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drifloonz · 1 year

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Steven with a s/o that is agoraphobic and selectively mute and only really kinda talks to him. They also get paranoid about being watched.

FINALLY MORE STEVEN APPRECIATION ... i love glitchy but steven is always my favorite ( <- is biased and has way more thoughts ab steven... )

anyways okay!! ( also sorry for being picky and choosy with asks i just like to write things where i know i can finish them easier first when im in a Writing Slump like i am rn ). hopefully this is good anon :3c

steven with an agoraphobic and selectively mute s/o!

♡ i wouldn't say steven is also selectively mute per se, but he doesn't talk often unless emotional* or with someone he's comfy with, probably. very stoic and straightforward. due to this, he definitely doesn't mind that you don't talk much - you two probably just bask in eachothers presence wordlessly a lot... but when he hears your voice for the first time, it's a pleasant surprise regardless.

*( RE: strangled... and doors open lol. although those are probably bad examples since its a lot of him going like "MIKI!!!! MIKI!!! GRAAAHHHHHH I HATE PEOPLE GRR WHERES MY MIKI!!!" and also him saying numbers for some reason. which i feel is attributed to bad/stereotypical 'pasta writing so i usually don't consider that part of him, at least for the default current-time steven i write ( which is after all of his pastas and where hes essentially just very tired and depressed and antisocial and doesn't hurt people unless threatened or feeling a need to. my interp of steven was probably more manic in his younger years, which is the implication anyways ). he had an emo phase where he wanted to kill everyone then got over it partially its fine. i put this in an asterisk because i didnt wanna clog the headcanon LMAO )

♡ he's also... somewhat agoraphobic i'd say? but more in the "I fucking hate doing this" rather than the "I am so scared of doing this" way. obviously due to his reputation as Pallet Town cryptid, even if it's been so long that people've probably moved or forgotten him he'll never let his guard down in public. due to this, he's majorly inconvenienced by having to go outside ever which is the reason why he usually stays put in his weirdly large home in the abandoned side of pallet. he also doesn't see reason for going other places much, so you won't have much trouble with him dragging you to places or anything. the comfort of his admittedly worn-down home is enough for him.

♡ also if for some reason you don't like pokemon, or at least wild pokemon, take him with you in the tall grass. it's like having a living repel. realistically, they'd probably just avoid steven and pay attention to you, but it's funnier if he was just like. an anti-pokemon forcefield.

♡ nowadays he also has a low social battery in general, is very moodswingy as seen in literally everything he's in, and is also socially awkward and doesn't like to talk with strangers as much as he used to - which even in his prime, was more of strangers talking at him while he nodded. he's more of a listener. due to this he'll happily listen to you if you feel comfortable talking to him, and he'll nod or hum or make little noises to indicate he's still listening.

♡ the fact that you don't like people watching you is a little troubling to him, because steven, intentionally or not tends to sort of stalk and stare at you from afar. no matter where you go in his home, you usually feel like you are being watched... at least, that's what the barely remaining rumors of him say. he's overprotective over his loved ones, which is an obvious sign of that ( which worsened after the two... incidents ), but he'll try to get better about it around you. mostly, by announcing his presence or trying to make it obvious instead of wordlessly staring at you after silently opening a door or something.

♡ alternatively, if someone is watching you, or even just making eyecontact, steven will basically tell them to fuck off, usually nonverbally ( aka: glaring at people who look at you the wrong way or who look at you too long in general ). this might be More anxiety-inducing for his partner because you probably don't want him to cause trouble or anything, but he's overprotective and also sort of hates being out in the open nowadays too so its a natural defense mechanism along with his overprotectiveness towards you mixing. if you talk to him about it and have a problem w/ it though he'll get a little huffy but will ultimately try to focus on making you comfortable instead of making people who make you uncomfortable feel threatened.

♡ his general aura is still sort of brooding and sometimes threatening though and he's also tall as fuck so he doesn't even have to really put effort into scaring people to leave the two of you alone. they just mostly don't talk to you if stevens around you because he's just... threatening. he has an Aura to him im telling u.

♡ he'll usually hold your hand tight to sort of try and ground/comfort you if you two have to go anywhere publically. he'll try to get over his general dislike of going anywhere publically just to help you whenever you have to go places, if you do. ( he's usually also trying to wear a "disguise" which just means like... a black hoodie w the hood up barely disguising anything. he doesn't have much else lmao ). he'll also literally go out to places himself if you really don't want to. don't wanna go grocery shopping but need to but you are deathly afraid of going at that moment? he'll just throw on his ""disguise"" and go to the nearest pokemart or mall or something. begrudgingly, sure, but it's always worth it for you. just... just make sure to tell him what to get ( or do ) otherwise he'll return with way too little or way too much.

♡ otherwise, if you don't have any reason to go outside and are also afraid of open or crowded spaces, steven is happy to just stay home with you constantly. it may be a little depressing but he's been staying home for years and years at this point. plus, it's less lonely with you around now. you make him feel comfortable, and so he'll do everything to make you feel similar in return.

♡ i like to think the both of you get better with talking, but mostly just with each other. steven doesn't talk a lot so his voice is a little raspy, hoarse ( almost all of the time when he talked a lot is when he's like angry or screaming or crying in the pokepastas lmao ), and sorta quiet, but he gets better the more he talks to you. the two of you probably don't talk often though, being able to communicate well enough with gestures, expressions, that sort of thing. he does enjoy your conversations when you do talk to him though.

♡ he'll also compliment your voice and say that you sound nice and things like that. not to intentionally try to make you talk more, since he's all for your comfort, its just always a pleasant surprise to hear your voice to him, genuinely.

♡ i'm going to project onto reader bc im also selectively mute (??? i think thats what you'd call it) where i barely talk in public unless i literally have to or w/e. so, steven and you not talking much to strangers causes a bit of an issue if anyone asks you a question or tries to talk to you. steven will try to respond for you if it seems you aren't up for it but obviously, he's not a mindreader. he'll usually just shoo whoevers trying to talk to you two off, if neither of you know them. he'll always look at you a bit first to give you time to respond if you want to, and if you don't he'll try to do it for you based on just like. a guess. of course this means a lot of possible miscommunication esp since steven prefers to tell people he doesn't care about ( most people ) to go away, but it works out well enough.

♡ he also does sort of like surprising or scaring people, but he lets up on it for you when he realizes that you probably react badly to that sorta thing. he'll always make his presence known before he hugs you or kisses you or anything, and will also ask consent a lot more. mostly by opening his arms out or just pointing at his lips and tilting his head, cuz he doesn't want to talk much. he's really trying to be thoughtful and caring around you and it shows! he's trying rlly hard <3

♡ ... he probably is concerned of how you'd react to miki, so he tries to not keep her out around you. he'll usually take her outside if he needs to tend to her or anything. a part of him says you deserve to die if you didn't like miki ( his intrusive thoughts / s!3v3n / missingno / whatever you wanna call it rearing its head ), but he's lived long enough to probably go "yk what its sort of fair for people to be afraid of my fucked up dead pet." Only slightly though, he'll still get angry at you if you're like mean or rude to miki if you ever saw her.

♡ if you r fine with her though he'll be surprised but that'll make things a hell of a lot more convenient, since a lot of his day-to-day modern life is just 50% lazing around and barely taking care of himself or doing things arnd his house and 50% taking care of and tending to miki.

♡ miki as said in other hcs is like a pet that is rlly curious and constantly follows you so . Hopefully you aren't scared by her if steven lets her out. if you are she'll feel bad abt it and will whine </3

♡ i think he'd like to try and help you with your issues slightly by like... taking a lot of strolls during the nighttime. it's what he prefers since he's less visible and less people are there to possibly recognize him, and what you'd probably prefer since less people are out. he'll take routes with less people on it intentionally and just look up at the stars and the moon as he walks with your hand in his. it felt right. plus, nobody - pokemon or person - usually bothered you two anyways due to steven's presence, so you two just get to have some nice nighttime strolls. writing this made me think of the latios/latias soar nighttime version in the oras ost aurghghgh.. the soundtrack of u two having romantic casual nightstrolls <3

♡ lots of your lazy days in will be spent cuddling on his couch in the living room or his bed. it's nice! plus he has rlly good hugs, at least after you tell him to stop gripping you so tight.

♡ congratulations your boyfriend will do anything for you. Do with this what you will <3

#wispy writes #strangled red x reader #steven strangled red #steven strangled red x reader #pokepasta #<- gotta be more consistent w this tag lol

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mareenavee · 11 months

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Talk to me about plot bunnies! Since I know you're largely a planner/outliner, I have a question about what you do with the sorts of lightning bolt, "I wasn't planning on this" story ideas we all I think have to contend with at one point or another. How do you discipline plot bunnies in your writing - do you let them hop around, do you shuffle them into side projects, do they multiply unnoticed? What is the strangest/weirdest plot bunny you've hatched since you started The World on Our Shoulders that you've decided to not pursue after all? Alternatively, was there a plot idea that wasn't planned, but that since then happily made it in and hopped across the page? Bonus: with your editorial hat on, what advice would you give writers who suffer from plot bunny population booms?

HIII So sorry it's taken me a mortal age to get to this one LOL you know perhaps better than most that my writing has had me in a hyper focus for a WHILE. But I'm glad for it. This is fun because in the time since you asked this ONE plot bunny was allowed to escape LOL. I'll get to him in a second. You know the one.

But first, I do generally stick to the plan to get from point A to point B but I allow some creative freedom with the prose. Sometimes cool scenes crop up -- usually character building things. I have to keep an eye on my plot threads but there's still wiggle room. I like to cause problems on purpose. And sometimes if I write a scene and it doesn't quite fit, I move it into a fragment file and return to it later. And if I'm really feeling like the scene might fit sooner rather than later or be more fun to work with, I absolutely will shift cards around so to speak. A whole mini arc got added into the Raven Rock arc (second arc of the fic) because I was just feeling like shaking the jar of beans. Rude of me, I realize. I also dragged part of that encounter down to arc 1 to begin with, toward the end when I decided I was going to make trouble. This usually all stems from my practice of just writing ideas down when they come to me, after having a really long stretch of time where I wasn't really feeling very creative as the world was...well...you know. A few spinoff fics have been created from this. One is my Ondolemar project I'd hinted at here. Well... you did actually LOL. It had previously been unannounced. And I have another one where I'll redo the college of Winterhold later. I'm also really loving some of the prompts we've been coming up with here and there, especially the cursed kiss prompts (Ya'll can thank @thana-topsy's reply to this post for a few of ours at this point.) So at least one of those has become sort of more than expected; a plausible if not tragic end to my fic series.

Considering I'm not really opposed to the challenge of weird, as we've seen lately lol I've definitely decided that if an idea fits, there's a way to make it work within the fic universe or an alternate universe, really. But there was a point where I was deciding who would be a POV character and who wouldn't for World and, before Athis was a POV character (and he was very, very needed for the story) someone else had been. I have a fragment from something very early here in another ask. He'll be returning for the sideways sequel, so it's not that I just decided it was too weird, per se, more that the voice was better for a different idea.

Now on to my favorite plot bunny! VARLAIS. My new OC. My idiot (endearing.) He just...exists now. He was not in draft one. He was not in the first published version of World. But he just happened to be perfect for what I needed when I was, as mentioned, causing problems on purpose for the mini arc I'm currently working on in the WIP. And now everyone is in love with the boy, even though he'd probably break his leg trying to tie his shoes. (You can meet him in this post. ) He is a Thalmor, technically, and a spy. A double agent if you will. But we're not really sure if he's a good one? Somehow he's been surviving. He is being shuffled into the Ondolemar fic I've mentioned above, but for now he's finishing up the Raven Rock arc of the fic with Nyenna and Teldryn. Does his surname sound familiar? It's Ayleidoon for "Stars." It does mean something. Para, I know you've seen this. But, for those of you new to the chaos of a new OC just kind of willing themselves into existence, here's a snippet of the very first instance of Teldryn encountering the boy. This, by the way, was a very stupid mistake on both their parts. (:

From Chapter 25:

He didn’t get far. As he was adjusting the sail and knocking off as much ice as he could from the canvas, he heard the crunch of snow and wood from the abandoned, half-collapsed shack, which he’d completely forgotten to check. He’d barely spotted the Thalmor archer perched on the avalanche before the arrow caught him in the elbow. Pain exploded from the wound as he let out a strangled cry of surprise. His Candlelight spell ended abruptly. Something was wrong. The agony wasn’t isolated to the injury — it was radiating everywhere. The attacker ran to the shore in seconds and tossed a ball of Magelight in Teldryn’s direction. He made a show of jumping into the boat with unnatural grace. The Thalmor threw back his hood, scarred, gilded face grinning maliciously. Pin-straight, straw-colored hair fell forward, left half missing or trimmed away, revealing more angry scars on his skull and a network of burns on his neck that disappeared into his collar. “Goodnight,” he said. That was all. He waited. Bold of him, really. The two of them stared at each other for a moment — the Thalmor smug, Teldryn perplexed. He looked like the kind of person who would deserve to be stabbed in the neck with the same arrow he’d just shot someone in the elbow with. If only Teldryn could reach the damned thing. This was normally not a difficult or slow process. What the hell? Teldryn’s fingers were numb to the bone, more than they should’ve been in his gauntlets. He didn’t feel cold. In fact, all he felt was pain. He found no matter how hard he willed it, he couldn’t get his other arm to reach the arrow protruding out of the joint. The muscles were locking up. It struck him then exactly what this was. Fucking Paralysis poison. He tried to shout, to curse, to cast a spell — anything. But it was too late. He felt himself collapsing woodenly into the hull of the boat. His head struck one of the benches on the way down and his vision swam. He could not yell. Could not struggle. Could not even blink. The Thalmor archer walked toward the back of the boat around his limbs and kicked him out of the way with a derisive snort. His eyes, blue and full of hate in the Magelight, were the last things Teldryn saw before darkness closed around him.

#AskMareena #MareenaWrites #The World on Our Shoulders #Varlais #Linare Varlais #Teldryn Sero #Skyrim #tes #tesblr #skyrim fic #fanficblr #writblr #writeblr

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dramawatch · 1 month

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Why this

Dear Reader, IRL I begin my discussions of Asian drama with either a rebuke of American media for it's failure to meet my specific requirements (if the listener is not already a convert), or I bring out my oral manifesto on Why I Like Asian Drama. I will spare you both of these, not only because I'm a tad tired of hearing it myself, but because online such as we are a present, you can walk away very easily, and I won't even see you do it. This eases the tension quite a bit for both of us, if I'm being honest, so I'm going to give it all to you as succinctly as possible today and let the chips fall where they may, so to speak.

All media, IMHO, works within its own parameters. It may be done well, or poorly, or even done in some oxymoronic way where bad becomes good or vice versa. (There is probably jargon media experts would use right now to express this, dear Reader, and if you are one of them, I apologize for all the eye rolling you may be performing. I'm not a media expert.) However, no matter how well a particular media is executed, it is not guaranteed to suit everyone. We all have our own needs and tastes. My needs and tastes are not met by the parameters of American dramas.

You may be wondering at my use the word "parameters." Perhaps if I was someone else, who thought slightly differently, I'd be writing about originality or being forward thinking or something else in the context of media. But what I think about is parameters. Everything has parameters. Parameters help lend definition to something. Although they are literally limiting, which can seem like a negative, it is very difficult to get anything done without them. Even this blog. It's easier for me to be creative within the confines of this austere, questionably attractive blog format, than I would if I were spending energy on being slick or savvy. If I had many fancy options, I'd bouncing off them endlessly, instead of just getting down to writing this here today.

The parameters of Asian drama hit my pleasure center just right.

There is tremendous of variety amongst them, for one. The number of episodes varies drastically, from 6 episode long Japanese web dramas to 60 episode long Chinese costume dramas. It can be fantasy or historical, contemporary or futuristic, romance-centered or mystery-centered, or combinations of them all. There are many tropes and archetypes. Meme bingo cards have been made of them, they're so prevalent. But a trope or an archetype is just another kind of parameter, and I'm all for it.

I'm not anti-innovation or creativity, dear Reader. In my defense, I'm going to drag in Jane Eyre.

Jane Eyre one of the most famous Bronte novels. We've all heard of it, even if we don't know much about it, per se. It's part of our popular culture. Why is that? What makes it so great?

It's because Jane Eyre is a play on the dominant romantic paradigm at the time, the Gothic novel, where a beautiful young heroine meets a dashing, handsome, virtuous man, and is rescued from supernatural and earthly horrors by him and Live Happily Ever After. Jane Eyre is a young woman, but she is neither beautiful, nor such a paragon of virtue - she doesn't forgive just because people ask, and she is not entirely sheltered from cynicism. Edward Rochester is the main love interest, but he is also not handsome, nor particularly charming, and he has some obvious faults of character that those who have read the book know very well. In a typical Gothic novel, Rochester would have been the villain. This is what makes Jane Eyre great: Bronte turns the Gothic novel on its head, and doing so, wrote the first modern anti-hero.

I consider the anti-hero considerably when I'm consuming media. I enjoy exploring all the incarnations of archetypes and the way they can be played with or mutated. Sometimes it can be frustrating, but it can also be very satisfying. Asian dramas bring in a wider variety of archetypes and tropes than American media and are not shy about it. I can't tell you how many arrogant CEO romances I've seen, some of which wouldn't be too ashamed to put that in their title like a Harlequin Romance, and I still have room for more, because even if it's a remake, it's still not quite the same.

I'm going to end this admittedly not very succinct post with a recommendation for my favorite arrogant CEO drama:

Lost Romance. An editor (and voyeur) at a romance publisher witnesses the attempted murder of the handsome CEO through a drone and ends up falling into the novel she is editing as the female antagonist. If you want to see a lighthearted rom-com wherein a female underling can talk her way free of consequences after being caught watching her boss shower, this is for you.

#asian drama

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demonworldwritings · 3 months

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Obakeidoro Mall AU Headcanons

Basically what if the Obakeidoro characters worked in/went to a mall owned by Shopkeeper

OCs involved: Belle

A/N: This comes from a conversation I had with @thegayestofartists about Obakeidoro AUs and I decided to finish it up so give thanks to them for the idea! (Check their blog if you want to see some of the original character’s designs by the way! They’re a very talented artist!)

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Lizzy co-owns a boutique with Jack (she dragged him into it but he didn’t resist per-se)

Alisa and Belle work at Lizzy’s boutique as "proper" employees (i.e they do designing and tailoring)

Patches works at the boutique too, but he more so functions as a mannequin for Alisa & Belle to practice their designs on, he’s happy with it though, he views it as helping the employees, and letting him get what he considers a "makeover"

Lizzy loves making clothes for Jack via the boutique, and fortunately for her, he loves getting them from her, even if he’s very bashful about receiving them

Mel and Hans co-own a candy store together! Mel repeatedly asked Hans to purchase a part of the mall to make a store, but he wasn’t very certain if he could do anything well

It eventually ended with Hans caving and buying a part of the mall in exchange for Mel deciding what the store would be and she chose a candy store! (Which of course she did)

Alex works at Hot Topic, not elaborating further

Luca and Mary are employees together at a makeup store. Mary originally had the job and Luca decided to work there too as he both got to be with her, and he also liked makeup too so it was a win-win for him

Sharlie works multiple jobs at the mall at once

Brutus works as security at the mall, and is very frequently trying to catch Victor

Victor, being the man with a criminal record that he is, illegally works in the mall, offering people "medicines" in exchange for abysmally high sums of money

If anyone even stares at him for a few milliseconds, he will sprint full force towards them and will not stop until he catches up to them and is able to offer them his medicines (think like how shoe cleaners do it)

Victor very frequently has to run in and out of the mall with his "business" trying to hide from Brutus

Baphomeeko works at a bookstore her dad owns! If people ever asked or complained about her working there due to her age, her dad just says "Well she’s doing a good job now isn’t she?" and she very much so is

Fu-Lan has a small booth/stall near the center of the mall where she does things such as tarot readings

Lulu has a pop-up band they conduct during any events the mall holds (things such as holiday celebrations, or just any events Shopkeeper can think of making up)

Grumpkin works at a Spirit Halloween alongside Billy Kid

For the admittedly short time the store has business, they both work really hard as to where Draco (their manager) is very insistent on them taking breaks and that he can handle it, these are usually dismissed very quickly by the two though

When Halloween actually rolls around, Grumpkin usually leaves Billy Kid to handle the store by himself while Grumpkin goes hiding around the mall in his pumpkin form, jumping out at people when they get close

Shyna doesn’t actually work at the mall, she’s just a customer, also a very rare customer

The few times she does come to the mall though, everyone’s happy to see her, welcoming her as warmly as they can

Hunt is also a customer, albeit a far more regular one at the mall

He mainly goes around like normal, but always stops to let people pet his dogs

Krowe King works at a bakery, and no he doesn’t use his tongue because even he acknowledges that that’s really gross (he does use it at the end of the day though to eat any leftover food they didn’t sell which may or may not be the main reason he took the job in the first place)

Maisy works at a mattress store (lets her test more comfy mattresses, she’s very eepy)

Ai and Alexus run a antique shop together… kind of…

Whilst Ai properly runs the store, Alexus is honestly more so there for moral support (and also to take any antiques he thinks he could use for any inventions)

Alexus taking various antiques does annoy Ai quite a bit, even if Alexus makes something out of them for Ai as a thanks

Shopkeeper likes to go around the mall every once in a while in whatever mascot outfit he can think of, he’s the mall Santa during the holidays too

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Alright that’s all I got, hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading!

#demonworldwritings #obakeidoro #bail or jail #オバケイドロ #au headcanons

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campbluelake · 11 months

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modern-day witch hunt || abbie || trial 6.8 || re: the haters

To say Abbie expected this wouldn’t be, like, a lie, per se, but she certainly didn’t not expect it either. As soon as the word “witch” was thrown around when discussing the thrall, she was prepared to have to field some accusations because wasn’t that just everyone’s favorite hobby? Witch hunting? Honestly, it’s like they wanted to win awards for predictability or something. However, she didn’t expect some of the voices that chime in. She’d thought some, at least, would have more faith in her.

Pushing herself up into a proper sitting position, she wiggles into sitting criss-cross apple sauce on the ground. This debate, it seems, is important enough to her that she stops braiding while she speaks. Abbie shoots a grateful smile at Nora before turning back to everyone else with a questioning look on her face, her head cocked to one side like a particularly curious puppy.

“Wow, wow, you guys are fast to turn on people, huh? I guess this shoulda been expected from how you ripped into Malyce earlier…”

She takes a moment to let out a bright laugh.

“Seriously, ouchie! I’m kinda hurt…I mean, I can understand being mad and stuff--who wouldn’t be?--but wow! You’re a real jerk, y’know that, Hibiki? Sooo, I guess I’ll start with you, yeah? Since you covered a lot of points that’re just, well, c’mon.”

Her elbow rests on her knee, and she sets her chin into the palm of her hand, her eyes boring into him like a challenge.

“I dunno, even if it is me and that is what happened, are you really gonna sit there and make light of the deaths of 576 people just to have a ‘gotcha!’ moment? To feel like you’ve won? I guess I shouldn’t expect any better from you, huh?

You’re the one with a twisted sense of love, after all. You only regretted your actions against your family when it was obviously pointed out to you--when it was too late to do anything. You didn’t stop to consider your actions’ effects on them until they were already well and gone. I think you’re kinda having a pot and kettle moment. Maybe someone else should try their hand at that argument!”

Abbie claps her hands together once and smiles at him brightly.

“Just ‘cuz I’m the only witch out in the open doesn’t mean there aren’t others around. Malyce was magical, too, wasn’t he? But no one here knew that until just now. So, how about you do something those witch hunters you wanna drag into the conversation didn’t do and dig a little deeper than the surface.”

Her attention leaves him, and she goes back to resting her chin in the palm of her hand, her eyes drifting down to watch her free hand making patterns in the dirt.

“‘Sides, Nora’s right. I hate fire. Why don’t you ask Niko or someone about demons and their inclination towards fire. I mean, Hibiki’s immune to it, right? It’s just likely that demons are fine with fire. I couldn’t be around it without freaking out, so are you really gonna say that I’ve got 300 years of hanging about in the flames of Hell without breaking into pieces? Sheesh, you guys have faith in me.”

Looking over at Kyousuke, her expression falls for a moment before it perks right back up into its typical smile.

“I did say that. And I am glad about it. But I bet Niko would say the same. And Eri. That they’re glad they found you. Max, Saya, all of your other friends…Me caring for you isn’t really a compelling argument when ‘I’m happy I found you’ is just sorta a common phrase, you know? Loads of people would say it and do say it.”

With a puff of air, she blows some of her hair out of her face and pouts towards Saya.

“Garf’s part of your argument? Really? If I had a choice over all of the locations in this place, why would I put an amphitheater in at all? There are just as many places in this camp that I don’t like as there are places I do like. Not your best point. As for ‘clutching at my pearls’, I doubt I’m the oooooonly one here who doesn’t like that sort of humor or those kinds of comments. I’ll give you that I have that opinion, but it’s not like it’s exclusive only to me either.”

After a quick rundown of all that’s been said to her, she nods her head.

“I think that’s the major points. So, do we wanna move onto another point of conversation, orrrrr do we wanna stick here and I do this all over again?”

#ch6 #trial #abigail

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themanip · 3 years

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late nights

SUMMARY — you and bang chan are both equally as stressed out. your solution? sleep with each other. boom, problem solved.

PAIRING — bang chan x reader WARNINGS — mentions of stress and mental health problems, unprotected sex, soft!dom chan, mentions of kinks, really soft, really cute smut basically, crying (not sexually), sad thoughts, angry and frustrated emotions, angsty GENRE — heavy angst, fwb, coming-of-age kind of, smut, romance, porn with a hint of plot WORD COUNT — 4.9k, i got carried away my bad

“How do you deal with stress?”

Chan’s question wasn’t ill intentioned by any means, and as you both sat in his studio, you pondered on whether or not to actually answer truthfully. “I mean, you’re the leader of two more trainees than I was, and navigating as a girlgroup is much more difficult than boygroups,”

“Do you want the honest answer, or the more appropriate answer?” you crossed your legs, Chan’s couch feeling quite comfortable. He stared down at you for a moment, the height of his chair offering him that leverage.

The room was quiet, the lights were dim, and the entire environment was soothing. “Well, honest, of course. No point in me asking if it’s a fib, no?”

You nodded, blowing a puff of air out of your nose thoughtfully. “Truthfully, I use sex. It allows me to physically and mentally drain myself, and I sleep really well after getting fucked. It allows me to refresh the next morning, and my stress, at least physically, is diminished.”

You didn’t look at him until you finished talking, and his face was blank. Once you two locked eyes, he sputtered out, “Oh, I—”

“This is why I offered two options, Chan,” you laughed, and at the lighten of atmosphere he giggled a bit too. “I didn’t mean to, y’know,” he stopped, and you nodded lightly. “I get it, but as of now I don’t do it much anymore. I usually just let out my anger or stress during dance routines or working out but it doesn’t work the same, and sometimes I deliver moves too harshly while dancing.”

“Why not?”

You were unsure what he was referring to, and you crinkled your eyebrows. “How come you don’t do it anymore if nothing else helps the same way?” he asked softly, his eyes swimming with genuine concern.

“I’m a lot more conservative with my body, I just have to trust someone. It’s hard to get to know a guy without them immediately wanting to jump into a relationship. You can’t really do that in what we do, and the second I start to trust a guy things go haywire. I just really have to have a good friendship to have sex, I guess.”

The entirety of the conversation, Chan’s cheeks were turning peach. Even in the dark, dim light, you could see it. “I understand, it’s a very tangible thing. Just giving yourself to someone like that without a basic relationship, platonic or not, is important depending on how you view relationships,”

You nodded in response, and a silence fell over you two. There wasn’t much to be said, but for some reason you decided to blurt out. “If you don’t know how to deplete stress, I suggest it. Just the no strings attached part, because otherwise things get messy and stress becomes inevitable. Just try it sometime, Chan. If you don’t like it, then consider it a learning experience,” you shrugged, and Chan pursed his lips.

“I mean it doesn’t sound like a bad idea, per se. I just don’t know how I’ll casually ask someone to have sex. Most women just run off the moment I mention it, and who knows if they’re even into the same things I am? There’s just so many things to be unsure of.” His chin was now laying on his thumb, and his pointer finger was laying above his top lip. He was deep in thought.

You stood up, which cause Chan to unexpectedly flinch, and he watched you with careful eyes. “Chris, if you ever feel like you need a de-stresser, you know where to find me. Nothing will be weird unless you make it weird. Or we can always just talk, either way, I’m here. I have to go before Sumna comes and drags me out of here, but seriously. Whatever you need, no strings attached. Nothing leaves this room,” you mentioned softly, and his eyes widened at his English name. It’s rather rare you used it, so he pondered the specific use of it in this scenario.

“Thank you,” he muttered simply, and he watched you as you walked out. Was she being serious?

Chan and you had not talked in a few days. Whether it was a crazy schedule, you embarassing yourself, or him not knowing how to approach the situation, you didn’t know. All you did know was that you missed your friend.

You and your bandmates had a hectic schedule today, and as the leader, you’d had to sit in on a meeting with your manager and JYP’s public relations manager. Apparently, Dispatch had caught one of your members, Lanzi, out doing something with another k-pop idol. Dispatch had only obtained two pictures of it, but it was clearly legible on who they were, and what they were doing.

The cost to get those pictures thrown out was much more than JYP would have liked, so she had to sit and get chewed out. Instead of being angry at Lanzi, she became more angry at herself. She had talked to them about things of this sort, but clearly not well enough. It was her job as leader, and she failed doing so.

After a three hour long meeting, you were absolutely exhausted, mentally at least. And now, just after that, was choreography practice. You’d just learned the choreo a few days before, so for the most part you had it down. As lead dancer, you also had to make sure everyone else in your group understood that too.

So, thirty minutes into practice, when none of your members seemed to be latching on, you sighed. Your entire job was to simply lead, and do well. Somehow, you couldn’t manage to do that. Once more, you started the choreography, and told your girls to simply stand back and watch.

You had a slight tone, but you needed them to understand that rhythm is just as important as the real dance moves. Your entire body was covered in sweat, and you were growing more frustrated by the minute.

The way your body moved was no longer elegant, just harsh, angry strokes of somewhat rhythmic actions. You did your best to do it just as you were shown, but the overwhelming anger and emotion in your body was just more than you could handle.

Little did you know, next to your bandmates, stood Hyunjin and Chan. They had come to ask something, but instead found you dancing your angered heart out. All stopped and stared, and Chan could only focus on the way your hips contorted, the patterns your hips followed.

As the music stopped, you turned around, and your eyes widened at the visitors.

“We can leave if you’re busy, Hyunjin-ah just wanted to ask if he could borrow the studio tomorrow, and I wanted a word with you, if that’s okay,” Chan asked, and all of your bandmates went silent, expecting you to take the lead of the conversation.

“Hyunjin-sunbaenim, the studio is yours whenever you need it. Let me know what time, and Chan-oppa, would you like to talk now?”

Hyunjin bowed, and gave a quick thank you before heading out of the room. “Yes, please. If you’re too busy, no worries,” and you looked at your girls and told them to head back to the dorm. You were done for today, no reason to beat a dead horse when clearly today was not a good one to get skills in.

“Can we talk in my studio?” Chan came closer to you, almost a whisper, and you knew this was going to go one of two ways: he was going to fuck your brains out, or he was going to let you know that he did not think of you in that way, and to please never discuss things like that with him again. You don’t think you could handle either, at least not today.

“Yeah, let me grab some other clothes,” you said softly, rubbing your forehead in anxiety. Chan quickly started to mention something, and you shut him up quick. “I don’t—”

“Chan, I’m getting new clothes because I am sweaty and tired, nothing else. I will meet you in your studio after I am changed,” you sighed, your hot knees feeling good against the cool floor of the choreography studio. Your duffle bag now wide open, you grabbed an oversized long sleeve shirt and a pair of loose jeans.

You also reapplied deodorant and some perfume so you didn’t smell like you lived in a sewer, the amount

As your girls were long gone, you felt free to change in the studio. Your clothes quickly fell to the floor, and you were now in more comfortable apparel that is not drenched in sweat. Dreading this conversation with Chan, you swiftly collected your things and moved them to the corner to come collect after you spoke to Chan and was ready to go home.

Guiding your way to Chan’s studio was a walk in the park. The amount of times you’d go in there to talk to him, or for him to let you hear what he’d been working on, was countless. You two had budded a beautiful friendship, and he had been somewhat of a rock. He had always been so sweet, so loving. And you’ve possibly ruined it because you couldn’t think of anything other than sex when trying to guide him through dealing with stress.

Your eyes almost welled at the thought. You couldn’t cry though, not now. So, as you stood outside of Chan’s recording studio, you held your breath for a moment and looked up, letting the tears vanish.

A soft knock sounded, your knuckles rasping at the door. The hallways were silent, and you couldn’t hear a single thing from inside Chan’s studio. Your own heartbeat pounded in your ears, and you tensed as you heard footsteps leading up to his door.

He opened the door, his face showing no clear emotions. He didn’t seem angry, but he wasn’t too happy to see you, either. His hair was clearly ran through by his hand, blonde tufts falling back towards his ears. His makeup was done to perfection, light brown tones covering his lids.

He wore a simple outfit, a loose black hoodie and dark blue sweatpants. He’d changed from earlier, his black ripped jeans now nowhere to be seen. “Come in, you can sit anywhere,” his voice was always soft, even though he could be fuming, his tone would never soar.

“Chan, I just want to say I’m sorry,” you muffled out, plopping down unconventionally on his couch. “I just, I don’t know why I said those things or did that,” at this point, you just didn’t want him to think differently of you. He was the closest thing you had to a mentor, and he was an amazing friend.

If you lost him, or ruined your relationship, you don’t think you could ever forgive yourself.

You pulled your knees up to your chest as he took a seat in his chair, staring expectedly at you. Silence followed, so you continued, unsure of what he was expecting to hear. “I just don’t like you being stressed, and the only way I know how to cope with things is kind of like that, so I figured maybe you could too, and then I offered, and I feel like I just fucked things up between us. I.. just I’m so sorry.”

At this point your eyes had clouded up, and your voice had cracked multiple times. The day you’d had just piled up, and your exhaustion was visible. Chan’s eyes immediately softened, and he felt bad. He wasn’t mad, he just didn’t know how to approach the situation.

“Hey, hey,” he soothed, and he stood up from his chair and joined you on the couch. At this point, you’d started full on crying. “I ruined our friendship, and now I’m sitting here crying so you’re gonna feel too bad to be honest with me about what I did wrong,” you were now sniffling hard, and your chest was dense you were surprised you could breathe.

“No, love, that’s not it, I promise,” your heart pumped blood a bit harder at his nickname for you, and he placed a warm hand on your back. “I came here to ask if you were okay,” his tone was now nothing but soft and supportive, and he continuously rubbed your back. Warmth spread throughout your entire body.

“I heard about the meeting, and everyone kept discussing how stressed out you were today,” in the dim light once more, his eyes glowed. They were so soft, so sweet. His entire aura was just warm, loving, and nothing was more assuring.

“No matter what happens between us, you’re my friend, and I care about you,” he smiled softly, “Nothing would change that, unless you like, stabbed me or something,” he laughed soulfully, and you laughed with him. He pulled you closer to him, your head now leaning on his shoulder.

“Thank you, Chan. I just didn’t know what to do, and today has been really shitty,” you smiled, and let your head fall even closer to his chest. His thumbs ran circles around your back, and he held you close. “It’s okay, I understand. Trust me,” a warm silence encased the entire room, and as Chan now cuddled you warmly, your face was now red at the reality of the situation.

“Do you feel a bit better?”

“Yeah, I just needed someone to remind me of how things are and to keep me grounded,” you sighed, and Chan’s thumb was now no longer rubbing your back. His hand had stilled, and all you could hear was the heartbeat from inside Chan’s chest. He was so broad, and the expanse of his torso provided a very comfortable pillow.

“I wasn’t offended, or taken back or anything when you offered, you know that, right?” Chan spoke out of nowhere, the rumbling of his chest vibrating intensely. “I wouldn’t have known, I tried my best to ignore you in case you never wanted to speak to me again,”

A small laugh came out of Chan, and his chest pushed your head a bit. “No, in fact, I think I’ve thought about it a little too much.”

You pushed your head off of him at this point, and resuming your position before he sat on the couch. You pulled your knees back up to your chest, and looked at him. “Really?”

“You said you wanted to have sex with someone you trust, and I feel the same way. It’s really hard to come by good people with good intentions, and you also happen to be beyond gorgeous. Why would I not want to?”

With cheeks now flushed red, you giggled. School-girl giggled, specifically. You had no idea how to take this compliment, but then the realization hit you. Christopher Bang just said he wants to fuck you.

His face also turned a deep scarlet, and he looked down, waiting for a reaction. “Mr. Bang, the things you say. So scandalous,” you both laughed lightly, and you hummed in response to the silence. “If we decide to ever do something, it’s important we talk about it first,” you mentioned, and now the conversation went from light-hearted to a bit more serious.

“Of course, but in what way?”

“I don’t know, what kinds of things do you like? I can’t promise I can pertain to everything, but there’s no harm in trying. Especially if it happens more than once,” you clutched your legs, and Chan leaned forward a bit, his elbows on his knees as he stared ahead.

“Uh, well,” he laughed, and covered his hands with his face. This was the Chan you liked, who could make any situation, no matter how dark, seem light and easy-going. “It’s not really,” he started, beginning to look at you, then stopping himself, “I don’t know. I never usually talk about it like this,”

“Well, how about this: I tell you what I like, and you tell me what you’re willing to do. Just because I like it does not mean you have to do it, but if you enjoy it too, its mutual pleasure, yeah?”

Chan simply nodded, now mesmerized by you. His face completely tracked yours, and you sighed. “I have always loved your hands. I really, really like if you’d put them around my neck, if you would ever feel so kind. I really love being praised, I love being called a good girl, things like that. My favorite foreplay is just making out, I’m just a big softie, but I can take rough if that’s what you like. I’m a big pleaser, and I want to make sure you’re taken care of and get some pleasure out of this,”

Chan nodded once more, and his fingers instinctively wrapped themselves around his rings, twisting and turning. “Your turn, Channie,” you smirked, and he leaned back, a smile crowning his face.

“Well, I really like being soft and intimate, I like any position, bonus points if I see your face,” he smiled, his cheeks burning scarlet. He clearly did not talk about these things often, moreso just played them out in the midst of a high and never spoke of it again. But he and you both knew how important communication was, so he continued.

“I have played around with being called Daddy, but I’m not sure, and if you’re not comfortable with it—”

“If I am that uncomfortable with something, I promise I’ll tell you. Besides, that’s really cute. Rolls right off the tongue, right Daddy?”

He visibily shivered, and you smiled. “I—uh, I like if you’d run your fingers through my hair, not too hard, but like soothingly, kind of? If that makes sense. I also like it if you’d verbalise when you’re, uh—”

You knew where he was going, so you leaned close to his ear and finished his sentence for him. “Gonna cum? Oh, it would be rude not to,” you laughed gently, and you saw the last of Chan’s patience snap like a rubber band.

His hands grabbed your face sternly, yet somehow gently. “Do you want this?” he asked, the lust obvious on his face. Despite any previous conversation, he needed verbal consent to continue, and it would make him feel most okay with doing this.

“Yes,”

The room was now silent, anticipation filling your entire body. You’d come in here crying, and you couldn’t help but hope you’d leave the same way; just a different type of crying.

He pushed you so your back was now flush against the couch, the headrest leaning your upper torso closer to him. “Tell me to stop, and I promise I will, alright? The second you tell me to,” he was now looking you dead in the eyes, above you. Your legs were spread open, and his entire body was in the valley of your abdomen. Both of his arms were on either side of you, perching himself up.

“Chris, just kiss me already,” you whined, and he laughed wholeheartedly, before dipping in. The first kiss was hesitant, exploring new territory. His lips tasted like vanilla chapstick, and the first few were light pecks. It took only a second before he took the initiative and added his tongue to the mixture.

You rarely ever used tongue, most of your hookups barely even kissed, which is why none of them compared. Kissing was your weak point, it was a vulnerability. And Chan did not abuse that power once.

“Is this okay?” he mumbled against your mouth, your exchanging saliva now making more than your mouth lubricated. “Fuck, yes,” you moaned out, the amount of times he would kiss you now making you weak.

His hands dragged softly, and held themselves at your jaw, a classic sweetheart. His thumb was against your cheek so softly, the pads gracefully rubbing across the expanse of your cheekbone.

Everything about this was so domestic, so warm. His kisses were so soft, and full of love. There was no rush, no push to go any farther had you or him decided not to. His warm hands on your face made you purr on the inside, and when he pulled away, he had looked more beautiful than ever.

You had no intention of mentioning the wetness that had gathered between your legs, until Chan was staring at you, and momentarily his eyes widened. “Shit,” he cursed, looking around rapidly. “We don’t have a condom. I’m clean and everything, but we don’t have to continue if you don’t feel comfortable,”

“I have an implant, and I’m clean too. I just want you, if you want me too.”

Chan had no other qualms about it, and he attacked your face in sloppy kisses. “Here, can we switch positions, my arm is hurting?” he asked awkwardly, and you laughed with your entire chest. It was a normal question, but the way he asked so ashamedly, as if it was something terrible.

“Sit up straight, let me get on your lap,” you said softly, and he did as he was told. It was only then that you saw the bulge in his sweatpants, and you forgot that he actually had a male appendage, and from the looks of it, he was either girthy or long. Or both.

As long as he knew how to use it, you’d be fine.

He grabbed you by your hand to help maneuver you, and now your entire weight was on top of Chan. As you finally sat your hips down, he groaned. “Oh god,”

You took his face in your hands, and started kissing him again. At this point, you didn’t want him to be respectful anymore. His hands did not waver from your face, and so you took it into your own hands. Grabbing them both, so soft and calloused, and placed them as discreetly as you could, onto your hips. Moreso your ass, but Chan didn’t know your intentions.

His hands pushed your hips forward, now rutting against his hard on. His lips and yours were now in a frenzy, drenching each other. It was still pretty slow, nothing fast paced, just more intense.

He broke the kiss, and his hands now edged at the bottom of your shirt. “Can I take this off?” he asked, breathless. His lips were now swollen and puffy, and his pupils were blown wide.

You nodded softly, no words needed to be said. He quickly hauled the oversize shirt above your head, and groaned harshly when he realized you had no bra on. His first instinct was to latch his mouth onto your nipples, sucking softly. A moan left your mouth, and with nothing to hold onto anymore, your hands found his hair.

Still rocking back and forth, your panties were probably soaked at that point. So much foreplay had you almost throbbing, and you couldn’t wait much longer to have him inside you.

“Chan, please,” you moaned out, and he bit down on your nipple gently. “Only since you asked so nicely,” he added, and he told you to stand up. You did so, easily willingly, yet you loved the way he spoke to you.

It was almost a request, a plea. There was no power imbalance here, simply one trying to find another. He was so gentle, in everything he did. You wanted to drown in that feeling.

He pulled your jeans off without a hitch, and eyed your lace panties hungrily, slightly thankful you’d changed earlier this evening. His fingers grasped the sides, pulling them down your legs. You were now completely bare, and he was fully dressed. This was a problem.

“Not fair, your turn,” you pouted, and his eyes were fixated on your naked body. It felt odd, having him see you like this, but you couldn’t complain. Your arousal was now tainting your inner thighs, and Chan could probably see it too.

He rid himself of his hoodie and his shirt at the same time, and you finally got a full view of him shirtless. This man was absolutely ripped, and you had to hold in a gasp. His arms were lined in protruding veins, and his abs were impeccable. You worked out, but not in your wildest dreams would you ever be able to maintain that nice of a physique.

It wasn’t until he pulled off his pants, and painstakingly after, he patiently pulled his boxers off. God, did he have a pretty cock. A bit longer than average, slightly girthy, and it made your mouth water just thinking about it.

Your first instinct was to pop down onto your knees, but as you were on your way down, Chan grabbed you by the arm. “Not this time, please, I need you,” he whined out, almost painfully.

As you were on top of his lap, you were careful not to let him inside you yet. You figured he could decide when to do it, and you squealed when he let one hand slide from your face, down to your throat. His fingers, covered in rings, squeezed gently. He coaxed another moan from you as he let his fingers glide down the valley of your body, and found itself on your clit.

His movements were slow, but intense. His fingers glided over your folds, picking up some of your arousal, and placed all of his attention onto your little nub. Small pinprick moans escaped your mouth, and you began to tilt your hips in an attempt to get more friction. “Fuck, you’re so wet,”

Some noise semblant to a mew tried to leave your mouth, but his fingers tangled themselves around your neck further, leaving the sound trapped in your throat. “Are you ready? Or do we need to get you a bit more warmed up?” he asked softly, his mouth now next to you ear. His voice was dark, and husky.

“God, I just need you inside me,” you whined, and his hand let up on your neck, and he grabbed his cock harshly. He pumped it a few times, and spread your lips, and lined you up.

“Beg,” he said simply, and even if you tried to sink down, he now placed a hand on top of your hips harshly. You couldn’t move even if you wanted to. “W—what?” you asked, breathless.

“Beg, I want to hear you beg for me to fuck you,” he repeated himself, and looked down at you mischeviously. You two were face to face, and his cock was still in his hands, and your lips spread wide open for him to see. “Fuck, please,” you whined, and to no avail, he didn’t budge, “please, daddy, I just wanna feel good,”

As soon as the name sounded from your mouth, he pushed inside of you. The stretch was amazing, it was slightly painful, but it felt like nothing on this earth could amount. His entire cock filled you out nicely, and the lewd sound of him smacking against you was filling the room.

His hands laid at your hips now, piling into you like his life depended on it. His balls were smacking against your ass, and the harsh thrusts stimulated your clit. Everything was so intense, the way he filled you so deeply, you could feel him in places you didn’t know he could reach, and you felt like you’d burst apart the seams.

Shameless moans spilled from your mouth, and Chan was in your ear, grunting like a man starved. “Such a good girl, fuck, for me,” his groans were so animalistic, and the way his hands would hold you steady.

His fingers traveled down to toy with your clit, and he never stopped fucking you. Your fingers started to tangle within his hair, and his lips attached themselves to your neck, sucking, finding anything to latch onto.

The second his fingers started rubbing your clit numbly, you knew that you were going to cum soon. Everything he did just felt so good, you were just a hole the second he started fucking you.

“I—I’m gonna, I’m gonna cum,” you breathed out heavily, and your legs started shaking. “Please, can I—please cum?”

“Yes, cum for me,” he breathed out in a husky tone, and it wasn’t long until you felt your thighs start to involuntarily shake, and the feeling inside your abdomen welling up. “I’m so—” you were cut off by your orgasm rushing over you, Chan’s fingers never stopped stimulating your clit.

You moaned out harshly, slumping towards him, unable to control yourself as one of the most harsh orgasms you’ve ever had washed over you. Your entire body started to seize, and you clenched around him harshly. He continued to fuck into you, sucking into your neck, and he starting fucking into you faster. He was definitely close, “Where-”

You cut him off, still under the shock of your orgasm, “inside me, please,” you begged, and he fucked into you once more, even harder. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum,”

He lived up to his promise, as less than a few seconds later, his warm cum spurted inside of you, and he still rutted his hips, begging for more friction. He stroked into you a few more times, now drained of energy. He placed a soft kiss onto your neck, and whispered, “Thank you.”

You got up, and put your shirt back on over yourself, and Chan pulled his boxers and sweatpants on once more. A thought rose over you on whether to leave or not, but you knew Chan would be a skinship type of guy. He would probably have a drop, and not be used to just casual hookups like this.

“Do you want me to stay?” you asked softly, and a large part of you hoped he would say yes.

“Please.”

#bang chan #chris bang #christopher bang #skz smut #stray kids smut #skz #stray kids #cb97 #3racha #smut #angst #fluff #skz angst #skz fluff #skz fic #bang chan smut #chris bang smut #bang chan fluff #bang chan angst

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theowlsarequeer · 2 years

Text

Ok so i binged Q-Force today because I needed something to kill a few hours on a long weekend so HERE'S A WHOLE LONG POST ABOUT IT.

Overall, I actually really liked it. There were definitely some things I'd change or didn't like, which I'll also being including bc criticizing media while still enjoying it is a GOOD THING btw.

First off and most importantly: IGNORE THE TRAILERS. THE TRAILERS ARE SHIT. They legitimately chose the worst possible clips with no context and while I don't necessarily agree with some of the backlash the trailers got they just aren't indicative of what the show's actually like.

This isn't a criticism necessarily, but before you consider watching the show, please know that Q-FORCE IS DEFINITELY AN ADULT SHOW. There's a lot of sex, sex jokes (which were pretty funny ngl,) and both boobs and dicks (both in a nonsexual context, but there nonetheless.) This was totally on me for not, yknow, looking up what was in the show before I watched it, and it does say that it's rated TV-MA for nuditity and sex, etc, and I was fine with it and none of it was THAT bad but I was a little surprised. Just giving everyone a little heads-up. I might post timestamps later so people can skip it.

Anyways let's start with what I DID like about the show.

First off, the elephant in the room: the stereotypes.

Yes, a lot of the queer representation in Q-Force is pretty stereotypical. But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, per se. You can tell that the creators of the show are queer, and queer people and the stereotypes the characters fall into aren't the butt off the joke. In fact, a lot of the stereotypes work for the team's advantages. Twink (a drag queen) and his disguises are invaluable to the team on numerous missions, the sapphics at Deb and Pam's barbeque and their slightly stereotypical lesbian knowledge helped Stat with her trivia and saved the team's butts, and the drag community is used as a resource for gathering intel more than once. I felt like you could tell the show was made by people in the community, and even when they DID make fun of certain aspects of the characters' personalities, it felt more like a lighthearted inside joke than a dig at queer people.

To be perfectly honest, a lot of the hate Q-Force initially got doesn't sit right with me. Yes, the trailers were a dumpster fire, but people being visibly queer is not a bad thing, and I've heard that most of the characters are based on real people.

Also, I absolutely loved the way the community as, well, a community was portrayed. I loved that they all had connections in the queer community that came in handy, I loved the wlw barbeque, and OLDER BUTCH LESBIANS??? That means so much to me as a baby butch lesbian.

Second, it was actually pretty funny. There were a lot of digs on corporate pride (some of my favorites were the repeated citibank jokes and the 'fossil fuels' float in the pride parade. The fact that the literal princess from Princess Diaries was a reoccurring character? And yes, the sex jokes were funny. I am a teenager.

All of the characters were really endearing, and I was rooting for the main cast, even the ones that I either hated initially or just didn't find as endearing as my favorites.

I also LOVED LOVED LOVED the way that they showed the struggles of being queer without making it endless queer pain. Don't get me wrong, I love stories where homophobia isn't a plot point, but it was really nice to see issues I struggle with and people in the community struggle with portrayed on screen, because they're real. None of the queer character got horrible tragic endings, and they're all secure in their queerness (unless we're counting buck lol) but they all were underestimated because of their sexuality, gender, or presentation, and Mary got everything he'd worked for ripped away because he's gay. I felt like it did a good job showing queer struggles without it being punch after punch after punch.

Now, onto things that I didn't like as much.

I would've loved if there'd been more open trans and nby rep. Stat means the world to me, but I had no idea she was trans until I saw it on Tumblr. Which is also cool, considering that everyone onscreen accepted her identity without question, but if there's a season two I'd love to see a prominent character who uses multiple sets of pronouns or smth. I've also seen people call out for bi/pan/etc and aspec rep, which would also be very cool to see.

I've also seen a lot of people talking about how they'd want more representation of people of color in a season 2, and while that's not really something I can speak on, I definitely agree. There are some great posts about this BY poc in the q-force tag if you're interested.

This one might be a personal preference, because a lot of Twink's weight-related jokes were pretty uncomfortable to me. It didn't ruin the show for me, but I definitely could've done without them. HOWEVER there were characters of a lot of different body types, and there was never a joke about weight at a fat character's expense, which was pretty refreshing. Also both Mary (muscular Captain America-type body) and Deb (plus size) kicked absolute ass which was awesome.

I've seen some criticism about it saying that it's military propoganda and... I feel like those people didn't watch past episode 3. The AIA is pretty explicitly painted as corrupt and homophobic.

Anyway, TLDR: Q-Force is definitely not for everyone, and MAKE SURE YOU LOOK UP CONTENT WARNINGS, but it's not as bad as the trailers/Tumblr says it is.

#cody speaks #q-force #q-force netflix

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yan-twst · 3 years

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Idk if I made it in time for requests so I'll send it in anyway feel free to delete if too late but headcannons of Yandere Malleus, Kalim and Leona with a darling who loves them back but is scared of being tied to royalty?

a/n: just a quick heads up- kalim isn’t royalty (i used to think he was like, the son of the sultan when i got into twst) like in the sense his family isn’t connected to the crown, however he is the heir to an incredibly powerful and influential family! it still works for the effects of being incredibly stressed to being connected to such important family- think of it as old money rich families- but just thought i’d give a heads up bc i don’t refer to him as royalty in this one. also i’m working off the assumption that the relationship is already like, happening because i don’t want to make these way longer than needed

warnings: general yandere themes, implied violence

❥ leona kingscholar

it all comes off as... almost mockery, really. it leaves a sour taste on his mouth- he can see how his darling tenses at his presence whenever his title is mentioned, how they seem to stress whenever leona’s brother writes about how he should bring his lover to the palace to meet him

it’s not them trying to make leona feel unappreciated or feared, but that’s what they do. he’s spent too long being compared to his brother, being whispered about by servants- it wouldn’t be too far off to say that he almost feels betrayed by his significant other because of this, even if their reluctance isn’t necessarily aimed at him

he isn’t above using pressure to keep them right by his side. royalty might be annoying, but it’s also pressuring and crushing. he knows better than anyone that his darling can easily crumple under it all, and he uses it for his own advantage before they can slink away from him

their face shown to the entire afterglow savannah. being presented to farena and his wife. cheka’s constant cheering and asking “when they’re gonna marry uncle leona”. he has no trouble taking his darling back home by telling them how excited farena is to see them- surely they aren’t about to disappoint the king, are they? and once there, it’s all in his ballcourt.

court manners, keeping up appearance, smile for the citizens, wave as leona puts his arm around their shoulder, try not to go pale and fall when farena introduces them as leona’s partner- this isn’t a marriage announcement, but it might as well be. after all, is it even possible to split off now...? now that everyone seems to think leona’s found his genuine love, that it’s a sweet love story of the ill tempered second prince falling in love with a no-name commoner and tossing aside traditions of royalty marrying royalty to bring them to his kingdom... it’s such a sweet story for everyone, except perhaps for the poor soul that’s trapped in the relationship with no exits

and oh, if pressure isn’t enough, then pain and threats surely will be. leona seems to easily pick his own desires over his darling’s comfort; after all, he so easily chose to shackle them to the relationship just because he feared their insecurities would cause them to leave. now that they’re effectively trapped to him by everyone’s gazes being in them, he just has to keep them docile and obedient, keep them from causing a scene.

he’s careful enough not to bruise anywhere visible if he thinks punishment is needed; long gone are the days when he’d perhaps tolerate his darling not doing as he pleased, replaced by his seemingly unwavering intent to train them into absolute submission. it’s more so mortifying when he decides to drag their loved ones into the ordeal: perhaps they’re willing to withstand pain themselves, but would they want anything bad to happen to their beloved friends back at nrc, hm?

“are you being cold to me? you should know better by now.” he isn’t necessarily angry, per se, but annoyed- by now they do know it’s already bad to have him in that mood. there’s an added danger of being back at nrc now that break is over; there’s no longer guards stationed outside the room, no longer the danger of cheka bursting in- which means leona has little to no reason to not be as horrible as he wants, provided he makes sure they can’t scream too loud beforehand. the bruises on their arms still hurt from being gripped too tightly last time he considered they weren’t behaving as affectionately as they should, and the memory immediately makes them tense. without even asking why he’s accusing them of being cold now, they apologize- meek, docile, spineless- and the grin on his face grows. perhaps they’d been to scared at the thought of being connected to royalty before and failed to realize it wasn’t leona’s connection to royalty what made a relationship with him dangerous: how many red flags had they missed before? how many of those quirks and things they chalked off to leona being a bit too possessive or territorial had been warning signs to this eventual outcome? dwelling on the past did nothing to soothe the pains of the present, though. “hmph, i don’t think i’m buying that apology. if you really want to get off without a punishment, put me in a good mood first. you can do that much, can’t you, herbivore?”

❥ kalim al-asim

sweet, innocent and cheerful kalim would seem like the sort of person who wouldn’t understand anxieties over being connected to a powerful family. he gives off such a bubbly and happy impression that such things would simply slip his mind

oh, but they don’t. he himself has suffered at being tied to his family- he’s been through enough attempted assassinations and kidnappings and poisonings that he’s almost de-sensitized to it all. he’s sunny, yes, but it’s almost surprising how cheery he is considering all he’s been through

perhaps that’s why he’s almost... sympathetic to his darling when he finally understands their plight. it’s a relief, really- it’s not that they don’t love him! he’s fine, they’re fine- it’s just a little bit of anxieties!

he understands, really... it’s so scary to have people wanting to get rid of you. well, it’s different for him, because he’s lived this way all his life, but his darling hasn’t... it must be scary for them... kalim’s affection and his simple mind, combined with his love that runs a bit too deeply mix

good intentions or not, the result is nothing more than glorified imprisonment, really. it begins with him happily saying that he asked crowley for permission to get some guards from back home to come to nrc to make sure nobody tries to break into his darling’s dorm, to then kalim insisting they spend their nights in scarabia for added safety- it snowballs from there

don’t eat the cafeteria food if it hasn’t been poison tested! actually, don’t eat in the cafeteria at all, he’ll provide the food. they don’t have someone like jamil by their side, so try not to wander outside alone! in fact, always have him close if they go out, ok?

... and of course, it ends up with maybe don’t leave the dorm, since it could be dangerous, and by then? it’s too late. kalim interpreted their anxiety as fear of dangers, because he’s put in danger because of his position, and so he seems to tell himself that as long as he keeps them safe everything is fine

even if they don’t want to do as he says, he’s just... keeping them safe. it’s his duty, as a good boyfriend, right? even if it’s painful to hear them cry from their room as he locks the door, even after he has to keep a chain on their ankle to keep them from trying to pick the lock... kalim doesn’t enjoy their pain, doesn’t relish in the sadism most nrc students seem to inherently have. but he still thinks he’s doing what he must to keep them safe: after all, wasn’t it them who were scared before...?

“i got you this, it reminded me of you! please, won’t you try it on? i’m sure it’ll look amazing on you, and it matches with me... oh, if you don’t like the colour of the gems i could get you another one, too!” kalim opens the box to present a bracelet. it’s objectively a fine piece of art- surely it’s pure gold and carved jewels, a priceless piece that most could merely dream of even looking at through a glass display, and yet to kalim, there isn’t really a price too high for his lover. they’re his most beloved treasure; and he seems to protect them as such, too, if the chain connecting the cushined cuff on their ankle to the wall says anything. it’s covered in gold and long enough they can wander around the room, but a golden chain still remains a chain. it’s almost silly to think back on how this hell began, with them being anxious over being connected to such an affluent family as the asim family was- in fact, the threats of poisonings or kidnappings hadn’t even crossed their mind until kalim began to protect them from it. and now this was life- kalim seemed to willingly ignore every single time they tried to lash out, acting as if everything was fine, showering them with gifts as if new and expensive belongings could somehow soothe the loss of their freedoms. and maybe it was partly their fault too- after all, they let him put the bracelet on their wrist, let him cheer about how pretty they looked. it was so hard to lash out against him, despite him doing all of this- knowing that he genuinely had no bad intentions, that it was all born out of love and desire to protect, but they were still prisoners with no escape.

❥ malleus draconia

there’s nothing that malleus dreads more than being feared by his darling. that’s what sets them apart from others, what makes him so obsessed, to finally have found someone to show even an inkling of kindness to him, to show him a glimmer of warmth after a life of being feared, of being shunned

he... can’t understand. why are they scared of being tied into royalty? as he sees it, it’s a step up from their current life- power, riches, comfort, those are all things that people dream of, things men have gone to war over, things he can give them. malleus doesn’t seem to comprehend the pressure of it all to someone who’s simply never been involved with the crown- he’s never truly had friends outside of his parental figure or guards, always surrounded by those who work for the crown or are part of the court.

his frustration makes him turn to his instincts. he isn’t willing to lose his darling, not over something like this- even if in reality, he’d be unwilling to let go no matter the reason. what good is power and status if he can’t at least keep the one person he loves the most...? why would he not use said power to keep them by his side?

he seems to think that if he just pushes them headfirst into it, they’ll adjust. a sort of “rip the bandaid” method; they’re anxious over being tied to fae royalty, so why can’t he just show them it’s truly nothing to stress over? they don’t need to worry about ruling or about duties- their title as royalty in the future wouldn’t mean much. they’re malleus’ lover first and foremost, their only true duties would be to stay by his side as they’ve been doing

malleus makes his decision almost worryingly quickly. it’s perhaps because this obsessive attitude has been in him all along, simply brought up by the slight bump in the relationship. maybe his draconic instincts to hoard could be blamed, or maybe his lack of real relationships, or maybe he simply was never meant to love in the regular sense

it... really doesn’t help that most fae don’t think too highly of humans. when malleus drags a clearly terrified and unwilling little human back home and declares them to be his future spouse, the fae court really seems to think of them more as the prince’s pet rather than a lover, leave alone an unwilling victim. if anything, there’s more pressure added to them, the fact that in the castle there isn’t really any ally for them

he’s persistent. malleus doesn’t want to hurt his darling much, but his temper isn’t quite stable. test him too much and he’ll snap, electricity and magic humming in the air. the faster his darling learns that the best path for them is to just do as he says, to hold him and kiss him and try and hide how their body tenses and hands shake when he enters the room, the better it’ll be for them. it’s not like they’re going to be getting any other life soon- upon returning to nrc, malleus doesn’t see the need for them to attend classes. after all, their future is already decided as a docile spouse to a king, they aren’t going to be needing much of an education, as much as they simply have to learn to be a doting and gentle spouse to him.

“i don’t understand why you’re so stressed over this.” malleus sounds genuinely confused, arms crossed as he stares at his darling. the poor thing flinches at his voice, quickly composing themselves, as if trying to hide said moment of vulnerability from him- the last thing they want is for malleus to grow more upset because he once again is forced to realize his own lover is terrified of him. still, he steps closer, close enough to cup their cheek with one of his cold hands. it takes all of their willpower to not stiffen under his touch. they’re extra jumpy today, mainly because lilia dropped by to begin court etiquette lessons. the fae’s ways are much different from humans, but from what they hear, malleus doesn’t plan on having them discuss many affairs with the court to warrant more than some infrequent reminders by lilia on how to behave. still, that does little to calm their nerves, especially because they know the reason why despite the fact they’ll soon be royalty that they’ll still have little duties. malleus caresses their cheek, thumb moving to gently swipe over their lower lip (the urge to lunge and bite seems to still scream from a corner of their brain. the urge to rebel against this, to try and claw back at their old life- urges they ignore and suppress. it’s useless- it’s all useless now, and they know trying to stand for themselves is just asking for malleus to lose it again and hurt them beyond belief in his anger). he seems satisfied with their response; that is, with the lack of response, minimal flinching and tensing, things he’s slowly become keenly aware of, are good, and speaks again what weighs heavily on their mind. “you won’t have to deal with the court much. you’ll be my spouse- your title doesn’t mean anything to worry about. you’ll simply have to continue to love me as i love you; your only job is to stay by my side forever.”

#yandere twst #yandere twisted wonderland #leona kingscholar #kalim al asim #malleus draconia #yandere tw #violence tw

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thenovelartist · 3 years

Text

Burned Beginnings, chapter 1

Novel decided to do Adrienette April on a whim. Each post until the end of April (or such is the plan) will have 3 prompts in it.

She also discovered she’s very rusty. Bear with me here. XD

Next>>

1. AU

Marinette had thought she’d grown used to Chloe’s bullying, having to had endure it since they were little. However, with high school came a new name that became a regular part of Chloe’s vocabulary, alongside “hot” and “sexy” and “dreamboat”.

“And Marinette would never catch the eye of someone so perfect.”

Honestly, Marinette had thought she was over it, but on a particularly bad day, she’d snapped back at Chloe.

“Well, clearly he isn’t that perfect if he fawns over someone whose only redeeming quality is pretending to be pretty.”

That had led to a fire alarm getting pulled and Marinette left to blame for it. Anyone who tried to come to her defense was shut down, and Marinette had been suspended.

Which had started an all-out war.

After being stuck at home, wrongfully, for three solid days, Marinette had snapped. She’d decided that if Chloe was going to build a bonfire and poor on the gasoline that she would be there with a match. By senior year, Marinette’s record had taken a hit for it but Chloe’s reputation was in the toilet.

Marinette would take what she could get.

However, she supposed she hadn’t fully thought out the consequences. As much as she played with fire, she should have realized she’d get burned sooner or later.

And she did. Third degree.

We regret to inform you your application has been denied.

Those were words she grew tired of seeing yet came back from every school she applied to. With that in mind, she’d called up her girl friends to tell them what had happened.

“Hey, Marinette,” Alya had said upon seeing the letters. “Don’t get me wrong, I feel really bad for you. But… I did warn you—”

“I get it,” Marinette had surrendered, knowing that Alya was completely right. “You tried to warm me of the consequences, and now I’m paying for them.”

The girls had slipped into a moment of silence before Alix spoke up. “Hey, I can ask Max if he can do a little digging so you at least know why, yeah?”

Marinette had raised a brow but agreed. “Only if he’s not busy with his own college stuff.”

“Oh please, he’s too smart for college. He started up some robotics company in his free time and is already making bank on it.”

It took a week for Max to come back with a full report. Marinette had to give him props for working fast as he did.

“Hacking into the system was the first thing I could think of,” he’d explained. “In the side notes, there was mention of your attendance record and suspensions.”

“They were all wrongful suspensions,” Alix had countered.

“Doesn’t matter to the school,” Max had said with a shrug. “But even then, I thought there had to be more to this than just attendance. There were other students who had the same notes yet were accepted. So I shifted focus to digging up background on all the directors of the school. After hacking a few emails, I discovered Audrey Bourgeois happens to know a lot of directors or administration members in all the fashion schools of France. Considering the contents of most of those emails, it has become clear that Marinette was wrongfully barred from every school she’d applied to. And that there’s nothing that can be done about it because we only discovered such scandal through highly illegal means.”

“So…” Alya had begun, turning her attention to Marinette. “Where does that leave you, M?”

Marinette’s lips had pursed in thought. It was funny how things turned out, because despite her anger, she somehow had been peace with what she was faced with. “I think that the last place I want to be is in an industry full of liars and people who use their words to manipulate anyone they damn well please.”

That was how she ended up working full-time in her parents’ bakery. They never said a word about it, but she knew they were disappointed. Of course they weren’t mad about her still being here and working in the bakery with them, and she knew her parents still loved her more than anything.

But she knew that with as many dreams as she had and had shared with them, they were disappointed on her surrendering it all.

“Sorry, Maman, Papa,” she whispered into the empty kitchen as she plopped the baguettes she formed onto a baking tray. “Just give me a little time to figure things out. Seems like lofty dreams are a lot easier to crush than I realized.”

2. Rebellion

A son can only bear the world of their parent’s expectations for so long. He wasn’t Atlas, but after a few years of acting like him, Adrien decided to dump the globe. To hell if it broke. He’d smirk in satisfaction at his father’s disappointment.

At the very least, the fact he no longer had the weight of the world of his shoulders made the far-too-common disappointment lecture easier to bear.

His strategic rebellion had started harmless enough. At sixteen with a rapidly growing forced modeling career, he’d given his father an ultimatum: he gets to grow out his hair, or it all goes. It had been shocking the amount of power the razor in his hand had given him. It was the perfect harmless threat. His father had been furious, throwing a fit about Adrien acting like a child, but after being gaslit for so long, Adrien had finally come to realize the abusive techniques for what they were. And he wasn’t going to roll over and take it any longer.

That day had ended with Adrien being grounded but ultimately the victor of their stand-off.

After that, he’d begun ditching certain events. He’d always liked fencing, so he never ditched those lessons, but attendance for his home-school lessons, mandarin lessons, and piano lessons had all been decided on a whim. His father had hardly been pleased by this, but to Adrien, that was the point. The lectures soon washed into one another so much that Adrien could practically recite the words that roll off his father’s tongue verbatim. He’d come to realize they were strategically meant to hurt. To humiliate. And as such, he’d stopped taking them personally.

Then came the fun part.

He got earrings. Honestly, Adrien hadn’t really cared for the piercings one way or another. In one way, there were a hassle, and caring for new piercings was a pain in the butt. However, they had been worth it to see his dad so royally pissed off.

Then came the ditching of certain photoshoots. There was a reason Adrien had held off on this one for so long: he cared about the people running the shoot. There was no reason they needed to be collateral in this battle between him and his father. After all, they were just employees doing their job; Adrien didn’t want them to suffer for his rebellion. With that in mind, Adrien had planned out his absences of these photoshoots. Again, he didn’t want to drag anyone else into his mess, so he had always organized a replacement model. Shoot would always go on, just not as planned.

And that was enough to drive his father mad.

It always put a smile on Adrien’s face.

The last touch was an unexpected one. He hadn’t even thought about going this far. Yet, a friend of his not only put the idea in his head, but gave him the art to go with it.

“Is that a tattoo?”

Oh, how he wished he would have taken a picture of his father’s face. The large black cat surrounded in a green, wispy smoke that wrapped around his forearm was truly a work of art. He’d had to think carefully about this decision, but in the end, he quite liked it.

“Yeah. I’m eighteen; I can ink myself if I want to. Why? Is that a problem?”

Adrien might be wearing a cat on his arm, but the grin on his lips was downright wolfish.

Eventually, it all had come to a head and blew up in his face. Adrien couldn’t say he’d been surprised. In fact, he had been fully expecting it. He’d already found an apartment to rent and had begun sneaking most of his important things over there before his father could kick him out. So when Adrien found himself kicked to the curb as soon as he was handed his general education certificate, Adrien had been prepared.

But mostly, he was free.

What a joyous day it was.

However, now that he was free, he knew he needed a job. Not because he needed the money, per se, but because it was time he started acting like the average adult. He never got to go to school, so now, it was time to pick up a mundane, first job that everyone hated but would “serve him well later in life”. Mostly, it would just be something normal.

The easy places to apply were food shops and retail stores. He’d work one for a while before deciding what his next life step would be. Chloe had been quick to offer him a job at her father’s hotel, but Adrien was vehemently against the idea. Over the span of his rebellion, Chloe’s behavior and attitude towards him had grown notably worse, and he had a feeling cutting ties with her would be his next step in life.

In the end, he’d scored a job he definitely was underqualified for. He’d applied partly out of spite and partly because ‘why not?’ He’d heard about this bakery enough times from Chloe to know the “cruel bitch who did nothing but mercilessly harass her” lived here, and that was enough to pique Adrien’s curiosity. At a bakery as popular as that, though, he hadn’t been sure he’d get a call. And when he did, he knew he would do everything he could to present himself as a reliable and respectable man eager to work, but he never thought he’d end up hitting it off with the owner.

Which somehow ended up with him agreeing to work at Tom and Sabine’s Patisserie.

Going into that job, he swore to himself he would do what he could to prove himself worthy. He knew there had to have been better applicants, so Adrien didn’t want to disappoint the very kind owners who dared give him a chance. Soon, his days were spent working hard while covered in flour and surrounded by bread all day. Well, bread and all the sharp and hot objects in your average kitchen.

He just didn’t think that would include a wicked sharp and smoking hot young lady that happened to be his bosses’ daughter.

3. Game Night

“Mama, Papa, please go. You two hardly ever get out of the house.”

Marinette watched her maman put a hand over the mouthpiece of her phone while her papa turned to her. “But I’ll be busy that night. We have a massive order scheduled for the next day.”

“I can handle that,” Marinette quickly countered with a grin. “You know I’m a night owl, anyway. I’ll get it done, and you two can go enjoy game night with your friends.”

Her parents spared each other a glance. “Are you sure about that, Marinette?” Maman asked.

“Positive. Papa already talks to the bread too much, so he really should talk to people for a change. And while you have to deal with people all day, I know you want more than to just have short conversations filled with small talk. So please, go out and have a social life for once.”

With one last look, her parents relented. With a smile, her mother took her hand off the phone. “We’ll be there.”

Papa turned to her with a grin. “I was going to spend that time teaching Adrien how to handle those orders. I can leave teaching him in your hands, right?”

Her grin fell. Adrien Agreste. What the hell a washed-out model was doing working at her parents’ bakery was beyond her. Admittedly, over the last month she’d been working with him, the most she’d say is that maybe he wasn’t too bad a guy. Papa certainly sung his praises. But that still didn’t answer the question of why he was working here of all places. After all, he was Chloe’s friend and suspected lover.

“Don’t think I don’t see that look on your face, Marinette,” her maman chastised. She’d hung up and set her phone down already, fully giving her attention to her daughter. “No matter your personal feelings, you really should give him a chance.”

“He’s a good kid,” Papa said. “Maybe a little rough around the edges, but I can tell he really does want to learn and do his best.”

Marinette sighed. This wasn’t the first time this talk had happened. She remembered having a talk with her parents after his first interview. There were a few other people who were far more qualified for the job, but Papa said he liked Adrien’s personality and spirit the best. So in the end, all Marinette’s objections had fallen upon deaf ears.

She sighed. “Fine. I’ll give him a chance.”

With a smile that made Marinette loath to disappoint him, her papa patted her head affectionately. “Thank you, Marinette. I think you’d like him if you got to know him.”

Not likely. “I’ll do my best, Papa.”

“Really, Marinette,” her maman warned. “Unless you have a valid reason, you need to put aside your feelings for the sake of the bakery running smoothly. Can you manage that?”

Appropriately chastised, Marinette bowed her head in embarrassment. Maman brought up a good point: Marinette shouldn’t let her anger towards Adrien affect the bakery. Her parents didn’t deserve that. “Yes, Maman. I’m sorry.”

With a smile, her maman came up and wrapped her in a hug. “Thank you, Marinette.”

Marinette hugged her back. “No, thank you, Maman and Papa, for everything. I won’t let you down.”

Papa wrapped his arms around both her and Maman. “Thank you, sweetheart. We love you.”

“I love you, too.”

#miraculous ladybug #fanfiction #adrienette #AdrinetteApril2021 #AU #Marinette's kinda bitter #And Adrien's a rebel #If they're OOC I don't care #I'm writing again and just rolling with it

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ruby-whistler · 3 years

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Alright curious anon here. All this is /dsmp /rp from here on out unless otherwise specified and is refering to characters. If i make any mistakes or am misinformed please let me know! So by the cat was nothing compared to mushroom henry i was meaning more toward the fact that the cow was killed as a punishment for something not worth or ok for it to be killed for at all and the fact that it belonged to tommy, wheareas the cat was killed more to annoy dream and belonged to tommy. (1/?)

alright then another lengthy reply, here i come! /lh /dsmp /rp

Dream also did not seem to mourn the cat much, shrugging it off with a "just more motivation to break out".

it was killed to hurt dream, not to "annoy him". it doesn't matter who it belonged to, c!dream was attached to it and it died, which had an effect on him and also further proved his point about attachments being weakness and caring getting you hurt, and it's still very sad.

you say that it was not ok at all to kill mooshroom henry, but the cat's death wasn't ok either, so i really don't see your point.

again, i disagree it was "nothing compared to" either way. i never meant to compare them in the first place, i was simply talking about the cat and c!dream so i don't see why it is in any way necessary to drag c!tommy and other dead pets into this. /nm

also, it isn't true he didn't mourn it. he is a very reserved person who doesn't show his feelings much, that's true, but the cat death still changed the way he acted afterwards, as well as the attempts he made to prevent it. he didn't "shrug it off", he yelled about it because he was understandably upset.

You mentioned that propganda was used to make dream seem like a tyrant, could you specify a bjt? Cus im a little confused srry /gen. Because the most i can remember from the lmanburg era at least is him being called a b'tch or other similar insults. You also mentioned how trauma responses can be differet which is true! I agree! Do you have any ideas to what caused dream the trauma?

wilbur would continuously make him out to be some sort of oppressive, tyrannical force, in front of his troops - a prime example of this being the lyrics of the l'manberg anthem itself and the l'manberg declaration of independence.

actually! here's a nice thread about l'manberg's establishment complete with links, timestamps and evidence :]

i also said in my previous post what could've possibly caused it, but since the character intentionally hides his emotions from the public, it would be difficult to see how things really affected him - which is why the way his spiral went is the majority of the evidence that would imply it, however it does make sense within the story as well with what i mentioned last time.

I would like to note that for sapnap at least had reason to leave dream. Some examples off the top of my head are dream leading an angry fundy to sapnap's pets on purpose, resulting in some deaths, dream assisting tommy in burning down sapnap's effiel tower where he got engaged to karl, and dream giving tommy either mars or the other fish at the battle of the lake. Idk about george tho other then the whole mexican lmanburg/el rapids thing and decrowning him

c!sapnap was actually at fault for most of this, and it wasn't really ever betrayal on c!dream's part.

c!dream is a mediator and he wants to stop everyone's conflict - c!fundy was angry because of c!sapnap's actions, and hence it made more sense for c!dream to centre him on c!sapnap's animals instead of running around killing everyone's pets (at that time, all c!dream knew was c!sapnap did something really bad and c!fundy wanted beckerson / mars from him, which were also his and c!george's fish).

c!sapnap was an instigator, and in multiple conflicts during the time as well as before he'd align himself against c!dream. he isn't "loyal" per se, he causes chaos and the reason c!dream helped c!tommy was because, c!sapnap, again, killed his pet. the first l'manberg war and then the 16th are signs of the fact that c!dream and c!sapnap were willing to fight together in actual war, but these small conflicts where c!sapnap continuously picked fights weren't about personal loyalty, nor did they seem to affect their relationship at all.

c!george was never really hurt by c!dream either. the dethronement was him very obviously being a guilt-trippy drama queen, but, well, that's just the character. he had stolen the l'mantree while he was supposed to be the diplomatic figure of the greater smp, which is why c!dream was justified in - very politely, may i mention - taking the duties off of him (seeing as he was also trying to keep him safe and c!techno had already assassinated him once).

Im pretty sure i remember cc!sam stating that his character never canonically physically tortured dream during his subathon but take this with a grain of salt as i am looking for the clip currently. So to the best of my knowledge dream did not have a physical contact trigger during tommy's visit which! I rewatched the vod and dream actually was first to hit tommy and i can give you my full writing downs but 10/12 of the phy-

you never finished this point because you had to go do something, but i'll reply to what is here at the moment (i suggest writing these down before sending next time, or even writing them out wholly before sending a single one could help avoid stuff like this).

i am 95% sure that the reason cc!sam stated this was because people were suspicious he had already been doing what c!quackity was doing after - torture within the storyline itself is associated pretty much only with what c!quackity is doing, so that's what he meant, just to clear up confusion - the starvation or terrible conditions haven't been retconned, but it was direct torture (like c!quackity is doing) people were asking him about.

i never said c!dream had a physical contact trigger at all, i don't think he had that, though he probably will after the torture.

huh, ok, i'm gonna have to rewatch then, but i remember c!tommy punching c!dream a lot and him just telling him to stop and only punching back to get him to stop. trigger or not, getting hit isn't very pleasant, if you know what i mean.

You mentioned tommy stealing dream's armor unprovoked. Do you have the vod or a general idea of the time so i can find it? Like before lmanburg after another event so and so because if you do not have it i can find it but any help is appreciated.

i am pretty sure you can find the video on cc!tommy's channel! there are also recaps of the disc war on youtube :]

I wanna talk a little on why the Final Control Room was so messed up. For starters, with the way the room was designed. It was small, and had labeled, empty chests with each person's name on them as a mockery. The next reason is that its bascially a kill box.

It's fairly inescapble with the stairs being ones you have to jump up, slowing anyone who climbs them down. The final reason it is messed up is that it is shown to have caused every person who died in it trauma. With tommy there are several examples, the time he saw it with techno, the way he refuses to go near it, the exposure trauma, etc. Fundy also appears to have trauma, as when the Red Banquet executions began, it can be seen as him being afraid of dying last again.

It can Be thought as tubbo having trauma because he buries most of his issues and pretends to be ok. Moreover this event took at least one of each person's canon lives, making it the most canon lives lost EVER in a dream smp event. (This is not hate on any of the ccs btw i loved this scene and its one of my personal favorites). Plus the fact Eret's betrayal just literally happened, giving at least Tommy and Wilbur canonic trust issues.

i wouldn't call the chests mockery? it was a trap. people had traps on the smp before. it was a trap in the middle of war, supposed to end said war by killing them all at once rather than individually which would be a lot more bloody and difficult.

i agree c!tommy and other people might have post-war trauma, especially if they were young during the time, but i think that's because the final control room was "messed up", moreso because the war itself was. it all happened fairly instantly as well? i don't think c!fundy would be able to realize he was the last one standing within the two second before he wasn't.

it "can be thought" and it can be interpreted like that but besides c!tommy there isn't much evidence for them "all" being traumatized by the final control room. of course betrayal would spark trust issues, i understand that.

The probation was humiliating in my opinion because dream was Sending tommy anatgonizing messages through out the whole meeting, plus he had to write a review of his day every single day, which fundy mocked him for.

i mean, it was definitely a strike to his pride, but he was being extremely uncooperative so i don't really blame the other members of new l'manberg trying to teach him to listen for once? of course i know c!dream was riling him up, and that should definitely be considered. i don't think it would be as humiliating if c!tommy didn't make it, is what i'm saying.

for the tommy being toxic to fundy? At least for the examples you gave, to me personally they come acoross as either in a meta way being the cc's bantering or in canon being the characters having banter. If you can send the post with the clips so i can read the tone better that would be cool but if not i will try and find em.

no, these were all in canon. canon isn't only when c!tommy is being nice, it's also when he's being a jerk. /lh

the first one was him threatening c!fundy about kicking him out of l'manberg and undermining his self-worth, and the second one was him trying to get c!sapnap to vote for them via bullying c!fundy.

i found these from a transcript focusing on c!fundy's character, so i don't know exactly where the first one is from, but the second one i am pretty sure is from when the elections were starting with the whole cabinet battle deal and all of that.

there are other instances, and all of them are canon. his personality was never being nice or compassionate, so i'm not really surprised? he still cares about the people he cares about and is very brave, y'know. but this part of his personality is definitely a valid reason for people to dislike him.

I hope the exam went well :). Hope u have a great day! (Ps i think theres something called a submission box to send in pictures? Am not entirely sure sry)

it would've gone well but my work-speed is a tad too slow for the schooling system (considering i'm three years younger than my classmates,,, probably that's also a factor) so probably not despite the fact i knew everything and would've aced it if i only had more time. i did as well as i could so i'm not worried about it, but thanks!

i think you're thinking submissions. sadly, i tested it and it doesn't work on anons, so idk how you'd solve that, maybe make a burner account?

Curious anon here one point you may wanna include in the redemption essay is that c!tubbo or c!tommy do not necessarily have to forgive him. What's important is that he recognizes what he did was wrong (exile, beating tommy to death, manipulating them both, etc) and does his best to make amends. Hope this helps! Can't wait to see your essay

it's out, idk if you've seen it yet, and i think i included enough of that so hope it's all good! :)

the mcc update video is out if you are an mcc enjoyer. It's very neat, if you wanna check it out

yeah! i am a fellow mcc enjoyer, saw it already, thanks for telling me though, i'm really hype for today.

Allo curious anon here sorry if the lots of asks bother you. I was just curious if i could share an interesting post i saw today about c!dream :0 (not necessarily negative i think? More of a statement of an often-confused canon)

sure thing! i don't know what you mean by often-confused since, the entire fanbase is very confused always, and often selection bias plays into the perception from both sides, but sure :]

you also sent in a thing for the other anon who said they didn't know what c!dream did that bad; pretty sure they couldn't really be alerted since, not sure if they watch my blog that closely, but i'll summarize your points just in case and add some notes;

the repeated blowing up of l'manberg (in my mind that's largely a positive since i,, despise that country, but fair enough), revealed c!ranboo as a traitor (they seem to be friends so i also,, think that might've been planned between him and enderboo), sent ghostbur away (i don't think c!dream knew it was dangerous for him and wanted to actually hurt him, but idk), participated in fighting against c!sapnap when he killed people's pets (that's only negative against c!sapnap and didn't seem to hurt him much at all), and then the whole vault scene where he was allegedly planning to steal people's things (though saying he would & being stopped beforehand and doing it are two different things, frankly).

so i still agree with the other anon that a lot of the hurt he did "to the entire server" (he only negatively interacted with like,, a half of them) is exaggerated both by the characters and the fandom, but i guess that's a consequence of most people seeing him as a threat to everyone's happiness rather than a complex personality.

Also he was aware of the butcher army going to kill techno but only got involved because he saw an opportunity to get a favor. (As he knew in advance due to him telling techno to get a totem, watching from afar instead of interveing or manipulating tubbo out of it)

i don't understand this at all, i'm sorry. how do you know he only helped techno in order to get a favor? last i remember he was only doing it to protect and strengthen his alliance, and techno came up with the whole favor thing entirely on his own. you might've not watched techno's perspective or their prior interactions, idk, but this really is a misinterpretation in my eyes. /nm

sorry if that is overly dream negative i just wanted to let yall know cus you seemed unaware -curious anon

nah dw, i watch the smp and i watched all of these things happen so, wouldn't say unaware, but thanks.

#long post #my asks #curious anon #tw torture #tw animal death #c!dream negativity in asks #nothing aggressive though #so safe to read

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imagine-loki · 3 years

Text

Omega Mine

TITLE: Omega Mine

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 38/?

AUTHOR: nekoamamori

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Loosely based on: Imagine Loki discovers the Avengers have an omega who has healing powers living with them. He’s an Alpha and he wants her, badly.

RATING: M

NOTES/WARNINGS: Also on AO3 click here

You squeezed Loki’s hand and looked up at him. He met your gaze with his emerald ones, his eyes full of love and warmth as ever when his attention was on you. You were his Omega, his mate. He was drawn to love and protect you, just as you were drawn to care for his emotions and needs. “Are you ready to head out, Mate?” You asked, once his attention was on you.

Loki considered for a long moment, too long of a moment. It was long enough that you could practically see the gears turning in his head as he thought whatever it was over. You couldn’t help wondering what was wrong, what he was thinking about so hard. “Nearly,” he finally replied. A dark possessive look appeared in his eyes. You would have thought that look was lust, but he didn’t smell of desire and you weren’t preparing for any activity that would put a lustful look in his eyes.

Well, not right then anyway. Maybe after you’d returned from your shopping trip you could enjoy each other’s company.

“Nearly? Mate? What’s wrong?” You felt Loki’s inner turmoil through the mating bond, through your instincts as an Omega. You were more attuned to him than to any of the others since he was your Alpha, your mate.

You saw him visibly relax at the nickname you’d given him. To be fair, ‘mate’ wasn’t a nickname per se, but it was a reassurance to your Alpha. It was a term of address, of endearment that reminded your Alpha that he was loved, chosen, needed. You had claimed each other as mates. That was important to Loki.

Loki had told you his past in the time you’d been getting to know each other. He told you of his childhood, of living in Thor’s shadow, his mother teaching him magic, finding out his heritage, ruling Asgard, his fall from the Bifrost, torture at Thanos’ hands, the Battle of New York under mind control, and finally his time in the dungeons before he was allowed to come to Midgard to make amends.

You knew that he needed you with all that he’d been through. You also knew that he was loyal to a fault to those he loved and that included you.

He bent to nuzzle you, to nuzzle your mating mark. You gasped at the jolt of pleasure that went through you at that gesture. When your mind cleared of that jolt of pleasure, you realized what he was doing. “Mate? I have your collar and your mating mark. Do you really need to scent me too?” You kept your words light and teasing. Loki was scenting you, making you smell like him, physically, psychically with the nuzzling he was giving you. You didn’t mind that he was scenting you, but you wanted to know his reasoning behind doing so.

“Yes, but I feel better if everyone knows you’re claimed. I do not wish for any more incidents,” Loki replied when he was satisfied that you’d been scented properly. In scenting you, you’d nuzzled him back and marked him as well with your scent. You’d learned during the mating that his people mated and scented both ways, not just an Alpha claiming his Omega, but the Omega claiming their Alpha in return.

You remembered the Alpha who had tried to force claim you all too well. He had earned his death. Loki wasn’t taking chances, though. He was on Midgard on probation. No one faulted him for killing an Alpha who had challenged him, but he didn’t want another one to make the same mistake. He didn’t want to cause enough trouble to get dragged home, especially if he would be separated from you.

Loki kissed you softly when he was satisfied that you were both scented. He offered you his arm. “Now I am ready, Elskling,” he told you warmly.

You smiled and placed your hand on his arm, though thoughts of the Alpha who had died trying to force claim you and thoughts of Loki being dragged home and separated from you plagued your mind even as you left the tower with him.

#Loki #Lover #Submitted fic #submission #omega mine #chapter 38 #nekoamamori

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amjustagirl · 3 years

Text

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.

Wordcount: 3k

Summary:

Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears the echo of birdsong in her laughter, her song to the gods in the wind.

(Loosely inspired by Kimi No Nawa)

Masterlist link here

AO3 link here

Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything!

If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask!

The first time it happens, Akaashi is in his third year of university.

The upside of staying in Tokyo for university (his mother cried when he got into Waseda, her alma mater) is that he sees his family almost every weekend for cosy family dinners. The downside of staying in Tokyo for university is that he really has no excuse when his parents insist on carrying on Hatsumode, the first prayer of the new year, at the crack of dawn at the shrine close to their home. It’s not that he minds the tradition per se, but he did just spend all night rushing his projects just so he could adhere to the unspoken rule that no work should be done during the New Year holidays and spend some time flying kites with his little cousins.

Still, there is something magical about starting the New Year watching dawn break and the world awaken from its slumber just as he reaches the summit of all twenty six steps to the top of the shrine, shrouded in the bare branches of the wisteria trees. He tosses coins into the box, drops into a deep bow twice, chin at waist level, clapping twice before bowing a final time. His mother buys far too many omamori, presses at least half of them into his unwilling hands when the omikuji he draws has a great curse scribbled on it. He’s not superstitious, so it doesn’t bother him, but he knows his mother is, so he does accept the omamori with some grace, though he draws the line at the love charm she tries to sneak into the pile.

‘Mum, I’m too busy at school for a partner’, he tells her firmly. ‘Why don’t you pass it to Yuji-kun, he’s already started work, but hasn’t found a girlfriend from what Oba-chan tells me’. His elder cousin shoots him a particularly malevolent glare that he meets with a placid smile as his mother diverts her attention to him instead.

The faintest shiver runs up his fingers when he deposits the old charm he found in the corner of his closet, grey and faded with time, in the koshinsatsu osamedokoro, the omamori drop off open only during the first day of the New Year. The shiver turns into a ripple of cool water racing up his wrists and roars into an tsunami of dread when the attendant tells him all deposited charms will be burnt in the ritual fire in a fortnight’s time, but he writes it off as a symptom of his lack of sleep and starts to turn away.

There’s a sudden echo of a nightmare of raging flames that prompts him to swivel around to snatch the omamori and stuff it back in his pocket, muttering apologies to the shocked attendant. Later, when he has time to process his impulse, he’d find it strange. In the meantime however, the festivities wait for no one, so he distracts himself by eating far too much dango and mochi in between rounds of tossing kites up to catch the wind. His uncles slip him full cups of sake and sweetened rice wine to his mother’s disapproval, which in hindsight he should have heeded, as he stumbles to bed that night, head heavy with alcohol.

That night he dreams of a girl with curly hair, lying in a field of endless gold - daffodils to mark the dawn of spring.

‘Also known as narcissus’, he hears himself say, hears himself narrate the myth of a man so entranced by his own reflection in the water that he lost his will when he realizes he cannot have his object of desire. A girlish voice lilts teasingly – ‘the flowers are too pretty to be ruined by your obsession of stories written by grumpy old men’. He wakes up with the ghost of laughter on his lips, but there’s a lingering sense of loss budding in barren soil of his heart.

It does prompt him to pop by the florist near his parents’ house to order a bouquet of daffodils for his mom to be delivered on the first day of spring. He’s accustomed to the old couple running the shop, so he pauses just for a second when he walks into the store to find a new girl at the counter. She must not be used to customers yet, dropping the bouquet she’s working on when she notices him.

‘Hi’, she stammers, cheeks pink. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’d like to make an advance order for daffodils please.’

‘For spring?’ she asks, and he nods, writing down his parents’ address when prompted. ‘That’s a good choice!’

She waves him off with a cheerful – ‘please come back again’, and he does not notice that there are stars in her eyes.

His mother drags him back to the shrine on the third day of the holidays, and he obliges her, ever the dutiful only son, even though the frigid temperature makes his breath puff up into clouds and the tip of his nose turns numb. The old omamori is still snug in his jacket pocket, and as his fingers brush against it, he can feel the threads of the charm unravelling, the fabric almost fragile in its worn, threadbare state but he does not attempt to dispose of it again.

‘What are you going to do once you’re done with your degree, Keiji?’ His mother asks, when they stop by an old teahouse for a cup of steaming genmaicha, the aroma of roasted rice tea warm against his cold nose.

‘I intend to apply for a job at a publishing company after I graduate’, he tells her seriously, and she nods, encouraging him to continue. ‘I’m hoping it’s something to do with my major, preferably Japanese literature, better yet if it's poetry, but in this market, I’ll take what I can get’.

His mother nods, smiling at him fondly. ‘I remember you used to be obsessed with Shakespeare and Greek myths when you were younger, all the way through high school, and your father and I thought that you’d end up majoring in that in university. You really surprised us when you chose to major in Japanese literature instead.’

‘I don’t know why, to be honest. Maybe I had a good Japanese literature tutor?’ He laughs, fiddling with his teacup.

‘Mm I don’t think so though. I remember you complaining that Raku-sensei was so dull he caused everyone to fall asleep.’ He shrugs, and though she stares at him curiously, she does not pursue the line of conversation any further.

That night he dreams of waking up in an old wooden house, shivering in a thick futon, the smoldering embers from the irori, mere inches from his face. It’s so very different from his childhood bedroom filled with modern appliances and walls of books neatly shelved in alphabetical order, but he doesn’t notice that in the dark. Instead, he reaches for his phone to check the time, bolting awake because that can’t be, he never misses his alarm, mentally calculating that he must leave the house in exactly fifteen minutes to make it in time for practice when a little boy bursts through the door.

‘Nee-chan’, the little boy whines. ‘I’m hungry. Time for breakfast’.

Did he just say Nee-chan? Scratch that - since when did he have a little brother?

He scrambles out of bed, groping his way in the dark to the washroom. The cold water should wake him up, but when he looks up at the mirror above the sink, the face he’s staring at does not belong to him. No - it belongs to a dark eyed girl with curly hair - but it doesn’t make sense, shouldn’t make sense, because when he reaches a trembling finger to poke at the mirror, he is she or she is him -

The ensuing panic and confusion makes him jerk out of his dream, but when he rushes to the washroom to check that he’s still himself, he is relieved to see that it’s still him - Akaashi Keiji, with dark circles around his eyes, staring back in disbelief.

He chalks his strange dream up to the stress he carries around from trying to clear all his course work so he can audit additional classes over the next term.

Except the dreams don’t stop, not even when he moves back to the university dorms. He keeps waking up drenched in cold sweat, clutching at his arms even though they’re clear of the scratches he sees in his dreams, red and raw and stretching all the way up his elbows.

‘Be kinder to Hana-chan, Keiji-kun’, he hears the call of the same girl in his mind and he shudders, unsure whether the disembodied voice floating through his mind is a memory from his dream. ‘She’s going through an awfully tough time’.

‘It doesn’t give her the right to hurt you like that’, he can hear his faint disapproval.

‘Never mind that, it’s not a big deal. What are we reading today – don’t tell me it’s anything like Hamlet. That was horrendously depressing.’

‘Midsummer’s Night Dream? It’s a romantic comedy at least.’

‘Only a nerd like you would read Shakespeare in high school – and it’s not even in Japanese!’

‘Hush – you don’t get to complain when I’m reading it out to you.’

‘What on earth is going on’, he mutters to himself. The copious amounts of frigid water he splashes onto his face is no antidote to this madness.

‘Sato-san, are you feeling alright?’ he asks his grimacing classmate in concern, lines of pain etched onto her face.

‘I’m fine, Akaashi-kun’, she manages to spit out, clutching her stomach with white-knuckled hands. ‘It’ll pass in a bit, I hope’.

‘Are you sure you’re fine? I could help you to the nurse’s office if that helps’.

His classmate shakes her head, a blush staining her cheeks. ‘It’s just that time of the month. I apologise if that’s too much information to be polite’.

Ah. But somehow even though he has no sisters, and his female classmates in high school were oddly reticent about their periods (strange, considering it is part and parcel of being a mammal for far more than a millenium) the steps to deal with this particular conundrum come to him so naturally it’s almost as if the answers were presented to him previously in a dream.

‘Here’, he passes Sato-san painkillers, chocolate and a hot water bottle he’d managed to talk the university nurse into loaning him, and Sato practically whimpers in gratitude.

‘You’re a lifesaver, Akaashi-kun’, she tells him and he nods, content that he’s solved the problem so efficiently.

That night he wakes up in her body again. The room is dark, save for the sliver of white light between the blinds that allows him to discern the growing crimson stain between her legs.

‘Don’t you know all women have to deal with this nonsense every month? But I’ll tell you a trick - painkillers, chocolate and a hot water bottle will make you feel as right as rain’, he hears her voice declare in his mind, and he startles awake to find himself back in his own bed, blessedly clear of any bloodstains.

It must be a dream borne out of what happened today, he tells himself firmly and shrugs it off. The rest of his slumber is thankfully shorn of dreams.

But then these dreams start to crash into his sleep like a series of never ending waves, and he’s a short hop, skip, jump away from falling off the cliff into a distracted madness, the rate his sleep keeps getting disrupted. He keeps waking up in her body, it makes him feel like a creep, wearing her skin like an ill-fitting glove, and he decided does not think about how strange it feels to have twin lumps of flesh in front of his chest (his mother raised him to be a gentleman, after all).

The contents of these dreams are relatively cyclical. He wakes up at dawn, puts on her school uniform, makes breakfast for the little boy - Toya-chan over the primitive hearth before rushing to school through dirt paths lined with trees. His - or rather her classmates stare at her with a mix of condescension and apathy, and her hours in school are spent in a lonely silence, save when Hana-chan gets up in her face and screams absolute nonsense about staying the fuck away from her, which seems a little dramatic considering she’s the one doing the confronting, but it’s just a dream, so he keeps telling himself. It’s not like he can change anything about it.

‘Does it bother you? That you’re alone?’ he asks her one day.

‘Not really. I have you and Toya-chan, don’t I?’ she responds.

‘I suppose’, he says, voice trailing off.

He catches glimpses of sun drenched afternoons spent in fields of flowers, glances of dusky evenings spent in the forest basking in the light of the setting sun. He agonizes over stacks of homework, digs for mushrooms in the damp earth, climbs through wire fences to scavenge for eggs in neighbouring farms.

‘Aren’t your parents worried about you and Toya-chan?’ he can hear himself question her one night.

‘My mom is dead and my dad can’t be home often, he works on construction projects around Sapporo. He sends cash to me and Toya-chan, and it isn’t always enough, but he tries his best ’, she answers, her voice feather light.

‘I’m sorry’, he tells her a little awkwardly, thinking about his happy family and wondering how it’d feel like to have them torn away from him so early on in life.

‘Don’t be’, she replies, ‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s better to have good parents who’re dead or absent rather than horrible parents who’re still alive’.

He jolts awake again, relieved to find himself back in his bed. It’s barely four in the morning, but he’s not going to be able to sleep after that, so he resigns himself to using the time to get cracking on his college assignments anyway. But he makes sure to call his mother once day breaks and he’s sure she’s returned from the market with groceries in tow, telling her awkwardly that he’s just calling to catch up and hopes she’s been well and ok bye mum I love you very much, heart pounding when he hangs up abruptly.

He has a standing appointment on the first Thursday every month to meet Kenma for coffee at a café a stone’s throw away from Waseda. They both order black coffee, which is strange for Kenma considering his legendary sweet tooth, but he knows Kenma too well to know that the ridiculously successful game streamer is only drinking coffee to stay awake, the shadows under his eyes deeper and darker than those under Akaashi’s own eyes.

‘Doesn’t Kuroo-san nag you go to bed at a decent time?’

Kenma doesn’t even bother to flick his eyes up, busy gulping mouthfuls of the bitter liquid. ‘Speak for yourself. Not sleeping well either?’

Akaashi shrugs his shoulders helplessly, stirring his coffee. ‘Mm. ‘I’ve been having strange recurring dreams and it’s been affecting my sleep’.

Kenma merely hums in reply, and Akaashi finds himself spilling out the entire weird series of events – though to be absolutely accurate, his dreams aren’t real so they can’t be termed as events, but they’ve been haunting him for the past month so they might as well be at this rate. He explains about finding himself in the body of a high school girl with curly hair and a dimple on one cheek, how he’s lived her life enough in the past month that he can map out her days with startling certainty, how he knows it’s not real – it can’t be real, but his dreams glimmer with such vibrancy that they feel real.

‘Am I going crazy?’ he asks.

‘I highly doubt it’, Kenma says, tapping his chin in thought. ‘Maybe it’s like one of those exploration video games where you have to take your time to discover its world to figure out the narrative the game is feeding you.’

Trust Kenma to relate everything to video games.

‘That was singularly unhelpful’, Akaashi says dryly as Kenma chuckles quietly in response.

He is almost afraid to fall asleep again but his eyelids are weighed down by weeks’ worth of sleep deprivation and soon he finds himself again in her body.

It’s a clear winter’s night. He’s huddled under a thick blanket to shield himself from the bitter cold, watching the embers in the hearth glow yellow and gold.

‘It’s late. Can’t sleep?’

‘Mm’ he replies. ‘Wondering what tomorrow will bring.’

‘You’re overthinking again, Keiji’, she chuckles. ‘Tomorrow’s going to be just another day. You’ll wake up back in your warm bed at the crack of dawn for volleyball practice, attend classes in your fancy private school, and play even more volleyball with your beloved Bokuto-san’.

He rolls his eyes heavenwards at her words and her laugh this time is loud, bright.

‘You know I only speak the truth. Now, since you need to wake up ridiculously early tomorrow, why don’t I tell you a bedtime story so you can fall asleep.’

‘I’m not a child’, he replies dryly, but does not object when she starts to narrate the tale of a princess exiled from the moon, who is raised by a humble woodcutter and his wife to become a renowned beauty, with five suitors seeking her hand. ‘That’s mean of her’, he mumbles as she describes how the princess rebuffs her suitors by setting them impossible tasks, drifts to sleep as her voice softens as she describes how the princess falls in love with the Emperor, but breaks both their hearts because she knows she must return to the moon someday. He’s fast asleep when she reaches the ending where the princess leaves all her memories on earth with tears in her eyes, gifting the emperor with an elixir of immortality which he burns, because he declares life isn’t worth living without her.

‘Goodnight Keiji’, she says, her voice shimmering in the still night air.

For the first time in a long while, Akaashi wakes up at peace.

Taglist:

@1tooru @animeflower26 @kageyamakock

#hq #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #hq imagines #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu writing #hq writing #haikyuu angst #haikyuu romance #akaashi keiji #akaashi keji x reader #akaashi x reader #akaashi keiji x y/n #haikyuucreations #akaashi headcanons #akaashi angst #haikyuu fic rec #haikyuu scenarios

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vickyvicarious · 3 years

Note

Moreau’s anger in the famous scene with Nate (“a 24yo genius w/ a problem with authority”) is scary. he’s so contained, saying things that coming from the usual bad guy of the week would be ranted, shouted - but he’s so controlled in his anger

So I was thinking about this ask a lot as I was watching the last two episodes of S3. Because it really is true, he is always so controlled. I counted how many times he raises/loses control of his voice and it really wasn't a lot:

At the end of the Big Bang Job, when Nate is going on and on about how he is framing Moreau. He goes from calm and amused to more and more frustrated, and - just once - raises his voice. He snaps, "Who ARE you?!" But then immediately pulls his face back under control. The penultimate picture on this post is literally one second after he yells; he reins it all back in.

When he just saw Eliot on TV petting a puppy and claiming the president held dogfights. When he turns to face Reberra and reassure him this is all under control, despite being obviously very fed up with the crew messing with his election, his voice - only once - goes down into a growl as he says "Tonight, you bury him at the debate. Tomorrow, he loses in what will be the closest election in years. Which frankly only helps legitimize you, so RELAX." Just on that very last word, the rest of the time he does a good job of sounding reassuring and even a little unphased.

When the election results are being counted. "Too close to call. TOO CLOSE TO CALL, how'd you let it get this far?!" This is pretty much the only time he rants in frustration, and even then he quickly pulls himself together. Puts on a convincing show of being unbothered moments later.

Even in that final confrontation with Nate, he finds himself at a loss for words, he is furious and unsure of what to do - but his voice stays quiet and intent. You can hear him seething, but only a few times. He doesn't really lose control per se, not until he is literally being dragged away. Right up until that very second he just gets thoughtful and is staring off into the distance, trying to process how this happened and what he can do to get out of it.

When you consider just how much the crew was pushing all of his buttons, that is not a lot at all. Definitely less than we would usually see from other villains. And that's not exactly a coincidence, because...

Moreau is someone who has built his entire empire on control.

He moves money around for other people, makes sure never to get his own hands dirty. Even the hitmen he sends are trained to not leave any evidence behind - that one guy they scared out with the fire alarm still took the time to clean the room and collect any shell casings, and Eliot confirmed that is expected for someone working for Moreau. He's perfected the art of not laying a trail of evidence, to the point that the crew had to use someone else's crimes to get to him both times they went up against him. They couldn't prove his criminal empire so they instead framed him for stuff the Italian had done. Then he just hid away in the country he'd bought and was doing fine. Once there, they couldn't expose his part in the election so they rigged it even more than he was, and took advantage of the greed of Reberra to get him to turn against him. Nate wasn't lying when he said "honestly, no [we stood no chance against you]."

Moreau doesn't work with people he doesn't know. He just won't do it. He manipulates and abuses his own people, as is evident with Eliot. The entire pool scene is rife with Moreau proving again and again and again that he is not willing to let anyone else hold the cards. He has it drilled into them that they can either be assets or liabilities, and everyone knows what he does to liabilities. People are terrified to turn on him, and pretty much no one willingly does. Moreau understands the value of public perception, so he makes sure that he is pandering to the UN and not immediately eliminating his rivals in San Lorenzo until the election is over, but it's very clear that he would not hesitate otherwise. The fact that he chooses to wait is extremely deliberate as well; he's calculated the odds, and hurting the crew isn't worth it. Yet. No matter how much he hates them, he is willing to wait. He doesn't let emotion rule him.

Even his body language - he smiles. He is deliberately relaxed when others are worked up or when the situation is tense. (Casually sips his drink as Hardison drowns in the pool, laughs at Nate's accusations about him being a terrible person even as he's losing the election.) When he's truly, truly furious, when things aren't going at all as planned - he goes still. In the Big Bang Job, he holds his hands together in front of him and doesn't make a move to step towards Nate. When Eliot is rushing him, he levels the gun and shoots the Italian with deliberate aim, then turns and leaves in a hurry, but by no means running for his life. Then in San Lorenzo, he goes still and dangerous several times when he knows he can't make a move against the crew yet, but the biggest example is when President Reberra signs his arrest warrant. Moreau just stands there, hands on the desk, quiet and still and so thoughtful. It's only, again, when he is literally being dragged away and he realizes there's nothing he can do that he finally loses his iron control and struggles to get away. Until then he always, always tries to stay calm and cool and even relaxed, projecting an unbothered image of implacable power.

It's one of the scariest things about Moreau, this complete control over himself and his people. It means he thinks things through, you just can't get him to react rashly. He's not someone you can con. So the team works around this by, and I love this - turning his perfect control from an asset into a liability. They know he will have the election news on lockdown, so they manipulate everyone else to believe it was their victory. They know he wouldn't risk harming them in front of the world's eyes, so they pretend to harm themselves. They know he has abused the system to lock up his rivals and take all their assets, so they do the very same thing to him. They literally don't do anything he hasn't already planned around (sure, they use methods he hasn't thought of as viable, emailing everyone in the country for example, but the core of the idea isn't anything new to him). They just figure out what he wants to avoid happening and then they make it happen, which only succeeds because he is so determined to ensure it doesn't. If he'd been more ruthless, more short-sighted... they couldn't have won.

#leverage #leverage meta #damien moreau #anonymous #replies #my meta #sorry this took so long to answer! i was almost at the moreau eps so i wanted to watch them first #and then i ended up taking several days to get around to it #but i'm glad i did because this was very much on my mind while watching

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