#probably poorly translated spanish

[n0cturna1-m3]

He's Charming | Alejandro Vargas x Male Reader | SFW

Fem/Minors DNI

Warnings; Somewhat graphic violence, spanish with no translation (go fuck yourselves (/j ily)), a little suggestive at the end

⚠️ i used yandex translator ⚠️

Request; Alejandro Vargas X Top!Male Reader who also speaks fluent Spanish and Alejandro slowly starts to fall for him.

A/N; I lost the file once and it made me blow a fuse so this is take 2 where i lost my patience so the use of accents is minimal, lmk if i should look through and add them back.

2 (Sequel)

If you'd like a part 2 with more development (+ smut bc it says top!m and i didn't wanna just go too fast idk) let me know! i'd be happy to do so.

2.3k words

Pulling the strap around his leg tighter, Y/N lifted his head away from his gear and turned to the door as it opened. Gaz walked in and slapped him on the shoulder with a big smile.

“Y/N! Good to see you, man!” Y/N smiled at him and gave him a playful shove, standing up and giving him a big hug. “Hope we didn’t keep you waiting long.”

“No, not at all, Y/N said. Y/N and Gaz had been friends for many years, going to school together in their youth and joining the force together. They were like a package deal.

“You ready to go?” Gaz asked, walking towards the door that led outside into the stifling heat. Y/N nodded and followed him outside, crossing his arms over his chest. There was a car waiting outside, Gaz took up the driver's seat while Y/N got into the passenger side, closed it, and buckled up.

The drive to the base was spent catching up, blasting music, and laughing, being met with Price on arrival. Y/N and Gaz got out of the car and walked toward the Captain, him extending his hand towards Y/N and taking it.

“Y/N, it’s good to finally meet you. Gaz talks about you often,” He said, shaking Y/N’s hand firmly.

“Likewise, Captain. All good things, I hope?” Y/N responded, placing his hands on his hips. Price laughed and shrugged his shoulders before turning around.

“Follow me, the guys are inside. You should meet them.” Price walked towards the door while Y/N and Gaz followed. The room they walked into was spacious and old, worn down. There was a table with a few men sitting around it playing cards, going in order and placing one upside down.

“Queen,” A man with a mohawk said, putting the card on the stack at the centre of the table.

“Bullshit!” The man next to him yelled, a wide grin on his face as he watched the other take the deck.

“You hackit bastard…” He muttered, glaring at the deck in his hands.

“Alright boys,” Price spoke, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops. The men turned to look at him, two standing and walking over, the others following suit. “This is Y/N L/N, goes by Bobcat. He specialises in close combat. He will be working with us from here on out, so get to know him.”

Y/N gave them a half smile as Price moved to sit at the table, pulling out a laptop and a few folders.

“Call me Soap,” The mohawk introduced himself, extending his hand and shaking Y/N’s. “This is Ghost,” He said, pointing to the large man standing a few feet behind him. He had a mask on that covered his face, his eyes being the only visible feature. Y/N nodded to him.

“Colonel Alejandro Vargas, a pleasure to be working with you, Bobcat.” Alejandro shook his hand and gestured to the shorter man next to him. “This is my second in command, Sergeant Major Rodolfo Parra.” Rodolfo shook Y/N’s hand. Ghost had sat next to Price to speak to him about the mission.

“What’s with the nickname?” Soap questioned. Gaz started laughing and Y/N punched his shoulder.

“Don’t you say a word, Kyle,” He warned, Gaz looking up at him with a grin.

“It’s actually quite a funny story! There was an incident where he-”

“Cállate!” Y/N smacked the back of his head. “I’ll rat you out if you’re not careful, pendejo.” Gaz stopped laughing and narrowed his eyes at Y/N and scoffed.

“You speak Spanish?” Alejandro asked, catching Y/N’s attention.

“Sí, the woman who took me in when I was young taught me,” Y/N said. Gaz glanced at him and grabbed his shoulder, shaking him roughly. “What?”

“Bobcat, I’d like to give you a debrief about the mission and get you familiar with the plan,” Price said, standing up from his seat and walking over to Y/N.

“Alright. Lidere el camino, Capitán,” He responded, following Price into a room off the side. Shelves and boxes were lining the far wall, a small kitchen on the right side, and a table in the middle of the room. Price gestured for him to sit, Y/N doing so while the Captain turned on the kettle and rummaged through a cabinet.

“Do you drink coffee?” He asked, pulling out two mugs and two instant coffee packs.

“Sí señor. I take it black.” Price readied the mugs and turned to face Y/N, leaning on the counter while he waited for the water to boil.

“Let’s get down to business. We are going for a man by the name of Alexander Stadt. He has been smuggling illegal arsenals from here to a port in Germany, and from there to Czech.” He grabbed a file from the counter next to him and tossed it in front of Y/N on the table. He skimmed through it while Price continued. “Civilians have begun to get involved, and consequently silenced for stumbling upon the trading. We have located Alexander at a base not far from here.”

The kettle screamed when it reached its designated temperature. Price turned around and started making the coffee. “He jumps between places, so our window of time is small. Tonight would be best to do the operation. Capture or kill.” Price turned around and walked to the table, setting one mug in front of Y/N and taking a seat in front of him.

“So what’s the plan then?” Y/N asked, flipping to the next page with details on Los Vaqueros. He stared at one of the photos and eyed the printed words beside it. The handsome man from earlier. Price started talking again and Y/N looked up, the details for Y/N’s place in the mission unfolding. “I’ve got my work cut out for me…”

Y/N followed Alejandro closely, peering over his shoulder when he stopped and raised a hand.

“See something, Colonel?” Y/N asked, glancing around. Alejandro pointed to a man standing at an open window, leaning out and smoking a cigarette. Y/N let out an ‘ah’ sound and walked over, Alejandro grabbing his shoulder and trying to pull him back.

“What the fuck are you doing, pendejo?” He whisper-yelled. Y/N shrugged him off and walked under the high window, glancing up at the oblivious man who was speaking to someone behind him. He turned his head to look at the person and Y/N reached up, grabbing the cigarette from his fingers and stomping it out. The man turned back to his smoke after the other had left, a confused look on his face at the lack of it, and leaned out the window to see if he dropped it.

“What the…” He muttered, eyes blooming wide with shock at the sight of Y/N staring back up at him.

“Smoking is bad for you, don’t you know that, credo?” He chastised, grabbing the man by the collar of his shirt and tugging him out the window. He hit the ground with a thud, dirt kicking up around him. Y/N crouched down and grabbed a fistful of his hair, pulling his head up and slitting his throat with his knife. The grotesque gurgling from his drowning in his blood sent chills through Alejandro’s spine.

While not part of the plan, they now had a way inside that would be closer to their target, so Alejandro walked over and stared up at the open window in slight shock.

“¿Eyes audaz, no?” He muttered. Y/N grinned and laced his fingers together to give the other a boost.

“Si, but I saved us time.” Alejandro hummed and hauled himself into the window, landing on his feet and waiting for Y/N to follow after him. The window was high up because of the big foundation, and he wondered if he would even be able to get himself over it, but lo and behold Y/N fell in after him rather ungracefully.

“Nice landing, tonto,” Alejandro huffed. Y/N pay no mind, simply standing up and brushing ohh his pants. Alejandro walked to the door and leaned out, immediately going back inside.

“Who’s over there?” Y/N asked, making his way over to the colonel. He shushed him and grabbed his shirt, pulling him closer to him and letting him peer out the door. There was a large, round table with a group of men playing poker around it, Alexander sitting amongst them. Large bodyguards were posted around the room, all sporting the same ‘uniform’ that the man Y/N killed was sporting. ‘Ah,’ he thought, pulling away from the door. “That’s not good…”

Alejandro walked away from the door, sending Y/N a look that said ‘keep watch’, while he moved farther away to be unheard while radioing into the rest of the team. Y/N stared out the door, the murmuring of Alejandro being snuffed by the rodeo that was the poker game outside of their small storage room.

“They’re on their way to us,” He stated quietly. Y/N briefly looked at him before returning to stalking the group. “On my signal, you shoot the one closest to us, the one on the left. I’ll get the one on the right.” Y/N nodded and readied his gun, holding it across his chest protectively.

Waiting for them felt longer than it should have, but when Y/N heard Ghost give Alejandro the ‘ok’ he stepped into the doorway and shot three of the bodyguards nearest to them, chaos ensuing.

“You-!” Alejandro cursed, following after Y/N and firing at the other guards and men who were now scrambling to get away.

Y/N spotted the red hair of Alexander running out of the room and immediately rushed after him. ‘Capture or kill’, he thought as he shot the tall man in the lower leg. He let out a blood-curdling scream and stumbled, limping away from Y/N as quickly as he could with a bullet in his calf. Y/N caught up with him quickly, kicking the back of his left knee and watching him fold like a chair.

“Hey, Alex! You mind if I call you that?” Y/N mocked, crouching in front of the ginger who was grasping his bleeding wound. He glared up at the H/C and spat on his face, Y/N’s lips curling into a grimace. “Mala jugada, pendejo,” He muttered as he wiped off the saliva.

He stood up and wound back, kicking Alexander in the side of his head with his thick combat boots. His head swung to the side, face red from the force. Y/N leaned down and grabbed his collar, pulling him up enough to look at him. He clicked his tongue and punched him, fist making contact with his temple. He passed out promptly afterwards, Y/N letting him fall to the floor. Alejandro walked rushed through the door, Soap on his heel and stared at the unconscious body at Y/N’s feet.

“He spat on me, it’s not my fault!” He said, raising his hands in defence. Soap groaned and Alejandro rubbed his eyebrows. “What? He’s still alive,” He grumbled, pulling a zip tie from his utility belt and tying Alexander’s wrists and ankles. He hoisted him up over his shoulder and walked past Alejandro and Soap, the latter following him while Alejandro stared in slight disbelief at the fact that Y/N had effortlessly picked up a 6’3” man and casually slung him over his shoulder. What the hell were they feeding this kid?

He caught up with them quickly and watched Y/N shove Alex, now awake and cursing Y/N out in Russian while thrashing around, in the back of the truck, slamming the door in his face.

Y/N groaned and looked at his hand, a throbbing, irritated and bleeding teeth mark on the skin. “This puta bit me!” Alejandro walked over to him and grimaced at the sight. The bastard’s teeth were sharp. Examining the wound, Alejandro got a good look at Y/N’s hands.

They were nice, a few veins protruding from his S/C skin, his bones showing through it. The meat of his palm and the creases in it, his fingernails short. Never in his life did he think that he would be admiring a man's hand and be slightly jealous that the bite wound on it wasn’t in the shape of his own teeth.

“¿A que estas mirando?” Y/N asked, looking into Alejandro's deep brown eyes. “¿Crees que es contagioso?” He turned back to his hand, raising it to his face and looking at it with concern.

“No esta infectado, no te preocupes,” Alejandro reassured him, turned away and walked to the passenger side of the car Rodolfo was in. He opened the door and climbed halfway inside, glancing back At Y/N who was getting into the driver's seat with Gaz in the passenger seat. “Nos vemos en la base.” Y/N grinned and waved, shutting the door and driving off. Rodolfo stared at Alejandro after he sat in the car incredulously.

“¿Te gusta el?” He asked, following the car in front of him. Alejandro glared at him in response.

“Es encantador,” He said, watching the road in front of them.

[sentientcave]

Retirement Party

Chapter 6 - The Butterfly Effect

Read on AO3

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Contains: No Y/N (2nd POV but Reader is an OC), Kidnapping, Forcible relocation, Dubcon, Plus-sized Reader/OC, female Reader/OC, Everyone learns new things about each other, Manipulation, PTSD, Doll has a tragic backstory, Poorly translated Spanish, Lots of introspection

~4.2k - MDNI - Dark fic! Please mind the content warning above but honestly nothing particularly bad happens this chapter.

John gives you space for the next few days, letting you settle in around the edges of his own routine. You’ve always been an early riser, and so is he, but he starts every day with a run, and you prefer a slower pace. You’ve taken to coming downstairs after you hear the front door close, and stretch on the living room floor (you wouldn’t call it yoga, but you’ve spent the last few years keeping up with the Kinsey kids, and you know how important it is to maintain flexibility), and make coffee before you go back upstairs to get dressed and ready for the day. John always showers first thing after his run, but after the second day he starts taking off his shirt before he drinks a glass of water at the sink, watching you from the corner of his eye to see if you’re looking.

And maybe sometimes you are. It would be a useless endeavour, pretending that he’s not nice to look at. He’s big, barrel-chested, with thick, muscular arms, and he’s hairy in a way that’s unbelievably attractive, and he gleams with sweat after his runs. If he didn’t look so damn smug every time he catches you looking, you’d probably gladly spend a few long minutes studying him. Something about the man makes your fingers itch to pick up a pencil.

You just orbit around each other for those first few days. He’s working on some project outside, and you putter around the house a bit and look for new jobs online. You were surprised that he didn’t confiscate your laptop to keep you from calling for a rescue, but he made no effort to stop you from using your laptop or your phone. Perhaps he’d really listened when you’d tried to set boundaries. He’s certainly given you space to adjust.

On Wednesday, you video call your Lola— It’s been routine for ages, since you always had Sundays and Wednesdays off from work— and catch up. You start the call shortly after John leaves, to give yourself some time to talk privately. It’s nice to see her familiar, wrinkled brown face, even if she’s half the world away from you.

She clocks that you’re not at home right away, and gets that sly, knowing smile when you tell her you’re staying with a friend. “¿Estás viendo a alguien?” she asks. “¿Un joven tal vez?” Are you seeing someone? A young man perhaps?

“No nada de eso. Sólo quedarme con un amigo.” No, nothing like that. Just staying with a friend. Once again, lying to make it seem like you’re not in trouble. It’s not like your Lola would be able to do anything about your situation anyway. You would just worry her.

Of course, Lola is much too observant not to see that you're hiding something-- Even if all she sees of you is a video call once a week, you're her granddaughter and she knows you. "Dalisay," she says, her tone a mocking approximation of sternness. "Eres una mujer adulta. Me gustaría saber que eres feliz, que estás saliendo con alguien agradable. No tienes que mentirme. Mientele a tu otra abuela.” You are a grown woman. I would like to know you're happy, that you’re seeing someone kind. You don't have to lie to me. Lie to your other grandmother.

You laugh. "¡Es complicado Lola! Él es—" It's complicated Lola! He's—

The door opens, and John limps back in, early. "Rolled my ankle," he explains, taking your wide-eyed look as concern. "Just need some ice."

"Muéstramelo," Lola demands, laughing. "Tiene una voz hermosa.” Show him to me. He has a handsome voice.

John turns toward you, frowning. "I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?"

"I always call Lola on Wednesdays-- John, sit down, you need to ice your ankle, what are you doing?"

He's standing on one leg, in the middle of the kitchen, fishing a mug out of the cupboard rather than getting something cold and sitting right down. "I--"

You're not sure what possesses you, but you get up, and you make him sit, and you go to make him his coffee and wrap a bag of frozen peas in a tea towel. When you turn around, he's reached across the table to pull your laptop closer, smiling at the camera when Lola claps he hands together, beaming.

"Es guapo, Dalisay. Pero no joven, ¿eh?" She says, laughing. He's handsome, Dalisay. But not young, huh?

"No," he agrees, "soy demasiado viejo para ella. Todavía soy lo suficientemente egoísta como para intentarlo de todos modos.” I'm too old for her. I'm still selfish enough to try anyway. Lola laughs at his honesty, pleased with John already.

You set down the coffee and glare at him. But you gently set the ice pack on his raised ankle. He pulls you into his lap, sitting you on his other thigh. "John!" You protest.

"Oh, relájate, apo,” Lola chides, unhelpfully reading the situation just the way John wants her to. She seems impressed by John's accented Spanish, happy to not need to translate her words to English to speak with him. She speaks English perfectly well, but she prefers Spanish, calls English clunky and ungraceful. "Yo también fui joven una vez. Me preocupaba que ella nunca encontrara a alguien.” Oh lighten up, apo. I was young once too. I was worried she would never find someone.

"No es que ella no pudiera,” John says. "Ella es tan hermosa, pero mantiene la distancia." It's not that she couldn't. She's so beautiful, but she keeps her distance.

“John, stop that,” you say, and you do mean the way he’s talking, but you also mean the hand that’s firmly gripping your hip, kneading your soft flesh. It’s not hard enough to bruise, not even enough to hurt, but it’s distracting, and makes your heart flutter. The movement is also hitching your skirt up a little higher on your thighs.

The innocent, laughing look he gives you is no help. “Sorry, love.” He kisses your shoulder, his hand sliding up to your waist instead.

You glance over at the screen, wincing when you see two of your cousins crowded into the screen with Lola, all of them stifling laughter and one of them holding a chubby baby.

“He needs to buy you a ring, cuz,” Ligaya says, waving her baby’s chubby hand at you. “Say hello Berting, that’s your auntie Dalisay and her boyfriend.” She and her sister, Ceci dissolve into giggles. The baby laughs too, although he doesn’t have any idea what’s going on around him.

“He’s too old to be anyone’s boyfriend,” you grouse.

“He looks more like husband material to me,” Ceci crows. She points a threatening finger at the webcam. “You’d better be good to her! She’s our favourite cousin.”

“Y mi nieta favorita,” Lola says, And my favourite granddaughter, cupping her hand around her mouth as if that would keep Ligaya and Ceci from hearing her. They both laugh, unoffended, Ceci batting Lola’s shoulder lightly.

“I will,” John promises. “She makes it easy. She’s much too good for the likes of me.”

“And don’t you forget it, English!” Ligaya agrees. “Are you coming to see us for Christmas this year, Lisay? There’s at least four babies you haven’t met yet.”

“I’m not sure I can afford to this year. We’ll see if I can find work—”

“¿Qué pasó? ¿Perdiste tu trabajo?” Lola asks. What happened? Did you lose your job?

“You practically raised those niños!” Ligaya protests, as if that would change the facts of the matter. “They love you!”

You grimace, and haltingly explain that Mr. Kinsey had made a pass at you, and you’d been fired so that he and his wife could work out their marital issues. Apparently you’d been just too tempting to have around, despite the fact that you had less than zero interest in your former employer. By the end of your explanation, Lola looks ready to fight, and Ligaya and Ceci both look furious too. “It’s alright,” you say, trying to convince yourself as much as you are them. “I wouldn’t have been able to leave if they didn’t fire me. And I didn’t want to be raising someone else's’ kids forever.”

Ceci wiggles her eyebrows at you. “Yeah, Lisay, you want your own babies, eh?”

“You should start painting again,” Ligaya suggested, flicking Ceci with the hand not currently supporting her son. “You could sell prints online, portrait commissions. You’re as good as your mother, and she made it into that London Gallery.”

Lola notices the way your smile strains and shoos your cousins away. “El consejo es bueno aunque graznan,” she says. “Eres demasiado buena para dejar de pintar.” The advice is good, even if they quack. You’re too good to stop painting.

You change the subject, and Lola talks some about the children, about neighbourhood gossip, catching you up on everything before you end the call. You sigh, sinking into John unconsciously. He’s so big, and so solid, you wish you could do away with that undercurrent of fear ruining the little comfort his arms would provide you otherwise.

“Why’d you stop painting?” he asks.

“It’s not the same anymore.”

“Is anything ever the same?”

You twist to look at him. His eyes are too blue, piercing though you like he’s able to read the thoughts in your head. You have to remind yourself that he can’t, that he doesn’t know you well enough even to guess. You’re getting to know him pretty well though, and you recognize this earnestness, this plea to let him in, to let him help. John is a man who needs to do something all the time, that needs to focus on a task. You wonder what it is that nips at his heels so sharply— Is is inherent, genetic, something unavoidable, written in the core of his very deepest, truest self? Or is it just that he’s running from something, and must stay in motion, driving himself ever forward to keep it from catching up?

“Have you ever lost anyone, John?”

Surprise widens his eyes for a flickering second, before he hides it behind a tight smile. “Think we’re talking about you, Doll.”

“You don’t have to answer. I think it’s just easier to understand, when you have. Painting just reminds me of my mam. It’s like trying to swim with lead shoes on. It’s so hard to keep my head above the water that it’s easier just not to swim.”

“Maybe you could try takin’ off the lead shoes,” he suggested, his arms tightening around you. Levity and reassurance, like he knows exactly what you need. “Or maybe you just shouldn’t go swimmin’ alone.”

“A lifeguard,” you say, rolling the thought around in your head. Maybe that was the problem, the empty space was too apparent when there was no one around to fill it. You’d painted the flowers on the credenza with Ripley there, and that had even been nice. You’d thought it was just a fluke, but you hadn’t really thought about why it had been different. “That’s an interesting thought.”

“Did you have everything you’d need? We can look through the boxes for your supplies.”

You shake your head. “No. Yes. I have watercolours somewhere. Just no acrylics. But I could start with watercolours.”

“Yeah? We can look now, if you like.”

“Maybe in a bit. I’ll make breakfast first.”

“I can do it,” he offers quickly. “I want to take care of you.”

As much as you aren’t quite ready to admit it, he already is. “No, I think it’s my turn. Just give me a minute. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, but this is kind of nice.”

He hums his agreement, picking up his coffee. You think he’s doing it so he can’t kiss you, and you’re so pleased that he’s starting to get it that you almost consider kissing him instead.

But you don’t. You just let yourself enjoy the moment.

Maybe that’s enough, for now.

You decide that having him sit and watch you painting would be awkward, so once you hunt down your watercolours and a sketchbook with heavy paper, you set up outside while he works. He’s constructing some kind of frame over a concrete pad, a covered porch, you think. You sit out of the way, facing the copse of trees that surround the house, and the overgrown, weedy garden. It looks like it had been set up early in the season with the best of intentions, but you suspect that it was too hard on his knees and back. He’d made the mistake of planting everything straight in the ground— You probably would have suggested planter boxes, if you’d been here in the spring. Then he could have sat on a stool— It would have helped keep the bunnies out too. The few tomatoes left on an abandoned vine have little bites nibbled out of them— Almost everything has little bites taken out of it.

It makes you smother a laugh. It’s easy to imagine John railing against nature— He’s so stubborn, there’s no way he gave up for a good long time— Cursing the rabbits and deer, leaning over the once-neat rows until his back ached. There’s a pair of rusting garden shears stuck out of the ground, evidence that he quit in a fit of pique some months ago.

He’s looking at you— He has a sense for when you let happiness slip through, like a hound picking up a rabbit’s trail in the woods. You can feel the burn of those bright blue eyes on you, the heavy weight of his attention. Does he make note of everything you smile at? You wonder how long the list is now. Puppies, the Stuart kids, Lola and your cousins, and now his poor attempts at gardening. You haven’t really let much else get past your careful, polite mask, knowing full well that stone-walling him is your best defence. He’s searching for an opening, and once he finds it, he’ll pop you open like a clam.

It seems inevitable. Still, he’ll have to work for it, if he wants you to let him in. He’s already set himself the first of his Herculean tasks, to get you painting again. It would be easier to face the Nemean lion. Your grief has sharp teeth, unblunted even after a decade, still dug deep into your heart.

“You aren’t painting,” John says in your ear. His hands settle on your shoulders, holding you in your seat when surprise would launch you a few centimetres into the air.

You turn your head to look at him, and he’s far too close. “You aren’t working.”

“Takin’ a break. You look like you’re thinkin’ hard about something. What’s on your mind, Doll?”

“Your garden. Must have been a storm of misfortunes to make you give up.”

“Few things get the better of me, but this was one of ‘em. Have to settle for buyin’ produce at the shops like everyone else.”

“It’s not really so hard.”

“You the expert in gardening?”

“No, I just used to help my gran with her garden. Picked up a thing or two about keeping green things alive.” You take a dry paintbrush and dust it over his fingertips idly.

“That the one we talked to today?” he asks.

“No, that’s Lola. Gran is the Scottish one.”

He hums, smooths out tension in your shoulders with his thumbs, catching the slightest touch of your skin at the collar of your sweater. "Didn't think you had family in the UK."

You tip your head back, looking up at him. He shifts, leaning his forearms on the back of the chair, hanging over you. "Just my Gran, she got remarried a bit before we moved to Manchester. She thought her husbands-- Well, I'll say kids, but they were full adults, older than my mam already-- She thought they were more respectable than my parents. Wouldn't categorize her as a real warm and fuzzy lady."

"You don't talk then?"

"No. Not since my parents died. We had a proper row at the funeral and she's never apologized, and I'm certainly not going to."

"Learnin' a lot about you today, Doll."

“That I’m stubborn and that I distance myself from the people that love me?” you ask, flicking the paintbrush at the tip of his nose. His whole face scrunches, and it’s kind of endearing. You’re already feeling soft about him from this morning, because Lola liked him, and because he didn’t ask if she spoke English, just launched right into Spanish that was a maybe a little rough around the edges, but good enough.

“That,” he agrees. “But I think it’s good that you hold your ground. You’re not stubborn for the sake of it, you say what needs to be said. I’d bet good money that you were in the right.”

“It doesn’t always matter who’s right and who’s wrong, John. Sometimes you have to set aside ego to make things right.”

“Tryin’ to teach an old dog new tricks?” he asks.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll teach yourself. Now go on, get. You’re distracting me.” You wrap your hands around one of his, and press a fleeting kiss to a spot between his thumb and his wrist before releasing him. “And be careful of your ankle. If you need to carry something heavy, let me help you.”

He laughs and withdraws, his shadow sliding over your page as he moves away. “Yes ma’am. You’re pretty cute when you’re bossy.”

“I’m always cute,” you say blithely.

You don’t look at him, so you miss the way he glances back over his shoulder, blue eyes burning. “You’re damn right about that.”

Ducking your head down to hide your smile, you pick your pencil up and look back to the garden. Something about the red-handled shears stuck in the soil speaks to you, so you lightly sketch it out on the page, humming to yourself quietly. The next things you need to hunt down are your headphones and the old mp3 player so you can listen to music while you paint.

There’s something soothing about hearing John work anyway. The whirr of his drill as he screwed framing lumber into place, or the buzz of his saw when he cuts pieces to size. He’s methodical, exacting— What makes him so good at building probably made him a poor gardener too. He can cut and fit pieces of wood together to make any shape he pleases, he can make a plan and nothing will fight back against it, beyond a warped bit of lumber here and there, but a garden grows as it will, and there’s no controlling the wind or the sun or the rain, let alone the creatures that might come looking for something tender and green.

That same struggle plays out between the two of you. He sees a map and a destination where you see a landscape. The journey, the exploration, is what matters to you, the light and shadow, the soft growing things and the hungry teeth that nip at the roots. In his mind he’s already built a house at the top of the hill, and he wants to pull you inside, lay you down, plant his seeds in a different garden, watch something new grow. It’s not simply impatience, but a need for control, for surety.

He exerts that control outwards, bending the world to the shape he likes. You’ve always turned it inwards, pulling in on yourself, turning your life into a safe little cocoon, turning deprivation and isolation into an art. Constructing masks to get you through, reliable scripts, being whomever you need to be to make things easier.

And perhaps it was easy, but it was lonely too.

Maybe they really had done you a favour. By pulling you out of your comfortable routine, they’ve forced you to face yourself, for the first time in ages, to ask yourself what it is that you want, to see who you are.

You feel like a butterfly, wings still damp and unfurling, perched in John’s hand. He could risk letting you fly away, or he could force you to stay by destroying some integral part of you. There’s no telling which path he intends to take, not yet.

You can just hope.

It might be insane— It certainly feels insane— but you really want him to be a good man. Not just out of self-preservation, although it probably weighs something in the equation, but because you want him. He’s right when he says there’s something here, something that’s been rolling around in the back of your mind since Ghost dumped you in his lap. It hasn’t even been a week, but it feels longer.

You keep half an eye on him while you put the first pale washes of colour onto paper. A few small versions first, to get a handle on light and shadow, colour values, just to remember how to mix colours the way you want to, and then start on the larger version, feeling a little more confident.

You’ve just blocked in the base colours when you notice that John’s limping again, and showing no sign of stopping his work. Sighing, you set your paintbrush down and stand. “John,” you say gently, putting yourself in the path between the saw set up and his lumber pile. “It’s time to take a break.”

“No, I’m fine, Doll. Get back to your painting.” He tries to move around you, but you side-step and block his path again. “It’s just a sprain,” he says, exasperated. “I’ve worked through worse.”

As if that was a good reason to ignore pain. “And you never considered that maybe you shouldn’t have had to?”

He frowns down at you. The difference in your heights has to be at least a foot, but he has a funny way of tucking in his chin and hanging his head when you’re standing close like this, and looking at you straight on anyway. A soft little hand settles on his stomach, unbidden— You’re not sure that you’ve instigated contact with him before, it’s always been him reaching out for you, his big hands achingly gentle. Is anyone ever gentle with him? Is he ever gentle with himself?

“The work will still be here tomorrow,” you remind him. “You have time to rest.”

A raindrop splashes on your outstretching arm. The two of you look up in tandem, at a heavy grey cloud that’s rolled over head— It hasn’t blocked out the sun yet, and neither of you had noticed it creeping up— and then at each other. “Guess the weather agrees with you,” John says.

You both scramble apart and into action. John covers the pile of lumber and the saw with tarps, weighed down with a few odd bricks so they won’t blow away, and you quickly pack up the water colours and your paintings. You don’t get there in time to stop a few splashes of rain from hitting the page, but you get everything inside before it’s completely soaked and set it on the kitchen table for the moment.

While you’re filling the kettle and looking outside, watching the rain splash against the window, John comes in too, and looks at your work. “The rain ruined it,” he says. “I should have been paying more attention to the weather.” There’s guilt in his voice, as if it’s his fault that the rain chose to fall where and when it did.

You set the kettle to boil, and join him, studying the paintings. Each of them unrefined— The smaller ones are just work-ups anyway, but the raindrops have warped the colours, creating voids with saturated edges. You wouldn’t say they’re ruined. There’s an artistry to incident, story preserved on paper in a way that your art wouldn’t do alone.

“No, I like it better this way,” you say decisively. “It underlines the theme of futility, don’t you think? How we’re at the mercy of the weather, whether we like it or not.”

“S’pose so,” he admits grudgingly.

His mouth is set so it almost disappears under his moustache. He really does hate the reminder that he has no control over some things. You dash upstairs and grab a couple of towels and tuck them under your arm, and take John’s hand, leading him out onto the front porch.

He follows you without resistance, although there’s a funny, curious look on his face. “What’re you doing?”

You let go, and put the towels down on the bench. “What does it look like I’m doing?” The rain is coming steadily now, the sky turned darker, sun all but blotted out, and it’s cold on your skin when you step out from the shelter and into the downpour. You throw your arms out and spin, laughing.

There are many things in this life that you can’t control. Things that are fixed, unchanged and immovable, laws of nature, the whims of weather, and Captain John Price. But you have choices too. You can try to move a mountain, but you’d be better climbing over it. You can choose to struggle against the current, or let it sweep you along. You can dance in the rain rather than wish it were sunny.

And you can hold out your hand, and invite John to dance with you.

Image Credits: Banner Dividers

[miniwheat77]

American Honey. (Alejandro X Reader.)

!CW! NSFW, Smut, Sex Pollen, fuck or die, unprotected sex, reader getting bullied by Alejandro and his men, poorly translated Spanish, (sorry if I missed any)

I love the way this turned out, I hope you guys love it too! This was a request :) please comment and reblog so that this can reach other places, Alejandro is too good to go unseen 🥵

(Not edited because I’m lazy.)

Truth be told, you weren’t the biggest fan of this place.

You’d been adopted as a child and your adoptive family loved Mexico, which is how you ended up here. It wasn’t always the safest, but they seemed to like it. It was difficult growing up in an English speaking household, school was difficult, the kids there were mean to you, and as you got older, it only got worse.

You decided to join the special forces in the hopes that you’d be tucked away in an office somewhere, as little interactions as possible. But it’s not how everything worked out. You were on the front lines.

Everyone had a cool call sign, or nickname.

But you? You were just Gringa. Nobody liked you, you were different and people didn’t like different. Especially not the special forces.

You ended up on Alejandro’s base by chance. He didn’t want to let you in, but because you were the most skilled out of a lineup, he had no choice. He picked fun at you too alongside everyone else. The only person that was even remotely nice to you was Rudy. He and his wife had you over for dinner a couple times, and he even called you by your name. It was nice when people were kind to you, because it didn’t happen very often.

On more than one occasion, a few of the women on base cornered you in the women’s barracks. It got so bad that you had to be separated. When you brought it up to Alejandro, he told you that you either had to deal with it, or be separate. Of course, when you were given your own room, it only ramped up the harassment you got on a daily basis. Jealous that you were getting special privileges. They found other ways around you not being in the same barracks.

Which is why you walked around with a black eye and a split lip almost every day.

You didn’t want to fight back. They were your people and you refused to lay a finger on your own. You just wished they thought the same. You had just sat down, water bottle in hand. You knew better than to get in line to eat first. They’d always push you to the back.

“Gringa. You have mail, in my office.” Alejandro nods. This was unusual, usually he’d just bring it to you. You stood up and followed after him. Despite the fact that he harassed you too, you always obeyed him. You did right by him even when he didn’t reciprocate. He sits down at his desk, sliding a box out of his drawer. “I need to see what’s inside, that’s why I brought you in here.” You nod your head, pulling out your pocket knife and cutting the box open. You open it up, there’s a small black bag inside along with a letter. You unfold the letter, reading the inside.

“Hi Honey, we miss you so much. We wanted to let you know we’ve been thinking about adoption once again, you’ll have to give us a call when you get the chance. Your real grandfather from America sent this for you along with a small card on the inside. We thought it was sweet because you’re our American Honey. We hope you have better luck than you’ve been having. Keep your head up and don’t let them get to you too much.

Love, mom and dad.”

You pull the black bag open, sliding the contents into your hand. It’s a bunch of Honey Sticks. You smile, finally understanding the joke she’s made, American Honey. You take the card out that she mentioned and open it up. Inside is a photo of a woman, but you don’t really understand.

“Hello, I know you probably don’t know me, but I’ve always wanted to meet you. Your mother was a little young when she found out she was pregnant with you. She was a wild child, I’m sure you’re a wild child just like she was. I adored you from the day I met you, and when I found out your mom was giving you up, it shattered me. I hope I’ll get to meet you one day, I never did get the chance for anymore grandkids. You’re my only granddaughter. Here is some American Blueberry Honey from our farm, it’s all organic and it’s very sweet like I imagine you are. I’m writing this to you because your mom passed away unexpectedly. I felt you deserved to see her. I’m attaching a couple photos of her, and my address and phone number in case you ever want to call or write back. I’d really appreciate it if you did.”

You smile, looking down at the photos. For a minute, you forget where you are. You forget all about your Colonel’s judgmental eyes. You put the card back into the envelope, passing it to your Colonel. He has to look over everything. He doesn’t trust you.

You slide a couple of the honey sticks from the bag, looking over them.

“You were adopted Gringa?” He asks. You nod your head. He nods, “where were you born?” He asks. You shrug. “Somewhere in the states.”

He takes the bag from you, looking over it before passing it back to you. “Don’t forget we’re going on a mission tomorrow, everyone else needs rest from the last mission. You’re my only available soldier.” You nod your head. You always got left behind on missions. “Yes sir.” You stand up, picking up the box of stuff you’d just gotten. “Goodnight Gringa.” You nod your head. You were really starting to hate that fucking nickname.

—

The next day, you were dressed and ready. It was still early, you’d already eaten breakfast. You sat patiently outside of Alejandro’s office, waiting for his orders.

When the time came for you to leave, you finally got a breakdown of the mission.

“It’s nothing big, that’s why it’s just the two of us. Narcos have some other kind of operation going that we need to bust up, it’s probably only 5-6 men. We’re going to move slow, try to take them out from afar.” You nod your head. The both of you got on the helicopter, and it was quite a long ride. It was silent. Alejandro sat near the pilot and you sat in the back, admiring the view of the forest. It was dense. The green went on for miles. You couldn’t help but smile down at the peacefulness of it all.

“Something funny Gringa?” Alejandro asks. You can barely hear him, luckily the headset you’ve got on makes it easier. “No sir. Just admiring the views.” You turn your head back toward the window. You can hear Alejandro laugh quietly.

When you arrived a few miles away from the operation, you geared up completely. You had your sniper rifles, handguns, assault rifles, and plenty of ammo. You started hiking through the dense forest. Side by side. You were aware of your surroundings, ready for anything. You stayed calm despite the intense situation. You had a basic idea of what might be waiting for you, but you never knew what you could be walking into. Alejandro poked fun at you, but he actually really liked you. You were calm and collected. Fast on your feet. You were skilled when it came to any kind of combat. He knows he neglects you as a soldier. He sees the way they treat you around base and knows that he should intervene.

He doesn’t know exactly why he doesn’t.

When you get close enough to see everything going on, you get set up. Propping your rifles up to get a good view of all of them. “Shoot fast, Gringa. Can’t risk any of them getting away.” You nod your head, lining up your crosshairs with them.

You don’t wait for his orders, the moment one is lined up in your sights, you fire, kicking the empty bullet casing out of the gun and lining up for another shot. When the both of you finish, you’ve only killed 4. “Others must be in the building. Go ahead, I’ll cover you.” He nods. “Yes sir.” You stand up, leaving your rifle behind and drawing your assault rifle out. You hike down toward the building, keeping yourself covered with trees and walking as quietly as possible. It was a little difficult with the vegetation from the forest but you still did your best. Alejandro watches you in the scope of his rifle, watching ahead of you and around you. He hopes this mission will go smoothly. As you get closer to the building, he feels unsettled. “Go slow gringa, something doesn’t seem right.” He says into his radio. “Yes sir.” You reply. You slow your speed, eyes scanning everything in front of you. Your senses are heightened because you’re nervous, you’re sure you’ll hear anything.

Unfortunately for you, it’s too late. You hear the soft patter of something hitting the ground in front of you, and only have a split second to react, covering your face with your arms and stepping back as the grenade explodes.

Alejandro watches in horror as you’re thrown back, dirt and debris fly into the air, a cloud of smoke covering his vision. “Shit!” He growls. He stands up, rushing to get to you. He sees a few men appearing out of the tree line, firing at each them. He rushes to you, kneeling next to you. “Gringa?” He asks.

You don’t know where you are. The darkness is nice, but it only lasts for a few seconds before you hear Alejandro’s gunshots. You’re being shaken by him, but the ringing in your ears overrides everything else. “Gringa? Can you hear me?” He asks. He shakes you again, seeing your eyes move. “Hey, you’re going to be okay.” He breathes. He’s looking over you, he can see a few wounds from Shrapnel, but he doesn’t see them anywhere serious. “Y/N!” He snaps in your face. You close your eyes tightly. Sitting up. “I’m fine.” You breathe. He helps you up and you flinch at the loud ringing. It starts to fade as you look around. It’s quiet now.

As peaceful as it was on the helicopter.

When the ringing fades out completely, you wish you could just lay there, stare up at the sky and enjoy the peace for just a second. What you’d give for it.

“Come on. We have to keep moving.” He breathes.

You move in quickly to sweep the building, it’s an old cement building, but the inside is actually pretty nice. It has to be for how long everyone stays out here. Months on end, making whatever drug their boss tells them to. You notice a few bottles of something red. You can tell it isn’t blood because of the translucent consistency. But it’s odd. You make your way back outside, noticing the work stations are all full of the same red liquid. There a few large barrels of it sitting outside. “The hell is this?” You ask aloud.

Alejandro is standing near you, and neither of you expect to be splashed with the liquid. You flinch away, turning and raising your guns at your assailant.

His maniacal laughter is what really scares you. He’s got a gunshot wound on his side, he’s not going anywhere. He’s leaned up against the barrel, plastic cup in his hand. “Es una droga sexual. ¡Ahora ambos están infectados!” He laughs again.

Alejandro moves in quick, he’s seething. “What did he say?” You ask. The man looks at you, eyes wide. He’s got an evil smile on his face. “estas con una gringa? ella no sabe español?” He laughs. Alejandro shakes his head. “¿Cuál es la droga?!” He yells. You flinch away at his tone of voice. “Vas a tener que chingarte a tu gringa linda, dejarla embarazada.” He purrs. “¿Qué significa eso?” Alejandro growls. Grasping the man by the lapels and slamming him back into the barrel. “La cura es el sexo, no hay otra. Buena suerte hermano.” He smirks. His teeth are red from his blood.

“No eres hermano mío, solo un cobarde.” You flinch as Alejandro raises his pistol up, firing into the man’s head. His body slumps forward and Alejandro stands up, letting out a frustrated sigh. “What did he say? What is this?” You ask.

He rubs his face in frustration.

“It’s a sex drug.”

You look confused. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a sex drug, but it’s in the early stages of development, that’s why we’ve never heard of it before. He said..” he pauses. “If the infected doesn’t have sex, they’ll die.”

“And what he splashed on us.. was that-?” You look at him. He nods his head. You turn away from him. “There’s no other cure?” You ask. “No. Not something we’ll find in time.”

“Well. Suppose we should head back. Say our goodbye’s.”

His turns quickly to look at you. “What?” He asks.

You look at him. “What?”

“Y/N.. we can get through this if…” he swallows hard. You raise your eyebrows. “What? If what?” You cross your arms. Looking at him. “If I have sex with you? Are you out of your mind?” Alejandro’s assumptions have clearly stuck a nerve. “You’re loco if you think I want to have sex with you!”

“But you’d rather die? I’ll have to say Gringa, that’s pretty harsh.” He smiles. “That right there is exactly why I’d rather die.” You seethe. He looks confused. “My goddamn name is Y/N.” You growl. He steps closer to you. “Watch your tone with me.” He growls. “I’m going to die anyways.” You shake your head. “What, you’ll let us both die over me calling you Gringa? Really?” He breathes.

“It’s not just you.” You shake your head. “It’s everyone.” You voice is low and aggressive. “They call me gringa. I’m last to eat, last to shower, last to be chosen for missions. I haven’t had dinner in a week. They exclude me, treat me like shit. They corner me in the goddamn bathroom and beat the holy hell out of me. And my Colonel? The one who’s supposed to give a shit? Doesn’t say a word when he sees the bruises they’ve left. You had no right to call that man a coward. You’re the biggest coward I’ve ever met.” You spit your words at him like they’re laced with venom. Like they’ll drop him dead in a few seconds. He sighs. Everything you’ve said is true. He’s mistreated you.

“I’m sorry.” He breathes. “Querida…” he trails off. “I know I’ve been bad to you. But I can change it.” He breathes. “No.” You shake your head. “Make yourself comfortable because I’m not changing my mind.” You breathe. You shove passed him, walking into the building. You go into one of the rooms, sitting down on the bed. You take your shoes off, pulling the blanket off. Walking back outside. You walk into the woods a little more, laying the blanket out. “What are you doing?” He asks. “Enjoying the peace and quiet.” You breathe. He nods. “Mind if I join you?” He asks. You shrug. He sighs, sitting down next to you. You’re laying on your back, looking up at the sky. “Cloudy.” He mumbles. “Yeah. Hopefully it’ll rain.” You smile. “I like when you smile.” He laughs. “Why?” You look at him. “Because you don’t do it often. Earlier in the helicopter, I was admiring you.” He laughs. You roll your eyes. “Also, when you saw that letter from your family. I like their nickname for you, American Honey.” He smiles. You can’t help but laugh at this. “If this is you trying to get me to have sex with you, it’s not going to work. He rolls his eyes. “I can be a gentleman without the intention of trying to have sex with you, Mocosa.” He laughs. “I’m serious. Why do they call you that?” He smiles. “They said I was too sweet. As a kid I knew no stranger, so they called me American Honey.” You look down. “American Honey? I don’t think I’ve ever had any.” He shrugs. You think for a second, sighing.

You grasp hold of your pocket on your jacket, the Velcro making a tearing sound as you pull it open, you slide out a few of the honey sticks, passing one to him. “It’s blueberry honey.” You nod. He takes it from you. “You have to bite the top to split the film open.”

You bite the top of yours, feeling the honey drip into your mouth. You can’t help but smile as you watch Alejandro struggle to open his. You laugh. Reaching your hand out. “Here.” You say. He passes it to you and you turn it to the other side, biting it open for him. “Thank you.” He smiles. You can feel the effects of the drug beginning to kick in. You want to kick yourself for the way you’re looking at him. He’s getting more and more attractive by the minute. You hear a groan leave his lips. “This is really good.” He breathes. “It is really sweet.” He licks his fingers where it’s dribbled onto them. You have to force yourself to look away. The tightening in your lower stomach becoming harder and harder to ignore. “Here, have another.” You pass him the other. “Open it for me, Cariño?” He smiles. You nod. You bit it open, flinching as it pops into your mouth. Alejandro freezes up, having to force himself to look away from your lips, and how sweet they’re looking. He’s felt the drug working but has ignored the way his pants have gotten tight. He takes the stick of honey from you, and watches as you lay back.

The minutes tick by and his heart is racing, the arousal he feels is almost unbearable. You can barely focus on anything, his heavy breathing, the smell of him. It’s too much. “I’m sorry.” He breathes. “I’ve got to get away from you, or I won’t be able to stop myself.” He breathes. Just as he stands up, you’re quick to yelp. “Wait!” You breathe, sitting up. He turns to look at you, confusion written all over his face. You’ve shed your jacket and he didn’t realize it, but he can see how hard your nipples are through your shirt. “What?” He asks. “You.. you don’t have to.” You breathe. You’ve got your knees pressed together. Tightening your thighs to try and ease the ache you feel between them. He steps toward you, and he can see the fire burning in your eyes. You don’t move away or tell him to stop. “Are you sure?” He asks. You nod your head. He lowers himself to his knees, thankful for the blanket beneath him. He moves himself between your legs, licking his bottom lip as he leans into you. His lips brush over yours lightly. Hips presses into yours. He moans out when you rock your hips ip into him, desperate for some kind of relief. He presses his lips to yours, he kisses you hard.

He can taste the honey on your tongue, and he’s addicted right there. You moan into his lips when he rocks his hips into yours. He pulls away, but only to attach his lips to your jawline, moving down to your throat. He’s biting at the skin, feeling your heart beat as he runs his tongue along your jugular vein. He pulls your shirt up and over your head, helping you remove your bra with it. He attaches his lips to one of your nipples, sucking at it gently, feeling you buck your hips up into him. He can’t help smile into you. He doesn’t want to neglect you, moving to attach his lips to other. You wrap a hand in his hair, whining out at the attention he’s giving you. “Alejandro- want you so bad.” You breathe. “You’ll have me, ser paciente.” You nod your head. He kisses lower, over your chest and belly, tugging your pants down your legs. You take a deep breath as he glides his hands down your hips, kissing over your belly button. He looks up at you, dipping down to press a kiss against your clit. Cock twitching at the mewl you let out. You whine, raising your hips into him. Desperate for attention. He pushes your hips down, wrapping his arms around your thighs to hold you still. His tongue gliding up through your folds has a sigh leaving your lips. He moans into.

“Taste so fuckin sweet..” he mutters, chuckling into you. “You’ve got the perfect nickname, you’re just as fucking sweet.” He growls, burying his face into you, starting his assault on your clit. You blush, looking away. You try to squirm out of his grasp but he holds you tight. You clutch the blanket beneath you, moaning out as you look up at the sky. You can feel the sting from the shrapnel still buried in your skin, but you’re overwhelmed. The peacefulness and the way he makes you feel overrides any pain you’ve felt.

You’re getting louder with each flick of his tongue and he knows you’re getting close, but he doesn’t want you to cum like this. He pulls away, feeling you whine at the loss of friction. “Relax, I’ll give your pussy the attention it needs.” He smiles, unbuckling his belt.

He wipes his face, moving his hips up to yours. “You sure you want this?” He asks. You nod your head eagerly. He pushes the tip of his cock up against your entrance and you bite your lip. You close your eyes as he sinks into you, clutching the blankets hard. The pleasure is intensified from the drug you’ve taken and the both of you nearly cum right there, moaning out. “Fucking hell you feel good.” He growls, moving to kiss you. “You taste yourself on me? Hm?” He smirks, starting to thrust his hips into you. He’s starting at a brutal pace and you can’t keep it together as he fucks you.

“You taste sweet yeah? Sweeter than that honey.” He smiles. His belt rattles as he thrusts into you. The sound is distracting you. The thought of what it is, him fucking into you so good. You can’t keep it together. “I’m gonna cum-“ you whimper. “Already?” He chuckles. He’s taunting you. You nod your head. “Yes!” You moan. He lifts your thighs up, thrusting deeper, trying to get a better angle on you. “Rub your clit for me.” He breathes. You nod your head, still obeying him. You rub circles over yourself, and he fuels the burning fire with his words.

“Yes- such a good girl. Always doing what you’re told. Yeah, rub that sweet pussy for me baby.” He growls. He can feel his own high approaching pathetically fast. “I’m- I-“ he laughs at your lack of words, feeling your legs shake as he pushes you into your orgasm. You cry out, tears slipping from the corners of your eyes as you shut them tightly. You soak his cargo pants, and he growls as he feels your arousal on him. He doesn’t stop fucking you, even with you being overwhelmed. He’s chasing his own high. He leans down to kiss you again, desperate for the taste of sweetness he knows he’ll get from you. He kisses you hard, feeling your tongue move against his own. You moan into his lips, wrapping your legs around his back.

“Give it to me, Colonel.” You look him in the eyes. He growls, thrusting harder if it’s possible. “Beg for it.” He breathes. “Please-“ you gasp. “Please cum inside me, I’ve been good for you. Please give it to me!” You whine. His heart is pounding, cock twitching as he gets closer and closer to his high. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum.” He gasps. “I’m gonna give it to you, Cariño. Trust me.” He groans. He has a death grip on your thighs. When he reaches his high, he’s sensitive before he even finishes. It’s the most intense orgasm he’s ever had by far. He holds your hips tightly into him, taking slow deep thrusts to ride out his high.

“Oh fuck-“ he gasps. He slides out of you, watching his filth spill out of your pussy. The relief you feel is immediate. Hearts are no longer racing. He lays next to you on the blanket, panting as he comes down from his high, looking up at the sky. “I’m sorry if I was too rough.” He breathes, looking at you. “You weren’t.” You blush.

Just then, your radio’s go off.

“Colonel, do you copy?”

“Colonel do you copy? Exfil is still about an hour out, it’s going to be dark soon.”

“We’re on our way.” He says into the radio.

He helps you up. You both redress yourselves quickly.

“We’ve got to make quick work of this, got a lighter?” He asks. You pass him the one you keep on you at all times and he picks up a stick, lighting it on fire. He throws it into a barrel of liquid and you both run away quickly.

The barrel explodes and the whole area around it bursts into flames. You both admire it for a second. “Let’s go.” He grasps your hand, pulling you along. He hands you back you lighter.

It doesn’t take too long to reach exfil, but the wetness you feel from Alejandro’s cum is a little uncomfortable and he can tell by the way you keep shifting yourself on the seat in the helicopter, sending you a wink every once in a while. You turn your head away from him each time, blushing.

—

When you get back, you go straight to the infirmary for your wounds to be treated from the explosion. While you’re recovering, Alejandro has a quick meeting with his soldiers.

“I want everyone to know that Y/N isn’t going anywhere. I want you all to treat her the same as you treat everyone else. She saved my life today and she didn’t have to. If I see anyone mistreating her from this moment forward, you will be discharged from my base. Do I make myself clear?” His voice is stern.

“Yes sir!” They all say in unison. “Thank you! Go back to eating.” He calls.

He makes his way to the infirmary to check on you. Unsure of what to do with these newfound feelings that he has for you, and what in the hell he’s supposed to do if you’re pregnant.

[aamy2100982]

Something that always makes me sad about the comic WAR! It's how uneven is the way Soldier finds out about the "betrayal" and how Demoman finds out about the "betrayal"

Like, Miss Pauling gave Demoman some nice weapons and told him that his friend agreed to fight him and Demoman just stood there like:

"Damn"

He didn't even have the time to ask questions or request more evidence or refuse a second time.

But Soldier? Man, how Soldier found out it was just cruelty. First of all

They scared the shit out of him when the guy just took off his jacket right there in front of him.

And then

They break his little heart when they make a fake recording of Demoman calling him a "bad friend". And yet Soldier refuses, reaffirming how much he appreciates Demoman's friendship.

And after breaking his heart, they reduce the pieces to ashes!

Soldier is an extremely proud and stubborn character. This secret is not just a silly thing, it is probably Soldier's most personal and intimate secret, I think many of us are even convinced that Jane really believed he was legally a Soldier who deserved respect, but no. Jane Doe is aware of who he really is and he decided to tell Demoman about this.

This wasn't like Demoman who was simply confused because his friend one day simply decided that he wanted to kill Demo. Soldier was actually led to believe that Demoman hated him and that he haven't respect for his friendship that he decided to reveal Soldier's most intimate secret.

Not only that. From what Soldier says, he also paid for plane trips JUST TO GO VISIT DEMOMAN! And he gave Demo significant gifts (the medals). For Soldier, this not only felt like a betrayal, but he "realized" (in quotes because we know this is an administrator's invention) that his friendship with Demoman was one-sided, because Demoman didn't do the same things for him.

(I know I made a mistake in the purple text, it's too late to change it, but it's not necessary to correct me again, I know I'm wrong. My English is from primary school and Internet so sometimes I read poorly and I don't understand a thing. I also didn't find anyone who has translated this comic into Spanish so I had to make do with what I know xd)

It just kills me how unfair this was for Soldier :"(

Edit: Demoman had his new weapons brought to the door of his house so he could have a test, Soldier didn't even know what weapons he would be offered, they just blackmailed him.

[barleyo]

Hii, if you’re still in the fandom can you write dadMiguel o hara x daughterfemreader incest and maybe a piss kink🤭

Secret Shame.

Real Dad! Miguel X F! Reader (smut)

A/N: Sorry this is so short!! I wanted to get it out on Father's Day for obvious reasons haha!! I'm super into piss, so I just did what I personally enjoy, so I hope you like it :3

Tags: incest (daddy-daughter), legal age gap (18-late 40s), piss kink, piss drinking, watersports, oral (m receiving), poorly translated Spanish

Wordcount: 1k

It was natural to be curious, it was what your dad loved most about you! 

You had never seen a piss kink in action, so the random porn site you scrolled through having that video on their homepage was like dangling a carrot in front of a hungry mule. 

You thought it would gross you out and you would end up clicking off of the video. You thought it would just be another case of you giving into morbid curiosity, only to be disgusted.

It wasn't, though. It was strange at first. You felt like a weirdo for watching it. Piss. Gross, right? Wasn't natural. It was supposed to be nasty and taboo. Getting peed on was supposed to be something humiliating and icky, drinking it was supposed to be worse, but the farther you got into the video, the more you opened up to the idea.

Fuck. You needed to touch yourself so bad. You had to give in. Dad would probably still be at work, so if you just ran to get the batteries for your vibrator real quick then— then maybe you could get off and forget about it. Just wipe the shame out of your mind.

You went to grab the batteries out of the kitchen drawers and ran back upstairs as fast as you could. The slick in your panties was starting to get uncomfortable.

When you got back to your room, you unfortunately saw you dad sitting on the edge of your bed, your laptop pierced on his lap. The sounds of the video played loudly, full volume.  

The look he gave you when he finally looked up was enough to make you want to keel over and die. You let the batteries slip out of your hand and hit the floor.

"¿Qué estás viendo? Eso es asqueroso, cariño." 

"Dad, it's not what it looks like," you said, trying to take the laptop back from him. His hands were firmly holding onto it. "Please, turn it off. Don't look."

"You like this dirty stuff now, huh? I didn't raise you to be a nasty girl, mija." Miguel's voice was stern, but something was laced under his tone, something that screamed horniness.

He placed his hand under your chin, forcing you to look down at your computer screen. He tried to stop himself from biting his lip. He was getting way too excited by the embarrassment on your face.

"Don't get shy now. You had no problem watching it alone, now you wanna act like you're ashamed?"

You tried to shake your head out of his hand's grasp. You kept your eyes averted from the screen, knowing your tears would spill over if you had to face your shame head on.

"Bien, puedes hacerte el tímido." He let go of your chin, instead pushing you down to your knees. "You aren't fooling me. You are not embarrassed, you want to act innocent since you got caught. Am I right?" 

He shut the lid of your laptop. The silence of the room put a lot of pressure on your shoulders.

"No, no, I'm sorry. I just wanted to see!" You leaned your head on his lap, letting your tears prick onto his slacks. "Promise, daddy. Swear, 'm just curious." 

Miguel let out a sigh, unbuckling his belt. "Yeah? Okay, why don't you try the real thing then? See if you like it any."

He let his cock spring free from his boxers. The little dribbles of pre from his tip made you feel a little better, or rather, it replaced the shame with the familiar tingle you felt before you were interrupted by him earlier. 

You got to work immediately, wrapping your swollen lips around him. Sinking down on his length, you let him hit the back of your throat with little resistance. 

He pulled out just before you started to gag. Smearing the head of his cock on your cheek, he let out a groan.

"So pretty for such a nasty girl. Not fair that bad girls look so good," he joked, eyes crinkling while he watched you try to edge his dick back into your mouth. 

He gave in briefly, tapping it on your desperate tongue a few times. You tried to lick a stripe over it, but he kept moving it back before you could.  

"Why are you moving? Why won't you let me touch you?" 

Your dad felt the slightest bit of amusement at your whining. No matter how mean he liked to act, or how much he liked to embarrass you, he liked giving you what you wanted more.

"Hey, stop that. Hold still for me, okay? Gonna try what that flick you were watching did."

You mewled softly, face heating up again at him bringing up the porno. 

His lazily stroked himself for a moment, pushing himself off of the bed to stand. His hand pulled your head back to look up at him, fingers latching into your hair. 

"Close your eyes, cariño."

A grunt left his mouth and a hot stream followed. It felt weird for a second, but once his piss hit your face you tried to catch it in your mouth. 

He soaked your face, watching closely while you kept your mouth wide open, aimlessly angling it to get whatever you could into it. 

When he finished, he shook the last few beads off of his tip and used his thumb to wipe your eyes off for you.

"C'mon, look at me now."

You did, his warm piss still in your mouth. You didn't know whether or not to swallow it, so you kept still, letting the taste simmer in your mouth. 

"You look like you're enjoying yourself, mija." He saw you nod your head. "You wanna swallow it? Let me see you drink it down." He leaned down to your face level, wiping stray drops from your cheek.

You let the saltiness of it but the back of your throat, leaning your head back to gargle it before swallowing it all. 

"Oh, aren't you dirty?" His hand held your face, letting you muzzle into it, piss soaked and all. "The slut in the video didn't do all that." 

You cracked a sheepish smile, fluttering your wet lashes open to look at your dad again. "Maybe we should watch another one then?"

Taglist: @twinkfinder62

(ask to join my taglist :3)

[lincolndjarin]

Mouthy.

main masterlist ✧ kinktober masterlist ✦

kinktober : day ten - afab!reader x comandante veracruz

prompt : overnight bondage [ 18+ mdni ]

word count : 0.2k

summary : short bondage drabble w veracruz

warnings, etc. : dubcon (specifically bc the relationship isn't all that established here but in my mind it's consensual but i'm still gonna tag it), bondage, poorly translated spanish, use of a ring gag, orgasm denial? i suppose.

a/n : tiny little drabble for today <3

You hate being hogtied. 

It’s uncomfortable, harsh, and unforgiving. 

Which is probably why he likes it so much.

His thumb swipes over your bottom lip, wiping the drool gathering there. He stares down at you, the scowl you’re used to is replaced with a sadistic grin. You make a pathetic attempt at speaking through the metal ring pushed between your teeth, holding your mouth open as he slips his thumb over your tongue, holding it down to silence the effort completely. 

“Puta sucia.” His voice is low and angry despite the smile on his face. 

You shouldn’t have pushed him. You knew how easy he was to rile up, but you’d spent all day waiting for him and you were annoyed and he was annoyed and now you’re here. 

If you had known he’d had a rough day you wouldn't have dared mouth off at him. 

“Puedes quedarte aquí esta noche.” He gives your cheek a sharp slap before slowly running his hands down your bound form, you’re held firmly in place by the thick cords of rope, you can move your fingers and toes a bit but other than that he’s got you completely restrained. He slips two fingers into your panties, just barely dipping them into your cunt before withdrawing them, he returns to your front before sliding them past the ring, rubbing your wetness onto your tongue as you moan. “Qué tengas buenas noches.” 

You mumble an incoherent plea but you know it’s useless, when he’s decided something it’s impossible to change his mind. You have no idea how you’re supposed to get through the night without him, you’re already thrashing in frustration, your arousal dripping between your thighs. 

Hopefully he’ll be feeling a bit more forgiving in the morning.

a/n : something short today, been really really swamped at work, tomorrows will be short as well but thursday-friday should be more substantial!!

[joels-golf-club]

Hiii!!! I have a request

Can you write something with heavy angst at the beginning like maybe a fight? And at the end super super fluffy!!! Any Pedro characters!! (Preferably whiskey or pena)

Complicated

A/n: Thanks for the request anon! I decided heavy angst meant HEAVY angst so here you go. It isn't exactly what you requested but this kinda popped into my head when I read your request and I really wanted to write it, I'm sorry. This is my first Javier Peña fic so pls have some grace <3!

Word Count: 3K

All my work is 18+, MDI!!!

Warnings: Swearing, typical Narcos violence, hurt/comfort, kidnapping, torture, real angsty, kinda fluff at the end jk I can't write fluff apparently, mentions of drinking and smoking, poorly translated Spanish (google translate 😃), no use of Y/n, attempted/talk of SA.

Your relationship with Javier Peña was complicated to say the least. You weren't officially together but there were two toothbrushes in his bathroom, there was a drawer full of your clothes in his dresser, and your coat was hanging by his front door.

He made breakfast for you most mornings and you'd kiss him goodbye when he left for work, but you weren't dating. You loved him but you've never said it to each other.

That was the worst part. You practically lived at his apartment and you feared for his life every single fucking day he went to work, but God forbid he put a damn label on whatever you were. So that's how the argument started.

"You don't need to risk your life every fucking day Javi! The world won't end if you just relax for one goddamn second!" Every single day Javi would come home black and blue. Today he came home with a fractured nose and bruises littering his body from a run in with one of Escobar sicarios.

"Why the fuck do you care? You're not my wife! You're not even my girlfriend! You're nothing to me!" The moment those words left his mouth he immediately backtracked. "Querida, I'm so sorry, I didn't me-"

But it was too late you were already walking to the door to grab your keys and pull on your shoes. "No, Javier. You're right. We aren't dating no reason I should give a damn about you. See you around." The door slammed behind you as you walked away and down the apartment complex to your car parked out front.

Your solution to the hurt radiating throughout you was to head to the nearest bar and get shit faced. Javier would've had your ass for going out and getting drunk alone in the crime capital of the world but who the hell was he to tell you what to do. Especially after what he said when you tried to show concern for him.

So here you were sitting alone at the bar, well past midnight, and probably three too many drinks deep. Getting home was the issue at hand now. Home. That should've been Javier's apartment filled with both of your belongings. The two of you should've been intertwined in bed right about now, connected in the most intimate way.

But instead you were drunk, alone, and extremely vulnerable. All because Javier fucking Peña couldn't find it in himself to commit to one person after over a year of almost dating.

As you made a move to walk out the bar and back towards the car you almost immediately stumbled just standing up, no way in hell were you driving across town to your apartment.

Walking wasn't an option either. There were already three men outside the bar looking at you in a way that was much more than just friendly.

There was only one person you could call no matter how much you wanted to avoid it.

He picked up on the third ring. "Hermosa? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean anything I said you know that right?" He immediately started spewing apologies the moment he answered the phone.

"Javier, I don't really care right now? I'm drunk, really drunk and there's these guys that aren't too far away from me and I can't drive."

"Where are you, Carino?" You gave him the address and you could hear him grab his keys and slam the door. "Stay where you are and stay on the phone ok? Do not hang up."

You nodded before remembering he couldn't see you. "Ok. " You kept an eye on the three men and couldn't help but notice they were closer than before, they had now crossed the road over to your side of the street. "Javi?"

"What is it? I'm 30 minutes away."

"Javi they're getting closer." You gasped when a flash of metal lit up in the dim streetlight. "Javi they have guns. What do I do? They have fucking guns Javi." You were panicking now and the men were only getting closer. Javier wouldn't be able to do shit in half an hour if the men decided to use their weapons.

"Lock your doors. Do not open the doors. Can you drive at all?"

You're gaze darted around and sent your head spinning. "No. Javi I can't drive! I'm so fucking stupid why would I get drunk right now? Javi what if they try to d-"

The sound of your voice over the phone was cut off by a scream and loud gunshots ringing through the line.

Javi gripped the wheel and pressed the pedal down to the floor while shouting your name. "Hey! What happened? Answer me please!" He called your name again before the line went dead. "Joder que hago? ¿Qué debo hacer? Fuck, what do I do? What do I do?"

With sweating palms and a racing pulse he called Murphy for backup.

After the men shattered your windows with bullets, they roughly yanked you out of your car, uncaring of any cuts or scrapes you got from all the broken glass, and shoved you through the doorway of the house across the street they had sat in front of earlier.

The entirety of the short walk there was spent with you fighting tooth and nail to get out of their grasp while the men felt you up through the tight dress you wore. Their dirty hands grabbed and pulled at every available inch of skin they could reach while you tried to kick and bite at their skin.

"Deja de pelear o te paso una bala por el cerebro! Stop fighting or I put a bullet through your brain!" The press of cold metal against your temple had you freezing where you stood before you were roughly shoved into a chair with the gun still pointed at your skull, keeping you still.

You tried to remember what Javi had told you to do if you were ever in one of these situations. "Do whatever they say, Hermosa. If they ask you what you know, you do not tell them anything. They will kill you the moment they don't need you anymore. Wait for the right moment if you can to fight." Right. Do what they say. Don't answer questions. You could do that.

The man with the gun came closer to you and caressed your face with the back of his hand causing you to jerk away as far as you could. The man's gaze narrowed and he backhanded you across the side of your face, sending you to the ground with your ears ringing. "Don't be a bitch. I'll have to teach you a lesson, then I'll let them have a turn with you, Hermosa." The pet name sent a fresh wave of sobs through your body at the memory of Javi calling you that only hours earlier and the man straddled your thrashing form then pulled out a knife from his jean pocket and cut away at what little remained of your torn dress and undergarments, leaving you entirely exposed to the three men while you fought beneath him.

"Stop! No, don't! Please stop!" You begged as tears flowed down your cheeks and you kicked uselessly a the man pinning you down.

"I told you to stop moving!" The man swung his fist down across your jaw, sending black dots flooding across your vision and make your ears ring once again. "Now hold still or this is gonna be so much worse for you." The man released his grip on your arms to reach for his belt, only for another man to send his boot into your ribs causing you to curl away and let out a wheezing cough.

Just as the man got his button and zipper undone and leaned over you once again you let out a scream and threw your throbbing head forward into the man's nose making a river a blood flow down his face. "You fucking bitch!" He sent his boot into your side again, making your curl up into a ball and gestured to his two men. "Tie her to the chair. Make sure she stays conscious, I want her to know what happened.

The man's words sent your eyes flying open and you immediately kicked and screamed at the hands that grabbed at your bruising arms. "No! Stop! Please, please I'm sorry! I'll do whatever you say, please!" Your screams and begging only brought a sadistic smile to the first man's face when we held up the knife he had earlier and brought the tip to your bare ribs.

He trailed the blade with just enough pressure to draw blood down to your exposed stomach and pressed the tip deeper into your skin and dragged the blade down, forcing a scream from your throat. He did this a few more times before he pulled the bloody knife away from your stomach and up to your cheeks to cut a deep line across both. He leaned forward to whisper in your ear while his hands roamed your bare body, "You look much prettier with that. Look at your pretty little stomach, Hermosa." He forced you to look down at where he had cut into your skin and your sobbed at the markings left there, AJS; the man had carved his fucking initials into your stomach.

Just as the man grabbed at your body again deafening gunshots rang out and the man's body slumped forward against your own while blood from his head and chest spilled across your skin. The two other men barely had enough time to raise their own weapons before more gunshots sounded and they slumped to the floor as well.

You looked down at the body in your bare lap and your tormentor's blank eyes stared back at you. You let out a scream and yanked at your bindings in an attempt to get away from the body, but you only managed to thrash enough to knock your chair backwards and fall to the side when you heard thundering footsteps rush into the room. You forced your eyes as closed as tight as they would go in an effort to ignore what you new was sitting right in front of you. Your body wouldn't stop shaking.

Suddenly hands were on your bare skin and you let out another piercing scream, unable to process the much more familiar grasp that pulled you upright and cut away the ropes on your wrists and ankles. "Shh, Hermosa, it's me. It's Javi." You were still shaking and sobbing when he pulled his jacket off to cover your exposed body and you still wouldn't open your eyes open from their sealed position. "Look at me, Hermosa, look at me."

You finally pealed your eyes open at his soft voice and saw the man kneeling in front of you. "Javi?"

He nodded and made sure your gaze stayed on him when he lifted you up out of the chair. "Yeah it's me, hermosa. You're okay now. you're safe."

At the sound of that name you flinched and new tears sprung to your eyes. "Please don't call me that anymore. H-he called me that."

Javi's jaw clenched and anger flared in his brown eyes but he nodded and continued walking you out of the house to where an ambulance sat outside the building. He set you down on the back of the open vehicle so the medics nearby could check you over but you gripped his hand as hard as you could the moment he let go of you.

"Please don't leave me alone, I can't be alone right now." Your hand shakes where it grips his and you can't help but stare at the cuts and bruises littering the skin there. It all seemed much more real now that you could see the marks on your skin. Your skin. The man had carved his fucking initials into your skin. You looked down and moved Javi's jacket away from your stomach to stare down at where your hip began. Blood covered the wound but you knew what was there. You lifted your hand to try and reveal the marks in a moment of morbid curiosity but-

"Querida, don't." Javi's voice pulled you from your thoughts. "I'll stay with you however long you need, but you can't touch it. Try not to look at it if that helps, alright? Estarás bien, te lo prometo. You'll be okay, I promise." You just nodded and Javi held your hands while the medic checked you over and cleaned and bandaged your wounds.

The medic informed you that you shouldn't be left alone for a few days and that you'd have to change your bandages twice a day, but you were cleared to go without having to go to the hospital.

"You'll be ok staying with me right, querida? You can't be alone and I don't want you out of my sights." You nodded silently to answer his question which only made him furrow his brows and concern took over his face, but he said nothing and just guided you over to his jeep.

The two of you drove in silence for about ten minutes before you spoke for the first time in well over an hour. "Javi?"

"Sí?"

You swallowed hard and stared down at your still shaking hands. Why won't they stop shaking? "I'm sorry for all this. If I didn't try to be so controlling with you earlier and if I didn't go and get drunk like a fucking idiot you wouldn't had to have dealt with me and-"

"Darling. Stop it. Stop thinking for one second that any of this is your fault. You aren't controlling, you care and I didn't know how to act because of it and that is no excuse for any of the absolute shit I said, by the way. And you aren't an idiot, you are the smartest person I know and you just did what anyone would do after a long day. The only people to blame are the hijos de puta that did this to you. So please, darling, for both our sakes don't blame yourself." He had just pulled up to your apartment when he stopped speaking and he parked before turning to face you.

Tears streamed down your face and the tight feeling in your chest was back from earlier and your fucking hands wouldn't stop shaking. "He marked me, Javi..." You whispered in between sobs as your shoulders shook. You looked up just to see Javi's face fall apart.

"He did what?" His voice came out a broken whisper full of pain for you.

"He marked me! He took a knife and carved his goddamn initials into my skin! He made sure it would scar so that I can't ever forget! What kind of sick fucking psycho does that shit?" Your sobs came faster and Javi hopped out of the car and ran to your door, pulling you into his arms.

"Baby, I'm so fucking sorry. I know that doesn't do shit, but you didn't deserve a single second of what you went through. You know that right?" You nodded and let him pull you out of the car as he ushered you upstairs to his apartment.

Once the door was closed and locked behind you two, you steeled yourself and forced away your tears before turning to face Javi again. You would not waste anymore tears on the fucker who did this to you, he didn't even deserve a thought. You wanted to set things right between you and Javi and if what happened today is what that takes, so be it."Javi. I love you, and I'm sick of your shit."

Shock filled the man's face across from you and he shook his head. This was the first time saying those words to him and the circumstance seemed less than ideal. "Querida what are you saying?"

"I love you so goddamn much and I know you love me and you just won't say it. I will not stick around if it's going to be more of the same as what it has been. You will either take me on a date when I'm over all this bullshit and make what we are official, or I'm getting my stuff and leaving." You stared Javi dead in the eyes and narrowed your gaze when his face split into a grin and he let out a short bark of laughter.

"There you are, baby."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Javi just grinned wider and shook his head before he wrapped you in his arms and pressed a kiss to your temple. You melted into his grasp but confusion still filled you.

"You've had this... this look on your face after everything like you're not quite here but you are now. That's great, baby. And just so we're clear, I will take you on a date the second you are feeling up to it. Then I will take you back here and you can officially move in after I spend hours making up for everything stupid thing I have done or said to you." His voice had taken on a slight seductive whisper at the end that sent a small shiver through you and you grinned as you wrapped your bruised arms around him.

"That sounds perfect, Javi. Now let go of me because I really need a fucking shower or I'm never going on that date with you." The reminder of the blood and grime still on you from the events of the night made you shudder and the mood changed instantly but Javi just nodded and squeezed your hand in reassurance as he walked with you towards the bathroom. He would be with you through everything and he would help you get through this.

[dr-lizortecho]

tagged by the lovely @crepuscularqueens sorry I always take sooo long to get these done, lol

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

144

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

527,412

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Roswell New Mexico! Though I dabble in The Vampire Diaries and accept prompts for Lockwood and Co, Fate the Winx Saga, Riverdale and Hadestown

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Something to Celebrate- a short little Chenford dancing scene

Can I lead You Astray?- a rivusa get together fic

Wanna See What’s Under That Attitude- Hallmark Christmas movie fake dating Valevans, which is only so highly rated because I wrote it at fandoms peak interest in the pairing

Swing Life Away- rnm all human au, this was and still is my passion project

Like the Sky- a short missing scene from Lockwood and Co, and an exploration of Lucy’s feelings for Lockwood and Norrie

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes! I wrote for the community so it’s really cool to discuss the characters

The only exceptions are rude comments get to sit- unless I think it’s a misunderstanding than I’ll respond with a simple redirect and thank you

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Angst is NOT my thing, but probably do you remember? which just has Michael fall asleep before Max can ask about Alex, so it ends in their still fractured pre-show relationship

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All my fic has happy endings pretty much! But the one that probably felt the most joyful to me personally ours which was my first foray into malexa and just ends with the sweetest big group moment

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nope! Not since I moved into the rnm fandom, barring like one comment on a Forrest fic all I’ve ever gotten is really really nice interactions <3

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Haha yes, all kinds. From the softest vanilla euphemism full sex to weak ass bdsm (sorry I haven’t quite got hardcore there yet- like I keep blushing and backing out on letting Max wear a collar)

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really- I have one crossover written and another in the works. Rnm/Tvd which kinda writes itself.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope- ik I would be terrible to work with cause I’m super particular, but I’m not against the idea.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

You’re not gonna believe this- Echo

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The Joniz kidnapping fic! I started back during s3 and formatted the entire thing, only for them to reveal more info on Jones so I had to replay it, and then he actually kidnapped Liz, fed her and dressed her and I was like ‘this is my fic!’

16. What are your writing strengths?

Idk- I think I put a lot of care and effort into making the characters actions and reactions plausible and realistic, cause I studied psychology for a bit and it’s one of my interests, so I just apply it a little too hard. Which feeds into a weakness cause it means I always feel incapable of characters pov’s I don’t think about an absurd amount

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

New POV’s and commas

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I love it personally- but the little Spanish I did retain from highschool isn’t enough to actually write it (so I use google translate) but I’m hoping once I have more free time to take up duolingo and actually learn it

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Doctor Who

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Swing Life Away- it’s like a child to me, however poorly written

no pressure tags @lilshitwayne @morganadw @ajna-eye-cogitations @beautifulcheat @ladynox @maeglinthebold and anyone who wants to!

[bngrc]

You know I thought the reason I didn't like live action dubs was because of the cognitive dissonance of hearing the wrong voice come out of an actor's mouth.

But today I was scrolling tumblr with Netflix playing in the background, and after a tv show ended, Netflix queued up an English dubbed trailer for a Spanish tv show, and without even looking at the screen, I knew I was listening to a dub.

I could *hear* that there was something stilted and off about the dialogue.

So yeah, the problem I have with dubs isn't that the dialogue sounds unnatural coming out of a different person's face after all. The problem is that the dialogue in a lot of live action English dubs is badly written and poorly acted.

.

I think the actual cognitive dissonance lies in the fact that the person who translated the dialogue is probably not a native English speaker, but the voice actors who are performing the dialogue clearly are native English speakers.

I think it helped, with Young Royals, that the actors in the English dub still have Swedish accents.

When someone has an accent that tells you English isn't their first language, you expect their phrasing to sound different, perhaps more stilted, than a native speaker's English.

When someone has a perfect US American accent, but the words they're saying still sound like an awkward English translation of non-English dialogue, it's much more jarring.

It's like that one French/English stand-up comedian said:

[im-fairly-whitty]

Fic Writer Interview

Tagged by @slusheeduck!

How many works do you have on AO3?

53

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

580,654

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Witcher Wolf, The Witcher Wolf Part 2, Changes, In Plain Sight, and Forget Me Not.

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I did when I first started out, these days I'll usually only respond to comments that pose an interesting question or point about the text or that have an especially entertaining element to them.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

A Bard Called Dandelion. More bittersweet than angsty, 531 words about outliving everything you love.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

To quote @slusheeduck: "Probably Teacher AU. Literally everything tied up neatly for the happiest ending possible."

7. Do you write crossovers?

I've done some Coco x PATF since I've got OCs from those universes who are star crossed lovers. Also have a DBH fic that takes place in the Witcher universe, but only with DBH characters on screen.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don't think so? Occasionally there's a comment that's bizarre/poorly phrased/the commenter has terrible reading comprehension, but not really anything actually intentional.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope! In fact, back when I first started writing fic I was the kind of person who legally and unironically could not say Fuck.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I've had a couple of my most popular oneshots unskillfully copycatted, but no copy-pasting theft that I can recall.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! For sure in Spanish, Russian, and Chinese that I recall (and a couple podfic recordings which I love). I have an open policy of my works being fair game for translation as long as I'm credited and tagged.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I got into this game in the first place by co-writing with Slush hahaha. And I've got several DBH co-written pieces since I was part of a robust fandom writers server back in the day.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Ruia. Ruy (a Coco OC) and Iria (a PATF OC) that are the prettiest disasters you ever did see across all their AU's. <3

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I've got a discontinued Incredibles fic and a Frozen one that I'm real sad didn't get finished even though I know the rest of the plot for them. Ultimately they were good ideas I had when I wasn't in the social circles of the fandoms they were for and so I lost steam.

15. What are your writing strengths?

Seeing a poorly executed concept and obsessing over why it rubs me the wrong way until I figure out how to do it good and I suddenly have a great story.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I have so many creative projects going at all times (wood working, linocut, soft sculpture, ect.) that writing isn't my one true creative love like it used to be, so if I fall out of love with a project it's toast.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Nice spice when done in moderation and with a native speaker's double checking when possible.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Coco

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Pretty content rn actually! If I really want to write it it generally gets done.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I'm still really proud of Forget Me Not, I think it's probably the most elegant dance I've ever done with a fandom's canon.

[sentientcave]

Last line(s) challenge! Tagged by the one and only @glossysoap (if you have good taste go read her snippet of her Orc Price project because it is HOT)

Here's a little bit from chapter 6 of Retirement Party featuring poorly translated Spanish (If any friends or followers speak Spanish, especially Filipino Spanish (which has, notably, been on the decline for a long while, but it's the language that Dalisay and her grandmother have in common, since Dalisay doesn't speak Tagalog and Lola's English is so-so), and want to help me out, give me a holler. It's probably an unnecessary detail but we love unnecessary details here.)

Segment below the cut!

You're not sure what possesses you, but you get up, and you make him sit, and you go to fix his coffee and wrap a bag of frozen peas in a tea towel. When you turn around, he's reached across the table to pull your laptop closer, smiling at the camera when Lola claps her hands together, delighted.

"Es guapo, Dalisay. Pero no joven, ¿eh?" She says, laughing. He's handsome, Dalisay. But not young, huh?

"No," he agrees, "soy demasiado mayor para ella. Todavía soy lo suficientemente egoísta como para intentarlo de todos modos.” I'm too old for her. I'm still selfish enough to try anyway.

You set down the coffee and glare at him. But you still gently set the ice pack on his raised ankle, squeaking as he pulls you into his lap, sitting you on his other thigh. "John!" You protest.

"Oh, relájate, apo,” Lola chides, laughing, unhelpfully reading the situation just the way John wants her to. She seems impressed by John's accented Spanish, happy to not need to use English to speak with him. "Yo también fui joven una vez. Me preocupaba que ella nunca encontrara a alguien.” Oh lighten up, apo. I was young once too. I was worried she would never find someone.

"No es que ella no pudiera,” John says. "Ella es tan hermosa, pero mantiene la distancia." It's not that she couldn't. She's so beautiful, but she keeps her distance.

Tagging (no pressure): @dragonnarrative-writes , @mortuarywriting and @charliemwrites

[dogstarblues]

20 Questions

got tagged by @artemis-devotee. seemed like fun! ty botan!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

i have 11 works and i can tell you four of those are poetry.

2. What’s your total AO3 words count?

17,831

3. What fandoms do you write for?

on ao3? used to write for the ch**tiverse, still write for Victoria Goddard's Nine Worlds. well, okay im on hiatus from participating in fan stuff bc i got too much going on and i have complicated feelings abt fandom. but. on ffnet? naruto, inuyasha, bleach, fairy tail, danny phantom. i think.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

we have time (love this one - much needed natural hair content in that fandom, much needed)

you can't even see how much you're mine (i'm really proud of this one)

before we have time

just for now

gazing at the sun

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i respond to everyone's comments if i can remember LOL

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

you can't even see how much you're mine. really exorcised my polyamory baggage with that one LMAO

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

mmmmm none of them end poorly but they end heavily, if that makes sense? but also they don't. like most of my fanfiction as an adult in my 30s is discussion of wants and needs in a relationship and hashing out things that need to be talked abt

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i have on ffnet when i was a teen and giving every naruto character in my biopunk fanfic like 4 codenames SDKVDFLVMS

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

yuh. "just for now" is smut (old man yaoi). and there's another i think. i wanted to really confront my sex repulsion and explore my own boundaries around what i write.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

naur i never understood crossovers v well. i love an AU tho

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

probably not. on ffnet it was SO goth edgelord and now it's extremely poetic prose. (and when i say POETIC prose i mean it tend to be concise and abstract, not that its purple) who wants that LOL

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

naur

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

yes! my first fanfiction was with my childhood friend Sunshine and we posted a double-self-insert absolute MANIC fanfic set in the world of Inuyasha posted to ffnet. one of my fondest memories. i dictated, she wrote.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

i don't have one these days but i shant say what it used to be only that it made me insane from the time i was 14 to the age of 25.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

i had an old man yaoi urban fantasy au wherein a character who used to be the chosen one had been imprisoned and was surviving the trauma of that as a music teacher and i read a ton of prison literature for it and watched documentaries and watched interviews and spent WEEKS researching trauma from incarceration and what it means to be incarcerated (part of this was because my birth father was about to be incarcerated and i was trying to write through my understanding of what he'd be going through) and researching what town councils do. and then a (now former) friend had torn apart the fic paragraph by paragraph during beta and wrote how boring parts were and no one wanted to hear abt me talking abt poetry in the fanfic and it was my FIRST fanfic since i was in my early twenties and i basically deleted the whole thing out of embarrassment and hurt. iykyk who it was. idk if i can ever go back to that. i just don't. i want to but. even strangers in workshops aren't that cruel LOL

16. What are your writing strengths?

i'm a pretty/poetic writer good at relationship shit i think. i'm good at grounding the reader in a sense of place and my writing is very tactile. it's embodied.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i am a pretty/poetic writer

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i know some spanish and a little french and even less russian (i'm like learning that one through osmosis) but it's not v applicable. hmmmm i wouldn't try unless i was fluent.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

inuyasha

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

either the naruto biopunk fanfiction on ffnet (i turned that one into a fanfic from a biopunk short story i had written in high school it's v close to my heart even if edgy) or "you can't even see how much you're mine" bc i put a lot into that or "we have time" because your partner doing your natural hair IS a love language.

if yall wanna hop in i'm tagging @toopunkrockforshul @cadencekismet @markeyverse

[the12thnightproject]

Hi. I love your stories. From what I've read in current Mitsuhide's story, I was wandering if you are a native speaker of Portuguese or at least have a good knwolege of the language.

Hi Anon!

Thank you very much for the love. I very much appreciate it.

The short answer to your question is no - my native language is not Portuguese. I know almost no Portuguese. My native tongue is English.

The longer answer is that I have tried to learn the following languages: Hebrew, French, Spanish, Danish, and Norwegian. The operative word is tried. The technical term is failed. At best, I can somewhat read French, and at one point, I could manage to figure out newspaper articles in Danish with some context and a good dictionary.

Part of this might just be that I am a language dunce, and not capable of learning another language. Part of it might be more that in the United States, in public schools, students do not have the opportunity to take language classes until age 14 (an even then it is an elective and not required), and that's probably too late for most of us.

I wish I were better at language acquisition and greatly admire anyone who is fluent and able to communicate (speaking and writing) in multiple tongues.

As for the fic itself - though my main character Katsu has learned Portuguese, because the story is written in first person, I don't actually have of the dialogue written in Portuguese. Instead, I just note that such and such character (usually Francisco, but there will be a couple of others in later chapters), spoke in Portuguese, but because Katsu understands that language, she's already translated it in her mind, so whatever words the original speaker used, was already translated in Katsu's head.

Examples below the cut of how I work around it:

“Lord Mitsuhide – stop. That’s my partner. Francisco.” I pushed past him and called down to the lower level. “Francisco, up here. Don’t worry. I’m safe.” Then, because Francisco’s apt to forget his Japanese even in the calmest situation, I repeated myself in Portuguese.

Moments later, a puffing Francisco breached the top of the stairs and rushed into the room. His face was red and there were sweat stains visible on the shirt he wore under his jerkin. “Katsu. You are here. When I learned someone bought you, I thought, Akihira will murder me.” He paused and drew in a long panting breath. And then another. “I got lost and went to the wrong ship.”

Of course he did.

Note to self. Next time find a partner who can find their way from one end of the city to the other.

He was still speaking in Portuguese, so clearly his language skills (such as they were) had deserted him completely. I hurried to reassure him. “An acquaintance of Aki’s recognized me and purchased me. If you can repay him… and maybe give him a bit extra for his trouble, then we can be on our way.”

.....

In the next chapter, we get Mitsuhide's POV of the same conversation:

Shouts from below disrupted that thought. He couldn’t make out the words – it sounded like the Nanban tongue. Had her would-be purchaser found them so quickly and returned with more reinforcements? If so, it was a poorly thought-out ambush that would alert the victim to a pending attack.

He grabbed his sword and turned just as Akihira’s daughter yelled, “Lord Mitsuhide – stop. That’s my partner. Francisco.”

She rushed past him and called down to the lower level. “Francisco, up here. Don’t worry. I’m safe.” She then added something in Portuguese. Presumably to calm the man down but given that Mitsuhide did not speak the language he could not be certain of it. She could have given this ‘Francisco’ the opposite instructions in Portuguese and Mitsuhide would never know.

She understands Portuguese.

A useful skill.

Too useful to ignore.

He kept his hand on his sword, just in case as a short, stocky Westerner rushed into the room, his words tumbling over one another. Mitsuhide caught the words “Katsu” and “Akihira,” and none of the rest.

The daughter followed the gush of words without any problem and replied to the man in the same language. Not just familiar with the language. Fluent. Which turned her from an annoying impediment to a potential tool. Unfortunately, an aggravating tool.

-------------------

Granted, the fic would be much more realistic if I put the dialogue into the language it is being spoken in... but to do that I'd have to rely on google translate, and there's too much possibility of error that way.

This is more or less how it's handed when writing film and television scripts too. If the intention is that a character is speaking in another language, in the script that's signaled as "(speaking in Spanish)" but you write the dialogue in English. With spec scripts there is no guarantee that the whoever is reading your script (be it a producer or a contest judge) speaks that other language, so writing it in that language would cause them to miss potentially important information.

The intention is that if the script is ever filmed, they would either hire an actor fluent in that language and/or hire a translator, so those lines likely would be filmed in Spanish (or whatever language), and then subtitled.

Again, thank you for asking!

[callipraxia]

Books Read, May 2023

I've thought of starting a book blog before, but alas - I never have enough to say when I don't have someone to bounce off of, or at least can't figure out how to say it. Plus, I mostly read nonfiction, so...probably not the most thrilling reviews. In lieu of that...here's what I read in May.

Courting Scandal: The Rise and Fall of Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford - James Taffe

Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford - Julia Fox

Young and Damned and Fair: The Life of Catherine Howard, Fifth Wife of King Henry VIII - Gareth Russell

Inside the Tudor Court: Henry VIII and His Six Wives Through the Writings of the Spanish Ambassador Eustace Chapuys - Lauren Mackay

Wolsey: The Life of King Henry VIII's Cardinal - John Matusiak

Cardinal Wolsey - Mandell Creighton

Remembering Wolsey: A History of Commemorations and Representations - J. Patrick Hornbeck II.

The Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey Cardinal: Once Archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor of England - Sir William Cavendish

Obviously, I got 'on a tangent,' as I do sometimes. I've gathered this may have something to do with the ADHD, though not from particularly official sources, so don't quote me on that. In this case, it was partially a return to old tangents; while I'd not read the last three books on this list before, my reading journal indicates I previously went on a bit of a tangent on the subject of Cardinal Wolsey in February and March of 2021. I was also immensely pleased, in my Kindle recommendations earlier this month, to find a book on Chapuys; he was always one of those background figures in the historical fictions I read as a kid that I wished I knew more about. Gotta read his letters myself sometime, since it seems, from the Google, that they can be viewed online in English translation.

I'll give Lauren Mackay this: she's much more honest than a lot of authors are when she reached places where the information simply no longer exists, or at least hasn't been recovered yet. There was enough 'prose' to keep it interesting, but not excessive attempts to state things about the ambassador that she couldn't back up with evidence. This, I felt, was in sharp contrast to Julia Fox; I loved the descriptions of the court, the attempts to tell a story, and these things definitely have a place in history-writing, but here they were fairly blatantly...fluffy, I suppose. Now, I'm hardly one to complain of fluff, rather fond of soft things myself, but it was glaringly obvious, when she said Lady Rochford must have been thinking or feeling something, that she was essentially filling in the blanks with a story of her own devising. Sometimes the 'costume' of historicity the text wore was something it looked 'comfortable' in and sometimes it was quite obviously a poorly-researched French hood shoved awkwardly onto the head of an actress with zero knowledge of sixteenth century fashion and how to wear it, but there were always leaps from one point to another. In contrast to that, I felt that Gareth Russell balanced his reader-drawing prose fluff with his historical analysis much more adeptly when considering Catherine Howard; I've read his book more than once over the past couple of years and expect I'll read it again in years to come. I came away with no impression of James Taffe's work, alas, except that he clearly wrote his book as an exasperated rebuttal to Julia Fox; I was, unfortunately, very sleep-deprived when I read that, so I'll have to read it again sometime. My lack of sleep, however, is not why I read the rebuttal first and the book it was responding to second...even though I'd had Fox's book in my physical TBR shelves for several years and only stumbled across Taffe's the day I bought it. I'm told I've always had a tendency to do things in the wrong order and somehow make it work anyway, so why mess with a good system at this point?

As for one book being a rebuttal to another - here we come to one of my favorite things about reading history, which is to say, how often historians blatantly attack or support each other in their writing. In the last couple of chapters of Remembering Wolsey, I was irrationally delighted to see the author offer opinions on every book I read during my 2021 tangent as well as one of the ones I read this time around. It's amusing (to me) to sort of...get to know the different personalities: "hm, yes, I can see why someone would say that about Ives," or "yeah, I never did get Starkey's position on that, all things considered," or "ha, that was almost the exact same thing I said two years ago about Ridley!" It's...oddly cozy, I suppose.

Hornbeck was especially interesting as he wasn't writing about what happened - he was writing about the trends in how people have remembered what happened over the past few centuries. There were interesting thoughts on historical fiction throughout, especially near the end; that one may warrant a full independent review, if I can muster the energy to write it out. For now, however - there's all the reading I did in May.

[falsebooles123]

FUCK its the end of January - Diary of a Big Ole Gay 1/31/2023

Hey whores, its me your bitch back on his bullshit.

So I have a interview tomorrow and I'm waiting to hear back from like three, four different places. so its a lot of waiting.

(yeah I kinda hate having to sit on my ass and waiting)

Also I probably didn't watch that much queer stuff this week so sorry? I mean I had to slow down a little whores. most of this stuff is stuck behind a paywall. (pssst I have a ko-fi if you wanna help a whore out).

The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) dir. Robert Aldrich

So this is one of those movies that had a queer element and then were also just very poorly recieved for completly unrelated reasons, (think Sylvia Scarlett or Glen or Glenda). This film is about 80% less gay then that. On one hand you have this very meta type of patisches to it its a lot of elements from things like Rebecca and Sunset Boulivard.

You basically have this young actress who has this preternaturally ability to imitate Lylah Clare a golden age star who died in a spectacular fasion and she bascially falls into the wild child/Bisexual Vamp role. If you remember me discussing Lola from Pandoras Box then you have a sense of what I'm talking about.

TBH it is very campy and fun but the reason why this is on the list is that one of the characters is a lesbian and she was fucking Lola Rebecca, *checks notes*, sorry Lylah Clare.

Muchachas de Uniforme (1951) dir. Alfredo B. Crevenna

so this is a mexican remake of the classic and while there are some aspects I really like about it (the expressionist type architecture, the costume design), it tones down a lot of the queerness of the original.

I will say that this

1. is a lot darker and if you know how the original ends then know that they go for the bummer ending. (bury your gays)

2. I watched this on youtube and there were no English Subs so I had to use the auto-translate function which meant I only got the barest bones concept of the dialogue. its buggy, spanish is a fast spoken language and also if I understood spanish the dialogue would probably be really pretty. So understand there is a language barrier for me here.

Lo siento, me esponal no es bueno, estudiar para tres anos perro soy es estudiente malo. Sue me.

Madchen in Uniform (1958) dir. Géza von Radványi

This one is a lot more faithful to the original but they also butcher the bedroom kiss scene. However they do make that up with this kiss later on when they extend the play plot point.

I will say that I do like aspects of this film, i like there take on it but the original madchen in uniform is far superior to both of the remakes.

and thats not to say that the remakes are bad films they have a great aestetic, they add little details the original does but its something about the original that just sings in a way these ones dont

Everything Else I watched this week and a half

as you can tell I watched Infinity Pool, It was great. Horror Autuers are like lets shit on rich people and I'm all for it. Its giving sci-fi taking to its psycological horror extremes and what happens when you give in negative nihilism.

Also watched 2017 B&B, its a gay thriller and its pretty good if a bit triggering.

I finished the rest of the Hammer House of Horror and umm what else...

So I watched Bi-coastal, one of the Catalina Bisexual Features they did in the 70s directed by Tom DeSimone, (or as he went by then Lance Brookes). The men in it are definetly hollywood twink and not the sexy Gage Men, but despite that Bi-Coastal was V V hot. and honestly very bi positive for the time.

[bunnywand]

oh also, while i’ve been talking abt fake cards, and as i got those magazines out from under my bed, i also still have this..

fake “ancient sanctuary” tin 😦

p sure i got this from our local market, which sold bootleg pokemon and yu-gi-oh stuff alongside the bootleg cds and dvds, and it was probably full of loose fake yu-gi-oh cards 😅

despite the nonsense name (probably “ancient sanctuary” poorly translated from japanese to spanish, and then again from spanish to english?? 🤔) and the fact the metal it’s made of is a lot poorer quality than on the legitimate yu-gi-oh tins, it’s actually still quite a nice looking tin and still pretty sturdy, which is why i still have it!! altho atm it’s full of a bunch of old spare pokemon cards 😭