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# at this point me and my own fear having someone extremely possessive over us now
squidsavior · 1 year
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“You know thinking about it... my previous relationship would had been considered as toxic. Dude’s been calling me a midget as a tease... when I showed signs of not liking it. Not to mention getting after people who sometimes get close to me.”
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“And I’m usually the one apologizing for his actions. Why the fuck should I be apologizing? He should be the one apologizing because he was being fucking possessive over me.”
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His Favorite Toy (Be a Doll AU)
Vox x reader, if you didn’t know.
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CW: Manipulation, disassociation, Abuse, Mind control, seeking comfort from one’s abuser, objectification, lover obsession, AU typical events, Vox being a little shit (He’s in hell for a reason)
Note: Vox is manipulative, possessive, jealous, impulsive, controlling, and harsh in this AU. He can be extremely violent towards reader, and is consistently abusing them either way. He is not a good person! If anyone is sensitive to or may have a negative reaction from these topics, I recommend clicking away now.
Summary: An explanation of what it feels like to be Vox’s doll and some details about your relationship and dynamic with him.
Being in my "doll-state" feels like floating in a haze, where every thought and action is clouded by a sense of detachment. When Vox utters the trigger phrase, it's as if a switch flips inside my mind, and suddenly, I'm no longer in control of my own actions. There's a softness to my movements, a docility that I can't seem to shake off, even as I'm acutely aware of what's happening to me. There’s a fog in my mind, keeping me from thinking clearly. Sometimes it’s so suffocating I feel as if I can’t think at all.
In those moments, it's like I'm watching myself from the outside, a mere spectator to my own body as it moves and obeys Vox's commands without question. It's unsettling, to feel like a puppet on strings, manipulated by someone else's will. Sometimes I wondered if that was all I was, if that was all I ever would be. I felt as though it was unnecessary, really. I was far too deep to change anything about it now, though. He’d made up his mind about me and me about him. He could see me as a lover or as a doll, but I always saw him as a source of comfort and love. The power he held over me didn’t change my view on him. Sometimes, it's a slight inconvenience, like when Vox uses the trigger phrase for mundane tasks that I could easily do myself. Other times, it's downright terrifying, especially when I catch glimpses of what Vox is truly capable of. There’s not a thing I can do when he has me like that. I can’t express myself at all. Terrified as I may be, I was still his doll. Him and his desires came first, my emotions and what little thoughts I had were scrapped and pushed aside for later.
Despite the fear and unease that accompany my "doll-state," there's a strange sense of comfort in surrendering to Vox's control. It's twisted and unhealthy, I know, but there's something oddly reassuring about relinquishing responsibility and letting Vox take the lead. I always come back to myself in the end, sometimes more disoriented than others. It was especially bad after one of his bad moods, when all my fear came rushing back to me with a clarity that threatened to slice me to bits. I’d be overwhelmed by it all, the feelings I had to push aside in my doll-state coming back to me once I was myself. When it was too much, I’d break down. He’d frown and put me back in my little trance for a bit, to calm me, I suppose. And afterwards, when the haze begins to lift and I regain control of my own thoughts, there's Vox, offering me comfort and reassurance in his own peculiar way.
I know I should hate him for what he does to me, for treating me like a toy to be played with at his whim. But I can't bring myself to feel anything but love for him, twisted though it may be. It's like the love a child has for their favorite toy, a love that transcends reason and logic. I was the toy, and I could easily be discarded, but I also knew that despite this, he hadn’t gotten rid of me. There had to be a reason. That had to mean he loved me, in one way or another, to the point where I wouldn’t have to worry about being tossed aside. And so, despite the fear and uncertainty, I find myself seeking solace in Vox's arms, knowing that even if he treats me like a doll, he still loves me in his own twisted way.
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avpdvoidspace · 3 months
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prev anon here, that is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. aahhhh I also have had a character for over a decade now (coming up on 12 years sometime this summer??) I actually realized quite recently that I have subconscious conversations with him specifically, mostly in a self-soothing type way.
I would agree that cluster c disorders have our own kinda hyperfixation. I can't speak for the other ones, but for avpd at least I think the desire to be accepted, loved, understood, and so on, makes fictional characters very appealing. it's that same drive that brings us to have elaborate fantasies about social acceptance. fictional characters are reliable, they're stable, it's much easier to live out fantasies of acceptance and love with people who aren't real because there's no tangible fear of rejection. unless you wanna count how I tend to get very insecure and anxious and possessive over other people liking my Thing (not that I'd ever DREAM of being rude to them ofc. confrontation is hell. block and move on).
something about that personal aspect, and also having something that can't abandon me, really helps. I don't think I've ever felt romantic attraction to a real person because it feels unsafe, I can just never get comfortable with someone to that point. but I can do that with fake people! I have full-fledged conversations with characters In My Mind. probably trying to make up for my lack of contact irl lol
Yes, exactly all of that.
I should make a post some time about my experiences with cluster c hyperfixation--with the hope that others will contribute.
Tbh it's a relief to be talking about this openly.
And yeah, I have an extremely hard time feeling romantic or physical attraction because of the inherent fear of rejection. I feel like I have to guard myself against my feelings and I do have a partner. I have to consciously go against every instinct I have to open my feelings to him, and it's always an internal battle. In contrast, having pretend conversations and romantic interactions with my blorbo? Relaxing, a break from the intense pressure of real human interaction, from the all consuming fear of rejection and embarrassment.
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astroandstuff · 2 years
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Hey, how are you?♥️ What would be the difference between venus conjunct Pluto vs venus square Pluto in a natal chart? Which aspect would attract more obsessive peoples ( stalkers) in life? Which placement is more magnetic?
Beyoncé has Venus conjunct pluto while Britney Spears has Venus square pluto.
Thank you for your response and time ♥️
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Hey I'm doing well! Sorry its taken me so long to get to this! This is an interesting question and I apologize in advance for the incoming tangent. Sorry if it's a bit hard to follow I just had a lot of thoughts.
Venus conjunct Pluto:
intense form of love (positive or negative)
relationship with oneself is the determinant on how they love
might fall in love easily
two extreme forms (positive - negative) can come out with this
wants people who love like them
might need to learn to be more understanding
Venus square Pluto:
demonstration of love can be extreme and a bit volatile at times
might fall in love easily
can be manipulative and secretive
controlling
might fear losing
might struggle with self awareness and self love
attracts what they feel of themselves
So I'm pretty sure many of us have seen those posts about placements that are beauty indicators or sexy indicators or magnetic placements floating around. And no shame they're fun, but I would like to point out that while certain placements are constant like Libra Risings or Pluto- Ascendant aspects there are always a lot that aren't so common. That's because the people that are choosing them are going off their own preference and what is beautiful to them. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. A lot of the time it's more helpful to look at the chart of the person who is obsessive versus looking at the chart of the person they are obsessing over.
Now that's not to say that I disagree with the idea that there are placements that can give off a certain magnetism and charismatic nature, but you shouldn't just look at only one placement. You need to look at the chart as a whole. It also depends on how each person embodies their placements and their chart. If someone has this aspect but also has a lot of other placements that contradict or support this placement the way they embody it will be completely different.
Now with all that said to get back to your question on which aspect attracts more obsessive people or stalkers and which is more magnetic my answer is both. Now both of these aspects give a magnetic person and show love based on how they love and view themselves (which honestly is how everyone loves, but I digress). It's very much so "If you can't love yourself how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else" (plz someone get the reference!).
The difference however is that the conjunction can go either way. It's an aspect that shows extremism in either the positive or negative in how they demonstrate their form of love. They can easily be the ones who are obsessive instead of being the ones obsessed over. Whereas the square is more likely to have a harsher view of themselves (depending on the rest of their chart of course) and hence have a harsher form of showing their love. Their negative view of themselves may lead them to use negative actions like manipulation or possessiveness in order to keep the control in a relationship because they ultimately fear losing the person they're with. Their lack of self love may lead them to want a higher sense of control because they're scared no one can love them because they cant even love themselves. Because of these thoughts they may settle for people who will treat them poorly. They may even seek out people who reflect how they see themselves. Someone who also may not love or respect themselves and in turn can't give that to anyone else. The conjunction can go either way in the extremes meaning it can easily go down the route of the square. They both can attract these types of relationships because sometimes they seek them out subconsciously.
Another main difference these two have is that the square might ultimately need to learn self love and respect. Whereas the conjunction is about understanding that the way others love can be different from how they love and not getting consumed by negative thoughts such as "they don't love me as much as I love them" which can ultimately lead them down a dark spiral.
Sorry that I went on a little bit of a tangent and that this came out longer than expected, but just wanted to give you a more rounded view of my opinion. Hope you liked it and please remember to be kind to yourselves!
- S 🤍
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ava-mxx-blog · 1 year
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Why being an agile individual and having learning agility is key to sucess!
What?
When I went into my second seminar class of personal development, I saw it said agility on the board and on the slides, at first, I was confused since the only thing I ever linked agility to was sports and the only reason I ever knew that was because of PE in secondary school which is quite embarrassing. Mainly I was confused what it meant and why we were learning about it however I quickly learned it was learning agility which is about willingness and ability to learn from experiences then to apply that learning to perform successfully under new situations, I immediately knew it wasn’t a skill I possessed as I never would read my teachers reflections or just learn from experiences if I liked the way I did something that’s the way I would do it which never helped me but I would stick to it.
This seminar actually helped me understand why learning agility is so vital for a person to have because it is something employers are looking for in potential employees because nowadays, they want someone who can respond to rapid change, which I lack detrimentally. 
It showed me how there’s fewer jobs out there nowadays and everyone has experience or qualifications to battle each other with but being an agile individual will give me a greater opportunity and chance to get employed over others.
I was surprised with how opposite I was to the description of an agile person it was quite disheartening because I realised how much I need to work on myself to have more of a open-mindedness, be a risktaker and be someone who can adapt and cope with change better.
I also learned about the reflective progress models which because of the assessment I’m doing I found very useful to use later in the assessments, which eased my mind because it gave me something to go off, giving me a structure which I crave with everything.
So what?
It made me realise what I need to prioritise going forward if I want to succeed in life and get the jobs I want.
It made me feel more determined for change within myself to benefit myself and as mentioned my future greatly, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do but this seminar and the others have helped me really think more deeply into what aspects need to be changed, but it’s given me options to work on so I know also now I feel like I have set instructions of what I need to do which helps me to have a clear mind for working on it.
Business marketing is a job that will require learning agility so if I want to get employed and give my best performance possible in my work, I need to take this into account greatly.
As I mentioned previously it made me reflect on times I wasn’t the most agile person because throughout my educational journey I stuck to what I felt comfortable with almost like a safety net being scared to try harder out of fear of failure, learning about agile learning really presented that to me and showed me why I was doing that to myself, which was a learning experience for me and now moving forward I can change that and relearn which is the whole point of learning agility.
Now what?
One of my main aims is to get a job so this will be crucial for me during this process of getting a job, so my anxiety is going to have to take a backseat while I try and become more of a risktaker but mainly changing and adapting to what the business requires from me and not taking that personally but instead making that change my own so I can grow from it.
I’d like to learn more about how to put in motion learning these skills and characteristics because they’re something I really want and find extremely important, yet I don’t really know how to go from one extreme to the other or more so ease away from one extreme to eventually develop and have learning agility, because the idea of that process is terrifying to me as a shyer person who hates change but knows it’s not a good mindset to have.
I’ve been able to use the reflective process models for my blogs that I learned about in this seminar which have been incredible useful to give me structure and make me really go in to detail on every aspect I’ve learned about, its helped me change over from the more traditional essay style of writing I’ve been taught to do to now a more person approach of writing which I’ve found really enjoyable and more at ease when writing, because not having to worry about tone and person influence being put into what I’m writing is a weight off my shoulders because I typically hate that.
"Agility is the ability to adapt and respond to change...agile organisations view change as an opportunity not a threat" -Jim Highsmith.

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opalesense · 3 years
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How would the genshin Bois, zhongli, childe, diluc and kaeya react to a fem traveller stuck in a wall after a harsh battle, they'll help her get out right?...right?
a sight to behold
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zhongli, childe, diluc, kaeya & f!reader (NSFW-ish)
1.9k words • ~13 min. read
warnings: just a lot of teasing & dirty thoughts
notes: i was practically rubbing my hands together with evil intentions when i saw this request but i’ll spare the graphic details for another time, otherwise this will be extremely long!! also i wrote them separately here BUT i wouldn’t be opposed if someone requested them to be grouped together instead... anyway, i hope you enjoy this!! >:)
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THE WIDELY FEARED PRIMO GEOVISHAP was certainly a sight to behold from above. You quickly understood why so many people often avoided interacting with this beast – it was intimidating even while it slept soundly, its loud snores echoing throughout the cavern despite being so far down. As you stood on the platform above its sleeping form, you studied its details, noticing the element it possessed and strategizing your combat plan quickly, thankful that you could manipulate an element that targetted its weakness. Once you made up your mind, you let out a huff as you took a leap of faith down, letting your glider save you at the last second before you could actually make contact with the ground.
 Your companion followed behind swiftly, the two of you moving gently around the walls of the cavern, careful not to wake the beast from its slumber. In a low whisper, you began to describe your strategy to your partner, but alas, the beast suddenly awoke and interrupted your planning with a ear splitting roar.
 Without a second thought, the two of you dashed to the creature, loosely following the details of the plan you had based on what you were able to say before you got interrupted. The battle was fine at first, but you soon realized how out of sync the two of you became as the fight progressed. Your elemental reactions were getting poorly timed, and it was difficult to keep an eye on each other’s movements with the beast constantly thrashing about and blocking communication.
 In normal circumstances, the two of you excelled in combat together without needing any other support. Maybe it was bad luck, or maybe you bit off more than you could chew this time, but you noticed you were getting knocked around easier than usual. Things were obviously not going your way and you had to think of a solution fast.
 But before you knew it, your distraction with your own thoughts got the best of you. One single swipe of the geovishap’s tail sent you flying across the cavern towards the opposite wall then tumbling on the ragged, rocky edges of floor, certainly leaving cuts and bruises for later. To make matters worse, one more aggressive roar from the beast shook the walls of cavern enough to send chunks of rock tumbling down towards your injured body. Unable to form coherent thoughts, you knew you didn’t have the strength to escape the avalanche. Instead, all you could do was lay there, helpless and bracing for impact, praying to the Archons that you can be saved.
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zhongli
 Zhongli made quick work of the beast, using his shield to deliver an extremely effective counter attack and finishing it once and for all. The creature wailed in pain in its dying moments before disintegrating into dust. He expected to see your face on the other side but alas, you were nowhere to be seen.
 “[Y/N]?” his face tensed as he tried to think of where you could have disappeared to. As his eyes darted around the cavern, he immediately noticed a tiny speck of color amongst the rocks on the wall that resembled your clothing. He quickly sprinted towards you, lifting some of the boulders off of you effortlessly using his geo manipulation.
 He began to subconsciously slow down once he saw the way you were displayed in front of him. Your legs were propped up slightly from the rocks underneath you that caved in from the impact. The way your hips curved up caused your skirt to fold back onto you, leaving you completely exposed under his gaze.
 Ungodly thoughts began to race across Zhongli’s mind. He couldn’t help but slowly undress you in his mind, thinking about all the things he could do to you in this moment of vulnerability.
You poor thing... If only we were not in such a potential dire circumstance of life or death, what would stop me from keeping these rocks on top of you, grabbing those hips, and pressing myself against you? It would be the perfect opportunity to keep you still while I have my way with you... Perhaps I should check to see if you’re okay first, and maybe I can trap you with these rocks myself instead. Certainly I could even lift you in a better position for a better fit...
“Stay with me, [Y/N],” Zhongli snapped out of his fantasy and continued to lift the boulders off of you, wondering if he should really go through with his urges. “You will be okay...”
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childe
 Childe had noticed you fly across the cavern in the corner of his eye, and watching you land on the floor at such a fierce impact only fueled him to keep fighting. In a fit of a rage and frustration, he summoned his dual blades and quickly turned the tides of the battle towards his favor. He didn’t even need to watch the beast die to know it was dead within seconds, and after his final blow he quickly dashed towards where you landed only to find out you had been crushed by more rocks.
 He let out another yell of frustration, grabbing the boulders one by one and pushing them off of you. “[Y/N]? Can you hear me?”
 “I’m fine, just get these off of me!” you managed to call out from underneath the pile. Relieved that you were alive and well, he managed to push most of the boulders off but hesitated once he got a good look at the way you were laid out in front of him.
 With your legs dangling off the edge of the pile, your ass was comedically exposed towards him, the rest of your upper half still trapped within the remains of the avalanche. Funnily enough, the hem of your skirt had even got trapped above your hips that you were completely exposed, causing Childe to grin evilly.
 “Well, well, well,” he slowly walked over to you and placed a gloved hand on your bare cheek, still slightly out of breath from the heavy lifting. He gave a gentle squeeze, eliciting a gasp from you. “Is this my reward for helping you? If so, I’ll gladly take it now...”
 “Did you forget that I’m stuck? What if I’m badly injured?!”
 “In that case, I’m sure I can make all the pain go away and replace it with pleasure instead,” he gave one final squeeze and chuckled before walking away to grab another boulder. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding... But once you’re out, don’t expect all this help to come for free, you know.”
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diluc
 Diluc watched you tumble across the floor with panicked eyes, immediately worrying about your safety but not letting that distract him from the task at hand. In the heat of the moment under the influence of rage and anxiety, he summoned his pyro manipulation to set his claymore ablaze and deliver multiple final blows to the creature, smashing its figure into bits. The beast cried in its final moments and when he was sure it was dead, he dropped his sword as he sprinted towards you.
 Pure panic settled in once he saw you had been crushed underneath the pile of rocks. He pushed himself to run faster, feeling tears form in the corners of his eyes but ignoring it. He didn’t want to lose you – not this easily.
 “[Y/N]!” he called out once he reached the site, “Can you hear me?”
 “I’m here, Diluc. I’m fine,” you reassured him. He deeply sighed in relief as he began to push the boulders off of you. Thank Barbatos you were alive and well! He shook the thought of you being fatally injured away from the forefront of his mind to focus on getting you out of this mess, using his strength to his advantage. But after a few rocks were pushed off of you, his eyes widened at the sight of you, a sight he will never forget.
 While your legs and upper body were still trapped underneath the pile, the first thing Diluc revealed was your ass, exposed by your skirt that was coincidentally trapped above your hips. Your thighs were pinned together, rubbing gently as you squirmed in the rubbish, trying to wiggle your way out. Or at least, he wanted to believe you were wiggling for the sole purpose of getting out, and not to tease him.
 With a nervous gulp, he averted his eyes away from you and resumed his work on the boulders. His mind couldn’t help but drift away into sinful corners, though. He envisioned the way he could firmly grab your thighs, pull down your underwear and...
 “Don’t scare me like that again,” he took a more lighthearted tone to cover up his urges, “I thought you were surely dead.”
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kaeya
 After briefly witnessing you get thrown across the cavern, Kaeya managed to finally stab the beast in such a precise weakness point, making it wail in pain until it slowly withered away in its dying moments. He took no time at all to rush over to you, sprinting faster once he saw that you had been crushed by an avalanche.
 “[Y/N], talk to me,” he subtly asked for reassurance that you were still alive as he began to analyze the situation and pinpoint exactly where you were in all this rubbish.
 “I’m okay,” you weakly muttered with a grin, glad that he had come to your rescue, “Just a little bruised, that’s all.”
 Following the trail of your voice, he put his mind to work. He started to strategically push certain rocks so that others would naturally fall off of you without him needing to lift too much. After awhile, he began to spot one of your arms, then your other arm, and with each rock tumbling down he soon revealed the full picture.
 Or at least, a fraction of the full picture.
 He was relieved to see that you had wrapped your arms around your head for protection before the crash, avoiding what would have been an extremely dangerous injury. With your entire body from the chest down still trapped, you felt the need to stretch out your arms in the newly freed space and take a deep breath, glad to finally have some fresh air. “Good morning,” you joked on your bed of rocks.
 Even though he certainly felt some relief, he couldn’t fight the urge to tease you as he cooed over the sight of you so helpless underneath him. With an evil smirk, he pulled out one of the rocks that was supporting your neck, leaving your head hanging off the edge and eliciting a gasp from you. Before you could protest, he propped himself up against the wall with one arm, his body hovering over you and his crotch just inches away from your face.
 “Look at that pretty mouth of yours... You tempt me even in the most dire situations, sweetheart,” he let his free hand run slender fingers across your scalp, slowly massaging you. “Now that I think about it, I do deserve a prize for saving you, don’t I?”
 “Quit running your mouth and just help me get out of here,” you scolded him jokingly. He laughed and shook his head dismissively as he walked away to get back to work, fighting that strong urge to use your throat in such a vulnerable state.
 “If you say so, sweetheart. Maybe some other time.”
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bratz-kitten · 3 years
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ASTRO OBSERVATIONS PT. 7
gemini and pisces placements are similar in the sense that geminis are able to see things from all perspectives, while pisces are able to empathise with people who have all sorts of different perspectives. pisces placements... be careful with over-empathising with the people who hurt you to the point where you’re understanding why they did it and you start excusing their actions. gemini placements... be careful with seeking the multi-layers and million different perspectives in everything and everyone to the point where you’re driving your own mind insane and you don’t know what your opinion is anymore because you hyper-analyse so much. too much of a good ability becomes a curse.
people with venus-mars aspects have a talent for making people who hate them fall in love with them 💋
moon in the 11th house natives tend to attract friends who get into scandals. moon in the 10th house natives tend to be the ones who get into said scandals. it’s a PERFECT FRIENDSHIP
capricorn placements have a talent for knowing how to make things last. they want to prolong the enjoyment they get out of something for as long as possible, which is why their hobbies, friendships and relationships tend to last a lifetime... hedonistic sluts
since both the 7th house and the 11th house rule fandoms, celebrities with a 7th house or 11th house neptune can attract fans who view them as angels who can’t do nothing wrong — because of this, those celebrities rarely take accountability for their mistakes, since people keep pushing the “but they’re perfect :(“ light on them
pluto conjunct ascendant natives always come off as very serious during first impressions, no matter how approachable and inviting they strive to appear.
sun and moon in the 10th house people may feel as if they’re always exposed to the public eye, they can’t get away with keeping things secretive. others always notice whatever they want kept on the low. this can be especially frustrating if they notice that others aren’t exposed to the same kind of scrutiny that they are for simply existing
lilith in pisces bitches have a natural talent for appearing like angels even in situations where they are 100% guilty. it’s very easy for them to put on their vulnerable, lost puppy act lmfao, which triggers others’ protective instincts. they may be able to cry on cue when people call them out on their bullshit, making them feel like THEY’re the shitty ones for confronting the lilith native... it’s insane
lilith in the 12th house natives may feel as though the themes of lilith are trapped in their psyche, at the core of who they are and those themes become unavoidable for them — they’re always there, lurking in the shadows, becoming the center of their nightmares
people with mercury in the 1st house can feel veryyy threatened and defensive when someone possesses knowledge in an area that they don’t, it’s like it hits them right on their biggest fears. they often either try to “one-up” the other person in an attempt to heal their broken ego or shut down altogether in insecurity. it’s imperative that they work on developing a strong sense of self-worth because they can be extremely prone to comparing their mental skills to those of other people.
people with personal planets in the 12th house may feel as though a lot of their artistic drive is stifled by their lack of energy. like... in the mental realm there’s a lot going on and it’s incredible, but then you pick up a pen to actualize your visions and you feel exhaustion immediately overtaking you. it can feel like there’s a lot to your psyche that feels inaccessible to you not because you don’t want to explore it, but because you have yet to restore the energy to dive deep into it. this can be especially noticeable if there’s absolutely no 5th house energy in the chart
people with jupiter in an earth sign love being surrounded by greeneries in their home; they may take a lot of enjoyment out of taking care of plants, gardening, cooking and stuff of the sort. it makes them feel more grounded, independent, and even healed. they also LOVE scents that connect them to nature like the scent of grass and the ocean.
air mercuries can be very beware of strangers, they can feel offended when their friends make them socialize with someone they don’t know and it can take a hot while before they trust the person enough to lower their defences a bit. they need to know it’s safe before expressing their usual sexy eccentric selves in front of someone new. on the other hand, aries placements can also hate being introduced to new people through their friends but it’s mostly because they’re very territorial over them, and can’t stand the thought that this new person can hurt their friendship in any possible way
meanwhile, it’s probably an earth or leo/sagittarius mercury introducing new friends to the group. they’re so fucking good with people and it shows in how they make people feel welcomed so easily, it’s like they “take” the person in and adopt them into the group. they can’t stand seeing someone being treated like an outcast because they know how it sucks to feel rejected, so they’ll try their best to make you feel included
while on the subject of people who hate seeing others be treated like an outcast because they know how it feels like to be rejected: SCORPIO RISINGS. bro. people underestimate how chill they can actually be. if they see you being left out, they’ll approach you with no fucks given and do anything in their power to make you feel comfortable. they do so well in group settings.
and while on the subject of scorpio risings... i have a scorpio rising friend and he goes thru it on the daily. he often complains that people are always suspicious of him and that they seem repulsed by him, strangers on the street will stay tf away from him. and it’s so heartbreaking because his personality is so friendly and welcoming and it doesn’t at all match his intimidating appearance. scorpio risings have this energy that not many people can handle, others feel either really drawn to them or downright scared of them because of the “danger” element they seem to carry in them
i know two people who are both scorpio suns and libra moons and they look the exact same, even though they have different risings. brown, deep-set eyes, coarse dark hair, naturally tanner skin tone — and they have the same style as well, using lots of band t-shirts and dark clothing. scorpio energy is always so noticeable wherever it is i swear, it’s like it takes over the rest of the chart
gemini moons are what yall claim gemini venuses to be. like, seriously... have you ever met someone with a gemini venus? they don’t need constant stimulation or else they’ll get bored and cheat. not in the slightest; actually, they’re often incredibly loyal and crave longterm, committed relationships. if anything, they need stimulation outside of their relationship in the form of a good, exciting career and hobbies so that they don’t get too addicted to their partner and to constantly analysing every aspect of their relationship. gemini moons however, tend to have multiple partners throughout life and they often feat deep commitment. they can be huge players imo, IT’S THEM YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT!
sagittarius placements are so... tactile? like, they love to touch things. when they go to stores and stuff, they’ll start holding everything that catches their attention— it’s like they can only decide if they want to buy something after thouroughly exploring how it feels, the texture and the energy that the object gives them through touch. and they talk so much with their hands. it makes me so anxious like bitch you aren’t selena gomez, i promise you that you CAN keep your hands to yourself
taurus placements are so weird to me, i can’t understand them. it’s like they’re afraid of exploring their own depths, which in turn makes me unable to explore them. okay, how do i put this... it’s like they have this preset idea of who they are and after deciding so, they’re unwilling to let go of it. “i’m the stable friend who’s here for everyone even when i can barely take care of my own self” and then that’s who they are: the people who are a steady rock in the lives of others, taking care of everyone. and then they refuse to change even after getting hurt. and then, it’s like... well, you can’t just be that. you are a human who contains multitudes, but i don’t think you give yourself enough credit on how layered you are. that fear of changeability, that need to be the one stable thing in a world full of unpredictability will only damage you in the end, because you won’t get to fully experience life’s greatest pleasure: knowing yourself. becoming your own best friend, exploring every layer that there is to your being. i think you deny yourself of that experience because you fear that, with self-learning comes self-growth which leads to transformation. and you fear transformation because you don’t want to change for the worst. but like... transformation is necessary and with that comes adaptability + flexibility, which are things you could greatly benefit from.
scorpio venuses can be so pessimistic— and when they’re in a dark mindset, it’s so difficult to pull them out of it. it’s so difficult to get them to see the good in difficult situations, and to help them believe that it gets better. but even if you don’t believe me, i’ll keep telling you; it does get better. you’ll get through this.
jupiter in the 4th house is an indicator of food having been an amazing part of your childhood; there might’ve been a lot of feasts and you could’ve had a parent who loved to cook. being well fed might be a huge concern for you now; you might get sick easily when you’re eating fast food and non-traditional plates.
mercury square uranus is an extremely difficult aspect to have because, in your earlier years, you might’ve felt dumb or like there was something wrong with your intelligence because you might’ve found school difficult due to it’s structured nature that didn’t fit with the way you like to learn things— you need to learn in an interactive way that piques your interest. your anxiety and any traumatic experienced that you faced could’ve heavily impacted your school performance. you might’ve had an ease with learning but then, when it came to doing the written tests, you couldn’t perform to the best of your abilities. either way, school might’ve been a source of a lot of stress and difficulty.
mercury square pluto can have some weird manifestation where, like... you suspect things but you always suspect the wrong things. i’ve met a few people with this aspect and all of them were extremely suspicious of the most random things who were literally normal and innocent. this aspect can cause a lot of chaos to one’s interpersonal relationships because you might find yourself suspecting your loved ones in the weirdest circumstances due to your trust issues, which in return causes them to lose trust in you + the want to confide in you because you keep questioning everything they’re up to WHEN THEY’RE NOT UP TO ANYTHING IN THE FIRST PLACE. probably the most frustrating thing that can happen with this aspect is when you always suspect what you shouldn’t, but then, when sketchy things are actually happening that should be questioned, you don’t bat an eye to it. omfg it drives me insane
moon conjunct the ascendant can make someone have a very delicate appearance that gives others the impression that they need to handle you like fine china or else you might break. my mother has this at a very tight orb and whenever i bring people over, their first impression of her is always “she looks so frail”. the native might be extremely sensitive to every minor inconvenience which brings a lot of frustration to them, a feeling that they can’t control their reactions and inner turmoil. it can also suck when you don’t want to be depicted as the victim but then that’s the way everyone perceives you. the native might have very expressive and shiny eyes, and they can cry easily. it’s very difficult for them to hide their emotions.
your jupiter sign can signify where you feel an overflow of energy. jupiter in cancer may feel like you have an overflow of nurturing and protective energy towards your loved ones, with a lot of intuition and need for introspection. jupiter in leo can make you feel like you a talent for self-expression and dealing with others, being overly dramatic and prideful at times, and with a huge drive to have fun. jupiter in virgo can feel an overflow of perceptive qualities, with a huge amount of self-awareness and also awareness of your surroundings, ability to constantly analyse and a constant strive for perfection (which btw is impossible since perfection is unattainable and you’re a human being who makes mistakes and that’s completely fine. stop finding flaws where there aren’t none).
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aenor-llelo · 3 years
Note
Hello! Please give us your dish on Techno character -Rainbowchaox
(crackles toe knuckles) for you the world.
C!technoblade shows signs of C-PTSD and/or military trauma that existed before he joined the server, and possibly shared trauma with C!philza- an incomplete list by a person with C-PTSD.
(i’m going off of canon info as i understand it, bear with me)
Technoblade is a very interesting, in how CC!Technoblade’s inherent game habits translate when you realize the implications of this on Technoblade the character.
we can debate about the red festival and butcher army arcs all day, and sure, i’ll have my thoughts if you ask, but i’m speaking into what he’s had from the beginning, independent of his history on the server.
I don’t think I need to explain the implied military past. he’s very well trained and prepared as a fighter in-universe, and his military involvement in the server story has largely been through logistics and supplies rather than fighting prowess- which would not make sense for someone with a generic “fights good for money” backstory, but would make a lot of sense for a former military veteran, possibly of commanding/strategic rank.
Now for the traumatic parts. 
-hoards in extreme excess, mostly in weapons/food or practical items, and he FUCKING HATES people stealing from him, especially food. he is, essentially, constantly preparing for war, constantly prepared to need to feed whatever people are in his “army”. 
-incredibly resigned to the idea of having to discard/lose his possessions. he had so many things but was mentally able to disengage from them all in a heartbeat the moment he was in danger. 
Never get attached. Always be ready to leave. You are guaranteed nothing. You are safe nowhere.
-he needs to be underground. He needs to be isolated. He needs to live in the uninhabitable, unreachable, untouchable. He needs to be hidden. He needs hiding spots in his hiding spots. He has hidden chests all over his house, even when he considered himself retired and largely safe. 
Everywhere is a battlefield waiting to happen. If supply lines can fail, they will. If your rations can run out, they will. Be prepared for when it does, not if.
And how he treats others! Very Very Interesting.
-he has difficulty gauging people's intent and nuance, and is aware of it- this is due to being an ND character played by an ND cc, let’s not forget. he has an unfixable disadvantage in perceiving others, in cataloguing danger, and this makes him very aggressive and defensive to perceived social danger.
he’s been taken advantage of in the past. he fears it will happen again. and he knows, more likely than not, he will never see it coming.
-therefore, people who have been "dishonest" to him for any reason read as threats. someone who goes back on their word is “dishonest”, one step away from “betrayal”, one step away from a threat to techno’s life.
AND LET’S NOT GET STARTED ON PHIL.
philza’s introduction to the server, and their interactions, speak alot about their characters, and some of how techno treats philza speaks to traumatic thought patterns.
most crucially, techno treats phil as a fellow "survivor". 
when a person has gone through long lasting trauma, they tend to project their coping mechanisms, traumas, and survival tactics onto people they care about.
he treats philza’s distress as his own and acts accordingly. the reason he kills baby zombies, canonically, is out of the assumption that they are a danger or trigger to philza.
technoblade’s world is a never-ending battle. philza is his fellow soldier, his co-commander, his brother in arms. in order for them to survive the battle, of course he shares absolutely everything. his supplies, his most prized possessions, his storage and strategic locations.
None of this behavior individually points to trauma, but speaking from actual experience- all of it lumped together speaks to not only trauma, but a long familiar history with it.
(i could go off about philza’s PTSD too but you asked about techno so here you go haha)
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Text
an icarus and his sun: chapter 12
A/N: another shorter chapter here, a bit of an uneasy calm before the storm :)
Warnings: injury, fever, infection/corruption, unconsciousness, talk of possession, talk of death, crying
AO3 Link - Tumblr Masterpost
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The last few days had been horrendous. Jimmy hardly got any sleep, staying at Scott’s side and comforting him through the horrible fever and corruption. The few times Scott was awake, he wasn’t super coherent- the fact that he kept clinging to Jimmy and borderline whining whenever Jimmy wasn’t right beside him proved that. Everyone was trying their best to come up with solutions for Scott. While Joel, Lizzie, and Pixl hadn’t seemed too keen on helping Scott at first, they quickly changed their tune when they heard about what Fwhip had said about Scott, how he had really cared about Jimmy, and left the Wither Rose Alliance because of it. Joel and Pixl tried offering golden apples and health potions, but Gem and Shelby sadly explained that they hadn’t been doing much good, only somewhat combating the fever and doing absolutely nothing to the corruption. Then they tried to remove the corruption- but Scott woke up screaming in pain, and that was a sound that would haunt Jimmy forever. They stopped trying to remove the corruption pretty much instantly, as it was clear that it was far too intertwined with Scott. They would just find another way, there had to be another way.
With Gem’s magic, they had managed to get the corruption to stop spreading across his skin- and it seemed like it had worked. Even Shelby seemed optimistic- her people were never able to stop the corruption from spreading. Scott’s fever went down, and he woke up, seeming far more coherent than he had been in the past few days. Well, maybe not super coherent, he looked extremely baffled and wondered if he was dead. But he wasn’t, he was awake and for once his icy blue eyes weren’t glazed over with fever or pain… but then just like that, everything went wrong again. Scott started shaking and hyperventilating, babbling out apologies- then he tensed, eyes turning red before they fluttered shut and he went limp.
“What happened?!” Gem asked as she burst in, followed by Pearl, Shelby, Katherine, Pixl, Joel, and Lizzie. Jimmy was still standing at Scott’s side, hand tightly gripping Scott’s.
“I don’t know, he seemed fine and then he wasn’t- and his eyes went red, the same red as the corruption,” Jimmy explained, trying to keep his voice from shaking.
“Oh no,” Shelby gasped, eyes going wide as she scrambled back from Scott’s bed. Jimmy looked at her in confusion.
“Shelby, what’s wrong?” Jimmy asked. Shelby swallowed nervously.
“There- there was something else that could happen to people because of the corruption- but it was rare, not many people lived long enough for it to happen.. but we got it to stop spreading, so why would his eyes…” Shelby’s rambling trailed off as she continued backing away from Scott’s bed, eyes wide with horror.
“Shelby, what aren’t you telling us?” Pixl asked, voice gentle yet firm.
“They would become like puppets, the corruption would control them so it could spread- but Scott shouldn’t just be lying there, if his eyes really went red then he should have killed us all by now,” Shelby explained shakily. Various gasps and shouts of alarm filled the room.
“You knew what the corruption did this whole time and didn’t tell us?!” Jimmy demanded.
“Jimmy, yelling isn’t going to solve anything,” Katherine reprimanded, but it was lost on Jimmy as he glared at Shelby instead.
“Becoming a puppet to the corruption was rare! And I didn’t think it was happening to Scott- most times, before someone got under the corruption’s control, they were in a much better state than Scott. But it was like that was what the corruption wanted sometimes. It would weed out the weak ones and keep the strong ones to spread it. And… well, with how Scott was doing, it seemed like the corruption saw him as weak. But then you said his eyes went red, and that was a surefire sign that the corruption took over someone- but he should have started killing people or trying to spread the corruption… it doesn’t make sense,” Shelby rambled, her terrified expression completely directed at Jimmy now. Jimmy’s shoulders sagged, and he dropped his glare to instead sheepishly grimace at Shelby.
“I… yeah, okay. That- that makes sense. Sort of. Sorry for yelling,” he said, giving her a weak smile. Shelby gave a trembling smile back.
“It’s okay. And who knows! Maybe Scott passing out means that he’s still fighting off the corruption,” Shelby said hopefully.
“I don’t think we can afford to be that optimistic,” Pearl said with a wary glance to Scott’s still form.
“Maybe we should lock him away somewhere, until we find a cure,” Joel pondered.
“I have a secret meeting room- Fwhip and Sausage know about it, but it’s probably the most fortified spot in my empire,” Gem offered.
“We could always set up a guard rotation, maybe have someone stay in the meeting room with Scott as a last resort,” Pixl pointed out.
“I’m staying with Scott,” Jimmy blurted. Everyone’s gazes snapped to Jimmy with varying expressions of fear and concern.
“Jimmy, that’s suicide,” Lizzie said softly, eyes slightly glassy. Jimmy felt his eyes watering as well.
“I don’t care, I’m not abandoning him. Not again. Besides, maybe Shelby’s right, maybe he’s still trying to fight it off. And if anyone can beat it, it’s Scott,” Jimmy said firmly.
“Jimmy, this isn’t your fault,” Lizzie said softly. Jimmy gave her a grim trembling smile.
“If I hadn’t pushed him away, then he wouldn’t have had to deal with Fwhip and Sausage on his own. Then maybe none of this would have happened,” he replied, guilt laced throughout his tone. Lizzie let out a frustrated scoff.
“Then you both would have ended up like this! Jimmy, we can’t lose you either!” she exclaimed, hands gesturing wildly as she began to cry. Jimmy let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob as he reached out to take Lizzie’s hands.
“Lizzie, what if it was Joel in this situation?” he asked softly. A look of understanding came over Lizzie’s face, but she shook her head, still looking like she wanted to protest.
“I- but-”
“So you know why I have to do this. I can’t just… give up on him again,” Jimmy continued. Lizzie let out a sigh of defeat, nodding at Jimmy.
“I told you these land boys were trouble,” she teased weakly.
“Didn’t think it would be this much trouble,” Jimmy said with a nervous laugh. Lizzie gave a watery laugh in response, and hesitated for only half a second before letting go of Jimmy’s hands to hug him tightly.
“You’re not allowed to die,” Lizzie murmured into his shoulder. Jimmy chuckled.
“Understood, Ocean Queen,” he said solemnly, swallowing the lump in his throat before letting go of her to look at the others.
“So you’re sure about this?” Gem asked. Jimmy nodded firmly.
“We should still keep a guard rotation outside too, that way Jimmy can call for help if he needs it,” Pearl added. The others nodded in agreement, and Gem fiddled with something around her neck before taking it off and holding it out to Jimmy. It was one of her amethyst shards on a chain, gently glowing with her magic.
“This should protect you from the corruption. The crystals are what helped me slow the spread of it in Scott, maybe it will help it from spreading to you. I’m sorry I don’t have a more definite solution,” Gem explained, pressing it into Jimmy’s hand. The crystal shimmered in his hand, glowing a bit before going back to its usual purple hue.
“Thank you- it’s better than nothing,” Jimmy replied with a smile as he put on the necklace.
“At the very least it looks nice on you!” Shelby chirped, relieving the tension in the room slightly as the group laughed. But the laughs dissipated quickly, and they began preparations to move Scott to the secret meeting room.
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The wall closing in front of Jimmy felt like a finality. Realistically he could open it whenever he wanted, but that was only if the situation got dire enough, or if it turned out that Scott was okay. He had hugged each of his friends- even Gem, Pearl and Shelby, even though their friendships were relatively new- and it felt too much like a goodbye. But it wouldn’t be, surely Scott would be alright.
Jimmy looked over to the bed they had set up in the room, where Scott was still peacefully asleep. That was a good sign, right? Unless it wasn’t, and Scott would just… never wake up. Forever trapped in the clutches of the corruption, eternally fighting its control. Jimmy shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. Scott would wake up, eventually. But whether or not Scott would be himself when he woke up was another issue. Would Jimmy really be able to fight him off? Would he even have enough time to call for help? And even if he did, would he want to? If he asked his friends for help, they would have to kill Scott in order to keep the lands safe from corruption. He just had to hope that Gem could figure out a cure before it got to that point. And maybe this worrying was for nothing! Maybe Scott’s willpower was strong enough to fight it… but there was no way of knowing that. Instead, all Jimmy could do was sit at Scott’s side, holding his hand and praying to whoever was listening that Scott would be alright.
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thehomothings · 3 years
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Analysis of Kite's conflicting moralities, relationship with death, and the toll reincarnation may take on one's psyche
So, today I decided to compile all the thoughts I have had about Kite's interesting worldview since the first time I saw him into one post, mostly for my own sake, really. If you're familiar with the few posts I've made, you know it's gonna be a mess, but hopefully a comprehensible mess.
A heads up, this is going to be spoiler-heavy, and very much deal with subjects of death and dying as a whole. Also, some of these conclusions are drawn from my own experiences and close brushes with death, I'm not going to go into much detail but it might get personal and definitely dark. I'm not even sure if I can call this a meta-analysis, and I'm obviously no expert, so mayhaps take all of this with a grain of salt.
Been getting into drawing lately, and during the more simple and mindless part of the painstaking process of dotting every single star in this, I let my thoughts wander through the latest part of the fic I'm writing, and I got a better grasp on what exactly made Kite such an elusive character to me.
I'm not quite sure why I got so attached to Kite. Perhaps it was the air of tragedy surrounding him, how despite his sordid past he remained still open and gentle even if outlined by a healthy dose of cynicism.
But sometimes, I think it's the fact that he is so paradoxical. He's brave, yet fears death to such a degree that creates a whole Nen ability around it, is a pacifist yet will not hesitate to spill blood for his own sake or someone else's. Despite the many ultimatums and warnings of 'I will not protect you', he gave his arm and then his life to save Gon and Killua. He approaches each hunt and battle with a clear plan of action in mind, but his Hatsu takes the form of a roulette that gives him random weapons which are never what he wants, but what he seems to need for that exact situation, which he cannot dispel without using. When he draws a weapon, the decision is locked in and his or his opponent's fate is sealed. That's why each time he dubbs his weapon a bad roll. Every time he has to gamble, he sees himself as having run out of luck. When it comes to having to choose between himself and somebody else...well, there had never been a choice. In fact his aversion to using it may feed into its sheer power that we, unfortunately, saw too little of.
Let's go over his very first appearance when he saves Gon from the mother Foxbear.
It's not hard to see the strain searching for Ging has put on him; he's rash, prone to anger and punching a child for daring to get into trouble. In his mind, he's failing at his most important task, has not yet earned the right to call himself a hunter despite being in possession of his very own hunter license.
After killing the mother Foxbear and raging about having done so, he says this interesting line:
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So yes, he finds killing for any reason rather irksome as most would do, yet I think something deeper caused him to absolutely lose it in this scene:
He had not been aware of Gon's identity, and despite being an animal lover and a naturalist, he made a choice to save the human instead of allowing nature to run its course. In fact, he says: 'No beast that harms a human must be allowed to live.'
How does one weight one life against another? How is the worth of it determined? The value of life... an impossible choice he's faced with and a choice which he seems to regret to some degree.
The Foxbear cub.
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Here, he's speaking from experience, a tangible loss he has felt himself, and a hard and bitter life he does not want to impose on the cub.
His backstory is exclusive to the 2011 anime adaptation but there are hints alluding to it in the manga, for example, the fact that he does not seem to know his birthplace, or:
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The choice of words is chilling.
Reading between the lines, one could draw the conclusion that he is an orphan. Something supporting this hypothesis is how he visibly deflates after Gon tells him his parents have (presumably) died.
So we see he is willing to go against his own moral code of not killing as to not doom another living being to the life he led, a lonely, hopeless existence that could barely be called one. He saw it best to put down the cub rather than leave it to die a painful, slow death.
The reason Kite himself isn't as cynical and cold-hearted as one would be after witnessing cruelty in its rawest form is those small crumbs of human kindness which he may have found in Ging.
It was not only a chance at an honorable life being Ging's apprentice gave him, but it also 'saved' him from being broken and twisted into what he hated and worst of all, death.
If we take that one minute of backstory as canon to his character-which I find myself inclined to do- these quirks of his make much more sense. He lived on the run. He lived on the knife's edge between giving up or pushing forwards. He lived as so a wrong move could be the difference between survival and the end.
Between rock and a hard place creates a mentality of black and white, absolute good or extreme evil, this or that. Except in reality, it's much harder than that. Deciding who to save and who to strike down is a heavy burden to bear.
It's almost easy to see how struggling to keep surviving could lend itself to a crippling fear of death and subsequently developing a Nen ability which once more goes against his own moral code in order to give himself a second chance...yet something about it strikes me as unlikely when I look at it this way.
Living life knowing it could end at any moment has the opposite effect, at least for me it did. One comes to accept that it is fleeting and while not eager to let it go, when death eventually and inevitably does come, there is no fighting it.
Especially when there is no hope that tomorrow will be a better day than this one.
Frequent near-death experiences numb one's fear in a way, even if it drives them to take precautions that render it unlikely to happen again and results in c-PTSD, but still, it does. It sparks a certain nihilistic view of 'if it all can end so easily, then what's the point of it all?'
Unless there are things to live for, a sure promise of a better future, and Ging gave Kite that. When he faced the threat of losing his second chance at life:
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Really, what else could lead someone to develop the ability of 'the hell I'm going to die like this'?
I think a separate event, an even more brutal near-death experience that almost cost him his life as the hunter he so strived to be set him off to develop the secret roll of Crazy Slots, what I call Roll No.0, Ars moriendi. Unlike other weapons, it cannot come up in random and is directly summoned by him, or better said, summon by his overwhelming will to keep going and hopelessness of fighting a losing battle. I don't believe roll No.3 was the weapon that allowed him to reincarnate. I've named that one Wand of Fortune, a sort of armor instead of an offensive weapon since I find it hard to believe Kite, a Conjurer, would not focus on defences as well, and I will go into both mechanisms of these weapons hopefully in his backstory.
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Despite knowing this battle to be a pointless one and being acutely aware of his soon to be demise, he did not immediately draw Ars moriendi, no, he stayed back and fought for the sake of the boys, kept Neferpitou occupied until they could reach safety. We can see evidence of this in the aftermath of the battle that seemed to have gone on until dawn, a torn apart landscape only signaling a fraction of the devastation that was Kite's power unleashed. It still wasn't enough.
In the anime sub I watched, when Gon apologizes to Ging about Kite's death, Ging said a sentence that infuriated me, because it belittled the utter suffering of the NGL trio.
"He would not die in your place." (No screenshot, sorry)
And I remember practically shouting at the screen, screaming 'how could you possibly say that? Of course he did. He absolutely did die in their place. How could you not know your own apprentice? Why-'
It was only last night that it hit me why Ging would say that.
Once upon a time, maybe Kite would not have given his life for anybody under any circumstances, even if he had a way out of it all. He would still need to die to come back to life.
His Thanatophobia could be attributed to the (possibly untreated) PTSD of the near-death experience in his later life, being so certain of dying that finding himself alive afterwards drove him to never want to go through that again. He quieted his fear by creating a sort of a loophole, that even if he lost the battle he would remain. Ging remembered that, but as evidence shows, something changed. Maybe he healed a bit, perhaps growing up dulled his fear to a certain degree, but eventually when it came down to his life or another's, he didn't choose himself.
Now, I can hear you saying 'but he didn't die, so what are you going on about??' And so I reply: Yes, he is alive, but he did die. He experienced that painful, horrible moment of staring death in the eyes and thinking 'This is it, this is the end', went through the actual process of having his soul removed from his body. And that moment stretches into infinity, ten lifetimes condensed into the mere seconds before oblivion.
Dying isn't so hard if one stays dead.
It's not so easy to open one's eyes and find oneself alive again after that, no matter how much that is the heart's desire. It's difficult, nigh-impossible to reconcile with life and walk amongst the living when everything had been so final, when death had been accepted to its fullest.
So Kite awakens, the twin of Meruem and back from the dead, his mind and identity both intact and fractured. In that he is Kite is no mistaking, yet he is not the same gentle pacifist whose first reaction upon sensing a monster's aura was to shield two kids from it at the cost of his arm.
I don't think many of you are familiar with Zoroastrian ideology, but Togashi is known for loving his religious imagery, and it's not only Christianism he derives inspiration from (evidence of which can be seen all over Kite's character and resurrection).
In Zurvanism-a branch of Zoroastrianism- there is talk of the twin spirits: Ahura Mazda -epitome of all that is good- and Ahriman -epitome of all that is evil-, the parent god Zurvin decides that the firstborn may rule in order to bring "heaven, hell, and everything in between."
Upon becoming aware of this fact, Ahriman forcibly tears through the womb to emerge first. Sounding familiar yet?
Zurvan relents to this turn of events only on one condition: Ahriman is given kingship for 9000 years, and then Ahura Mazda may rule for eternity.
Meruem ruled for 40 days, his death leaving the throne vacant for ant Kite, wearing a dead girl's face and seeming to be brewing some nefarious plan. No more is there any sign of that unrelenting pacifism and the sanctity of life he held so high, losing his own may have only served to show him how meaningless the pain and suffering he went through had been, dying only to be reborn as a member of the species that killed him. It may be that he has no desire to rule over the remaining Chimera ants or create an army of his own-
Yet I dread to think what a broken mind possessing limitless power might do to the world.
And that's it. If you made it this far, thank you for reading! If you found it interesting, stay tuned, as I think a lot and I will make it your problem.
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vyeoh · 3 years
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this is your chance: wax poetic about an Empires or DSMP character of your choice to a fan who is new to both. Explain why I should love them. I need guidance in this new and meme-populated land.
okok this is a lot of pressure haha. Spoilers for EmpiresSMP and DreamSMP below, obviously. I wrote a lot so prepare yourself, anon
I watch a lot of empires POVs but the ones I most anticipate every week are Scott and Sausage.
c!Scott (I'll call him Smajor for the sake of simplicity) starts off the series chilling, not really getting involved with the rest of the server, and staying aggressively neutral. After all, he's an elf. He has lived far longer than most of the other rulers already, and will most likely outlive them for many years. So, the best thing is to stick to his mountains and not get invested in the dealings of mortal affairs, maybe sometimes causing problems on purpose and dipping because what's life without a little spice right.
But then, this demon comes to the server, Xornoth. He's going around causing havoc and wants to send the world into an eternal winter, but he doesn't bother the kingdom of Rivendell much so Smajor stays tentatively cautious but ultimately unbothered. But then, the puzzle pieces start falling together. The first thing that the audience noticed was was Xornoth sounded like Smajor, but we mostly thought that this was just due to cc!Scott voicing both of them and there was nothing more to it. However, then, the people the demon starts possessing start chanting in elvish. The demon hates mortals, and the elves are conveniently one of the two confirmed not fully mortal races in Empires.
This culminates when Smajor stumbles across a cave that contains the backstory of the patron god of Rivendell, Aeor. Basically, there's two opposing forces, Aeor and Exor, and both have a champion. In a previous life, those champions were two brothers, where Aeor eventually prevailed and banished Exor. In this life though, the champions are - you guessed it - Smajor, and the demon Xornoth.
So now Smajor is like. Well fuck. It's my literal god-given destiny to be responsible for defeating this demon who is technically my brother, and if I fail the server gets plunged into an eternal winter. And I have no fucking clue what is happening because I've just been here on this mountain actively trying to stay out of the issues outside my kingdom. We watch him panic and teeter on the verge of spiraling for an entire episode, and when the followers of Xornoth go to the End to kill the dragon, releasing Xornoth's full powers, he fails to stop him. Smajor is a character who was used to being the smart one, the prepared one, the one who has the least deaths on the server. But he's also a character who runs away from his problems and ignores them. Before and during the dragon fight, we hear the desperation in his voice, as he's thrown into a situation he is wholly unprepared for, and it's bigger than him going to the Cod Empire to kill their king, or assisting in other people's plans to kill the codfather. He can't run from this. cc!Scott plays this scene so well as well, as I've said before, one of the best parts of Scott's acting is how he's never super dramatic, but he's so effective in the little things like inflection to make you feel, viscerally, the panic and dread.
So after the dragon fight, Smajor realizes, I can't do this on my own. I've tried and failed. So he gets allies. We watch him, someone who has so strongly been an isolationist, learn the benefits of allies and watch him learn to trust others and watch him learn how to get that trust in return.
My favorite thing about Smajor's characterization is that he's an incompetent protagonist, but not in the way of the "plucky young adventurer". He's capable skill-wise, and fairly jaded and very pessimistic. However, his issue is that up until recently, he did not care about the rest of the server at all, and by the time he learned to, it was way too late.
Also, in 3rd Life, cc!Scott and cc!Jimmy were canonically married and they reference it sometimes in Empires. Like, Scott goes over to the Cod Empire every so often both in and out of character to kill and/or flirt with Jimmy, the ruler of the Cod Empire, which may develop as a secondary plot into the future who knows. So ty Scott for giving the gays what they want o7
Now onto Sausage: his is a story of Icarus, his hubris and ambition being his downfall. He's one of the two followers of Xornoth, who promised him endless power in exchange for his servitude. He started the series being eccentric, but not outright unhinged, but slowly gets more and more extreme as the series progresses, as he gets brought more and more to Xornoth's side.
One of the best parts of Sausage's character, in my opinion, is how his gradual corruption affects the people around him. Initially, he got into a conflict with the Cod Empire and was allied with two other people in the Witherrose alliance. They were allies, but also close friends. The fandom liked to joke that the three had sibling energy, and I'm pretty sure the ccs played to that even more lol.
It was painful to watch the other two members, Gem and fWhip, watch Sausage get corrupted right in front of them, and see them desperately clinging on to this old idea of Sausage in their head because if they faced the truth, it would mean that their friend was gone. Eventually, they do finally cut him out of the alliance, leading him to fully commit to the side of the demon. Sausage felt very clearly betrayed by this, and declared the remaining two Witherrose alliance members to be enemies.
He gets more and more possessed, and we even see the other Empires, his enemies even, slowly realize that something is very wrong with the ruler of Mythland. He starts doing more and more evil things, like killing people more, making sacrifices to the demon, and eventually helping to kill the dragon to free Xornoth. So things are good for Sausage, for a bit. He won, and is more powerful than ever. Then he finds out: he's going to die. Xornoth's possession is slowly killing his soul, and eventually, his body going to be fully taken over and he himself is going to be trapped in the spirit realm. So how do you react to this? Over the next few episodes, we watch Sausage struggle between "the demon is literally killing me" and "the demon has given me so much, and I love it", all while Xornoth takes over more and more of him. We hear him exclaim that "don't worry!! I'm still about 15% there!" while trying to downplay every time Xornoth completely takes over his body. We watch him willingly oppose anyone who is trying to end the thing that is killing him.
My favorite thing about Sausage is that he is undoubtedly evil and proud of it, but he's also undoubtedly human. If you like to watch evil characters go absolutely feral, he's the guy for you. He makes the deal with Xornoth in the beginning, knowing and fully embracing the evilness of the demon, but at the same time he knows what he's doing is detrimental to both himself and everyone around him, but he's gotten in way too deep at this point, and to be fair the demon has held up its end fo the bargain, right?
Also, I would be damned if I don't talk about cc!Sausage's editing. Every one of his videos is like a movie. The way he does camera angles and uses music is so skillful- every lore scene feels like something out of a high fantasy action saga (think: LotR). Every big lore event I always wait in anticipation for Sausage's ep because his editing truly takes lore to another level.
I'm just generally very excited to see where this series goes. Empires is such a good mix of talented builders and good lore. Part of the reason why the series is so immersive for me, beyond any other lore smp, is that they have the settings to back it up. There is a certain charm to the DreamSMP's objectively terrible builds (with a few exceptions) but in Empires, the settings help sell the plot so much.
Another part of why I love EmpiresSMP is how much the ccs are involved with the fan community. I'm sure you've seen the memes about Scott being on tumblr, and Sausage regularly goes through the EmpiresSMP fanart tag on Twitter and likes art, even ones not related to Mythland. Most of the ccs, in fact, have brought up tumblr content on stream at some point or another. Like, several ccs have said that they read tumblr lore theories and hcs and stuff and sometimes take inspiration from them. Fun fact: Rivendell's church was inspired by my pinned drawing; confirmed by Scott Smajor himself. It's just such a good cycle of ccs and fans being excited about each other.
As for DreamSMP, I'm gonna be honest here, the only person I really am invested in in Technoblade. I started watching when he joined the server, and he's the only person whose lore I keep up to date with.
Techno's fun to watch because he's like the Deadpool of DreamSMP. Virtually unkillable, very skilled and scary, but consistently cracks jokes and breaks the 4th wall during plot. His POV is just fun. Like, he does wild plans and gives speeches and some of the stuff that happens to him should be called deus ex machine if it wasn't for the fact that Technoblade is the one who's doing it, and all the stuff is grounded in the fact that cc!Techno is just that good at the game.
However, the fact that he rarely takes anything seriously makes the few times Techno is 100% serious so much more impactful. His whole character has a basis in being perceived as inhuman and being treated as such, and therefore in return trying to hide his humanity. So, when he shows that humanity, whether that's fear, anger, or genuine love for his friends, it really makes you go "oh shit."
Techno's often said not to have character development, but I'd argue that while he remains steadfast in his moral code, he develops leaps and bounds as a person. Like, at the beginning, he's brought onto the server to help Wilbur and Tommy overthrow a government; them knowing he's 1) an anarchist and 2) very very powerful. His character was more of a plot device at that point and was treated as such in the canon. Wilbur and Tommy straight-up lie to him about their plans to establish another government after they overthrow the current one, while he was led on to believe that they were abolishing all governments in the area. But he isn't a plot device. He's a person, as much as he only shows the terrifying, blood god side of himself.
After the establishment of New Lmanburg (the new government its a long story), his friend Phil joins. And for the first time, we see him be fully human with someone and we see someone treat him like a human. Like, we saw glimpses before, with Wilbur and Tommy in Pogtopia, but Phil is the first person we noticeably see he trusts 100%. Then Doomsday happens, and Techno essentially retires to the tundra. During this time, we see Techno learn to be more human, first with Ranboo, then Niki when he establishes the Syndicate. In fact, the two of them, along with Phil, canonically throw him a birthday party, which is a far cry from his treatment in Pogtopia.
Techno's development is one of a god learning to be human, and I just think he <3
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kindaeccentric · 3 years
Text
When I was writing my university bachelor's degree thesis (that I'm still to defend) about Penny Dreadful as a modern adaptation of Frankenstein I noticed how the original novel's homoeroticism is realized by the series in an interesting way.
In the way he is presented, it seems to me that Victor secretly desires men, but thinks that only through creating a perfect one by himself he's allowed to touch other man's skin. His endeavour to pierce the veil between life and death is an excuse, since Victor from the series grew up lonely after the death of his mother and he searches for companionship, for someone who would love him unconditionally, like his mother used to. He believes he can find such love only in a person he creates himself, brings from the dead, and who would see him as his only friend, calm and obedient. Yet his first instinct is to make a man, not a woman, and a handsome man at that.
I can imagine both Rory Kinnear and Alex Price are not everybody's cup of tea (I do find them attractive, they are quite charismatic), but the way the original Creature and Proteus are shown makes them attractive. Proteus we see through Victor's eyes, when he is tending to his body before its even reanimated, when he sketches him (a sure sign of affection) and when he teaches him how to eat in a way that becomes seductive, because of how the camera lingers on his lips and then, in a closeup, on his fingers running down his long throat, immediately bringing to mind erotic imagery. Some may argue that Victor tries to emulate the relationship between his mother and himself taking the parental role and projecting onto Proteus the role of his childhood self, and as much as it is partially true, their relationship bears these marks of hidden desire on Victor's part from the start. The image at the end of the first episode when Proteus is born shows Victor trembling, teary-eyed, looking at the body, a torn and stitched back together, but human body, of a naked man. He's afraid, but not necessarily of the man, but of finally getting what he wanted, it's a fear resulting from excitement. Then the man is touching his face tenderly and Victor, still trembling, cannot stop himself from a little smile. Their faces are softly illuminated by the orange light of the gas lamp, creating an intimate atmosphere of a warm bedroom. Victor practically gasps hearing his own name smoken by Proteus. I doubt all of it was intentional in the way I read it, but it doesn't change the fact that the final scene can be easily interpreted this way.
Then the original Creature, with the violence surrounding his return, presents him as highly masculine, smart, powerful, a direct opposite to the delicate, clueless Proteus Victor could easily form into whatever he wanted. The Creature throughout the entire series is perceived as ugly by some and easily tolerated by others, making his ugliness purely subjective, since, despite his small deformities he remains strangely alluring with his gothic qualities (black long hair, black lips, white skin, yellow eyes, proportional features) of a dark brooding gentleman. With blood on his face he becomes vampire-like (vampires always a symbol of hidden desires and 'depraved' sexuality, the Creature and Victor becoming a mirror image of Vanessa and vampire Mina, both Creature's and Mina's monstrosity an indirect result of Victor's and Vanessa's desire towards having a same-sex companion). The Creature touches Victor's face, a callback to Proteus doing it, but the Creature is not gentle, he smears blood all over Victor's face (blood in vampire narratives was always a symbol for other bodily fluids, that's why it seems so sexy, it also gained another meaning in the 80s, due to the HIV epidemic, which no filmmaker can shake off if they tried, I could discuss it more with The Lost Boys, but no time for that right now).
The dynamic between Victor and the Creature is a reversal of Victor's budding relationship with Proteus, experience winning over innocence. Victor is under another man's rule, and it terrifies him, because it would force him into a position of having to admit his attraction, whereas as the one in control he could have still easily deny it. The Creature, with all his attributes, symbolizes carnal love, he's all 'body', where Proteus was virginal, pious love (to an extent). In one of the scenes where we see Proteus he looks up into the skylight at Victor's apartment and appears angelic, as if in a halo of white light.
It's revealed Victor never had a woman, and the series wants the viewer to believe it's because of his awkwardness and passion for science that consumed him, but his dedication to creating himself male companions instead of searching for a living female one is exactly what makes him seem more queer coded.
It's clear that the lack of paternal figure results in Victor quickly becoming close with older men he encounters (Sir Malcolm, Van Helsing), but it also puts him into a position where he's constantly surrounded by men, with whom he feels more at ease, and is intimidated by women. The rivalry between him and Ethan is that of siblings, until the moment when Ethan teaches him how to shoot a gun. It might be a stretch (it is a bit of a stretch, I admit), but a gun often, especially in horror, alongside a knife, represents manhood and masculine power. Victor allows Ethan to touch him and encourages him to show off with the gun, which is a scene all too familiar from many other movies where the role of Victor is reserved for a woman and the interaction is flirtatious (can't pull examples out of thin air, but if you saw over 1400 movies like me you know I'm not lying). All this adds to the general image of Victor.
The Creature and Victor, when they are on a walk, have a very revealing conversation in which the Creature points out how quick Victor was to grow attached to his more perfect man, and Victor doesn't deny it, he admits that he did in fact feel affection towards Proteus, although the meaning of it as the scorned past partner expressing jealousy over the love he didn't get while someone else did is largely subtext. When the Creature says that he's lonely, Victor answers 'I cannot love you' (paraphrase, because I can't find the exact quote right now) and the Creature, disillusioned, mocks him, 'I do not want what you cannot give' suggesting that Victor, by making himself a meek obedient man, is selfish, cruel, manipulating, and a coward, therefore could not have loved Proteus truly. Then again, Victor cannot bring himself to love his original Creature, because he's not the ideal man he envisioned and by then the Creature being too aware of his flaws of character. The Creature/Caliban/John Clare knows that Victor is 'monstrous', not just because he's someone who desecrates dead bodies, plays God and abandons his creation, but because of his queer desire. It's important that in the case of Penny Dreadful 'monstrosity' signifies many different things, literal (being a vampire werewolf, witch, and so on), metaphorical (bad deeds, like letting your son die a horrible death, cheating, killing etc.) and wholy subjective, merely condemned by ignorant society (Sembene's blackness, Brona's sex work, Lily's want to be equal or greater than men, Vanessa's want for sexual freedom, the Creature's ugliness, Angelique being transgender and other cases), so it's NOT that much of a stretch this time.
We also have the whole problem with Lily. Victor is so attached to Lily (who takes up both Elizabeth's and creature's bride parts in the novel) because he believes that only by possessing a good woman he'll be redeemed for his 'sinful' desires, but he's foolish to think that. This belief reduces a woman to a semi-maternal, semi-virginal angelic ideal with no sexual urges or agency, like virgin Mary. Lily is a true replacement for Victor's mother, and his imagined redemption. As long as she's similar to Proteus, in that she's not sexual, and pure like an angel. Yet Lily is not a woman in that sense. She is another of Victor's creatures, so she partially also takes over the role of the original Creature from the novel, a male. She's not an ideal of a Victorian obedient wife, she has power, or tries to have it, but power in the context of patriarchal society is masculine by nature. The moment she drops her pretenses of a weak delicate wife-like girl Victor does not want her like this. He doesn't want a woman that is sexually liberated, because he doesn't like women in this way, and yet, by being similar to the first Creature (from Victor's perspective, from hers John Clare is similar to Victor-a man, I could delve into Brona's sexuality, but later, this thing is already way longer than I intended) she's 'the man' he wanted.
There is also Henry. Henry Jekyll takes the role of his namesake in the novel, Henry Clerval, Victor's closest friend, and a character most often cited to have homoerotic tension with Victor. It's true that some of the eroticism might be accidental, stemming from the prevalence of homosocial interactions in 'Frankenstein' which in turn is a result of misogynistic nature of 19th century Genevian society and in-novel universe reflecting it, but like I mentioned before, it still feeds into the queer reading of the text and translates beautifully into Jekyll and Victor being both extremely misogynistic towards Lily and their mutual homoerotic tension. In the scenes where Henry purposes his plan to Victor he practically seductively purrs it into his ear, Lily becomes merely a female buffer that allows for that interaction, a female presence which is an excuse for male closeness (here I have a couple of examples actually: Dead Ringers, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Scream (in a roundabout way, through murder) and a couple others, but that deserves its own article). I won't even mention more references to the novel, because that's a lot already.
Penny Dreadful, although I believe largely unintentionally, expands on what is already there through the changes it introduces in relation to the novel's plot. I have nothing else smart to say, I just think it's worth considering.
*I use the word 'queer', because that's the umbrella term we use in academic writing for years now and even our lgbt+ group at university is called 'queer', so don't come at me with stupid takes
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phantomrose96 · 4 years
Text
King
cw: heavy angst, non-canon character death, violent imagery, emetophobia
It’s pretty long, so heed the Read More.
...
Bakugou is sitting in the police station.
Time isn’t moving forward with him. It has a hand over his mouth holding him back, holding him down, beneath the surface of the unreal waters which suspend him. All sounds reach his ears muffled. The phone ringing, and the station hand answering. Chatter, officers exchanging details, Bakugou winces at the utterance of the word “explosion”. None of it is real. None of it can be happening to him.
He jangles the handcuffs on his wrist, and this attracts the weary attention of the station hands. The cuffs aren’t necessary. He is not going anywhere. He sits, and he stares forward, and his ears ring.
Bakugou has fucked up. Bakugou understands for the first time in his life the sensation of fucking up beyond repair. He is watching dreams evaporate in front of his eyes, staring forward unseeingly at the pallid white floor tiles around him. His eyes trace their lines. He does not see them. They are not real. He is not real. He has fucked up. He has fucked up.
Behind his eyelids, a single image burns. It is branded into his eyes. The scorched wick of a torso lingers there, shifting to a negative impression of itself with each blink. A torched wick, balanced on disembodied legs, falling forward. Falling forward. Falling forward. Falling forward again with each blink. It’s a sight he has no way to unsee.
His heart rate picks up. His breathing comes faster and shallower. He says nothing. He has fucked up. He has fucked up, and he can never fix this.
Because he is still, and because he is silent, no one pays him any mind.
A man walks into the precinct. He is just a bit portly, immaculately dressed in a suit and tie. He shrugs off the tweed overcoat, leaving just vest and undershirt and tie, and hangs it with familiarity on the coat rack by the entrance. He lifts his bowler’s hat in greeting, and overlapping responses greet him from the precinct office. “Fujimori” is uttered, affably. He extends a hand, and several workers shake it with a smile. A joke is cracked. A chorus of deep belly laughs follow. The man with the bowler’s hat – Fujimori – calms his mirth and asks one of the officers about his kids, and when the idle chatter ends, he asks where his client is.
Fingers point toward Bakugou. Fujimori lumbers over, with a confidence that reminds Bakugou of lions, his face at ease. Fujimori lowers himself to a squat so he is eye level with Bakugou.
“I’m Hiroji Fujimori. I’m a lawyer with U.A. You’ve had a hell of a day, huh, Katsuki Bakugou? Why don’t I help get those handcuffs off and get you home for some rest?”
Bakugou looks up. He hears the words, but his ears are still ringing, so he clearly has not heard them correctly. It sounded like the man said he was going home.
“Home?” Bakugou asks.
“Well, the U.A. dorms. Under protective custody but, I promise, you won’t even notice.”
“I’m not going home,” Bakugou responds. He isn’t sure it’s his own voice speaking, or his own lips moving.
“Oh? Got somewhere else you’re headed?”
“Jail.”
Fujimori lets out a deep laugh, the kind that rumbles his whole body. He fans himself briefly with the casefile in hand. “Right. Right right right, no one’s given you the run-down. Ease back those shoulders, son, you’re not headed to jail. Chin up! Try for a smile. This isn’t my first rodeo.” He offers a nod back to the officers. “Ain’t that right?”
There’s a chorus of agreement. Bakugou is looking, but not processing. His mind hangs on “not headed to jail.”
“…When am I going to jail, then?”
“Hopefully never! Not very becoming of a U.A. Hero to be doing time, hmm? Come on. There’s a car waiting out front for you. Let’s gather up your stuff and get you home. Bet you’re dying for something more comfortable than this chair, and these cuffs. Hell, I bet you want nothing more than a night in your own bed right now. Poor boy,” and Fujimori angles his head over his shoulder, “just how many hours have you lot kept him all tied up here, hmm? A touch reprehensible.”
Fujimori is wrong. Bakugou is not thinking about his bed or rest or sleep. Nor is he concerned with how many hours he’s been sitting at the precinct – though it’s been several. He has not thought about those things because time has not restarted. Because there is no future of his to consider with a bed and rest and sleep, not with the unfixable thing he’s done.
Bakugou says none of what he’s thinking. He’s uncharacteristically uncapable of trying. So he silently stands when Fujimori motions him to, and follows as Fujimori takes him back to the precinct desk, where Fujimori strikes up another amicable conversation with the officer in possession of the keys.
Back at the dorms, Bakugou showers off the smell of flesh that isn’t his own. He crawls into his U.A. bed for what he is sure is the last time. Hours pass staring at the ceiling, until Bakugou slips into dreams which play back his own last calamitous explosion to him a few dozen more times.
Fujimori is waiting for him the next morning, parked alongside the grass outside with the dew brushing along the footboard of his Mercedes. He is wearing a different suit today, a darker one, and he is holding two steaming cups of coffee, one which he offers to Bakugou. Bakugou takes it, though he isn’t sure why. The feeling of heat soaking into his palm is abhorrent.
“How’d you sleep?” Fujimori asks. His attendant opens the back-left passenger door for Bakugou. Bakugou stares. He does not answer, and he does not get in. Fujimori continues. “We’ll just be headed into the office for a few hours this morning. Some of my colleagues would like to meet you and hash over some details from yesterday. Might ask you to sign a few papers, if you’re comfortable with that.”
Fujimori gets in the back-right passenger door. The attendant takes the wheel. Once settled, Fujimori cranks up the AC and fans himself with the documents in his hand. He motions for Bakugou to get in as well. This time, Bakugou complies. Fujimori leans over and shuts the car door for him.
“You said you’re a U.A. lawyer?” Bakugou finally asks. He grips the coffee too tightly in his lap. He’s wearing his U.A. uniform, with the pants hitched up correctly. It’s what he was ordered to wear.
“Sure am. Going on 20 years this September. Y’know, I’ve got a son a little bit younger than you. HUGE fan of the U.A. Sports Festival. I get tickets and bring him every year. You were his top-ringer, favorite by a mile. Your victory over that Todoroki kid—
“Stop.”
“Hmm?”
“Stop.”
“Ah, sports festival a sour subject with you, son? As I recall you did end up restrai—”
“No. Stop being so casual. And friendly. Like this. Sports festival. Sports festival?! Like that’s ever going to matter again!” Bakugou’s voice builds toa  crescendo, pent up horror spilling from his mouth like a faucet. “It’s cruel, don’t you think, to make me talk about U.A. like I’m ever coming back.”
“Hey now, the way I see it you’ve still got another two full years at that school before they’re done with you.”
“If you think that then you don’t know what happened yesterday. What kind of lawyer are you who doesn’t even know—”
“I know your case file forward and back, son. I’m no amateur. In fact, I’m very very skilled at what I do.”
“Then you know that I k—”
“—Calculated an unwinnable risk, and acted under extreme duress, and fear for you own life, in the face of a paralyzingly dangerous situation. And I know that your actions were necessary to ensure the safety of yourself and all others in the area.” Fujimori raises his own coffee to his lips and drinks from it, leaving the both of them to ruminate in the whir of the A.C. “An admirable and heroic act, with a tragic but unavoidable outcome.”
Bakugou feels colder, in a part of himself untouched by the A.C.
“…It wasn’t like that,” he whispers.
“I assure you it was, boy.”
The car blinker clicks on. They hang a left. Bakugou fixes his eyes out the window, watching the world spin by him. There’s an anger like solid ice encasing his heart, the kind he cannot act on, the kind that paralyzes him in his seat, the kind he’d only felt once before – when All Might lost his power for him – that Bakugou had vowed to never feel again.
Self-hatred. Ice instead of fire. That is what makes it so paralyzing.
“…Why are you representing me?”
“Because U.A. requested that I do.”
“And why would U.A. care? This wasn’t a U.A. mission. This didn’t have anything to do with them.”
Fujimori turns and offers him a warm smile. His face is disarming, and gentle, and grandfatherly, and he extends a hand to pat Bakugou on the shoulder.
“Come now, I think you’re a sharp enough boy to figure out the answer to that question.”
Bakugou leaves the office numb again. His memories of the incident feel hazier now. They feel less his own. He’s been asked to hold on to someone else’s construction, to coddle it in his mind until he believes it is his own. He needs to sew it back into himself. And forget his own memories. And move on.
Six hours have passed since he walked into the conference room with Fujimori, met with a half-dozen other lawyers whose names and faces all escape him now. He’s been asked too many times to describe the villain’s face, to describe man’s dress and his expression and his body language. Bakugou no longer trusts any memory he has of face, and body, and dress, and name.
Bakugou does not remember what, precisely, the villain said to him. He does not remember how he said it or why. Or how the villain had used his quirk, or how many times, or how close to Bakugou. Bakugou knows with certainty the villain had smashed him into the pavement, because it is that white-hot rage he felt in response that is seared into the memory behind his eyelids, like an after-image in the wake of an atom bomb.
The missing details, the absent paint strokes in his memory, have been helpfully filled in for him. Bakugou has been informed by the half-dozen lawyers that the villain had attacked him first, and with such bloodlust and such aggression that Bakugou had acted purely, and only, in defense of himself. Bakugou has been informed that the contusions to the back of his skull, documented at the police station, and the abrasions along his arms and legs and back all constitute intense physical trauma, from the villain who struck first, against Bakugou who had every reason to fear for his life.
Bakugou has been informed that the villain was a scoundrel, a lowlife, a man with a record and no family and no ties to the community.
Bakugou ruminates on all these new elements he’s been told to graft into his memory, as the car vibrates beneath him and Fujimori makes idle one-sided chatter on their ride back to U.A. All these memories meld together, such that Bakugou cannot pick apart what is his own, and what is not. He stares into the blood-red setting sun over the horizon, and he realizes he never will be able to.
There were no witnesses. There were no cameras. The only other man, who might otherwise have had the chance to defend himself, is dead.
Bakugou showers again. He already showered this morning. Bakugou tells himself it is because he’s been out all day. He doesn’t let himself consider what about the outing has made him feel so unclean.
So he doesn’t think about it, and he scrubs off the phantom lingering smells of burnt flesh from his body, and towels off, and changes into sweats. Alone in his room, with the blood red of the setting sun eking through his window, Bakugou considers going right to bed. His eyes shift to the clock beside his bed. It’s 5pm, and he hasn’t eaten yet today.
Bakugou stands, indecisive, and moves to the door.
When he opens it, he sucks in a sharp breath. Todoroki is standing at his doorway, leaning ever so slightly against the wall, his appraising eyes roving once over Bakugou before he straightens up entirely.
“Move,” Bakugou says.
“Where did you go with Fujimori this morning?”
Bakugou balks, only for an instant. He shoves past Todoroki, and sets his focus on navigating to the dorm kitchen. “Who?”
“The lawyer. I saw from the window. You were talking to him. You got in his car. And you’ve been gone the whole day until now.”
“What do you care?” Bakugou picks up his pace. Todoroki matches it.
“Because it’s Fujimori.”
“I don’t know what that means. Fuck off and leave me alone.”
“What did he want with you? What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Fuck off.”
“Tell me.”
Bakugou stops cold and whirls on Todoroki. He feels his hand twitch, but he thinks better of it.
“It’s from my work study. It’s confidential. I can’t tell you, and I wouldn’t tell you anyway. We’re not friends. You don’t demand things from me. Fuck. Off.”
Bakugou takes off again.
“Fujimori…” Todoroki trails off. He hustles to keep himself in lock step with Bakugou, flanking him, refusing to be shaken off. “Just tell me why it’s Fujimori then.”
“Again, I do not fucking know what that question means. Why the fuck do you expect me to know anything? Do I look like a lawyer? Go bug Deku, you clingy piece of shit.”
“Did I hear my name?”
Bakugou rounds the corner, Todoroki in tow, and he finds himself face to face with Midoriya. Midoriya has one eyebrow quirked, hair wet from his own shower, grasping a glass of water in his hands. Midoriya’s eyes flicker between Bakugou and Todoroki.
“What… are you two up to? Uh, something fun?”
“Good.” Bakugou grabs Midoriya by the shoulders, lifts him, and spins halfway around in place. He plants Midoriya back down as a human divide between himself and Todoroki. “Deku’s here. Go bug each other.”
Midoriya looks back and forth between Bakugou and Todoroki. Worry creases his brow. “Um, okay? Is there something you wanted to talk to me about, Todoroki?”
Bakugou glances for a fraction of a second at the kitchen, and curses under his breath, and turns in place, and shoves past Todoroki and Midoriya. He stalks back to his room, where he slams the door shut and locks it. He throws himself onto his bed and buries his face in his pillow, not bothering with the lights.
There’s muffled chatter in the hall. There are footsteps pattering overhead. There is a world outside his room that has spun on without him.
The question ‘why Fujimori?’ sits like a rock in Bakugou’s chest, and he rips the pillow out from beneath himself, pressing it over his head completely.
It’s fully dark now. Bakugou has no intention of moving from bed.
It is 5:07 pm.
Bakugou remembers very few details from the incident, anymore.
His memories are more like wispy embers, and they burn, and they flash-ignite without warning. He remembers heat, humidity, sapping sweat dripping down his hairline and curving along his nose. Heaving breath like a swelling knife wound in his bruised chest cavity. The viscous wetness of blood mingling and running in spider veins down his cheek, to the corner of his mouth, where it painted his teeth and tasted coppery on his tongue.
He remembers rage, white hot, swamping his mind. He remembers uproarious indignation that anyone could fell him like that, crack his head open on the concrete like that, knock the air from his lungs like that, make him taste his own blood like that. He remembers his every breath being a wheezing effort. He remembers the sun searing him, blisteringly bright, when he could manage to pry his eyes open to the spinning sky above. He remembers a ringing that stole all sound from his ears.
Bakugou no longer knows anything past that. His memories aren’t his own. The ones that were are overwritten, or buried, deformed beneath the crushing weight of denial. But he hadn’t meant to. He knows he hadn’t meant to. It has to be that he hadn’t meant to.
A slamming at his door tears him from his hazy half sleep. Bakugou sits bolt-upright, and his heart is slamming in his throat.
“Yo, dude, you get dinner yet? I haven’t seen you like all day. What’s up?”
Bakugou blinks, bleary-eyed, and the clock at his bedside swims into view. It’s 8:47 pm.
Bakugou lays back down. His every nerve remains on fire.
“Go away, I’m sleeping.”
Bakugou can sense the hesitation at the door.
“Alright,” Kirishima answers, and his voice is careful. “Catch you tomorrow then.”
In the common area, Kirishima walks in with his fingers threaded through his loose hair, his motions agitated, and he falls onto the couch beside Midoriya.
“Yo, hey, Midoriya, you know Bakugou pretty well, yeah? Do you think something’s like, up with him?”
Midoriya looks up from his phone. Iida, sitting on the adjacent couch, slams his book shut with entirely too much force. “Bakugou had an excused absence from class today! I can confirm this, if you are worried he is shirking from his student duties.”
“Nah nah – I mean – maybe that’s part of it, I dunno. But it’s not just that he wasn’t in class but like, I haven’t seen him at all today. And I tried to go bug him just now but he shut me out.”
“Bakugou goes to bed early,” Iida continues.
“I know he does but like. I dunno. It’s different. It’s kinda reminding me of how he acted after Kamino.”
“I saw him earlier today, but just for a little bit,” Midoriya answers. “Todoroki was talking to him, then he told me to talk to Todoroki.”
“Why?”
“Um, I don’t actually know. Do you know, Todoroki?”
“I don’t know,” Todoroki answers from the floor, where he sits leaning against the couch Kirishima and Midoriya occupy. After a moment of silence, he adds in, “But it’s something bad.”
Kirishima straightens, couch springs straining beneath him. “What do you mean bad? What do you know?”
“He was with Fujimori.”
“Who’s Fujimori?” Kirishima asks. All eyes remain pinned on Todoroki, not a flash of recognition in anyone else’s face, not even Iida’s.
“He’s a U.A. lawyer.” Todoroki fidgets. “He’s… a specific kind of U.A. lawyer. I saw a lot of him, when I was very young. After Mom went away, I saw a lot of him, pretty much every day.” Subconsciously, Todoroki raises a hand to skim along the uneven skin of his left eye. “Dad was his client.”
“Oh, um, I met a couple U.A. lawyers after we rescued Eri.” Midoriya shoots a quick glance to Kirishima. “Me and Kirishima both. Bakugou’s doing a work study right now. Maybe it’s like… maybe something like Eri happened.”
Todoroki shakes his head. “You and Kirishima have not met Fujimori. Whatever U.A. lawyers you talked to, they weren’t Fujimori.”
“What makes you sure?”
Todoroki lingers in the silence. His lips part, but he says nothing immediately. He thinks long and hard on the words hanging behind his tongue. There’s a twitch along his mouth, some repressed fidget of hostility that comes slowly burning into his eyes.
“I’ve been told not to talk about Fujimori. My father has told me not to. But… I think I don’t care what my father told me.” Todoroki pushes off from the couch he is leaning on, settling toward the center of the carpet and turning in place, so that he completes a circle made of himself, Kirishima, Midoriya, and Iida. “I might still get in trouble with U.A.… But maybe I don’t care about that either.” Todoroki pauses. “Fujimori… Fujimori is a monster. Scum, the lowest and most disgusting sort of person humanity has to offer—no, not humanity. Calling human would be too generous. He’s a weapon, not a human.”
Midoriya scoots a fraction forward. His body leaks with uneasy tension. “And he’s… you said he’s someone who works for U.A.? U.A. hired him?”
“U.A. would be sunk without him,” Todoroki declares coldly. “And Fujimori… does not get involved lightly. And he would never be involved in the Eri mission, because U.A. wasn’t at fault for anything bad that happened there.”
“I…” Midoriya fidgets again, waxing uncomfortable. “I mean, um, not all the details of that mission were made public, you know. It um… that mission didn’t go as planned. I mean, I don’t… I’m not blameless, I think, for the things that went wrong.”
“Me neither,” Kirishima cuts in.
“Sir Night Eye—”
“I know Sir Night Eye died,” Todoroki responds, chillingly flat. His eyes appraise Midoriya once-over. “Did you kill Sir Night Eye?”
“No,” Midoriya answers. “Why would you even—”
“Then Fujimori was not your lawyer.”
Silence fills the room. A palpable dread sets in over them, like a blanket of fog, clammy and cold to the touch.
“What… do you think Bakugou did?” Iida asks.
“Something as bad as my father did to me and my mother,” Todoroki answers, and he does not hide the personal condemnation from his voice. “Or worse.”
Bakugou wakes at 6:15 am to another message from Fujimori. It requests Bakugou meet him outside once more. No dress code is specified.
Bakugou appears wearing the sweats he fell asleep in, leery eyes meeting Fujimori who stands along the same dew-swept section of street beside the U.A. dorms. Bakugou shifts furtive glances up and to the dorm windows, face racked with tension.
“People can see us from the windows,” Bakugou comments, curt.
“Does that worry you?”
“Yes. Todoroki knows you. Why the fuck does Todoroki know you?”
Fujimori lets out a good-humored chuckle. “Ah, Todoroki’s boy. Figures he may not be too fond of me.” Fujimori adjusts the suspenders digging into his shoulders. He is more casually dressed today. “Well then – here’s some excellent news for you: this will be very, very brief, so brief you don’t have to worry about being spotted with me.” Fujimori curls a smile, wide and self-satisfied on his flushed red face. “Would you like to hear another lick of good news?”
“What?”
Fujimori extends a hand, low and firm, an invite to be grasped and shaken. “All charges against you have been dropped. You’re a free man with a clean record, Katsuki Bakugou.”
Bakugou does not take Fujimori’s hand. He doesn’t so much as move. He feels as if the ringing in his ears is back. He feels again as if he’s misheard.
“…There hasn’t been a trial yet.”
“You’re right about that. We nipped it in the bud before it even reached that stage. That’s a fantastic development, because trials have their way of dragging their feet. For years, sometimes. You’re a fortunate young man.”
“How?”
“Hmm?”
“How did the charges get dropped?”
“Well I just compiled your case is all. Argued it before the district judge and the chief of police over a nice batch of chamomile tea I brewed early this morning, and they’re both exceptional, bright, reasonable men of conscience. Not one person in that room wanted to see a U.A. star’s future snuffed out before it could even begin.”
“I killed—”
“—And there’s a few weeks off, being offered to you too, courtesy of the U.A. President Nedzu himself. He wants you to take the time you need to heal from this trauma. There’s a therapist too, under U.A.’s direction, that we’d like you to meet with daily. Sorry, that part’s non-negotiable. But she’ll be good for you. You’ve been through a lot for a boy so young. Everyone just wants to see you succeed.” Fujimori steps closer, and he rests a heavy hand on Bakugou’s shoulder. “And most importantly, the events from that day are under gag order. No word of this will ever reach anyone outside that precinct or outside U.A.”
“The villain…”
“Pardon?”
“What happens to him now? With his—with the—with what’s left of him. …What happens?”
“That’s not for people like you or me to worry about. You, especially, my boy. Just focus on the happy news.” Fujimori retracts his hand, and he lumbers back toward his car. There is no attendant this time. He opens the driver’s side door and glances back to Bakugou from overtop the car. “There will be a few more meetings in the coming weeks that you’ll have to attend with my colleagues, and a few more things for you to sign, and just a few attestations. But no one will ask anything difficult of you from here-on out. The hard part’s over. Quite luckily, this may be the last you see of me.”
Fujimori tips his hat once more, and disappears into his car with the tinted windows. It’s nice—the car. It’s exceptionally too nice, and too proper, and too clean for a man like Fujimori.
The engine revs. Fujimori vanishes along with the car at the next left turn.
Bakugou is left alone in the cold clammy morning air, with the sun wicking at the grass-top dew drops mingling with the cuffs of his pants.
Time restarts for Bakugou.
Now, and only now, Bakugou feels the passing wind against his cheek, and the wetness at his ankles, and the cadence of songbirds characterized by their punctuation through time. Time is moving fast again, with him in the stream, spinning dizzyingly forward.
Fujimori is right, this news is good news, Bakugou understands that. There’s a future in front of him again. A hero path ahead of him. He can carry on. He can graduate from U.A. He can become the #1 Hero. He can surpass All Might.
Bakugou’s memory stirs.
He is stricken with the image of two eyes looking back at him, gray and befuddled, panicked and unsure. They are eyes which belong to a head, a head with belongs to a body, all atop legs too scattered to know where to run. The image is a quivering bit of prey in front of him, cowed into a quaking revolting shell. It is a thing filled with regret at the sight of the rage it spurred from Bakugou by daring to slam Bakugou into the pavement first.
Bakugou remembers pulling the pin from his gauntlet. He remembers doing it with revelry. He remembers the sweet, nigh-intoxicating high, the euphoria that came with the sense of complete command, absolute control, unchecked power, the drive to win, to win, to win.
He remembers the lock and jolt to his shoulder, now. The eruption of searing heat. The explosion ringing in his ears. And the quaking, shivering thing of prey, in a moment of panic, darting directly into the blast, when all common sense dictated that it should have darted away.
Bakugou now remembers the blast erupting into black smoke, with a smell so wretched on its wind that Bakugou had buckled on spot. Bakugou now remembers the feeling -- suddenly greasy, suddenly unclean with the blowback of the blast, suddenly sticky dripping sapping wet with—
Bakugou remembers the torched wick of a torso – with full context now, he sees it. Suspended in time. Atop legs that should not stand.
Alone now in the cold morning air, alone outside the U.A. dorms, Bakugou buckles at the waist. He doubles over, falls forward like the image so seared into his mind. He moves forward in time with the dismembered legs, both his knees and its knees hitting the ground. Bakugou’s palms strike the dew-strewn lawn, his legs sink into the wetness. He holds himself up a moment, on arms too trembling to command, with a heartbeat too slammingly loud in his ears, and he loses his stomach contents into the grass below.
Bakugou is in class that same day. He does not take any of the offered leave, even when Nedzu appears at his dormitory door that morning at 7:30, even when Aizawa pulls him aside at the classroom entrance to ask, in as few specifics as possible, if Bakugou really intends to be here.
Bakugou confirms both times that he’s fine, and that he’s going to class, and that he doesn’t want them to mention anything to do with this ever again.
In class, he pretends to not see when Kirishima tries to catch his attention. He pretends not to feel the cold lick of malice from Todoroki’s eyes probing his back. Hardest of all, he pretends not to notice Midoriya’s pleading look, that detestable, abhorrent disarmed expression of weakness and worry so characteristic of him.
The partners are presumably random, but Bakugou stares on with disgusted certainty that Midoriya’s been intentionally assigned to him for sparring practice. Each pair of students has been spread about in sparring rings around Ground Beta, ample room given between each location, such that no quirks, and no voice, could carry between any two. Only the loudspeaker affixed to the Ground Beta building issues commands to each group.
The round starts.
Bakugou squares his feet, crouched slightly, hatred burning cold in his eyes. Midoriya meets his gaze, and squares his own feet, and raises his own hands. A silent few seconds of tense nothing passes between them. Bakugou’s gauntlet-less hands itch.
“Dodge!” Bakugou barks across the makeshift arena.
Midoriya loosens his footing a fraction, confusion crawling back into his face. “You haven’t attacked me yet.”
“Well get out of the way before I do!”
“If you attack me, then I’ll dodge.”
“Well you better! Because I’m telling you to dodge!”
Midoriya blinks. Bakugou remains rooted in place. In a split second, Midoriya has bounced from his spot. He winds back a kick, the shimmer of green iridescent veins spawning like stream rivulets down his thigh, down his leg. He closes the distance between them, and Bakugou only stares back wide-eyed as Midoriya’s shin connects with his jaw.
Bakugou stumbles, face smarting, a white-hot lick of rage exploding like a cannon from within his chest. The anger swamps his mind and drowns all thought and leaves him only with the livid, licking, untamable desire to fire back.
He thrusts a palm out, arm locked in tight at the elbow, immaculately drawing Midoriya into his line of attack. Midoriya’s eyes go wide, but he is still in the air, still falling, and won’t get the chance to course correct until he hits the ground. Bakugou has the shot.
Bakugou does not take it.
Time slips around him again. Leaving him behind, knocking him at the ankles, as if he is standing knee-deep in a stream to which he does not belong. The force threatens to make him stumble. He simply stands, hand extended, the promise of an explosion sputtering behind his palm.
Midoriya lands, and Bakugou has left himself wide open.
Midoriya doesn’t take his shot either.
“Do you want to… maybe call off the fight, Kacchan?”
“No! Attack me again!” Bakugou yells, hand thrown out harder, though nothing bursts on his palms.
“I…” Midoriya hesitates. He looks around, and he lets the rivulets of power bleed away from his arms and legs. He loosens his footing, stands taller, lets the tension ease out of his body.  “You know, um… After we rescued Eri, I couldn’t really do much of anything for a few days. I couldn’t even use my quirk without having to focus way too hard on it.”
“I don’t care about your stupid mission. Attack me! Attack, you damn nerd!”
“Is it… something like that for you too, Kacchan? …Is it something worse?”
“Mind your own damn business! And get out of the way before I fire at you!”
“Todoroki isn’t being too kind with his guesses. …Kirishima refuses to believe what Todoroki has to say, if that makes you feel better. But I think I know you a bit better than Kirishima, actually, and I’m not sure what to believe.”
“What makes you think I give a single shit about what Icy-Hot thinks? Or what you think?”
“Are you allowed to tell me what happened?”
“No.”
“…How bad is it? The thing that happened?”
“’How bad?’” Bakugou mocks. “Not at all! Zero! Nothing! Everything got resolved this morning. Nothing’s happening. There’s nothing more to it. You can tell that to Todoroki, and tell him he can keep his prying eyes the fuck off me cuz there’s nothing more for him to see. And you can fuck off for good measure too.”
“Everything got resolved… because of Fujimori?”
“We’re still fighting. Shut up and dodge! Attack! Do something!”
“Because – what Todoroki said – is that’s what Fujimori does. He makes problems go away. No matter what. By whatever means necessary. That he’s U.A.’s ace in the hole. That U.A.’s spotless track record – its perfect reputation – for decades…” Midoriya trails off. Bakugou falters at the sight of Midoriya wiping at his own cheek with the heel of his palm. “Stupid of me, huh, Kacchan?” Midoriya says with a bitter laugh. “I just assumed U.A. put out perfect heroes, all perfect heroes. That every pro from U.A. was like All Might. That every pro from U.A. just… could never do anything wrong. I idolized all of them. Every single one of them, for being perfect heroes. I thought Endeavor was a fluke… I wonder how many Endeavors U.A. has made?”
Bakugou lets out a strangled noise. He thrusts his right palm out with force, and he fires off a blast that lights and catches, erupting outward, hurdling toward Midoriya. Midoriya dodges it with hardly any effort, a simple step to the right and the blast does not so much as lick him. Midoriya doesn’t bother striking back just yet.
“What about you, Kacchan? …It wasn’t as bad as Endeavor, was it?”
“No—it—aggh! I told Icy-Hot it wasn’t even about me. My work-study—it’s just because my work study—”
“With Moonshot, yeah?” Deku curls a hand. He lets a wick of electric green static burst in his palm, which whips his hair with its ebb and flow. “Your work study is with Moonshot right now. Moonshot’s office is small. She only has herself and three sidekicks, and none of them are U.A. graduates. You’re the only person from U.A. working there.”
Deku strikes. His attack clips Bakugou’s left side. Bakugou bears it, not so much as a noise escaping his lips. He side-steps, ducks, and slams Midoriya beneath the ribcage with enough force to knock the wind from Midoriya’s lungs.
“You always think you’re helping, you damn fucking nerd. You’re not helping! You’re just prying into shit that doesn’t concern you. It’s over. It’s done with. And I can’t talk about it anyway! So shut up, before I make you shut up.”
Midoriya pulls in a few wheezing breathes. He coughs, and straightens, and speaks along a rasp.
“Actually… I don’t even think I’m trying to help, Kacchan. I want to help you. I always do. You know that. …But I’m afraid this might be something I can’t help with, or can’t bring myself to help you with, if Todoroki is right.”
“Icy-Hot knows nothing. He’s full of hot air and conspiracy theories, and it’s none of his business. Whatever he thinks happened is wrong, and he should shut the fuck up about it.”
“Are you sure he’s wrong… King Explosion Murder?”
“Shut up.” Bakugou’s palms crackle, and he squares his feet again. “Shut up and di--… Shut up and fight me.”
Bakugou doesn’t wait for a response. He throws himself right into the fray, with the one and only goal of firing his explosions off in quick enough succession to prevent Midoriya from getting another word in.
“Sensei! Sensei Sensei!”
Aizawa pauses at the sound of pounding mechanical feet hitting pavement, the rumble of vibrations shaking the ground, and fence, and rubble near Ground Beta. A wetness has stirred in the air, the threat of an impending thunderstorm.
“Iida, I was just coming to collect eve—”
“There’s a fight! Uh—well of course there are fights as this is a sparing match exercise but there is a fight which is not part of the designated sparing activity I mean! I’ve come to report an incident of student violence which I witnessed! I saw it happen and promptly came to find an authority figure and luckily you’re right here but I request you accompany me back to the meeting grounds where—”
“Who?”
“Bakugou, and—”
“Midoriya,” Aizawa concludes.
Iida shakes his head, frantic, spinning on spot and motioning Aizawa to follow as his suited legs take off once more. “Not Midoriya! Todoroki…”
Aizawa falters, and then he picks up his pace to match Iida. He steels himself, and it takes no longer than 20 seconds of threading through rubble for the two of them to round the corner, and enter the scene which had already announced itself with the rising cacophony of voices from 30 feet out.
With a split-second glance, Aizawa gleans three immediate pieces of information from the gaggle of 19 assembled students standing at the center of the training ground. 
One, that Bakugou has been knocked down to the pavement, soles of his shoes, seat of his pants, and palms of his hands flat to the ground, left cheek split and leaking blood, with a creeping redness threatening to swell many times over in size across the breadth of the wound. 
Two, that Midoriya has grasped Todoroki from behind, his arms looped up beneath Todoroki’s armpits and locked in place in a forceful attempt to restrain Todoroki, who’s lashing against the hold. 
Three, that Todoroki’s right fist is split and bleeding, and he is staring down at Bakugou with the spark of murderous intent in his eyes.
“Tell me what you mean by ‘It’s been resolved’. It’s over? Meaning Fujimori already— What did you get away with? I think I know. I think I know what you did. So tell me I’m wrong. Tell me what that scumbag let you get away with.”
Bakugou says nothing. He raises his left hand to his cheek, pressing lightly. A heavy raindrop falls from above, landing with a patter on his cheek.
Todoroki pulls against Midoriya. “Answer me!”
“Todoroki!” Aizawa shouts. He marches forward, eyes alight with his quirk activation, though there is no need for it. Neither boy has used his quirk.
“This bastard’s been meeting with Fujimori.” Todoroki thrusts a hand out, index finger extended, sharp in its accusation as he turns bodily to Aizawa. “And whatever he did, he got off scot-free this morning! He’s bragging about it!”
“Todoroki. That’s enough.”
“He needs to tell us!” Todoroki challenges. A rumble of thunder affixes itself along the end of his words, as if chorusing agreement. “How can we be comfortable calling Bakugou a classmate until we know?”
“Midoriya, you can let him go. I’ve got this under control.” Aizawa’s eye flicker to Midoriya, who blinks, and hesitantly releases his arms from Todoroki.
Todoroki looks between Aizawa and Midoriya, his confidence wavering. “Sensei, you know who Fujimori is. You have to know who he is. You’ve been at U.A. long enough.”
“Yes, I know who Fujimori is. He’s a U.A. employee. Not a villain.”
“Then you don’t know who Fujimori is.” Todoroki counters. He thrusts both hands out. “He’s the reason my mom—he’s the reason my dad—he’s the reason I—” Todoroki catches himself all three times, unable to, or perhaps forbidden from saying more. 
He backtracks, calms himself, a glint of desperation lighting in his eyes. Todoroki turns in place, bodily facing Bakugou once more. “Just defend yourself. Just tell me what happened. If you’re innocent then clear your name, and just tell us what Fujimori wanted with you! Why can’t you do that? Why?”
“Todoroki that is enough. This is not like you, and it is not acceptable,” Aizawa growls this time. He stalks forward, using himself as a means of separation between the boys, and he grips Todoroki by the shoulder. “I think you’re letting your personal feelings get in the way of common rationality. My office. With me. Now.”
Todoroki appraises Aizawa, and then his eyes go wide. A few more heavy drops leak from the blackened clouds above. They plick across Todoroki’s face, riding his expression, loosening with shock. 
Todoroki opens his mouth, and the energy has been sapped from his words.
 “…You know. You know what it is, don’t know? You’re part of this. You really are okay with this.” 
“Not another word until we reach my office, Todoroki. If you defy me, I’ll consider it grounds for suspension.” Aizawa turns in place, and he surveys the rest of the class with deathly cold eyes. “Midoriya, Iida, take Bakugou to Recovery Girl’s office. Everyone else, get back to the dorm. I don’t want to hear a word about this by tomorrow morning, understood? The threat of suspension extends to all of you.”
There is a palpable unease in the air that rides along the rumble of the clouds. The rest of the students nod, Uraraka and Asui with a prick of tears at the corner of their eyes. Wordlessly, Iida extends a hand for Bakugou to grab, and lifts him from the ground. 
Kirishima throws one last worried look in Bakugou’s direction as the skies fully open. The class is caught in the downpour, the scenery effaced by a thick sheet of heavy rain. The three boys vanish from view, and Kirishima raises an arm overtop his head for cover, and he joins the others headed back to the dorm.
Class begins wordlessly the next day. No one dares to mention it, but everyone has noticed Todoroki’s empty desk. The threat of suspension, of following in Todoroki’s footsteps, cows everyone into compliance. Bakugou sits stiff in his own seat, his insides too mangled, his dreams too riddled with his haunting memories playing on repeat to afford him more than a few moments of uninterrupted sleep the previous night. He feels full of cotton, his stomach in knots, his brain too much a hazy mess to make sense of what’s unfolded. His jaw has swollen, hot to the touch.
Aizawa enters, his face blank and tired. He shuffles a few papers and greets the class with a monotone Good morning. Most voices echo the greeting back, but quieter, mumbled. Only Iida seems to muster the energy for a proper greeting. The downpour from the previous day has lightened, but not vanished. It plicks against the muted gray windows, sealing in the atmosphere.
“The bin for your English essays is now on the front table. Present Mic says you may turn them in any time between now and Friday. Late submissions will not be accepted.” Aizawa shuffles the papers in his hands. “Also, we have another announcement.” Aizawa nods to the doorway. Faces turn.
Shinsou stands at the entrance, face drawn into a bit of a grimace. He rubs at his neck and looks away. “Um… Hi. I’m Hitoshi Shinsou. Some of you already know me.”
No one answers him, because the class already knows Shinsou, and they’re all weary of what answering him may lead to. On a different day, friendliness might have won out over fear. Today, no one can muster the optimism.
“He’s transferring into 1-A starting today. Please extend a warm welcome.”
Silence beats around them. Iida manages a clipped greeting. A few more students nod. Bakugou watches it all unfold from his hazy fog.
Shinsou is no more lively in his acknowledgement of his introduction. He looks away, hoisting his bag on his shoulder, and shuffles down the aisle. He reaches Todoroki’s seat, and places his bag atop it, and sits down.
Midoriya’s chair screeches backward. He is standing, his face a mask of concern. “Uh, Sensei, Shinsou, um, that’s Todoroki’s desk. Todoroki sits there.”
“Todoroki has decided to transfer to Shiketsu High School, effective today,” Aizawa states simply. “Sit down, Midoriya, and raise your hand in the future if you wish to speak.”
Bakugou feels the ripple through the air. The potent unease. The prickle of disbelief that comes in just the form of a few slipped gasps, a few wide eyes swinging to Todoroki’s seat, and then swinging over to him, as if staring at him may reveal the answers they’re never allowed to know.
The haze in Bakugou’s brain won’t let him think. It’s made worse by his own shock, and his own disbelief, and his own gnawing discomfort in his gut when he looks over, and finds Todoroki absent from his seat.
It’s Kirishima’s pained eyes that he accidentally meets in the process.
“Bro… what’s happening?” Kirishima leans across the aisle. He speaks as quietly as he can for someone suppressing shock. “Please man, please just tell me it isn’t anything bad. Tell me Todoroki was wrong. Please dude. Please, I just gotta know you didn’t—”
“Kirishima!” Aizawa barks from the front of the room. Kirishima goes stock-still, spine stiff, head snapping forward to face the teacher. Aizawa turns to face the board, and he grabs a piece of chalk, snapped at the midpoint, and begins to write textbook page numbers on the board. “Not another word on the topic. I thought I made myself clear yesterday, or would you like to be an example?” Aizawa turns, and lifts an eyebrow in Kirishima’s direction. Kirishima, white in the face, shakes his head. “Good. I didn’t think so. Now be quiet. Class is starting.”
738 notes · View notes
kylosgenesis · 3 years
Text
Teardrops on Fire
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Synopsis:
Steve Rogers is the last Alpha of the an almost extinct Lycan pack. With only less than 100 members left. Steve must produce an heir to ensure the species survival and reduce the chance of attacks from others. Omegas are rare, and betas have a hard time producing children. Steves reality is finally setting in as his obligation of producing an heir faces a major set back.
Reader is the last suitable omega to mate with Steve, due to the fear of her daughters fate in the pack, her mother kept her hidden from the pack after her own exile. Only her mother, and Bucky's family know of her existence. Bucky is Steve's right hand man, and the packs best warrior! He and the reader developed a friendship and bond over the years, but age forced them to become distant.
What happens when she presents and her first heat cycle comes? Her body is in excruciating pain and a strong fever quickly overcomes her body. Facing the fear of her daughters possible death, her mom calls on the only person who can save her at this point, Alpha Steve! Bucky and the alphas friendship will be tested. The reader will be faced with her love for Bucky or her duty to the pack.
Unbeta'd: There might be spilling mistakes ( English is my second language so please be kind)
Authors note: We've made it past the filler chapters. I cant wait for the next chapter. You know when you come up with a whole story just because of one little scene on your head? thats next chapter for me. We'll be making a little time jump.
*Other Authors note at the end*
Chapter 7: I really wish I hated you
You woke up early for your morning jog, excited about your first day having a job.
When you heard Natasha mention she needed extra help at the pub, you didn’t know what possessed you to volunteer, but you were determined to have as much of a normal life as possible and this was your first step.
The air was wet from last night's rain, and the temperature had started to drop enough to require a jacket on your runs.
You finished the run in record time, and got ready for your first day. Thankfully Wanda had given you some of her old clothes, and Natasha was kind enough to let you borrow some of hers or else you would have been in the same worn clothes you'd arrived in. Steve had offered to take you shopping yesterday, but you didn’t feel comfortable with the thought. For 19 years you’d taken care of yourself and your mom, you were strong , and you didnt wanna forget that.
It’s incredible how much you’d let the past weeks change you, you felt out of place, out of mind. But having something for yourself again was once step closer to feeling your old self again.
You finished getting ready, and started coffee for Nat who would be waking up any moment now as her grouchy morning self. Just a few days with her had let you know she wasn’t the friendliest in the morning. You laughed at the mug on the counter that had the words ‘Don’t talk to me till I’ve had my coffee’ in bold letters. It fit her perfectly! Whoever gifted it to her hit the nail in the spot.
Despite not being too familiar with coffee before, it became a comfort to you. You developed a live hate relationship with the liquid, by itself it was the most disgusting thing you’d ever tasted. And you had made tea out of wild mushrooms once, so that was saying a lot. Once Nat introduced you to French vanilla creamer, you’d become addicted to it.
Setting up the two mugs on the counter you prepared your cup, before listening for the footprints coming from down the hallway.
Even with morning hair, and a red face from recently washing. Nat was easily the most beautiful woman you’d ever seen. She was all and every one of the main characters in your favorite books.
“Good morning, Nat” you handed her the coffee mug, as she still looked half asleep.
She took a couple of more sips of the liquid before you saw her soul come back into her body. She leaned against the counter while swinging and finishing the contents of her mug.
“Someone’s excited” she said with a small laugh.
“ohhhh really? What gave it away? “ you had finished your coffee, and were just pacing around the kitchen waiting for Nat.
“Well... you’re usually a morning person, but today you’re even more of a morning person than usual.” She set her mug in the sink , and reached for the hair tie in her wrist as she neatly gathered her hair into an effortless ponytail.
“ I don’t know how you do it, but I hope it will rub on me at some point” you both laughed.
You were almost ready to leave when Nat reentered the kitchen with a hairbrush and some pins.
“Nat , if that's your way of saying I need to fix my hair we’re going to be late, I’m sure it’s fine. “
She motioned you to the seat near the counter and you sat down. Trying to protest against Natasha would get you nowhere.
“First of all you’re never late if you own the place” she started slowly brushing the ends of your hair as you relaxed at the gentle massage of the brush.
“Second, you’ve been wearing the same ponytail since I met you. You have a new life, and a new job.” You felt her take a small strand from the front of your hair, and pin it to the back, and the same motion on the other side.
“ My mom always said when you look good, you feel good! And I want you to be a strong confident woman” she put all the products on the counter as she took your face upon her hands.
“ You deserve to be happy and besides… you might bump into anyone in this town. So you better look good” she laughed
“I'm telling you, those old ladies can be mean!” Nat made her best impression of one of them ”back in my day we wouldn't leave the house unkept… no alpha would ever settle for that. I don't know what's with this new generation” she sounded so funny you couldn't help but snort as you broke in laughter.
When you both regained your composure she forms loose strands around your face “ ohhh shit, now we might actually be a little late. Come on!”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As you arrived at the pub, there was already a white truck in the parking lot. Nat took the keys out of her purse, and tuned the lock. The place certainly looked different without the lights or people, but it still felt cozy to you. Coming from the back was a faint light, and you could hear some thrashing noises. Nat didn’t seem bothered, so she just tuned in the rest of the lights and you flooded her to the kitchen. His smell hit you before he even rounded the corner. He came into the kitchen holding a large box that blocked his view.
“Hey Bucky” you waved at him. Causing him to drop the box. The sound of metal falling as it hit the floor.
You and Nat just stared at bucky's confused gaze. Before Nat cleared her throat.
“I should’ve told you yesterday, but she’ll be starting to work with us. I thought it would be a good idea for her to get to know everyone.”
Bucky bent down to pick the spilled contents of the box, you followed after gathering a few of the metal tools.
“I hope it’s okay with you?” You asked him, not really knowing how he'd respond.
“ Yeah, it’s fine by me” he said with a nervous tone as you handed him the pieces from your hand, and you felt a current run down your spine at the contact of his hand against yours, which he quickly removed.
You all exited the kitchen towards the bar where he placed the box
“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I came over. Thought maybe I could clean the inventory room, but I noticed the beer tap wasn’t working“
“It seemed to be working just fine yesterday, Barnes”
“By just fine, you mean extremely slow pull time? “ he turned to face nat caring the large box out of the room with you both following suit.
“ then it works like a charm ” he made the snarky remark towards Nat, but you couldn’t help to notice his eyes were on you the whole time.
“Fine, but don't break it more” she pointed at him. “ last time you tried to fix something the AC was down for three days”
“And you're never gonna let me forget that wont you?
“Nope” she was already walking away from him as she responded.
“I’ll have it running by opening” he kneeled in front of the small fridge, under the beer tap. .
“Who’s gonna order a beer at 10 in the morning?” You asked, watching over his shoulder as he tweaked with the mechanisms of the fiter on the inside
“ You’d be surprised!” He looked back at you, noticing you already holding the wrench he was looking for.
“Thanks” He smiled, and took the wrench from you. You hadn’t seen him like that in 10 years, he seemed relaxed!
“Howd you learn to do that?” he turned back to face you surprised at your choice of tool.
“ the fridge broke down a couple of times on us, so i learned from taking it apart and back together...after a while you get good at mechanics” you laughed
I still wouldnt trust me to fix it though. Id rather you take the blame if it doesnt work”
“Playing devils advocate now? “ he was flushing water through the hose system before turning on the machine again. You watched attemptively at his concentrating gaze.
“No… id just rather stay on Nat’s good side.”
“Good choice! She punches hard” he seemed relax with you. It made you feel tingly inside as you both had a sense of normality after 10 years.
“Not as hard as me!“ you reapplied
“Definitely not. I still get phantom pains from those” you both laughed.
You patted his shoulder as you got up to Shadow Nat.
Bucky grabbed your arm before you turned to leave. It's nice to see you! … you look... “ he eyed you head to toe and you felt his gaze linger on your hair “ you look beautiful!”
You felt drawn to him, just being around him brought you comfort in a way you couldn’t explain.
You both felt a tug as you left with Nat, turning back to take a glance at him and noticed he had his eyes glued on you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once the rush after lunch was over you were wiping down the tables. You felt the exhaustion of the job begin to take over.
You knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but compared to your daily tasks back at the cabin. It was a different kind of exhaustion.
“Don't quit on me just yet” Nat said as she voiced a tray of cups to the back.
“Not yet, but I definitely didn’t know how much people can drink before 3 o’clock” you both laughed as you wiped down the last few of the tables. So far you’d just used the tap, or poured some easy drinks. As the day got slower, Nat promised to train you on some specialty stuff.
You held on to the table as you felt a dizzying feeling deep through you, then you felt a pair of arms behind you.
“Here!” Bucky placed a cup of water in front of you as you eagerly reached for it and frank it entirely in a few gulps.
“Thank you, I should probably start keeping track of how much I owe you every time you rescue me”
You turned back to face him.
“How did you know?”
“ I could feel it through the..” He didn’t have to say it but you knew what he was referring to.
“Ohhh so that’s what that one is” You looked amused as you stared at him.
“I can’t always tell what the bond is trying to say, but I guess being an alpha just makes it easier to interpret ” he was starting to walk away as the words where leaving his mouth
“Is that why you were avoiding me ?” He stopped on his tracks.
“ I wasn’t avoiding you!” He turned to you.
“It kinda seemed like you were.” you stood your ground and placed your hands crossed around your chest in an effort to appear more composed.
“The past weeks I’ve just thought of you, and this bond! “ you pointed at your neck “ I had this voice that kept telling me I wasn’t good enough.”
You felt the pent up feeling of fear, sadness, and frustrations of a few weeks finally leave.
“You know Bucky, I can’t tell what the bond is trying to say, cause I haven’t spent enough time with you to even know how to read you.” You felt the tears stream down your face as the knot on your throat cleared
Bucky walked towards you pulling you into an embrace, just as the tears began to stream down your face. His smell calming you, and his heartbeat merging with yours as he allowed himself to let go of his fear.
“I will always be inclined to take care of you “ he said, burying his head into your hair. While you continued to embrace him.
“Not just because of the bond, but because I loved you more than anything once” you felt your heart stop at his words.
“I thought I hurt you, and I couldn’t forgive myself. But I realized I was running away. That's why I was staying away! “ he lifted your head, and you felt the honesty of his words when you looked into his eyes.
“I missed you ... you know all those years I thought I did something wrong.” You said with choked words.
“ I loved y...”
You both heard the sound of shattering glass. You responded first separating yourself from Bucky and running towards the source. Bucky cursed under his breath, and ran after the source as well.
You walked into the kitchen to see a couple of bottles shattered on the floor. The liquid contents inside spilled all over the floor. You leaned over and started picking up the large pieces of glass.
“You guys alright? “ Nat stormed the kitchen not knowing what she’d find.
“Yeah, we're fine ” Bucky said, examining the room. “We were in the main room, and heard the crash, we thought you were injured”
“Peter must’ve put the bottles on the edge... that boy is going to be the death of me. I'll go get the mop ” you saw Nat had retreated to the pantry.
“Here, let me help you” Bucky was helping you scoop the pieces of glass.
“Careful!” You looked at Bucky and laughed at his worry “ Buck, I’ve been skinning prey with knives shapelier than this since I was 5 ... I think I can handle some glass.”
He was looking at you in awe, you realized after the words had left your mouth “ I haven’t heard you say Buck in a long time” He smiled at you.
“ ohhh that’s cause you used to say it made you think of deer” you were picking up the last pieces.
“ I was a growing boy... always hungry”
He helped you up, and you noticed he used his metal arm to do so.
He noticed you staring, he was wearing a tight black t-shirt. It was short sleeved which you hadn’t seen him wear yet.
“Does it hurt?” You traced your fingers through the cold metal.
“ Not physically, sometimes I forget it’s there” he admired the way your eyes fell fascinated with the metal segments and the mechanism as he flexed.
“Hey, Bucky do you mind cleaning the spill? I’ve got a few minutes, so I’d like to show her some drinks” Nat walked into the kitchen with the industrial mop.
“I got it” he winked at Nat.
He smiled at you as you left the kitchen, and you felt your heart skip a beat at that smile.
You hoped he wasn’t actively trying to spy on you through the bond or else you might be caught in a vulnerable position.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You and Nat collapsed into the couch at the end of a long day.
“ My feet are killing me! “ you massaged the soles of your feet as you eyed Nat get comfortable on the couch.
“ You get used to it!...ohhh gods I can’t wait to shower”
“You say that, but you’re in fact getting more comfortable ” you teased at her.
“I never said I’d shower right now” She threw one of the pillows next to her at you and just as you were about to return the gesture.
Lights lit up the living room from outside as a car approached.You heard a door shutting and the sound of footsteps approaching the house.
“ I’ll go check it out” you stood up and walked to the door, just as someone was about to knock you opened the door.
“Steve, hey how’s it going? “ you felt the same nerves you felt meeting him the first time.
“ Good... good” you could see his breath as he spoke in the cold of the night. His hands were tucked in his jacket pockets.
“Would you like to go on a walk ?” he motioned to the trail along the house.
“Sure!” You hesitantly stepped out of the comfort of Nat’s house and into the cold night. You were still getting to know Steve, so the ambiance still felt awkward around him. You just followed his lead and waited for his next words.
“ I was wondering how your first day went? ... I wanted to stop by, but Wanda needed me at the school” he faced you as you walked together.
“ It went very well! We had actually just gotten home! “ you were cradling your elbows in a hug trying to preserve your body’s warmth from the house.
“It was a lot to learn, but Nat and Bucky made it a lot easier on me” you replied with a small laugh, but noticed Steve’s eyes glued on you. His jaw tensing up at the mention of Bucky from your mouth.
“That’s good...” he noticed you shiver, he took off his jacket and handed it to you. It was a kind gesture. The jacket just smelled like him. You felt his smell overwhelm the faint traces of Bucky.
“Are you excited?“
“ Well yes ....?it’s been really good so far, I can’t wait to get the hang of it” you picked at the strand of hair surrounding your face tucking it behind your ear.
“So he didn’t tell you?” Steve said with a snark
“Tell me what? “ you felt your heart speed up.
“Bucky made a deal with the Wakandan's Coven... they are going to undo the mating. Next full moon you’ll be free again.”
You could tell he was awaiting a reaction, he just crept closer till you could feel his breath in your skin.
You felt lightheaded at his words “ that’s... news”
You felt tears stream down your eyes. Today things had felt like they were always meant to be. Bucky had made you feel like you could trust him.
But he had known, and you fell for it! Once again you felt like a part of someone else's agenda, not your own. Just an omega, in a world of alphas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Authors Note:
Do you think the bottles were an accident?
Tags:@dottirose @tanyaherondale @iloveshawnieboi @marmite79 @austynparksandpizza @nerdgirljen @exposition-belongs-somewhere @patzammit @connie326 @blessedwedgie
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miscellaneous-bnha · 3 years
Text
A little “Christmas Magic”
Kirishima x Fem!Reader x Denki
This is my piece for @lemonlordleah-shinzawa-kitten’s Citrus Dome “Snowed In” Collab.
Link to the Collab: https://tomurasprincess.tumblr.com/post/637531853698547712/citrus-dome-server-snowed-in-collab
Warning: slightly Scumbag Kiri/Denki, dubious consent (at the start), Possessive/FeralDenki, Smug Kiri, some exhibitionism, lowkey yandere Denki if you squint, dumbification, a little tongue pulling, light cum play
Also, I write Denki as someone who pretends to be stupid but is actually extremely intelligent.
ALL CHARACTERS ARE AGED UP
Being childhood friends with Denki had it’s perks; knowing how intelligent your best friend is compared to how stupid he likes to act is one of them, so you knew that it was no accident he kept you distracted long enough for the blizzard to roll in.
Effectively trapping you in his home with his roommate Kirishima.
“Aww come on! It’s not that terrible! We’ve got good heating, enough food n’ snacks. The world’s BEST portable charger,” he points to himself dramatically, “And, if you do get bored of me, Kirishima’s here too.”
“You say that like you were planning on excluding me from your plans.” Kirishima looks at his roommate unimpressed. You stifle a giggle.
“Even if he was, I wouldn’t let him.” You nudge the redhead with your shoulder, making him snort a laugh.
“Fair enough.”
“So you agree it’s not that bad?” Denki bats his eyes at you, causing you to push his face away with a scoff.
“Alright alright. It could be worse.” He grins.
“I’m glad you agree!”
The three of you spend the night talking about the latest games the three of you have been following. They had both just convinced you to download a multiplayer rpg when the power suddenly went out, leaving you all in the dark.
“Oof, unlucky. I guess even state of the art homes still get black outs.” You mutter.
“More likely than you think. Here, why not get closer before the temperature starts to drop.” Kiri offers.
“Sure, why not. I’ll be thankful for it later anyhow.” You sandwich yourself between Denki and Kiri laying on your back as the three of you bundled together.
“Everyone’s phones charged up?” Denki peeks at your phone, still going strong at 95%
“Yeah, it should be good for a while longer. Anyone up for some music?”
For the next 3 hours, you continue to talk until you find yourself growing sleepy. Comfortably warm, you can’t help the way your eyes slip close.
————
When you wake up again, you can still hear the wind whipping around outside. You grab your phone only to be met with the no battery signal. Both boys on either side of you completely knocked out.
You tsk at your own stupidity. ‘I should have turned it off when I realized I was getting sleepy.’ You thought to yourself, leaning over Denki to use his phone to check the time.
The numbers 9:27am stared back at you. Just as you move to settle back into your spot, Denki’s arms suddenly wrap around you.
“Mm… five more minutes…” the angle at which he grabbed you made it so you were lying on top of him, your legs straddling his hips.
“Uhm… Denks…” you try to shake him gently.
“Noooo… jus’ five mmm….” he starts to snore softly again, and you’re left stuck on him.
You sigh, accepting your fate. With your phone dead, you decide whether or not you should stick the charger into his mouth and plug your phone in or if you should just go back to sleep. Unfortunately, with how restless you felt, sleeping wasn’t an option, and you’d feel pretty guilty for disturbing him from what must be a good dream.
A really good dream.
Your face erupts into flames when you realize there’s something hard poking at you. The blush darkens when he groans and his hips jerk up to grind against you.
You would be lying if you said you weren’t ever attracted to your childhood friend; blonde hair, golden eyes, killer smile. You saw how popular he was back then, and you can see it in his hero ratings now. Even aside from his looks, his goofy, lovable, secretly intelligent nature made it impossible not to fall for him all those years ago.
But you also knew he tended to be a flirt, which made it hard to tell if he was genuine. Especially since his advances were never directed at you.
Wishful thinking made it easy to believe that he didn’t flirt with you because “he didn’t want to think the one person he cares the most about to think he was playing with them”, but reason told you otherwise.
You’ve met some of his exes, and none of them were like you.
So, in the friendzone you stayed. ‘Better than nothing’, you reason, and— much to your own surprise— you’re satisfied with that.
You shake your head and squirm. “Denki…! Wake up you idiot!” He snorts when you headbutt his chest, head sitting up as he let you go to rub at the spot you hit.
“Awww… I was having a good dream…”
“I’m sure you were!” You spit, embarrassed.
You make an attempt to hide it. “Also, I need a favor, my phone died while we were sleeping.”
“Ah, yeah. I tried turning your music off, but I guess that didn’t work.” You hum, but nod.
“Thanks for trying. Mind charging it for me?”
He taps a finger to his chin, pretending to think about it before he grins. “Sure, but it’ll cost ya.” You snort.
“Ha ha. What do I owe?”
“A kiss.” You roll your eyes. Even as a kid, Denki always liked to say stuff like that.
You lean down and press a kiss to his cheek.
“There, your kiss. Now can you charge my phone?” You have to bite your tongue to hold back a yelp when you’re suddenly flipped over on your back, Denki hovering over you.
“You can do better than that!” He grins when you snort.
“Oh really now?” You plant another, wetter, kiss to his cheek with a smack. “And is that good enough for you?”
“Nope.”
“Oh come on!” You whisper-yell, fake exasperated, “I give! What more could you possibly want??”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes!”
He pauses, eyes watching you for a moment before suddenly his lips are on yours. One hand cupping your jaw, thumb circling the underside of your chin, the other bracing himself over you.
You don’t expect it, nor do you expect the way he deepens the kiss so effortlessly even while you’re still floundering for steady ground. He almost seems to be intent on trying to keep you stumbling.
You gasp and pant when he parts from your lips with a wet smack; head foggy with confusion, you don’t have any time before his lips are back on yours, smothering you into another blissful, naïve cloud.
You whine when the hand cupping your jaw trails down slowly, fingers intertwining with yours and giving a gentle squeeze, bringing it above your head to pin it there.
“W-Wait!” You gasp, trying to come back down to reality, still not believing what’s happening.
“No.” He nips the side of your neck, making you groan softly, “Waited long enough.”
“Wh- what do you mean??” You don’t get your answer. Instead, he presses more hot kisses to your lips, each accompanied with a soft smack.
“Denki—!” You hiss through your teeth when he bites down on your neck again, harder this time. He covers your mouth with one hand, hushing softly.
“Waited too long for this. Should’ve just said something a long time ago.” His breath is hot against your ear, making you squirm when his teeth nibble on the lobe. “Should’ve told you how I feel ages ago.”
You can’t help the excited thumping of your heart, especially if his words mean what you hope they do. You gasp when you feel his hard on grind against you, sound stolen from you when Denki presses another deep kiss to your lips.
“Fuck, need you. Need you so fucking bad.” He borderline growls as his free hand disappears below the blanket covering the both of you. You’re just about to let the haze overcome you when you suddenly hear Kirishima snort from next to you, making your blood freeze.
“Denki..! Kirishima’s right there—!” He groans burying his face in your neck.
“Fuck..! I know! ‘S fine!” He flips you both again so that you’re on top, tugging at the pair of sweatpants you borrowed and your panties.
“We can’t!” He bucks his hips into yours, making you inhale sharply. He tugs you down so your chest is pressed to his. You can feel the way his heart is pounding through your thin shirts.
“For fuck’s sake, please, baby girl. I can’t. I can’t wait anymore.” He groans into your ear, hands pinning your hips to his, moving you to grind against him.
“But Kirishima—!”
“Kirishima—” He growls his roommate’s name with disdain, making you shudder with fear and arousal, “— won’t know if you stay quiet.” He hisses when he finally manages to slide the sweatpants off of you, bare cock nudging against your panty-clad pussy.
“Please. I need you so fucking bad it hurts. I will combust if I can’t fuck you right fucking now.” You shiver when you feel his fingers pull the crotch of your underwear to the side, fingers sliding through your slick and circling your clit.
“Okay, okay okay okay— wait!” You bite your lip when he shoves his leaking cock into you, growling into your shoulder.
“Fuck, fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck…” he groaned, hips fucking up into you with soft ‘paps’
“Den—ki!” You whine, grinding down on his cock as much as he would let you.
“That’s it, baby…. jus’ keep sayin’ m’ name.”
“Or maybe mine.”
The shock of hearing Kirishima’s voice right by your ear has you clamping down on Denki’s cock, sending you over the edge when he thrusts roughly into you.
“Kiri—“ Denki slaps a hand over your mouth, cutting you off.
“Seriously?” Denki growls, pissed. He doesn’t pull out though, opting to fuck into you still,
“Aww, come on. I’m not the one breaking promises around here, Denki. Don’t get a little salty because I wanted to join in on the fun.” You shudder and moan, overstimulated.
It’s hard to focus on the conversation as yet another orgasm builds. You can barely focus on the fact that you just got caught fucking your childhood friend by his roommate, at least until two hands grab you by your shoulders and pull you against a firm chest.
“Kirishima! Wh—” You whine when one arm wraps around your neck, not squeezing, but keeping you pinned to his chest, the other pinching and pulling at your nipple,
“Kaminari here can’t keep a promise, so I’m just having some fun touching you.” He laughs, seemingly unbothered. Then he whispers into your ear,
“But don’t worry; I’ll give it to you later.” You squeeze and clench around Denki’s cock at the sound of that.
Kirishima’s hand trails down your body, leading a trail of goosebumps until his fingers pinch and tug at your clit. He activates his quirk, the rough sensation of his hardened fingers add to your pleasure until you’re creaming on Denki’s cock all over again. You whine, trying to pull away from the stimulation, but Kiri just holds you there, letting Denki rut up into you until he’s cumming, hissing through his teeth until he can’t bring himself to pull out anymore.
You’re vaguely aware of the fact that he isn’t wearing a condom, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t have time to as you feel yourself falling asleep again.
————
When you wake up, you’re cuddled in Kirishima’s arms. He gives you a bright, toothy smile when he notices your eyes opening.
“Well good morning, sleeping beauty! Well, good afternoon now.” You groan, feeling a little sore.
“What time is it?”
“About 2pm. You didn’t actually sleep that long.” You grunt.
“Where’s Denki?”
“Grabbing some snacks together. Your phone finished charging, by the way.
He presses the device into your hands and you stare at it owlishly until your brain catches up with your body.
“Ah, thanks.”
“Sure thing.”
You set it off to the side, sitting up and stretching. Your face twists when you feel something leaking out of you.
“Ugh.. I should go and get cleaned up… well, as much as I can anyway.” You throw the blanket to the side, but you don’t have the opportunity to stand before Kirishima’s hands are on your hips.
“About what I said earlier…” he murmurs softly. It takes you a moment, but you blush when you finally remember.
“Wh-what about it?”
“Do you mind?” He squeezes his hands gently.
You chew your lip. Everything considered, he’d watched and helped Denki fuck you, and you certainly were curious…
“... alright, why not?” Kirishima grins before patting his lap, pushing his shorts and boxers down. Your eyes widen when his cock stands,
“Have you been hard this whole time??” As smug as he’d been acting earlier, he seemed to get a little shy at your question
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“You were!” He sputters, but pulls you into his lap.
“Look, of course I’m going to be hard.” He teases the sharp points of his teeth against your neck,
“Thinking about all those noises you made, the way you looked on his cock…” he growls playfully, biting down on your shoulder until you whine softly.
“Shit... just hurry up then!” You grumble, giving his cock a couple of good strokes.
He flips you around so your back is against his chest again, slowly sinking you down on his cock as you both groan.
“Christ... I see why he wasn’t keen on sharing.” Kiri raises you by the hips, slamming you back down on his cock with a hiss,
“So fucking tight baby girl…” he groans as you whine, falling back against his chest. Your body shakes with his laughter.
“Awww… already stupid from my cock stuffing your tight little hole?” He groans, but you can feel the way he grins against your neck,
“That’s alright, baby. I’ll take care of ya.”
Your whines and moans do eventually attract Denki, pulling him away from his task. He scowls at Kirishima, who only continues to lazily bounce you on his cock.
“You could have at least waited until I came back.”
“And miss a chance at fucking her cute little pussy? I don’t think so.” You whine when Kiri forces your hips to still, instead rotating your hips so his cock grinds deep inside.
You feel Denki grip your jaw with one hand, the fingers on his other hand slipping inside your mouth. You yelp when you feel him pinch your tongue, tugging it out and forcing you to tilt your head up to look at him.
“You’ve always had such a pretty little mouth too…” Denki says more to himself than to you, letting go of your tongue in favor of tugging his cock out of his sweatpants.
“Mind if I use it?”
He taps the tip of it against your tongue, groaning a soft “good girl” when you suck on it, only for you to choke when he pushes more of his length into your mouth.
“Hey, take it easy man.” Kiri starts to bounce you on his cock again, making you moan with each drop of your hips. Denki grunts, cupping your cheeks with his hands,
“She’ll be alright, won’t you baby?” You whine softly, too busy focusing on the rising heat in your core.
“Either way, I don’t think she’s coherent enough to even notice if my balls smack against her chin.” Denki says as he snaps his hips forward again, making you gag.
“Well… don’t make her sick.”
“She’ll be fine.”
You moan and gag with every drop and rise of your hips respectfully. In some ways, Denki was right when he said you’d hardly notice him shoving his cock down your throat; come later, it’ll be sore as hell, but for now, it added to the curling pleasure that only seemed to build the more roughly they treated you.
You feel Kirishima reach forward to pinch a nipple, making you gag out a yelp around Denki’s cock. Both of them hiss in unison.
“Shit, I think she liked that.” Kirishima gives it another painful tug, causing you to whine and your cunny to flutter.
“Fuck.. keep doing that.” Denki groans out, forgetting completely about your comfort for a moment when he shoves his dick all the way down your throat, making you choke when Kirishima buries himself balls deep.
You feel like your head is floating aimlessly by the time they start to lose control. Between Kiri’s thick, heavy cock splitting you open and Denki fucking your face, your eyes roll back as you cum hard, whining and moaning through your choked noises.
“Fuuuuuck, that’s it baby! Just tighten up like that!” Kirishima growls as he abandons your nipple, opting to rub your clit instead to keep you cumming.
Denki hisses and pulls his cock out of your mouth, instead leaving the tip on your tongue as he strokes himself to completion.
Both men are loud when they cum, and you can only whine when you feel your body turn to gelatin again.
You grimace when Denki pushes his cum around on your tongue, only removing his finger when he’s satisfied with the look of it. “Swallow for me, yeah?” He pets your cheek when you comply, smiling in satisfaction.
You can feel Kirishima’s cum leak out of you the second he pulls out. He lets out a low whistle, lightly patting your ass. “What a sight to behold.”
You flop back against Kirishima’s chest, groaning softly. “Now can I get cleaned up?”
“Of course. Just give us a sec, yeah?”
“Or you could just stay like this for-“
“No thank you, Denki.”
“Party pooper.”
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youwontlikethisblog · 3 years
Text
The After Math Of Their First Time.
Now in the after math we have an even more confused Armando. While Betty has had yet another dream of hers become a reality.
As I mentioned in my previous post regarding this night(Forgive Me Post) when Armando goes to drop off Betty he brings up the fact that it wasn't Betty's first time(he wasn't her first) he asks her: Beatriz , who were you with before[me]? when she stays silent and worries her mouth Armando's demeanor changes.
"There was another man in your life, right?" She stopped making eye contact with him before he asked this question and nods while swallowing hard, briefly makes eye contact and tells him:
"Yes Sir. There was someone. I had a relationship before[you]."
"Nicolas Mora?" Armando says not missing a beat nor a second. His lips sit in a tight line while he examines Betty.
"No." She says in a low voice, swallows hard and shakes her head. Since her behavior and mannerisms all go in hand with what she's saying; Armando who is a man who is good at manipulating people based on body language(not as good as Mario though) believes her. He stops staring at her, turns to look in front of him and looks to take a breath of relief. "It was somebody else but I don't like talking about that." He turns to stare at her.
"No, I don't want to make you uncomfortable either." He seems more relaxed here than he did seconds ago "Let's not talk about it anymore."
I briefly touched on the subject in the last post that Armando was jealous in this scene, however, what type of jealousy? I would like to expand on this here.
(If you haven't yet; read post Nicolas Mora Is Better Than You before you continue reading this post.)
Jealousy is a bunch of feelings summed into one: Insecurity, inadequacy, resentment, hopelessness, and/or disgust.
While Armando does feel possessive of Betty as an object, harbors feelings of animosity against Nicolas he also is jealous of not only Betty(and her "relationship" w Nic) but Nicolas. He is extremely jealous of him and not only because he is a threat in an economic level or even a romantic level but because he is a threat in all aspects.
To really understand this lets ignore what I said in the previous post about how Armando isn't the one that is actively in Betty's personal life and how he only gets glimpse of it or how Don Hermes approves of Nicolas.
Lets completely ignore that Nicolas is in Terra Moda, Betty is the owner of Eco Moda and working for Armando.
Let's pretend that Betty and Armando met one day and they established a friendship of sorts. Maybe they shopped at the same grocery store, maybe Armando and her interacted when she worked at the banks(bc she never got fired) and from there formed a friendship of sorts.
Though things were always impersonal, Betty had a small crush on Armando who went to the bank on a regular biases where they talked about money blah blah blah and Armando slowly started to wonder about Betty and her personal life and one day Armando finds out Betty has a boyfriend.
He finds out when he goes to the bank by overhearing Betty talking with a work friend about it(in this scenario we'll also be forgetting that he is extremely obsessed with perfection) and he asks her about it once their meeting is over and she tells him she doesn't have one but he ponders about this on his own and becomes paranoid about his feelings and investigates who Nicolas is by asking said work friend of Betty's about Nicolas.
He finds out Nicolas is a man desired my many women, who is relatively economically comfortable, is extremely smart and that Betty's dad, who hates everyone, approves of him and that they see each other mostly every single day and that he's always around and that she's stupidly in love with him and that Nicolas, even though he's a good looking man and who has women fawning and crazy about him is also interested in Betty so he isn't a superficial man and cares about the substance of people which means Betty is really exquisite, but that they aren't actually dating because he hasn't made a move on Betty(I combined what Mario, Bertha, and Mariana said).
What Armando knows of his feelings is that he looks forward to seeing Betty when he goes to the bank because she's always so kind and accommodating to him and communicative as well and that she's always personally helping him so they are constantly communicating and he looks forward to it. He knows that Betty is a smart woman and that she also has really wonderful qualities that he likes and because she's also so unconditional with him he thought maybe Betty liked him, that it made sense she'd be like that towards him and that it made him feel special but now he finds out that somebody else has Betty's heart.
So he decides to ask her out and they embark into this affair of sorts(We're also ignoring the sinister plan). However while he is still curious and wondering about how Betty's personal life is and how her inner world is, Betty hasn't welcomed him into it yet. Better yet Betty keeps him at arms length and though he has been somewhat honest and invited her into his personal life he still stands on the outside meanwhile Nicolas remains on the inside and he isn't leaving any time soon.
Armando begins to resent that Betty isn't letting him in while he has let her in, he begins to resent Nicolas for taking Betty away from him one way or another. He feels that he isn't as important or as special as he thought he was and this makes him insecure as a person. He begins to feel inadequate, for the first time in his life, in the romantic front.
So this night after Betty and him have finally taken their relationship to the next step he angrily asks her if Nicolas was her first.
Why do I bring this make believe up?
We're so clouded by the past actions and who Armando is in the core of it all and his complexities that I'm neglecting this important fact. Armando doesn't just view Nicolas as competition, he feels inadequate next to Nicolas and as he told Betty, he imagined and thought he'd be her first(it most likely is also that he thought no man would have slept with Betty up until he did).
It's why he repeatedly told Mario that he couldn't do that to her. He wasn't talking about not being able to physically make himself have sex with her because she's "ugly". He was talking about the morality of it. That he couldn't take something so valuable from Betty with deception, that he couldn't be the man that she gave her first experience to when he didn't love her because he knew how it would impact her, how it would hurt her when he ended the relationship and he couldn't bring himself to do that to her(however like I already pointed out, while Betty was being vulnerable Armando began to fall in love and that's what made him want to sleep with her).
So when they finally do sleep together Armando is disappointed that he isn't her first time and when he asks her about it and she confirms it, he now fears that Nicolas was her first time. He fears that Betty gave herself, her first experience to him because it means that Nicolas managed to figure his feelings out before him, that Nicolas was better than him both morally and as a man.
He wants to be part of Betty's personal life. He desires to be in her inner circle. We see this when he hears Don Hermes express himself about Nicolas. When he knows that Nicolas has dinner with her family, that he spends time inside her house. He knows what Don Hermes thinks of him[Armando] because he heard him say he'd fight him the night he hid behind their couch(Brutas! La Policía! post). It isn't just that Nicolas could be better than him now, it's Nicolas could be the one to possess something so intimate of Betty's now.
So when Betty explains that Nicolas wasn't her first time all of a sudden the resentment leaves him and he agrees to not talk about it. However Betty's behavior leaves him a lot more curious. Now this confession of Betty's leaves him picado. I imagine that he probably ponders about her first time wonders why she was so off by it, why she doesn't like talking about it. He wonders about the relationship she had before him and who that man was and how it ended. He probably wonders if Nicolas knows about it and again how Nicolas manages to hold something he desperately wants: her trust.
He respects her desire to not want to speak about it and they say goodnight.
I already talked about the argument Marcela and Armando have when he gets to the apartment in the last post but since that post was so rushed and I was like twelve hours in writing that post I just half-baked it so I'll try to briefly, but in-depth, break it down.
As Armando enters his apartment, like a guilt-free man, he plays with his dog(I'mma call this lost soldier GBNF (Gone But Not Forgotten)) and pets him, we hear Betty's monologue.
I've touched on this in previous post, specifically the Tonight A Dream Of Mine Has Come True, the way that scene and this scene are presented is to show us that what we hear Betty saying is what Armando is thinking, I explained it in detail in that post so if you haven't read it, I recommend you do :)
While Betty says "He told me that he loved me but he also proved it to me with actions." we see Armando pondering over this as he stops interacting with GBNF probably telling himself 'I told her I loved her and this time seggs was different, I was different... could I love her? Nah it's probably not that.' except that instead of being able to go into his room to mediate on the night and its events he finds Marcela on his bed.
[I talked about the parallels in my rant post and the Forgive Me post]
While Marcela is mad and Armando is pretending to care that she is and trying to defend himself he behaves towards her very differently here. The day Betty tried a new look Armando told Mario that the only thing that keeps him with Marcela, at least the only good thing about their relationship, was the seggs and that he was satisfied with it, it's why he always gave into her manipulation because even if he wasn't in the mood, even if he told her no, even when he did so out of guilt and responsibility he still got off and at least that was worth it(that's like actually really sad. He needs a therapist for another reason now, bb get you some support and help). As we know this time he plain out rejects her and doesn't allow for her to manipulate him and when she tries to he turns her down.
Marcela throws it in his face that she had been calling him but he hadn't answered the phone since they last spoke and Armando goes on to angrily explain that next time they won't agree to speak until the next day and that he'll constantly call her and report himself so she can control him like a little kid, that every five minutes he can remind her who he is and he looks so pissed and done, like emotionally just frustrated with this argument.
Yes we know Marcela has a reason to not trust him but she feeds the cycle of her own as well. It would be so easy for her to remove herself from the situation/relationship but the problem here isn't that Armando cheats and gaslights her, the problem here is that Marcela doesn't want to let go of him. She feels entitled to him and because of this entitlement she completes the circle of hell. Again I'm not saying that Armando is innocent, he's not, he's a cheating scumbag, but she knew this before they got engaged, like she knew what she was getting herself into and she still wanted in and when they got engaged she felt entitled to all of him(I talk about this in like mostly every post, for once I'd like to write something good about her lol).
Marcela then stops arguing, you can tell she feels guilty for it and reaches out to him, placing her hands on his shoulders but he moves and pulls her hands from him and steps away from her and lays on his bed while Marcela gets on her knees, beside his bed and explains that she was only worried about him, that she thought something bad had happened to him.
Unlike with Betty, who asked him if he felt ill because of the drinks, who had her arms around him(though sometimes he looked like he wanted to take them off of him) when she asked him this and he said he was fine or maybe the drinks were affecting him, Betty told him she'd make him feel better, he asked her how, she said with her kisses and bam consenting make-out town.
The parallel of this is Marcela expressing "worry" about Armando, who tells her he's fine.
"I just want to go to the bathroom wash up, get in my pijamas, and go to bed."
"No, I can't wait that long." She says and starts to kiss him and undress him but he tells her:
"Marcela, Please." he pleas.
"It doesn't matter , you're fine as you are, please." She begs him in a I guess seductive way?
However Armando has barely touched her, when she neared him he kept his hands up in the air, only has one hand on her back as if trying to pull her from him. He then stares at her, with a cold stare of rejection(I think he's thinking to himself 'did she not hear me? I said no. I said no!') and Marcela reacts offended.
"What's your problem? Do you not want to be with me? Do you want me to leave?" She asks with an angry tone and arms folded in front of her. Armando now stares at her with fear.
Which is different from when Betty asked him if he wanted to no longer be with her and go to Marcela's apartment. When she asked him if he was feeling bad, and if he wanted to drop her off home. Armando explained to her it wasn't that but it was just getting late, however at the club he not only accepted her advances but he also encouraged them(Forgive Me Post). Not only that when Armando rejected her advance inside the hotel room, Betty respected his no.
"I'm tired." He says after trying to find an excuse. His tone of voice shows fear as he talks as if he were out of breath and though he has told her this excuse before, he hadn't given her this stare of determination. He wasn't even going to give her wiggle room and when she notices this she stands up and tells him that that had never stopped him before(yeah cause you manipulated him and pushed his boundaries).
Armando doesn't allow her questioning of his manhood to keep him from staying faithful to Betty. Instead, unlike before when he just basically gave up and let Marcela convince him otherwise, he tells her that tonight it would be an impediment for him but this whole time he looks fearful and nervous.
Now the next day Betty arrived to Eco Moda with contentment and excited to see Armando(dude Wilson is always so sweet to Betty(lets ignore the first couple of ep)).
Betty saw Marcela and Armando arriving together, which we know what that implies to Betty.
So once inside of Eco Moda, after Armando told her they needed to talk, as Betty is going towards their office she sees the personification of her guilty conscious in the shape of Marcela.
What Marcela is saying to her is what Betty is telling herself, while she also tries to justify what they did. When Marcela says that last night when he was done with her she went and made love to her[Marcela] and that it could be that he is playing Betty or her but maybe them both but that she[Marcela] is the one that Armando is going to end up with.
This speaks on Betty's fears.
When she enters their office Armando is waiting for her. He starts off explaining that he knew he had told her that he'd go to his apartment and spent the night by himself but Betty interrupts him by saying: "Nonono Sir. I told you I respect that relationship, I get it." (She sure do have a funny way of showing "respect" for that relationship.
Armando then goes on to clarify that nothing happened, basically that he was truthfully only with her and that he stayed faithful to her.
But Betty tells him that he doesn't need to explain things. Armando then begs her to allow him to explain things to her. Why does he beg her?
In a past post I explained how to Armando it was so important to be able to trust Betty and to know that she didn't lie to him(Betty, My Betty! Part 2.5 post.) but ever since the night that he fought Roman and Co. things have begun to change. Armando has become a bit more attentive and in tune with Betty's needs, desires, and feelings and after last night, it is more evident here that he needs her to know that he was impecable, that he didn't lie to her or hurt her. He needed her to know that he was truthfully only with her and that he wouldn't touch Marcela or another woman after being with her because she was special to him and their first time meant a lot to him as well. He needs her trust him and believe in him.
So he begins to explain things to her, being honest and albeit dramatic(he always is when he's retelling events).
Now for the last scene of this post lets make a deep dive to Mario and Armando's conversation/ Aura Maria and Betty's conversation.
I won't really breakdown the dialogue here, instead I'll breakdown the tone and behavior from Armando and Mario.
After Mario begs him to tell him about the night Armando calls him a vieja chismosa (A woman who likes gossip) and they go off to the meeting room.
A reluctant Armando tells him he did sleep with Betty. He is stiff the entire time as he talks to Mario, showing that he is uncomfortable sharing this with him and that he doesn't, on a very different level, want to share the intimacy he shared with Betty, but he'll only share a bit of it to get him off his back and to also be able to process what happened and how he feels about it.
As Mario says that he can imagine the concentration and imagination that Armando had to have had to be able to sleep with Betty, Armando, sitting still holding his hands(showing he is trying to comfort himself or is angry, looking at the context clues the serious expression, his tone of voice and how he seems to be refraining himself it is anger what he is feeling.) grits his teeth and clenches his jaw.
He isn't only uncomfortable talking to Mario about this but he is angry at him for what he is saying and insinuating. He tries to end the conversation when Mario jokes, telling him that he answered his question, however Mario asks him how it affected him and Armando tries to explain why it affected him to begin with.
In short words Armando tells him that Betty isn't just another woman he slept(one of his models or occasional friend) with but that she is an important woman to him and because of that reason last night was important to him.
"I made love with a woman who is in love, who is truthfully in love." He says this with a tender tone, something that holds importance to him, that makes him happy, that sweetens his life. In other words something that makes him soft but also the realization of Betty's love for him and how true it is. "This doesn't welcome any jokes." He says and angrily tells Mario "So don't expect for me to act like nothing happened. Of course it affects me, my skin isn't made of iron." In another post(Tonight A Dream Of Mine Has Come True and La Arrogancia De La Niña) I explained how Armando doesn't feel comfortable when the subject revolves around Betty as a person so when Mario makes jokes and Armando tries to defend why he feels the way he does and explain himself, as well as try to understand how he feels he stops being so reluctant in the conversation but as soon as Mario starts making jokes again he stops, gets angry and shuts off.
"Okay, one second, you're telling me that you're feeling something for Betty?" Armando looks at him with furrowed eyebrows and concerned eyes and he swallows hard. One could simply assume that he is confused or even simply worried but it goes more than that. This is the exact same expression he had when Marcela was reading that poem(Don't Yell At Her! Don't You Yell At Her! post) he is anguished to tell this to Mario, to be that vulnerable with him but also, that he is worried that he has feelings for her and the implications of said feelings.
Lets rewind a few steps and look at the journey of Armando's feelings so far.
1: He begins to take notice of Betty as a loyal employee
2: He begins to blur the lines of impersonal to personal.
3: He starts to change towards the way he treats her as her boss because he cares about how Betty feels working for him(Which he didn't care about that with the rest).
4: he makes her his confidant in all aspects of his life.
5: he entrust her with his entire livelihood(trust her like no other)
6: he begins to get curious about her personal life.
7: he is forced to face the reality of why he is so "special" to her. AKA the revelation that Betty "has" a boyfriend.
8: He drunkenly confesses his feelings to Betty.
9: he soberly confesses his feelings to Betty.
10: he lives under denial of said feelings but his subconscious is stronger than he is.
11: each night he spends with Betty his emotional attraction grows until it becomes physical attraction(Which he denies).
12: He has had to learn to notice and place Betty's needs, desires, and feelings before his own and enjoys doing so.
13: he is forced to once again face his feelings of attraction towards Betty the night before.
So again, Armando does what he does best, deny.
Due to his obsession with perfection, need to control everything, and his own personal conversations that he has within himself(Why couldn't we get those? I gotta be connecting the dots here a lot) this new revelation is a hard one to swallow. Armando has never been in love and he always thought he'd fall in love with a woman that looks like Marcela, Adriana Arboleda, etc. However now it is possible that he's in love, for the first time ever or at least beginning to fall in love, with Betty, the "ugly" assistant he has, who he knows his best friend would crucify if he found out about his true feelings so Armando, pained by this, denies it and it does pain him to deny these feelings from himself which is why we get this reaction.
To throw Mario off his scent he tells him he feels remorse, and that's it(Have y'all seen that John Mulaney special where he says that when he was a kid this police officer told him to throw his wallet across the street to make robbers run the other direction to throw them off his scent so he could escape? Basically same here).
Next Aura Maria and Betty start to talk. Betty expresses her happiness and how she would have never imagined that it would be like that(she really sticking to her five star review on yelp).
In the room over Armando is telling Mario the retelling of the events the previous night. He tells him that he wasn't capable of physically having sex with Betty when she came out of the bathroom and that of course, she picked up on it and told him she understood, that she knew no man could desire her.
So did Armando sleep with Betty out of pity? Out of compassion?
When we look at the context of previous scenes the short answer is no.
The long answer is this so sit tight. That night Armando did something he'd never done before, be intimate with a woman. Betty was extremely vulnerable with him this night. She gave more of herself to him than in the physical sense. She let him in, she welcomed him into her inner dilema and fears. She moved him, deeply moved him. She gave him something he desired more than sex. She gave him her intimacy.
When he is retelling what happened, especially when it gets to the physicality, he looks up, as if reliving the moment visually in his memory. His expression is of peace and joy. He is not disgusted with the mental image he has, in fact he is pleased with it.
Mario is staring at him the entire time with eyebrows raised, wide eyes and a slight frown. Since Armando isn't staring at him(he's savoring his memory) he doesn't notice this but as soon as he stares at him Mario stops and convers his mouth. He then congratulates him and tells him that so far things sounded like they went well and he asks for more.
In the post Tonight A Dream Of Mine Has Come True I explained the comfort Mario has at asking these sorts of questions implying that both Mario and Armando don't hold back in being explicit when they talk about their conquests and one night stands so here he expects nothing less. He expects for Armando to tell him everything about Betty and what they did. He expects a word for word replay of the night but like the times before when it comes to subjects such as these, Armando shuts it down(finally a gentleman).
Mario pesters, asking who he used as a mental image, who he imagined instead of Betty.
"No inspiration used. Last night I made love to Beatriz Pinzon Solano." Armando says starting at Mario, who looks away from him, closes his eyes and convers his mouth. Armando looks down at his hand , which he's been fidgeting with, with a frown on his lips.
Armando is lying to Mario, not about who he slept with the previous night, but about his feelings and it upsets him that he can't talk this through or talk to his best friend about his feelings because he knows that Mario will just make fun of him for it. This is where we begin to see this change in Armando take shape, while before it was blurry and almost unnoticeable now it is becoming focused and recognizable.
Armando does want to talk about his feelings and he does want to understand them to some degree. Almost like there's this yearning and screaming inside of him to understand what he feels for Betty, especially after the confession he made to Betty and not only how he felt about the whole experience but because he knows, he freaking knows he treated Betty differently than any other woman before her and the fact that he didn't even desire nor want to be touched by Marcela as well disturbes him but he has no safe space or place to be able to talk about said feelings so the best thing he can do is run away from them but unlike before, this upsets him.
It's like denying himself from something he needs.
When Mario once more tries to pry any details of Betty's body Armando gets upset and tells him he doesn't understand how he managed to do that, that it was just something that came out of nowhere. Mario then asks if what is disturbing him is that fact or what it could be he feels something, but Armando tells him that he just feels guilty for it all and his conscious is killing him.
While yes this is true, he doesn't like deceiving Betty, deep down he is actually aware now that he does care for Betty and that he was both emotionally and physically satisfied with Betty. Armando is actually welcoming the understanding of his feelings while before he lived in denial of them and avoiding them, now he wants to understand them but he knows he can't do that with his best friend so he once more, like before, shuts down and gets mad at Mario.
While Betty tells Aura Maria that her boyfriend told her he loved her for the first time, Aura Maria tells her that saying it and proving it are two different things but an overjoyed Betty tells her that he not only told her he loved her but that showed it to her because he was really special and she had never imagined it would have been like that.
Both The Pervert and Aura ask the same question "Tell me how was it?"
Mario throws out synonymous for the words "hot seggs" he is wanting to know what woman was under those clothes that made him feel the way he did, Mario is strictly physical and that's it and while Armando to some point was the same, he knew that Armando also desired a stable and good relationship and to fall in love, as Armando himself told him that.
So Armando tells him she was none of that and that seggs with her was none of that.
"So then?"
"It was like..." He stops to think, looking for the right word when he finds it he smiles, again as if remembering it fondly, "sweet."
"What?" Mario murmurs. "Sweet?" he says in a disbelief tone and low voice. "A-Armando look me in the eyes." Armando does so. "It was really sweet?"
Armando pulls away from the wall he had been leaning and shifts to face him, leaning against said wall again, and after taking a deep breath begins to explain.
"Calderon, that woman is in love with me. What? did you expect for it to not be? It had to be sweet, so yes, sweet." He says explaining. His eyes brows are middle raised, slightly squinting his eyes but his features are soft, he leans against the wall while with one hand he moves in the air to explain things with the other he has it in his pocket. This indicates, roughly, an anxious attitude as well as not wanting to talk more about the subject and that he's upset to continue talking about it.
"I get that she's in love with you but were you really sweet to her too?" Armando, who turned away from him is once more leaning hard against the blinds of the window, arms folded in front of him and eyebrows middle lowers, indicating frustration.
"He was really sweet, Aura Maria. I didn't expect him to be like that. That's why I'm saying that I think he really does love me." She smiles. Aura Maria celebrates with her.
"Okayokay. So it was really sweet for the both of you." Mario raises his arms up in a "I'm innocent." manor.
"Mhm"
"Armando, you're worrying me." He places his hands inside his pockets. Armando is staring elsewhere, worrying his bottom lip with eyebrows middle lowered(almost close together) since he looks somewhat zoned out we can assume that he is in deep thought. "What happened. Talk to me." Armando turns to look at him and defeated lets out a sigh, closes his eyes and goes to sit down and starts to talk.
"I don't know, I have to clear myself. I'm going to try and be as clear as possible with you. Lets see, I-no-best said lets separate two things. One thing is that is ugly, right?(he confused about it now? I'm just joking)." Mario agrees. "And another thing would be that I hate Betty, I don't hate Betty." This time his eyebrows are pulled closer together with really squinted eyes. He is really evaluating his feelings here and making the effort to understand them. "All the contrary, I have an immense endearment for her. She is a very important woman in my life."
(ENGLISH GET A WORD EQUIVALENT TO QUIERO/QUIERE!)
"You cherish her?"(it's the best word I could find to translate this, English is so tragic tbh.)
"Of course." Armando admits, he has a look of relief washed away with panic and now he begins to deny, freaked out by his own emotions he tries to justify his feelings for something they're not. "Of course I cherish her. I cherish her-" he places a finger on his philtrum: anxiousness and hesitant to speak. "like you cherish Sara, your secretary. Yes like my dad cherish Susana his secretary. I-I think that one in life...cherishes a lot of people and the relationship that Betty and I have established is a relationship of..." He starts to fidget with his fingers worrying his bottom lip and staring off at something on the table. "of friends." he stares at Mario and with his hand, open, explains to him. "We're friends and we cherish each other a lot. Man, I start to think and Betty is a person who has always been unconditional with me, who has always been there when I've needed her. She's a person who has saved my life, who risks her life for me every day she's a person( I don't want to use the word love but English you suck so I gotta) I love a lot(he means platonically)" Mario stares at him with raised eyebrows, wide eyes and a frown. "Tell me, why wouldn't I feel that for her? Why shouldn't I feel endearment for her?"
"No, no of course. Why not?" Mario reacts slow. He is trying to "Respect" Armando's feelings even though he wants to make fun of him for it but he knows if he does that Armando will stop talking about how he feels, therefore, stop giving him intel. "Why not? It's just this is the first time I hear you say you love her."
"Because I wasn't aware of this until now!" Armando says frustrated. "Until now that I'm faci...facing Betty." He slightly furrows his brows and stares elsewhere with a shocked expression of revelation. He takes in a deep breath and places a finger in front of his lips, thinking this through. "Calderon, cherishing Betty isn't a crime, bro." Notice his tone of voice as he confesses this final part is full of emotion. This fear that he had been carrying within himself for days, weeks or even months, that he cared about Betty deeply cares but was afraid to admit this to himself much less out loud until now, he finally admits it, he finally says it out loud because he is in a desperate need to understand how he feels about her and he accepts it. He accepts that this is how he feels and that it isn't wrong for him to feel like this because she deserves it.
Armando then goes on to say that what they are doing to her is a crime. To do that to his partner in crime, who loves him and dreams of him twenty four seven and that is what is killing him.
"It should be killing you if you did it with repulsiveness but no, you did so, sweetly. Sweetie pie." he sings at the end. Armando now looks at him in disbelief and anger.
"Then how would I have done it? She's in love, how was I going to do it then?"
Mario is now out of his element, unlike in previous scenes, this time Mario is not in control of Armando so he reacts irrationally.
"Yes but you've slept with Marcela who is in love with you and so far from what I understand the hook-ups aren't so sweet." he smiles, thinking he's found footing in the situation and a way to gain control of it.
"Ah don't talk to me about Marcela now." He stands up, annoyed. "Lets not talk about that woman. Let's change topic, yeah? Last night." He slaps the chair. "When I got to my apartment she was waiting for me." He says so annoyed, again.
"No?" Mario asks "surprised".
Skip the scene with Marcela and Patsy Pats; Betty and Aura Maria are still talking in her office.
Aura Maria is telling her that now that they've slept together that she can't stop doing it and blah blah blah I'm only mentioning it because it's funny when Armando walks into the conversation and now it's him he gets a taste of jealousy like Betty did that morning when she saw Armando and Marcela getting out of his car.
The fact Armando believes this is really about Nicolas is funny but also believable. For one, as I pointed out, Armando feels insecure when it comes to Betty and Nicolas, especially now after they've sinned, fornicated if you will, no wait adulatory because he's "committed" to Marcela. Two because he knows that Nicolas spends time with Betty at her house so when Aura Maria tells her to take advantage of the moments her parents aren't looking or when he goes to the bathroom to sneak in there with him and y'know, sha-bang.
Armando rubs his hand with his thumb, indicating anxiety, however he tries to keep his composure and if y'all haven't notice Armando now isn't speaking so harshly to Betty. He is keeping the same tone he has with her whenever he is being vulnerable. As Armando leaves Betty's office after telling her that he needed some paper work, he shuts the door hard, expressing his anger as well.
Once Aura leaves and Betty goes into Armando's office, Armando throws his jealousy fit, but unlike before when he'd yell at her and question her dedication, her loyalty, her love, this time he tells her that she can do what she wants, that Nicolas belonged to her personal and intimate life(again, showing resentment for that), when Betty tries to explain what happened Armando tries to cut her off, eventually she does though. This is similar to earlier that morning.
We then see the power dynamic here, once more Armando is the one that holds the cards and Betty is supposed to do what he says, which isn't a partnership.
[THE LETTER! WHAT WAS IN THE STUPID LETTER BETTY!]
I think those the next scenes[next few episodes] are pretty self-explanatory. Armando completely forgets about the picture he has of AA in his pocket and he makes out with Betty and Betty accepts to not break up while Armando that once the big meeting is over that he'll break up with Marcela and they'll become official, now he has to learn to accept the idea that he has to learn to accept as an idea(So confusing, I know lol) of a potential future where he is open about his relationship with Betty.
The next post I'll write is one I'm really looking forward to; AA shows up to Eco Moda and my all time favorite scene that brings and ties together this theory that Armando has thought about, for a long time, about his feelings for Betty and what it means to him, AKA the night of the museum.
'Til then :)
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