#if i do my hands are tied and i’m basically forced to not release certain things or else i’ll get in actual trouble so literally fuck that

[jasonntodd]

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[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

A/N: If there’s anything I learned from doing this, it’s that vampirerry is an utter WHORE. Good for him!!!! As for myself, I’m done with the semester and my term projects and finals left my singular brain cell fried, so this was a nice way to get back into writing again. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thank you to the anon that suggested it, this was super fun to do! :D

read you’re someone i just want around here

word count: 6k

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

Harry is very attentive when it comes to aftercare with Y/N. The sex they have is often rough and includes toys, degradation, and multiple rounds, so he believes aftercare is non-negotiable. Rough sex can be fun, but if it’s not followed by a lot of communication and post-performance support, it can take a hard emotional toll on a person. Even when intimacy isn’t meant to be inherently sentimental, there has to be a certain level of connection and etiquette surrounding it, or it could end badly for both parties involved. He always checks on her immediately after they finish, simply to gauge her headspace and how her body is responding, and after he’s made sure she’s alright, he goes into his usual routine of skin-to-skin contact and gentle coddling. Reassurance and praise is just as important afterwards as it is during, because it’s good to let a partner know that your appreciation runs deeper than just the physical need felt in the heat of the moment; everyone deserves to feel valued beyond their body. 

Harry proceeds to clean Y/N up after every session, because it’s the least he can do since she’s usually the one getting the brunt of the work. He’ll fetch a clean towel dampened under warm water to wipe her clean, or he’ll offer to help give her a bath or a shower— whichever route she prefers. Harry dresses her, and changes the sheets if need be, and tucks her into bed to ensure she’s nice and comfortable. If it’s been a particularly intense session, he’ll go the kitchen and bring back a snack and a drink— a granola bar and a Gatorade, or some chips and her favorite juice, or if she’s feeling especially hungry, he’ll happily go out of his way to prepare her an actual meal— and he insists on feeding it to her bit by bit until she’s come to enough to handle it on her own. If she’s not hungry, he at least brings her a glass of water and urges her to drink it; better to be safe than sorry. After that, more cuddling is the status quo, which normally ends in Y/N falling asleep in his arms, and Harry has absolutely no problem with that at all.  

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

Harry’s favorite body part of Y/N’s is probably her chest. Yes, he likes it for sexual reasons— obviously— but there are innocent reasons for his fascination, as well. He likes how responsive she gets when he touches her there— how he can get her going just by groping her the way she likes it, or by using his mouth to tongue across her nipples until she’s writhing in pleasure and whining for more. He loves leaving hickies all over her tits, probably more than she likes receiving them. It’s just so fucking hot seeing himself marked all over her, especially when she’s putting on a bra and he can see all of the dark bruises scattered across the cleavage spilling from the undergarment. Filth aside, he also enjoys loving all over her chest. Absentmindedly cupping them while they’re snuggling, nuzzling his head between them while they’re watching television, massaging them under her shirt with his large palms as she sits back against his chest, sipping a glass of wine and chatting away, unwinding after a long day. It’s a form of intimacy; it provides a type of closeness nothing else can. 

As for his own favorite body part, it’s a tie between two different areas. He loves his thighs— they’re one of his most prominent features. They’re thick and meaty and sensitive, so they’re the perfect sweet spot to touch when he wants to get riled up. Given his previous response, it can be easily deduced that he likes to get hickies there, as well. The marks look great peeking out from under his briefs (for the short amount of time they last, anyways) and they make a great accessory to the large tigerhead tattoo along his left thigh. It’s artwork, really; a proper Picasso. 

His other favorite body part...well, take a lucky guess. It’s likely not that far off— literally, considering it hangs right between his thighs. 

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

Harry’s personal preference is cumming inside. He adores feeling the way Y/N tightens around him when he finally orgasms (she’s just so warm and soft and unbelievably tight; it’s like she was made for him), almost as much as he loves seeing her reaction. Her body will immediately start to wriggle and her back will arch as she releases broken little whimpers, clinging to his shoulders with her nails and begging him to fill her until he’s milked his worth. Hearing her ragged breathing and feeling her sweaty chest stutter against his is enough to do him in, but when she goes as far as to gnaw on his ear and whine a soft little, “Want it all, baby. Want you dripping out of me when we’re done.” Well, that’s enough to kill him all over again. 

Of course, there are times when Harry likes seeing himself all over her, too. On her outstretched tongue, or smeared across her pretty face and plush lips (she looks particularly cute when it ends up all over her eyelashes), or streaked over the valley of her tits, or pooled at the center of her tummy. If he’d been taking her from behind, then he likes seeing it run down the backs of her thighs, or splattered across the dip of her spine. And if she’d been giving him a handjob, then seeing himself dribbling down her fingers is just as good. Why? Because those fingers usually end up in her mouth, which means he ends up all over her tongue, and so the cycle comes full circle. How poetic. 

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

Did Harry suggest wearing a matching set of a vibrating cock ring and buzzing bullet to do grocery shopping once? Yes. Did he drop three glass jars of peach preserves by accident as a result, causing them to have to book it out of the bread aisle while trying to look as unsuspicious as possible, which failed horribly because they were literally hobbling like a crippled elderly couple? Also yes. Did they end up fucking in a Target fitting room? Definitely. 

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

A lot of experience. Tons. Immense amounts. Insane amounts. Two hundred years of the same seven continents just means two hundred years worth of sex across every single one. And it gives you plenty of time to find the clitoris, as well as giving you a chance to learn the female anatomy like the back of your hand. That being said, Harry doesn’t doubt he could make Y/N cum with his wrists tied behind his back and a blindfold strapped to his face. In fact, he’s made her cum just by using his thigh, so that in itself is enough credibility to last him several more lifetimes. The toy chest in his closet and the fact that he’s well-endowed are bonuses— he knows more than enough tricks to keep her satisfied with just his tongue. Not to mention his fingers— they’re long for a reason.

F = Favorite position  

Funny enough, Harry doesn’t have one. He’s spent so many decades cycling through every possible position in existence, it’s gotten to where he can’t pin-point a preference; all positions are unique, and they each have their own appeal. Reverse cowgirl is nice because he likes watching the way he stretches Y/N open with every plunge of her hips, and it also gives him the luxury of marking his rings across her ass in the process. Regular cowgirl is nice, too— having her chest bouncing in his face is nothing short of a divine miracle, in his opinion. Doggy style is a staple, and there’s always different add-ons he can apply to spice it up; for example, taking her from behind with her wrists tied to her ankles, or bending her over the kitchen counter with her face pressed into the marble, or fucking her against his glass wall with her hands and chest flushed to the cool surface as their breaths fog the floor-to-ceiling window. 

Missionary is a tried and true option, and just like it’s prior counterpart, it can be enhanced with a variety of extra tricks. Bondage is a good condiment, against the wall is always a nice touch, spread-eagle never goes wrong, and just having her legs wrapped around his lower back is more than enough. However, he does have two favorite variations of the position. The first is when he mounts her legs onto his shoulders or along the inside of his elbows to open her up more, and then just ramming his hips down at a very specific angle that hits her g-spot just right, pounding her into the bed so hard she tears the sheets off the mattress. The second is a cowgirl-missionary hybrid: he sits back on his heels and uses the steep downward slope created by his thighs as elevation, pulling her ass onto his tilted lap and swinging her legs over either side of his hips. He gropes her waist with his palms and yanks her forward, bouncing her against his cock and watching her completely dismantle as he nudges all the right places with as much speed and force as she deems fit. 

And then there’s fucking from the side, but that’s a whole other extensive conversation he doesn’t have time for. 

Actually, maybe Harry will entertain it for a minute or so. He usually throws one of Y/N’s legs over his neck to get a deeper range, manhandling her roughly onto her side and yanking her closer to his body by her waist, grasping it with stern vigor and holding her down against the mattress, grunting out a gravelly, strict command along the lines of, “Stay fucking still.” He’ll drill into her at a brutal, consistent pace, staining his fingerprints along the curves of her torso and sponging damp kisses onto her ankle, smirking into her skin as he watches her fist at the duvet in a futile attempt at maintaining her bearings. It’s pretty evident that she can’t, though; the way her eyes lull around their sockets from his harsh stride does a terrible job at hiding her lack of self-control, alongside the fragmented curses she gasps out whenever he nudges her g-spot with the head of his cock. 

“Oh, that was such a pretty noise. Did I hit that little spot you like?”

Her response will be begrudging, as always, which he thinks is ridiculously useless considering he can see her burying her face into the pillow to hide how her jaw drops open in sheer rapture. “No.”

“No?” The vampire leans forward, stretching her leg towards the headboard and preening at the garbled squeak that escapes her gritted teeth, plunging deeper as he lowers himself to her level. He knots her hair around his knuckles, tugging sharply until her face is tilted back enough to meet his fiery gaze. “Then why are you starting to shake?

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

It depends on the mood, honestly. There are definitely serious moments, but Harry enjoys the humorous ones just as much. He already adores making Y/N laugh and smile on a regular basis, and that desire only grows when he’s buried between her thighs, simply because she just looks so fucking cute laughing with her hair splayed around the pillows in a messy halo, her sounds of glee stuttering due to how sharply she’s jolting against the bed. He loves feeling her giggle into his mouth as he cracks sarcastic jokes and makes stupid witty comments that break the intensity in the air, especially because she’s usually clever enough to return them with some of her own. Then they both end up snickering like idiots as he tries to keep a solid pace, which eventually tapers to a messy, haphazard stride as their laughter drowns out their goal to the point where he has to take a genuine break to collect himself. There’s tons of examples— how could there not be? Sex is hardly ever perfect, so awkward moments are not only expected, but guaranteed. What better way to handle them than with a bit of humor?

There was an incident once where Harry accidentally knocked their foreheads together so hard, they both bruised (which he responded to with, “I’m pretty sure this isn’t what Cosmopolitan meant when they suggested matching couples tattoos.”). Another time, he got so into the moment he didn’t realize he was jack-hammering the top of her head into the backboard until she brought it to his attention (and made a comment saying it sounded like a sped up version of the beat to We Will Rock You). A bad case of the hiccups. Y/N burping right in his face halfway through his orgasm. A random leg cramp that made him think he was going to need amputation to survive. Accidentally rolling off the bed or couch onto the ground and nearly dislocating both of their spines in the process, getting his cross earring tangled in her hair and nearly ripping off his ear trying to get it out, and the unfortunate collapse of a pillow fort he’d spent over an hour building. He even sneezed in her face once, and when she instinctively went to shove him back, she wound up slamming her palm into his nose so hard he nearly passed out. Nose bleeds aren’t necessarily sexy, per se, but he just dug blindly through her nightstand until he found two new tampons somewhere in that black hole she calls a drawer, shoved them in his nostrils, and kept going. No one can ever accuse him of being unresourceful. 

Queefing. Lots and lots of queefing, which he usually starts mimicking with his mouth, and then she responds to that by whining and telling him to cut it out, and then he takes to mocking her whining instead. It normally finishes with them laughing so hard that Harry’s cheeks hurt from smiling so big, but it’s a good type of pain. The best type of pain. 

H = Hair (how do they groom?)

Harry likes keeping himself neat and orderly, but he doesn’t enjoy going bare, so trimming is his grooming preference. There’s just something so unappealing about a completely smooth dick— it looks like raw chicken and it’s fucking disgusting. He doesn’t have anything against a good bush, but it tends to get unruly and he’d rather not have to overcomplicate his shower routine. And honestly, he can’t trust himself because last time he had a full front yard going, he got shitfaced and tried to braid it on a dare. Keeping the hedges trimmed is the ideal landscaping option, and it just looks way hotter— a uniform dusting of hair is a good accessory and it just makes everything look more cohesive, given that he also fancies keeping his happy trail thick. It’s all about aesthetics, isn’t it? 

I = Intimacy (the romantic aspect)

It’s no secret that Harry’s been somewhat detached from intimacy for the last two hundred years or so. Intimacy is reserved for genuine romance, and that’s something he hadn’t entertained since before the lightbulb was invented. But now that he has Y/N, intimacy has crawled its way back out from the deepest recesses of his subconscious, where it had been shoved into a bottomless pit with the rest of his trauma. He likes it— he likes opening up to her in any way he can, because sharing those obsolete parts of himself with someone again is more fulfilling than he ever imagined. He likes kissing her randomly when she’s halfway through a sentence, just to feel her words die off abruptly in her throat as she gives into his gentle gesture, a delicate smile spreading across her satin lips. He likes whispering sweet phrases of encouragement into her hair when they’re tangled amidst sweaty limbs and rumpled sheets, reminding her of how much he cares for her and how beautiful she looks when she’s so far gone and how she makes him feel like his entire body has been set alight. He likes sponging soft pecks across the stretch marks along her thighs and across the dimples on her belly, her skin candy and velvet on his tongue as she releases a watery sigh that lets him know he’s doing all the right things in all the right places. He just likes letting her know she's special to him, in any and every way he can. 

Intimacy forges timeless bonds, and he reckons that assumption is unarguable, considering he knows a thing or two about eternity. 

J = Jack Off (masturbation headcanon)

Harry likes to jack off, obviously. Who doesn’t? It’s why he has an entire section of his toy chest dedicated to self-pleasuring tools. Vibrating cock rings, an array of lubes that range from temperature-changing to sensation sensitivity, and a few pocket vags that get the job done whenever Y/N is out of commission (usually because of work). His favorite one is an electronic sleek black model that is made of a premium silicone material and has a variety of massage settings, suction strengths, and internal textures. It’s designed to make the session feel more real, and yes, it was expensive, but self-love is always worth the splurge. 

The beauty of living on his own is that he can get off wherever and whenever he wants, without having to stress about someone interrupting an important step in his pampering routine. He usually does it in his room and on his bed, simply because Y/N’s pillow is close by and the experience is heightened when her scent is swimming around his hazy, bliss-drunken mind. If Harry is feeling particularly needy, he’ll ditch the toy all together and just hump one out against the mattress or cushion. If it’s a particularly restless day, he’ll take a toy downstairs and lazily play within himself on the couch while browsing through Netflix. Those instances usually average a few tamer orgasms rather than a single large one, but he’s not complaining; his stamina comes in unapologetic waves that stem from a never-ending supply, and he certainly has the time to kill. If Harry gets the sudden urge in the shower or while he’s relaxing in his jacuzzi, he won’t bother fetching a trinket; he’ll just stroke one out with his hand, using the cool metal of his trusty lionhead ring to tease the tip until he brings himself to orgasm. It turns out daylight crystals have more than one use. 

There is one common factor amongst all these different choices, though: Y/N is present in every fantasy. And if the vampire is feeling especially bold, he’ll grab his phone and take a video of whatever he’s doing to himself, and then she’ll have a nice little gift waiting for her once she gets out of the café for the day. That usually leads to him receiving a present in return later that evening, and then he’s dialing her contact before the clip is even done playing, and then what he does during his alone time doesn’t require him being so alone anymore. 

K = Kinks 

Harry has tons— in fact, he has so many, he can’t really keep track. And he also has the sneaking suspicion that if he were to ever jot all of them down, he’d end up locked in some type of sex addict rehabilitation center. Bondage is a big one, so he’ll start there. He’s great with ropes, given that he learned his way around them ages ago. Chains are nice, but they can be a pain to set up without the right equipment; he’s thinking of getting a reinforced metal hook installed into his ceiling, like the one in his storage closet, which he uses to keep his punching bag secure. Handcuffs, obviously— velvet-lined, straight metal, fuzzy coverings, he’s got it all. Dominance, degradation, Daddy, Sir, choking, brat-taming, spanking, flogging, slapping— impact play in general, to be honest— spitting, wax, praise, begging, masochism, branding (mild stuff, no molten metal shit), collaring, discipline, dirty talk, edging, exhibitionism, face-fucking, face-sitting (with him on the receiving end), giving oral (is that a kink? It is now.) gagging (both the action and using the actual object itself), breeding (he hates that term but that’s the official name, unfortunately), teasing, voyeurism, role play, and… he thinks that’s it. Oh, and blood, but that doesn’t really count for apparent reasons. 

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Y/N’s couch is sacred, at this point. Their entire relationship started on that lumpy, worn excuse of a sofa, and it’s seen them through their progression from strangers to friends with benefits to lovers to more. It’s comfortable enough, the dark color hides any explicit stains, and the cushions always smell of her signature mixture of honey and lavender combined with Snuggle fabric softener. It’s finicky, but irreplaceable. His kitchen counter is a close second. It’s provided a lot, taken a lot, been through a lot— through a lot of Lysol wipes, to be specific. If it wasn’t marble, it likely would have been reduced to chunks and rubble by now, courtesy of his enhanced strength gripping the edges as he slams her against the smooth surface. The backseat of his Cadillac is consecrated, as well; there’s just so much erotic appeal to fucking in a car with rock music blaring in the background, muffling the obscene sounds of bodies connecting and a mixture of fever-pitch moans. The couch, the counter, and the Cadillac— the Unholy Trinity. 

The jacuzzi is nice, too, but for the sake of his clever little “c” alliteration, he’ll leave that one as an implied token. 

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

As much as Harry claims he likes full submission in bed, he can’t deny that he loves being challenged. Delivering punishment and coaxing out an orgasm is so much more satisfying when he has to fight for it; it’s so fucking hot watching his girlfriend try to best him in a power struggle, especially when she finally— and undeniably, since he always wins— caves under his will and winds up begging him for what he otherwise would have gifted her freely. That’s where the brat-taming kink comes into play. He likes it when she mouths off and makes snarky digs, and he enjoys it even more when he tries to set her in place and she amps her disobedience as a result. There’s nothing more attractive than a battle of wits with someone who is a perfect match in every way. And when she channels her attitude into physical gestures, it riles him up beyond compare. For example, when she smirks and rolls her eyes, despite the fact that there’s trails of tears staining her cheeks and mascara smeared all over her waterline? Christ, he could go feral. 

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

No feet, no feces, no beastiality. There’s probably more, but those are the ones off the top of his head.

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

Receiving oral is great— he highly recommends it, solid ten out of ten— but giving it is so much better. Harry’s always been a giver, even when he was young and barely knew his way around a woman’s undergarments. The stereotypical expectation for a person who is beginning to explore their sexuality is that everything they do, they do for their own gain. It’s a selfish realization, yes, but it’s a primal type of selfishness that no one can truly be blamed for. It’s a simple concept: when you start having sex, you want as much personal benefit as possible. It’s only natural. But from the second Harry became sexually active, he came to find that providing release to his partner outweighed the bliss he could get from letting them pleasure him instead. It’s not direct pleasure, but rather cognitive, which more often than not translates itself physically. And when it comes to Y/N, that euphoria manifests tenfold. 

Nothing compares to having his face buried between her legs as she tugs and yanks at his hair desperately, her chest heaving and jaw falling open as he uses his tongue to unravel her from the inside out. Spitting sloppily onto her folds and hearing the raw gasp of aroused shock that escapes her sore throat, which causes his swollen lips to spread into a dirty grin as he latches onto the sensitive bud at the thick of her core, fiddling with it until her legs are trembling uncontrollably around his sturdy shoulders. Watching her features go slack as he bobs his neck fervently between her thighs, swiping the bridge of his nose across her clit over and over until the entire bottom half of his face is drenched in her excitement. Fucking his tongue into her and feeling her buck against his jaw as she holds him in place with her fingers tangled in his curls, whimpering his name repeatedly in a voice so shattered, he could probably build a mosaic with the fractures. Feeling her drip down his chin and into the collar of his shirt, savoring how sweet she tastes as he pins her hips down against the bed and groans feverishly into her cunt, his ego idolizing the image of her so disheveled under his influence. 

A measly blowjob is hardly any competition to that. Harry could very well cum just from eating Y/N out. In fact, he has, and that in itself is all the proof he needs. 

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

This is one of those other factors that depends on the mood. If Harry has been waiting all day for it, his impatience bleeds into his rhythm, which means he settles for fast and hard. It means he settles for bending her over the back of his couch with one palm around her throat and his other fingers in her mouth, pounding into her with so much force, the sofa starts shifting across the ground. If Y/N has been teasing him endlessly for a decent amount of time, it’ll be rough and deep, but not fast; he’ll drag it out for as long as possible, just to make her regret acting like such a spoiled brat. That’s when he brings out the paddle, or the crop, or just manhandles her across his lap and spanks her until she’s apologizing profusely through her whines. If he’s in a soft, romantic headspace, it’ll be slow and sensual, with lots of gentle caresses, giggly kisses dusted across eager lips and droopy eyelids, and penetrating strokes that make his toes curl and tummy clench. 

Pace is relative, but the message behind it is all the same: I want you more than anything, and I’m going to show you just how deeply I mean it. 

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

Quickies are fun, Harry will admit. They’re filthy and messy, and they show just how far gone two people are for each other to the point where they can’t wait to feel one another at a later time; that they need to be together now, or they’ll go absolutely insane. Quickies are saved for when the urge strikes at random times. For when he’s out with Y/N at a park, sitting under the shade with his head in her lap as she combs his curls out of his eyes and thumbs over his chin affectionately, and the sun filters through the tree canopy just right to where it illuminates her lashes and the suppleness of her cheeks in a manner he deems ethereal. For when they’re at the mall, walking hand in hand and licking at ice cream cones as they survey the shops, and she reaches over to wipe a bit of Rocky Road off the corner of his mouth, replacing the stain with a soft stipple of her lips instead. For when they’re out eating dinner and playing footsie under the table like immature teenagers, and she’s trying to steal a French fry from his plate but he keeps fighting her off with his fork because, “I told you to order your own, but you wanted those disgusting potato skins instead!” And she’s laughing so brightly and unapologetically, giving him a look that so obviously tells him she can’t wait to get him alone, and nothing seems quite as flawless as that fraction in time, then and there and nowhere else.

These simple but memorable moments cause him to get love boners, which he jokingly refers to as “sniffy stiffies,” where “sniffy” has to do with being sentimental, and “stiffy”...well, that one is pretty self-explanatory, no? It always ends with them shagging in the car, or in the family bathroom of a diner, and in the case of the park, in an obscure area of the forest that lines the jogging trail. 

Quickies are just that— fast, but meaningful nonetheless, because they come from a place of genuine emotion. They’re fleeting, but unforgettable. Sniffy stiffy quickies, if you will. 

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Taking risks is the norm in Harry’s life, especially when it comes to his sex habits. He’s proven time and time again that he has no problem riding along the seams of a dare and just barely making it out unscathed, so experimenting outside of the bedroom is just another day in the life. Fingering Y/N in a music room in an antique shop, getting road head during a two hour drive back to Los Angeles, ripping his girlfriend’s panties out from beneath her dress at one of California’s most prestigious restaurants— the list is endless, really. Harry likes to think he has a gift for coming up with inspirational quotes on the spot, so he’ll lend his expertise here and now: “A life without risks is a life that isn’t worth shit.” It even rhymes, so he knows sorority pledges will have a ball putting it in their Instagram bios. A bit of charity work for the bird-brained. 

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

Endless stamina. Literally. Vampires don’t stay tired for long, so he could be ready to go again within seconds. And he can last long, as well; his stubbornness and pride depend on it, and he likes making his partner cum first as an ego boost. He can go as many rounds as Y/N can and more, though he won’t push it. He doesn’t want her to end up in the ER with a bruised cervix. 

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

Harry could run a sex shop from his closet; Y/N doesn’t take the piss by calling him “Fifty Shades” for no reason. He uses them on himself, he uses them on her, and he got high once and tried to sword fight Y/N with a dildo, so it’s safe to say he definitely uses them quite a bit. If his Lovesense Lush 3 vibrator could talk, he’d be drawn and quartered for excessive debauchery. 

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Harry loves teasing, that’s no mystery. Winding people up is one of his most practiced skills, so of course that would channel into his intimate life. He’s mastered it, though it’s not like it’s hard. A drawn out blink here, or a feathery touch there. An inch of space between his and Y/N’s lips to establish some tension, or squeezing her inner thigh with his palm hard enough to draw a tiny squeak from her chest. Touching her through her clothes, or leaving a trail of wet kisses down her throat and stopping right at her cleavage. Biting the sensitive skin along the inside of her knee, or dragging the tip of his cold nose down the center of her twitching tummy. Lapping slowly at her nipples until they perk up, or sinking a single long digit inside her and keeping it there just to feel her clench around it needily. And once he gets a pattern going, teasing molds into edging, edging molds into begging, begging molds into praise, and before he knows it, he’s hit four of his kinks with one roll of the dice. 

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

Harry is very vocal in bed, and he’s not ashamed of it. He knows for a fact that Y/N loves it, and if him being loud gets her worked up, then he’ll let his throat go out in the process. He’s noticed that in different situations, he has an arsenal of sounds for each. If he’s being rough and dominant, he tends to groan, grunt, and growl. If he’s being desperate and needy, he turns to whines and whimpers to communicate how he feels. If he’s too zoned into the moment to distinguish all his emotions, broken moans and stuttered mewls are his default. No matter the circumstance, they all take the same route: they start low and soft, and escalate in volume proportional to the intensity of the moment. So what if half the building is hearing him orgasm for the third time as he mocks his girlfriends sobbing pleads and calls her his “dirty fucking whore”? Let’s be honest, it’s probably the highlight of their week. He has a great voice— a sultry, deep baritone that compliments his English accent nicely— and anyone would be lucky to hear it spew the filth it does. He’s yet to get many complaints, so he doesn’t intend on stopping. 

W = Wildcard (random headcanon)

An honesty hour moment seems interesting, so he’ll confess a few tales from his past. The first time Harry ever went down on a girl, it was against a tree in a garden and he nearly asphyxiated under all the layers of her gown. A couple of years later, he ended up getting oral from a reverend’s daughter against a tree, too, for the morbid irony and associated religious revenge. And to drive the point home, oral was only the beginning of what she gave him. His first decade as a vampire was definitely his pettiest. 

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

It’s not uncommon knowledge that Harry’s well-endowed. He remembers how insecure he was the first time he had sex— a shocker, he knows; he was insecure?— and how he knew barely anything regarding sizing and how to use his assets accordingly. But it’s been ages since then, and now he definitely knows his way around his own body (let alone his partner’s), and he most certainly knows that he’s above average not only as a person in general, but when it comes to what’s in his trousers, as well. Harry won’t specify inches— he loves how speculation drives others mad— but it was big enough to give Y/N a decent pause the first time she pulled down his pants, and it’s big enough to leave her absolutely fucked every single time, without a single miss. If that’s not credibility at its finest, then he doesn’t know what is.

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

Harry’s sex drive is insatiable, to say the least. His vampirism combined with his narcissistic tendencies makes the ideal cocktail— cocktail— for the constant fuse that’s always burning under his skin. He’s ready to go at all times; Y/N just has to say the word and he’s pulling on a pair of sweatpants as he grabs his keys, hopping down his complex’s corridor toward the elevator on one foot as he tries to get his last shoe on the other. Lazy morning sex is probably his favorite; he’s come to find it’s when he’s most pent up, usually after a sleepless night of feeling Y/N’s body heat radiating through all of his cold limbs. It also sets a great tone for the rest of the day, and he just loves seeing Y/N wake up to him lying on his side with his temple resting on his fist, his elbow propped against the mattress as he poses the other on his hip in a theatrical diva stance. He’ll smile at her giddily with all his pearly teeth, dimples twitching as his lashes flutter dramatically, dirty intentions written clear all over his face (“Good morning, hon—” “Wanna have sex?” “Harry, it’s ten in the morning.” “Is that a yes? Because it’s not a no.” “I haven’t even brushed my teeth!” “That’s fine, I’m gonna stick my dick in there anyways.”) 

All in all, his libido is insane, and he’s lucky that Y/N’s is up to par or else he would have worked her into an exhaustion-induced coma by now. 

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Harry just...doesn't. Maybe once every few weeks, but definitely more often now than before he had his girlfriend. Sleeping just comes way easier when he has someone he cares about resting beside him, their inherent warmth thawing the stiffness from his muscles and putting his racing mind at ease. He feels safe enough around Y/N to let his guard down— both literally and metaphorically— and that seems to help with his supernatural insomnia; it sedates that nocturnal hyper-instinct in his brain that demands he be aware at all times, muffling the animalistic part of him that has been manning the reins for the better half of the last two hundred years. He doesn’t need to be so on edge anymore when everything he needs is just an arm-length away. Especially when she’s usually willing to lend her chest as a pillow, and who is he to neglect her wishes.   

[yionji]

Open wide

A/N: So i got insipired by this today,so here I go.

Tags: Vibrators,smut,humillation,denigrated reader,slut shaming,hair pulling,rough,denigration,piss kink,hits,personal use,deepthroat,overstimulation,forced stimulation, personal use,someone hearing,big cock,forced wetting,urine,cum inside,dirty talk,blowjobs,human,stepping on reader clit, toilet,light mind break,semi passed out,sub reader,pubics hair,urine retention,gaggin,crying.

Pairings: Getou x f!reader

Summary: Getou is obbsesed with y/n so he start being possesive.

“Well, if you’re so terrified of someone overhearing us…” Getou said, his voice lower than previously. “We could always go somewhere more private.” You didn’t even agree with or deny his statement, still, he just started walking away, with you following like some obedient dog

You were still in your academy uniform, he was playing with you for a long time, he even put a vibrator in your pussy everything you did was under his control, he always had fun speeding you up very fast in serious situations. He lead you back to your dorm room, halting in front of the door and making you open it. Once the two of you were inside, he closed the door behind him.

With a simple flick of his wrist, Getou dialled the vibrator up to its highest setting. You barely bit back a squeal and your knees buckle. You were panting and shaking, not daring enough to look him in the eye right now. It was too much, you were so sensitive it nearly hurt. Shame thrummed in your veins with his gaze burning holes into you, yet it just served to make you more aroused, your thighs impatiently rubbing together. Despite how the stimulation was driving you crazy, it was even worse once he turned it off and you whined in protest.

“I don’t think you should be complaining right now,” He said in a voice a little too cheery for this situation as he took another step towards you. “You should feel lucky I’m even considering putting my hands on such a filthy mutt .” In any other situation those comments would’ve made you upset or annoyed, now it sent a pang of arousal between your legs.

Getou gave you a harsh shove, which sent you falling to your knees. The impact hurt, but with the pleasure still clouding your mind, it only made you let out a weak moan, now he was the one looking down at you. You felt pathetic and small, slick dripping from your abused hole. You’d been kept on edge for such a while now, the only thing you could think of was that you just wanted to come already.

“Now that’s more like it!” He turned the vibrator on its lowest setting and you shuddered. It wasn’t enough to get you anywhere close to an orgasm, nonetheless, it was way better than nothing at all. Getou pushed your legs slightly apart, shoving his foot against your clothed crotch. "Ooh the smell of your pussy is so disgusting it gets up here, it makes me want to fuck you" he exclaim with a deep voice and a smile.

You immediately began grinding against it but because of your position, it was hard to get any actual relief from it. He just snickered, clearly revelling in your pitiful display.

“God, even I couldn’t have imagined how much of a whore you actually are. You’re like bitch in heat,” The words cut at you and made you whimper pathetically as his foot applied more pressure. “But I’m getting a bit bored here, you’re the one having all the fun!” Judging by the bulge in his pants he was definitely enjoying this, yet you kept your mouth shut. Nevertheless, a small smile spread over your lips. With your flushed skin and shivering form, it looked coyer than you meant it too.

“What are you smiling at, stupid slut? Didn’t I just say it? I’m. Bored. Do something to entertain me!”

“Well, uh,” It was hard to think straight, given the state you were in. The vibrator was still buzzing away, giving you just enough pleasure to feel good but never enough to get you to cum. You couldn’t really get creative right now. “What do you want me to do?...”

Getou sneered at you, one of his hands grabbing a handful of your hair and tugging harshly on it. A moan was ripped from your throat, pain and pleasure mingling together. “Do I have to think of everything for you? You can’t even think of a way to distract me momentarily?” He huffed, digging his shoes against your clothed clit painfully. “You really are only good enough as a wet hole for me to fuck.”

Keeping his fingers tied into your hair, he uses his other hand to unzip his pants. His dick is hard and leaking from the tip when he pulls it out.  “Open wide!” He said with a deep voice, before shoving his cock into your mouth. Getou didn’t give you any time to adjust or to let yourself relax, instead making you gag by immediately thrusting. You couldn’t breathe and tears welled up in your eyes. He kept your head in place by keeping a tight grip on your hair, his fingernails digging into your skin. This wasn’t a blowjob, no, he was using your mouth as a fleshlight.

Getou was anything except quiet, moans and grunts constantly falling from his lips and the sounds coming out of your mouth were loud and sloppy, Getou was so entertained playing with your mouth that he was distracted from what was going on around him that he didn't realize that gojo was listening to everything from outside your room.

"Maybe I can use y/n later for myself" he said quietly to himself.

Getou continue,though you weren’t sure if they were all real, or he was just acting at some points. “Ahh- You must do this soooo often, rright?” He panted out, smirking down at you. “I bet you’d suck a-anyone off if they asked!”

Your teeth scrape against the underside and he actually let out a high pitched whine. If your mouth wasn’t stuffed full and you weren’t almost suffocating, you would’ve laughed.

He didn’t appear to like it as much, however, he dug his shoe against your pussy. Hard, practically digging in. Getou was still fucking your mouth, though his hips were starting to stutter, and his foot moved because of it. Now, he was putting a lot of stress on your bladder more than anywhere else. You’d been too strung up to use the bathroom for a while and with this weight, you were sure you’d piss yourself if this was kept up for too long.

But you were unable to speak while he was still fucking your mouth, so you couldn’t tell him what was wrong. Any attempt you made merely sent vibrations up his cock, making him moan appreciatively. You hollow out your cheeks and are rewarded with a sharp moan and another tug at your hair as he hits the back of your throat. Your legs shook with the effort of keeping it in.

A gush of urine escaped at a particular harsh movement and once it started, there was no way you were able to stop it. The stream made an audible hissing sound, making an embarrassed flush rise to your cheeks. Your body sent mixed signals to rush through you, both bliss and utter humiliation and you shivered in confused pleasure. The heat was trapped in your skirt for a few moments before it leaked through, turning your skirt a darker shade and allowing a small puddle to form beneath you. On one side you wanted to curl up and never open your eyes again, but the relief felt just as amazing as an orgasm could have. Tears streamed down your cheeks because of the conflicting emotions.

You didn’t, couldn’t, look him in the eye as he stilled his hips and almost pulled out completely, allowing you to breathe again and to make the blurry edges of your vision return to normal. This surely had to be the end of it, right? He couldn’t possibly be into this, he would actually get grossed out and leave. Honestly, you didn’t want that to happen, the thought of it making you nauseous.

Getou had been brought into a stunned silence, a blank expression overtaking his features. He blinked once, twice. You were about to mutter out an apology and usher him to leave so you could clean up, nonetheless, before you were able to do that, he let out a low hum and the familiar, condescending smirk returned to him. Looking up at him, his cheeks were red and his breaths were stuttery and quick.        

Could it be?...

“I’d say you almost look pretty when you’re crying,” Every thought is robbed away again as his hips make contact with your face once more and he let out a cackle. “B-but you look prettier sucking on my dick~!” It only took him a few thrusts, with your throat constricting around him further with every movement, before he finished inside you without warning, grunting loudly as he did so. You didn’t have much of a choice except swallowing.

He pulled his veiny cock out of you again.

"You know men have a certain urge to pee after they finish," you couldn't believe what you were hearing, could you?

Without a squeak he grabbed you roughly by the hair making you swallow his cock again and the tip of his head hit the back of your throat, you star gagging and crying so much more than before.

"Shh, shhh" Getou said as he pressed your head with his hips, your nose tickled his pubic hairs, he smelled so great.

Getou took a long breath and you began to feel a liquid running down your throat and into your stomach.

He let out a breath of relief and a grunt and continued to pee until he finished and looked down to see your face.

"You really look good sucking my cock, y/n" He let go of you roughly causing you to bang your head against the wall, only to hear the sound of his pants buckling.

"You're such a grear human toilet,my human toilet"

You coughed and wheezed for air once he finally fully released you, glad that air was freely available. Your head hurt and your throat felt scratchy and sore, the fabric of your plants clinging against your skin. Basically, you were a disgusting mess. Once you returned to reality.

“Good luck cleaning, whore!” He called out while glancing over his shoulder for the last time. “See you next time!” Then, he slammed your door shut. You simply continued to sit there for a few seconds, brain still struggling to comprehend that all of that had actually happened.

Well, that definitely was an experience.

<3

[gregoftom]

hey mfs i’m back with another quick analysis post! so. diana fowley. general opinion is loathing and i would have to agree, mostly because she manipulates, uses, and possibly sexually assaults mulder.

but i seen here and there that people think he’s had sex with her in season 6 and chose to do so. now the glorious thing about xf is that a lot of it is implicit and we can choose to believe what we want about certain things, look at scenes or moments or characters and come to our own conclusions, so if you think diana and mulder had some sexual encounters you are valid! but here’s why i think they didn’t and he didn’t initiate any.

obviously when she comes back into his life some old feelings arise. she was his most influential and important romantic relationship before scully, they built the x files together, she was older than him and, in my opinion, that was what he craved because of the lack of love and attention from his mother in return for his love for her.

but i don’t think it was enough to push him to sleep with her. she had to force herself into his life. scully was the one he called out for when he was confined and sick, scully was the one he wanted, scully was the one working to save his life, and scully is the one he always initiates kisses with. with diana, she initiated the kiss they shared, and mulder barely reacted. i didn’t see any kissing back, no hands raised to her face like he does with scully, no arms around her. it was just so. like he just let her do it because he didn’t want confrontation and he was distracted with everything that was going on. his reaction isn’t from a guy who has any sexual thoughts about the girl who’s kissing him.

in the fake world while he was being operated on, diana’s clothes are a grey set which look very very similar to what scully is wearing in arcadia when they pretend to be married which is interesting because he and diana get married later in this world. it makes me think his subconscious is trying to push through, saying wait a sec, the woman we want is someone else, isn’t it? this world is overly fake, lulling him into security where there is no x files, and thus no scully, but part of him still wants scully despite the hardship x files brings. he is in handcuffs and yes, released, when diana approaches him and they have sex, but this just seems super gross and coercive to me. since it isn’t physically real it doesn’t count as him sleeping with her in general but still, i don’t see it as a fully consensual act. later, when mulder is on his deathbed, he’s informed that everyone has passed on and he reacts sadly, but when he’s told about scully, he is devestated. his reaction to her is the worst.

the reason i am mentioning all this is to show how she's forced into his life in various ways. it just doesn't add up to me that he would choose to engage with her sexually, regardless of the situation between him and scully and his frustrations with her refusal to accept what happened to her. this frustration isn't new - she refuses to accept things sometimes just as he refuses to accept religious experiences, sometimes the believer and the sceptic views shift between them - so this wouldn't suddenly push him into the arms of diana i don't think. he's used to this kind of thing, anyway, even if someone is around who does believe him, i think it would give him relief and make him feel better to be agreed with, but i don't think it would be enough.

later he basically is given a choice between diana and scully. and he chooses scully. he takes a moment to decide because he's confused and being manipulated from all sides but then realises that scully would never be one to do that to him and chooses her. i think it would have taken longer or been more difficult to do to so if he was in a sexual relationship with diana or had had sex with her. i think he ties emotions in very closely to sex (in the physical/with another woman, he obviously gets off to porn haha but that's a separate thing and we know that this doesn't mar his respect and kindness to women and how he views their humanity) so he would find a more difficult time sorting his feelings and knowing who his heart truly lay with than he did imo.

[farouchelyoptimistic]

Hyunji: Rekindle

Part 1

"So, you're telling me, I should move to another agency? I still don't get it." Yea Ji leans back on her seat as she tries to wrap her head around what the CEO of the company she's under is trying to tell her.

She fully understood what they were saying, but what she wanted to understand was why. She had been under this company for nearly ten years, ever since she had started her career in the business. She knew everyone from the first floor up to the last floor up top. And everyone knew her inside and out. The familiar staff around her was considered family.

And now, at the near end of her contract, instead of talking about renewal, they were talking to her about transferring to another company, a company that hasn't even been established yet.

"It's not like we want you to move, Yea Ji-ah. But their offer is great for you and you'd surely benefit from it a lot. They were formal enough to invite you by contacting us first, and I personally appreciate it." Her boss starts, leaning over the table with his hands clasped together.

"We've been taking care of you for so long, and we would love to do so for some more. But they're offering you something we couldn't get you ourselves. You're like my daughter, and I want the best for you. Even if it means letting you go. Gold Medalist will be established January next year, it's new but it has massive foundations and connections. They're also co-producing a drama under TVN, and they would want you to be the lead if ever you join them. I've heard about the script, Yea Ji-ah. It's going to send you into a breakthrough, one you've been waiting for. This is good. It's hard to let you go, but this is what's best for you. And, after the drama, if they don't treat you half as much as we do, come back to me. We'll have you back in a heartbeat. "

She almost wanted to cry at her boss' words. How could someone, totally unrelated to you, treat you with so much care. She thought about it for a few minutes, silent as she sat in her chair buried in her thoughts.

She had trusted them for so long, and they had never lead her to anything that was bad for her. If they were so sure about this, then there was no reason she shouldn't.

The pen felt heavy in her hand when she signed the exit contract. This was it. She was cutting ties with the company that had handled her for so long. Adding to that, leaving the people that surrounded and took care of her felt nothing more than melancholic. It felt like saying goodbye to her family.

But she believed that it wasn't the end. They were still going to see each other at some point, treat each other as long time friends. They have already carved out a space for them in her heart, and it was theirs forever.

She spent the remaining months of the year traveling and staying at home with her dogs. Somehow, she enjoyed her unemployment. She was basically jobless, not forever, but she tried to enjoy it as much as she can.

Her schedule was usually demanding and draining, sometimes sucking the life out of her. But she also enjoyed the rush, and the thrill and even the sleepless nights and days. More to it, she enjoyed mastering her craft, improving her skills, and developing her prowess. And most especially, she enjoyed putting a smile on her fans' faces. That was the most important thing.

Funny how she never even considered acting as a choice before. She went to a different country to study and finished a totally different degree. When she came home, it came as a surprise also to her when she started working as an actress. Destiny, probably.

Acting was not her choice, acting chose her. Good thing she had a natural knack for it, born with the gift of excellence in anything she dived into. She was a natural-born actor, exemplary in the craft that had grown on her. She had learned to love it.

She was fairly underrated. Mainly because she had started later than everyone else. Compared to others whom everyone saw grow up in their screens, she was still seen as a fresh face, shadowing her magnificent talent.

The awards and all the recognition meant nothing to her though. It was merely unimportant. She wasn't in the game for fame, she was in it because she enjoyed playing. Strengthening her skills, bettering her capabilities. That's what was important for her. Improving, getting better. She wasn't someone who settled for less and provided for less. She wanted to be better, not only for herself but also for her co-actors and the people who are looking up at her.

She was happy with her career already, but the breakthrough her old boss talked about made her feel a little excited. Who doesn't want a breakthrough? She's read the script for the drama they were offering her and it gave her goosebumps. It was going to be a challenging character, but it was complexly marvelous. She always loved a challenge, and this one was a challenge she was willing to take.

That's what she thought about as she walked through the unfamiliar halls of her new company. It was a new environment she needed to get used to.

It was a new journey, she thought. And she'll make sure it was a journey worth traveling.

Signing the contract was quick. The new people that were meant to take care of her seemed kind, and they all welcomed her with warmth. She almost felt like they were family now, a new family.

Just as she makes her way to leave the conference hall, the door opens, sending everyone turning their head to one direction.

What came in after was something she never expected. Someone, rather. Her feet were stuck on the ground, heart rate gradually raising, hammering against the walls of her chest.

"Annyeonghaseyo!" The familiar voice filled the silence.

She hadn't noticed that she was holding her breath until she felt her chest ache from the lack of oxygen. This was what he did, not only to her, but to everyone. He took people's breath away. His presence replacing the air in the lungs.

When he locks his eyes with hers, her breath falters out in a shaky blow.

Those eyes.

"Kim Soo Hyun!" Her new boss exasperates, a loud laugh following as he welcomed him with a hug. She could only stare, watching them exchange hugs and greetings. She swallowed an invisible lump in her throat because just like her, his eyes never left hers.

"Yea Ji-ah, I'm sure you know our Soo Hyun-ah here." The CEO's voice thunders inside the room as he gently pulls Soo Hyun with him, walking towards Yea Ji who was statued in her spot.

She summons all the strength and might from within her and clears her throat lightly. She forces out a smile, nodding her head politely.

"Sunbae-nim." She eyes him for a spilt second, nodding once more.

It almost takes him aback. Sunbae-nim. Oddly, the way she addressed him bothered him. It had been five years since she first called him that, the memory crystal clear in his mind. He could never forget the first time he heard her voice.

What he didn't expect was how she's back to calling him that. It had been embedded in his mind the way she used to call him Soo Hyun Oppa. How it felt warm and comforting whenever she did, how it brought a certain degree of serenity. But now, it felt like they were meeting once again for the first time. Back to square one. Total strangers. The barren coldness in her voice made him feel empty.

He forces out his own smile, though reluctant. He nods his head, unable to look away from her.

"I heard you two worked together a few years ago." Both of them nod in unison. The memory of the ad they shot a few years ago flood their memories. The first time they met.

"De. Just for a quick ad." It was Soo Hyun who decided to confirm. Glancing at her from the corner of his eye.

"Well, if you accept the role, Yea Ji-ah, you guys would be working again."

"What do you mean?" Finally, Yea Ji found her voice.

"Well, he's the male lead of the drama we're offering you. If you choose to accept it, then you guys would be the main leads. So, I really hope you accept it, Yea Ji-ah. Both of you look so good together." Their boss nods his head as he looks at them back and forth.

She could only nod. She was totally taken aback by the information poured over her. Work together, both of them. Again. If only someone else knew about what happened the last time they worked together.

After a few more small talks, she finally managed to excuse herself. Her new boss bids his farewell with a warm fatherly hug, wishing her good luck and anoother triumphant welcome. She only looks at the man behind him, slightly nodding her head before she slides past the long table and walks out the door.

She releases a breath once she was out. She knew it wasn't impossible to run into him at some point. They were revolving in the same world, same business. It was inevitable. But she successfully managed to work without having to cross paths with him for so long, that when she met him today, totally unprepared and overwhelmed, she felt a slight rattle in her stomach.

And now, she was signed in the same agency with him, and may or may not work with him too. It felt like a train was rushing towards her in full gear, ready to slam against her out of her wits.

She was barely ten steps away from the door when someone suddenly grabs her hand. She immediately turns around, the shock making her jolt on her feet.

"Yea Ji. . . . ssi."

She stammered at the sight before her. Kim Soo Hyun, holding her wrist, so gentle and warm. His eyes were fixed on her, watching her as she looks down on his hand against her skin.

He immediately lets go, wary of the rationality of his impulsive action. He swallows an invisible lump, placing the hand he once had on her to the back of his nape. He suddenly felt warmth creep up to his cheeks, shy. He felt flustered with her presence and the way her eyes pierced through his.

There was something new in the way her orbs glowed. It was different from the ones that were blanketed with sullen shyness and sweetness. It was still there alright, but now there was something new. Confidence, a lot of them.

It made him weak in the knees. Flustered. Swivet. Now, he felt like he couldn't look her straight in the eyes. He can't even bring himself talk clearly.

"Uhm, " He lets out a breath. "Yea Ji-ssi. Do you want to go grab something to drink? They serve good coffee at the cafeteria." He tries to hold her gaze, but it was so intense he felt like he needed to look away.

He needed to look away to stop himself from advancing into something that might just freak her out. And that's the last thing he wants, freak her out.

Coffee. She almost wanted to chuckle. It also started with a cup of coffee. She unconsciously bit her bottom lip, thinking it through.

"You know, for old time's sake?" His anxiety was growing as he anticipated her answer. He was slowly trying to ready himself for whatever her answer is, slightly terrified if she said no.

She let's out a breath. For old time's sake. There was no reason to deny an old friend, acquaintance rather, a cup of coffee to share. It was just coffee. Well it was what she thought a few years ago too. Just coffee.

This time though, it's just going to be coffee. It had to be.

When she nods her head and releases a small smile, he almost wanted to jump up and down, fist the air like he did the first time she agreed to have coffee with him.

Shoving the fireworks of feelings erupting in him to the back of his head, he smiles. Stepping aside to lead her the way. She took cautious steps beside him, the fat obvious distance between them is failed to be unnoticed. But he doesn't push. He doesn't speak. He tries to bask in the silence between them, it wasn't as comforting as it was before, but it was with her, so he'll take it.

"Here." He enthusiastically pushes the glass door open, letting her enter first. Immediately, the smell of the freshly brewed coffee fills her nose, making her smile. She loved coffee. It never failed to comfort her in any way.

He found himself significantly jumpy, yet careful. He runs pass her, pulling a chair for her. He smiles, eyeing her shyly as she courteously nods, sitting down as he gently pushes it back.

He basically runs to the counter, ordering two cups of iced coffee. Watching her from behind, made him stop in his tracks. Her black silky hair cascaded down her back, sparkling under the sunlight that seeped through the glass walls.

Just as he remembered her, she sat with her back straight, her broad shoulders flat and hands clasped together on her thighs. She was anxious. She was like that the first time he had coffee with her.

And for some reason, it pulled out the melancholy in him.

He smiled through it as he carefully slides the cup of coffee towards her. He eyes her for a second as he took a seat, looking down immediately. She mumbled a soft 'thank you', her low voice sending a calm chill down the pit of his stomach.

His foot continued to tap against the tiled floor, his eyes fixed on his cup, his fingers holding it tight. He was nervous. Yet, he was excited.

Letting out a breath, he finally looks at her fully. Her light make up accentuated her features, her smooth glass skin glowing. She was beautiful, she has always been. And like she did the first time he saw her, she took his breath away.

He couldn't help but smile.

"How have you been?" He bites his bottom lip, anticipating her response.

She smiles. She's been trying to hold it in for a while, but she couldn't help it anymore. She smiles.

"I've been doing well. I guess you have too. I've heard you just got discharged from the military. Congratulations." She tells him with genuine sincerity, looking straight into his beautiful brown orbs.

He smiles, nodding his head. He had a scarcity of words. When he heard about her joining the company, he had thought of a million things he could say to her. Now that she was merely less than a meter away from him, he had nothing. He was enticed by her presence.

He didn't have this problem before, because whenever he had nothing to say, he would listen. He would sit in front of her, listening to her talk. She has the most beautiful, most attractive voice. And she loved to talked.

She talked endlessly whenever she was with people she was comfortable with, and he used to bask in the serenity and the calm that her voice brought. Her silence made him weary, has she lost the comfort she once felt for him long ago?

"It's nice to see you. It's been a few years since. . . . we" Broke up?

"Went our separate ways." She finished his sentence for him. She knew he had thought about saying they 'broke up' but they didn't.

It wasn't considered a breakup when they weren't anything, to begin with. They had just decided not to proceed with anything and went separate ways. It was complicated, but it was a mutual decision. Both agreed upon.

What happened to them was like fireworks. Sudden, beautiful and electrifying, yet short lived. It was a beauty not meant to last.

"Anyways, welcome to the company. I hope you consider taking the role, it would be nice to work with each other again. I would love to work with you." He says, hoping she feels the same way. It was true, he wanted to work with her. He had secretly watched all her movies, all her dramas, even the variety shows she was in.

She was a gem in the industry, and he hated how underrated she was. He saw how marvelous of an actress she is, and as an actor, he would love to work with someone with such dynamics.

It was just a bonus that it was her as well.

"I'll think about it. It would be an honor to work with you too, Sunbae-nim." She says, reluctantly nodding her head. There's so much to think about. So much to consider. But she was enticed by the complexity of the role that it would be so hard to let go of the thought of playing it.

As much as she would want to deny it, acting alongside him is inviting. He was a seasoned actor, talented and marvelous in his own right. The opportunity is one of a kind.

"Yea Ji-ah." The informality surprised her, making her stare. Making her heart make a small flip inside her chest.

"We were friends. We shouldn't be too formal. We are friends. Let's be friends? I-I want to be your friend. Yea Ji-ah." His voice almost started to tremble.

He was aware of how much she's changed. Evolved. She was already intimidating back then, now she was more than that. He almost felt like she was out of his league. And it slightly terrified him.

His breath falters when she pushes her chair back, fishing her phone to read a message. She stands up and politely nods her head.

He stares at her in bewilderment, slowly pushing himself up. His heart suddenly raced and slammed. Was she rejecting his offer of being friends?

He was about to say something, anything. But he doesn't get the chance because she smiles at him. Small but genuine.

"See you around, Soo Hyun Oppa."

He lets out a breath. A breath of relief as he watches her turn around and walk away. Dumbfounded, slightly, but he releases a triumphant smile.

The universe had been fairly cruel to them, but maybe it wasn't entirely. Sometimes the world breaks things apart so they could grow individually, so that when it's time to bring them back together, they would form an unbreakable beautiful whole.

[mysterioh]

BUSTED - b.b. part 2

PAIRING: PROFESSOR! BUCKY X READER

SUMMARY: Nat asks you about a certain contact by the name of “Bucky Boo Bear 🐻💖💕💗” and gets the surprise of a lifetime.

WORDS: ~2K

A/N: hi! thank you for all the love on part 1! it was genuinely not expected but very much appreciated! here’s the second part and I hope I was able to make it to everyone’s expectations. 💕

PART 1

"First of all, how dare you?"

"How dare I like math?" Bucky asked with a smug grin that had the redhead fuming.

"How dare you defile innocent girls with your devilishly handsome looks!" she yelled in his office. "Have you seen this face?" she asked, squeezing your face with one hand and shaking it back and forth. "This is the epitome of chastity!”

“I’m amazed you know such big words, Romanoff,” he chuckled.

Nat groaned in replied ready to slap the smug grin off his face. She leaned over on his desk with her palms flat against the wood and daggers shooting from her eyes. Unfortunately, it'll take a lot more than that to intimidate him. 

“You know, I always thought you were a good professor. Distinguished, intelligent, a total hardass at times, but good nonetheless. But now? You’ve lost all my respect!” She said and you gave her an unseen roll of the eyes.  “How dare you take advantage of my friend like this?”

“Nat…”

“You stay quiet!”

“You do realize the feelings are mutual here right?” he asked, “I’m not forcing her into anything.”

“She’s half your age!” she exclaimed. “You can’t just start dating your students!”

“Nat, would you keep it quiet!” you hissed. “What if someone hears?”

“You damn old pervert!”

“Actually, I’m twenty-seven. So that makes me only six years older,” he stated nonchalantly. “Not like I’m expecting you to be good at math or anything.”

“I know how to add, moron,” Nat deadpanned. “I might be failing your stupid class but I know basic math.”

“You can’t call me a moron. I’m your professor,” he replied, growing increasingly annoyed by her belligerent behavior.

“Screw you and your title you gross math geek,” she hissed. “Targeting sweet and innocent girls for your disgusting fantasies.”

Bucky chuckles only fueling Nat’s anger. “She’s not as innocent as you make her out to be.”

You glared at Bucky as he looked at you with a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Am I gonna have to tell her or you?”

“Tell me what?” Nat asked looking at you with a raised brow.

You looked away from her, your cheeks a bright red. “Nothing, there’s nothing to say here.” You said, warning Bucky to not open his pretty mouth.

Bucky gave you an evil look. “She’s the one who started it.”

“No, I didn’t, you liar!”

“Come in,” Bucky called from his desk, eyes fixated on the screen of his computer. 

You poke your head in through the door and smile when he looks up. He returns it. 

You walk inside, confidence oozing from the way you sauntered over to his desk. Maybe it was just him, but there was a sultry air to your strut and suddenly his thoughts weren’t very professional. 

“Hi, sorry to bother,” you said. “I’m really having trouble with 6.3 and was wondering if you could help?” 

“That’s kinda my job,” Bucky chuckled, motioning you to sit in the chair next to his desk. “Let’s see that problem.” 

You chuckled while opening your notebook to find the problem you were stuck on. “So it’s on areas of revolution. I don’t really understand why you would use the Cylindrical Shells Method instead of the Disc Method.” 

You push the notebook closer to him and before he even reads anything he can’t help but admire how neat your notes are. Always made grading ten times easier.

“Alright,” Bucky pulls out a blank piece of paper from one of the several stacks on the side of his desk. “Let’s start by graphing this baby.” 

You pulled your chair closer to his cluttered mahogany desk and right next to his chair to get a better view. Bucky works out the problem, but it’s hard for him to focus. 

On any other day, he could do them with his eyes closed, but next to you he sounds like a nervous tutor on his first day. 

The scent of your perfume is intoxicating. The accidental brush of your hand against his fires him up. The way you bite your lip and furrow your brows in confusion had him fawning inwardly.

You couldn't help but sneak glances at him while he worked. His voice was like a jazzy tune, deep and soulful but smooth and sweet like honey. 

Those little glances morphed into something else and you're stuck staring at him, admiring the nitty-gritty of his features.

Eyebrows knitted in concentration. Steel-blue eyes determined to find a solution. His chocolate brown locks tied back lazily into a low bun with a few rebellious strands shaping his face. Oh, what wouldn't you do to leave a trail of kisses along the sharp angle of his bearded cheek, traveling your way towards those perfectly perfect, plump—. 

"Something wrong?" he asked. 

Your cheeks heated a bright red. "N-no!" You stuttered, quickly averting your eyes from his amused gaze and towards the desk. "U-um, I think I should go!" You quickly began to gather your things haphazardly while Bucky just looked on confused. 

He never said he minded. He didn't really want you to leave. Just not yet. 

"I'll see you in class, professor!" You said flustered. "H-have a good day." 

You turned on your heel to leave but freeze the minute his hand catches yours. His hand was surprisingly warm, fitting ever so perfectly in yours. It felt like you were unconsciously floating off into space. Your thoughts were filled with warm and fuzzy feelings and suddenly, the urgency to leave fades away. 

Bucky brings you back down to earth with a gentle tug on your hand making you turn to look at him, and it's the prettiest thing you've ever seen. 

Him looking up at you. His eyes twinkling in the light peering through the blinds of the window. Lips parted slightly, itching to say something that should never be said in this situation. 

"You don't have to go," he shook his head, the errant strands of his hair jostling as he did. "Can't you stay just a bit longer?" He whispered. 

In a matter of seconds, the schoolbag dropped, Stewart's Calculus was dead in a ditch, and private tutoring just got a bit too intimate. 

Next thing Bucky knows, he's caught in a whirlwind, dazed and confused by the way you're kissing him. The sweet taste of strawberries you had for a snack on the way there still lingered on your lips and had him craving more. Your gentle fingers traveling up his arms and the way you pull on his lower lip in mischief has him going insane. But even as the turbulent storm within him runs rampant, he still has some sort of sanity left. 

"We really shouldn't be doing this," Bucky murmured against your neck. Your heart aches against your ribcage at the sound of his husky voice against your skin. 

"We really shouldn't," you replied breathless, playing with the buttons of his shirt.

Papers with mathematical scribbles were scattered on Bucky’s desk along with a few on the floor. What had started as an innocent review session quickly turned into something else.

It was bound to happen eventually. The lingering gazes in class. The out of place compliments when returning quizzes. Always picking on you in class just to make sure you were listening. You always had a feeling that there was something more underneath all of it and sitting in his lap in the solace of his office was more than enough evidence to prove that your theory was correct.

"This is highly unprofessional, Miss L/N," Bucky stated as his hands slid down your sides. He nipped at your sweet spot.

"We can stop if you want to?" you asked innocently as if what you were doing was pure in its essence.

He leaned back in his leather chair and pulled you closer by wrapping an arm around your waist, making you straddle his hips better. Your body was taut against his with your hands resting on his chest. The look in his eyes denoted desire and you knew he had no intention of stopping.

“And what if I said I don’t want to?”

“Then I’m not going to stop you.”

"You do realize there is no turning back? This is going to change everything."

"Change is a good thing, Professor," you smirked bringing your lips closer to his, your sweet breath tickling his lips. Bucky growls lowly at the name.

"You're a bad student, Y/N."

"You're not so righteous yourself, Prof." you chuckled. "You have wandering hands," you said, alluding to his hard hands hidden underneath your sweater.

Bucky chuckled with a red blush tainting his bearded cheeks. He pulls you into a deep kiss, releasing seven weeks of pent up tension. The feel of your hand caressing his cheek and your core tight against him had him sending to another realm. There was an inkling of fear in him, but the need for you was far greater.

Who was gonna find out anyway?

"You started it?" Nat shouted at you.

"N-no!"

"I'm about to pull out the receipts," Bucky butted in.

"You will not do anything!" you shouted at him.

"Don't shout at me I'm your professor," he retorted.

"And I'm your girlfriend," you whispered at the end. "So I'll do what I want!"

"Babe, you're so bossy." Bucky chuckled. "I think that's really hot."

"Shut up, Bucky!" you shouted, hot and red.

"I can't believe I just heard you say that," Nat gagged. "This is beyond disgusting." She turned over to you, her red locks bouncing behind her. "Y/N, what's your mom gonna say about this?"

"Oh, Mrs. L/N is so sweet," Bucky said just to spite her. "She makes the best baklava."

Nat gaped at you. "He met your mom?!" You smiled sheepishly. "And he ate her baklava?!"

"Yeah, it was really good."

"How dare you eat her baklava?" she asked completely offended

"Well, she offered." Bucky shrugged.

"So your mom knew about this before I did?" Nat asked.

"You know my mom, Nat, she's always nagging me about getting a boyfriend."

"So you decided to pick your professor for the job?" she asked incredulously.

"Would you keep it down?" Bucky asked. "I'm tryna keep my job here."

"Should've thought about that before you started dating your student, math freak."

"Next insult and I'm knocking five percentage points off your grade."

"You can't do that!"

"Watch me," he threatened with a playful smirk.

She pouted at him then towards you. "Dump him right now!"

"Woah, woah, wait a second here," Bucky shouted in defiance.

"I'm not gonna do that, Nat. I really like him." You said.

"Why? He's a loser who gets turned on by math!"

"Well I like this loser!" you pointed at him.

"Don't call me a loser!"

"Fine don't ever talk to me again," she said as she strutted towards the door. "I never want to see you again."

"Nat, we live in the same house." You rolled her eyes at her. She was such a dramatic at times.

"Not anymore. I'll throw your stuff out the window for you to pick up. You can live with your stinky boyfriend from now on."

"Nat!" you hollered as she slammed the door behind her. You shake your head feeling a headache rising.

"She's really something," Bucky commented.

"I think it's the red hair," you said, making him chuckle.

You walk around his desk and take a seat in his lap.

"Sorry," he said.

"About what?"

"You just lost your best friend because of me."

"No," you chuckled, fixing the collar of his shirt. "She's just a bit dramatic. She'll be fine in an hour or two."

"How do you live with that?”

“You get used to it after twelve years.”

Bucky shook his head in amazement. “Wanna come to my place this weekend?" he asked with twinkling blue eyes.

"Can't," you sighed with a smile. "I have a Calc exam on Monday and my professor likes to make them incredibly hard."

"I can help," he offered with a smirk. "I'm very good at math."

"Something tells me we're going to be doing a lot more than just math," you chuckled.

"Maybe take a break or two," he suggested, dipping into your neck and peppering kisses along the curve of it.

"Highly doubt that," you replied as you pushed him away.

He frowns at you as you get up.

"I've got class in ten minutes," you replied. You turned to pick up your bag.

He catches you by the hand and gives it a kiss. "See you later then?" he asked with big puppy dog eyes.

"You are so clingy."

"I like spending time with my girlfriend. Is that so bad?"

"No, I guess not," you chuckled giving him a peck on the lips. "I'll see you tonight then. But not for too long since it's a school night."

"Nerd," he deadpanned.

"Says the guy who gets a hard-on from integrals," you retorted.

"I just like math, okay?"

"That's seriously not normal."

@marshyrebelcloud​ @chuckennuggets1213​

[bewaretheidesofmarchyall]

Hi! I follow you, and you're reblogging a lot of Dream SMP stuff, and I googled what the plot was and I didn't find anything so can you tell me the plot?

Alright

I covered the plot of Season One here:

https://bewaretheidesofmarchyall.tumblr.com/post/635954614437593088/hey-i-really-like-minecraft-and-used-to-watch

So, here’s what happened in Season Two!

Ranboo arrives! He’s half-enderman, he has amnesia, and he’s new in town!

Tommy and Ranboo broke George’s house, which gave Dream a flimsy excuse to build enormous obsidian walls around L’Manburg

In order to get the walls taken down, Tubbo is forced to exile Tommy

So, Tommy is sent away to Logstedshire, and becomes depressed (The fact that Dream shows up every day to destroy his things and emotionally manipulate him doesn’t help)

He comes very close to taking his final canon life, but he realizes what a terrible person Dream had been to him and runs away from Logstedshire to live in Technoblade’s basement

Speaking of Technoblade! He’s getting executed!

The Butcher Army (Quackity, Tubbo, Fundy, and Ranboo) decided that he needed to pay for the whole “releasing withers into the city and leaving into the night” thing

They were unaware that Technoblade had stopped his violent ways and was just living a peaceful retirement in the arctic with his favorite horse, Carl.

So, the Butcher Army shows up and threatens Carl to get Technoblade to follow them back to L’Manburg

They attempt to execute him with an anvil, but unbeknownst to them Technoblade had a totem of Undying

With Dream’s help, he escapes into the night after killing Quackity with a pickaxe.

Techno is greeted with a surprise when he returns home to find Tommy living in his basement. He decides to team up with the kid, and shows him his giant vault of wither skulls with the iconic line “Welcome Home, Theseus”

Meanwhile, the Butcher Army starts planning how to kill Dream at the next festival

Oh! There’s also a giant maximum security prison now!

And a mind-controlling alien parasite called The Crimson!!

There’s a lot of subplots

But we’ll skip to the Green Festival, where Dream does not die

No, the only things that die at that festival are L’Manburg’s chances and Techno and Tommy’s friendship

Basically, Dream blew up the Community House and blamed it on Tommy, then used it as an even flimsier excuse to get Tubbo to surrender the final disc (one of the things Tommy cares about the most in the game)

Tommy, who was watching the entire thing invisibly with Technoblade jumps in and fights with Tubbo, upset that he would even consider handing over his discs

However, he has a moment of self-realization, and he lowers his weapon, telling Tubbo to give up the disc

Despite his words, despite even some of his actions, he’s always going to choose Tubbo.

Tommy leaves Technoblade and joins up with Tubbo again, which Technoblade is obviously not a fan of.

Sadly, once Dream has both discs, there’s no reason for him to keep L’Manburg around, and he tells the crowd that the country will be destroyed tomorrow

They prepare for Doomsday

Dream, Techno, and Phil show up the next day

L’Manburg doesn’t stand a chance

The city is destroyed with withers and replicating TNT, and all that stands is a crater and one flag

That was four days ago

What comes next?

Tommy is still determined to get his discs back, mostly because he needs to focus on that or he’ll have a breakdown

Tubbo is dabbling in mad science, and blames himself. He’s made a new house that could one day become a country of its very own once Dream isn’t around to screw things up. 

It’s called Snowchester

Technoblade is back to vibing in the arctic after destroying a country. Still feels betrayed by Tommy.

Ghost Wilbur was very upset by the destruction of L’Manburg, since he was the one who owned the most stuff there. He wants to be brought back to life, which will be attempted today!

Phil has taken Ranboo under his wing and given him a place to stay, since he helped blow up his old house. Phil is also trying to bring back his son, Wilbur, from the dead.

Ranboo is not doing great, but he’s coping. He has a panic room, and has been needing it a lot lately after he was revealed as a “traitor” (it’s complicated). Currently living in the arctic with Phil and Techno, though that could change.

Quackity still may or may not be possessed (it’s complicated), but he’s cut ties with L’Manburgian government and is really trying to kill off Dream (but with diplomacy)

Fundy is also trying to kill off Dream, after he sabotaged the Anti-Doomsday effort and is having a corruption arc of his own. He and Ranboo are not that good of friends any more.

Niki burnt down the L’Mantree. She’s at an unstable part of her character arc, and isn’t doing great. Currently teaming with Jack Manifold.

Eret is a noble and kind king, and they’re the only one really doing okay here

Jack Manifold went to hell (He got better!), and now wants to take revenge on Tommy.

Callahan mourns the Community House

Sapnap has reconciled with Tommy, and fought on the right side of history for once

I think Punz is still a spy, but I’m not sure about that one

Captain Puffy is alright, I think.

George still wasn’t there for Doomsday

The Crimson grows

And Dream? Dream has finally destroyed L’Manburg. All that’s left for him is to destroy Tommyinnit once and for all.

Everyone on the server wants to kill god (and by god I mean Dream). The only problem is that everyone is really bad at teamwork.

If every person on the server actually works together, I think they can take Dream down and be free to live their own lives, complicated as those may be.

That’s the only hope at this point.

(Finally, Purpled played Bedwars instead of showing up to Doomsday)

If you have any other questions, please ask! I wasn’t able to cover everything that’s happened on this server, so if you want to know more about certain characters or theories, my ask box is always here.

Thanks for reading!

[elrondsscribe]

So! Let’s talk about this Jedi Code for a minute.

From what I have absorbed through social osmosis (I’m not terribly familiar with much of the EU material), the original Jedi Code went like this:

Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.

But by the time of the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars, the Code appears to have been changed to this:

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.

Unfortunately, the way the Jedi Order amended the Code and were practicing it is in many ways similar to my own evangelical/Calvinist upbringing. Let me illustrate, one by one:

There is no emotion, there is peace.

This point I feel has already been well talked over, so I won’t belabor the point too much, but there’s definitely a deep problem when you systematically raise an entire order to fundamentally distrust their internal compass (because that’s how emotions often function).

It’s also the most destructive kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Raising an entire subculture of people to be suspicious of emotion in the abstract leads to an environment where you can’t examine or interrogate your emotions. And, paradoxical as it may seem on the surface, a culture raised not to examine or interrogate their emotions (and whose primary way of dealing with them is to expel them -- I mean, ‘release them into the Force’) is a culture who will be up to its neck in self-deception, hypocrisy, and unacknowledged constant fear. On the other hand, a culture that is conditioned to be emotionally aware and intelligent is, paradoxically, in much less danger of actually being ruled by their emotions.

Trust me, I know a thing or two about being raised to deal with emotion by pushing it away in a religiously sanctioned manner. It does not lead to whole, healthy persons who are at peace.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

This point holds more interest for me than it seems to hold for most people, so I wanna park here for a moment. You know what it sounds like to me? A fixation with certainty. Now, evangelicalism does not have a monopoly on certainty, but the form it takes in evangelicalism is what I have experience with. I also think it’s quite useful and instructive in examining where the Jedi went wrong.

In an ideology that prizes certainty, religious advancement is closely correlated with acquiring correct information and refuting incorrect propositions. By the time of the prequel trilogy and the Clone Wars, experimentation in using the Force was forbidden, or at the very least highly discouraged, at a systemic level. You do things one way because it’s the Right Way, and anything outside of the Right Way is automatically suspect and probably Bad. If the Right Way is painful or difficult for you, that’s because there’s something wrong with you, and it means that you need to work harder to conform.

For both the Jedi and evangelicalism as I knew it, actual curiosity and creativity are explicit threats. You don’t ask why we do things one way. You don’t ask what other ways there are of doing things. And you definitely don’t entertain the notion that a voice outside the approval of the order is capable of speaking truth. 

Actually, I’m going to have to do the unthinkable, and give the edge to evangelicalism here. At least evangelicalism doesn't say that if you so much as start down a ‘wrong’ road, it defines you and you can never come back. But so far as the Jedi are concerned, you can’t even touch the Dark Side without becoming irrevocably consumed by evil.

There is no chaos, there is harmony.

Basically, in my opinion, the hypocrisy-slip is really showing here. The Force is wild -- if it really is ‘that which is between all things,’ then it’s just as present in the storms and high seas and exploding nebulae as it is in stationary rocks. I don’t think it’s possible to interact with the Force at all without inviting some amount of chaos. And that’s not even touching the fact that some amount of chaos is just inherent in being human.

Also, as a piano major, let me let y’all in on a little music theory secret: there is no such thing as music that has no dissonance, no sonic ‘chaos.’ You can’t even have chords, the basic building blocks of harmony, without some dissonance between the notes. Part of what constitutes harmony in music is an agreement between composer and listeners (and performer/s, I guess) as to how much chaos is acceptable before the music becomes meaningless noise.

What I’m saying is, you can’t have harmony, you can’t have music, without inviting chaos.

And, infuriatingly, I think they know this. Both Obi-Wan and Yoda in ANH both tell Luke that when you tap into the Force, it flows through you. So it really looks to me like what they’re really doing is denouncing anything they can’t control and calling it ‘chaos,’ while allowing contact with whatever they can control by calling it ‘harmony.’ That’s really what it’s all about for them, it’s about control.

And oh boy, do I know what it is to live under a religious order that pays lip service to internal harmony, but is actually all about control.

There is no death, there is the Force.

Well, I’ll give the Jedi this much: unlike evangelicalism, they don’t bring up their littluns to believe that someone who doesn’t accept their version of reality is damned to eternal torment.

However, there is a larger problem where you’re refusing to let people deal with death honestly. At some point when dealing with a loss, you’re expected to be able to say: “Yes, I will miss them, but they’ve gone to be with Jesus and they’re in a better place now.” You don’t really have any help in processing the fact that, whether or not the person you lost is in a ‘better place,’ you still had to figure out how to move forward with that loss. Especially not long-term.

And that’s what I’m so painfully reminded of when Yoda tells Anakin in ROTS not to mourn or miss those who have died, to rejoice that they’ve joined the Force. Recall that, at that point in Jedi history, nobody had EVER heard of someone dead remaining personally accessible to the living in any way. ‘Become one with the Force’ holds about as much meaning for people in the Star Wars universe as ‘gone to heaven’ holds for us.

And hey, again with me grudgingly giving an edge to evangelicalism: they allow you to have human ties! At the very least, they let you cry at the funeral. They let you say “I miss them.” But the Jedi, for all their bleating about ‘compassion for everyone,’ are very un-compassionate toward their own chickadees when it comes to letting them process death.

Now why did I choose to say all this?

There is, floating around some corners of the PT/CW Star Wars fandom at least on Tumblr, a certain idea that we should withhold sharp criticism of Jedi practices and beliefs because some aspects of Jedi-ness as shown in the films nominally resemble some points of Buddhism. In the eyes of those who hold such sentiments, criticism of Jedi ideology as practiced during the PT/CW reveals our true colors as white Christian imperialists unable to conceive of any other way of life being functional.

Well, being a degenerate and a daughter of slaves myself with no love of white Christian imperialism, and being a survivor of some very specific forms of religious abuse, let’s just say I know a super dysfunctional religious subculture when I see one. And the prequel-era Jedi definitely fit that bill.

In other words, there’s a little more going on with my critique of the Jedi than the ‘no attachment’ rule. It’s a whole system that’s gone wrong, and I’ve only just gotten started in talking about how.

[avionvadion]

So the first two are some VERY old drawings- like, I was back in high school kinda drawings. Oof. Sorta hurts to look at it, but whatever. XD The next two plus the dancing one are closer together, though still fairly old, and the Ienzo drawing is one I did literally the other night because I was listening to “soldier” nightcore and OH MY GODS. 

Because, like, Nobodies grow hearts over time? Well, Irene is crushing on Zexion from the start, and she pretty much just sort of annoys him into falling in love with her- though he doesn’t realize it. He just gets angrier and more flustered, until La City de Cloches happens (right before CoM) and he snaps. (Riku witnesses their friendship in the DDD part of the fanfic, or at least will when I’m able to write ti) Also, while I originally planned on them masquerading as gypsies because it’s fanfiction and I can do that, um, I rewatched Book of Life and realized-! BATTLE DANCE MOVES! Which basically inspired the last page because it’s them fighting and doing a team attack. A dancing team attack. 

I’M A ZEXION/IENZO SIMP OKAY I’M SORRY I LOVE ONE MAN AND IT’S HIM HE IS BEST DISNEY PRINCE 

Story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12448743/chapters/28327938

Major Fanfic Spoilers below

Anyway, the whole Irene/Ienzo conflict is that Irene was super freaking in love with Zexion, right? She was happy and sweet, and he was calculative and manipulative and smart, and she knew that, and he knew that, and it worked. But then he died. Lexaeus- bodyguard/father figure- died. Everyone at CoM died. Even Xion. But then Roxas defects. 

Irene tracks Roxas to Twilight Town after he ran away from the Organization in a desperate attempt to bring him back so to avoid his obliteration. In the process she meets Hayner, Pence, and Olette who mention they just met a blond a day or two ago and wish her luck in finding her friend. She learns of the abandoned mansion and encounters “Ansem” at the gate. She asks him about Roxas, but the only response she got in turn was Soul Eater pointed at her face. Irene tries to go about things peacefully, but when he refuses to put his weapon away Irene summons her own and tells him that she won’t go easy on him for hiding her “brother” from her. Irene wins and manages to break into the mansion. 

There she encounters Namine, who is all too aware of who Irene is because of her connection to Roxas and Riku- and therefore her connection to Sora. Namine is surprised, but says that she should have expected Irene to come to the mansion because of how much she cares for Roxas and the other organization members. She then says that she’s always wanted to meet Irene since she found out about her, having learned of her apparent affection towards Nobodies. She explains that Roxas is hidden in a version of Twilight Town DiZ created, but his memories of her were now locked away. 

“Without the memories of Kairi… Sora can’t wake up. He needs Roxas.” 

“So do we! Roxas is my family; I’m not leaving without him!” 

“But… if you take him away, then…” 

“Then he gets to live. I am NOT losing him, too. Just take the memories out of him and put them back into Sora!”

“I… I can’t… it’ll take too much time…”  

Irene storms out and locates the basement, but during that time Namine panics and tries to mess with her memory. Unfortunately, as a Keeper of Heart Irene’s memories can’t be altered as much as a normal person’s and due to that Irene becomes incredibly dizzy. Having made her way to hidden basement Irene encounters DiZ, who mocks her in her state for caring so much for a being that doesn’t even have feelings. Irene snaps at him, saying that he knows nothing about Nobodies and their feelings, and tells him that the bonds between her and the Nobody friends she made are what keep her going. 

“I-I’ve already lost so many… I won’t… let you… take Roxas, too!” 

She summons her staff and goes to attack, but “Ansem” arrives in time to protect DiZ. She goes so far as to call them murderers for trying to remove Roxas from the world, but DiZ merely laughs and says that Roxas shouldn’t have even existed in the first place. This only makes Irene more angry and her attacks against a weary “Ansem” become more wild and frustrated. 

“You know NOTHING! Of them, of the Organization, of the way they treat each other! One may lack a heart… but the feelings are still there! Wh-When they died… when that girl went missing… Roxas cried! And mourned! And hurt!” Knocks “Ansem” back and switches her illusion staff to her own. “Without being there or witnessing any of it… YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING ABOUT NOBODIES!” 

Goes to swing the staff with a huge surge of light, when Namine started to try and lock up her memories of the Organization- thus causing Irene to fumble. She falls to her knees and begins to panic, knowing SOMETHING was happening to her. Her eyes lock onto the rings and gloves on her hands and she realizes- she couldn’t remember who they were from. A face was starting to fade from her memory, the face of someone very important to her, and she begins to panic- frantically trying to recall the name as she stands and stumbles back into a wall. 

Irene begins screaming when her head begins to throb to the point it felt like her skull was splitting into two. Namine’s powers were starting to fail and Irene was on the verge of recalling Zexion’s name when “Ansem” takes the initiative to knock her out. DiZ decides to place her in the virtual Twilight Town with Roxas, removing all the gear the Org members have given her (including her coat), and had Namine alter both her and Roxas memories enough to where they would coincide. However, Namine could only do so much and was unable to “make” new memories for Irene, only able to lock up the majority of them and edit the details of the remaining few. 

When Irene woke up she remembered nothing except her sibling status with Roxas. Roxas believed Irene to be his sister and the only remaining survivor of the “accident”. She obtained amnesia since the accident and was brought home only recently since she recovered from hospital. He explained that any gaps in her memory could be because of the head injury she sustained, but Irene couldn’t feel much pain at all aside from a light headache. During the seven days Irene behaved overly doting towards Roxas, taking side-jobs from the help wanted boards in an attempt to help support them so Roxas wasn’t doing things on his own anymore. 

Also Struggles with him sometimes to help prepare for the tournament after it gets revealed that she was the one who taught him how to struggle. Is surprised by her own strength. Eventually sometime while hanging up posters for the upcoming struggle match Irene encounters “Ansem” again. He’s just standing there and watching her, and her feeling rather uncomfortable upon noticing him calls him out and tries to strike a conversation. 

“Hey~ random person! How you doing? New in Twilight Town?” No answer. “O-kay… well! You want one of these posters? The tournament’s coming up soon and my little bro’s gonna be fighting in it! Well, I say “little” but he’s like fifteen? Also taller than me, which is lame, but hey! You should come watch! You might enjoy it.” 

“...” 

“No?” 

“Ansem” leaves and Irene is left very confused, but also feeling like she should know that person from somewhere because of the coat. Thinking about it makes the pounding in her skull worse, so she stops focusing on it. More time passes and Irene is at the accessory looking for something to help Roxas out a day before the tournament when she catches sight of the rings. Her head starts to hurt again and she wonders why looking at them hurt her heart so much, and why her fingers suddenly felt so exposed. Leaves the shop, only to crash into “Ansem” again who shoves two rings into her hands. 

“If they’re so important to you, you should try harder not to lose them.”

 Before she could ask what he was talking about he’s gone and Irene is left standing there, staring at the rings in her hands and wondering what he meant by that. She puts on one of the rings and places the other in her pocket, and heads home to get started on another cooking attempt for dinner. Sometime later Roxas comes out of his room- very dazed and confused, not understanding how he got there since he was certain he fell off the clock tower- and after dinner when Irene is putting the dishes away she asks Roxas if he knew why the rings she had were so important to her. 

He’s surprised to see them, having believed they were lost in the accident, and hesitantly tells her that the ring she was wearing was given to her by her boyfriend- the same one that died in the accident- and that the other was the ring she gave to him. Irene’s headache gets worse, but she’s just barely able to recall a face. In the mansion DiZ questions “Ansem”, demanding why he intervened, and “Ansem” responds that those rings in particular were something they should have never taken from her. Later that night Irene winds up in her heart, where she is asked a question and is forced to fight a previous Keeper. 

During the day of the struggle when time freezes and Roxas is forced to fight the dusks, Irene moves to help him only to be dragged away by “Ansem”. Continuously blocking her way, Irene gets frustrated and in her determination to help her “brother” she summons her weapon. There she fights “Ansem”, but just as she starts to win the world unfreezes and he vanishes into a corridor of darkness. Irene is really confused and her weapon disappears, but quickly runs back to the match and is surprised to find everyone cheering- the dusks nowhere to be seen and Roxas apparently victorious against Vivi. The dusks reminded Irene of something and she passes out after focusing too much on it, and recalls pieces of her conversation with Zexion/Lexaeus after she found out the dusks listened to her. 

When the seventh day comes Namine releases the locks on Irene’s memories and the girl goes in desperate search for Roxas, but ends up having to evade the hordes of Nobodies attacking. Memories back she heads to the mansion and finds Roxas just in time, stopping him from calling out to Sora. Roxas apologizes, knowing full well he was causing her and Maria both grief, but tells her about the dreams he had of Sora and that- even if he didn’t want to- Roxas had to do this. So many worlds and people needed Sora. He asks her to respect his decision and to keep smiling,  and then fades into Sora. Irene starts to breakdown and panics when Sora starts to wake, running off in an attempt to hide. Unfortunately she slams right into Goofy and Donald who have just woken up, and is almost instantly mistaken as “Mazy” by Goofy who had last seen Maria when she was a young teen. Irene is instantly confused only to remember Maria’s stories about Goofy and realizes mid-bear hug what was happening. He sets her down, only to notice her eyes were brown instead of hazel and that she WASN’T actually Maria, and apologizes. Then asks why she’s so upset, but Irene quickly changes the subject by bringing up Sora and saying something about how “someone was waking up in the next room” and Donald and Goofy run off to find Sora. 

Irene makes a break for it, but encounters “Ansem” again. He tosses her bag and white coat at her, all her equipment inside, and tells her to “Go”. Rather than grateful she ends up even more confused and mad at him as he was the reason Roxas was now gone, and she didn’t understand why he was helping her so much, but he says nothing and merely vanishes into a Dark Corridor. “What is wrong with that man?” 

Finds a room to hide in and puts her coat on, looking through the bag to find her equipment and is more than alarmed when she finds the bracelet she made for Lexaeus in there. He had worn it to C.O so it should have been there, so why was it in her bag…? Did that man put it there? His weapon looked a little like a keyblade- could he have been the one to kill him? And the photo from Halloween Town with them and Zexion... Irene was just about to open a portal to the castle, ready to resign herself to her fate of having to explain the situation to Maria, when the door slams open and Sora, Donald, and Goofy walk in. 

Gets questioned by Donald and reluctantly answers most of them, when Goofy has a realization like, “I get it! The reason you look like lil’ Mazy is ‘cause yer her other half, isn’t it?” 

Sora is super duper confused and Donald is in disbelief, and Irene is like, “Er, I mean, I am, but the reason we look alike is because we’re sisters??? Not because we’re both Keepers??? Hi??” 

Que Goofy having an excited freak out because holy crap his little Mazy has a little sister he’s so happy for Maria. Asks how she is and what she’s doing, but before Irene could actually answer Donald throws a fit because the King was looking for the other Keeper and she’s right in front of them- they HAVE to bring her along- and Sora is just asking what the heck a “Keeper” is and who “Maria” was. Goofy and Donald explain, then bring up how the Keepers of Heart are supposed to work together with keyblade wielders to free captive hearts, and Sora gets on board with bringing her along because why not?? The more the merrier, right??? And Irene is all types of “Nope” but they aren’t having it. Donald is the most aggressive about it. Irene is cursing her luck as she just wanted to go back to the castle and burrow under the covers like a depressed bunny rabbit. 

And now Irene is even more distraught then before. Maria learns that Sora was in C.O and tries to kill him, and Irene attempts to defend him because Roxas was still in there somewhere- she can feel his light- which causes Maria to call her delusional. Maria, feeling betrayed by Irene, tries to kill HER while Sora is unconscious, and Goofy drags Donald and Sora back to the gummi ship. Irene doesn’t fight, instead keeping a shield up the entire time as Maria is wailing on her, until the woman is exhausted. She tells Irene to get out of her sight and she does, and every now-and-then Maria will appear. To simultaneously check up on Irene, to attack her, and to attack Sora. 

And though Irene hates Sora for stealing Roxas away, she can’t help but also be friends with him. At least... until Demyx dies. Then she snaps, claiming Maria was right all along, and goes after him- only for “Ansem” to intervene. Sora heads farther into Hollow Bastion and Maria attacks him, thus how she gets her chest scar, and Irene nearly kills “Ansem”. She was seconds away from doing it, but then the hood falls down and she can see his eyes... and realizes that he was a person just like her. Like everyone else. And if she killed him... someone who cared for him would be feeling exactly what she was. 

And then “Ansem” won. Her face burned, stomach ripped open and then simultaneously healed/burned shut, he tosses a defeated Irene and Maria somewhere safe where they can talk. And then more org death happens, and the girls are depressed. Luxord was the last for Irene- she couldn’t handle anymore. She gave up and just hid in her old room, even as the castle fell apart. The previous inside her heart eventually opened a light corridor and pulled her through, saving her, and for a long time she just stayed there before accidentally wandering into Destiny Islands where she encounters Riku. Through some things Maria and Irene are able to start working together as sisters and keepers again and make a home in the Radiant Garden castle, helping the restoration committee, until DDD. 

Lea is pretty much the same Axel. The personalities don’t differ that much. But Ienzo? Heck, even Irene? They’re not the same as they were. Irene is depressed, traumatized by all the events that occurred in such a short span of time. She’s still grieving. And for a man with the same face and voice as the one she had loved so wholeheartedly before, only to be so DIFFERENT, appearing before her? it hurts. And she’s conflicted. And she’s scared. 

And while she wants to protect him, to keep him safe and ensure he lives this time around, she also wants to avoid him at any cost. But Ienzo loves her- he was as much as Zexion as Zexion was him. And Lea tries to help her see this, definitely not as patient as Ienzo and being far more annoyed that the tension in the room was so physically painful he wanted to rip his hair because GOD DAMN IT GIRL JUST ACCEPT HIM ALREADY. YOU KNOW YOU LOVE HIM. It isn’t until after Tangled that she does, witnessing Eugene’s death. 

Also Riku feels massive guilt over killing Zexion, especially after becoming friends with Irene (poor girl unaware he was “Ansem”), and witnessing their interactions in La City de Cloches during his exam. 

The songs “Haven’t Had Enough” “All to Myself” and “Who Do You Love” by Marianas Trench fit  Irene/Ienzo pretty well, actually. Especially if you imagine the PoV shifting back and forth. “Soldier” is more Irene/Zexion to Irene/Ienzo, but... yeah. XD I’m weak, okay? I’m sorry. I love torturing characters. 

[ithinkthingsaboutstuff]

Well I am bored and can’t get back to sleep. So it’s time for a supergirl s5 rant no one asked for.

Now every season has its issues and there were some outside “issues” this season (COVID-19 and Melissa being pregnant) so I will keep that in mind.

That being said.

This season had problems from the word jump. This was for a few reasons.

1- The plot was all over the place

And I don’t mean, ‘oh there was not enough of [blank character] so it was bad.’ No, I mean it was literally jumping between to many elements. Like what was this season about really?

Was it about a new tech environment taking over people’s lives? Was it about an ancient occult power coming out of the shadows to “take” the earth? Was it about adjusting to a post crisis world? Was it about the Luther siblings joining forces to achieve common goal and brainy is a secret inside man?

Now I understand that most tv shows have multiple plot points to follow that’s normal and expected. However, you need to have them meet up in away that is rewarding to the viewer and makes sense for the story that you are trying to tell. And there is an old writing trick called “one step at a time” Basically it boils down to, The audience will only believe one thing at a time.

Eg. You tell the audience this character can only do something in a certain way, (like the sups and the yellow sun,) but then you say that actually never mind this is another way to do it,(like Kara can keep her speed and only her speed under a red sun). This is bad writing as there is no set up or pay off and you cheated your audience by just changing the rules you made for no reason. (Think that kid on the playground that does that “unbeatable force field” thing in a game of tag.)

This can also apply to story concepts this is called a “conflicting narrative” in season 5 this apples to leviathan.

At the start of the season (ep 1 -8) we are told that they are ancient and magical based villains, all good. 

and their big plan is to therefor, of course  *checks notes* to use advice sci fi tech to achieve their goals and do something? with the people inside, yeah that makes sense what else would they use? Magic? that thing the super family is vulnerable to? Nah.....sarcastic’s aside, if you establish one thing you can’t turn in round with no explanation. 

They actually have a good example of this concept working in this season, in ep 10 with Brainy and his changing physical appearance. 

It was set up in the ep early on that our brainy was ‘off’ compared to the other Brainy’s, we get an explanation in the bar scene with the Rath siblings and then it is built upon with a Kara and Brainy scene, then after a build up and a reason (a character based one I might add) it is then and only then that it gets revealed and guess what.... that is hands down the best ep of the season. 

I literally have re-watched that ep so many times cause it’s that good. It is great self contained episodes and builds on per established character moments and plot points (brainy’s character inconsistency and the crisis plot aftermath) it’s the gold standard of what I’m talking about.

it sets up and pays off what it is trying to do and give character base reason for the story. 

But the season as a whole don’t do this effectively because 

2- They focus on making the plot the compliment characters, and not the characters complimenting the plot.   

the blanket term for this is, this is called “build up and release” this is used to drag out tension effectively. there are 2 ways to do this but basically 

1- answer one thing, then that answer leads to another question     

2- give partial answers through out a space of time, to keep attention but not make it the only focus of any given moment.

but anyway,

season 5 has this issue where they bring up a point then either don’t carry it through or don’t ‘step it out’ in a way that leads well to the story.

remember what i said about accepting one thing at a time? now let me ask.

If Leviathan is secret why did they reveal themselves now?

I don’t know and guess what, I don’t care, because the show didn’t care either. they never set up why they came out of the shadows or why that even mattered? so why would anyone care outside of “season’s bad guys”. 

you know what this season did care about the Luther siblings. there is nothing wrong with that per say, I just don’t see why they needed Leviathan if they didn’t actually want to develop them in anyway. If the post crisis season was just about taking down the Luther’s then fine nothing wrong with that.

but here is why they NEEDED the Leviathan ‘plot’ (and i use that loosely) is that they needed it to justify Lena working with Lex and not have her come off as “too evil” that way she can say

“i’m only working with you because I want to get rid of Leviathan” 

instead of 

“i’m working with you because i have the same motives as you”

which would not play well in her “redemption” (and i use that term even looser) they kept an aspect to the story purely to complaint a character they wanted a particular outcome, so they kept a plot element around regardless of how well it actually worked with the story.    

and then there’s the bitch himself LEX (John did a great job tho tbh)

he is the biggest example of ‘plot fitting character’, Lex didn’t fail ONCE the whole season, no problems or surprises and it was “oh so easy for him” like that is just frustrating for everyone, i’m not saying “the hero’s should win all the time” No, but the villains need to earn their wins to. here is why that is an issue if you make it to easy.  

1- the audience wants to see every character have their problems with achieving their goals and how they go about solving the problems as it is and hear me out...entertaining   

2-  when a character always has things “go to plan” it feels super forced, the Human error, is built into us (the audience) as people, so to see it not come into play at all, at any point, feels fake as we all know life don’t work that way for anyone. especially if there are people actively trying to stop you. 

overall you shouldn’t force a plot to fit a character, you should write a character to fit the plot their in (or in other words have them adapted to new situations they don’t even have to do it well) 

Ironically a good example of this in s5 was William

they built up that he was a journalist and that he was hiding something, fast froward and it turned out that he was trying to uncover Leviathan (unknowingly to him) and not apart of them. 

this is a good way for a character to compliment the plot. 

they said here is a new journalist and he doesn’t even know the depths of what he is looking into and that’s a smart move.      

i’m just going to leave this clip here...

this tied in character and plot really well it exampled character and now after this scene they can shift his behaviour and have a reason for it. not just ‘oh actually he was never a jerk and he is nice now’. no it was “he is trying to achieve a goal using this method and now he has been exposed”. This gives a plot based obstacle and character reaction (that failed to work) and it works actually quiet well for a network conspiracy plot.

character completing plot.

and finally 

3- Rushed endings  

now this one is actually treaty to talk about, cause of well the COVID- 19 problems so i can’t be to judgemental about it cause that is a dick move. And on top of that the lead actress (of an action show) was pageant so they had to use he a little less (in fight scenes anyway) so again I’m not going to be a dick about it, and you know i don’t want anyone being forced to work during a pandemic if its not at all necessary. So, i will keep this brief.      

There are still things that fell flat due to being to rushed.

1- the tech/ VR take down.

It was built up for at least 10 eps and they took it down in 5 mins with a pep talk from Kara, like um ok that was easy i guess, don’t know why y’all were worried if you could fix it in an afternoon. this is not a bad plot line in theory, but it was given to much attention for the solution it was given. 

2- Leviathan lady (don’t know and don’t care what her name is) being a robot alien thing.

this one is not too bad? but it was shown way to late in the game and again they didn’t focus enough on Leviathan for this to be of any real audience value outside of a surprise/ shock value. So why should i care now? they barely did anything interesting this season but then you give me something cool 2 mins after it doesn’t matter anymore (with the others bottled). why was this not done earlier in the season? but anyway.   

3- Lena’s “redemption”  

I could write a whole separate rant about this, but for time and my sanity i won’t. but basically, my main issue is that the whole season Lena was spiralling downward and doing worse and worse things to people, and that’s fine from a story pov, but after at least 15 to 17 eps of this and countless bad decisions and judgements she dose ONE good thing and, well that’s all your needed to do, all is forgiven.

now i am all for redemption arcs but one of the main words there is ARC!!!

there needs to be a reflection, apologies, rejections and making mistakes and then truly changing for the better, and still making mistakes!!

it was disgustingly quick and it honestly made me a little uncomfortable. I want to see people grow and learn but people have to earn their own way there. and another thing redemption is not something another person should be reasonable for giving you. (*cough* Kara *cough*)  redemption is something you give yourself through hard choices, personal loses and hard work. and guess what you can do all that and still NEVER get back what you messed up, that was real change and growth is as, 

redemption, real redemption         

comes in the moments when you don’t benefit from it, Lena loses nothing in helping Kara in the end and gains everything she throw away in a minute flat. So, yeah i think it was rushed in a way that made my jaw drop in disbelief because of how badly rushed it was. 

But getting out of that head space.

I like trying to end on a positive note the only part of the ending that was not rushed was Brainy’s bottling of Leviathan, 

it was set up as a thing that be could do (ep 10),it was a hard choice to make (as it was going to kill him) and was given time to feel the full weight of the choice, the Rath sibling hand hold, then Lex taunting him and taking the bottle, and then Brainy being left there alone, Then a bit of hope with Nia’s vision. it was the best part of the ending this season and i want to see more.  that is how you don’t rush an ending let the audience feel the consequences for the character choices with the character.   

anyway season 5 rant over.

[bloodraven55]

Gaslighting as a Form of Abuse in RWBY

With another comic focussing on an abuse victim having just been released today in the form of Weiss’ issue of the DC comic series, I want to tackle another analysis post in the hopes of bringing some more understanding surrounding emotional abuse to this fandom because in some parts it seems to be sorely needed.

There are a couple of points I’d like to address in this post, the first being the identity of the person speaking to Weiss during the sections set post-V3 in the comic. Most people assume it to be Jacques, but some also think it might be Willow. I can understand both arguments, and I’m not totally decided myself yet on which I think it is.

On the one hand, the type of abuse seems more subtle and manipulative compared to Jacques’ usual direct and aggressive approach, and we’re never actually shown who’s talking, which could suggest Weiss’ mother. But on the other hand the only thing we know about Willow is that she drinks to excess and fights with Jacques a lot so there isn’t really any basis to assume she would be manipulative towards Weiss, and the tone of the dialogue does fit Jacques’ sleazy and condescendingly pleasant demeanour that he assumes when he’s pretending to be nice to Weiss like in V4, so it would also make a lot of sense for it to be him.

For the purposes of this article I’m simply going to refer to them as Weiss’ parent to avoid any confusion and prevent me having to change it later if we get more information or I form a concrete stance on who it is. Their identity doesn’t impact the content of the post at all so it seemed the most logical solution.

With that covered, let’s move on to the main thing I want to talk about, which is the parallels between the way that Weiss’ parent gaslights her in the comic and the way that Adam gaslights Blake multiple times throughout the show but primarily in his Character Short.

“You are not the first Schnee in history to suffer disappointment, and this behaviour is really rather excessive…”

“Blake, I'm sorry. I told you it was an accident.”

This first part is representative of the main principle of gaslighting, which is to undermine the other person’s judgement and make them doubt their own ability to think rationally so that they’ll act the way you want them to.

Weiss’ parent diminishes her suffering by claiming it’s no worse than what other people have been through before—an interesting reference to the quote in the White Trailer which directly contradicts it by stating that “everyone is entitled to their own sorrow, for the heart has no metrics or forms of measure”—to invalidate Weiss’ pain.

Adam downplays the importance of innocents being killed on his missions by framing them as mere “accidents” to make Blake seem paranoid and foolish for being concerned by them and prefaces it with an insincere apology so that she’ll immediately feel bad because she thinks she’s hurt his feelings.

These both show the abuser using the way they talk to make it seem like the victim is totally detached from reality and as though their point of view on the situation must be false, leaving the abuser’s way of seeing things as the only correct option.

“Weiss, I just… don’t understand why you’re behaving this way. You act as though you’ve been kidnapped or imprisoned, and that is simply not what happened.”

“I don't know. I'm out there fighting for us, and when you fight, people get hurt.”

This is a continuation of the first part, further cementing the supposed “irrational” nature of the victim’s behaviour and showcasing the abuser moulding the scenario so that they’re never the one in the wrong.

Weiss’ parent feigns confusion and disbelief at the fact that Weiss is upset at being dragged away from her school and friends against her will, insisting that she isn’t being forced to stay and outright denying the validity of Weiss’ perception of what happened.

Adam dismisses Blake’s concerns at the deaths he’s caused by shifting the blame away from himself, falsely presenting the loss of life as an inevitability of fighting, and placing himself as the victim who’s having his heroism questioned.

In both cases the abuser warps reality to make themself seem as though they’re in the right so that the victim will stop trusting their own perception of events and come to believe that their abuser is right.

“It is natural to be unhappy to leave Beacon Academy, but friends come and go, and go more often as they get older… but family is forever.” / “And if you did have to leave those radicals, those ‘friends’ behind, well… all the better.”

“What, do you want me to just abandon our cause? Like your parents?”

This part ties into another major aspect of emotional abuse which is isolating the victim from their support network of friends and/or family so that they have nowhere else to go and no one else to rely on. However, it is also another example of gaslighting as it involves making those close to the victim appear like the bad guys in order to push the victim away from the people who might try to help them and further into the abuser’s control.

Weiss’ parent describes Weiss’ friends as “radicals” and mocks her bond with them, saying that it was good for Weiss to leave them and reminding her that she’s alone now without them, even spinning it to sound like they never cared about Weiss at all in the first place and as though her family—a.k.a. them—are the only people she can trust.

Adam deliberately brings up Blake’s parents, which he knows is a vulnerable topic for her, to remind her that they’re “traitors” and brand her a traitor too by association, reinforcing the idea that he is the only one she has left.

I suspect that this is the aspect of gaslighting that most people have the least trouble identifying since it basically amounts to guilt-tripping and even the majority of people without much knowledge of emotional abuse are aware of how that works.

“Weiss, sweetheart, please, don’t sulk!” / “Weiss, I love you, but you are really quite overreacting to the whole thing.”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought them up. I just get scared when it feels like you don't believe in me anymore.”

This part I think is what blinds a lot of people to the fact that emotional abuse and manipulation is happening. And that’s because the abuser offers what might appear to be a sincere expression of affection or a genuine apology, when in reality it’s simply a way of convincing the victim that everything that they’re going through is for their own good and that their abuser has their best interests at heart.

Weiss’ parent calls her “sweetheart” and tells Weiss they love her, while in the same breath solidifying the idea that her behaviour is unwarranted and undermining her grievances.

Adam apologises for mentioning Blake’s parents after the damage is already done, while in the same breath making Blake feel guilty for being worried that he’s killing people and making it her job to reassure him instead of the other way around. He deliberately blows what she says out of proportion so that he can pretend to feel hurt in order to illicit sympathy from her.

The veneer of niceness that the abuser uses to hide the way they double down on their manipulation is what makes this facet of abuse hard to spot and can lead other people as well as the victim into thinking that the abuser is right because they seem to be being honest, when in reality it’s all part of how they manage to deceive their victim as well as sometimes serving the added purpose of further isolating the victim from their support network as the people close to them will often side with the abuser here.

“At a certain point, you have to take responsibility for your role in all of this. If you choose to continue in this way, Weiss, then we will have no choice but to keep you here. And you’ll have only yourself to answer to.”

“Why did you have to come into my life and ruin everything?!” / “… but not before you’ve suffered for your betrayal, my love.” / “I wouldn’t have to be doing this if you’d just behave.”

And this final part is a clear example of the end goal of emotional abuse, which is to make the victim think that everything bad that happens is their fault. This is achieved by distorting their perception of reality via gaslighting, as we’ve already covered, so that they trust their abuser’s judgement before their own and will believe it when they’re told that they’re the one to blame for the harm that the abuser causes.

Weiss’ parent makes it Weiss’ fault that she’s not okay with being confined within her own house in a relentlessly unpleasant environment and puts the blame for it on Weiss while claiming to have “no choice” but to inflict pain on her.

Adam places responsibility for the results of his own actions—a.k.a. Blake leaving him, his losing power in the White Fang, etc.—on Blake instead of himself and insists that if she doesn’t “behave” then he has no option but to punish her.

When people in this fandom blame Weiss and Blake to any extent whatsoever for the actions of their abusers, they’re doing the same thing as Weiss’ parent and Adam do here. It’s victim blaming pure and simple, and y’all who are still saying that Weiss deserved to be “disciplined” by Jacques and denying Adam’s abuse of Blake need to just stop.

If you’re interested in reading some of my sources, then here’s a list:

How to Recognize Gaslighting and Get Help

11 Warning Signs of Gaslighting

What is gaslighting? And how do you know if it's happening to you?

You’re Not Going Crazy: 15 Signs You’re a Victim of Gaslighting

[wolfewritings]

My Cyberpunk 2077 Hot Takes (Spoilers for first 5ish hours of gameplay)

It was “in development” for 8 years, delayed multiple times in the final release year, and is still so poorly optimized, buggy, janky, and so obviously not fully tested on release that it is so unplayable on consoles that both Sony and Microsoft are offering refunds on digital copies regardless of hours played. And on PC you could have built and updated a desktop just to play only Cyperpunk on as high a setting as possible and you still would have to turn of features to get everything to load in properly. The game needs a full year delay working a standard 40 hour week to be even playable, and that's accounting for the features available as of Dec. 11th 2020 aka launch features. They forced the devs to work 100 hour work weeks just to launch a game that's technically playable in the loosest sense of the phrase.

TLDR: The game in-general needs to be redesigned like the RPG it was initially marketed as instead of a different flavor of near-future Ubi-sandbox. It also should totally embrace the full depth of customization cyberpunk as a genre and transhumanism as an ideology allows and envisions. And bugfixed and optimized, like seriously. There’s also almost no reason for anything to be as remotely bad as it is, if I’m remembering correctly the only “pressure” they had was from “fans” and that’s because they thought Gamers(tm) would be sensible and not send fucking death threats because they thought they had a release date.

This might be a GOG only gripe (or cpu) but that makes it even worse if it is: patching takes literal hours to complete no matter how small the patch is. The only game that might take longer to patch is Baldur’s Gate 3 which is a whole separate fuck-fest but atleast that is early access.

It has less gameplay options than vanilla Skyrim, just in general and in specifics.

Melee combat is clunky as hell and not satisfying.

I think driving is bad, and vehicle combat is god awful with almost no onscreen indicators if your hitting enemies or even correctly aimed at them.

The lifepath opener sucks. It literally ends with a montage of scenes and interactions that should have been playable and greatly added to the dynamic of Jackie and V. It also would have helped established literally every part of gameplay without requiring a literal in-game diegetic tutorial to break the flow of a scene leading into the 2018 gameplay teaser. It also so far only affects dialogue options, no ability increases, no skill increases or passive experience buffs. It doesn’t even effect how V speaks, just what they know prior to meeting Jackie.

Character creation is meh at best. Unless you choose the more techy looking eyes that change everything about the eye, the iris color barely appears to change. Pronouns being tied to voice is a very weird choice, especially when the choices are literally just male or female. Available hair styles are alot right off the bat, especially since you have to remember which numbers you like with no option to preview or change later in anyway aside from apparently forced hair styles hard designed with various head gear, especially apparent on femme V where they grow and fully style their hair on contact with ball caps etc. Tattoo options are generic “nothing or your skin is over 30% tattoos” no pure back or pure limb tattoos. Facial cybernetics are serviceable but there should have also been an option for purely cosmetic body cybernetics. Facial hair is both meh and almost too indepth at the same time. Visually bland but also having too much to customize and compare with each beard selection having seemingly 3 barely different versions and mustaches having essentially every type aside from pencil (i think, i didnt care too much to look at all of them).

In-combat weapon selection is clunky. The lower right icons for unarmed is the exact same as if you were wielding a gun. The only way to know for sure you have only fists is to use the weapon selection wheel and try to get the cursor to show you hovering unarmed even if you have weapons in 2 out of 3 slots. And im fairly certain having no weapon in the first slot breaks hotkey selecting weapons. There have been several times where I pressed 1 to only use fists and it kept my katana or gun out despite them clearly being in the 2 and 3 slots respectively.

Hacking is weird as you need direct line of sight and the game to register you’re actually looking at what you want to hack, meaning you can’t really stealth hack in enclosed areas without almost guaranteeing you’ll be spotted.

Randomized loot doesn’t really make sense, especially when the randomized tier determines if you can install components like scopes, silencers, etc.

Thats all I can remember off of the top of my head as of initial writing.

Now for some praise, but still with some complaints and ideas for improvements.

Gender and sex being separate is a great idea but could have been implemented alot better. Pronouns should have been an actual choice between he/him, she/her, and they/them. In my opinion, voice options should have also been expanded to include masc/fem or masc/fem/”yeah thats a generic ‘X’ voice” for both male-voiced and female-voiced V. Genital selection being both “which do you have?” and “do you go commando?” is just questionable. It should have been genital type as one selection and default underwear as another (maybe some people want schlonged V to wear panties and vagina’d  V to wear men’s boxers or tighty-whities). I personally find the nipple and pubic hair customization almost too much for almost no reason especially since there is no practical way to even be naked to be funny without being one-shot because you have literally zero armor aside from maybe shoes, hats, and face covers.

Tattoos should be broken down into subcategories like limbs (divided into the different parts of each limb/full limb), torso (chest, stomach/full), back (shoulders, mid, lower/full), hands/feet (maybe including fingers/toes) with an extra option to mirror limbs and hands to streamline creation time if the player wants.

Hair should also be broken down between pre-styled, and customizable pieces like top, sides, and back. Hair style should also have custom gradients or full palette selection.

The nail paints were a nice surprise, but again would have been better with color customization (I managed to settle on the one that looked kinda like the demisexual flag, which was nice surprise).

Lifepath selection should have some effect outside of just the occasional dialogue option (so far only on the main story path). At the very least it should offer bonuses to atleast one associated ability (like Nomad offering a +1 to tech and associated skills gaining bonus experience). At the far end it should affect what words or slight accent uses during dialogue and maybe have some NPCs know which lifepath you chose based on that.

Melee combat needs to feel more impactful. From what Ive used so far (katana and fists) the katana barely has any reaction from enemies unless you trigger the passive bleeding skill and fists barely register outside of heavy attacks and guard breaking. Dare I say, Dead fucking Island has more impactful melee combat (probably because it wasn’t seemingly designed as an after-thought outside of skills).

Make it so that once you’ve marked a target you can hack it through walls so you can actually be somewhat stealthy or atleast give you an advantage before combat.

Make the overworld hub-based (like in the 2010s Deus Ex games) but still the same size so that its (theoretically) easier to load while also getting the same amount of detail or even more. 

Add seemingly basic things in open world action-adventure games like toggle walking, keybinding, and maybe more than less than a handful of quick-select slots.

Make sure the game actually runs as it ideally should on the platforms you sell it on. Like that really should be step fucking two after can you launch it without causing a fire.

Enemies (and predetermined killable NPCs) should have set gear that is dropped and gear should have set designs for if they can be customized or just sold for money. Iconic gear should probably be better than just “ ’X’ weapon but named”.

[curiosity-killed]

a bow for the bad decisions

canon-divergent AU from ep. 24 (on ao3)

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9 | part 10 | part 11 | part 12 | part 13 | part 14 | part 15 | part 16 | part 17 | part 18

Wei Wuxian rolls his hands, flattens them, and presses the seal into the dirt. A flash of scarlet bursts in the air, then a sudden swell of power, prickling, needling— It dissipates, and Wei Wuxian exhales, resting his wrists on his knees. Eyeing him a moment, Jiang Cheng turns back to the wards and reaches out with his spiritual energy to press tentatively at the barrier. It feels…strange. Alive in a way that doesn’t feel quite like spellwork but more like the cool distance Wei Wuxian kept up during the war. “That’s it, then?” he asks. Still crouched down, gaze longsighted, Wei Wuxian gives a slight nod. His hair’s drawn up high off his nape in a style he hasn’t worn since they were kids, and it sharpens the angles of his face, makes the new hollows and tired lines more apparent. Worry shivers in Jiang Cheng’s chest but he presses it down; he was worse during the war. He’s doing better. Jiang Cheng will bully him into getting some sleep now that the shields are done.

“It feels…different,” he admits eventually, turning back to the energy he can only barely sense before them.

“Mm,” Wei Wuxian hums as he straightens up. He sways, stumbles back half a step, but catches himself. “The trigger arrays in this one will ping any intruders. They’re really more a warning than a true defense. If someone crosses them when they’re live, they’ll hit the talisman traps and so on.” Nodding, Jiang Cheng crosses his arms over his chest and surveys the work. Nine layers, nine shields of warding and arrays spreading out from the center of Lotus Pier to encompass all the outer buildings and main dock. If there’s another attack, the city itself will still be at some risk, but there’s enough ground covered by these defenses that all the townspeople could take shelter and be protected. The knowledge makes something tighten in his chest, a fanged satisfaction baring its teeth. “It’s under your command but tied to the land,” Wei Wuxian continues, wiping his palms on his skirts. “You can grant authority to others but as long as Lotus Pier stands, the shields will hold.” He’d explained it as he worked, but his explanations tend to get…well, distracted, when he’s multitasking. Channeling resentful energy is still a little shaky as far as Jiang Cheng’s concerned, but he thinks he gets the basic premise. Like using residual spiritual energy, the arrays draw on the resentment naturally released by the dying things throughout the region. Flowers, trees, animals — over the generations, they build up enough that the outer arrays can draw off them without leaching too much vital energy. And for the arrays in the center, the strongest and most vicious — well, there are always bodies in the lakes. “Not the Tiger Seal?” he asks. Wei Wuxian’s face is unwontedly serious, drawn, as he shakes his head. “No,” he says. “It’s… Think of it more like Chenqing. They draw from the energy around them but aren’t controlled by it. The only one who can command them is you, and whoever you grant access.” “So you and jiejie and Bujue,” Jiang Cheng suggests. Wei Wuxian wrinkles his nose, dropping his hands to his hips. “Maybe just shijie and a-Jue,” he suggests instead. He says it too casually, nonchalant in a way he only is about serious things. Jiang Cheng scowls. “Why shouldn’t our da-shixiong have access?” he asks. “Ah don’t give me that look, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian gripes, shoving at his shoulder. “I just mean the more access you grant, the bigger the holes are. Like a fishing net where you keep widening the weave, pretty soon anything can get through. Anyway, it’s not like I couldn’t figure out a way in if I really needed to. I made the arrays, didn’t I?” Relenting, Jiang Cheng lets it go. It makes sense, he supposes, even if he’s not sure he believes Wei Wuxian fully. “Alright. So I just…tell it who to answer to?” he asks. Wei Wuxian hitches his shoulders in a little shrug as if to say ‘sure.’ Stepping forward and holding his palm flat until he can feel the shivering vibration of the ward, Jiang Cheng closes his eyes. He can’t get a hold on this energy like he can his own qi, but he can feel it humming just shy of him. “Jiang Yanli,” he says and feels a ripple, an echo of sensation, course through the wards. “Yu Bujue.” He wants to add the third but holds back for now. Wei Wuxian will kick up a stink and anyway, he can always come back and change permissions now that he knows how. “Well then!” Wei Wuxian says, exhaling. “We’re all set. Ugh I’m starving. Do you think they cooked lunch already?” Jiang Cheng snorts but starts heading back. “Get some sleep tonight,” he says. “You’ve been pushing too hard and you agreed you’d take care of yourself. Last thing we need is a mess at the hunt.” Spinning Chenqing, Wei Wuxian scrunches up his face in annoyance. “I’m fine,” he insists. “The wards needed finished and it’s not like we got much done while Huaisang was here. Anyway, are you sure I have to come to the hunt? I could stay here and keep an eye on things while you and shijie are gone, make sure the defenses are ready, keep up training. The upper talisman class is really coming along, you know. They’re about ready for practical application.” He’s heard some variation of this argument about a dozen times over the last few months, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t hold back his eyeroll. If they were closer to the lake instead of on the far side of Lotus Pier, he’d just shove Wei Wuxian into the water and get it over with. “Yeah because coming to the Phoenix Hunt without our First Disciple and resident war hero won’t feed any rumors,” he retorts. “Anyway, you’ve still got to talk to Lan Wangji, remember?” That sours Wei Wuxian into silence. He kicks idly at a stick in his path, and Jiang Cheng eyes him a little curiously. He doesn’t know what happened between the two of them, and normally he wouldn’t care at all but — well, in those three months, he almost thought they’d be having a wartime wedding once they found Wei Wuxian. Incomprehensible as it was, Lan Wangji’s devotion to finding Wei Wuxian was simultaneously unnerving and deeply relieving. He’d been so sure that the sect leaders, the adults, the ones who actually knew what they were doing, would tell him to leave his hunt and let Wei Wuxian lie with the rest of the dead. When Lan Wangji stepped in at his side to join him, he’d finally been able to exhale a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding at the time. They weren’t friends by any stretch of the imagination, but they’d had a common goal and shared fear. It was like they were both searching for their missing piece; Jiang Cheng for his brother and Lan Wangji for his — his something. Jiang Cheng still isn’t sure what, exactly, Wei Wuxian is to Lan Wangji. “I still think it’s a bad plan,” Wei Wuxian says stubbornly. “It’s a-jie’s idea,” Jiang Cheng reminds him in an attempt to end the conversation. “Shijie thinks the best of everyone,” Wei Wuxian points out. Jiang Cheng inclines his head in acknowledgment. On another day maybe, back in Cloud Recesses or before the war or if he weren’t so sick of this argument, he’d let it go with the acknowledgment that jiejie is far too kind for the vast majority of people in the world. But he is tired and he’s sick of Wei Wuxian pouting about this whole plan. “What happened between you two anyway?” he asks. “He was always in your tents playing music at you while you were half-dressed during the war.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Wei Wuxian shoots back, brow furrowed. It’s the frown that makes Jiang Cheng hesitate. He’d only been needling, venting some of his irritation by prodding at this easy opening, but now he pulls back. Wei Wuxian has always been a relentless flirt and overly affectionate with anyone he likes, but Jiang Cheng is almost certain he’s never actually acted on that. For all his irreverence and shamelessness, Wei Wuxian has an at times uncanny deference to morals. He might flirt and tease and drape his arms around shoulders, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t really believe he’d go to bed with someone if they weren’t serious, if they weren’t someone he meant to give himself over to fully. And anything less than that, Jiang Cheng is positive he would’ve heard about: Wei Wuxian would’ve crowed about getting a kiss from a pretty girl until Jiang Cheng beat him to death with a pillow. “Nothing,” he says, sighs. “I just — it was impossible to drag you away from him before the war and now you can’t stand to be around him. Did he say something to you?” They’d have a whole other rumor problem on their hands if Jiang Cheng punched Hanguang-jun in the face, but for his brother, he’s willing to do it. If Lan Wangji said something, hurt Wei Wuxian— “Relax, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says, laughs. “You don’t need to go beat up Lan Zhan for me. I’m not some fragile maiden.” Shooting him an annoyed look, Jiang Cheng forces his shoulders and hands to loosen. Wei Wuxian shakes his head before tilting it up toward the sky briefly, drawing in a breath of clean air. “So?” Jiang Cheng prods, elbowing Wei Wuxian in the arm. He scowls at him, rubbing at the spot as if it actually hurt, and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes. “He’s just so — ugh, you know how the Lan are,” Wei Wuxian says. “All he wants to do is drag me back to Gusu to face punishment for my deviant methods. You heard him, all that ‘return to the righteous path’ and ‘I have to exorcise the evil out of you.’ I’m just tired of getting lectured all the time.” It still doesn’t feel quite right, like the explanation’s too shallow. Still, Wei Wuxian had hated all the rules in Cloud Recesses and Lan Wangji had been unusually terse about the cultivation path he walked. “Maybe he’ll relax if you explain it,” Jiang Cheng suggests, trying to sound genuine and not like he wants to shove the two of them in a small room and make them figure themselves out. “Like you’ve talked to me about it. He can’t bother you about returning to sword cultivation if he knows you…you know.” Wei Wuxian breathes out something that’s not quite a laugh, too bitter. There’s a twist to his lips that Jiang Cheng never saw until the war, something dark and ugly under his brother’s amusement. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “Maybe.”

[chrysalispen]

apilado

yeah i’m not even going to preface this, it’s literally porn with fluff, because i wasn’t going to let valentione’s pass without nero/aurelia smut LMAO

NSFW under the cut.

===

The sun hung low in the western sky when the Warrior of Light arrived at her home in the Beds.

The house was empty when she let herself inside, but the scents of cooking wafted into her nose as soon as she opened the door: meat, gravy, fresh-baked bread. Aurelia unfastened the simple clasps and buckles that bound her gunblade to her back and set it carefully by the front door alongside her cane, then removed her heavy gloves and outer utility belt to stretch her spine like a cat’s, yawning and wincing as her shoulders popped.

There wasn’t anyone in the kitchen, but there was a loaf of crusty bread recently baked. It sat in a basket on the small lip of countertop next to the stove, where a stewpot simmered.

“So much for surprising you with dinner,” a voice echoed at her back, from the hallway. Nero leaned against the threshold between the kitchen and the hallway entrance, looking as carelessly handsome in crimson as he ever did. “I wasn’t expecting you back until later tonight.”

The only people who’d known she had any plans to return to Gridania from Mor Dhona at all were Arenvald and Tataru. She sighed at him, with a sort of exasperated tolerance.

“You promised me you’d stop listening in on official communication frequencies.”

“I said I would limit myself to important matters only - which I believe was your stipulation. And if you must know, I consider news of your impending return to be an important matter.”

“Oh?” She warmed to his sidewise admission, despite herself. “Well, that’s very sw-”

“Who else can I trust to assist me with field testing my creations?”

Aurelia scoffed out a short laugh and gave him a jab in the side with one elbow. “Good to know you find me useful, I suppose.”

“Useful is a good way to- hello.” She blinked. His sharp gaze was fixed upon- actually, what was he looking at? “Since when did you start wearing this, or have my powers of observation finally failed me?”

Oh. “Since I started training to use a gunblade.”

“You could have asked me, were you that curious.”

“It’s not Garlean-style swordsmanship.” She put some distance between them to lean against the unused countertop as if checking on the contents of the large stewpot. Mutton, with rough-cut potatoes, carrots, and parsnips, cloves of garlic and various other herbs reducing in a thick gravy. Typical Ilsabardian country fare: simple but hearty. “...I’m learning the art from a Hrothgar mercenary. Radovan is…”

“Radovan?”

She cleared her throat. “Radovan is from Bozja.”

“Ah,” and there was a wealth of implication in that response neither of them wished to address. “Any reason you prefer the Bozjan style?”

Aurelia shrugged uncomfortably, picking invisible bits of lint out of a nearby kitchen towel and averting her eyes. After a long and awkward pause and the soft sound of bare feet against the floor, his hand came to rest on her back.

“All right,” he began, “where did I misstep?”

“It’s… you haven’t done anything wrong. I just…” She took a deep breath. “Cid doesn’t have good memories of Bozja.”

“Garlond’s memories have naught to do with you or me, and as obnoxiously good-natured as he is you should already know he’d never hold it against you.”

“I also... didn’t want you to think less of me,” she admitted. “I’ve always struggled with the gunblade, you see, and-”

“Struggle with a martial art? You?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I tried using one once, during basic. It was too heavy for me to lift and I was too nervous and the shot went wild. Knocked me flat on my arse. I’ve not attempted it since.”

“...You didn’t actually think I was going to laugh at you, did you?” She stared down at the countertop. Once he realized no answer would be forthcoming, he wrapped his arms about her and rested his cheek on the crown of her head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but ‘tis a comfort, on occasion, to know you aren’t actually brilliant at everything you touch. Sometimes it’s downright galling.”

"Nero, that's...”

“This star doesn’t bloody well need two Cidolfus Garlonds. Can you even imagine?"

That one earned him another jab in the ribs.  

“At any rate,” he continued, “this new look of yours.”

“What about it?”

“Mm.” His hands slipped over her cropped jacket and tunic to brace her waist, then settled low on her hips. “...Not overfond of the lack of color, but I shan’t deny I rather enjoy the aesthetic.”

Aurelia jumped at the sensation of blunt fingernails dragging slow and careful paths along that small patch of exposed skin on the backs of her thighs, just below the curve of her buttocks. “One would think,” her hand fisted in the towel she’d been worrying in an effort to keep her breathing measured, “you had never seen a woman in shorts before.”

“Of course I have. None of them were you.”

She laughed. “Flattery-”

“Will get me everywhere.” His effervescent - and occasionally infuriating - grin had returned in force. “So I shall fondly hope.”

He tilted her chin upwards for a slow and languorous kiss. She hummed against his mouth, relaxed and content- until the moment his hands grasped her backside and squeezed, firmly.

“Nero,” she gasped, “not in the kitchen!”

“No? I’m fair certain there’s a bottle of olive oil in the pantry if needs must-” His eyes were alight with mirth, and his grin broke into a peal of delighted laughter at the embarrassed scowl that crossed her features. “...A jest, sweetling! ‘Twas only a jest.”

“Made in remarkably poor taste,” Aurelia grumbled as he continued to laugh. “And the stew is-”

Those hands slipped a few ilms upwards to worry at the waistband of her bottoms, and she felt her protest die on her lips. “Not going to be ready for another half-bell at least.”

She stilled his hands and pushed herself up from the countertop to give herself space, so she could turn around while still resting in his embrace. He allowed it, as he usually did when she was gone for long stretches of time, and she took the opportunity to rest her cheek against his chest and breathe him in. There was the faint scent of machine oil as always, and atop that was coffee and aftershave, a fresh scent that made her think of Coerthan spruce trees.

His thumbs pressed very gently along the curve of her hips, tracing the outline of them through the heavy fabric, sliding carefully and intimately beneath leather straps and steel buckles. Svelte frame or not, Nero Scaeva was a tall and imposing man; his hands and their long, deft fingers easily spanned her waist. She could feel the warmth of his palms along her flanks, still caressing that sensitive patch of skin high on her thighs.

Aurelia swallowed, heat settling low in her belly.

“Not in here,” she repeated. The words fell heavy from a tongue that felt suddenly very thick. “I mean it. The bedroom-”

“Too far.” His hands found their way under the waistband and beneath her smalls, to cup her buttocks, and this time she did gasp aloud. He stifled it with a kiss, murmuring, “Workshop’s just down the hall.”

“Oh, Nero, but your schematics-”

“It’ll be worth it,” and with that she found herself hoisted in the air.

She wrapped her legs around his waist to keep herself from falling. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to speak; she could hear how quickly his heart was thumping in his chest and caught the rasp of his breath in her ear, shallow and uneven. They’d barely rounded the corner to the hallway when he pressed her back against the first available expanse of wall surface and kissed her again, this time fierce and wanting. His hips canted upwards to grind against hers, and Aurelia understood the reason for his sudden impatience.

“Put me down,” she whispered against his mouth.

Nero’s grip relaxed enough to let her feet drop back to the ground, though he didn’t release her nor did he stop kissing her. Hastily she kicked off her boots while her hands fumbled at the buckles that bound the heavy leather kecks over her legs; once she was divested of that it would just be the short bottoms and the long woolen stockings she wore beneath- but it was slow going all the same.

“Hells,” he grumbled, “at this rate we’ll not make it down the bloody hallway.”

“Cid would see it done.”

The sheer consternation that spread across Nero’s face at her retort was so utterly comical that Aurelia was unable to resist the urge to laugh.

She paid the price for her teasing almost immediately when he let out a growl and shoved her against the wall, then dropped to his knees. His fingers labored swiftly and ungently at unfastening the clasps that ran down the outer seams, all but ripping them open, and without pause he pulled the protective garment away to toss in the same direction as her boots.

Still chuckling, Aurelia moved to reach for him-- and found herself rebuffed.

His hand caught her wrist and pulled it away from his hair to slam against the wall, pinning it in place until it was clear he meant for her to leave it there while his left hand worked the buttons at her waist. The denim fabric gave much more easily beneath his deceptive strength, and her eyes flared wide when he hooked his fingers in shorts and smallclothes both only to yank them down to her ankles, leaving her completely exposed.

Nero grasped her right leg, still encased in its heavy stocking, and lifted. She had to grab at his shoulders to avoid falling, and by the time she’d corrected her balance he had draped her right knee over his shoulder.

She sighed at the warm kiss he planted on her inner thigh just at the seam of her stocking, then hissed out her next breath when he sank his teeth into sensitive flesh. It left her writhing against the wall in a halfhearted and largely unsuccessful effort to free herself from his grasp as he made his unhurried way upwards, which left her subjected to the same painfully pleasant sensation each time he repeated the process. His mouth made a trail of blooming red marks along her thigh in its wake, the curve of his strong jaw grazing her with the slight and stinging rasp of red-gold stubble with each bite- and his journey came to an abrupt stop a scant ilm or two from the cap of dark golden curls that shielded her mons.

The damp heat of his breath fanned gently against her belly, and something in her spine curled in heady anticipation. Slowly he dragged the tip of his index finger along the seam of her folds: a light and feathery caress that was nonetheless quite calculated.

Aurelia groaned aloud.

“I should torment you like this more often,” his voice was a low and feral rasp as he replaced his index finger with his thumbs, stroking plush and swollen softness, spreading her open with a combination of careful deliberation and obvious relish.

The initial slide of his tongue was as devastating as it was precise: a white-hot jolt of pleasure that sent molten sparks hissing through her veins. Her back snapped into an arch but his hands held her fast, kept her positioned the way he wanted. Unable to dislodge him, she let her head fell back against the wall with a graceless thump, hands gathering in silken skeins of platinum, and the roughness of his cheeks bristled against tender flesh as he feasted upon her.

“Gods,” she gasped, jaw slack and chest heaving. The tip of his tongue flicked against her clit at the apex of each stroke, a light and insolent touch. Just enough to build upon that fire little by little, to leave her raw and burning and desperate for more. “Nero, please--”

The only response she received was a soft and derisive laugh, muffled between her legs. Her hips twitched against the cage of his grasp, moving upon instinct rather than any cogent thought. A throbbing ache she knew well settled into her core, everything within and without feeling as though the flesh was transforming into molten brass. It was a matter of time before-  

-he withdrew, left her stepping that razor’s edge just before release. Calmly he rocked back on his heels, smirking up at her, mouth still glistening from his self-indulgence.

She stared incredulously down at him, heart pounding and flushed from head to shoulders.

“You-”

Before she could protest further, he lifted her into a bridal carry and nudged the workshop door open with his foot.

A broad sweep of his arm made space upon the nearby drafting table, set low until he was ready to use it again. She half-expected him to seat her, but instead he set her back down upon legs that still trembled. His mouth found hers again, briefly returning to her the taste of her own slick before he broke away with a soft and unsteady exhalation.

“That was for bringing Garlond into it,” he said. “Turn around. Hands on the table.”

Curt, direct, the delivery flat and sharp. Extremely suited to the tribunus he had once been.

She shrugged off her jacket, let it fall to the floor alongside spare books and the odd trimmings of discarded solder, and leaned forward to brace her weight. The varnished wooden surface was cool to the touch but began to warm quickly enough beneath her palms. Waiting for him she trembled in place, her senses acutely heightened by the ache of unfulfilled arousal.

The distinctive chime of a loosened belt buckle rang loud in her ears, as did the rustling of fabric that followed- and his lips were at her ear, nuzzling and nipping at the shell. She sighed, tilting her chin just enough to give him access, and felt his fingers tug her hair to one side so he could place another kiss behind her earlobe before his hand settled on her bare flank.

Her shoulders heaved with shaking breaths.

“You... don’t have to ask me, you know.”

“I know.” She inhaled sharply when she felt him nudge at her entrance, heavy and thick, gliding through the wet heat of her lower lips. “Tell me what you want.”

“I-”

“Go on.”

She didn’t give a damn for her dignity, not right now. Not when it was just the two of them like this, not when she knew Nero would take care of her no much how much he (gently) bullied her. In the end, she trusted him.

It was a dance, this give-and-take that always balanced itself in the end. An equal exchange.

“I want you,” she rasped. “Please.”

The words emerged as a thin, trembling whisper, almost a plea. She waited, wondering if he’d demand more, and could have cried with relief when his pleased hum buzzed against her neck and she felt pressure between her legs, the sharp and briefly uncomfortable burn even through her wetness as his girth stretched her.

She lowered her elbows, then tilted her head forward until her brow rested on the cool surface of the table, grounding herself through her own harsh and rattling breaths. It was almost too much. The angle of his entry combined with the tilt of her hips made her feel as though she’d been speared straight to her core, and he just seemed to keep going, hells, it almost hurt, but she felt so full like this-

“Aurelia.” The rasp of her name, laced with worry. He’d finally stopped; his hips sat flush with hers and his breathing was near as heavy. She looked down at the slender fingers splayed upon the table’s surface, close to her own, then over her shoulder to look him in the eye. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she panted. She wasn't, not yet, but she would be. "Just give me a minute."

The look he gave her from lust-darkened blue eyes was scrutinizing... and then his smirk, cool and challenging, returned in full force.

"I can stop here if it's too much for you to handle."

"Nero Scaeva, if you dare refuse me your cock after all that, I will strangle you with your own toolbelt-”

His breath huffed against her mouth.

“A tempting offer,” he drawled, “if I might be so bold.”

“-and furthermore, we both know no jury in the land would convict me.”

“Threats of asphyxiation aside, far be it from me to refuse you aught--” his hips flexed and she felt the fullness within her shifting by ilms, an experimental push and pull, “--eikon-slayer.”

The forceful thrust that followed all but knocked the breath from her lungs. Aurelia bit out a choked curse, her nails digging small furrows into the table for purchase. His lips pressed against her nape and she felt them curve with mirth- and no remorse whatsoever.

He was a demon. A voidsent summoned from the depths of the seven hells to torment her specifically. She would have said as much, but he had started to move and all she could manage was a high-pitched whimper.

Face buried in her arms once more, elbows down and forehead pressed against natural ridges and cool varnish, she could hear little over the loud and wet rasp of her own attempts to breathe. She arched her back and canted her hips backwards to meet him, the table rattling in tandem with each thrust. Nero hadn’t loosened his grip: one hand still held steady at her flank; she could feel his fingertips curling, digging into her skin as he fucked her. The other was still braced against the table and without thinking she reached for it to thread his fingers through hers, incongruous tenderness in the heat of coupling.

“I missed you,” she squeezed and felt his fingers tighten in response, “gods, I missed you terribly- ”

His breath caught. She felt the renewal of those soft bites against her neck, sharp little pinpricks contrasted against the hot and ceaseless friction he created within her.

He tugged his hand loose from her grasp and slid it off the table, reaching beneath their joined bodies, and Aurelia whined between clenched teeth when he cupped the damp curls between her legs. The slow circular strokes of his fingers rendered the heat in her belly bright and immediate, as if someone had turned the indicator dial on a ceruleum stove to its highest setting.

“Come for me, sweetling,” he breathed in her ear, as relentless above as below; she could feel the return of that tension, coiling tight and unbearable, an overtaxed spring- “Let me hear you.”

Her climax was upon her, light and gold in her veins.

She cried out to the heavens, a high and keening wail. Somewhere in the haze that dulled her senses she thought she heard a deeper cry as he answered in kind, but in that moment she could not have said if it was real or simply a flight of fancy.

His weight did return to her back after a time, gently. She could hear his ragged breathing in her ear, and her own soft gasps, and the reedy creak of the table protesting their combined weight. ‘Twas either a testament to superior carpentry or superior engineering that the godsdamned thing hadn’t broken underneath her in the middle of it all.

Rough stubble dragged back and forth over her bite-marked neck as he nuzzled her. His fingers had left her core to trail lazy patterns along the outline of her thigh.

“So,” Nero murmured, "I know it's a funny little Eorzean custom, but I find myself more fond of - Valentione's? - with each passing year."

She froze in dismay.

“What?”

“Hm? Did I not say it correctly?”

“No, not-...That was today?”

“I thought that was why you were coming home tonight.”

“Oh no,” groaned the Warrior of Light, and this time she was burying her face in her arms for a wholly different reason. Gods damn me for a forgetful fool. “I didn’t get you anything-”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that.” She didn’t have to see his smirk, not when she could hear it in his voice. “ ‘Tis not every day my objectively terrifying better half arrives home unannounced and lets me have my wicked way with her- with minimal complaint.”

Aurelia managed a shaky, embarrassed laugh. He kissed her cheek before bracing his hands on the table and shifting his hips, and she grimaced at the wet slide and the sense of emptiness and burgeoning soreness that followed close behind. Immediately she cupped herself with one hand, not that it was terribly helpful; they had made a mess regardless.

"I’ll clean up in here and see to the stew,” he said. "Go bathe. I'll have it ready by the time you're out."

“If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure.” She gave him a doubtful stare, looked down at her feet as she righted herself- and started to laugh helplessly. “What?”

“My blasted smalls were stuck about my ankle this whole time.” She snatched them quickly up her legs with a loud and nasal snicker. “...Seven hells, I’m so glad you aren’t a historian. You’d include all the embarrassing details-”

“Naturally. ‘The mighty Warrior of Light sauntered with ethereal grace towards the water closet, soiled underthings clinging about the divine ankle of her radiant personage’-”

“Oh, stop. Go see to the Valentione’s dinner. The one the glorious champion of Eorzea bloody well forgot.”

"Along with her smallclothes-"

"Nero!"

His laughter followed her down the hallway as she scraped together what remained of her clothing and made her way to the bathroom.

Her dignity- well. The less said about that, the better.

~*~

Later that night as they lay in close and comfortable silence - having partaken of multiple helpings of stew, homemade chocolates, and each other - Nero felt a stirring from the soft, warm weight pillowed upon his bare chest. Aurelia’s hand had drifted to his side, over the long scar that curved about his midsection to taper near his navel.

He thought he spoke her name but it came out as a vague and sleep-heavy rumble.

“It’s healed cleanly.” Her fingertips traced it, the legacy of a misadventure that had nearly ended his life, never mind his career. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“Hm? Of course not.”

“Good.” She seemed satisfied with that response, dark blue eyes drifting shut again- only to flicker half-open a beat later. “...Nero?”

“Yes?”

There was a long silence, followed by a question murmured on the edge of sleep:

“When I’m gone... do you miss me?”

He paused for long moments to consider the question, fingers idling in the trails they made upon the surface of her shoulder. Time was such a strange thing, really. Three years ago he would have cursed her name if he thought of her at all, and now... now his thoughts were oft as not filled with the memory of lavender and the clean cut-grass scent of the open road.

Home.

He smiled, knowing she couldn’t see it in the dark, and buried his face in her hair.

“Terribly,” Nero Scaeva said.

[devil-in-those-eyes]

Sweetheart Part1-Ben Hardy

It’s here!! So this is the Ben story I have been cooking up in my head for a while now! I wasn't going to upload it until I had like four parts pre-written but I couldn't not share it with you guys! LEt me know thoughts, I really hope you guys like it!

Y/N

           “Mum, have you lost your mind?” You asked, slightly bewildered at her.

           Your mum turned around to face you, lifting her eyebrows at you. It was looking at a mirror, except add twenty-some years and shorter hair and there you were. She narrowed her eyes in at you, “I really think the states are screwing with you, love. You should come home more often.”

           “Mum,” you groaned, tipping your head back and telling her she had just crossed a line with something she promised not to speak about.

           “It’s just for ten days, Y/N, Matty wanted to bring along Ben and Ben is basically family.” Your mum explained, giving a soft shrug of her shoulders as you stood in the foyer of your childhood home. This house was about to be exploding with people and a certain someone you were less than excited to see. “Not only is it our birthdays but also mine and your fathers wedding anniversary.”

           “So he couldn’t stay at a hotel?” you hissed quietly, glancing over our shoulder to make sure Matt or Ben wasn’t around. “Don’t his parents live a block away?”

           “They moved when Ben went away to college,” your mum explained, her eyebrows lifting again. “You’d know this if you hadn’t nearly disappeared all together.”

           “It isn’t like I cut ties with you, Val, dad and Matty, mum.” You pointed out with a glare. “I just choose to not care for him.”

           Your mum rolled her eyes, “You’re being ridiculous.”

           You went to argue further, press her to kick out your older brother’s best friend, but she shrugged again with a smile. “It’ll be like old times; having my babies in the same room again. Plus Ben.”

           You nearly snarled at her mentioning him. She ignored the scowl on your face and smiled over your shoulder, “Lovie, can you ask Ben to grab Y/N’s luggage?”

           “I can grab my own luggage,” you muttered to her but turned around to see your older brother walking through the front door. He looked so much like your father, same colored hair, same big round eyes with the same little smile, one that he was giving you right now.

           “There’s my girl,” he grinned and stepped towards you, opening his arms up wide and wrapping them around you. He kissed your head, “How was your flight?”

           You grimaced, “Long.”

           Matt showed the same grimace but your mum cut in, “Matt, dad wants you in the kitchen. He’s messed with the grill again.”

           Matt rolled his eyes and muttered, ‘Jesus Christ’ as he brushed past you and followed your mum through the kitchen. You smiled to yourself and walked outside. It was warm out and within that evening you could smell the rain that lingered in the air from the afternoon shower they had. It made you smile because you found yourself missing the rain showers here and there. As you traveled down to the rental car, a wind picked up and raced through your limbs, making you shiver as you reached the boot of the car.

           “How much luggage do you have, bloody hell, Y/N.” Ben grumbled unhappily as he pulled out the rather large suitcase you had stuffed into the back of the car.

           “I can grab it if you’re going to whine like a little girl.” You told him, digging your hands out of your heavy sweater and reaching past him but he denied you.

           “I’ve got it.” He mumbled and you pulled back, rolling your eyes. For the next couple seconds you watched as he finally pulled your suitcase out of the back of the car and then reached for your duffle bag, your stomach swirling with a heavy dislike for this man.

           You had known Ben almost your whole life, all because he became your brother’s best friend. They went from being friends in the early stages of school to being absolutely inseparable all through the years growing up. And because you were the youngest, and loved Matt, you wanted to be just like him but slowly you realized that Ben was a tool. Over the course of one summer, he went from being Matt’s best friend and your friend to something entirely different so you distanced yourself from him but because Ben was so close with your brother it meant distancing yourself from Matt as well.

           When Ben straightened up and placed the suitcase on the ground, he huffed and looked at you with his bright green eyes. He shoved his fingers through his blonde hair at the top of his head and gave you a once over, dragging his eyes down the length of your body and taking you in. It had been nearly six years since your last interaction with Ben, and you would have been fine with going another six. Six years had done well on Ben, he was taller than you remembered and filled out with muscle, his face seemed thinner and his lips plumper. But he was still the same Ben that made you want to lock yourself in your room for a whole year.

           “Been a long time, sweetheart.” His words were low and grumbled, coming from deep inside his chest and it only made your cheeks flare, just like they had done when you were younger. The very tiny, less than meaningful nickname brought back memories that filled your head with a shiver up your spine.

           Fuck.. Just like that, sweetheart.

           You’re dripping… Tell me you’re wet for me, sweetheart.

           Made just for me, only me, sweetheart.

           “Should’ve stayed that way.” You said, clenching your jaw and shaking his moans out from your head. You took your suitcase and duffle bag from him and headed towards your front door.

           Ben rushed to walk beside you, knocking your hand out of the way and taking your heavy suitcase from you, ignoring your wordless attempts of telling him to leave you alone. “Matty said you moved from Pennsylvania to New York… Big move.”

           You rolled your eyes at his attempt at a conversation, staying silent as you walked through the house. You dropped your duffle bag onto the floor by the stairs and said, “You can just put it in my room.” Then didn’t bother looking at him over your shoulder as you headed into the kitchen to find your mom. Asking her a question before Ben got the chance to try and keep your attention, “Mum, when is Val getting in?”

           You found your mum in the kitchen, your brother and dad dealing with the cold and putting the food on the grill. Your mum smiled your way, “Tomorrow morning.”

           When time for supper rolled around you had been able to nurse two glasses of white wine, courtesy of your dad coming up to you and putting them in your hand, so when it was time to sit down in front of your brother and Ben’s bright green eyes, you felt somewhat relaxed. As you all settled into your seats, dishing out the food, it almost seemed like normal times before six summers ago, back when Ben and you still got along, back when you and your brother were close. Your dad cracked jokes with your mum, your brother sat there giving you a smile as he laughed, but every time you looked at Ben you just remembered that one night that changed it all. So you avoided his eyes and tried to suppress the memories when you both joined in on conversations, but it was hard and it surprised you at how easily it affected you. It happened so long ago and you thought this time apart would allow you to look at it as a simple mistake between two people, but it was one made behind your brother’s back and Ben changed after that night, and not in the best way. He turned into a tool, a total dick and it only made you feel worthless because at the time you thought it meant more.

           “So, sis,” Matt grabbed your attention, “when you moving back home?”

           Your eyes shot to your mum’s, ready to accuse her for putting your brother up to it, but all she did was lift her hands and played innocent. You looked back at Matt and he smiled sadly, “Jus miss you, is all.”

           You were the youngest of three and your two siblings still lived in England. You were the only one that took leaving the nest as in leaving the country all together, six years ago you just needed a fresh start, away from the secret and mistake. While Ben did go off to UNI, to start perusing an acting career, you still saw more of him than you’d like and it had gotten harder and harder to be around him. You shrugged, “It’s different.”

           “Don’t you miss your family?” he asked, “I mean, this is the first time you’ve been home in forever.”

           Guilt rippled through you and you began picking through your food. Moving to Pennsylvania was hard at first, you still got home sick and had started considering coming home for good, but you hated these conversations because they didn’t get it.

           “So, Ben, how has life been after Bohemian Rhapsody?” your dad asked and you breathed a sigh of relief because the attention was taken off of you.

           Ben cleared his throat. You picked up your glass of wine, finally able to look him in the eyes as he began talking about what he had been up too since the biopic was released. “Busy, lots of traveling.”

           “Benny, here, was in a fashion show in Milan.” Matt said, smirking over at his best friend.

           But you knew this because your childhood best friend sent the screenshots of his Instagram pictures to you. You loved her, still called once a week, but she was a bitch and liked to remind you of what happened between you two. At this point it was a running joke between the two of you.

           “Good for you, honey,” your mum smiled at him. “I’m glad you could join us for our celebrations.”

           Ben smiled warmly at your mum, “Matt told me and I cleared my schedule.”

           You rolled your eyes and felt a soft kick to your shin. It came from your dad’s end of the table, so you turned your eyes and found him silently scolding you and you felt like you were sixteen again, not twenty-five. You forced a smile through clenched teeth and picked up your glass of wine, devouring it so you could get through the dinner. You hoped your parents liquor cabinet was fully stocked, just so you could get through the next ten days of two birthdays and a wedding anniversary.

           By the time dinner finished, you had only eaten half of your dinner before helping your mum clean up and when she gave you the OK you retreated up to your old room and saw that nothing had changed. Your walls were still the same light grey, bedsheets were still the same soft lavender. The pictures of you and your childhood friends hung on the walls and littered your dresser, a TV mounted above it and faced your bed. You couldn’t wait to sink inside that big fluffy bed that you had started to miss more and more over the years.

           “I haven’t been in here in… forever.”

           You turned your head to find Ben standing in your doorway, hands pushed into the front pockets of his black jeans and resting his shoulder against the doorframe. His eyes took in your room and he smiled softly, “Shit, brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

           “Sure does,” you breathed nonchalantly, rolling your suitcase from beside the door to its spot in front of the dresser.

           “Remember that night I helped you sneak out of your room?” Ben asked and you looked at him to see him walking further into your room. He wore a playful and boyish grin, “you begged me for weeks to help you, just so you and Y/BFF/N could go get wasted.”

           You did remember that night. It was a good night with Ben being your driver but it was also the same summer that changed it all. Ben must have seen your annoyance in his eyes because his shoulders slouched and he sighed, “Sweetheart,”

           “Don’t call me that,” you cut him off.

           “Why?” His eyes narrowed in at you as he took a step towards you with a smirk on his plump lips. “Because it brings back too many memories for you? Does it make you think about what we did that night?”

           Your breath caught in your throat.

           His eyes drank in your parted lips and he sank his teeth into his bottom lip. “Don’t you worry, because it brings it all back for me as well.”

           “Ben!” Matt called out as he traveled down the hall, making Ben step away from you just before your brother found Ben in your bedroom and stuck his head in. “Mate, everyone’s meeting up at the pub, lets go.”

           “Yeah, alright.” Ben replied and headed for the door, giving you one last look over his shoulder before walking out, leaving you breathless.

AGAIN please give me thoughts because part of me is like this is totally a shot in the dark but oh well 

TAGLIST: @luvborhap @i-cant-hangout-im-drumming @quirkydeaky 

[quirklove]

Shall we break Saisho in with him meeting a female One For All user for the first time?

do you want feels??

because this is how you get feels

As he collapses into someone’s waiting arms, as he gets a glimpse of her face, SAISHO is struck speechless.

This is where his power has ended up.

It’s inside her.

He doesn’t have it anymore, but he can still feel it, so close to him, like a red string of destiny he’s heard of in legends ― so irrevocably tied to his soul that despite being unable to access any of his former abilities, this Quirk is tying its creator to its newest carrier.

That spark which One For All brings to someone is present in her every feature. Even without that threadlike feeling, he is sure he would recognize it pulsing at the seams of her being. It’s in her eyes that blaze with determination, her smile full of kindness that tries to reassure him, her gentle touch as she’s doing her best to steady him.

The days he’s spent locked away, the numerous failed escape attempts, the food forced down his throat, the absence of any natural light, have all worked to ensure that he doesn’t know how long it’s been since his power was released into the world. Has it been weeks? Months? Years? This isn’t the person he gave it away to. Despite the fact that he passed it to someone else knowing he would be punished for it, he thinks he would have taken the punishment a hundred times over if he could have given it to her.

He feels so tired and weak and he isn’t certain that he’s even alive. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe his sickly body finally couldn’t take his brother’s abuse.

Maybe this woman is heaven.

“Hey.” Her voice snaps him to attention, feeble though it might be. He can feel that there’s a dazed look in his eyes; he can’t focus fully. Just standing is a challenge enough that his muscles are shaking at any effort he puts forth to straighten himself. The feeling of her fingers in his matted hair is so comforting, he almost starts to cry. It’s as if that touch is saying, “Everything is okay now.” When was the last time he felt like he had any hope? “Hey, I’ve got you. What’s the matter? ― Oh, God, you’re so skinny. Are you lost or…?”

In an instant, Saisho’s stomach twists violently. Bile rises in his throat as if he’s going to vomit at the mere thought of returning to where he’s running from. He can’t go back. He cannot go back to his brother. His body is so frail now, if he goes back, he won’t survive.

Or, considering that he’s been deliberately kept alive all this time regardless of the fact that he’s no longer useful, maybe he will survive if he goes back.

That, almost beyond question, would be worse.

The only reason he doesn’t break down in tears is that he grits his teeth as hard as he possibly can. His hands are gripping to her, trembling, like she’s the only lifeline to a man drowning in the ocean. “M-my brother,” he manages to choke out. “I can’t… I can’t go back… I can’t… I’m too hurt… he’ll kill me…”

Her arms tighten around him in a way that makes him feel safe. Never once in his life has he felt secure and cared for. He has always felt like his brother’s pawn. Here in her arms, it’s like he’s been wrapped up in some protective shroud that nobody else can even touch. “No, he won’t. Not while I’ve got you.” She holds him close to her, gingerly, as if she thinks any harsh touch will break him. When she speaks again, her voice has grown even softer. “Is that why you’re running? Has your brother been hurting you?”

“Ye―s…” It comes out in a half-croak, half-sob that feels like he doesn’t have any kind of control over his own voice. It really is a good thing she’s holding onto him, because he thinks he might be a few moments away from just passing out. His whole body feels heavy. “Please… I, I can’t go back… I can’t…”

“Okay, okay. Then you won’t. Take some deep breaths for me, okay?” Then she starts moving, carefully pulling him along with her. Even though he’s basically dead weight at this point, she’s obviously not about to give up on him. “We’re gonna get to somewhere inside and then we’ll sort this all out. But I promise, you’re not going to go back to where you were. My name is (Name). What’s yours?”

Every spirit and deity he knows of is receiving thanks in his mind; the gratitude he feels, however, is all toward her. He’s getting out. This last time he finally made it out of that miserable little room, and someone found him. She found him. She’s not ignoring his words or his suffering. Instead, she’s listening to him. She’s saving him. “S-Saisho… Shigaraki…”

She smiles down at him again. That’s when he realizes that rather than walking, the two of them are airborne. Oh, wow. Saisho himself was never able to master anything like this with his Quirk, and she’s doing it like it’s nothing. “Well, Saisho―” God, her voice is so warm. He wants to crawl inside it and just sleep for a year. It makes him feel so surrounded and sheltered. “― You’re safe now.”

At last he lets himself relax, his head thudding against her chest, tears freeing themselves.

His last thought before he slips into unconsciousness is that with or without One For All, this woman must be a hero.