#well at least nobody can say i didn't try

[saintedbythestorm]

Managed to shower so I would have a chance to do dentist on Friday... then just sat down in my bed afterwards... and now I'm getting a migraine... yeah I don't think I can do dentist on Friday....

[ardate]

Things are just so bleak man.

[chalk-homunculus]

I think... in many ways, I really just want to feel loved, but I'm scared of accepting it, and scared of feelings I feel like I "can't control" so I end up taking an overly analytical approach and overjustifying things like natural curiosity to myself by calling things "just scientific fascination" and "morbid curiosity" (because in my mind, things I feel I am not "allowed to" experience, be curious about, or consider, seem like they're taboo, hence 'morbid'). I can't really fault others for thinking that's messed up. I've definitely ruined chances at receiving any sort of care and/or love in the past by not only pushing people away in delusional self-sabotage states, but also by treating people like equations or research projects. I sort of hate admitting to myself that I DON'T know or understand everything, and that doing so is impossible no matter how much I like knowing things, especially since my inability to just trust and take what people tell me at face value is in juxtaposition with that desire for knowledge and thorough understanding. It is actually me and my own doubt of people that drives me into over-questioning everything I DO know.

I also am terrible at paying attention to others. I know this. I forget that other people are, well, people, and that they won't know how much I care about them unless I express it and KEEP expressing it. Not just verbally but with things like asking people how they are doing- assuming they'll just tell me if they want me to know is something I do, but I know very well how easy it is to feel like a burden and close your troubles away from others in fear of being "too much" to deal with. I've reflected on this, and my unhealthy manner of expressing fondness and trust for others being that I'm far too quick to traumadump and talk about myself, in the past, but I've not been making nearly enough progress on it.

I think, I seek and crave for too much clarity without offering any myself, that has driven people away from me in the past, and it's purely my own flaws causing it.

Maybe with another year or two of reflecting, I will be able to handle something like a qppr without it falling apart because of my aloofness and inability to pay enough attention to others. Perhaps in half a decade, I could consider a romantic relationship, if I've made any progress with all that + trauma work, by then.

[orcboxer]

Okay let me try this one again. The Trolley Problem sets up a scenario that sucks to be in. You either kill one guy, or you kill five guys. Nobody likes these options. We all don't want this be happening. That's kind of the point. It's a moral quandary. It's supposed to feel bad.

Now, according to a recent post floating around on tumblr, choosing either of the two options demonstrates "learned helplessness" and makes you a neolib sheep. The only correct answer, the post states, is to reject the question altogether. (Or to change the parameters of the question to include an option that saves everyone, thus eliminating the moral quandary.)

It sounds nice, doesn't it? Fuck this bad situation, we control our imaginations, so let's imagine a situation that doesn't suck. Hah! Bet you didn't think of that!

Here's the problem. Even though I think most situations generally have at least one solution that is both Feasible and Not Terrible, I have to admit that there are some situations (as in, not zero of them) where all the feasible options are unpleasant. This is a natural consequence of living in a world where A Lot Of Things Suck.

But if shitty situations do exist, even if it's super super rare, then it's not unreasonable to ask, "How should we make decisions when we find ourselves in a shitty situation?"

This is the beginning premise of the Trolley Problem. It says, "Hey what if you were in an unambiguously shitty situation? There are many shitty situations, so let's imagine one that is contrived enough to get everyone on the same page regardless of political affiliation, AND really emphasizes the key parts that I want to discuss."

Tumblr says "let me stop you right there. What if instead...we imagined a different scenario that wasn't as shitty?"

Well, okay, but then we're not talking about the same thing anymore. That doesn't actually count as an answer to the problem, you're just changing the subject to a completely different thing.

Tumblr goes on to say, "Exactly. That's the only thing you should ever do when confronted with an ethical quandary. Frankly the fact that you are willing to even consider a scenario that sucks suggests that you are fundamentally incapable of considering less shitty scenarios."

I just want to say I think that's bullshit. I don't think every problem is a trolley problem, but I do think that some problems are a trolley problem. And I think that those problems are worth discussing, even though they don't feel good. The trolley problem exists as a framework to discuss those problems.

Maybe our aversion to difficult decisions has an impact on our ethical reasoning, and maybe we should actually question how our ethical standards hold up under the weight of that aversion. So maybe moral quandaries like the trolley problem are worth discussing. And if you don't want to engage with the quandary, then don't - you don't have to concoct a whole essay about how the quandary is inherently morally bad.

It's possible that what you really want to say is that it sucks when people treat certain situations as trolley problems, when those specific situations actually do contain unambiguously feasible and unambiguously perfect solutions. I would agree with that.

But like. Let's not pretend that you can reduce all of ethics down to unchallenging black and white moralism.

[thebibliosphere]

I was just playing gotham knights again and noticed some passive dialog regarding Babs having a back brace, which is at least acknowledging that there was damage done, but I'm a little sad for the loss of some really cool disability representation. What are your feelings on her (and on a similar note Batman's) miraculous recovery from paralysis in DC?

I think Gotham Knights handled her disability fairly well, considering this is a universe where magic, nanobots, and puddles of evil green goo that can heal the dead exist. All things considered, it would have been very easy for them to either erase it entirely or just handwave and say, "She worked really hard and got better," as previous iterations of the canon have done.

Because she did work hard and get better, but the hard work is ongoing because they depict her issues as chronic.

She's got a limp (it's the most obvious in her Talon suit with no cape in the way), which means she can't rely on speed or high kicks like the others can (I mean, she can kick, but it's her slowest motion, and until you max out her suit, it's the most liable to get her thrown to the ground), so she falls back on precision and her tech.

Jason punches for maximum pain, Dick moves with dizzying speed, and Tim's gonna sneak up on you and drop you like a rock, but Babs is going for the pressure points with ruthless precision. Not to mention her drones.

The conversation with Tim, realizing she might need help boosting her suit to compensate for her pain/strength issues, is a nice little way of making the player aware that she's got these ongoing problems because, honestly, a casual observer could mistake her back brace for athleisure wear if they didn't recognize the shape of it. It's also a good way of throwing in some exposition about how she's still going to physical rehab and that her PT would like her to "wean off" her back brace, but because her PT doesn't know her actual job as a vigilante, Barbara admits she can't and is essentially finding ways to manage her own care and create her own accommodations. Accommodations which they are all shown to be willing to help with.

It's a nice little touch when superhero narratives tend to revolve around self-sacrifice to the point of self-destruction. Alfred giving Dick into trouble for pushing himself too far and hiding injuries is a nice touch, too, even if it's like trying to bail water on the Titanic with a teacup.

I also like that not only do you see her wheelchair lurking around the Belfry—along with the disability adaptations they put in place, like the ramps, the wheelchair elevator, and the desks that move up and down to wheelchair height—but that she also still uses her chair from time to time.

[ID a screenshot from Gotham Knights showing the Belfry. Light streams in through a giant clockface, showcasing a bank of computer screens. In front of the screen, Barbara Gordon is using her wheelchair as Dick Grayson stands behind her, probably making a bad pun.]

Whether she's using it because she's tired or simply because it's more comfortable than the computer chair is never revealed. Nor is it brought up or commented on. It's just something that's normal for Barbara to do, and I like that. I like that it's normal. It's not a part of herself she's trying to erase. She works with it, not against it.

Is it perfect? No. Do they outright erase her disability like so many of the comics are guilty of? Also, no. I'd argue that, in fact, they kept her disability. They just changed the nature of it.

Barbara now has a dynamic disability, one which fluctuates and requires different management based on her day-to-day (or night) activity. She's in active treatment for it and will be for the rest of her life. Are some of the physical feats she achieves realistic for someone with an injury of her nature? Not really, but again, this is a world where nobody stays dead, and there are zombie assassins coming out of the walls. I'll take the attention to detail and care they put into her story any day over the "Willpower Fixed My Spine" narrative we could have gotten.

As for Bruce getting healed by magic, again, it's Batman. Comic book logic is wibbly-wobbly at the best of times, and realistically speaking, they couldn't leave Batman paralyzed. His whole deal revolves around being stealthy and punching the shit out of people. He wouldn't be Batman anymore, and frankly, I don't trust the comic writers as far as I could throw them to handle that right.

By contrast, the Gotham Knights writers handled Barbara with much more care and nuance than I ever expected. And I'm thankful for that.

---

*I also like that both Dick and Barbara are often shown wearing joint braces. Dick's are especially reminiscent of the way gymnasts and people with hypermobility tape their joints to reduce pain and prevent injuries. It's a nice little touch. They're not invincible. Their bodies hurt. They're just like me but with money and much bigger problems like giant killer robots and zombie assassins.

[prokopetz]

Honestly it's weird that roleplaying as we know it evolved from historical wargaming.

Like for example DBA rules contain some suggestions for running campaigns with narrative and "propaganda" so I wouldn't say that it's something incompatible, and 0E looks way more like wargames than say PbtA games do, but storytelling games were a feature of artistic salons for way longer and they appear much closer to roleplaying than rulesets for reenacting ancient battles on tabletop.

Salon games didn't have skill checks but neither did wargames and it's strange that nobody came up with simplistic skill checks to add uncertainty and realism to the game

I think the line is a lot clearer when the role of dice and rules in tabletop roleplaying games is correctly understood.

"Uncertainty" and "realism" are, at best, secondary to what the dice are actually doing. Even most tabletop RPGs get it wrong when they try to explain themselves – they'll talk about the rules as something to fall back on to prevent schoolyard arguments (i.e., "yes I did!/no you didn't!") from derailing the story, when in fact it's the exact opposite.

If we look at freeform roleplaying as an illustrative parallel, we see that, while newly formed groups may in fact fall to bickering when a consensus can't be reached about what ought to happen next, mature and well-established groups tend instead to fall prey to excessive consensus-seeking: the impulse to always find an outcome that isn't necessarily one which everybody at the table can be happy with, but at the very least one which everybody at the table can agree is reasonable – and that's a lot more constraining than one might think.

In this sense, the role of picking up the dice isn't to build consensus, but to break it – to allow for the possibility of outcomes which nobody at the table wanted or expected. It's the "well, this is happening now" factor that prevents the table's dynamic from ossifying into endless consensus-seeking about what reasonably ought to happen next.

Looking to the history of wargames, this is precisely the innovation they bring to the table. Early historical wargames tended to be diceless affairs which decided outcomes by deferring to the judgment of a referee or other subject matter expert, but the use of randomisers increasingly came to be favoured because referees would tend to favour the most reasonable course, precluding upsets and rendering the outcomes of entire battles a foregone conclusion. This goes all the way back to the roots of tabletop wargaming – people were literally having "rules versus rulings" arguments two hundred years ago!

(This isn't the only facet of tabletop roleplaying culture which has its roots in wargaming culure, of course. For example, you can draw a direct line from the preoccupation of early tabletop RPGs with punishing the use of out-of-character knowledge to historical wargaming's gentleperson's agreement to refrain from making decisions based on information that one's side's commanders couldn't possibly have possessed when re-creating historical battles.)

To be clear, I don't necessarily disagree that salon games could have yielded something like modern tabletop RPGs. However, first they'd have had to arrive at the paired insights that a. excessive consensus-seeking is poison to building an interesting narrative; and b. randomisers can be used to force the breaking of consensus, and historical wargames had a substantial head start because they'd figured all that out a century earlier.

[jaewritesfic]

Everlasting Trio DP x DC Nobody Knows Au Pt 6

Part 5

Warning for very brief flashback implying vivisection

It is highly amusing to float to Red Robin's rooftop and see up close how intensely vigilant he's being. He looks like if a pigeon took off halfway across the city he'd fucking notice, but the ghost standing next to him and trying not to snicker goes undetected.

Poor guy. He really seems like the type to drive himself up a wall over a mystery - he's certainly been driving himself up a wall over Danny.

Danny has to force himself not to tickle the back of the guy's neck just to watch him flail.

He likes Red Robin, he really does. He didn't set out to torture the poor guy - Red did that all by himself, all Danny has been trying to do is help. 

They can't pursue him the way they have been and expect him not to try and get some entertainment out of it. It tempers the annoyance, making their obsession with finding him a game.

Danny considers the box in Red's lap.

He's been doing the same thing with each box they leave him from the beginning: grab box, open pocket dimension, yeet.

Not even Bat trackers can transmit from an entirely different plane of existence, it would seem.

And the thing Danny has discovered about having died when an entirely different plane of existence opened on top of him and merged with his DNA?

He is a pocket dimension, in a way. 

In other words, no need to expend energy to tear the fabric of reality to deposit his loot - all he needs to do is phase things into himself.

So Red will definitely notice when the box disappears from his lap and seemingly blinks out of existence, but at least he won't be seeing any neon green tears in reality open up in front of him.

That seems like a good deal to Danny.

He steps forward and reaches for the box-

NA NA NA NA NA NANA

Danny and Red Robin both curse and flail as the Ghostbusters theme rings out across the rooftop.

Red Robin nearly falls out of his lawn chair launching himself away from the sudden sound, almost dropping the lockbox in the process.

Danny frantically searches his pockets for his goddamn phone, pulls it out, has the fear of God struck into him at the idea of hanging up on Sam Manson and thus shoves it into his chest to go to voicemail somewhere where nobody can hear it ring.

In the dead silence that follows, Danny finds himself in something like a startled cowboy standoff where only one of the participants is actually visible.

Red Robin stands with feet braced shoulder width apart, lockbox in one hand and bo staff in the other. He is visibly bewildered and ready to throw hands.

He's staring at the space a little to the left of Danny's head, so at least he hadn't dropped his invisibility in panic.

Welp. No use trying to change plans now.

Danny lunges forward and grabs the lockbox, relishing in the squawk of shock and indignance Red Robin makes as it abruptly leaves his hand and blinks out of sight.

He doesn't anticipate how fast Red Robin will recover or move.

A hand wraps tightly around his wrist and jerks him back in an impressive estimation of where Danny might be occupying space.

Danny almost goes ghost right there. Not because he wants to, but because for a moment there are restraints around his wrists and ectoplasm on the table and bright lights and sharp blades and pain-

He swallows the growl that wants to well up in his throat as he turns and looks at Red Robin, teeth feeling a little too large and sharp in his mouth before he forces himself to calm down.

Red is staring him straight in the eyes despite Danny being able to see he's still invisible. Red’s hand looks to be wrapped around nothing.

“You're not going anywhere,” Red Robin says, voice low and slightly feral with the high of perceived victory. That, paired with the crooked smirk on his lips is kind of, uh- well. Hoo boy, that's all Danny has to say about that.

Well, he does have one other thing to say.

“Bet.”

The way Red Robin's face falls in disbelief when Danny phases out of his grip is nothing short of glorious. Danny's already floating off the roof and out of grabbing distance before Red finishes buffering.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Danny cackles, tossing him a salute he can't even see.

“Better luck next time, Angry Bird!”

“Son of a bitch!”

Masterpost

[moonstruckme]

okay i absolutely NEED james with an emo/goth gf!!! it’s giving black cat reader 🤭🤭🤭 only write if you want of course ♥️♥️

Thank you for requesting lovely! I fear this ended up being more black cat than goth because I didn't really go into describing reader's aesthetic but I hope this is the attitude you were looking for <3

cw: mention of alcohol (but reader isn't explicitly drinking)

James Potter x black cat!reader ♡ 718 words

James doesn’t think you’re glaring at him, but you’re definitely glaring. 

“How’s your drink, angel?” he asks, leaning across your small table with a smile. 

You suck your teeth. “It’s good.” 

James reaches over the table for your hand. You give it to him, thundercloud expression not so much as flickering, but when he squeezes your fingers you squeeze back. 

He lowers his voice. “What’s wrong?” 

“How can you think over their racket?” The question bursts out of you like this is something you’ve been waiting to talk about. James follows the beam of your glare, turning in his seat to look at the gaggle of men sitting in the corner booth of the restaurant. They’re laughing, rambunctious, one of them having procured a deck of cards which they seem to be playing some kind of disorganized game with. Two have begun arm wrestling.

“They’re yelling so loud it’s bouncing off the walls,” you seethe. “It’s so obnoxious. I can barely hear you without you shouting.” 

James makes a face as he turns back around, feeling a tad oblivious. He’d just thought this was a louder sort of restaurant, but he sees now that the other patrons are leaning close to each other over their tables, talking as quietly as they can manage just like you. The noise is created only by that one group. 

“I think they’ve had a few.” He gives a sheepish shrug, nodding to the empty pints collecting in one corner of their table. However they might be acting, James feels awful for anyone who ends up on the other end of your wrath. “You know how it is when you get like that and sort of forget where you are.” 

“No, not really.” You start tapping an irritated finger on the table. “They could at least try to be considerate. And there’s a bar just across the street, why not go there?” 

James gives you an amused look. “Hey,” he says, leaning across the table and coaxing you in for a kiss. You relent to it, but you don’t look much improved afterwards. “It’s all in good fun, yeah? We shouldn’t let their good time ruin our good time.” 

He suspects you’re a bit peeved with him for not taking your side, but you try to overcome it. “Yeah,” you agree. You lean over to take a sip from your straw, still obviously fuming. 

And James decides something simply must be done. 

“Alright.” He gives your hand a quick squeeze, pushing back his chair as he stands. “Back in a second, lovie.” 

He can feel your eyes following as he goes over to the rowdy table and introduces himself. Every now and then as he talks to the guys, he’ll glance over to find your stare still on him, narrowed with curiosity. James has to admit, the pleasure of having your attention has never quite worn off. He sends you a wink when nobody else is looking. 

After a few minutes, the men slip out from their booth and James parts with them with a series of clapping handshakes. You watch in awe as they go out the door, your gaze moving back to your boyfriend when he sits across from you. 

“How did you do that?” you ask. 

James grins smugly. “I just got a bit chummy with them and then told them about the bar across the street. They have a pool table over there, and if you make it before eight pints are half off.” 

Your lips part slightly. It’s as close to jaw-dropping surprise as you ever get. “You seriously got them to leave by making friends with them.” 

He shrugs. “I guess. We didn’t really have time to get to know each other all that well.” 

You regard him thoughtfully for a moment, then lean across the table to kiss his cheek. James’ smile leaps up on his face. His stomach feels swarmed by butterflies far more boisterous than that table had ever been. 

“Thanks,” you say. 

James is smiling so hard it’s hurting his cheeks. “You feel better now?” 

You roll your eyes, but he spies a twitch in the corner of your lips. “Yeah, I feel better.” 

“Good.” He pecks you on your cheek in turn. You appear dangerously close to pleased. “Then you’re welcome, lovie.”

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Furiosa thoughts

About 48 hours after watching, I think my take on Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is coalescing into: I enjoyed it as a Mad Max movie but found it disappointing as a Fury Road prequel.

Any Mad Max movie made after Fury Road was always going to suffer the fate of being compared to Fury Road, which is the best action movie ever made. So like, compared to any other action movie you can think of, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (we'll call it FMMS going forward) is very very good! It just isn't Fury Road.

The rest is under the cut for spoilers:

The action sequences were compelling. (I was aware I was hunched forward in my seat in tension/anticipation almost the entire time.) Some of them were even brilliant. That long sequence where the Octoboss and the Mortiflyers (yes those are their names) are attacking the War Rig with all kinds of airborne contraptions? Phenomenal. I was like yes okay now we are in a Mad Max movie! Other than that one sequence, though, in which we see Furiosa and Praetorian Jack begin to trust each other, I thought they rarely achieved the kind of wordless advancement of character relationships through action beats that is the lifeblood of Fury Road. So the action was good, but it was just normal-good, not Fury Road transcendent.

I did miss John Seale's cinematography. While I thought the action choreography was great, the shot selection was just not as dynamic and interesting as in Fury Road. I also really did not vibe with so much of the musical themes being recycled from Fury Road. The Fury Road score is SO memorable and the music is such an integral part of the momentum and feeling of every scene in the movie; I can play that score and see every beat of the action unfolding in my brain now. I wanted new score that felt like it was a part of this new action that we were seeing.

I loved all the new worldbuilding details and finally getting to see inside Gastown and the Bullet Farm. Those locations and their unique features were utilized really well for the action that took place in them. Loved the new details we got about the Citadel. The grappling hooks just dipping down to yoink people's vehicles during battle? Fantastic. The hidden Citadel ledge with the little pool of water?? That was such a fanfic-ready location. Pretty sure I already wrote at least one fic set there back in like 2016.

The Green Place! Very different from what I imagined but so much worldbuilding in just a few shots.

In general I thought the new cast rose to the challenge. Alyla Browne who played little kid Furiosa I thought was phenomenal actually. That's a tough role, both emotionally and physically, for a child actor and she slayed it. Casting Indigenous model and actress Charlee Fraser to play Furiosa's mother certainly made the Stolen Generation parallels more obvious. I'll have a lot more to say about Dementus down below, but Chris Hemsworth brought a great combo of bonkers and menacing.

I never doubted that Anya Taylor-Joy could bring the emotional intensity needed to the role--she can do crazy eyes like nobody's business, and with the growl she put in her voice she really did sound like Charlize Theron a bit. I found her physicality convincing for a young Furiosa. But she is not Charlize, through no fault of her own. Charlize is tall and she has broad shoulders and she just takes up so much space when moving and fighting as Furiosa and I think it was always going to be hard to replicate that. As long as they didn't try too hard to bridge the gap between the characters I was fine with it. But that one scene at the end where she's bringing the Wives to the Rig I was very viscerally like that is NOT our Furiosa. (I almost wish they would've used Charlize's stunt double for that scene the way they popped Jacob Tomuri into Max's place.) They could have simply left a time gap--based on the "15 years" she says to Dementus and the 7,000+ days we hear about in Fury Road there should be at least a 4-year gap between the film timelines, although in terms of bridging the look of the two actors it feels like it should be more like 10 years.

If FMMS had been a self-contained movie about a character named Furiosa in the Mad Max universe, I think I would have found it very satisfying. But as a prequel to Fury Road there were a bunch of ways I thought it was lacking on a story level.

I think it's pretty clear that this is not the backstory, or at least not the complete backstory, that Charlize Theron was imagining while playing Furiosa. Which...there's nothing objectively wrong with that; word of God and what actors think about their characters doesn't supersede what's on film for determining what is canon. However, Fury Road positions Joe as Furiosa's main antagonist, and while we don't get the full story behind the incandescent rage she directs at him, we know that rage is there and is a big part of her motivation. In interviews at the time, Charlize talked about the idea that Furiosa had been stolen to be a Wife but then was discovered to be infertile and discarded, how she survived by hiding in the Citadel and eventually rose to a position of power, how she saw her actions not as saving the Wives but as stealing them, and that her motivation at least starts out as more about hurting Joe than helping these women.

We get only the tiniest suggestion of Furiosa's backstory in Fury Road ("I was taken as a child, stolen") and the rest we piece together by implication. She is a healthy full-life woman working for a man who keeps healthy full-life women as sex slaves, hoping one of them will produce a viable male heir for him. She is effectively a general in his army, projecting his power on the wasteland, a position no other woman seems to occupy. She tells Max she is seeking "redemption." Redemption for what? She doesn't say. But "whatever she has done to win a position of power within this misogynist death cult" seems like a pretty obvious answer.

And that's interesting! That's an interesting backstory that engages with some of the core themes and moral questions of the Mad Max universe. These movies deal a lot with the tension between self-preservation and human connection. Do you screw someone else over to protect yourself? Even if it means putting them in the terrible position that you yourself have clawed your way out of? Even if it means enforcing your own oppressor's power over them? Or do you take the risk of helping people and caring enough to connect with them, even though this carries an emotional and physical risk?

FMMS doesn't really engage with Furiosa's relationship to Joe like, at all. It's not like Joe comes off looking like a good guy. He's just hardly in the movie. I don't know if this would have been different if Hugh Keays-Byrne were still alive. I don't know if there was pressure from the studio to cast an A-list male lead actor alongside Anya Taylor-Joy (who's a hot commodity now but wasn't what I would call an A-lister when she was originally cast). I don't know if, once Chris Hemsworth was cast, that affected how central his character's role became, since he is certainly the biggest name attached to the film. I would have actually been fine with Chris Hemsworth or another actor of his ilk playing a younger Joe, and us getting to see some of the charisma that attracted followers to him.

But the end result is that we have Dementus, who is a perfectly fine Mad Max villain, and quite entertaining at times! But not the most compelling antagonist you could give Furiosa.

The four Mad Max movies that feature Max go through an interesting evolution. In the first two movies, the villains are people "outside" society--criminals and roving gangs--and the people Max is defending are "civilization." So we have Mad Max where Max is a very fucked-up cop, and Road Warrior where Max is the prototypical western gunslinger, riding in to town to protect the settlement from an outside threat, but ultimately unable to accept any of the comforts of civilization for himself.

Then in Thunderdome and Fury Road, the dynamic switches. Now the antagonists are warlords and dictators. They are civilization. And the people Max ends up helping are trying to escape them.

To me, Dementus feels much more like the earlier kind of Mad Max villain. If there's another Mad Max movie I can most compare FMMS to, it's the first one. Dementus is Furiosa's Toecutter. (Kills her family, gives her her signature disabling injury, movie ends with her seeking revenge on him but it doesn't feel heroic or triumphant.) The whole end of FMMS when Furiosa is implacably hunting down Dementus? Extremely Mad Max 1.

But violent revenge holds a different symbolic place in Furiosa's story than it does in Max's. The end of Mad Max is a tragedy because Max tells us it is. He explicitly states, early in the movie, that he needs to stop being a cop or he'll become no different than the violent criminals he's pursuing. So he leaves his job and goes on an extended weird vacation with his wife and child, trying to get away from the violence of a collapsing society. But that violence finds him anyway, and by the end of the movie, Max has become the exact thing he said he didn't want to be. It's a tragedy not because the people Max kills in revenge for killing his family don't deserve it, but because seeking violent sadistic revenge is damaging to Max. That is not what he needs in order to heal from the loss of his wife and child. What he needs is to take the risk of human connection again. This is what he starts groping toward in the following two movies and fully realizes in Fury Road.

But Furiosa doesn't have the same arc. Her story in Fury Road is about how a few people struggling against their oppressor can be the catalyst that brings down a whole regime. Furiosa getting to rip Joe's face off is fucking satisfying, and it's supposed to be! So it's a bit weird, then, to spend an entire movie giving her a backstory that not only is not about Joe at all, but implies that seeking and getting revenge against Dementus for killing her mother and Jack is what made her into the person we see in Fury Road.

Aside from questions of revenge, what I thought Furiosa's goal was going to be is set up in the beginning of the movie. "No matter what happens, find your way home." Very clear objective there. And then we see her try to get home like, 1.5 times. I thought we were well set up to follow the tried and true film story format of "simple goal, big obstacles, high stakes." I wanted to see her trying over and over again to get home, and being thwarted in different ways every time. I wanted to see grief and guilt over her mother's death turn her mother's last command into a mission for which she would sacrifice anything (and anyone) else. I wanted to see her justify working for Joe and accumulating power in the violent world of the Citadel as what she has to do in order to get home. I wanted to see "Have you done this before?" "Many times." But we didn't really get that either.

Ultimately, I think the least frustrating way to think about the film--which the film itself encourages--is as one of many possible Wasteland legends about a character called Furiosa. Maybe it happened this way. Maybe it didn't. Maybe this is the Furiosa we see in Fury Road. Maybe it isn't. It all depends on how much you believe of the History Man's tales.

[transvampireboyfriend]

part 1 - part 2 - part 3 - part 4 - part 5 - part 6 - part 7 - part 8

"I'm just saying, if the heat bothers you so much, you could cut your hair" Nancy points out, after declining Eddie's pleas for her spare scrunchie.

Robin sits on Nancy's lap, clutching the back of Steve's seat and she looks at Steve through the side mirror like she's afraid that he's about to go on a mission to defend Eddie's honor or something but Steve rolls his eyes at her. He's not that gone.

Or at least he knows how to hide it well.

Eddie's lost several of Nancy's favorite hair accessories and two weeks ago she bowed to never lend him any ever again.

Which, does not stop Eddie from asking her anyway at least once a day.

But the point is, even if Steve wanted to, Eddie's honor cannot be defended in this situation.

Nancy's leaning behind Argyle's back now to glare at the metalhead. Steve can see them in the rearview mirror.

Eddie gasps "I would never" he says, clutching his chest dramatically.

Steve secretly breathes a sigh of relief.

Johnathan chuckles at the wheel. "But you could" he comments, eyes on the road.

Steve can see Argyle subtly laughing and shaking his head out of the corner of his eye.

Today is a rare occasion, Jonathan is driving them in Steve's car.

The goal of Steve's rant earlier about having to drive them everywhere was to get Eddie to drive them, so Steve could sit shotgun and watch Eddie drive.

Instead, Jonathan had offered first and then Steve couldn't go in the backseat because he's in charge of their map.

But whatever, this is fine too. He trusts Jonathan and it is nice to get a break and to be able to fully turn around when he's talking to someone in the backseat.

"Jon, I would lose all my sex appeal, you don't get it" Eddie answers, getting a box of Twinkies from one of the many bags they packed and placed on the floor of Steve's car.

"I get it" Argyle chimes in, watching Eddie pull out a Twinkie and shaking his head no when Eddie offers him one.

"You'd still be sexy with short hair" Robin comments from her seat on Nancy's lap.

Everyone turns to look at her.

"What?" she shrugs "I can say that"

Nancy chuckles into her shoulder.

Steve opens their map again to stop thinking about Eddie's 'sex appeal', even as the guy is excitedly munching on a Twinkie in the backseat of Steve's car.

He's got cream in the corner of his mouth and he clearly put more in his mouth than he can comfortably chew. He's leaning one elbow on Argyle's shoulder, his hand holding half a Twinkie, his other hand holds his mop of hair up in a high bun, causing his cut off tank to sit barely covering his nipples, his tattoos on display and his armpit hair fully visible.

Steve's fairly certain nobody else in this car would get it, but to him the sight is mouth watering. The guy is practically irresistible.

"I don't think i would've gone on even half the dates I've gone on if i didn't have my hair" Steve muses, for something to say and to add to Eddie's point, even though he agrees with Robin.

Almost everyone answers with agreeable noises, except Eddie and Robin.

Robin snorts and says "You are relentless"

While Eddie says "You don't get dates for your hair" at the same time. In a tone that suggests he thinks this is an obvious thing.

"I mean- it doesn't hurt" provides Nancy, she sends Steve an apologetic look but Steve waves her off. It's a compliment as far as he's concerned, he loves his hair.

Eddie finishes his treat and opens a new one while everyone else gives their opinions.

"For a lot of people, hair is a big part of attraction" Jonathan is saying, trying to seem like he's not speaking from experience.

"Especially hair as luscious as Steve's" Argyle agrees, leaning forward to lightly comb the side of Steve's hair, making him laugh.

"Thanks, man" Steve says overlapping Eddie's response.

"And I agree!" he exclaims "I'm saying he doesn't get dates because of his hair." Eddie goes on, waving his new Twinkie around for emphasis. "People throw themselves at Steve, and always will, but it's not because of his hair" he repeats.

Steve feels his cheeks heat up but still asks "Then why?"

"Well, because you're very pretty!" Eddie answers easily, like everyone should already know this.

Steve keeps his eyes carefully trained on the map, like he needs to study it meticulously, right this moment, while they're in the middle of a highway.

His cheeks are burning up and he can feel it spreading to his ears.

"And that's if they don't know you!" Eddie continues "If they do know you they know you're kind and brave and strong ...and generous and funny. Who wouldn't want all that in a date?" Eddie finshes.

Oh I don't know, you? Maybe? Do you? Steve thinks.

"Even bald, people would still go crazy for you" Eddie adds, his words slightly muffled towards the end as he shoves almost all of the new Twinkie in his mouth but apparently thinks better of it, biting all but a small piece.

"Here. You want the rest of this?" Eddie offers Steve, talking through his mouthful, and presenting the small piece with his ringed fingers, right in front of Steve's face.

Without thinking, Steve leans forward and takes it with his mouth, his lips burning where they touched Eddie's fingers.

As Eddie retrieves his hand Steve realizes what he just did and how quiet the car got.

He sends Robin a panicked look through the side mirror as Jonathan awkwardly clears his throat.

"Argyle's got nice hair" Robin tries.

The car immediately fills up with enthusiastic agreement and Steve slowly breathes out.

He can't bring himself to look at Eddie as he chews on his bite. He practically licked Eddie's fingers. Unprompted! The guy probably meant for Steve to grab the treat and then eat it. If he even accepted it at all!

Steve feels like an idiot and he frowns at the map again, willing himself to ignore the goosebumps in his arms and the tickling on his lips.

He doesn't see Eddie worriedly staring at him for the remaining of their conversation, until Nancy takes pity on him and offers up her spare scrunchie to distract him.

part 2

[loves4ge]

celebrity!au, mlist for more celebrity gojo

you're not sure what to do with gojo satoru. not after your agent asks if you'd be in a publicity stunt centered around him. you've never done one before; after all, you're only an up-and-coming star.

before this movie, you were considered a nobody, just someone to fill in the background. you'd heard horror stories, absolute bloodbaths on set, rumors of things that happened that violated the geneva conventions. you suppose you were lucky to end up starring in a movie with a cast that was nothing short of nice.

and then there's gojo, your on-screen love interest. an a-list celebrity. he's been on the cover of every major magazine at least once. and maybe you sort of admire him (you'd never tell him that; his ego is already through the roof). i mean, who could blame you?

but right now, you're rethinking everything. sure, you're an actor, and a pretty darn good one, but you're inexperienced. your heart hasn't been hardened by the industry yet. if you take this opportunity, you know you'll get absolutely wrecked. really? fake dating gojo satoru?

your agent looks at you expectantly. "we won't go through with it if you don't want to. we're only doing this because of sukuna's dui, but the publicity team can come up with something else."

you don't really like sukuna; he has scary eyes. but there's something warm about him when he interacts with yuji. you feel bad.

"i'll do it."

BREAKING NEWS: GOJO SATORU AND CO-STAR Y/N ANNOUNCE THEY'RE DATING A WEEK BEFORE THE RELEASE OF THEIR NEW MOVIE.

"that's a wordy headline, isn't it?" gojo mutters, mostly to himself, as he sips on an iced latte. it's so white, it could be mistaken for milk.

"show me?" you ask softly, seated across from him in the mostly empty cafe. the paparazzi are obvious with their pictures, and you both strategically sit in places where you can be photographed.

gojo flips his phone around to show the article, stilling when your fingers brush against his hand as you take the phone from him. he shakes it off quickly and returns to his latte.

"oh wow, this is ridiculous. they think i've been dating you since the start of filming." you look up at him with big, round eyes and a smile as soft as clouds (gojo isn't sure where that analogy comes from; he's never touched a cloud).

"well, is it really that ridiculous?" his murmur is low as he leans back in his chair. he thought you were pretty from the start. did he come off as arrogant? oh no, now he'll never stop thinking about this.

"hm?" you look up, since you didn't hear his murmur clearly. he waves you off. and then you remember.

"um, you know, oh i feel so awkward saying this," your hesitation makes him straighten. his eyes are narrowed in concern, hands reaching out in comfort but never quite touching you.

"you can tell me anything, you know that," he says, maintaining eye contact with you which is hard considering you're trying to look anywhere but him.

"i was just, i know we have to kiss... at some point. but i would just, erm, i would like a heads up before. oh, well, before you do kiss me." gojo felt his heart explode about three times in the time it took you to finish that sentence. and his grin doubled. it stretched ear to ear like a goddamn cheshire cat.

you were still looking down, fidgeting with your hands when gojo dragged his chair to be nearer to you.

"hey? this is the heads up by the way." you barely have any time to react. you're about to protest, say something, anything when his lips touch yours.

it's a gentle touch. you've kissed him before, on set, but never like this. yeah, this is a performance too but it felt too real. there's no director counting down to time the kiss and the cameras are too far away for you to even notice them.

his hands tighten against your waist, and yours somehow make it to the back of his neck. then upwards, in his hair. he bites your lower lip, and you gasp, almost pulling back but he pulls you back in harder. this time his kiss is not so gentle.

the press is gonna have a field day with this.

[hxnbi]

「 FALLING FOR YOU 」

synopsis: who fell first and who fell harder

characters: itadori yuji, fushiguro megumi, gojo satoru, okkotsu yuta

ITADORI YUJI ➽ he fell first, and he fell harder

Let's be honest, this poor boy has gone through so much. And to have someone who reciprocates his feelings? He felt like he was on cloud nine when he learned that you thought the same thing; "I love you too, Yuji." So much so that he made you repeat it again and again until he was forcefully pulled away by Megumi and Nobara, as you were too overwhelmed by Yuji's... several confessions?—practically busy exploding in joy yourself to configure another thought.

Nothing in the entire world could be better than being with you for the rest of his life, and he made sure that you knew that there were no doubts.

Whatever or whenever it was, Yuji was at your beck and call. You may as well have compared him to a golden retriever-like boyfriend, because that was exactly what it was. He was so incredibly touched that you reciprocated his feelings, so much so that he wanted you to know for sure that he was devoted to you and only you. And in that regard, he indeed succeeded.

FUSHIGURO MEGUMI ➽ you fell first, and you fell harder

No one, not Gojo, Yuji, Nobara, or even yourself—would've ever expected you to fall in love with such an aloof person, that person being the stone that is Fushiguro Megumi. Something that intrigued you from the moment you met him. It was shocking, and honestly, even refreshing, to see Megumi smiling. His stoic demeanour in saying practically anything, regardless of its seriousness, and his piercing, borderline terrifying gaze hid a plethora of emotions beneath that impassive tone of his, and try as you might, you couldn't help but feel drawn to him.

But as much as Megumi loved you, he also kept his distance from you. And that pained you to think that perhaps Megumi really didn't care about you as much as you thought—that is, until you realized the reason for why. He just didn't want you to be in danger. He tried to keep you far away from him, but for that reason alone, you found yourself falling harder and harder for the boy who had captured your heart. All that he did, the danger that he put himself under, was for you. And before you even knew it, you found yourself hopelessly in love with the person who had now become the centre of your world.

GOJO SATORU ➽ you fell first, and he fell harder

At first, it was just a tiny crush. Perhaps even a little more. Because, let's be real, who wouldn't be at least somewhat attracted to the strongest sorcerer? At first, that's what you thought. There was no way that someone as powerful as Gojo Satoru would pay attention to an average sorcerer like yourself, right? Wrong.

As Utahime and Megumi would say with utter conviction, Gojo can be an arrogant bastard at times. He's aloof, confident, and charismatic, but he's also just an individual—just an everyday human being. You were the one who truly understood him. You loved him for who he was—not for superficial reasons the rest of his world saw, but because he was a guy whose heart was genuine.

And he found himself falling for you, truly. He found himself loving and appreciating every part of you. To have someone so genuine, so open, unlike him, forced to view himself as merely "the strongest." He felt as though he could be weak around you. He fell hard for you and only you, and that would never change. Anything less would be a betrayal of your love.

OKKOTSU YUTA ➽ he fell first, and you both fell harder

I'd like to think that Yuta, for sure, has thoughts that he doesn't deserve to have you. So he stares from a distance. Everything that he did, the life that he lived, was cursed to a degree that nobody saw when he dared to acknowledge. He thought that you didn't deserve that. But even as he muttered those words to you that day, you looked at him—not with fear, not with disgust, not even with pity, but with sympathy and love.

His vulnerability, even when he was at his lowest, was undeniable. But that made you even more determined to help him—to be that person that Yuta could, for once in his life, lean on without reservation. His timid yet endearing personality drew you in, despite the darkness that surrounded him. But, unbeknownst to you, he had already fallen for you.

Yuta was enthralled, captivated—enchanted even—by all the kindness you showed him from the very moment he laid eyes on you. The way you would act like he was just an average person, regardless of the circumstances. He loved you for who you were, and you were the same.

©hxnbi. please do not modify, edit, copy or reproduce any of my works.

[hyunniesgirl]

Bad intentions | Part 1

Pairing: nerd!Han Jisung x popular!reader(afab)

Summary: you thought you could turn Han Jisung into the perfect boyfriend material so you can get revenge on your cheating ex. Little did you know that you would end up getting much more than just a guy to show off.

Genre: fluff, angst, smut(for the story in general, this part has no smut)

Words count: 8,056

Slightly inspired in the movie She's All That

*This is the second fic to my series Love is a mess. The stories can be read as standalones but they are all connected so some details mentioned may sound off.

Disclaimer: Jisung is proud asf, OC has kind of a sad backstory and has anxiety(not explored very deeply but there are descriptions of her symptoms), this part is just suggestive so no smut

Part 2

This story is NSFW and is going to have +18 themes so MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

A/N: okay for the sake of the plot let's pretend for a moment that Han Jisung can be considered anything other than smocking hot, alright?

A/N²: My idea was for all the stories from this series to be oneshots but I just kept writing and writing and this one was almost 13k already and I haven't even gotten to the good part so I thought "I almost never read anything over 10k" so I split the oneshot for the sake of my readers attention span.

Jisung likes to think that he's better than all the guys fawning over you, he likes to think that even if he had a chance, he'd never lust over you. But well, sometimes a strong denial turns out to be an implicit affirmation.

It all started in social studies, he was trying to go over his notes for the test but the conversations happening at the same time didn't let him pay any attention to what was written in the sheets. There were five different conversations happening at the same time, but they all had the same subject: you.

Apparently, you had a boyfriend who cheated on you with a girl from a rival university? Or some trivial shit like that. Jisung doesn't understand why that matters to anyone but you and the said boyfriend. He doesn't understand why everyone feels like such a painful experience is any of their business. But he guesses it comes with the job.

Everyone knows you, you're the classic cheer captain, who dates — or dated — the infamous quarterback in the football team. People envy you, cherish you, they want to be you and he always thought they loved you, but after hearing so many snarky comments about you in the last 20 minutes, he's actually starting to pity you.

You wanted to kill him, Seunghoon, that bastard. He destroyed a relationship of a year just to get in someone's pants? Fucking idiot. You hate him so much for cheating on you, but you hate him the most for not showing up kneeling at your door and asking for forgiveness. Who does he think he is? He would never have gotten his position on the football team if it wasn't for you, everyone knows that.

It's an understatement to say you are always the best in everything you put your mind into and if you're not the best by nature, you work hard until you become the best. You are smart, pretty, popularity is your thing, you're used to getting everyone's attention wherever you go. Everyone loves you, or at least they pretend well enough.

So when you started dating this guy, who was a nobody it was pretty shocking for everyone else. You turned him into the most popular guy so he could stay by your side, so you expected a little bit of loyalty from him. Guess that was expecting too much from a horny dog like him.

You did love Seunghoon, you wouldn't have dated him for a year if you didn't. But his character was always questionable, that, you won't deny. There's that saying that love makes you blind but you knew that he's no good and yet stayed with him, that's on you.

You can't stand the pity looks people give you when you walk down the hallway, they could at least pretend they are not talking shit about you behind your back.

To think the semester has only just started, you wish you could take a year off to make sure things die down nicely. But if you do, you'll definitely lose your position as cheer captain, there are too many people willing to get rid of you so they can get your title.

It's best for you to try and get rid of these thoughts, so you hold your head high turning on a corner, decided to pretend everything is okay. That's when you bump into someone, dropping the books you have in your hands and your phone screen down on the floor, gasping immediately, the last thing you need right now is a broken phone.

When you lean over to collect your things, the person who bumped into you does the same, going for the phone at the same time and touching hands with you. A strange wave of electricity makes your whole body shiver by that touch, making you snap your head in the direction of the person.

You know him. He's one of the members of 3racha, a music group everyone loves. Curiously, this is the first time you have seen him outside of a presentation. He's clearly different from the other members, wearing baggy clothes and displaying a hair that's undeniable too long with some questionable choice of colors on it. You can't even really see his eyes, however, he has something about him that makes you refuse to take your eyes off him.

He grabs your book and phone, ignoring your shameless stare. Standing up and handing your things to you.

“Sorry, I can pay for your phone's repair”, he says and for the first time in a minute you can divert your eyes from him, looking at the screen, absolutely shattered and sighing.

“No, it's okay. I was the one who was distracted”, you smile, tucking your hair behind your ear. Why do you feel the sudden urge to flirt with him? He's not even your type. Or at least, that's what you think.

He hums, not really interested, taking a paper out of his bag and writing something on it.

“Here, this is my number if you change your mind”, he gives you the paper, saying goodbye and disappearing somewhere in the hallway.

When you finally meet Seunghoon, he doesn't even apologize, actually, he doesn't look regretful at all. He has a smug smile, as if what he did is not serious, as if he's better than you now.

You always had a thought in the corner of your mind that maybe he had some kind of inferiority complex when it came to you, but you didn't think he would go as far as to cheat on you just to prove he is better in some way.

“You don't harbor hard feelings, right?” He smirks, chin up. “I know you're much better than me, I'm sure you won't mind what happened and we can still be friends”, he's mocking you, you recognize that tone.

You're grasping the fabric of your skirt under the table, did he really pull you away from your practice to say this? The audacity of this man.

“Of course I don't mind”, you smile kindly, acting as unbothered as you possibly can. This is something you learned in so many years of having eyes on you all the time: pretend. You won't give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry or even get mad. If you are able to pretend you don't care at all about him, that's what you're gonna do.

“I'm glad-”, his smile falters a bit, you are sure he expected you to break. That shows how little he knows about you, you would never make a scene in public.

“Actually, I'm even seeing someone else already”, you blurt out, trying to make him more baffled and it works, he frowns and the look of confusion in his face is priceless.

“Well, that's great for you”, Seunghoon clears his throat, trying to regain his composure. “We should definitely go on a double date sometime”

“Of course, I'd love that”, you nod, standing up. “I'll be going now, but it was great seeing you”, you lie, turning around and walking back to the gymnasium.

When it sinks in what you just did, you want to hit your head against the wall. What the hell was that? Why would you even tell him you're seeing someone when you're not? For fucksake, you're sure he's too proud to let this go, he'll try to find out who it is that you're seeing and when he finds out you lied, you'll be done for, faced with utter humiliation again.

“Why would you tell him you're seeing someone?” Mina asks, looking at you like you are the dumbest person alive, and honestly, you do feel like that at the moment.

“I don't know”, you cry out, “I guess I wanted him to feel miserable”

“And look where that got you”, Miyeon says, worriedly.

“I know, I'm an idiot”, you tell them and your friends nod, making you glare at them. “Well, I guess I'll just have to find a new boyfriend”, you say, dreadfully.

“You know it's not that easy”, Mina says, “you built Seunghoon from the scratch to the guy he is today, it won't have the same effect if you get just anybody that people already see everyday, it has to be shocking”

“Well, I don't know”, you sigh, “is there even someone like that here?”

“I don't know”, Miyeon says, “you need someone charming, someone who people can't take their eyes off”

“It won't be good if he's already known, it should be someone who's usually invisible”, Mina completes.

You sigh, there's only one person you can think of who instantly fits that description.

“What about him?” Miyeon takes you out of your thoughts, pointing to someone behind you. “Isn't he part of 3racha?”

“I mean, he fits what we are looking for”, Mina says.

You turn around, finding the guy you bumped on a few days ago sitting at the table behind you, you're sure you can remember his name if you just try a little harder. He's sitting with Changbin, the other guy from 3racha who is kind of your friend.

“But is there something for you to do there?” Mina looks at him with squinted eyes, trying to see how you could improve him.

“He's cute”, you check him out shamelessly, nodding to yourself.

“I'm not sure if you could make Seunghoon jealous with cuteness”, she shrugs.

“He's not just cute”, you bit your bottom lip, thinking hard. “He could use a different haircut and maybe a new wardrobe but I see a lot of potential in there”

“Well”, Mina sighs in defeat, “let's make a bet them”

“Are you in middle school?” You ask her, rolling your eyes.

“If you can make Seunghoon regret cheating on you, I'll give up on trying for cheer captain next semester”, she ignores your question, stretching her hand for you to shake it.

“As if you were going to win anyway”, you joke.

Of course she could win, Mina is your best friend and also the best dancer you know, she could easily steal your position if you didn't try so hard to keep it, so you do what you have to do, shaking her hand even though you don't have a good feeling about it.

It's been a few days since you decided to make Jisung your new boyfriend, you just haven't figured out how to approach him. For starters, you can't even find him in this damn university, how the hell can a member from a trio as popular as 3racha just walk around without being noticed? That's a mystery you'll have to solve later.

“Jisung? Why would you want me to set you up with him?” Changbin asks, confused.

“Well, I find him cute”, you shrug, that's not a lie.

“He's not your type, he's totally different from Seunghoon”, he stares at you with a brow raised, sipping from his drink.

“Why would I want someone like Seunghoon? My reputation is almost ruined because of that guy”, you say.

“You got a point”, Changbin sighs, “let me talk to him first”, he can feel something is up but with all the mess happening in his life already, he doesn't have the energy to dig any deeper.

Jisung stares at his friend for about five minutes, no words being said. Why would someone like you want to go out with someone like him?

He's pretty popular because of 3racha, but not near as popular as you or your friend group. Everyone knows he's an awkward guy, when he's on stage his personality changes, he's confident, it feels great, like he could conquer the world, but when he goes back to real life, he just doesn't feel the need to be perceived. Jisung doesn't have a reason to be popular outside of the stage, he's fine with being invisible.

“So, what do you think?” Changbin asks.

“I don't know”, Jisung shrugs.

“Think carefully, it's not everyday that someone like y/n wants to go on a date with an ordinary guy”, the older one insists.

Well, maybe he likes being ordinary. He always thought he wouldn't be like those guys who would do anything for a pretty girl, now it's his chance to prove it.

“You can tell her that I appreciate the thought, but I don't think it's a good idea”, Jisung says, confidently. Even though he wants to punch himself after saying it.

Changbin sighs.

“If you're sure about it”, he shrugs, standing up and walking to the kitchen.

What if he's just letting his prejudice get in the way of meeting someone nice? He sighs to himself, there's nothing he can do about it now.

Well, that's unexpected. Did you go so low as to be rejected by just anybody? How could Jisung not even accept a single date with you? Are you ugly? No, you're sure it's not that. Are you boring? It's not that either, of course. You don't think there's a single thing that would make him turn you down. Maybe you're not his type? No, you're everyone's type.

You won't give up, though. Han Jisung has too much potential for you to just leave him be, you're sure you can make him be even better than Seunghoon ever was. So you march to social studies, you asked Changbin who reluctantly told you that Jisung takes that class.

You enter the classroom earning a few glances, smiling kindly at the people you know and introducing yourself to the ones you don't.

Jisung is seated in the corner, writing something on his notebook, earbuds on. You walk up to him, sitting by his side and waiting for him to notice you, which doesn't take long. He feels a presence too close to him, making him turn to look at you.

He frowns, taking his earbuds slowly, trying to process your present so close to him.

“How can I help you?” He asks and you tilt your head, he's even cuter up close.

“I heard you turned me down”, you say, leaning over the desk to watch him.

“Yeah, sorry”, he shrugs nonchalantly, hurting your pride even more. He should feel at least a bit apologetic, shouldn’t he?

“What do I have to do for you to go out with me?” You push more. You even came here looking for him, you're not going to be discouraged just by a bit of indifference.

“Why do you want to go out with me anyway?” He frowns, it’s not that he doesn’t want to say yes, it’s just that every time that he feels tempted to actually lust over you his pride gets a little more hurt, did you think there was no chance of you being rejected by him?

“Well, I like you. You're cute”, you tell him as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

“You don't even know me”, he scoffs, ignoring the fact that you called him cute.

“That's exactly why I want to go out with you, dummy. So I can get to know you better”, you smile, knowing he won't be able to get out of this situation without telling you why he won't go out with you.

“Well, you’re not my type”, he clears his throat, adjusting himself on his seat and trying to sound convincing, you’re clearly everyone’s type. “And I don’t think we would have much to talk about”

You’re going to fight him on this, argue that you’re a very interesting person that can talk about a lot of things, but the professor enters the classroom, eyeing you and tilting his head in confusion, since you passed this class last semester.

“I’m going to let it go for now”, you stand, “but don’t think you’re getting rid of me”, you huff, walking out of the class. He sure is stubborn, but you’re more.

Jisung feels like he's in those movies with a stalker following him around. You know, when the protagonist is sure that someone is watching them but every time they look around there's no one there? Except that in his case, you're always there. Every place he goes has you in it, glaring at him.

You're not actually glaring at him, even though he thinks you're. You're just shocked that he still hasn't come around to accepting going out with you, so you have to stare at him because you have to understand him. Why is he so different from the other guys? Of course you don't think you're better than anyone, but since news of your break up with Seunghoon broke out, your phone has been blowing up with texts from guys you didn't even know had your number, saying weird things and asking you out. So why is the only person you want to hear from, not giving a shit about you?

You ask Changbin's help but he refuses to meddle anymore than he already has, saying that he knows your intentions are not entirely good so he won't help anymore.

“Did you know we have a class with your new crush?” Mina says while looking at herself in the mirror of the clothes store you're visiting.

“What?” You take your eyes out of your phone to look at her, you have been staring at your screen for thirty minutes, trying to fight the urge to just call Jisung. He gave you his number so you could charge him with the repair of your broken phone but you already had it fixed, maybe you could use that little incident to your advantage.

“We have French with him, you chose Spanish, right?” Miyeon asks, looking around to see if she likes anything.

“Are you for real?” You ask and she looks at you, nodding. “Do you think there are still open spots in your class?” You ask, lost in thoughts.

“You're not going to switch classes just so you can get close to him, right?” Mina turns around to look at you, a brow raised in questioning. “Right?” She presses after you don't answer.

“I kinda prefer French though”, you smirk, standing up. “The school's office is still open now, isn't it?” You ask and both of your friends exchange looks, sighing and shaking their heads, sure that you're a lost cause.

It was not difficult to switch classes, you used up all your charm with the office’s secretary so she wouldn't argue too much about it. You just need a warm smile, some tiramisu and to compliment her nails.

You enter the class smiling victoriously, seeing your friends seated side by side and finding Jisung sitting alone in the back. You waltz over there, putting your things on the desk and sitting by his side.

Jisung takes a deep breath, side eyeing you for a moment.

“Are you serious right now?” He sighs, “you know you can't just keep coming to my classes, right? That's lowkey stalking”, he argues, making you chuckle.

“I don't know what you're talking about”, you shrug, “I'm enrolled in this class”, you tell him, pulling a paper with your schedule printed on it and showing it to him. “This is the only spot available”

He looks around to check, biting his bottom lip, embarrassed. He should have checked before assuming things but that doesn't change the fact that you have been around him too much lately.

“Okay”, he sighs, fidgeting on his seat.

“If I'm really making you uncomfortable I can find somewhere else to sit”, you say, even though you want to make him give in and accept to go out with you, you don't want him to feel genuinely bothered by you.

Jisung on the other hand feel likes he can give in at any moment, the second time he saw you looking at him he wanted to stand up and just go to you, telling you he would accept to go out with you, fuck his pride.

“It's okay”, he clears his throat, “You can sit whatever you want”, he says, making you smirk.

“I mean, are you sure?” You lean in his direction, glancing at his lap.

Jisung chokes immediately, coughing so much he thinks he's going to die, you didn't mean what he thinks you do, right?

Class starts before you can mess with him a little bit more, you didn't think you would have so much fun teasing someone.

Jisung stands up and leaves as soon as the professor says the class ended, he doesn't want to stay close to you for a minute more. He couldn't pay attention to class because your scent kept coming his way. He would glance at you and you wouldn't even be acknowledging him, paying 100% of attention in class. It did make him upset that he didn't seem to cause the same reaction in you as you do to him.

Except that, as stated before, you're very good at pretending. You really wanted to tease him every time you caught him staring at you, you could see everything he was doing with your peripheral vision and you wanted to giggle with every time he pouted while looking at you.

That's proof enough for you that not being his type it's not the reason why he's reluctant to go out with you but you didn't even think about the possibility of him not liking girls at all.

“As far as I know, he does like girls”, Changbin tells you. “I'm not sure about guys though, maybe he does too?”

“Well, that's good then”, you sigh, crossing your arms and nodding to yourself, lost in thoughts.

Changbin stares at you for a moment, with a brow raised. “Binnie, can't you help me out? Just this once” You plead again, giving him puppy eyes.

“Nope, I'm not sure what your intentions are but what I know is that you don't do things without a reason”, he shakes his head.

You sigh, poking the inside of your cheek with your tongue, you know how to convince Changbin but it's the first time in your life that you have to resort to such dirty methods.

“You know, I met someone really nice one of these days”, you tell him, smiling friendly. “She's really cute and she has been helping me in a class we have together”, Changbin glares at you. “I think you know her, but she doesn't seem to like you at all…” You pout, making a show.

“What are you trying to say?” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I'm trying to say that if you help me out, I can do the same”, you shrug, “you have so many virtues, Binnie, I'm confident I can make her see you in a different light”

You can at least try to convince her that Changbin is a good guy even though she's absolutely sure that he's bad news.

“Are you saying I should sell out my best friend so you can help me?” You see Changbin hesitate and that's when you push a little more.

“Come on, it's not like I'll do something awful to him”, you say, “I just want one date”

He sighs, nodding.

“Okay, alright”, he grunts. “I'll help you out just this one time and that's it”

“You're the best!” You say, clapping your hands excitedly.

This is definitely not how you thought the help would happen. The sun is burning your skin and the giggles of people around you are making you stressed. A pool party, why did he think this was going to be a good idea?

Just because you're at the same party as Jisung it doesn't mean you'll get a chance to talk to him or even accomplish your goal but even though the odds are against you, you are still going to try.

The day is too hot, the pool is bustling with people and you're uncomfortable in your bikini. In most days you love your body, you think you're pretty just the way you are but sometimes you have bad days, where you feel like everyone is staring at every single flaw you have.

You came to the party because you couldn't lose the opportunity but you can't see Jisung anywhere and your anxiety is only growing bigger. So as soon as you get the chance to escape, you do it. You wander around the frat house, looking for a place with no one, maybe Changbin's room is empty since he pretty much doesn't live in the house.

You walk up the stairs, swerving in the middle of the crowd who are talking and laughing with drinks in their hands, it's very overwhelming.

The corridor where the rooms are have less people, so you walk until the end to find Changbin's nameplate on the door. You knock twice to make sure there's no one there, the music in the pool is pretty loud so you can't hear if there are voices in the room but you wait a few seconds so people can get dressed if there is someone fucking there. You open the door slowly, finding the room empty. Hurrying inside and closing the door so no one sees you going in.

It's a pretty huge room with things that suit Changbin's personality to a T. There's gym equipment all over the place, a big bed in the middle, a door you can only guess leads to a private bathroom and a TV that you're not sure was ever used. But again, your friend only comes by the house once in a while since he lives in an apartment downtown with Chan and Jisung.

Changbin managed to convince Jisung that it would be a good way to promote 3racha if they threw a party and it didn't take much convincing to the frat president since that guy loves partying.

You sit by the bed, trying to take deep breaths. The burning sensation in your chest is easing a bit with the calm and silence of the room. Silence that is immediately interrupted by the door of the bathroom being opened, just to show a half naked Han Jisung coming out of there with just a towel wrapped around his waist.

You two stare at each other for a minute, both not sure what to do next, both frozen. You manage to stand up, turning your back to him, face burning with embarrassment.

“I'm sorry, I didn't know there was someone already here”, you clarify. “I- I knocked on the door”, you inform him as if that could change anything.

Jisung finds your reaction funny, he didn't take you for the shy type, who gets flustered by seeing a man like this.

“I was showering, I didn't hear the knock”, he says, walking to Changbin's wardrobe to get some clothes he leaves there for eventual emergencies since the frat house is closer than his house to the university.

“Yeah, I guessed that”, you gulp, trying to calm your beating heart. You didn't get to take a good look at him, but the little you did made you quite surprised. Jisung is pretty athletic and hot.

“You can turn around now”, he says. You do it slowly, still embarrassed.

“I'm sorry again”, you sigh.

“It's okay, it can happen”, he shrugs, sitting on the bed. He can't help but look at you too for a moment, you're wearing a deep green bikini that goes perfectly with the tone of your skin. You have a thin transparent shirt that doesn't leave much to the imagination making him bite his bottom lip. If you try to make a move on him again right now, he won't be able to say no.

However, his not very pure thoughts are interrupted by your uneasiness, shifting your weight from a leg to another, hands trying to cover your thighs. Did he look at you for too long? Did he make you uncomfortable? Jisung diverts his gaze from you immediately, he's always proud to say that he's not the same as the other guys who are just horny and nothing more, but look at him now.

“I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable”, he stands up, ready to leave the room, “I'm sorry”

“No, you didn't make me uncomfortable”, you say, taking a step closer to him to stop him from leaving. “I was already feeling not great”, you clarify.

“Did something happen?” He asks, worried.

“No- I-”, you stop yourself from talking more, why do you actually want to talk to him about your problems? You don't even know him. “I'm having a bad day, my self esteem is kinda low so I feel like everyone is staring at every single flaw I have”

Jisung stops for a moment, malfunctioning. His head tilting to the side as he stares at you with furrowed brows.

“Exactly which “flaws” are we talking about?” He asks, making quotes with his fingers.

“I don't know”, you glance down to your feet, feeling embarrassed. “There are so many girls here who are much prettier than me”, you sigh, “oh, I'm not jealous of them, they are great. I'm a huge activist of women hyping up other women”, you add quickly. “Usually I won't let myself compare to other people, but when I'm having one of these days I just can't help to think things like: is my hair pretty enough? Should I go on a diet? Maybe I should hit the gym more often so I can look like that”, you sigh, you sound ridiculous. You are supposed to make him want to go out with you, not scare him with all your insecurities.

Jisung stares at you for a few seconds, realization hitting him. So you're human too, he already knew that, but seeing the pretty and popular y/n come out of the pedestal people built for her, makes him believe that maybe you're very different from what he thought about you.

“I'm sure you don't need me to tell you this”, Jisung clears his throat, trying to not sound like an idiot, “but I think you're pretty and even though you may have some flaws, everyone has. I can assure you yours are not in your looks”

You feel your cheeks growing hotter, that's surprising, a guy never managed to make you blush.

“But you said I'm not your type”, you pout, seizing the opportunity to tease him.

“Well, I had to say something so you would stop coming after me”, he sighs, “clearly it didn't work”

“So, will you go out with me?” You ask, hopeful and he sighs.

“Why do you want to go out with me so badly?”

“I already told you, you're cute. Also, you make me feel at ease”, it's not a lie. Jisung is the first person other than your friends that effortlessly makes you comfortable.

“Fine”, he huffs, “I already gave you my number so just text me”, he tells you and you smile, is this finally happening? Did he finally say yes?

You planned a whole date in an amusement park, it's cliche for a first date, although you never really went on a date there. You have never done this before for any guy you dated, but there's something about Han Jisung, you just want him to like you.

He's waiting for you in front of the park, looking nervous while scrolling through his phone. You bend down a bit, tilting your head to make him notice you.

“Hey”, you smile waiting for his greeting that doesn't come. Jisung is not easily impressionable but you just leave him speechless every time, he always takes a few seconds to take in your beauty before his brain starts functioning again.

That's the reaction you wanted from him and you are glad you managed to get it. You spent almost four hours getting ready, changed outfits at least ten times and did and redid your makeup over and over. In the end, you chose a natural look. You put on a tight high waisted skirt, a tank top and sneakers since you would be walking a lot. Your hair is down and your make-up is light, so it won't get smudged by hot weather.

“H-hi”, Jisung says, trying to recompose himself, he's not sure if he should comment on how pretty you look or if that would make you uncomfortable.

He can't help but think that it's wrong of him to be there with someone like you, someone totally out of his reach.

“What should we do first?” You ask excitedly, it's been years since the last time you went to an amusement park with your family.

“I think we can walk for a bit and see what catches our attention”, he says and you nod, walking into the park.

There are so many people, Jisung can't help but notice how you're looking around like a child getting to know a new place.

“Do you come often to these kinds of places?” He asks.

“Hm, not really”, you answer, turning around to look at him. “The last time was when I was a child probably”

“Oh?” He frowns. “You seemed excited, I thought your ex boyfriend must have brought you here at least a few times”

“Yeah, well, he was not really the romantic type”, you shrug, a sad smile on your lips.

Jisung doesn't like that, you always look confident and happy, he doesn't want to see you sad again.

“He is an idiot then”, he avoids your gaze, looking around while speaking, “If I had a girlfriend like you, I would move heavens and earth to make her happy”

You feel your heart skip a bit, your cheeks growing warmer and in a few seconds your whole face is burning. You can't believe Han Jisung is making you blush again, saying these words that are messing with your heartbeat.

“Should we go to the haunted house?” You ask awkwardly, trying to change the subject, pointing to the building at the end of the park. You try not looking at him, not sure if your cheeks are still red.

He hums, not really understanding why you look so flustered, he's sure you must hear this kind of thing all the time.

You two enter the house, looking around while walking into the dark. You were very confident in the beginning, you love horror movies, but jump scares are really not your cup of tea and that's the problem. The moment a doll(you assume) holding a knife with a ghost face mask pops out of nowhere you jump… into Jisung's arms. The way his arms immediately wrap around you in a protective position does something to your heart and honestly you feel hot all over.

You didn't even notice the little scares he got, or how he squeezed you every time some scary character showed up. The only thing you noticed was his unexpected strong arms embracing you the whole time until you left the haunted house.

Jisung didn't want to let you go. The moment he felt the cold breeze touching his skin, he knew he had to step back, you are not scared anymore. But he just doesn't want to. You look fragile, shy, endearing. Jisung shakes his head, he shouldn't be thinking this, he thought he would be immune to your charms, but it turns out that he understands now why all those guys fawned over you.

He tries taking a step back, threatening to get away from you but you snuggle closer to him, a hand swinging fast to your shoulder so you could grip his hand in place.

“Can- can you keep holding me for a bit?” You ask awkwardly, not really wanting to look him in the eye.

You had no idea you missed being touched this much, you never noticed how cold Seunghoon’s touch was until you felt Jisung's warm hands on you. You're embarrassed for looking so fragile in front of him but not enough for you to let go, not at that moment.

“Yeah, sure”, he tells you, coming closer again and squeezing you against his chest. “Should we walk around for a bit?”

You nod, too lost in his scent to say anything.

Jisung felt strange for a moment. He's not used to letting his instincts take control, he's a very restrained guy. But he can't help but peek at your thighs when the skirt you're wearing rides up a bit, you're tiptoeing while trying to shoot the target with the water gun you have in your hands, like that would help you win.

“Do you really want that plushie?” He asks when you lose once more. “You could probably buy a better one with the money you're spending”, he points out and you pout.

“Where's the fun in that?” You cross your arms in front of your chest. “It's so much more exciting to win the prize”

Jisung finds you cute, you are just so different from all the rumors and how he thought you would be. Other than being someone who's high and mighty or arrogant, you're cute and funny.

Defeated, he sighs, paying for another round. This time he's the one trying.

It's difficult the first time. He never played this game so he has to get used to and understand how to win.

Jisung doesn't notice but you're not looking at the booth or to the target, you're looking at his face. He looks more handsome when he's focused, he has his lips pressed in a thin line and his grip on the water gun makes you shudder just thinking about how that grip would feel on you.

After a few tries, Jisung wins, asking you to choose what plushie you want.

“That one”, you point to the big quokka hanging in the wall. “It looks a bit like you”, you say when you get the plushie, lifting enough so you can compare it with Jisung.

“I'm cuter”, he pouts.

“Definitely”, you assure him, hugging your new plushie while Jisung’s ears grow hotter.

“Should we go to the ferris wheel?” He asks, looking at the time. It'll probably be your last ride since it's already late.

“Yes!” You jump excitedly, “I never had the chance before”, you say while you two walk in the direction of the big attraction.

“Not even when you were a child?” He asks, remembering you said that was the last time you went to an amusement park.

“My parents are not very fun to be around and my little brother was too young”, you say, shaking your head, “I was never very proficient in doing things by myself so I just didn't go”, you shrug.

Jisung feels that there's more to unpack into that topic, but he's not sure if you want to talk about it with him or right now. So he just slides his arm over your shoulder, surprising you by his bold move. You can feel your cheeks growing hot, are you blushing again?

When you hear the gears turning, excitement spreads all over your body but as soon as the cabin stops in the air, you're not so confident anymore.

“It's quite high, isn't it?” you say, looking down, feeling a little dizzy.

“Are you afraid of heights?” Jisung asks, panicked, seeing your face turning pale.

“No, of course not”, you shake your head frantically while shrinking in your seat, “I can't, I'm always at the top of the pyramid in our cheer stunts”, you tell him.

A sudden wave of air brushes over the cabin, making it shake slightly and you turn even more pale if that's even possible.

“You know it's different right?” He grabs you by the arm, pulling you closer to him. Jisung slides one of his hands on your waist, squeezing you close to him and with the other hand he cups your face, making you look at him. “Keep looking at me, you don't have to look down”

Jisung doesn't know why he feels this urge to protect you, of all the people he knows, you're probably the one he thinks needs the least protection. You keep staring at him, he is pretty, his lips are plump and inviting.

“Are you going to kiss me?” You ask when he licks his lips, huge doe eyes staring at him and waiting.

“Do you want me to?” He asks back, not really sure of what to do. Jisung is not certain, his heart is beating fast and his hands are sweating, you look so beautiful, so close to him.

So when you nod, he just loses control of every part of himself that was holding him back. He's sure after this, there's no going back, he's lost forever, but maybe he doesn't mind if it means it's you he's lost in.

His lips are soft, clumsily pressing against yours. You can tell he's unsure of how to proceed then why does his grip on you make you burn? He's squeezing your waist against his body like you're going to disappear if he doesn't hold you strongly and the hand he has cupping your cheeks, slowly slides to your hair, pulling it lightly, making you whimper.

In an instant his lips are not on yours anymore, he's trailing kisses down to your neck. You shiver, feeling his warm lips against your cold skin.

“Ah, Ji-Jisung”, you gasp when he bites your neck, sucking the area so deliciously it makes you bite your lips so you won't moan.

He hears your plea, kissing you once again and you notice you are the one that didn't know how to proceed. You've been squirming in his hands this whole time without touching him at all. You take a hand to his face, caressing his cheek and the other goes to his hip, pulling you even closer to him but before you can go further, the shake of the cabin going back down takes you out of your haze. You're in public, you had absolutely forgotten about that.

You stop the kiss, giving a peck on his lips before moving away. He looks disheveled, lips swollen and eyes searching for yours in an attempt to know exactly what you are thinking. Did you like it? Did you hate it? Now that he got a taste of something he should have remained oblivious to, he's not sure he'll be able to let go.

The ride home was awkward, to say the least. You are silent the whole time and Jisung is freaking out. He can't help but think he screwed up really badly. How the hell could he make you lose all interest with just a couple of kisses? Did he go too far by giving you a hickey? Maybe you don't like this kind of thing, you're a cheerleader after all, your image is important.

You on the other hand, have too many thoughts running through your mind, never did a man make you feel so desired with just a kiss. The way he embraced you so possessively was too much for you, Seunghoon never did anything like that. You were always the one searching for his touch, for some affection but it was never quite enough. His touches never really gave you what you wanted, you always thought it was weird, you thought maybe there was something wrong with you.

But how could Jisung make you feel so many things with a simple touch? A simple kiss? You're so lost in thoughts that you don't even notice when the car stops.

“We’re here”, Jisung says, not really looking at you.

You look at him, seeing him biting his bottom lip while squeezing the wheel.

“I had fun”, you tell him, shyly. His head snaps at you, a deep scowl on his face.

“You did?” He asks confused and you giggle, tilting your head.

“Yeah”, you bite your bottom lip, leaning over him without breaking eye contact. “I thought I made it clear by almost melting in your arms while you kissed me”, you tease, seeing his ears growing red.

“I thought maybe I did something wrong, you were quiet”, he looks at you waiting for some more reassurance.

“I'm sorry”, you cup his face, caressing his cheek, “it's been a long time since I felt the way you made me feel, I needed time to recover”, you tell him, pulling him in for a brief kiss.

“Wait, but what about-”

“That's what I'm telling you”, you chuckle, bitterly, “can you imagine feeling more in a night than you ever felt in a year with someone else? It really makes a girl think”

“Ah”, he nods, understanding what you're saying now. “Then, can I call you when I get home?” He asks eagerly, now that he knows that you did enjoy your time with him.

“I'd be mad if you didn't”, you give a peck on his lips, getting out of the car and walking to your front door, waving goodbye to him.

Walking into your empty house you come back to reality. For a moment, just a moment, while having fun with Jisung, you forgot how lonely you really are. It's always been like this, you're already used to it.

Your parents always wanted a boy, so it was disappointing for them when they had a girl. They tried for years to have a boy, getting more and more frustrated as time went by. You were five when they finally made it, their desired son was born and you were left aside.

It's not like they gave you any attention before, but after your brother was born, you were completely forgotten. The first time you went to an amusement park was when you were eight. It was your birthday and you begged them to take you there but in the end you couldn't really enjoy anything. Your brother was too little to play in anything and your parents didn't really want to play with you.

You feel a single tear run down your cheek but you shake your head, you shouldn't be doing that right now. You had fun with Jisung but that's that, you don't want another heartbreak the same as with Seunghoon.

You feel your phone buzzing, taking it out of your pocket to see Jisung's name lightening the screen and an involuntary smile grows on your lips, completely ignoring what you just thought.

“Hey, did you arrive safely?” You ask, walking up the stairs.

“Yeah”, he says, not sure why exactly he wanted to call you. He already said goodnight to you, did he want to hear your voice again? Why is he being so weird tonight?

“Okay, that's good”, you chuckle, putting the phone on speaker to start undressing.

Jisung sits in his bed, he knows you're probably tired but he doesn't want to hang up.

“What are you doing?” He asks, hearing the shuffle on the other side of the line.

“I'm changing”, you answer nonchalantly, not knowing how red his whole face turns the moment you finish saying that.

He doesn't say anything, making you look to the phone to check if he's still there.

“Want some pictures?” You ask playfully, making him choke on his own breath, coughing violently.

“No, I mean we- we just had our first date- I- I don't want you to think- it's too soon”, he rambles saying all that in half a second, making you laugh genuinely while you wander around your room.

You snap a picture of yourself, sending it to him and he freezes when he sees the notification. When he opens the text though, you're wearing a cute pajama with bees stamped on it, making him laugh too.

“You're cute”, he says and you stop in your tracks.

“It's been years since someone last called me cute”, you pout, sliding under your covers.

Jisung guessed that much, your type of beauty is not on the cute side. You have sharp features, most people could say you're on the sexy side and he would too, before tonight. Now, under the cover of a popular hot girl, he found a girl who's hot and popular but can be cute and funny too.

“Goodnight, y/n”, he says, throwing himself back in the bed.

“Goodnight”, you say, feeling your eyes heavy after hearing his goodbye.

Part 2

A/N: If you like what I write please reblog or let me know in the comments, feedback gives me motivation to keep writing.

[sevenofreds]

Angel revealing the exact wording of his contract with Valentino (and how he can take advantage of it) recontextualizes so much about his and Val's relationship, his friendship with Cherri (and why it's ultimately toxic for him despite them clearly caring a lot for each other), and his reasons for staying at the hotel.

(Buckle up bitches this is gonna be a long one and I spent way too much time thinking about it)

SO, according to Angel, he only has to do what Valentino says while at the studio. Pay attention to that wording. Not "while working". "While at the studio".

Val's rant to Vox implies that, before Angel moved into the Hazbin Hotel, he was basically LIVING in the studio, which means that, by the wording of their contract, Angel was Val's to control 24/7.

While it doesn't really recontextualize Val's whiny bitchbaby moment in episode 2 (because regardless of the contract's exact wording, he clearly wants to be in total control of Angel), it does give us more information about it; Val was upset that he couldn't physically MAKE Angel do any thing at any time anymore, and Angel KNEW that, too.

So why didn't he ever just leave before? That comes back to Val's treatment of him, and how he views himself (or at least DID view himself until his husband friend Husk came along). Val almost definitely got it into Angel's head that nobody would WANT to take him in or help him, which is (one of, at least) the reason why he didn't trust Charlie at first during the prequel comic.

He wasn't just staying at the hotel because it was rent-free; it was because, as long as he "played nice", he was free of Val outside of work.

It does seem like taking advantage of the wording like that goes both ways (Val can apparently extend his hours on a whim without breaking the contract), but if you wanted out of a situation like Angel's, you'd take anything you could get.

And then we move on to Cherri, and her relationship with partying compared to Angel's.

Cherri Bomb is an anarchist. A chaotic partygirl. She's not trying to escape from anything. She parties so hard because she ENJOYS it. It's her way of having fun, of recharging, and it seems like throughout most of episode 6, she thought that Angel was partying with her for those same reasons.

But as we learned in episode 4, that isn't the case. Angel gets drunk and high to escape, to forget how fucked up his situation is, to forget how much he hates and blames himself for being the way he is. And once he found a functioning support system, and people who cared about him beyond his persona, he didn't need that anymore. He learned to accept that yeah, his situation is fucked, and there's not much he can do...but that doesn't mean that there's NOTHING he can do. And he's not alone.

This leads us to view Cherri as a toxic friend towards Angel, at least until she sees that he's getting serious about the hotel; she's perfectly happy with what she does, and was only goading Angel into it because she thought he was, too (she would thrive in Beelzebub's scene if she were able to go there; Angel would fall into the same category as Blitzø). Once she saw for herself that wasn't the case, she said she was glad for him, and that she'd be there if he ever needs her.

It's evident by that point that they care deeply about each other. But Cherri lives a lifestyle that wasn't ever good for Angel Dust; for Anthony. And that's okay.

Whether he was truly aware of it or not, Angel needed friends. He needed a support system. He wanted to be better than he was. And even if he doesn't quite realize it yet...he's well on his way.

[polakina]

you can handle it

pairing: miguel o'hara x reader

rating: explicit

outline: on a mission to realign a disturbance, you start pushing Miguel's buttons, until something you say somethig that you didn't expect him to like, opening up a whole new avenue for you

warnings: cursing, fluff, smut, sub Miguel, outdoor sex, rough sex, oral (fem receiving), unprotected sex, creampies, begging, teasing, handjobs, choking

requests are open! hope you enjoy, petals <3

masterlist

II

You walked into the society, passing familiar faces as you went. Miles liked to call it the “clubhouse”, which you found rather entertaining, but it didn’t appeal to some as much. The leader of the society, Miguel, was one of these few who did not approve of Miles’ little clubhouse joke. The man could barely stand to be around him even on his good days. Which were rare. So very rare.

“Hey! Hey, yo, wait up.” You heard in the distance from behind you. Turning on your heel, you saw two figures in the distance jogging towards you. Hobie and Pav raced alongside one another to you. Reaching you, Pav hunched over, hands on his knees.

“Just gotta…jeez, I’m out of breath,” Pav wheezed, head facing the floor. You and Hobie looked to one another in amusement before looking at him.

“Man, come on. I’ve seen you swing through cities without getting out of breath,” Hobie chuckled.

“Old age getting to you early there, Pav?” You chuckled lightly, patting him on the back. “What are you guys running around here for anyway?” Pav rose up, standing straight. 

He pointed down the hall to your right, not where you were heading at all. “Miguel’s looking for you. Something about a disruption. He needs you. Now.” 

-

You were in the room before even Peter could sense your approach. His head spun like a spinning top, eyes wide. “Jesus,” he said, shock painting his face as he placed his hand over his heart. 

You rolled your eyes, “Calm down, Peter. You act as though I’m a bull barreling through the building.”

“With the speed you came through those doors, you might as well have been. What are you doing here?”

“She’s here for me.” Miguel’s voice came through the darkness of the room, loud and clear. He stepped up from the desk, walking over to the two of you. Well, three of you if you counted Mayday on Peter’s lap. Peter looked over to Miguel as he walked up to you both, stopping just before to table Peter was sat before. “We’ve got a job to do. I’ll brief you on the way.”

You rolled your eyes. “Always so serious, Miguel.”

“The safety of our universe isn’t serious?” He asked cocking an eyebrow.

“Of course it is!” Peter exclaimed standing, with Mayday curled in one arm, the other patting Miguel on the shoulder. “But you could at least look a little but happy when you say it. Maybe smile a little?”

Miguel just cast a very unhappy smile in Peter’s direction, rolling his eyes. “I don’t do smiling.”

You smirked. “Because he knows he’d look cute if he did.” Peter and Miguel both looked at you. Peter, with surprise, and Miguel with a rather blank stare, but his eyes lit up ever so slightly. “What? You saying that I’m wrong?” Nobody responded. “Fine,” you huffed. “Let’s get this done.”

-

It wasn’t a large, difficult task. Just a rogue spider diverting from her chosen path. Surely Miguel didn’t need you for this as well, it was certainly something he could have handled alone. 

You turned to look at him. He wore a simple jacket with a longsleeved black shirt underneath, as to not draw suspicion. You opted for a hoodie and black pants. Your suit remained on your body beneath, just in case. To anyone else, you were two normal people taking a stroll through New York, not two spiders on a job. 

“Miguel, why am I here?” You asked, cocking your head to the side, watching him turn to look at you, a blank stare on his face.

“We’re on a job,” he replied rather coolly, looking away curtly.

“You’re telling me you couldn’t handle this along? Not sure you could take her on all alone?” You teased, trying to push his buttons a little. It was fun, doing this. Teasing him and annoying him. Peter always warned you not to, for fear he’d snap at you. But he never had. He just tolerated it.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Aw, so you wanted some company?” You smiled up at him, walking in front of him so he had to look at you. “And of course, I’m the best company you could think of. That’s adorable, Miguel.”

His heart skipped a beat as he cast a glance down at you. “Clearly, you overestimate our friendship,” he mumbled, almost a whisper. 

“But it is a friendship we share, no?” You asked, raking your finger down his chest. You felt his heartbeat quicken under your touch. Oh, this was fun. He was quick to look away, blinking a few times. He was…at a loss for words, to be honest. He couldn’t look at you right now. Not until his heart had calmed and his thoughts of you had left his mind. Until your touch didn’t linger and your words didn’t stick to him like glue. 

“Let’s finish this job,” he said, looking out ot the street in search of the rogue spider. “Then we never need to talk about what we share, or what we don’t.” He then walked past you, and you followed. What you didn’t share? What was that supposed to mean?

-

It was simple as anything could be. The rogue spider had let spare a few men who were caught in the crossfire of an outbreak downtown. She had a bad sense about them, but since they had not committed anything violent or dangerous, she saw no reason to bring them to justice. They claimed to be mere witnesses to the disaster, but they had lied. They were the men behind it all, selling out their own men to save their own backs. They had to be brought to justice or they risked derailing the tire canon timeline.

It wasn’t hard. The spider seemed nervous at first, her defences up and her trust wavered and thin. But she eventually understood, capturing the men with yours and Miguel’s help and binding them to the front door of the police station to be picked up at sunrise.

The sun began to rise over the tallest buildings in the city, setting a bright illuminating glow over the streets, over the park, over the people. You sat on a billboard watching it rise, your eyes lighting up in its amber embrace.

“Ready to go?” Miguel asked from where he stood on the rooftop above you. You glanced up from where he loomed over you. 

“In a minute,” you called back to him. “I never get to enjoy this.” You looked back towards the sky, sensing as Miguel made his way to you, sitting beside you. 

“We need to go back. Too long here could fracture-”

“Fracture the timeline. I’m well aware, O’Hara,” you finished for him. You sighed, closing your eyes. “Can I not just have five minutes to enjoy this? Or are you too stubborn to let me have anything nice?”

He huffed a laugh. “You don’t need my permission for that.”

“I didn’t realise I needed your permission for anything,” you joked, nudging his arm with your shoulder. “After all, we both know who’s in charge around here.” He tensed up as he felt your touch. But it softened almost immediately when you leaned into him. 

“Oh, you’re in charge, huh? That’s new,” Miguel retorted, but you could hear a small smile in his voice.

You smiled back, standing up and balancing yourself atop the large billboard. “Of course. You think I’m not? Oh please, you’d follow my orders around like a little puppy if I wanted you to.” His heart jumped at that, but he suppressed it before he let it reach his face. 

“You’re delusional.”

“Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that, big boy.” You fell backwards off the billboard and Miguel leaned over with fear glossing over his eyes as you tumbled towards the ground. You let your arms fan out as your body hurtled down, head first, wind whistling in your ears. It felt so freeing, free falling to the ground. Swinging almost felt like flying at times. It was such an incredible experience for you, every time. 

You fired a web to a nearby building, catching it on a balcony railing, sending you soaring back into the air. Miguel watched you fly through the sky, completely in awe by how you moved. So angelic. So free. He knew this game. You played it all the time with Hobie and Pav. A game of chase. Something you did to pass the time when you were bored.

So he joined you. Jumping off the billboard and swinging through the empty steet towards you. You smiled as you looked back to see him catch up. “Having fun, O’Hara?” You called out as he matched your speed, swinging alongside you.

“You call this fun?” He asked, cocking an eyebrow at you.

“There’s a lot of things I call fun, honey. This is just a tame type of fun I like to have,” you winked, soaring through the air. He chased you through the air. Always reaching you just out of time, his fingertips grazing your skin just the second you swung out of his reach. Now he understood why Hobie was always annoyed after these games. He could never catch you. 

So he took a different approach, heading right down past a tower of apartments, out of your view. You looked back, grinning when you didn’t see him. You’d lost him. You didn’t look back in time to see him flying towards you on your right. He’d rounded the apartment buildings to gain more momentum, more speed. It had worked.his arm caught around your waist, throwing you off guard as he pinned you to the wall at the top of a large tower of more apartments. His legs caged your waist as his knees dug into the rough brick wall. A neon orange spider web entrailed from his wrist and stretched out to the lip of the building just above to two of you, keeping him suspended, his arm around your waist holding you steady so you didn’t fall. 

“You caught me,” you smiled cunningly. 

“I did,” he breathed shakily. He’d never really been this close to you. Your perfume filling his nostrils with pale tones of lavender and vanilla. Your eyes piercing deep into his, a hint of mischief and control lurking amongst your dark irises.

You smiled. You could see he was a little nervous being this close. He often kept a distance from you whenever he could. Before, you assumed it was because he found you boorish, annoying. Which you usually were around him, for the fun of it. But not now. Now you realised why he really stayed distant all this time. You could see it in his eyes. What he wanted. What he needed. From you. For you. It was all about you. “Then perhaps,” you leaned closer, your breath tickling his ear until he shuddered. “You deserve a reward?” You sent your own web flying above you, landing just besides Miguel’s, hoisting you up so that you could snake your legs over the top of his, wrapping your ankles around his waist and pulling him flush against your body.

Miguel’s eyes went wild, pupils dilating and cheeks flushing red. “I…um-”

“Cat got your tongue, O’Hara?” You smirked, releasing your web so your weight rested fully on his strong thighs. “Usually you always have something to say. What, so you don’t want your reward? Hmm?”

His head whipped back to you, eyes wide. “No, I…” he mumbled something after that. You knew exactly what he said. But you needed to hear it properly. Louder. Loud enough so he, himself, would believe what he was saying.

“Come on,” you tipped his head a little higher so his eyes met yours, your figner under his chin. “Speak your words. Say it a little louder for me.” You were practically whispering at this point, and as much as Miguel wanted to match your volume, he knew this would lead nowhere if he did.

“I want a reward,” he spoke, more confidence in his voice. His hand rested on your lower back, rubbing small circles into your skin beneath your clothing. “As long as it’s you.”

You smiled. Not wickedly. Not mischieviously. Genuinely. There it was. The confirmation you had been waiting for. “Well, that’s up to me to decide, isn’t it?”

He nodded. Almost immediately. You always had an inkling that if this were to ever happen, you would be the one to seek the control. But to see it now, in person…it felt all too real and all too perfect. “I want you to decide. Please,” he breathed, his tone begging for you. His eyes portraying a particular need for you.

“So you’re going to listen? Obey what I say. Do what I ask?” With every question he answered with a nod. You gripped his jaw gently, forcing him to make eye contact with you. “Either you use your words, or I’m not doing anything, Miguel.”

That was the last thign he wanted. You could see it in his face. “Yes,” he blurted out. “I’ll listen to you. I promise.”

“Good boy,” you smiled. You felt the way his heart sped up with his pulse right under your hand. You felt the way his dick twitched as you said those words. He liked it. A lot. 

Your hands drifted downwards, down his stomach to the belt on his pants. It surprised him, causing the two of you to drop a few inches from the web suspension slacking. 

“Keep holding on, puppy. Or else we’ll fall.”

“But-I…here? We’re on top of a building,” he said, looking around before back at you. 

“And? I always thought you found danger rather thrilling?” You cocked your head to the side, your hands still working on undoing his belt. “Would you prefer somewhere quieter? More private?” You leaned forward, kissing his cheek, then his jaw, then eventually his neck. “I always found being out in the open made it all the more exciting.”

He nodded, his head tilting back, giving you more access. Below, you had already pulled his belt apart, unzipping his pants and slid your hand inside. He gasped when your bare hand came into contact with his cock. You wrapped your hand around it, your fingers barely touching one another as you slid it down to the base of his cock and back up to the tip. Pre cum had already begun leaking out, gliding down your hands, lubricating his dick so you didn’t have to. 

Miguel’s breathing grew heavy, desperate as you touched him. It made him feel unlike any way he had before. It felt heavenly. You leaned back, taking in the features on his face, how his eyes squeezed together, how his mouth fell agape, small whines of pleasure falling from his lips. “You’re doing so good, baby,” you cooed, loving the way his dick twitched once again at your words. His hand wrapped around your back further, gripping your waist tightly, his knuckles paleing with the force of grip. 

“Please…ple-please,” his words sped up with the rhythm of your hand pumping his cock. You knew he was nearing a high, a rush. He needed it. It had been so long. And fuck, you wanted to give it to him. 

“Please, what? What do you want so badly that you feel the need to beg me for it?” Your tone changed. It was calm. Demanding. No room for negotiation.  

“I want you to let me fuck you. Please.” His eyes were so pleading. So desperate. His hips began to raise to meet your rhythm, your body bouncing as he did. You allowed it. You knew how much he needed it. Besides, it wasn’t like he was taking any control by doing so. He knew you clearly still had all the power here.

“Of course, baby,” you smiled. You couldn’t deny that this certain submission from Miguel made you feel a certain type of way. You could feel it all through your body. Mainly in your pants. But it radiated everywhere.

Miguel, shortened his web, pulling the two of you back up to the buildings roof. You sat atop it, spreading your legs as Miguel remained suspended between them. He looked up at you, eyes wide and waiting for your next order. You lifted a leg, placing your ankle on his shoulder and pulling him towards you, his chin resting just above your stomach. “Can I?”

You nodded your head, and Miguel approached, hesitant but needy. He pulled your pants from your body, your clothes collecting in a pile on the roof beside you. He was nervous at first. It showed in his movements. Soft, gentle licks up your slit, tender against your clit. His hands tentatively wrapped around your thighs, his face buried between them. He was holding back. He wanted to do more. He knew he could. But he wanted to be good. For you. “Miguel,” you called out, squeezing your thighs around his head to get his attention. He looked up at you with soft brown, doe eyes. “I know that that’s not all you got. Come on, puppy.”

He became more forceful with it, gradually. His sole intent being you. Pleasuring you. Pleasing you. His fingers gripped your thighs tighter, his tongue delving deep inside you. Your head fell back, your hand tangled in his hair. “Fuck, that’s it,” you guided. “Just like that, honey.” The flicks of his tongue moved faster, his lips wrapped around your clit, sucking and nibbling to make you squirm. Your hand kept his head in the perfect position, your grasp tightening until it was almost painful. But he didn’t care. 

Miguel slipped his hand under you, between your thighs, teasing at your pussy with his finger. His eyes gazed up at you, waiting for a confirmation. For a yes. For anything. You met his eye, your chest heaving. “Well, go on then, guapo.” He wasted no time, pushing one finger in, then two, easing them in so easily with your wetness. You gasped, caging his head between your thighs. 

His fingers sped up inside you, drawing you to a closer high with every passing second. He could feel it too. He needed you to come. God, he wanted it so badly. Your body slid closer to the edge, but you didn’t even notice and neither did he. Not until you both slipped slightly off the edge, and Miguel caught you around the waist before you could fall from his grip. “May have gotten a little too excited there…” Miguel admitted, heat flushing his cheeks.

“Not a problem, chulo,” you smiled, patting his cheek. “But if you think that’s going to stop us, then you’re sorely mistaken.” you shifted in his lap, positioning his cock at your soaked pussy. Miguel shivered as you pushed the tip inside you, his body tensing and his mind racing. Miguel braced himself against the tough brick layed wall, hand on your waist as you wrapped your arms around his neck, your legs around his waist. You let out a sigh as you sank down inot his cock, until he was fully sheathed inside you. 

Looking to Miguel, you saw his face contort, his teeth grit, his eyes squeeze shut. “Calmate, Miguel. Just relax, amor,” you purred, a slight accent springing out as your tongue rolled the syllables. It had been a while for him. For you too. You both needed this so badly. Fuck, you’d been thinking about this for a long time. 

Miguel groaned as he began moving his hips, his cock rolling in and out of you at a slow, steady pace. His cock hit deep inside you, low moans all you could muster. “Just like that, Miguel. Don’t stop.” He didn’t. He thrust his cock inside you deeply, harder and harder until it was overwhelming him. But it felt so good he didn’t want to stop. You felt so good around his dick, so fucking good. 

You could see it in face that he was struggling to keep calm. The sensation was too much for him. But he could take it. “Miguel, look at me,” your hand wrapped around his throat. Not putting any pressure on. Just holding it. But it snapped his attention to you immediately. “You’re doing so good for me, honey. You can hold on a little longer,” you breathed. Even you were struggling to keep composure right now. “Now come on, baby. You do want to make me feel good, don’t you?” He nodded profusely. You turned his head to the side, his pulse beating so fast beneath your touch. You leaned in close to his ear. “So fuck me then. You can handle it.”

You leaned back, retracting your fingers from his neck, until his free hand came up to grab yours. Your eyebrows shot up in surprise, and you almost said something until he brought your hand back around his throat. “Hold it there. Please.”

“Oh?” You smiled. “So that’s what you like, hmm? I guess we’re going to start figuring out everything that you like then, aren’t we? Now be a good boy for me.”

He fucked up into you, your back scraping across the harsh wall behind you. But you didn’t care if it scratched your back to shit. It was all worth it. Your grip around his throat tightened, Miguel’s head getting lighter, but it brought on a whole new high for him. He lost all control, thrusting faster and faster. You held onto him, head resting against his shoulder as your climax inched closer and closer. “Can’t go-fuck-much longer. Please.” Miguel gritted his teeth, panting heavily.

“Baby,” you purred, kissing his shoulder and leaning up to look at him. “You know the rules. You want to come? Then you can make me come too, yeah?”

“I wanna make you come. So bad.”

“Then do it,” your grip around his throat tightened and he left out a soft moan, holding your waist tighter until his fingerprints practically burned into your skin. “Make me come. Or you get nothing else tonight.”

You were both so close. Your legs tightened around him, crushing his waist as you felt pleasure crash over you. You held Miguel close, moaning his own name into his ear as you came, flooding his cock with your release, soaking him in your juices. You clung to him, digging your nails into his skin.

He followed close behind, groaning as he came inside you, coating your walls in white and letting his whole body relax against you. 

You both stayed that way for a moment, breathing heavily. The brick wall had become a comfort to your spine, basically crumbled to a shape befitting your body. “You did good, guapo,” you chuckled, kissing him softly. Miguel melted into the kiss, his hand on your back, pulling you close. It was soft. Tender. Everything he thought it would be. You pulled away for air, looking at him with gentle eyes. “But next time,” you pulled him closer by his throat, inches from his face. “You don’t come until I say you can. Got it, baby?”

“Next time?” There was a little excitement in his tone.

You smiled, tapping the side of his neck. “Oh, you thought I was done with you? Adorable.”

[fishsinsareacknowledged]

Young, Nikto x Reader -sfw, light angst

Nikto who you used to date in your early twenties, in the middle of his career at least. That's what he says before he dissapears for a whole decade, showing back up at your door so different yet so similar.

I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM GRRRRR RGRRRRRRRGRRRAAAA GRRRRR Oh also tw shitty google translated because I do NOT want to log into CS and finding someone to talk to just to find out how to write this bitch

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What was his name again? You couldn't even remember it's been so long since you've ever called him it either way. Countless voice calls, missing person reports, hell, you even went to his base just to get laughed at like you were insane, looking for nobody. Nikto, that's who he was to you, a nobody, long forgotten yet the memory of him burns in your heart.

You missed him for a while decade, finding new lovers and so forth but no one loved like him, your missing half.

Gone yet he burned and seared and stabbed and fucking carved a hole in your heart.

And now he was back. The Nikto was back, just as he was before, a nobody, showing up at your door uninvited like a stray, unknown to you, a stranger and yet one you recognize all the same, a mask over his face yet you could already recognize who was behind that bolted shut mask.

Eyes wide with recognition and hope in his crinkled eyes that made you sick to your core, a childlike glee mixed with nostalgic love in his eyes that made your heart burn.

"Pozhaluysta-", the first words he spoke, Please, and it was all he could say before you shut the door on his face, tears already stinging your eyes as you backed away from the door, ignoring the slow, deliberate knocks as if he wasn't trying to scare you off.

And just like that, that nobody- that stranger shaped hole in your heart started to ache again.

Started to ache for him, yet again, a decade too late.

"Leave", and those were the first words you spoke once your tears stopped, hours later and yet one glance through the peephole would show you the same man, standing right on your doorway as if he lived there, he didn't move an inch.

A purple bouquet of flowers were held in his hands as if they belonged there and you stood there for what felt like ages, observing him, making sure he was real, telling him to leave once again just as the sun began to set.

The way the sun reflected from your door to his mask all the way down to the bouquet and his large yet tight fitting black coat just made him look...young. Just like the young man you once dated, like the young one you once were. Together.

It made him look like he belonged there- belonged with you, and it made you sick, stomach tightening until your knees were weak as you leaned against the door.

"Leave...please", you called out for what felt like the hundredth time, calling out for him. To come back home, to marry you just like he'd promised and yet he was finally back, so fucking late.

And he spoke, that voice that you can pick out pieces from in your memory, rougher than you remember but that comes with age, you rationalize as he steps even closer to the door as if he fucking owned it.

Well..he did, his card was on the house when he helped you buy it, but then again. He's been missing for far too long that he's been long legally dead.

"Moy lyubov'...please..let me in", he begged. He begged, fuck. He's changed, no longer the cocky, rough around the edges boy you used to date, it's been years, of course he's changed. He's your age, older by a few, he's a man now. Or should be.

Still rough around the edges yet like a knife he'll only point you the blade for you to wield. It's always been like that, giving you the trigger. The man once a weapon, a gun, loud and destructive turned steel, a sharp blade, your knife to carve out anything you want of him.

Your hand betrayed your mind, pushing down on the doorknob as you froze for a moment, looking at him through no barriers, pure and true and bigger than life.

"Why?-", you tried to ask for so many things. Why did you finally come back? Why a decade too late? Why did you leave me? Why, why, why, why. So many unanswered questions and yet he wasn't a man of his words.

Hands firm and rough as they push the door open wide, slamming it against the wall as he took in his chance. Entering your once shared space as his eyes hungrily took you in, closing the door with a simple kick of his foot before his mask pressed against your face.

The cold metal kissed your lips as his arms wrapped around your waist and back all the way to your shoulders. Eyes wide with recognition and mirth as you felt his hand grip your hip, pressed so tightly against him as if he never wanted to separate.

Masterlist

The message was clear, you were his again, once again. And forever. There would be no escape from something you never ran from.

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