#this either ends with them COMMUNICATING and getting together with who they want or doubling down until all of them are dating each other

[nibbelraz]

Here's to a New Year where we actually communicate 🥂

[ohtobeleah]

Kink.com // Jake Seresin & Bradley Bradshaw

Part One Summary: You’re offered an opportunity you just can’t refuse ~ To shoot a kink .com video with Jake Seresin and Bradley Bradshaw, two of the worlds most renowned BDSM dominants.

Warnings: Jake Seresin x F!reader. Bradley Bradshaw x F!reader. SMUT!! BDSM type scenes. Unrealistic representation of the porn industry but it’s what you’re getting. Overstimulation, orgasm denial, anal, and double penetration.

Word Count: 6.6k

Author Note: This is strictly porn with a plot. There is no critically acclaimed literature here. But vibrators are encouraged!

The warmth of burnt oranges, bright yellows and deep amber reds cast a comforting ambience through your apartment. Cascading windows brought the natural beauty of central park into your living room. You held your phone held close to your ear as you sat wrapped in your bathrobe, hair masked up, drinking in the luxurious moisture of the organic hair mask your best friend had brought you for your birthday. A warm cup of tea cooling peacefully by your side, nestled on the coffee table as you tried not to bite your nails. Coming back into your own head as if you'd been off somewhere else at the sound of your manager's voice.

“kink’s offering $90,000, they really want you to sign on as the submissive in this video Y/n.” It was almost as if your manager knew by your deafening silence that you had your reservations. “At least think about it. Three of the top five porn stars in the world, working together? That’s a lot of revenue for the company and not to mention that 90k? besides! I wouldn’t throw shit your way.”

“I've just never worked with either of them before, I’ll definitely have to do some research, ask around, find out what the go is.” It was something your manager, Alex, agreed with, opting to let you do your research before accepting the deal you’d been offered by Kink and ask around the industry. Weigh up the pros and cons before making a commitment or passing up the opportunity to work with Jake Seresin and Bradley Bradshaw .

“At this stage.” Looking out across the park as trees blew leaves haphazardly across the pavement, you sighed. “I really need to do my research but I wanna say yes just because I know I won’t get this offer again anytime soon.” Alex agreed on his end. “Just keep that between us! It’s not in writing, but yeah, I guess it’s worth it.”

Jake Seresin and Bradley Bradshaw, two of the world's most renowned Dominants in the porn industry. A chance to work with them was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and surely one that doesn’t come around twice. You see, Jake and Bradley had a very unusual request, only one, and that request was–

They only ever work with a submissive once and once only.

So when Kink offered you the chance to work with two of the most well respected, very talented and downright jaw-dropping best friends how could you say no? Their careers as dominants had taken off around the same time you had started gaining recognition as one of the top female submissives in the BDSM community.

Although you were a switch at heart and could dish it out to both men and women just as much as you could take it – you could never resist the chance to be tied up and ‘tortured’ whenever the opportunity was handed your way. And what’s better than being denied an orgasm by a dominant? Being denied an orgasm by two incredibly handsome dominants. 

It took you, if you had to time it, a rough four hours to decide to take up the offer and work with Jake and Bradley. You rang around, asked the questions that needed to be asked. It really did settle your nerves asking those who had worked with Jake and Bradley in the past what they were like. It only took you so long to decide because the layout you received of the scenes looked pretty intense – maybe even the most intense video you’d ever shoot. Kink was trying to get you to branch out and they knew to offer you the gig with the duo would entice you even more, because, at the end of the day you were still human and there was not a doubt in your mind that you would let Jake Seresin and Bradley Bradshaw take you – with or without the money. 

***~***~***~***~***~***~**

As a professional, you did your research – well, by research I mean you sat at your desktop and binge watched any and all videos the dynamic duo had ever done. Especially for Kink, because they were brutal and you needed to know how they operated.

So you sat for hours, drinking your tea and teasing your sensitive bundle of nerves every now and again as you watched Jake fuck Rachel (Phoenix Trance, another very popular pornstar) with a dick stick as Bradley whipped her clamped tits. Oh, boy, did she look helpless tied up like that – hands tied with rope above her head as her toes just barely touched the ground. She was almost suspended. To the untrained eye, it really did look as if she was in pain, desperately trying to force her leg from Jake's shoulder as he thrust the dildo repeatedly into her soaking cunt.

But for you? a pro? You knew all the signs to look for and without a doubt in your mind – Phoenix was loving every second of the painful pleasure that was being inflicted on her body by Jake and Bradley.

At the same time as you were researching them, Jake was happily stroking his throbbing cock to videos of you being a submissive. 

“Ah fuck!” He sat on his bed, laptop just to the side of him, legs spread wide as he slowly pumped his throbbing length watching on as you took a paddling like a true champ. Your ass so raw as you bent over the bench, hands tied in true bondage style as you gaged around the cock that was face fucking you at the same time. “Such a good girl—“ Jake was thinking the same, you looked defenceless against the two burly men whose faces he couldn’t recognise. Unlike him and Bradley, most male dominants are off-screen as much as possible, whereas they like to show the whole world how they fuck their submissives. 

“You can’t take a lot can't you?” Jake was looking for signs of distress, looking for your tell-tale signs to ‘stop’ or ‘slow down’ and he only saw one. You would gag three consecutive times if you truly needed to breathe, not wanting to break character, the dominant would back away, slap your face with his cock a few times before going straight back to work.

Bradley was busy doing his own research, but unlike Jake? he was watching you be a dominant.

See when it came to being a dominant or dominatrix to be politically correct, you much preferred to work with women. Why? Because you knew how to work your way around a woman's body. And views were always ten times higher so with good revenue coming in for the company, meant a bigger paycheck for you. You enjoyed your job, truly you did but sometimes it was more about taking the biggest check so you could provide for yourself financially.

“Ohh fuck—“ Bradley watched as you held your submissive’s cheeks, her lips pressed out and puckered as you held what seemed to be a very high-speed vibrator to her sensitive bundle of nerves. With a hand wrapped around his length Bradley jutted his hips forward as he twitched in pure pleasure. “Such a tease.” 

You had her arms and legs tied together. Feet to wrist in some of the most professionally tied bondage Bradley had seen in a while. Almost as good as his own knotwork. Leaning over your submissive Bradley couldn’t help but noticed how much joy you took in pleasuring your submissive– Bradley was sure he’d fucked her once before but he couldn’t put a name to the fucked out face he was listening to scream for you to let her cum. It was safe to say Bradley was very much impressed with your abilities none the less but watching how you ‘torture’ your submissives just made him want to give you something to cry about. “Let’s see how you like your own medicine.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~

Nervous. That’s what you were when you entered the lobby of Kink’s headquarters in New York. Like a 5-star hotel lobby, it blew you away with its magnificent ability to be seemingly innocent in its disguise. Walking up to the ‘reception?’ you stuttered a bit before the lady typing away on the computer noticed who you were.

“Hi, um–I’m h-here to shoot a video for–”

“Y/n darling, we’ve been expecting you!” The lady confessed with a wide smile that was warm and welcoming. “I’ll show you to the room shall I?” Before you could even nod she was on her feet. Her pencil skirt was so unbelievably tight around her thighs and ass that you could clearly make out the thong underneath the thin fabric. Her red bottoms clicked against the marble flooring until you both reached the elevator. Stepping in, it felt awkward – so you prepared for the awkward silence. But to your surprise, she kept talking.

“This your first time working with us?”

“Hmm? Oh-oh yeah” You mumbled, pushing your hair behind your ear as you cleared your throat. “I’ve never shot in this building before, but I’m not a virgin to Kink – done maybe three or four soft bondage videos for you guys.” She smiled, generally intrigued by your conversation.

“I think I’ve watched a few of your videos actually, either that or I’ve mailed the check.” This time you both laughed, it made you feel really comfortable walking into such a compromising situation–but you figured that was a part of her job description. When the elevator dinged, signalling you had reached your final destination, she bid you a professional farewell.

“Well Y/n I hope you enjoy your day. Two doors down the hall to your right.” You nodded in response, still nervous but much more confident than you were just moments ago. As you walked down the hall, remembering the directions given, you stopped at the door that read “Seresin/Bradshaw x Lavender” on the front. It was common knowledge your last name wasn’t lavender, it was somewhat of a stage name, something to give you an extra boost of confidence. Your last name wasn’t public knowledge. 

Knocking three gentle times it wasn’t long before someone opened the door, and boy were you instantly smiling when you noticed it was Jake Seresin himself.

“Hi” Was all you said as he stepped to the side to welcome you inside.

“Hi? That’s all the guy who’s about to fuck your brains out gets?” You immediately knew Jake was joking by his tone of voice. You let out a sheepish laugh, biting your bottom lip as you tried to hide the smile growing on your somewhat nervous face. Jake turned, leaning against the door he’d just locked behind himself, arms folded over his chest as the black T he wore looked as if it was about to burst from his chest.

“Rumour has it you only want me for my body Seresin? Where’s your other half anyway?” Jake chuckled before running a hand through his hair, only to gesture over to Bradley who was helping the camera crew set up their stations and double checking they had all the toys the scenes required.

“He’s being pedantic, has to make sure everything’s perfect for every shoot we do.” Jake placed a hand on the small of your back as he walked you deeper into the dimly lit room. Blinds drawn and studio lights already shining. “Especially for such a highly anticipated collaboration - Who knows? Maybe if you’re as good as what I’ve seen we might have to see each other again?” You stood still, frozen in your tracks at the words that just escaped Jake Seresin’s mouth.

“You don’t work with people more than one time around? I know your rule, don’t be a tease.” You scoffed, somewhat flirting to ease your anxieties.

“Aren’t rules meant to be broken? M’not teasing Y/n, just letting you know that if you’re a good girl we might be able to come to a standing agreement.” Jake was smug in the way he spoke to you, clearly already very deep into his dominant character–a method actor for the camera. So you humoured him, trying hard to fight off the natural dominant within yourself as you would have to submit in less than half an hour.

“Well as long as you don’t break my rules Jake, I don’t think we’ll have a problem.” Confidence seeped from your pores, or maybe it was just the sweat beginning to build up from the heat being produced from the studio lights.

“And what would those rules be Y/n, hmm? does it have anything to do with the fact you gag three times in a very not so natural way if you can't take a dick down your throat?” Remember that confidence you thought you had? Yeah no, it was definitely just sweat.

“How did you kno—” Before you could finish your sentence, Jake spun you around so your back was against his chest, his hands pulling your arms behind your back, coming between the two of you as he leaned over to whisper in your ear.

“I do my research sweetheart, oh am I going to have fun with you today.” His hot breath fanned against your cool skin, causing goosebumps to rise wherever it fanned against. The heat between your legs already began to rise but maybe that was Jake’s objective to begin with, get you as naturally wet as he possibly could before filming commenced.

“Trust me I did my own, that stick thrust? weak at best.” You fired back, looking over your shoulder as Jake's grip around your wrist became tighter at the sound of your fiery voice.

“Oh yeah? We’ll have to see about that, won't we? God wait until Bradshaw gets a hold of those perky tits – you’ll be begging for a fucking orgasm.” Jake let you go as he stepped away. His pants had become increasingly tighter at the thought of what he was about to do to your perfect body. Your attitude just made it even better. He always loved a fight, loved some foreplay before really getting into it.

“Shall we?” Jake questioned, gesturing to the stool you would be sitting on momentarily, going through your safe words and restrictions.

“Only if you have something other than that belt hugging your waist to choke me with?” You teased, walking past him to the chair, smiling at Bradley who was waiting–arms crossed and smirking wildly as he watched you saunter over. You could hear Jake mumble under his breath but chose to ignore it so you could get the nitty gritty part out of the way so the three of you could truly have some fun.

“Trust me, the thing I'll be choking you with isn’t on my pants, it’s in them.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~***

“Okay Y/n, are you over the age of eighteen?” Bradley asked as the camera’s focused themselves on you as you sat perfectly poised on the stool. Both Jake and Bradley sat just off camera for this section of the filming, just asking the necessary questions the audience would love to know when the video is finished and posted.

“I am.” You politely responded, crossing your legs as you held your hand over your knees. You were far too excited, probably more excited than you’d ever been to go to work. 

“Okay good.” Bradley was reading from a list of mandatory questions that needed to be asked, stuff Jake and himself had to know before they could even lay a finger on you – something Jake didn’t really consider before when he was making you cream your panties in the name of foreplay.

“what’s your safe word when not gaged?”

“Red.” You smiled, biting your bottom lip.

“And how about when you’re gagged?”

“Three consecutive uh uh uh’s, really quick, you’ll know it if you hear them.” Bradley nodded as Jake smiled, he already knew that.

“What do you say in response to a question asked if you are completely comfortable and enjoying yourself?”

“Yes sir.” You were getting squirmy, moving around the stool as your panties dampened, every question Bradley asked meant you were closer to getting fucked –and truthfully? You had never been so excited.

“How about if you need one or both of us to pull back but not break character or stop the scene?”

“Yes master.”

“Good, okay.” Bradley was checking off questions left and right, flying through the paperwork he had to fill out as he smirked at you, his eyes dark and full of lust.

“What are your restrictions?” Jake took over, eggar to know with a curious tone to his husky, deep voice. Giggling innocently, you looked at the two of them, the camera crew practically none existent in your mind at this point – you had done this too many times before to worry about a few extra men and women seeing you get fucked.

“I don’t like foot play and I really don’t care for electro stim –so don’t come at me with anything that shocks or zaps.”

“So overstimulation, orgasm denial, anal, and double penetration are okay? Just no prods or feet. Am I correct in my assumptions?” Jake was being more than professional for the camera, he knew exactly what to say and when to say it.

“More than okay.” It was the way Bradley coughed slightly to clear his throat, interrupting Jake before he could literally walk towards you right that second and start taking you as if you were all his to play with.

“Okay well, I think we have everything we need, I’ll have Jake quickly log this and I’ll help you get set up shall I?” Bradley stated as he smiled wildly, excited to finally get you out of your pretty sundress and into some restraints. He definitely hadn’t forgotten about the video he had watched of you ‘torturing’ you submissive – so he was very keen to have you screaming, begging to cum.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

Bradley was gentle with his hands as he hogtied you with the thick natural rope – talking to you naturally while off camera.

“This okay?” He asked as he tightened the rope, pulling your arms back the slightest bit more to meet your feet. Your stomach flat against the bench, exactly hip height to where Bradley stood beside you.

“Could be tighter if you want it for aesthetic but it’s okay Bradley.”

“I saw what Jake was doing before? Did it work?” He chuckled as he walked around the bench, making sure you were properly restrained on all angles.

“I don’t know, you tell me?” You teased, your legs spread and already bent – it would be so easy for Bradley to slide his hand down your ass cheek to see if his best friend really did get you nice and slick–which Jake had, but Bradley just groaned softly. He could wait, but the question on the tip of his tongue was could you?

“I would, but I’ve got something else planned for you first.” Placing a blindfold over your pretty eyes before giving you a quick and sharp slap to your ass before he left you hogtied and alone on the bench, retreating to get the camera crew and track down where Jake had wandered off to.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

It wasn’t long after Bradley left that you once again heard heavy footsteps in the room and you knew it was go time by the slow and steady way they walked. Your breathing became increasingly heavy with anticipation. Everything was quiet for a moment, the only thing that could be heard was your heavy breathing–until you felt a slight sting against your pussy.

“Ah!” You whimpered softly before you felt the sting again, it wasn’t a hand so it could only be what you assumed to be a soft whip one of the duo was working to flick against your slick, dripping pussy. You could feel a hand being twisted and interlaced in your hair, making a makeshift ponytail, pulling your head up from the bench.

“Open your mouth.” You heard the familiar voice of Bradley say – or maybe it was Jake? Without your visual to back you up, you weren’t entirely sure, but regardless of who it was you did as you were told when you felt the head of their cock glide against your soft bottom lip. Plump and ready.

“Good girl.” You heard him say before he slowly got himself familiar with the feeling out your mouth and throat. ‘Good girl’ You thought as you gaged around his shaft–definitely Jake. He didn’t give you much time at all to adjust to his size, beginning to face fuck you hard enough for your mouth to salivate like crazy, spit trailing from your lips to his tip whenever he would pull back to give the camera something nasty to film. 

“Do you like the way my cock feels in that dirty mouth or yours, slut?” Jake worked to slap your face softly with his wet, heavy cock as he asked you the first question of the day— testing to see if you remembered the responses. Starting with something mild.

“Yes s-sir.” You responded before his cock was being shoved firmly down your throat once again–thrust picking up speed and depth as Bradley continued his soft assault of whips against your pussy, tenderising the area so overstimulation would be quick and easy to obtain.

“Uh--!” You gagged around Jakes length, not only from him face fucking your mouth but from Bradley’s own whipping progressively getting harder–faster, not so soft against your sensitive clit that was beginning to throb from the sharp slaps it was receiving. Long strains of perfectly woven strings all working harmoniously to bring you pleasure in the hands of a master.

“Look at you.” You heard Bradley say from behind you as Jake never slowed his assault on your face. “Do you want me to make you cum?” You gagged, Jake only pulled out of your warm mouth to marvel at the sight of your swollen lips and chin glistening from your own saliva and his cock just covered– jerking himself off as he waited for you to answer.

“Y-yes sir!” You cried through gritted teeth, your breathing heavier than before as you tried catching your breath quickly before Jake shoved his cock straight back down your tight, contracting throat. With one last whip you whimpered around the length stilled in your throat before feeling a set of fingers spreading your lips apart.

“Look at how wet you are? I bet if I just blew on your throbbing clit right now you would cum instantly?” Bradley teased, a hand came down heavily on your left ass cheek – making you jump slightly before you felt something enter you. God, you wished you could see what they were doing to you.

It was the stick dildo, entering your tight fuck hole as Jake pulled away, finally letting your hair go as your head fell heavily to the bench.

“Oh fuck!” You moaned as Bradley pushed the dildo deep inside your pussy, so deep you swore it was in your gut.

“You want to cum?” Bradley asked as he began thrusting the dildo in and out of your slick cunt. Already making you a moaning mess. “Answer me, whore–” 

“Please! Please yes, make me cum sir!” You cried, begged as he fucked you so good with the dick stick, you couldn’t see but you had a feeling his face was right in front of your pussy, getting a front row seat as he kneeled behind you.

From the whipping stimulating your clit and the thrust filling you so good you were so close, so close to hitting your first high of the shoot.

“Please can I cum sir!” You cried, whimpering as you trembled, Bradley never slowed his pumps as he watched you take the dildo nearly as big as his own deep inside you.

“Hold it.” He ordered, a scream of pain leaving your lips as you tried so hard to stop yourself from releasing. “Beg for it you little whore.”

“Ah--! Sir p-please let me cum!” You begged, you were so close to not being able to hold back any longer, until you heard it, the words that made tears soak the blindfold wrapped tightly around your eyes.

“Not. A. Chance.” You felt the dildo leave your body, now empty you sobbed from the denial. Both Jake and Bradley left the room as you cooled down a bit– ready for the next intense scene to begin.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

It was pure torture—being denied of an orgasm. But you loved it, the feeling of being powerless yet having all the power at the same time. Because you see, it’s never really the dominant who’s in control. It’s always the submissive - especially during a bondage scene because, with one word, you have the power to completely shut it down. Being powerless in a controlled and safe environment is exactly what you were right now, having been tortured within an inch of an orgasm you didn’t think it could get worse. Oh, how mistaken you were.

Hands tied above your head with one leg planted firmly on the ground and another tied to a plank of wood. This time you could see and oh how thankful you were for such a blessing. You couldn’t just feel the clamps pinching at your sensitive nipples, but you could see the way your buds plumped under the pressure of the harsh clamps that brought you so much pleasure— slightly irritated from the pressure they found themselves under. Just enough but somewhat painful. If left to be still it felt as if nothing was there, move slightly and oh shit.

You heard the familiar sound of the duo’s footsteps creaking against the wooden floorboards—you could see them this time, both of them in all their glory. Right now you could only describe them as sex on legs, but you were sure you’d have to wait to feel them inside you another time, maybe being a good girl as Jake said could be your only chance at feeling his cock inside your cunt instead of just your mouth - but at a later date that would have to be discussed because right now they were both walking towards you dangerously slow. Jake holding a vibrator in his large hand and Bradley with his signature whip.

You tried to move, whimpering slightly as Bradley got close enough to pull on the nipple clamps that made themselves at home on your perky tits. The chain dropping between them.

“Miss us?” He asked with a cocky smirk, pulling your head to the side as you answered a simple “Yes sir” While he trailed harsh kisses down your neck.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky and Jake will let you cum? Do you want Jake to make you cum?” Bradley’s eyes never left your beautiful face as he moved to the side of you– allowing a smirking Jake to drop to his knees before you, placing the currently off vibrator against your very stimulated, very sensitive clit.

“Yes sir.” You whimpered only for Jake to slowly but surely turn on the vibrator one setting at a time. 

“Ooh—! aauurrggg—--Yes!” You cried aloud. Your leg instantly shaking from the feeling. Bradley pulled and teased at the nipple clamps, his hands gentle in compassion to when he started to whip the soft whip against your exposed chest.

You tried running, but you had absolutely nowhere to go. The coil in your stomach tightening quicker than ever before as Jake effortlessly brought you closer to your orgasm - hopefully Bradley was right, hopefully Jake would let you cum.

“Aah-! Please, sir can I cum!” You groaned through gritted teeth as Bradley continued his assault on your now very raw exposed chest. Jake shook his head no, looking up at the desperation in your eyes he felt his cock throbbing.

“Why should I let you cum? What do I, well we, get out of it?” You really couldn’t think, barely able to speak as you held onto your orgasm for as long as possible.

“Anything, please sir just let me c-cum! M’begging” you cried out, at this point it was just pathetic how much you were crying out, begging to feel any sort of release. Wet tears streamed down your cheeks but everything just felt so damn good, like you were floating. 

“Ahhhhhhh please, please I need to–I’m gonna– !” You cried again as Bradley tugged hard on the nipple clamps that were oh so tight on your nipples.

“You can cum but say what you are?” Jake turned the intensity up to the highest setting as he worked his fingers into your pussy, curling his fingers into your velvet walls as he manoeuvred the vibrator just right.

“Ahah- uhhh, I’m a fucking whore!” You whimpered. Your body trembling as your eyes rolled to the back of your head - squirting all over Jake’s hands as he finger fucked and teased your overstimulated clit through your orgasm–Bradley still working his magic on your exposed raw tits.

“Yes! Oh my fucking god yes! Mmmmm f-fuck!” You were sure your moans could be heard from outside the room but you didn’t care–you finally came, granted permission. Still coming down from you high as Bradley grabbed your face and pulled you towards him.

“We aren’t finished just yet, just one more thing before you're free to go.”

Jake slapped your clit three times after pulling the vibrator away–you were exhausted. Once again both men leaving you alone to recover for the next and final shoot of the day.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***

There was nothing normal about your line of work, however – what’s better than making money off the feeling of euphoria. That’s how you felt when you were about to start the next and final scene of the shoot today. Jake and Bradley going out of their way to make sure you had a good experience with them and considering they were already considering working with you again? You were more than happy to play along with whatever they had installed for you – already knowing it wouldn’t be anything to do with your only two restrictions.

This scene was different all together, you were kneeling on a double bed made to perfection. your hands tied behind your back while a ball gag was sitting comfortably between your lips. Silvia already making its way down your chin as you salivated at the thought of what was to come. 

When you caught the eyes of the two men, you were stunned to see them fully exposed and both rock hard. Their cocks bouncing freely as they sauntered over to you on the bed. Making sure to keep your cool so to not break character you eyed them both off as they sat softly on either side of you. Bradley must have had a fetish for your tits, because not only could he still see the lines his whip had left behind from the last scene, but he just wanted to feel his lips around your sensitive bud. So he did just that, diving head first into your chest to suck harshly on your nipple.

“Mmm–” You moaned as he sucked deep purple and red marks on sensitive buds – breaking some of your capillaries from the pressure. A pain you enjoyed and would marvel at the sight left behind in days to come.

Jake's hand diving straight for your entrance, making sure you were still slick as ever for him – and he wasn’t left disappointed. A smirk coming across his face when he saw you flinch from the overstimulation – so sensitive after being denied and tortured before. Jake grabbed at your face, his hand squashing your lips together as he came face to face with you.

“Are you going to take us both like the good girl you are?” Bradley finished his assault on your tits to come up and look at your face practically drained of all colour at the thought of having both their cocks buried deep inside you.

“Uhh huh” You moaned around the gag nodding your head with innocent eyes, Jake chuckled almost devilishly as Bradley rolled onto his back – bring you with him. pulling your chest down flat against his.

Bradley was quick to manoeuvre his cock to your entrance, unable to do so yourself considering your arms were bound behind your back in the same neutral rope used in both scenes before.

“Uhh-!” You cried out so beautifully in his ear, eyes rolling as he pushed himself further and further into your incredibly tight fuck hole. Bradley was biting his bottom lip as he lifted his hips just the slightest of bits to bottom out inside you, so snug and tight around his shaft–he could feel every pulse and shutter you made at the feeling of being so full, but not full enough.

As Bradley started a slow thrust into your pussy, Jake kneeled behind the two of you, stroking his own length with one of his hands and rubbing as much lube as he possibly could around your puckering tight ass hole. The feeling of Jake pressing his fingers around your ass made you want to cum then and there on the spot – but you knew what he was working up to, and you were so ready to feel so full. 

As soon as you felt Jake's hand come to rest on your bound arms and Bradley’s hands squeeze against your ass cheeks – you knew it was about to happen. Soon enough the feeling of Jake pressing his tip inside your ass flooded every part of your body and you let out the most pornographic moan you had ever done, even some of the crew who were filing were stunned to hear you moan so beautifully as Jake pressed his cock further inside your incredibly tight ass.

“UUHH--!” Tears of pleasure were now starting to roll down your cheeks and Bradley realised that he had achieved his goal in giving you something to cry about. Both Jake and Bradley now balls deep inside you, one cock inside your ass, another pressing against your cervix – it was a feeling like no other and you couldn’t control your moans and whimpers of pleasure.

Not being able to tell them how you felt due to the ball gag hindering you from speaking, you could only tell them through your cries of pleasure. And they could only say so much to you during the process as well, not able to take things to a personal level like calling your name. all Bradley wanted to do at the very moment he saw your eyes roll was tell you how pretty you looked and all Jake wanted to do when he felt himself bottom out was let you know how fucking amazing you are at taking two large cocks inside you at the same time – but they couldn’t, contractually. Because it's porn and there are no relations in BDSM.

“Do you like the way we feel?” Jake asked at the very moment Bradley spanked your ass.

“UHH!” You replied, spit dripping from your chin onto Bradley’s chest as they fucked you at different speeds. Jake slow and steady in your tight ass while Bradley went all in, thrusting mercilessly into your dripping cunt.

“Do you want that gag out of your mouth? Bradley asked as he looked over your shoulder at Jake who was literal milliseconds away from blowing his load in your ass. You could only nod furiously – no noise escaping past your lips as you felt the familiar coil within you tighten as you enjoyed being used by two of the most renowned Dominants in the porn community.

Jake unclipped the gag, throwing it away and you couldn’t hold back any longer, screaming out how much you wanted to cum, how good it felt to be so full and stretched and how much you wanted them to flood you with everything they had.

“Please let me cum!” You cried looking down at Bradley as you felt Jake's hand come down on your right ass cheek.

“No” Bradley hissed as he slammed into you, his hand coming to wrap around your throat as Jake continuously spanked your ass–causing you to let out tiny “Ah’s” every time his slightly calloused hand made contact with your raw sensitive skin.

“Please, sir! C-can I cum!” You begged again, begging to feel the release, the pleasure, the euphoria.

Jake looked down at Bradley with a nod of approval and Bradley did the same, both about to shoot their thick hot spurts of cum deep inside you.

“You can cum but tell us what you are.” Bradley ordered and without a second to think you were creaming around his cock, pulsing like crazy around his shaft as you fell even more lifeless into his chest.

“I’m a f-fucking cum whore!”

As you came Jake felt your ass tighten around his shaft and that was enough to throw him overboard, spilling his hot creamy mess inside your deep stretched out ass hole. Bradley doing the same, only into your tight cunt, his load mixing around with yours as you trembled between the two of them – completely fucked out and exhausted.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

As you got ready, covered your body in the coconut scented moisturiser you liked so much, fixed your hair and makeup after an extensive shower, you exited the studio bathroom only to be greeted by Jake and Bradley who were once again – fully clothed and staring intensely at you. You could only raise an eyebrow in confusion at their weird behaviour.

“Do we need to redo a shot?” You couldn't for the life of you fathom doing a reshoot after how taxing today had been on your body, not that you hadnt enjoyed it. “I swear if that’s what you're asking me we’ll have to do it another time because–” 

“Take this” Jake Interrupted you, handing you a piece of paper that had both Bradley and Jake's personal numbers written down. “I’m a man of my word and you were a very good girl Y/n.” You couldn’t stop the smile from plastering itself across your face or the feeling of heat rising in the apples of your cheeks.

“I already have the company’s number? Why would you give me your personal numbers?” you asked, still confused – most likely from being exhausted and ever so sore.

“I never once said we wanted to work with you again – you made that assumption on your own, I just went along with it.” Jake explained, but you still didn’t get it and that’s where Bradley stepped in to clear things up.

“What Jake's trying to say is we’d love to see you again, maybe on a personal call next time – just us three and no sets?” You looked at Bradley, your jaw almost hitting the ground.

“Mouth closed Y/n, you’ll catch flies.” Jake chuckled at your reaction. You instantly turned to face him more as you answered.

“Oh bite me Seresin.” You hissed jokingly as you giggled.

“That a yes though?” Bradley asked inquisitively – waiting for your response as your mind pondered the potential ramifications of a personal relationship or whatever this could be outside of the professional environment.

“You don’t have to ask me twice.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***

Part Two Coming Tomorrow

Tags: @phoenix1388 @avaleineandafryingpan @bradshawseresinbabe @cherrycola27 @bradshawbabes @desert-fern @jstarr86 @a-serene-place-to-be @sweetlittlegingy @teacupsandtopgun @marvelshauntedhouse @weirdothatwritess @darkheartcherry @elijahmikaelsonbitch @je-suis-prest-rachel @untoldshortsofthefandoms @chunkiwhunki @whatislovevavy @roosters-girl @endofdays56 @ccristata @emorychase @averyhotchner @xoxabs88xox @krismdavis @creativitybeware @afterglowsb-tch13 @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @ladscarlett @onlyheretowastetime @sometimesanalice

[ineptlydrawnnep]

Day 26

TODAY IS MY FIRST SHIP OF THE WEEK! I wanted a drexcuse to be able to talk about mew ships <:33 First off is, SCOLLACE!

Karkitty got me into the series:

"IN WHICH SOME DUMB USELESS BASIC BITCH 'NEET' ATTEMPTS AND FAILS REPEATEDLY TO ROMANCE MULTIPLE MATESPRITS SIMULTANEOUSLY WHILE FAILING TO COMMUNICATE HIS OWN NEEDS, HIS OWN FAILINGS, AND THE FACT THAT HE IS DATING MULTIPLE MATESPRITS AT ONCE (WIDELY REGARDED AS A BAD MOVE) AND ONE OF THEM IS STILL A GRUB. ALSO THIS CHARACTERS MATESPRIT HAS A STRING OF SEVERAL PREVIOUS FLUSHED KISMESITUDES IN THE PAST WHO, JEALOUS OF THE PROTAGONIST'S MATESPRIT, FORM A COALITION SPECIFICALLY TO ENGAGE IN KISMESIS WITH THE PROTAGONIST TO EITHER KILL HIM OR DISSUADE HIM FROM INDULGING IN THE MATESPRITSHIP, USING VARIOUS FORMS OF VIOLENCE, MENTAL MANIPULATION, GRAVITY DEFYING STUNTS, AND MEMES. THERE ARE 140 CENSORED SWEAR WORDS, 16 TIGHTLY EDITED FIGHT SCENES, THOUSANDS OF STAND-IN ACTORS AND STUNT DOUBLES, AND BILLIONS OF REFERENCES TO APICIRCUITOUS HUMOR FROM 20 SWEEPS AGO WHICH MAY OR MAY NOT BE RELEVANT TO ANYONE ANYMORE. THERE ARE ALSO TOO MANY TROLL CELEBRITIES TO COUNT, AND SEVERAL HORRIFYING FAUX PAS AND TRAGICOMIC FAILURES IN COMMUNICATION. TROLL WILL SMITH IS NOT PRESENT. HOWEVER JOHN CUSACK IS"

But it never really sit well drenough with me to be a hypurrfixation, until the latest ANIMEWTED show for it came out! :oo

Oh boy, it was so much fun!! I love everyone, and I have plenty of new ships, but Scollace has won mew over! :33 I knew they were close since the comics, but something about seeing Scottt's 'roommate' moiral pail an actor playing him, and getting a glimpse of their furture STILL LIVING TOGETHER got my mind and bloodpusher racing with the pawsibilities!! >w<

A slow-burn, always-end-up-with-eachother, moirals/redrom flunctuating romance for them is the best thing I can imewgine!!! How purrfectly drelicious! >:33

[artiststarme]

Midlife Crisis

Should I write this into a longer fic or leave it as is? I hope you guys like it and please leave your thoughts in the comments!

~*~*~*~

Steve didn’t know what to do with his life. It was a common thought he had on his shifts at Family Video. What was he doing? He of all people knew how short life could be and yet, he was wasting his own. Steve spent his weekdays working soul-draining double shifts just to sleep all weekend or work some more to make a meager $3.25 an hour. It was pathetic. 

He didn’t have any goals or aspirations. His friends were making plans, trying to impact the world and make a difference. Dustin was taking a bunch of STEM classes so he could apply to MIT in a few years and work at NASA like some type of hotshot mathematical genius. Robin was applying for elite linguistics programs at colleges across the country to understand more cultures and ways of communicating. Even Eddie ‘repeated high school three times’ Munson had goals. He was traveling to different cities with the band, trying to make it big as Corroded Coffin. 

Steve’s biggest goal was to get out of bed in the morning and stay alive for another day but he wasn’t even doing that very well. He needed something to be interested in, something to devote his life to and take pride in but he had no idea where to even start. 

Steve was twenty years old and having a midlife crisis. He hadn’t even enjoyed any of the twenty years he’d been around and now it felt like he was too late to do anything about it. He was too old for college, too dumb to get in even if he wasn’t. He couldn’t get a good job without a degree or quality life experience and he couldn’t mention any of that thanks to a stack of NDA’s.

He needed something though. His parents were done with housing their deadbeat son who managed to disappoint them with anything he attempted. He was sick of his friends saying that they had to study or they’d end up like him. And he was sick and tired of being the only person he knew that had nothing going for him. 

So one day, he decided to be spontaneous. He put in an application to the University of Illinois with an entrance essay about personal struggles, neglect, and self-doubt. He poured his heart and soul into that essay hoping against all odds that the admittance committee would look past his mediocre grades and would take a chance on the kid that struggled all by himself behind a smiling facade. 

He forgot about the application until he got a letter in the mail from the university. He almost threw it away right then but decided to take a look just to reinforce what he already knew, no college would want him. 

But they did. They congratulated him on his acceptance into their school in the fall and complimented the writing skills in his essay. They said they looked forward to having him join their program and mentioned that he would make a difference. 

So Steve took them up on it. He kept the news to himself until it was time to leave and said his goodbyes to the Party on his way out of town. He was moving on so they could too. Steve wouldn’t be the one holding them back anymore. Then, he drove past the Leaving Hawkins sign without a backwards glance. 

Years later, Steve thought back on his midlife crisis. He was just a stupid kid at the time that didn’t know all of the options he had at his disposal. Now, he was a world-renowned novelist with novels on the New York Times Bestseller list. He never would’ve seen himself becoming a writer but here he was, working his dream job. 

He never would’ve seen himself dating Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson either but here they were, partnered since 1988, married since 2014, and touring the world together on the Corroded Coffin international tour. 

Steve was having a crisis about a lot of things but everything turned out better than he ever could have imagined. He could’ve given up or accepted that he would never make a difference in the world or have a purpose in life. But instead, he took a chance and now he was living the best life that he could’ve ever dreamed of.

Permanent Tag List: @doubleb11 @nburkhardt @zerokrox-blog @newtstabber @i-less-than-three-you @carlyv @pyrohonk @straight4joekeery @conversesweetheart @estrellami-1 @suddenlyinlove @yikes-a-bee @swimmingbirdrunningrock @perseus-notjackson @anaibis @merricatty @maya-custodios-dionach @grtwdsmwhr @manda-panda-monium @lumoschild @goodolefashionedloverboi @mentallyundone @awkwardgravity1 @anzelsilver @jestyzesty @gregre369 @mysticcrownshipper @disasterlia @lillys-weird-world @messrs-weasley @gay-stranger-things @pnk-lemonades @coolestjoy30 @strangerthingfanfic @dangdirtydemons

[bestworstcase]

I have a question about some of your Salem thoughts

If Salem is 110% certain that she can take down the Gods (assuming that's her goal since we don't actually know), why wouldn't she communicate her plan to Oz? Especially if she truly doesn't want anyone to die like you say. Oz would jump at the bit if Salem said "Hey I want to stop fighting" since that would mean their shadow war would stop. I really don't think Oz likes the Gods either, and even if he's afraid of them, if *Salem* is that confident she can stop them (she's far from an idiot), I'm sure he'd at least hear her out (which would tell Salem a LOT).

If she's that confident and truly doesn't want to fight, why wouldn't she tell Oz her new plan? And why would she kickstart her plan by attacking the kingdoms/Academies? Surely she could find a way to steal the Relics without flat out attacking them (like sending in double agents to take the Maiden powers)? Like... she would've known she'd get people killed, including children and innocent people. Even if she did damage control (which I think is just strategic, why bother going after people if she's focusing on the Relics? She's not gonna waste precious time and resources), she surely knew people would get caught in the crossfire.

Don't get me wrong, I like what you bring to the table!! Your posts are thought provoking and unique. But I can't see Salem being somehow secretly good. I don't think the show is setting her up that way, and I think she's a fantastic villain, so from my own perspective, doing that kind of twist would be a disservice to her character. I don't think she's inhuman or a complete and total monster who should go, but she's definitely not a good person especially if she can't communicate that she supposedly doesn't want people dead. She seems to be an "the ends justify the means" kind of person, and the show I think has stated that that isn't a good mindset i.e. Ironwood.

Sorry, I rambled and completely strayed from my point 😅 I don't mean to be mean if I come across that way. I hope my ask is interesting or thought provoking though :P

my position is that salem is right, not that she’s secretly good—that is an important distinction. i think she sees the gods clearly for what they are, thinks the divine ultimatum repulsive and unjust, wants remnant to be free, and believes that humanity is transcendent over their creators; she also, quite plainly, does not have any compunction about doing whatever it takes to achieve her ends and while i do think she is still fully capable of and driven by love, she is so TERRIFIED of being hurt again and so CERTAIN that no one could ever care for her that when she does care for someone else it comes out in very, very twisted and often cruel ways. she’s not good, she’s not nice, she’s just right.

equally the heroes are good but not right, because they have yet to really grapple with the premise of the divine mandate (that humanity as it exists right now does not deserve to exist) or their own role in upholding it (their immediate goal is survival, but when they envision the ending of this war they imagine salem driven back and the relics squirreled away again in hope of at best everlasting stalemate). the point of structuring the narrative this way is that neither side can get to the proverbial good ending alone; they need to work together, salem’s ends with the heroes’ means.

like. she’s evil. lol. that’s not in question and i think it goes without saying that she is doing evil things so i don’t feel the need to make a “but she’s still evil though” disclaimer every time i try to tease out what’s going on in her head. notice how my reaction to salem razing vale was OH GLINDA LAYS SIEGE TO THE EMERALD CITY, WE’RE REALLY IN IT NOW and not, like, shock or dismay that salem would do such a terrible thing. brgdfjs

(i DO think she has mostly been trying to avoid ozma and not reciprocating the shadow crusade against her prior to about fourteen years ago and that she isn’t about wanton destruction or killing for the sake of it; and in that sense i think she’s not as bad as the general fanon reading. but that comes with the territory of thinking she has actual reasons for doing what she does as opposed to being, like, a genocidal lunatic.)

anyway. to your questions. the short answer is she’s just as scared of oz as he is of her.

“but he’s the good one!”—think about this from her perspective for a minute. set aside your opinion of her and oz, presuppose for the moment that i’m correct on her motivations, and consider what everything ozma’s done in the last few thousand years looks like to her.

she knows that the gods were monsters. she witnessed them slaughtering the whole world and she saw how little it mattered to them after. she was alone for millions of years, and then hated and feared for thousands of years because she didn’t look human. all that suffering because the gods are punishing her for praying to them. yes?

then ozma returns to her, somehow. he doesn’t explain how or why—maybe he tells her he just doesn’t know—but that’s alright. what matters is that he’s here. he asks what happened to her, and she tells him the truth: the gods ended the world. cursed her. killed everyone. she was alone for so long. (maybe not the whole truth: there are things she’s afraid to say, because the gods did it all to punish her, and it’s her fault, and she’s so scared that he’d despise her if he knew everything. the only reason for her to fear ozma would reject her is if she blamed herself. you don’t hide things out of shame if you don’t feel ashamed of them.)

they learn each other again. fall in love all over again. things are finally okay. they fix up her house. they’re happy together. one day ozma tells her that he’s worried about how divided people are. she wants so badly to make him happy; she would move mountains for him. salem herself has no interest in ruling over people as a god—if she did, she wouldn’t have been living alone in a rotting shack in the middle of nowhere—all that enthusiasm is for him. to support what he wants.

they build a following, found a prosperous kingdom, start a family. four children! how long do you think they were married—ten years? twenty? and the whole time, the whole time, ozma was keeping these secrets from her. that the god of light, who’d condemned her to eternal suffering for praying to his brother, who’d shown utter indifference to the deaths of millions, had sent him back to redeem humanity FROM HER SINS, from what SALEM did. that the point of all this is cleansing humankind of her defiance and inviting THAT MONSTER to remnant to judge whether this world deserved to be subjugated under the brothers’ tyranny again or else be put to death.

imagine how she must have felt when ozma finally told her the truth, knowing that the first thing she told him was that the gods ended the last one. imagine the sickening realization that their whole marriage is built on a lie, because she would never, ever, ever have agreed to help him unite the world if she had known what he sought to unite them for, and ozma knew she never would. that he deceived her! manipulated her into serving the will of a god she knows to be a monster!

and even then—even to the very end—she loved him enough to try. she was willing to forgive all of that and figure out a way to move past it together, and the only thing she asked was that he walk away from his task of submitting this world to the judgment of THAT MONSTER. and he wouldn’t do it.

there’s a gap we don’t get to see, in between ozma backing away from her and salem catching him leaving with the girls, but we can infer that ozma walked out of that room and salem didn’t. imagine how she felt. ten years, twenty years, however long it was, and he was lying to her through it all, and he left her with hardly a moment’s hesitation when she refused to help him enact THAT MONSTER’S retribution against herself. because that is, ultimately, what this is all about; humanity is found guilty by association with her.

imagine how she felt. used. worthless. duped. like a fool for ever trusting him. did he ever love her at all, or was that a lie, too?

when she caught him in the hallway later that night, they both attack each other in the same instant. ozma remembers her attacking him first, but their volleys meet in perfect symmetry and right before salem throws her first bolt of magic, her eyes flicker down in surprise as she tracks the motion of his staff (which we see in the previous shot)—salem remembers him attacking her first.

because they were both so tense and scared and angry at each other that they snapped in exactly the same moment.

their battle is so intense they blow up the castle, and when the smoke clears, salem is a pile of ash. ash! he incinerated her! imagine how enraged you have to be to burn someone to ash. that level of fury, of absolute hatred of her, is literally burnt into her memory as the last thing he did to her before she managed to kill him, inextricably twisted around the guilt and unbearable grief she feels for her children.

he’s dedicated all but a handful of his lives since then to getting rid of her. finding a way to destroy her. (how far is he willing to go? what would happen if salem tried to move on, find community and solace somewhere far away from him? would he come after her? would he follow his god’s example and go after the people she cared about to punish her? is she willing to risk that he might?)

do you think salem understands why ozma did any of this? she doesn’t. she doesn’t get the luxury we do of jinn narrating his side of the story and showing us the anguish he felt, wanting so desperately to be with salem but eaten alive by terror of dooming the world for his happiness. she doesn’t know.

all she knows is how he treated her: the secrets, the deception, the manipulation, the immediate and absolute rejection when she told him no, the explosively violent anger at the end, then centuries upon centuries systematically erasing her from history and enforcing her exile whilst searching for the relics he needs to summon his god for the final judgment. which she knows will inevitably end in the annihilation of the whole world and yet more torture for her with no hope of reprieve, because if all of this was not enough to satisfy the god of light’s grudge against her for, again, just praying to his brother, nothing ever will.

salem feels about ozma now the way blake felt about adam. why did he lie to her, why did he use her, why does he keep coming back, why won’t he just LEAVE HER ALONE, hasn’t she suffered enough, hasn’t she been punished enough, when will it be enough—and intertwined with that, she is being EATEN ALIVE by the conviction that no one could ever truly care about her or feel for her or want to help her or think that she deserves help or even just see her as a person, because if ozma—ozma, the one who saved her from her father’s tower, who knew her and loved her before all of this happened—if ozma thought her so worthless that he would rather serve a god who ended the last world and promises to condemn this one too than suffer her to exist at all in this world, why the fuck would anyone else be any different?

thousands of years later, she still flies off the handle when anyone lies to her. (except cinder. but cinder is always the exception, to every rule.) there’s a reason she recruits the kind of people she does—desperate, broken, angry people starving for something she can promise to give them if they make themselves useful to her—and it’s because she does not believe that she can get anything better than strictly transactional relationships with people who have literally nothing and nowhere else to turn. and when she actually cares about someone? she fights herself tooth and claw over it because she desperately doesn’t want to open herself up to more heartbreak. look at how erratic and cruel she is with cinder.

it’s not rational. salem is smart and very, very tactically shrewd but she is making all of her plans and all of her choices from the assumption that she is and will always be alone in this, because she is unlovable, because she is worthless, because she is the reason this world is damned. and she’s terrified of ozma because to her everything he does suggests that his conviction and dedication to the god of light has never wavered. she cannot see his doubt. she cannot see his misery. she cannot see how much he misses her and desperately wants to make amends. all she can see is that he’s zealously guarding the relics and spreading his god’s word and training children to fight and die in the name of keeping her exiled.

why doesn’t ozma just go to her and tell her he wants to make amends? because he’s terrified she’ll never forgive him and terrified that he’ll damn the world to annihilation if he follows his heart. they’re the same. they’re exactly the same.

but this is also what makes it so possible—even easy—for salem to undergo a villain-to-hero arc, because the only thing that needs to happen is a spark of real hope. that someone, anyone, could really care about her. like. the things she says in her soliloquies about the transformative power of hope? “even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change,” and “it’s true that a simple spark can ignite hope, breathe fire into the hearts of the weary…”—that’s her. one small reason to hope. that is all she needs to change.

she doesn’t want to be razing kingdoms to the ground or cutting a bloody path through children to get those relics. she is willing to do it because she truly, genuinely, from the depths of her soul believes that it’s the only way to free herself from the torture she’s been subjected to for millions of years. she’s driven to this by desperation. she won’t keep doing it if she’s given a reason to feel less desperate.

but she does need to be given a reason, first. she’s hemorrhaging. this is why the winnowing of her inner circle and the split between everyone else in vacuo versus salem + cinder + summer in vale is important; Those Two are the ones she cares about—technically we don’t know for sure regarding summer yet, but the level of trust she has for the lieutenant holding beacon is suggestive—and that being reciprocated is what ignites her hope.

[magistralucis]

Had my worst confrontation with The Pigs so far, especially awful because I didn’t even intend to stumble upon this. I didn’t choose any hostile options, I was alone (I think having Kim around makes this encounter worse and longer), and I passed the check for the gun just fine... but because I hadn’t talked to the Hardie Boys yet, literally hadn’t approached them at all, my detective had no idea what to do with her afterwards. All his mangled brain could come up with was this:

Sure, Lieutenant ‘I-will-instantly-pull-a-gun-at-a-mentally-ill-old-woman’ Kitsuragi totally would. 🙄 But in his absence, I’m shattered that HDB can’t act on any other option, despite being able to conceptualize one. Logic says it right there: the locals will take care of her. It’s the right answer. In terms of video game logic, this is exactly the sort of thing that'd be a positive modifier for the Hardie Boys talk. Even if you never approached them before, it feels like it’d forward your case if you ask their help, since you have the interests of the vulnerable members of their community in mind. Even if the Hardie Boys aren’t an option, Lilienne is a short distance away, isn’t she? Couldn’t HDB ask the Washerwoman, any other local in Martinaise? If he gives anyone a heads-up, he will have delivered a minimal duty of care.

But no. None of that happens, because this scene isn’t a brownie points exercise, and HDB isn’t a reasonable authority figure. He’s deeply unwell, like The Pigs. He’s been abandoned, like The Pigs. He’s in horrible pain, clinging to the vestiges of a cop identity like her, in the desperate hopes of something real and present to hold onto. This is a man who can barely face his own reflection. Seeing The Pigs, a near doppelganger of what he is and may become, is clearly too much for him to handle. HDB can react with compassion, or he can react with threats and violence, and both threads persist through the very end of the encounter with her.

Mutually exclusive options, but both present, and both possible. They are equally valid indicators of the person HDB is, and since he’s capable of the threat at all, it’s not looking good. And this is his double he’s saying this to. We know HDB hates himself to the point of self-destruction, and didn’t/doesn’t think he can improve (’I don’t want to get better, I want to get worse’): the fact that he can think up the pieces that might help her, yet his posterior neocortex shuts him down before he can put them together, implies to me that HDB is actively refusing to believe he can help The Pigs. He’s afraid to believe. He’s beyond help, after all. Everyone told him so.

He thinks it’s true, too, so the same must go for her, yes?

It’s. It’s just. How fucking broken is HDB that he knows what must be done, but simply cannot connect himself to the idea that he ought to do it. How are we meant to bear that his immediate thought upon seeing this poor woman - this horrific, devastated mirror of himself - is that Kim will know what to do, but he does not, because he convinced himself he’s utterly helpless. ‘Cause obviously, Kim’s stabilizing him, right? Surely Kim can do the same for The Pigs, and since RAC sure as fuck doesn’t know what to do about himself, he might as well just give up if Kim’s not around. So without Kim and without the Hardie Boys, HDB will simply walk away, and never bring up this incident again. It fucking breaks my heart it can’t end any other way. There are no adjectives for this level of self-loathing.

And you know, I bet he’d have reacted similarly had he been with any other RCM officer - Jean, others in Precinct 41, whatever - because he fundamentally doesn’t exist in a system that has compassion for people like this. Note that it is Esprit de Corps, your cop sense, which pipes up first to assert that you can’t help her. ‘’’Protect’’’ and serve my fucking arse

And no, Kim doesn’t know what to do in this situation either, according to FAYDE. Unlike HDB he doesn’t even come up with the right answer, only nightmare fuel, as regular cops with regular thoughts do

oh god. oh god, kim

[callsignthirsty]

Chapter 2: On the Roof

Shit weather can only stop me for so long! Here's chapter 2

Pairing: Tom “Iceman” Kazansky x F!Reader x Ron “Slider” Kerner Summary: The boys receive their commendations, and you keep your legs crossed. Should be easy, right? Wrong. Word Count: 3680 Warnings: Smut, bets and wagers, semi-public sex, fingering, oral sex (female receiving) Chapter: 2/4 Minors DNI Previous Chapter

“Sooo,” Maria Cortell leans as far forward as her bump will allow, drawing out the word with a smile on her lips. It’s become apparent that you’ll be waiting a while for your stolen tablemates to walk onto the stage and receive their commendations. “Are wedding bells ringing?”

Your poor heart, which had only just slowed, skips an unsteady beat. Maria’s question, for as simple as it is, packs one helluva wallop.

The thought hasn’t crossed your mind. You haven’t even said I love you—not for a lack of love, but because you’ve lost many of the ones you love over your life. Admitting the depth of your feelings—whether for family, friends, or beaus—always seems to precede an abrupt departure of said person from your life. But now that Maria has mentioned it, what are you supposed to do?

Distracted, you twist your cloth napkin between clammy hands. It’s not like you can marry Ice and Slider, but you can’t date Ice forever, either. especially not if he’s trying to climb the ladder. He’s expected to marry. To have kids. The white picket fence experience. A wife to come home to.

“They must be,” Merlin’s wife jumps in.

Maria nods with the enthusiasm you wish you felt. “Bill and I were looking at houses after three months. I’m sure you’ve at least talked about it.”

Goose throws back a full glass of wine.

They think they’re being supportive, and it would be nice if it weren’t so terrifying. “I–”

“And now’s the perfect time,” Maria doesn’t even realize she’s cut you off. “Who knows how long he’ll be stationed at Miramar?”

“Ooh! You could get married on the beach.”

Cougar catches your lack of participation. “Don’t scare her off, now,” Cougar says, placing his hand on top of his wife’s to get her attention.

“Oh please,” Laura brushes Cougar aside, “they’ve been practically wrapped around each other all night. Ron said they’ve been inseparable.”

Maria sighs. “Poor Ron.” Carole chokes, but the only one who pays her any mind is Goose, who smacks her between her shoulder blades and refills her water. “I remember how close he and Tom were at Pensacola, must be hard for him to watch his friend settle down–“ something must flit across your face because she hesitates mid-sentence, her eyes widen a little as she realizes the insinuation, and she all but lunges for the distraction of her sentry of a water glass, “–but, um, I’m sure you have a friend you could set him up with?”

“Oh,” Goose interjects loud enough to turn a couple of heads and incite a stern look from Jester, “I think this is them.”

It isn’t.

“That would be fun,” Laura coos back to Maria without skipping a beat. “Think of the double dates.”

“Come on,” Goose tries again, “you don’t want to set someone up with Kerner, do you?” And didn’t Goose know it. He squawks when Carole catches him in the ribs with her elbow, but Maria and Laura are off to the races, passing the idea back and forth and painting a picture of your future while you struggle to keep up.

“You’ll always have someone to keep you company when they end up on a carrier halfway around the world.” Maria.

A sly look from Laura. “You know, if you time it right, your kids can grow up together.”

“Community is so important,” Maria agrees, ducking around a waiter’s arm as dinner plates are settled.

“Sam and I were lucky enough to be stationed near my family when we had the girls.”

“I don’t know what I’d have done without the wives’ group while I was pregnant with Robbie.” Maria gives her husband a tender smile and smoothes a hand over her belly. Whatever she says next is drowned out by applause.

This time—as Goose breathes an “Oh, thank god”—a familiar group of flyboys are led onto the stage. The commander keeps it brief; says some words about the Layton mission and the courageous efforts of the aviators who defended the boat from enemy MiGs. Everyone gets a pin on their lapel before they’re all ushered off the stage. Your legs are crossed by the time they make it back to the table.

The rest of the dinner passes without issue. Plates are cleared. The program comes to a close with the cutting of a cake. A cacophony of music and conversation erupts as the masses are released from their seats and the event finally catches its second wind. More immediately around you, the flyboys spill into the space between their tables and continue catching up.

Hollywood and Sundown introduce their dates—fiancée and wife, respectively—to the larger group. Jester and his wife sneak off, presumably to find Viper but definitely different company. It’s a relief to gain more social padding between yourself, Maria, and Laura, well-meaning though they may be.

It’s while you’re reacquainting yourself with the rest of the group when Hollywood asks Slider if he’s flying solo these days.

“What’s it look like?” Slider grumbles.

Wolfman slings an arm around his fellow RIO’s shoulders to pull him close. “Aw, man. What happened?”

Slider gives him a half-shrug, looking otherwise unaffected. “You know how it is. Couldn’t handle the job.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Chipper chimes in. “You’re still at Miramar.”

“So she dumped you?” Wolf’s winces as he looks up at Slider, taking his silence for confirmation. “Yikes.”

“Hey, it wasn’t like that–”

“Don’t mind them,” Sundown says, an arm wrapped around his wife. She beams at him when he assures Slider,“The right one will stick around.”

And the conversation could’ve ended there. Wolf, Chip, and Sli could’ve spent the rest of the night wingmanning each other until it was time to turn in and Slider would slip into your quarters.

Maria Cortell had other plans. “Don’t be ridiculous! We were just talking about how the future missus must have a friend she can set you up with.” Cheeks flaming, you tuck into Ice’s side in an attempt to escape his gaze. “Future missus?” His tone gives nothing away, but the stiffening of his arm beneath your hand speaks volumes.

Beside Ice, Slider raises a brow. “Were you, now?” This is a conversation you were hoping to avoid.

“Please,” Pete scoffs. “I wouldn’t wish Kerner on anyone.”

Slider sneers, but it doesn’t have any real heat behind it. “Bite me, Mitchell.”

And bless Carole Bradshaw because she sees Pete opening his mouth to say, “Which one?” from a mile away and deploys a very loud countermeasure: “I wanna dance!”

Goose grabs his wife’s hand and pulls her to sit across his lap. “Great idea, honey!” he crows, earning a kiss on the cheek.

For as long as you’ve known him, Goose has always been a darling. Everyone knows it, too. The sun is hot. Water is wet. Everyone loves Goose. His close call on Hop 31 only cemented that last truth. Nick Bradshaw is magnetic in a way few others are, and he could pull a crowd just as easily at the piano as he could, apparently, at his wife’s beck-and-call.

The display of eager, honeyed affection drawing the eyes and smiles of the group.

“C’mon, Mav, give us a push!” Goose loops his arms around Carole as she makes herself comfortable in his lap for the taxi to the dancefloor. “Should be a—what did you call it?—a target-rich environment.”

“Wait. You not seeing Blackwood anymore?” Hollywood asks, receiving ‘oohs’ from the rest of the men. Pete’s shoulder’s bunch, but otherwise, he ignores his friends. Though she was a civilian contractor, Charlie did work for the DoD, and after her relocation to D.C., Pete was technically on her turf tonight.

“He doesn’t like to talk about it,” Ice deflects.

Pete grabs hold of Goose’s wheelchair, finding it more difficult to maneuver with two passengers.  “I wonder if Penny’s here.”

Carole throws her head back with a guffaw. “After your little joyride? I’d be surprised if her daddy lets her within a thousand feet of you!”

The group doesn’t stick together much longer, inevitably breaking up as they go their separate ways.

“What do you say?” Ice asks, nodding after the group headed to the dancefloor. Eventually, Ice needs to go back to rubbing shoulders with the brass, but there’s no harm in a quick dance or two to break up the monotony.

“That’s okay, Ice,” Slider butts in, a wicked glimmer in his eyes. You repress a shiver when the same hand that had been between your legs squeezes your shoulder, fingers ghosting over the velvet near your collarbone. “You go keep Mav out of trouble. We’ll grab dessert and meet you there.”

The twitch at the corner of his lips gives away how hard Slider is fighting to keep the wolfish grin off his lips. Your ears burn, but Ice’s only reaction is an unenthused, dismissive sound. Both of you know what Slider is playing. That doesn’t stop the pinpricks of arousal from returning as you imagine Slider’s hands—both of them this time—working to finish what he’d started under the table.

“How long have we known each other?” Ice asks Slider.

“Going on ten years.”

“And I can count the number of times I’ve seen you eat cake on one hand,” Ice muses.

Undeterred, Slider offers you a lopsided, wolfish grin, his fingers tracing down your arm and raising goosebumps in their wake. “Who said anything about cake?”

“There it is.” Ice flicks Slider’s fingers from their path and threads his fingers through your own. The same Iceman mask he wears around the tarmac is firmly in place when he levels Slider with a look. “You’re incorrigible.”

“You’re pissy because I had this in the bag before I was interrupted.”

“And how were you planning on getting away with it?” Ice hisses with a glance to make sure the three of you are well enough alone. “Sitting at a table full of people.”

“I had a plan,” Slider scoffs.

“A plan to get caught with your hand up her skirt.”

“You’re just upset you walked right into it.” Ice clenches his teeth. He doesn’t have a responding quip, and Slider knows it. Ice had been too excited by the sudden appearance of Cougar to realize Slider was gunning for a quick win. “All it takes is one mistake,” Slider needles.

Wearing down the competition with technical precision is a page straight out of Ice’s book and his fingers twitch ever so slightly in your grasp, Slider rubbing it in his face that he’s fallen prey to his own game. It’s a mistake he won’t make twice.

Ice takes a deep breath and looks to the barrel-vaulted ceiling as if he’ll find the answers he’s looking for among the gold leafing. “We’re leaving now.”

“C’mon, don’t be like that,” Slider taunts, but Ice is back on his game. He serves Slider a smug look as he wraps his arm around your waist.

“Goodbye, Kerner.”

In the dance hall, you’re a single drop in a rolling sea. The band is louder here, the floor tacky with spilled beverages, but you find a pocket of space as the music slows. Pete hangs onto the edge of the crowd with Goose and Carole, his face pressed between Goose’s shoulder blades as he helps his best friend stand to dance with his wife—Carole, you’re sure, is crying.

Gentle hands bring your focus back to your partner as he encourages you to step with him to the rhythm. When you look up at him through your lashes, you almost forget the rest of the room. Taken by the flint of his eyes in the low light. A smile bubbles to life on your rouged lips is an inevitability.

You spin beneath his arm and let Ice reel you in until his breath tickles your ear. “You’re stunning.” You glow under the praise, fingers playing with the short hairs at his nape. High praise.

It makes you wonder: does Ice even know what he looks like?

The ever-present tan of his skin highlighted by the contrasting white of his uniform. The smarts. The confidence. A beauty mark on his jaw. High cheekbones. The way he moves.

He has to know. Not for vanity, but for fact. 

“How’re you holding up?” He must pick up on the restless twitch of your muscles or maybe the flutter of your heart in your palm.

You paint on a smile. ”I’m fine.”

You can’t suppress the shudder that wracks you or the sharp intake of breath when he lifts your chin with a finger, lashes brushing your cheeks as a kiss is pressed to your forehead. When he tugs you closer, you go easily, but you’re unable to fully relax into the embrace.

“Did you know you only say you’re fine when you aren’t?” He shifts his hold so it feels more like a hug, a soft quirk to his lips. It’s easier for him to hold you like this when you fade into the crowd. There’s less pressure. Fewer eyes on him when his hand shifts lower, dexterous fingers tracing over the knobs of your spine and raising goosebumps beneath the luxurious drape of your gown.

The band does wonders to mute your gasp, but Ice doesn’t miss the way you jerk in his grasp. Sensitive.

“Was it…?” He doesn’t finish in an overabundance of caution for who may or may not be eavesdropping. The hand you’d let linger near his nape comes to fidget against his chest as you lay your head against his shoulder and nod while focusing on the ba-dum of his heart. “Do you need to leave?”

“No.” Sure, you tingle with each brush of skin on skin. Yes, you’re eager to soak up each touch. But, as you meet his eyes, you mean it. “I’m just a little overwhelmed by all of this,” you fib.

Slider may be pushing the boundaries of decency—may have definitely blown past them during the dinner— and you may be wound tight after so many days without either of their company, but you can do this. Tonight is about Ice, and you intend to see it through.

“But I don’t want to leave.”

Ice keeps you close as the song fades out and the band counts in a fast-paced number. “Look,” Ice concedes when you break free of the dancing. Playtime is over, you can practically see the cogs turning in the metal of his eyes as Ice comes up with a revised plan. “There are still some people I need to talk to, but after, I’ll get us out of–”

“Just the man I was looking for.” Ice stops so abruptly that you stumble into him. “Admiral John Benjamin,” Penny’s father introduces himself, taking Ice’s hand in a firm shake. “Really good stuff on the Enterprise.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The praise, though sparing, is well-deserved. But the obsequious nature of his comment is revealed in the way the admiral’s eyes scan the nearby crowd. Ice isn’t his target.

“Say,” the admiral drawls as he drops all pretenses, “you wouldn’t happen to know where your wingman is? I want to congratulate him on a job well done.”

You very much doubt that, but as you glance over to where Pete had been with Goose and Carole earlier, he’s long gone—Carole helping her husband back into his wheelchair, the only evidence Pete had been there at all. And Ice knows enough through retellings of Pete’s past run-ins with Admiral Benjamin that you trust him not to sell your brother out. At least, not if he doesn’t have to.

“I haven’t seen him since we received our commendation.”

“Of course. Congratulations again on those,” Benjamin clips. “But you must have some sort of idea of his whereabouts.”

“I–”

“Ice. Admiral, sir.” It never ceases to amaze you how someone as large as Slider can so easily fly under the radar when he wants to. “I need to borrow her for a minute,” he says before Ice can say anything, and because he can’t do anything when Admiral Benjamin continues to squeeze for information on Pete, Slider steers you out of the dance hall.

It had been a crisp 66 degrees in DC, the setting of the sun taking what remained of the day’s warmth with it. The cold creeps beneath your skin as Slider beckons you up the roof access, shimming the door with a wad of folded cocktail napkins so you can slip back to the party later.

Though shrouded in darkness on the flat of the rooftop, the bright lights of the capital might as well be a hair’s breadth away. Too close for comfort. Before you can protest, Slider engulfs your hand in his and looks for a more suitable, more private corner. It won’t do to be caught, though Slider doubts anyone will come looking. But it pays to be cautious.

“You have any idea how good you look in this?” Slider rumbles, voice resonating from deep within his chest in a way that makes your insides quake. He lets you know with a demanding kiss, his lips lightly stained with your rouge when he pulls back so you can suck in a breath.

“Sli.” The wind carries your whine toward the street, where it’s drowned by the brassy horns of street traffic. When goosebumps erupt along your arms, your fingers scrabble for his shoulder boards in a bid to keep him close.

It takes next to nothing to convince Slider to give in to your plea. Crowding close as he smears kisses and color down your neck. “It’s been so hard to keep my hands off you.” Said hands grab fistfuls of you over the velvet of your gown; the smooth rasp of the fabric over tender skin makes you gasp.

“You didn’t,” you point out.

“No,” he agrees, fingers reacquainting themselves with the gusset of your panties. “But can you blame me?”

“Who else would I blame?”

Dizzy with desire, you bite the inside of your cheek to keep a heady whine locked away when fingers slip between your pussy lips to tease around your entrance. “Do you want me to stop?” Slider asks with a lopsided, teasing grin.

“Don’t you dare.”

Instead of giving you what you want—two fingers to fill you where you feel hopelessly empty—Slider’s hand withdraws from your panties. You’re a second from demanding he put his hand right back where he had it when Slider lowers himself to the ground. “Wait–!” you exclaim as his first knee touches down on the unkempt rooftop floor “–your pants.”

“Don’t worry,” he says as both of his hands slip under your dress, eager fingers drawing the lacy elastic of your panties down your legs. “That’s what drycleaning’s for.” But his other knee stays decidedly off the ground.

Slider scoots himself closer, impatient hands rucking up your tight-fitting dress until he can take advantage of the slit in your skirt. He hikes your leg over his shoulder, soft skin exposed to the night, but you’re far from cold as he chases the fabric with scorching kisses up the inside of your thigh. Deliberately leaving marks where no one else at this stuffy party will see them.

His hair is just long enough that the tips begin to curl. You spear your fingers through the short waves and fist what you can. Normally, you’d hold him close as he litters your hip with hungry kisses and sharp, rosey blooms, but with the way he’d worked you up earlier, you pull his head toward the apex of your thighs. You can go back to being Ice’s pretty trophy girlfriend after you cum on Slider’s tongue.

Slider lets out a gruff rumble of a chuckle as if he’s read your mind. A nip makes your leg jump in his grasp, your heel knocking against his back, but he’s as eager to get this show on the road as you are.

Face half-obscured by black velvet, Slider’s tongue laps over your clit. Eyes slamming shut, whole body pulsing in time with your heart, head thunking back against the wall. Slack-jawed, you encourage him to do it again with a shuttered but wanton noise in the back of your throat.

“That’s it,” Slider encourages, his other hand reaching up to massage your ass and drag your hips forward in a slick grind against his mouth. You tremble in his grasp as he continues to roll your hips against his face before he opts for a new angle of attack.

A quick reposition of the leg over Slider’s shoulder grants him better access for a more thorough assault on your cunt, and your back arches when his tongue prods at your entrance. Blood roars in your ears while your walls clench around nothing at the promise of his tongue, but it only teases at your lips.

You try to drag him closer with your one leg, letting go of Slider’s hair with one hand to steady yourself against the wall. Sli takes that moment to dive in, tongue finally fucking into you and his nose bumping into your clit in a way that has your heart stuttering and limbs shaky. Your hips jolt at the touch, back arching off the wall.

It’s messy, the pinpricks of Slider’s stubble eased by the mix of arousal and spit coating the apex of your thighs. The barely muffled slurp as he parts your lips and delves his tongue inside before engulfing your clit in the wet heat of his mouth and giving it a suck.

Slider’s eyes are half-lidded when he meets your gaze. “You’re close,” he breathes, calloused fingers petting up your leg directly to your clit and drinking in the shiver it knocks loose, your lips red as you bite back a moan. “Don’t worry,” he says, two fingers dipping the slightest bit into your cunt before drawing back to rub at the opening, “we’ll get you there this time.”

Against your back, the wall rattles as the roof access bangs open.

Next Chapter

[sadquickchristmassnowman]

Overall what do you think of mythic quest? It's on my list to watch. How would you intrigue someone to watch it

(just want to preemptively say that I know this ask has been sitting in my inbox for months and I am so sorry for taking so long to get back to you)

I absolutely love mythic quest. It's my #4 sitcom of all time, which might sound not very high, but numbers 1-3 are taken by the good place, community, and it's always sunny, and I mean. there's no beating those. anyway

I don't know how much you know about it, so I'll give a quick introduction. mythic quest is centered around a video game studio, which produces a video game of the same name. season one opens with them launching their new expansion: Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet. the show follows around the different employees of the company as they each chaotically try to achieve their goals. there are a lot of sitcoms centered around a workplace (the office, parks & recreation, brooklyn nine-nine, superstore, just to name a few), so I suppose you could say mythic quest follows a similar sort of formula to those. but, I think it's super unique and has a lot of stand-out qualities, which I love. it's difficult to make something so unique, to do things on tv that have never been done before (or, at the very least, are rarely done) and I think mythic quest does a great job with all of that.

for one, the types of interpersonal relationships mythic quest portrays are extremely unique. it's hard to go into detail without spoiling too much, but I'll do my best. the show is definitely an ensemble sitcom (a whole gang of "main" characters), but I'd say the show focuses mainly on Poppy and Ian, and their relationship. but, they make it explicitly clear that they are NOT romantically or sexually involved. there's a few jokes here and there, but they react with disgust every time. their relationship is 100% platonic, throughout all three seasons that are out, and it is the FOCUS of the show. how many tv shows have done that? hell, how many stories, period? it's so incredibly important to me, especially as someone on the aroace spectrum, and it makes mythic quest that much more unique and interesting.

(disclaimer that of course there are some people who ship poppy and ian together, which is just kind of. objectively wrong imo. but yk. people can do whatever they want I suppose. the point is, that ship will never sail in canon.)

the ONE current romantic pairing is a lesbian couple!!! that is just SO wild to me. literally none of the other main characters have any sort of (canon) romantic subplot or anything. and the lesbians don't get put through a ton of heartbreak and unnecessary drama either!!! there's pining, there's slight miscommunication and the characters themselves go through some things, but the relationship itself??? pretty much thriving, even through the end of season three. again, SO incredibly important to me.

the character work, writing, and acting is also exemplary. given that mythic quest is already on your list to watch, you probably know some of the actors who are in it: namely, Rob McElhenney, Danny Pudi, David Hornsby, Ashly Burch, etc. The show was created by Rob McElhenney, Megan Ganz, and Charlie Day, who all obviously worked together on iasip. Megan actively writes for MQ, Rob stars in and writes, and Charlie has been pretty hands-off since the show actually got up and running, but who knows. maybe he'll have a cameo one day. David, Danny, and Ashly have all also been involved behind the scenes. I'm sure there's other stuff I’m missing, but that's what I can think of off the top of my head, production and acting-wise.

one of the biggest things that makes mythic quest unique is that, once a season, they have a "backstory" episode, which provides context to a different aspect of the show. the first time I watched season 1 and the backstory episode came on (it's called "A Dark Quiet Death") I had to double check that I didn't accidentally click on another show lmao. I didn't know What was going on. the backstory episodes from seasons 2 and 3 have more immediately recognizable connections to the main story, so they're easier to follow right off the bat, but yeah. the mythic quest backstory episodes are absolutely fantastic. it allows the writers to play with different story layouts, deviate from the established feel of the show, introduce different characters, etc. I could talk about each one for hours, but I won't right now. but yeah. those episodes alone would make the show worth watching.

a few other things I love: danny pudi playing mean, brad as a character in general, the chemistry the characters and actors have, the way it's shot is beautiful, the post season 1 specials (quarantine and everlight), how fleshed out and real the universe is (so much so that I thought mythic quest was a real game for a while), the animations they use as scene transitions, the multitude of background details that I notice more of on every rewatch, the sheer complexity of the characters, the diversity and representation (queer characters, mental health issues, familial trauma, etc), and god so much more. I could go on and on and on about this show. because this ask was so long ago it's possible you've already watched it but if you haven't please do! if you're not the asker and you haven't seen mythic quest and are reading this, ALSO please do! and let me know what you think afterwards If You So Choose. as we've pretty clearly established, I am always super down to talk about my favorite shows :)

TL;DR: mythic quest is amazing and I would recommend it to anyone. unique episode/season layouts, dense worldbuilding, great writing and acting, lesbians, hilarious yet occasionally heart-wrenching plots, complex characters, and so much more. give it a shot. you won't regret it 👍👍👍 (plus season 4 is coming out this year!!!)

[videogamelover99]

Do you have any Ada!soukoku headcanons?

BOY DO I

Okay so for context this is taking place in that AU Asagiri mentioned, where Chuuya joins the ADA with Dazai.

Dazai leaves the PM for weeks before I comes back into contact with Chuuya through a series of circumstances. Dazai doesn't directly ask Chuuya to come with him, he's way too prideful for that, but it ends up getting communicated anyway.

Before he meets Dazai again, Chuuya has a fight with Kouyou that alienates him from her. Something something born in the darkness or whatever. Chuuya remembers his talk with detective Murase two years ago and wonders.

Chuuya's reasons for leaving the PM and following Dazai aren't about Dazai all that much. They're about him shifting perspective on what's possible for him and if he could really live in the light and do good, despite being created as a weapon to kill. Dazai accidentally reveals what Oda had said to him and that sends Chuuya into questioning everything.

When he leaves, Chuuya leaves his hat for Verlaine to have again. It's symbolic and everything.

They spend two years in hiding. They do not get along at all, they fight constantly and only become more functional when circumstances call for it.

In those two years they also meet Dostoyevsky

Dazai finds the location of Chuuya's parents. The whole grahite scar thing wasn't revealed cause Mori's out of the picture, but Dazai believes in Chuuya's humanity anyway so it doesn't matter much to him. He gives their location to Chuuya as an olive branch after one of their fights turns more personal.

Dazai points out that Chuuya could go meet them, could stay with them, but Chuuya doesn't make that choice, and Dazai is both terrified and grateful.

During the same arc, Chuuya finds out Mori was part of the Arahabaki project. You can imagine how well he takes it.

They show up to the meeting with Taneda together. The SAD chief thinks Double Black wanting a fresh slate in the world of light is hilarious. He sends them to Fukuzawa.

Since Chuuya's power is too recognizable, Taneda encourages them to keep it on the down low for a while. So skk both pretend like Chuuya doesn't have an ability.

When Kunikida first meets them, he can't stand either of them for opposite but similar reasons. (He's also impressed with the both of them, too).

"Did you guys go to high school together?" "Something like that."

When Tanizaki first joins, he's absolutely intimidated by Chuuya. Dazai thinks it's hilarious.

Fukuzawa is the first person Chuuya fights whom he's not even remotely close to beating in hand-to-hand. Chuuya immediately asks Fukuzawa to train him.

No sword for Chuuya (sorry Chuuya).

Chuuya and Dazai absolutely refuse to be partners together. There are glimpses other agents get of Double Black when the case calls for both of them to be there, but then they revert back to their disfunctional bickering selves and everyone's like "those two? nah, it would never work"

Chuuya ends up partnering with Ranpo a lot, mostly cause Ranpo can sure solve the case but he also can sure get killed.

Chuuya and Yosano go on little wine-tasting friend dates. They are bffs and way to compatible with each other honestly.

They are also very scary as a team.

When Chuuya uses a gun, the bullets pull some wacky shit sometimes to hit impossible targets. No one questions it for very long. He's just a good shot.

When Dazai adopts Atsushi into the Agency, Chuuya's off on a case so all Atsushi has to go off him are very intense (and intimidating) rumors.

He accidentally meets Chuuya outside of work and gets dragged into a conflict alongside him. At the end he thinks this redhead is a really cool guy and wonders who he might be. That is until the next morning when he goes to work.

Dazai and Chuuya used to have separate dorms but then Dazai ended up crashing Chuuya's place so much he just kind of...migrated there.

They are still in denial about being best friends, nevermind anything else.

Chuuya sort-of kind-of becomes Kyouka's mentor, the way Dazai had for Atsushi. He was advocating for her the most second only to Atsushi himself (despite not being keen on her being part of the Agency).

Chuuya's also the one who gives the speech to Kyouka when she's on that plane instead of Dazai, cause Dazai asks him to and knows Chuuya will say the right thing for their plan to work.

Chuuya ALSO meets Kouyou for the first time because of Kyouka. Lets just say that fight is not resolved AT ALL.

"The Boss is offering for you and your partner to come back to the PM." "Haha." "Eat shit."

They only find out Chuuya has an ability during the Decay of the Angels arc, when everything's going to shit.

[themoonitselff]

For The First Time. | Kurapika x Male! Reader

Warnings: fluff, a bit nsfw at the end, reader has a femenine body. THIS WAS MADE WITH TRANSLATOR.

Summary : Kurapika and you are dating but you have a private relationship, and after he completes his Revenge, he comes back for you. (Literally no one knows you're dating but his Friends.😭)

Being Kurapika Kuruta's partner was complicated, since he was not always at home, and when he came back he was very tired, you didn't have time to be together, and when he had free days, he was pending of other things, like his obsessive and compulsive idea of finishing with the Phantom Troupe; However, you did not have much free time either, you worked double-shift in a cafeteria which limited you to see him, or even check his messages, it is as if life wanted to split the relationship you had in two. Although there was never lacking the gifts he used to send you at your door when he didn't come home, the love letters you loved so much and the strong hugs he gave you when he saw you in private, because you two were only friends for the public, for both sake, because if any of his enemies found out that you were his boyfriend, they would go after you.

Two months ago he told you that he would annihilate the Phantom Troupe forever and ever, that would mean that you wouldn't see him for a long time, you would cut off all communication between you so as not to risk each other's lives and, finally, he promised to put a promise ring on your finger when you are together again. Now you are here, waiting for him, every day is getting heavier, you don't know if he is coming back or if he is dead, if he has eaten, if he has slept well, if he killed them already, you were totally worried, and the worry was leading you to depression that caused you to not be able to do anything about it, not knowing anything about him, you felt vulnerable.

You were in the living room of your house, watching TV with a container of ice cream in your hands, watching your favorite series, almost about to finish the first chapter, you were not eating ice cream because of the Hollywood female cliché, rather, you were doing it because you needed something sweet for the occasion, and ice cream was the best option. Suddenly, you receive a message from an unknown number, you feel intrigued and a little weird because nobody usually writes you at midnight, anyway you read the notification, it reads as follows:

"Look at your window."

You panic, and a feeling of dread begins to devour your heart. Who was it? what does it want? how does it know where you live? On impulse, you did exactly what the stranger asked, you took a few steps to the nearest window, and peeked out slightly, you began to cry from joy and tremble with excitement, your boyfriend was in your garden with a bouquet of roses and a present in his other hand.

You ran out the door of your house, running and barefoot, your body pounced on Kurapika's to hug him tightly.

“I missed you, sweetheart.” You looked straight into his eyes, which no longer looked depressed or empty.... They shone with intensity, devotion, you could feel his peace and that made you happier.

“Me too, my love, but I'm here, I'm back, I'm with you, and I promise to never let you go, I won't leave you alone again.” He handed you the bouquet and approached you to kiss you with passion and desire, he needed you, he longed for you, those 8 weeks without you were hard for him.

You both went inside your house to be more comfortable, you left the gifts and the bouquet on the table to go back into his arms and kiss him, again and again, he took your waist and ran his fingers through your hair with the other, you held his hips and murmured in between the kiss how much you loved him, because you really loved him, and you could no longer see yourself without him in your life.

The kisses became more unbridled, Kurapika's hands touched your back and sometimes your breasts, and when you opened your eyes you were already on the bed with him on top of you, you opened your legs to give him more space, so that he would be closer to your body, his lips ran over your face, neck, collarbones, and in every place he left hickeys, and the marks of his teeth on your skin, you moaned and your body writhed from pleasure, you could feel his cock getting harder and the bulging area bump against your soaking and wetty pussy that was dying for being fucked.

“Easy, easy, we have a whole night for the two of us, and from now on all my time will be for you, my love.”

[ahyesmygoodomenssideblog]

Why Crowley leaves.

Crowley walks out of multiple fights and the reason why matters.

In the bandstand scene, Crowley and Aziraphale are unable to reach agreement about what they're going to do once they find the Antichrist. Aziraphale by that point knows exactly where the Antichrist is, but he chooses to hide it from Crowley. The crux of their disagreement is not about whether to kill the Antichrist - Azriaphale is on board with that much - but he thinks he's too good to be the one getting his hands dirty:

A: And then what? We eliminate him? C: Someone does. I'm not personally up for killing kids. A: You're the demon. I'm the nice one. I don't have to kill children. C: Uh-uh-uh- A: If you kill him, then the world gets a reprieve and Heaven does not have blood on its hands. C: Oh, no blood on your hands? That's a bit holier-than-thou, isn't it? A: I am a great deal holier than thou. That's the whole point.

That is when Crowley first tries to leave. But Aziraphale asks him not to, so he doesn't.

C: This is ridiculous. You are ridiculous. I don't even know why I'm still talking to you. A: Well, frankly, neither do I. C: Enough, I'm leaving. A: You can't leave, Crowley. There isn't anywhere to go. C: It's a big universe. Even if this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo, we can go off together.

Crowley tries to talk to Aziraphale. He tries to communicate. Aziraphale refuses to listen. He doubles down. He says terribly hurtful things to Crowley and he is the one to end things. That is when Crowley leaves for real:

A: Go off together? Listen to yourself. C: How long have we been friends? Six thousand years! A: Friends? We're not friends. We are an angel and a demon. We have nothing whatsoever in common, I don't even like you! C: You do! A: Even if I did know where the Antichrist was, I wouldn't tell you, we're on opposite sides! C: We're on our side! A: There is no "our side", Crowley! Not anymore. It's over. C: Right. Well, then. Have a nice doomsday.

Crowley was 100% in the right. He stays as long as Aziraphale is willing to talk. Right up until "It's over."

This is a direct parallel to their fight over Gabriel in s2e1. Crowley imo is once again being far more reasonable about it than Aziraphale.

Angel, this is the supreme archangel of all Heaven, your former boss, who tried very hard to cast you into hellfire and destroy you. He is not our friend.

There are similarities where Aziraphale wants to keep trying to help others while Crowley prioritizes protecting himself and Aziraphale. It's more murky here than in the bandstand scene because at the bandstand, Azriaphale is withholding crucial information from Crowley. Crowley thinks they're out of options because it's the night before the apocalypse and he's left waiting for Shadwell to find the Antichrist. The setup with the Gabriel situation is more even about their different approaches.

But in the end it still comes down to the fact that what Crowley wants just doesn't matter.

A: Well, he doesn't have any friends, so he needs us. C: What I need is for him to be nowhere near me, and the precious, peaceful, fragile existence that I have carved out for myself here. A: I thought we carved it out for ourselves. C: So did I!

Aziraphale sees this as them working together, but it's not, and Crowley knows it. It's just Aziraphale's way or the highway. The way this fight ends, and the reason Crowley leaves this time is:

A: Very well. If you refuse to help me, then of course... you're at liberty to go. C: To go? Oh, right, this is how you wanna do it? A: No, I would love you to help me. I'm asking you to help me take care of him. But if you won't, you won't. C: Yeah, I won't. You're on your own with this one.

Once again, it isn't just Crowley unilaterally deciding to leave. Just like at the bandstand, Aziraphale is the one drawing the line in the sand. Crowley can either give Aziraphale exactly what Aziraphale wants, or there's no point in talking about it at all. What Crowley wants just is not a factor to Aziraphale.

And Crowley recognizes this pattern. They've done this before! "This is how you wanna do it?" Aziraphale comes off so sleazy here. I don't think he means to be manipulative, but he really is. He would ~love~ for Crowley to help him; he would love for Crowley to help him take care of Gabriel. But if Crowley doesn't give Aziraphale what he wants, then Crowley is the one choosing not to help. Right? If Crowley "refuses to help", he is "at liberty to go".

Crowley's concerns about their safety aren't worth discussing at all. Aziraphale won't budge. Crowley leaves.

(And Aziraphale is arguably straight-up taking advantage of the fact that Crowley likes to help him here. He knows how much Crowley wants to help him. "Rescuing me makes him so happy.")

Anyway, they then continue to play out the same pattern as before.

After the bandstand fight, Crowley kills time at the movies. Hastur and Ligur confronts him about losing the Antichrist. They are out of time. Crowley goes back to Aziraphale.

C: Angel! I'm sorry. I apologise. Whatever I said, I didn't mean it. Work with me, I'm apologising here. Yes? Good. Get in the car. A: What? No. C: The forces of Hell have figured out it was my fault. But we can run away together. Alpha Centauri. Lots of spare planets up there. Nobody would even notice us. A: Crowley, you're being ridiculous. Look, I-I-I'm quite sure if I can just– just reach the right people, then I can get all this sorted out. C: There aren't any right people. There's just God, moving in mysterious ways and not talking to any of us. A: Well, yes, and that is why I'm going to have a word with the Almighty, and then the Almighty will fix it.

Once again, Crowley's concerns about safety don't matter. He tells Aziraphale "The forces of Hell have figured out it was my fault" and Aziraphale does not address that at all. Aziraphale is too preoccupied with his deeply flawed perspective. Crowley can't convince him, so he leaves again:

C: That won't happen. You're so clever. How can somebody as clever as you be so stupid? A: I forgive you. C: Oh… I'm going home, Angel. I'm getting my stuff and I'm leaving. And when I'm off in the stars, I won't even think about you.

Now with s2, I am extremely curious to know how often Aziraphale has tried to weaponize forgiveness against Crowley. Like, Crowley is completely in the right about this. And it is such a shitty thing to say, it reinforces the idea that Aziraphale thinks he's better than Crowley. Crowley is a demon and Aziraphale is an angel and that power differential matters. It affects their relationship.

Anyway, the Gabriel fight. Things change when Beelzebub talks to Crowley. One difference is that Crowley is in a better position this time. Beelzebub makes him an offer: "You find Gabriel for me and you can have whatever your nasty little heart desires. You could be a Duke of Hell." And Crowley doesn't even consider it, which is correct and the best approach because Hell and Heaven both suck. It is also extremely sad fresh off the heels of Crowley trying to protect the fragile existence he carved out for himself because he can't even seem to convince himself that him and Aziraphale are on their side at this point. Crowley is just going it alone.

That's beside the point. The point is, once again, the stakes raise. "Anyone found involved in Gabriel's disappearance will be erased from the Book of Life. They won't just be gone, they will never have existed." Crowley, naturally immediately rushes back to Aziraphale.

This difference in framing is notable, that this isn't Hell coming out after Crowley again. More of the danger is on Aziraphale this time. Crowley could, in theory, stay out of it and let Aziraphale deal with the consequences of his actions. But instead, Crowley does the same thing as last time. He apologizes when he doesn't mean it, now complete with dance. Aziraphale doesn't concede an inch. There's another difference here in that Crowley doesn't try to explain his perspective this time. He doesn't tell Aziraphale about the Book of Life and I don't blame him. He has zero reason to believe that it would sway Aziraphale.

Crowley adapts to Aziraphale's plan and tries to come up with the best way to protect Gabriel since they can't just get rid of him. Once again, Aziraphale won. They're doing it Aziraphale's way. We all saw last time how that went up in literal flames and the trauma this approach caused Crowley specifically.

S2 digs in on this problem with their relationship. After this, that Aziraphale commandeers the Bentley, again overriding Crowley's wishes. They aren't tackling the problem together. At some point, to whatever extent, it's just Aziraphale using Crowley. He takes Crowley for granted.

And Crowley enables this dynamic. He can't stay away. Aziraphale is his only friend and the loneliness seems to bother him more than it bothers Aziraphale. So Aziraphale takes advantage and is never forced to reflect on how he treats Crowley because it never really affects him in the end. Aziraphale gets what he wants and Crowley is the one to suffer for it.

At the end of the season, this same fight plays out only worse. Crowley is told to ~just communicate better~. This approach makes sense to an extent with the framing that they had to hide their relationship for millennia, so it's only relatively recently that they really could have communicated openly. But it also stings when the things Crowley is trying to communicate here are fundamentally the same things that he said before at the bandstand.

And the framing of this one really drives home the fact that Aziraphale is in the wrong. It starts with Aziraphale dismissing Crowley right off the bat:

C: It's probably best if I start off doing all the talking, you do all the listening, 'cause if I don't start talking now, I won't ever start talking, right? Yes, so... A: What's that lovely human expression? Oh, yes! Hold that thought. You see, I… I have some incredibly good news to give you. C: Really?

The look on Crowley's face when he says "Really?" gives me life, he is legit so fed up. Anyway, Aziraphale explains Metatron's offer. The Metatron is blatantly lying to him, but Aziraphale has a consistent and disturbing lack of self awareness: "You're a leader, you're honest, you don't just tell people what they want to hear." Bet. But he eats it up.

Then this happens:

A: You could come back to Heaven and... and everything, like the old times. Only, even nicer. C: Right. And you told him just where he could stick it, then? A: Not at all. C: Oh, we're better than that, you're better than that, Angel!

This time, Aziraphale is in favor of "our side". Why wouldn't he be? He got Heaven's seal of approval for it - under the condition that Crowley joins him. And Aziraphale doesn't even think about it. It isn't just that he's brainwashed and convinced that this is for the best. It's that it doesn't even seem to occur to him that Crowley wouldn't be happy. They've been arguing about their different perspectives for millennia. Aziraphale should at least be aware that Crowley wouldn't want this. Crowley has made his feelings about it all very clear, but for whatever reason, Aziraphale assumes that Crowley is going to see this as a good thing.

They rehash the bandstand fight:

C: You don't need them. I certainly don't need them! Look, they asked me back to Hell, I said no. I'm not gonna be joining their team. Neither should you. A: But... Well, obviously you said no to Hell, you're the bad guys. But Heaven… Well, it's the side of truth, of light, of good.

(Once again, Heaven is superior. Heaven never has blood on its hands.)

C: When Heaven ends life here on Earth, it'll be just as dead as if Hell ended it. Tell me you said no. A: [silence] C: Tell me you said no. A: If I'm in charge… I can make a difference.

They are beat-for-beat rehashing the bandstand fight. This is something s2 makes clear about Aziraphale with the flashbacks: Aziraphale backslides. He learns better, then he backtracks. He sees a bit of gray in his black-and-white world, but he can't hold onto it. He polarizes problems and deludes himself into living in this rose-colored fantasy world. Whatever Aziraphale learned during the apocalypse about their side, him and Crowley being fundamentally the same, Heaven being just as bad as Hell - none of it sticks. So they have to go through it again.

It's at this point that Crowley makes his love confession. He doesn't seem to think it'll work, but he tries anyway. He tries to communicate. He says a lot of things, and they aren't all true. He's still trying to see this relationship as better than it is I think. This is some of what he says:

I didn't get a chance to say what I was going to say, I think I'd better say it now. I could always rely on you. You could always rely on me. We're a team, a group. Group of the two of us. And we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't. I mean, the last few years, not really. We don't need Heaven, we don't need Hell, they're toxic. We need to get away from them, just be an us. You and me, what do you say?

Crowley spills his heart. They don't have the apocalypse looming over them this time. He isn't being pushed to latch onto Aziraphale out of fear as the world ends. He knows what he wants and he says it.

Aziraphale's counteroffer is:

Come with me... to Heaven. I'll run it, you can be my second in command. We can make a difference.

This time, Aziraphale is more on board. This time, they can be together, on their side - but on under Aziraphale's terms. Only under the delusion that Heaven is the "right" side. And even then, Crowley will never be Aziraphale's equal in this. He will always have to defer to Azriaphale's orders when it comes down to it.

At the bandstand, Aziraphale says: "You can't leave. There isn't anywhere to go." That's when Crowley first suggests running away to the stars, first proposes their side. This time, Crowley is the one who wants Aziraphale to stay.

C: You can't leave this bookshop. A: Oh, Crowley. Nothing lasts forever.

The way this next bit plays out is so important to me, so I'm adding cues and editorializing a bit:

C: No. No, I don't suppose it does. [puts on glasses] Good luck. [walks towards the door] A: Good luck? Crowley! Crowley, come back - [Crowley stops, turns to face him] - to Heaven! A: Work with me! We can be together! Angels... doing good! C: [says nothing. doesn't leave] A: [getting desperate] I... I need you! C: [doesn't react. doesn't believe him? still doesn't leave. hears him out] A: [switches tactics] I don't think you understand what I'm offering you! C: I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do. A: Well... then there's nothing more to say.

Crowley gives Aziraphale every single chance. Crowley is a flawed, fucked up individual with his own biases, but he does see reality a whole lot better than Aziraphale. Aziraphale deludes himself and Crowley is the one who suffers for it. And once again, it isn't just Crowley deciding to leave. It's Aziraphale telling him to go. From "There is no "our side", not anymore, it's over" to "Well then there's nothing more to say."

But it still doesn't end there. Crowley doesn't just leave. This is how it ends:

C: Listen. Do you hear that? A: I don't hear anything. C: That's the point. No nightingales. You idiot. We could have been... us. [kisses Aziraphale] A: I… I forgive you. C: Don't bother.

That's when Crowley finally leaves.

Before, he ended it with: "I'm getting my stuff and I'm leaving. And when I'm off in the stars, I won't even think about you." He then did not leave for the stars. He stayed on Earth and confronted Hastur and Ligur with Holy Water and bought Aziraphale just a little bit more time to come around. Crowley never followed through on his own plans for what he thought was best. He always stayed, always waited for Aziraphale, at any cost.

At the end of s2, Aziraphale leaves Earth without Crowley.

The point of all of this that, yes, Crowley is always the one who walks out of their fights. But it isn't a problem of him being too stubborn about his beliefs, or not communicating his feelings well enough, or giving up too easily. The problem is that Aziraphale doesn't listen to him and doesn't respect him.

The last time they talk in season 2, they fight. Crowley leaves. I think and hope he'll stay away this time. Aziraphale can be the one to face the consequences of his actions this time.

[xiaq]

(this can be answered publicly) Hey X, pardon me if you’ve answered this before, but I was just curious on how you ended up transitioning from academia to tech and what role you started with in tech? Also, so you have any advice for someone looking to break into tech from a non-STEM background? Thank you!

Hey! I haven't answered it publicly but it's a popular question, so I will now (warning, long answer is long).

So I was so fed up with academia for sundry reasons I won't get into here but I wanted a career that would allow me to A. retire some day (something that paid generally well), B. would allow me some measure of work/life balance without high stress, and C. Would ideally let me use my communication/writing/speaking/presenting skills in some way.

My parents and my partner all work in tech and were like, "did you know that we desperately need people with your skillsets in the tech world?" and my partner, who works in technical sales was like, "You would kill at my job, I am not lying." And I was like, every job listing in technical sales that I see requires either a degree I don't have or past experience I don't have, or both, and my mother was like "Do you know how many mediocre resumes from unqualified men come across my desk? Apply for the damn positions anyway." So I reworked my resume to focus on applicable skills/experiences and wrote a cover letter for each position I applied to saying "hey, I know I'm an odd candidate but let me tell you why that's a good thing." And I got a lot of positive responses!

I was interviewing at 2 different tech places when I accepted the offer for my job now. I had an initial screening call interview with HR, then a zoom interview with the hiring manager, and then I was given access to a limited demo environment and had a week to teach myself the software and put together a demo for a fake customer which I did for the hiring manager (my future boss), one of my current peers, and the VP of the org. I was offered the job the same night I did my fake demo. So in total it was a 2 week interview process, and I started working 2 weeks later. **

I'm a pre-sales solutions consultant, which basically means I'm paired with a sales guy who does all the money and business value talk with customers, while I get to learn about a customer's data problems and then demo for them how our products can address those problems.

The learning curve was (and still is) steep. But it was basically like going back to school, and I've always loved learning new things. The job is super fun. It fulfills all of my wants I listed above with the added bonus of being completely remote (aside from occasional travel to meet with customers for in-person demos). The people I work with are supportive, management is communicative and constantly giving me feedback/talking about my trajectory. I've won internal awards, already received two raises and one promotion and I haven't even been there a year. I'm making more than double what I did as a professor and the concept of retirement doesn't feel like a laughable pipe dream anymore. I miss teaching a lot, but I'm healthier, happier, and better prepared for the future now. And my work is genuinely fulfiling because I'm showing people how they can fix problems. Also, playing with data management software and putting together custom demos is neat. It's like all the best parts of a college project--research, making a preso, knocking everyone's socks off while giving the preso, but I'm getting paid for it. I'm glad I followed my mom's advice.

So I guess my advice is the same as hers: even if you're not "qualified," apply for the position anyway. Make custom cover letters for each position and if there's not a way to include the letter with the app, do some googling and find the hiring manager on LinkedIn and message/email them. The person who hired me said that my cover letter was what got me the initial interview. So that shit works. If you have friends or family working somewhere with open positions, use those connections. Having an internal referral will go a long way to getting your resume looked at. I know we're all like, boo nepo babies, but networking is a huge part of any industry. Use it to your advantage if you have the advantage (no, I'm not working for my parent's companies, but if there'd been an open position I was interested in, I would have applied for it. No shame).

**I also, on the side, applied for the Austin Fire Department because why not. After a whole lot of mental and physical prep, I was accepted to the academy (in the first class, no less, holla) right before I was offered my current job. But I had to be realistic and say that probably wasn't a good long-term career option for someone who is 110lbs and was barely meeting the physical testing requirements who also has issues with getting overwhelmed in high-input sensory situations. So. Into the tech world I went. This side note just to say, I was keeping my options very open and there's nothing wrong with that either, lol.

I hope this helps!

[upon-lavender-hills]

Grunge

I hate saying stuff, because I always regret it in the end. But once in a blue moon my desire to say something grows so strong that I crawl from under my rock and make some sort of a statement somewhere. It's that time now.

I've already talked my friend's ear off with this crap, but it's still not enough. It also drives me up the wall that I don't see this stuff being said all the time, or at least some of the time. I guess I don't see it being said at all. So I guess I have to say it myself. 

I'm talking about this huge thing Runge canonically has for Grimmer. Not even in the romantic sense... Let me explain. In the crudest of terms, too.

By the time Runge makes it to Ruhenheim, he is already not quite the same as he was at the start. His path to Ruhenheim was the most tedious, and yet he still got there before everyone else. And Grimmer definitely catches his eye when they intersect. Again, not in the romantic sense. They just go around the town, exploring the surroundings and kinda watching each other. And they both know. They know what's going on, they know who the other person is, but they just waltz around it for quite some time. Until they finally have a proper conversation in that desolate place. And that conversation, man...

They understood each other with half-word, literally skipping a good portion of talking, because that would just be redundant. Runge is absolutely chill with the idea that Grimmer might be a murderer. The guy has a nice smile, so who cares, right? Grimmer states that Runge "smells like a detective". Is it just me, or does that sound, uhhh... extremely weird? Almost in a flirty sort of way. Because you gotta get pretty close to someone to take a good whiff of them. And hearing something like that being said about yourself, it must be pretty embarrassing, or confusing, or thrilling. What does that even mean, by the way? I thought so hard about it, and I still can't tell for sure. What do detectives smell like? Gunpowder, paperwork and cold, hard determination? Do they reek of sweat, or some special kind of cologne? I have no idea. But I guess Grimmer has, and Runge, he just stands there, looking at him like it's a given.

And after that, they just click. "Oh, hey, we're on the same page, we're after the same thing". And without any negotiation, they simply decide that they work together now. I am fully convinced that at this very moment Runge went, "This one". No context, just – "This one", about Grimmer. 

He then proceeded to entrust Grimmer with his most important evidence, the very one that led him to Ruhenheim. And then, at Versteck... Man. His "I'll buy you a beer" says so many things, just because it came from Runge. He doesn't have any friends. He doesn't even communicate with his colleagues properly. But, somehow, he is still willing to bond with Grimmer. I guess it's a "we're the same, so let's be alone together" thing. At the same time, he's just heard Grimmer stating that he cannot enjoy simple pleasures in life. That means, he wouldn't be able to enjoy this suggested after-work-beer either, right? So Runge's invitation serves as a double promise: that they'll get the job done and make it out of Ruhenheim alive, and that Grimmer will be fixed enough to finally enjoy that beer with him. 

Needless to say, Runge really, really wanted to keep Grimmer alive. And he doesn't cope with Grimmer's death well. Say what you will, but visiting someone's grave with a beer after A YEAR that they've passed, lamenting how you wish you would have known them, is pretty damn strange. And I suppose Runge might've visited Grimmer's grave prior, too, with some periodicity. The card, the plans, the beer, the hinted promise – he really wanted Grimmer to become his friend. And just because it's Runge, who refused to even engage in a casual talk with his peers and barely cared that his wife and daughter abandoned him, this thing he has for Grimmer seems to be especially large, unalloyed and special.

[number5theboy]

you said in a previous ask that if s2 had built on s1 better than the show would have been better. have you ever posted what you think needed to be different in s2? if not would you be willing to?

Oof. So much. This is not like. a full plan of how I would've done s2 differently, but it's just some character things I would've done differently for the siblings. Don't take this too seriously, it's just me spitballing, and this isn't a full re-write, it should have more structure to be that.

But also, overall ground rules.

no amnesia

no romance

no paradox psychosis

no infinite switchboard

no Handler

Viktor does not cause the apocalypse. Diego does.

Let me elaborate by just going through the siblings and where I would've taken them to build on s1.

Luther & Viktor: Putting these two together because that's what I would've done. Keep them together. Luther was holding him going into the portal, I think it would've been really interesting to have these two end up together in the 60s. Viktor should've been unconscious when they arrived (for like. the first episode) because then Luther would have had to make the choice to either protect him or leave him, and the choice to keep him close, the only familiar person around, someone he just betrayed and who just tried to kill him. Someone who ended the world. It would've been interesting to see them work through everything instead of Luther's character development happening off-screen and his apology to Viktor losing meaning because Viktor did not remember anything, they should've worked things out together. Luther gets the time to reflect on his actions and Viktor wakes up to Luther, despite everything, caring for him. This should at some point evolve into a 'Viktor develops his powers'-montage where they use Luther's near-invincibility, he can be tossed around without hurting that much.

Klaus & Ben: Lose the cult, keep the Dave. I haven't thought that one through much, I just hated the cult storyline that went nowhere, but I did really like him trying to save Dave, it was a good storyline. I also think he should've developed his powers more there, because Klaus was sober through his stay in the 60s, so ghosts would have bothered him more, and he should've worked to keep them under control. I keep oscillating between 'this is how Reginald factors into the story, Klaus goes to him for help' and 'no way Klaus and Ben would go to Reginald, Ben becomes an impromptu teacher and that's how their relationship deteriorates'. This one needs workshopping, but I feel like trying to save Dave from dying + becoming more familiar with death as two cornerstones of Klaus' arc would be super fun to explore. Also he doesn't keep Ben away from everyone else, I reckon, but I would have to actually figure out how the season would go to figure out how and why. Something about Klaus getting better at controlling his powers and thus summoning Ben, him having the possibility to interact with the world for the first time in decades and wanting his independence but not being able to get it because he's been dead this entire time, he can never be away from Klaus...it'd be interesting.

Allison: Full disclosure, I really do love Ray, but I said no romances, so. I think it was a missed opportunity to not double down on Allison and sisterhood after s1 and have her form a meaningful relationship with Odessa and the other black women at the salon she worked at. Have her throw herself into community organising and resistance and build other women up after a lifetime of using her powers for selfish reasons. Have it hurt her too, because it makes her think about her daughter and how she will never be able to watch her grow into a strong woman, but at least she can try to build a better world for all of them, but especially for her. And there's the thing with the civil rights plotline either way, I just don't think that TUA as a show does not have the depth or the intelligence to do justice to this real movement, it will always kind of feel like a prop, so I don't think there truly is a way to do it justice, or if there is, someone please tell me. I do think they should've let her be angry at Viktor in s2 already, none of that forgive and forget crap, she was seriously injured, almost lost her life and then was thrust into an environment hostile to her mere existence as a black person, she should've been at least resentful by that point. I would've loved to see a confrontation between her and Viktor, she should've been allowed to express her hurt and it should've taken time for them to be buddy-buddy again. So at some point her storyline should flow into that of Luther and Viktor, but yeah. It'd need some more fleshing out but this is the general idea of where she'd start.

Diego: Alrighty. Instead of playing off Diego's hero complex and obsession with saving JFK as a joke, I think the show should've played it straight. Let him cut off Lee Harvey Oswald's trigger finger. Let him use his ability to deflect bullets to foil and attempts of assassination on the president and save the life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. But not enough that they don't notice that there has been an attempt on the president's life. The FBI find a way to blame the Russians for this. Boom. Nuclear Armageddon. There's the apocalypse for the season. I wish s2 would have explored Diego's deep-seated need to prove himself, to leave his mark on history as someone who rights wrongs, who saves lives, more seriously, because him being a vigilante, rejecting his father but still trying to be a hero like he raised them to, was so integral to who he was in s1 and I wish they'd explored this in more depth. Also the story beat of trying to do something right that then has massive bad consequences would be on par for this show, I think it would have been really cool to explore. Especially since one of the main plot threads in that season would have been to stop Diego from fulfilling the destiny he set out for himself, make him defy that hero complex, which leads me to

Five: By god, they should have let him orchestrate the JFK assassination like he deserved to. Instead of pointlessly chasing after the apocalypse for a second time in a row and getting world's lamest made-up disease for no reason, they should've made it that he tries to figure out what causes the apocalypse this time around, only to be interrupted by AJ, who wants to recruit him. The thing is that someone keeps foiling the assassination of JFK and no matter how many snipers they sent there to take care of it, nothing helps (as we find out later, the certain someone responsible has bullet-redirecting abilities). And since there is no infinite switchboard in this, someone has to solve this the old way and figure out a foolproof way to kill the president. And so the Commission comes crawling back to Five, who realises that the assassination must happen to avert the apocalypse. So instead of making a deal to kill the Commission board in exchange for going back to 2019, he promises the orchestration of the JFK assassination - we get him trying to plan to foil what he doesn't know is his own brother, but once he does know, that throws another spanner into the works, because he doesn't want to kill Diego. We could have had some really good character exploration similar to the comics where he despises that the Commission has roped him back in, that he keeps having to do things he despises to have a chance at a normal life, and it would've made for some excellent interpersonal drama between him and Diego. I don't even know how this would resolve except for the fact that, you know, JFK bites it. Maybe Five ropes in his other siblings, or his old self. Maybe Reginald's real reason for unadopting them is that he wanted Kennedy alive, and they're the ones who killed him. I just think this would've been a much more interesting exploration of both Diego and Five.

And this is all just spitballing. This is not really a coherent re-write or adjustment. It doesn't take into account that there definitely should be other characters in this. I really did love Elliott, and Lila is a great addition to the cast and should be crow-barred into this somehow. How do all of these storylines converge? How much, if even, should Reginald factor into this? But those are the first ideas that I have to make s2 more coherent with the themes of s1.

[xnotyourdarlingx]

╭──────────.★..─╮

about me :

hello there ! it's aries again. here's a little information about me before proceeding to the rest of the advertisement. i'm currently twenty-one and use she / her pronouns. super into gaming, too, and my current favourites include baldur's gate three. overwatch + the last of us series. i can be really talkative with a roleplay partner once i've become less shy so hopefully that's okay. searching for another job + no school = a lot of free time. :')

what i'm searching for :

i'm currently searching for somebody who's twenty and older ( or at least nineteen ) to write for the last of us with ! what i'm hoping for is to pair my original character against ellie williams ! more than happy to double up, too. if you want to write joel for me, that's okay, too. especially since i've got a character i pair him with, but i really just want ellie content. she is badass in the second game and like.. scary asf. i'll write joel miller, abby anderson, dina, etc,. as long as they're an adult! i refuse to write as / against a minor.

full disclaimer: all characters must be nineteen and older!

writing + expectations :

listen, i'm not searching for somebody who's never made a writing mistake before. i spell words wrong and all that..but i'm a semi-literate to literate writer who's willing to go over four paragraphs of writing and don't do well with one liners. i love to do side roleplays that are shorter for when we're busy / low muse but i'd prefer the main roleplay is at least three to four paragraphs long. i do also mirror! please write in third person, too. very much down for angst / fluff ! < 3 please know i'll only write over discord.

rules :

one. do not be homophobic, sexist and generally just a disrespectful person. i'm a member of the lgbtq+ community and really don't want to hear them getting hated on.

two. please communicate with me if you've lost interest. i can be ghost friendly but i'm also willing to discuss what we can do to make it more fun.

three. do not control my character, please. if you ever feel like i am, please tell me, and i'll make sure it doesn't happen again.

four. respect my triggers. of course i'll respect yours because comfort will always be priority over writing. they will be discussed beforehand so we know what to avoid / keep light.

au's i would love to try :

band au!

ellie williams is a famous guitarist who's currently touring with her band! she's known for getting around and flirting with women, but because of the reputation she's earned, it's starting to damage their name so their manager decides that having ellie fake date somebody might remedy that. she's forced to act like my character's girlfriend to the public. could it end in them developing feelings for each other or despising each other?

university au!

this one is simpler since it's just two people trying to navigate being adults together. maybe it can be like, rivals to lovers, or something. because imagine ellie williams who's the academic rival of my character and like... they banter all the time because they're too stubborn to admit liking each other... oh my god.

extra :

if you're interested in this, please hit me up! make sure to tell me how you wish to be addressed, your age, if you want to double up ( and if so, who you want me to write for you! ) + any ideas you may have! your side can be canon divergent or modern, either way is fine! i just would love a modern version of ellie... but i'll gladly do a side roleplay set in the canon verse, too.

╰─..★.──────────╯

[foggyfanfic]

And finally, 12 year old Octavia!

Bruno's youngest. Octavia is just chilling my dude, she's vibing, she's having a grand old time. It does make her a little sad, knowing that her birth family either abandoned her, or lost her and thinks she's dead, but look! She has super powers!

People usually assume she's a bit of a tomboy because of the clothes she wears, but she actually has a lot of really pretty, frilly dresses she doesn't want to get dirty. She steals her Papa's or older brother's clothes to practice using her gift in. The one dark spot in her otherwise perfect life is that her gift is Useful, and she knows from watching Luisa that having a useful gift is not necessarily a good thing. Octavia spends a lot of time worrying about what her life will be like when she feels ready to start helping the village with her gift.

Spends the most time with her Mama, since Leandra is better at lying than Bruno, but is also the only person in the family who really lets Bruno spoil them so they spend plenty of quality time together in the market. She also has a similarly dry sense of humor as Bruno, although most people don't notice since she plays her jokes straight and delivers them in the same cheerful tone she says everything else. When people don't realize she's kidding she delights in doubling down, she once convinced her entire class she doesn't know what a donkey is while standing in front of a donkey by insisting it was the weirdest horse she's ever seen. Her teacher sent her home with a note and Bruno was too busy laughing to say anything about it. Leandra tried to be the responsible parent and tell her it wasn't nice to trick her classmates like that, but then gave up and helped her with ways to keep the bit going.

Sometimes feels like the odd sibling out, since Gabriel and Amada are technically related, but then again, Gabriel is the only boy so she figures it balances out. Especially since Gabriel was so happy to have another sister to coddle, and didn't hesitate to submit her to the full gambit of overprotective big brother-isms. Her and Amada bond over acting annoyed with Gabriel, although Octavia privately delights in the ease with which he accepts her as a sister. At the story's beginning, she is actually closer to her two siblings than they are to each other, since Amada only sees Gabe as her smotheringly protective big brother, while Gabe carries a lot of guilt for the fact that Amada's mother was probably killed by his birth father. If the two talked to each other, Gabe would discover that most of Amada's problems revolve around the fact that she's pretty sure she's better off with her mother having been killed, and Amada would discover how deeply Gabe's fear and pain run. But they don't talk to each other about these things, and won't without intervention. Intervention that's certainly not about to come from Octavia because...

As far as the family dynamic goes, her parents are accidentally teaching her to do what they do, treat the symptoms of the problem and dance around the actual source. If the cycle would have been allowed to continue, Gabe would have been the one accidentally placing his fears on the shoulders of the rest of the family, Amada would have ended up arguing with him about it and accidentally alienating him (taking Bruno's role in a less passive way), and Octavia would have ended up playing mediator. She would have kept them from completely falling apart, but would never risk asking them to talk about the source of their issues.

Her gift is inherently optimistic, since she can mold the earth itself into new homes. While it is technically elemental in nature, she personally sees it as a way to create, to grow the community around her. It is a gift that looks towards the future and sees a loving village.