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wakatvshi · 3 years

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Hey! I saw that you receive requests so.. I would love some marley warriors + jean (because i love him) with an s/o who's really.. Touchy, please? Could be headcanons or imagines🥺 thank you so so much! 😭

Yeah! I would love to! They’re kind of rambling but I hope you like them and that this is what you wanted! I didn’t do Annie because I just couldn’t really figure out what to write about her but if you really want her send a seperate message and I’ll give you annie with a touchy s/o!

Heads up though I’ve never written or read for Zeke before because he’s not personally a favorite so I hope he’s okay in this!

JEAN KIRSTEIN ══▸

Jean would LOVE a touchy s/o. He’s a very touchy person himself so having someone who’s as touchy as he is would make him so happy.

When the two of you are alone he’s all about touching you and always wants to be touching you. When you’re working on something and he can’t be touching you all the time he’ll sit next to you or as close to you as he can be and just be near you. Which helps you both because you’re a touchy person.

Something both of you love is when you’re sitting in his lap, just doing whatever you’ve been doing. He’ll walk in and you’ll give grabby hands and want to be held and he’ll want to hold you. Doesn’t matter what gender/size anything he wants to have you in his lap and it makes him happy.

In public, he’s more shy about touching because he’s actually a huge baby and his ‘flirty’ persona that some people think he has is 100% real. He wants to act like he’s smooth but he’s not. He’ll hold your hand and walk with you in public but anything more it’s not going to be him initiating it.

If you’re with him in public and you want more affection than holding hands then you’ll have to do it and he will turn bright red and stutter if he’s supposed to be talking. It’s adorable and he’s so happy even if he’s bright red.

Another one of his favorite things is you playing with his hair, it turns into a big puddle when you play with his hair and when you compliment him in basically anyway.

If any of his friends catch him being super cute or you being cute with him (aka Sasha and Connie) they’ll laugh and tease him and he’ll get defensive but doesn’t actually mind it. Even if he did you’d just hug him from behind or wrap your arms around him and he’s glaring at them but also super focused on the attention he’s now getting.

Sleeping with Jean is basically a cuddle fest as well, thankfully for you he’s touchy as well so when you both wake up tangled in each other neither of you really mind it.

BERTHOLDT HOOVER ══▸

Bertholdt with a touchy s/o would be so good for him but also something that he has to get used to.

Eventually he finds out that he loves it but at first he doesn’t expect it. He’s very shy and stand-offish even if he doesn’t mean to be. So any physical affection for the most part will have to be done by you. Even years into your relationship you’ll have to be the one who makes the moves.

The first time you initiate any kind of touch he goes bright red and has no idea how to react. Outside he’s frozen and staring at you, sweating a little. Inside of course he’s beyond happy and he wants nothing more than to move and do the same, he wants to hold onto you too. He wants to touch you and be affectionate but he doesn’t know how. It isn’t until you try to move away that he finally acts and grabs your hand.

Even years into your relationship most of the affection will be initiated by you so it is a good thing that you’re not afraid to be the one who reaches out for him. It also brings him out of his shell quite a bit.

When the two of you are alone he loves the affection you give him. He doesn’t know how to ask for the affection he wants but he does give small signals and you know him well enough to reach out and grab his hands or crawl in his lap.

PDA is a no go for him completely, he’s obviously a shy person and being super affectionate is outside of his comfort zone as it is so adding anything else would just be far outside his comfort zone

I also do feel like physical affection is his love language so him having the freedom to act on that and having someone who wants that affection like he does would make him so happy.

Sleeping with Bertholdt is always a fun experience. You might start holding into him or him holding onto you but you’ll end up in a dozen different positions before you wake up.You’ve got no real say in how you sleep when you’re with him.

REINER BRAUN ══▸

Literally a teddy bear and would LOVE to have an affectionate s/o. Needs an affectionate s/o.

Reiner feels unlovable, he feels worthless and he is very depressed and I’m by no means saying you can fix him or fix anyone like that, but affection is everything to this man even if he doesn’t think he deserves it.

You’ll have to be the one to make the first move for the first time but as soon as he realizes how much you do love affection he’ll be happy to initiate as well. Sometimes he’ll surprise you by being the one to reach out and hold you first.

Obviously you love that, you’ll just be doing something and possibly not even paying attention to him and Reiner will be the one to walk up and wrap his arms around you and just stand there.

To him affection is proof of love and comfort that he desperately needs. It would take him a little to get used to at first im sure, he’s not used to it like his mother isn’t very affectionate but he craves it.

With Reiner it’s easy to be touchy. Even in public he doesn’t mind, he’s more in awe of the fact that you want to be seen with him and want to give affection.

He’s not super huge on over the top PDA but he does love holding your hand or kissing your cheek. Also piggy back rides, I can see him being a fan of that because it’s touch and that’s what he loves and craves.

Sharing a bed with Reiner is always the two of you tangled in each other. He likes to be the big spoon and likes to hold you but he’s 100% okay with you holding him, sometimes he even prefers that.

Reiner needs to feel loved and affection is the best way to do that in his mind. So being touchy would be perfect.

PORCO GALLIARD ══▸

To me Porco is literally the embodiment of “disgusting. do it again.”

Now not because he’s not a fan of affection but he has this cool guy persona that he puts on around people. He wants people to see him as the tough guy when it’s only half true. You can see it with the kids that he’s actually a super affectionate guy.

Porco needs validation and having an s/o who’s super touchy would give him that. When you’re touching him he feels like he’s number one. He’s your main focus and it means the world to him. Of course he’d never tell you that.

You’ll have to be able to read him a little to be able to tell when he wants something because he’s stubborn and sometimes it takes a lot for him to ask you for something if he’s not sure how.

Now if he’s just in the mood to be affectionate himself he’s good with just holding you or grabbing your hand. He’s also big in kissing, he loves kissing but usually he tries to make it more suggestive or almost casual.

For just cuteness you’ll have to be the one who holds his face and kisses him or who just holds his hand or hugs him. He has to lean the importance of cute nonsexual affection.

PDA to him makes him blush a little also super proud that you’re the one on his arm and he wants to show you off and loves that you want to show him off. Being the “most important” to you is important to him.

When Porco sleeps he’ll sleep holding you for a few minutes but he’s not one who likes to hold onto someone when he sleeps. Biggest surprise when sleeping with him is that Porco LOVES to be the little spoon. He’ll deny it with his dying breath but he adores it.

Also random cutsey headcanon for Porco that will never leave my head is that Porco loves when you baby talk to him. I have no reason for this hc but I just feel like he would love it.

PIECK FINGER ══▸

A queen of physical affection honestly. Lives for it and lives to give it.

She’s in her titan form a lot and when she’s finally out of it she has trouble walking on two legs so you being there for her to lean on when she’s not walking with her crutch and just actually physically supporting her would mean the world to her.

She also likes that you want to be affectionate with her after being in her titan form for so long. she wants to be held and wants her hair played with. If you let her just lay in your lap and play with her hair or hold her hand she’ll be the happiest woman in the world.

A lot of your affectionate time is spent with you both laying or sitting somewhere together. If you’re giving her attention or letting her give attention she’s loving it.

Another thing she loves is walking around with you, she doesn’t shy away from PDA. If you’re together and if you want to kiss her cheek or something she’s more than happy about it. She’ll laugh softly and get the faintest of pink on her cheeks

She does have to make sure that she’s professional about it because she is a warrior and has to keep up her professional persona.

Of course, you’ll have people who are beyond jealous watching her with you and honestly she thinks it’s kinda cute that people are jealous because to her it doesn’t make sense.

Sleeping with Pieck is just cuddle city for both of you. She likes to be hold and be held and you’re happy to do both as well. There’s nothing either of you like better than the intimacy and connection that the two of you have laying there and holding each other.

ZEKE YEAGER ══▸

This man takes a while to get used to physical affection. He’s not really had affection before so you’ll have to work at it.

When he was younger he didn’t have much affection, we know that grandfather spends a great amount of time in the hospital for mental issues and we saw from how they raised Grisha that they’re not super affectionate.

His life has mostly been spent working towards his goals and trying to do what he could to make sure he could complete the goals. So he’s not really put much attention to romantic relationships.

Having you be super affectionate would for sure throw him off a bit but he’s good at hiding that. I do think once he was used to it, he’d just lean into your touches and want to stay there.

He doesn’t like PDA at all, he’s the captian of the warriors and he’s respected even by some of the people of Marley. So it is hands off in public. He will walk close to you though, if your arms are brushing and you’re close to him he is happy.

Alone though he does love affection. You playing with his hair is a good one but what he really loves is getting massages from you. He works hard and if you’ll just stand behind him rubbing his shoulders and kissing the top of his head he’s the happiest man ever.

When you’re sleeping Zeke is 100% big spoon. He wants to hold you, if you want he’ll let you hold him but he’s most comfortable when he’s able to hold you. That’s when he shows his real affectionate side. He wants you close to him, and he loves holding you. He feels like he can rest when you’re in his arms.

#jean kirstein x reader #reiner braun x reader #zeke yeager x reader #attack on titan x reader #aot x reader #porco galliard x reader #pieck finger x reader #bertholdt hoover x reader #bertolt hoover x reader #attack on titan imagine #aot imagines #aot imagine #attack on titan x you #my writing #headcanons

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vanillafrog · 2 years

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Why’d You Disappear

Pairing: Jack “Whiskey” Daniels/You

Summary: How Jack reacts when you stop answering his calls. aka the sequel to I’m So Brittle

Word Count: 1056

Warnings: angst, no happy ending sorry

A/N: It may have taken me literally forever to write it but I finally wrote a part two to that drabble.

Jack thought he might be a bad person. Not that the thought would usually bug him much. In his line of work, it was hard to keep hands clean and harder to keep souls pure. Yet, every time he called you up, used you, left without a word, he thought he was a bad person.

He wasn’t blind or naive enough to think it would always just be sex. Truthfully, if he allowed himself to look down in his heart long enough, he might even see it had been more than that for longer than he would’ve liked. But he wouldn’t let himself feel that, no not again.

His wife died, his child died. All because he loved them. All because of the life he chose to lead.

So anything pass sex wasn’t on the table for him. It wasn’t even in the deck of cards. Just thrown off to the side before shuffling and seeing where life would take him.

When he met you, you were just a young thing looking for fun. There was no way to deny you even if he wanted to. That mischievous gleam in your eye was too appealing to pass up.

Sure enough, it was the best sex Jack had in a long time. That’s what he convinced himself of as he kept calling, coming and going. Merging your life with his for a few hours before pulling off another disappearing act.

Some nights, there was a part of his consciousness that screamed at him as he left you panting on your bed. It yelled at him to stay. Talk to you. At least look at you.

But he never did. Was it because seeing you would make the weight heavier? Would it make it real? Or was he scared that when he saw you, you would end up being something more?

When you didn’t answer his calls the first handful of times, he was able to convince himself that you were busy. The next couple made him wonder if you were mad at him. Then he wondered if you had found another lover in the time he was away. His stomach twisted at the thought. He told himself it was from something he ate earlier.

The longer it went without you answering, the larger the unsettling feeling in his gut grew. He kept trying to convince himself it wasn’t heartbreak. That it would be impossible for it to be heartbreak. Jack didn’t fall in love, he didn’t even have much of a heart left to love with. But of course, the truth wasn’t to be denied.

Two months had passed before he saw you again. It was at the grocery store and you looked as beautiful as the first night you both had met. Jack just watched you from across the aisle as you checked off your grocery list. He was happy to see that you looked well but he was also torn between being angry at you. Some part of him wanted to run up to you, yell at you, beg for you, anything to give him the answer for the avoidance.

When you looked up, Jack was lost in your eyes. You seemed surprised to see him. Perhaps you never imagined him to be out and about doing mundane things. Maybe you really were trying to avoid him.

Jack plastered on a cocky smile as he sauntered over to you, hoping to hide behind his persona.

“Hello, gorgeous. Long time no see,” he said.

“Hey Jack,” you replied with an awkward smile.

From the start of whatever you would call your relationship with him, you had emitted confidence that could bring any man down to his knees. Jack couldn’t recall a single time where you seemed to lack. Yet here you were, shuffling your feet slightly and barely looking him in the eye.

Maybe Jack was a bad person after all. Only a bad person could strip someone of their personality the way he did you. And he wished there was a part of him, no matter how small, that didn’t care about that. But there wasn’t and he had nothing to fall back on.

“How have you been?” He tried small talk. You sighed.

“Jack…” His cocky smirk wavered at your defeated tone. “Let’s not lie to each other, okay?”

“I don’t know what you mean, honeybee.”

“I’m done,” you stated. “Whatever there was between us, I’m done with it.”

Jack openly stared at you as his smirk finally fell from his face. Blood rushed in his eyes as his heart beat violently in his chest. You looked him in the eye as you said it and he saw how it hurt you to tell him that. Almost as badly as it hurt him to hear you say that.

“I-“ He started.

“No, Jack,” you interrupted him as you shifted your stance again. “It’s better for the both of us to move on.”

With that, you left the aisle with your shopping cart. Jack watched you turn the corner without looking back to him once.

There were a few times in his life where he could say the pain bothered him. The first time he ever broke his arm in middle school. When his father passed away. When his wife and child died.

Enough times to count on one hand.

And this moment was another one to add to the least of ever growing pains Jack would have to endure. Even if he would rather do anything but that. Even if he wanted to chase after you, beg on his knees for you not to leave him. To give him another chance at something.

With a deep breath, Jack nodded to himself once before quickly going through self checkout and leaving the grocery store behind with only half of what he needed. His car didn’t give him much peace of mind, especially since it was parked where he had a perfect view into the store and to where you were. Where you seemed to be pulling yourself back together as well after your chance encounter.

If Jack was a better man, he would get out of his car and go back to you. He would ask you on a proper date. He would treat you well the second time if you gave it to him.

#vanillafrog fics #jack daniels x you #jack daniels x reader #whiskey x reader #whiskey x you

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5uptic · 3 years

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crewfu: fanfic spotlight!

We work together by Anonymous (5up & DK, unrated, gen | 248 words)

Summary: One likes plants and baking, the other loves to create and design video games. They stay up and create monstrosities together, it's their fun, it's their favourite game. Aka a 5up and Dk roommate au!

No matter how life tangles, I’m still here with you. by hungryandsleepy (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 279 words)

Summary: 5up has been working so hard on his new map, and of course, he needs someone to give him a motivation to go to sleep.

objectively pretty by vesque (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 462 words)

Summary: steve is drunk. he's pretty sure 5up is too. that doesn't mean being called pretty is any less momentuous.

you plus me by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 489 words)

Summary: 5up and Steve meet.

he said to me by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 656 words)

Summary: 5up and Steve share a moment.

by the snowmen by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 670 words)

Summary: Steve has a moment when it's all over.

today you got to know me (a little bit too slowly) by runninohhoney (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 675 words)

Summary: Steve lights up a cigarette. 5up doesn't smoke.

what would it take by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 787 words)

Summary: It's Steve's first mission. He hecks up. Or does he?

sorta cute by floweruru (5up/Steve, unrated, m/m | 822 words)

Summary: ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ he said. ‘That’s just disrespectful,’ he said. Yet there was 5up, crushed like a can in Steve’s embrace, feebly kicking at nothing as his feet leave the pavement.

i was gonna kill u, but ur kinda cute?? by Cthulhuer (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1k words)

Summary: Steve is a mess and 5up is worse.

I hear a Symphony by AwkwardAce (5up/Fundy, unrated, m/m | 1.1k words)

Summary: He exhaled until his lungs ached for air, fingers twitching as he opted to remove the sleek white gloves he wore in a feeble effort to soothe himself. It didn’t work. He wrung his trembling hands together as his eyes raked down the worn leather case taking in the doodles- some etched some drawn- across the faded surface. He snapped the buckles open and his breath hitched, catching in his already tight throat. For a moment the world span, his head throbbed and he wanted nothing more than to run and hide. 5up breathed out slowly, shakily.

staring by lytriis (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.1k words)

Summary: steve asks 5up out. 5up doesn’t know how to respond.

and it's four am, and yet, you're here by vesque (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1.2k words)

Summary: in which steve shows up at 5up's house, in the middle of the night, completely spontaneously

more than this by mangoedges (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.2k words)

Summary: Steve catches 5up venting.

3:15 by vesque (5up/Steve, general rating, m/m | 1.2k words)

Summary: Steve tries to guess Five's name. It's much more difficult than he anticipated.

things were different by fourpebbles (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.5k words)

Summary: His eyes circled around to his friends, Kimi and Janet engaging in pleasant comversation, sleepy and becoming increasingly more sober. He looked, finally, across him, and caught Dumbdog staring at him. What now bro, what did this guy want. small talk, turns into not small talk, then there's no talk

Once Upon A Dream by SmearedWords (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.5k words)

Summary: 5up looks ethereal, while Steve is struggling to breathe. "You're not real either." Or: Steve has a crush and a nightmare in three parts, 5up is tired, the crew life is hard and Polus sucks.

the ones you love will call you back by homeward_bound (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 1.8k words)

Summary: stevesuptic: dude, is it weird that i miss vegas DumbDog: No? I do too. stevesuptic: okay [steve misses vegas and apollo. they talk about it]

cough it out by cj__writes (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2k words)

Summary: Apollo thinks that Steve must be well and truly gone, at this point, because he giggles, like Apollo’s just told a particularly funny joke. He looks Apollo right in the eye and asks, “Do you trust me?” “Absolutely not.”

ivy by Secular_Czar (5up/Steve, teen rating, gen | 2.1k words)

Summary: It might be a sad day, in general, but Steve isn't about to let it get to him. His friends won't ever let him wallow either.

The Colosseum by WhenTheFogClears (general rating, gen | 2.1k words)

Summary: Five squinted, looking at the colosseum intensely. He thinks Apollo was latched onto the sphinx’s shoulder, fur matted with blood. Janet was slumped against a column, probably out, with Kimi whose bow was snapped in two, her leg twisted at an odd angle. DK was in the corner trying to cast various supporting hexes and charms with a broken arm, whilst Hafu was dragging a heavily bandaged Steve away. or 5up slaughters a cat

Oneshots :) by woofles1990 (5up/Fundy, 5up/Steve, teen rating, multi | 2.5k words, oneshot collection)

Summary: Just a bunch of MCYT/Among Us oneshots, mainly featuring 5up's crew because yes :)

the adventures of 5up and steve staying up late because they're under 30 by 5280ft (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2.5k words)

Summary: “The night is young!” Steve yells at the ceiling, throwing his hands up in the air. “Take advantage of it! Commit crimes! Fuck hoes!” Five catches his hands in the air and laughs. “You wish you had hoes.”

unreasonably in love by cj__writes (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 2.6k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: "It was like pieces of a puzzle, everything coming together. And now, here they are, standing in their apartment, which looks more like a hollow shell than a home, filled solely with scattered boxes and the minuscule amount of furniture that they brought with them to Vegas." Or: what happens after Apollo and Steve move in together.

cant be love by fourpebbles (Apollo/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 3.5 words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: He had chuckled to himself, he felt so stupid. Who in their fucking minds names a playlist 'sugr?', he thought, internally cringing. A story where a Steve meets an Apollo, and some things happen.

Somewhere in the darkness, us together for a while by tumtummeke (Apollo & Kimi & Steve, teen rating, gen | 3.6k words)

Summary: Apollo worries about Steve. Steve breaks his vape pen. Kimi plays power washer. Self-indulgent angst, with a generous helping of friendship and cuddles.

odyssey by 5280ft (5up/Steve, teen rating, m/m | 23k words, chaptered WIP)

Summary: "First you will come to the Sirens who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens...they warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. Therefore pass these Sirens by and stop your men's ears with wax that none of them may hear." -Homer, The Odyssey

Also: SilverSprinklez10‘s yupwaves collection.

Summary: This is a Harry Potter AU based on the characters/personas of the youtubers/streamers.

FAQ:

Wait what is this: pretty straight to the point! i’ll regularly share crewfu-related fanfictions to this blog :)

How regularly is “regularly”?: great question! LOL. it depends on the flow of fanfics that get uploaded, which i do not have any control over, but i’m looking forward to do this twice a month. after all, it’s only me doing this and i often run on a tight schedule.

What’s the format like?:

[title of fic with link] by [author of the fic with link] ([main pairing(s), if there is one/multiple], [fic rating: eg, general rating], [relationship: eg, m/m] | [word count in k] ([added prompt to specify if it’s complete or not)])

Summary: [summary provided by the author. if it doesn’t have a summary, a “No summary” prompt will be put instead]

(What does WIP mean again?): Work In Progress :)

Why are you doing this?: from the beginning, my blog has hosted conversations about RPF (real people fiction) and crewfu pairings. this has evolved into people sending me updates about certain fics in the crewfu tags every now and then, but i wanna take the next step and just do these things myself. after all, i’m already lurking in the tags often to see the fics that get posted. as someone who is both a writer and a reader, i wanna appreciate fanfic writers and help out other people that want to read fanfic and consume more fandom content!

Will it be AO3 only?: well, ao3 has a very helpful tag system that makes finding fics incredibly easy, as well as allowing people with no accounts to like and comment on fics, so that’s the site i will personally look in for fanworks. but if there are any fics you’ve written or liked in any other platforms, such as wattpad, you can always contact me through my inbox (send an ask or a dm!), and i’ll make sure to include for the next fanfic spotlight :)

Does it mean you won’t reply to fic asks anymore?: yeah, i guess. since i’ll be doing the searching myself it seems counterproductive. but if i ever skip a fic or again, it’s in another platform, or you’ve posted/read the fic a while ago and you want to get more traction on it, hit me up and i’ll take it into consideration!

Will you read every single one of the fics on your list?: oh no. again, i run on a tight schedule, and also i have my own taste when it comes to fics. i won’t be reviewing fics or any of the sort, and my intention extends to simply sharing these fics to this page so people will have easier access to them :) that’s where ao3 tagging becomes SUPER useful!!!

So what’s the criteria for the way you’ll sort out the fics in your list?: word count, going from lowest to highest. in case of fics in other platforms, i guess i’ll put them at the top of the list. i’ll also be looking for fairly recent fics, so let me know if you want any old-ish fic to be included.

I see you talking mostly about 5up/Steve and Steve/Apollo. Can I still send/see other crewfu fics?: why yes absolutely! my goal is to push every fic which heavily features regular crewfu characters - 5uptic and supdog just happen to be very popular pairings. so, to give you a list: core 4 (5up, hafu, dk, steve), apollo, aipha, annie, janet, kimi, ellum, koji... you know the drill. it doesn’t have to be centered on a relationship, or about 5up in specific, etc. my only requirement is that any of the previously mentioned members are a central part of the fic or are HEAVILY featured in it (sorry, minecraft fics with 50+ tags who only mention 5up as an afterthought won’t make the cut :/).

Isn’t shipping Bad™?: well, it’s a little more nuanced than that. i will go out of my way to discourage and shame people who often violate CCs’ boundaries by acting like so and so has a crush on this person, or that this and that are Actually Into Each Other or secretly dating. any sort of tinhat bullshit is a big nono (think larries). but i run on the assumption that people who write rpf understand that what they’re doing is simply write a completely fictional story using real life personalities, and understand the boundaries necessary to do it - aka they’re not tinhats, they understand they can’t assume everything about CCs’ thoughts and personalities, they understand that what they’re writing is strictly fiction, they keep these works only in fandom circles, etc. (but again, it’s only one me doing this, so please be kind if i don’t happen to know that this person is Actually a tinhat or whatever).

show fic: NO. (seriously. i don’t feel comfortable putting my ao3 account out there. please respect my privacy on these trying times <3)

I REALLY don’t care about your rpf/fic talk: fair! i’ll be tagging every single one of these posts as “fanfic spotlight”, so just mute the tag using tumblr settings so you’ll never have to look at these! likewise, you can follow the tag if you want to keep up with it, or search it on my blog to look at the other entries you might have missed (but this is the first one! lol).

Hey, my fic is here and I don’t feel comfortable with it being shared over here: no problem! let me know as soon as you can and i’ll take it down <3

#crewfu #fanfic spotlight

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mxgilray · 3 years

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Loki Season 1 Thoughts

Overall, I really liked this series. It has some issues without question, but I sincerely don't think it's the dumpster fire so many viewers on this site treat it as. Did it go how I expected? Not at all? Did I enjoy the heck out of it and look forward to it every Wednesday? Hell yeah!

Loki's Good Guy Personality

A big complaint many have had with it is how much Loki's demeanor has changed and how his emotional growth feels rushed or his personality is ooc. Truth is, he saw his entire future, saw what his angry, power hungry, I-work-alone persona would get him in the end, and it snapped him back to reality. He has always been shown to be quite emotional and craving attention and lacking in self assurance, it's just in the past movies he's masked it with violence and fake narcissism, and he's always been a secondary character so his perspective is rarely shown. But if you really pay attention it's obvious he isn't truly villainous; we all know that, it's largely why he has such a huge fan base.

Right after meeting Mobius, Loki got an infodump of his future, saw his parents both die, found out that free will means jack shit, and learned he's absolutely powerless in this realm. On top of that, this is 2012 Loki, fresh off of being under Thanos' control, suddenly being shown that the guy who controlled him is going to end up killing him. Frankly,, I think it all broke Loki. He was too shook up by it all and by the sheer helplessness he found himself in at the TVA that he let all his barriers down momentarily. Just long enough for him to open up to Mobius about his motivation and his lack of self confidence. And you know what I bet? Loki felt relieved after talking to Mobius. A weight was lifted, because he bore his heart to someone and wasn't rejected or laughed at or treated like a psycho. And after letting his walls down fully, Loki didn't feel the need to put all of them back up. He stayed guarded around other people, but he didn't need to pretend around Mobius. Mobius has seen under the mask, so Loki doesn't feel pressure to perform as an all knowing, all powerful God around Mobius. That freedom is life changing.

People who gravitate towards broken, pseudo-villain characters do so because we relate to their internal conflict, their mental illness, their need to fake it around everyone close to them. Their turmoil and depression and self destructive behavior are familiar and we see ourselves reflected in their actions. Now, when a person really truly let's their guard down, drops all their layers of facade, and embraces themself, they tend to change demeanor and even personality pretty drastically. It's jarring in real life, so of course when it happens to a fictional character who you usually relate to it is going to be jarring, maybe even more so because it feels like a change you yourself would never go through. I know this sounds bad and people might get at me for it, but...

I believe the issue here is that a large part of Loki's fan base doesn't want him to get better. They don't want him to move past his mental illness, to learn how to cope with anger and disappointment in healthier ways, to be happy. They like his damaged persona, they like the internal conflict. Maybe it's because they're still at that low place themself and feel like a relatable character is getting taken away from them, maybe it's because they don't understand how much being at peace with yourself can alter a person and to them it feels like he's been changed too much. To those of us mostly on the up and up from battling depression and mental illness, it's comforting to see Loki getting a chance to be genuinely happy and accepting of himself.

Sylki and Lokius

First things first, I'm not anti anything. Ship what you want, idc. Personally, I do not see the Sylki dynamic as romantic, but I get why people read it that way. I thought the series did a good job of showing unrequited love, namely Loki falling for Sylvie and Sylvie feeling zero romance towards him. This was aware of his attraction and in the end used it as a distraction so she could get the upper hand. The show played up the potential romance because we are viewing things from Loki's perspective and he's become smitten as a kitten. I do think in the long run they'll have a more sibling-like dynamic, one Loki realizes that you can feel extreme love and care for a person without it being romantic. I enjoyed how the show explored their relationship, though I do wish they hadn't had every character under the sun mention their moment on Lamentis-1 like it was some big deal to bond with someone you're about to die with.

I'm bitter towards the development of Lokius. It had a strong start in the beginning, and in ep 5 had some potential reignited, but then they had Mobius not know who Loki is at the end. I'm still hoping they're playing the long game with this ship and that it'll come to fruition partway through season 2. The chemistry is there, and Mobius knows Loki very intimately and isn't put off by his past. Loki also feels much more at ease around Mobius than he does around Sylvie. It's the comfort of a deep loving bond with Mobius verses the nervousness of a new crush that he feels for Sylvie.

I don't think Loki is quite aware of his feelings for Mobius, simply because it's based in friendship and mutual respect and isn't a hot and heavy lust. Plus, as soon as he was away from Mobius he was thrown into a near death experience with Sylvie and developed a surface crush during their heart to heart. Since Loki's still figuring out what genuine feelings are beyond anger and sadness, he sees the simplistic crush he has on Sylvie as love and the intimate bond he's been forming with Mobius as friendship. He doesn't understand his own feelings yet, but I think he'll figure it out next season. I mean, he was probably already rethinking his feelings for her after she kissed and betrayed him, mentally kicking himself for expecting her to not pull a Loki betrayal like he would've in the past.

The Time Variance Authority

I really like the concept of the TVA, the structure of it, the methods they use, the deeply fucked way they recruit employees, the cult like motto, shady Miss Minutes who is definitely playing her own long game, and the blind acceptance TVA agents have of the Time Keepers' will. It's all very well done... until your dig into the core, aka He Who Remains. They built up the idea that the Time Keepers created the TVA to prevent a multiverse war and that they created agents to enforce their will. Then the creating agents turned out to be fake, the Time Keepers were fake, I expected the reason for the TVA's existence to be fake to. It felt too simple to have it genuinely exist just to keep the multiverse in check. Why the anonymity, unless it's to keep from having agents target and prune versions of himself which.. songs like a decent solution. HWR made it sound as though the multiverse war was just a bunch of versions of himself screwing shit up, so why isn't the TVA's focus on eradicating every other variant of this guy? Sounds a lot easier and nicer than fucking with the free will of every other living being. So either Marvel made a bad call when choosing what HWR's motive was for creating the TVA, or he was lying about it all to cover up something sinister.

Overall Storyline

I'm fairly happy with the plot as a whole. There were some pacing issues and I think a few missed chances for deeper conversations between various characters. While I enjoyed the Loki variants, I honestly would've been happier seeing Tom playing most the variants (except Kid Loki and Classic Loki since they are clearly different age ranges). If there is supposed to be one sacred timeline, it seems off to me that Lokis would be allowed to vary so extremely without it causing a nexus event(an alligator, whose nexus wasn't that he's an animal who obviously can't do any magic much less command Thanos' army, but that he ate someone's cat) and not just in appearance but in life path (ie boastful Loki collected all the infinity stones but it wasn't till he had 6 that he caused a nexus event even though him gaining control of the Soul, Power, and Time stones should've each caused nexus events since on the sacred timeline he never interacts with those 3 and taking any one of them would've fucked up a lot of other timeline parts)

I love the display of Lokis raw power, and 2012 Loki coming to the realization that he's way more powerful than he ever thought. And it wasn't just Classic Loki who spent thousands of years alone honing his skills, 2012 Loki reversed time on a goddamn falling building! I also liked the small magic, the fireworks, the tablecloth blanket, Loki yanking Sylvie away from HWR with just magic.

As someone who is both bisexual and genderfluid, I would've really loved more concrete representation. The comment about there never being another female Loki hit me in the gut; it undermined the Easter egg "Sex: Fluid" on Loki's TVA file. With how big a deal Sylvie being female was made out to be throughout the season, I expected her gender to play a key role in taking down the head of the TVA, like it was foretold that only a female Loki could end it all or some shit.

I don't mind the idea of Loki finding love in a straight passing relationship. I don't even mind the selfcest all that much. It just feels so obvious to me that Sylvie is written as not having any romantic inclination towards Loki, while Mobius is clearly written as falling in love with someone he shouldn't and trying to maintain an heir of professionalism to keep from wrecking his bond with Loki. I really really hope they come through on season 2 and give Lokius the canon relationship and proper representation they deserve.

Mmkay I thinks that's all the thoughts I've got right now. If you've been feeling cheated or clowned by how things went this season, maybe my perspective of things can help ease your pain.

#loki spoilers #loki series #loki #mobius m mobius #sylvie laufeydottir #lokius #sylki #tva loki #time variance authority #marvel #mcu

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freddiekluger · 3 years

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please drop the essay length analysis Judas and Jesus (extra gay Swedish edition), O great and knowledgeable monarch of our times

alright, you ask i deliver! please excuse any typos, my eyes aren't exactly working rn

welcome to my probably super subjective but correct analysis, aka

Judas Was Right and Jesus Was A Victim (At Least, In Swedish)

Before we get started, a couple points: i’ll try to avoid comparisons to other specific productions, i’ve only seen the other recorded 2012 british version which i didn’t like for reasons including but not limited to the amount of white people with dreadlocks. Also, my understanding of swedish is limited to a couple words and phrases, so most of the lyrics i reference will be english subtitles from Ola Salo’s swedish translation and therefore might not be the most accurate !

There’s so much i could cover in this, but for now i’m going to focus on how jesus and judas are portrayed in the 2014 swedish arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar (JCS) starring Ola Salo as Jesus and Peter Johansson as Judas, along with how this production more implicitly views god.

From the opening number, translated into swedish as En Dimmig Himmelsdröm (A Foggy Heaven’s Dream), Peter Johansson’s acting and semantic differences in the lyrics present us with a deeply sympathetic portrayal of Judas. Looking purely at language, the english equivalent Heaven On Their Minds instantly paints Judas as much more of a faithless doubter- lyrics exclusive to the english version like “all your followers have gone blind / too much heaven on their minds” and “they think you’re the new messiah / and they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong” strongly enforce Judas’ main motivation for his actions being that he has less belief in Jesus and God’s plan than any of the other disciples with strong statements judging the other disciples for following him and claiming that Jesus ISN’T the messiah. The swedish translation doesn’t paint exactly the same picture- the focus of Judas’ number becomes his fear for Jesus’ wellbeing, not because he isn’t the messiah (the production remains fairly ambiguous on this point), but because Jesus can’t cope. The root of Judas’ concern comes from fear for Jesus’ wellbeing, and the disciples are referenced as regularly misunderstanding and wilfully twisting Jesus’ words. The swedish equivalent lyrics for the above examples are “they say, “jesus is god’s son” / but you know how people can change” (judas isn’t concerned with truth, just the danger that jesus will be in if the tide turns), and “the kingdom of heaven is within us, that’s what you said / bu they sew it, stitch by stich into some kind of foggy heaven’s dream”. Judas is showing that he HAS been listening and cares for Jesus’ teachings, but ‘they’ [his disciples] are turning them into something else entirely, and Judas’ worries that the support of the masses is fragile at best- the lines “and everything you say gets twisted by your lackeys / it will be anything but what you’ve said” and “you are being used by people who want you in their battle” reinforces this again. When combined with Peter Johansson’s tough but tender performance, in which he dances between disdain for Jesus, the institution, and affection for Jesus, the man (an important distinction), Judas is the harsh realist doing his best to look out for the man he loves. The way he takes Jesus hands and looks at him with love and urgency straight away establishes that his motivations are pure- Judas is doing what he thinks is best, even though it feels like no one will listen to him.

That was long, but En Dimmig Himmelsdröm is the perfect character introduction for Judas. He’s not totally unrecognisable, still delivering digs about ‘Jesus, the little carpenter’s son’, his manner is still rough and at this point we’re not sure whether or not the claims he makes about the disciples have any truth to them, BUT we can also see how much Jesus means to him, an important point that give context to the intensity of their future arguments and really makes the whole story much more heartbreaking.

This brings me to Ola Salo’s Jesus. Delightfully camp and queercoded, Judas describes him as being caught up in his own magic and mystery and buckling under the pressure, and he’s not entirely wrong. Throughout the first act, Jesus basks in the luxuries that being messiah can give him (the oils Mary paid for using disciple funds that were supposed to go towards helping the poor, him absolutely thriving in the shopping cart in What’s the Buzz?), and is shown actively avoiding any reminders of the seriousness of his position. He’s sick of the disciples asking him for a plan, he chooses the comforting Mary, who’s theme consists of telling Jesus everything is okay and he doesn’t need to think about anything, over Judas, who is less perhaps ‘cosy’ but is actively trying to warn and protect Jesus from an awful fate. During The Temple, he starts to crack as he’s overcome by the followers begging him to make him well, fear in his eyes as he raises his arms while frozen on the spot trying to avoid being devoured by the frenzy in desperate need of a messiah. Judas’ point about Jesus buckling under the pressure is starting to look more and more reasonable, and the dashes of showbiz campness add to the sense that much of Jesus is a persona constructed for the masses to give himself enough distance to prevent him from being crushed by the weight of God entirely. Jesus, the institution, prances around, lays his hands on his followers, and projects an air of easygoing calm. Jesus, the man, is scared and alone, and Jesus, the man, really comes out in Last Supper, but before we get there, I want to circle back to the Jesus/Mary/Judas thing.

Jesus, Mary, and Judas are presented as a love triangle: so much so, that Judas seeing Mary sing of her love for Jesus (I Don’t Know How To Love Him) is actually played as the inciting incident that sends him to the pharisees. Judas, the picture of the jealous lover, storms onto the scene, breaking them up and attempting to kiss Jesus, who instead shoves him to the ground in disdain. Judas, who is perhaps a little controlling, realises that any influence he had over Jesus has gone, and it’s likely a combination of jealousy and the knowledge that Jesus won’t stop that prompts him to head to the pharisees. In his meeting with the pharisees (known in english as Damned For All Time, although that phrase doesn’t appear once in the swedish), Judas’ expresses outright that “I’m the one who sees / Jesus, he can’t handle it anymore” “the truth is that this hysteria is making him lose control”, once he can get past explaining how much this plan of action feels like a last resort. He never even verbally or physically accept the pharisees’ offer of money, he denies it twice before it is eventually thrown over him after he reluctantly gives them the date and time to find Jesus- we never even see him pick it up, unlike other productions which show Judas grabbing for the cash and place a higher emphasis on Judas making sure he ‘won’t be damned for all time’, painting Judas as far more self serving. When it comes to Jesus, Judas is active- he’s running around trying to help, caressing him, embracing him, grabbing his hand, kissing him. They share countless moment of intimacy, especially at the start, establishing the fondness between them instead of instantly jumping to their conflict. When it comes to Mary (and admittedly, this is partially because she’s a secondary character- don’t get me wrong I still love her and Gunilla Backman does a brilliant job), she’s much more passive. Other than the much more gentle kisses in I Don’t Know How To Love Him and her penchant for dabbing Jesus’ forehead, she’s mostly just ‘there’. She cares for Jesus after the fact, and even when performing acts of intimacy like the oil and the kiss, she maintains a lot of physical distance- her songs touch on this as, much like Jesus (admittedly for different reasons), she actively distances herself from feelings to protect herself, so naturally she literally places distance between herself and the object of her love.

This brings me back to Last Supper, Gethsemane ( I Only Want to Say), and the kiss of death that broke all of our hearts. Throughout this segment, this is when Jesus, the man, really comes through, and it’s devastating. In Last Supper, he properly expresses the sheer amount of loneliness he feels, reiterating how he feels everyone will forget about him once he’s gone, and doesn’t really care about him as a man (”for you, my blood is not worth more than wine / for you, my body is not worth more than bread” “you will have forgotten me as soon as i give up my life”). This devolves into the disciples fighting each other and, you guessed it, ignoring him. For the first time, Jesus meaningfully lets out his anger, and as it turns to Judas, Judas does the same. Because of the set up of their complicated romantic relationship and the stakes involved, the amount of personal attacks and anger that comes out of Jesus and Judas’ repeated fights (which get physical) make complete sense- Jesus’ frustrations come from the fact that his entire fate has been predetermined and to him, Judas is just another instrument in the ways he’s been controlled (both with Judas being his betrayer, but also the way that Judas’ constant advice and interference with Jesus’ life (most obviously, the mary thing) are acted by Ola Salo as becoming increasingly frustrating to Jesus)- these frustrations are directed at their real cause, God, in Gethsemane. Judas’ frustrations come from the fact that no matter how hard he tries to help Jesus and keep him safe, Jesus keeps rejecting his efforts resulting in “all that we’ve built up [being] destroyed”- Judas’ heart hasn’t just been broken by Jesus rejecting him romantically, but on every level. Here, he’s actually shown to be the disciple most passionate about helping people practically and long term, being the only one concerned about Mary taking money which was supposed to help people, manipulated by the pharisees with the promise of doing good for the masses, and criticising Jesus for how they could be doing so much for people, ending his part of Last Supper with “every time i look at you i ask myself why you let all your things go so wrong? / all i ever wanted was to help you”.

This is also the point where Judas’ claims about the disciples are essentially confirmed, and this productions intent to portray Judas as more of a tragic hero become absolutely clear. In the english version, the disciples chorus remains virtually the same each time it appears, generally being far too calm considering their leader is about to die, revealing their aspirations to be apostles, and their intent to write the gospels to be remembered. the swedish translation still achieve this, but with variations from chorus to chorus it becomes much more poignant. i’m just going to stick to ttwo, which are choruses 1 and 3. In chorus 1, lines roughly translate to “i’ve always wanted to be an apostle / life is so nice when you’re saved/ then when we’ve got time we’ll write the gospels / then everything will be the way we want”- the apostles declaring that life is so good when you’re saved supports Judas’ opening statement that they care more about some idea of heaven than anything else, not to mention ignoring the absolute horrors that Jesus will have to go through to be saved, while the final line about the gospels introduces their intent to change whichever details they need to make ‘everything the way we want’: once again, exactly what Judas warned us of in En Dimmig Himmelsdröm. In chorus 3, taking place after Judas storms out for the last time, these lines change to ��never really liked that judas / never saw what jesus saw in him / then, when we’ve got time we’ll write the gospels / and we’ll angle it so he gets all the blame”. Judas as a sympathetic character is confirmed here, as the disciples straight up admit how they don’t like Judas anyways and intend to write him as a villain (also inadvertently admitting that, since they have to write the gospels to make it look like only Judas’ fault, Judas isn’t really the sole one responsible for everything that is to come). It’s deeply unsettling, and for me was the point where I really began to question how good any of these disciples were, and by extension, how good is this production’s God if his truly sanctified followers are acting like this?

Jesus vents out all of his anger and desperation in Gethsemane. He acknowledges his own powerlessness and begs him to change the plan, but with the dark stage and no response (along with Ola Salo’s spectacular acting) it becomes clear that if anyone is there, they’re certainly not listening (”you, who have all the power / can you please change the plan / for i can already feel the pain burning in me”). It’s worth mentioning that a lot of the imagery in this swedish version is much more intense than the english, both in this song and the production as a whole. Jesus plainly calls god “thoughtless”, begging to understand, and it’s that this point we realise that he agrees with much more of what Judas has been saying than he’s been letting on- Jesus’ faith appears to be the only thing keeping him from listening to Judas and running away. Judas’ messages about people misunderstanding Jesus’ words also come out (”you care that everyone sees / but not that anyone understands”), and his eventual agreeing to die is played less as an inspiring act of faith, and more an act of desperation as he realises, he realise has no other choice. In this song, we see just how much of Judas Jesus has valued and taken on board, and that his air of carefree aloofness which frustrated Judas was, as we’ve already touched on, a complete act. The line “might as well finish what i’ve... what YOU’VE started” is absolutely miserable, reinforcing one of the major themes of this production: the idea that Jesus and Judas were both just ordinary men tormented by futures defined by forces out of their control. Just as Jesus has absorbed Judas’ logic, as an audience so we have, and it’s difficult to view the rest of the play’s events as anything other than an immense and unnecessary act of cruelty.

we’re almost done i promise!

Even knowing what Judas has/will do, Jesus still greets him with love. Judas, still under the impression that Jesus will be okay and that he’s doing what’s best, approaches him with the utmost tenderness, and the kiss is a beautiful signifier of two things. For Jesus, the return of his love for Judas shows his realisation in Gethsemane that Judas isn’t the one who’s sealed his fate and has only being trying to help, it’s god himself who has decided Jesus’ future. For Judas, the kiss shows that despite all of the anger and frustration that has been pouring out of him, he truly does love Jesus, and the way he cradles the scared and alone Jesus to his chest afterwards shows just how much he wishes he could be the one to help him and keep him close. Even with all their arguments and dysfunction, here Jesus and Judas find comfort in each other, and it almost seems like everything will end up alright. It’s in this moment that Judas and Jesus are most identifiable not as enemies, or as villain and hero, but as archetypal lovers from a Shakespearean tragedy. Neither of them set out to hurt each other, but through miscommunications, their own flaws, and external forces (both natural and supernatural), their love is simply never to be. Furthermore, in the following torture and spectacle, everything that Judas predicted for Jesus is about to come true. Another detail I find interesting is the way that Jesus and Judas both sport black nail polish, leather pants, and similar length hair: along with just looking cool as hell, the similarities really reinforce how close they are and how much they influence each other- it feels like a contemporary version of carrying a cameo or a lock of your lover's hair with you, a way for 'star crossed lovers' to keep a piece of their beloved no matter what.

The disaffected persona of Jesus, the institution, comes back as he’s taken by the authorities and subsequently insulted, degraded, and whipped. Also the swedish version of The Arrest, when the chorus starts singing questions, contains this dick joke and I think we all deserve it: “why were you dating a whore? / talk about a huge magic wand!”

Skipping forward to Judas’ Death, this is where both his character and the production’s conception of god beautifully (and miserably) align. When Judas runs to the pharisees, minor semantic changes (along with the genuine concern and great acting from Peter Johansson) reinforce that this Judas genuinely didn’t know that Jesus would be beaten and sentenced to death the way he has been, and Judas’ concern regarding how things look is played less as ‘oh no people will hate ME!’, but how having sentenced the man you love to death is one nightmarish thing, but for everyone to think you did it knowingly and willingly and then congratulate you for it is unthinkable. Where the english shows Judas’ attempting to evade responsibility for Jesus death, the swedish is more focused on Judas’ guilt, horror, and regret. The english “I’d save him all the suffering if I could / don’t believe our good / save him if I could” is swapped in swedish for “If anyone should die here I should / don’t say I’m good / better if I died”. While the english statements are somewhat empty (sure, Judas says he’d save Jesus’ suffering if he could, but he can’t so we’ll never truly know) and are still focused on Judas’ attempt to construct himself as a good guy, the swedish translation has Judas admit his guilt (even if it’s not really his fault), and make the promise of “better if i died” which, given the name of this sequence, he later delivers on. When english Judas sings “Christ, I’d sell out the nation / For I have been saddled with the murder of you”, swedish Judas sings “Jesus, I’ve been deceived / because of my act your blood’s now being spilt”, and instead of ending this first section with “I should be dragged through the slime and the mud”, swedish jesus returns to the theme of character assasination with “i will be cursed as the one behind your murder”.

The swedish translation of the next rework of I Don’t Know How to Love Him also places much more emphasis on Judas’ genuine romantic love for Jesus- we’d be here for hours if i listed everything but here are a few key contrasts. The english has Judas sing “I don’t know how to love him / I don’t know why he moves me”, whereas the swedish has Judas crying while singing “how do I show my love / all I want is to be close to you”. Along with acknowledging Judas already loves Jesus, the entirety of this segment is shifted from Judas singing about Jesus in the third person ‘he’, to a direct address. Judas isn’t performing his sadness, or venting his emotions, he’s emitting one last desperate cry to the man he loves as he sobs on a stage completely shrouded in darkness, and it’s devastating. Peter Johansson lets his voice run raw as he’s belting, and interrupts lines with sobs, and this Judas answers the question of “do you love me too? do you care for me?” with a quiet “no”- Judas is about to go to his death convinced Jesus must hate him, just as Jesus will face his knowing his love inadvertently put him there.

We finally reach Judas’ actual death, and the production’s far more ambiguous (if not negatively geared) depiction of god comes to a head. Judas’ screaming at god the moment he realises that his god essentially forced Judas to be the one to kill Jesus (an act of ultimate cruelty given their love) comes across as horrifying in it’s validity, unlike in other english language productions where it follows the more common characterisation of Judas being an unbeliever who can’t take responsibility for his own actions. When he spits on the ground, screaming “you have murdered me!”, we can’t help but agree- Judas was trying everything he could to stop Jesus from dying, and yet here he is. Most notably, Judas doesn’t set up his own suicide- a noose literally descends from the heavens, already tied, and Judas is literally trapped between the edge of the stage, and the symbol of death behind him. Much like he didn’t choose to kill Jesus, Judas has no choice in his own suicide- it’s suggested to merely be another part of the plan god has for him, and Judas raising his arms to form a crucifixion pose before he finally turns and jumps, disappearing into the depths of the theatre as the rope trails down (somewhat evocative of a leap to hell), highlight the sick joke. Much like Jesus begging in Gethsemane, a plea with god that in anyway implies fault or cruelty is met with silence followed by a death sentence.

When Judas reappears to the broken and bloodied Jesus in Superstar, he appears as more of a twisted hallucination than the literal spirit of Judas. He’s the opposite of everything he was in life, draped in colour, surrounded by red lighting instead of the signature blue, his hair quite literally let down, joking and dancing. Despite singing about him, Judas virtually ignores Jesus for the whole song except when he’s taunting him, snatching his hand away after a broken and desperate Jesus reaches out for the image of his beloved (refuting Judas’ belief that Jesus would die hating him), along with the swedish additions of Judas repeatedly addressing him as “little Jesus”. Where the living Judas was serious, sometimes harsh but always well intention, often paying more attention to Jesus than he received, this Judas is the opposite: light hearted but cruel, not caring about Jesus one bit. It’s somewhat an inversion of the beginning of JCS, where the tormented Judas was constantly reaching out to Jesus, and often met with scorn and insult (see: most of their arguments, this line from Everything’s Alright: “the thought is beautiful but quite unrealistic / yes, even quite stupid”). As the song goes on, and even as Jesus is crucified, the victorious scoring of the Superstar theme ends up reinforcing the cruelty and questioning of god distinctive of this production: Ola Salo’s Jesus is one of the bloodiest Jesus’s (Jesii?) I’ve been able to find, with blood covering his torso, his arms, and all over his face, not in passive dribbles, but violent ‘swooshes’ spreading out from his eyes, emphasising the fear and pain contained within them. As the music suggests how great and wonderful Jesus’ death is, the images straight out of a horror movie before us don’t seem to match up: as both Judas and Jesus question, if no one is understanding what Jesus is saying, why kill him? instead of making a point, you’re ensuring that the falsehoods continue to circulate, unless spreading the true message isn’t really the intent at all. or, simply that Jesus was wrong: his interpretation and teachings of god were far too kind and practical, and the true god really is the one that he briefly saw in the garden of Gethsemane, and that Judas saw before his death- a cruel and vindictive god using them for his own sick purposes. If you're a strong Christian, I'm sure you could watch this production and still believe that God was right (although I think Jesus and Judas being in love counts as blasphemy), but I think in doing so you'd lose part of what makes this production so hard hitting and, as i keep saying, devastating.

that’s pretty much it for this one! i feel like jesus and judas as a queer couple is less significant to this production than the fact that it’s specifically jesus and judas that are in love - they don’t face explicit homophobia as such, although i do think the paratextual and historical associations of queerness (both with them each looking visibly queer, and them as a couple) adds a beautiful dimension by subverting the standard christian teaching of Jesus’ sacrifice as “a love that changed the world” and making the love that truly could have been transformative (and was, to a degree) the love between Jesus and another man, not to mention the way in which queerness is often viewed as radical perfectly upholding the ‘radical’ views of god and the story of Jesus shown in the production. Why wouldn’t the love between two men be the love which has us questioning god, faith, and that which many of us have been taught since birth? Ola Salo has talked about how he’s able to be positive and negative towards christianity, along with how he wanted Jesus and Judas to really represent two sides of the same coin (’faith and intelligence’), and being bisexual along with having alluded to being raised christian (not to mention Breaking Up With God, a song by his band The Ark), it’s not surprising he’s managed to present such a nuanced and layered interpretation of Jesus Christ Superstar that even me, a trans exvangelical, can fall in love with.

UPDATE: @bands-and-hobbits has just let me know that Ola's dad was a priest! Apparently he's said that he liked the organs and the music, but that was all when it comes to christianity, which (when combined with Ola stating in interviews that the JCS soundtrack has been one of his favourite albums since he was 14) makes a lot of sense about the level of familiarity he had with the text giving him confidence to go in and make changes to really capitalised off of some of the themes that are hinted at in the english version- you have enough information to understand how everything works together, but aren't so dedicated to preserving belief that you feel you can't improve/change things (and my god are we glad he did)

#thank you if you made it this far!#also the inherent rhythm in swedish as a language just makes all of the songs sound better i'm gonna say it #english is really hit and miss when it comes to music and can get especially clunky with musicals requiring exposition #also sorry there's so much i've left out !#anyways enjoy #jesus christ superstar #jesus christ superstar swedish arena tour 2014 #jcs #peter johansson #ola salo #also i have barely edited this so i hope it's coherent

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thisonesatellite · 3 years

Text

everybody knows -- CH 5

SUMMARY : In Killian’s world there are neither heroes nor villains.

There are only those who give and those who take, and you better not be the former.

He’s a taker, has spent his entire life being a taker, because if you’re a taker, there is never a price to pay.

Until there is.

AKA: The paths towards love and the meaning of life are twisted and tangled and full of detours, and some of those roads aren’t paved.

| AO3 | CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 |

A/N: Oh - my dears. This chapter. i tellya. This one nearly killed me.

i wrote the first half no less than three times, trying to get the plot AND the mood AND the character development right, wrote the rest of it, polished, excised, re-worked, rewrote, edited, wrote some more, and cut thousands of words along the way. Every time i thought i had a handle on it, something would feel off, and i'd pull a tiny little thread just to watch the whole damn thing unravel, and anyway, it was A Lot. 😂

So, guys - here is where you find out some Stuff(TM) and get some answers, wrapped up in a growing connection and a lot of softness and yes, all the bedsharing i teased you with (and more), so please enjoy. (Also, at nearly 6K - it's a beast. i hope it makes up for the endless waiting i put you through.)

Because if you listen real close you can hear a faint whistling in the air, such as heralds a falling object.

Like a hammer.

But not yet. Fluff and a bit of catharsis first, my loves. 💖

All the thanks MUST go to @profdanglaisstuff - who went through this FOUR TIMES, FOUR, including a lightning round today. Babe - you're my hero. HERO.

AND THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND ENCOURAGMENT. It means everything to me, everything.

i DO NOT DESERVE YOU GUYS.

(BUT i LOVE YOU A LOT. SERIOUSLY. SO MUCH. NO, i WILL NOT STOP YELLING. 💕💕💕)

i’m using the regular tag list. Please let me know if you want to be added or removed.

@mariakov81 @stahlop @thejollyroger-writer @captainsjedi @ohmightydevviepuu @toomanyfandomstochoosefrom @snowbellewells @xarandomdreamx @tiganasummertree @sals86 @karenfrommisthaven @kmomof4 @kday426 @superchocovian @jennjenn615 @facesiousbutton82 @suwya @spartanguard @capnjay21 @shardminds @carpedzem @girl-in-a-tiny-box @ilovemesomekillianjones @lfh1226-linda @artistic-writer @teamhook @katie-dub @shireness-says @qualitycoffeethings @cluttermind @fragilebeautifulchaos @optomisticgirl @klynn-stormz @winterbaby89 @etheral-madness @scientificapricot @anxioussquirrel @killianjones-twopointoh @captain-emmajones @xsajx

CHAPTER 5

Emma can’t sleep.

She can’t sleep and she can’t stop thinking of his face. She can’t tell what’s real and what’s contrived anymore, probably no more than he can. It’s hard to tell who is the frog and who is the scorpion. But when she left him in the living room he looked sad.

Purely and only sad. That she knows.

Somehow he has carved out a place in her life, within just these few days, and it’s not just the sumptuous food and the dry wit and the dancing eyebrows. He hasn’t changed from the slick hustler he was back at the bar and yet he is different. Or at the very least, he is more. There is a human being inside the persona after all, a person with a real past, and real emotions, and a real life, even if he keeps it under lock and key. A person who can feel pain.

She keeps seeing his face.

And then she makes a decision.

With a sigh she gets up and walks out into the living room. The lights are off, but the TV is running, muted, turned to the weather channel. It throws an eerie glow onto the couch where he sits, upright, curled up in a corner, under the blanket. His shoulders are rigid as he turns towards her and promptly reaches for the remote.

“I’m sorry Emma, is the TV keeping you---”

“No,” she says and sits down on the coffee table to face him. “No, Killian, the TV didn’t bother me at all.”

His hand lowers but his posture stays tense and guarded and Emma sighs. There is only one peace offering she can make here.

She takes a deep breath and looks at him, coiled like a spring, and dives into the deep end.

“When I was twelve I was placed with a foster family right outside of Boston,” she says, her voice quiet and low. “The mother was a bipolar alcoholic, but they fudged their application because they needed the money. As you know it’s not uncommon.”

“More like the rule.” His voice is a whisper.

“Yeah.” It’s a sigh into the past. She has to be careful. But he’s still sitting there, huddled, defensive, tension rolling off of him in waves, and he deserves a piece of something real as much as she did. “They had a closed off porch at the back of the house and they would lock us in for punishment. It was sweltering in the summer, so hot you couldn’t breathe, but in the winter---” She swallows hard. “Boston winters are nothing to scoff at.”

The way he looks at her. Like he knows cold.

“She used to drag us out there by the hair.” Emma can still feel it, the pull, the dull ache at the back of her skull, the frantic stumbling and trying to keep up with her steps, keep the pain down, keep the panic at bay while literally running towards your demise. Her eyes are fixed on the wall, but she doesn’t see it, can only see the hallway stretching to a dirty white back door. “It was her favorite method of punishment. Not her husband’s though. He preferred a belt.”

Killian gasps and Emma’s gaze snaps to his. His eyes are wide and shiny.

“One day though, the husband caught me sneaking a jar of peanut butter--- i used to keep peanut butter under my bed. I loved that shit.” She shakes her head, tries to keep the memory loose, impersonal. “Anyway, he caught me and started to drag me to the porch - by the hair, just like the wife - but he wasn’t used to it and I just--- I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t even scared, I was angry. Just--- furious, you know?” Her eyes are once again glued to the wall behind Killian’s left shoulder, but in her peripheral vision she can see him nod.

“Anyway, I punched him, and he went down, and the wife saw it and pulled me out to the porch and they left me there all night. In November.” I thought I was going to die out there, she doesn’t say. Fall asleep and wake up frozen solid. She takes a deep breath. “So that’s what I dreamt about. You know, earlier.” She shakes her head, straightens her spine, pulls back her shoulders. “It’s fine, by the way. This is all ancient history and I have dealt with it and put it to rest and it can’t hurt me anymore. I don’t dream of it often.”

He looks shellshocked. Shellshocked and yet entirely unsurprised.

“Scars?” he whispers. “Did they leave any scars?”

Oh god. He does know. She is sure of it now.

Scars are the measure of survival. They are the markers of endurance and perseverance. They are the signs of shame and failure and defiance, the badges of courage and the price of grit and mettle. It is important to remember them and even more important to forget. He knows.

“Some.” She nods. “Not all.”

“How do you mean?”

She takes another deep breath. “I don’t remember anything before that family. When I first got there I fell out of a top bunk and hit my head really hard on the concrete floor and they think that’s why I can’t remember.” She shrugs. “I don’t remember the fall either, so I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter anyway. And I know it’s not their fault - at least the fall isn’t. I know that. But I blame them. It’s like they took away a piece of me, the first piece of me, and I’ll never get it back and I---” she almost sobs, but swallows it down--- “I hate them so much for it.”

He’s silent for endless moments, his eyes large and immeasurably sad.

And then he sighs. “I’m so sorry, love.” His voice is low and raw. “So sorry.”

And he gets up and wraps his arms around her and she lets him.

Minutes later he pulls back and in the dim light of the television she watches him sit back down on the edge of the couch, their knees almost touching. Like he can’t bring himself to put distance between them. She is glad for it. It seems whoever they are during the day dissolves at night, like the darkness strips them down to their core, like they become versions of themselves they don’t even know. It’s enough to make her head hurt and her mind spin and she doesn’t want to think anymore.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” she whispers.

He leans forward and takes her hand. His fingers are warm. “Do with me?”

She laughs, helpless. “You just--- I know who you are. I know what you are. I should just kick you out and tell you not to come back and never think of you again.” His breath hitches and--- is that fear in his eyes? She shakes her head. “But I can’t.” It’s a whisper.

His breathing is ragged. It takes him a long time to get it under control enough to answer, and when he finally does, it sounds broken. Not like him at all.

“I know,” he says. “And I don’t understand it.” There are tears in his eyes. “You and I are---”

His voice cuts out and he squeezes her hand. She is holding her breath. The weather channel flickers light across his hopeless, defeated expression and it makes her ache.

She gets up and pulls him with her. And then she marches them towards her bedroom, their hands still entwined, and it takes him until they’re almost through the door to stop her.

“Emma, no,” he whispers. “This is not how I---”

“Shhhhhhh,” she says, turning around. “Please, Killian. Just lie down with me. I’m too tired to fight. I’m too tired to think.” She shrugs. “I just--- I just want to sleep.” I just want to lie down and not be alone for a night. She doesn’t say it, but he hears it anyway.

“OK,” he breathes. “I can do that.”

-/-

She wakes up with Killian’s arm heavy across her middle and his nose buried in the hair at her neck. He is making soft, sleepy sounds and his breathing is even and deep and she feels more peaceful and rested than she has in months. Years, possibly. He shifts his weight and his arm tightens for a moment, but he doesn’t wake up, and Emma doesn’t move.

It’s Saturday. There is no schedule on Saturdays. Nothing to do except that which you feel like. And Emma feels like lying here, in her warm, comfortable bed, with a warm, comfortable Killian at her back, not thinking about a damn thing, least of all the man in her bed.

She doesn’t have to analyse this.

She doesn’t have to pick the pieces of the previous night, of this morning, of them apart and examine them from all angles until they’re hopelessly distorted and impossible to fit back together.

She can just lie here, warm and comfortable, and enjoy it while it lasts.

She closes her eyes and puts her hand on Killian’s across her belly. His fingers tighten reflexively. She falls back asleep.

She wakes up a second time from a sudden influx of cold and the absence of weight next to her. He has gotten up. He walks around the bed as she blinks her eyes open and even half asleep she knows---

this is the moment.

This moment, the first moment they are both awake, will determine the rest of their interaction. Forever.

He looks at her, sleepy and disheveled, sees she is awake and kneels down next to her side of the bed.

“Hey,” he says. His voice is soft and there is no shame in it, no awkwardness. “Did you sleep OK?”

She smiles. She’s grateful. He sounds relaxed and at ease and she is just so grateful. A small voice at the back of her head is trying to ask how many women he has woken up next to, for him to be so at ease with the situation, and she silences it.

Because the smile he returns is languid and real.

“Better than I have in ages,” she says, and he nods.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Me too.”

Then he gets up. “Coffee?”

She nods.

“Stay put,” he says. “I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

And Emma stretches and allows herself to imagine what it would be like if this were real.

-/-

“How on earth did you manage this?” He looks up at her over the rim of his cup while she shovels a truly gigantic piece of waffle into her mouth. God, his waffles are amazing. “I don’t have a waffle iron.”

He smiles that same languid, easy smile. “I brought mine.”

“From your place?”

His brow furrows. “I went home yesterday to check on my apartment. It will definitely take another week.” He looks up. “Is that still all right with you?”

Emma cuts off another enormous piece, dripping with syrup, and says, “How could I possibly say no to these? I need you to make these every morning. Actually, I’m fine if you make nothing but waffles for the entire rest of the time you stay here.”

“I cannot condone that. You will have to ingest the occasional vitamin.”

“Fine. I can snack on celery and peanut butter at work. Will that do?”

Killian rolls his eyes. “Absolutely not and you know it. Besides, there are several countries we have not yet explored. You know-- from a culinary standpoint.”

“Do those countries have waffles?”

“You’re impossible.”

Emma grins. “Don’t tell me you don’t love a challenge.”

And just like that his face falls, and for a moment he looks like he’s in pain. Actual pain. The silence that follows is heavy and sad. He shakes his head and looks down and Emma can’t think of a single thing to say to break them out of this moment.

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. “I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.”

Emma bites her lip. “Are you all right?”

“Am I----” He barks a laugh, bitter and helpless. “Am I all right? Yes, Emma. I am perfectly fine.” It’s a lie. It’s the first outright lie he has told her. “And yes. I do love a challenge.” That is not a lie. It is the absolute truth, and as heavy and sad as the silence that still lingers.

With an effort he straightens up and smiles a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Do you have any plans for today?”

“No,” she says. “I don’t do field work, so I usually get the weekend.”

“Perfect,” he grins and oh--- the difference between that grin and all the empty smiles before it. “In that case, Emma Nolan, I think it is high time you realized that there is a farmer’s market less than two blocks from here every Saturday.”

“How do you know what goes on in my neighborhood on weekends?”

He looks at her gravely. “There is a new thing out now, called the internet.”

She grins. “Smartass. And how do you know I don’t already know about this market?”

He laughs out loud and looks at her in mock consternation until she rolls her eyes and concedes that she had no idea farmers markets were a thing at all.

“Would you like to accompany me?” His eyebrows dance. His eyes shine. He’s nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet. She laughs again and nods. He leans forward and gives her a smacking kiss on the cheek and then disappears into the kitchen to take stock of their supplies and make a list, and Emma leans back into the couch and just lets herself believe all of this is real.

-/-

The market is loud and crowded, two things Emma does not enjoy in abundance, but half an hour in even she concedes that this is the most fun she’s had in months. Not counting the pitch meeting at the café. Killian reminds her of an overexcited puppy, checking out the stalls, looking at fruit and vegetables and cheeses and jars of herbs and spices she has never heard of, and talking to all the vendors as if they were his best friends. A thought surfaces unbidden from their first night at the diner, about the nature of his line of work and the lack of friendship it brings, and this, here, these casual interactions with vendors who don’t know him and won’t remember him -- this is so obviously where he can connect with the world, if only for a moment, it makes something inside her hurt.

“Look, Emma--- they have girolles!” He points to a tub of yellow-brown mushrooms that look like trumpets and licks his lips. “Half a pound,” Killian says to the burly man behind the stand as he pulls out his wallet, “and at least six or seven shallots.” He turns to Emma. “Just you wait.”

Emma shakes her head to hide her grin and Killian pays the man and then says, “Coffee?”

And Emma sighs. “Oh god, yes. So much yes.”

He pulls her by the wrist to a stand with ‘the best coffee on the eastern seaboard’ and they settle on a bus bench. He puts the bags down with an audible exhale.

“Heavy?” She smiles sweetly.

“Not at all,” he says, rubbing his shoulder.

“Remember how I offered to help you carry and you scoffed?”

He rubs his shoulder again. “I am a stupid, stupid man. Misguided notions of chivalry and all that.”

“Yeah, well, turns out twelfth-century code of conduct will give you scoliosis.”

He laughs out loud. “You really are impossible.”

“It’s part of my charm.”

She smiles and he looks at her, with that open expression that has not left his face for days now. “It certainly is.” He loosely wraps an arm around her shoulders and that’s when she feels it.

It’s like an instinct of danger and foreboding, a frisson of fear and a spike of fight or flight. And then a shadow falls across her face and she hears his voice, cold and sharp, “Hello, Emma.”

Every muscle in her body tenses, coils like a spring. She can feel Killian next to her sit up straight and go on high alert.

“Emma,” he says. “Who is this?”

She tries to remember how to breathe. It takes her three failed attempts to get her voice to work before she rasps, “Someone who’s not allowed within 100 feet of me.”

Killian gets up and puts himself between Emma and the man in one swift, smooth motion. Emma stares up at Killian’s back, stiff and solid before her, and listens as he says, “I think you’d best be off. Mate.”

This must be another remnant of a childhood spent on another continent. The a in Mate is soft and stretched and entirely un-American, but more than that, it is menacing.

“It’s a public place,” the man says. “There was no way I could have known she was here.”

Emma can almost hear the answering glare Killian is giving him, and the man sighs like a put-upon diva.

“Fine,” he huffs. “I’ll go.” There’s a moment of silence and then the man’s voice rings out one more time, a little further away. “Good luck with that, by the way.” Everyone in a 10 foot radius knows who he means by ‘that’. “Fucking duckling.”

Emma just feels numb.

“Hey.” Killian’s voice is soft and very calm and Emma feels him take the paper cup from her hand. “Can you get up for me, love?”

She gets up slowly, because none of this is real, and feels him heft their bags on one shoulder. He wraps his other arm around her and steers her past laughing vendors and screaming children and animated conversation until they end up at Emma’s front door, and then there is an elevator, and a hallway, and her apartment door, and he simply leads her to the couch and sits down next to her.

He doesn’t ask if she’s all right.

He doesn’t talk at all.

He just sits there, next to her, holding her hand and softly rubbing his thumb across her knuckles.

Finally Emma shakes her head and looks up at him. His eyes are large and worried and still so blue and so close, she has to look away again.

“His name is Walsh,” she says. “And we are never talking about him. Ever.”

She looks up again and his brow is furrowed.

“Ever,” she repeats. “You know how we didn’t talk about your brother?”

He nods.

“That’s how much we’re not talking about Walsh.”

He nods again and squeezes her fingers and says, “Whatever you need, love.”

And Emma starts to cry.

She doesn’t even really know why. Tears just start to roll down her face like she’s a fucking kid whose bike got stolen. Not that Emma’s ever had a bike. She just sits there, drops running down her cheeks and she can’t stop it, can’t rein herself in, and worse-- she doesn’t want to, because he’s just sitting there in silence, completely without judgment, and it feels horribly, awfully, terrifyingly right.

Then he opens his arms and pulls her in and she starts to sob in earnest and he lets her, rubs her back and lets her be, and she cries and cries and cries until she falls asleep.

-/-

She wakes up lying on the couch, her head on Killian’s shoulder, his arm around her. He’s fast asleep, his breathing slow and easy, just like it was this morning, in her bed. It does seem like they sleep well in each other’s presence. She leans back a little and feels his hand tighten on her waist as his eyes flutter open.

“Hey.” It’s a whisper.

“Hey,” she whispers back.

He smiles at her, his thumb rubbing lazy circles across her hip bone, and then on impulse she simply leans forward and presses her lips to his. It’s the most natural move in the world. His mouth is soft and he kisses her back, languid and slow as his hand runs up her side, and then his breath catches and he pulls back.

“Emma,” he says, and then stops. Looks at her. His eyes are soft, and uncertain. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

She meets his gaze. “Do you?”

He barks a helpless laugh. “Not at all. You defy every rulebook.”

He’s looking at her, joy and apprehension warring on his face, like he doesn’t understand what is happening any more than she does. And she is so tired of second-guessing everything, of fighting herself, fighting him; of constantly feeling out of her depth.

It’s time to know.

“Killian,” she whispers. “Tell me if this is a game.” She props herself up on one elbow and swallows hard. “It’s OK if it is. I won’t turn you out. I will go back to my bedroom and you can stay the rest of the week and we can simply part ways, no hard feelings. But I need you to tell me.”

He closes his eyes. The hand on her hip shakes a bit and then tightens, almost painfully.

“You get one chance.” His eyes are still squeezed shut and he’s talking to himself, his voice so low she can barely hear it. “One chance if you’re lucky.” His voice trails off and he is silent for another long, long moment. Then his eyes open, and he looks at her. With longing.

Longing.

There are tears in his eyes.

He shakes his head and then sits up and pulls her with him, into his lap, his right hand anchoring her, holding on tightly, fingers digging into her skin. He cups her cheek with his left, sighs, and brushes his lips past hers. “You are not a trick, Emma. I swear. I swear on everything I have left to----”

His breath catches. He swallows hard, but doesn’t blink, and doesn’t look away. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet. And raw.

“I swear on my brother,” he says. His thumb brushes her jawline and his expression is naked and he’s not lying at all, so Emma leans forward and presses her lips to his and he kisses her back. With abandon. His arms wrap around her and hold on tight, so tight it’s almost getting hard to breathe, and he pulls back, leans their foreheads together, and exhales a shuddering breath.

“I didn’t plan any of this when I took you up on your offer to stay here, I swear,” he says. “I swear it just happened.” He lifts her chin, forces her to look at him. “Say you believe me. Promise me.”

How can she say no? How can she not believe him when he’s looking at her with this mess of confusion and hope and fear and dread all warring on his face? This new, exposed, open face of his?

She nods and he surges forward, kisses her fiercely, thoroughly, wraps his hand into the hair at the back of her neck and pulls her close,

closer

closer----

And then Emma moves. She can feel him as she straddles his lap, so hard against her, and she rocks her hips forward. He groans as if he’s in pain, breaks the kiss, breathless, and buries his face in her hair.

“Stop,” he rasps. “Just for a second.”

She looks at him, the red lips, the ragged breathing, and when he opens his eyes they’re blown black, his pupils big as saucers, and she grins an evil grin and rocks her hips again, right there.

“Emm-mm-a,” he stutters and then pushes himself off the couch with Emma wrapped around him like a vine and he nearly loses his balance, just manages to catch them against the backrest, and then his arm wraps around her waist like a band of iron and he nearly runs to the bedroom, harsh panting in her ear while she nips at his jaw, his ear, his pulse point---

his knees buckle for a moment and his hand wraps around the door frame, as he moans her name like a promise, a promise---

and then they fall onto her bed together, breathless, laughing, and Emma feels wild with something so good, so perfect, so right it takes her breath away and gives her superpowers

and makes her vulnerable

and invincible

and complete .

-/-

For the third time in a row Emma wakes up with Killian wrapped around her, but this time he’s awake. He’s just looking at her, his eyes soft. His smile is happy and a bit unsure until she smiles back at him and it becomes blinding. He pulls her close and buries his nose in her hair and holds her until she can feel his heartbeat.

“Good morning,” he whispers after long, long minutes of just nuzzling her hair and breathing her in, and his voice sounds gravelly and hungry and he’s not actually talking about the morning at all, good or otherwise. He shifts his weight, pushes a leg between hers, and Emma lets her hand wander down, feels him shudder and gasp and when she wraps her hand around him, harder than he was even last night, he rasps out an “oh god!” that goes straight to her core.

He wraps a hand around her neck and kisses her with ferocity, but then she strokes and his movements stutter as his hips buck and he whines low in his throat and closes his eyes and finally groans, “oh god, Emma---”, and then he flips them, looks at her, eyes wide as he scrambles to pull down her pajamas, his pajamas (still with those ridiculous anchors, he has a whole set of them), and stills for a moment.

She just stares at him.

His entire body is vibrating with the tension of keeping still, his expression open, hungry, needy---- needy for her, for her, Emma, not just because she is here, and they’re naked, and she’s available, convenient, next to him, but her, just her.

“Emma?” he breathes.

And then she nods and wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him in and he enters her in one long stroke, and she nearly sobs because she is so ready, for him, him, just him, and then it’s pushing and pulling and rhythm and motion and pressure

and pressure

and then

finally

release.

-/-

“Can I ask you a question, love?”

They’re sitting curled up on the couch, wrapped up in each other under a cosy blanket, their coffee mugs within easy reach, and she pulls back to look at him. His tone has become serious again, his eyes are somber. His hand is lazily rubbing the back of her neck, and he bends down to kiss her before he takes another sip of coffee.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

She nods. “What is it?”

“I know you said you won’t talk about that man back at the farmers market---” she stiffens and he squeezes her shoulder and pulls her close--- “and I respect that, love. You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.” He waits for a moment, kisses her hair, rubs her back, and she tells herself to relax.

“Go on,” she says, but he waits until her shoulders unclench before he says, “What did he mean by ‘duckling’?”

Emma sighs.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he repeats, and she knows it’s true. She can just shut down the conversation right here, right now, and he’ll never bring it up again.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she says. “I’ll tell you this bit, and you tell me one thing about your brother.” It’s his turn to go rigid, and she kisses the underside of his jaw, before she pulls back and says, “Fair?”

He exhales slowly, lets some of the stiffness bleed out, and nods.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s more than fair.”

“OK.” Emma takes a deep breath, and his hand comes down, twines his fingers with hers, rubs his thumb across hers. “Honestly, there’s not that much to tell. Walsh is a mistake I wanted to make.”

She takes another deep breath. He remains perfectly still.

“I was always the ugly duckling, everywhere I went. Not just because I was a horribly late bloomer and spent my teenage years being ridiculously funny-looking.” His fingers squeeze hers once more, but he doesn’t say a word. “No, it’s true,” she goes on. “I was the ugly duckling. And then I had all those gaps in my memory, all those odd bits and pieces, places I could have sworn I’d seen before, things I knew I should know, but didn’t, and it made me the odd one out, even among foster kids. Like I was even more broken than they were. And you know how kids deal with those among them who are different.”

His grip on her fingers becomes almost painful. She is grateful for it, for the way it grounds her to the here and now. This Emma she is conjuring up from the past has no place in the present, and the pressure of Killian’s hand reminds her of that.

“So I kept hoping to ‘turn into the swan’, but of course I never did, and then I decided to make my own fate even if it meant making mistakes.” She sighs. It seems so foolish now, but it’s part of her journey, part of her, no matter what. “He first hit on me at a bar.” Killian gasps and Emma pats his shoulder. “Not like you at all, don’t worry. He made it very clear exactly what he wanted from me, right from the start. So I said, ‘why would you want the ugly duckling when you could have all this’ and pointed at the dozens of gorgeous women along the bar, and he said, ‘because you’re a sure thing’. And I was. I totally was. He started calling me duckling after that, just to remind me of my place, I think. He was a bastard, and I knew he was a bastard, and I did it anyway, because I was very busy punishing myself for my own shortcomings, see, and Walsh was a very efficient punishment.” Killian next to her has stopped breathing. Emma shoves the whole mess back into its box and her voice is perfectly neutral as she says, “Long story short, he finally allowed me to learn my lesson and I no longer need to punish myself and he doesn’t get to stand within a hundred feet of me.” She shrugs. “Thanks, by the way.” Her voice is still perfectly neutral and she is very proud of it. “For yesterday. Sometimes I lose my bearings.”

She looks up. There are tears in his eyes.

Tears.

And then he pulls her close, close, closer, hugs her hard and tight, with force, with conviction, and buries his nose in her hair, nuzzling her neck, and doesn’t let go for what feels like hours.

When he finally releases her she stays burrowed into his shoulder and he leans down to brush his lips gently across her cheek.

“I know you don’t need it,” he says. “I know you don’t need my empathy and certainly not my pity, but---”

He grasps her chin, forces Emma to look at him.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

And if there ever was a measure of ultimate, absolute truth, it is how Killian says the word am. He kisses her again, and takes a deep breath, and before she can brace herself it just bursts forth in one long rush.

“My mother died when I was nine,” he says.. “My dad moved us to Wilmington. He worked the docks, and it’s a large port city, and the company he worked for in Bristol actually facilitated the move. There was nothing for him back in England after my mother was gone, so we went.” He sits up straight, tension coils, and Emma puts her hand on his arm, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s staring at a spot on the wall behind her. “Turns out there was nothing for him in Wilmington either, because he managed to drink himself to death by the time I was twelve and my brother and I went into the system.” He breathes a long, shaky exhale. “They separated us right from the start. Said it was impossible to place two kids in the same household. But Liam was already sixteen and he would come find me, wherever I was. He’d find the schools I was at and just wait outside and take me away for the day. Once we ended up in a dive bar at the docks and nobody even cared that we were kids. Well, nobody at the bar cared. The system people cared a lot.”

Killian’s voice grows wistful and far away and Emma realizes that he is no longer in the room. He is a teenager on foreign ground and she knows the feeling like the back of her hand.

“Liam would tell me stories of how we’d beat the system, how he would start to make money the moment he aged out and come and get me away from all this and I believed him. And then he turned 18 and disappeared.” He snaps back to the present in a sudden, jerky movement, and adds, “He OD’d in Boston a few years later. My parole officer told me.” He shrugs. “As you can see I was already firmly on my way to a life outside the system at the time. Any system.” He looks at her, and his eyes go soft. “I realize I may have to change that, Emma Nolan.” His voice is a whisper. “But can my line of work please be a problem for another day?”

She laughs, and it feels good.

“Fuck yes,” she says with conviction, and smiles. “Aren’t we just the poster children for good adjustment. If we were superheroes these would be some fucking origin stories.”

He laughs out loud, releases all tension, and hugs her again.

“You’re impossible,” he says, and then pulls her up off the couch. “Screw this baggage. Let’s go get a drink.”

“It’s noon.”

“That means It’s five o’clock in Britain right now, and we have earned it.”

She can’t help but laugh and agree.

They find a dive bar of their own, dark and quiet and cosy, and have two beers and two shots of whisky each, and then go to the diner and devour a truly huge portion of grilled cheese and onion rings, and they laugh often, and touch often, and Killian holds her hand and sneaks kisses whenever he can and they don’t talk about their pasts at all.

When they get home Emma sinks down on the couch and Killian pulls off her shoes and throws her the comforter and kisses her thoroughly, and then asks which movie she wants to watch and Emma smiles and says Some Like It Hot, because it’s time to show him the best comedy in the history of ever.

And they laugh and cuddle and kiss more than they watch the movie and then they fall into bed and Killian wraps himself around Emma and everything is warm and languid and perfect and she falls asleep with a smile on her face.

And at 2:27 AM Killian’s phone beeps.

There’s a message.

One line. From Neal.

Meet now.

Thank you all for reading!

#cs fic #cs fic rec #thisonesatellite #everybody knows #fun and heartbreak and angst #bedsharing and softness and connection and catharsis #this is the calm before the storm darlings

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swga-ficrecs · 3 years

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june 2021 recap

ahh june was a really fic-filled month!!! i used to be a silent reader but then i realized that it’s hard to go back to the fics i really liked reading since i had no way of finding them except for remembering key words and googling the shit out of it lol so!!! i thought of doing a monthly recap of all my favorites in addition to the fics i like and reblog. thank you to these wonderful authors who just write pure magic ✨

🏆 holy grail | ☀️ fluff | 🌧 angst | 💋 smut.

fave authors

🏆 @minyoongijjangjjangmanboongboong

HOLY GRAIL AUTHOR!!! Loved a lot of their series because of the tropes and the plot. I’ll definitely come back to their fics in the future for another binge reading session

@taecalikook

Really loved their fuckboy trope fics. Has a few unfinished fics I’m excited to binge read once they’re completed

🏆 @gukyi

Discovered their work back in 2017? Really loved IGYMH and reread their masterlist this month

@ve1vetyoongi

All I can remember is the ending of Mic Drop and I can’t 😭 I’m really excited for their unfinished fics!!!!

fave fics

Arranged by @.minyoongijjangjjangmanboongboong 🏆 ☀️ 🌧

Pairing: chaebol MYG x student reader

Y/N is a struggling student in Seoul: working multiple jobs, living in a broom closet apartment, and often sacrificing her dignity for the sake of her livelihood. What happens when a handsome stranger presents her with an offer she cannot refuse at the moment she needs it most?

Dissonance by @.minyoongijjangjjangmanboongboong 🏆 🌧 ☀️

Pairing: bassist KTH x student / band manager reader

The Parting by @.minyoongijjangjjangmanboongboong 🏆 🌧 ☀️

Pairing: flower shop owner PJM x reaper reader

The only certainty in life is death, and it seems to follow Park Jimin. All his life, the icy shadow of death has hung closely by his side, along with the shadow of…something else. Reapers exist to guide the souls of the living to the world beyond. But what happens when a particular Reaper tampers with the natural order and saves a mortal boy’s life? What will they do once their fates become inextricably linked?

From Home by @gyukult 🏆 ☀️ 🌧

Pairing: chaebol JJK x reader

jungkook is the youngest of five boys, the last in line to truly inherit any his parents’ money. but what if his mom suddenly cuts him off due to his current poor behavior and he’s forced to learn how it feels like to be part of the working class?

(Not) Just Friends by @.taecalikook 🏆 ☀️ 🌧

Pairing: Bestfriend / fuckboy / fratboy JJK x reader ft. KSJ

Befriending the fuckboy with devilishly handsome face and emotional capacity of a pea is not your choice, especially when you met him when you were in fifth grade, attracted for the unhealthy vermilion shaded face of the nerd he was that fateful day. So was Jungkook, as he is already putting strictly platonic label on your forehead and calls it a day. But it is only a matter of time before everything changes, and it only takes a frat party, lots of booze and… a certain Kim Seokjin.

Partiality by @jiminimoon 🏆 🌧

Pairing: Husband PJM x reader

You and Jimin argue about your kids not loving you two equally

Brown-eyed Baby by @jeonstudios 🏆 ☀️ 🌧 💋

Pairing: Single Parent JJK x reader

a lost child at the mall. eyes from a different time.

I’ll Give You My Heart by @.gukyi 🏆 ☀️ 🌧

Pairing: CEO bestfriend MYG x reader

gift exchanges are cool. gift exchanges with your ceo-slash-best friend min yoongi are less cool, because what the hell are you supposed to get the man that already has everything?

The Truth Between Us by @.gukyi and @jimlingss 🏆 ☀️ 🌧

Pairing: Editor MYG x reader

a book deal should be the most exciting time of your life, but there seems to be a constant and omnipresent damper on your mood in the form of a certain min yoongi, who you would just cut out from your life, if he weren’t your editor. but then, the world shifts beneath your feet, and you begin to wonder if maybe you’ve always been looking at life from the wrong angle.

Love is Blind by @cinnaminsvga 🏆 ☀️ 🌧

[Final] Pairing: Fake boyfriend KNJ x reader

social media au where y/n posts a fake boyfriend application on twitter as a dare but ends up seeking something real in the long run (aka how to fall in love the zillennial way)

Love Grows Where You Go by @hueseok 🏆 ☀️ 🌧

Pairing: Fiancé MYG x reader

determined to make you and yoongi grow closer for your upcoming wedding in two weeks, your parents plan a trip for the both of you that lasts five days long. you know you should be ecstatic about it, considering your longtime crush on your fiancé, but by how you’re positive that he secretly despises your whole being, you don’t find this mini vacation with him something to look forward to. that is until things take an unexpected turn and suddenly, he makes it apparent he doesn’t hate you at all as you reckoned.

Give Me Love by @.hueseok 🏆 ☀️ 🌧

Pairing: Lawyer boyfriend KNJ x reader

you’ve been in a relationship with your boyfriend for over five years now, yet the talk of marriage has never been initiated between the two of you. of course, you try to somehow squeeze it in from time to time, but it seems like no matter what, namjoon just won’t take the hint

Cornfields and Cosmos by @jessikahathaway ☀️ 🌧 💋

Pairing: Alien MYG x reader

Cornfields: He was an alien. You were a girl. Can I make it any more obvious? Probably. It’s the one where Yoongi’s a cold alien that needs love too.

Cosmos: Yoongi and you had been travelling together for a long time. You’d begun the terrifying journey of becoming parents. When a new person arrives in a way you didn’t expect, you and Yoongi’s relationship is sent into a tailspin.

The Art of Craving by @venusiangguk ☀️ 💋

Pairing: Single parent DILF JJK x reader

jk takes you to a bbq at his friends house. the tri-tip is good but the creampie is even better.

fics to i’m waiting to finish before binge reading

What we are not ; Soulmates by @.taecalikook

Pairing: MYG x reader x KTH

you love yoongi with all your heart throughout these five years being in a relationship with him. you always thought he is the one — your one, even when the infamous soulmate signs are still not showing. yet you always wait, because you know it’s him you are destined to be with, forever. but what would happen if then his childhood best friend comes along, with the universe-signed telltales that you have been looking for true love in all the wrong places?

When the sea sleeps by @.taecalikook

Pairing: KSJ x reader

marriage should be based on love, but it’s not really the case with you and Seokjin. what’s more beneficial than two person who sworn off romances to get married out of obligation, right? but you should have known better, that keeping your heart straight from wanting someone like Kim Seokjin is next to impossible.

After Midnight by @.gyukult

Pairing: JJK x reader

jeon jungkook only likes seeing you after midnight.

Better With You by @ve1vetyoongi

Pairing: KSJ x reader

A part time job as a chef at Paradise Resort seems like the perfect way to spend your summer and save up some spare cash to open your own restaurant back home. That is until you cross paths with the CEO’s son who threatens to fire you if you don’t help him inherit his trust-fund-baby-fortune. How? By making you his fiancé. Well, his pretend fiancé at least.

Operation: Love Letters by @.ve1vetyoongi

Pairing: OT7 x reader

When every student on campus is going crazy about a survey that claims to make true love bloom, your best friend manages to convince you to join in on the fun — except you’re disappointed to find out that your results just seem to be lost causes. That is until a love letter from a mysterious secret admirer turns up and you find yourself on a mission to find the person behind the pen — but you quickly realise it’s going to be a lot harder than you initially thought when you have 7 possible bachelors to investigate, right? Operation: Love Letters a-go!

Remember Me by @.ve1vetyoongi

Pairing: OT7 x reader

Taehyung wants to be forgotten. Overwhelmed by his life as idol persona V, he longs to just be Kim Taehyung for once. Even if that means forgetting everything he ever knew

🏆 The Prince and His Rose by @vanaera

Pairing: Football player / Childhood bestfriend JJK x reader

Drabble series of “For a While”

The Heart Holiday by @.vanaera

Pairing: MYG x reader

Valentine’s Day is declared as an official holiday. However, private companies’ standards dictate it’s only for the people who are currently in a relationship. Unluckily for Y/N, she doesn’t have this year’s PRS’ (Proof of Relationship Status) “in a relationship” box ticked – the only ticket out she can have to enjoy one paid week of holiday leave away from her hellish job. And more unfortunately for Y/N, everyone around her is oh so conveniently currently committed in a relationship. Except for one person: Min Yoongi, Y/N’s biggest critic in every pitch meeting, the picky guy who always picks on her, and the most annoying jerk of the century. Desperate for that holiday leave, Y/N strikes Yoongi up with an offer: Fake date each other two weeks before February 14, just enough time for the Department of Relationship Management (DRM) to consider processing their PRSs. After Valentine’s Day, they will go back to their own ways and never speak about whatever that may happen during the plan. Good, plain, and simple. That is until, Yoongi uncharacteristically oh so enthusiastically agrees to Y/N’s offer, leaving her thinking that she may have bitten something too much more than she can chew.

My Time by @.vanaera

Pairing: JJK x reader

A future technology allows cops to jump in the past and future to investigate crimes that have happened and prepare for those that are about to happen. A simple hit-and-run turns into something more when Captain Jeon Jungkook finds himself as the victim of a culprit who cannot be identified by the system. Especially when the culprit seems to be the same person behind the new case that’s threatening the order in the justice organization. All goes haywire when Jungkook gets involved with Y/N L/N, the clairvoyant sketch artist who may be his only help to solve the case.

Lost Stars by @.hueseok

Pairing: JJK x reader

the last person you’d expect to be there for you is your roommate, jeongguk, on the night you break up with your cheating boyfriend; because as far as you’re concerned, the both of you aren’t exactly friends, and he definitely shouldn’t be running to get you upon hearing you sob via phone call.

so when he does, you begin thinking that maybe you’ve just been hard on him over the years, or perhaps he just liked pretending to be an annoying shit most of the time. either way, it becomes the beginning of an unexpected friendship finally blossoming.

Dexterity + Stupidity by @.hueseok

Pairing: JJK x reader

a drabble series that features surgical intern!jeongguk x surgical resident!reader as they go through their odd senior-junior relationship, obviously having the hots for each other and yet, frustratingly goes into twists and turns in order to properly act on it.

Crimson Grail by @.jessikahathaway

Pairing: MYG x reader

There were tales of the famed pirate Min Yoongi, Captain of the Crimson Grail. However, one meeting with him is hardly ever enough… One taste of adventure, and you were addicted.

Baby Talk by @.jessikahathaway

Pairing: PJM x JJK x reader

Jimin and Jungkook had been trying to get a surrogate for years. Finally when you agree to help them, their dreams seem to be coming true. But, dreams change…

Vegas, Baby by @.jessikahathaway

Pairing: KTH x reader

They say what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. What happens when there’s a little more legality to it than that?

Taming the Beast by @.jessikahathaway

Pairing: KTH x reader

You were the next in line to be the head of your village, when your mother gave you to the enemy to save your people from merciless slaughter. What happens when they try to Tame a Beast?

Owner by @.jessikahathaway

Pairing: JJK x reader

With your mother hounding on you (no pun intended), you decided to get a little help from a hybrid, who was also in need of assistance.

If Only You Knew by @agustdakasuga

Pairing: BTS x reader

From the start, you knew you wanted to be a hybrid rehabilitator. You needed to help these hybrids heal, learn to live with one another and lead normal lives. Even if they are all different, you hoped that they could give each other a new reason to live.

#monthly recap #bts fics #bts jungkook #bts jin #bts seokjin #bts yoongi #bts suga #bts rm #bts namjoon #bts jimin #bts v #bts taehyung #bts fic recs #bts fanfic

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dropintomanga · 3 years

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Kaguya and Miyuki - One of My Favorite Manga Romances Ever

“Women often fell in love with someone who seems superhuman suddenly reveals their vulnerability.”

I haven’t found many fans who talked about this, but how the relationship between Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War becomes truly official (Volumes 14-15 of the manga) is psychologically compelling. It’s one of the best portrayals of how romance realistically develops.

The whole premise of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War is based around an ongoing battle of wits between Kaguya and Miyuki on who will get the other to confess their feelings towards them. Both have liked each other for a while, but resort to a bunch of wacky strategies throughout the series to force a confession. It isn’t until Volume 14 where Miyuki decides to do an elaborate confession during a school culture festival on his own terms. Kaguya takes the initiative in kissing Miyuki during that moment. However, a growing sense of awkwardness and tension occurs due to their relationship changing. Both parties become unsure on how to be comfortable around each other. This leads to Kaguya’s personality suddenly shifting to her “Ice Kaguya” persona (a very cold side of herself that developed due to her upbringing) and Miyuki developing a sense of insecurity over not being good enough for Kaguya. The situation is further complicated as Miyuki wants to go to America for college and Kaguya is willing to go with him. The tension hits a turning point when Miyuki is suddenly hospitalized for burnout. Kaguya realized that Miyuki is trying to do too much and wants to save him after accepting her own flaws.

After the first kiss, Kaguya starts to become emotionally unstable as she has a conversation with her maid, Ai Hayasaka, about what happened. Kaguya talks about how intimate and long the kiss was. Hayasaka scolds Kaguya a bit and tells her that the kiss was a French kiss. There’s jokes about a French kiss being compared to actual sexual intercourse. Kaguya freaks out and she becomes Foolish Kaguya, a child-like persona that emerges due to being emotionally overwhelmed, in school the next day.

We later take a look inside Kaguya’s head where all of her subconscious personas talk about Miyuki. She has Child Kaguya, Ice Kaguya, and Foolish Kaguya as a part of her. They represent the ego, superego and id respectively. Ice Kaguya takes charge in being the dominant persona as she proclaims that she had feelings for him first. What’s important about Ice Kaguya is that she represents the kind of mask we put on in order to justify being a part of a world that demands so much from us. The Shinomiya family is a rich family that wants to decide everything for Kaguya. Ice Kaguya is an “act” to not deal with conflicting emotions and shunning everyone around her in order to protect them from her terrible side.

Miyuki becomes frightened in how to respond around Ice Kaguya while Ice Kaguya doesn’t know how to talk to him. The hospitalization happens after Ice Kaguya tries to get Miyuki to kiss him and he collapses out of a fear of looking bad. A lot of times, we don’t see what happens after the first kiss happens in romance stories. It’s usually happily ever after. But things change. There’s a gap between friends and lovers. It’s hard to take further steps after taking a huge leap (which is hard enough). This is especially the case when both parties fear vulnerability so much after being known as successful to those around them.

There’s a nice look inside Kaguya’s mind where Ice Kaguya talks to Little Kaguya about how she was raised to not be nice towards people. Never rely on others, hinder your opinions, treat others as pawns, etc. Ice Kaguya berates herself as someone who hurts others and not worthy of Miyuki’s love. But the other personas tell her that she deserves love as much as they do. It reminds me of how uncomfortable we are with our dark sides. Yeah, we do have flaws and they’re sometimes ugly. But they’re a part of who we are. They’re us. Our dark sides, like Ice Kaguya, are defense mechanisms forced to emerge to protect us. If we have sympathy towards those who are forced to do something they don’t like, it’s possible to do the same for ourselves. Self-compassion is not weakness.

The doctor who sees Miyuki at the hospital proclaims that Miyuki is suffering from “lovesickness.” He says that Miyuki has a mental health issue. Miyuki proclaims that he’s forced to be a genius due to how bad his family situation is. He never got love from his mother (who would later leave his father) after failing exams in his early youth. Miyuki later reveals that he put on a confident act in order to become the student council president. He feels that he has to try really hard in order to be on equal footing with Kaguya. A nurse tells him that it’s okay to be vulnerable. But Miyuki believes Kaguya is perfect without any understanding of her true self and decides to stress himself to be the perfect man.

There’s a point to be made that men find it hard to talk about emotions when women find it easier to do so. Sometimes, it’s much harder for men due to the roles they have to take in order to be “competitive” enough to survive. Speaking through actions is what men are supposed to excel at. That’s the role/burden men like Miyuki are given.

The romantic tension finally comes to an end when Kaguya confronts Miyuki at Christmas Eve. Miyuki tries to find a good gift for Kaguya to impress her, but ends up with a “ball in a cup” toy. He tries not to give it to her due to his need to make things perfect, but she takes it and enjoys the gift. The two would get into a long conversation at a park about being an ordinary couple for a change after Kaguya admits that being around him is good enough for her. They have a kiss that feels more proper because now they truly know each other. Miyuki then finally realizes that Kaguya’s totally okay with him failing at things from time-to-time.

“It takes courage to be average.” is a saying I heard recently. Everyone is told they’re special and capable of doing whatever they want. However, there’s a huge price to pay to chase a kind of success that feels never-ending. I’m not saying we should stop working hard for what we want. It’s just that the grind is often very lonely. There’s no time for reflection. We also can’t realistically achieve every goal we have in mind. The best indicator of someone’s happiness and success is relationships. I think the beauty of the Kaguya/Miyuki romance is that it’s okay to be a boring, average couple deep down. That’s what real romance is anyway to me - to not have so much drama in your life. I think about this a lot. As someone with mental illness, I’ve been told to date someone with a consistent routine because certain highs can be just as bad as certain lows.

I’m really glad Aka Akasaka didn’t stop the series after the culture festival kiss because that moment felt too “perfect.” I wonder if this is a criticism of how perfectionism has caused good and honest people to shun away any emotional wounds they have suffered. People usually are the problem in inflicting wounds, but they’re also the solution to processing them. Romantic relationships are mostly about being willing to put up with your partner’s flaws. It’s often difficult to share pain with someone and it’s important to admit that it’s okay to want someone you love to share it with. Honoring that desire is a big part of loving others and more importantly, yourself.

Vulnerability is sexy and when love becomes war (like it was for Kaguya and Miyuki), it’s the great equalizer to achieving true peace for all sides involved.

#Kaguya-sama: Love Is War #Kaguya Shinomiya #Miyuki Shirogane #manga #love #romance #relationships #mental health #vulnerability

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breadoffoxy · 3 years

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A Game of Cat and Mouse

Summary: It always seems like you are chasing the infamous Kim Taehyung. After working with the conman turned informant, it makes you wonder who is the cat and mouse in this little game of yours.

Written for the BTS Ghosite Marathon. Prompt: Trope: Enemies to Lovers.

Drabble: 6/30

Pairing: n. detective Reader x conman Taehyung

Genre: Drama

Warnings: language, suggestive content, guns, use of handcuffs to apprehend a criminal

Word Count: 1,500

A/N: Inspired by Catch Me if You Can and White Collar. If you can recognize my other reference I threw in here I would be so thrilled.

You are going to murder him.

Sadly, that was against the law, but that doesn’t stop the frustration building up in you. Your hands tighten around the steering wheel. Where is he?

The man in question is under your supervision. Some people refer to him as your ‘partner’, but honestly, he was an asset, nothing more. At least, that is what you like to tell yourself about the smooth-talking thief.

It took you so long to catch Kim Taehyung, aka V, aka one of the best damn con-artists in the whole world. He was slippery, hiding in different personas like a glove, running around the world and stealing millions as he went. Years and years of following his every move, you were always just a tiny bit too slow, until one day you are finally able to corner him.

You put so much time and effort into catching Taehyung, that you were almost at a loss afterwards. Dear say, you almost missed the cat and mouse chase you played with him. Though, that thought didn’t last long when you walked into work and saw the thief sitting at your desk, examining a paper weight and looking extremely bored. That is until he looked up and saw you. Taehyung grinned like the cat that ate the canary.

You’ve been on multiple ‘assignments’ together, him aiding you tracking and catching other notorious thieves. It shortens his sentence and puts his skills to use in a beneficial way that helps others and not just himself. Another reason you think is that he enjoys playing with you. Much more than naught, he’s gotten you into trouble, convincing you to do things that may edge the line of the law a little too closely.

Like right now for instance. Here you are sitting in your car, staring at the mansion a little way down the street. You were supposed to be staking out the art forger’s house, trying to gather intel on his connections. Everyone knew he was in deep with the black market of the art world, but you just needed tangible proof.

After hours of nothing, Taehyung had enough, and convinced you he needed to get a closer look. In and out, no one would notice. As soon as he stepped out of your car, you immediately regretted your decision. Every minute that passed you grew all the more anxious.

What if something happened to him?

“Shit.” You rip your keys out from the ignition, kick open the door, and slam it close.

You are going to murder him.

A song drifts into Taehyung’s mind as he walks casually through the lavish mansion. The back door was all too easy to reach and pick after sneaking through the elaborate garden maze behind the suspect’s mansion. After disabling the security system, there was literally nothing stopping Kim Taehyung.

What a shame this beautiful house belongs to such a fool.

Russo had skill, he’d give him that, but left too much of a trail. Anyone could make the connections. It took his detective barely anytime once on the case to figure it out.

Taehyung does a double take and stops in his tracks. It is not at the use of his for the detective in his train of thought just now as he passed that milestone long ago. At first, he hated the detective, with their analytical eyes, paragon attitude, and that messy notebook no one can decipher. Taehyung pocketed it one day while you were busy and returned it to you none the wiser. It only left him with a headache. You were so messy, yet you were the one that caught him. Every time he finally settles down, makes a new name for himself, a reputation, even dare he say friends, you would show up and rip it all away.

You were the only constant in his life.

Eventually he came to look forward to you catching up to him, just so he could talk to someone, to be real. No one really knew him except you. If anyone had to catch him, he was glad it was you. Although you would never admit it, Taehyung knew you believed in him. Otherwise, he would have been back in prison faster than he could blink after all the stunts you pulled together. Sneaking into his mansion was nothing compared to some of the other things he’s done under your watch.

His feet carry him closer to the Gustave Klimt piece hanging on the wall. Was it really? Upon closer inspection, Taehyung immediately spots it’s a fake. From a distance it is extremely convincing.

“Lovely work really, but the direction of the brush strokes gives it away.”

The click of a gun sounds behind Taehyung right after he gives his little tidbit and he can’t help but sigh. Taehyung really hates violence, never choosing to resort to it except for self-defense. Even then, he rather talk his way out of a situation or run. He was very good at both those things. Slowly, he raises his arms, but doesn’t take his eyes off the painting in front of him.

“How did you get in past my security?” A posh accented voice inquires. Definitely Russo’s voice.

“It was pretty easy actually.”

Taehyung feels cold press of a gun barrel against the back of his head. Obviously, that wasn’t the answer Russo was looking for.

“Such a shame really, with a little polish you could have gone far,” Taehyung’s voice stays even despite his fear. He was never one to give his hand away. “Do you want to know to know what you did wrong?”

“You seem like the type of person who would tell me even if I don’t want to know. Let me guess, it was that bastard from the Gandor family?”

Taehyung smirks, Russo was making his job way too easy. “No, but that’s good to know you have connections with them.”

“Why you son of a-“

The click of another gun signals your arrival. “Police, put your gun down.”

“Your late, Detective.”

It doesn’t take but a moment for the gun to be removed from Taehyung’s head. He eyes the fake Klimt painting, completely ignoring the scene behind him. There’s some grunting as you handcuff Russo.

“Detective, do you think I can take this as a souvenir?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on.” The con-man turns around with a grin. “Think of this as a reward for the paydirt of information I got you.”

“I overheard the Gandor bit.” You eye the beautiful painting in front of you with disdain. “And that won’t fit in my car.”

“I’m sure I can have something arranged. Especially, if you want these.” Taehyung lifts up his shirt slightly, making you focus intently on the fidgeting Russo, and procures some documents that were tucked inside of his waist band.

The grin on Taehyung’s face grows when he waves the papers at you teasingly. Russo’s complexion looks almost sickly as he recognizes the papers. You, on the other hand, look like you can’t decide if you want to glare at him or smile at his job well done.

“We’ll talk about this later. Let me call this in and get dispatch to pick this guy up.”

It takes some time for the police to arrive. You keep an eye on the detained Russo while Taehyung walks the halls and looks at the other pieces of art with interest. Once they do arrive you hand off the paperwork as evidence, Russo gets taken away, and you and Taehyung take the time to further investigate the convict’s office.

“That was stupid, you know that right?” You don’t look up at Taehyung as you search through the papers in a drawer.

“I knew you’d come in Detective. I know you care for me.”

“I’m responsible for you.”

It’s quiet for a bit as you continue to shuffle through some papers. “Thank you, for pulling through.”

“I know you got a lot riding on me. Plus, I rather not go back to prison.” Taehyung shuffles closer to you, “but what if I didn’t give you everything.”

“What?” You look up quickly at that, but freeze instantly as you almost brush Taehyung’s jaw with your nose. Your breath hitches and you want to slap yourself.

“I could be hiding more evidence on my person.” Taehyung licks his lips, watching as your eyes focus on them. He walks closer to you, and you step back. He quite likes this shift in control. “Why don’t you do a full body search?”

Taehyung steps forward again and again until your back hits the wall. Maybe this whole time you were wrong. Instead of being the cat, you were actually the mouse. Taehyung definitely looked like he was playing with his food before going in for the kill. That thought makes you frown. His breath fans your face as he leans closer, tracing the line of your jaw with his elegant fingers.

“Who knows what you can find, Detective.”

#btsghostiemarathon #btsghostie #bts fanfiction #bts drabble #taehyung drabble #taehyung fanfiction #v drabble #v fanfiction #thief au #detective au #bts x reader #taehyung x reader #v x reader #my writing #a game of cat and mouse

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miss-musings · 3 years

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So who is Red, really? (pre-8.22 theories)

Since this is perhaps our last opportunity to discuss who Red really is, and because I've been rewatching clips from The Blacklist S1-4, I wanted to look back over a few things before we (or hopefully Liz at least) find out Red's true identity in 8.22.

I'm going to make a series of statements, and then list on a scale of 1-10 how likely I think each statement is (with 10 being the most likely). And then I'll give a brief explanation for each.

Red lost his family before he took on the 'Raymond Reddington' identity.

10 / 10 - Red has stated multiple times that there are truths that he needs Liz's help to uncover. The truth about what happened to his family, which was brought up several times in Season 1, seems to be foremost among them. We know that Red suffered a great tragedy, which sent him down a path of revenge. Maybe this was part of the reason why he took on the 'Raymond Reddington' identity. It could also be that, like Katarina, his wife was someone he was told to marry to maintain his cover, so he didn't really love her (as he doesn't seem to talk about her or remember her at all). But, he truly loved and adored his daughter (bubble girl), and both of them were killed before he became 'Raymond Reddington.'

Red knew/knows Katarina Rostova personally.

9 / 10 - While he's seemingly gone back and forth on whether he believes Katarina was really dead, which I will attribute to retcons by TPTB, he knows a lot of things about Katarina that most people wouldn't know. For instance, when Liz finds out she’s pregnant, Red recounts how Katarina dreaded having a child and almost aborted it. That's something no one would know unless Katarina told them. He likely knew her before the Night of the Fire, because he told Kate that he was not as unfamiliar as she expected when he recruits her in S4's "Requiem." Ultimately, based on 8.21, it seems that -- barring Redarina being true (ugh) -- that Katarina recruited Red to take on the 'Raymond Reddington' identity. So, that's likely when she gave him all the information he would need to keep Masha/Liz safe and successfully impersonate the real Reddington.

Red knew the real Reddington personally.

7 / 10 - This one still seems likely, in my mind, but it's not a guarantee. It's possible that whenever KR recruited Red to take over the 'Raymond Reddington' persona, she gave him all the information he would need to be successful. Then again, Red has been impersonating him for 30-ish years; he knew of and briefly interacted with Reddington's family in Carla/Naomi and Jennifer. So, it's a strong possibility, but not a certainty. Perhaps he was acquainted with Reddington, but wasn't close with him like he seemingly was/is with KR.

Red knew Sam Milhoan personally.

6 / 10 - After rewatching 1.08, I'm unsure whether Sam knew Red was an imposter. Maybe when he said that he needed to tell Liz the truth, he was referring to the truth that 'Raymond Reddington' was Liz's dad. And, Red, being an imposter, couldn't let Sam do that. But, then again, Sam definitely knew the real Reddington. And we know he and Red were in touch in S4's "Requiem," when Red asks Sam to help him recruit Mr. Kaplan. You'd think that if Sam knew Reddington well enough that Reddington AND KR both trusted him, that he'd be able to spot Red as an imposter. So, it seems likely that Sam knew Red is an imposter and not the real Reddington, Sam's late friend. But, did Red know Sam before he took on the 'Raymond Reddington' persona? It seems likely based on how they talked in 1.08, but again, not a guarantee. It definitely seems like he was at least in touch with Sam on a regular basis after Sam adopted Liz.

Red was an American agent who spied on the Russians.

3 / 10 - Red does tell a lot of personal stories that are set in the United States. But, as I've speculated recently, perhaps he's only using American place names / people names so as to impersonate the real Reddington, but then the details are based on his childhood elsewhere (presumably Russia).

And then we do have the very first line in the show where Mr. Gray says, "Must be good to be home again, sir." So, as I've said before, this line is very confusing because we know Red has been coming and going from the United States for decades. So, Mr. Gray isn't referring to the United States in general. Maybe he means DC specifically. Could be. Maybe Red hasn't been in DC much since he became a criminal, but that seems unlikely given how much crime and intelligence is based in this show's version of DC. So, maybe Mr. Gray meant the FBI building specifically??? Not sure, especially because I'm unsure whether Mr. Gray knew Red was an imposter.

Ultimately, though, maybe Red was an FBI agent who worked with Reddington and infiltrated the Russians. Maybe he has a Russian background. Maybe his mother and/or father was Russian, but immigrated to the United States. So, the FBI or Navy or whoever decided he would be useful because he knew the language, the culture, etc., and they could use his family connections to help him get in and out of Russia without much thought.

But, if Red was an American agent who was spying on the Russians, you'd think the U.S. intelligence network would know more about KR. Red was clearly very close with her, and if he was there the Night of the Fire, it meant she trusted him. So, either Red was a really bad American agent OR he was a double-agent, which doesn't fit with Red's tenet of loyalty.

Red was a Russian agent who spied on the Americans.

5 / 10 - I give this a slightly higher chance than the reverse, because Red seems to know a lot of Russians that even most Russians don't know. He knows/knew Katarina, Dom, Ilya, Katarina's handler (whose name escapes me), and Tatiana (aka Fake KR). After all, Red said that KR was a ghost and most in the intelligence community -- whether U.S. or Russian -- didn't know what she looked like, hence why Dom and Ilya tried to use Tatiana as a fake KR.

Of course, maybe he only met these people after KR sought him out. Who knows? But, then again, it seems a little more likely that he’s Russian-born rather than American-born. After all, he did have a lot of Russian things in his Bethesda apartment in S2, and that was his private hideaway that no one knew about, where he could presumably be himself and not 'Raymond Reddington.'

Red was a Cabal agent who spied on the Russians and the Americans.

7 / 10 - While I'm not sure whether Red grew up in the U.S. or the Soviet Union, I ultimately think he worked for the Cabal. It would explain how he knew KR and Ilya. It would also explain why he was presumably there the Night of the Fire (as he has the burn scars on his back) -- because KR trusted him to help her get the Fulcrum back. It also explains what happened to his family. Think about it: the Cabal knows that valuable information was compromised by KR and is now in the hands of Raymond Reddington, both of whom are either deceased or in hiding. So, they had to take revenge on someone. So, assuming Red was an associate of KR's and was unable to find the Fulcrum, perhaps they blamed him or at least wanted to make an example of him. So, his family is killed, and KR finds out someone she trusts has a reason to hate the Cabal as much as she does. So, she recruits Red to become 'Raymond Reddington' as a way to take revenge on the Cabal and protect Liz from suffering the same fate his family did.

Red is responsible for Katarina's death.

6.5 / 10 - Based on his "just a nice gesture" monologue, Red feels that he has taken something away from Liz. And thanks to "Cape May," we know he had to make a choice whether to save KR or Liz/Masha. We figured that was during the Night of the Fire, but KR didn't die in the fire or at Cape May. So, based on 8.21, everything is accounted for. Liz killed her own father, so Red didn't take him away from her; and KR was still alive when Liz was placed with Sam and eventually created 'Raymond Reddington.' Presumably, either during or after KR and Red created 'Raymond Reddington,' something happened, KR died, and Red felt responsible. But, then that conflicts with Red's S3 line about how he's unsure what happened to KR, even if he later tells Liz that her mother is dead. Plus, Dembe did say something about "what (Red) did to Katarina." So, while there have been retcons, I do think KR is dead and that Red (feels he) is somehow responsible for that.

TLDR: who do I think Red really is?

I think Red has a Russian background -- either he's from the Soviet Union or his parents were. I think he was supposed to be spying on the Americans for the Russians -- so he, his wife and daughter lived in the United States -- but he ultimately worked for the Cabal. He likely worked very closely with KR, was acquainted with the real Reddington and probably met Sam at some point pre-Night of the Fire. When KR's team didn't recover the Fulcrum, Red was blamed / made an example of because KR and Reddington had disappeared. So, his family is killed and KR uses his desire for revenge to recruit him to become 'Raymond Reddington.' She gives him all the information he might need and asks him to help her protect Liz, which he agrees to because he doesn't want another innocent to suffer like his family did. At some point, KR dies and Red feels responsible, so he doubles-down on looking after Liz because he feels that he took something away from her.

#lizzington #the blacklist #nbc the blacklist #raymond reddington #elizabeth keen #liz keen #red reddington #nbc blacklist

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trashboatprince · 4 years

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I saw a challenge to write something sexy about Mr. Harrison and Mr. Cortese from this post by @naniiebimworks and I’m not missing the chance to make content of them in written form. Love me some Crowley and Aziraphale’s personas.

Summery: Warlock is too old for his nanny, but he’s not too old to start having a private tutor. Make that two tutors, who happen to look a bit like the nanny and the gardener who followed her off the grounds.

And already there’s something going on between them.

AKA Crowley and Aziraphale are really into how the other looks for this next phase of the plans.

Warning: these two are already in a relationship. Not full on content, but there is touching and such, gotta keep it pg-13 cause some of my followers are young. Also, not beta’d, so forgive the grammar errors

EDIT: There’s an extra mature chapter on ao3

On with the fic!

Nanny Ashtoreth put in her two weeks without much of a fuss, politely telling the Dowlings that young Warlock had no need for her anymore, it was time for him to get his lessons from a professional and not a nanny who was smarter than expected.

She recommended someone she said she had worked with previously, that he was highly recommended.

The day after she departed from the estate, there was a knock at the door and a tall, sharp man in an even sharper, dark suit stood there, carrying a briefcase under his arm. “I’m Mr. Harrison,” he greeted the doorman with a voice that dared him to say something, “Nanny Ashtoreth told me that this is where I would I be teaching.”

Without waiting, he stepped past the doorman and into the foyer, where he greeted Mrs. Dowling, who stepped down the stairs to greet him.

Mr. Harrison reminded her greatly of Nanny, that they looked rather similar. The same red colored hair, same facial structure, though clearly Harrison his sharp cheek bones under a beard.

“We’re cousins.” He told her simply, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

He would start his lessons with Warlock tomorrow at nine.

The next morning, while Mr. Harrison was teaching Warlock his first lessons on the ancient armies of the world, there was yet another knock at the door.

The doorman was surprised to see a man with wild, near-white hair and an equally wild beard standing there, smiling. He was dressed in creams and golds, a stark contrast to the clothing of the other man who had been at the door the day before. “Good morning!” He greeted the poor employee with a Welsh tint to his voice. “I am Mr. Cortese, I was hired to be the private tutor to Warlock Dowling.”

“Uhh…” The doorman blinked, before making himself professional. “I am so sorry to inform you that Mrs. Dowling has already hired a tutor yesterday.”

“Oh?” Mr. Cortese asked, eyebrows raised high as he glanced about past the man, as if looking for the person who took his job. “I am sure that the young boy wouldn’t mind two instructors.”

The man at the door sighed and said he would get his boss to speak to the stranger. Ten minutes later, Mrs. Dowling hired Mr. Cortese to be Warlock’s second tutor, taking two days of the week and sharing one with his coworker.

She took note that he reminded her of someone, but she wasn’t sure. Sort of like the weird gardener who happened to leave right after Nanny Ashtoreth did, but house staff come and go.

“… And that, young Warlock, is why one must not draw on his books, you never know what their worth will be in the future.” Cortese sighed loudly as he finished with erasing the last of the doodles the young boy had drawn on the open pages of the history book in front of him.

“I thought it made it look cool.” Warlock replied in his defense and Cortese nearly rolled his eyes before removing his pocket watch from his vest pocket, looking at the time.

“Right, well, it seems that our lesson for history is over for today. Off you go, enjoy your hour break. When you return, we shall begin our coverage of literature.” He waved a hand towards the door and Warlock didn’t need to be told twice to run off for fun, there was a video game with his name on it that he couldn’t keep waiting any longer.

Cortese watched him run out of the room with a small huff, smiling as he started to clean up the books and papers on the table of the building’s library where he was to do his lessons. He paused when he smelled something, a strong cologne that covered a natural, demonic musk that he knew all too well. “Mr. Harrison, I assume?” He turned to meet the man who he had yet to be introduced to since arriving yesterday.

Leaning against a bookcase, Cortese stared from behind his reading glasses, feeling his face heat up just a bit as he looked at his counterpart.

Harrison was in a dark suit, fitting of him, opened jacket and tie just a bit loose. The angel inwardly cursed as he looked at how the other had styled his hair, pulled back in a tight short ponytail. He hadn’t seen Crowley since they left the estate, wanting to get themselves ready for their next personas.

Seems that Crowley miracled up a beard that looked too good on him, the littlest of changes to the demon always got something stirring in Aziraphale, be it a new haircut or the addition of facial hair.

And he did a combo, damn him.

Clearing his throat, Cortese straightened himself up, adjusting his jacket. “I almost didn’t get the job because of you.” He told the redhead, who only smirked, crossing his arms.

“You’d have gotten it anyway, and look, you did! Come on, you knew I was gonna show up first, made it less… suspicious, if we both showed up at the same time.” Pushing himself off of the bookshelf, Harrison sauntered over to partner in this scheme, the smirk turning more playful as he stepped around Cortese, looking him up and down behind dark lenses.

He stopped behind the shorter man, who froze up at the eyes that he felt on his backside, those hungry eyes…

“Nice suit,” Harrison commented, “suits you, love the colors. Golds and creams? A change of pace from the tartan.”

“Oh!” Cortese turned sharply, giving him a hard stare. “Must I repeat myself? Tartan is stylish! But, if you must know, I decided to change it up a bit. I do wear other clothing you know, Mr. Harrison.”

Harrison looked at him, before shrugging. “Of course, just… can’t help admirin’ how good you look when you mix it up a bit.” He was suddenly closer, when had he gotten so close? Cortese stepped back, feeling his backside bump against the table, he was pinned.

“You need to dress up more, angel.” Harrison then frowned before chuckling. “No, don’t do that, you become too much of a tease when you step out of the norm.” He toyed with the silk tie that Cortese wore, slowly, carefully loosening it as he tugged down on the knot with one finger.

Cortese’s face flared up red as a heat pooled in his stomach. “M-Mr. Harrison! You wily man, behave yourself!” He swatted at the hand. “You should be professional!”

“Oh please,” The demon rolled his eyes before leaning in closer, “it’s not like we didn’t have our fun as the nanny and the gardener, yeah? Won’t take these fools long to start rumors about us as well…”

Cortese paused, looking at Harrison’s face. Right, they had been a bit adventurous and frisky with one another when in their previous personas, what’s the harm of having a little fun as two tutors? It was like something out of his romance section, but he wouldn’t voice that out loud.

“We waited a few months as Ashtoreth and Francis before we got handy, my dear.” He finally replied and Harrison groaned.

“Wow, way to be a real buzzkill, angel!” He moved to step back, but Harrison found himself in place, hands on his hips that suddenly were pressed against Cortese’s. “Whu-?”

“Who said we weren’t going to have any fun?” The blond scoffed. “Besides…” There was a snap of fingers and Harrison heard a lock set in place.

Cortese leaned in close to his ear, he could practically hear the smug smile in the other’s voice. “We have less than an hour before my next lesson and I’d like to get my ‘coworker’ a bit better. Is that alright with you?”

The string of sounds from Harrison was all Cortese needed as an answer.

Someone, Harrison found himself flipped around, his own back pressed into the table with the angel pinning him to it, kissing him hard on the lips. Any coherent thoughts in the redhead’s mind were thrown out the window as he was snogged into next week, wrapping his legs around soft hips.

He pulled back, panting a bit as he looked at the hazel eyes that stared right at him. “Damn, angel, you’re in a mood.”

“You’re a terrible tease, dressing up like this.” Cortese huffed, kissing at his neck before working on undoing the already-loose knot of Harrison’s tie. “You know I love seeing you dressed up.”

“Mmm… sssshould do it more often than…” Harrison tilted his head back, lifting his hand up to snap his fingers, but a hand stopped him. “Come on, don’t go slow…” He groaned.

“No, I want to take it slow, I’m not going to just have your clothes vanish on me!” Cortese scoffed as he pulled back to start working on removing the suit jacket, taking note that he rather liked the pattern on it, Crowley needed to wear more patterns in his wardrobe.

Harrison pouted before his own fingers got to work on unbuttoning the vest Cortese wore, legs still firmly in place around the other’s waist. “How far?”

“Hmm… heavy petting?”

There was a loud snort. “Who taught you that?!” Harrison laughed before undoing the last button. He looked at the other man, a coy smile on his face. “Lovin’ the changes, angel. You look so good with that hair, almost feral, very you.”

“What on Earth are you talking about?”

“Just commentin’.” Harrison mumbled as he pulled him down, talking against the other’s lips before kissing him hard. Cortese mumbled a reply that fell on deaf ears, the two clearly distracted be kissing and the sneaky fingers playing with the tie the other wore.

Both were discarded on the table, and Harrison was vaguely aware that his hair had slipped from the ponytail it had been in. He would have made a comment, but he was distracted by perfectly manicured fingers playing with his freed hair, and by the body that pressed against him.

His own fingers busied themselves with groping a rather nice, soft bottom, earning a squeak from the angel who was still toying with his hair. Harrison smirked, pressing down on the ample flesh, keeping Cortese against him as he moved to suck on the exposed skin of his advisory’s neck.

The room felt hot and both angel and demon were feeling even hotter, fingers moving here and there, but never to what was going to be wanting some attention. Well, Harrison thought, time to change that-

There was a sharp set of knocks at the doors to the library and Cortese pulled back sharply from Harrison, losing his balance and dropping to the floor at the sudden intrusion.

“Ssshit!” Harrison sat up straight and worked quickly to straighten out his shirt, trying to button it back up from where Cortese had popped a few of the buttons.

“Y-yes? Who’s there?” Cortese called out.

“Mr. Cortese,” came Warlock’s voice from the other side, “can I come in?”

“In a moment!” The blond replied before trying to get his vest and shirt back in order. “Oh, this was a bad idea…!” He whispered towards the other man in the room, who was trying to get his hair back into place.

“Yeah, yeah, I know! Gotta wait until the kid’s asleep, ‘r somethin’…” Harrison jumped from the table, throwing on his coat, then grabbing a tie, tossing the other at Cortese who was quick to try and get it done up.

Once Harrison thought he had everything in order, he rushed to the door, the lock suddenly undone and the door opened to reveal Warlock, standing there with a confusion on his face. “We’ll continue our discussion of the plans later, yes, Mr. Cortese?” He spoke, as if nothing had just happened, outside of the flushed look on his cheeks and the rumpled state of his clothes.

“Y-yes, of course, do come looking for me when you have the chance, Mr. Harrison.” Cortese replied, swallowing as he straightened his jacket out. He watched the other man walk past Warlock without much word and turned to the child. “Yes, did you need something?” He asked, trying to act like Warlock did not just interrupt something.

“Wonderin’ if I left my phone in here.” Warlock replied before tilting his head. “How come you’re wearin’ Mr. Harrison’s tie?”

Cortese looked down, seeing that, yes, he was wearing the dark colored tie.

This was gonna be a long next couple of years.

END

They make up for lost time later, but make sure that it’s when no one will bother them. >.>

Anyway, first time every writing for Harrison and Cortese that wasn’t them as the Radio Omens boys, it was fun.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #mr harrison #mr cortese #john's drabbles

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casualotptrash · 3 years

Text

Fixes to the Persona Series- Social Links

This was originally going to be the whole point 6 in my Fixes to the Persona Series post, but it was basically the same length as points 1-5 combined so I didn’t want to make the post mega-huge.

Link to the whole post about this topic.

(Spoilers for a lot of P3 things, including the plot and second awakenings)

I’ll start off with this point, something that needs to be fixed for all of the games is that you shouldn’t only get social link points for saying what the person wants to hear. I get the train of thought that if you say what they want to hear they will like you more, but that’s not how real friendships work? Obviously you shouldn’t be saying something that offends them and think it will raise your points, but sometimes people just need to hear things?

I can think of three standout examples: Nozomi in P3 (Gourmet King), Mishima in P5, and Shinya in P5. Nozomi’s link is a hot mess in of itself, but it was very frustrating to at one point just be like “Hey can you chill?” when he’s trying to induct you into a scam/cult or whatever, and it reverses the social link. Like ok buddy fuck you too, I was just trying to say no and that you need to stop scamming people?? For Mishima in P5 (I’ll go more in depth on him in a later post), it’s just kind of strange that you can clearly see him starting to obsess about the PT’s but you can’t really tell him he needs to stop until the social link demands it. Even then, the only way to get points is pretty much to go “Wow Mishima, you’re the best! You’re the reason we exist! We love you!!!” and it just feels kind of wrong. Shinya’s is very much along the same line as that, except you basically have to do something even worse and encourage him to keep being a bully? Thankfully P5 doesn’t reverse confidants, but I probably would have done so with Shinya because I kept telling him he shouldn’t bully others until I realized how to get points with him. It just feels wrong to encourage such behavior until the character suddenly realizes they’ve been acting wrong. No shit, I’ve been trying to say that.

I think social links need quite the fix to them, but this is definitely one of them. Strong, real relationships are not just built upon telling the other person what they want to hear.

Now I’m going to go into the structure of how social links are made and how they affect the characters. I have so much to say about this it’s not even funny. There are two major parts to this, but the second heavily ties into the first, so I’ll just go through them one at a time while trying to make sense.

The first part is that, simply put, integral character growth should not be tied to social links. The completion/tipping point of a character’s growth seems to be signified by their second awakening taking place. For example, in P3, all of the cast members awaken after a big event happens in game which causes them to grow. Most of this is them learning how to move on past the deaths of their loved ones, but still the idea remains the same. The game still has some pretty significant social links with party members too, so it’s not like the social links really suffered from this. In fact, I would say it made the social links even better, and it did this by fleshing out the characters further.

For this example, I’m going to use Akihiko’s growth from the story and social link in P3P because I feel like I know it quite well and it’s one of the best examples of this.

In the main story, it’s clear that Akihiko has a couple of problems. He’s quick to fight, reckless with his own health, and cant let go of the past. Along with these traits, he also cares very much about his friends. He considers Tartarus to be a training ground, is actually injured for the first few months of the game, scolds the MC, Junpei, and Yukari a bit for going out to the alleyway (where Shinji saved them) because it was dangerous, and desparately wants Shinji to rejoin SEES. Him and Shinji, on multiple occasions, talk about the incident where Shinji killed Ken’s mother. Akihiko says that Shinji needs to let go of the past, and Shinji echoes the same sentiment back at him.

What all of these problems step from is the death of his sister, Miki. They were both young and orphans, along with Shinji, and one day during a fire Shinji held Akihiko back from running back into the burning building. Inside the burning building was Miki, who Akihiko was trying to get to, and sadly she died in the fire (I’m pretty sure all of this isn’t revealed until P3P with his social link, but in any version of the game we find out that Miki is dead). Because of this, he felt powerless and from then on strived to be powerful enough to save those around him, which is why he’s obsessed with training to such a degree that he doesn’t care about personal harm to himself.

All of this eventually comes to a head when Shinji dies in the story, and Akihiko isn’t able to save him. At a memorial for his death, Akihiko says this:

“I was too obsessed with power. Ever since I lost Miki, that's all I've cared about. I thought that if I was strong enough, I could protect anyone. But I was wrong... And now You're gone too... I'm such an idiot. In battle, there's always a chance of dying... I knew that! But I was so focused on fighting that I didn't notice anything else! It didn't matter how tough I was! Look what happened!”

He cries for his friend, and then is reminded that this is not what Shinji would want. He would want him to keep living his life, and finally let go of the ghosts of his past. So, this is what he does. At that point, his character growth basically reaches its climax and he awakens to Caesar. This all happens in the main story of the game.

Now, how did they decide to do his social link in P3P? Personally, I think it was genius. Due to all of that growth being integral to the main story, they could not just take it out and shove it into a social link. They had to find another thing to make the social link about, and instead of making it about something pointless they connect it to the main growth in the game. (Note, this social link is only available in the FeMC route)

In general, what his social link is about mirrors his growth in the main story a lot. In the beginning, he treats the MC with an overwhelming sense of care, almost to a condescending degree. You’re always going out to eat, him saying how much you need to eat to grow strong, and jogging/running with him. Taking out the more romantic parts of the social link (although they are *chefs kiss*), eventually it progresses to the point where he asks you if you can stop being the field leader of SEES. Of course, he immediately takes this back and laments that you couldn’t just do that. You have the option to question if he thinks you arent good enough for the job, and he quickly says that the MC is capable, and he didn’t mean to imply that you werent, but he doesn’t want you to be in danger. The social link is frozen after this, as Akihiko doesn’t know how to balance his overwhelming worry and concern about the MC being hurt.

After Shinji’s death, the social link continues and he reveals the event of Miki’s death. At one point even says he feels like he doesn’t deserve to live because she died. It’s a very sad event, but because of his resolution from the main story with Shinji’s death he is able to open up to the MC. In the end, he comes to the conclusion that he’ll never get over the anger and sadness he feels for his sister’s death, and he accepts that she is dead, but he feels guilty because he wanted to ask you to bear this burden with him. He also starts to wonder what his feelings toward the MC mean, because he is very conflicted, and admits he might be seeing Miki in you (hence the overwhelming protecting nature he has for you in the link, and slightly condescending big-brother tendencies).

In his rank 9, he admits that he was tired of losing what was important to him. He thought that it would be better not to let things get too important, rather than risk losing them. He realizes this is wrong, and says he now knows he needs to work to protect everything precious from him. If the romance route was taken then he sees you as a precious loved one, while if the romance route is not taken he likens you to the status of Miki, aka a precious sister to him.

As you can see from the synopsis, a lot of what was in the social link is directly tied into his main growth in the story, however it is also not integral to his main growth. It stems off of it, not the other way around. Whoever made the extra social links in P3P did an amazing job at doing this exact thing, perhaps because they couldn’t change the growth in the main story. Either way, it’s a perfect example of how social links should be done.

If you’re interested in watching the growth from the social link directly, here is the link: Akihiko social link rank 1-10

You might be thinking, how is this issue really that big of a problem? Akihiko was a great character before his P3P social link, so if the growth is there either way (in story or social link) then it should be fine. My answer to this is in short, as the series progressed from P3 this problem got worse to the point where it negatively impacts the characters. The reason this got worse and impacts the characters so much, especially with the ones from P5, is because of the nature of how social links are set up. Obviously, social links are optional. They have to be, because not everyone is going to finish all of them in one run. This presents the unique issue of needing to make social links meaningful, but also not necessary. I would think anyone who reads that sentence would immediately understand how those two things do not mix well, especially when almost all of the important character growth is pushed into the social link. I’ll be using the social links (party members specifically) in P5 as my example to illustrate this because they’re the best for this.

At the very best, party member confidants in P5 feel like they contribute a good bit of character development alongside the story (on the surface). At the very worst, confidants in P5 feel like they actively contradict the story. Ann is probably the best example of this, but it happens to the rest of the main cast too, to varying degrees. I’m not as familiar with Ann’s confidant as Akihiko’s, but I’m going to try and do my best.

Essentially, Ann’s confidant is about finding her passion, becoming a stronger person, and overcoming her guilt. Outside of the occasional discussions about Shiho, how strong she is, and Ann discussing how she needs to become strong for her, one of the main things you do in the confidant is help Ann use various methods to be a better model (because she comes to the conclusion that she wants to be serious about modeling, her hobby, since Shiho is trying so hard to get back to her normal life). I have played Persona 5 vanilla twice, and Royal twice, and every time I have completed Ann’s confidant. That being said, it’s kind of sad that I could do it four times and barely remember the “becoming a stronger person” and “overcoming her guilt” part of it (outside of Ann saying Shiho is strong, and Ann asking us to insult her to make her stronger). She does have a very good conclusion with Shiho, and it’s is really sweet to see them hug on the roof and everything, but other than that the main outcome of the confidant is that Ann is going to really try for her modeling career and needs to change her habits because of this. Some of those habits she changes is by eating less junk food, exercising, etc.

Here’s where the issue comes in. You go through this whole confidant and have Ann come to that conclusion, and then throughout multiple scenes (and the rest of the story) Ann adheres to none of it. It’s the most whiplash I’ve ever experienced when one day Ann says she’s going to cut the sweets, and then the next something happens in game and she’s just chowing down on all of the food. To be clear, I do not care if Ann is eating a lot of a little in the grand scheme of things. Like I said, this is just an example that illustrates the total tonal dissonance present from the social link to the main story.

The whole reason this occurs is because, like I said earlier, the confidant has to be meaningful but not necessary to the plot. This is a major problem when pretty much the whole reason for her character growth, the plot with Shiho, is in the confidant. No matter if you do the confidant or not, in the story the characters will always act as if the confidant plot has not happened at all...because they physically cannot write it into the main story as it is optional. The reason this worked with Akihiko was because he had his main growth outside of the social link, and the social link tied into his growth, and the reason this doesn’t work for the P5 cast is because their growth is set up in the opposite way. Instead of tying their main growth in the story to the confidant, the story acts as a stepping stone for their main growth in story of the confidant.

I predict some people might read what I just said and counter with the point “You cant just expect their whole personalities to change,” and they would be right, if that was what I was explaining. It’s not. Obviously base personality traits are always going to be present, but the reason for having character growth is for the characters to grow. Futaba can always be more shy and timid around others, but if you go through her whole confidant where she learns to be more independent and then later on have her go somewhere and completely shut down? That is not growth. Her change can manifest in her being shy about going somewhere new, but adapting to it a lot quicker than she did before the confidant was completed. But, like I said, because of how the confidants are set up this is just not possible.

It took this long to get here, but we finally arrive at how the second point ties in. The second point is that, because of this issue with tying in integral growth with the social link, the characters end up being very one-note in the story (if you take out the inclusion of the social link). In my opinion, P3 doesn’t really suffer from this (although there still are bland characters in that game. Sometimes the writing is just not that exciting. Sorry Fuuka, you’re better in the spinoffs), P4 suffers from it a little (Teddie talking about girls 90% of the time, Yukiko laughing at everything, Meat Chie, etc.), and P5 has the most rampant cases of this.

This doesn’t mean that the characters are not well written, it just means that the game is going to be way more enjoyable if you are able to max everyone’s social link in comparison to only maxing a few. Putting aside the gameplay benefits, I usually love my NG+ runs more than my first run because it allows me to see all of the characters so much more.

I know that all of the characters could be shoved into stereotypical boxes if we had to, but we basically don’t need to for P5. If you do not do any confidants with party members in P5, tell me how many times Ryuji shows his remorseful and caring side for the trouble he has caused the track team in the main story. Oh wait, you can’t! He’s pushed around as the proverbial butt-monkey for almost the entire game, and at least Junpei and Yosuke got some deeper interaction with the story when they were in this role. If you only experience Ryuji from the main plot, you’d probably want to throttle him with how many times he ogles at Ann, argues with Morgana, tries to pick up girls, and shouts about being a Phantom Thief and wanting fame.

I will admit, they do have some deep moments here and there, when the main story calls for it, but other than that (again, without doing the social link) the PT’s kind of have as much characterization as a piece of cardboard. This is a big problem, especially when the cast is full of great characters! I played P5 4 times, and it still isn’t my favorite cast. There are some really good characters in there, but they just could not compare to the P3 cast for me (even though P3 was filled with a lot of highs and a lot of lows). Yukari was kind of a bitch and I didn’t like her for a long time, but at least I felt something! Poor Haru is just shoved off into a corner and characterized as the “team mom but would kill you, sad her father died, also has a crush on you” for the whole game unless you do her confidant.

Jury is still out on the P4 cast, because I see a little bit of what P3 had going on and what P5 does in them. Every time Yosuke is talking about something serious or profound I get really excited, only for it to be followed up with some dumb (usually homophobic) joke. I like the extra interactions the P4 cast has in comparison to P5, but even in those situations it feels like each member is kind of cast into their stereotypical role (Teddie want pussy, Yukiko laugh, Chie meat, etc.). I imagine once I do finish P4G and get to do my NG+ I will like the cast a lot more, but only because I will be able to do all of their social links.

Despite all of this, whether a character from the game has great growth or not, you can always count on Atlus to flanderize each character into their one “defining” (aka memed) trait to hell and back in any spinoff.

Sorry, don’t mind me crying in the corner with how Akihiko was massacred from a deep character into a protein junkie.

#long post #persona 3 #persona 3 portable #persona 4 #persona 5 #persona series #p3 #p3p #p4 #p5 #shush just shut the hell up about protein for five goddamn minutes #please god he only mentioned it once in p3 #maybe twice who knows #AND IT WAS COMPLETELY BY CHANCE TO SEE IT #Atlus why do you massacre your great characters #it's not funny anymore #I want d e p t h

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