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randomfoggytiger · 1 year

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Milagro In-Depth (Part III): Denial and Truth, Art and Sacrifice

I'm incredibly proud of how this series turned out. As I was watching Milagro, I could not recall the nuances of the plot; but it was so well-written-- and the themes and character motivations and plot so clean and precise-- that a lot of my earlier assessments turned into unintentional but correct predictions for the rest of the episode (what a mood boost.)

And now, for Part III of Milagro (Parts I and II are here if you want.)

Padgett stares dispassionately at the newspaper, unmoved by Mulder’s jocular interrogation. He listens, nodding along at moments, as his rival spells out the murder plan: comb the newspaper for lover ads, pick a victim, then target them.

Mulder is interrupted by Scully, frustrated when she interferes on behalf of the prisoner (“not without his lawyer.”) Padgett takes this moment to squirm hopefully into his muse’s good graces, attempting to reestablish the hold he’d briefly held over her by using truth as a key to unlock her guarded defenses.

“I don’t need a lawyer. I’m telling you the truth.”

“And this is your confession?” Mulder barbs, tossing the heavy tome of purple prose at the suspect’s chest, darkly satisfied at the resounding thunk it makes.

The room becomes tense: all three know this is the seduction manual of one Dana Scully; and Mulder is as angry as Scully is shamed.

“No, that’s my novel.”

“It’s all in there,” Mulder presses, “Every detail, every murder all laid out. How did you do it, Mr. Padgett?”

Padgett antagonisms with truth disguised as deflection: “If I sit long enough it just comes to me. I only knew what was in my mind and wished to express it clearly.”

Scully spends the conversation in the corner, silent, confused at her own standing and confused at her confusion; but never wavering in her support of Mulder (though doubtful of his conclusions.)

Mr. Padgett muddies the waters about his connection to Naciamento: “Jungians would say it’s the characters that choose the writer, not the other way around.”

Scully here is doubting, crushed, afraid this is all her fault. She is a very doubting character: doubting herself, her motives, her intentions, her choices, her self-respect or adoration or love; and often the blame of others’ actions are placed on her shoulders whether by her own hands or by the indirect finger pointing of others. “I’m sorry” has become as rote as “I’m fine”, apologizing for a slip of emotion or a crack in her facade as easily as she stares down death and denies it shakes her.

“So I guess you could argue he [Naciamento] directed me.”

Mulder’s patience is wearing thin: “Which is the truth?”

Again, Padgett dodges the question, rankling his interrogator; but his boast about how twisted words bring about not only those innocent people’s deaths but also a manipulative seduction of Scully-- “By their nature, words are imprecise and layered with meaning. The signs of things, not the things themselves. It’s difficult to say who’s in charge"-- frays Mulder’s last nerve.

He jolts from the wall, tossing aside caution in his rage; but Scully, deducing his intent with alarm, darts out to catch his arm, holding him back with a punctuated whisper (“Mulder….”) Her admirer sees this, finally focuses out to see the bigger picture, and knows that all is lost-- and never was-- to begin with.

Both agents try to rug sweep the moment, Mulder pursing his lips with a slight “Yeah” and Scully looking down and away, embarrassed and more uncomfortable than ever.

“Why, Mr. Padgett?” Mulder picks up where he left off smoothly. “Maybe that’s a question you can answer.”

At this Scully looks back up, quietly demanding respect-- an explanation for his meddling toward herself.

He answers with a crack in his voice, bravado vanished and touched to the quick with Mulder’s inadvertent stumbling on the crux of his issue and the reality of the loss of a chance with Agent Scully: “That’s the one question I can’t.” When the agents turn to leave, he arrests them in return-- “Agent Mulder, my book. Did you like it?”

For his part, Mulder is disgusted by the question, not understanding the other man’s deeper meaning-- that this is Dana Scully, a flesh-and-blood woman who loves you and is existing in that loneliness without you. Padgett knows now that Scully will never be his because she has abandoned her metaphorical empty apartment to sit in Mulder’s, creating companionship between them. It may not satisfy, but it leaves no room for Philip Padgett’s, haunted as it is by the ghosts of his Naciamentos.

Mulder reveals a bit more about himself, staring loathingly down upon the man who tore open his partner and spilled her secrets before he could discover them himself: “Maybe if it were fiction.”

Scully lingers in the cell after Mulder turns heel and walks away, trying to recover from the inadvertent gut punch and avoid (while being very aware of) both men's eye contact.

She recovers her faculties, speeding after her partner and stopping him before he loses valuable time on a useless goose chase. Having tracked Naciamento, she relates that he has been “two years dead” to Mulder’s incredulous surprise-- which doesn’t last long, the wonder of a new unquantifiable variation lighting up a sparkle in his eyes.

“Padgett couldn’t have done this alone.”

In the absence of facts, Scully falls back to her comfort zone. “Well maybe he didn’t do it at all,” she demurs, not meeting eye contact.

Mulder kindly-- but firmly-- insists, “Scully, it’s all on the page. How else would he know?”

“Maybe he imagined it,” she quibbles, “like he said-- like Shakespeare, or Freud, or, or Jung.”

They both know she doesn’t want to face this reality, the tip of the enormous iceberg that Padgett’s interference dug up and exposed.

Scully’s voice takes on a frantic, scrambling quality as her justifications continue. “I mean, m-maybe he… maybe he has some gift. "M-maybe he has a clear window into human nature.” She so badly wants to believe that this clear picture of herself is divorced from any semblance of evil, struggling with the self-doubt like she does every time she’s faced with life-altering considerations of herself. To admit Padgett is evil is to put a stain upon his observations of her; and for Scully, who shrinks from giving villainous people any merit ex. (Luther Lee Boggs, Jerry Schnauz, and now Philip Padgett), she fears that if evil is so easily able to read her own heart that it must recognize a grain of its nature in herself.

Mulder is not convinced and completely misses his partner's deeper psychological fear-- he is a man that must be told, in plain terms, what one means and what one wants from him. Scully's diffidence regarding her feelings is lost on him; because, while he can draw conclusions from human patterns of behavior, abilities are built on committed actions: “No one can predict human behavior-- no one can tell you what someone’s gonna do.”

In desperation, Scully draws comparisons. “But isn’t that what you do, Mulder, as a behavioral profiler--” she finally looks up; and her tempo kicks up a notch as his immediate denial-- “y-you imagine the killer’s mind so well that you know what they’re gonna do next.”

He puts his foot down once and for all, ending this charade by going for the jugular-- something that Scully has backed him into corner over by denying the facts before her face. “IF he imagines it, it’s ‘a priori’-- before the fact. I think that’s pretty clear from what he wrote about you.”

Scully looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

When she doesn’t respond (unable to), Mulder double checks: “You know you’re in here, don’t you?”

She answers with a raspy, recovering-from-a-sudden-blow voice “Uh-yah, I read a chapter.” Scully pauses, needing to hear it through Mulder’s perspective (though her eye contact has slipped again)-- “What does he say?”

Mulder huffs a disarming but defeated little noise. “Well let’s just say it ends with you doing the naked pretzel with this stranger on a bed in an unfurnished fourth floor apartment,” he teases, trying to disguise his own feelings and encourage her own with injected levity.

Scully is horrified-- because there is a part of her drawn to empty, dusty apartments for unplanned rendezvous, and it’s a part of herself that she is ashamed of and thought no one else knew about (other than the black mark of Ed Jerse on her record.) It’s not Padgett: it’s what he represents-- the pattern of Scully’s ouroboros, her repeating cycle, another day lonely and neglected, another attempt for attention disguised as rebellious or open-minded dominance. Her last resort escape from the patterns of her fraying existence is exposed to be a pattern itself (just as Padgett will learn he has not achieved understanding and enlightenment because he does not wish to see.)

Mulder’s mood sinks in the face of Scully’s fragile acknowledgement; and his pleasant demeanor drops in the face of consuming jealousy. “I’m assuming that’s ‘a priori’, too?”

Scully tries to scoff away the moment, her deflection honed by the instinct to RUN. “I think you know me better than that, Mulder.”

But Mulder hasn't taken the time to know her like this, running off on detours into the woods from post-cancer celebrations, expressing tender affection or even love under only extreme circumstances. She is too afraid to admit how much is her-- not all of Padgett's words, certainly, but enough to expose herself without equal, vulnerable reciprocation from her partner. (Again, script here for to read her thoughts on paper.)

The moment sits heavily; but Mulder, for once, doesn't let it slink away with deflection. His jealousy has rankled his possessive streak; and he is determined to make a powerful point.

Mulder marks this heavy moment forever by intentionally letting his partner get a first, undisguised glimpse of the sheer want that he has for her, more so than he has ever done. This is different from the depths of his devotion expressed in Fight the Future and the heartfelt gratitude and sweetness of his confession in Triangle. No, this is intense passion, piercing into Dana Scully’s soul-- not cutting away at it with selfish desire like Philip Padgett; but carefully slicing and disinfecting her defenses as it goes, mature love tempering unbridled emotion with true care and concern. Neither does he diminish its importance, not diluting the potency with a quip or lame joke. Mulder may not be confessing the secrets of his own soul to the same degree, but he is exposing an acutely sensitive layer of himself to her scrutiny.

He is confirming, silently, that he has and does see her; but Mulder lets the moment go, painstakingly tucking his emotions back into their repressed spaces. His fervor matches her own, simmering behind a similar facade; but Mulder keeps himself back from further pursuit, not yet able to healthily balance the encompassing nature of his quest and a potential relationship with his partner. The Unnatural, the very next episode, forces him to sit down and listen, finally grasping the importance of live, laugh, and love.

Shoving these thoughts aside, Mulder nods, accepting Scully's weak excuses; and adds, “Well, you might want to finish it.”

He leaves Scully with the bomb of her own weaponized desires and stomps off to do the next imperative thing on his never-ending list of imperative things to do. Scully stares after him, the haunted eyes of Beyond the Sea shining in his wake.

Padgett remains in the middle of his cell in the middle-end of the room, having witnessed their entire conversation, though no privy to what they were discussing.

Taking up Mulder on his injunction, Scully pours over Padgett’s words more thoroughly before being handed an intercepted note from Padgett. Her voice now takes over the narrative, giving voice to his ramblings-- a sign of Scully's wavering in regards to him.

“Grief squeezed at her eggshell heart like it might break into a thousand pieces, its contents running like broken promises into the hallow places his love used to fill. How could she know this pain would end, that love, unlike matter or energy, was an endless supply in the universe-- a germ which grows from nothingness, which cannot be eradicated, even from the darkest of hearts. If she had known this-- and who could say if she would believe it?-- she would not have chanced to remain at his sad grave until such an hour so that she might not have to learn the second truth before the first: that to have love was to carry a vessel that could be lost or stolen. Or worse, spilled blood-red on the ground.”

Horror swiftly taking hold, Scully rushes up from her seat, frantically grabbing the paper and running off to alert the rest of the station.

Two important things of note:

#1. Padgett may be setting up his next murder, but he is also making very pointed jabs at Scully (“that love, unlike matter or energy, was an endless supply in the universe… who could say if she would believe it?", etc.) As mentioned above, Scully tries to cut out the idea of noble human nature from the vile monsters around her, always stunned and uncomfortable when faced with their parallels to herself and her beliefs. Padgett knows this and is invoking that fear as a stab at her.

#2. Scully, unfortunately, did have to learn this lesson, twice: in the end of this episode and in S8.

At the cemetery, Mulder walks through the crowd to his partner, neither having substantial proof or even a body to confirm Padgett's latest fiction. he begins to doubt the murder even occurred. Scully raises the point in Padgett’s favor (“Maybe his statements are proof that he’s telling the truth-- that he truly just imagined it”); but he still doesn’t buy it.

Before Mulder gives up completely, he spots a suspicious man parking a funeral flower truck; and, trusting his instincts (something that Scully avoided doing, which led her deeper into Padgett’s apartment), he gives chase-- the infamous David-Duchovny-ran-so-fast-the-crew-had-to-film-this-on-a-motorcycle-scene-- tackling the unsuspecting gardener to the ground. This may not have been Naciamento (though Mulder only relinquishes his prey when Scully insists the man is innocent and works the grounds), but the incident leads him to further investigate the truck, discovering the body of the murdered woman buried underneath the rubble.

Padgett is again playing with his narrative-themes-symbolism role discussed in Part I by having his rival kneel in the dying flowers of so many lost loves, a metaphor for the first Padgett Truth neither he nor Scully learn-- how replaceable and changeable Padgett perceives human love to be-- until they are forced to learn the second Padgett Truth-- that it can be torn away in the blink of an eye. When Padgett turns himself into his own hero, he takes it upon himself to teach these lessons and “save” Mulder and Scully from themselves, a divine revealer-protector-savior handing his amor back her heart by sacrificing his own.

Back at the station, Scully testily asks how Mulder knew the body was on the truck. Just as snappily, Mulder mocks, “I imagined it,” doing a little hand-to-forehead gesture to nail home his point. His frustration ratchets up another notch when she brushes off any evidence of Padgett’s guilt (“What do you need, a signed work order? Of course he directed him.”)

Scully digs her heels in, insisting Mulder is making “critical assumptions without any facts.”

Mulder, fed up with this routine, grabs her by the shoulders and swings her around until they’ve swapped standing positions-- probably as close to strangling Scully as he will ever come-- stating that she's now arguing from his usual "illogical" standpoint.

Scully doubles down further: “Mulder why couldn’t he have imagined it? Why couldn’t he have just been in the killer’s head?”

Mulder’s patience is at an all-time low with Scully-- not even his dismissal of her points concerning Diana Fowley were this intense. “You read his book, you read what he wrote about you-- are you trying to tell me that he got inside your head, that what I read is true?”

He knows that Scully has a wild, rebellious side to herself-- and he's often charmed by it. That’s not what he’s questioning. What Mulder’s grilling her on is if those words Padgett wrote to describe her were her, if she’s that desperately lonely, that drawn to purple prose allure, that willing to let her instincts slide to embrace a man who means nothing but to harm and control her. Padgett is only half-right in his descriptions; and Scully leaps at that loophole. But it locks her out of her position on the writer's innocence, as Mulder knew it would do. She can’t shake her doubts without betraying how much of the book was accurate; because then she would have to strip what little cover she has left in the aftershocks of the whole mortifying experience.

Mulder’s plan is to free Padgett and observe his communication with Naciamento; but he gets no support other than cooperation from Scully. She does, however, keep her partner always between herself and her former admirer, swallowing convulsively and subtly cringing whenever the other man speaks.

Padgett walks away, the rejected suitor, head bowed and pride dashed, pausing in his departure to make one last statement: “I made a mistake myself. In my book, I’d written that Agent Scully falls in love but that’s obviously impossible.”

Mulder is, again, sorely tempted to lash out in anger at Padgett’s audacity (closing his eyes and taking a deep breath), but corrals his resolve, inquiring what the other man means.

Padgett maintains ruthless eye-contact with his former rival: “Agent Scully is already in love.” Then, without a glance at Scully, he turns and leaves.

Mulder darts his eyes away from Padgett to her, posture loosening and tilting sideways in his carefully concealed, shellshocked scrutiny.

Scully is robbed of her last, treasured secret; and stares after Padgett-- a wounded soul crying out as it begins to bleed to death.

Back at Padgett’s apartment, the heartbeat is back, pounding away as Naciamento himself walks through Padgett's apartment door, menace and measured cunning united to confront his creator. Padgett is terrified-- can't fathom how his creation is moving independently of his will, has tracked down and cornered him.

I touched on the importance of this conversation in Part I (see post here); but another key part of the Padgett-Naciamento dynamic is the buried desires that Padgett can no longer hide from.

“What do you want?”

“I came to help you finish.”

“I can’t figure out your motive.”

“You imagine me so perfectly in every way, so perfectly that you bring me to life,” irony dripping from Naciamento’s mouth, “Why did you chose me?”

“I needed a perfect crime. And she’s a doctor-- she’d be horrified by what you do.”

Naciamento cuts through Padgett’s self-delusions: “I’m horrified.” Tiredly, he repeats, “I just want to know why I do it."

“So I could meet her,” Padgett twinkles, all selfish angles and inelegant confidence.

Creation has besought the creator and found him lacking. “That’s not a reason….It’s an excuse.”

Mulder is attempting to listen-in next door, putting the final touches on a secret surveillance system and asking if Scully can hear anything. She cannot, in fact (“No, he’s just sittin’ there… staring.”)

**Note**: Forgive the lack of pictures in this section-- Tumblr put a kibosh on the number of screenshots I could upload.

Padgett continues his negotiations with Naciamento, handing him the bit of manuscript he’s finished.

“Now what is this?” his creation pushes.

“A big mistake,” he admits, stung, “I misjudged her character, her interest in me.”

But the writer’s demon answers, “Now we’re on to something.”

“She’s always trying to get his attention but doesn’t know it.”

“Mmm,” Naciamento muses, mulling over the irony, “the old unconscious at work.”

“I wanted to love her,” mourns Padgett, loss edging out over the sting or rejection.

Again, Padgett wanted to love her, learning her catechisms and mythologies, her patterns and her mind, to try to love her, just as he ordered Naciamento to kill those people who had love: longing for and envious of the concepts and feelings he’d locked himself out of in his isolation.

“No wonder you can’t finish this book, Padgett,” Naciamento sneers.”Why do I want their hearts?”

“You tell me, why do you do it?” the creator challenges.

Naciamento is a little impressed by this new ounce of aggression, but not deterred. “I’m your character. You tell me. My reason is your reason.”

“I want to feel love.”

“Nnno…No. You had it right up to there. You were a tool of the truth.And when it finally arrives-- when I arrive-- you don’t want to see it.”

Padgett is flummoxed. “But what is the truth?”

“Man imagines that he, too, can open up his heart and expose the burning passion, the flames of charity like the Creator himself. But… this is not in his power.”

“But… I have love in my heart.”

“Yes!” Nacamiento pauses for emphasis. “As a thief has riches, a user of money-- you have it. But man’s only power-- only true power-- is to destroy it.”

“Then what’s the end of my story?”

“There can only be one true ending. If it is to be perfect.”

“She dies?” Padgett trembles-- stress and anticipation. Of course, his first thought of a perfect ending is the sacrificing of another person’s life, a tragedy to uplift the genius of his own work.

Naciamento, the manifestation of Philip Padgett’s brutal cruelty and utilitarian pragmatism, nods approvingly. “It almost writes itself.”

Scully is dozing a spell on the couch; but the clicking of the typewriter brings her back to life (ironic.) Her rustling draws Mulder's attention; and he sits down in time to see Padgett gather his papers and flee his apartment. Her partner flings out after him, leaving Scully to scramble into her boots and be intercepted by Naciamento.

Unbeknownst to Mulder and Scully, Padgett knows that Mulder will follow him out, so focused on the trail that he is blind to everyone else around him; and easily lures him down to the basement so his Naciamento can do his own will. But Padgett, while angered over her rejection, is still fond of Scully's symbolism, her usefulness to him. She was only ever a tool he tracked, became obsessed with, tried to polish up and become even better, so much so that it would teach him to hone and wield his own abilities-- learn to love her. And unbeknownst to Naciamento, his creator is rebelling at losing the power to guide his own story, plotting a grander, more violent end that “redeems” himself, destroys the villain, and blesses the love between the two people whose lives he tried to manipulate. And it helps that Padgett was able to one-up Mulder at long last, tearing him away from Scully only to mercifully restore her back to life.

Mulder walks right into his trap, holding his suspect at gunpoint while the other man stalls for time, waiting for the events of his novel to play out like clockwork.

Padgett’s venom shines out of his eyes at Mulder, menace and resignation blending as he unflinchingly confirms Scully will die, resentfully adding, “He told me how it ends.” Mulder doesn’t get the hint fast enough, wasting precious time reading over the manuscript while Scully’s heart is being scooped from her chest.

Mulder’s 20 questions are cut short when he hears the rapid fire of Scully’s service weapon, bolting back up the stairs while his partner continues her desperate attempts to save her life, shock and horror and despair warring on her features when the bullets pass right through her attacker. Padgett scrabbles for his pages, time running out for his plan to be fully accomplished.

The gun has been exhausted; and Scully gives in to the torturous pain as she screams, long and agonizing, and fruitlessly tries to shove her attacker off. It's useless; and she dies on Mulder's apartment floor.

it's at this moment that Padgett successfully throws his manuscript into the fire, eliminating his own creation offscreen.

A note: Scully, emotionally personal episodes, and fiery basement furnaces are quite the motif. Both anti-heroes (a loose term in these contexts) save her life from the true antagonist by "burning them alive" in the basement, flames consuming flesh both literally and figuratively. It's not until All Things that Scully reclaims fire as a purifying rather than destructive force, sitting in candlelight in the Buddhist Temple as God talks back.

Mulder has been running with all his might back up the way he came, concluding the third act with the hallway-and-door combo that Padgett utilized with both his obsession and her partner.

When he swings the door open, armed and ready, the shock of seeing Scully's dead and bloody body on his apartment floor is so great that Mulder freezes. He stares, disconnected, waiting for his mind to clear and all of this to be a nightmarish hallucination; and floats rather than walks to her side.

The dissociated-Mulder-grin appears, a plastered pull at each side of his lips tugging them wide as his mouth pops open to let in more oxygen-- the beginning stages of a classic Mulder hyperventilation.

Mulder gazes down upon Scully-- a mirror of the flowerbed scene-- realizing how avoidably his partner was killed. He could have prevented her death if he’d taken the time to notice if she was following, if he had taken the time to notice her. Like the writer had learned as a penitent pupil at the feet of his own creation, Mulder comes face to face with this truth only in the face of its destruction.

(But Mulder has still not learned this lesson, even when Scully pops up, traumatized but alive. As we see in The Unnatural, his focus has not shifted away from life outside this planet, still running off after the allure of the mystery while the mystery of the heart lingers behind with her tofutti rice dreamsicle.)

The Mulder-Beyond-Panic Face melts into the sweetest “hey, it’s you” expression as Mulder, again, is tossed into a new, unbelievable reality. There is so much-- too much-- to process; so he remains open-mouthed and slack-jawed in his disconnected wonder, as if this were happening in one of his old, cheesy movies and he is rejoicing for its characters.

Emotion starts to slip back, the firm reality of Scully clinging to his back and heart wrenchingly wailing banishing the last of the fog. A well of overwhelming empathy settles into his heart; but he swiftly squashes every other "selfish" thought or feeling, clearing his mind and closing his eyes to wholly focus on and comfort his partner.

Milagro was Padgett’s lesson; and Mulder and Scully were the incidental flies snared in the convoluted web binding the writer hostage. Fixation is not knowing, staring is not seeing, and grabbing at the treasures of others is not giving or receiving love. He ponders on this as he lays, dying:

“A story can have only one true ending. Even as the stranger felt compelled to commit his final words to paper, he did it knowing it must never be read. To see the sum of his work was to see inside his own emptiness-- the heart of a destroyer, not a creator. And yet, reflected back upon him at last, he could see his own ending. And in this final act of destruction, a chance to give what he could not receive.”

Padgett was a man who forced himself to be an artist, squirreling away in his Spartan apartment and waiting for his muse to waltz fitfully in and out of his life. He yearned for something greater, more divine, scrabbling at the hearts of other people in an attempt to understand his own. By personalizing the milagro story, Padgett hoped to win a heart for himself; and he targeted Scully, someone he thought would understand and grow to love him if she were shown how truly alike they were. When, at last, he realized that all of the deprivation and pain he has inflicted on himself and others will never draw him closer to understanding, to genius, to love-- that his attention and passion are not the milagro but a beating symptom of his failure-- his work was beyond his control. There was only one thing left for him to do: reclaim control as best he can by setting himself up as a hero in his own tarnished tale, giving "back" his fiery, beating heart to his own (unwilling) Mary Margaret.

Padgett's art-- as is love-- was the sacrifice; and it was, like the rest of him, worth nothing in the end.

May he never rest in peace.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

#txf #Milagro #In-Depth #Part III #Denial and Truth #Art and Sacrifice #S6 #Scully #Philip Padgett #Mulder #mine #x-files #meta #xf meta #analysis #the x files #xfiles

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hot-take-tournament · 11 months

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regarding the potential sideblog for serious takes: I completely get what you mean. Thinking of things to submit, I came across many many takes of mine, things I feel very passionately about, that I just.... Couldn't really bear to submit to a silly tournament blog. A lot of things that I don't have the guts to say on my main, since the main reason it's "hot" in the first place is my friends' and mutuals' disagreement. The criteria I've been using for submitting is, "if I got 90% disagree votes, would that be heartbreaking? would that be depressing to know, that that many people disagree on this topic that I care so much about?" and if the answer is yes, then... that's too important to me. and i just keep it to myself.

honestly, if you did make a sideblog, I would be more than glad to submit these takes that i held back from. and I suspect that many others would feel encouraged to send things that they otherwise wouldn't, as well.

whatever your decision, I deeply respect this blog, which is rather funny, since i actually have the words "hot take" in my blacklist because I'm honestly so tired of seeing violent discourse about human rights.

basically, it's really refreshing to argue about stupid shit like "what's the best way to write a date" or "am I committing a food crime if I eat my food this way" or "what kind of music sucks". i like feeling mentally engaged and introducing nuance into false dichotomies, and this blog gives me an easy place to do that without having to read questions like "ok but does this minority ACTUALLY deserve rights or are they not [arbitrary measure of Virtue] enough"

that being said I did vote in favor of the serious takes blog. there's a high chance that I wouldn't be able to follow it for long before the Bad Takes drove me mad, and the notes sound like they would be godawful, but I think if you threaten to only keep the blog up for as long as people behave and keep the notes civil, it could work.

and, to anyone with serious opinions that needs a place to put them besides your blog, I often send mine to the blogs transenbyconfessions and aroaceconfessions. they post asks and submissions, anonymously or credited. the goal of those blogs is just to provide a platform for genderqueer, questioning, or relationship-queer folk to have a place to tell their stories without having to worry about horrible notes. just gets sent in and forgotten about. if you want a ping when it posts, you can also sign off as/mention a sideblog of yours. I've done that a few times too.

yeah, i think it's the best option, but it depends how the poll goes

i think in the meantime you can still submit those takes, and if choose the first option then they'll be posted, and if they don't, it doesn't matter either way - maybe it will help just to get it off your chest anyway

i do the read all the submissions, so even if it would make you feel better knowing that at least one person has read your take, then feel free to submit!

#asks #not a poll

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hamliet · 1 year

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One thing I dislike about the discussion of female characters within jjk is that… people praise it too much?

Of course, the bar is low within Shonen, but even then I still think the series gets a bit too much praise for it’s “good” female writing.

For example, Nobara. She honestly have as much depth and narrative importance as Sakura in Naruto. Nobara is just more liked because she can apparently kick-ass and has a bad attitude.

Maki. She started out promising. She started out as someone who can’t cooperate with her classmates in jjk 0. But then during the actual series that seems to be revolved. However, with the introduction of Mai, her twin, we are then introduced with a very compelling and nuanced take on twins and subversive of the “good” victim vs “bad” victim trope. And then the Zenin Massacre Arc happened. Which not only killed off Mai who had huge potential, but basically destroyed Maki’s arc by giving her a power up without Maki actually needing to change or reflect on herself. And also… the terrible stereotype of twins within that arc too.

Yuki. Once again, she had promised. She is a Special Grade One sorcerers, but with a very interesting and twisted mind. She’s basically like a mad scientist, where she want to see if a world without curse energy is possible. And she’ll see certain things play out even if it means certain people will die, hence why she didn’t intervene during the Shibuya arc until the end. And well, we all know what happened to her in the end.

The rest have too little screentime, or not really important to the narrative at the moment. I’m honestly tired of hearing how “jjk have good female characters” when it really doesn’t. And they darn to go as far as said that the female are better written than Bleach and AOT??? I’m sorry, is it because all the female are “strong, determined, and ass-kicking”?

I’m sorry for this, I just wanted to get this off my chest since the fandom seems to praise this aspect of jjk when I believe it’s not deserved. However, that can be me. What’s your personal opinions?

I think it's pretty clear I agree with you haha. I don't have a lot to say that I haven't said already, but yeah. JJK's female characters are not even towards the good end of low-bar shonen expectations.

While there are things to critique about AoT's handling of female characters and Bleach too, I think it's wrong to say they, on the whole, have poorly written female characters. They have some badly done ones that are done poorly in a specifically gendered, offensive way (Historia). But they also have really great female characters who are, in some ways, I'd argue better written than many of the male characters within their tier of importance (Gabi, Mikasa, Sasha).

If you were to say, gather the female characters on the whole, AoT definitely has much better written ones on the whole than JJK does, as JJK has just has one relevant female character atm (Maki) and her arc is a mess. (Even if Nobara returns, I don't see how her relevance and arc can be salvaged.) To be fair, though, I guess it depends what aspects are most important to each fan, since the offensive aspect of, say, Historia's arc might conjure stronger feelings than the apathy of JJK's treatment of women.

#ask hamliet #female characters

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cypresstrees · 1 year

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Hi! Saw ur post about leslie feinberg and just wanted to say yeah its so fucked. I absolutely adore the book stone butch blues and im a trans masc pansexual but the thing is im a bosniak trans masc pansexual whose parents lived through the war and who still lives in bosnia so reading leslies book and feeling like ze is speaking directly to my soul through such similar experiences and emotions while at the same time fully knowing all of hir political opinions about my region was honestly kinda heartbreaking, sorry for ranting but i dont know anyone whos read the book here and all my non balkan friends dont know enough about the region to understand so i just needed to get this off my chest

yeah i did not know about hir politics on the balkans until i opened my library's copy of stone butch blues and saw in the table of contents zie had notes on the book's translation into bcms so i flipped to them and was just completely unprepared for what i read in there. and had that experience you describe of feeling so completely seen by the book and aligned w a lot of feinberg's other politics but being heartbroken at hir balkan politics and also angry bc there are ways to be anti-nato/un/us without being pro-milosevic/a literal genocide denier and i feel like somebody of feinberg's leftist activist caliber should've been able to grasp the nuance

and i am not bosniak and also was raised mostly in the us (serbian/croatian mother american jew father), so i can only imagine how this tension must feel for you. no apologies for ranting! i also have nobody irl who i could've taken my rant to who would've fully grasped what was so painful, so i'm really glad you sent ur message and it is comforting to know there are others in this boat. sending u butch/transmasc balkan solidarity <3

#julia answers stuff #(i hate this tag rly gotta fix it)#balkan stuff

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daggryet · 3 years

Text

okay since i was very overwhelmed last night because of eriksen and what happened, i didn’t really have the clarity to think clearly, so i’m putting my own thoughts under the cut, just to get them out

What's been grating on me since I watched the stream and the Twitter drama erupted, is how people were talking about how Tommy "clearly wanted to avoid minority issues, accountability, education" when that's, especially after rewatching, the complete opposite of what he's saying? He's saying he fucks up and that he's sorry, he says multiple times throughout the stream that now he said the wrong thing again and that he's sorry, that he doesn't know how to correctly say things (he's not an activist, how would he have learned the proper way to phrase these things - and he especially doesn't know when he's tired and stressed), and that he wants to learn, he wants the community to be a better and open space for everyone - and AGAIN, he says he wants to be better. Wilbur also very clearly intends to help him realise the nuances of the situation (yes, the minorities finding the joke hurtful are valid; yes, tommy feeling stressed about being tweeted at negatively by thousands to the point of you trending in several countries is valid), and Tommy clearly wants to learn. And that's, to me as a Jew, what's so important about most younger CCs today: that they want to learn. And in this situation: Tommy wants to learn, he doesn't want to fuck up, he doesn't want to be ignorant, he wants to know what to say - he doesn't want to be an activist, but he wants to learn more, so he doesn't offend people accidentally. That attitude should be encouraged, not shunned. That's not how you motivate people to care about issues.

Personally, I don't like Schlatt. I don't like his persona he portrays in videos, and to my knowledge he has complete control over that persona - so I don't like him. However, I also realise that Tommy, Wilbur, Tubbo, and everyone else who's friends with him from the SMP (especially, since it's their fanbase this video is talking about) know the Schlatt that isn't for cameras but the "real" him. I realise the jokes that Tommy has made about Twitter can come off as mocking people disliking Schlatt for actually valid reasons, and I personally have never found them funny and just sighed whenever he’d make them, but I do think it's a case of intent not being equal to the impact. Tommy's intentions were probably to poke fun at those people he sees in his QRT's all the time, telling him to get away from his friends who also do this whenever anyone interacts with Schlatt. However, the impact of the tweet was that minorities felt hurt, and they did deserve an apology which is what he tried to do last night, though he was too tired and stressed to keep it coherent. Because the most of the discussion about his stream happened on Twitter, it was bound to get derailed. Where a lot of poc and other minorities affected by schlatt tweeted actually well worded and educational tweets where they just wanted an apology for his jokes and for him to understand why they were hurtful, they were buried amongst all the thousands of tweets of absolute dog shit and straight up hate. they (twitter) ended up trending "Tommy neg" in the US on the day he did the joke - and then yesterday, in both the US and the UK. That's fucking stressful to a degree I can't even imagine, seeing your name trend internationally; that's not going to teach anyone anything. And that's honestly something the Twitter community needs to be better at realising; like Bad said in his stream, one tweet is a pebble but all the thousands of tweets being posted equal to thousands throwing rocks at a person at once, and that’s not going to educate anyone. When CCs criticise Twitter they're not going after the people trying to educate them, especially not Tommy who repeatedly says - he wants to be better and make his fanspace safer, they're criticising the toxic people and unfortunately there's a Lot of toxic people on Twitter. And even though on Twitter there are Good people, when something goes wrong and tags start trending - they're unfortunately not the only ones speaking.

I'm glad he's taking time off of Twitter because while Twitter is a place where a lot of its userbase wants to bring attention to social issues and important events, it's also a place where the algorithm promotes sensationality and "breaking news" over information, where character limit limits room for discussion and grey areas, and also where a lot of people take one or two quotes and 30 seconds clips out of context and then run with it. Twitter can bring awareness and introduce you to social issues, but you need to do research yourself, look for credible sources, find ressources to properly understand stuff, listen to educated people and activists who actually know what they're talking about. That's how you learn, privately, in a calm setting, where the point is to learn not to get attacked. I'm sure he's gonna have a lot of good conversations with Wilbur, his mum as he's said previously she's very involved with social issues, and hopefully he'll reach out to people with actual knowledge about these social issues and look up ressources. He doesn’t want to nor does he need to become the next activist, but being introduced to ways to look information up and understand why what you said was wrong - that’s going to be very helpful to him, to anyone really. Researching the world you live in, the issues going on right now, it’s always important and it’s always gonna be time well spent.

And lastly, I hope he'll also be able to get better with his anxiety now that he isn’t going on Twitter because while there Are good people, there’s also a lot of shit that he shouldn’t see about himself. I hope this break does him well

#discourse #look at me with proper grammar oof #but yeah there's a lot of nuance and i just needed this off my chest - as a minority affected by schltt #ask to tag #i dont know what to tag it as if it even needs more than the discourse tag #aurora.txt

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astralpenguin · 3 years

Text

@transnaturalweek day 5: t4t

1.5k, ao3 link

“Cas?”

Cas had known that Dean wasn’t asleep yet, and he’d known that Dean’s sleeplessness was coming from more than a simple bout of insomnia. Cas didn’t like to read minds, but he didn’t need to read Dean’s mind to know that Dean was thinking very hard about something. He also didn’t need to read Dean’s mind to know that Dean would speak up about whatever it was when he felt comfortable doing so.

Ever since he’d dragged Cas out of the Empty, Dean had been making a point of being more open with Cas about his thoughts and feelings. Even if it took him a while to get there sometimes, he’d still try. All that Cas had to do in return was give Dean the time he needed to do it on his own terms.

And it was looking like something was bothering Dean right now, and Dean was ready to talk about it right now.

Cas had his arms wrapped around Dean, and Dean’s back was pressed up against Cas’ chest. Dean liked falling asleep in Cas’ arms, and Cas was always more than happy to oblige. He liked having Dean asleep in his arms.

He hummed to let Dean know that he was listening.

“You know how you’re an angel.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

Dean broke Cas’ hold on him and rolled over to face him. “Okay, smartass,” he said, a smile on his face.

“Sorry,” said Cas, smiling as well and not feeling sorry at all. His goal with that comment had been to put Dean more at ease and make him smile, and he’d succeeded. “Continue.”

“Angels don’t have genders,” said Dean. His smile from moments ago had faded and his voice was steady. “And you’re an angel. So you’re not a man, right?”

“Dean-”

“This isn’t another sexuality crisis,” Dean continued, talking over Cas. “I know I’m bi, and I’m good with you being. Well.” He gestured at Cas. “Guy shaped. I’d probably be pretty bummed if you switched vessels at this point, actually. But-”

“Dean.”

Dean stopped talking.

Cas put a hand on Dean’s waist. “Angels were not created with a sex or gender,” he said. “And while it’s true that the majority of angels were always, as you used to put it, ‘junkless’-”

Dean shook his head. “I can hear the quote marks in your voice, man.”

“-I don’t think that the same can be said for me anymore,” Cas continued. “I’ve inhabited many vessels since creation. Some male, some female, and many that weren’t human. None of those other vessels were ever truly comfortable. None of them ever felt like they were my body. This one does. It’s the body that I was in when I lost my grace, it’s the body that I’ve been resurrected in more than once, and it’s the first form that the Shadow took inside the Empty in order to communicate with me. It probably helps that I’m the only one in this body. I’m not possessing anyone anymore. But I would also be ‘bummed’ if I had to change my vessel. I don’t think that I would be comfortable inhabiting any body other than this one.”

“Okay,” said Dean. “That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a guy.”

Cas squinted. The nuance there wasn’t something he’d expected Dean to know. “You’ve been researching this.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact.

“Shut up.” Dean looked away, towards the ceiling. “Just. It doesn’t though. Right?”

“You’re right,” said Cas. If Dean had been researching the topic of gender in humans, to the point where he’d grasped this particular point, then there was likely a reason for it. Cas wasn’t going to push him on what that reason was. If Dean wanted to share, then he would. In the meantime he had no problems with answering Dean’s question. “Someone’s body does not dictate their gender. My gender does not rely entirely on my body, although for me it is a factor. I don’t know if I’d consider myself to be a man today if Jimmy wasn’t one. But I do know for sure that I was created, as an angel, without a gender, and now I do have one. I’m a man.”

Dean nodded in understanding.

He was still looking at the ceiling.

“Dean?”

“If it’s not just your body that makes you a guy, then what else is there?”

Cas paused as he thought about it. “It’s difficult to describe. Mostly it’s just a sense of rightness from viewing myself as such. Describing myself as a woman feels wrong, as does saying that I lack gender entirely. I’m a man because that’s what I am, and because I never want to be anything else.”

Dean nodded again. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?” said Cas. “I wasn’t sure that it did.”

“It did. I get what you mean.” He paused, still not looking at Cas. Swallowed. And then whispered, “Sometimes I don’t want to be a guy.”

Cas waited for Dean to continue. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to without prompting, Cas said, “You don’t have to be one”

And Dean spoke.

“I know. Damn it Cas, I know. But sometimes I am a guy. A lot of the time I’m definitely a guy and the concept of being anything else doesn’t even occur to me. And then sometimes I think that I don’t want to be a guy at all. And sometimes I think I’d like to be a woman, and I was sure that this was something that everyone thought, because who wouldn’t want to be a chick sometimes? Except I mentioned it to Garth the other day, and he said he’s never wanted to be a woman, or to be anything other than a guy, and apparently most guys never want to be anything else. So I looked it up. I thought that surely Garth was wrong, ‘cause I love the guy but you’ve got to admit he’s a bit of an oddball. But no. He was right. Most guys never want to be anything else. And some of the websites I looked at said that not wanting to be the gender you were born as means you’re not that gender, and that’s even more terrifying, because if I’m not a man then what am I?”

As he said this last sentence, he finally looked back at Cas. There was more fear in his eyes than Cas had seen in a long time. Since their ordeal with the Empty.

Cas put his hand on Dean’s cheek and gently brushed his thumb over Dean’s skin. Dean relaxed some at Cas’ touch.

“You are, first and foremost, Dean Winchester, and the people who love you will love you regardless of anything else. I will love you regardless of anything else.”

Dean relaxed even more at that, like it was something he’d needed to hear.

“I cannot tell you what your gender is,” said Cas. “That’s something you need to decide for yourself. However, to me, it sounds like your gender is not always fixed in place. It changes. Would you say that sounds right?”

“I-” Dean snapped his mouth shut and shook his head.

“Let me rephrase,” said Cas. “Would you say that the gender you want to be changes from time to time?”

Dean nodded.

“Okay.” Cas leaned in and brushed his lips against Dean’s. Dean kissed him back, just as softly. “Thank you for sharing this with me.”

“But it’s not normal,” said Dean. “Most people just want to be one thing.”

“Dean,” said Cas. “You live in an underground bunker. You have saved the world on multiple occasions. You are in a romantic relationship with an angel. There are significantly more people who experience some degree of gender fluidity than there are who share many of your other life experiences.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah. Yeah I know. It’s just....” He trailed off. Shook his head. “This is scary. I thought I knew something about myself and now it turns out I was wrong, and-” He cut himself off with a yawn. “Man, I'm tired.”

“Then sleep.”

“But-”

“If you like,” said Cas, “after you’ve slept we can look into this some more. There’s no rush or pressure for you to come to any conclusions or apply any particular labels to yourself, but exploring and discussing this some more may bring you some comfort.”

“Yeah,” said Dean. “I think it might.” He paused. “We?”

“Of course,” said Cas. “Unless you’d prefer I leave you to it yourself. That wouldn’t be a problem.”

“No!” said Dean. He curled his fingers into Cas’ t-shirt and gripped it tight. “No, I want you with me for this. If that’s okay?”

“It’s more than okay,” said Cas. “I’m here for you and with you for whatever you need.”

“Thanks, Cas.” He closed his eyes and buried his head in the crook of Cas’ neck, mumbling something into Cas’ skin. If Cas weren’t an angel, he never would’ve been able to pick out any of the words. As it was, it sounded suspiciously like Dean had said ‘love you too’.

Cas smiled. It was always nice to hear Dean say it.

#transnaturalweek #spn #supernatural #castiel #dean winchester #fanfic #el creates

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chilly-me-softly · 3 years

Note

fluff alphabet for jordan (henderson)

This is my first alphabet so hope I did it right and that you like it! x

A - APRON

Jordan wasn't the best cook in the world, he kept it simple and always made the same recipes sure that the result was more than acceptable. And you loved to see him in action, from the moment he put on his apron until he got to the cooker, his expression always focused as if he were in the middle of a surgical operation. And then his eagerness to know if it was good, the smile on his face when you complimented him, him enormously pleased with himself.

B - BALL

Of course he always has a ball between his feet, many times urging you to play with him. And you're not a professional player at his level, but you certainly manage to distract him in other ways...

C - CUDDLE

After a day of practice what better thing than holding you in his arms while you tell him what happened while he was gone or anything else that comes to mind. Your voice is better than any relaxing drink, so much so that many times he has closed his eyes without even noticing.

But it's the little circles you draw on his arm, the light kisses you leave on his chin from time to time that make his night. Because no matter how much he likes being around the boys, no one pampers him like you do.

D - DINOSAUR

The little dinosaur is supposed to be for your son, but ever since it was given to you, it keeps you company when you're alone. Or even to annoy Jordan as he often complains that you spend more time hugging that soft toy than he does.

"I swear, as soon as he's born, I'll let him have it"

"If you say so" Jordan strokes your eight month old baby bump with a smile on his face, "did you hear mommy? She'll leave you her toys" he leaves a light kiss on your belly as you gasp hitting him with the dinosaur head.

"You're really mean Jordan, go away I never want to see you again" you put on a fake pout as he looks at you softly getting up to be at your height.

"How about you keep this dinosaur, and our son gets another one? You can match"

"I don't need a stuffed animal, I'm a big girl now" but you don't believe it either, him raising an eyebrow clearly amused and you hitting him with the dinosaur again.

E - EXERCISE

Even on his days off Jordan had to work out, the home gym built for the occasion. And he loves showing off for you, when you go to sit on a bench and your gaze settles on his toned, sweaty body.

"Like what you see?" he sneers, gently passing the towel over his face and then laying it on your shoulders, you rolling your eyes faking nonchalance.

"Please my lover is in better shape"

"Oh yeah?" Jordan walks over trapping your legs against the bench and starting to lie on top of you.

"No Jordan you're sticky" you try to desist but he's already on your lips. So you draw him to you by the neck, the thin layer of clothing separating you starting to get annoying.

F - FAMILY PHOTO

Jordan literally loves family photos, a big one of you just on the fireplace. He claims that every year you have to redo it because you all change so much, especially the little ones. Plus that year there is a new member of the family so it has to be redone.

You smile, arranging the ribbon around the baby's head in your arms as a three-year-old runs past your side almost tripping.

"Careful" you sigh, "Come on come over here next to us so we can take the picture and then you can go play" you don't know how he hasn't gotten dirty in some way yet. Jordan and the light shirt obsession. It's cute but totally not appropriate for a vulcano like your kid.

Finally Jordan arrives after talking to the photographer about the shots, wrapping an arm around you briefly. He places a kiss on your temple and the forehead of the little one in your arms before stopping the baby who was about to run away again.

"Just two minutes okay?" he smiles, crouching down and resting his hands on the kid's shoulders, smoothing down his jacket and adjusting his little bow tie before guiding him back to his seat.

And at the end of the week all you have to do is choose the best photo.

G - GETAWAY

Especially in summer you used to disappear to spend some time alone away from schedules, appointments, dinners to attend, families. Nothing was better than disconnecting, just you and Jordan relaxing in a secluded place or being tourists in some unknown location. You did everything you could to keep your mind off your troubles for even a couple of nights and it was always worth it.

H - HUG

All you had to do was say that word and Jordan would drop what he was doing, his arms gently around your body. Sometimes you did it just for the sake of it, but most of the time you just felt the need to be held and he was almost always there to satisfy you.

I - ILL

Sick Jordan was absolutely something. His unkempt state, his bright eyes and his drawling smile made him so cute in your eyes even though he felt like crap.

"Stop looking at me like that" he complains as he always does trying to hide his head somewhere while you smile.

"I'm not doing anything"

"You're looking at me" his voice comes muffled from under the pillow as you try to take it off, stroking his slightly damp hair. You liked taking care of him for once, even if it meant he wasn't at his best. He always seemed so strong, always available for you and that was one of the few times you could somehow return the favour.

He got annoying but you couldn't really take it out on him, could you?!

J - JORDAN

You didn't use nicknames, his name was good like that and you didn't need to change it or not use it at all. And he loved to hear his name coming from you. With hilarity when you were having fun; with sweetness in intimate moments; and yet angry, joking, alarmed, every possible nuance brought a smile to his face.

K - KEY

You were having breakfast one morning, you were enjoying your bowl of cereal while his had become un-eatable by now as he kept throwing you glances not caring about it.

He continues to twist something between the fingers of the hand he has hidden from your view when suddenly Jordan reaches across the table, sliding something towards you. A key.

"This is the house key. I wanted to... well give it to you but don't feel pressured in any way" he doesn't know exactly what he's nervous about, many times he's left you his keys to get in or when he was out of town for emergencies. But you looking at him motionless certainly doesn't help him. Has he made a mistake?

"You're giving me the key to your house?" your gaze on that object, incredulous, not touching it as if it might shock you. "Really?" you always had his keys on loan, having your own meant he trusted you enough to let you into his space even unannounced, or that you wouldn't lose it and risk someone else finding it. It was a really great gesture.

"Yeah I mean I thought you could have your own copy, and use it even when I'm here" a huge smile breaks across your face as you stand up going to sit on Jordan's lap, him scooting his chair further back to allow you to be more comfortable.

"That's...I have no words. Just thank you"

"I like the idea of coming home to find you already comfortable"

"Oh I surely will" you chuckle as you finally take that key in your hands, snapping to your feet causing a confused expression to appear on Jordan's face as you leave for the door.

"I forgot something" you walk back inside using the key and going straight to leave a kiss on his lips as he stands up immediately wrapping his arms around your body. "Are you crazy? It's so cold out there"

"I have a key now" you state with satisfaction as you cling to him.

L - LAUGH

Definitely his trademark, you can recognise it even with your eyes closed. You couldn't be more different than that, you always trying to be as quiet as possible while he was always so loud. But you couldn't help but be mesmerised by his face when he laughed, from his squinted eyes to his head thrown back.

"If I were to lose my memory, I'm sure your laugh would make me remember you" a soft smile on your face as you looked up at him slightly from below lying on his chest as he raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about? Why would you lose your memory?"

"I said if, it's a scenario" you roll your eyes pouting, him quickly running his thumb over your lips to remove it.

"Why do you always have to be so tragic?"

"Ugh Jordan it was a compliment, it's not my fault you don't get it" and that laugh is always there to fill your heart.

M - MATCHDAY

Every home game Jordan is sure to have you at the stadium cheering for him. Over the years that has never changed, only skipping games when you weren't feeling well or when you were really pregnant and Jordan would be more concerned about you and your safety than the outcome of the game.

A little unspoken routine between you, him always leaving home early no matter the kick off time to review tactics and you sending him a text to wish him luck with a picture of you - and later a picture of you and the kids - wearing his jersey.

After the match regardless of the result and after he has done any interviews, here you are together sharing a short but sweet moment. You remind him how proud you are of him, the children want to go and play on the pitch.

N - NOSE

His nose brushes your neck as he snuggles up against you to rest; his nose brushes yours gently in an Eskimo kiss before he makes your lips connect; his nose brushes your skin after you have just stepped out of the shower. You often teased him by saying he looked like a tracker but you liked that little attention, the build up to what came next.

O - OLD

You always tease him by claiming he's getting old, sprawled out on the couch after spending half an hour chasing his son completely out of energy while the kid would happily take another ten thousand steps in the backyard.

"If I'm old then so are you, you know that don't you?"

"Yeah" you shrug, "but I'm still younger than you"

P - PIXEL

It's no secret that Jordan travels a lot during the year, your pixilated face seen more times than he'd like. But you don't hold it against him, besides being work it's his dream and moving around so much means he's living it to the fullest; that he's required and indispensable to the team besides being its captain of course.

You have learned to live the moments when you are together, to cheer and not waste it. And every time he stops to look at you while you're sleeping by his side or even just at any other time, he can't stop remembering how much those pixels don't really do you justice.

R - RING

It was a normal day in your life when you realised as a teenager that you had a thing for guys' hands, and if they had rings for some reason it was a bonus.

And many times you'd literally froze as you stared at Jordan's hands moving as he talked or wrote or cooked, the addition of that ring after your wedding didn't help the cause. You were brought back down to earth by his laughter because it was always surprising how one minute you were actively participating in the conversation and the next you were like in trance.

S - SAFE

You don't think you've ever told him verbally but you were lucky enough to have met him. Jordan makes you feel safe and you don't talk about the need to be defended from the bad. You know that with Jordan you can talk about whatever is on your mind without fear of being judged, you know he will always be there for you no matter what. You're immediately heartened by the reminder that he's by your side because any moment is less hard if the right person is by your side.

T - TOMORROW

It is something you often talk about, tomorrow. Everything is unpredictable, you never wanted to make long-term plans because you never know what might happen but only one thing you know for sure that you want Jordan by your side. And your idea matches his.

"You are my tomorrow and as long as I wake up with you by my side I will have a reason to smile"

U - UNIVERSE

"You are my universe"

"Stop it"

"But you are, why wouldn't I tell you" he chuckles as you hit him trying to hide your face.

You are one who is always on the move, always available for others but at the same time doesn't know how to react to compliments. You do what you do not to be praised or anything else but just because you feel like it and every time after a compliment of any kind any word would seem unnecessary, making you stand in front of that person smiling embarrassed making you feel uncomfortable. There, if you had to find a word to describe it you could say that compliments make you uncomfortable.

And Jordan knows this very well, but every now and then when you're alone he starts showering you with compliments and sweet phrases for the sake of it. But the truth is that he likes it when you blush, your cheeks turning red as you do your best not to look him in the eye or hide your face in your hands.

V - VOWS

It seemed years away, but your wedding day had arrived overwhelmingly. You couldn't wait to experience that day and those emotions to the fullest. The thing that had been most challenging for you was the vows, so many things to say without finding the right words. Everything seemed already said, obvious, not perfect and several times you had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown for that small detail.

But on your wedding day, no one around you exists anymore. There's just you and Jordan and your hearts full of love for each other, his thumb caressing the back of your hand for support. You almost forget what you've been struggling to write over those last few months, the words that come easily from your lips just by looking into his eyes.

W - WINNER

Winner takes it all. Jordan watches from afar as you joke with some of his teammates and the only thing he can think about is how that year just ended was one of the most amazing of his life so far, both professionally and in his personal life. He had achieved extraordinary goals with the team, broken records and set new ones. And then he had you who had given him a child a few months earlier and he felt like a winner.

Y - YUMMY

"Yeah that's yummy" Jordan watches his baby close his mouth around the spoon and then bring his thumb to his mouth getting messy with his own food.

"Why do you do that hm? Why?" his tone of voice only makes the child laugh as he waits for another bite clapping his hands on the high chair. Jordan quickly satisfies him seeing the same scene repeat itself, the little hands that have now become sticky and are getting everything they touch dirty like they always do at feeding time.

Z - ZOOM

His professionalism never fails to amaze you as you watch him from afar managing to handle questions in front of a computer. It will be the third interview in which he's asked the same things over and over again and you have never seen him make any gesture of tiredness or annoyance. And you are waiting for him to finally get up from that chair to wrap him in your arm and give him the right amount of pampering he needs to clear his head of everything.

#thank you anon #jordan henderson #jordan henderson blurb

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mogai-sunflowers · 2 years

Note

Can i rant/whatever the not angry but sad version of a rant is? Feel free to delete or post it, i dont mind either way.

Ive been really really working on my ocs for skyrim and their families/partners/kids and thier jobs and stories all day today and sparsely over the past 4 months. Just today i finally started to get their appearances down and i was super excited to show my gf. She however just kind of.... Played it off and said shes tired and won't remember the names even if i re-explained the main story( which would of only tooken like 5 maybe 10 minutes at most, i have an ocs backstory for a different fandom that litterally took 2 hours to explain. 5-10 mins for 3 ocs is nothing in comparison to my usual detail and nuance.) I know she worked her usual 7 hours today and im thankful she dose to help keep us afloat because thats very important and some skyrim ocs story isnt important but.... Idk.... Hearing her basically turn down a small hyperfixation rant just to turn away from me and play games on her phone without even so much as a " sorry".... That just really really really hurt..... Like a lot more than i can voice. ( i cant help but wonder if this is some kind of revenge cause i worked on an encanto animation yesterday and didnt give her as much attention as usual...)

I know she dosent hate me and she has every right to be tired and put her spoons first but idk... She's never completely dismissed my interests like this and i feel like ive been stabbed in the chest.... Showing my art and my stories is something really personal, exciting and inspiring for me and she knows that. I really love watching people get fascinated in my work and the detail so for her, one of the last(if not, thee last) people i really rely on for that confidence boost to just.... Dismiss me... It really really hurts. I waited all day to show her it and she just dose not seem to care.

Im sorry to throw this at you, i know its kinda insignificant in the grand scheme of things but i just needed to let it out to someone cause my only other friends might tell her about how this hurt me and then it'll just be this whole thing I'd rathur just... Not.

Its nothing to break up over but it still hurt. Im gonna go cry for alittle bit... Thank you for reading this. I know skyrim isnt one of your interests( that and itll be awhile before i feel like sharing my stuff again because of this.)but it helps me alittle to reach out. Rejection sensitivity be damned. Ill be ok so dont worry or anything. Thank you.

- one of your muturals lol but the front is foggy so ehsnsmsm idk who to sign off as

okay gosh i totally get how you feel!!! not to make this about me but i do relate, many times my parents have completely dismissed my hyperfixations and it's made me feel so insecure for having said hyperfixations. they're really important and rsd really sucks when it comes to not having your hyperfixations listened to or cared about.

so like, yeah. your gf had worked a lot that day. but clearly, she had the energy to turn around and play video games, so even if she didn't have social energy right then and there, it still would've been better if she'd simply told you that she wasn't up for socializing at the moment but that she did care and want to listen. and if she just didn't care, then that's on her. yes, she's not wrong for putting her spoons first but that doesn't mean you're wrong for being hurt by how she reacted.

i hope you feel better soon! and i know it can be hard to talk about your hyperfixations after getting dismissed, but you can 100% always talk to me about them, i'd love to hear and i think it's so cool that you enjoy making your skyrim ocs! hope you feel better soon anon!

#🌌written in the stars ; asks🌌

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thatfanficstuff · 3 years

Text

Timbre - Steve Rogers

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: Nope. Just fluff

A/N: Celebration Summer #21. Prompt was Person A has a thing for Person B's voice.

***

You weren’t certain when your obsession started. Probably somewhere around when you first met the man, but you’d never admit it. Not that you’d admit it to anyone period. It was a little odd, if you were honest, being in love with someone’s voice. Noting all the nuances of it and what they meant. But it had happened almost without you realizing it.

***

“Cap, this is our new recruit. Fury seems to think she’ll give you a run for your money,” Tony Stark said by way of introduction to the blond super soldier.

Steve flashed a wide smile and offered you hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I look forward to seeing what you can do.”

You shook his hand and stifled the urge to gasp at the shiver that climbed your spine from only his voice. It was just his natural tone, his natural timbre. He’d done nothing to change or enhance it so it shouldn’t have affected you as it did. But that night you dreamed about that voice saying all manner of things.

***

“Come on,” Steve encouraged as you ran through the training course. “You’re doing fantastic. Your numbers look great.”

His normal voice was now enhanced with a bit of happiness and satisfaction. He was pushing you to do better. Praising you for your improvement. And truth be told there wasn’t a whole lot you wouldn’t do to hear that voice.

***

“You’re okay, sweetheart. Stay with me,” Steve’s voice broke through the fog in your brain. You’d been caught in an explosion on your way out of a Hydra facility and were thrown several feet. Your head bounced off the ground when you landed.

A hand lightly tapped your cheek and you struggled to open your eyes, failing miserably.

“Come on, I need you to wake up so I know you’re alright.” His voice shook slightly and was heavy with worry. The concern in it made a path straight to your heart and settled there.

You still couldn’t open your eyes but you managed to say his name before you passed out again.

***

When you woke, you found Steve sitting beside your bed. His elbows were braced on his knees and his hands were clasped together in front of his mouth. His gaze was focused on the floor beneath his feet. You wondered how long he’d been in that chair. “Hey,” you said, your voice rough due to your dry throat.

His head jerked up and his worried gaze took you in before it softened in relief. He grabbed a cup from the table beside you and held the straw so you could drink. “Better?”

You nodded.

“Feeling okay?” he asked a moment later.

You did a mental inventory. “Not bad, actually.”

He nodded. “Good.” He licked his lips before pushing himself to his feet. “Because I would like to know just what the hell you were thinking,” he all but growled.

Your brow lifted at the anger in his voice. You’d never heard him angry before. Annoyed yes, angry no. When you didn’t respond, he raked a hand through his hair. “You were a good three minutes late leaving that building. Another thirty seconds and you wouldn’t be here. Is it really that difficult for you to obey orders?”

Was it wrong that Steve’s angry voice was the sexiest one yet? Damn. What was wrong with you? You definitely had issues.

“Are you going to say anything?” he finally asked in exasperation.

You took another drink to soothe your dry throat. “What do you want me to say? I wasn’t intentionally dragging my heels. People kept trying to shoot me.”

His brow furrowed. “Why didn’t you call for backup?”

“Because people were supposed to be leaving the building so they didn’t get blown up. Did you miss that part?” you deadpanned.

Steve literally facepalmed before dropping back into his chair.

***

“I love you.”

Your eyes jerked up to meet Steve’s gaze. The two of you were sitting at your little table having breakfast together. You swallowed. “Would you repeat that?”

A smile curved his lips as he leaned forward. He pressed a soft kiss to your lips before pulling back to watch you. “I love you.” His tone was soft, sweet and slightly worried as he made his declaration. It was your favorite version of his voice.

You gave him another small kiss followed by a smile. “I love you, too, Captain.”

***

Steve twirled you on the dance floor before pulling you back to hold you against his chest. “Having fun?”

“Time of my life, baby,” you assured with a grin.

He mirrored your expression before pressing his lips against yours. Your lips were still touching when he said. “I love you, Mrs. Rogers.” And the love that flowed when he called you that for the first time, gave you your new favorite version of his voice.

***

Steve stuck his head in the door, smiling wide when his gaze fell on you and the bundle in your arms. “There’s my girls.”

He moved to the side of the bed and brushed the hair from your face as you fed your daughter. “You were amazing today. Thank you for giving me our daughter.”

You shook your head and smiled at his sappiness. And for a moment, just a moment, you thought you might have found the best version of his voice.

But then he traced a finger down the side of your baby’s face. “And you, princess, will always be my favorite girl. Daddy loves you.”

Yeah. Nothing was going to ever top that.

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers fluff #captain america x reader #captain america fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #celebration summer

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kittae · 3 years

Text

Win-win

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x reader

Side characters: Min Yoongi

Summary: A drabble series where Taehyung is a successful artistic erotica actor but has to expand his areas of expertise in the rapidly evolving world of adult film. Lost and inexperienced in everything that doesn’t involve classy settings, flattering lighting and romantic scripts, he basically has to start from scratch to make it in the online porn community. As a highly demanded A-lister in that community, you take him under your wings (or better yet, between your legs).

Genre: Smut, fluff, a bit of comedy here and there. Maybe some angst, who knows.

words: 1256

Disclaimer: dialogue-heavy, foul language

A/N: things are being set in motion!

« previous — next »

— CHAPTER INDEX —

“–All I’m saying is that you’re not Paul Walker in Fast and Furious and you only drive like that when you’re really upset about something, so why can’t you just tell me? What happened? You missed that cat by a hair, by the way, you almost killed that poor animal.”

Yoongi sighs as he shuts the door to his apartment behind them, keys rattling when he pulls it out of the lock. “You’ll get it when you see it for yourself.”

“What could be so bad that you were ready to drive us to our deaths–”

“Taehyung, for the love of god, stop being dramatic and sit down. Please.” Yoongi groans, a hand coming up to press against his pounding temple, his mind going a hundred miles an hour.

“I’m being dramatic? Wow, okay then.” Taehyung complies but raises his eyebrows, mildly offended by the hypocrisy. “Aren’t you even gonna ask about the seminar?”

“Later. I need you to see this first.”

Taehyung frowns when he sees the website opened on his manager’s phone. “Hyung, i just came back from a three hour seminar, I think I’ve watched enough porn for–”

“Just watch it!”

“Okay, okay! fine…” Tae takes the phone in his two hands and lets the video play. “Oh, he’s cute! So handsome… woah, look at that body!” He whistles in appreciation.

Yoongi only grits his teeth in response.

Taehyung watches the entire video, adding some commentary and making acknowledging noises from time to time. “Cool! I don’t think I’ve seen this guy before, is he new?”

“Yeah, he’s new alright.” Yoongi answers, a pinch of bitterness lacing his tone.

“Okay... What was so urgent about this, though?” Tae wonders out loud, still clueless.

His manager sighs from deep inside his chest. “Tae… please, think. What could be urgent about a young, hot, talented newcomer in a very competitive industry?”

Taehyung snorts, waving away his friend’s concern. “Hyung, new people get into porn every day. Does that mean we have to panic like this every day?”

“No, you don’t get it. He’s going to be your direct rival.” Yoongi presses. “Remember why we’re trying to expand your horizons so you can take on more versatile scripts and different genres. We’re trying to get you as many jobs as possible to increase your online presence.”

“Before a rookie with a 7 inch dick comes along?” Taehyung cites the lecture he remembers.

“Exactly. This guy, this Jungkook, is that rookie. He doesn’t shy away from any trope or genre and is already well on his way on catching up to your following on OnlyFans when you’ve been in the industry for a longer time. Look at the number of subscriptions on his video platform, too. He’s massively popular at the moment.”

Taehyung swallows hard, the gravity of the situation sinking in. His face must be an open book, because Yoongi quickly adds some nuance.

“He’s not better than you, Tae. He’s new, interesting, maybe a little different but not better. You’re at least as talented as him, but we have to step up our game. You just need to level the playing field. We have to make sure you’re not old news by the time this guy hits his peak.”

“But how can we do it fast enough? I’m trying but… I can’t take hard core degradation scripts and BDSM stuff on yet, you saw what happened yesterday!”

Yoongi goes to sit beside his friend, wrapping a slender arm around his shoulders to pull him closer. “Listen, there’s no need to freak out yet– yes, I know how I reacted and that doesn’t help but I’m just thinking ahead. I need to think about every possible outcome, everything that could happen so we can be prepared. That’s my job. Your job is just being you and doing your best, alright? Got that?”

“What if that’s not enough?” Taehyung murmurs, sadness seeping through his words. “What if I’m not enough anymore, hyung?”

“Stop that. You’re doing great, you’re still in the top 5 of most popular adult actors. You just continue to do what we planned and I’ll take care of the rest. You’re going to be very busy the next couple weeks.”

Tae’s eyebrows crease questioningly. “Why?”

“We need to get our asses in gear. We’re too outdated, too old school. You need to be more active on social media and make a lot more content. People want instant gratification, the ones who want exclusive, luxurious stuff will still pay the right price for it. But we can’t rely on those customers alone anymore.”

Taehyung’s face twists with distaste. “Hyung, please don’t tell me I’ll have to be a camboy…”

“What? No, of course not. I know that’s not romantic enough for you.” Yoongi winks, the younger visibly relaxing. “No, we’re going to do something different. And I know the perfect person to help us with it.”

–––––––––––

“A miniseries? About what?” You squeeze your phone between your ear and your shoulder to prevent it from falling while you pour hot water into your favourite mug. “Yoongi, stop apologising. I can make time. Besides, things are a bit quiet since I’ve finished the Dom & Dommer series with Hoseok, so I could use something small and fun to keep me busy, actually.”

“Well, technically you’re not really asking me for a favour if I’m getting paid while doing it, right? So you can stop feeling bad for asking before you make me feel bad for accepting.” You chuckle, plopping down on your couch next to your cat, whom you absent-mindedly start petting as you listen to your old friend’s voice. You blow on your tea to cool it off while he speaks, Mochi purring happily underneath your fingers.

“No, I swear it’s no trouble at all. It sounds fun, I’m excited!” You shrug, a genuine smile playing on your lips. “Stop it! It’s a win-win situation. Um...what does Taehyung think? No! No, uh, you don’t have to put him through, I was just curious.”

Your cheeks feel hot and you catch yourself biting your nails for a second, an old habit you used to have when you felt nervous. “Okay, that’s good. Good to hear he’s looking forward to it, I’ll be too! Okay. Yeah, just send it to me or my agent when you’re done. Alright. Talk to you later! Bye, Yoongi.”

The call ends and you take a sip of your lavender tea. “Ow, fuck! Ugh…” You curse as the boiling hot water touches your tongue, simmering for a few seconds before the burn subsides. You weren’t paying attention, thoughts elsewhere.

Mochi meows, the sound somewhere between indignant and mocking.

“Watch it,” You warn him, your eyes narrowing to slits, which he only takes as a display of affection, returning the gesture before crawling into your lap.

Murmuring, you scratch Mochi behind his little ear. “A miniseries with Taehyung?”

Unaware of how your breathing becomes more shallow, or your heart beats a little faster than usual, you grab your phone to look him up online. Immediately, you’re met with an influx of images from the man you’ve only just seen yesterday. You don’t know why you’re doing this, but you find yourself browsing through his social media as well. It’s probably just because you haven’t done any new projects with a new co-star in a while.

“I should try to know more about him if we’re going to work together more often, right? I’m just being professional.” You mumble out loud, Mochi perking up questioningly.

#bts smut #bts fanfiction #bts #taehyung smut #bts scenarios #kim taehyung #kim taehyung fanfic #taehyung x reader #v #bts v #bts x reader #v fanfic #v smut #taehyung fic #taehyung fanfic #bts fanfic #pornstar!bts #bts au

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plainlo-inthemorning · 3 years

Text

A Loki TVA/Lokane fic. Rating T.

Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 (of 6)

Shine a Light, part 5

He is aware that the love of his life is digging her fingers into his arm and saying his name.

He is aware of Stark standing to his other side, visor off, speaking to someone on the phone. His voice is hard.

But most of all, Loki is aware that all their lives were just changed by a great big terrifying rip in the seam of reality.

Neither Jane nor the Avenger could possibly be completely sure of what they saw. Loki, as much as he desperately wants to, harbors little doubt.

The man he held in a death-grip only minutes ago and who just now disappeared through a doorway conjured out of thin air was somehow … himself.

Another him. Just as the man had said.

After witnessing from afar the double kiss Jane, Loki, who was coming back from a swim, had been more than ready to skip past introductions and just sever the intruder’s head from his body.

But as soon as he had laid hands on him, a torrent of images had flooded his mind – chaotic, confused images that seemed to span past, present, future and beyond.

The shock had made him lessen his grip and the double had used his (his!) magic to throw him off.

With some distance between them and Stark suddenly there as well, Loki had tried to let his rage quell the dizzying realization. Unsuccessfully.

He is still shaking, clutching a dagger in each hand. He drew them instinctively as the other made for the door.

He should have caught him!

“Loki! What did he say?!”

“What?” His thoughts are racing in too many directions to hear her.

“The … man, what was he saying to you?!”

Jane is looking up at him with those beautiful brown eyes, worry and urgency all over her delicate features. Though not fear, Loki notes. His ever-brave wife. Both her hands are now clamped around his wrist.

That thing kissed her.

The daggers disappear and Loki wraps both arms around the mother of his unborn child, almost crushing her to his chest while still staring at the spot where the double vanished.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, love”, he murmurs. He suspects things are very much not okay.

So does Jane, of course.

“Loki, was it … oof, not so tight … “

She wriggles against him, and he remembers his amor. And her condition. He immediately relaxes his arms a bit while letting the leather and metal melt back into the clothes he wore before: Black jeans and a fitted, dusty green t-shirt (his “rockstar outfit”, Jane had called it, when Loki first started switching up his human wardrobe some years ago now). Drops of saltwater still cling to the ends of his slightly curly raven locks.

“Tony! Jane, Loki! What on Earth was that?”

Pepper jumps out of the car parked in front of the house and runs towards them. She must have seen everything as she drove down the road following her flying husband.

“The verdict’s still out, Peps”. Tony nods at Loki. “You wanna chip in here? I just called the boy-scout at headquarters and told him to be on guard for one of the magician’s interns playing a prank”.

Loki shakes his head slowly.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think Stephen had anything to do with this”.

“You’re right, I didn’t”.

All four of them turn around to see the sorcerer step out of a swirling ring of light, his cape billowing around him. The mahogany floor and paneled walls of his Manhattan mansion are briefly visible behind him before the portal closes with a hiss of little sparks.

Strange is wearing an even sterner expression than usual which only adds to Loki’s growing sense of dread.

Tony, however, groans loudly.

“Dude, really? Couldn’t you at least have let us have dinner before party crashing? Not shaming your bachelor lifestyle or anything, but this was couples’ night!”

“Tony!” Pepper hits her husband on the arm.

Strange ignores him.

“I’m afraid the arrival of your surprise visitor indicates that a set of … unfortunate events have been set in motion”.

As always, his voice is as even as if he was reading the weather forecast, but by now Loki has learned to differentiate the (very) subtle nuances between scorn and sincerity. Strange places his hands behind his back and regards them coolly. “I’ve had Wong reach out to Doctor Banner and director Fury. They should be here shortly. Stark, you may want to-”.

Tony narrows his eyes, lip twitching.

“Hey, Bleeker Street, you know I have low tolerance for you showing up and barking orders without giving two f**** for context. How did you even know that something was going down here? By all means, don’t keep us in suspense until the cavalry gets here”.

Strange doesn’t answer, but the way his eyes dart to Jane sends needles through Loki’s heart.

“Let’s go sit down, shall we?” With one eyebrow raised, Strange puts on a suave smile and gestures towards the house. The effect is a little startling.

Jane ducks out from under Loki’s arms. “Jane, don’t you want to-“. She brushes him off.

“Yes, good idea, Stephen. Let’s go sit down”. She motions for Strange to follow. “Welcome to our home. I was actually making drinks before, but I think I need to add a bit more kick to them…”

Her voice is oddly calm, and Loki fights the urge to grab her and magic them both far, far away, not caring that she would be furious with him for making decisions on her behalf.

He’s brought back to the present by an even odder sound as Strange actually chuckles.

Loki is not sure he’s ever heard it before. Then again, it’s not that he really knows Strange when it comes down to it. Like Tony, Loki finds the wizard exceedingly arrogant.

Pepper is the first to follow Jane and Strange across the lawn while Loki and Tony hang back.

“Real ladies’ man when he wants to. Who would have thought”. The billionaire superhero scoffs. His suit has folded itself off and into a briefcase next to his feet.

“Tony-“

“Uh oh. First name basis. So this really is an emergency”.

Loki faces his friend. Often in the past years, as they’ve grown steadily closer outside of “work”, he has secretly marveled at how long they’ve come since someone threw someone else off a building after being called a diva.

And attacking a city with an alien army.

Jane always insisted the two “hotheads” (her word) had a lot in common when not trying to murder one another (be it with weapons or sarcastic commentary), and Loki has to admit she was right. The metal man is fiercely intelligent, and Loki has been enjoying the quick-witted snark between them infinitely more than he ever valued the company of Thor’s band of gullible warrior groupies on Asgard.

“Well?”. Tony is regarding him with eyebrows raised, expectant. “Give me your take on this cause I’m starting to put together some rather outlandish theories myself here that I’m kinda hoping you’ll thwart ASAP”.

Loki draws in a deep breath.

“That thing with Banner at the tower two years ago-“

“Fuck!” Tony exhales, exasperated. “I knew you were gonna say that”. He squints into the distance towards the ocean, his mouth a tight line. It’s a rare day that Tony Stark is caught under a clear blue sky without sunglasses but for once he doesn’t seem to notice.

Loki takes a step closer to him and lowers his voice so they won’t alert the others just yet.

“I told you then and you didn’t want to listen! Everything about Bruce’s story was off. I know he didn’t remember much after Steve took him down, but you all pretty much accused me of trying to get back at him for, well, you know what, and I kept telling you I thought someone had gotten to him! Now-“

Loki searches for the words. It’s beyond absurd.

“That man was a version of me, Tony. I have no idea how, but I felt it. I saw into his mind. It was filled with images from my past and then … other, recent memories. Dark ones. He came from nowhere. Literally. It didn’t feel like a place. I tried to discard it as a trick, you saw that, but…” Loki runs his hand through his moist hair. “Stephen obviously felt something tear open too. And that is not a good sign”.

He has Tony’s full attention.

“Tear open? Could this other you be associated with your old boss? With Thanos?”

Loki winces.

“No, I don’t think he’s involved”, he says sharply. “But I can’t be sure …”

Tony catches his tone pats his shoulder. “Okay, okay. Shake it off. Didn’t mean to suggest anything. Let’s say he’s not. I’d much prefer that, at least until the wizard presents us with an even uglier imminent threat to the universe. Which, judging by the fact that he’s even here, willingly sipping cocktails in your kitchen as we speak, he probably will”.

Tony throws his hands up with a dramatic air.

“And here I thought the most challenging part of this weekend would be to convince you two to come see Hamilton with us in the city next week!”

“Who’s-“

“Never mind. Did you get a look at that gadget your guy was holding? Boy, he looked like an office slave who’d slept under his desk for a month before getting fired, didn’t he? Were you ever into accounting yourself by any chance?”

Loki shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Immediately he sees the image of the double kissing Jane, his arms wrapped firmly around her supple body. Rage rushes right back through him and his eyes snap open.

“Stark - I can’t. But yes, I did notice the device. It looked like a phone”.

“Yeah, somehow I don’t think it was the new iPhone”.

Tony shakes his head.

“The two of us and we didn’t take him down. Fury’s gonna have our badges”.

The director of SHIELD and Bruce Banner arrive barely 15 minutes later through a portal in the middle of the meadow-like lawn, following Wong and both looking grim and out of place as they weave around patches of wildflowers to reach the porch.

“Gentlemen, I trust you’re well”. Loki greets the trio with an only vaguely sarcastic nod as he holds open the screen doors to them, like a good host. Despite what some may still think, he can behave.

He could have just used magic of course, but he figures Banner is freaked enough as it is just by being here. The scientist hasn’t spoken more than five words to him since 2014 and at least three of them were expletives.

Once inside the small living room, Bruce goes to stand by the window and busies himself polishing his glasses with a little too much vigor than seems warranted.

He avoids Loki’s eyes but looks up and smiles wearily as Jane comes over to say hello.

Fury leans against the doorframe to the hallway and crosses his arms, face a closed book, and, by the sound of it, Tony is going through the cabinets in the kitchen trying to find something to spice up Jane’s pre-dinner cocktails.

Pepper is talking to Strange and Wong on the blue IKEA couch (assembled by magic after the attempt to go at it “as a team” turned into a shouting match), and Loki is about to politely ask Strange to please spit it out right this minute, when Jane is next to him, taking his hand.

“We need to talk. Now”.

Her voice is low and steady but her eyes insisting. She squeezes his fingers.

He squeezes back. “Come”.

Loki looks to Fury but he’s focused on Strange who’s listening very closely to something Wong’s saying.

Not letting go of Jane’s hand, he turns towards the kitchen. In the doorway they pass Tony who’s now holding what appears to be a glass of scotch. He must have given up on the gin and tonics.

“Hey, where are you two going? Forget about playing hosts okay, let’s just get started with part two of the evening’s entertainment”.

“In a minute”.

Jane pushes past him, ignoring Tony’s look and dragging Loki with her.

She closes the door behind them.

“Okay, so…” Jane looks around nervously in the small kitchen with the rustic white fronts and old brass handles. She loves that kitchen. They haven’t changed a thing since moving in. Loki reaches for her, but she takes a step back. “Jane, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have gotten there faster. Did he …“

“I need you tell me exactly what he said to you”.

She is absentmindedly opening and closing her fists in the way she does when that brilliant astrophysicist mind of hers is working out an intricate problem in the lab.

Or, Loki knows, when she’s about to deliver him bad news.

He clears his throat. “He said he was me. And that something big was happening”. There. “And then he said he was sorry”.

Jane studies his face.

“That he was sorry? For what?”

“He didn’t say. He stepped through the door”.

Jane is quiet and now it’s Loki’s turn to try and read her expression.

“What did he say to you? I assume he pretended to be me …?”

Jane holds up a hand and bites her lip. Loki swallows.

“Loki, when we were staying at the flat in London, after we defeated Malekith…”

“What?” Loki furrows his brow in confusion. “Why are we-“

“The poison from the monster’s blade, it had you slipping in and out of consciousness for days. You were so feverish…”

“Yes, I know. I was there”. Loki’s blood is slowly turning very cold, but he musters a smile. “And you were amazing, love. Although some might say you took adv-“

Jane interrupts him in the middle of his blossoming smirk. A slight blush appears on her own cheeks.

“Yes, um, it’s not about that day”. She gives him a stern look. “The other day, later, when Thor left after you two went and had your, um, talk … there’s something I need to tell you …”

The door to the living room opens behind them.

“Actually, if you don’t mind, Doctor Foster, I would very much like to hear this too”.

Stephen Strange steps into the kitchen. The door closes behind him.

Part 6

#loki #loki series #lokane #tva loki #loki fanfic #loki ff #lokane ff #lokane fanfic #loki x jane #jane foster #shine a light #plainlo inthemorning #doctor strange #stephen strange #tony stark

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foramomentonly · 3 years

Note

I know I keep coming to the cookie shop and for some reason it’s always your shift but don’t you dare judge me I need these for my sanity - I relate a lot to this one 🍪

Alex stumbles into the student union coffee shop, red-eyed and exhausted after a grueling, two-hour Stats final, and groans. Behind the counter yet again is the guy. The one with the wild curls trapped in a hair net and a bright, infectious smile that almost lets him pull the ridiculous look off. The same guy that's been serving him the most delicious, warm, life-giving, chocolate chip cookies every few days for the past two weeks. The same fucking guy.

Alex approaches the counter wearily and squints against the force of the barista's grin.

"Welcome to The Campus Cup! What can I get started for you?"

Alex sighs.

"You know what I want, man," he says defeatedly, arching a brow when the guy laughs.

"Sure do," he replies with an easy, suggestive wink as he reaches for a cardboard cup. "Two chocolate chunks and a red eye. They make us say that to everyone who comes in, though."

Alex glares at him, his patience worn thin by too little sleep and too much stress, his already overly-developed defenses on high alert.

"I don't come here every day or anything," he spits, crossing his arms over his chest. "I just only seem to come when you're working."

The guy's eye widen at Alex's response, round and white with golden centers, his cheeks going pink as he nearly drops the tongs in his hand.

"Oh, no," he sputters, "no, that's not what I thought at all, man!" He offers Alex a sheepish smile. "We're all just tryin' to make it through finals, right?"

Alex watches him bite his full, bottom lip nervously as he pulls Alex's warm cookies out of the display and wraps them in wax paper, his coffee already steaming on the counter. Alex pulls the hot cup towards him, and just the scent of the rich espresso nudges his neurons enough to pick up on the nuance of the barista's tone.

"Wait, why did you think I was always in here then?" he asks.

"W-what?"

"You said that wasn't why you thought I came in a lot," Alex explains, taking his wrapped cookies when the barista holds them out, their fingers brushing briefly. "Like there was some other reason."

Alex hands the guy his meal plan card and he busies himself swiping it, head down, squashed curls straining against the flimsy, disposable hair net. Alex fights back the sudden urge to free them, shaking his head and taking a deep pull from his coffee.

"Oh. Well, um," the barista stammers, handing Alex his card and receipt, "I don't know, man. I thought you might be into me?"

He finally looks up at Alex, eyes hopeful and bright, and when Alex doesn't respond, he adds, "I kinda really hoped you were into me."

Alex blinks, tries to remember a time before all nighters in dusty corners of the library, group texts about final projects, and extra rehearsals in dark, stuffy music rooms. He thinks of seeing the guy around campus, thick textbook on some impressively complex topic open on the picnic table in front of him, curls blowing in the wind, smiling good-naturedly at a tall blonde who pushes the hair out of his eyes and laughs. Alex remembers watching his thick fingers wrap around a towel to wipe up a spill behind the counter, or leaning forward to check out his ass when the barista bends over to pick up a stray napkin from the floor.

He smiles.

"What's your name?" Alex asks.

"Michael."

He nods.

"I'm gonna eat this in here and do some studying," he says, gesturing to a small two top in the corner of the shop. "When you get a break, you should come sit with me."

Michael grins, teeth flashing, and a hint of mischief pulls one side of his lips up, twisting his smile into something private and suggestive.

"Yeah?" he asks, voice low and, even to Alex's sleep-deprived brain, incredibly sexy. "You want that?"

Alex's answering smirk is teasing, answering in kind to Michael's flirty tone.

"Sure do."

#meet uglies: college edition #malex #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell nm #college au #malex ficlet #i will post on AO3 later I think #should I do a separate series there or add them to the meet uglies?#thoughts?#thanks for the prompt!

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lochsides · 3 years

Text

Yellow Metal - cathartic Review

Here’s something I did not expect to be reviewing this week but when Zayn drops a 24 minute rap track, you fall in line. I had to listen to it a couple times through before I could even begin to make sense of my thoughts because my brain sort of malfunctioned. I have never been prouder to be a Zayn fan. He’s such a nuanced songwriter and there is so much to unpack here.

I think this is the most unfiltered version of Zayn that we have ever been exposed to (and possibly will ever be). I am grateful that he said his piece in this because it needed to be said. As a brown woman, I felt so seen by this and I cannot explain what that means to me. Thank you Z, for your unvarnished truth in addressing racism and various forms of discrimination.

I’m doing a short lyrical analysis below the cut, but the TLDR is that this is a fantastic piece of art that deserves to be heard.

I wish he had released this as an EP because that would be easier to review than a single 24 minute song, structurally speaking. So instead, I have picked out some key lyrics, going from top to bottom, that really spoke to me and decided to study the song that way. His lyricism is hard-hitting in this track. It is beyond anything he has ever released before.

“The planet bleeds, the damaged trees. It’s never leaving until we ascend so fuck the fence.” — I have not seen this lyric being talked about in the fandom, because the lyrics that follow this steal the show, rightly so, but I wanted to give this line a moment because it’s important too. To me, this lyric speaks to where Zayn is at with his relationship with the physical world. He’s out on the farm (about which he even goes to say “tell you what I like, farm life and the tractor”) and I believe he’s happy in his space and he feels connected to nature (also see River Road). So it is a poignant and slightly jaded, but valid perspective that he shares on climate change. It’s never leaving until we ascend. The damage human beings have done to the planet won’t be undone until there are no humans left to do damage. It’s a single sentence that says so much about the depth of the climate crisis. I’m doing my PhD on urban air quality so this is something I care really deeply about and I resonated with.

“And until they stop killing colour, it’s fuck the feds.” — Yeah, agreed Zayn. The systemic racism that he calls out here is echoed throughout the song, in equal parts anger and boldness. I love that he isn’t glossing over it with metaphors, which he could easily do and it would be beautiful in a totally different way, but this makes it harder for racists to overlook. There is so much power in calling it like it is.

“Never lose me to fentanyl, scared when I take a Benadryl, keeping it green in general.” — It frustrates me to no end to see Zayn painted as this drug-addicted lazy musician that doesn’t care about his work, because we know how untrue that is. This narrative is tired and simply boring too, and I won’t get into the racist connotations of it when you consider it against his white colleagues who smoke as much as him but that isn’t one of their defining traits in the media.

“I’m racking up excuses while I’m slacking off on work … it was hard work that got me heard” — I love the juxtaposition in this verse. The public/media perception on his career is that Zayn doesn’t put in effort or that he doesn’t want it. This obviously stems from his leaving the band. It goes back to what I was saying before about narrative, when in reality, as Zayn has said on various occasions, he fights to make his own choices. And that doesn’t have to look the way everyone else expects it to (“I beg you, don’t include me. I might write it on my shirt”), he has his own struggles that have helped forge his path, but it is his path that he paved, himself. He works hard to be heard. He has to. It reminds me of something my parents used to tell me when I was younger about being immigrants: you have to work 10 times harder for the same opportunities just because of the colour of your skin or your name on the cv. It’s a harsh truth to grow up with but it was my reality, as it is for most POC.

“This life doesn’t give you no armour, a lot of myself can harm you. I swear on what’s good, that I’m here ‘til they take me. I pray that I’m wrinkled, at least over 80…” — There is something about the simplicity of these lyrics are the messaging that I love. He isn’t trying too hard to sound poetic but he still manages it perfectly.

“All I've been achieving, clocking miles in this region, moving like a legion. Promise that I made to myself, an allegiance. Do you still believe I’m a fool for ever leaving? Staring at the ceiling, can never put a cap on achieving. I’m just here for the rap, then I’m leaving. // I’ve had about enough of being my own enemy. It’s time I grew up, a long way from 17. Always went against the grain, struggles in my life. Got some things to say when I stand up on the mike.” — This is the only 1D-related lyric I’ll make reference to because this song is about so much more than that. That said though, we cannot overlook Zayn’s experiences in the band because that is part of his story. The tongue-in-cheek of “I’m just here for the rap, then I’m leaving” is hilarious to me. The line about not wanting to be his own enemy anymore and growing up from 17 reminds me of that quote Taylor (Swift) mentioned in Miss Americana about celebrities getting stuck at the age they got famous. I think this verse is similar to that. None of them ever wanted to be in the band and I don’t care what anyone says, Zayn leaving and proving success outside the band gave the rest of them the courage to follow their own solo careers. Sure there was drama surrounding the split but he did it for himself, to tell his stories the way he is now. Whatever else you have to say about him, you cannot deny his authenticity.

“I ain’t dropping this for fame, I need this time, like therapy, it’s just to keep me sane.” — I think this line tells us 2 things, the first being that this song was not leaked. Z knew what he was doing and his twitter likes tell us as much. He didn’t release it for any sort of attention, otherwise it would be widely available on streaming platforms and for purchase. Which leads to my second point, he released this song to get everything he talks about on the track off his chest. Its referenced in other lyrics too, like “now you see where I come from, the world don’t.” This was for whoever cared to listen, not the world. It’s inaccessible for a reason. I love that he threw those lyrics in. It makes the song feel more like a private conversation or listening to a friend rant. It creates a different form of intimacy between himself and his fans.

“Lessons that I’ve learned, I’ve tried teaching to myself. What I’ve learnt from certain people is that they’re better than myself. So I surround myself with real ones, and you feel the plastic melt.” — This one is for anyone that buys into conspiracy theories surrounding Zayn’s personal life. He surrounds himself with real people, real friendships, real connections. I have never bought into the bullshit that he has zero autonomy over his personal life. I love the use of plastic melting as a metaphor for ridding his life of fakeness.

“Feeling trapped. This industry is a cage.” — Zayn is obviously not the first person to say it. Many artists talk about how suffocating the industry is ( which he further comments on in the sung portion: “I don’t wanna be, I don’t wanna be, a part of this, no, I don’t wanna be, I don’t wanna be, a part of this”). Fame is such a wild and unnatural concept and the exploitation and politics of the music industry only feed further into it. The industry being a cage makes me think of zoos and how celebrities are animals on display, when they should be free in the wild. I also really like the musical interlude following this part.

“Nobody’s speaking the truth, I’m offended by the State. Look at the state of the news, I’ve decided the argument, reciting my views.” — Zayn toes the line between keeping to himself and speaking out on important issues, sometimes not very well. I am his biggest cheerleader, but I’m not up his ass. There have been many occasions where he could’ve done better. But I cannot fault him for being offended by the State because same, Z, same. I love that he took this song as an opportunity to real speak out, no punches pulled.

“See I’ve been facing the racists from back when I were a kiddie. Born up in 93’. Living in Bradford City, they kicked me out of the school. Said they had a problem with me hitting the kids that would call me p***, still sit in the classroom, chilling. I’m angry now that I’m older cause I see they treat us different. Got me thinking I’m the problem ‘cause they never dealt with these issues.” — See what I meant about no punches pulled. He said that! He said it like that too. There is so much in this verse that I relate to, it hits a little too deep. I grew up as a brown in predominantly white communities where the colour of my skin was the reason I was outcasted. We know when that’s happening, clear as day. The lyric “got me thinking that I’m the problem cause they never dealt with these issues” says it all. I have many racial traumas that I’m dealing with as an adult because the adults around me when I was a child didn’t deal with racism in the classroom. They do treat us different!

“20 years later, I’m still in the same boat. Tryna treat me like my grandpa, say I came up off the boat. Came to tell you what I stand for. Man I think you’re shit, a joke. How can I be civil when they got me by the throat? // Pushing my feelings down, you ain’t got it like them. ‘Boy your skin is so light.’ Ok motherfucker, take my name up on a flight. Try to convince immigration that your bloodline’s half white.” — Zayn talking his shit is my new favourite art form. How can I be civil when they got me by the throat? Something that I will always be enraged by is that POC are expected to de-escalate situations of racism. We have to push our feelings down, as Zayn says in the verse, because the institution is against us. All of the institutions are against us. The fact that he takes it a step farther to say that his name makes him a target for racism, even though he is half-white just nails his point home. Also, can we please quit the whole ‘Zayn is white-passing’ bullshit. He alludes to it again later in the song (“asian in my face, but still my race you can’t define”). Its not a compliment to erase someone identity in favour of white-washing them.

“My name ain’t on the list unless they label it ethnic.” — Oh, the amount of times we have heard that age old (v. racist) saying ‘{celebrity of colour} is the new [insert white celebrity here]’ as if POC aren’t allowed to succeed in their own right. It is wild to me that Zayn has to deal with this given his level of success.

“Start to understand why they think that I’m threatening. I move in certain ways, couldn’t slow me with ketamine.” — There is a subtle nod to racism (and Islamaphobia) in this line, because of course the brown man is a threat, but I like the way Z turns it around. I also like the rhyme scheme.

“Raised on the benefit for whose benefit? They’ll never learn shit, man, if the shoe fits.” — Okay I might be reaching here, but this is just my interpretation. We all know the benefit system in the UK sucks. Being raised on benefit implies a lack of money growing up, but the benefits aren’t really all that beneficial to the families that rely upon them.

“Dealing with the hurt, they should know cause they don’t deserve it, it hit deep cause I hit the nerve.” — Well, okay then, just call me out. It’s fine. I seriously feel like he’s talking to me directly with this line. I imagine a lot of us do. Its one of those lyrics that are a bit too honest but that why we love them.

“Cathartic, I’m an artist. Trying to put my heart in” // “Freedom fighter, Yellow Metal is my name.” — So do we have an alternate persona for Zayn now? Alright, I’m down. I think these two lines are tied together, because both are mentioned in the song title. (I think of the song as cathartic, by Yellow Metal, aka Zayn, or Yellow Metal as the name of the EP if this was officially released). The lyrics that accompany both title lyrics, along with the subject matter of the song as a whole, suggest that his heart is in standing up against injustices. I said it earlier, this is the most unvarnished version of Z that we have ever been exposed to. Almost like the complete picture to the puzzle pieces we’ve been putting together over the years.

“They’re tryna kill us with disease.” — Why did this line scream out ‘COVID-19 outbreaks in developing countries’ to me? Again, I might be reaching, but there is a disparity between how COVID is treated amongst minorities, along with many other diseases, and not to mention rich, primarily white countries hoarding vaccine supplies while places like India (and my beautiful Bangladesh and I’m sure Pakistan too) suffer needlessly.

“Started something sick and on my mind is what’s next. Just became a dad so now I’m taking all the cheques. Better know I’m staying and paying like it’s debt. Imma get it done, if it’s taking all my breath, sweat, and down I ain’t messing around ’til I’m the best.” — I think this lyric shows off Zayn’s sentimental side more than it does his ambitious side, because we know he’s in this for the long haul. Others may doubt that but his fans never have. But hearing him talk openly about being a father on a song is something else. It’s like Khai added this whole other layer of meaning and purpose to his life and it’s beautiful to watch. I’ve been here since the X-Factor auditions guys!! It makes me so emotional to witness him like this.

“Aint many of me around, p***, I’m just different. Certain stages to this level aint here because fame is to the devil, fuck a label, imma do this from the ghetto.” — God, we’ve been waiting for a fuck the label moment in this house, haven’t we? I won’t get into my theories on his label or his team, but none of us deny the fact that they should be doing more for him than they are. He has the potential to be the biggest thing with the right team and promo because he has a built-in fan base that would go the mile for him. Obviously, there’s also his aversion to promo to contend with and that’s his decision. Even without it, he could shatter every ceiling. Another thing I want to mention about this verse is the nod to the complete lack of South Asian representation in contemporary Western media.

“Don’t know what’s worse: the way that you live your life or the way that you write a verse.” — I’m just putting this in here because it made giggle. Also going to take this space to say how much I love his energy in this song. He knows he’s the shit, as he should!

“Can’t be louder … so free Gaza on my banner.” // “They’re hating on Palestine ways.” — I love that Zayn has always supported this movement, years ago, before being ‘woke’ was a thing. But now, he has a daughter that has Palestinian heritage and I’m sure that makes this hit that much deeper for him, personally. The apartheid in Palestine is heart-wrenching. It’s so strange to me to watch it happen, because I never thought I would witness something like this happening in 2021, yet here we are.

“Like vipers, I see the sly ones, the snake that’s called Biden, none of them abiding what they might put in writing. We should be used to it by now, say whatever for the vote and then just choose another route. Say they’d never kill another unless that brother’s skin is brown. I’m just telling you the facts, if you can’t take it, the truth naked, to bare bones and my thoughts lately, spitting politics.” — This verse is straight up savage and I am living for it! I find it hilarious that he called Biden a snake. This verse addresses the truth about politics, that even electing a left-wing leader doesn’t fix the system.

“I’m Tony Stark, still embarking on a dream” // “Gone green like Bruce Banner” // “He taught me like Ra’s Al Ghul. Felt like living in Gotham, the people were rotten.” — And to tie it all off, I wanted to take a goofy moment to mention all the superhero lyrics Z added in this song, really showing his personality because I’m such a nerd when it comes to this stuff and it makes me wish that we were friends so I could annoy him to death about it.

#reviews #zayn #yellow metal #cathartic #zayn malik

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mrsgiovanna · 3 years

Text

Don Giorno x Fem! Reader

This story has been steeping in my head ever since @abbabycchio created this prompt, I hope I did this justice 😅.

No warnings, just fluff 😍💭🐞💜

Word count: 1508

The ambience in the grand ballroom was delightfully festive- soft light dancing about the glittering crystal chandeliers, the happy chattering of the partygoers mingling with the clinking of glasses and the music in the background, and the delicious scent of Giorno’s expensive cologne overtook your senses as he gracefully spun you around on the dance floor.

“Wow, you’ve gotten really good at this, everyone is practically staring at you,”

“Well practice makes perfect, we’ve been to enough of these events as it is. Come, let’s give them a show,”

Before you knew it, Giorno spun you around and caught you in a low dip, his face mere millimeters away from your own. Feeling every pair of eyes on you both, he smirked and brought you back to your original position just as the song had ended, earning many impressed murmurs from the other attendees.

“After all these years you still get flustered? I told you, I’d never drop you or let you fall,” said Giorno, through the laughs he was trying to suppress. You knew the real reason for your skittishness, but you wouldn’t dare let him know.

You had known Giorno ever since you were assigned to his elite guard when he had taken over Passione a few years ago. Your stand ability was very useful… you were able to disarm an attacker in under 10 seconds, and if the situation became really dire, you could dismember them in a minute, without so much as a hair left behind. In short your ability was terrifying. But Giorno seemed fascinated by it, you were a walking contradiction, so soft and bubbly on the outside, but something dark and menacing had to be lurking in your soul for such a stand to manifest. So he had reassigned you himself and slowly started to understand the nuances of your ability.

You excused yourself for a moment to go to the ladies room to freshen up your makeup, you were utterly exhausted, but when Giorno asked you go with him, you couldn’t refuse. Despite knowing that Giorno’s ability made him virtually untouchable and the fact that both Mista and Fugo were there as well, you still felt more at ease knowing that you were there to personally protect him.

When you rejoined the party you found Giorno nursing a drink on his own, so you took the seat next to him.

“What’s the matter? Why are you sitting here brooding on your own?” you ask, playfully mimicking the expression on his face.

“Is that really how I look? I’m fine though,” explained Giorno. He was just about to continue the conversation when you had let a small yawn escape your lips.

“Gosh, I’m sorry Giorno, what were you going to say?” you say, trying to coax the comment out of him.

“You’re exhausted, we should leave, come on, the car should be waiting for us,” said Giorno with a snap of his fingers, signaling the concierge to ready things for your exit.

“No, no, don’t worry about me, I’m fine, nothing a little caffeine can’t take care of. Besides, we still have to wait for Fugo and Mista, they haven’t emerged from that office yet,” you argued. All protests proved useless though, as Giorno sighed dramatically before picking you up and heading to the exit.

“You know I hate having to repeat myself, you’re clearly tired, we can wait for those two at the villa, at least you’ll be a bit more comfortable there.” There was a bite in Giorno’s voice that told you not to argue with him. As he gently set you down on your feet, the car drove up to you both. The drive back to the villa was a quiet one, the young Don focusing his attention outside, while you looked at him, noting how he had matured in the few years since taking over Passione, the soft innocence in his face being replaced with a mature handsomeness. He’d also gotten a lot taller and broader, experiencing a growth spurt that took everyone, including himself, by surprise.

“Thanks for looking out for me, it’s sweet, I appreciate it,”

“You’d do the same for me, it’s only natural,” he replied, his attention still focused on the moving scenery outside the car.

“I know… still… Are you angry? You’ve been like this since earlier on, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to upset you, I just didn’t want you to stop yourself from having fun on my account,” you apologized. Little did you know that Giorno was actually troubled by his own behaviour, and found it difficult to face you without his own face turning a rosy shade of pink.

“Don’t apologize, you did nothing wrong, I guess my lack of sleep is getting the better of me as well. I’m sorry,”

You finally arrived at the villa, and followed Giorno to one of the lounges. You threw yourself onto the comfortable couch and started to take off your heels, while he pulled off his bow tie and undid the top buttons of his shirt, sighing in relief.

“I’ll brew us some coffee, it seems like we both need it,” offered Giorno, which you accepted with a polite smile, while checking your phone for any communication from Mista or Fugo. You were concerned but also knew how powerful they both were so you decided to put your head down and relax for just a few moments.

Giorno walked in to find you huddled in one corner of the plush couch, the chill you felt evident in the goosebumps visible on your exposed skin. Getting a soft blanket and his laptop, he covered you so that you wouldn’t be cold any longer, and settled down next to you to work quietly while you slept, not wanting to disturb you, but also not wanting to leave you alone.

Every now and again, you would wriggle around and murmur something unintelligible, until you had somehow found yourself snuggled up to Giorno’s arm. Gazing at you affectionately, he decided to give in to his own exhaustion, put away his work and comfortably wrapped his arms around you. A content hum escaped his lips before he quickly fell asleep as well.

A few hours pass like that, with you blissfully unaware of what, or rather, who you were using as a comfortable pillow, until the room was bathed in ambient morning light. You wake up to a hand gently drawing circles on your arm, enjoying the gentle touch in your half woken state, until, a pang of panic set in when realized exactly where you were, you sprang upright, fully awake and aware of your situation.

“Buongiorno tesoro mio, did you sleep well?” asked Giorno, the slight smile he wore being evident in the lightness of his voice.

“Giorno, I’m so sorry, I feel mortified… I… oh my God, you’re my boss… just fire me please… better still, I quit, so this will be my…” you rambled on, until Giorno cut you off as he also sat upright next to you.

“Tesoro… would you just calm down? While having you quit would work in my favor for what I’m about to ask you, I reject that… resignation? If you could call it one… either way, I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now… so here goes-Would you like to have dinner with me? Maybe tonight? No mafia business or anything, just you and I, out on a date,”

You could feel your heart pounding in your ears, and you felt as if you’d forgotten how to breathe as hopeful green eyes searched your face for a positive answer. Building up the courage to look at him, your heart calmed down when you saw how earnestly he looked at you. The man in front of you wasn’t Don Giovanna, he was just a kind, handsome gentleman asking for your company… he was just Giorno.

“I’d really like that Giorno, thank you for asking me,” you said with a softer voice than usual, trying to contain the bubbly feeling in your chest.

“Great, then that’s settled, I’ll pick you up at six,”

Just as you were about to speak, you hear a commotion coming from the direction of the front door, realizing it was Mista and Fugo returning.

“Wow, took you guys long enough, what happened? Are you guys okay?” you asked, relieved that they both returned safely.

“Yeah, we’re fine, just exhausted… what are you even doing here?” replied Mista, speaking through a yawn.

You and Giorno exchanged a glance, smiling knowingly but chose rather to stay quiet. You were both saved from having to entertain any more questions from the complaints of Mista’s sex pistols.

“Alright, alright, you guys need some sleep and sustenance, I’ll make you guys some breakfast while you rest…”

“I’ll help you,” offered Giorno, wanting to spend more time with you.

And with that you both left the room, quietly enjoying each other’s company in that sweet domestic scenario, all the while thinking about what could transpire later on.

#giorno giovanna x reader #giorno x reader #giorno giovanna #giorno #don giovanna #don giorno #jjba x reader #jjba fanfic #my writing #golden wind #vento aureo #giogio

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