoon, and then comes across her completely by accident almost a year later).

this book takes uhauling to new heights bc they adopt a special needs puppy the first and only weekend they spend together, wherein they don’t even fuck and Julia flees into the early morning without saying goodbye, leaving a note, and leaving most of her stuff behind. i know why Cory cant stop thinking about Jules nearly a year on (leaving without goodbye in the middle of the night and leaving almost all your stuff behind is objectively bonkers) but i have no idea why Jules is so into Cory. or what either of them see in each other. or really why they’re into each other at all. bc again. they do not do more than kiss the entire book and most of the book is them feeling kind of weird about this singular weekend. NOT that you have to fuck someone to know how to feel about them but my goodness! sometimes it certainly helps!

it is perfectly tailored to piss me all the way off bc Cory asks for a raise bc she impulsively adopted a puppy, and her boss not only gives her a raise and a promotion but also heavily subsidizes her new house she rents. which he owns. which was so far from MY massachusetts job/housing experience we might as well have lived on different planets. however this book really does nicely capture the complete unwillingness of the massachusetts wlw scene to like. do anything more than talk shit about a kind of weird date you were on once.

would have loved to read more of a May/December romance about an aging supermodel and would have loved to read more about the worries and fears of someone aging who hasn’t really put down roots or formed many friendships at all in her life or really interacted much with the queer community at large, but the age gap in actuality is quite small and Jules is mostly exotically British and worried about facial wrinkles.

deeply annoying experience that could not be written today in a post-MTV’s Catfish world

watching

fallow week

playing

woe woe unending woe in genshin. genuinely really annoyed that i pulled for Varesa (girl who is a cow) in bc guess who’s coming back in about a month? that’s right, yae miko. the only other character i desperately want. and she’s going to be on a specific banner that does not build pity for any other banner. and i don’t even have quite enough pulls for halfway to guaranteeing her. however. buying enough in-game currency to guarantee her would be about $120. which is simply goofy. she will come back around eventually, probably in a year and a half, and i will survive. i don’t even want her for team building or combat purposes. i just think she’s got a cool design and i want a matched set of her (pink) and her wife, the shogun (purple).

making

one million small mending projects, including reinforcing the spine of some dorling kindersley BIG BOOK OF TRUCKS and BIG BOOK OF PLANES books for my bestie’s son’s birthday. no pics bc they were wrapped POSTHASTE!!!

also varied and assorted mending of clothes. managed to rip the casing for some pajama pants through brute strength and getting snagged on a kitchen cabinet knob, kind of half assed a ladder stitch, thought “that’s not going to hold” and then did a less half assed heavily overlapping cross stitch to reinforce (esp around the buttonhole opening for the drawstring) and then slathered it in fraychek.

likewise, my favorite obnoxious shirt had a rip up the side seam. carefully stitched it back up, blanket stitched the raw edge for a little more reinforcement without too much bulk, and slathered it in fraychek. u can see a much older repair there when it ripped horizontally from getting stuck in a filing cabinet drawer at umass lol.

and finally, some horrible shorts that were not adequate enough for my thighs, so i took the discreet one inch side vent and really opened that up to the bottom of the pocket seam. very annoying and fussy to match the topstitching and do two bar tacks by hand. the fit on the shorts is still not quite where i want them to be but they are at least wearable outside now. no fraychek here they’re nylon and got melted with a lighter as god intended.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

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shiny-jr · 9 days ago

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Update!

A bit nervous about posting this, although I'm not really sure why. So, I've been really struggling with the Empyrean AU. Let me explain, I have lots of ideas, and the desire to write for it, but I haven't actually been able to write for it as much as I would like to even when I do have time.

For reference, here's my progress so far: The prologue rounds out at about ten pages. Then, the Heartslabyul arc begins, and I've written about five chapters for it so far that all together round out at about thirty-two pages, give or take a few. BUT! Remember, this is supposed to be a long series, with each dorm having about a hundred pages or more. So yeah, progress is slow.

I've been wanting to share the prologue for a while, but I didn't want to disappoint as I won't be able to share much after it until the Heartslabyul arc is complete which will take some time. Which is why I have refrained so far on it.

However, I did some thinking, and I started wondering why sometimes it was so easy for me to write for Damnation (not all the time, but most of the time). And I think I figured out why, at least, it's just a theory. I think it's because I had shared sneak-peeks so early, and it had garnered so much attention, interest, and support that it had served as my motivator to constantly write for it when I could.

Now, don't go thinking I've done nothing this entire time besides write those thirty-two pages or so. I've developed lore, traits, profiles, characteristics, world building. Literally pages upon pages of it. I have general ideas for all seven dorms, private playlists being made for the first five dorms (nations), aesthetic boards for the first four nations, some lore and world building for most of the dorms, (Savanaclaw and Heartslabyul currently have the longest pages of history, lore, maps, details, magic styles, etc).

Most of the information for the AU I've kept secret, mentioning only some bits and parts occasionally, because I wanted it all to be a surprise. But now, I realize that maybe keeping it a surprise might have been holding it back? If I had shared it, maybe more people would've expressed interest, wanted to talk about it, which could've really motivated me to start typing on the draft again.

So, I wanted to ask you all, would you be interested in some lore dumps? World building yap sessions? Or just asking questions to see if I can answer it with what I came up with?

#shiny speaks #shiny rants #empyrean twst au #probably important

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violetasteracademic · 1 year ago

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Lucien Vanserra's Hero's Journey with Vassa- The Firebird Legends

Hello friends! This is my very first tumblr post, and is IN DEPTH. It seemed like a good place to explore some of the the themes I've been discussing on TikTok regarding Sarah's book structures, how closely Sarah utilizes The Hero's Journey for ACOTAR, and how many "ingredients in the fridge" as I like to call it are already there for Lucien and Vassa's story, despite arguments that there is very little on page action with The Band of Exlies. If anyone is interested in nerding out about book structure with me, I'll do a quick run through of The Hero's Journey with ACOMAF as the example (I made a video about this already!) and then fill in a possible hero's journey beat by beat for Lucien using only what is on the page. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say I could literally plot out and write this book today with everything Sarah has given us!

A few things to know about me: I love all of the characters involved in these ship wars. I am a die hard Elain stan, Az is my favorite Bat Boy, Lucien is one of my all time favorite characters and one whom I deeply relate to (I actually think I relate to Elain and Lucien the most, and I'll share how they mirror each other quite well) and I literally had to pull over in a Sprouts parking lot listening to the ACOSF graphic audio when Gwyn told her story. An elderly woman knocked on my window to ask if I was okay because I was sobbing. I do get passionate about my ships (Elriel and Vassien) because of my reading experience and how I process Sarah's structures. It would be the shock of my life if it goes in a different direction. BUT I love all the characters and respect all ships. My only goal is to get people excited about everything possible for our Bird of Flame and Lord of Fire, because their story stands to be by second favorite after Elain and Azriel!

Here is a quick rundown of The Hero's Journey: A three act structure famously based on the works of Joseph Campbell, an author and educator in the field of comparative mythology.

I will try my best to *briefly* break down the first act of A Court of Mist and Fury (I could do the same for Nesta's Journey in A Court of Silver Flames!)

Step One: The Ordinary World Status Quo. Feyre's status quo after Under The Mountain is the simultaneous evolution of her new life as Fae, and devolution of her spirit and personhood. In her new ordinary world, she is being kept in the dark. She is relegated to wedding planning and isolation.

Step Two: Call to adventure. Feyre is called to adventure on the day of her wedding, when the status quo has become unmaneagable. She calls out for help, and Rhys whisks her to the night court. In the Call to Adventure, our Hero learns a truth about the world that they will have to face. In Feyre's case, it is that the war is immenent. She realizes there is a threat to the safety of her sisters, and Rhys pushes her to train so that she is not unprepared if she is the only thing standing between them and Hybern.

Step Three: Refusal of the Call (in other structures or variations this is called The Debate.) The Hero is not sure if this is their story, if they are the one to face the call. They experience a period of maintaining the status quo a little longer. This is when we see Feyre sinking back into life with Tamlin. He is loosening the reigns, she doesn't want to rock the boat. She believes The Ordinary World might improve without her having to take the next step.

Step Four: Meeting the Mentor. Our hero meets someone that will assist them in their journey, and help them move forward in answering the call. This can be friendships, trainers and teachers, mystical guides, any number of things. In Feyre's case, it is dinner with the Inner Circle. She hasn't yet decided if she will join Rhysand's court and work with him in the efforts against Hybern, however she agrees to meet his court members. Each of them provide guidance to Feyre. In strength and training (Cassian and Azriel), emotional resilience (Mor), and histories/education on how the court and Fae lands function (Amren). Feyre agrees to work for Rhysand and then we cross the threshold into act two.

When I talk about "ingredients in the fridge," I am talking about a dinner that has been planned, ingredients purchased, and everything ready to go for book dinner to be on the table tonight. At this point, Sarah has been grocery shopping for future book plots for many many years! This is my personal interpretation of a really powerful story for Lucien and his hero's journey to free Vassa from Koschei.

Step One: Ordinary World. Lucien wakes up in the human lands in the manor he shares with his Band of Exiles. (I also am obsessed with how messy and hilarious it is that this was gifted to him by his mates ex fiance but I digress.) He has become so close with Vassa that he is no longer trusted to do his job for the Night Court. All the while he is worrying about Koschei, and when he will come for Vassa. Her enslavement to the deathless sorcerer pains him, and the pressure is building.

I hate to poke holes in another ship, however it is important to note that during all of these conversations Elain is not present or mentioned by Lucien in any way. However, Mor states that Lucien is choosing to live in the human lands despite Elain. And of course, in ACOSF Lucien makes it clear that even being in Velaris doesn't mean it is to see Elain, and the thought of his presence being expected only for his mate makes him uncomfortable.

I'm not saying these things couldn't change in the next book, I am however just setting Lucien's Ordinary World or Status Quo. Lucien is living in the human lands with the Band of Exiles and his main areas of concern and growing conflict are with Vassa and Koschei. This is what is being built to send the status quo to a breaking point *at present* His interest or efforts in Elain are devolving while his connection to Vassa and interest in defeating Koschei or freeing her are evolving.

Step Two: Call To Adventure. Lucien already has a powerful possible Call to Adventure (or inciting incident, as other similar structures call it) set in place. Koschei decides to reign in the leash on Vassa and force her to return to the lake, being ripped from her home with Lucien and Jurian and no longer able to provide assistance with the human queens.

Step Three: Resisting the Call. The reason Lucien is so perfectly suited for this is because he is the only character with such torn loyalties. He is loyal to Feyre and the Night Court, he attempts to be respectful to his mate, he is glad to work for Rhysand. There are many other threats present, Lucien's own father Beron suspected to be at risk of allying with Koschei. The human queens in the wind who have powers and a vendetta. While the Firebird legends retelling *could* take place with Jurian and Vassa, my issue with that is similar to my issue with Gwynriel. There is literally nothing, and I mean NOTHING that would create conflict for the character or a debate period. There are no obstacles or stakes in place that could keep the characters apart, which is critical to all storytelling but Sarah utilizes so much conflict. Lucien is the lost wanderer, torn from court to court, abusive home to abusive home, without a true family until the Band of Exiles. But it is still a matter of chosen family over loyalties he still feels to Feyre and her court. So, Vassa is taken by Koschei. Lucien now must be spurred into action, but is *he* the hero of this story? Is he going to be the one to take on Koschei?

Step Four: Meet the mentor. Oh, I think we all know where I am headed with this! What better mentor could there be in place for Lucien in freeing Vassa from her curse than Helion Spellcleaver. Aka Lucien's biological father. Helion also has maintained a consistent presence, being called in to attempt to manage the dread trove items. He has returned to the page in ways other High Lords haven't. We are gearing up for Helion 100%

Now, to get a little farther into some of the details beyond act one, tests allies and enemies, innermost caves, ordeals, so on and so forth, I simply want to focus on the stakes of this story specifically, and why I find them the most powerful.

As far as theme for Lucien, he has been aimless and suffering and ultimately ended up with no home and nowhere to spend Solstice. Feyre and Elain were a default because, in his own words, he had nowhere else to go.

Feyre urges him to call the Night Court home, but he has found a true home with Jurian and Vassa. He cares deeply for them and for their safety. He is amazed by Jurian's leadership, literally saying "Thank god for him" keeping everything together. Even at his best with Rhysand, Lucien has never put full faith in Rhys as a leader (which is very similar to Nesta who, while still an Archeron sister, continues to dismiss Rhys as her high lord and has found her calling and found family with The Valkyrie's.)

Lucien learning Helion is his biological father pairs perfectly with his metal eye, which can see through glamours. We may come to find that Lucien has hidden spell cleaving abilities making him uniquely suited to save the woman he loves. However, this brings us to...

THE BLOOD DUEL.

Lucien and Azriel blood dueling over Elain makes no sense plot, character, or world building wise. Lucien does not identify with the Autumn court or its laws, and he has been nothing but respectful of Elain's lack of interest in him and by all accounts is moving on in a very healthy way. It is stated clearly that Beron knows Lucien is not his son, hence why Lucien received such additional torment and ab*se as well as Beron's treatment of Lady Autumn. However, for Lucien to publicly display Helion's powers would make Lady Autum's affair public knowledge. This gives Beron cause to call for a blood duel with Helion over LoA. These are incredibly high stakes and obstacles. Does he risk the life of his mother and newly discovered father to save the woman he loves by revealing his true power?

As far as Lucien being sole heir to the Day Court, there is another possible outcome where Helion wins the blood duel (thus securing Eris's place as the new High Lord of Autumn, another long established plotline) and Lady Autumn and Helion get a second chance while Lucien still chooses his found family. Or, at the very least, as long of a life with Vassa as he could get before taking up the Day Court. Sarah also of course has had both mortal characters choose mortal life spans for love (Elorcan) or make mortals immortal (Feyre and Miryam.) However, Lucien stated he never had any interest in being a high lord. Of course this is up for interpretation, but I believe his character development still maintains that. This man has been through so much. He just wants to live in peace, and I think it would be a beautiful thing to know that his mother is now safe and not a political pawn.

Speaking of political pawns, this is also why I believe Elain and Lucien have a lot to heal with each other. When Lucien discovers that he could have been raised by Helion and not Beron, but his mother was sold and used as a political pawn and her agency taken away, he is going to face quite a few demons. I do not personally think Lucien's story (or Elain's) is most powerfully served by he and Elain choosing to de-escalate all the conflict and spend time with each other and wind up falling in love. It COULD happen, and if it's what Sarah chooses to do, it will be lovely! But Elain is such a mirror to Lucien's own mother. The only difference being that Lucien is a good male while Beron is a monster. Lucien, when faced with this, would be motivated to prevent his story repeating itself. Elain and Lucien's mother are the only two alive today presenting as unhappy with their pairings. I believe this is what Sarah was referring to when she said Elain was a better mate for Lucien than Nesta (her original plan) because of the healing they could provide each other. While I am not stating this as fact, it is my opinion that there is enough foreshadowing for rejected mating bonds, the suffering of poor matches and females being owned with archaic laws, that Sarah always intended to have Lucien participate in the rejected mating bond story line with one of the Archeron sisters. Lucien and Elain as a rejected bond is a much better fit as Lucien and Elain are actually both quite passive about their mating bond, letting the plot develop and build elsewhere whereas Nesta would have likely just burnt Lucien to a crisp or had it take up a lot more of ACOSF which would have been truly tough to fit in.

I could go on and literally plot out the whole book beat by beat with the Hero's Journey, but I would be here all day. I truly think Lucien and Vassa in the Firebird Legends would be so beautiful and powerful. I've teared up thinking about it! It always disheartens me to see characters getting thrown under the bus for the ship wars, or to be accused of hating Lucien because I ship Elriel. I am brand new to the online ship space, and this was truly how I experienced the books as someone who loves all the characters and wants the best for them. I believe Lucien has been nothing but respectful towards Elain and deserves to be happy. I just don't think Elain is his happiness. Even Feyre and Rhys had moments of trust and connection building in A Court of Thorns and Roses before ACOMAF. Their relationship was not out of left field at all. Elain and Lucien have a LOT of work to do to make their interest in each other suddenly believable, and in my opinion now we are getting into poorly paced and structured writing to accommodate it.

I've definitely seen compelling compilations about how both Elain and Lucien are tied to Koschei and it could just as easily be their shared love story while saving Vassa, and I won't go into a rage if that is what happens. It is simply difficult for me to ignore all the conflicts that would conveniently resolve and obstacles that would be removed. I know people love to call the three brothers and three sisters "lazy" but three is simply a motif, not book structure or line level prose. In my opinion, a sudden resolution to active political conflicts by putting two characters together is much lazier when it comes to the actual writing of the book.

These are just my musings, and the things I picked up on whilst reading (and re-reading a million times tbh) and experiencing books! What do you guys think of Vassien? I personally am so excited by how beautiful it could be!

#elriel #vassien #elain x azriel #lucien x vassa #elain archeron #pro elain #pro elain archeron

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