#okay. it feels like it comes from that specific kind of person. okay. i said it. you feel like you have attachment issues

[ninyard]

i am a BIG supporter of create what you want for your own joy, so absolutely do what you would like to do for the trial!! no one should be pressuring you to do it a specific way unless that’s how you Want to do it.

but if you were asking about what we’d like… personally i would love to see the whole trial as much as possible (i really don’t want you to overwhelm yourself) especially for higgin’s and nicky’s parts!! i like when we see more than just Big Main Parts, especially bc you flesh it out so well <3 sometimes it’s even more hard hitting when it’s Not from the people we expect, you know?

also, thank you for making the socmed aus!! they make me giggle and kick my feet every time, and also wail in agony and clutch at my chest… you have the range <3

GOD i wrote a whole long ass response to this and i didn't realise until too late that my phone was going to die </3 and it died </3

But it was something along the lines of I'm really glad that the general consensus seems to be to do all five days of the trial, or however many days it ends up being, from start to finish. For me personally it'd feel unfinished if I skipped parts just to get to the ~interesting~ parts, and I think if I'm going to make something like this then I want to show it all.

It's not this deep, but I guess it's like... It's fucked up. People are making memes about a murder trial involving rape and other things that are just not funny at all. And skipping parts just to get to "GOD NEIL IS SO CHAOTIC ON THE STAND" or whatever feels,,, insensitive? Unjust?? I don't know

but people are also doing that shit in real life. About real people, real trials, with real victims and real perpetrators. Sensationalising trials just because it's a celebrity on the stand, or it's an "interesting" murder trial or whatever. People are making memes and jokes about them. And people are making their own minds up about the verdict because of it. I want to show people who think Aaron's guilty because of something the cop who arrested him said. I want to show people who think Andrew is an unreliable witness because of something Higgins says, somebody who thinks Aaron isn't guilty because a forensics team mentioned something about the crime scene that they don't think sounds right. I want to make this from the outsider view on the publics reaction to a trial, and specifically people who almost idolise Aaron, or Kevin, or Neil, or Andrew. People who don't see them as human, but as celebrities, as people who are supposed to be perfect. People who see a trial like this and think, "it's okay for me to make jokes about this, or to post about this, because they're just famous people. They're not like real people to me."

People are at home becoming twitter lawyers and making up their minds based on what they read or see online, and it almost separates the reality of the situation from the "characters" that people create out of defendants and victims. You see people hopping on bandwagons or hate trains or whatever when it comes to these kind of public trials. People making clips of something "funny" a lawyer or witness said for the sake of content. People making temporary celebrities out of the judge and jury and legal representation. For what? For likes?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to show the different sides of how people actually react to trials like this without becoming insensitive to the fact that trials like this,,, do actually happen. But by making a fan tweet a joke about murder, I'm making that, I'm thinking of the words that go into the tweet. So it's tough. And again I know it's not that deep, but that's kind of... most of the reason why I've been putting it off? Because it's hard. It's hard not to feel like it sensationalises those kinds of things. It's hard not to feel like "God, am I just making fun of this situation here?" while also being reminded that yeah, maybe, but people actually react like that.

So is it worth the tumblr post to make memes and tweets out of something that happens irl, and affects real people? Is it insensitive, or is it just fandom stuff that isn't perceived in an insensitive way at all, because it is just that, a fandom post?

[iid-smile]

nanami would...

if you were dating them series.

listen to you. always, always, always. if he's happy, he'll indulge in letting you carry the conversation, often bringing up new topics just to keep you talking. if he's bored, he lets you ramble on about your hobbies and interests, listening intently to each thing you mention and noting them for later. if he's upset, especially if you notice, you could go on and on about how much you love and adore him, and not a single time will he tune out. never will he disagree, because he knows that makes you upset.

make a wishlist/bucket list for you. and you wouldn't know about it at all. remember when i said he would note all of your interests? he bought a small notepad specifically for writing down everything you say, especially things you want to do. when he comes back from work, he'll return with a pastry or treat that you could've mentioned months ago, or a little figure of one of your favourite characters from an anime or movie you watched.

have a small picture of you and take it everywhere he goes. it could be anywhere as well. in the front pocket of his trousers; not the back, because it feels less secure there. in his wallet; he'll put it somewhere easily seen so he's guaranteed to glance at it. he would be the kind of guy to buy one of those necklaces that when you look into it closely, it would be one of the best pictures that he personally took of you. maybe it was during a date, you enjoying yourself, or even just you at home cooking, just anything that makes you look beautiful in his eyes.

refuse to sleep until he knows you're safe or asleep. you could be at a friend or relative's house, and he'll text you before the time you usually go to sleep to remind you to hell him when you get into bed. if you go out somewhere late at night, he'll wait while reading a book, and keeps his phone within reach so he can answer asap if you call. when you do get home, he'd make you a tea or hot chocolate to help you rest, and stay awake until your body completely gives in to fatigue.

text you every morning after he's gone to work. he already said it at home, but he'll say it again. this tweet is literally him. if you work in the morning like him too, he'll send you a reassuring message so you stay motivated the entire day. if you're somewhere overseas, he'll match up the timezones just right so it sends at 9am sharp. he'll even ask if you're okay or did anything interesting the previous day.

─────────────୨ৎ─────────────

[obsessedwrhys]

Can we have a part 2 Deadpool reader with the boys and maybe soldier boy too❓❓ if you want to of course

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁 .ᐟ The Boys x Deadpool!Reader

t/w: loooots of dark humour/jokes, reader's origin will be explained underneath, reader is still an asshole lol that comes with the character, mention about killing,death,gore, weed, drugs, Reader is gn!!!

ᯓ★ here's a version with the seven, kiss kiss <3

Origin:

Quick summary, when you were born, your parents had agreed with Vought to have you be pumped full of Compound V so you could grow up and be a hero working under them, but the problem was when you were around 7, they changed their mind so Vought ended up sending several people to come to your house to settle the matter.

Your whole family was massacred in the living room during thanksgiving and when they tried to capture you. You were able to run away. Homeless and living on the street, you grew up in a life of crime, depending on nobody but yourself. Make sense? No? Good! Let's start now.

BUTCHER

To him, you were like a fly that won't leave him alone.

How he knew you was through Mallory, she thought you were okay and fit for the job since you hated Vought just as much.

Obviously he didn't like you once you were introduced to him and the two (M.M and Frenchie)

"No way am I lettin' a supe join us"

":("

Though after what happened to Mallory's grandchildren, the gang pretty much dispersed but wherever Butcher went, you followed. Since he was the only person you trusted... and also enjoy annoying the shit out of.

He'd head inside a club, relieved he hadn't seen you for the past few days so he decided to grab a drink by the bar to unwind.

"Whiskey" He said with his eyes looking around, paranoia shown on his face.

Once his drink was served, he would look back to find your eyes smiling at him, you were wearing a bartender disguise over your red suit.

"Did you miss me?"

"Oh christ..."

When you heard word that he was gathering back the team, you had to be there. What kind of friend would you be if you didn't?

Undoubtedly he had to admit, there were times where he was grateful to have you on the team but there were also other times he regretted it.

For example, that time when you guys needed to sneak into a lab to get something and the goal was to stay quiet but even that simple rule was hard for you to follow.

"Room's up ahead. (Y/N) I need you to—"

"Heads up!" You said as you threw a bomb at the metal door.

The explosion causing the alarm to turn on and it had the whole lab now on high alert. You shrug innocently when Butcher glared at you like he wanted to tear you apart.

Also, you enjoy constantly pissing him off. You can't die so you don't really care if he'll kill you for it.

"Maybe, if you didn' press the fuckin' button, we wouldn't have to come bac' to save yer ass from the guards"

"OOH GOD SAVE THE QUEEEN!! Please, cry me a fucking river. I got us the target didn't I?"

"He's dead"

"Well you weren't being specific when you said to capture him"

But it's fine, all his frustration will be solved once he uses you as bait. He knows you can't die but hey, it makes him feel slightly better watching you get shot at.

Despite your ups and downs, he appreciates you. When the team would turn against him on his insane journey for revenge, he always found you the only one still standing by his side. You're loyal and he likes that.

Compatibility? 75%

HUGHIE

You treat him like a child.

No seriously you baby talk him sometimes and it annoys him

"Awwwww is little hughie angry?"

"Stop..."

"Does baby want his milky?"

Since he's pretty much the only person who isn't that exposed to crime as the others, he's terrified 100% everytime when he's paired up to do any dirty work with you.

"Now listen buddy, you better start talking or I'm gonna shoot" You said, gun raised at the man who seemed to be begging you to spare his life in a language you didn't speak.

"I don't think he speaks English"

"Ah shit... ENGLISH!! SPEAK!! ABCDEFG??!"

"How is shouting in English gonna make him understand?"

"Eh, you're right"

BANG

"WHY'D YOU SHOOT HIM??!"

"Well did you expect me to pull out Duolingo and start taking classes?!"

You had to admit, it was a pain in the ass each time he starts giving you the cold shoulder whenever he gets mad at you for doing something terrible. It was like his way of guilt tripping you so you always try to apologise in your own ways.

"Hey..." You said, handing him ice cream.

"...I uh... I don’t like Strawberry ice cream... I thought I told you that"

"God you're so ungrateful!!"

Since he was such a scaredy cat, you try to tone down your craziness a bit. For the sake of him not going into cardiac arrest.

"(Y/N) STOP!! She has nothing to do with this!! She was tricked" Hughie grabbed you by the arm to pull your gun away from the innocent woman.

You turn your head to look at him, then at the woman, then at him again, then the woman, then him again.

"Ugh finnnne... you're boring..."

However, he does appreciate you trying to be a better person. Even you had to admit, after you met him and became friends. You noticed yourself being less brutal than you used to be. The thought keeps you awake at night and it scares the shit out of you.

But oh well, how could you ever say no to those scared little puppy eyes?

Compatibility? 55%

FRENCHIE

He's like your hype man which is concerning.

Not because you're not afraid to get the job done but also because you always have his back.

"Well... I need some gunpowder but I've run out of them" Frenchie said, telling Butcher that the plan was most likely not gonna happen.

"Hold on" You said with the typical comical ☝🏻 gesture before heading into a different room. Everyone exchanging confused glances at what you could possibly be doing.

After a few minutes you'd return with a bag of gunpowder while struggling to zip up your pants with the other hand.

"Don't tell me how I got it. It almost tore me apart" You said, rubbing your ass.

On stressful nights, you guys would enjoy smoking weed together by the sofa and share stories of your traumatic childhood. It's how you guys bond and it's oddly wholesome.

Also when he needs a shoulder to cry on, you were always there for him. You two shared a type of relationship that even Romeo and Juliet couldn't compete with. To be fair they're dead so they actually can't fight.

"Hey reader!! If you're gonna keep reading then you might as well give the post a like or a repost. C'mon, pleassssseeee pleasepleaseplease"

"Ma cerise, who are you talking to?"

Although he doesn't mind your behaviour sometimes but he won't tolerate it if you ever cross the line on something. He's like the owner who sprays water at his pet cat when they don't listen.

"What are you mad at me for?!?!"

"You damn near tried to get us killed!!"

"Hey! You're the one who said it would be a suicide mission so I made sure it was a suicide mission!!"

"WHAT?"

There's no way he can deny how curious he is about where you get your guns and things. He once went in your room to find boxes of dynamite and a RPG just placed against the wall like furniture.

Like do you have a supplier or are you your own supplier?

Compatibility? 99.9%

M.M

Everybody deserves second chances.

He always tells him that to calm himself down everytime you managed to fuck up a thoroughly planned mission.

"What did I say about pressing buttons (Y/N)?"

"Honestly I stopped paying attention after you said 'Listen here'."

M.M has to be the only person you fear to the fact you try very hard to avoid him, this is because his long ass lectures are such a pain to deal with.

"How many times do I have to remind you? You can't just go around doing shit like that. You gotta consider the amount of danger you'll put everyone in..."

"(Blah blah blah... he's still going... uggggh... make it stop...!)"

Unable to handle the lecture any longer, you ended up shooting yourself in the head.

"(Y/N)!" His tone more disappointed than concern since this wasn't the first time you did this to escape his talks.

You know that russian dollhouse he tries to build in season 2? Well you'd constantly be found standing or sitting near him when he's trying to finish the set.

Since you're aware of his OCD, you like to edge him on by sometimes rearranging the parts or stealing some of it so he ends up searching high and low for the missing parts.

You had to admit it was entertaining to watch him accuse other people for touching his stuff when it was you behind all the schemes.

I'd like to think that after every mission when you happen to die, he'd be the one in charge of collecting your remains so you'd grow back.

That's why it comes naturally that his job is to make sure you don't do anything extreme.

"Where are my bombs??!?!" You'd shout, storming around the place looking for them.

"I sold them. Thought it'd do us more good knowing you won’t accidentally blow us up"

"WHAT?! GOD! It's like the writers of the show couldn't afford another explosion for this season so they had to use this DUMB of an excuse!!"

Though he does see some good in you through the messed up parts, he once saw you give his daughter a cute teddy bear when they've been burned by Vought.

She still has the bear and M.M likes to think that maybe you have a soft spot for kids since you never had a proper childhood. That's why he chooses to understand you rather than just being ignorant about your behaviour.

Compatibility? 80%

KIMIKO

She finds you a little odd but she doesn't mind once she realises how everyone is used to you being like that.

Whenever you're bored, you'd come to see what she was up to. Just imagine you sitting on the sofa like a curious kid as you watch her write alphabets on the book.

She also tries to communicate with you since she thought maybe your fucked up mind would understand her better in a way. Like how in season 2 she was repeatedly writing 'boy' to Frenchie but he didn't understand, so she came to you.

"Woow... watching you try to talk to me is like watching a baby take it's first breath..."

"😐"

"It's beautiful..."

Turns out her theory was wrong, you had a harder time understanding her compared to the rest.

Since you're the only two people in the group with powers, most of the time you two are sent on dangerous missions together. It's a nightmare for her because everybody knows communication is key but one is mute and the other doesn't listen.

"(Be quiet! There's people in the other room!)" She'd sign to you but you were busy humming a song while throwing around the enemies equipment.

"Oooh, what's this?" You held up a Homelander figurine which made you laugh as you show it to her.

"Hey look! 'I'm Homelander, I'm God's favourite. I play golf with Jesus every Sunday."

"(Can you please take this seriously?)"

"You're right, you gotta stop messing around Kimiko! We have a target to kill here" You said and you threw the figurine away which apparently clashes into a stack of boxes that came crashing down. The sound making everyone inside the building grab their weapons and began cornering you two in the room.

"😡"

"Okay that wasn't me that was gravity"

For the boys, you were plan A and she was plan B. That's because you always end up rushing into a fight first which most of the time resulted in you getting dismembered, which she later comes in to save you.

For example when Stormfront had stopped you guys, your bright ass thought it was a good idea to charge at her even though everyone was signalling you to stop. Next thing you know you were just a head being carried by M.M, you ended up watching as Kimiko fought Stormfront with the help of Starlight and Queen Maeve.

"That's my girl!! Now can anyone lend me a hand? I think I lost mine"

Compatibility? 97%

Bonus +

SOLDIER BOY

You know the scene where he walks out of his containment with the gas surrounding him? You swore when you watched him step out butt naked, you could hear angels singing and trumpets playing inside your head.

Shockingly enough, he was the only person who appreciated your humour. Could be a generation thing. He's just relieved not everyone has gone soft over the years.

In a way, you feel like you've become his babysitter. Everytime Butcher and Hughie left to do some business, you were in charge of making sure he doesn't blow up anyone. You kept him entertained so he didn't mind. That's why on the hunt for his former team members, he immediately chose you to be by his side.

"I'll take red with me"

"Red as in the american flag or the russians?" You asked which had him do the typical boomer laugh.

"I like you, you're funny" He said with a strong pat on your shoulder.

Butcher doesn't mind you with him cause he trusts that you can keep him under control. Hughie on the other hand isn't sure if you can even keep yourself under control.

"Shhh... wait... do you hear that?"

"Ah shit, did I accidentally said my dirty thoughts out loud? It's just you look breedable in that suit"

Another thing he likes about you is that you're okay with killing pretty much anyone, just try not to overstep cause that could potentially piss him off.

"I told you he's mine" He said as he had you pinned against one of the trees, apparently you had shot Mindstorm in the head when he literally made it clear to you minutes ago that was his kill.

"Quite possessive aren't you? I can recommended a therapist I know. Her names Martha—"

"You shut your mouth before I shove my shield up your ass"

"Gasp don't you DARE threaten me with a good time!!"

At the end of Season 3, you would obviously side with Butcher when everyone started to turn against Soldier Boy. He had to admit he was kinda hurt though, he expected you to be on his side.

"So what? You're crawling back to him now? After what we've been through?"

"Sorry big daddy, but Butcher has been my day one and I also happen to love him veryvery much"

Cue Butcher rolling his eyes out of disgust.

Compatibility? 100% but after the betrayal? 0% 😔

[tgcg]

candid detail. my biggest project so far

hey happy new year

CG: DAVE?

TG: yeah?

CG: SOMETHING’S KIND OF FUCKING ME UP RIGHT NOW AND I NEED TO TELL YOU SPECIFICALLY ABOUT IT IN CANDID DETAIL.

TG: oh shit

===

TG: yeah whats up

TG: not too often i get to be the sole audience to karkats grievances

CG: PFF, BULLSHIT. YOU'RE PRIVY TO WAY MORE ABOUT MY GRIEVANCES THAN BASICALLY ANY OF MY SURVIVING AND PRESENT FRIENDS, BY A SIGNIFICANT MARGIN, AND YOU KNOW IT.

TG: yeah and im boutta add another im like broses up on that hill bundled up in a long ass list of things that make the homies upset

TG: lay it on me

===

CG: OKAY. SO.

…

CG: I’M KIND OF THINKING ABOUT JUST. US AND OUR BRO-DOM.

===

TG: oh

CG: LET ME FINISH.

CG: ALL THIS TIME I’VE BEEN FUCKING FORCED TO SPEND IN THE DREAM BUBBLES MADE ME REALISE SOMETHING, AND THAT’S THAT…

===

CG: THIS IS KIND OF RARE, RIGHT?

TG: what

TG: us

CG: YEAH! LIKE… THERE’S SO MANY THANKFULLY DEAD KARKATS I’VE HAD THE INSURMOUNTABLE GODDAMN DISPLEASURE OF FAILING TO AVOID THAT DON’T LIKE YOU, BARELY MET YOU, OR EVEN JUST DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU.

===

CG: IT’S THE RARE AMBIVALENCE THAT REALLY GETS TO ME. I ABSOLUTELY UNDERSTAND A TIMELINE’S KARKAT FIRMLY DECIDING THAT THEY HATE YOUR ASS. NON-ROMANTICALLY I MEAN. THAT HAS BEEN ME, FOR FUCK’S SAKE. BUT THERE WAS NEVER, EVER!!! A POINT WHERE I JUST FELT NOTHING ABOUT YOU AT ALL.

CG: EVEN WHEN I INITIALLY HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF SEEING YOUR DOUCHEBAG SPECTACLES YOU GOT FROM YOUR BRO ON THE SCREEN, I AT LEAST HAD A STARTER DISH OF SKEWERED CONTEMPT TO WHET MY APPETITE. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO IMAGINE NOT FEELING ONE WAY OR ANOTHER ABOUT YOU.

===

CG: ONE TIME I MENTIONED YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF A THREE-WAY ARGUMENT AND ONE OF THE OTHER KARKATS SAID "WHO?"

CG: "WHO?"!!!!

TG: now thats fucked up

CG: IT IS! AND THAT'S WHAT MADE ME FIRST REALISE THAT NOT EVERY KARKAT IS GETTING TO HANG OUT WITH EVERY DAVE, AND VICE VERSA. AND THIS IS GOING TO SOUND LAME AS SHIT IN A WAY THAT I’LL NEVER EVER LIVE DOWN, BUT. I FEEL BAD FOR THEM ABOUT IT! YOU KNOW?

===

TG: well you always feel bad about around and towards other yous so thats

TG: wait

TG: is or is not the nature of this moment of self-pity fuelled by malice anger disgust or any similar terms slash phrases

CG: I MEAN, FOR ONCE? DON’T GET ME WRONG, THE MALICE ANGER DISGUST ET CETERA IS STILL THOROUGHLY PERMEATING THE WHOLE ORDEAL. THE DAY I LOSE CONTEMPT FOR MY ALTERNATE SELVES IS THE DAY I GET TAKEN OUT BACK AND PUT DOWN LIKE THE LAME HOOFBEAST I’VE ALWAYS DREAMT OF BEING. BUT…

CG: I ACTUALLY JUST FEEL SAD FOR THEM, STRAIGHT UP. INDEPENDENT FROM TERMS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED.

===

TG: damn

CG: AND THAT FEELS INCREDIBLY WEIRD TOO. I CAN’T EVEN ARGUE WITH THEM ABOUT IT, IT JUST MAKES ME FEEL THIS SHITTY, SHOCKINGLY QUIET… GRIEF? ALMOST? FOR THEM. GENERAL NON-TROLLIAN FEELINGS. AND EXCEPTIONALLY NON-STANDARD IN A KARKAT-TO-KARKAT CONVERSATION, AS YOU MIGHT HAVE GUESSED.

CG: BUT I KNOW IF I TOLD ANY OTHER EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED REFLECTION OF MY OWN FECULENT INNER FILTH TO TALK TO YOU, OR EVEN JUST LOOK AT YOU ONE TIME, THEY’D ONLY SEE IT AS ANOTHER PERSONAL AFFRONT. LIKE I JUST TOLD THEM "HEY, SHIT ALL OVER YOUR FROND AND SNIFF IT, IT’LL BE AMAZING JUST TRUST ME, ABSOLUTELY ZERO REASON NOT TO."

===

TG: you come up with the most potent mental images man youre the wordmeister of viscerally gross as hell vocab

CG: THANK YOU.

===

CG: AND LIKE… SHIT, I DEFINITELY WOULD’VE FELT THAT WAY BEFORE I GOT TO KNOW YOU! I UNDERSTAND THE INNER MACHINATIONS OF THOSE IMBECILIC NOOKSTAINS BETTER THAN ANYONE EVER COULD, DESPITE MY BEST EFFORTS.

CG: KARKATS UNIVERSALLY DECIDING THAT THEY JUST CANNOT LIKE YOU ON PRINCIPLE IS A CRISIS OF SHIT HAPPENSTANCES. THE HAPPENINGS ARE ALL OUT OF WACK, COSMICALLY.

CG: LIKE EVERY ME WRITHED OUR WAY OUT OF THE BROODING CAVERNS AND THE FIRST CONSTELLATION WE SAW PEELING THROUGH THE EXOSPHERE, TWINKLING IN THE REFLECTION OF OUR HUGE RED GANDERBULBS, WAS A PAIR OF SHADES GETTING COVERED IN GASOLINE, FOLLOWED BY A CONSTELLATION OF A LIT MATCH.

CG: A SIMPLE EQUATION WITH A VERY SIMPLE SOLUTION.

CG: A SYSTEMIC EPIDEMIC, IF YOU’LL PARDON MY BULLSHIT.

===

TG: it is a goddamn catastrophe sweeping the karkat population

TG: presidents on the headlines trying to get karkats everywhere to stop quarantining their asses and have a real heart to heart among themselves about the issue but they keep isolating anyways

CG: I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL A PRESIDENT IS. YOU’VE FAILED TO DESCRIBE IT AS ANYTHING MORE THAN A POORLY-SELECTED "DUDE CONDESCE" WHO DOES NOTHING PRODUCTIVE AND THEN EITHER DIES OR RUINS EVERYTHING, OR SOME CHAOTIC COMBINATION OF THE TWO.

TG: well that is exactly what it is but wait good point

===

TG: tragedy strikes as the karkat population reveals it doesnt generally know what a president even is so it means jack shit to them that this dude is trying to get their attention

TG: and mr president he is getting voted the fuck out of office over this blunder just an embarrassing display

TG: the public trust has plummeted off the fucking chart and cratered the damn ground like a meteor

TG: or he could be the tenth to die in office yknow there was a pretty big stretch of no in-office deaths til 2009 so maybe some catchup would be good for everyone

CG: ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU WANT TO MAKE ANOTHER PRESIDENT, AND THEN KILL HIM?

TG: not me personally i just wanna be there and see it also is that dream bubble fucking huge or what

TG: must be the size of

===

TG: jupiter

===

TG: look all im saying is the end of the world coincided pretty notably with a dry spell in the presidential kill:death ratio

TG: i was tragically too busy not dying to see obama die live on television when an errant meteor hit the white house that was my one chance

CG: PFFFT.

TG: i want to keep a comically aloof finger on the pulse of the shit but i do not want to be among the shit

TG: but anyways guess its my turn on the pedestal

CG: BE MY FUCKING GUEST.

===

TG: yknow uh im not gonna lie if present me went back to me age thirteen sippin my dubious aj in my pre-apocalyptic layer of hell that was texas and told me

TG: hey that gray text dude is probably gonna be your best friend if you give him a shot yall could be sweet bros in real life itll be awesome

TG: i mean disregarding the fact i already doomed that guy because i dont remember that happening to me

TG: id probably be casting some wicked aspersions on that shit

===

TG: our whole friendship feels like a plot twist to my damn life story

CG: I HEAR YOU.

TG: its like our narratives bumped into each other hard on the street and decided yknow what yeah this pavement is pretty cosy lets talk about your dad

TG: but

===

TG: dont get your think pans too wrapped up in that different timeline stuff

CG: IT’S THINK PAN. SINGULAR. NOBODY HAS MORE THAN ONE THINK PAN, EVER. IT IS A SINGULAR ORGAN. IF YOU WOULD LET ME READ A TROLL BIOLOGY BOOK TO YOU ONE TIME WE’D STOP BUMPING INTO THIS ISSUE.

TG: gotcha and no

CG: OBVIOUSLY.

TG: but anyways dude look

===

TG: i am literally a time dude and i can tell you right now with all the sage wisdome of my knightitudes

TG: not a good way of looking at it

TG: ive met daves that didnt like you either it doesnt affect jack or shit because those daves arent me

TG: like they are in a way but

TG: me and all those other guys spent the whole game honing down these doomed timelines to a fine point and that point has obviously involved a whole lot of hanging out with you

CG: …

===

TG: so

TG: maybe they just missed the point while you and me were on the breaking edge of that shit

TG: we got to the bottom line of it so it doesnt matter yknow

CG: HUH.

===

TG: and i mean plus

===

TG: ive seen a handful of alternate daves and karkats who get along uh great apparently so

TG: yknow

===

CG: WHAT?

TG: you know what i fucking mean im not saying it

CG: ROLLING YOUR SHOULDERS AND SAYING "yknow" GENERALLY DOESN’T CONVEY FUCKING ANYTHING MEANINGFUL IN A CONVERSATION, DAVE.

CG: I’M NOT A PSYCHIC. YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO TELL ME WHAT YOU MEAN. IN CANDID DETAIL.

TG: its besides the point anyways

===

TG: the point is its you right here that matters overall and you right here is chilling with me so thats gotta mean at least one or two things

CG: OKAY, OKAY, YEAH… I GET WHAT YOU’RE SAYING. I REALLY DIDN’T THINK ABOUT IT LIKE THAT.

CG: YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND BY NOW HOW IT’D BE REALLY FUCKING DIFFICULT FOR ME TO WRAP MY THINK PAN AROUND THE CONCEPT OF ME BEING THE RIGHT VERSION OF ANYTHING.

CG: BUT I FEEL LIKE THE AMOUNT OF TIME WE'VE SPENT TOGETHER CUMULATIVELY IN THIS TIMELINE MAKES UP FOR THE AMOUNT OF DAVES AND KARKATS WHO NEVER SPENT ANY AT ALL, BY AT LEAST TENFOLD.

===

TG: heh yeah

HAHAH.

===

CG: GOD. WHO WOULD’VE GUESSED THAT KARKAT VANTAS WOULD GET TOO FAR INTO HIS OWN THINK PAN ABOUT THIS BULLSHIT, RIGHT?

TG: stop repeating the words think and pan i get it already

CG: ARE YOU SURE? TOTALLY SURE? ABSOLUTELY ASSFUCK CERTAIN OF YOURSELF?

TG: yes dude

CG: ALRIGHT. KEEP IN MIND THIS WILL BE ON THE TEST LATER.

TG: im acing that shit i swear to god youre gonna eat your damn foot

CG: STRUT POD

TG: when i pass that shit to oblivion

TG: youre gonna regret doubting me

CG: OKAY, DAVE. THEN EXPLAIN TO ME WITH ALL YOUR SAGE WISDOME: WHAT IS A "LUMPSQUIRT"? AND REALLY, TAKE YOUR TIME THINKING ABOUT THIS. GOD KNOWS WE'VE GOT MOMENTS A-FUCKING-PLENTY TO SPARE.

TG: as the literal god of time in your local area i sure as hell do

CG: GO ON THEN.

===

TG: …

TG: pass

CG: EXACTLY.

CG: ANYWAYS, I’M STILL GOING TO GO AROUND FEELING ANOTHER LAYER OF PITY FOR THOSE GRAY BULGEMUNCHERS THAT DON’T GET TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU. NOT THAT ANYTHING ANY KARKAT COULD FUCKING DO WOULD EVER MAKE THEM DESERVING OF IT, BUT THAT’S ANOTHER CAN OF DIRT NOODLES ENTIRELY.

TG: yeah i feel bad for anyone who isnt buddy-buddy with the david stri too

CG: OF COURSE YOU DO. I’M GLAD WE’RE ON THE SAME PAGE HERE.

===

TG: but also

TG: any dave who missed out on a slice of the realest homes in paradox space is a tragedy in my eyes

CG: Y--

TG: let me finish

TG: i just dont let it get to me so much cus… first of all ive been having to not let time shit get to me this whole damn game but also

TG: i know i have you here and thats whats important

TG: ok not "have" just

TG: how the fuck do i phrase that

TG: i know whatever is happening with other "us"es whatever shits goin down

TG: i can wake up and watch movies with you or hell i can even hang with you in there if i bump into you and thats what matters to me in this bro-dom thats what i wanna do

TG: and thats some real shit i just said feel free to co-sign it

CG: …

===

TG: karkat i meant it

CG: … THANKS.

TG: no problem

[delightfultheoristfox]

Never had a thing

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

I have no clue how this works the thought process was like: since I'm stuck in the worst writing block of my life why don't I start crossposting on Tumblr so it kind of feels like I've accomplished something while the truth is that I haven't been able to complete a WIP in two months? 🫠 I never posted on Tumblr. Is this okay? Anyways, Simon Riley brain rot. That's it. That's the post. Also, you can find this on AO3. 18+

Word count: 10k CW: smutty!!! jealous Simon Riley BECAUSE I honestly crave that. Soft Simon Riley because I crave that as well.

Masterlist 🦊

𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬

Simon had groaned like a battered dog when Price gave him the news that he needed to lie low. “Someone in Konni’s got your name” he’d said. “We don’t wanna take any risks. Just for a few weeks.”

He was sure those few weeks would turn into a few bloody months if he didn’t get a move on. For that, he’d hastily packed his things from the poor excuse of a flat the army had granted him, and started looking for a place to stay that wasn’t in Manchester.

Initially, Simon almost fantasized about buying his own flat. Maybe a piece of land and fulfill the wishes of the outcast that he was – living away from people, giving them the same treatment they’ve always given him.

Too bad he was legally dead. He had nothing to his name if not a grave that didn’t even exist, all his possessions were cursed memories and metaphorical things – a rank he didn’t hold, a flat that wasn’t his. Even his name barely pertained to him anymore.

The SAS wasn’t offering any accommodation, the tightwads. He couldn't buy a house, or rent one. He couldn't lean on any of his teammates, or he'd put them in danger – he wouldn't do it, not to them. Taint their lives with his name and the death it inevitably brings.

Price had helped him settle in a glorified motorway hotel. But he wasn’t picky – after all, he only had to stay for a few weeks.

A few days into his exile, he’d entered a Tesco with his head bowed and his hood on, a surgical mask on his face. A pack of Marlboro was all he wanted since the dodgy motel he was staying at (hiding) didn’t care if he smoked within the room. Plus, he reckoned that the smell of nicotine and combustion was a much better alternative to the rancid stench of mold.

However, as he plucked ten quid from his wallet, his eyes absently fell on a bulletin board behind the store clerk. There were tons of leaflets there: missing cats or dogs, people looking for a job or offering one. And then, a bright yellow paper caught his eye. Whoever printed it lacked taste but sure as hell knew how to catch one’s attention. He’d stopped in his tracks, a tenner between two fingers.

DESPERATE!!! PhD STUDENT LOOKING FOR A FLATMATE. NO SPECIFIC GENDER OR AGE AS LONG AS YOU CAN PAY RENT ON TIME. Two-bedroom flat, third floor, no elevator. If interested, please contact this number.

At the end of the flyer, the paper was cut into tear-off strips, so that interested individuals could rip the section with the phone number.

He liked that first word: desperate. He wondered if this person was as desperate as he was. Would they accept a man who wore a balaclava and looked proper sketchy? How desperate were they, really, if he asked to rent on verbal agreement – no contracts, no signatures whatsoever?

He decided he wanted to test that before he died of mold poisoning.

Nevertheless, when he dialed the number on his burner phone a few hours later, he wasn’t expecting the voice coming through the line. A shriek. A goddamn banshee. Chirpy and cheery, sounding like those damn advertisements on the telly for children’s toys. Whoever was on the other side of the phone was trying to sell.

The obnoxiously happy voice he’d heard through the receiver surely did match the person he found at the door of the flat a few days later - and the apartment itself.

It was a splash of colors Simon wasn’t even sure matched, from oranges and greens in the living room to yellows and blues in the kitchen. Walls of the same room were painted differently, and a brown leather couch lay on a round and fluffy turquoise carpet. A glass coffee table stood in the middle of it, hosting a clay vase with orange tulips.

You were a splash of colors yourself. Bright clothes, vibrant smile, and matching eyes.

Notwithstanding the loud energy that came with your presence, he could see you were tense as you guided him through the apartment. Simon didn’t blame you – he wasn’t the most trustworthy-looking lad. While he’d ditched the balaclava and had decided to go for a surgical mask, even hewould walk on eggshells around himself.

“Only a few weeks.” He’d said, deciding that he could withstand the eyesore that was the decor of that flat. “I’ll cover the rent while you find someone more permanent.”

And to his utter surprise, you’d accepted. He thought it was much too naïve of you, to let him rent without a lease. Without a document, without anything to prove that he'd pay as he'd promised in that listless fashion of his. Maybe you were as desperate as your tasteless leaflet said, in that dive of a Tesco.

He moved in in the span of a few days. You helped him with the boxes, although it was clear he didn't need a hand – especially not from a tiny thing like you. Not that you were small, he was just built like a brick house and you – well, you were made of wood, like in those cautionary tales mums tell their children. Pigs and wolves and shite.

You didn’t question why he wore the balaclava, nor why he never left his room, but sometimes you’d knock on his door to ask if he wanted pizza too, since you were ordering. He’d eat it (and any of his other meals really) in the cramped space he'd managed to rent, hosting only a bed, a poor excuse of a closet, and a desk.

Until one day he heard booming noises coming from the telly in the living room, so he peeked from the door he’d left ajar only to be greeted by Tom Cruise’s mug – Top Gun. 

Silently, he joined you on the sofa and he started correcting the way Maverick held the gun or grunting about how an aircraft couldn't make that maneuver. You never asked how he knew, but it had been a few weeks since he’d moved in and he’d already gathered how brilliant you were. You didn’t need to ask questions to connect the dots.

Simon wasn't keen on giving you his phone number, even the one on his burner phone. The paranoid that he was, and with a bit of experience to back it up, he didn't want to leave you with anything that could connect you to him.

So, you started leaving post-it notes on the fridge.

Dinner leftovers on the second rack. He’d tick off the sentence to let you know he’d read it, whether he ate them or not. Simon had this inborn ability to ghost people even without the use of phones.

Tried a new recipe. Tupperware with the blue lid. He’d write a score out of ten on the corner of the note.

I used your milk for breakfast!!! Sorry!!! He had huffed and grumbled when he’d headed out for groceries afterwards, but ever since that day, he started buying two cartons instead of one.

And he'd leave post-it notes for you, too.

Out for a few days. That’s how he would vaguely tell you he was being deployed. You would always draw a sad emoji next to it.

Watered your plants. Bloody things were more dead than alive. You’d mark down a very happy emoji, going as far as to add two poorly drawn thumbs up.

He barely noticed when his meals started happening on the kitchen table instead of his desk. Similarly, he couldn’t recall when he’d stopped taking pains to ensure your mealtimes wouldn’t coincide.

Friday night pizzas were always shared; it was a silent house rule you’d both agreed on. The both of you on the settee with the carton boxes on your thighs, two cold beers on the glass coffee table, and the telly playing a movie.

Your cheeky arse often chose a war film, and Simon had to refrain from rolling his eyes at how obvious you were being – trying to get to know him.

Zero Dark Thirty.

“Is it true you use callsigns?”

“Yes.”

“You have one?”

“Yes.”

“What is it, then?”

“Classified.”

“Oh, c’mon.”

“Negative.”

The hurt locker.

“You ever defused a bomb?”

“Yes.”

“No shit – oh my God. How was it?”

“Dangerous.”

“Why thank you for the chat.”

“No problem.”

“When did it happen? Like, what was the situa-”

“Classified.”

You made a face and mocked his accent. “Classified.”

Apocalypse now.

“You are a bit like Kurtz.”

He gave you a look. “Mental?”

You huffed. “No. I meant the things he says, not the whole insanity bit.”

Simon scoffed but otherwise stayed silent. The film rolled in the background.

He murmured, then. “The horror, the horror.”

And you laughed.

He found it inexplicably easy to strip down for you, until he stood metaphorically naked in front of your eyes. Until he told you his full name and gave you his personal phone number. Until he showed his face.

Until he noticed you'd stopped looking for a flatmate, and his weeks of rent turned into months like he’d initially foreseen, but for another reason entirely. Months turned into years, but he could’ve never predicted anything in his life to last this long.

Until two summers later, while sporting a mundane black surgical mask and casual clothing, he took a photo with you in your doctoral gown, in front of your Uni. The same picture that now hung next to the entryway of your flat.

Until two years became three, and then four.

Until he just kind of… stayed.

𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬 𓇬

Simon’s day has worn him to the bone. The only thing he wants now is to go home, down a beer in two gulps, and knock himself out on any flat surface available.

He’s risked his fair share of speeding fines on the motorway, parked the car in the building's garage, and trudged up the three flights of stairs that led to his apartment. When he unlocks the door, he finds a sight that melts his frustration into a puddle at his feet.

You’re lying on the sofa, absolutely unbothered, looking lovely and homely. A lousy romcom plays on the telly. One hand is hiding in the crinkling shell of a packet of Walkers, and your other one is curled around the neck of a Stella Artois. Simon gathers that your workday must've finished a little earlier than normal because you’re already in your loungewear: a pair of loose sleeping shorts and a t-shirt he knows all too well.

All too well, because it’s his. 

And he could give you the benefit of the doubt; after all, you often wear oversized clothes. It could’ve been a laundry mishap; you could’ve absently taken it out of the dryer without a second glance, thinking it was yours. But the blatant British Army patch on the sleeve and his surname written in white block letters on the back give him very little to work with to excuse you. He doesn’t even remember he still owned that tee, probably because, factually, he doesn’t anymore.

It's clearly yours, now.

He drops the house keys in the tray lying on the floating shelf next to the doorway, before closing the door behind him. The sound must’ve alerted you, because your head drops backwards, rolling against the armrest of the sofa.

"Evenin'." You beam, looking at his downward image. Your head lolls and your mouth looks busy chewing on a handful of crisps.

Ever the vigilant bastard, he wants to flick your forehead and remind you that chewing upside down could lead to choking, but you aren’t a child. Although, with the crumbs of what smells like salt and vinegar crisps littering the corners of your lips and the baffling, chaotic way your hair is tied in a bun, you sort of look like one.

You curl your legs to leave a free spot for him, patting your foot on the sofa’s cushions. "Wanna join me?"

Simon hums quietly; his eyes flicker over to the TV for just a glance. He isn’t in the mood for a romcom, not at all. But he does want company. He sighs and shrugs off his jacket before toeing off his boots. His balaclava is snatched off by a tired hand, and dropped somewhere he doesn’t care to check. Only two wide steps with his annoyingly long legs and he’s already by the sofa, flopping onto it like a wet rag slapped on the leather cushions.

He eyes the bag of crisps in your hand and raises a questioning eyebrow.

You’ve learned how silent communication works with him because most of the time (especially after particularly hellish days or long deployments) he wanders around the flat like a haunting specter more than a living being.

You mockingly raise your own questioning brow, but alas, you hand him the pack of crisps he’d wordlessly asked for. And just because you can, and because he’s never said anything when you did it, you stretch your legs to rest over his thighs.

That earns you a grumpy side-eye that softens just as quickly when he spots the checkered pink and green socks he gifted you for your graduation.

Simon doesn’t know much about things like that. He isn’t daft, he knows how big it is to earn a PhD. But presents aren’t his thing, nor are the pleasantries built around big achievements.

At the time, he was just tired of seeing you walk barefoot around the flat and thought you needed those more than anything since, apparently, slippers weren’t all the rage in your book. Surely, before his life-changing present, Simon was used to you asking if he’d seen your other slipper while you stumbled about the flat only wearing one on your feet. He’d find them everywhere: under the sofa when vacuuming the carpet, hidden in a groove between the floor and the kitchen counter, forgotten on the washing machine or in the washing machine.

He’d figured that the only way to ensure you’d avoid knocking your pinky toe on the corner of some furniture was to make sure you couldn’t simply drop the footwear. Socks were it, apparently.

He remembers how your eyes had shone like the bleeding sun when he’d given them to you, how you’d clutched them to your chest as if he’d just gifted you a pot of gold. It had been a lovely sight, one he carefully keeps tucked in the almost empty corner of his mind, the one reserved for happy memories.

Nevertheless, Simon has rarely minded your habit of lounging with your calves across his thighs. The opposite, actually. Your friendly sentiments make him feel like, for once, he isn’t about to get stabbed in the back. Moreover, the fact that he is letting you invade his personal space like that, when he never allows anyone else to so much as touch him, truly is a testament to the monumental trust he’s placed in you.

You take a sip from your beer. "Alright?"

“Peachy.” He grumbles dryly.

Your lips purse to conceal a smirk, but hell is it hard. His dry humor never fails to rob a halfhearted smile from you. He has subconsciously started using it more often than socially acceptable just because of that.

You wiggle your toes against his abdomen, trying to steal a smile of his own from him – even if those tend to appear once in a blue moon.

What you are given, however, is only a slap on the ankle.

Catching on his mood, you down one last sip from your Stella and then you wiggle the bottle at him.

"There," you offer. "Seems like you need it more than I do."

He tosses the bag of crisps on the coffee table and accepts the beer from you, taking a rather large gulp from it. He isn’t a light drinker by any means. In his defense, it takes a whole lot of alcohol to knock him out. He has the metabolism of a properly trained soldier and his liver has processed much worse things than a bloody Stella Artois.

“Why are you being particularly friendly today?” He asks with thinly veiled sarcasm.

He isn’t complaining, per se. But he is a pessimist, one who can’t seem to grasp the notion that people can act accommodating without asking anything in return. Even if that has been your only behavior for the past four years.

Therefore, Simon understands why you narrow your eyes at his question, all offended and a tiny bit sour, as if he’s just asked something outrageous. However, he also knows you’ll brush off his comment because it is true, what he said.

You are particularly cheery.

"I'm back in the game." You state, sounding as if you've achieved some great thing. "I have a date next Friday."

That.

That is what Simon needs to hear in order to give you a genuine reaction.

He raises a single blond eyebrow and glances away from the TV to look at you with that signature hooded gaze of his – the kind that could cut through steel.

“A date?” He grumbles. “Who’s the bloke?”

In response, you squirm a little on the couch to lazily reach for your phone on the coffee table. One of your legs swings to keep your balance, and if Simon didn’t have the reflexes of a sniper, you’d have heeled his face. He automatically grabs your ankle to both prevent your fall and save the integrity of his nose, releasing a sigh – bloody used to it.

You're absolutely unaffected by whatever's happening at the other end of you, awfully concentrated on your task at hand. Fingertips graze the phone enough to slide it closer until you finally manage to have it in your grasp. It’s painfully clear how you can’t be bothered to stand.

You lie back down on the sofa with a sigh, as if that has been an exhausting endeavor.

Simon scoffs.

Your legs return to his lap with apt nonchalance. Then, you swipe through your screen. Simon can only see the phone covering your face from that angle, how the screen light illuminates your features – brows furrowed and the tip of your tongue peeking between your teeth, all focused on finding something on it.

After painstakingly long seconds, you turn your phone to him. Simon squints at the screen and then focuses on the picture you’re showing.

The man is… somewhat handsome, he has to admit. Brown hair, blue eyes, charming smile with possibly fake teeth. Definitely older. Probably a boring, pretentious tosser. Probably wouldn’t appreciate your carefree nature. He wouldn’t return your lost slippers at your door. He wouldn’t buy you socks so you’d stop whining about being on the verge of breaking your toes. He definitely wouldn’t let you paint only one wall of the living room orange, because, in your opinion, having all four would be “too flashy” - as if one on its own isn’t obnoxious enough.

He has to admit, however, that you look beyond excited, and maybe a little enamored. It’s an adorable view, really, and he hates himself for being unable to rejoice about it with you.

"Adam." You tell him his name, even if he never asked. "Thirty-nine. Associate professor of Linguistics at the Uni where I graduated. Found him on Bumble.”

Simon has to physically stop himself from giving a scoff in response to that.

“Looks like a knob.” He takes yet another large gulp of beer, finishing the last drop. You frown, and before you can interject, he adds. “Looks old. Tory, probably.”

You roll your eyes and nudge his thigh with the tips of your toes.

"He ain't a Tory." You scoff. That little frown still lingers on your features, carving a small line between your brows, as if he'd personally offended you.

His comment prompts you to turn your phone to yourself and look at the picture of this Adam lad you found on Bumble of all places.

You look back at Simon and his deadpan stare. Then back at Adam and his million-dollar smile.

Your eyes swivel back to Simon again, and you tentatively ask, "You think he's a Tory?"

Simon places the empty beer bottle on the glass coffee table. The sound somehow makes you take a metaphorical step back. "Nah. He can't be."

You purse your lips, concentrated and slightly, just slightly amused.

Eyes back to Adam. Then to Simon. "Right?"

Simon looks that ounce of smug enough to be considered annoying once he notices how you’re about to go cross-eyed in changing your focus, all hesitant and that bit concerned. He already knows how you have zero faith in your own judgment of character even if you refuse to make peace with it.

A little too naïve for this world. A tad too innocent. When the topic would come up, you’d get all riled up and primitive in your frustration, muttering indiscernible words and expletives that sound like grunts. Brows all furrowed and pretty lips scowling. He'd remind you how you let him in your flat without a single proof that he wasn't a serial killing sociopath, and your mouth would lock in place.

His hand lands on the curve of your foot, smoothing down towards your ankle; the warmth of his palm bleeds through the fuzzy fabric of your socks. He sighs, a little overdramatic as if he were about to tell you some sad, sad news. "Definitely a Tory.”

You want to reprimand his lack of faith in your choice of men. But his hand on your ankle feels so nice and you’re a sucker for physical contact. Begrudgingly, you settle that your bruised ego and your wounded pride are worth the gentle giant’s warmth.

However, the lingering touch does nothing to discourage your fire, so you glower. The least believable thing he's ever seen.

It takes much more to upset a special forces operator with a series of achievements as long as Simon Riley’s. A doctor with a mop of hair lazily tied in a bun, checkered socks in his lap, and residues of crisps around her lips surely isn’t it.

"Well." You huff, crossing your arms over your chest. "I'll ask him on Friday when we’ll have dinner."

He scoffs.

“You’re gonna bring up politics at dinner on a first date, yeah?” A condescending pat on your ankle. “Sounds really romantic.”

His dry humor again. It wins in its intent to steal a chuckle from you.

The fight leaves as quickly as it entered your bloodstream, and you flop on the couch with a sigh, your phone falling somewhere on the turquoise carpet.

"Gotta make sure I ain't dating a conservative." You quip.

Simon watches you clasp your hands over your belly as it ripples with the first waves of a breathy laugh. You crane your neck forwards, eyes squinting in mirth clocking his own.

"He looks like he’d vote Tory." You concede with a laugh and pinch the air in front of your face. "A tiny bit - just a tiny bit."

“A tiny bit?” He snorts. “Lad probably has a framed photo of Margaret Thatcher in his bedroom.”

You laugh again, rubbing an idle hand over your eyes as you shake your head, utterly defeated. He can see in the way your shoulders sag that he’s shattered the careful castle of hopes and dreams you'd built brick by brick around the man.

"God no." Equally as exasperated as entertained, you sigh. "Can't imagine shagging him with the ol' Iron Lady staring at my tits."

He scoffs again at the mental image you have just provided him with. He doubts he’ll ever forget the picture, to his dismay. “Christ. Didn’t need that in my mind.”

In the afterglow of that belly laugh, you don’t notice how he’s somewhat tightened his grip around your ankle. Simon knows you aren’t one to pay attention to those subtleties. Too focused on other people's well-being to realize when yours is being put first. He can already imagine how your heart is unraveling with the knowledge that you’ve managed to make him quirk a smile, however small, even if his day had been a proper shitshow.

The selfless angel that you are.

You turn your eyes to the ceiling, looking for something that clearly isn’t written on the colorful paint of the walls.

"All jokes aside," you murmur. "I hope it goes well."

Your eyes touch his. There’s a melancholy in yours you only allowed him to see. Thinly veiled vulnerability, heart bare just for his eyes.

"Really need a confidence boost," you say with a wistful smile. "And some love on the side."

He mutters under his breath. “Right.”

Simon tries not to wince at your words and what they imply. He thinks you’re too good to rely on other people (men, above anything) to boost your confidence. As if what he thinks are mouthwatering looks, a striking sense of humor and a brilliant mind aren’t enough to make you feel a peg above everyone else.

He hates that you don’t seem to understand it. Hates that you require other people’s approval even when you have a brain that could put most to shame and a series of achievements to boot.

He hates that despite how sharp you are, you’re slow when it comes to emotional intelligence. And it’s Simon fucking Riley who’s saying it, the most emotionally unavailable man he himself knows. It isn’t that you can’t discern signs and tells, you aren’t stupid by any means, but it’s painfully obvious how you just can’t fathom why people would be attracted to you that way. Thus, you’d always dismiss compliments and advances with annoying levity.

In four years, Simon has witnessed all your relationships wither because your lack of self-confidence made you question everything.

Seemingly aware of the tense air your comment has caused, your cheeky grin makes a comeback just to lift his spirits. You wriggle your foot under his grip to get his attention. "You think he'll like my socks?"

Simon has to admit (finally, at least true to himself) that your tireless search for reassurance about your date isn’t exactly doing wonders for his heart or his sanity.

“He’ll love them, you muppet.” He deadpans.

You chuckle at the comment, and then you relax, thinking the conversation over. Comfortable with your eyes on the telly and your hands clasped over your stomach, that gentle feeling of home and familiarity lulls you into a soft rest.

Simon on the other hand, is anything but relaxed. His jaw clenches involuntarily as if he despises even the mere idea of another man getting to see you like this: lying down, all soft and sweet and sleepy in the fuzzy socks he’s bought you. With his surname plastered on your back, of all things.

His eyes flick to the hand on your ankle. He wants to keep holding on tighter and stop you from leaving altogether. Keep you tethered to that couch without ever needing to stand up.

He could tell you to drop it. He could.

But you’re a grown woman, in her prime, with her doctorate and her big girl job that gives her enough money to start a war of her own but for some reason has never decided to pick up her things and leave that shabby flat she shares with him.

And he is poor with words. Communication is a skill he’s never learned, unless it involves extracting precious intel from skin-trading bastards or bloodthirsty pricks. He surely isn’t going to communicate with you that way, even if it's the only one he knows. The realization makes his lips dip into a scowl of self-hatred for being seemingly unable to keep you.

Simon’s eyes rake over your body – your silhouette concealed by his shirt, softly draped over you like finely carved marble. With natural flow, his hand follows the path traced by his pupils, and very deliberately slides up your leg, towards your knee.

Initially, the movement only prompts you to steal a glance from him. But when your eyes land on that frown, as if he were deep in thought, it feels natural, instinctive, to give him your undivided attention again.

Softly, you ask for the second time that day, "Alright?"

He nearly lets out a huff of laughter. Such a simple question yet so goddamn loaded he’s on the verge of blowing a gasket – his patience wearing thin. 

He locks his eyes with yours, only to snark once more. “Peachy.”

His humor this time isn’t successful in the effort of stealing a smile. In Simon’s defense, he hasn’t used it to make you crack one at all.

You frown, a tiny fracture between your brows. A little confused, mostly concerned. He can see it in your doe eyes, how you’re already miles away – overthinking every minute detail you might have missed during the conversation. You always thought so much Simon had joked, once or twice, that your skull was too small to host all that.

Your eyes shift from his face to his hand. Simon dares to be bolder and slides his palm a little higher. His fingers curl around the plush of your thigh.

"Peachy, eh?" You inquire, clearly suspicious of his antics. "You look far from peachy.”

A low scoff slips past his lips.

He is anything but peachy, he’d give you that. He is anything but sweet, far from it. Bitter, would fit better. Jealous, would fit best. He is downright pissed, but not at you. Never at you. He wishes he were a gifted conversationalist, so he could put into words what the idea of you shoving your tits in the face of some twat is making his hackles rise. He barely entertains the thought of you talking and laughing with him, never mind brushing with the concept of you riding the life out of that bastard. God forbid you brought him over and did all that in your flat – his flat.

He swallows in a piss poor attempt at juggling his feelings. His eyes shift to the TV to further conceal them.

“Just thinkin’ about work is all.” He mutters. Simon can almost hear Soap’s Scottish lilt calling him a “pining sod.”

Oh, but you’re an insistent little thing, aren’t you? Simon can hear the sheer doubt in your tone when you hum in response. The slight changes in the vibration against your frowning lips, the curves in the intonation of that simple, but so very telling sound. He catches each and every one of those details like the guard dog that he is.

In his peripherals, he sees the shifting of your eyes, from his hand to his profile. He sees you take in the crook of his nose, broken a few times (a tough job and a harsh childhood did that to him).  His furrowing brows, light honey, like his hair – all ruffled and staticky from removing his balaclava when he got home.

"Work." You deadpan, but it comes out softer than intended.

His fingers aren’t as sneaky as before when they slide further up your thigh. Simon knows you feel that same electric spark because your quadriceps stiffen under his palm.

“Work,” he affirms, his jaw tight as his hand journeys farther to reach the hem of your shorts. His thumb rubs from side to side over the skin at the edge of the fabric, and Christ, he’s fighting the growing itch to just pull them down.

While the two of you have watched plenty of films on this same sofa, in this same position, Simon has never touched you.

As in, touched you, touched you.

He’s averse to that, to anything that isn’t a noncommittal gesture. This one, however, obviously isn’t.

His hand is so big against your thigh, that plush skin underneath his callouses almost makes him feel guilty. The hardened palm used to disperse death shouldn’t touch such soft things. He feels the peachy fuzz brush against the pads of his fingers, he sees how they leave divots in the meat.

It makes his heart beat a little faster, blood pumping in all the wrong places but his head.

His expression is blank, dull eyes staring straight at the television. However, his mind is not as quelled as he portrays. It’s leading him to a very unholy place, where he wonders if your skin is as soft on your belly as it is on your thigh. Whether you’d whimper or groan if he were to flick his tongue over your breasts. If your eyes would roll back, were he to plunge his fingers deep into your core.

So many ifs he wants to put to the test.

He gently skims where your thigh meets your hip, and Simon swears he hears you gulp. He can tell you’re absolutely blindsided. You've been living with him as your flatmate for four years. Four fucking years, and if he ever tried to give you anything more than his usual snark, he might have been a little too subtle about it.

Simon glances at you, before returning his focus to the telly. One look is all he needs to hear your thoughts as if they were his own – the self-deprecation, the anxiety, that tormenting feeling of not being enough.

How torn you look. Stiff fingers curl around air only to release it right afterwards, fighting an invisible enemy. Let him do what he wants, let his hand slide up your shorts, and find the cotton lace of your panties. Or, pull away and retreat into your safe bubble, where no one can hurt you.

As if he’d ever lay an ill hand on you. All you have to say is “Stop” and he’ll take back his arm – cut it off for good measure.

Your eyes are hooded as they turn to look back at the malleable flesh of your thigh in his hold. His fingers disappear under your shorts until the first knuckle. He brushes along the hem of nice lace undies, feeling the rough fabric under the pads of his fingers.

Your voice is deliciously breathy. "Wha' about work, then?"

Avoidance. Normally, he'd let you. If it were any other situation, he'd brush it off with you. He'd keep up with the chat, coddling you in that safe place you seem too keen on spending time in.

Not now.

His head turns back to you; hungry eyes fixed on the way your mouth parts to yield that soft whisper. It makes his eye twitch, a splinter in his veneer.

“Reckon work can wait,” he rasps.

Simon is hyper-aware of how close he is to your core – a knuckle away from the throbbing heat between your legs. He sees your bowed head, eyes lidded with that primal desire he is instilling in you.

You look as if your brain has turned into soup; the ingredients a mix of shared memories and touches – even the most indifferent, neutral ones. To his utter joy, for the first time in your life, it almost looks like you’ve finally turned off your thoughts.

Your jaw clenches in a desperate attempt to get a grip on yourself. He knows you’re confused; he is too. Because it’s wrong to indulge in intimacy when more than just a friendship is at stake. Money's involved, a roof over your heads, a bed to kip, and food in your bellies – four years of shared everything is involved.

But you agree. You nod your head a little dumbly, and suddenly work can wait. To Simon, the fucking world can.

Your voice is a mumble. "Yeah, guess it can."

“Mhm.”

His gaze flicks up to your eyes, depriving your lips of the attention they were given, and he is delighted to see that you’re just as affected as he is.

Simon's fingers get squished between your thighs when you clench them together. He squeezes, feeling how the flesh rolls between his fingers, how it folds where the stretch marks crinkle.

“Lift your leg up for me,” he rasps.

Breath is stuck in your throat in utter anticipation. Simon knows it's been a long time since you've been touched in any way, shape, or form. You could've gone out and found a man willing to have a shag, it wouldn't have been hard to find someone who needed it too – someone as desperate as you look right now.

After all, that single word is the one that led him to you in the first place.

Yet you never did it. Simon has never seen you bring a man, or a woman, back to the flat. Sometimes you’d disappear with a text, saying you’d be sleeping out, but you never brought anyone home. And he never asked why – mostly, because he thought it wasn’t his business. Another part of him, however, was afraid that if he did, you’d take it as an invitation to do so. Obviously, he wasn’t too keen on the idea.

After giving it little thought, you part your thighs for him. One still rests in his lap while the other dangles off the sofa.

There's very little resolve left in you, Simon can tell by the way your eyes are so focused on his disappearing hand, and by the way you shatter when he experimentally glides one finger over the damp line on your panties.

“Fuck.” You hiss, tilting your head back.

You must want him dead, he thinks, as he gawks at the way your throat curves.

“Christ.” He mutters under his breath. He pushes the pad of his thumb down the cotton, feeling how it sticks to your slit. “Barely touched you.”

He wants to take his sweet time. He does. Wants to take it slow, reduce you to a mess of please and more before he finally gives you what you want. But he’s just as desperate as you are, isn’t he? He’s craving, clawing at the walls, to feel you clamp around him. Feel you drip down his hand until his callouses are coated, slick flowing down the crevices of his palm.

He’s no better than you are, currently.

So, his fingers slip under your panties just enough to touch your folds.

You can't help but tilt your head forwards again, only to look down at the bulge under your shorts created by his hand.

But when your eyes flit back to his, he stops.

Maybe he’s gone too far, he thinks. Maybe you’re realizing this is one hell of a mistake that can only end with you going your separate ways, something he will never forgive himself for.

However, it’s then, that you nod. That worry line between your brows, ever-present, seems gone. Smooth skin between your beautiful, beautiful eyes. And Simon feels whole again, feels wanted. The battered hound dog that he is, only useful for one thing and one thing only – sowing the seeds of death, and reaping them afterwards – is wanted.

Not tolerated. Not required. Wanted. Needed.

He knows your brain is turning its cogs, fighting against the fog of a kind of hunger that can’t be extinguished, one that only wants to be sated – by him, and him only.

Why is he doing this. 

What does it mean.

Is it because of the date you should have the next Friday. 

Is it because he's frustrated at work and you’re simply there, lying on a silver platter.

So many fucking questions it irritates him that, somehow, while his middle finger is tracing lazy patterns to part your folds, you’re still thinking. 

He doesn’t allow a single one to leave your lips, because he plunges one finger inside your cunt.

His first if is answered, then. Your eyes don’t roll back like he’d expected.

Your brows flutter to your forehead, and your mouth parts to form a pretty oval. Your chest swells as if you've just taken the first breath in your entire life. Your eyes, hazy and blurred, hold his own. And somehow, that is the hottest thing he’s ever seen.

Your leg on his lap is taut and stiff, toes curling under those loud socks you’re wearing.

Simon takes in the sight of you – all flushed and panting. The only sound in the air is the quiet drone of the telly in the background and your sharp inhales.

He can only describe himself in that moment as wrecked. Maybe even more so than you are right now, all rigid in anticipation of his first movements.

“Keep your eyes on me," he growls out, and when you nod, he curls his pad inside of you.

Your fingers seem to mimic his own, but they grip the edge of the sofa’s cushions instead. Your nails scratch at the leather with such voracity they leave beige lines against the dark brown.

He struggles against the double layer of fabric entrapping his hand to your cunt – the lace scratches the knuckle on his thumb, the cotton of your shorts is a manacle on his wrist. But fuck if he cares about all that when your hips twitch to encourage his movements.

You look ruined. And he loves that – the effect he has on you, the fact that he’s the one to have you like this.

He moves his finger in slow, long strokes. He doesn’t do it to torture you, no. He observes, because for once his constant vigilance is not only useful to quell his paranoia, but also to feed your desires. He tests movements, tries different spots, looking for that one within your walls that will make you scream. 

And he finds it, then – to his utmost delight. Here you are: your breathy moans, soft and honeyed, turn into a stuttering and almost pained "Oh." And he knows he has you under his thumb, all perfect and yearning, unraveling with just one of his fingers. He’s looking straight at your face, not wanting to miss a single twitch of an eyebrow. Your pretty lips are all slick with your spit and they part to release the sweetest sounds he’s ever heard.

His strokes intensify, drawing back as much as he can with the limited movements he has, only to push in and hit ever so slightly that rougher patch of nerves he’s located. He doesn’t want to make you squirm, but he has something tickling his brain – questions. Or better, one question.

He places his thumb over your pearl, unsheathing it from the fleshy hood with a glide. He drinks the way it makes your breath hitch and stutter in sudden hypersensitivity. He rolls his pad tentatively, only to see you grit your teeth and groan – muscles and sinews all tensed up in your neck. It's like molten lava in your belly. It's syrupy hot and gushes out of you in long, sticky droplets that pool on his finger, down to the knuckle.

“D’you think you’ll need to go on that date on Friday?” he rasps and rolls his thumb again.

His question doesn't seem to make you falter; your hips are unrelenting in their chase for release, as you push against his hand, grinding like your life depends on it. However, he can tell that it irked you. That blissed-out look pinches in frustration.

You're breathless, on a feverish hunt for that taste of heaven his finger’s promising, and Simon has the gall to bring up another man? One he's been mocking for the past half hour? He's surprised by himself as well.

You whine. "Does this look like the bloody time?"

“No,” he concedes, sounding a little patronizing.

He has the upper hand, quite literally, and to give you a friendly reminder of the power he holds, he slides another finger in.

You're absolute putty in his hands now. Your fingers grip at the sofa, your cheeks all flushed and warm. Your back arches, and he knows he just gave you that fullness you've been chasing. The sensation that causes the right amount of pleasure and pain of the stretch. He’s knuckle deep inside of you, his fingers trapped by your velvety walls as he strokes harder, lingering a little longer where you like it, but not faster. He keeps that steady pace that takes your breath away, not forgetting to lavish your clit with attention, and leaves you with just enough air for you to free those clipped and breathless moans.

He’s shameless as his other hand clamps your shin on his lap and pushes it down onto the painful tent on his jeans. He shifts his hip upwards to grind against your calf and hisses when it causes the zipper to graze his cock.

“Gonna cancel it, then?”

It’s bliss. You look like an angel.

"Yeah," you breathe out, a little incoherent. "Cancel it, 'course."

Your voice is more of an unintelligible mumble than anything else – two fingers in and his thumb on your nub drawing idle circles. Perfect pressure. Perfect fit.

He’s never seen you look this beautiful, all abandoned and relaxed, with your big brain he loves so much shut off completely. Synapses only working to generate a wish for release, so sweet and simple, and nothing else. And who is he to deny such a plain request, you sweet thing.

Simon would give you the moon if you asked.

He’s powerless in your presence, undecided if to focus on your face, or to stare at your hardened nipples. They brush against the black training t-shirt he once owned – right below the two crossing swords painted under the royal crown. It should be blasphemous. Should be bloody illegal to sully the name of the monarchy that way.

That is, if he gave a fuck about it. And even if he did, he’d see no wrong in it – because what can you taint when you’re the purest thing he’s ever touched.

Your hips move in tandem with his fingers, your face scrunched in that desperate look of someone who has a piece of heaven just out of reach. He watches you as you fall apart under his fingers and keeps your leg down so he can grind against it. If the situation were different, he’d feel like a wild animal in that regard, but there isn’t a spot on you he doesn’t wish to worship.

Especially now, when you look like this. With your hair sticking to your forehead and loose locks escaping your low bun.

He can’t take his eyes away from you – you have him absolutely entranced.

“s too much.” He hears you whine amongst the mist in his brain

“It ain’t.” He manages to grunt as if it's an order.

And you’re a little insubordinate, because you try and squirm away. But your shorts are his shackles as much as they’re yours – they fasten his hand to your cunt, while locking you against his unwavering fingers.

“Simon,” your voice is so wrecked when you beg. “Please - fuck.”

And how he finds the strength to snark is beyond him. His voice is thick and heavy. “’m tryin’.”

He drags his fingers deep down where yours can’t reach, where he’s found that patch of nerves that reduces you into a puddle of yourself. His thumb on your clit is steadfast, rubbing just above the hood where you’re not as sensitive, only to drag down again and make you see stars.

And the way that string of “Yes” leaves your lips, in that euphoric wheeze that tugs at the corners of your lips, makes his cock ache to be anywhere but in the confines of his jeans.

Your eyes are all glossy when you prop yourself on your elbows to fuel his resolve. Petal lips red and shiny, catching your teeth in an attempt to muffle your moans – bone-deep ingrained insecurity you can’t seem to get rid of. He doesn’t force you, though – he wants to hear you, sure, but most of all he wants to see you crumble to shreds. And if hiding your voice is what you need, then feel free to be his bloody guest.

Your hips stutter and your belly ripples under his large tee draped over it, and he’d recognize those signs anywhere. 

“Cum f’ me,” he orders. “C’mon, love. Give it to me.”

It takes a few more pumps of his fingers, and Simon feels it before he sees it. You clench around his fingers in rippling waves, thrumming rhythmically. Your cunt deliciously threatens to cut them off just above the knuckle.

And fuck, aren’t you a goddamn sight. 

Simon thinks it's almost cathartic to simply watch you. How your head tilts back to hit the armrest of the sofa, the way your toes curl in his lap and your foot on the floor rigidly lifts. The sway of your hips as they undulate to meet his thrusts and the liberating groan that leaves your lips, touching the sky with your fingers.

He unconsciously guides you through it, but truthfully, he has absolutely no idea what to do with himself – not with you looking straight out of one of his most unhinged dreams. His fingers slow down but keep moving relentlessly.

However, it would be a lie for him to say he knows what he’s doing.

You come down from it and your eyes are blinky and unfocused, staring at the ceiling. Your body deflates on the couch, limp and sated. Syrupy and warm. With your chest free to move now that the heavy weight on it has finally been lifted. He allows you this moment of privacy as you recollect yourself, although he truly wants you to look back at him again. He doesn’t want to miss a beat of this, yet he sort of understands.

Your breath comes out in puffs. He’s not faring any better on that note.

"Simon," you breathe, his name exquisite from your lips. "Christ."

He’s gawking. Watching your face for a moment more, he meets your eyes as they flick back to him down the slope of your nose.

Thumb still on your clit, the movements are gentler and featherlight. His voice is hoarse and rough as he speaks. “Alrigh’?”

You chuckle, breathless and a little nervous now that the appetite has been sated – much more self-aware than before.

His fingers are still inside of you and you’re already overthinking this. He knows it. He just hopes, deep down, that you’re not regretting it – because he sure as hell isn’t.

"Peachy.” Is your reply.

Oh, how the tables have turned. Joke’s on him, he’s fed you enough sarcasm for you to start throwing it back at him. Simon feels too weak to even smirk. However, his eyes do narrow, in a similar manner to how yours would at his snarky comebacks.

He gently slides his fingers out of you, mindful of your current sensitivity. He brings the hand up, seeing the gleam of your slick shamelessly coating their lengths down to the knuckles.

“Fuckin’ look at that.” He murmurs, unable to discern whether he’s talking to you or to himself, “Messy girl.”

He thumbs his middle finger and rolls the juice between the pads, thinking; tongue out to lick his lips like the voracious beast he is.

Simon reaches over and brings his hand towards your mouth. A jerky nod of his jaw, “Open.”

He knows he’s already crossed a line the two of you never even dared to toe before. And if he’s going to lose you after this, if you’re going to turn your back on him and leave the flat (leave his life) then he’s going to make the most of it.

Your brows are pinched in sudden uncertainty. A contradicting spectacle, if mixed with the way your chest is still heaving and how your cunt is still wet.

But tonight, you seem eager to catch him off guard, because you oblige. Your lips part and you offer your tongue, never breaking eye contact.

Each time he thinks you can’t look more beautiful you prove him fucking wrong.

He hums lowly in approval, and there’s something dark in that sound. He gently runs his fingers across your tongue, coating it with your taste. Fingertips slide and follow its curve. He stares at you with such an intensity, like he could consume you if he had a mind to. You devour him first, wrapping your lips around his knuckles.

When your tongue delves around his fore and middle fingers, he has to close his eyes. He has to roll his head, releasing the tension in his jaw. He has to, or he’ll cum in his goddamn jeans. The sharp inhale he takes almost burns his nostrils; his sigh heavy and anguished when his lips surrender to it.

“How d’you taste, dove?” he asks, blinking his eyes open.

The way his voice rasps out that pet name, rough like sandpaper, makes a shiver run down your neck. He sees it, the tremor of your shoulders, the goosebumps on your arms.

Simon reluctantly pulls his fingers away only so you can answer. His wasn’t a rhetorical question, and by that blush on your cheeks and the embarrassed hint of a smile on your face, you’ve guessed it already.

"Not as sweet as I thought."

His lips twitch.

“No?” he asks, his voice much too broken for his liking. He brings those same fingers to his mouth and sucks, tasting your spit and your cum. A low rumble of a chuckle escapes him – must be a blue moon tonight. “I think you taste pretty sweet.”

This can go two ways: a fairy tale ending, like those romcoms you like to watch, or an absolutely dreadful one – in which you leave. And truly, Simon doesn’t believe in a higher power; God has abandoned him more times than he cares to count. However, he hopes that whoever’s up there realizes that he's owed big time for all the crap he’s been put through.

And he asks for nothing, but you.

His face is hot, and he gathers his cheeks might be a little pink. The rare sight must give you some comfort, the fact that he’s just as overwhelmed as you are, because he feels your leg relax in his lap.

You purse your lips to hide a bashful smile - as if you have any right to be coy right now. "Flatterer."

He hums, seemingly wanting to bite back at you but unable to find the spirit for it. His eyes rake over your body, from your flushed face to your chest covered by his tee, until they land on your quivering thighs, still splayed open for him.

For him.

His hand travels up your leg, following the same route that has led to this. When his palm finally cups your hip, his fingers curl at the waistband of your shorts and tug.

“C’mere.”

You do.

He sees you bend your knees and shift on the sofa so you can crawl to him on shaky legs. As the gentleman he never thought he’d be, he helps you swing your thigh over his own and deposits you in his lap with your knees on either side of his hips.

Afraid you might say something hinting at regret, he selfishly grabs your jaw and pulls you down, finally tasting you the way he’s always wanted. His lips mold with yours, and they’re so soft he has no business claiming them as his own. His fingers tilt your head so he can deepen the kiss, and only when he sees your eyes flutter closed through the slit of his eyelids, he allows himself to surrender to you.

Your lips peck the thin scar on his cupid’s bow, but before you can run away from him (as you should), he captures you once more. He never wants to let you go, so his tongue slides across the seam of your mouth, and you, so pliantly, oblige him.

Your hands are resting on his shoulders when the kiss starts tentatively, while his slender fingers follow the curve of your waist.

But then your nails dig at the fabric of his t-shirt, as if eager to rip it, and his palms journey to your rear. He grips at the flesh through your shorts, before shoving out of the way their distressed hem and directly groping the plump meat of your ass.

The two of you never part. If anything, everything gets more heated.

He doesn’t recall when it is exactly that you start grinding your hips, nor does he remember when his shirt was removed – whether you did it, or if he’s taken the matter into his own hands.

However, he does snap out of it when he feels your palms leave his shoulders to grasp at the hem of your tee. While he wants to feel his skin on yours as much as you do, what’s separating your chest from his is not a mere layer of cotton.

He pulls away and – to his pleasure – he sees you lean in to have more. His hand lands on yours, stopping you.

“No.”

He sees you blink, dazed. A myriad of emotions travel through that pinched expression you wear, thinking like usual that you’ve done something wrong.

He quells your fears in seconds, when his other palm skims over your arm. It journeys unhurriedly, leaving gooseflesh in its wake, until it lands at the base of your throat. His thumb brushes over its column, forcing your neck to tilt backwards and your back to arch, presenting your chest.

Simon models you like clay under his warm fingers, and he takes his time to drink you in and sculpt you as he wishes. Because you seem so docile now that his intents are less covert, clearer.

He brings his mouth to your throat, and his nose scrunches when he presses it against your neck, keeping you still with one thick arm around your waist. With sluggish movements, he tastes the salt of your skin and the tang left by your perfume.

Simon pulls back only to run his tongue from the hollow between your collarbones up to your jaw, feeling right under the muscle how your throat bobs when your breath lodges in between. He curves his head and digs his teeth into the plumper flesh on the side of your neck, enough to get a taste but not enough (never enough) to cause pain.

“Keep the shirt on.” He breathes against your skin, “I wanna fuck my name into you.”

And he does just that.

It’s effortless how he lifts you in his arms, guiding your ankles to lock at his tailbone. Clothes, both yours and his, freckle the floors in a trail that leads to his bedroom. He’s famished; there isn’t a single surface along the path he follows where he hasn’t placed you – if only to savor every piece of you for a little longer.

Until he has you on that bed, the one he should’ve gotten only for a few weeks and instead became his own alcove.

You look wonderful on it.

But you’re even more gorgeous when he sits at the edge of the mattress, facing the full-length mirror in his room, and places you on his thighs to straddle his lap – your back facing the reflection.

He runs his hands over your chest, riding up the t-shirt to your neck only so he can feast on your tits. Grabbing greedy handfuls of fat and muttering unintelligible praises when his mouth all but devours every inch – sucking on your puffy nipples and grazing his teeth around each peak.

Another if is answered by the whimper that escapes your kiss-bitten lips.

You look like an angel, when your soft hand goes to grab the base of his cock and, without much ceremony, you guide it inside of you – sinking on it easy and slow.

You feel like heaven, too, impaled on him. Perfect fit, always made for him, and him only.

Simon’s not sure what he did to deserve you, now riding his cock like you’d been deprived of it your whole life. Unbridled, free. You moan and groan without a care in the world, the hesitation he saw before vanished into thin air – and oh, he couldn’t be more grateful for it.

His hands curl at the hem of your (his, his, his) shirt, lifting it up slightly at your waist, only so he can see in the reflection how your ass slaps against his thighs each time you drop. Or, how your glutes clench when instead of trying to pleasure him, you please yourself – rolling your hips to grind your clit against his happy trail.

Simon’s hands leave the shirt only to grab more of you, kneading at your hips to guide your cunt down his cock until he has you filled to the brim. Your eyes roll back, breath stuck in that pretty throat of yours. He bites at it - laps at the skin like a starved dog.

Simon shattered his chains the moment you came undone on his fingers, and now he knows no restraint – not when he has you like this.

“Look at you,” he growls, slapping your ass only to watch how the fat ripples in recoil in your mirror image.

He grabs the back of your neck and tilts your head downwards. Your foreheads touch as he guides your eyes to look at where your bodies join. The foamy ring at the base of his cock, how the folds of your vulva hug around his shaft and tip at your unhooded clit, all puffy and red.

He tugs at your mound with his thumb, stretching the flesh to expose more. With a deliberate roll of his hips, he makes a show of how effortlessly his cock slides into you, how your cunt greedily stretches to welcome him whole. 

“Look at that.” His voice is equally as raspy as it’s enraptured. “Perfect.”

Using his hand on your nape, he angles your face to kiss you again. He thrusts into you only to have you part your lips in a stuttering moan, and he drinks it dry.

When you resume grinding your hips, he whispers in your open mouth, “Fuckin’ perfect.”

Simon sees how your thighs quiver under the strain of the effort, hamstrings taut and probably burning in the attempt to wrap around his hips. He won’t keep you like that for long, don’t worry. He’ll take good care of you, like he always has.

But now, he indulges in a selfish moment.

Spare seconds in which he watches your reflection bounce on him, and you’re too lost in the feeling to notice how his hooded eyes take in the view.

The profile of your face in the mirror (his little cherub), with your mouth parted and brushing against his temple as he nuzzles your shoulder through the fabric of the shirt. One hand ecloses his nape and your other palm is on his cheek, keeping his head close to your breathless lips. Your eyes are closed in bliss – lashes shy against your flushed cheekbones.

In the scantly lit room, the reflection in the mirror of you two is as dark as everything else, but the stark white writing on the back of your tee has never looked brighter. Your hair sways with your movements, and that RILEY that peeks through your locks has him impossibly enamored of you.

And you’re so smart, he thinks. So clever, because you know, even when your senses are clouded by euphoria and your eyes are closed. You know he’s never had a thing. You know that whatever he’s held, no matter for how long, has always slipped through his fingers before he could even get a taste of it.

“I’m yours,” you whisper in his ear.

And so, Simon surrenders. He’s at your mercy, you have his trust and whatever’s left of his heart – and he knows you won’t break either.

He helps you out of his t-shirt only to hold you bare against his chest. He brings you down with him, lavishes your skin with his palms and his lips. Nose buried in your hair, Simon breathes you in. The smell of sex and the smell of you and how it has him drunk when it whirlpools with his own – a new fragrance, one that burns itself into his brain with the threat (sweet promise) of never letting go.

Because he’s never had a thing, his name barely pertains to him anymore. But the moment he saw it on you, he finally realized where Simon Riley belongs.

[ellecdc]

okay so I just wanted to start by saying I love you're moonwater stories so much.

Ive been thinking about this like paring ig for a bit and your recent moonwater story when r gets home from girls night just made me think of it more so if you're interested id love for you to do it.

Basically its like poly moonwater plus Barty ive been calling it moonwaterkiller in my head (idk if its already a ship or already has a name but I haven't been able to find anything) but basically I feel like r and Barty would be like a chaotic duo and reg and rem would just be like wtf a lot idk... I just think it has some potential and I just love your writing so fucking much.

(I also just love how you write Barty)

so if you're interested I think it would be cool

much love :)

I love the way your mind works babes. thanks for your request! (it's almost two am where I am so please forgive any awkward sentences or spelling mistakes). also, if I didn't completely lose everyone with my DeathStar fics - this may very well do it. && this was written with the help of our fabulous @unstablereader

poly!moonwater x chaotic fem!reader + Barty Crouch Junior

Regulus didn’t know whether to be concerned or slightly aroused at the slightly deranged way that Remus was stalking the halls in search of you and Barty. 

You and Regulus had both at one point or another been in a friends-with-benefits situation with Barty (albeit separately) during your time in school, before you and Regulus went and fell in love with a Gryffindor. 

Regulus still wasn’t quite over the humiliation; both of falling in love and falling in love with a Gryffindor.

Of course, you and Regulus both stayed friends with Barty; Regulus mostly because he couldn’t shake him (ignoring the fact that Regulus really was quite fond of his maniacal friend), and you because the two of you really were sort of two sides of the same hyperactive galleon. 

And though Remus (and sometimes Regulus) liked to pretend that yours and Barty’s friendship caused them grief, they couldn’t deny how much they valued Barty’s loyalty and devotion to his friends; specifically you. 

Regulus’ new favourite thing was easily Remus’ new found appreciation for Barty. 

Up until this point, Barty had been his notoriously flirty and salacious self when it came to the likes of Remus, who wasn’t yet accustomed to Barty’s unique…personality.

However, once Remus realised the history between his two partners and the other Slytherin boy, he quickly came to appreciate the kind of pull Barty could have on people.

So, Remus had started flirting back.

Barty hated it.

Regulus loved it.

You started keeping track of the number of times Remus reduced Barty to a blushing and stuttering mess in your notebook. 

Barty hated that too.

It was nearing curfew and Remus and Regulus hadn’t seen you all afternoon. 

Usually that was fine, considering you were a bit of a free spirit. What was concerning, however, was that they hadn’t seen Barty either.

Regulus watched as Remus checked the stupid map that his brother and their friends had created when his brows furrowed in confusion.

“What? Don’t tell me they’re in the middle of the Black Lake again?” Regulus asked quickly, moving to stand over Remus’ shoulder to peer at the map.

“Again?”

“Don’t ask.” Regulus muttered.

“But…doesn’t Barty not know how to swim?”

“I said don’t ask.”

Seeming to know better, Remus turned back and pointed towards the Ravenclaw common room on the map. “It says they’re up in Ravenclaw tower?”

“For fuck’s sake.” Regulus muttered, dragging a hand over his face.

“How’d two Slytherin’s manage to get into Ravenclaw tower?” Remus asked bemusedly, earning him an unimpressed glare from Regulus. 

“Remus, I love you, but that was perhaps the dumbest question you’ve ever asked me.”

Remus rolled his eyes as he closed the map and tucked it back into his trunk.

“Come on, we might be able to catch up to Pandora on her way up and have her help us in.” 

They had indeed caught up to Pandora, and Pandora had indeed helped them in, though it seemed to be for naught. 

“I thought your stupid map said they were here.” Regulus muttered as he surveyed the common room, unable to spot a single lick of green and silver.

“It’s not stupid and they are in here.” Remus muttered back, moving to stand in the dead centre of the room. 

“How do you know they’re here if you can’t see them?”

Remus glared at Regulus before looking around to ensure no one could hear them. “I can smell them.” He whispered.

Well Regulus just didn’t know what good these wolfy senses were if they were still out two Slytherin’s. 

“Shit.” Regulus heard whispered suddenly as a quill fell from the air and landed beside his foot.

Remus and Regulus both looked up to see you and Barty casually lounging in the chandelier above them.

“Are you sodding kidding me!?” Regulus shouted.

“I think our cover’s been blown.” You said simply to Barty as if you didn’t have two fuming and fretting boyfriends standing nearly forty feet give or take below you.

“Pity.” Barty responded as he peered down. “This was a nice refuge.”

“How’d you even get up there?” Remus cried, pacing like he was getting ready to catch you should you fall.

“Magic.” Barty taunted from above.

“Junior, so help me gods if that witch falls I-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Lupin. I resent the insinuation that I would ever let anything happen to our sweet angel baby.” Barty bit back immediately.

“Okay, okay. Fair enough.” Remus acquiesced as if he were negotiating a hostage situation. “Why don’t you both just come down here, nice and slow, okay?”

Both you and Barty leaned forward to look down at the two boys, causing the chandelier to swing precariously.

“Fucking hells! Stop moving!” Remus shrieked, causing the attention of the few Ravenclaws sitting in the common room to look over.

“Such a worrier.” Barty muttered as he stood and started manoeuvring himself to the edge of the chandelier - you following him over and causing the chandelier to tip to a nearly 90 degree angle. 

“I’m going to be sick, I’m actually going to throw up right here.” Regulus muttered mostly to himself whilst Remus tried to stand directly underneath you lest you need to be caught. 

To Remus and Regulus’ absolute horror, Barty launched himself away from the chandelier, grabbing at the billowy banners hanging from the ceiling causing the chandelier to swing away from him like a pendulum. 

“JUNIOR!” Remus shouted, causing Barty to momentarily look shamefaced as he looked below him. 

As the chandelier swung towards the opposite wall, you too launched yourself at one of the billowy banners hanging from the ceiling and began monkey climbing down them.

“Can you make sure she doesn’t fall, please.” Remus barked at Regulus as he made his way towards Barty.

Barty let out a high pitched screech and began hastily making his way down the wall. “Run Treasure! Save yourself!” He shouted dramatically.

You turned quickly at that and saw Regulus making his way to you.

You let out a surprised squeak and hurried down, and before Regulus realised what you were doing, you had used your wand to open one of the windows and were shimmying out.

“Oi! What the-” but before Regulus could even shove his torso out the window, you’d managed to shift into your animagus form - a mink, which Regulus felt was very fitting considering what a sodding cheeky minx you were being right now - and began scaling your way down the side of the building.

Regulus was interrupted by the sound of a squeal - Remus’ squeal - and turned to see Remus hanging halfway out of the window in much the same fashion that Regulus had been.

Unlike Regulus, however, Remus had been successful in his capture of Barty and had him hanging from the tallest tower at Hogwarts by one of his arms.

“Junior! Are you trying to sodding kill me!?” Remus barked angrily at him, trying to pull Barty up without any help from Barty himself.

Barty looked up at Remus with all the innocence he could muster (read: none) and winked. 

“Catch me if you can, Mr. Wolf.”

And Barty shrunk into his own animagus form - an osprey - and let out a cry before swooping down to pick up something that looked suspiciously like a mink from the eaves of one of the lower towers and took off towards the grounds. 

“Fucking son of a bitch.” Remus cursed as he tried catching his breath, still sitting half out of the Ravenclaw window. “Why do we put up with those two?”

Regulus shrugged with all the nonchalance he could muster. “‘Cause they’re cute?”

Remus sighed and hit his head against the windowsill. “They’re so sodding lucky that they are…”

“Come on.” Regulus said, offering Remus a hand and helping him out of the window. “Unfortunately, I know exactly where they went.”

Barty loved nothing more than the feeling of his feet sinking into the sediment of the Black Lake below his feet. He also loved the feeling of being near you, his Treasure. He also loved the idea of two handsome men frantically searching for you, and him by proxy.

All this to say, Barty was having a really nice night.

“Junior!”

Barty’s face morphed into a Cheshire cat grin as he turned towards the voice of the man and his boyfriend as they stormed towards the waters edge.

“Well hello, Lupin. How nice of you to join us; care for a dip?”

“Get out of the water.” Regulus drawled in a bored tone.

“Why would I do such a thing? The water’s lovely, I’m in wonderful company, and we’re going to feed the Giant Squid.” He argued.

“Barty.” Remus barked with all the severity he could manage. “You don’t know how to swim.”

Barty scoffed indignantly. “Yeah, well…neither can Reggie!”

“That’s why I’m standing on the shore you absolute bell-end.” Regulus countered quickly.

Remus turned his furious gaze into a bemused one as he took in Regulus. “Do you really not know how to swim either?”

“None of us can!” You shouted from your disturbingly deeper place within the lake as the gentle waves nearly lapped against your skirt.

“Oh, for the love of- you know what? This summer, everyone’s getting swimming lessons.” Remus proclaimed.

“Ou, does that mean I get to see you in your swim trunks, Lupin?” Barty called.

Remus, without missing a beat, started towards Barty, walking into the lake in his shoes and all. “You could see me right now, in less, for free, Junior. You only had to ask.”

Barty let out a screech and tried running towards you, albeit in slow motion on account of the water’s resistance. “Y/N! Treasure! Help! Make him stop!”

“No can do, bubs.” You called back in monotone, still throwing chunks of bread towards the middle of the Lake in hopes of eliciting the company of one Giant Squid. 

“Dove, you’re going to catch a cold; get out of the water.” Remus called to you, pants soaked up to his knees after giving up on chasing Barty in the water.

“We’re trying to make friends!” You whined.

“You cannot make friends with a squid, amour. He will eat you.” Regulus explained from the shore. 

“He wouldn’t eat his friend.” You scoffed. 

“Dove.” Remus barked again.

“I want to see the the big water kitty!” You whined again, turning towards the boys and offering the most pathetic pout you could muster.

Regulus scoffed from his place, still dry on the shore, Remus let out a pained sigh, and Barty all but skipped towards you. 

“A valiant death it will be!” He cheered before he felt the fabric of his jumper being summoned by an accio, dragging him unceremoniously through the water towards Remus.

“No! Ah! AH! STRANGER DANGER. STRANGER DANGER!” He shrieked as Remus threw him over his shoulder.

“Okay, well, now you’re just showing off, Lupin.” He muttered, crossing his arm petulantly as Remus held his free hand out to you.

“Dove, please? Come inside with me?”

You looked distressed at this and moved obediently towards Remus. “Are you mad at me?” You asked timidly.

Barty could actually feel Remus’ body soften beneath him as he allowed some of his tension to dissipate. “Of course not, dovey. I love you.”

You leaned over and pecked a kiss to the corner of his mouth before turning into your animagus mink and swimming to the shore, crawling up Regulus’ pant leg (who admonished you in faux contempt for ruining his trousers), and allowed him to carry you back to the castle. 

Barty was feeling petulant about the whole matter of being chased and chastised so decided then that he was going to force Remus to carry him all the way back to the castle in silence.

Unfortunately for Barty, he hated silence.

He was at least proud he’d made it to the dungeons before giving up on his vow of silence.

“You’re really not upset with her?” Barty asked quietly from his current prison. He could feel Remus’ head tilt in confusion, though his steps never faltered.

“Of course not?” He responded as a question.

“Hmmm.” Barty said, racking his brain for something to upset or fluster this man.

“Oh! What about me having slept with both your boyfriend and your girlfriend?”

“What about it?” Remus asked plainly. 

“Well…aren’t you upset about that?”

Remus scoffed and adjusted his grip on Barty, hand’s migrating none too innocently up the back of his thighs. “Junior. The only thing I’m upset about is that you haven’t slept with all three of us. I don’t like feeling left out, you know?”

Barty made a strangled sound as he struggled in Remus’ grip to no avail, causing you and Regulus to chuckle from a few strides ahead as you all stepped into the Slytherin common room.

“We told you he was smooth, Barty.” You chuckled.

“You should hear him in bed.” Regulus taunted, reaching over to pinch Barty’s arse, causing him to yelp and start cursing at him.

Remus relented and put Barty down, who immediately made for Regulus’ throat.

“Easy, Junior.” Remus chuckled, pulling him back by the shoulder. “You wanna keep Reg around, don’t you?”

Barty harrumphed and crossed his arms indignantly.

“We’d like to keep you around.” Remus continued.

Barty grumbled again and let out a quiet. “Fine.”

Remus beamed at him, which was very alarming if you asked Barty, as they stepped into his and Regulus’ shared dorm; Rosier and Avery were already asleep in their beds with their curtains drawn.

“Yeah? You’ll let us keep you?” Remus asked.

“I said fine, Lupin.” He bit back.

“Great. So we’re in a relationship then.” He explained simply, causing Barty to level him with a severe glare. “How dare you, Lupin. Never say such vile things to me again.” He spat before storming towards the boy’s bathroom.

Regulus groaned and grabbed his own toiletries before making his way to the washroom behind him. “I’ll go make sure he doesn’t try to drown himself in the shower again.”

Remus shook his head and changed into his pyjamas before climbing into Regulus’ bed and pulling you towards him.

“So, explain this to me, Dove. Why is Barty the way he is?”

You snorted a laugh and turned to face him. “You’re going to have to be way more specific, love.”

Remus chuckled and ran his hands up and down your back. “He likes Reg. He loves you. He seems sweet on me. We invite him to be ours and he accepts - but runs when we make it mean something?”

You smiled up at your boyfriend and booped his nose with a perfectly manicured finger - which Remus found very confusing considering you spend your spare time scaling the rafters of grand ceilings and enticing Giant Squids from their hiding places. “Barty doesn’t understand, Rem. He wouldn’t know love if it punched him right in the face.”

Remus could feel his brows furrow and he pulled you in tighter to his chest. “Dove…love doesn’t punch you in the face?”

Apparently that had been the wrong thing to say as you rolled your eyes in exasperation and threw your head back onto the pillow. “You see? That’s the kind of thing someone who grew up loved would know.”

It’s not that Remus ever really forgot to worry about you per se, but he sometimes really worried about you Purebloods. 

At some point in the night, you had apparently decided Remus and Regulus’ bed was too hot and moved to Barty’s. Remus would have been slightly more petulant about the matter if he hadn’t thought you looked absolutely precious with Barty resting his head on your chest.

He looked so innocent in his sleep.

Sleep clearly didn’t know him very well.

Remus was shocked when the four of you entered the Great Hall for breakfast and Barty actually followed you three to the Gryffindor table. Though Remus was trying to play it cool, he couldn’t help but feel a flutter of hope surge within him at what that might mean for the three four of you.

Remus was just about to bite into his toast when a sultry voice sounded from behind Barty.

“Hello, Bartemus.” Amelia Bones sing-songed as she trailed a finger up Barty’s arm.

His brows furrowed almost comically from above the rim of his coffee cup before he slowly lowered it and turned to consider the Hufflepuff.

“Bones. Can I help you?” He asked, punctuating the word help as he plucked her fingers from his being between his two fingers as if he’d found something really quite disgusting on his person.

“I was thinking, you could help me, perhaps tonight?”

Barty turned to look at her incredulously.

“Help with what, Amelia? I’m really quite busy.” He spat, gesturing wildly to his cup of coffee. 

“An orgasm or two? Gods, you’re pissy in the mornings.”

Barty scoffed, sounding completely scandalised as he clutched at non-existent pearls adorning his neck. “I am sitting here with my beloveds, Amelia. For shame. You see this lot? I’m theirs, capiche?” 

Amelia looked bemusedly at the group of you before shaking her head in confusion. “Whatever you say, Junior.”

She moseyed on away, and Barty turned back towards his cup of coffee. “The gall of some people, honestly.” He said in exasperation, downing the rest of his still hot coffee and standing unceremoniously.

“Well, I best be off. Things to fuck up, people to scare. Tah-tah.” He called, pressing a quick kiss to your hair as he left the Great Hall.

Suddenly, realisation dawned on Remus.

“Ah, I see. So no to a relationship, but he is ours.”

You and Regulus chorused a hum of acknowledgement. 

“That’s just how Barty operates. You’ll get used to it.” You explained, still not looking up from the Daily Prophet you had been reading all this time.

Remus didn’t mind getting used to that; not if it meant he managed to get everything he wanted.

[notherpuppet]

Do you think there's a right and/or wrong way to handle QPR? I know it's a tricky relationship, but it feels like most/some people kind of just slap the label onto a ship while depicting the ship as just romantic/having no difference with a romantic relationship. (this is why I was a little surprised when you said you do radioapple qpr when it reads a lot more like normal romance). Not meant as an attack or anything on anyone, just genuinely curious more than anything. Again, tricky relationship

So Imma put this link to info at the top of this post: https://taaap.org/2022/07/16/qprs-part-one/

Alright, so please take what I say with a grain of salt, because that's exactly what it is. One small bit of perspective in a mass of many people who experience QPRs in their life and/or are on an aro/ace spectrum. I also have NO QUALIFICATIONS on gender/sexuality theory, so my opinions are shaped by what I've learned and experienced personally. While people may identify with the same term, we are all still individuals with our own experiences. Words can help describe a phenomenon, but it doesn't make everyone who identifies with the word into a monolith.

So I've stated a few times that I navigate shipping Alastor similar to my own experiences as an aroace person. (I guess I'm sharing about myself with this post, but I think that can be helpful to just spreading awareness of an "alternative lifestyle"). So I'm romance-repulsed and sex-repulsed LOL but I'm also "positive" about those things. Like I view romance and sex as lovely, fun experiences people can have, but I've never been into it personally. It's fun for me to consume media about romance/sex, but yknow, it's also fun for me to consume media about violence or isolation. Doesn't mean I want to experience or engage in any of those things lol.

Anyway, I'm a huge people person and I love to party and yknow it seems most people are really wanting to fall in love or fuck or whatever pretty much all the time, but especially at parties hahaha. Normally, I'm pretty touch-averse, but I love dancing so much and it's a blast to dance with a partner (salsa especially!! i don't care for grinding for probably obvious reasons). And to connect the two previous sentences, people (whatever gender they are) would be very kissy-touchy on the dancefloor. Which i honestly dont really give a fuck about hahaha. I don't really get anything out of kissing but I also don't mind it. I just like to dance. It's all a pretty superficial--but still genuinely fun--experience for me.

When it comes to my deeper or more intimate connections, I have had friendships that have felt SO on the line of what was viewed as a romantic relationship. They were exceptional friends and we connected on a level that was deep and true, but it wasn't romantic. Sometimes we'd slow dance, sometimes we kissed, and it rocked. But it wasn't more than that, it was all that it needed to be. I didn't want more and neither did they (except one situation and so we had to stop being friends lol whoops). From the outside, people would even refer to us as partners in a half joking way, but we really were just friends. And I love those friends!! And a huge part of what made those relationships (which at the time were described as 'situationships' because we didn't know any of these terms haha) was their convenience. We either lived in the same building, worked together, or were neighbors LOL. I'm still friends with those absolutely lovely folks, but we don't live around each other, so our QPR just appears a lot more like any ole regular friendship. But it's not like there was a feeling that we transitioned into something different than before. It twas what it twas! (Had to take a pause while I was typing to reminisce fondly for a second, okay back to hazbin hahaha)

SO, whenever someone asks or it comes up, MOST OF THE TIME I do ship alastor through an aroace lens and experience with QPRs (specifically, MINEE because they were fun and I've never felt like doing this before I met a character like Al). And my XP is: "this isn't gonna be a partnership and we ain't fucking" LMFAO. so yeah!

When it comes to using a queer term like QPR, I just hope folks are considerate in their writing, but I also am inclined to just believe them if they say that's their intention because QPRs can look very different. Again, aroace and ace folks are not a monolith. The terms help to describe a human's experience. I'm inclined to think people are writing in good faith.

And all this being said, I want to just emphasize that I really don't think it's necessary to consider any of this shit if you want to ship a fictional character. I understand wanting to be protective of a character who shares an identifier with you (I personally don't wanna see romance/sex with Al in canon). But shipping is a fun thing a fandom does that often does ignore canon. Tale as old as time. I don't think anyone needs to be beholden to canon when they're writing fanfiction or having fun. If we did, I would have like--5 artworks on this blog hahaha. These characters are like dollies, do whatever you want. It's cool if people don't like it and I think it's cool if people do. It's just not that serious. There are ships I'm not particularly into or dynamics that I am not enchanted by, but whatever. I can just scroll or close my eyes.

TLDR; shipping in fandom doesn't need to be taken seriously at ALL. It can just be fun way for someone to play with fictional characters they like. That being said, I think it's good practice to use queer terms thoughtfully.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

You know what would make the Lucky Charm more balanced? Make it so that there are times where other characters figure it out, not just Ladybug. That way, it doesn't make Ladybug hypercompent and makes it possible for other people to save the day.

I don't mind Ladybug being the one best suited to Lucky Charm. I don't think it makes her hyper competent because you don't need a Lucky Charm to save the day. It's just the way that she saves the day. The other characters should have their own unique talents that let them win fights. Generally speaking, that's how strong teams work.

For a random example, let's talk about the teenage mutant ninja turtles simply because I think most people know something about that franchise. The character Donatello (aka Donnie) is the team's tech guy. He makes all kinds of inventions that help them save the day. The show would not be improved if all four of the turtles were able to take on this inventor role. I'd argue that it would actually be lessened because the characters would become interchangeable. This is something that the franchise seems to agree with as each version of the show gives each turtle unique skills and personality traits that makes each of them indispensable in their own way, which is what I think Miraculous should have done with the temp heroes.

That being said, I do think that there's a way to make your idea work. I'd just go a slightly different, more lore balancing route since Lucky Charm is technically bad lore and you all know how I feel about bad lore. So let's talk about giving it a minor tweak and how I think that would actually improve things.

Tikki is supposed to be Creation, not Luck, so the Lucky Charm shouldn't have anything to do with Luck. It should just be pure Creation where the holder comes up with a thing they want and that thing then pops up. It could also have a give and take element where the holder gets what they asked for if they want something specific, but they could also just call the power as a hail Mary and Tikki would come up with something on the fly, leading to the occasional puzzle.

This leads me to my proposed changed.

I personally think it would be hilarious and honestly more fun for Marinette's character if she could summon anything she wanted, but the Lucky Charms stay exactly the same because that's just how her mind works. Even when Tikki is helping, it's still all wacky items because Tikki knows how Marinette is and just goes with it.

For example, in Copy Cat, Ladybug turns a spoon into a hook for a cobbled together fishing pole. Wouldn't it be even funnier if Marinette summoned a spoon on purpose because she was thinking of the makeshift thing she cobbled together in order to fish up something she dropped from her balcony? Then, post fight, Chat Noir praises her like always, only to then ask, "So why a spoon and not a fishing hook?" And Ladybug just stares at him because oh, right, those are things they make. She could have done that. Ooops.

And in Malediktator where she summons a sniper rifle to get a laser pointer? Well, she was thinking about this silly comic about a cat assassin! She totally spaced on the fact that you could just get a laser pointer by itself.

Eventually, her team learns to just go with it and not ask questions. Meanwhile, the general public thinks that the Lucky Charm is some random item that Ladybug has to figure out and no one bothers to correct this misunderstanding. You can even have a running gag of new team members learning the truth and going through the acceptance process of, "Hey, you try thinking up how to set a trap while a 5 meter tall lollipop is trying to crush you! Your mind goes to what it knows, not to the ideal solution, okay???"

If we go with this setup, then other people can wield the Ladybug and use Lucky Charm effectively, they'll just use it in a very different way from the way Marinette uses it. There will also be people who are just not suited to the Ladybug since that was initially how the powers were supposed to work and it made perfect sense. Kwamis should have ideal holders along with okay backups and terrible backups. I personally think Alya would be an okay backup since she's creative, but not creative in the same way Marinette is, leading her to be a lesser Ladybug. Adrien, on the other hand, should generally suck at the Ladybug as he simply doesn't have that style of creative thinking. Which is fine. Better than fine, even! You don't want your characters to be interchangeable! They should all have strengths and weaknesses!

This is one of the show's big flaws. Since everything is on Marinette's shoulders, the other characters rarely get a chance to shine and so they feel interchangeable. For example, if gift always shows the target what THEY want, then why does Rose need to be the one to wield it? Juleka could wield it just as easily. And if Ladybug is generally the one telling Marc and Nathaniel what to summon with their powers, then their creativity is not needed. Anyone could wield the rooster and the goat! The show has completely failed to understand what makes teams memorable and so we have a bloated, boring team whose presence I'm dreading because they had five seasons to set these guys up and yet here we are.

[pearl-tarotist]

☽˚｡How will your future spouse know you're their special person? ☽˚｡⋆.

As the second PAC of my collection "cliche moments with your fs", this tarot reading tries to describe the moment where your FS knows you are the person they want to spend their life with.

P1-P2-P3

01.

For some of you, your fs will realize you are their special person when they start thinking of you as family. It will happen gradually and naturally, little by little you have conquered a piece of their brain and heart.

A main scenario that appears on the cards is that they will realise you are their person when they keep picturing you as the mother of their children. They suddenly thought of it and they were like "God, Y/N is just…so perfect and good", with adoration in their eyes. They believe you are naturally nurturing and warm. From that day on, they will want to deepen their relationship with you and take care of you even more. It's a serious decision that they make, a realisation and a promise at the same time. It's possible that one day they have forgotten their jacket and you will go and get them for them or that they have hurt themselves with a wall or something and you kiss their hand and tell them it's okay. The fact that you keep taking care of them makes their heart beat faster and makes their chest warm. And at the same it makes them get protective and selfish about you because "no one deserves the attention of someone as pure and good as you". They truly see you as a wish fulfilment. Another scenario I got was a woman laughing at a beach and their partner being absolute smitten by said woman.

Channelled messages:

Russian, english, french, love at first sight, soft kisses, hand holding, red clothes, office work, 20s, office chairs, black and brown hair, Lana del Rey, fairy tales and authors (books).

02.

This scenario starts with a fs that's apathetic, hard working, cold (lacking warm) and that's not interested in love. Do not get me wrong because they are not bad people, it's just that they are a candle that has been extinguished for a long time and now warmness does not come easily to them. With the king of swords, they are lost in their work and their logical sense, they are a soul focused on getting their business at the right position. They see love as something distant and that they cannot have, even when they just have to extent their hand and take that "cup full of love" that's presented to them. I think they do not know how to take those steps as no one has taught them. Kind of making themselves a victim there. But, once you are in their life, you could be a really funny person and a positive presence that brightens their day. One specific scenario is that they could not have laughed in a long time and when they are speaking to you, you make them laugh... and they suddenly realize that they just smile around you and that their checks had been deprived of laugh until you arrived. It's as if their world was black and white until you came along. I'm sure that they did not even realize their romantic feelings for you at the time but they knew that they wanted you in their life, for sure. They will become quite interested in your privat life and always wait to see you. I am sensing an office love in this pile with a grumpy co-worker but it's a general reading so just take this if resonates.

Channelled messages:

Meeting in bright rooms, a place with windows, Excel and numbers, Rome and Italy, vintage clothing, Crimson Peak (movie), The hunger games (book), Azul by Rubén Dario, Studio Ghibli, Romanticism.

03.

The first card that you got was the lovers so they realize you are their person, probably, the first time they see you, and as typical as it sounds, you both are struck by cupid's arrows. (This is prominent for those who have blond hair) They will like your hair and smile, they will randomly think that your hands are soft and a bit cold. They will think about your smile for days on and if you were wearing thigh clothing...well, let's say you have a nice chest. I think you both were introduced by an acquaintance, an old (in thier 40s-50s) man or woman in the street or at your work. However, it's not that easy because your future spouse is extremely nervous around you, it's that new crush energy where they are smitten by you. I think they have trust issues and they had their heart broken in the past and they keep trying to surpass all of those paralizing feeling while meeting and getting to know you better without giving you any signal that they are extremely interested. They will put effort to beat their own fears for a chance to meet you, I think their friends will support them while they get to know you.

Channelled messages:

Romeo and Juliet, yellow, the moon, orchids, Ireland, the police, 10 things I hate about you, the sea, Greece, bulls and butterflies.

[drabbles-mc]

It's Inevitable

Bob Floyd x F!Reader

Warnings: 18+, language, pining, alcohol

30 Fic Challenge with prompts from This List: rubatosis- the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat

Word Count: 5.3k

A/N: i had the most ridiculous about of fun writing this for Bob. i adore him more than words can say 🥰

Bob felt like he had been living in a constant state of disbelief ever since he met you. From the day that the universe, or more specifically Bradley, put him into your orbit, all the events that followed felt like one little surprise after the other. He considered himself infinitely lucky for it.

When he mentioned to Bradley off-hand that they were going to have him stationed in California for a while, long enough for him to justify looking for his own place off-base, he had just been making conversation. They had just been talking about next moves and Bob felt like it was fitting, mentioning that he was going to be looking for a place, maybe even a roommate since it was going to be on relatively short-notice.

“If you’re cool with a roommate, one of my buddies actually kinda needs one,” Bradley mentioned off-hand as they racked up for another pool game at The Hard Deck.

Bob perked up slightly at that. A roommate recommendation from someone he knew seemed preferable than the alternative. He figured that Bradley wouldn’t have brought it up if it was a recipe for disaster.

“Yeah?” Bob tried to sound interested, but not too much so. There were no real guarantees, after all.

Bradley nodded before leaning down to break for the start of the game. “Yeah. Funny because we were just talking about how putting out a Craigslist Ad felt like signing up to be on an episode of a True Crime podcast.”

Bob chuckled at that. “Kind of does, yeah.”

Bradley watched Bob take his shot, not allowing the amusement he was currently feeling to show on his face. “I can introduce you guys. Wanna meet back here Friday? When Trace is done making an example out of you to the newbies?”

There was no malice to Bradley’s statement, so Bob had no problem laughing right along with him. When the laughter died down, Bob agreed to the meetup suggestion. There was a tentative feeling of hopefulness in his chest. After all, if this person was friends with Bradley, how bad could they really be?

~*~

You buried your face in your hands as you shook your head. When Bradley had asked to stop by because he had news for you, you didn’t think he was stopping by to tell you that he had gone out hunting and gathering a new roommate for you. You hadn’t asked him to do that—you hadn’t asked him for anything in regards to your living arrangements, actually. And that’s exactly what you’d told him when he said he’d found you a brand-new roommate.

“I don’t even know this guy.”

Bradley laughed and shrugged as he hopped up to sit on the edge of your kitchen counter. For how comfortable he was, you were surprised that he hadn’t taken the opportunity to move in after your ex moved out. He treated your apartment like it was his own house anyway.

“I know him. That’s not enough for you?”

You shot him a look over your shoulder as you went and grabbed a can of soda from the fridge. “No. It’s not.” You tossed him his own can before getting one for yourself. “You saw what I went through getting the last man out of my apartment—why are you inviting another one in without telling me?”

He laughed as he watched you dramatically swing the refrigerator door shut. “Okay, come on, you can’t compare him to—”

“I can’t compare him to anyone because I haven’t met him.”

“Well if you’d let me get to the end of my story, you would have the solution to that problem.” He paused and waited for you to motion for him to continue before saying, “I told him we’d meet him at The Hard Deck Friday night.”

“I should flatten this can against your skull,” you said with a semi-affectionate roll of your eyes.

There was a long pause, one accompanied by a smirk on Bradley’s face that had no real right to be there. “I’ll pick you up?”

Letting out a deep sigh, you gave in with a nod. Worst case scenario, you wouldn’t walk away from the night with a new roommate but you’d at least get to throw a couple drinks on Bradley’s tab. That was worth a little bit of something.

~*~

Bob was checking the time on his phone, his beer on the bar barely touched. When he’d texted Bradley earlier in the day, everything was still going how it was supposed to, so now he just had to sit there and wait. He could do that.

When he heard the door to the bar open, he turned and looked out of habit. He saw Bradley walk in and he felt his shoulders relax in relief. When he focused enough to see who it was that Bradley had walked in with, though, his relief was almost immediately replaced by confusion. The two of you were talking, laughing as you wove through the other people in the bar, but it still didn’t sink in with Bob that you were the ‘buddy’ who was in need of a roommate. For a moment he was just assuming that you were a girlfriend tagging along that Bradley had failed to mention.

Bob almost got up out of his seat when the two of you stopped in front of him—the only thing that kept him in place was the lingering sense of confusion. He looked back and forth between you and Bradley. He had no chance at guessing what exactly your expression meant, but he’d seen the smug look on Bradley’s face enough times to know that there was something afoot. It wasn’t the time to ask, though. Not in front of you.

“So,” you broke the silence with an easy smile, “I hear that Bradshaw promised you my second bedroom?”

Your comment got a chuckle out of Bob, something to ease the tension a little bit, not that it did anything to quiet the chaos in his head at the moment. It did earn you a shoulder-bump from Bradley, who was shaking his head at you. “I didn’t promise him anything. He said he needed a spot, I said I had a friend who needed a roommate.” He shrugged. “All true.”

You gave a dismissive roll of your eyes before returning your attention to the man sitting on the barstool watching all of this unfold. As you introduced yourself, you wondered if the slightly bewildered expression on his face was a constant one, eyes a little wide behind the lenses of his glasses, nervous smile pulling at his lips.

The three of you made a few minutes of small talk before you ducked out for a moment to answer a phone call from work. Both men watched you as you walked away, and as you were bringing the phone to your ear, Bradley turned to try and pick apart the expression on Bob’s face.

“So?” he asked, leaving it as open-ended as possible.

Bob pried his gaze off you so that he was looking at the man standing next to him instead. He shook his head slightly. “You didn’t say—you made it seem like—” He pushed his glasses up his nose, a nervous habit he had yet to shake.

Bradley laughed. “C’mon, she’s not that bad.”

“I didn’t say she was,” Bob corrected him quietly. “She wouldn’t rather have…you know…”

It was impossible for him not to at least chuckle at the way Bob was skirting around the things that he wanted to say. “She just wants someone who doesn’t make a mess and who pays rent on time. And who won’t eat her leftovers out of the fridge.”

“Last one sounds like you.”

He clapped Bob on the back with a grin. “That’s why I’m not the one moving in.” He paused, and he could see the thoughts going at a mile a minute in Bob’s head. “I wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t think you guys would hit it off.”

Bob wanted to make a comment to the effect of, “That’s kind of what I’m worried about,” but you reappeared before he could.

You plopped down on the stool beside his, giving a quick apology to the both of them. Looking back and forth between them, you wanted to ask what they’d been saying in your absence, but you had a feeling that if you needed to know, Bradley would tell you in the car on the way home.

Moments after you sat down, Penny materialized with a drink for you, and she handed a bottle to Bradley as well. You thanked her, amused that Bradley actually was letting you rack up his tab. Once you took a sip, you turned to Bob.

“So, is this the part where we get to play Twenty Questions?”

He laughed as he shrugged, fingers drumming against his leg. “I guess so.”

You smiled as you nodded. “Alright.” You motioned for Bradley to sit down next to you. “Bradshaw can play referee.”

~*~

Three weeks later the moving truck was parked outside your apartment building and there were boxes piling up in what had previously been a spare room that was sometimes your office, but more often just a place for all of your clean but unfolded laundry to hang out.

Bob was timid those first couple of weeks living together. It was endearing in a way that you hadn’t expected—most of Bradley’s friends from the Navy didn’t seem to be wired like that. Bob was a nice change of pace from it all. Every time he wanted to move or add something somewhere, he always asked, always had that same little nervous smile on his face when he did.  You never told him no.

The first month or so of living together was just a big old learning curve. You learned that the two of you ran on different rhythms and schedules. Bob was an early bird, whether that was by choice or necessity you never asked. You were a night owl, though. Always had been. Luckily, you also learned that Bob was a heavy sleeper and that he was quiet in the morning when he was getting ready, so the two of you didn’t infringe upon each other much.

You learned that Bob liked to cook, was good at it even, but still hadn’t mastered how to just cook for one. That was how he learned that you had no problem doing the dishes if he was okay with sharing his food. He never told you no either.

Bob learned that most of your spare time was spent with your nose in a book or a notebook splayed across your lap while you wrote. He only ever asked once what you were writing, and when you gave him the vague answer of, “Stories,” he gave you a smile and a nod and went back to ironing his uniform. You learned that the only times Bob stayed up late was when he was playing videogames with his friends. Most of them were from the Navy, some of them were from back home. You knew which ones were which because his Navy friends had their callsigns in their gamertags—so original of them. That was also how you learned that a good handful of his friends in the Navy weren’t very good at first-person shooter games, which was deeply ironic given their professions.

By the time the third month of living together had come and gone, Bob also learned that he was falling in love with you a little bit. Or a lot. The amount of it didn’t matter, he supposed. None of it was going to help him.

~*~

You enjoyed living with Bob more than you thought you were going to. You had been willing to settle for a roommate that you could at least tolerate. You just needed someone that you could exist in the same space with sometimes when necessary. But after those first couple of weeks, it felt like almost all the time that the two of you were home at the same time was spent in the same space. Or you’d be in the living room while he was in the kitchen. You’d been ready to hole up in your room a little more often, but it never felt like you had to.

Bradley was as incessant as ever, arguing that he now had twice as many reasons to drop by unannounced now that Bob was living with you. You both knew that it was an argument you’d never win, and it wasn’t as though you didn’t enjoy his company too. By the time the first month passed, Bradley had lightened up on his weekly inquiry of, “Is this guy givin’ you any trouble?” You all knew that he never was.

You’d been waiting for the day that the surprised look would fade from Bob’s face whenever you got home, or emerged from your room, but it never did. From surprised, to smiling, to going back to whatever he’d been doing before you got there. Round and round again.

Bob never thought about how many different names he had until the two of you really got comfortable around each other. Most of the time he was Bob, which was what he was used to both on and off the base. That was the status quo.

But every now and then you’d switch it up. Like if he startled you coming home from his early-morning run, or if you didn’t hear him walk into the kitchen from his room. Then you’d call him Robert, in that fake-chastising tone that always had you trying not to laugh. Or sometimes, when he was getting frustrated about something that didn’t really matter too much in the grand scheme of things, you’d hit him with a little pat on the shoulder and a, “Calm down, Lieutenant Floyd.” And in moments like that he could hear it in your voice how long you and Bradley had been friends. If you tried to get his attention more than twice and still didn’t have any luck, that’s when he’d hear a sing-songy callout of Bobby coming from the other side of the apartment. That one always got both of you laughing.

You could’ve called him damn near anything, though, and he would’ve come running. He wondered how long he’d be able to keep his mouth shut about it all.

~*~

The two of you had been living together for six months the first time he put his foot in his mouth about it. His only saving grace, if he could even try to call it that, was that he’d said it to Bradley and not directly to you.

It made Bradley completely miss his shot in their game of pool, but he didn’t even care. He stood upright, pointing at Bob from across the table with his pool stick. “What was that?”

Bob’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull. He didn’t need a mirror to know that his face was turning beet red. He could feel the warmth racing up the column of his neck and into his cheeks. “N-nothing. I didn’t—nothing.”

Bradley’s grin was so wide it was a wonder his face didn’t crack clean open. “That was something.” He walked over, paying no mind to the fact that Bob was trying to look at anything but him. “She know? You say anything to her?”

Now it was Bob’s turn to miss his shot. His heart was beating fast enough that he thought it might short-out and stop working. If Rooster was trying to get some eye contact out of him, it certainly did the trick.

“No.” Bob’s answer managed to come out clear and timid all at once.

He leaned back casually against the edge of the pool table. “Why not?”

Bob shook his head, gaze dropping to the floor. “’Cause we’re roommates.”

“So?” Bradley let the look of disbelief on Bob’s face act as a response, and he continued. “You should tell her. Want me to tell her?”

Bob’s eyes popped open so wide that Bradley was shocked they didn’t break the lenses of his glasses. “Please don’t.”

“Want me to do some recon?” He stood upright again, no longer using the pool table for support. “Find out if she’s—”

“No.”

He chuckled, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips. None of this was surprising to him, really. He knew it from the second that Bob saw you when the two of them walked into The Hard Deck that day. He was honestly a little surprised that it took this long for Bob to slip up to him about it. The kid looked like a pressure cooker ready to explode.

“She hasn’t dated anyone since you moved in, has she?”

Bob shrugged. “No one that she’s brought around, at least. But she also just broke up with—”

Bradley waved off the sentence before Bob could even finish it. “That was almost eight months ago.” He paused, knowing that he had the answer to the question he was about to ask but it wasn’t going to stop him from asking it. “You’re not seeing anyone else, right?”

The red in his cheeks got a little darker but he didn’t say anything, instead just shaking his head.

“So I’ll ask her,” Bradley said, like that was the only rational response to the evidence laid out before him.

“Don’t ask her.” Bob’s statement was somewhere between an order and a plea, not hitting either note quite right.

Bradley held his hands up in surrender, but the smirk still lingering on his face didn’t make the truce feel too believable. “Alright, fine. I won’t say anything. But, if you change your mind,” he lined up his next shot, “let me know.”

~*~

Bob never brought it up again. Truthfully, he was still kicking himself for letting any of it slip in the first place. He kept waiting for another comment, another question from Bradley. Anytime that he came over to the apartment, Bob felt himself get a little more on-edge. When he could hear the two of you on the phone, he couldn’t stop the way his heart started to beat a little faster. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Bradley to open his mouth and say something.

Weeks ticked by with Bob waiting for the other shoe to drop. You’d get home, or hang up the phone, and he’d sit there with bated breath. He’d try to look like he was focusing on his laptop, or the gaming controller in his hand, but he’d be watching you in his peripheral.

And, of course, you never said anything about it. Bradley apparently never said anything about it. For all the buttons that he liked to push, Bob couldn’t deny that he was surprised that his friend was managing to keep his mouth shut about this one. Maybe that was because Bradley had the feeling it was a lost cause. Bob tried not to think about it too much.

He definitely tried not to think about it on nights like tonight, when both of you were camped out together on the sofa. The original plan hadn’t really been for the two of you to watch a movie together—Bob had gotten home later than usual and you were already about ten minutes into the film when he walked through the door. He’d had every intention of just showering and going to bed, but when he saw you curled up on the couch, throw blanket across you and an oversized bowl of popcorn in your lap, suddenly sleep didn’t seem like such a big deal.

He’d leaned over the back of the couch, a smile stretching across his face as he said, “Gonna share that or should I make another bag?”

You yelped in surprise, nearly tossing the bowl full of popcorn in the process. “Robert!” You laughed, hand resting over your heart like that would get it to slow down. “You can’t do that when there is a serial killer on the screen.”

He cracked a grin. “Sorry.”

You held the bowl up for him to reach easier. “I will share though, despite your entrance.”

He’d grabbed a couple pieces of popcorn before walking off towards his room. “I’m just gonna get changed.”

“Okay.” You tossed a piece of popcorn up in the air and caught it in your mouth. “Hurry up before someone else dies.”

Now here you were, the only thing separating the two of you was the bowl of popcorn between you. Bob was paying enough attention to the movie to know what was going on, but he’d be lying if he tried to say that most of his attention was still going to you. Something about the fact that you’d chosen to put on a scary movie and yet you still seemed shocked every time something scary happened.

Like you were reading his thoughts, you spoke up as you half-covered your eyes. “I don’t know why I do this to myself.”

He chuckled. “We can put something else on.”

You shook your head. “No, no. I’m committed now. I need to know what happens.”

His smile grew a little wider, the rapid beat of his heart having nothing to do with what was happening on-screen. “Want me to tell you what happens?”

You looked over at him. “You’ve seen this before?”

He shook his head. “No, but I can probably still tell you what happens.”

You rolled your eyes but you were still smiling, still blocking part of your view of the television on purpose like that would stop the things on screen from happening. “Very funny.”

“I think—”

Whatever he was going to say next got lost somewhere between his brain and his lips because you were placing the bowl of popcorn in his lap and scooting closer to him. You leaned so that your head was resting against the outside of his arm, throw blanket pulled up to your chin. Your legs were pulled up onto the couch, half-curled underneath you as you situated yourself against him. There was no hesitation in any move that you made, and Bob was trying to figure out if he was dreaming, and if he wasn’t he was trying to figure out how to not spontaneously combust.

“If this gets any worse,” you said, looking up at him for a moment, “then I’ll ask for your predictions.”

He was glad it was dark enough in the living room so that you couldn’t see how red his face was. All you could really see was him nodding, the reflection of the television on his lenses. “O-okay.”

The two of you managed to make it to the end of the movie, but you were practically curled so far into him that Bob thought you were just going to melt right into his arm. He didn’t mind it—he wished that the movie had dragged on for a little longer.

When the credits started to roll, you let out a deep sigh of relief but you didn’t peel yourself away from him. Bob couldn’t help but to let out a quiet laugh. “This why I’ve never seen you watch a scary movie before?”

You laughed, shaking your head. “Like, twice a year I try to convince myself that I don’t get that scared.”

“It’s working real good, then,” he joked.

You laughed, blanket still pulled up over your shoulders. “I’d say so.”

He reached for the controller. “Want me to put something less scary on?”

You nodded, reaching out of you blanket cocoon to grab a handful of popcorn. “Yes please.”

He was expecting you to pull away once there was a comedy safely playing on-screen. He waited for the warmth of you and the blanket you were buried under to disappear. But it didn’t. You stayed there just like that, casually stealing one handful of popcorn at a time till there was nothing but kernels left.

You made it halfway through the next film before you looked up at him again and said, “You’re up way past your bedtime.”

He laughed softly and shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

Just as he finished saying that, he yawned. You smiled. “You sure about that?”

He felt his face heat up. “I’m good.”

“Slumber party rules, you know. First one to fall asleep gets it.”

He felt himself melting back into the couch cushions a little more, body finally starting to relax more from tiredness than anything else. “What’s the punishment? Sharpie mustache?”

You laughed, resituating against him as you did. “No, no. That’d be too mean—can’t have you walking around looking like Bradshaw.”

~*~

When you woke up in the morning, you were still on the couch. Alone. You had a pillow propped nicely underneath your head and rather than the throw blanket that you’d been using during the movie, you had a real comforter draped over you. It took a moment for you to put it all together.

You got yourself half upright, propped up on your elbows. Through half-open lids you looked around the apartment, the kitchen and the living room. You could see that it was empty but even so you called out a groggy, raspy, “Bob?”

When you were met with silence, you fell back against the couch again. Dragging your hands across your eyes, you tried to wake yourself up a little more. You stared up at the ceiling, watching lights and shadows fly across it as cars drove by your building. People who were up and about much earlier than you.

You weren’t sure how much time you’d spent simply lying there debating whether or not you wanted to get off the couch and attempt to salvage what was left of your morning. Just as you were getting ready to peel the blanket off you when you heard the sound of keys in the lock on your apartment door.

For a moment you about to sit upright, but then you could hear how quietly and slowly he was trying to enter the apartment. All those mornings sneaking in quietly after his runs so he didn’t wake you, and this was the first time you were not only awake, but ready for it. You heard him toe off his shoes, heard the rustling of a bag that you were desperately hoping had donuts or bagels inside of it.

You were so busy being excited by the sound of iced coffee rattling against its cup that you almost missed the sound of Bob murmuring to himself. You couldn’t quiet make out what he was saying exactly, only that he was whispering to himself as he set things down on the counter. Waiting a moment, you strained your ear in hopes to get a better idea of what he was saying.

When he stopped talking altogether, you sat upright. His back was to you as he pulled the drinks from the tray they were in, opened up the bag of pastries he’d grabbed. You smiled at the sight of him, a warm flutter in your chest.

“Got enough to share?” you piped up.

For once it was Bob’s turn to flinch, to spin on his heel in shock. His eyes were wide, paper bag clutched tightly in his hand. He was certain that if his life had been a cartoon you would’ve seen the outline of his heart beating in his chest.

“Um, yeah.” He nodded, holding up one of the coffees as though to prove he was telling the truth. “Yours.”

Standing up off the couch, you kept the blanket wrapped around you like the most oversized shawl you’d ever seen as you padded over to where he was standing in the kitchen. Reaching out, you took the iced coffee from him, a smile on your face as you took a sip. It was impossible to miss the way that Bob was looking at you, looking like he had something to say. You waited for it, but it never came.

“Rehearsing lines?” you asked casually as you reached for the bag he was holding.

It seemed to snap him out of the trance he was in. “What?”

You pulled out one of the donuts in the bag. “When you came in,” you took a bite, “thought I heard you talking.”

His eyes widened a little bit, cheeks starting to flush pink. “Oh.”

You smiled, tilting your head. “What?”

He picked up his own cup of coffee. He stared at it for a moment, swirling it around to buy himself a few extra seconds. His heart was beating so hard that he was expecting it to cause ripples in the coffee he was holding.

“I, um,” he cleared his throat, looking you in the eyes, “yeah.”

You set your coffee down, suddenly feeling a little foolish with the blanket wrapped around your shoulders. “You okay?”

He nodded. “I’m okay.”

Your smile was soft, warm. “You sure? Looking a little wistful over there.” You saw the way a few sentences started and died on the tip of his tongue. Your lips started to dip down into a frown. “Bob?”

“I really, uh, I really like…living here with you.”

Something akin to relief was creeping its way across your chest and you allowed yourself a small smile. “I like you living here.” You tilted your head slightly. “Why do you look so worried about that?”

He managed a chuckle of sort. “Because,” with each word he tried to get out, he felt like his heart was going to beat clean out of his chest, like his ribs weren’t strong enough to keep it in place, “I don’t want that to change.”

“Why would it?”

“I love you,” he blurted out. “I…I love you.” The blush on his face darkened and he gave a weak smile. “That’s not how I rehearsed it.”

You let out a laugh, one that was choked with emotion. It felt impossible to get the words out that you wanted, like they were all getting stuck in the back of your throat. You could see it on Bob’s face that he was trying to come up with the next thing to say.

Before either of you could implode, you collapsed the distance between you and kissed him. The blanket that had been around your shoulders fell to the floor as your lips caught his. There was a split second of hesitation, but once Bob realized that it was real, that this was all happening, he wrapped his arms around you. His hands splayed across your back, pinning you tight to him.

Your fingers threaded into his hair, leaning into him until he was snug between you and the counter behind him. Bob soaked it is, the way it felt to have the warmth of your body pressed against his. He was certain that this would be the time you’d hear his racing heartbeat, be able to feel it since you were so close. For once he hoped that you would.

You pulled away, just enough to be able to get a good look at his face. He brought one hand up to fix his glasses, the other staying on the small of your back. You toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck as you tried to commit everything about how he looked in that moment to memory.

“I love you too,” you said, voice soft when you finally had it in you to string the words together.

You saw the smile on his face and then you felt it as he kissed you again. It was all laughter and soft touches and wandering hands. Months of bottled up feelings starting to reach the surface. With your palm resting against his chest, you could feel the speed of his heartbeat, but he didn’t seem nervous now. For a moment you were surprised to find that you weren’t nervous either. Then you felt the pad of his thumb against your cheek as he pulled you in for another kiss and you finally felt like you were home. And there was nothing more comforting than that.

(divider by @firefly-graphics)

Top Gun Maverick Taglist: @garbinge @proceduralpassion @justreblogginfics (If you want to be added to any of taglists please let me know!)

[universalitgirlsblog2]

💗🌺YOU DON'T LIKE YOURSELF? CREATE A NEW VERSION OF YOURSELF💗🌺

💗INTRODUCTION

The world needs to accept as you are. no ! The world does not owe you anything. People do not owe you anything. We are changing everyday , we are always trying to improve ourselves. No person is the same person as he or she was from the day that they were born. Everything will be okay when you make it okay. Your life is in your hands. Nobody is coming to save you. Not your mom , your dad , your spouse , your children etc. You want your life to change? You have to change.

🌺CREATE ANOTHER VERSION OF YOURSELF ( ALTER EGO)

Beyonce says that whenever she goes on stage she is not Beyonce , she is Sasha Fierce. David Goggins grew up in poverty, gained alot of weight but then he lost weight and ran marathons. They all say to create a new version of yourself.

Liz said that she is lazy , doesn't like attention which comes from social media and stay her in bed all day but all this will get her nowhere so she created a new version. Somebody that is confident , uses her platform , goes after her goals , gets up and goes to gym and somebody with a very hard mindset and tough skin . You need to create a tough skin especially if you are an influencer or a celebrity.

If you start acting like your alter ego , you will become like her. Ask yourself . What does the higher version of yourself look like ? How does she / he look like ? What is she / he wearing ? Who do they date ? What is their career ? How do they spend their time ? What is their hairstyle ?

💗START TAKING SMALL STEPS TOWARDS GREATNESS

Before doing anything , ask yourself , will my highest version do this? If you are eating sugary food, ask yourself If your highest version would eat that dessert. If you don't feel like going to the gym , ask yourself If your highest version would skip gym or go to gym.

🌺WHAT'S YOUR PASSION/ BEST CAREER OPPORTUNITY?

Find your own passion . No one can tell you what your passion is , you need to find it .

God gives us passion because that's what we are supposed to do.

If you have no idea about your passion , what am I really good at ? Every single person is good at something . It might be as small as cooking, managing team or very much into social media.

💗GET HONEST WITH YOURSELF/ STOP SUGAR-COATING

You can't be always kind to yourself, sometimes you need a reality check . Also , ask yourself what your best version of yourself would do ? Go for walk. Listen to podcast.

🌺PRACTICE THE LAW OF ASSUMPTION AND TRUST GOD/THE UNIVERSE

Talk to God as if he is your best friend. Ask God and the universe for the things you want. Don't expect help if you don't ask for help. God puts people in our life to help us , to upgrade us.

💗LET GO OF TRYING TO CONTROL AND START TRUSTING THAT IT WILL HAPPEN.

Ask once , be specific and practice gratitude before asking. Start assuming like the world is designed for you to succeed .

🌺GET INTO THE MINDSET OF : WHAT WOULD THE HIGHEST VERSION OF MYSELF DO ?

You walk into a room , you have a meeting or a presentation. You feel nervous. Ask yourself : what would the highest version of myself do ? Shoulders back , walk into the room and start talking. Wherever you go , think that everyone is in love with you , it will make you confident.

You have to tell yourself affirmations . Look into the mirror and say " I am powerful . I am amazing. I am going to kill this day ." Ask God to help you and stand by me .

💗ACCEPT THAT RECOVERY IS NOT LINEAR AND BE GRATEFUL FOR THE BAD DAYS.

It takes accountability. Going through the progress of looking at yourself differently.

🌺FALL IN LOVE WITH THE PROGRESS , NOT THE GOAL.

Know that the bad day is a blessing. How will we appreciate good days if we have no bad days ?

If you want an expensive watch , the watch itself doesn't fulfill you , it's the process towards the watch & the anticipation. If you want to lose weight , going to gym regularly and seeing the scale going down, Feeling healthier and better. That is the process. That is happiness.

💗STOP TALKING ABOUT IT AND START ACTUALLY DOING IT

Do not tell anyone about your ambitions .Show them what you are doing .

If you tell big dreams to small minded people , they will never support you because they do not understand. They have not done it themselves

🌺DON'T TALK ABOUT IT UNTIL IT IS DONE.

The big issue with people is that they want to talk before it happened. Why are you putting evil eye on yourself?

" What people don't know they can't ruin "

Be private. You never know who is praying for your downfall.

Don't talk about things you want to accomplish before you accomplished them.

[ratcash-wasgud]

Tragicomedy

okay gang, hear me out. ik most ppl who follow me are here for bes but PLLLLSSSSS

this came to me in a dream and i feel like i would fail as prophet if i didn't deliver it

anyways, enjoy.

art major!ellie x reader vs rugby player!abby x reader.

a.n.:Okay, before we start, the reader will get a little specific (like in my other works, lmao). plus tw for homophobia.

Part 2 is done!!!

"Ellie Williams"

Ellie started at her own signature under a painting in the hall of the school. Her college had a small exhibition of the art major student's works, and she submitted a painting of a flower she saw in the nearby park, and the butterfly which is supposed to symbolize...well, you. When other people ask, it symbolizes love and freedom though, but it's wings are strangely the same colour as your eyes, and it's spots are the same as your hair.

She only chose this painting because she somehow hoped you'd come, compliment her painting, then she'll ask you out on a date to her favourite cafe, then boom! Marriage. Or that's Dina's plan, actually. Ellie knew it was stupid. You'd never like her. Why? Easy. Abby Anderson has her eyes on you as well, and who wouldn't chose the female rugby team's captain? Exactly.

Even if Abby is straight, Ellie sees the was she looks at you. You are the that cute girl who hangs around campus alone, reading a book, wearing headphones, or just casually taking pictures of flowers and bugs. Nobody could resist your cuteness, and Ellie feels like the whole thing is a personal attack towards her. She tried talking to you a couple times, and turns out you're also very friendly. She has a couple common interests with you, like comic books. Life was good for a couple days when she could just randomly bump into you (tottaly not on purpose), holding a comic you purposely talked about, then she could blow away almost two hours for you and her nerding out about said comic. But then?

Abby came in the picture. She suddenly started to appear next to you on multiple occasions, throwing her meaty arms around you, doing that stupid, cocky smirk of hers. And what do you do? You giggle at her stupid jokes.

What Ellie didn't know, on the other hand, is that Abby was nothing like how people precieved her as. Yeah, sure, she was a rugby player who was kind of a jock, but she wasn't cocky. If anything, she was more like a big puppy, who happened loved hamburgers and tackling people. It's not her fault it's fun. She also happened to like pretty girls.

Not the girls the rugby team would usually get associated with, the ones with short skirts, perfect hair or long, clack-y nails. She did like those things though, but she learned that she has a type.

A type for cute girls with a nose and eyes that wrinkle up when they smile, who paint cute shit on their nails, and the ones who still own, and name their stuffed animals. And surprise surprise, you fit that type perfectly.

Abby knew that too. That's why she got attached to your hip out of the blue. She found out about you through Mel, who was her roomate and your coworker at your partime job at this rundown diner.

But Abby knew she had to stay in her lane. She comes from a small town, full of old fashioned people, so she knows how little the chance is of you actually being into women. She never did anything risky or too touchy. Plus, she was kind of knew into this whole gay thing. She realized stuff kind of late. She has a disadvantage against all the cool gay women she say around campus, proudly wearing their pride pins, or holding hands in the halls.

She thinks if she did anything like that, she'd just get called a dyke by her teammates and her family. She never even did anything with a woman before. She knows how to do it, obviously she has internet, but still...just the thought of actually owning a strap kind of makes her nervous.

But Ellie knows what's up. She had a girlfriends before. She even owns toys just for the purpose of pleasing women. She's even out, so most people know about her lesbian intentions when she talks to a girl she finds attractive. But not withouth a price though. She did get called slurs before, and by Abby's circle too, so she has solid reasons to hate the whole friendgrounp. Even if Abby herself never said anything, she still stood there, arms crossed and eyebrows scrunched up. And now, she tries to cling to the one girl Ellie had a genuine crush on since highschool? That's not fair. It's targeted, even.

It has to a be a hatecrime or something.

"It's the library, not a gym, Anderson. You must be confused, get lost." Ellie says with a scowl as she puts her finger between the pages of a comic book she has been explaining to you.

It's the first time she had found you alone in weeks, and she just has to spawn herself into the situation. Of course.

"Oh, get fucked, Williams." Abby shoots her a glare before putting her hand on the table you two are sitting at, and looming behind you. "Sorry, I was rudely interrupted before I could...you know, say hi." She says to you with a corny smile.

Ellie can't help but roll her eyes.

"Hi to you too." You smile lightly, putting your own comic book into your lap. You're especially pretty today, Abby thinks. She wonders if it's because of someone.

"So...you know, I was wondering if you'd wanna...uhh..." Abby takes a deep breath as she rubs her arm, but doing as casually as she can. "Come with me to that cute lil' diner down the street. I actually have a cupon for free milkshakes."

Ellie purses her lips and glares.

"She works at a diner, dumbass, I don't think she wants to spend her free time in one too," She says, now the page of the comic is forgotten as she crosses her arms. "I'm sure she'd like a place like...the amusement park more. It just happens that I have tickets for the weekend." Boom. Ellie smirks internally.

"The amusement park?" You perk up, cute bambi eyes widening. You seemed to like that idea. "Yeah! We should go together." You smile and Ellie feels like a whole storm just blew a bunch of flowers into her face. It's lovely, really. Until, "Right, Abby?"

Huh? You meant...all three of you?

Abby looks just as shocked as Ellie, and does her best to act nonchalant. "Yeah, sure. But I won't carry you after you die on a rollercoaster." She snickers, shooting Ellie a siteating grin.

Both women knew they couldn't decline this stupid three-way date, since they couldn't actually invite you anywhere on their own. So, amusement park it was.

The weekend came, and to you, it was such a nice day. You didn't have friends ever since you started college, but now, you actually felt appritiated. Like you belong.

It started with you meeting Ellie at the diner, then Abby coming to pick both of you up with her truck. The day was spent with you convinving both of them for silly rides you wanted to try. The problem was, that there were usually 2 people fitting seats. You didn't want either of them to feel left out, so you made them sit together, and you sat before them. The whole day felt like a damn comedy.

"Look, churros!" You cheer as you spot a booth with one of your favourite snacks after not really eating anything that day. Ellie, almost throwing up after that last ride, grimaces at the sight, while Abby steps forward, already reaching for her wallet.

"Want me to buy you some?" She asks, standing beside you as she points at one of the flavors. Meanwhile, Ellie suddenly perks up, not wanting to get left behind. "I could get you a slushie to go along with it. Churros here are usually pretty dry." Abby rewards this attemt with a side-eye.

Then a pair of men, holding hands, also approach the booth, smiling to eachother and discussing what they should get. Abby glances their way, seeing their way of holding eachother's hands, and she reaches out slowly, her hand brushing against your's, just when a middle aged man walks by the booth, and sadly opens his mouth. "Fags nowadays. They're everywhere, damn it. There's kids here."

Abby suddenly freezes. Her hand imidiately back in her pocket, and she just stares at her wallet. She feels her feet grow roots into the ground, and suddenly she hears the same phrase in her father's voice. This is a random Saturday, the sun is shining, there are people in love, but it's still...

"Your breath is everywhere too dude. What a stench" Ellie's voice brings her back to reality, and her snaps at the auburn haired woman, fearlessly, glaring at the man.

She didn't know Williams could be...brave? Mmm, not the right word. Proud? Maybe.

Meanwhile, Ellie is fuming. This random ass dude tries to ruin her only chance she has with her crush by ruining the whole mood. She's not having that. She sees the two guys glance at her, and send a smile her way as she flips the middle aged bigot off one last time before he disappears.

She quickly jerks her face back to you, and what she sees it...Abby with tears shimmering in her eyes, and you standing befor her, cupping her face and stroking her arm. It's a horrible sight. Your soft hands don't belong on that burly surfice. Ellie feels like she's left behind.

Meanwhile Abby is panicking. It's over, you saw her cry, she must be the lamest person ever right now. She has embarrased herself before the first girl she has ever liked just because she's a coward, because even the hint of being judged that way scares her to death.

In the end, both women's worst fears somehow came true.

Ellie losing to Abby, while Abby losing to her fears. What a tragedy.

But you? To you, this day was the realest thing you have felt since college started. You have learned that the nerdy art student is fierce, and that the captain of the rugby team can cry. You are attached now, and there's no escape.

Meanwhile Ellie and Abby feel like sinking into the ground with broken hopes, they don't know that you will ask to hang out again pretty soon.

[spongeyspot]

Toxic Traits/Red Flags HC

Characters: Arthur, Javier, John, Lenny, Dutch, Micah, Charles, Sean, Hosea, Mary Beth, Abigail, Tilly, Karen, Sadie, Molly

(A/N): WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT THIS DAWG. I LOVED @cowboyfromh3ll 's take on that shit sm and these hcs have literally been swimming in my head for weeeeeeeeks bro

Edit: some of these were kinda hard because there's not a lot of bad in the characters themselves... I had trouble with specifically Charles, Lenny, Mary Beth, and Tilly. Sorry if they may be OOC. IM EVEN DOING THE GIRLS BECAUSE IM IN A SILLY GOOFY MOOD

Content Warning: female reader, jealousy, self hate, narcissism, gaslighting, physical abuse, verbal abuse, mental abuse, mentions of murder and violence, mentions of infidelity, mentions of sex (Sean, Micah, Sadie kind of) (MINORS DNI)

Not edited btw

The boys

Arthur Morgan

- Honestly, I feel like Arthur would have this insane, crippling fear of rejection, especially when it comes to dating. - His self hate/deprecation plays a huge part in this, and quite honestly, him and Mary not working out probably also probably contributed to it. - Very emotionally distant. Has a hard time expressing his feelings openly due to that same fear of rejection.🚩 - Bottles shit up until he feels like he's gonna explode 🚩 - His impulse control is almost nonexistent 🚩 - Will resort to saying things that he doesn't even mean. He just says things when he's angry🚩 - Will hate himself even more if he makes you cry - Won't hesitate to run away from camp for a while to cool off. This isn't necessarily a bad thing per se, but he usually takes his time away to overthink the fuck out of everything - Prone to acting violent. (not to someone he cared about, but to other people, absolutely)Also due to his poor impulse control. 🚩

Javier Escuella

- Has a flirty personality, but around women, it just seems to get worse. 🚩 - Tells you you're overreacting if you tell him it bothers you🚩 - Overprotective of you. Always has his eyes on you, and practically orders you to stay in camp where it's safe. - As if you step one foot outside the camp without him, you'll spontaneously drop dead - Jealous asf. Are you laughing at what Bill just said? It wasn't even that funny. Why are you standing so close to him? You should be at least 6 feet away from him, not 5 and a half. 🚩 - Also has a problem with how you dress sometimes. God forbid your shirt is ever low cut. He'd probably ask you to change. 🚩 - And if you get offended or upset, he'll lie and tell you it's because he can't stop staring at your chest, and he'd like to focus of whatever it was he was doing.🚩

John Marston

- Stubborn as all hell. Doesn't listen to anybody for anything.🚩 - Commitment issues up the ass - Says mean things out of anger and sometimes actually means them 🚩 - Won't apologize half the time. He thinks kissing it better actually makes it better 🚩 - Regularly ignores his own bad habits instead of actually facing them 🚩 - Will run away from problems like Arthur, but worse. He'd be gone a really long time.🚩 - Gets annoyed with you if you get angry at him for leaving and staying away for a while. He told you he needed space, didn't he? What else do you need from him?? 🚩 - Ignorantly clueless half the time. Head empty, no thoughts.

Lenny Summers

- Not assertive in the slightest, and usually, respectfully, keeps to himself. -Takes orders without verbal complaints but inside he's annoyed as fuck 🚩 - Even if he hates doing something he'll probably just go "Okay" and do it anyway, and he'll sulk all day afterwards - Refuses to tell you what's wrong because he thinks he'll sound childish.🚩 - If you push the issue, he might snap at you out of annoyance like "Would you just let it be??" - Immediately feels guilty and shameful, and he'll hide away until he's ready to apologize and face you again - Also kind of a know-it-all... He'll correct you a LOT. It would get annoying 🚩 - Would blatantly tell you you're wrong before correcting you🚩 - Not necessarily an asshole about it but he still tends to get under your skin sometimes

Dutch Van Der Linde

- The BIGGEST Narcissist you'll ever meet.🚩 -He loses another piece of his mental state with every breath he takes. Slowly but surely losing his mind.🚩 - King of gaslighting🚩 - How could you even think that about him? He could never do anything wrong! You must be crazy...🚩 - Tries to recite his "pretty words" from Evelyn Miller to try and sound smarter than he actually is 🚩 - Expects you to just feed his ego without him actually doing anything to earn it🚩 - Will try to correct you even when he's wrong🚩 - Refuses to admit he's wrong. He can never be wrong. That word isn't even in his vocabulary unless he's talking about literally anyone but himself🚩

Micah Bell

- Where do I even start with this guy - Not above putting his hands on you if he doesn't get his way. Let's be honest here.🚩 - Mega Narccisist, almost as bad as Dutch 🚩 - Will brag and share every sexual encounter you've ever had with him like he's talking about the weather🚩 - VERY prone to Violence 🚩 - NO impulse control. Murders people for fun.🚩 - Backhanded and borderline abusive compliments 24/7 "You'd look so good if you weren't so fucking fat..." 🚩 - Selfish lover. Thinks just sticking it in will do the trick, and it does, for him at least.🚩 - Little to no affection. What are you? His girlfriend? Wait...🚩 -If he actually does show you affection, and you react in surprise, he'll tell you to go fuck yourself, and that that's the last time he ever does anything nice for you.🚩

Charles Smith

- Impossible to read sometimes - Like Arthur, Charles tends to keep a lot of his emotions bottled up until he feels like he's gonna pop 🚩 - Like most of the men in the Van Der Linde gang, Charles is also prone to acting violently. I mean, he started a bar fight with a fucking chair, and he fights in street fighting rings, let's be real for a second.🚩 - He's incredibly quiet and reserved a lot of the time, and sometimes you just assume that he's listening to you when you talk, but a lot of the time, he's lost in his own thoughts. - Will do everything anyone asks him to at the expense of his own free time and energy, and sometimes he works himself to exhaustion just to try and please everyone.🚩 - In doing so, he sometimes doesn't have time for himself at the end of the day. It also seems like you spend time together less and less as the days go on. - If he ever got himself hurt and you tried to help him, he'd decline any help with anything to save his own pride. The last thing he needs is you thinking he's weak. 🚩 - Extremely Overprotective. Like to the point where he'd beat the shit out of anybody you asked him to🚩

Sean Macguire

- An Alcoholic🚩 - horny 99% of the time, but half that time he probably has whiskey dick. Still asks you to try but doesn't understand that it's like trying to play pool with a rope... - If he can manage to be sober enough to actually get it up, and you're not in the mood, he'd get pissy and annoyed with you for "wasting his boner" 🚩 - Will probably also brag about having sex with you to everyone🚩 - Needy as all hell - Bro sulks on purpose - Low key loves the attention you give him when you continue to ask him what's wrong, but he never actually tells you and constantly says "I'm fine..." or "It's nothing..." 🚩 - But then sighs dramatically and continues sulking and dragging his feet so you keep giving him more attention 🚩

Hosea Matthews

- Ignores his physical health until he's practically dying. You've told him to get that cough looked at for literal years and he just says "I will" and does nothing 🚩 - sometimes talks to you as if you're a child especially if he's around Dutch -low key gaslights you sometimes 🚩 - and he says it with such a gentle tone, its hard to catch it 🚩

The girls

Mary Beth Gaskill

- Daydreams way too much - Likes to live in her romance novel fantasy land rather than face reality 🚩 - Cries a lot - Tries to be angry but can't help but cry instead - If crying makes you feel bad for her, she'll probably do it on purpose so you comfort her and give her attention🚩 -If you're in a fight, she'll turn on the crocodile tears to get you to stop being angry with her or whatever it is you're arguing about.🚩

Abigail Roberts

- She can be verbally abusive if she's pushed far enough 🚩 - Holds in a lot of her emotions🚩 - Neglectful of her own personal needs to make sure you or Jack are fully provided or cared for🚩 - a lot of the time, when she's upset with you, you're probably given the cold shoulder and the silent treatment - incredibly protective. Not necessarily a bad thing, but she can sometimes be super overbearing.

Tilly Jackson

- Tells it how she sees it, sometimes accidentally sounding a lot colder than she means to 🚩 - Too sarcastic for her own good 🚩 - Laughs a little too much sometimes when you tell a joke, and you can often tell it's actually incredibly fake🚩 - gets irritated really easily, especially if she's bothered while doing her chores. The last thing she needs is Grimshaw on her ass again.🚩 - irritable a lot of the time, unintentionally becoming short or snapping at you - like john, she also believes that kissing it better is better than actually apologizing

Karen Jones

- An alcoholic 🚩 - picks fights with you for fun, finds it entertaining to see how red your face can get from anger 🚩 - Screaming matches are a regular occurance between you guys, and she starts it almost every time 🚩 - Pretty jealous when it comes to the opposite sex🚩 - Has self doubt and believes that she can't give you everything a man probably could

Sadie Adler

- The nosiest woman in America. No chill. She reads everyone's mail. - Makes a lot of loose threats 🚩 - Anger issues🚩 - Low impulse control🚩 - Can be a little too rough sometimes 🚩 - If she's upset with you, she'll either yell or storm off. Sometimes both. 🚩 -(She tends to walk away a lot more often because she's actuall self aware that her anger issues are a problem) - She'd never admit that to you though.

Molly O'Shea

- Even more jealous than Javier🚩 - Glares at and envies anyone you talk to that isn't her🚩 - Has immaginary conversations with people in her head🚩 - Rubbing her hands together when the real life conversations are following the script she had planned out in her brain - Needs constant reassurance - "D'you even love me anymore?!"🚩 - Overthinks everything 🚩 - Paranoid as hell about infidelity - Gets mad at you when she dreams about you cheating on her🚩

[harleywarley18]

God of prophecy, music, and plague 𖤓°⋆.ೃ࿔*:･𖤓°⋆.ೃ࿔*:･𖤓°⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

I was supposed to post this Sunday but got caught up with stuff so here's a midnight rundown on my relationship to Apollo ;-;

Apollo began showing up around a month after I began my worship to Aphrodite. I was afraid at first. Not of him, but of the idea of worshipping another deity. In the past, I had only ever worshipped one at a time. As a neurodivergent person I was also afraid that my relationship to Aphrodite was just a hyperfixation since I had been playing Hades a lot.

The thought of worshipping Apollo only further worried me. I wanted to assure Aphrodite that she wasn't;t a mere hyperfixation and that she would not be forgotten. The first time I tried to communicate with Apollo via tarot cards, Aphrodite showed up instead and voiced her concerns.

She was afraid that I'd abandon her and forget about her. I knew where this was coming from because I had told her about Hades. Early 2023 I had begun worshipping Hades but after about a month and a half it became too much for me to continue and I kind of just stopped my worship and never went back. I had felt so bad but worship can be so draining sometimes.

Anyways, after reassuring Aphrodite many times I believed I had the okay to begin doing proper research on Apollo before reaching out to him. What interested me about him is his Lo'xias epithet, meaning god of prophecy or messenger of Zeus. I was so drawn to it because throughout my entire life I have always had crazy intuition and predictions.

At first I chalked up to the fact that I'm autistic and can recognize patterns really well. Specifically, I take "data" I've collected about a situation or people and use it to make predictions about what will happen or what they'll do. But, too often did I predict something and it actually happened in a scarily accurate manner. There have been multiple times that it's felt as though I've actually spoken things into existence. For example, while I was ranting to my sister about someone who had talked major shit about me and I said that (for the sake of privacy I will not describe what I said) this specific scenario was going to happen to them. I said it out of anger and in passing but that very weekend exactly the thing that I said would happen to them HAPPENED.

With tarot cards, especially, my readings are always insanely accurate. Even my sister, who is not a believer in anything that I do, is wary about my readings because she knows that whatever the cards say will happen will actually happen. Furthermore, when I first moved to college I had visited a metaphysical store with my cousin and there the owner overheard me say that it had been so long since I had really done tarot that I probably couldn't ever do it again. And she said to me "tarot reading is like riding a bike, you learn once and never forget. She then brought out her own personal oracle cards and had me do a reading on her and her husband. She wanted me to use the cards to tell them who they are. According to them, everything I had said was more than true.

With Apollo, I thought I could use his help to groom and cultivate this proclivity of mine.

After having properly reached out to him, I've come to the realization that I love more than just his prophetic aspect. I stated in my previous post that I had been struggling due to a situation that occurred earlier in the school semester. Even when I was back home, I was struggling with panic attacks and bouts of major anxiety. What always helped, however, was taking my dogs out on their walk and feeling Apollo's rays of sunshine beaming down on me.

Every single time I stepped out of the house-heart racing, hands shaking, ears ringing-suddenly it would all melt away into nothingness the second I felt the sun on my face, enveloping my person, weaving its heat through my curls and over my ears. Even if it had been storming, when the time came to walk the dogs, the sky would magically become clear enough to allow the sun to shine through.

Eventually, I started keeping the tarot cards I dedicated to Apollo under my pillow and asking him to visit me in my dreams. The first night I saw a beautiful, swirling ball of light above my bed, with orange and yellow flares coming out of it. The second night, however, I woke up in a dream. I was in the back of this van sitting next to this man. He looked young with beautiful, black curls. He had his arm wrapped around me and my head rested on his shoulder.

I remember him feeling so warm. He felt like home. He felt like snuggling up under the covers in a cold room. And I just lay there, hands holding his, watching the scenery of the drive we were on. I woke up that morning with the sun shining on my face, clearly attempting to wake me up.

I've heard a lot of people say that Apollo feels like a golden retriever boyfriend of nice frat boy. And while I respect that everyone's experiences with deities is different, Apollo to me feels like some guardian. Maybe an older brother or a father or an uncle. I think people expect Apollo to be boyish and naive because he's always been described as a young thing. We forget that he is just as wise, if not more, as his cousins and aunts and uncles.

Praise Apollo, averter of evil, dark-haired, messenger of zeus!

[pippin-katz]

6 Little Faces Alex Makes That I Love - Part 1

(not ranked in any order)

No. 1:

There is no other word for this expression than starstruck and it’s adorable. ✨

No. 2:

I’m completely obsessed with the way he watches Henry come closer. It’s so clear that he’s not done something like this, and he’s a little out of his element, but doesn’t care cause he’s so enamored with Henry. There’s just a bit of nervousness and curiosity in his eyes, like he doesn’t know what Henry is going to do next. I think he was already surprised by the way he pushed him.

One of the things that drew Alex to Henry in the first place was the sparks of personality he hadn’t been expecting from a prince. It looks like Alex was genuinely surprised by how forcefully Henry pushed him, like he wasn’t expecting something like that, and he probably wasn’t. Like he told his dad later, “he’s tougher than he looks” and you can also substitute that “tougher” for all the other traits that surprised Alex, like his sense of humor, his authentic and deep compassion for others, and his ability to stand up for himself.

There’s this little trace of awe within the surprise and curiosity. I see that expression and I can feel the way his heart is pounding.

And then of course he starts to get that smile on his face, that somehow still maintains a level of disbelief or admiration. It’s like he just had the brief thought of “I can’t believe how lucky I am”.

I am completely obsessed, how dare you Taylor Zakhar Perez, you adorable, talented, and attractive bastard.

No. 3:

This is like the look he had when Henry first arrived at the dinner, but even more unabashed. You can see the nerves, and the way he takes a deep breath as soon as he sees him. It’s like his mind is going, “wow, he really is beautiful, and now we’re alone”. It’s like he’s thinking “don’t freak out, stay calm” while also being completely blown away by how handsome Henry is.

It is so cute, I hate it.

No. 4:

It’s fast and a bit hard to see, but he gets this quick smile on his face that’s like “oh, okay, we’re doing this then”. He still has that little bit of surprise too, like “damn, alright”, cause Henry pins him hard against that wall.

It makes me think of that moment in the book when they first hook up and Henry tells him why he kissed him on New Year’s, and he mentions being jealous, and Alex says: “You were jealous. You want me.”

And he’s teasing him, so you know he has a shit-eating grin, but also he’s registering the fact that Henry has wanted him for a while, like he’s a bit surprised that he actually wants him, and that the kiss wasn’t just a drunken impulse, or Henry being lonely, but something Henry was wanting to do, with him specifically, even while sober.

That’s kind of the vibe I get from that smile, like “oh, Henry really wants me like this, alright, this is fun, I’m down with this”. I don’t know if I’m making any sense for this one, but hopefully you get what I mean.

No. 5:

This is a sweet moment because you can see the change in his eyes. Henry is explaining why he was a prick to him, so he's still primarily thinking about himself and how Henry's behavior bothered him. But here, you can see the moment he actually registers what he said about losing his dad, and the crown using him, and it's not about him anymore.

Even if you've never experienced the loss of a loved one, you can still understand the gravity of that situation. You may not know exactly what it feels like, but everyone knows it feels horrible.

You can see Alex thinking, and realizing that it had nothing to do with him. He's thinking about the fact that Henry had to deal with the loss of his father, which is already tragic and heartbreaking, but then on top of that, he hears that the crown used him for the attention his grief would bring them. Alex quickly goes from being mad about Henry's attitude to feeling so sad for him.

No. 6:

He laughs a little bit about Henry's quip about him being "ghastly", but it shifts into a small, almost unnoticeable smile. He's so content and happy to be talking to him. Henry probably is too, but both of them are kind of aware that there's no reason for them to stay on the phone any longer. There's a pause before Henry finally says he's going to hang up, and Alex, being the little shit he is, wants to be the one to hang up. Henry lets him, but it takes him several seconds of silence, and Henry making a comment about what the red button was for, before he actually turns over and hangs up. It's so obvious that he doesn't want to, but he subconsciously knows there's no reason to keep talking.

Sometimes when you're on the phone with a friend (or partner), you fall into this rhythm and comforting space of having a friend with you, even if they're not in the room. It's a nice feeling, and when you have to hang up, it can bring about this little wave of sadness. When you hang up, you're suddenly very alone again. I've had it happen to me tons of times after talking to friends on the phone.

The way he smiles softly tells me he's feeling that comfort and relaxation that I described. Then he's reluctant to hang up, because even if they're not talking, they can feel each other's presence through the phone, and that makes him feel like he's not alone.

That's all for now! I might make a part two, we'll see! Thank you for reading if you got this far! :3

Update: If you enjoyed this essay & would like to support me, you can give me a tip on my Ko-Fi! ☺️

part 2 | part 3

[drchucktingle]

work of jordan peele is BIG influence on chuck this is correct. there are quite a few similarities actually, especially when you consider both of us are coming to horror from place of comedy (i personally do not see tinglers as comedy but obviously this timeline has placed them there and i am perfectly okay with this trot).

we are both creating horror stories for our own historically marginalized groups and in particular, writing stories that are SPECIFIC to those groups.

for example when thinking about QUEER HORROR there is plenty of queer horror where the horror itself has nothing to do with queerness, or the queerness is subtext. for instance you could have a slasher where the main characters happen to be gay, but their queerness is not necessarily part of the fear.

on the other hand, CAMP DAMASCUS is directly commenting on a queer issue

BURY YOUR GAYS is directly commenting on a queer issue

by the same token GET OUT is directly commenting on a race issue

US is directly commenting on a class issue which is, of course, going to be wrapped up in topics of race and marginalization

it should be said that the other kinds of horror where issues of the marginalized groups is more in the SUBTEXT are not wrong. there is a time and a place for that. the book that will likely be chucks next horror novel is about bi erasure, but it is much more about the subtext and symbolism. there is a bi lead, but also a monster that does not seem to be about bi erasure AT FIRST. it is much less direct. so there is a time and a place for both kinds of approaches.

but i think the biggest thing that is similar about jordan and chucks approach (and what has been a big influence on me specifically) is that our goal is NOT: 'how HORRIFYING AND TRAUMATIC AND MESSED UP CAN WE MAKE THIS?'

we are doing something else

processing trauma by exposure can be a common goal for horror AND honestly i think it is also totally dang fine to make art like this. there are some incredible pieces where trauma and tragedy is the goal. however (and i will speak for myself here) when you are coming from a buckaroo community that has been through so much of this trauma in real life, i PERSONALLY find that goal to be a little too boring.

my goal is more like this: how can we use this genre of fear and tension that i love to comment and explore and say something new? how can i pull apart an issue and deconstruct it in a way that is cathartic and maybe even changes minds?

so i cannot speak for jordan but i feel like our approaches are similar in this way. i see a LOT of reviews that make comparisons between CAMP DAMASCUS and GET OUT and i am always very flattered