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sh1-n0bu · 2 months

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♡︎ 𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙮 𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙝𝙪𝙨𝙗𝙖𝙣𝙙! ♡︎

characters: sub!yandere!AFAB!characters x dom!gn!reader

warnings: character uses he/him pronouns but has female genitalia/tcock (words such as pussy, vagina, cunt will be used), character is transmale, reader has you/your pronouns, cock/strap, yandere character, established relationship, protected sex, unprotected sex (don’t do that folks), breeding, creampie, belly bulge, mentions of pregnancy, mentions of death and light torture

notes: you can think of any character you want with this fic, i just had a wild thought during a car ride at my vacation. divider from @/cafekitsune

yandere! husband who has been in love with you since they first met you. what started out as a simple fascination developed into an unhealthy obsession until he finally got the courage to ask you out on an official date

yandere! husband who gets surprised when you accept his ask for a date, sheepishly smiling as you tell him that you found him pretty and had been building up the courage to do the same. who nearly fall into his knees right then and there with sheer nervousness yet also giddiness at your confession, finding the wobbly smile on your face endearing

yandere! husband who gradually built a stable relationship with you over time. there were moments where he thought of just drugging you up and stealing you away to keep you all to himself but he chastised himself for such thoughts when you have been nothing but loyal and honest. he thought of killing those annoying bitches and assholes who tried to hit on you or blatantly flirted with you in front of him, imagining cutting out their tongue and burning their eyes with scolding hot iron only to snap back to the present when your hand wound around his waist, introducing him as your lover excitedly

yandere! husband who got scared when you accidentally walked in while he was changing after a shower, terrified that you will leave him after having seen his top scars and cunt. who could hear his heartbeat in his own ears, rapidly beating like a frightened bird thrown into a cage while he waited your reaction. who try to apologize only to be cut off with your comforting words and accepting hug

yandere! husband who proposed to you first, getting on both of his knees as he presented you the ring in the box. who lets out a sweet laugh when you kneel down in return, showing your own ring that you bought for him

yandere! husband who definitely cried on your wedding, wiping away his tears silently as he turns his back to you, not wanting you to see him in such a weak and vulnerable state. turning back to you with the wet handkerchief still in his hand, who can feel the tears coming back once again as he sees your knowing look and comforting smile

yandere! husband who is happy with your married life. the new adventures of moving into a new house, decorating it to your liking and modifying your rooms being an exciting life for him. he loved the moments where you two put paint of each other’s faces instead of painting the walls, choosing the colors on complete random with an eeny, meeny, mini, mo game, dancing with you bare feet in the kitchen as you both wait for the water to boil for the cup ramen at midnight. he would want to hold your hand in his own, the wedding rings clicking against each other softly as he giggles

yandere! husband who wants to try for a baby after years into the marriage. it was a surprise to him how he managed to wait patiently for so long after your marriage. while he wanted desperately to get himself knocked up at the night of consummation of your marriage, he understood your wishes to wait until the perfect time. finally, he thinks it is the perfect timing, after years of protected sex and daydreams of feeling his cunt get filled, tells you of his plan

yandere! husband who purposefully poked a tiny hole into every condom there is at your home, who huffs a fake annoyed noise whenever the material tears as you try to put it around your strap. he may have a pout on his face and talk about trying it raw on the outside but on the inside he is fucking giddy. he wants to feel your cock constantly pushing into his wet pussy walls so bad and he couldn’t help but curse silently under his breath when you take out a lone condom that was thankfully reserved in the pockets of one of your pants

yandere! husband who suggests on riding you instead of taking it as usual. a sudden change in your usual sex life but you didn’t mind trying new things out. laying on your back, you watch and let out occasional groans and low moans as you see how his sweet pussy swallows you whole, the fat of his ass higgling every time he bounces himself on your strap, asking you to slap and squeeze it. which you do gladly, lightly slapping as the jiggling flesh, making your husband giggle

yandere! husband who gets annoyed as the feeling of the condom around your cock, skillfully bouncing himself until he ‘accidentally’ slips your strap out. he swears it was the amount of lube you used, grabbing your cock with his hand and tapping his dripping pussy with the tip. your husband who makes a show, wiggling his hips as he slides the tip inside and sinking down until he feels full again. not yet, he thinks to himself, knowing that you would get suspicious if he tries his plan too early on

yandere! husband who keeps ‘accidentally’ slipping your strap out of his gushing cunt, whining until his patience finally ends. the next time it slips out, his fingers pinch at the tip of the wet condom, pulling on the material with a pout and a mumbled “it’s in the way..” until it comes off with a lewd pop!

yandere! husband who disregards your frantic words of protection and taking a second for you to put on another one, turning around to face you now as he sinks down onto your strap with one move. the feeling of your own cock, without any annoying latex in the way making him cream around your fat cockhead instantly, a drawn out satisfied whine falling from his lips

yandere! husband who clenches around your strap on purpose every time he moves. his hands guiding yours to touch his chest, the top scars that healed beautifully and to squeeze and fondle his nipples “u-until i sta—anngh ah haagh mmgh♡︎! start to lactate, just like your sweet baby momma uungh♥︎!!” while his pretty pussy squeezes your strap like a vice, unwilling to let go or not even daring to think so. he wanted to feel your cum, hot seeds painting his walls white and making his legs shake

yandere! husband who silences your weak protests for a protection with a messy kiss. noses knocking together, tongue immediately pushing into your mouth and wanting to ‘connect’ with you on a deeper level. he wanted everything you have to offer and seeing the small trail of saliva left behind as you pulled back for a gasping breath made him giggle deliriously

yandere! husband who increases his pace when he hears you struggling to talk, words of cumming together coming out in a jumbled mess as he sits himself fully in your lap. pushing your pelvises together until no gap was between them, throwing his head back with a satisfied mewl when he finally feels it. that warmth he’s been craving so long, filling up his womb, mixing with his love juice as the excessive mixed cum drops down your strap

yandere! husband who gets pushed into his back, legs pushed up and over until his knees were beside his head. put into a mating press with your annoyed face staring down at him just made him clench around you, a drunk giggle of your name falling from his lips. he gladly spreads his weeping pussy open further, with you still inside him, letting you see the mess you two made

yandere! husband who drops his act entirely, wiggling his hips with heart shaped pupils as he asks you to breed him. cum inside him as many times as you want, he wants a baby with you, it’s about time you two take your relationship to the next level. “i’ll be a good baby momma… and you’re already a wonderful lover who would become a wonderful parent. come on [name], breed me full of your seeds♥︎”

yandere! husband who gets fucked thoroughly to his wish. crying out all sorts of filthy words every time your cock sinks back into his cunt. thin drools on his chin, old tear stains constantly being replaced by new ones as his pussy clenches around you for the nth time, forcing you to cum earlier than you usually does. overwhelming amount of your mixed cum wetting the bedsheets, your thighs and his own as well as his butt. not like he cared, he wanted to make sure he gets knocked up, that you get him knocked up as he creams around you again, creating an even thicker halo of white around your strap

yandere! husband who shows his filthier side, holding your head against his chest and asking you to suck on his nipples, who place your hand over his tcock, telling you to “s-stroke! my cock too ahh haagh♡︎ mgh n-not fair that mmuungh uunghk my cock is being left alone♡︎!”

yandere! husband who lets out one last hoarse wail, the wetness of his cunt making you groan as your strap cums inside him for the nth time that night before collapsing on top of him. he had passed out, tired from the continuous pounding he received as he lay there peacefully with flushed red cheeks, tearstains and drools on his chin and cheeks while pretty bruises and lovebites cover his skin. the most notable bruises being the ones on his hips and thighs, making you grimace at the painful wound you saw. but hey, the small bulge in his belly from your excessive cum inside his womb made you happy. it definitely made him happy too

yandere! husband who occasionally regains consciousness during your aftercare for him. who groans and refuses to let you pull out for bath, straddling your lap inside the warm water filled bathtub. he couldn’t help but slur out a “noo… don’t pull out” as you push his pelvic away from yours, feeling the cum inside his pussy to drip down his legs

yandere! husband who now eagerly wait for the signs of pregnancy with a full boxes of pregnancy test at his side of the nightstand, who still poke secret holes into your condoms because when did he said he wanted only one baby with you?

⇨ characters i think fits: jing yuan, dan feng, yingxing, sunday, aventurine, argenti, dan heng il, gepard, sampo, luocha, caelus, luka, jiaoqui, itto, baizhu, ayato, thoma, childe, pantalone, dottore, kaeya, kaveh, lyney, neuvillette, sethos, heizou, venti, rubedo, aalto, xiangli yao, scar, yoriichi, haganezuka, douma, kaigaku, jyugo, uno, kiji, honey, trois, kenshirou yozakura, musashi, houzuki sanzou, ruka gojou, seitarou, tsukumo, mitsuru, sinbad, sharkkan, spartos, koumei, titus, muu alexius, sphintus, rafayel, mammon, asmodeus, mephistopheles, diavolo, belphegor, simeon, solomon, satan + anyone you like

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ozzgin · 9 months

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OZZGIN!

May I request an idea/imagine?

It is about yandere! mental asylum patient and psychiatrist! reader, who is very practical and strict regarding her job, takes no BS from others. But, for some reason, she has a soft spot for yandere! mental asylum patient. The reason could either be he had a hard childhood in which he had to do what he had to do, which brutally killed his father, who used to abuse his mother and sister, but when the father tried to sell the sister into prostitution to buy more alcohol, all hell break lose. Psychiatrist! reader thinks what yandere! mental asylum the patient did was OKAY, and she wants to get him out of the asylum. They love each other deeply and would do anything, so far as to kill for one another. If you can, make it as twisted as you can. I live for some dark romance!

Please ignore my request if you are not able to do it. I completely understand. Thank you in advance! <3

Oh my, this request hits somewhat close to home as I have a friend incarcerated for similar reasons. I'm pondering the logistics behind this context you've provided, since murdering someone won't necessarily land you in a psych ward unless there are other symptoms that come with it. And so I've taken the liberty to expand the character's profile if that's alright. (Conveniently enough I still have my psychopathology lecture notes)

I want to add, however, that this story in no way romanticizes mental illness! If anything, one may consider it an opportunity to reflect on the fact that so many people struggling with disorders do not receive the proper care for it, or only do so when it's too late. Furthermore a medical professional should never, ever behave like this and whatever is written here should stay in the realm of fiction!

Yandere! Patient x Psychiatrist! Reader

Featuring a patient that's pushing the boundaries of your work ethic and might even succeed.

Content/warnings: female reader, detailed mentions of mental disorder, violence, obsessive behavior, breach of professional conduct

You roll up your sleeve and check your watch. He should be here soon. Out of habit, you shuffle the papers for a quick case review, even though you already know all the details by heart. You carefully set aside the patient’s MMPI and WHODAS entry assessments, then your first interviews. Your eyes briefly rest upon the resulting report you’ve comprised: Schizophreniform Disorder (Provisional) with good prognostic features; Diagnostic criteria consisting of delusions, disorganized speech (frequent derailment with episodes of incoherence, echolalia) and comorbid catatonia. Responds well to antipsychotic (clozapine 25mg/12 h) with no imminent need for dosage increase. As it currently stands, he will be fit for proper incarceration in less than 6 months. Is it something you agree with? Not quite. You’ve presented your case many times and it has always been met with pitiful shrugs and dismissals.

The door opens and you fix your posture, sweeping the documents back into your drawer. “And? How are you feeling today?” You ask, flashing a professional, cordial smile as the assisting nurse leads the patient to his seat and prepares her leave. “My chest hurts.” The man answers in a low voice, glaring at the nurse. He taps his foot against the plush carpet, seemingly restless. “How bad would you rate it? Chest pain is a somewhat common side effect of your medication.” You retort, following the movements of the woman finally excusing herself and exiting the room. Once you’re alone, the man’s shoulders droop and he visibly relaxes. “It’s not that, you know it. When can I touch you again?” He pleads, despair twisting his features. You tense up at the words. “Behave yourself. It hasn’t been that long.”

It’s not something you’re particularly proud of. In fact, you might even call it one of your great shames in life. You’ve always been a textbook professional, perhaps even too strict according to your coworkers and most patients. Not even in your wildest dreams would you have dared to imagine you’d violate the code of ethics by falling in love with your patient. But something about his situation stirred your sense of justice. Surely one cannot be punished for protecting their loved ones. The only criminal in the equation, at least in your eyes, was that joke of a father and he had it coming. So you found yourself wrestling against a blooming protectiveness and favoritism towards the young man brought here last month.

What would have normally compelled you into action had therefore been silently swept under the rug. Or even worse, you secretly indulged in it. A patient showing signs of affection towards you would instantly be transferred to a different psychiatrist. Yet you couldn’t put away the letters written by this one. Erratic, crumpled notes of “I love you” written countless times, pencil dug so deep it tore into the sheet. Bizarre illustrations that looked almost threatening. His elaborate delusions before medication was introduced, where he’d detail in grand narratives how you were fated for each other and nothing would stop him from having you sooner or later. You do not know what forces possessed you into this addictive plunge, but you’ve come to enjoy his violent, frenzied confessions. So much, that during one of the unsupervised meetings you let yourself pushed into the sofa as his hands tugged at your body in rabid need. It was so out of character that you wondered if it truly happened, though the bite marks and scratches on your neck and chest proved otherwise.

“Are they going to send me to prison?” He changes the subject and stands up, walking towards your desk. “Most likely. What you have is the result of a traumatic event, not a lifelong condition. Sporadic episodes that can be kept under control with antipsychotics aren’t enough of a reason to keep you in the hospital.” You press your legs together nervously and glance at him. “Can’t you just say it’s no longer working?” He suggests, kneeling before you and placing a hand on your thigh. “You know I can’t lie on the report.” You really don’t like it when he manipulates you like this. “Ah, yes, because lying is worse than fucking your patient.” He scoffs, annoyed. “Don’t threaten me like that”, you say as you turn towards him, but you’re stopped by the rough grip of his hand over your cheeks. “I’m not threatening you, I’m threatening everyone else. Listen, (Y/N), I’m not fucking around. I don’t mind pretending to be crazy if I have to. Will the meds still be working if I steal a shaving razor and cut the nurse open?” You try to open your mouth, but his fingers are pressed into your skin, locking your jaw into place. “I’m not going to prison. I’m not. Then I’ll never see you again and that can’t happen. You know that.”

Eventually he releases his hold, allowing you to speak. "I understand. Then there's no choice but to arrange your escape." You sigh, defeated, and he raises his eyebrows. "Won't that get you in trouble?" You chuckle at his statement. "Either way I'll be in trouble. You said it yourself. Might as well quit before I have to stand in front of the ethics board and have my license revoked." You'd prefer to keep the last ounce of pride if possible.

He sits on the floor and you notice his trembling hands. "Nervous?" You ask. "No. Just really happy. I'm not a bad person and you were the only one here to see it. But God, (Y/N), I'd kill anyone if it was for your sake. I can't wait to hold you whenever I want." He gazes at you as a smile widens on his face.

#female reader #male yandere #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere x darling #male yandere x reader #yandere imagine #yandere imagines #yandere scenarios #yandere headcanons #yandere oc x reader #obsessive yandere #tw yandere

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solecize · 5 months

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𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 | 𝐣𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐤𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

remember lookin' at this room, we loved it 'cause of the light now, i just sit in the dark and wonder if it's time ten years of being one and the same with jungkook as the country's it couple is the perfect disguise for the reality of a tumultuous relationship hidden behind the scenes. ten years of lies and love and crawling back to one another. once shy, budding first love that blossomed before the weight of fame, the cracks begin to surface amidst your respective rises to stardom and navigation of your twenties. either finding euphoria or the end of the world, there's never any in between in existence for you and jungkook. as you build each other up and break each other down in front of millions of eyes, there is a crossroads ahead with words of "marriage" and "military" looming in the air - all while ignoring the price of fame breathing down your necks. this is the story of love and the lessons learned from the man you made your religion. and i wouldn't marry me either, a pathological people-pleaser who only wanted you to see her

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒: idol!jungkook/female idol!reader and fictional versions of various idols 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄. idol au, on-and-off relationship, angst, i swear there's fluff, (brief) fake dating and themes of first love, growing up, struggles with fame, and marriage (ish) 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒. portrayal of a toxic couple (implications of emotional abuse and control), both main characters are very flawed, addiction, violence, infidelity, foul language, substance use (illegal drugs), underage drinking, mentions of the covid-19 pandemic, sexually suggestive content 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄. based off of "you're losing me" by taylor swift. this is a fictional portrayal of real-life people that implement some aspects of real-life events. the series is told in non-chronological order. note that the main character is a member of a fictional idol group. more warnings may be added as the story is written. join the taglist here!

extra. playlist. one - "the confrontation" ㅤㅤㅤㅤyou welcome your boyfriend back to the country with a surprise party, just as the clock is ticking to say goodbye again. the big day is almost here and enlistment brings couples either one of two things: a ring or a breakup. two - "first love in a convenience store" ㅤㅤㅤㅤback when you were fifteen year old idol trainees, jeon jungkook shares ricecakes with you and steals your heart. as sixteen year old rookies with everything to lose, he steals your first kiss. in present day, these memories fade away until they are no longer recognizable. three - "teenage dreams" ㅤㅤㅤㅤyoung love blossoms even in the harshest of light, as you and jungkook navigate career milestones together. also known as: the first concert tours, the first time you're put on a variety show together and everyone figures out your relationship, and jungkook's first daesang. four - "hotel azure" ㅤㅤㅤㅤa party at the notorious hotel azure, the hot-spot for the top names of south korea's entertainment industry, goes awry. in front of everyone, your relationship reaches it's breaking point - except, it doesn't. five - "2017" ㅤㅤㅤㅤa year of a death of a thousand cuts because, no matter what comes your way, saying goodbye is never an option.

#jungkook fanfic #jungkook imagine #jungkook x reader #jungkook x oc #jungkook scenario #jungkook drabble #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook x you #jungkook x y/n #bts fanfic #bts imagine #bts scenarios #bts series #jungkook series #kpop fanfic

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starcurtain · 4 months

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Female Guidance in Aventurine's Life

One thing I haven't seen discussed in much depth yet, but which I think is especially interesting, is the consistency of female guidance in Aventurine's life: Every single person who we have seen on screen offering Aventurine assistance or making a positive difference in his life is female (with one exception, yes, I'll get there).

Under the read more cause it's longggg:

Before even diving into his family, let's just get the obvious out of the way: Aventurine is, at least supposedly, blessed by a goddess. The very origin of his good fortune--be it actual blessing or curse--comes from the literal "mother goddess" who watches over him. This is one of the only instances in Star Rail where a god character is specifically given a gender, and Gaiathra is not ever ambiguous. She is the classic female fertility goddess with all the trappings of other famous triple goddess figures of the real world. Aventurine's personal belief in the goddess may be shaky, but he nevertheless continues to treasure his people's faith. Thus, at the core, we can say Aventurine is a character who is guarded by the most quintessential mother figure possible.

Now, with the most obvious out of the way:

We know that Aventurine's father died before Aventurine was even born, and therefore he would not have any memories of his father, leaving him to be raised by his mother and sister.

Both women clearly made an enormous and lasting impression on Aventurine; they haunt every single one of his memories of Sigonia and are the key elements of the family Aventurine longs to return to. While he flirts with the concept of death as a way to see his family members again, it was also his mother and sister who instilled in him any sense of self-worth and meaning to his existence, the only things keeping him from giving up on living. His mother believed him to be blessed; his sister insisted to his face that not even the only remaining remnant of their mother had any value in comparison to his life.

It is for his sister that Aventurine first begins expressing a self-sacrificial nature, and from his sister that this self-sacrifice is reinforced when she uses herself as a shield to help him escape massacre at the hands of the Katicans.

It is also from his sister that Aventurine learns many of the deeply meaningful actions he holds onto to the present day, despite having been so far removed from his own culture.

Conversely, every one of Aventurine's early negative experiences on screen appear to have been driven (at least primarily) by men.

Although the Katican tribe of course would have both men and women, the tribal societies on Sigonia appear to be on the fairly traditional side, with Aventurine's mother staying at the camp with her child while his father was the one to go out and hunt for offerings for Gaiathra. This is also supported by Aventurine asking Jade to take him to her "chief" later on. Therefore, it is likely (although of course not guaranteed) that a majority of the Katicans' army was male, and that Aventurine's early experiences with outsiders consisted almost entirely of indiscriminate pillaging and massacre at the hands of what the Avgin viewed as savage, invading warriors. In separate instances, Aventurine was traumatized by these warrior figures three times--first with the loss of his father, then his mother, and then finally his sister.

And even their hope, supposed to come in the form of the "men in black" from the IPC, completely abandoned them, leaving Aventurine once again betrayed by masculine figures that were supposed to be there to protect him. Led by Oswaldo Schneider, another cruel male authority figure, the Marketing Department of the IPC permitted the wholesale slaughter of Aventurine's people--something which we know Aventurine is now aware of.

Then, of course, the next piece of Aventurine's backstory we're given is his male slave master. I don't really need to say anything about this, do I? This man violated Aventurine's human dignity and bodily autonomy, and forced Aventurine's hand in a life or death battle for which Aventurine still punishes himself mentally, even years in the future.

In part to escape the difficulty of his situation and rise to a position where he would have enough resources to--he thought--help his people, Aventurine joins up with the IPC. But when he attempts to make contact with a powerful man in the organization, Diamond, he is instead met by a woman, Jade, who against Aventurine's own expectations determines that she will raise Aventurine up (or use him as a tool, depending on how you currently choose to interpret Jade's motivations), granting him wealth and status beyond his imagination.

(And this line in particular is interesting, because you can take it one of two ways: 1) Aventurine comes from a patriarchal planet that traditionally put men into positions of power [thereby making his own slavery an emasculating act, aligning him further with disenfranchised women]; thus, he is making the assumption that to get anywhere in this organization, he will need to work with a man; or 2) He actually was counting on Jade taking his bet and helping him right from the beginning, because Aventurine perceives women as inherently more likely to protect and aid him than men would be.)

In the end, Jade does exactly as she claims she will, launching Aventurine into a position of power while also closing golden handcuffs around his wrists. She positions herself not only as his supervisor, but as his advocate and ally. She entrusts him with her Cornerstone, a sign of significant faith in his abilities. She even seems to be keenly aware of his bias towards the mother figure, referring to him as "child" in their conversations.

Whether this is genuine or a manipulation tactic can certainly be debated (and I'm not inclined to think at this point that Jade is a genuinely good role model or selflessly supportive person in Aventurine's life), but whatever the case, women are the only people Aventurine even remotely considers to be "in his corner."

We see this even earlier, in Aventurine's call to Topaz. Like with the example of his mother and sister, Aventurine trusts in Topaz's ability implicitly, and considers her above anyone else when it comes to completing the mission in Penacony.

Although of course we don't know if Aventurine has any other friends or allies among the Strategic Investment Department, it seems very likely that Topaz, yet another woman, is the one he is closest with. At the very least, she is the only IPC character (so far) that Aventurine has a complimentary voice line for, one that shows his respect for her talent:

Over and over again, the story aligns Aventurine with female figures in positions of authority, and demonstrates that he is comfortable (although maybe not too comfortable, in the case of Jade) with relying on them and trusting their judgment, just as he did with his mother and sister.

And this pretty much goes off the charts in Penacony, where Aventurine has more involvement with the female cast than virtually any other non-female character (even the Trailblazer!). We set the pattern off right away, with Aventurine immediately being placed into a negotiation situation with Himeko, respecting her role as the Express's leader and working to get himself aligned with the Express by acquiescing to her request for support.

Then there's the fact that Aventurine is the one who finds Robin's body, an event which, although he didn't let it show too much, was almost certainly traumatic for him, given the violent death of his own sister.

Next, twice in Penacony's story, we see Aventurine seek out Sparkle for information. He may not personally like her and her comments may be both racist and dehumanizing, but Aventurine does rely on her--being the only character explicitly seeking her aid, which no one else in Penacony seems to want.

In 2.0...

And in 2.1.

Now, say it with me, guys: Aventurine built an entire portion of his grand plan around the idea that if he looked pathetic enough, a female character would absolutely come and help him. And sure enough, the women come through for him, always! Sparkle gives him the exact last clue he needs to confirm his belief that he could use "Death" to reach the true Penacony, sealing the deal for the rest of his plan.

His plan which also hinged significantly on Black Swan's involvement too, another woman that he views as, if not trustworthy, then at least intelligent and hyper-competent.

Contrast all this, of course, with the treatment Aventurine receives at the hands of Sunday, the lone opposing male character he faces in Penacony.

Sparkle implies that Sunday would humiliate Aventurine in an unmistakably sexual and degrading way, and Sunday himself professes this same desire to see Aventurine humiliated.

Then we're "treated" to the moment in which Sunday uses the Harmony's (or perhaps actually the Order's?) power against Aventurine, in a scene which is supposed to reflect an interrogation but is also, very clearly, another nonconsensual violation of Aventurine's bodily autonomy and dignity by a man. While ostensibly seeking confirmation of the Cornerstone ruse, Sunday instead subjects Aventurine to unnecessary questions about his past on Sigonia, which recall and force Aventurine to re-endure memories of his trauma.

Even if this is what Aventurine prepared himself for and planned to have happen, the pain he experiences is very real, and he suffers both the physical and emotional consequences of Sunday's assault all the way up to his "Death" and possibly even beyond.

(Also, Sunday fans please don't get too up in arms with me for this; I also like Sunday! It's okay for characters to be morally grey!)

I think there's one other interesting example I would bring up here too, and that's Aventurine's conscious decision to weaponize his own masculinity against the Trailblazer. Through the 2.0 and 2.1 Trailblaze missions, Aventurine deliberately acts in an off-putting manner to the Astral Express crew, particularly the Trailblazer, in order to build up to the 2.1 climax where the Trailblazer is supposed to view him as an unrepentant villain and attack him without hesitation.

In order to achieve this uncomfortable, villainous effect, what does Aventurine do? Exactly what other men have done to him.

This is especially apparent if you're playing Stelle because of the ingrained societal taboo of a man entering a woman's personal space without consent, but even as Caelus, it is very clear that Aventurine is leveraging behaviors typically used to show dominance: In a complete 180 to all Aventurine's other body language in the game (normally quite withdrawn, frequently in defensive postures with his arms crossed or hand behind his back, almost always standing several feet away from other people), Aventurine violates the Trailblazer's personal bubble, looming over them (Caelus was sitting in this cutscene, lol), forcing eye contact, and commanding the space while informing them that they will have no choice.

For someone who was hunted, enslaved, had his movements restricted with chains, and due to his own slight stature has very likely been towered over by others who were intentionally asserting their power over him all his life, it is clear that Aventurine associates dominant, typically more masculine-coded physically-imposing behaviors with discomfort and even villainy.

Any girl who has ever had a man loom over her like this will realize very quickly: Aventurine wanted to make himself scary so he made himself act more like a bad man.

(Yes of course I know "not all men." I'm not saying every man behaves in this domineering way or that women cannot be domineering too, obviously, just that Aventurine had a very specific image in mind when constructing a "villainous persona," and the physically controlling tactics most typically used by aggressive men toward women was his immediate go-to.)

But where does that leave Dr. Ratio, the one male character actually on Aventurine's side?

Frankly, I don't want to derail my post about how intensely Hoyo chose to hammer on the message of "Women will protect you" in Aventurine's story with a discussion about a mlm ship, but the take-away here is going to lead in that direction anyway--so yes, Dr. Ratio is the exception.

What is interesting is that he does not come across as an exception at first, and in fact initially appears as another male character being rude and dismissive to Aventurine. Like, there are still people out there calling Ratio an unrepentant racist for this one.

Of course, it's later clarified that this is an act--likely even these insults were scripted specifically to give Sunday's spying ears the "insight" he needed to exploit Aventurine during the interrogation.

But even though it is an act, Aventurine still has noticeable trouble putting his faith in Ratio. He does genuinely doubt him a few times, despite knowing that they are working together to fool the Family.

Even his voice line about Ratio confirms that he doesn't think Ratio particularly cares for him; rather, he thinks Ratio simply tolerates him because he's slightly less unintelligent than those around them.

Ultimately, the entire act with Ratio ends up being a mirror of the real scenarios Aventurine has been experiencing with men his whole life (at least as far as we are shown his life). Men abandon him to fend for himself (unwillingly, like his father, or willingly, like Diamond leaving Aventurine to deal with Penacony alone on the inside). Ratio keeps leaving Aventurine completely alone. Men attempt to humiliate him and violate his boundaries (like Sunday and his slave master). Ratio insults Aventurine's appearance and intelligence repeatedly. Men betray him (like Oswaldo Schneider and his men leaving the Avgin to die). Ratio "betrays" him.

I'm not saying when Aventurine devised the plan for their act, he consciously drew up a list of all the ways men had hurt him in the past and had Ratio re-enact them one by one, but like... that's what happened, whether or not Aventurine intended it.

And okay, the shrinking scene in Dewlight Pavilion was just for fun and probably only slightly fetishy, the devs promise; yes, it was supposed to be a joke! ...But it's also not a mistake that this is yet another instance of a male character in a glaringly metaphorical position of power over Aventurine. Aventurine's tiny in this scene! He's completely vulnerable! He's in a dangerous position and the male character could very much hurt him in this moment.

But Ratio doesn't. (In fact, his line here is supposed to be sarcastic, very ha ha--but also, what is Ratio really saying? "I won't do anything to you without your express consent." What a good guy.)

Virtually everything negative that we see in 2.1 is Ratio doing these things as an act at Aventurine's own request. He doesn't actually disdain Aventurine; his own voiceline about Aventurine reinforces that he sees Aventurine as talented and intelligent.

Whatever you think he was apologizing for in their early scene, he's the only person we're ever shown in-game apologizing to Aventurine at all.

He worked hard to "betray" Aventurine but only as he was instructed to do, and immediately checks in on Aventurine's well-being afterward, even urging him to give up the plan if it becomes too much to handle.

And then, of course, there's the note: "Do stay alive. I wish you the best of luck."

After this point, it cannot be denied that Ratio is unequivocally on Aventurine's side, wants to help him, and is not doing so out of any sense of self-gain but largely because he is a good person who simply cares about Aventurine's fate. By the end of 2.1, it can no longer be doubted that Ratio is the exception to the "gender rule" of Aventurine's life, which--the story shows us again and again--was that guidance, protection, and care for Aventurine come from women, while men repeatedly represent dismissal, betrayal, or pain.

Ratio is, at least as far as Aventurine's story shows us, the proof that men can be good, that things are not as black and white in Aventurine's life as they might appear, and that--if you do choose to ship him with or see Aventurine as attracted to men--his attraction could be validated (and potentially reciprocated) by a male figure who would not bring additional harm to Aventurine's life. Aventurine makes the final decision to live after seeing Ratio's note--the exception to the rule ultimately proves to be the last piece needed to keep him alive.

But I promised I wasn't going to derail my own post about w o m e n, so let me get to the final point, and the one I really wanted to talk about: Although Ratio gets virtually all the credit for "saving" Aventurine in the fandom, Aventurine was actually saved by, you guessed it, another woman.

Not going to lie, the reason I started this post was specifically because I wanted to talk about how Acheron and Aventurine's dynamic was completely unexpected but actually fits flawlessly with the theme of feminine guidance in Aventurine's story.

Despite the fact that Aventurine made Acheron's life much harder and actively used her as a chip in his grand gamble, she doesn't blame or chastise him for those actions. Although she expresses some incredulity that Aventurine is actually that lucky, she then turns around and congratulations him for his ingenuity, immediately supporting him despite the fact that they don't even truly know each other.

Then it gets even more interesting. Acheron, who frequently hits her companions with deep and sometimes very emotionally fraught questions, asks Aventurine: "Have you never wavered?"

We as players know for a fact that Aventurine is constantly wavering, constantly doubting himself, his luck, and whether he'll even live--or even wants to live--to see tomorrow. But we also know that Aventurine is not forthcoming about those truths, refusing to express them to anyone, even himself. The only way we hear those dark truths is through his "future" self (who by the way, is once again another male figure cutting Aventurine down--of course it's himself but it's also, from the player's perspective, once again reinforcing the message that he isn't going to find safety or kindness in an adult male presence). Aventurine almost constantly deflects and diverts when his emotions or struggles are brought to the fore (unless he's divulging them for the specific purpose of allowing someone else to weaponize them). "I'm fine," he says, like a lying liar who lies.

But he doesn't lie to Acheron.

He chooses to be completely candid with her, to lance open the deepest wound of his life--that he can win and win and win and still have lost everything. The glitz and the glamour has all been stripped away here, at the end of everything, and Aventurine finally feels safe enough to admit that he fears he has absolutely nothing in his life worth living for.

And then, we get this direct parallel: Aventurine looks to Acheron, the woman now before him, for guidance, for explanation, exactly as he looked to his sister in the past.

He needs help, he needs answers, and he is continually seeking that help from the female figures in his life, whose support and kindness echo the lost care of his mother and sister.

"Go where you should be," Acheron tells Aventurine, guiding him across the river of death just as his sister insisted that he flee through the rain toward life.

Look guys, Acheron's even the one who reminds Aventurine to look at Ratio's note in the first place because apparently being an emanator of Nihility gives you x-ray vision, but my girl just gets no credit at all for being Aventurine's real savior, come on now!! Yes, Ratio's note was the final reminder Aventurine needed that someone would be waiting for him on the other side, but Aventurine would never have even gotten to the point of being willing to read that note if Acheron hadn't stepped in and provided him an answer to his question.

She feeds him back his own answer: "Why does life slumber? To rehearse the death for which we are not currently prepared." It is Acheron who reminds Aventurine that giving into the Nihility is pointless, and that rather than simply embracing a meaningless death, it is up to humanity itself to find and make meaning by living. It's this, not Ratio's note, that Aventurine gives as his reason for choosing to go on when asked by his own younger self. It's Acheron's words that finally give Aventurine an answer--why do we live just to die? Because there are people we can still make proud. Because when we go into death, we should do so with our heads held high, having achieved our own sense of purpose in this life.

Ratio gave Aventurine a promise: Someone is waiting for you to come back.

But Acheron gave Aventurine a reason: If life is inherently meaningless, doesn't that just mean you are free to give it meaning yourself?

She saved him, as women have been saving him all his life.

Anyway, this has already been horrendously long, but really what I wanted to say is that I think it is absolutely fascinating how consistent Aventurine's writing is when it comes to portraying where his support comes from and who he seeks guidance from. (Psst, just in case you still haven't figured it out, it's women!) In virtually every instance we are shown, we see the message reinforced that women are Aventurine's greatest allies and role models, while male figures are continually positioned to intentionally or unintentionally let him down and cause him distress.

"But women playing the supporting role to a male character is nothing new, Star, why are you so excited by this?"

Because the role women are playing in Aventurine's life is not the subservient supporter and emotional crutch role that female characters all too often play to male counterparts. None of the women in Penacony or Aventurine's past were there to do the emotional labor for him, to be a trophy or prize, or to cater to his needs. They don't exist solely to help him fulfill his character motivations; they aren't following him around waiting for his next request as their only role in the plot.

Instead, with Aventurine's story, we almost have an inversion of gender roles, where the male character eschews the stereotypical "men are leaders, fighters, and stoic heroes" archetype. Instead, no matter how hard he tries to hide it and keep a stiff upper lip, it is clear from 2.0-2.1's story that Aventurine is a deeply insecure, lonely, and explicitly traumatized survivor of genocide, slavery, and exploitation. Unlike most male characters, who are very rarely portrayed as genuine victims--because come on, shouldn't men be strong enough to fight back? Shouldn't men be able to shrug it off when they are hurt, emotionally or physically? (Of course I'm rolling my eyes here!)--Aventurine is belittled, humiliated, emasculated, and victimized on-screen, roles almost exclusively reserved for women, for whom surviving victimization in fiction is seen as noble.

Meanwhile, the women in Aventurine's life take on the roles traditionally given to male characters. They're both emotionally and physically his protectors. Aventurine's sister gave her life to guard his safety; Acheron ensured he could safely pass beyond the river of Nihility into the Primordial Dreamscape. They give him the tools necessary to succeed where he could not succeed on his own. His plan could never have gotten off the ground without Topaz and Jade entrusting their Cornerstones to him. The knowledge and capabilities of the women around him--not their "feminine charms"--are what allow them to help keep Aventurine on the right path even though he does waver. Even women who disrespect him, like Sparkle, still play a positive role in his life, able to provide him insight gained with their own intellect and talents.

When he has no one to rely on and doesn't know what to do, Aventurine is able to continually turn to the women around him, asking for and receiving not servitude or fawning, but their genuine wisdom and guidance.

tl;dr: If nobody else has him, Aventurine knows this random woman he met two minutes ago on the street will have him, because the women in his life literally never let him down.

(It's just so, so good, and ultimately, it should be very clear why Aventurine's story is as popular with women as it is! A+, Hoyo!)

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samcarter34 · 4 months

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Since people seem to once again be having trouble remembering the order of operations, let me just remind everyone:

The ability Laudna possesses to feed Delilah is Hunger of the Shadow. In the fight with Bor’dor, Laudna used that BEFORE Orym’s head nod. Bor’dor attacked them and her response was to do the thing she knew would give power to Delilah. Matt even makes the sound of Delilah’s heartbeat.

The spell she used after the head nod? Whither and Bloom. The same spell she later attacked Orym with, which isn’t even a warlock spell.

And speaking of the head nod, you want to know what’s it’s prefaced with? ‘Laudna you can do whatever you want.’ And Marisha responds by saying that Laudna is ‘barely present’ because she’s having ptsd flashbacks to all of the times something horrible happened to her and she couldn’t do anything about it. So she kills Bor’dor because it makes her feel in control of the situation.

And yeah, the 4SD where Liam says Orym thought Delilah might come back. Except y’all somehow took that and made it seem like he’s the one who shoved Laudna over the edge when what actually happened is that Laudna flung herself off it because betrayal is triggering to her.

And the sword. The sword which apparently wasn’t triggering enough that Imogen contemplating whether the Vanguard were good guys didn’t cause any reaction. Or for that matter, make her object to Ashton’s ‘this is permission statement.’ But she saw Orym wearing it, got uncomfortable and then all it took was one sentence from Delilah for her to decide to steal it. Delilah, who mutilated her, murdered her, has been possessing her for decades, and who basically held her soul hostage when BH wanted VM to resurrect Laudna. But what Delilah didn’t do? Tell Laudna to steal the sword.

I wasn’t around for campaign 1, but in campaign 2 I definitely noticed a trend that people who were all ‘I love women! Female characters rock!’ would, the second one of their alleged faves did something controversial (or just something they didn’t like) would find a way to shift the onus onto someone else so she could remain blameless. And that is definitely continuing this campaign, and if anything is getting worse (which, not to get into speculation, but I wonder if it’s because all of the female characters this go round are more traditionally feminine than last campaign.)

I think the reason Orym’s been getting raked across the coals so hard by certain parts of the fandom is actually because of this. Because Imogen’s repeatedly gone ‘what if the Vanguard have a point’ and Laudna agrees with everything she says, whereas Orym’s been pretty consistently ‘no, the murder cult that murdered my family are bad guys.’ And well, can’t go around admitting that our faves did something wrong.’

And so we have a situation where Laudna attacks Orym, but somehow that’s Orym’s fault because the possibility of Laudna doing something wrong ruins people’s lesbian cottegecore fantasy. But the thing is, that whole thing was all Laudna. She chose to listen to her first murderer when Delilah said ‘maybe it’s cursed’ and then she chose to blanket the room in magical darkness (sorcerer ability, not warlock) chose to cast an area of effect spell to destroy the thing Orym was using to sheath the sword (sorcerer spell, not warlock) and, upon hurting Orym, chose not to drop said darkness, which meant Orym couldn’t see who attacked him. And when she got caught, she tried to downplay what she did, tried to say that because she didn’t mean to hurt him it didn’t count, refused to apologize for actually hurting him, kept shifting her argument (and even low key got called out on it by Imogen when she asked Laudna why she’s want its power inside her if she thinks it’s so evil.)

There is an alternate universe where Laudna wakes Orym up and they have what probably would have been an intense discussion about the sword (and that might even have been what Marisha was aiming for before Delilah got involved) and THAT truly would have been the ‘both sides are equally right’ scenario, but that’s not what we got. And you can say Orym shouldn’t have taken the sword unilaterally (but somehow Laudna’s allowed to unilaterally steal and absorb it?) or that she’s being manipulated by Delilah, but the fact is that Laudna’s an adult and is responsible for her own decisions. Yes, Delilah is a powerful and malign presence that they all downplayed/ignored, but, to use Marisha’s addiction metaphor, making amends with those you’ve harmed is a part of recovery for a reason. Because ultimately, you are the one who did that. Yes, it does immensely suck for Laudna that she’s been handed the cards she has been, but it’s up to her to make the best play she can.

Wow this got long, but my overall point is that Laudna is a character with her own agency and makes her own decisions (well, Marisha makes them, but at this point y’all should know she’s not conflict averse and is willing to have her characters make controversial character choices). And really, take all that away, what’s left? How much onus can you take from a character before you might as well go look at a painting?

#critical role #cr spoilers #long post #Like this is a Marisha character and a warlock. Do you think she’s going to sit there and be pretty #some of you would hate Fig Faeth’s ‘Complicated Women’ podcast #also this is the part where I say that the cast can say whatever they want on 4SD. If it contradicts the actual show I ignore it #anyway very curious to see what happens when they get to Aeor #Imagine what happens if Delilah tried to get her to eat the beacon

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linkspooky · 2 months

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TOGACHAKO VS. FUFFY: How To Save Your Evil Girlfriend

So, once again My Hero Academia has failed to deliver on its promise of saving / redeeming one of the main villains of its story, and victims of its ficitonal society. This time I'm going to make the added argument that not only does failing to save Toga make the story worse, it also makes Uraraka's character almost completely hollow. While you can dismiss Deku's lack of character development as him being a shonen protagonist, both Uraraka and Shoto had arcs and Ochako's is effectively ruined by her failure to save Toga.

In order to make my point I am going to compare it to a villain redemption arc in another piece of media that does it right, Faith's character, and her strained relationship with Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A series which is overall anti-state punishment and pro-redemption and delivers on practically all the themes MHA promised us.

MORE UNDER THE CUT:

THE GOOD GIRL and THE BAD GIRL

There is a reoccurring dynamic between two female characters in media, usually between a heroine and a female villainness that I like to call: The Good Girl vs. Bad Girl complex.

However, if you were a Freudian you'd be calling this a Madonna Whore Complex.

To explain the Madonna Whore Complex, one of the biggest examples in other Media is Aronofsky's Black Swan. The entire movie is themed around the Madonna Whore complex, and the impossible double standards the male perception imposes upon women.

"The white swan and the black swan are not merely characters, and not merely characters that are relevant to Nina. The black swan and the white swan are archetypes of women. They are emblematic of the Madonna and the Whore [...] . The white swan is the Madonna, she is pure, innocent, the ingenue. The black swan is the whore, she is cunning and deviant. The seductress. Nina and her ballet counterpart Odette are characterized as perfect ingénues. Ingénues are young, innocent girls who possess qualities of youth, innocence, kindness, naivete and purity. She is the fawn eyed damsel in distress and in literary films she's often the heroine or protagonist. On the other side of the coin from the ingenue, we have the seductress, embodied by Lily and her ballet counterpart Odelle. The seductress is characterized by her promiscuity, cunning nature and sex appeal. She is the alluring femme fatalle, willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. She's most often framed as the village. These draw parallels to Freud's psychoanalytical theory, a theory that suggests in the minds of some men they struggle to fully see women as fully realized and rather view them in archetypal categories." [SOURCE]

Black Swan is also a movie where Natalie Portman attempting to live up to the impossible expectations society has placed on her to be both the White Swan and the Black Swan goes insane, and quite possibly dies at the end of the movie.

Considering that Toga's entire story is that she is a shapeshifter who went mad because she could not fit both her parent's and society's expectations of being a "normal girl" then you can see why the Madonna Whore Complex is relevant, with the oversexualized, vampish, femme fatalle Toga quite obviously playing the part of the whore.

Before you call me a fraud for citing freud though, let me prove my point that the Madonna Whore Complex is quite literally everywhere in media.

I could literally keep going if this post didn't have an image limit: Jean Grey and Emma Frost, Jean Grey and Madelyne Pryor, Starfire and Blackfire, Raven and Terra, The Two Sisters from Ginger Snaps, t's literally everywhere all the way back to Lilith and Eve.

More intelligent takes on this trope play with the concept of the Madonna Whore Complex (MWC) to either present the archetypes as two fully rounded people (Catra and Adora) or demonstrate that it's impossible for women to fit into these two dinstinct categories (Natalie Portman in Black Swan).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a work that challenges the MWC, by allowing both its good girl, and bad girl to be fully realized characters. My Hero Academia plays the MWC straight to a sexist extent by not allowing Uraraka and Toga to escape their categorization of Good Girl and Bad Girl, and also going out of its way to punish and kill the seductress for her sexuality like this is a slasher horror movie. Actually, it's worse than a horror movie because at least Jennifer's Body plays with the MWC in a clever way.

It's not just bad writing anymore Hori's writing has crossed over into actively murdering female characters to enforce puritan values, but let's not get into that just yet we'll talk about the writing portion instead.

I'm going to outline what BTVS accomplishes, demonstrate how it does this below, and then go on at length picking apart how MHA fails.

BTVS:

Shows Buffy and Faith as fully realized people

Shows the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Breaks down those two categories

Redeems it's bad girl

With that out of the way let's get the ball rolling.

HOW TO (NOT) SAVE YOUR EVIL GIRLFRIEND

This is the part where everyone in the audience is going to gasp. Even though I'm using Buffy and Faith as a positive example of deconstructing the MWC and redeeming a villain, Buffy does not save Faith. The two of them reconcile in the end, but Faith is not redeemed or saved by Buffy, and in fact Buffy is in part responsible for Faith's fall.

So, why would I say Buffy and Faith are a better example of villain redemption then Uraraka who at least did everything she could to offer a helping hand to Toga?

Because Buffy not saving Faith is THE POINT and Faith receiving redemption even though Buffy gave up on her is also THE POINT. Lemme explain, by starting at the beginning.

BTVS is a story that exists to flip both horror tropes, and the idea of the chosen hero on its head. The concept started out with Joss Whedon noticing that the Cheerleader is always the first victim in any given horror movie, and wondering what it would look like if the Cheerleader could fight back. If the Cheerleader was the thing that monsters ran away from.

Which leads us to Buffy Summers. Buffy is chosen by the universe to slay vampires, she is hero with super strength that can easily take on legions of vampires and often has to fight even tougher villains for each season's conflict. Buffy carries all the classic features of both the ingenue and the chosen one protagonist rolled up into one:. Ingénues are young, innocent girls who possess qualities of youth, innocence, kindness, naivete and purity.

However, after dying in the first season, and having to kill her boyfriend in the second season after he turned evil and inflicted a lot of psychosexual abuse on her Buffy has also got a whole lot of trauma. Which is when Faith appears on the scene. One of the first ways that the show challenges the idea of the "Chosen One" is that there are actually two Chosen Ones, Faith being the other Slayer.

Buffy much like Deku has a case of protagonism brain rot, but in her case she was actually chosen by the mystic powers that be to be the protagonist of reality. Buffy, who views herself as the hero of the story as a coping mechanism (we'll get back to this later) is suddenly challenged when the fates chose yet another chosen hero, challenging her pre-conceived notion that she is the hero of the story. If Buffy is not the only hero then who is she? What is all the suffering she's endured so far if it's not a part of her own personal hero's journey?

Buffy begins to dislike Faith on sight for projection reasons, before Faith does anything wrong. In a way Buffy herself the female lead is enforcing society's standards of the MWC because all the reasons Buffy decides to disturst and dislike Faith on sight are because she exhibits qualities of the seductress.

Faith is openly promiscuous, often comparing the art of killing vampires to sex, she is also someone who is proud of her power as a a slayer and uses it for her own purposes. She is a slayer for selfish reasons (apparently) while Buffy is the selfless hero. In the first episode Faith appears in, Faith, Hope and Trick Buffy is almost immediately hostile to Faith who has so far done nothing wrong for, trying to get along with Buffy's friends, getting a little bit too into vampire slaying and openly relishing her strength, and like occasionally making lood comments.

FAITH: Don't… touch… me…! BUFFY - yanks Faith off the unconscious vamp with one hand, stakes the vamp withher other. Then she turns to Faith who is breathing hard, high on adrenaline, rubbing her fists. BUFFY: What is wrong with you? FAITH: What are you talking about? BUFFY: I'm talking about you living large on the great undead here. FAITH: Gee, if doing violence to vampires upsets you, I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong line a work… BUFFY: Or maybe you like it just a little too much. FAITH: I was getting the job done. BUFFY: The job is to slay demons. Not mash them into sloppy joes while their

Buffy then escalates to like ableist slurs towards Faith within half an episode for getting slightly violent in a fight against vampires that were trying to kill her.

GILES: Well, Buffy, you have to realize you and Faith have very different temperaments… BUFFY: I know, mine would be the sane one. Giles, she's not playing with a full deck. She has almost no deck. She has a three. GILES: You said yourself she killed one of them, she's a plucky fighter who got a little carried away. Which isnatural, she's focussed on Slaying,she doesn't have a whole other lifehere like you --

The twist this episode is that no matter how much Faith tries to present herself as a free-spirit, she's actually a scared homeless girl who just happened to become the Slayer. Unlike Buffy she does not have a watcher, a mother, or friends to support her. She lives in the cheapest motel in sunnydale. The reason she's so violent against vampires is because she is understandably having a trauma flashback because her mentor was murdered right in front of her by a different vamp.

This is repeating pattern throughout the whole season, Faith is shown to be a victim of trauma, and occasionally acts in ways that are understandable for a victim like her to ask, only for Buffy to start mischaracterizing her as someone violent and insane and throwing the slurs.

You can compare both Faith and Toga as characters who are complex victims of trauma who society turns their back on and become bad victims, but Faith is a special case because we actively see her turn to the dark side. Faith starts out trying to be a hero like the rest and she practically does nothing wrong for half a season, and when she does finally make a mistake and become a bad victim it's the hero's desire to punish her and castigate her that turns her into a villain.

We actively see Faith's fall happen onscreen, and it's like totally Buffy's fault. Buffy throws her completely under the bus, because she's so desperate to see Faith as the Bad Slayer and Buffy as the Good Slayer. Faith is almost pushed into evil because of the MWC, the characters around her can't see her as a fully fleshed out human being so they are quick to demonize her when she starts acting like a bad victim.

So the two episodes appropriately named: Bad Girls and Consequences depict Faith's fall. In that episode Faith and Buffy are fighting vampires, and one human is mixed among the vampires. The human grabs Faith by the shoulder, and Faith thinking that the human is a vampire turns him around and stakes him.

It's a complete accident, something that Giles even says later on is an accident that can happen to any Slayer on the job and is completely normal. It's a murder that Buffy herself could have committed.

GILES: This is not the first time something like this has happened. BUFFY: It's not? GILES: A slayer is on the front lines of a nightly war, Buffy. It's tragic - but accidents have happened. BUFFY: What do you do? GILES: The council investigates, meters out punishment if punishment is due… I've no plan to involve them,however. That's the last thing Faith needs right now. She's unstable, Buffy. She seems utterly unable to accept responsibility. Shows no remorse.

However, even in the same breath Giles explains that it's an accident and not Faith's fault, he's also calling Faith unstable and irresponsible. Basically when they're not calling her a psycho (just hitting her with the ableist slurs), the protagonists all lowkey imply that Faith is somehow inherently violent and unstable because she displays symptoms of a bad victim.

I might also remind you Faith has not done anything to earn any of these accusations, until she kills someone in a complete accident. A complete accident that Giles once again said wasn't her fault and wasn't really a big deal.

FAITH: My dead mother hits harder than that.

Faith is stated to be a victim of physical abuse, heavily implied to be a victim of sexual abuse, and is homeless (none of the main characters offer to let her stay in her house she spends half a season in a terrible motel). However, Faith is quickly demonized by the white wealthy main characters for acting in ways that are completely typical for a homeless teenager.

The moment she commits one mistake they all turn on her and use that mistake as proof of these violent tendencies they all want to accuse her of having. Faith can never be the ingenue so she must be the seductress, because she can't just be a person.

Buffy: So, I, uh... (sees Faith scrubbing) How are ya doin'? Faith: (still scrubbing) I'm alright. You know me. Buffy: Faith, we need to talk about what we're gonna do. Faith: (looks at Buffy) There's nothing to talk about. I was doing my job. Buffy: Being a Slayer is not the same as being a k*ller. Faith has nothing to say. She's finished scrubbing. Buffy: Faith, please don't shut me out here. Look, sooner or later, we're both gonna have to deal.

It is essentially two episodes of this, Faith after killing someone on accident in a life or death fight is constantly called a murderer by others. She wasn't even like, drunk, or high, or being especially reckless she was being a normal slayer.

FAITH: So the mayor of Sunnydale is a black hat. Shocker, huh? BUFFY: Actually - yeah. I didn't get the bad guy vibe off him. Faith shakes her head. Scoffs. FAITH: When you gonna learn, B? It doesn't matter what kind of "vibe" a person gives off. Nine times outta ten he face they're showing you? It isn't the real one. BUFFY: I guess you know a lot about that. FAITH: What's that supposed to mean? BUFFY: Look at you, Faith. Less than twenty four hours ago you killed a guy. And now you're laughing and scratching and zipidee doo dah. That's not your real face, and I know it. I know what you're feeling because I feel it too. FAITH: Do you? So, fill me in. I'd like to hear this. BUFFY: Dirty. Like something sick creeped inside you and you can't get it out. And you keep hoping what happened wasjust some nightmare…

Faith is dirty, faith is disgusting, faith is unstable, Faith is sick for... killing a guy on accident in a way that Giles said was a perfectly understandable accident, and not showing clear guilt because the moment she did it everyone around her jumped on her and started accusing her of being a murderer.

Why do the selfless main characters suddenly start demonizing this girl before she even did anything wrong - well it's because she's poor problem solved.

No, but it does play a factor. Why do most american white middle class look down on the homeless? Because, they must have done something to deserve it, right? If Faith killed a man, that clearly is an indication that she was violent all along and the heroes don't have to sympathize with the fact she's homeless or you know lift a finger to help her.

Now, this makes it sound like I hate Buffy, but Buffy is actually my favorite character in the whole show. The thing is Buffy's complete lack of sympathy for Faith makes her a better character. Buffy needs to demonize Faith and throw her under the bus, because Buffy is a victim of sexual abuse too. Her boyfriend turned evil after having sex with her once, and spent an entire season stalking her and terrorizing her the entire season 2 Buffy / Angel plotline is a thinly veiled groomer metaphor.

The thing about Buffy is she's not allowed to show any kind of reaction to her trauma. The episodes preceeding Faith, Hope and Trick are Anne, an episode where Buffy runs away from home after being sexually abused (stalking is sexual abuse) by Angel for a whole season and feeling like no one would understand her, and Dead Man's Party, an episode where every single one of Buffy's loved ones ruthlessly criticize her for having run away. Like, how dare a teenager not react perfectly to being horribly stalked by a serial killer after she had sex with him for like half a year.

JOYCE: Buffy! You didn't give me any time. You just dumped this… this thing on me and expected me to get it. Well -guess what? Mom's not perfect. I handled it badly. But that doesn'tgive you the right to punish me byrunning away. BUFFY: Punish you? I didn't do this to punish you XANDER: Well you did. You should have seen what it did to her. BUFFY: Great. Would anybody else care to weigh in? What about you? By the dip. XANDER: Maybe you don't want to hear it, Buffy. But taking off like that was selfishand stupid. Buffy's breaking down. It's all too much. BUFFY: Okay - I screwed up! I know it - alright!? But you have no idea. You have no idea what happened to me or what I was feeling

The reason Buffy is so hard on Faith is because everyone else is equally hard on her. The label of the ingenue is so difficult for Buffy to maintain, because she has to be pure, and without any flaws, especially when reacting to trauma that she throws Faith under the bus for her bad victim behaviors.

The white middle class demonize the homeless because they don't want to face the reality it can happen to them, Buffy doesn't want to reflect on all the things her and Faith have in common because she could very easily become Faith. Buffy is the victim of extremely similiar trauma to Faith, and being pressured to be the perfect victim of that trauma in a way that's destroying her mentally slowly.

FAITH: It was good, wasn't it? The sex? The danger? Bet a part of you even dug him when he went psycho BUFFY: No FAITH: See - you need me to tow the line because you're afraid you'll go over it, aren't you, B? You can't handle watching me living my own way and having a blast - because it tempts you. You know it could be you... ( Something snaps in Buffy. She rears back and POPS Faith a good one. Faith falls back, but she's smiling as she puts a hand to her bleeding mouth. ) FAITH: There's my girl…

Buffy is suffering under the expectations of the MWC too, but in her desperation to make Faith out to be the seductress instead of... like... a csa victim... Buffy is reinforcing those standards on both herself and another woman.

The entirety of Bad Girls and Conesequences is Faith being called a murderer by several people, having another trauma flashback to a sexual assault because Xander came to her motel room under the guise of "helping her", getting hit over the head and chained to a wall, then getting the swat team called on her and almost dragged to London for trial. Then the heroes do nothing to help her. The first thing Faith does is go to the main villain, who buys her an apartment AND A PLAYSTATION. So... the evil main Villain of the show helped Faith with her homelessness situation while none of the main characters lifted a finger.

it sounds like it sucks but it doesn't because it's all intentional. Buffy cannot process her own sexual trauma so she is just awful to people who are also domestic abuse victims. here's one of my favorite scenes, Buffy yells at a girl being beaten by her boyfriend with a visible black eye.

Buffy: Where can we find him? Debbie: I-I don't know. Buffy: You're lying. Debbie: What if I am? What are you gonna do about it? Willow: Wrong question. Buffy takes her by the arm again and pushes her up against the sink in front of the mirror. Buffy: Look at yourself. Why are you protecting him? Anybody who really loved you couldn't do this to you. She takes a few steps away. Debbie turns around to face them. Debbie: Would they take him someplace? Buffy: Probably. Debbie: (shakes her head, sobbing) I could never do that to him.(Willow sighs) I'm his everything. Buffy: (disgusted) Great. So what, you two live out your Grimm fairy tale? Two people are dead.

That poor girl gets her neck snapped like five minutes later and Buffy just kinda, moves on even though it would have been an easily preventable death.

Buffy getting mad at an abuse victim for showing textbook behaviors of abuse victims in bad relationships. Buffy is a good character because she is a hero, she can be empathic, but she really only understands heroism in term of defeating the bad guys, and when called to relate to people with complex trauma, especially trauma that reflects her own trauma she can't! She just can't process it! The expectations of being the ingenue, the perfect hero are so crushing she can't cope with a messy reality so she needs to have a black and white view of herself and other people.

Buffy needs to be firmly in the good category, and Faith needs to be firmly in the bad category in order for Buffy's brain to keep working.

Not only does Buffy's conflict with Faith characterize how much Faith suffers for being a bad victim, it shows how the pressure to be a good victim destroys Buffy mentally to the point where she starts using Faith as a punching bag.

Literallly.

It's all intentional too, Buffy gets called out on it, Faith always gets the last word and the final episode of the season makes out Buffy to be a hypocrite. After Buffy literally threw Faith under the bus, called her disgusting for murdering a man, Buffy is completely willing to murder Faith to get a cure for her vampire boyfriend who's been poisoned.

All human life is sacred and needs to be protected, but Fuck Faith I guess.

Faith: I could say the same about you. I mean, you're still the same better-than-thou Buffy. I mean, I knew it somehow. I kept having this dream, I'm not sure what it means, but in the dream the self-righteous blond chick stabs me, and you wanna know why? Buffy: You had it coming. Faith: That's one interpretation, but in my dream, she does it for a guy. Faith: I wake up to find the blond chick isn't even dating the guy she was so nuts about before. I mean, she's moved on to the first college beefstick she meets. Not only has she forgotten about the love of her life, but she's forgotten about the chick she nearly k*lled for him. So that's my dream. That and some stuff about cigars and a tunnel. But tell me, college girl, what does it mean? Buffy: To me? Mostly, that you still mouth off about things you don't understand. (Sirens) Uh-oh. I guess somebody knows you're here.

So the show goes to great length to show you that there are two sides to this conflict, Buffy demonizes Faith, because her friends expect her to be the perfect hero. Faith reacts badly to trauma because she has no support system, and the people around her have no empathy for her because they're too privileged to imagine the things in Faith's life ever happening to her.

Buffy and Faith are fully realized people.

Buffy and Faith are presented to the audience as the ingenue and the seductress but they're both fully realized characters. Buffy's not the ingenue because she's just as capable of murder as Faith is. Faith isn't the seductress because she's a homeless teenager. They are both victims of sexual trauma, though one reacts in what people consider an "acceptable way" and the other is a total slut about it.

Shows the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Buffy throws Faith under the bus specifically because the pressure in her life to be the perfect slayer is so immense that it could be her that takes the fall so she needs to believe in black and white concepts like she is inherently good and Faith is inherently bad to justify the bad things that happen to Faith and therefore convince herself said bad things could never happen to her. "You can't handle watching me living my own way and having a blast - because it tempts you. You know it could be you..."

Faith: Angel said there was no way you were gonna give me a chance. Buffy: I gave you every chance! I tried so hard to help you, and you spat on me. My life was just something for you to play with. Angel - Riley - anything that you could take from me - you took. I've lost battles before - but nobody else has -ever- made me a victim. Faith: And you can't stand that. You're all about control. You have no idea what it's like on the other side! Where nothing's in control, nothing makes sense! There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything. You can't even.. Buffy: Shut up!"

Buffy needs to fit her and Faith into neat little boxes because she cannot face the inherent senselessness of the world (and also that she is a victim too "you made me a victim")

Breaks down those two categories

Even in Seasons where Faith is not present she haunts the narrative, because the writers were well aware that Buffy and Faith are the same person under different circumstances.

All of Season 6 Buffy is faced with many of the same situations that Faith was, she suddenly becomes poor and in danger of losing her house, she has extreme depression from coming back from the dead (long story) she can't share those feelings with any of her friends because they treated her much like they did Faith - having no sympathy for imperfect victims. Buffy even gets into an unhealthy, sexual relationship, and like Natalie Portman basically changes from the ingenue into the seductress.

A relationship she has to keep a secret because once again, Buffy must fit into the box of the ingenue in order to be loved by her friends. This leads to her committing several bad behaviors, and at times borderline emotional abuse towards her sister (and debatably her boyfriend) and all comes to a head when Buffy is faced with the exact same situation as Faith.

Buffy in Season 6 believes she has killed a person accidentally while being the Slayer. It's a repeat of Bad Girls with several paralels, including someone trying to hide the body only for it to turn up later, and Buffy insisting she has to turn herself into the police and face jailtime.

However, in this version Buffy unlike Faith has friends who try to stop her from turning herself in and explain to her the murder wasn't her fault - and Buffy still reacts the same way Faith does. She basically borderline quotes Faith.

Faith: Shut up! Do you think I'm afraid of you? [Faith grabs Buffy and throws her down, then sits on top of her and starts punching her.] Faith: You're nothing. [Punch. Punch.] Faith: Disgusting. [Punch. Punch.] [Faith grabs Buffy's hair with both hand and bangs her head.] Faith: Murderous bitch. [Bang. Bang...] You're nothing. [Bang. Bang...] Faith: [Switches back to punches] You're [Faith is now crying.] disgusting.

This is an earlier scene which plays out as an exact parallel to this scene:

BUFFY: You can't understand why this is killing me, can you? SPIKE: Why don't you explain it? She hits him a few more times. He takes it, not fighting back. SPIKE: Come on, that's it, put it on me. Put it all on me. (She kicks him) That's my girl. BUFFY: (yelling) I am not your girl! She hits him hard. He falls back onto his butt. Buffy gets on top of him and begins hitting him over and over. BUFFY: You don't ... have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real! I could never ... be your girl! She continues hitting him throughout this. Now Spike goes back to human face. He's looking very bruised and bloody, but he doesn't fight back, just takes it. Buffy hits him again and again, looking angry and desperate. Finally she stops and looks at him in horror.

So if Buffy can react the exact same way that Faith does, when faced with the same trauma there is no good girl or bad girl, there's only two people who are complicated human beings.

The story *gasp* lets the hero be a bad girl.

Redeems it's bad girl

Faith's redemption is a shocking contrast to MHA the plot of BTVS does not allow Faith to commit suicide in order to redeem herself. In fact, her entire arc is an argument against the "put her down like a mad dog" trope. Starting with the fact that the heroes who are partly responsible for Faith's fall in the first place, are all too willing to just let the homeless teenager fall by the wayside, and then put her down for her own sake.

As I stated above, the inherent hypocrisy Buffy shows in her calling Faith a murderer and irredeemable for killing someone on accident because all human life is sacred to her, and then going on to try to murder Faith at the end of the season already shows the "put her down like a mad dog" argument doesn't work. Faith isn't too far gone, it's just Buffy who sees her that way. And because Buffy has given up on Faith she's failing at being a hero.

As I said above, Buffy is not the one to rescue Faith. In fact, in the episodes where Faith's redemption arc starts, Buffy is the one trying to hunt her down and enforce punishment on her. The episodes "5x5" and "Sanctuary" are both focused on Buffy going to LA to hunt down and interfere when Angel is trying to help Faith get back on her feet. The two episdodes basically explore the concept of redemption vs. punishment and how punishment saves no one.

5x5 depicts Faith's spiral as she runs away to LA to escape Buffy who is hunting her down, and accepts a job to assassinate Angel, which if she succeeds will get her rich and also get the cops off of her trail. We're led the whole episode to believe Faith has learned nothing until the confrontation with Angel at the very end, which you should really watch because it's great television.

Faith: You hear me? - You don't know what evil is! - I'm bad! - Fight back! Faith keeps whaling on Angel, sometimes he ducks, sometimes the hits connect. Angel grabs a hold of her: Nice try, Faith. He tosses her away from him. Then walks after her. Angel: I know what you want. She hits him and he hits back dropping her. She comes back up hitting and screaming, but not making much of a dent. Wesley leans out of the window and sees Faith beating up on Angel. He goes into the kitchen and grabs a butcher knife, then heads for the door. Angel as he dodges another hit: I'm not gonna make it easy for you. Faith throws herself against Angel screaming: I'm evil! I'm bad! I'm evil! Do you hear me? I'm bad! Angel, I'm bad! (She begins to sob, grabbing a hold of Angel's shirt and shaking him) I'm ba-ad. Do you hear me? I'm bad! I'm bad! I'm bad. Please. Angel, please, just do it. Wesley comes running out of the house. Faith sobbing: Angel please, just do it. Just do it. Just k*ll me. Just k*ll me." Angel wraps his arms around her shoulders and pulls her against him. She over balances them and they sink to their knees, Angel still holding her as she cries. Angel: Shh. It's all right. It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here. Shh.

Faith tries to take the Toga approach to commit suicide in order to atone, but Angel actively understands that is what she's trying to do, and denies her the chance to die to redeem herself and instead holds her until she calms down.

Angel doesn't just save her once though he spends the entire next episode defending Faith from Buffy who has come to LA to take her revenge, and trying to talk Faith into believing she can still keep on living in spite of all the bad things she's done.

Faith: Are you saying I got to apologize? Angel: Think you can? Faith: I don’t' know. - How do you say 'Gee, I'm really sorry tortured you I nearly to death? Angel: Well, first off I think I'd leave off the 'Gee.' And secondly I think you have to ask yourself: are you? Faith: What? Angel: Sorry. Faith: And what if I *can't* say it? There are some things you can't just take back, no matter how sorry you *are*, right? Angel: Yeah, there are. I've got some experience in that area. Faith: Right. And you've been doing this for a hundred years! I'm not gonna make it through the next ten minutes. Angel: So make it through the next five, the next minute." Faith: "I don't think I can. Angel: Yes, you can. Faith walks away: God, it hurts. I hate that it hurts like this. Angel follows her: Oh well, it's supposed to hurt. All that pain, all that suffering you caused is coming back on you. Feel it! Deal with it! Then maybe you've got a shot at being free.

Angel's advice is "Guilt is supposed to hurt but if you face your pain you can try to find a way to be free of it" which is something much more profound then any of the forgiveness crap they peddle in MHA. More importantly though, the conflict the whole episode goes out of its way to show that revenge is bad, and punishment doesn't save a soul.

Angel: I didn't - I didn't think it was your business. Buffy: Not my business? Angel: I needed more time with Faith. I'm not sure... Buffy: You needed - do you have any idea what it was like for me to see you with her? That you went behind my back... Angel: Buffy, this wasn't about you! This was about saving someone's soul. Buffy: I came here because you were in danger. Angel: I'm in Danger every day. You came here because of faith. You were looking for vengeance. Buffy: I have a right to it. Angel: Not in my city.

Faith's suicidal ideation is a recurring theme that carries through her character arc in the following season - she does in fact go to prison for awhile (Elizabeth Dushku had to go make Bring it On) but Buffy remains anti-state punishment because going to Prison doesn't help her whatsoever. In fact, she just breaks out when she has to save Angel and spends the rest of the season free.

There are two episodes that actually are dedicated to showing prison didn't help, and what Faith needs to redeem herself is to spend every day of her life trying to be good, not just accepting punishment.

ANGEL: Faith, wake up! FAITH: (wakes) I've rolled the bones. You for me. ANGEL: I used to think that. That there'd be a point when I'd paid my dues. Angel and Angelus are fighting in the alley again. Angel leaves the fight and goes over to Faith's side, holding her up in his arms. ANGEL: Faith, listen to me. You saw me drink. It doesn't get much lower than that. And I thought I could make up for it by disappearing. FAITH: I did my time. ANGEL: Our time is never up, Faith. We pay for everything. FAITH: It hurts. ANGEL: I know. I know. ANGEL: Get up! You have to get up now. Faith, you have to fight. I need you to fight. Do you understand what I'm saying?

So you have one manga series where the teenage girl who did bad things commits suicide because she believed she was going to be in prison for the rest of her life and had no future, and you have the other where the teenage girl tries to commit suicide - only for Angel to stop her and encourage her every step of the way that there's still a future for her even if she can't be "forgiven".

One work ends Toga's life because she's done "unforgivable things" and the other tells Faith that the things she should feel guilty for the things she's done, and she should feel that guilt so she can keep working to be a better person every single day.

One of these is a good message to send to your teenage homeless trauma victim, the other is incredibly harmful. With that out of the way let's switch to BNHA.

HOW TO BURY YOUR GAYS

Now I'm going to attempt to demonstrate why MHA fails to truly deconstruct the MWC, and this not only ruins any potential character development for Uraraka, it also sends a deeply harmful message with Toga's death.

I think I've gone to great length above explaining how BTVS communicates it's stance of being anti-punishment and pro-redemption and even goes as far to demonstrate how punishment does not save anyone. Yet, here is the manga about heroes saving people that completely fumbles those exact same themes.

MHA:

Doesn't show Toga and Ochako as fully realized people

Doesn't show the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Doesn't break down down those two categories

Doesn't redeem it's bad girl

So let me start by saying outside of the context of the story Ochako and Toga both had the potential to be great characters. Unforunately this isn't Gacha, so the way the characters are written in the story, and the quality of their story arcs affects how well they are characterized.

Toga is much better off as a character as opposed to Ochako who sort is reduced to a satellite that revolves around Deku, but their story arcs and the way they conclude does a disservice to both of them as characters. They fail entirely to be shown as fully realized people by their narratives, because of the narratives desire to force them into the good girl and bad girl box.

More or less, Ochako isn't allowed to have flaws, and Toga isn't allowed to redeem herself in any way that doesn't involve killing herself.

Let's get to the characters though, the basic premise of the comparsion between Toga and Ochako is that Ochako perfectly fits into the mould of what society considers a "good, nice girl" she perfectly embodies the ingenue. Whereas Toga was horribly abused for most of her life until she snapped, because she was unable to simply pretend to be the normal girl that Ochako is naturally.

One thing I will give credit to MHA for, it does Toga being pushed to the margins and eventually falling off the edge of society as a young eventually homeless girl that no one cared enough to help about as effectively as Faith did. Toga and Faith were also both demonized before they did anything wrong, and were further demonized because they didn't act the way good victims were supposed to act.

The manga is almost masterful at portraying how much being forced into the box of the ingenue caused Toga's mental decline, until she eventually snapped and became the seductress instead.

Toga hasn't even done anything yet, she's already being punished and demonized simply for appearing deviant. Because once again the categories of Ingenue and Seductress aren't for viewing women and girls as fully realized people, you are either a perfect, innocent, girl, or you're a whore.

Toga is also hypersexual the same way Faith is. Of course it's not done with any of the same amount of nuance of BTVS because Hori has a habit of using Toga for fanservice, but Toga does have a habit of sexualizing herself, in a way that would be classified as deviant love. We also in the manga first view her as nothing more than a shallow yandere who creeps Uraraka out with her blushing and hot desire for blood, only to be shown she's actually capable of being an emotionally intelligent and caring individual when it comes to how she relates to her friends.

Toga viewing sucking blood as love is a clear metaphor for deviant sexuality, or even hyper sexuality, it's something that makes her a literal vamp. Toga being overly sexually aggressive and suggestive with the way she sucks blood is something the society she's in demonizes her for, Deku even makes a thoughtless comment that pushes her off the edge that he'd never even think of hurting someone he loved.

Faith is a CSA victim who is constantly trying to play off her trauma, so she's totally into sex guys, she loves sex, she loves it rough, she goes to clubs and grinds on guys, she's all into sex and violence and safety words are for chumps.

Toga was told her way of expressing love and attraction was wrong and deviant from a young age, and as a result of that the same way that Faith embraces hypersexuality, Toga embraces her femme fatalle / yandere persona and plays it up. Well everyone was right about her, she's fine with being a monster, so she just wants to live as a monster stabbing people randomly and taking their blood before moving onto the next victim.

They can't ever be the ingenue, so Faith and Toga embrace being the seductress instead. Yes, Hori does use Toga for fanservice, but at the same time you can't deny she's deliberately playing up her sexuality like a femme fatalle in a way that is not healthy (Faith is a hypersexual teenager too, I'm saying it's a trauma response for both of them).

MHA also shows much like with Faith how Toga despite being just a teenager is someone all of society has given up on - the same way that everyone gave up on Faith for being a homeless teenager. Then further demonized her for acting in ways homeless teenagers act, until she at last finally committed one crime and they turned on her.

Toga's first crime was committed after her mental breakdown, but it's revealed much later on that Toga wanted to ask Saito for permission to drink his blood, and if she'd just been granted it or at least the emotional abuse heaped on her had stopped she never would have had her breakdown.

For Toga it was Saito, for Faith it was killing by Mistake, after being abandoned they endured violence that further radicalized them with no help from the heroes.

Toga's character also textually acknowledges that the heroes are not going to help her, and are likely going to kill her, whereas in Buffy it stays subtext. Which isn't a problem, it trusts it's audience to go "Oh, the good guys are being jerks here" however, it's a direct facet of MHA's worldbuilding that Toga has watched the heroes kill her best friend, and now thinks she has to fight to the death because the heroes will kill her too. She can't back down and let herself be saved, because the heroes don't even see her as human.

Buffy can't forgive Faith for accidentally killing some random guy because all human life is sacred, but also she tries to kill Faith multiple times, because Faith's not human I guess. Uraraka and Deku believe themselves to be heroes but they actively support people like Hawks, who murdered Toga's best friend and have done absolutely nothing to show her that they won't kill her.

Toga reflects a lot of Faith's suffering for being a bad victim that society allowed to fall through the cracks, and a Seductress who needs to be punished for expressing her sexuality. In fact if it were just Toga, you could call it at least an effective deconstruction of the "seductress/whore" because Toga is a fully realized character and her entire backstory is about how society's expectations for her to be a perfect ingenue, and then punishing her when she wasn't a perfect ingenue is what led to her complete mental breakdown. She couldn't be the white swan or the black swan, so she became the blood-soaked swan instead.

Where the comparison starts to fall apart is Ochako. Toga is a character, and Ochako is not. Just like Deku Ochako more or less just kind of morphs into a plot device that exists to save the villain counterparts to prove what good heroes the kids are - and then she doesn't even do that part. Failing to save Toga is the final nail in the coffin for Ochako being a character and not a plot device to show how good and virtuous the heroes are.

BTVS goes to painstaking extents to establish how Buffy and Faith are the exact same girl in different circumstances. They are both victims of sexual abuse. They're both the Slayer. They both lose their mom at different points in the story. They both struggle with the fact that slayers are also killers, they're both the "chosen one". They both have issues that makes them conflate sexuality with violence.

Buffy is put through several situations that parallel Faith, she loses her mom, she becomes financially destitute, she starts exploring her sexuality in a very faith-like way. The two of them swap bodies at one point and nobody can tell the difference.

There's no strong parallel between Ochako and Toga to give the audience a reason why we should care about the relationship between the two girls in the first place. Ochako's connection to Toga tells us nothing about her character, because there's no strong parallel as shown to us by the story.

There are some parallels, the story attempts to tackle the emotional repression angle of how much the ingenue suffers because she's forced to repress her emotions and how much she envies Toga's free expression.

Why does Ochako think that way? Why does she focus on Toga in particular? The plot tells us why Buffy feels she has so much in common with Faith, they're both the chosen one but Buffy feels like she's under such intense pressure to be perfect that seeing Faith get to act out and express herself makes her jealous.

The manga tells us that Ochako is emotionally repressed, but it doesn't show us, because there are never any real consequences for Ochako repressing her feelings. Natalie Portman in Black Swan, and Buffy both experience mental spirals because the pressure to be the perfect woman is too much for them - to meet the impossible purity standards of the ingenue while still being a sexual creature.

In Uraraka this is the extremely simplified belief that she can't have feelings for a boy, while also being a hero because those beings are selfish and she should be focused on saving people. However, we never see her suffer because of these feelings. We don't even get the bare minimum of having her angst over unrequited love.

I don't want to give Ochako too little credit, there are several things that could have been a connection to Ochako, but they all turn out to be non-starters. Ochako is poor and often makes remarks like "The best way to save money is to not eat" in omake and she hangs out with mostly rich friends. She had early angst about the fact that her friends were becoming heroes for mostly altruistic reasons and she became a hero for money.

That could have also connected to the scene where Ochako witnessed the scene of a hero quitting amongst all of the destruction after the end of the first war arc, to show her the consequences of all the heroes who were heroes for less than altruistic reasons.

Ochako could have even told Toga something along the lines of "I was poor, I know how it is to struggle" especially since Toga spent a good portion of time homeless after she was throne out by her parents.

Instead that goes unaddressed except in this scene which makes it look like Toga is ignorant for assuming Ochako never suffered.

Toga and Ochako both feel like they need to repress their feelings but Toga was emotionall abused by her parents, then experienced psychiatric abuse, and then was disowned after her mental breakdown led to a violent incident. Uraraka feels like she can't tell the boy she loves how she feels. One of thsee things is not like the others.

There are more possible connections that you could draw between them, Uraraka gives a big speech about how the heroes have it rough too guys and at that point it cuts to a picture of Toga crying and that could have led to a revelation that if Ochako is asking the common people to see heroes as human beings, then they should try to see villains as human beings too.

This could also couple well with the fact that Toga believes Ochako wants to kill her the same way that Hawks killed Twice. Both of these facts, Ochako originally only being a hero for money and watching heroes for money quit, and also Ochako learning about Twice killing Toga's friends could lead to some self-reflection on the hero system and Ochako could listen to Toga and be the one to convince her that heroes will save her.

However, none of these happen so we don't know why Ochako feels compelled to save Toga, other than the fact that Ochako is just that nice.

It is really a repeat of Deku's writing, we are told that Himiko just really, really, really wants to save Toga, but not only are we never given an in character reason why that is, but we're also supposed to ignore all the evidence that contradicts this.

Ochako wants to reach out and touch the sadness inside of Toga, but she never actually does anything to try to understand or talk to Toga until the last possible minute. In fact, it's Toga who reaches out several times and Uraraka who ignores her. It is Ochako who insists several times that Toga's deeds are unforgivable and then the conversation stops there.

There's also the scene where Deku and Ochako are looking over the cliffside and Ochako is actively reminding herself of the damage that Ochako caused as a reason that she doesn't have to think of her as a human being.

Ochako doesn't even go in with a plan to take down Toga non-lethally like Shoto did with Toya, nor does she even think about what she wants to say to her until the last possible moment.

Ochako's actions make her more like Buffy, someone who actively doesn't empathize with the villain and doesn't want to save her because of her own personal hangups. (However, we're given no personal hangups for why Ochako, the most perfect hero ever wouldn't want to save Toga). Her actions are like Buffy's, not reaching out a hand to Toga she only gets worse and worse, but we're told the opposite. That she's someone who wants to reach and touch Toga's sadness.

It would be better if Ochako DIDN'T want to save Toga, because at least there would be an arc to it. The lack of empathy would be a character flaw on Ochako's part, something that she needs to overcome to be a proper hero. It would be better if Ochako DIDN'T want to save Toga, because then she'd need an in character reason why she doesn't empathize with Toga, like Buffy does with Faith.

Ochako is supposed to be deconstructing the ingenue, but she's not allowed to have any flaws, or be anything other than the perfect, empathic hero and because of that she ends up reinforcing the Ingenue instead. The ingenue isn't allowed to be anything other than perfect, and the Seductress must be punished.

Doesn't allow the Bad Girl to be redeemed:

Toga's death ends up reinforcing basically every backwards double standard about the MWC including the need for men to punish and villify women who freely express their sexuality. Toga's entire character arc is asking the question if soemone like her is allowed to live in this society, if the heroes will save the life of someone like her and the answer we receive is: no she can't live.

Toga can't live in this world, she has to die. Not only does Twice die and never receive justice and his murderer get off scott free, Toga who asks the question of if she's going to die too, the answer is yes.

In both of these plotlines you have young woman who have done bad things but are still teenagers, who are struggling with suicidal ideation who believe their only escape is death. Faith is told that the guilt of the things she's done is painful, but she has to live in order to make up for it because that's the only way to free herself. Whereas, Toga comes to the conclusion that there is no future for her other than being in jail for the rest of her life and therefore it's not worth living.

Toga has to be punished by the narrative in a way that's completely unnecessary, because characters like Bakugo and Edgeshot somehow survived doing open heart surgery in the middle of an active battlefield, but Toga dies from a blood transfusion.

One of these narratives is telling a troubled young abuse victim who's still a teenager to live, and the other is telling her to die. Now which one of these plotlines would you want a young girl to read?

#mha 428 #mha spoilers #mha 428 spoilers #mha meta #mha critical #uraraka ochako #uraraka #toga himiko #toga #togachako #faith #buffy summers #faith lehane #fuffy

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inuiiwonderland · 1 year

Text

You like him a lot but later realize that he doesn’t like you in that way. You then decided to give up on your feelings for him and move on. And move on you did. You fell in love with somebody else and he later fell in love with you, but it was already to late.

A/n: This is a request for @mwankami! I’m so sorry for this being late but here you go! I hope you like it🙃 (I’m sorry if the characters seem ooc😞 I haven’t played twst in a fat minute) also I didn’t know if you wanted reader to be female or male so I just made it gn! Anyways I hope you still like it!

Floyd leech

You could only stare longingly at him as he messed around with his teammates.

He looks so beautiful

You were so busy staring at him that you didn’t hear your friend calling your name from beside you until he pinched your arm.

“Ow! What the hell ace!”

“Finally! I was calling your name so many times now! What were you staring at anyways?” You look directly back at floyd and that was enough to answer his question. Ace groans.

“Ugh don’t tell me you were looking at Floyd again”

“I was not” You lied. Causing ace to roll his eyes.

“You definitely were” You just ignored him and grabbed your bag from off the floor as you stood up.

“Hey where are you going? Practice isn’t over for a few more minutes!”

“I’m going back to my dorm. I have a presentation for Mr. crewel class and I want to get it done with early”

“Ughh fine. But text me once you're done!” You waved him off and walked away. But not before taking one last look at Floyd before exiting out the gym.

Your friends always question you about your “small” crush on the unhinged tall eel boy. Always saying how can you like someone like Floyd leech? The scary second year who likes to mess and bother anyone and the Floyd leech with unpredictable mood swings.

But you never really cared about their opinions on Floyd.

You find Floyd to be very beautiful.

His fair skin and tall height really caught your interest. But what captured your attention the most were his eyes. The pretty heterochromia eyes that he has really puts you in a trance and you could stare at them for hours.

Floyd leech has you deeply head over heels for him

But the thing is…Floyd doesn’t seem to like you in that kind of way.

He likes you as a friend yes but as a crush no. That’s the only thing that’s stopping you from telling him your feelings.

You sigh as you make your way back to your dorm. Maybe you should just give up on floyd. You already dropped so many obvious hints about your feelings for him but he is either oblivious or doesn’t feel the same and is ignoring your obvious hints.

“Oh floyd…what are you doing to me”

4 months later

Today is night raven college basketball team's big game against royal sword academy.

Cheers could be heard in the gym as everyone cheered for the night raven basketball team. You remember ace excitedly telling you about their big game a few weeks ago and that you should definitely come instead of being locked away in your dorm like always.

And of course you came. You didn’t want to disappoint ace by not showing up to his basketball game.

“C’mon you got this ace!” You and your friends cheered. Ace looks up at you guys and smiles before passing the ball to one of his teammates.

As the game continued, You couldn’t help but stare at one specific player.

His long brown hair tied up in a bun and the total concentration looked on his face as the game grew more intense.

You practically have heart in your eyes.

You all cheered loudly as he managed to shoot a score which resulted in night raven winning against RSA. You cheered loudly and felt your heart skip a beat as jamil looked at you and winked.

You ran down the bleachers and congratulated Ace before walking up to Jamil and congratulating him on the win.

“You did amazing out there!”

“Thank you y/n” He smiles. You two began to talk, unaware of the pair of eyes staring both of you down.

He frowns as he watches how nervous and giddily you were around jamil.

“What’s with that frown dear brother? You just won against the royal sword academy basketball team. You should be smiling” Jade teased. He was fully aware of what caused his brother's mood to instantly change.

“I’m going back to the dorm” Floyd tells his brother before exiting out the gym doors.

Floyd leech is in love with you. But sadly, he fell in love when you started moving on.

Now he’s the one who’s head over heels

And it’s already too late

Jade leech

“Are you listening y/n?” You blinked a couple times before mentally cursing yourself once you notice that you have completely spaced out.

Jade beautiful mismatched eyes stared at you as you hurriedly looked away while mumbling something underneath your breath. Already feeling shy and embarrassed.

“ ‘m sorry jade. I didn’t mean to space out” Jade smiles.

“Don’t worry y/n. Are you sure you're alright though? We can study another time if you’re not feeling well”

“Oh no! I was just thinking about something! Let’s continue studying”

“Oh? Are you sure?”

“Hundred percent sure! Don’t worry”

The two of you continue to study for the next hour. Every so often you would sneak glances at jade and watch as he reads through some notes while asking if you understand the subject.

You tried your best to concentrate, you really did! But his smooth, calm voice and beautiful heterochromia eyes were easily distracting you from paying attention.

The study session between the two of you soon came to an end and you had to stop yourself from asking him to stay for at least a few more minutes.

“I’m looking forward to our next study session. And good luck on tomorrow’s test” He says as he packs up his things. The two of you bid each other goodbye and you watched as he walked further and further away from your dorm. Once he was gone, you walked quietly back to your room as Floyd words ran through your head.

“Sorry shrimpy, but it seems like jade doesn’t like you in that way”

“Ah really?”

“He said he only sees you as a friend. Aw man and I was starting to get excited to have you as my in law! Stupid jade” You giggled at your friend. Ignoring the throbbing pain in your heart knowing that jade doesn’t like you back.

7 months later

You walk down the empty halls of night raven. It was lunchtime so everyone was in the cafeteria. You make your way outside with two trays and smile once you spot a certain someone.

He was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed. You could tell that he was asleep.

“Silver” You call out. You gently lay down both of the food trays before shaking silver awake. He slowly opens his eyes and your heart skips a beat once his beautiful violet irises meet yours.

“I brought you your lunch” You say as you sit comfortably beside him. You hand him his tray and he smiles at you.

“Thank you y/n”

“No problem. So, how’s training going so far?”

The two of you chatted for the rest of lunch time. Talking about how your day has been so far and other stuff. The two of you were so engrossed by the conversation that you two didn’t hear someone calling out your name from the distance.

Jade watches as you laugh at whatever silver said as his cheeks grow pink and he’s looking at you so lovingly.

“Man seems like jellyfish got to them before you” Floyd says behind him. Jade just watches as you feed silver some of your food. He swears he could see the hearts in your eyes as you feed silver.

He forces a smile. Ignoring the throbbing pain in his heart.

“They are happy. That’s all that matters”

And he walks away with a broken heart.

#inuiiwonderland🤍#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst jade #twst floyd #twst jamil #twst silver #twst angst #twisted wonderland angst #floyd leech x reader #jade leech x reader #disney twst #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x gn reader #twst x gn reader

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flowerandblood · 2 months

Text

The Lost Haven (11/16)

[ modern mafia • Aemond x niece • female ]

[ warnings: incest obviously, sex content, smut, the angst, semi-public intimacy, cockwarming, description of someone being shot, violence, uncomfortable conversations, bad, bad things ]

[ description: The vacation from eight years ago still haunts his memories and doesn't let him forget what happened between him and his niece, the daughter of his sister and Harwin Strong. Their paths separate and he immerses himself in his father's mafia world until the day she calls him for the first time since those events. Sexual tension, dark, dangerous, withdrawn, thirsty Aemond. ]

Author’s note: As promised, this is another, this time official modern version of The Fall from the Heavens. In this version, Daemon is not related to the family, but is simply Rhaenyra's husband and the leader of the second gang, Alys and Larys are also not related to each other, but Larys is Harwin's brother. I will partly refer to the original series, hiding some easter eggs, and some will be a completely new, fresh plot. As in every universe, only Aemond calls her Rhaenys and this is not her real name (she is unnamed character and the others also do not know that he calls her that). There will be a lot more brutality and angst in this version, so watch out. You can read this as a standalone story.

Series & Characters Moodboard Aemond & Rhaenys Moodboard

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

He got his girlfriend back.

Not quite in the way he had imagined, but the thought of him being her boyfriend and her taking it seriously made him feel a wave of confidence after years of doubt.

It had to do not so much with the fact that he had gained what he wanted, but rather with the idea that although his grandfather had accustomed him to the thought that there was a path for him only by his side, he now knew otherwise.

Criston Cole had been the first person to reveal to him how tense the situation was among their men, how furious they were that Otto had decided out of sheer spite to bet on Aegon, his pawn, putting too much power in his hands.

Aegon's orders and the fact that some of their bodyguards now had to listen to him made them turn to him, looking for another alternative.

He was their alternative and presented them with his plan.

Having known them for so many years, aware of what their strengths and weaknesses were, he assigned them tasks, spreading his net over the city, slowly tightening the noose around all the places that had ever belonged to Larys Strong.

He had promised his Rhaenys that he would never kill or harm anyone again, at least not in the way he had done so far, so he decided to rely on his wits and logic. He offered the old owners to help pay their debts and cooperate with them in exchange for them giving up the clubs without a fight.

Those who did not agree experienced a loud gunfight and a bit of fear: he paid the police in advance to stay out of it, so no police car came to the addresses indicated even when someone called the police station.

His grandfather was furious and that pleased him most of all.

By focusing on the fight with Daemon he had completely let go of the subject of Larys' legacy and had paid the price. He also felt pride, because in a way he had regained what belonged to the father of the woman he loved, so it was also a tribute to her.

She only allowed him to see her once a week, but they wrote to each other constantly: he out of sheer longing, she to make sure he was still alive.

Sitting on the couch in Heavenly Beach, despite his employees sitting around him, partying with the girls who were apparently most attracted to gangsters, he sat with his head in his phone, writing a message to her, feeling like a teenager in high school.

He grinned involuntarily as he read her reply, feeling the thrill as he did every time she teased him.

She was trying to keep him at a distance and push him away, he knew that.

He swallowed hard when, a moment later, his phone vibrated and his eyes were presented with a photograph of her lying on her stomach, on her body only her panties and top, from under which a little fragment of her breast was peeking out, pressed against the sheet, her loose hair spread in disarray, her lips parted in a sweet, dreamy, warm expression.

He stared at the picture for a moment, feeling involuntarily that he grew hot, his manhood swollen in his trousers. He ran his hand over his chin, sinking into the world of his fantasies, having not been able to experience fulfilment with her for weeks despite her allowing him to touch her.

Partly.

"What are you doing, boss? Have some fun with us. Alice is lovely and lonely." Said Allan, embracing one of the girls, pretty and slim, who giggled quietly, looking him boldly straight in the face.

He got up without a word and went out the back exit to smoke a cigarette, dialing her phone number on the way. She didn't answer for a long time, as was her usual habit, but after a while he heard her sigh on the other end, indicating her impatience.

"– I asked you so many times – why are you doing this? –"

"– I wanted to hear your voice –" He hummed, taking a drag, tilting his head back, enjoying this moment.

Silence answered him on the other side.

"– my grandfather is trying to contact me – to make a deal – to make me his successor again – but I don't know if I want it – what do you think? –" He asked, taking a drag again, the tip of his cigarette turning red with a quiet hiss.

He heard her swallow hard, horrified by his words.

"– don't do it – don't go back there –" She whispered.

They were both silent for a long moment.

"– I'm worried about my mother – she's torn between Criston and her father, she's begging me to come back – she and Cole had an affair for many years, even before my father died –" He said indifferently, looking up at the sky, spotting the outline of a crescent moon among the darkness.

"– did you know about this? –" She asked shocked, and he sighed heavily.

"– yes –"

His girlfriend grunted, trying to speak quietly.

"– she's not part of all this – let her stay out of it – your grandfather's reign won't last forever – Otto wants you to worry about such things – he knows you love and care for her – he'll treat her and Helaena as bargaining chips –"

He nodded, letting out a loud puff of smoke through his nose, having exactly the same opinion as her, surprised at how much peace he felt.

She was the only one who could understand him.

She was the only one he could get advice from.

She was the only one he could trust.

"Thank you. Sleep well."

"I'm here for you." She muttered quickly, as if she feared he was about to hang up.

He hummed under his breath, extinguishing the remnants of his cigarette on the metal basket, feeling the warmth in his heart at her words.

"I know."

The next day, the sight of her in the library filled him with both euphoria and frustration – he knew she wasn't wearing a bra to annoy him, at the same time tempting him when he knew he couldn't take her, and wanting him to know that any other men could look shamelessly at her nipples.

All his anger at her and what she was doing to him vanished when she pulled her shirt off, her half-naked body covered from the others only by a few rows of bookcases.

Thank goodness it was summer and no one went there.

Her nipples were swollen and hard under his tongue, her breast plump and soft between his fingers. The smell of her naked skin, the heat that emanated from her, her hands clenched in his hair, holding him close drove him mad. His groan vibrated through her soft skin as he felt her hips begin to roll deliberately back and forth, rubbing against his throbbing, swollen manhood.

"– fuck, let me – please – just this once –" He mumbled, switching from one of her breasts to the other, slightly larger, which could not be seen at first glance.

The thought of being so close to her and yet not being able to have all of her, like he had then, that night, was driving him crazy.

This was her punishment for what he had done to her.

He sighed as she rose suddenly from her knees, putting her T-shirt over her head, his hand involuntarily going to her calf, wanting to hold her, his body hot with desire, his heart pounding like mad in his chest.

Not yet.

Just a moment longer.

"– baby –"

"– next week Professor Addams is organising a private excavations two hours away from our town – it's a site in one of the medieval fortresses of our region, very important and he needs volunteers – I've offered to let you come and to count it as your student practices, so that you would have to make up less of them during the academic year – professor will rent rooms for all of us in a hotel nearby – if you come and do your best, I'll let you sleep with me –" She said lightly, throwing him a calm, expectant look, like a teacher looking at her student.

He swallowed hard and stood up with her, shocked, his length pulsed hard at her words.

I'll let you sleep with me.

"– do you mean it? –" He asked with difficulty, unsure if he could stand it any longer, if he knew whether he could pass the next test she wanted to put before him.

"– yes, but it's two weeks – you'd then either have to give up your job, or drive to do your errands at night and come back in the morning –" She explained as if nothing had ever happened, grabbing her backpack.

He caught her around the waist and pulled her aggressively to himself, making her body slam into his, his heart in his throat.

"– promise me –"

Instead of words, she did what she'd forbidden him to do since they'd started dating: her wonderfully moist, swollen lips pressed against his, and he groaned loudly, shocked. He sighed, pressing her body closer to his as her slick tongue slid between his teeth, licking him invitingly, making his cock swell painfully hard in his trousers.

I'm not going to make it, he thought, I'm just going to rip her panties off and fuck her on the floor.

She, however, pushed him away, looking at him with her mouth wide open, in her eyes pleading, warmth, affection.

Everything he wanted so badly.

"– I'll write you all the details later – take it seriously –" She mumbled out with a pain from which he felt his heart squeeze, not knowing how to act, feeling with desperation that he was unable to wait any longer.

"– I love you –" He muttered, something in her gaze from which he grew hot.

"– I love you too –"

He stared at her like an idiot, feeling like he was running out of breath, because here she was, for the first time responding to his confession, for the first time saying those words.

I love you too.

He felt something inside him break, that if he didn't feel her right away he would just start crying.

"– I need you – please –"

"– be there –" She mumbled and walked out, leaving him alone.

He thought it was pathetic that he was so desperate that he hid his face in his hands and burst out crying.

He longed for her closeness, for her tenderness, and she only gave him moments when he craved hours, days, months.

He thought heaven and earth might collapse, but he had to go to these goddamn excavations, if only to spend two weeks fucking her all night.

"Two weeks? You shouldn't disappear for that long. The situation is precarious." Said Cole, shaking his head, sitting with him over a drink that same evening.

"I'll be available at night, I'll come by a few times to keep an eye on things. It's only a two-hour drive from here. This case is really important to me." He said, and Criston hummed with understanding.

"I'll do my best, but let's keep in touch."

He nodded at his words.

"Call if something happens."

Even the news that perhaps her ex would be part of their escapade couldn't spoil his mood: he wasn't sure he'd been this excited and terrified at the same time since he was a small child.

On the one hand, it was a dream come true for him, on top of it being in her company; on the other, it was a leap into the deep end of the unknown in a group of people who were strangers and who he didn't know if they would accept him.

He couldn't help the fact that he didn't like to talk much, that others' questions made him uncomfortable, that he felt cornered when too many people looked at him at once.

Nevertheless, as soon as he got the message from her that Daemon had been gone for a few hours, waiting a few streets behind the hotel so as not to arouse suspicion, he pulled up in the car park and got out of the car, looking around.

He thought she would be waiting for him, but he couldn't see her anywhere.

This made him do what he hated to do, which was to ask a stranger something.

A couple of students, looking at him with surprise in their eyes, showed him the way, telling him that his girlfriend was in the area where the research was to take place.

Walking there from a distance, he thought with awe that it was a huge project: there was a gigantic stone fortress towering over them, around which he understood there had been many wooden houses in medieval times, of which there was now no trace.

He swallowed hard when he heard her voice from afar and stepped uncertainly into one of the tents, all eyes on him.

He felt warmth in his heart seeing that she smiled at the sight of him, her eyes shining with pure happiness.

She loved him.

Not even the rage at the sight of Robb could take away the satisfaction he felt at what he had done to her, at the ease with which her body had taken him in as soon as the door from their hotel room had closed behind them.

He wasn't sure if his brain was functioning at all during this act, because he was too stunned by pleasure and desire, the simple, primitive thrusting into her again and again with low, pathetic groans of delight.

She was so wonderfully warm, moist and soft, squeezing and enveloping his cock so perfectly, that he felt like crying.

His niece.

That night they made love twice more, completely bare, with no shame or regret, no thoughts of morality or propriety. What he focused on were her moans, her cunt squeezing him in convulsions of pleasure, dripping with her desire, his lips melting with hers in sticky, loud, deep kisses full of their tongues and saliva, their fingers entwined together in a tender embrace over her head.

They fell asleep cuddled into each other like little children, stirring with difficulty on the single, cramped bed exactly as they had then, eight years ago.

He felt, looking at her peaceful face immersed in sleep every time he awoke in the night, that he had regained something.

He had regained her.

In the morning, to their frustration, their alarm clock woke them up. They were both sleepy and half-unconscious when they showered together, soaping each other's bodies and hair, brushing their lips lazily against each other's, running their hands over each other's naked, wet bodies.

There was something wonderfully natural about the way her figure clung to his, seeking refuge in his embrace, his arms pressing her against his body, his hand stroking her hair, her eyes closed in complete peace.

They both felt it.

His niece froze and blinked when she saw him start to dress, putting on exactly the same clothes as usual.

"No. After all, we will be working in sand and dirt. I told you to take something to change into." She said, and he scratched his chin, recognising that perhaps, indeed, his black trousers and Tshirt were not a good idea for such heat.

"I took my tracksuit bottoms and some other old clothes, but I won't look very neat in that." He confessed with embarrassment, rummaging through his bag.

She knelt down beside him, looking through his things together, apparently trying to find something that would be suitable.

"You have to be comfortable first and foremost. And you have to have a baseball cap."

"What?"

"I took one for you. Otherwise you'll get sunstroke."

It occurred to him, when he'd put on everything she'd told him to, that he looked like a drunk from under the shop. He was relieved when it turned out that she herself had dressed in a similar way, a white Tshirt and tracksuit shorts on her body, a baseball cap on her head, her hair tied up in a braid.

If they were going to look like drunks from under the shop, then at least together.

As soon as they reached the tent where they were all supposed to gather it became apparent that if he had come dressed the way he wanted to, he would have made an idiot of himself.

They all looked alike, dressed in bright, light clothes that might as well have been pyjamas. He pressed his lips together, spotting Robb among the other students.

He hoped he had heard her moans as he walked past their room.

How good she felt with him as he took her for himself again and again.

The professor greeted them and assigned them their tasks. To his surprise and relief at the same time, the man divided them into three groups. One was to be led by himself, another by Robb and the third by his girlfriend.

Her words that she was his assistant and how much the professor trusted her were not mere boasts, he thought with admiration.

He had, of course, been assigned to her group and was relieved at the thought that for the rest of his stay he wouldn't have to look at her ex any more than necessary.

His Rhaenys knew most of the people she worked with, who were simply her colleagues from the lower years of their studies. They had specific spaces designated for research and their task for the day was simple: digging.

Of course, the upper layers of the earth were removed by special excavators, but at some point they had to work by hand so as not to destroy any artifacts hidden beneath the surface.

There was something liberating and relaxing about the fact that this activity of driving a shovel deep into the ground and digging a big hole in it didn't require him to think too much.

After a few hours, he already understood why his niece had made him put a baseball cap on his head and why they had each brought a couple of big bottles of water for themselves: sweat was running down his back from the heat and from time to time he had to take a break to drink.

To his relief, even though the people in the group were talking to each other, fooling around and laughing, they didn't drag him into any discussions or distract him from his work. Rhaenys was digging too, approaching each person when they expressed the opinion that they might have come across some historical relic.

After only half an hour, one of the girls stumbled upon a coin from the 19th century.

The real excitement he felt was when his shovel hit something that clanked as if it were made of metal.

"Rhaenys?" He called, and though the people around him didn't know who he meant, his niece walked up to him, cocking her head in curiosity, her face all pink with exertion.

"What's wrong?" She asked softly, and he hit the spot he had just dug with his shovel again, intending to make the same sound.

His discovery piqued interest.

He crouched down, letting his girlfriend, more experienced and confident in what she was doing, take the smaller shovel, digging around the object, one of her colleagues took the brush, shaking the dust off its surface.

"It's a German pistol. Second World War. Very good condition." He stated, and his girlfriend nodded.

"Yes, the Germans were in this fortress in the 1940s. Good job, Aemond, secure it and sign it. Give this object a number as I explained to you this morning." She said, patting him on the back, and he nodded.

"Your first find. Feels cool, doesn't it?" Said the boy, whose name he understood was Cregan, but he didn't know what he was supposed to answer him, feeling uncomfortable at the thought that everyone was looking at him.

"Yeah." He muttered, looking down at his knuckles, for some reason losing the confidence he gained at night in clubs when he was about to put a gun to someone's head.

When he wasn't about to hurt or scare someone he was helpless and didn't know how to act.

They had spent the whole day doing manual labour and although his erection had swollen all over feeling her naked body pressed against his under the refreshing shower, he didn't even have the strength to move, let alone fuck her hard.

So he ended up making soft, tender love to her, his hips rocking lazily inside her, sinking again and again into the tightness of her sticky, throbbing cunt.

Her naked back was nestled against his sweaty chest, his face snuggled against the hollow of her neck as his fingers dug deeper into her fleshy folds with her quiver of pleasure, his free hand holding her thigh spread wide, allowing him to reach as deep as possible with the tip of his erection.

"– no – it hurts –" She muttered, and he froze and stopped moving, rising up on his elbow, his breath deep and heavy, his heart pounding fast in his chest.

"– what, baby? –" He whispered, placing a soft, gentle kiss on her cheek, wanting to make amends to her for whatever he had done to her. She turned her face towards him, stroking his bare arm.

"– when you're too deep – it hurts –" She confessed.

"– 'm sorry –" He hummed, their lips joined in a sticky, wet, tender kiss. He ran the tip of his nose over her face, his cock twitching deep inside her while his thumb teased her swollen clit with lazy, circular motions, her body twitching again and again in pleasure.

He swallowed hard as she rose up and slid his erection out of her, thinking with horror that she had had enough of him and intended to sleep separately, she, however, turned to face him. He sighed, surprised, as her fingers gently grasped the base of his manhood, all soaked from her wetness, directing the swollen, pink head of it against her slit.

With a tentative, slow thrust of his hips he opened her on his fat length, sliding into her slick walls with ease, sinking anew into her wonderful warmth that soothed him.

He moaned softly as she threw her arms around his neck, as her bare breasts pressed against his chest, as her puffy, sweet lips joined his in a greedy, deep kiss full of affection and tenderness. He sank his fingers into the soft skin of her back and buttocks, beginning to pound into her anew, feeling her completely differently in this angle.

They began to pant into each other's throats, licking and teasing each other, a wonderful shudder shook his body as her lips traveled lower, to his jaw, to his neck, to his shoulders, kissing and sucking on him, leaving wet, warm marks behind.

"– fuck – ah –" He exhaled, feeling his cock throbbing hard inside her fleshy walls, the wonderful tingling in his lower abdomen and testicles filling his head with utter emptiness, pure desire to fill her with his seed.

Their foreheads pressed against each other and their bodies intertwined in a loving, close embrace as they began to chase their fulfilment, loud, sticky splats building their way to release.

"– u-uncle – 'm close –" She mewled like a child, her sweet, leaking cunt beginning to clench on his cock, sucking it inside her. He kissed her temple, snuggling her into his body, slamming into her with loud grunts of pleasure.

"– me too, baby – my sweet little girl –" He exhaled and threw his head back, feeling a wonderful, overpowering relief, his erection beginning to pulsate deep inside her, filling her with his semen.

She moaned, rising and falling on his quivering erection, reaching her own peak with a innocent, girlish moan of delight, sending him into a state of complete ecstasy. They hugged each other, saying nothing more, not separating their bodies, wanting to remain as they were now, as close as possible.

The presence of her body right beside him, the fact that her sticky pussy was warming his soft manhood, his arms and hands entwined in a tender embrace made him sleep a stony, peaceful sleep, tired and satisfied.

To his relief, Criston had kept him informed of the state of affairs and it appeared that relative calm prevailed apart from a few minor incidents, so his presence on the scene was not necessary for the time being.

He took malicious satisfaction in the moments when his niece would be called by Daemon, wanting to make sure she was okay. She would talk to him on the phone while his hands traveled over her naked body, stroking her thighs, belly and breasts, his lips brushing gently against the skin of her neck, merely teasing her.

She usually tried to pull away from him when his thumb, seemingly by accident, ran over her nipple, when his fingers sank tentatively into her womanhood, leaking all over from her moisture and his spend with which he had filled her moments before.

Although he was a grown man, he felt like he was a child again.

In the days that followed, he felt that he loosened up a bit with the group of people he had to work with – he didn't talk to them and concentrated on his tasks, but it seemed to him that they simply stopped paying attention to him, which suited him. They were not spiteful or unpleasant about it: they apparently recognised that this was his nature and left him alone.

His Rhaenys was a different person at work: she smiled and joked a lot, easily having dozens of conversations with all sorts of people, even those she didn't know, winning their sympathy. He somehow admired how unforced her talkativeness, assertiveness and empathy were, how easily she made difficult decisions when others were panicking.

"– fuck – I think I broke it –" Cregan said, leaning over something that looked from a distance like a vase still half-buried in the ground.

"– call the restorers – get them to secure the cavities so nothing else breaks and they're able to put it back together later –" She said without a trace of annoyance or aggression. The boy nodded in agreement and stepped out of the big, wide hole they were sitting in, doing exactly what she'd told her.

"You're good at this." He stated as they sat alone at breakfast break under one of the trees, looking at the large stone fortress stretching out before their eyes.

Although their group sat elsewhere, she chose to stay with him, as she always did.

He felt an uncomfortable squeeze in his heart at the thought that, as much as he wanted to, he didn't fit in with neither her friends nor the world.

He was a perpetual obstacle to her, a wall between what she deserved and the miserable scraps she suffered in his presence through his vanity.

She looked at him and cocked her head, a wide smile on her face.

She was happy.

"What do you mean?" She asked, in some natural reflex cuddling her face into his, her hand on his shoulder. He kissed the tip of her nose, stroking her skin with his palm, feeling a subconscious surge of desire, as he always did when she showed him tenderness and interest.

"You're made for this job. For being with these people. But you need to sit with me instead." He muttered wearily, looking down at his fingers in shame.

"I don't have to. No one is forcing me to."

"You're afraid that if you leave me, I'll become the way I was. You're paying the price for my satisfaction."

She leaned in, wanting to look at his face, but he closed his eyes, feeling shame and regret, for some reason unable to enjoy it all, to relax, to let go.

"You would want this, wouldn't you? For me to disappoint you. To pack up and go home, to escape what is uncomfortable for you. Loneliness is safe, I know that better than anyone. But if you want to be alone, what are you doing here?" She asked.

He looked at her and shook his head, feeling tears burning under his eyelids.

"I don't know. I feel good and bad at the same time. I'm fulfilling my dream, I have you, but I can't enjoy it all because in the back of my mind I'm wondering if Cole is going to call me at night to tell me all hell has broken loose. It's like what's going on right now is a dream, and I'm aware that I'm going to wake up. As if I have to watch something I know I'll lose one day." He mouthed, bursting out crying, choking on his own tears. He covered his ears with his hands and leaned his head between his knees, panting loudly, feeling like he was just experiencing a panic attack.

"– God, Aemond – calm down – calm down, I'm here – this isn't a dream – my feelings for you – the fact that you're here – it's all real – don't you feel it? –" She asked in a whisper, enclosing him in the warm, safe embrace of her arms, pressing his face between her breasts where he took refuge.

He closed his eyes, concentrating only on her fingers combing through his hair, on her warmth, on her scent, on the softness of her body.

She didn't let go of him for a moment, stroking his head, neck and back, placing a tender kiss on his temple once in a while. Slowly his breathing calmed, the pounding of his heart slowed, and his body relaxed in her soft, caring, loving arms.

She let him settle on her thighs, let him snuggle into her lap: she stroked him like a small child, saying nothing, letting him just be, drawing on her closeness, her understanding, her wisdom and kindness.

He thought that if he could die now, in her embrace, he would be happy.

Her words and closeness gave him comfort and for that afternoon, looking at her from afar, sitting on the sand, he thought he was truly happy.

Truly at peace.

And then he saw five missed calls from Cole and one message from him.

"I'll go with you." She said, watching as he changed into his normal clothes.

"No fucking way." He growled, looking at her with impatience, wanting her to get the idea out of her head.

"I'll be waiting for you in the car. Don't leave me alone." She begged.

"No. I'll be back before dawn. I promise." He said, kissing her forehead quickly and left, feeling that if he looked at her again, he wouldn't be able to drive there.

Some part of him dreaded going back there, as if being in the light for so long would blind him to the point where he wouldn't be able to see anything in the dark.

Late in the evening, he arrived at Heavenly Beach and went inside, asking one of the bodyguards what had happened. The man nodded towards one of the lodges – his brother was spread out in the company of three girls enjoying himself at his best, buying everyone a round of shots.

"He didn't pay for anything, boss. He says you're the one paying for the booze and the whores tonight."

He moved towards him feeling his jaw clench in rage, the loud music around him ringing in his ears, the twinkling lights around him making him feel like he was about to vomit.

Aegon spotted him and stood up from the couch, pointing at him with his hand.

"Here is my brother. To him you owe such a great party tonight, applause for him!" He called out, the drunken part of the club guests echoed him in euphoria, but the rest were silent, looking at them with concern.

"I think my brother drank too much." He said coldly, towering over him after a moment, looking at him with a dispassionate gaze. "And he doesn't know that he's going to pay for what he ordered and the women he brought with him himself."

"And where's your woman? Hm? Our pretty niece. Did you know, guys, that he kissed her when they were kids? He was already fucked up then." Aegon sneered, taking a loud sip of whisky from his glass, embracing one of his women, a pretty, blue-eyed blonde with his arm.

His men looked at each other in dismay, apart from the background music all around them complete silence.

"Get up, take your whores and get out of my club. Now." He said in a voice that didn't bear objecting, but Aegon only laughed and sighed.

"You know what the worst part is? He's still fucking her. My father was lying dead and he was in the next room banging that poor girl. Tell us, did you rape her? You surely did, she would never want you of her own free will. But in what position? Missionary? No, no, I know! In doggy-style, like a hound. You have always been faithful like a dog. Woof, woof!" He scoffed, and something snapped inside him.

His brother froze, looking at him with big eyes as he pointed his gun straight at his forehead, the girls around him squealed in terror and broke out of his embrace, moving as far away from them as they could.

"– wow, wow, wow – calm down, have you completely lost your fucking mind? –" Aegon asked in a trembling voice, raising his hands in a gesture of submission, and for some reason he grinned broadly.

"– I didn't rape her – she wanted it – we did it a few more times after that – she was always good to me, unlike you – we're together now, you know? –" He hummed, cocking his head with an expression of satisfaction on his face, thinking in the back of his mind that this was who he just was, who he wanted to become.

He felt powerful, strong, invincible.

"– what the fuck are you talking about? –" Aegon muttered, shaking his head as if he thought his younger brother had simply gone mad.

He, however, had never felt his mind so sharp and focused before.

"– our grandfather made you his successor to reason with me – before our father died he said he would pass everything on to me and that was his original plan – but after Larys put the rape pill in her drink, I couldn't let him live – I don't expect you to understand that though – loyalty, devotion, affection – look at you – you must have pissed your pants with fear, am I wrong? – stand up, show yourself to everyone –" He sneered, raising his voice defiantly so that everyone could hear him.

There was complete silence all around them.

"– I said stand up –" He growled seeing that his brother was looking at him with big eyes red from tears, his mouth quivering in horror and humiliation.

Yes, he thought.

Feel what I felt.

He, completely naked then, standing up to his waist in water, his face all swollen from tears.

"– it's an unpleasant feeling, hm? – humiliation –" He said, watching as Aegon stood up slowly, the large, dark stain on his light-coloured trousers suggesting he was right.

He grinned at him and thought that such a lesson would be enough for him, lowering his gun, but his brother threw himself at him, climbing onto the table, wanting to get him with his own hands, and in a subconscious, involuntary reflex he fired.

His brother gasped heavily, as if surprised, and grabbed himself by the stomach, falling backwards onto the couch, another dark spot forming where he pressed his hand.

"– you fucking shot me –" He mumbled out, and he shook his head, feeling his whole body freeze, people around him screaming and running away, his and Aegon's bodyguards starting to shoot at each other, causing a general panic.

Cole grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him towards the side exit, saying loudly that they should call an ambulance.

He saw her sweet face, felt the embrace of her warm arms, her moist lips placing tender kisses on his face.

He thought that if Aegon died, she would never forgive him.

He promised her that whatever happened, he wouldn't be a murderer.

"– this son of a bitch has to survive – do you understand? –" He said and turned, running up the stairs, several of his bodyguards moving towards his brother, trying to stop the bleeding.

Criston nodded and pulled out his phone to make a call to the hospital.

By the time he walked him to his car the ambulance was on its way.

"– get out of here – hide somewhere – you shot him low in the stomach – I think he'll make it – I'll let you know when I find out something –"

He nodded and sit inside the car, hearing the gunshots again – Criston fell to the ground and hid under one of the trucks while he started to back up and with a squeal of tyres drove ahead.

Only now, heading ahead through streets full of lamplight did he wonder what he had actually done.

He had shot his brother.

He told him their secret.

Everyone heard it, Daemon would find out, and she would be in danger.

He swallowed hard, running his hand over his face, thinking that he just wanted Aegon to feel what he had felt for so many years, that he wanted to teach him a lesson, show him who was in charge, who was better, smarter, cleverer.

Who was the better son, the better brother, the better lover, the better man.

But for the first time he asked himself, was he really better than him?

He was just as scared, just as helpless, just as small.

He had nearly killed his older brother.

That thought, and the realisation that Aegon really might not have made it, caused him to burst into a loud, hysterical sob, and cover his mouth with his hand, trying to silence the sound that was coming from it.

As he drove ahead all he could feel was fear, fear of her gaze, her disgust, her rejection.

Why would she want to be at the side of someone like him?

When he arrived it was almost morning, dozens of missed calls from her and messages asking if and when he would be back were evidence that she had been up all night.

Before he walked into their room, he stood outside the door for a moment, wondering how he was supposed to explain this to her, what to say so she wouldn't tell him to pack up and get out of her life.

He had ruined everything.

When he opened the door he had the feeling that his whole body was quivering, stiff and tense: her gaze, her eyes and cheeks were red from tears, her eyebrows arched in pain told him that she was convinced that he had left her, that he had deceived her, that he had used her again.

She rose and wanted to throw herself into his arms, but he spoke up faster, not wanting to deceive her.

"I shot Aegon."

She stopped in her half-step, looking at him in disbelief, her expression seeming as if she hadn't understood what he'd said.

"What?"

He drew in a loud breath, feeling that he was a little boy again, a terrified child who had broken a very expensive, valuable vase and had to explain why it had happened.

"He was fucking mocking me. He implied that I raped you. In my own club. In front of my men." He muttered as if it changed anything, realising how pathetic he sounded.

The thought that he had lost everything again, that there was no way she could forgive him made him hide his face in his hands and just weep.

All he wanted was for her to hug him, to tell him that everything was going to be alright, that she knew he had hurt and abused him all his life, that she had witnessed it herself.

That she understood that something had simply snapped inside him.

"Is he...is he dead?"

He swallowed hard, trying to calm himself, his breath heavy and hitched in panic, his heart pounding like mad in his chest.

"I don't know. I shot him in the stomach and he's in hospital. He threw himself at me and scared me and I just fired. He saw I had a fucking gun in my hand!" He exclaimed as if he was ten years old and had just told his mum why his brother was lying unconscious on the floor after their fight.

"So you didn't kill him, did you? You didn't mean to do it. It was an accident. He scared you and you fired, but if he hadn't, you wouldn't have shot him." She said slowly in a trembling, terrified voice, and he lowered his hands, looking at her with big eyes, thinking that some part of him wanted to kill him then.

And then he remembered that after he felt that justice had been done, his hand with the gun lowered.

"– I – I just wanted him to stop laughing – he asked if I acted like a dog when I raped you – and I – God, baby, I told him about us in front of everyone – that we are together –" He mouthed, shaking his head, feeling completely naked, her expression of sadness and disappointment made him just sit on the bed, hide his face in his hands and cry, cry, cry.

"– I didn't mean it – I didn't know what to do – he wanted to humiliate me – me and you by spreading such rumours – I decided it was better to tell the truth than – I don't know – I'm so sorry –" He mumbled, himself not knowing where he was going with this thought, feeling a huge, cold emptiness.

He tensed all over hearing her footsteps, lifting his gaze to her, thinking for some reason that she was going to slap him.

She, however, knelt between his thighs, cupping his cheeks in her hands.

"– it would have come out eventually anyway – Aemond, I need to know what is going on inside your mind – if you –"

She asked, but was interrupted by the sound of his phone. He took it quickly out of his pocket seeing that his mother was calling him and swallowed hard feeling that he couldn't do it.

"– pick up – you have to do it, maybe she knows if Aegon is alive –"

But what if his brother was dead?

If he killed him with his own hands?

"– I can't – I don't want to –"

"– Aemond – prove to me who you are – take responsibility –"

He covered his face with his hand as he answered and put his phone to his ear.

"– is he alive? –" He muttered.

"– thank God yes – Aemond –" Alicent said, but he didn't let her finish, afraid of what she wanted to tell him.

That he had already been disgusting as a child and was a disgusting man now too.

"– I'm sorry – I'm sorry, Mum, it was an accident, I swear – he was drunk and he threw himself at me seeing that I had a gun in my hand and I just –"

"– I know – Aegon told me everything – he admitted he provoked you – but I don't understand how you could have let this happen – you are brothers – you almost killed each other for what? – for a few bags of drugs, thick files of money? –" She asked, and he closed his eyes, warm tears one after another flowing down his cheeks.

"– he said I raped her –"

Alicent was silent for a moment.

"– where are you now? – come to the hospital – apologise to each other, explain everything, start all over again –" His mother pleaded, but he wasn't sure if there was anything left that they could fix.

"– I don't know if I want to see him ever again, Mum – I want to rest – let him know I hope he recovers quickly and that I'm sorry –" He muttered and hung up, feeling he had nothing more to say to her.

His niece looked at him in pain, her hands on his thighs as she knelt between his legs.

If Alys had been sitting in her place, all he would have thought about was putting his cock down her throat, but in her case, there was something in her expression that made him crave something completely different, but equally intense.

"– please, embrace me –" He mumbled out, before hot tears again ran down his face one by one, his sobs so pitiful that she stood up quickly, frightened, and let their silhouettes fall together on the bed.

It wasn't until her arms hugged him into her chest, when his hands closed on her back, that he felt his whole body trembling.

"– close your eyes – breathe –" She whispered, pressing her cheek to the top of his head, her fingers combing lazily through his short hair.

He did as she said and tried to focus only on the air he was letting in and out of his mouth, all around them the quiet singing of birds amid the rising sun.

"– don't leave me –" He muttered, snuggling tighter into her warm, familiar body, her wonderful scent filling his entire lungs.

He heard her sigh softly, her hand stroked his back reassuringly.

"– I know how much you are suffering – I am here – you are safe now –" She said, and he felt his heart stop for a moment.

I know how much you are suffering.

I am here.

You are safe now.

He had longed to hear this from his mother, his father, his brother, from her for so many years that when it finally happened his body just froze.

"– I love you –" He whispered, however differently than usual, feeling like he was suffocating. "– God, I love you so much –"

His niece texted her friend that she and him had poisoned themselves with something and that they would come to work later, wanting him to take at least a little nap, knowing that he would fall into despair if she left him alone even for a moment.

He fell asleep only when he unbuttoned her shirt and cuddled his face between her bare, plump breasts, the warmth and softness of her naked body, her long fingers running over his head soothed him.

Despite what he feared, she understood him.

It's always been this way.

When she woke him, telling him she had to go, he begged her to just let him stay as he was, her skin warm and drenched with her scent, his body pressed against hers in a natural, vulnerable embrace.

"– I have to – I should have been there hours ago – but you stay, get some sleep –" She whispered, stroking his head. His eyebrows arched in pain as he shook his head at her words, roaming his hands over her body in a gesture of desperation, trying to stop her.

"– no – no –"

"– Aemond – please –" She said in pain, pressing him against her again hearing his heavy, loud breath, tears squeezing into his eyes.

She sighed.

"– come with me then –"

And he did, because he didn't want to be alone.

When they went outside for the first time she took his hand in hers, exactly like when they were little children playing on the beach. He tried to control himself, but the squeeze in his throat was proof that he wanted to cry again.

He was so exhausted.

"– don't work today – sit under the tree – I'll be next to you –" She said when they got there, but he shook his head and squeezed her fingers tighter between his own.

She looked at him with a gaze in which he saw everything – worry, affection, concern, sadness, understanding, desire. He felt his heart grow hot as his free hand rose to her face, running gently over her jawline, and she nuzzled her cheek into it, closing her eyes.

He leaned in and kissed her as if it was the most natural thing he'd ever done – her lips welcomed him with gentleness and tenderness, parting before his tongue, letting him slide it lazily inside. Her fingers stroked his neck as they clung to each other, sunk only in that sweet, sticky pleasure, humming contentedly, not caring if anyone saw it.

And then he heard it.

The screech of tyres.

By the time he heard her squeal and turned to see what was happening Daemon was already standing in front of him, his fist hit him in the face so hard that he fell to the ground, losing his hearing for a moment.

"– STOP IT –" He heard her scream as her step-father turned him onto his back, punching him with his fist again, again and again, warm liquid trickled from his nose, but he did not resist.

"– I promised you this –" He hissed with rage. "– I promised you that if you didn't leave her alone, I would kill you with my own hands –"

"– DAD, STOP – STOP, STOP, STOP –" She whimpered, trying to pull him away, several people interrupted their work, wanting to see what was happening, looking at this scene in disbelief.

Finally, professor Addams and Robb came out of the tent, hearing loud screams outside.

"– what is the meaning of this? – stop immediately, that's my student! –" The professor shouted. Daemon laughed and stood up from his knees, pointing his finger at her.

"– and that's my daughter and I'm taking her home –"

"– no –"

Daemon looked at her in a way that made her tremble with fear, his jaw clenched as tightly as if it was about to burst.

"– with you I will speak later –" He growled.

"– I won't go with you –"

Daemon wanted to grab her arm, and in a natural reaction he wanted to get up and protect her, however he was preceded by Robb, standing between her and her father.

"– she said no – she's an adult – should I call the police? – he can sue you for assault, you know that? –" He asked, a long, heavy silence fell around them.

He stood up, looking at him, then at her, Daemon's gaze fixed on her face.

"– if you don't come back with me, I can no longer protect you – you will break your mother's heart –" He said coldly, his words intended only for her.

He looked at her in horror, feeling his heart pounding like mad.

Her gaze when her eyes finally turned towards him was full of fear that because of him she would lose her future, her family, her peace of mind and everything she had before he stormed into her life again.

"– you promised me –" He muttered in a trembling voice, looking only at her, the only person who could give him what he desired.

She had promised him that if he tried, if he came here, if he changed, they would spend two weeks together.

"– I did –" She whispered and he felt his heart stop, convinced that this was it.

Their end.

"– let's get back to work –" She said and turned as if nothing had happened, heading towards one of the tents, startling him and everyone around him.

"– come here, I said! –" Growled Daemon, wanting to lunge at her and take her home by force, but Robb blocked his way again.

"– enough – one more step and I'll really call the police –" He threatened, her step-father's gaze shifting to his face after a moment.

He turned away, angry and pale, his hands clenched into fists as he got into his car and drove off with a loud screech.

Feeling his heart pounding like mad and not wanting to be left alone with Robb, he moved after her, adrenaline pulsing hard through his veins.

She had sacrificed herself for him.

Her family, her home.

Just for him.

When he stepped inside he wanted to embrace her, but she shook her head.

"Sit down. I'll get you some ice. Your cheek is all swollen." She said calmly, taking a few cubes out of the fridge and it was only then that he saw how much her hands were trembling.

"– baby – come here –" He whispered, gently placing his hand on the back of her head, and although she resisted for a moment, she finally allowed him to put his arms around her and cuddle her into him.

Her body was shaking.

"– I know, baby – it was very scary – I'm here –" He hummed tenderly, stroking her hair and back, his face pressed against the hollow of her neck.

"– I don't think I have anywhere to go back to –" She mumbled out with difficulty, heartbroken, and burst out into a quiet, exasperated cry.

He swallowed hard, hugging her tighter to him, coming up with an idea he knew their family would definitely not like.

"– you will live with me –"

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project-sekai-facts · 22 days

Note

hi! i read in a tweet that is implied through dialogue that some of the characters are implied to have varied body types that aren't reflected in their models. do you have info about it? have a good day!

this card name is really funny

yes there's a few instances where it is confirmed or can be inferred that some characters have body types that aren't what they're depicted with.

obviously there's honami who i just pointed out. apparently she's pretty muscular in the arms from drumming, but all the female characters use the same base model which is super skinny so it doesn't show. it's also suggested in a few bits of dialogue that she's a bit chubby from the amount of pie she eats.

Ena is very conscious of her weight and it's mentioned every now and again how she wants to keep it down. In Let's Enjoy Together! Spojoy Park she agrees to go with Kanade to burn off some extra weight she'd put on.

Haruka, Airi, and Shizuku all have weights in their rooms, so they've definitely got some muscle, but the amount that's required for their line of work. Haruka also does daily runs, and Shizuku also does archery which works your arms a lot. Pretty sure there was dialogue somewhere that described Haruka specifically as having a pretty athletic build (or along those lines) but I couldn't find it again. It's worth noting as well that Shizuku was a model, so her build is probably pretty close to a typical model's. Funnily enough that's basically what the default body type is so she's probably like the only character presented with the right body type.

Kanade. You already know why she's here.

WxS MEIKO has superhuman strength. It is superhuman so I guess you can excuse the default body type, but it just feels kinda wrong yknow? There's also this line of dialogue from an area conversation that might suggest she's fairly muscular.

Like Haruka, Akito also goes running every day, and does far more training than everyone else in VBS. He also has a background in football/soccer, though he did quit when he was only like 11. Also this card exists. Presumably he's got a pretty athletic build.

In the Detective Tenma event Tsukasa works out a lot and it's brought up in the vlive the possibility of him working up a lot of muscle, though he doesn't seem to interested in the idea. Nonetheless it can be inferred just from the amount he was doing in that event that he has a fairly athletic/muscular build.

There's this area conversation between Tsukasa and Nene that suggests Emu and Tsukasa are much fitter than she is, even if there's other area conversations (pre-3rd arc) that suggest that they're not actually that muscular (though nene was probably exaggerating). That said, Emu is in a ridiculous amount of sports clubs, including swimming and dance.

Lastly, Mafuyu is very physically fit, good at sports, and she's part of the archery club. Once again, she probably has a more athletic build.

#asks

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seulszn · 7 months

Text

Listen I love TLOU and the fandom very much but a lot of people (not calling anybody out) need a reality check and need to grow up. I wanna say my two cents on things that bother me in this fandom.

1. Boycotting for Palestine

I have seen multiple times on multiple occasions where people would sit on their phone and complain about why writers are “flooding the tags with this boycotting bullshit” and honestly all I have to say is your super childish you can’t take a hour or a week out of your day to raise awareness on a important topic that is affecting millions of people? Your so horny so down bad for pixelated characters that you don’t care about the innocent children, women and men that are dying in Palestine? The boycotting isn’t gonna stop just because you want your needs filled, the boycotting isn’t going to stop because you think it needs to, it’s not gonna stop until Palestine is free. And if you wanna read things that bad then read nobody is stoping you but a take into ignition that if a writer is spreading awareness then don’t be ignorant and say stupid shit

2. Less Sex and more angst or other genres.

Listen I love Abby and Ellie just like everyone else and I read a lot of smut about them but does that all y’all see when y’all look at them? As sex objects? Like I’m not saying that you should stop writing smut for those characters but write other things to that don’t involve smut, like angst I see a lot of people under that tag say how they wish writers would as write other things that isn’t just smut and majority of the time when they say that they get hated for it. It lowkey gets boring reading fanfics where the whole plot is smut, smut, smut. And again I’m not saying to stop writing smut but please for the love of whatever you believe in write other genres.

3. Black inclusivity

As a black writer and a black person TLOU tag isn’t inclusive enough. I know you must be thinking “Why are we speaking about this again?” Because I’m honestly so tired of how uninclusive the fandom is like I said before Ellie dates WOC if you don’t know what WOC is it’s Women Of Color all of Ellie’s girlfriends where WOC now I’m not saying you can’t write for Ellie as a white person and I’m not saying that never did all I am saying is once again all of Ellie’s girlfriend where POC

Riley was a Black African American who Dated Ellie

Cat the girl who wasn’t mentioned alot but is in the game is Asian American who also dated Ellie

Dina is a Jewish (Mexican, Middle Eastern ) American who dated Ellie

Also yes we know when the reader is white coded so don’t try a put that you don’t mention when race mentioned cause you do and we can tell when you do “She’s Petite and cute with her long blonde hair” or whatever you bitches be saying we know when you guys aren’t inclusive the whole point of fanfiction writing is to be inclusive is to make sure that readers can see themself in your xreader so if your putting all these “white things and then labeling your story as “the readers race is not mentioned” or that OC stuff that y’all do then just label the story as a white reader or a OC reader

4. Futa, trans and masc

Now here I’m gonna discuss two or three things starting off with Futa and Trans. Now I don’t know when “Futa” or “Trans” Ellie and Abby came from but a lot of you readers need to understand and learn the difference between the two because they are both very different things.

Futanari: is the Japanese word for hermaphroditism, which is also used in a broader sense for androgyny. Beyond Japan, the term has come to be used to describe a commonly pornographic genre of eroge, manga, and anime, which includes characters that show primary sexual characteristics from both females and males. In today's language, it refers almost exclusively to characters who have an overall feminine body, but have both female and male primary genitalia (although a scrotum is not always present, while breasts, a penis, and a vulva are). The term is also often abbreviated as futa(s), which is also used as a generalized term for the works themselves.

Transgender (often shortened to trans) is someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. Some transgender people who desire medical assistance to transition from one sex to another identify as transsexual. Transgender is also an umbrella term; in addition to including people whose gender identity is the opposite of their assigned sex (trans men and trans women), it may also include people who are non-binary or genderqueer. Other definitions of transgender also include people who belong to a third gender, or else conceptualize transgender people as a third gender. The term may also include cross-dressers or drag kings and drag queens in some contexts. The term transgender does not have a universally accepted definition, including among researchers.

Mind you I am not transgender I am nonbinary but I see a lot of transgender people speak up about how offensive it is to write a character as Transgender but it’s not really transgender but a Futanari remember a Futa is a character who is assigned a gender at birth but just has extra sexual parts like a penis.

Now another thing that bothers me is how y’all Masculinize Masc Lesbians as if they still aren’t women themselves like every time I read a fanfic with Ellie or Abby or even Vi and Sevika from Arcane you guys like to ignore they fact that they are also women themselves like it’s not gonna kill you to give those characters feminine compliments there shouldn’t be a reason why your calling these women “handsome” or other Masculine compliments and also a lot of Masculine women where makeup it’s not just a feminine woman thing. Masc Lesbians are women they aren’t men so stop treating them as if they are men and ignoring the fact that they are women

5. the Innocent childish reader gotta stop.

They title says enough I don’t think I need to say too much but a lot of y’all get innocent and corruption mixed up but a corruption kink is When you find the idea of "corrupting" someone, mostly in a sexual way, like taking virginities or introducing people to stuff like bdsm etc. It's the idea of having someone "pure" do "bad" things under your influence. And innocent is not corrupted or tainted with evil or unpleasant emotion; sinless; pure. not guilty of a particular crime; blameless. (From the dictionary)

Y’all need to understand yes not everyone knows what sex is but everyone knows what a vagina is what a penis is, what a orgasm is and what sex is but they may not knows what happens when you have sex so making the reader what y’all call innocent isn’t innocent it’s honestly to me perverted cause the only one who would say something like “my cunny feels weird 🥺” or that “what is sex 🥺” is a child. Children don’t know what sex is children don’t know what pleasure or orgasms is and when y’all say “the reader is a Bimbo” is also funny cause Bimbos know what sex is as well yes they may be stupid but they aren’t slow so before you make a innocent reader please think “am I making my reader act like a child or am I gonna make her really innocent like how regular grown ass adults act?” so don't get not knowing and "innocent" mixed up

6. The stories where they have sex inside a church also gotta stop

Now I’m not a Christian but these stories are honestly really bad and are Blasphemy a lot of people have come out and said that they don’t like the fact that people are writing stories about church in a sexual way like their shouldn’t be any reason why your characters are fucking inside a church, that’s like stomping on someone’s dead grave. You guys do shit like this and then wonder why Christian’s don’t like us. Religion isn’t something to be sexualized it’s not something to be playing with either this idc how much you hate Christianity you can be a Atheist, or Catholic or Jewish but please for the love of whatever you believe in don’t sexualize people’s religion.

That’s all I can think of at the moment if I think of more I’ll of course make a part two to this but don’t take anything I said here to heart it’s just my blunt honest opinion on things in this fandom and if I get hate for this 🤷🏾‍♀️

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ariaste · 4 months

Note

Is there disability rep in RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND? It seems like pirate books get overlooked for how often they show characters with disabilities.

Jesus christ okay listen. You've activated my trap card, because YES EXACTLY. Disability is one of the CORE TROPES of any pirate story -- is it even a real pirate crew if there aren't people missing some of their bits? And it's not just side characters, is it! Is a pirate captain even a proper captain without a peg-leg, a hook, or an eyepatch?

And yet when we see these characters, or at least when I see these characters, my brain does not register them into the category of "oh, here is a Disabled Character". Like it is wonderful that we are seeing more disability representation in media these days but... It's often not very satisfying, is it? They're like "Here is a very carefully presented Character In A Wheelchair So You Know She Is Disabled-Disabled 😌" and there are all of these rules this character has to follow to be """""properly"""" disabled in exactly one specific way with no variations, and always there is an Issue with her (almost always a woman??) ability to navigate her wheelchair through the landscape so that the media can Prove They Are Being So Thoughtful And Aware Of The Difficulties.

I don't know about you, but for me it always sort of smacks of insincerity. Or like, the overtly intentional and deliberate sincerity, which then comes across as a bit unnatural and uncanny valley. We as the audience are not permitted to simply experience this character as a person, we are forced by the deliberateness of the narrative to experience her as a Disabled Person. Which.... Sure, that's better than not having any disabled representation at all, but there's SO MUCH FURTHER we could go with it! But the first step is for the media creator/s to stop going "look, a Disabled Person [delicate gasp] Wow she's so brave" as if she's a fucking zoo exhibit and start going "look, a Person. she's disabled, and has some other personality traits and hobbies as well."

(I feel like we also went through this journey with Strong Female Characters too, didn't we? Where we had all of these weirdly awkward """sincere"""" attempts at people writing Strong Female Characters and Oooh She Is So Strong, And Ooh Her Femaleness, She Grew Up With Brothers... But that was not what we wanted, we wanted the writers to chill out and just write a woman who was a PERSON and stop making it weird.)

Anyway, back to pirates, because I think we've really been overlooking pirate media for the fact that the disability rep is just right out there in plain sight, and it's so normalized that it would be weirder if it WASN'T there, and the media creator isn't loudly trying to win brownie points for being Virtuous And Inclusive™. (And just because tumblr reading comprehension is piss poor sometimes: yes, there's a difference between trying to be virtuous and inclusive and trying to be Virtuous And Inclusive™, and I bet you can recognize it when you see it.)

Pirate media doesn't make it weird! Pirate media doesn't try to camouflage the fact that a character is disabled ("Yar, and here's No-Legs Bob, on account o' he's got no legs, that'll teach 'im to make jokes like he's pretending to fuck the cannon" "somebody hold me up and i'll fuck the cannon again" "[raucous laughter throughout the whole crew]") nor does it deny that their disability causes problems sometimes (the ol' "peg-leg got stuck in a knothole in the deck" gag, or the classic "whoops, tried to stab someone with my hook hand but they dodged and it got embedded in the planks" gambit). Pirate media offers a huge VARIETY of disabilities too, instead of just One Token Wheelchair User -- you've got people with prosthetic limbs, you've got people partially or fully blind or deaf, you've got people who are mute (and also btw look at this amazing parrot or monkey they have, it killed a man once), you've got elderly people who aren't quite as spry as they once were but oooh they Know The Sea like nobody else, you've got people who struggle a lot with their disability and need extra help and support AND people who are not slowed down at all and just livin' their life the way they do.

Y'know. Actual diversity.

Also the only time pirate media draws deliberate attention to the disability is 1) if there's a cool story behind it that is somehow relevant to the plot ("[captain looking balefully at his hook hand] me hand was bitten off by a WHALE.... i've been chasing that whale for the last forty years....") or 2) if it provides a fun way to show the culture and community of the crew as a whole (see the No-Legs Bob example, above). Also notice that in pirate media, you are allowed to directly address the disability and make a harmless, casual joke about it ("No-Legs Bob" again) and it doesn't feel mean or weird, it's just.... descriptive. It's just the way that pirates be. Yep. No-Legs Bob ain't got no legs. So what? It is there in his name and yet it still doesn't feel like it's the only thing about him.

The vibes are just.... UTTERLY DIFFERENT from the disability rep i've seen in other media. And so i think we should be looking at pirate media more and striving to emulate it when it comes to disability rep, because THERE'S SOMETHING HERE, they're doing something INTERESTING, there is something worth thinking about and studying, what are they doing and how are they doing it and how can we replicate that in other things? (Also, even real life pirates were better about disability than many other folks -- they had PENSIONS for crew members who couldn't work anymore.)

ANYWAY back to your question of whether there is disability rep in Running Close to the Wind.

Short answer: yes. Long answer: do you want a whole inventory?

Captain Teveri has a prosthetic eye (it's covered in gold leaf, inspired by this Tumblr Heritage post which I'm sure we have all seen). Also facial scarring, which is not really a disability but still does not get a whole lot of representation.

Many of the crew have hook-hands or peg-legs

Avra says you are not a real pirate until you are missing some of your bits, and makes some joke about how he only has a Weird Toe or something

A side character, Skully (so called because he has a hobby of carving skulls in things and is currently working on carving a GIANT skull into the face of the cliff overlooking the entrance to the pirate cove, because obviously every pirate cove is required by the Trope Laws to have a skull cliff but my question was WHO PUT IT THERE? answer: this guy), has two peg-legs and a hook hand and still goes abseiling by himself to carve the skull onto the cliff, nbd nbd. Probably got the best abs in the book, but tragically Avra, the POV character, did not think to notice them

Elderly grandmother in a wheelchair who threatens to stab Julian the Super Hot Monk through the ear with a knitting needle

Julian is described as standing out from everyone else explicitly because he's NOT missing any bits and that's odd (comes kinda close to missing some bits, though, he plays around with alchemical explosives at one point. man's on track to be missing a couple fingers sooner or later, so just... y'know, let him cook, trust the process, he's still growing as a person)

(this one is a joke) arguably Avra's Weird Luck Thing could count as some kind of chronic illness, considering that it is a thing which materially affects his life and which he does not have control over and cannot predict when it will come into affect. DISCUSS. (again: a joke)

[steps gingerly off soapbox] thank you for coming to my TED talk

(Also: RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND comes out in ten days on June 11th! It's a comedic fantasy novel about queer pirates stealing and trying to find a buyer for the most valuable secret in the world and fighting back against oppressive institutional powers! You can read a review of it here and the first chapter of it here, and you can preorder it here.)

#disability #disabled characters #disability rep #pirates #running close to the wind #alexandra rowland

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trashywormeateroffics · 9 months

Text

the great war (bucky barnes x female reader)

the gif is not mine!

summary: you get jealous and have a fight with bucky. inspired by the great war by taylor swift.

a/n: hey anon!!! sorry it took so long. i have no excuse. anyways, i hope you enjoy this!!! <333 also i am once again asking u to send me requests with marvel characters (natasha/bucky/loki) and taylor swift songs so i can write a one shot about it !!!! bye love u

masterlist

\\\\

you don't know how it all happened. one second, everything was perfect. the next, you were acting like a crazy person and saying horrible and hurtful things. and now you're pretty sure you've officially lost him forever.

\\\\

it all started with her. agent carpenter. pretty, blue eyed blonde, flirty, perfect agent carpenter.

“alright everyone,” tony begins and the people in the meeting fall into silence. “as you all know, a new member is joining us on the avengers initiative.” they all nod, including you. “her name is samara carpenter and she was personally recruited by fury. which means she's very good at what she does.” the billionaire looks at steve and he nods, taking the lead.

“alright, i want you all to be nice and welcoming. especially you buck.” he says, making most of the people there snort. you look at him.

“what did i do now?” bucky asks, incredulous.

“nothing yet, but if you just stare at her and don't greet her like a normal person she'll leave this team as fast as she came.” sam tells him. the grumpy super soldier rolls his eyes.

“whatever, bird-brain.”

steve shakes his head in disapproval of the two bickering idiots but soon enough he's back on track with the presentation.

bucky's rough gaze scans the room until it falls on you. his eyes soften when he sees that you are already looking at him. you give him a soft and playful smile, which he returns.

after the meeting is done and everyone is dismissed, you head to your room.

not five seconds pass until someone knocks on the door. you smile, because you know who it is.

“come in!” you sing-song.

when he enters, you can't help but stare at him. you've been together for a year now but you still couldn't believe that he was yours. he was so beautiful, so funny, so kind, so dumb sometimes, just so… him. you loved him so much. yet you still hadn't said it. you were trying to take things slow, for both of your sakes.

“hey.” you tell him as he closes the door behind him. he has a look on his face which you recognize. something's bothering him.

“c'mere.” you pat the spot next to you on the bed.

he wastes no time in dropping himself unceremoniously on the mattress and letting out a sigh.

you begin to run your hands through his hair.

“d'you think i'm scary?” he asks with a pout adorning his beautiful pink lips. god, you want to kiss him so badly. so that's what you do. you peck his lips and then immediately shake your head with a smile.

“do you think that adorable pout could be scary?” he purses his lips to stop himself from smiling, but still, a small smile plays on his lips.

“y/n, i'm being serious.” he sighs. you do too.

“maybe to some people you could be. not to me though.”

“but when you first met me-”

“i was too busy thinking about how hot you were to worry about you being scary.” he laughs. god, how you love that sound. you would ridicule yourself to hear it. “is this about what steve and sam said?”

he shrugs.

“i just… hate that i'm so socially inadequate.”

you hand in his hair stops. he furrows his brows.

“bucky,” you begin, “we are a bunch of weirdos, all of us. there is not one person on this team who is socially adequate.”

“but at least the others can fake it, you can fake it.”

“you know what my favorite thing about you was when we first started to become friends?” you ask and he shakes his head. “that your face said it all. if you weren't in the mood for something, i could tell from a mile away, and in return, if something excited you, it would be contagious.” you caress his cheek and he leans into your touch. “and when i couldn't pretend, i always knew you were there to just sit in silence with me. no expectations to be socially acceptable.”

“i don't know how you do it.” he sighs. you frown.

“do what?”

“make every bad thing about me sound so… good.”

your frown deepens.

“hey.” you straddle him and grab his face in between both your hands. “you are perfect. just like you are. don't you dare change yourself.” you tell him firmly. then you purse your lips. “unless you totally want to for whatever reason and i would totally support you because-” you suddenly fall silent. he looks at you, expectant for you to finish your sentence. “because you know i'm here for you, no matter what.”

he smiles softly.

“i know, doll. me too, i'm always here for you no matter what.” you purse your lips to stop yourself from spilling your heart out of your mouth as you caress his cheekbone with your thumb.

“how about we watch a movie? you can pick.”

he pecks your lips and nods.

you spend what is left of the day watching movies and cuddling.

\\\\

two days after that meeting, she arrives. you're all hanging around the common kitchen when steve appears with someone trailing behind him.

“everyone, this is agent carpenter.”

“please, call me samara. or sammie even.”

“sammie, nice to meet you.” sam is the first one to greet her. “i'm sam wilson, but the coolest avenger is fine too.”

you shake your head and roll your eyes. then, you take a step forward, but before you can introduce yourself and welcome her to the team, you see her eyes flicking over to something right next to you. or someone. her eyes shine with curiosity and attraction.

“hi, nice to meet you.” she smirks. you swallow slowly.

bucky gives her a nod, but then he seems to remember what steve and sam told him and attempts to give her a smile.

“hi, i'm bucky.”

“bucky,” she repeats slowly, almost tasting the name in her mouth. she's about to say something else but before she can, you speak up.

“i'm y/n. welcome to the team.” you smile as honestly as you possibly can, but dread fills your stomach.

“hi!” she smiles at you. “you're so pretty, oh my god!”

you give her a tight smile.

“thank you.”

“of course!”

the rest of the team introduces themselves, even though she insists she already knows almost all of them and then you all go about your day.

\\\\

it had been a month since she arrived at the compound. you had seen her a few times, mostly during training. but you didn’t particularly go out of your way to talk to her. there was something you didn’t like. maybe it was your intuition, or maybe it was the fact that she did seem to go out of her way to talk to your boyfriend. and he did not seem upset by that, the opposite actually. he seemed to enjoy it.

you were not a jealous person, least of all with bucky. but something about her irked you. something about her made you doubt yourself and everything you believed in.

“i like her,” natasha says while she paints her nails, laying on her stomach on your bed.

wanda hums in agreement while she flips through the pages of a beauty magazine. you don’t say anything.

“what about you, y/n?”

“um, yeah.” you try to give them a convincing smile but based on the looks they give you, you do not succeed.

“okay, spill the tea.” wanda tells you. had she been learning internet lingo?

you sigh.

“i just- i don’t know.” you shake your head. “doesn’t something feel off to you?”

“not really.” wanda says as natasha narrows her eyes.

“you’re jealous.” she finally decrees.

“i’m not.” you respond defensively.

“you’re jealous that she seems to be getting along with barnes.”

“i-“ you begin your sentence with the intention of uttering a lie, but it dies right on your tongue. “i am. but i don’t want to be.” you confess.

“explain yourself.” she tells you in a tone that could sound commanding and harsh to someone else, but you know it’s filled with care. she’s your best friend, she would never hurt you on purpose. so is wanda, who looks at you with a knowing look you can’t seem to pinpoint the reason for.

“i just- i don’t know. he’s never like that with anyone. since when is he the type to joke around with someone?” you shake your head. “i’m an asshole, cause i should be happy for him. he’s putting himself out there. but i can’t. i’m jealous. so cliche.” you huff.

“you’re not an asshole. an asshole would make a whole scene, give him an ultimatum or something like that. you’re just expressing your feelings to your friends.”

“and, y/n, we all have those ugly feelings. they are human.” wanda tells you, softly. “you should talk to him about it.”

“what if he gets mad?”

“y/n, please. that man adores you, he could never get mad at you. least of all for this.”

maybe they’re right. maybe that’s the healthiest thing to do. and even as you agree with them, you know you will not talk to him about this. because he will realize that you’re right, and that there is so much more to the world than just… you.

\\\\

“come on! you just have to put it in the oven!”

you hear her before you see her. you weren’t expecting to see him though.

right there, almost as if mocking you, they stand. cooking together. he looks so comfortable around her.

they seem to be wrapped up in their own little bubble, so you clear your throat. immediately, they turn to look at you. he widens his eyes, almost looking guilty.

“james found me and i asked him to join me.” she explains, but you stop paying attention the moment she says his name. she called him james.

“james?” you narrow your eyes in question.

he seems to want to say something because he opens his mouth like a fish out of water but you leave mumbling an excuse about training with nat before he can utter a word.

back in your room, you fall to the floor and break down. you knew she was trouble the moment she walked in, but you weren’t expecting this to happen so soon.

heartbroken, you get up from where you’re sitting and head to your bathroom.

the girl in the mirror looks defeated, but you feel angry. if he didn't need you anymore, then you didn’t need him either.

\\\\

the days after that, you ignore him, always having an excuse at the tip of your tongue to not hang out with him. he doesn’t seem to care that much. until, you suppose, after three days, he begins caring.

“doll, can we talk?”

“hm?” you play dumb. you encountered each other in the common kitchen. that damned place, you hated it now, but you were hungry.

“i asked you if we can talk. you seem… distant.” his brows are furrowed. you only know that because you turned to look at him only for a second. other than that, your gaze doesn’t meet his. “come on, y/n, i know something’s wrong.”

you look at him and smile sarcastically.

“you do?”

“yes. please, let’s ta-“

“hey guys!” you roll your eyes at her voice.

“have fun you two!” you tell them, smiling venomously, only looking at him before you leave.

“is everything okay?” she asks.

“i’m sorry samara, i can’t talk right now.” you hear him say before you hear his footsteps getting closer to you in the hallway.

“y/n!” he calls out to you when you get into the elevator without looking behind you. before the doors can close, you see his metal arm get in between them. he gets in and they close. once they do, he hits the stop button. then, he turns to you. he frows when he sees the hate in your eyes. “y/n, what is going on?”

you scoff.

“fuck off, james.” you tell him, your voice full of venom. he widens his eyes in surprise before narrowing them.

“oh, so that’s it? you’re jealous and that’s why you’re avoiding me and acting crazy now?”

“i’m not jealous, but i’m not blind either.” you clench your jaw. “and don’t call me crazy.”

“you are blind if you think something’s going on with her.” he tells you. you roll your eyes and then tilt your head.

“when was the last time you let someone call you james? when was the last time you cooked with someone who was not steve?” he begins breathing heavily. you laugh and bite your lip incredulously. “i think you took the whole being friendly thing too serious.”

“i can't believe you right now.” he shakes his head. “you're angry because i'm not being an asshole to her?”

you scoff.

“oh, please, james.” he clenches his jaw.

“stop calling me that.”

“oh, so i can't call you that but she can?”

“you know that's not-”

“you know what? go ahead. let her call you james. fuck her in the middle of the common room for all i care. lets see how long she puts up with you.” you regret the words as soon as they leave your mouth but its too late, a deep hurt covers his face. still, you can't stop. you're too hurt, too scared. too goddamn stupid. “you think she's going to console you while you have your nightmares?” you laugh venomously. “you think she's going to accept you, all of you?” as you keep talking, his expression turns from pained to angry. resentful even.

he turns to the panel control of the elevator and pushes the stop button so the elevator will move again.

“you know what?” he glances at you and you're almost taken aback by the distant look in his eyes. “maybe i'll fuck her. maybe i'll even date her too. she's probably not as desperate and clingy as you.”

“fuck you.” you spit out.

the doors open, he steps outside. before he leaves, he turns to look at you.

“yeah, you too.”

after the doors close again, you fall to the floor and let out a heart-wrenching sob. you never thought it would end like this.

\\\\

four days. four fucking, horrible, long days bucky has been gone from the compound. you try to ask steve about it, because you know he knows where he is, but he won't tell you. even though you two are close friends and he never got in the middle of a fight between you two– even though you two never fought– he seemed angry. at you. you didn't know if he knew the reason for the fight, but he knew you were in the wrong, that much you knew.

these days all you do is cry, sleep, eat and repeat. you're way past heartbroken, you're miserable, inconsolable. it's all your fault. this prison of sadness was your own making.

you miss him. god, you miss him. you wonder how he is. did he already fuck someone else? did he regret ever being with you?

you don't dare text or call him. you're too embarrassed. you acted like a crazy person, and said awful, horrific things. and you're pretty sure he'll never forgive you. but what will you do then? how will you build a life without him? oh god, you're crying again. great, just great, you think as you turn around in your bed. who were you without him?

\\\\

its the sixth day of his absence when you go talk to steve. you drag yourself from your bed, with your swollen and red rimmed eyes and knock on his door.

“y/n…” he tells you, pity dripping from his tone.

“hey…” you try to give him a fake smile, but as soon as the corners of your mouth move, they turn downwards into a frown, and you start crying. sobbing really. inconsolable sobs leave you as steve wraps you up in his arms.

“hey, hey, it's okay.”

“no, it's not! i hurt him! i don't know why i did it, but i did!” you sob.

“hey,” he pulls away from you a bit to look you in the eyes, “come in. come on, come on.” he tells you as you slowly make your way inside.

you sit down on the edge of his bed and he sits down next to you.

“steve, is he- is he okay?”

he looks at you. you know him, so you know that that look means he isn't.

“he's safe though.”

“i really messed up.”

“i know.”

“he told you?”

“he didn't need to. i saw it on camera. wanted to know why the elevator stopped working for a while.”

you put your head in your hands and begin sobbing again.

“oh my god.” you sob. “i-i'm so sorry you had to see that. i dont… i dont know what-” a hiccup escapes you. “i can't-” another hiccup. “oh god…” your shoulders shake as you sob into your hands.

“hey…” he draws comforting circles on your back, but nothing can comfort you. not when he's hurt and hates you and it's all your fault. “hey.”

“steve, how can i fix it? can i even-” hiccup, “can i even fix it?”

he looks at you with pity.

“i don't know, y/n. i think he's gonna need some time.”

“oh my god.” you say. steve had always rooted for you two, so if he's saying it can't be fixed it really means it can't. “i'm going to die.”

“you're not going to die.”

“i can't live without him. i can't.” you shake your head frantically. “please, just tell me where he is. i need to-”

“i dont think it's a good idea.” he tells you sympathetically.

“please,” you beg him, “please, i need to- if it ends…” more tears fall from your eyes. “it can't end like that. please. he deserves more than that.”

he looks at you, seemingly pondering what you're saying. you look at him the whole time, pleading. he sighs. he's going to tell you.

\\\\

you look at the old building that seems to be deteriorating with each passing second. you straighten down your clothes (steve insisted you get properly showered and dressed) and take a deep breath. he's staying at a safe house in brooklyn. of course. it was so predictable and so him, you almost decided to leave. maybe you should let it end how it ended. what if this time it was worse? but you didn't have the luxury to think like that. it was over, but you needed him to remember you as the good times you shared, not that damned last time.

you enter the building and go up the stairs to the seventh floor, since there is no elevator.

when you reach his door, a green one who looked like if you blew on it it would fall down, you freeze. what are you even supposed to say to him? hi, bucky, sorry i told you she wouldn't be able to put up with you, insinuating that you are hard to love, hope everythings okay between us! ugh, you wanted the earth to swallow you whole.

you take another deep, slow breath, because you know otherwise he'll be able to hear you. then, you knock two times.

when the door opens he takes your breath away. this time not because he's gorgeous but because you're so scared that you fear you're going to pass out.

“what do you want?” he asks harshly. you feel tears prick your eyes but you blink them away.

“hear me out, please.”

“no, thank you.” he goes to close the door, but you swiftly get inside before he does. he slams the door behind him when he turns around to look at you, now inside the apartment, looking uncomfortable and out of place. “i told you i didn't want to hear you out.”

“just-”

“leave.”

“one second-”

“leave, y/n.”

“bucky-”

“oh, so now i'm bucky?” your lip wobbles.

“you're always bucky.”

“not last time we talked.”

“that's why i'm here.” he lifts his chin, looking at you with so much indifference you wonder if he ever looked at you with love in his eyes.

“i don't care to hear you explain yourself.” a tear escapes your eye. you dry it with your sleeve harshly. his face seems to soften for a second but then it goes back to its harshness.

“i'm not here- i'm not here to explain myself.” he looks at you.

“why are you here then?” you sigh.

“remember that time you took me to feed the ducks on that park?”

“yes. so?”

you smile softly as tears fall down your face.

“that was the time i told you i wanted to be your girlfriend. no one ever took me to such a silly date.” you chuckle softly. then you frown in pain looking at the floor now. he shifts his weight from one feet to the other, impatient.

“what's your point?”

“that's how i'd like you to remember me.”

“what?” you look at him. he's frowning.

“i know that the last time we talked i was… crazy. i just- i know theres no going back, but id like, for the sake of what we had, for you to not remember me like that.” you tell him. “because we were more than that.” the last word comes out broken to give way to a silent sob. you try to compose yourself. “I'm sorry. don't pay attention to that.” you give him a fake smile, which you know he can see right through.

“y/n-”

“okay, i'll leave. but… come back to the compound. i'll move out if you want me to, just, don't stay away from your friends just because of me.” you go to leave, walking past him, when he grabs your arm. when you turn around there are unshed tears in his eyes.

“i don't care about the compound. or about remembering you.” oh. you widen your eyes and heavy tears leave them.

“okay, i'm- i'm sorry for suggesting-”

“no.” you nod, understanding. “no, no.” he repeats. he grabs you by the shoulders and he crouches so he's eye level with you. “i don't want to have to remember you.”

you frown.

“but, bucky-”

“but i probably should.” he cuts you off.

“yeah,” you laugh humorlessly as you cry. “you should. i'm sorry. i never should've come here. i'm sorry.”

“stop saying sorry and explain to me what the hell happened.” you tilt your head.

“i… i got jealous.”

“that's it? that's why you hurt me?” he asks. you look down. this was it. he was giving you a chance. explain yourself like you never have before, you think to yourself.

“i never got why you were with me-”

“stop saying were. this could end today, but as of now, were still together.” you purse your lips. “hey, hey, its okay.” he says softly as he puts his hands on your cheeks and wipes the tears that begin falling again with his thumbs.

“im sorry-” he looks at you pointedly. you nod. “i just… i don't understand why you're with me. im not- im nothing like you.” you begin. he frowns. “you are kind and thoughtful and amazing and im- im not good like you.”

“what? y/n, you're the best person i know.”

“you can't still think that.” he looks at you honestly. he does? “see? you're so- and i'm so…”

“lets sit down.” he tells you and you both do, on the old couch thats near the window. he gestures for you to continue.

“i just- you'll never get it. and thank god you won't. but im not- im not a natural, you know? not like you, not like her.” you fidget with your hands. “you guys, the team, you like me because i'm fake. you wouldn't if you knew the real me. but i showed it to you pretty easily, i guess.” you laugh without a trace of humor. he frowns. then, he grabs your hand and caresses your knuckles. bucky takes a deep breath before speaking.

“y/n, i like- no, scratch that. i love you because i know you.” your face contorts in pain. you start crying heavily again. “hey, hey, come on baby, talk to me.”

“i just… she's so… perfect. for everyone, for you.”

“i don't want her, i want you.”

“you cant want me after what i said to you. i hurt you and i'll never forgive myself for that.”

“yes, you hurt me. but you were hurt too, i just didn't see it.”

“im so scared you'll wake up one day and realize there is so much more to the world than… me.” you sob and cover your face with your hands.

bucky pulls your hands away from you face and pulls you into his lap.

“listen to me.” he tells you firmly. “there is nothing more to the world than you. you are it for me, y/n. i love you.”

“bucky-” you hiccup. “i'm so sorry i said that about you. i promise you i just said it to you because i- i was lashing out. anyone would accept and love you, you are literally the most amazing-” hiccup, “person-” hiccup, “in the universe.”

he smiles softly at you and the unshed tears come back, but this time, he lets them fall.

“baby, listen to me. i love you. i'm not going anywhere.” you open your mouth to speak but he beats you to it. “and i forgive you. i promise you i don't resent you. i know what it's like to lash out when you're hurt.”

“bucky-” you sob against his chest.

“shh, baby, its okay.” he soothes you, rubbing comforting circles on your back. “it's okay, i got you.”

you take a shuddering breath and lift your head from his chest to look at him. you grab his face with both your hands.

“i promise you i'll never lash out again. im so sorry. i-” he gives you a pointed look. “i know. im not saying sorry anymore. sor-” you purse you lips and he lets out a laugh. then, he shakes his head incredulous and looks at you with so much adoration in his eyes you feel like you're going to pass out from all the love you feel for this man. “can i kiss you?” you ask him shyly.

“please.”

and so you do. the kiss is soft, vulnerable, you're telling him how sorry you are, how much you love him, and thats when you remember you didn't say it.

he whines when you pull away, something that makes you smile.

“bucky,”

“yeah, baby?”

“i love you. so much i feel like i'm going to throw up.” he lets out a loud laugh.

“i love you more, doll.”

you spend the rest of the day cuddled up on that couch in that old apartment, not ready to go to the compound yet. but you do send a text to steve before turning off your phone to spend time with the love of your life. you almost lost him, but you didn't, and as you lay in that old mattress on the floor, while he makes love to you and whispers of words of adoration and devotion fill your ears, you vow to him one thing. you'll always be his.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x yn #bucky barnes #james bucky barnes #mcu x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes smut

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bvidzsoo · 1 month

Text

Love Me Like A Rockstar (14)

ー☆ Chapter 14: Follow You

Author: bvidzsoo

Pairing: Song Mingi x female reader

ー☆ Warning: none ー☆ Word count: 7.8k ー☆ Genre: university!au, enemies to lovers!au, rockstar!au ー☆ Rating: sfw ー☆ Summary: Love. You wanted none of it. You had already been heartbroken very badly once, you didn't wish to go through that ever again. But the Universe works in intricate ways and, somehow, you found yourself webbed up in a local rockstar's life, Song Mingi. He was everything you expected him to be, yet nothing like you imagined him he would be. What happens when you find mutual understanding and have heartful conversations? Will he be able to break down your walls? Will you be able to chase away his darkness?

A/N: Hello, my lovelies! And the last actual chapter is here (as I still have an epilogue ready for you all), I can't believe we're wrapping up LMLAR and that I have to let go of the characters I have created for this story. I can't lie, I might have become really attached to Mingi in this story because I accidentally portrayed in him my ideal type, but what's new? I somehow always manage to hurt myself when I write with Mingi lol (ig that's the burden I have to carry if I write a story with my bias lol) I will be going on a holiday for possibly two weeks, so that means I won't be able to write nor update for two weeks (which sounds horrible and I'm already dying over it, but I hope I'll manage to find time to still write even if a little). Now, don't worry too much about the epilogue and I ask you to read the note at the end of this chapter attentively! ;) For once, I am asking you all to listen to Follow You after you've finished the chapter and not before or during it! I'm curious if the lyrics will be familiar hehe. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and let me know through feedback <3 divider

Taglist: @orshii @or5i @lovely-red2 @scarfac3 @juicy-red

@sunaswifes-blog @voicesinmyhead-rc @teez-the-time @maru-matt @kyeos4ng

@deathbyyeekies @chicksmoothie @mjlbn01 @xhexy @tmtxtf

@hwashiningstar @thatfavouritesong @ateez-atiny380 @xciiiomwliah @vixensss

@catchingskzzzs @tesssaurrr @ginger-mingi @mingisbbg

⟨Series M.list ↭ Previous Chapter⟩

♫Playlist♫

Being here with him, doing this with him had no business being so nerve-wracking. This was Mingi, the guy I hated at first—did I?—and then found a friend in and—well, now found something more in him—wanted more from him. But the flutter of my heart and my stomach twisting despite still feeling somewhat calm, reminded me that no matter that I was with Mingi, this was a completely new setting for us. Yes, it was just the two of us going out and about, but at the same time, it was a date. Something we both discussed and agreed upon, leaving our houses with the purpose of going on this date, the two of us. And perhaps it wasn’t even me feeling nervous about going on a date with Mingi per se, but more the fact that I hadn’t done something like this in ages, which made me feel giddy about it. Like a child when they get the present they really wanted on Christmas Eve.

Mingi, like the true gentleman he was, had picked me up once we were both done with our classes for the day, the sun only half an hour away from setting. The sky had been coated in orange and pink hues as Mingi drove us to an unknown location, grinning from ear to ear as he talked about his day to fill the silence since his old Honda’s stereo had stopped working a few days ago. I didn’t mind that, not at all, if that meant I got to listen to his deep voice and excited tone as he told me about his professor asking about Outlaw and whether he was allowed to attend one of Noir Zenith’s performances. It seemed like word had gotten out lately about Mingi’s band, and even more people from our university were interested in watching them play, I feared soon Outlaw wouldn’t be enough to house the fans. The thought made me feel—made me feel proud and happy for him. Mingi deserved this, he was hard-working and diligent, and I wished him nothing but the best.

When I realized that Mingi was driving us to a rather high-end part of the city with tall and fancy buildings, I found myself more nervous about the surprise he had in mind for me. I didn’t exactly want to dine out in a super expensive restaurant—it really wasn’t my thing—but if this is what Mingi prepared for us, I wouldn’t mind. I knew I’d enjoy myself as long as he was by my side. But, thankfully, he veered us away from the main street and drove down a few narrower ones, buildings nestled together and looking cozier than ever. Graffiti and murals covered every second bricked wall, and I watched curiously as Mingi pulled over and parked the car at the side of the road, in front of a black building, smaller than the ones in the area but a lot more modern and fancier looking. It was dark inside and looked unlived in, but I didn’t question him when he just grinned and grabbed a blanket and basket out of the backseat, then grabbed my hand and guided me towards its front door.

He had fumbled with the key for a second and I snickered at him as he flushed, but then we were inside and I watched in awe the high windows, the place vacant of anything. It was dark, now with the sun setting as well, and I noticed that quite a few lightbulbs were still missing, but Mingi grabbed my hand and walked us towards the end of the hallway.

“Are you sure we’re supposed to be here?” I asked quietly, as if afraid someone would hear us. The place was unfurnished still and Mingi hummed as I noticed light coming from a room whose archway was covered by a black blanket so that you couldn’t see inside. I had paused and looked at Mingi questioningly as he chewed on his bottom lip, then released my hand and yanked the blanket down. My eyes widened at the scenery inside, completely taken aback by the fairy lights strung above and the fort which was built by three stands and a blanket dangled over them. Besides the fairy lights, there was a projector and the white wall was covered in the image of a forest, with a creek slowly flowing through, and the distant sound of birds chirping echoed around the room, it was quiet so as not to disturb any conversation.

My jaw was completely on the floor as I felt my heart race even faster, completely in awe at the view in front of me. I couldn’t believe someone would do something so sweet for me, and as I turned to look at Mingi, for the first time, he looked nervous. He smiled tentatively and I noticed his trembling fingers as he pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his tall nose, and then without thinking, I threw myself in his arms, hugging his torso tightly as I gnawed on my bottom lip, embarrassed by the sudden tears in my eyes as I buried my head in his chest. Mingi made a surprised noise in the back of his throat but didn’t hesitate to return the embrace, and I had to gulp multiple times to try and get rid of the lump in my throat. Nobody has ever done something this nice for me. It was thoughtful, there was effort put into it, and I knew Mingi did this all by himself.

“So, based on your reaction, I assume you like this?” He didn’t sound smug or playful, he sounded genuinely curious, and for a second, I couldn’t believe I was stupid enough to even think of ruining a relationship with someone this precious.

“I love it, Mingi.” I whispered into his chest, the softener of his clothes carrying a flowery scent that mingled with his cologne that I was familiar with by now. It felt safe, it felt warm, and Mingi was comforting to be around.

“Oh, that’s good.” He heaved a sigh and I finally managed to get rid of the tears as I pulled my head back to look up at him, his cheeks were flushed a deep red, a great contrast against his tanned skin and platinum hair, “I was scared you’d hate it, but Wooyoung told me to trust my gut, so I did.”

I smiled and released him, stepping back to offer him space so that he could proceed with his plans. He beckoned me further inside the warm room, towards the fort as he laid the blanket out on a mattress for us, placing the picnic basket next to it, “If the weather would’ve allowed it, I would’ve loved taking you down to the creek for a little picnic under the warm sun, but autumn and winter suck, so I had to get creative.”

“I wasn’t expecting anything less from you.” I chuckled as I had walked towards him, shrugging off my long coat. Mingi followed suit and I took my time to take in his attire, loose black jeans held onto his narrow hips by a thick belt, a beige sweater tucked in slightly at the front, and a black denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up. His wrists were decorated with beaded bracelets, the rings toned down as he only had three on his left and one on his right hand, three necklaces dangling at different lengths around his neck. His nails were bare today, void of the familiar black tint. And, without meaning to, it seemed like we wore matching outfits for our date. I wore black jeans which was loose at the knees paired with a black off-shoulder long-sleeved blouse and a beige sweater with holes over it. I didn’t want to comment on my observations as Mingi settled on the mattress with a grin, patting the spot next to him, “What’s this place though? Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?”

Mingi chuckled as he opened the basket, pulling out the thermos I had brought the hot chocolate in for him days ago, and then he grabbed two mugs, “I pulled some strings for us to be here, but we’re not trespassing, so don’t worry.”

“Who owns this building?” I asked curiously as I watched Mingi pour hot chocolate into the mugs.

“Well, last I heard Hongjoong bought it, so…” My eyes widened as I had taken the mug from Mingi, curious to know more, “This building will be Seonghwa’s art studio. He wishes to launch a brand soon, and Hongjoong thought it would be best if Seonghwa has his own office, or studio as Hwa likes to call it. I think he wants to turn the front lobby into a smaller art gallery of sorts, you should talk to him and see whether he’s interested in displaying your paintings and drawings.”

I hummed, thrilled at the idea of having my own exposition one day, “I don’t think I have enough creations for him to display just yet, but I will keep it in mind.”

It’s my dream to be a well-known painter all around the world, to have to travel to display my art in various galleries, to have people interpret my works to their liking and imagination, and to be able to spread a message through my work. I love creating and I love sharing my deepest thoughts through whatever I put on a canvas, or in my sketchbook and, perhaps, I love it even more when someone else appreciates it and interprets it through their own lens, through their own experiences.

Being here with Mingi felt warm, it made me forget about every concern I had prior, completely disregarding my nervous state as I now found myself comfortable sitting beside him and sipping on our hot chocolate, snacking from time to time on popcorn and whatever salty snack Mingi had prepared for us. The scenery through the projector never changed, and I found the chirping of the birds and the flow of the water as white noise rather relaxing. If I closed my eyes, I could easily picture myself with Mingi by the creek, the two of us sitting on a blanket in the green grass, the warm sun beaming down on us as we laughed and talked about whatever came to mind. It seemed like time passed by like a slug when in reality, it was flying away way too fast, but neither one of us cared. Wooyoung and Seulgi knew we were on a date—and since this building was Hongjoong and Seonghwa’s, they probably knew we were here too—and I had told my mother earlier today that I was going out with Mingi. There was no point hiding anything from her anymore, and she was beyond excited to hear the news. She had a night shift today, but she promised to pester me at breakfast about every single detail tomorrow, swearing she wouldn’t go to sleep until we had the chance to talk. And when she put her mind to something, I knew she would follow through with it.

Mingi and I had been talking non-stop since the whole fiasco in his studio—through texts, phone calls, or in person—and I found myself craving to be around him more and more. Surprising even myself, I bought pastries just the other day before going to my first class, and knowing Mingi would be in his studio, I surprised him with his favorite pastry before I was off to class, not wanting to bother him anymore. It also didn’t come as much of a surprise when he and Wooyoung sat with me and Seulgi at lunch, Mingi huddled up close to me as he wouldn’t stop nagging me about eating more, giving me half of his portion despite me not being able to stomach it. In the end, he finished both of our lunches, and I couldn’t have been happier. Seulgi and Wooyoung didn’t comment much on our antics, but I knew Seulgi was dying to tease me. I knew I was in for it later in our art class, and I wasn’t wrong.

The tension I felt around Mingi—due to not being completely honest with him—had now completely disappeared and was, instead, replaced with a tingling feeling that made me giggle and flush any time I allowed my thoughts to stray towards him. Towards his tall build, his firm muscles, his deep and raspy voice that covered my skin in chills any time I listened to it, and his sharp eyes that could make anyone weak in the knees unless they were creased due to his wide smile. His long nose and crooked teeth and that wide smile that had my stomach doing weird flips, his throaty giggles and rarely flushed cheeks. His hands, which were always warm in contrast to his chunky silver rings, which, surprisingly, have become comforting whenever they dug into my skin, his thick fingers intertwined with mine. His cologne and scent, which had me craving more of him, his clothes tucked away securely in my closet—and if perhaps one of my hoodies’ started smelling like Mingi, nobody had to know that I would snuggle up in it before falling asleep. His arms, which always brought a wave of comfort with them and made me feel smaller than anyone has managed to make me feel before. His hands and nails which I would stare at and flush whenever Mingi noticed what I had been doing, and ultimately, his platinum blonde hair, a color that I started loving instead of hating so ardently. It suited him, it made him look unfairly handsome, it sharpened his high cheekbones and his well-defined jaw, gave his eyes more depth and sharpness, and yes, I loved the color, but I also missed his naturally black hair. It made him look softer, more like the Mingi he was on the inside, easily fooling others of his true personality.

A personality that was goofy and giddy, yet a personality that felt everything intensely and spoke boldly, expressing himself directly and never expecting anything besides fair treatment and the truth in return. Mingi was a sensitive soul who offered without asking anything back in return, and he was rewarded rightfully by those around him who appreciated and loved him. He was easily lovable and I found it harder each day that passed by to ignore the need to cherish and protect him. I didn’t think coming clean with my feelings would be such a liberating feeling, that it would make everything so much easier to accept, to mull over. I was scared, of course, I still was, but I felt hopeful. I knew Mingi well enough by now to know he’d never pressure me into anything I didn’t want, that he’d never make me feel uncomfortable, and that he’d always take it slow if that’s what I needed.

When our mindless chatter finally subsided, the two of us now laid on our backs, staring up at the moon Mingi had hung up in the fort—it felt serene. I knew we were nearing late evening by now, but I couldn’t find it in myself to actually care, to actually look at my phone to check the time. I didn’t even want to look at my wristwatch to see—I wished to stay in this moment with Mingi for as long as possible. We had eaten almost all the snacks he brought and the hot chocolate had been long gone now, all we did was enjoy each other’s company right now. With a finger fiddling with the holes in my sweater, I reached the pinkie of my other hand out until I could poke at Mingi’s hand. I didn’t look at him, but I could see from my peripheral that his eyes were closed. He hummed when I poked his pinkie again, and then, finally gave in as he hooked our pinkies together, sending my heart into a frenzy as I tried to remind myself that this wasn’t the first time we’d be holding hands—it did nothing to my poor flushed cheeks nor churning stomach, I was horrible at hiding how he made me feel.

“Can I ask you something?” Mingi’s voice was quiet as if not to disturb our peace. He sounded just a little bit hesitant, and I got a feeling of what our next subject would be about. I hummed and listened as he took a deep breath, then asked his question, “Do you hate Yunho?”

My eyebrows furrowed as I glanced at Mingi, his eyes were still closed, except that now he was gnawing on his lower lip nervously instead of looking at ease. I didn’t have to think much about his question, I don’t think I have ever felt such negative feelings against someone before, “No, I could never hate anyone, to be honest. However, I did resent him for a long time.”

“And now?” I could understand his curiosity and the need to know more about whatever was once between Yunho and me. It didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, I was rather thankful that we could openly discuss it. I know that if it bothered him, Mingi would’ve told me because that’s who he was. We didn’t hold secrets from each other, we spoke directly and honestly.

“I don’t feel anything,” I whispered with a small shrug, finding it weird how impartial I had become to Jeong Yunho. A few months ago I still couldn’t think of him without distaste, let alone talk about him without my stomach dropping and heart clenching. I still didn’t appreciate the way he’s treated me, of course, I didn’t, but I found it easy to let go, to not care anymore at all, “It’s been over five years that we dated, and I’ve been over him for a long time now.”

“But you couldn’t completely let go,” Mingi muttered and I had to gulp, not that surprised that he saw right through me.

“He was my first love, my first in everything so I—” I gulped, wondering whether this was uncomfortable or not for Mingi to discuss, but he intertwined our fingers and gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. I took a deep breath and slowly continued, “I was attached to him, people always say you’ll forever remember the first person you truly loved, and I think they are right. It’s a bittersweet memory, to be honest, but not something I feel locked down in anymore. Even the resentment I felt towards him now feels so distant like it happened ages ago and not months ago. It feels good and refreshing to have gotten rid of such consuming thoughts and emotions despite never saying it out loud. I hated myself for latching onto that last fraction of emotion I felt towards Yunho, thinking it would make his life as miserable as he made mine but in reality, I was only holding myself back and hurting myself furthermore.”

I turned my head to watch Mingi, to take in his expression, and I was surprised to see him smiling. He was gently rubbing his thumb over my skin, “Yunho’s parents got divorced around the time you two started dating, and his older brother moved to another country in order to pursue the career he’s always wanted, so Yunho had it hard. Between the two of us, he’s always been the stronger person, the brighter mind with never-ending hope, cheering me on and encouraging me to never back down if I had goals to reach. Even when I knew he was suffering due to his family’s situation, he wouldn’t let me comfort him, wouldn’t let me be his shoulder to cry on. He had a huge ego back then, refusing to show the cracks or admit that he was doing worse than ever, and I think he was abusing every relationship he had back at that time. He needed validation and love, he felt worthless and used after his parents didn’t even warn him of their split up, just showed him the documents and made him choose who he’d want to continue living with.

“His parents were good people but they handled some things in a shitty way, and it showed because Yunho lost himself in alcohol and meaningless relationships for a while. I’m not calling your relationship meaningless, because as much as I can remember, you were the only one who was able to tie him down for a longer period of time back then. It’s not you who wasn’t enough for Yunho, it’s him who wasn’t ready to commit and love others the right way. I warned him often to stop whatever he was doing, but he was addicted to the feeling and even hurt me in the process. I’m in no way invalidating your feelings and whatever you have gone through, I just hope you can forgive Yunho’s foolishness one day. He was just a kid trying to navigate his life as he lost his path for a short amount of time. I can guarantee he’s changed now, he’s better than he’s ever been before and he regrets everything he’s done. If you feel like it, I’m sure he would even reach out to you to apologize.”

Mingi’s eyes slowly fluttered open as he turned his face, and his eyes widened when he realized I had been looking at him the whole time, “I probably would’ve killed for this information back in highschool, it would’ve made things a lot less complicated for me if he was just honest and explained things before he left me. It wasn’t always easy growing up without a father, and despite never caring much about what others said, Yunho made me feel unworthy and undesirable and perhaps it’s that which hurt more and not even the fact that he left me. I knew relationships didn’t always last, but I didn’t expect him to be such a huge asshole.”

Mingi snickered and bit his lower lip as I rolled my eyes, trying to restrain the giggle that threatened to bubble through, “Yunho would be digging his own grave right now if he were to hear us, too embarrassed and ashamed of himself to even apologize.”

“Serves him right.” I couldn’t help but laugh and Mingi did the same, looking content and not bothered by the nature of our conversation. After all, it was him who was curious about it and I had nothing to hide from him anymore, “What about you? Any past girlfriends I have to look out for?”

My tone was teasing and Mingi instantly flushed, turning his head away as if that would’ve hidden it. His glasses were placed between us and he cleared his throat as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Well, I wasn’t a heartthrob like my lovely best friend, so I didn’t date many girls.”

I raised my eyebrows, prompting Mingi to continue speaking as he sighed, “I dated a girl back in highschool for a few months, but I don’t know. She was nagging and I didn’t like the way she berated me whenever things didn’t go her way, so I broke up quickly with her. After that, I just wasn’t in the mood to date anyone. I was content with watching anime and reading my mangas and hanging out with Yunho.”

I grinned and pushed up onto my elbows, wiggling my eyebrows at Mingi when he quickly averted his eyes, “And in university? Come on, don’t be shy now, where’s the cocky and annoying Mingi I despised?”

“You were into it, don’t lie.” Mingi chuckled as I scoffed, but I couldn’t find myself to correct him. Maybe I was into it, but he didn’t have to know, his ego was big enough already. After a longer pause and a squeeze of his hand, he gave in and groaned, “Yeah, fine, I dated casually a few people but wasn’t into any of them much. I feel like nobody has ever seen past my looks or the fact that I have a band and sing, so I didn’t feel like being with someone who only wanted me for my looks and for the far-fetched idea that I’d become famous one day, subsequently making them famous too so that they could parade around saying their boyfriend is a rockstar.”

“It’s not a far-fetched idea, Mingi.” I muttered and he looked up at me again, looking hopeful, “It’s good to know, though, that I won’t have to fight any jealous exes in the near future.”

“It’s rather the exes I’d be worried about,” He snickered, and as I narrowed my eyes, a cheeky smile was back on his lips, “you are the jealous type, not them—”

“Now that’s simply not true.” I huffed and fell back, glaring up at the new moon Mingi had hung up in the fort, “I’m not the jealous type.”

“Are you not?” His voice dripped with tease and I rolled my eyes, “Because I’m pretty sure you don’t like Mina—”

“Who’s Mina?” I interrupted, eyebrows furrowing as I cast a glance his way.

“The blonde girl, my fan.” I gulped, suddenly feeling an unexplainable drop in my stomach and a scowl on my face as I turned my head further away so that Mingi couldn’t see it. Yeah, I simply couldn’t stand her. Mingi started laughing loudly and I huffed as I retracted my hand from his, crossing my arms in front of my chest. It only made him laugh harder, and soon I found myself grinning, his deep laugh infectious.

“I’m not jealous of her, though.” I tried to defend myself but it fell on deaf ears as Mingi continued snickering.

“I don’t mind.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Mingi chuckled at my scoff and then it was silent again as I felt my heart rate settle, Mingi’s breaths stable and loud in the fort. The sounds of nature alongside the projection of the creek would be able to lull me to sleep, but Mingi spoke up again before that could happen, “Remember when we were in the library all those months ago and I flipped through your sketchbook without permission?”

I hummed and gave him a pointed stare, making Mingi smile at me sheepishly, “Well, sorry about that, first of all, and secondly, there was a drawing of eyes which was scribbled over. That’s when you said those were Yunho’s but I’m pretty sure I can recognize my own eyes, doll—”

“Are you claiming again that I was drawing your eyes?” I raised my eyebrows and Mingi pursed his lips as he nodded, “I feel like we’ve had this discussion a million times before, Mings.”

Mingi chuckled and then shrugged, playing with the beads of his bracelet, “Yeah, but hearing you confirm it again would be nice.”

I sighed but gave in nonetheless, I would adhere to his wishes only today, “Yes, Mingi, my sketchbook is full of your eyes, of your face, of your body, of you performing on stage, of you sitting in your car—of you.”

I didn’t expect to see his face, even his ears, turn red in a second, eyes widening as his mouth fell open. For once I felt like I had the upper hand, that it finally wasn’t him making me feel flustered, and I smirked, raising an eyebrow at him teasingly. Mingi cleared his throat and patted at his cheeks, clearing his throat again as he opened his mouth to speak, stuttering a bit before a sound actually came out, “Well, I—uh, I wasn’t expecting such honesty. Thank you? I mean, that’s really cool, thank you. I knew you were obsessed with me since the second you saw me.”

And that’s why I mostly kept to myself about stuff like this, I knew it would get to his head, “No, I couldn’t stand you the second I saw you. Then you turned out not to be such an idiot and too annoying, thankfully.”

Mingi chuckled and intertwined his hands as he placed them behind his head, kicking his legs out, “Well, I actually knew you before meeting you at Outlaw. Wooyoung told me about Seulgi, and then the next day he pointed her out in the hallway and you were there with her. And, uh, yeah.”

It was my turn to tease him as I turned my head and grinned at him, “Did little Mingi have a crush on me before he even got to know me?”

I shouldn’t have felt so pleased by his sudden flush or the way he avoided eye contact, “Yeah, I did.”

And apparently, I was worth sticking around for so long, pushing to get through to me, to make me realize opening up to another person wasn’t such an awful thing, to make me realize liking someone else wasn’t the end of the world, and that I very much wanted to be loved and that I also wanted to love another. The silence that dragged on wasn’t awkward, but I felt Mingi tense the more I didn’t say anything, and as he looked at me with eyes that held light fear in them, I smiled. And then, I was turning onto my side and leaning over to kiss him. As always, his plush lips were soft and warm, welcoming and eager as I pressed a chaste kiss against them, trying not to smile but I failed miserably as Mingi sighed quietly. I pulled back as my intention wasn’t to turn this into anything deeper, but Mingi chased after my lips, our noses bumping together as I cupped his cheek with my hand, my hair falling around us as our lips pressed a little firmer against each other.

It was slow, neither one of us desperate or trying to prove anything as we got lost in the feel of the other, of the other’s warmth and taste—which was a mix of salted caramel popcorn and hot chocolate, Mingi’s cologne making my head dizzy as our lips slotted perfectly together, moving languidly against each other. My hand slipped to hold his jaw and he freed a hand from under his head as he held onto the back of my head, sucking my lip between his teeth without bruising them or nipping at them. I hummed against his lips and pressed another swift kiss against them before pulling away, my face hovering above his as I didn’t want to open my eyes just yet, basking in the feeling kissing Mingi brought with itself. Our noses bumped together again and I smiled as Mingi giggled, no doubt enjoying the proximity.

“So,” His voice was quiet and when I opened my eyes, I was met with an unexpected flush to his cheeks, that subsequently made me blush as well, “what are we now?”

“What should we be?” I asked, my tone warm as I bit my lower lip to contain my smile.

“What do you want us to be?”

“A couple?”

It felt like time stopped as I muttered those words, feeling nervous and scared, but so ready to offer everything I had to Mingi, to make him happy, to make him feel loved and appreciated. I never wanted to see him hurt, especially not because of me. I had seen Mingi’s smile before plenty of times, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the way his eyes disappeared and nose scrunched up, all teeth on display as he smiled up at me, making my heart flutter as I just realized something. I loved him, I loved this man lying underneath me and nothing would stop me from cherishing him like he deserved to be.

“Yeah, I want us to be a couple.” He spoke as he didn’t stop smiling, and I tried to keep mine in check.

“But we have to go on more dates, at least three more, to get to know each other better.” My eyebrows slightly furrowed and Mingi smoothed them out with his fingers tenderly.

“Of course, we’ll take it at your pace, I have nothing to rush for.” I felt grateful as Mingi winked and I pressed a swift kiss before I buried my head in his neck, letting him pull me closer to his body as I cuddled up against his side, “Can I tell Wooyoung at least”

“You think I won’t tell Seulgi?”

And we giggled together as Mingi pressed a kiss against my head, humming in contentment as our fingers intertwined, resting upon his beating heart. I’ve never felt more like I belonged than at this exact moment. Not even with my art.

By the time Mingi drove me home, it was well into the evening, the dark streets illuminated by the lampposts, some having burned down as Mingi turned onto my street. We didn’t feel the need to discuss much on our way back, our date was successful and filled with laughter and deep conversations that only confirmed my suspicions of Mingi. He was a good guy, too good to be true at times, but I was more than grateful that he was by my side.

His old black Honda Prelude came to a slow stop in front of my house and I unbuckled my seatbelt as Mingi turned his head and smiled, placing the car in neutral as he pulled the handbrake up. I turned and looked at him, our smiles almost shy as if we weren’t ready to say goodbye just yet, acting as if we wouldn’t see each other tomorrow. I agreed to let him pick me up for a breakfast date as we both only had classes starting at noon. If my heart fluttered and lungs convulsed at the thought of having Mingi pick me up tomorrow for a breakfast date, I would only admit it to my mother as now I had to explain why I wouldn’t have breakfast with her in the morning. I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight, too excited to actually get the amount of sleep that was healthy. Perhaps I would even paint some more, for once, I wasn’t behind on assignments, but I felt the itch under my skin to create something new.

“Well,” I cleared my throat once the silence got too much, “I loved spending my time with you, Mingi, thank you for taking me out.”

“I’m glad you liked it.” He looked away abashed, but only for a second as he gave me a cheeky look, “I bet it’ll be hard to overdo my efforts now.”

“You wish.” I chuckled and grabbed my backpack from between my legs, “Don’t forget, I might be artsier than you are, love.”

It was certainly surprising to see Mingi’s face flush, ears included. If I remember correctly, Yunho’s ears always flushed before his face could if he was flustered, flattered, or embarrassed, and now I couldn’t help but find it endearing that the two best friends had similar mannerisms, “Uh—yeah, I—love?!”

I giggled and bit my lower lip, leaning over the center console with a cheeky grin, “Well, did you expect me not to call you nicknames? You call me doll, it’s only fair I return the favor—”

“But love?!” Mingi exclaimed, slightly confusing me as he rubbed his eyes behind his glasses, “I—I think I’m unwell.”

“What?” My eyebrows furrowed, suddenly concerned, “Why?”

“My stomach won’t stop flipping around and because I’m losing my mind?” Upon Mingi’s helpless expression and whine, my eyes widened and I fell back into my seat, not quite laughing as I couldn’t help but gape at him.

“Do I fluster you—”

“Very much so!” Mingi exclaimed as he hid behind his hands again and I might have malfunctioned for a second as I’d never seen him acting like this. Did he have a fever? Did a simple nickname turn him into a whiney kid?

“Well, it’s payback time for all the times you made me suffer, love.” Mingi looked like he was about to combust and I couldn’t help but cackle as I blew him a kiss before grabbing the handle to open the car’s door. But before I could step out, Mingi shot forward and opened the glove box.

“Wait!” He said hurriedly and I froze, looking at him curiously. He grabbed a black notebook and handed it to me, eyes boring into mine despite his still red ears, “Flip through it once you’re settled down, please.”

I smiled and nodded, feeling curious as I took it from him, and certainly blushed an ugly shade of red when he pressed a quick kiss against my cheek, making me stumble for a second as I got out of his car. It was his time to feel triumphant for making me feel flustered, and I couldn’t help but flip him off as his amused laughter was audible through the closed doors and rolled-up windows. He winked and waved cheekily before putting the car in first gear and motioning for me to head inside. Feeling giddy and curious, I waved before turning my back to walk to the front door as nonchalantly as possible, fishing my keys out of my pocket. Once I was inside, Mingi drove off and I slammed the front door shut, locking it quickly as I had half a mind slipping out of my boots and throwing my jacket onto the floor absentmindedly as I raced up to my room, not bothering to turn on the lights. I might have bumped into the edge of the railing and the edge of my door as I turned on the bedside table lamp, dropping everything on the floor except the notebook as I plopped down onto the bed.

My heart was racing as I got comfortable, almost forgetting my phone was in my back pocket and would be crushed if I sat on it, so I retrieved it and placed it on the bed next to me. My fingers trembled lightly and I licked my lips as I flipped the notebook open, surprised to find Mingi’s name written prettily on the first page with doddles decorating the rest of the blank page, all kinds of little animals and shapes signed by his friend’s names, no doubt them having drawn those in here. Too curious about the contents of the notebook, I started slowly flipping through the pages, eyes skimming over all the words and musical notes, Mingi’s handwriting was pretty despite it being rushed at times—most of the time.

Then, I flipped to a page that had my name only on it with a small heart next to it. My heart was suddenly in my throat as I took a shaky breath, flipping to another page, eyes slowly taking in all the words.

‘And the world is cold/But it's beautiful/I wish you were here now’, I could imagine Mingi’s soft tone singing these in a whisper before the beat picked up. ‘It's your magnetic hold/A gravity pull/I can feel you in waves/When your melody comes/It falls from above/I will not be afraid’, I gulped, eyebrows furrowing as I slowly traced over the words, Mingi’s pen having made an indent in the paper when he scribbled them down. Eager to read more, I looked further down, drinking in what I now realized to be lyrics, ‘So lost/Coming from me when I'm lost/You kiss my neck and then you're gone/Turn me off and turn me on oh/Eat up every word you say/My perception dilates’. I bit my bottom lip, heart racing just a little faster as I realized Mingi offered me a glance inside his mind, inside his feelings and how he’s viewed me and our relationship over the months, ‘Want you to waste my time/Mess with my mind/Fly me to the other side/Don't say goodbye to reds in my eyes/Love me enough to hate me/Waste my time, waste my time/Waste my time, waste my time’.

I gulped, suddenly feeling guilty for having tormented Mingi for so long, for having made him feel like I was playing with his feelings, ‘Like a phantom, I will steal your heart/Until we're dancing in the dark/Like a phantom, I will steal your heart/Until we're dancing in the dark’. I chuckled, imagining Mingi hunched over his desk with a frown on his lips as he jotted the lyrics down, then smirked in triumph at the fantasy of finally having my heart in his hands—and I think he’s rather close to achieving that now, ‘Chit chat, do you want that/Or wanna take me home tonight?/All this chit chat is holding me back/And I'm breaking just to bend your light/I thought I told you, I really need your sugar/A rollercoaster, I'm going supernova/Chit chat is holding me back/To you, you’. I tried to refrain from grinning too hard at the lyrics. Going back home with Mingi wasn’t a repulsive thought anymore as it would have been a month ago. No, now I would rather go home with him. I wanted to be around him, I wanted him.

‘Oh, my oh, my oh my/Why's it every night/I'm feeling so sleepless?/Oh, why oh, why oh why?/I'm losing my mind/Maybe you're the reason’, I couldn’t help but gulp at the thought of Mingi not being able to sleep, bothered by thoughts of me, ‘Started as friends, but less than lovers/It's all making sense/On days, I'm thinking about us/Yeah, I know I'm so selfish/Hate the thought of someone else/Making you laugh, smiling, happy, if it ain't me or myself’. I gulped, feeling like Mingi got a glimpse inside my head too, making me remember how quickly and easily my jealousy previously flared whenever I saw him talking to the blonde girl. ‘I was more than just a body in your passenger seat/And you were more than just somebody I was destined to meet/I see you go half-blind when you're looking at me’, my breath faltered for a second as I quickly read over the lyrics again, wondering just how obvious it was to everyone else but myself that I was into Mingi, that he was into me.

‘I, I, I never thought I'd find true love/I, I guess I wasn't looking hard enough/If my heart stops now, you're the one thing that made it all worth it/If the sky falls down, right now, you're the one that I'll worship’, the words had no reason getting to me, yet I couldn’t help but flush hard as I blinked my eyes and rubbed at them, trying to cool off for a second, but I was too curious of what more was in the notebook, ‘Well, I heard you whisper/To all your friends/I heard you telling them that/You need a man in whom you can depend’. I chuckled, feeling amused but completely in awe of Mingi’s lyrics, his words somehow making complete sense and almost like a challenge to admit he was right about me, ‘Well I'd be the gasoline/To keep you alive/And I'd be the cold, so unbreakable/We'd burn together straight through the night/That's alright’. And now I had no doubts that Mingi would do anything for me, but what he didn’t know just yet, was that I would be his ride and die from now on.

‘Oh, and my love/Did I mistake you for a sign from God?/Or are you really here to cut me off?/Or maybe just to turn me on’, and perhaps if breathing became harder, it would be obvious to anyone as I tried to regulate my breaths and ignore the flush over my body, ‘'Cause these days/I would be lying if I told you that/I didn't wish that I could be your man/Or maybe make a good girl bad’. I gulped and sat up straighter, flipping another page hurriedly to read more of the song’s lyrics, easily imagining Mingi up on stage, raspy and smooth voice blending into the microphone and making the hairs on my arms stand as we made eye contact, his gaze intense and sharp, challenging in a way that would get me all bothered and hot, ‘I've got a river running right into you/I've got a blood trail, red in the blue/Something you say or something you do/The taste of the divine’. And I honestly to God hoped to see them perform this song one day, curious of what the band would sound like together, of Mingi’s voice and his eyes, ‘You've got my body, flesh and bone/The sky above, the Earth below/Nothing to say and nowhere to go/A taste of the divine’. I was ready to turn another page when my phone dinged loudly, making me flinch in surprise as I was completely immersed in Mingi’s lyrics.

Mings 🖤: home i hope you enjoy whatever you find in there some are spicy lol

Without thinking much, I pressed the dial button next to his name and raised the phone to my ear, my heart beating out of my chest. It barely rang twice before Mingi’s deep voice greeted me through the phone and I gulped, mouth working faster than my brain, “Mingi.”

“Yes, doll?”

“I think I’m falling in love with you.”

The deafening silence was filled with the loud thumps of my heart that only I could hear, and I was sure my pulse was way too high, but I couldn’t care less as I listened carefully to hear Mingi’s reaction. His gasp was loud as I licked my lips, eyes boring into the notebook again, “I read it, your lyrics.”

More silence, until there was a deep breath and Mingi’s raspy voice made me sink in on myself, goosebumps covering my whole body, “Good, because I think I’m already in love with you.”

I huffed out a breath, my smile was huge as Mingi’s chuckle that followed sounded breathless but somehow as if he was at ease. I couldn’t help but fall back on my bed, holding onto the phone tightly as I pushed the notebook to the side, eyes falling on my sketchbook, “I’ll send you something, listen to it now.”

“Alright, thank you.” Mingi hummed and then hung up, making my heartbeat quicken once again as I watched the dots in our chat move, and then a voice file was sent, with a message attached to listen to it with headphones. I quickly turned onto my stomach to reach for my nightstand, grabbing the headphones and connecting it to my phone as I placed it on my head, biting my lower lip as a familiar melody, lyrics, and voice traveled through the headphones, covering my skin in goosebumps.

『'Cause I'm telling you, you're all I need

I promise you, you're all I see

'Cause I'm telling you, you're all I need

I'll never leave

So, you can drag me through hell

If it meant I could hold your hand

I will follow you, 'cause I'm under your spell

And you can throw me to the flames

I will follow you, I will follow you』

❱❱ Epilogue

A/N: Can y'all imagine this was supposed to be the last chapter?? lol, back in December when I wrote the whole plot this is how I tied everything up BUT THEN, maybe around two months ago I was tbh just gushing to my bestie about Mingi and some other things, and I realized, wait a minute-I can totally write this for LMLAR?! And so, that's how the epilogue came into existence, which I'm grateful for because I feel like it ends the story on a good note *cries*, would you like me to post the epilogue this week on Friday or next week on Wednesday? majority wins lol

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