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#and its not like. at all relevant to whats going on in your world

iwander12 · 11 months

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How children and aging are depicted in LittleBigPlanet + Sackboy's canonical age

I've been wanting to write this post for a while now! This topic i find rather interesting as i'm in that turning point in life of being a newborn adult lol

I'm going to apologize beforehand though for my lack of knowledge about LBP PS Vita in case it had some relevancy to this post. It is the only full release i haven't played :( I'd also like the apologize for the strange pacing in this post- there's a lot to go through and otherwise I'd never get it done.

Do sackpeople age?

Yeah!

Perhaps the earliest* and obvious example are the child portrait stickers of the Creator Curators in LBP2. Most of them (aside from Eve) are used in the first proper level Rookie Test, in pictures of Larry giving flowers to Victoria and Avalon, Clive and Higginbotham graduating. In LBP3, there's a sticker of Newton as a baby in Nana Pud's hands. Sackboy: A Big Adventure has a prequel comic called "The Gathering Storm" starring Scarlet which depicts her as a child.

What do sackfolk look like growing up?

Considering baby Newton fit into Nana Pud's already small hands, babies must be really tiny.

SABA has the first example of a child in the games physically with the Death Stranding costume. Baby...

Wait, a baby sackperson is just a tiny sackperson?

*So this means that the Mini Sackboy item from LBP1 is a baby... (Yeah, it's not a plush. It's alive. It blinks.)

It's a fact that sackpeople use their children as fashion accessories. How delightful yet incredibly strange!

Child Scarlet is a little shorter than the shoulders of a standard sackperson. (She's the only example we have, so excuse the brevity... well there's Hildur, but I'm not sure if she counts as a sackling)

What about a teenager?

As previously established, there is a portrait of Avalon, Clive and Higginbotham graduating, though it's not specified whether they're graduating from high school or college, which would make them either roughly teenagers or young adults at that time. Clive is shorter than the other two in the past yet is about their height in-game, so it's more likely they were teenagers and Clive hit his growth spurt after graduation. A series of promotional videos released for LBP1 called "Life in LittleBigPlanet" state that a fully grown Sackperson is 8 centimeters tall.

Newton is said to have flunked out of the Popit Academy after one semester. Completing term 1 of Popit Puzzles will land you this neat graduation outfit.

It's also unspecified in-game whether the Popit Academy is a high school or a college, but considering its logo and what was described of Newton, it's definitely a college. (I am unsure of the system in England, but here in the US if you fail a semester of high school you just continue as usual and make up what you missed as additional work, instead of being kicked or dropped out.)

Newton's insecurities lie in his belief that he'll never live up to his father, and flunking out played into that. This is what led up to him wanting to use the Titans, to prove his potential to the world, and letting Bunkum's residents (including himself) make better use of its creativity. Of course there's no time range or limit to attend college, but most people tend to pursue it directly after high school, and coupled with Newton's bruised pride and desperation, let's assume for the sake of this post that Newton attended college straight away and is a young adult.

Most of the other sackling characters can easily be identified as adults or elders.

But what about .... YOU? Or, well, Sackboy... er...

The player vs. the character

It's a bit hard to define the separation of a character that's intended to be an expression of you versus yourself, because that separation is defined by yourself as well.

Let's say that the aspects of Sackboy that AREN'T decided/customized by the player are what is hard canon about him: This includes the official story levels, as you don't have a choice but to proceed, and less noticable things such as his personality and actions in the tutorial videos+ ads, and what's in his wardrobe (which is every single costume piece in the game. doesn't mean he wears it though. I wonder how cold he usually is).

Now, without you, who is Sackboy? He's a heroic sackling that has gone on many death-defying adventures across the globe and beyond. He's silent, gender non conforming and has a neverending amount of PlayStation cosplays. He goofs around with the narrator and knows how to use all game mechanics.

And, without your input, how old is he?

How old is Sackboy?

We've sorta already answered this question.

Sackboy is a physically fully grown sackling, as he is 8 centimeters tall. This would make him a teenager at the very youngest.

He has attended and graduated from Popit Academy, a college, which edges him into potential young adult or just general adult territory. (Teenagers can also attend college of course, but that's less common)

Having mentioned his wardrobe before, he has a lot of things that children typically wouldn't wear, including the aforementioned graduation outfit, facial hair, wedding outfits, fishnets, a speedo...among more

In SABA, he can wear piercings and a cute choker!

I'm not going to demonstrate this for obvious reasons, but there is even official art of him with genitalia. Go look at Media Molecule's Flickr if you really want to see it. Hell, knowing that and Mm's sense of humor, his name is rather inappropriate too. (I try to ignore this for the sake of my remaining childhood innocence.)

The Twitter is weird

There are a few tweets by the official LittleBigPlanet twitter that "state" Sackboy's age. These are actually referring to the franchise's age at the time they were posted. (Remember that LBP1 was released October 2008 and do some simple math)

(The GIF says "Happy 12th Birthday Sackboy)

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is weird

Sackboy is definitely NOT a child- why, after a decade of this being established, does he sound like one in SABA?

To help explain this decision, this game can be described as a "soft reboot". It doesn't retcon or change anything about the past, but it presents it in a new way for new and/or unfamiliar audiences. (aka marketability.)

Sackboy was completely silent before and now he's shouting "YEAH! WOOHOO!" every 3 seconds. His voice is very high pitched, youthful and would come off to most people as a child's voice.

I tried to look into his voice actor in the past, but the only other thing they are credited for is Tearaway. It's possible they were credited under a pseudonym, but either way we don't know how old they are or how they are typecast.

Why does Sackboy, a grown man with cock and balls, sound so much like a little boy?

THATS BECAUSE SACKBOY IS CANONICALLY TRANSGENDER HAPPY PRIDE MONTH��️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

#littlebigplanet #little big planet #sackboy #littlebigplanet lore!!!#i will leave this in the tags since its not relevant to the topic but dont let this stop you from having fun with your headcanons!#sackboy can be a kid for the sole reason that you feel like it. have fun go wild with your imagination #the world is your oyster #thats what this series is about after all :)

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shotmrmiller · 3 months

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Multiverse part 3

You sat in a small room on a padded chair, with equipment set up around your arm, chest, and fingertips. A polygraph test. That's what you were being forced to take. And to your chagrin, Ghost is in the room with you and Captain Price.

"Try to relax, yeah?" Price commented. He must've noticed your restless leg.

"I'll do that, shall I? I've done nothing wrong, other than exist and I'm being interrogated. Because that's what this is— an interrogation." You finally turn your attention from Ghost to look at Price, who's sitting at the desk by your side. "Tell me, Captain. Did you get this same treatment when you came back after spending all that time locked up in the gulag?"

His dark eyebrows furrow in confusion. A sigh escapes your bitten lips. That's only in your...world, for lack of a better term. Dimension? Universe?

"I haven't been to the gulag here." Yeah, obviously.

With an impatient wave of the hand that doesn't have cables strapped to it, you mutter, "Let's get on with this circus act, then. Ask your questions."

Ghost steps forward, his arms unfolding as if he's about to speak to you, but Price swiftly intervenes, halting him with a raised hand.

"Alright then. Baseline questions first. Name." Ghost gives away nothing when you say your last name is Riley.

It goes like this for a few, then he switches to the control questions, until finally moving on to the relevant ones.

"How did you get here?" I don't know.

"Do you know why you're here?" No.

He pulls up a photograph. "Recognize him?" Captain MacTavish.

Another photo. "Him?" I don't know.

"What do you mean by that?" If that's Roach, I've never seen his face unmasked.

"You're sure you don't know him?" Unless that man's name is Gary Sanderson, no. I do not know him.

Price acknowledges your response with a nod, then shifts his gaze towards Ghost, whose head slightly tilts forward. Returning his attention to you, he retrieves a final photograph. "What about him?"

As you look at the picture, your eyes begin to well with tears, lip trembling violently. A new fracture reverberated through your tender heart, intensifying the ache in your chest. Yes.

"Who is he?" Price softly asks.

"That's my Simon," your voice broke on the last syllable. It was hard to not use a possessive adjective when the face of your husband was in that picture.

Blinking the tears away, you clear your throat. "Anything else, Captain?"

Price purses his lips under his hefty facial hair and responds, "Just a few more questions."

Once finished, you sat unabashedly staring at Ghost in the tiny room. "I wear Roach's tags alongside yours, in honor. He was with you until the very end, and for that, I couldn't be more grateful."

Ghost is completely silent, but you continue talking anyway. "I've been married to you since a bit after you came home on leave that one time. You know the one."

His eyes are emotionless, blank, as he stares at you. But you know him like the back of your hand. You've got his full attention.

"I accompanied you to your brother's wedding. He married a woman, Beth. She was good for him. They had a baby, your nephew, named Joseph. The love you had for him was one of a kind. I had told you later that evening that I dreamed of the day you'd look at our children like that."

With a shuddery breath, you tell him how none of those matters. Because your husband is dead, and you're stuck here. With his counterpart that hates you.

With a hushed click, the door closes shut behind him as he leaves, yet its resounding noise fills the compact room you're in.

You begin to fidget with the sizeable ring that hangs on a thin necklace beneath your shirt— the metal is warm under your touch as if it had never gone cold in the first place.

As if Simon had never taken it off his finger to go find Makarov.

ah theyre short but hurt. much pain.

taglist: @1mawh0re @sae1kie @darkravenqueen98 @chinuneko @thestartitaness @bowtruckleninja @hawsx3 @uyudunmuyavru @prettyoatmeal @arael-asuka @spencerreidisbae123 @beau-min @lovefks @maliakealoha @kit-williams @clear-your-mind-and-dream @theloneshadow24 @wolfieisacat @littlebunie @bloobewy @kkaaaagt @sadsackssss @hypernovaxx @halobaby @lildemon475 @animarix @just-pure-trash @catatemyslideshow @hayleybarnesx @sasagehoes @thigh-o-saur @youdontknowe @destroyer-of-za-warudo @maxisqq @k4marina @onlineoutcast

#call of duty #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #multiverse cod #09 ghost #22 ghost #cod mw2 #cod mwii #cod #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon riley #simon ghost riley x you

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beescake · 4 months

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i am in love with your sollux i think

sollux love party :]

if you’re interested heres some of my personal fondness thoughts on him.. big warning for the mega long read ahead aye

as we alr know sollux's rejection of participation somewhat mirrors dave's rejection of heroism, but even without getting cooked to completion i still find sollux's character v compelling beyond the fourth wall

as someone who doesnt get a pinch of that Protagonist Sparkle to begin with, he can openly say he wants to leave anytime…. and unlike dave, he actually Can leave the scene anytime. but he can never be truly Free from the story via permanent character death like the other trolls.

his irrelevancy is indeed relevant - he’s there so u can point him out.

while his image is intended to be a relic of past internet subculture, his role is not only about hehehaha being a Chad or a 2000s cyberforum 2²chan haxxor ragequit gamebro.

his continued existence also happens to add a Bit to the overarching themes of homestuck! a Bit that gives him longer-lasting thematic relevance compared to the trolls who could’ve had more character potential but didnt get to survive beyond the main story.

the Bit in question:

his defiance contributes to the illusion of agency (treating characters = people with autonomy). he’s “aware” of it, and that recognition is worth noting enough to forcibly keep him alive as both reward and punishment.

considering how his personality & classpect is designed its definitely a very haha thing for hussie to do LOL. he’s made to be op asf so he's resigned to doing dirty work, gradually deteriorating along the way but never truly dying. as fans have mentioned before, him openly rejecting involvement after a while of grim tolerance is like if the sim u were controlling suddenly stopped, looked up and gave u the finger while u were step six into the walkthrough for Every Possible Sim Death Animation.

but since he’s just a sim… the more he hates it, the more you keep him around. if ur sim started complaining abt your whimsical household storyline you’d definitely keep that little fuck.

but yeah i like that sollux is just idling. the significance of his presence being that one dude who's always reliably Somewhere, root core Unchanged, no individual ambitions (possibly due to fear of consequence?), and design-wise: a staple representative product of his time.

compared to dirk's character, who has aged phenomenally well into the present (themes of control + AR + artificial intelligence, clearer exploration around navigating relationships/sexuality, infinite possibilities of self-splinterhood and trait inheritance), sollux's potential is really... contained. bitter. defeatist. limiting and frustrating in the way old tech is.

the world continues moving on to shinier, brighter, more advanced automated things - minimalist and metaverse or whatever but sollux is still here 🧍‍♂️ going woohoo redblue 3d. (tho personally i imagine his vibe similar to what the kids call cassette futurism on pinterest mixed w more grimy grunge insectoid influences eheh)

conceptually-speaking,

at the foundation of it all, the rapid pace of modern development was built off the understanding of ppl like sollux in the past, who were There actively at work while the dough was still beginning to rise

thats one of the cool things abt the idea of trolls preceding humans! the idea that trolls like sollux excelled back when lots of basic shit still needed to be discovered, building structures like networks and codes from scratch, and humans will eventually inherit and reinvent that knowledge in ways that become so optimized it makes the old manual effort seem archaic, slow, and labour-intensive.

but despite information/resources/shortcuts being more accessible now, much of the new highly-anticipated stuff released on trend still end up unfinished, inefficient, or expiring quickly due to cutting corners under severe capitalistic pressures

meanwhile, some of the old stuff frm past generations of thorough, exploratory and perfectionistic development still remains working, complete, and ever so sturdy.

those things continue to exist, just outside our periphery with either:

zero purpose left for modern needs (outdated/obsolete)

far too important to replace or destroy, bcs of its surprisingly essential and circumstantial usefulness in one niche specific area.

which are honestly? both points that sum up sollux pree well.

dramatic ending sorry. anw are u still on the fence or are u Sick abt him like me </3

#ask #anon #sollux captor #homestuck #hs2 spoilers #2023 #vioart #hs2 sollux explaining girls and bitches to john: 🗣️🗣️🗣️#mr foods‚ setting up the visuals: LMAO ok pause. cool story bro theyre all gone its just u n ur sandwich bro.#now that i think abt it sol's kind of a toaster? awkwardly takes up countertop space #lacks the versatility and sociability of an air fryer/pressure cooker. unwashed and littered w crumbs!#but sometimes the clear‚ frank simplicity of the toaster is a temporary lifesaver for ppl who struggle w low appetite / decision fatigue #or ppl who just have a habit of eating toast for breakfast LOL #and eh ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯ even if u dont feel like toasting today thats ok he's still gonna be sitting there 👍👍#a funnyman..... i curse him in my pan but root for him in my biscuit 🫶

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fillemarlou · 11 days

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i know you.

pairings. luke castellan x daughter of zeus!reader.

summary. when luke starts sneaking back into camp to see you, he’s changed.

fillemarlou says. being a daughter of zeus isn’t relevant at all to the story i just needed an empty cabin to use LMAO.

· · ୨୧ · ·

you thought back to the first time you noticed it.

it wasn’t the first time he visited, or the second, or even the third. it was right around when you got comfortable with him again, when you began to forget that luke was no longer welcome here and that you’d be a traitor all the same.

the sheets of cabin one were never scratchy so long as he lay in them. his bare rising and falling chest was rhythmic underneath your ear, the only sound being a mixture of leveling breaths and a distant wind chime hung at the big house.

minutes had passed and still he was wordless. breaths kept hitching as if he were going to say something, but suddenly thought better of it and let go.

his delicate hands rested on your body, one hand mindlessly moving up and down your exposed back, the other on the forearm of yours that was strewn across his abdomen. this was typical of his visits, though the lack of conversation was not.

not that he’d tell you much, he was always reluctant to give answers or explain himself, something you had to adjust to from being so used to a luke who’d divulge all his secrets from just the bat of your lash.

but he did love to ask about you, what were you up to? what new skills had you learned? did you miss him?

the answer to the latter was always, of course. and on cue he’d lean in closely, a lovely hand on your chin to make your eyes meet, and whisper, “soon you won’t have to, i promise.”

but tonight there was none of that. he was silent and as much as you tried to ignore it and simply enjoy the time you had, it plagued your mind. shifting your eyes to see him, his gaze was fixed on the wall ahead, his expression indiscernible.

fully lifting your head from its place of rest, if he wasn’t touching you, you would’ve thought he didn’t even know you were there. the spaced out look on his face was slightly unnerving, causing your hand on his stomach to reach up to his cheek. leading his face to yours, his eyes slowly peeled off the wall to you.

there was a pause in time, where it seemed like he was just looking through you. windows to the soul were facing each other but his were boarded up and sealed off. concern rose in your chest while also feeling slightly dejected, though it might’ve been selfish to think that way in the moment.

with a soft and kind face, your thumb ran tenderly along his scar, the way you used to do all those years ago. like a shift in the tide, he immediately awoke from his trance, closed his eyes, and heaved a great sigh.

the smallest bit of relief came to your aid in knowing that trick still worked. he was still your luke.

upon opening his eyes, they shot back and forth between yours, his hands miraculously remembering you, and flexing for a stronger hold. though you were in his arms, something told you he was still worlds away.

he reached forward and brushed his lips to yours, with the gentleness of handling porcelain. the warmth of his skin was a brief reminder that despite your worries, blood circulated his body, he was here; he was real. he guided you back to his chest, and now, even the wind chimes were silent.

he’d wait for you to fall asleep before he left. however, a secret you’d take to the grave was that you never were sleeping- only pretending- in an attempt to savor his touch, his scent, his very essence. you never did know the next time he’d grace cabin one.

the light had gone out long ago, moonlight now clinging to the walls. his flesh left yours, and your distorted gaze fell on his back. it was littered with scars, mostly old but a few noticeably new- you suddenly understood why he’d insist on holding your hands when sharing a bed.

you watched his large frame lean down, acquire his shirt, and slip it on. as routine he’d sit on the edge of your bed, tying his shoes, readying to creep out the door and away. he once again wore that disturbingly blank expression.

he then did something out of the ordinary: he continued to sit. you tried your best to maintain an even breathing pattern, to raise no suspicions, but it didn’t seem to matter- he hadn’t cared to look back at you a single time.

moments passed on before his head fell to his hands. you could make out the arch of his spine beneath his shirt as his face pressed into his palms. he labored multiple breaths and you fought the urge to take him in your arms, to cradle his fretting mind.

more and more time passed and you found yourself genuinely dosing off, the long day- and now night- catching up to you. your eyes inherently closed and your mind half gone, you finally heard the distant sound of luke’s footsteps and a familiar creak of the door, before allowing a world entirely of your own take over.

the crunch of the underbrush made your stomach whirl with each step.

“luke-”

“shhh!”

he was a fair ways ahead of you, weaving through the trees with stealth. he wore a long sleeve underneath his t-shirt, indicative of the chill in the air; you were in pajamas, indicative of just getting out of bed in a rush.

you were tossing and turning this night, unable to forge comfort in your bed, when you heard the snaps of twigs in the distance. the last wordless visit from luke still reeling in your mind, even after weeks, allowed you to peek out of the window, just to be greeted with the far shadows of familiar broad shoulders. so here you were now, trailing behind him in the woods.

the lack of light made it hard to pinpoint where you were exactly, but it seemed familiar enough not to panic. luke was here, he’d never let anything happen to you.

“luke!” your plea was as hushed as you could make it, still hoping for him to stop.

his turnaround was harsh, almost deliberately so. “what?”

his voice ran through the gaps in the trees, causing him to peer around quickly, fearing he’d been too rash. he took a deep and silent breath before stalking back to you.

standing in front of you, the moonlight streaming down encased the two of you just enough to create an illusion of privacy.

he repeated, “what?” he spoke just above a whisper.

“i w…” he practically winced at your tone, a silent reminder alongside his eyes bearing into you with expectance, “where are we going?”

luke had an affinity for being unable to conceal his facial expressions, especially when he was met with a question he thought was stupid. you hated being the subject of this look.

“i just need to check some things out, i’m not staying.” his bluntness would’ve been a sufficient distraction of its own had it not been accompanied by obvious impatience.

with best efforts, you ignored this, always finding it in your heart to be rational and sympathetic. your manner softened as if handling a temperamental child while giving him the opportunity to reciprocate, “i just,” a breeze brushed hair over his shining eyes, “i miss you.”

he was once again boarded up and sealed off. the lack of acknowledgment written on his face was equally hurtful as it was frustrating. seconds passed with his unfazed expression searching yours, and finally, unable to take the haunting gaze, you reached a hand up to brush his moon-illuminated cheek.

without hesitation he maneuvered away, fervent with avoiding your touch. he cleared his throat, “you should go back to your cabin.”

slowly recoiling and folding your arms in front of yourself to conserve what little warmth you had, he didn’t take a second look back before starting on his trek again.

you couldn’t even begin to feel hurt when anger was seeping in and taking over. years of relentlessly critical thoughts came flooding back all at once; how passive he was, how much you were willing to risk for him, how his face would fall to dissatisfaction when he thought you weren’t looking.

unable to help yourself, you called after him, “what do you want from me, luke?”

his halt was abrupt and he peered over his shoulder, “what?” he sounded incredulous, like the proposal of this question was just as stupid as before. his head whipped back to you, his eyes fixed and dark.

tension that had been built over time was boiling now, “you’re shutting me out! you left!” hopelessness was rising in your chest as his jaw clenched in challenge, “what am i supposed to make of that?!”

wind whistled passed trying to take your clothes with it. his familiar nose twitch gave away your getting to him, though he was quick to relent. you spoke again, “tell what it is that i’ve done. tell me what you expect of me.”

“i don’t expect anything of you. i’m not here for you.”

you were staring into his eyes, desperately scouring for something more yet you were met with stone. gods he was so beautiful. why was he breaking your heart?

with a release of pained air, your face remained carved with fury; you were not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing you cry. you began taking steps back, feeling your head shake slightly but being set on letting that be the last words that hung between you.

turning to leave, he was quick to grab your forearm, his grasp tight and unwavering despite your flexes. you were met with an unnerving glint, “don’t even think about going to chiron.”

the most painful part all of this was luke believed you could betray him just as he did you. never once did the thought of telling cross your mind.

the fatal flaw of loving luke castellan was that even now, looking up at him for a fleeting moment, there was a longing for his comfort. eyes flicked to his chest and you felt as though you could fall right into it without conviction. but the trees rustled above, and reality swept in.

you wrenched your arm from a hand that was once so loving, and unable to stand his gaze much longer, followed the path of least resistance back to camp.

the smell of campfire engraved itself into your clothes.

stepping onto the marble stairs leading up to your cabin, you bid a goodnight to the friends you’d be leaving behind for rest. the echo of laughs and avid chatter filled the cul-de-sac of cabins, the camp turning in for sleep with spirits still souring after a night at the amphitheater.

the hearth in the center of your earth raged on, casting everyone in a homey glow. shouts of sleep well! and don’t let the stolls bite! were strewn across porches. giving your final farewells to the outside world, the door of cabin one was opened.

immediately you saw him. to be fair, it wasn’t like he was hiding, and it wasn’t difficult to spot the only person inhabiting the whole place. he sat on the edge of your bed, facing the door, his head hanging into his hands. you felt as though you’d seen this before.

“luke?” your voice seemed impossibly small in the expansive room.

his shoulders instantly tightened as he looked up. catching his full appearance, you took a discreetly sharp inhale of surprise; he was pale, an indescribably striking pale, accompanied by a tear stricken face. his cheeks were glossed from leaking eyes, and his hair was slightly tousled, like he’d been running his hands through it too many times.

this was unlike anything you’d ever seen before, let alone from luke. straight edge, always tidy, never-let-them-see-you-at-your-worst- luke.

you began to thank every god quickly and individually that none of your friends had asked to come back to your cabin to continue the fun, as they usually did after campfire.

“i’m-” his voice was hoarse, “i’m sorry, i…” he shook his head, not finishing his thought before shutting his eyes in an attempt to stop his tears.

you stood frozen at the entryway, still taking in the sight. you truly didn’t think you’d be seeing him again, or at least not like this. you’d been trying your hardest to beat down any remaining soft spot for him after his dismissal of you last time, trying to hold true to your anger.

he wasn’t making it easy.

the air had become stiff despite a breeze sweeping through and a sour taste was advancing on your tongue.

he lifted an arm off his knee and extended it to you. such a small act, yet it incited an internal battle between your heart and your mind. you weren’t sure when the dense pit in your stomach had arrived but were sure it was here to stay.

your eyes on his- they seemed a harsher brown than you were used to, in contrast to his newly stark complexion- they were filled with the most desperation one could have. he was pleading.

he slowly became closer and closer, yet he hadn’t moved from his place on the bed, and you found yourself no longer in the entry way. your heart had presently won. it hammered in your chest, shouting words once spoken aloud, i’m here regardless of the pain, a promise.

reaching his strong hand, placing fingers in his palm, irreverent shock jolted you into the moment. he was cold to the touch, iciness spreading up your arm and tying itself around your neck.

it made your next action quick and practically thoughtless, taking an immediate seat on the edge next to him, still holding his woeful eyes. his heavenly face trembled with more emotion than it could handle, and he fell hastily into your shoulder with a heart-shattering sob.

he clung to your torso like a lifeline, tears warming through your shirt. you deemed the feeling of his shivering body against yours the worst you’ll ever know.

as if his torment was a weight now on both of your shoulders, you two slipped onto the floor, melting into the foundation. but your arms never relented from his. the hiccups of his cries seemed to echo in the vast space.

“i’m sorry.”

“i know.”

“i’m so sorry.”

“i know.”

and so this continued. his consistent beg for forgiveness and your incessant declaration of understanding, repeating it so many times it didn’t even sound like english by the end.

cradling him and his fretting mind now, the way you were sure may castellan had when he was young and scrapped his knee, making claims of knowing the pain he was experiencing.

a hand reached down to his cheek and led his face to yours. as a pure act of admiration, your thumb ran tenderly along his scar. watching him intently, you saw a flicker- if only for a second- of the boy you loved, once not hurt by the world he was subjected to.

a whispered, “i know.” meant you did, a solemn swear. it meant don’t tell me to go away from you because i know. it meant his anguish was not his to bear alone.

it meant you knew him regardless if he could recognize himself while looking right in the mirror.

“i know you, luke.”

· · ୨୧ · ·

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cy-cyborg · 8 months

Text

Tips for wring amputees: its ok if your amputee can't repair their own prosthetics

There's a trope in fiction for amputees to always be these mechanical geniuses who can make and repair their own prosthetics, endlessly tinkering away and improving them. This isn't a particularly trope, and i dont think its harmful or anything, but in reality, prosthetics are REALLY, REALLY complicated, and a lot of amputees cant do their own repairs. And thats ok. Like, prosthetic creation and repair is way, way harder than I think people expect. Well outside the skillset of your standard mechanic, handy man or craftsperson.

People who make and repair prosthetics are called prosthetists. To become a prosthetist, most countries around the world today require you to have completed a bachelor's degree in specifically in prosthetics and orthotics, which covers not only how to make a prosthetics (and orthodics) but a great deal of medical knowledge, physics, how different forces impact "non-standard" bodies, the additional biological wear-and-tear that comes with being an amputee and so much more. This will qualify you to do the job of fitting/making the prosthetic socket (the part that attaches to your body) and putting premade components together to make a functioning device. On top of this, many prosthetists are also expected to have artistic skills, sewing skills, good physical strength and dexterity, IT skills, and more recently, knowledge of 3D modelling and printing.

You want to make all the high-tech components the prosthetists put together to make the full prosthetic? The requirements for that vary country to country, but most will require at least some level study in the field of engineering and/or medicine, on top of what was already required for the prosthetics course.

The reason for all this is because even "basic" prosthetics are extremely finicky, and messing up one thing will have a domino effect on the rest of the body, especially in more complicated prosthetics. It can also result in people getting severally injured if anything is even slightly off. many leg amputees for example end up with spinal issues due to extremely minor issues with their prosthetic that weren't caught until years later, and by then the damage had been done.

Some amputees do learn to do basic repairs. This is most common in places like the US, where a visit to the prosthetist can cost hundred to thousands of dollars (depending on your insurance), but it's also quite common in rural parts of countries like Australia, where cost isn't an issue but access is due to vast distances between major cities. I was personally in this category; as a kid, my nearest prosthetist was 6 hours away. My prosthetist was able to teach my dad, who later taught me, how to do some of the simple repairs, but we still needed to go in every few weeks for the more complex stuff (Kids prosthetic need more adjusting than adults because they're still growing. Also I was rough on my prosthetics and broke them a lot lol).

But even after being taught how to do repairs and having my prosthetics for 20+ years, I only ever did these sorts of repairs to my below-knee prosthetic. I will not do any repairs of any kind to my above knee leg, which is much more technologically complex. Every time I tried, I made it worse to the point where the leg was unusable. I just leave those repairs to the guy who went to university to learn how to do it, and sometimes even he needs to send it off to someone with even more specialist knowledge when it's really badly messed up lol. Last time that happened Australia post lost the package. Not really relevant to this post, I just find the idea of it being sent to the wrong place by accident hilarious, it was one of my more realistic legs too so someone probably had a heart attack when they opened that package lmao.

Anyway, back on track lol.

This isn't even touching on the fact that on some more advanced prosthetics, many features are actually locked behind a security barrier only prosthetists can access. My prosthetic knee has an app on my phone I can pair it to, that allows me to change certain settings and swap between certain modes for different activities that tell the leg to change its behaviour depending on what I'm doing (e.g. a mode for running, a mode for cycling etc). but most of the more in-depth settings I can't access, only my prosthetist can, and he can only gain access to those settings with a security key given to him by the manufacturing company that requires him to provide proof of his credentials to receive it. I don't really agree with this btw, something about being locked out of my own leg's settings makes me feel a bit of an ick, but it's set up like this because people used to be able to access these settings and they would mess with things to the point their leg was virtually unusable. Because altering one setting had a domino effect on all the others, and a lot of folks weren't really paying attention to what they were messing with, all their prosthetists could do was factory reset the whole leg, which causes some issues too. Prosthetic arms are often similarly complex, as I understand it and have similar security barriers in place for more advanced arms. I don't know for sure though, so take that with a grain of salt.

All this to say these are incredibly delicate, finicky and complex pieces of equipment. There's nothing wrong with having a techy amputee character who can do their own repairs, but in reality, that is pretty rare, and its ok to have your character need to see a prosthetist or someone more knowledgeable than them. It's a part of the amputee experience I don't see reflected very often in media. In fact, the only examples I can think of in fiction (meaning not stories based on real people) where this is reflected are Full metal alchemist.

technically I think Subnautica Below Zero also mentions prosthetists are a thing in that world, but its a very "blink and you'll miss it" kind of thing...in fact I did miss it until my last playthrough lol.

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mclqren · 17 days

Text

STARTING ANEW ★ CL16

PAIRING ✦ charles leclerc x fem!ex girlfriend!reader ; niall horan x fem!reader

SUMMARY ✦ when your relationship with charles ends up falling through, you find comfort in a certain singer's arms [ SMAU ]

WARNINGS ✦ cursing, some hate comments here and there but idk if that's actually a warning

REQUESTED ✦ here!

NOTES ✦ to preface: i usually don't write for anyone other than f1 drivers & football players, but i liked the idea of this so i decided to go ahead with it! for the plot of this, charlotte & charles broke up september 2022, and the dating timeline for charles & y/n is nov 2022-dec 2023. the logistics honestly make not a lot of sense but BARE WITH ME PLEASE. the fc i've used is hailee steinfeld, but feel free to picture whoever you want! my requests are open so feel free to leave a request :)

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liked by yourbsf, charlottesiine, and 194,310 others

tagged yourbsf

yourusername bigger and better things are coming in 2024 🪩

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user4 oh she is glowinggg!!

user5 y/n is living her best life and we love to see it!

yourbsf nyc was sooo much fun w you 😘

yourusername had the best timeee 💗💗

user6 SHE'S IN NEW YORK RN??

user7 OKAY SHE'S STRAIGHT FIREE 🔥🔥

charlottesiine you're sooo perfect! 🤍

yourusername all you cha!! 💗💗

user8 MOTHERS SPOTTED TOGETHER??

yourusername

( caption one: the only cha i need 😘 | caption two: night out 🌃 )

liked by charles_leclerc, charlottesiine, and 210,998 others

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yourusername idk this weekend's been kinda fun!

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user13 THIS FRIENDSHIP IS SOMETHING IM ABSOLUTELY HERE FOR.

user14 charlotte x y/n WE LOVE TO SEE IT!!

user15 okay but the mysterious guy in the third pic??

user16 she's in another relationship??

user17 how has she already moved on that quickly tf... neither of them deserved charles.

user18 shut uppp!! you have no clue about y/n's personal life, for all we knew that literally COULD be charles, or it could be someone else! she should be able to do whatever she wants without some troll deciding they have a relevant opinion ❤️

charlottesiine the best weekend everrr!!

yourusername love you 💗

user19 CUTIESSS

user20 the way charles liked this ☹️☹️

user21 missing them hours

liked by yourusername, carlossainz55, and 1,081,007 others

charles_leclerc testing is all doneee - let's smash the race next week!

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user22 MY OH MYYYY

user23 he knows what he's doing w those pictures of himself

user24 no real im sweating over here.

user25 sooo...are you ever going to mention the breakup??

user26 or the new pics of y/n and her mystery man??

user27 to everyone asking charles to speak on his breakup: leave him alone! it's clear him and y/n are still on good terms as they're still liking each other's insta posts, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're together! they're people too, i think we all need to just leave them alone to process their breakup ❤️

user28 okay but y/n clearly is over him?? she's already processed the breakup, so why shouldn't he have?

user29 everyone needs to honestly just leave them be. this is sooo old rn and they're probably tired of it.

carlossainz55 all ready for the new season 🏎️🏎️

charles_leclerc 👊👊

liked by charles_leclerc, niallhoran, and 190,201 others

yourusername sitting still, looking pretty! 😘💗

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user30 OH SHE'S STRAIGHT FIREEE

user31 THE DRESS THE MAKEUP IT'S ALL SO PERFECT

user32 i needdd a grwm asap ur gorgeous girl!!

user33 okay but the second pic??

user34 we already knew she was over charles?

user33 yeahhh its just so strange to see her soft launching another guy

user35 idc what anyone says i LOVE that y/n has found another man she's happy with!!

user36 sooo real for this!! she deserves all the happiness in the world 💗

charlottesiine 😍😍

yourusername chaaa!! 💗

yourusername

( caption: heyy just came on here to say that me and charles are still broken up. i’ve seen a lot of rumours floating around the internet about the nature of our relationship, and while it is no one’s business except our own, i would like to just say that the break up, as previously stated, WAS mutual & we are still friends. mine and charlotte’s friendship also seems to be coming under a lot of fire recently, for whatever reason. she is an amazing woman and has been so supportive during this time of my life, so i kindly ask you stop bashing us on social media for simply being friends. thank you to all of the people sending me lovely messages - ur support isn’t going unnoticed 💗 )

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tagged niallhoran

yourusername the best thing life could've thrown at me 💗

comments for this post have been limited

niallhoran and who's that handsome fella 😘

yourusername just some annoying irish guy i met, idk how to get rid of him

yourbsf Y/N!! 😍

yourusername MY REAL LOVER 😘

charles_leclerc ❤️

yourusername 💗💗

charlottesiine me when i have to third wheel now ☹️

yourusername no neverrr ur my baby angel he can third wheel us 😍

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retro-rezz-the-est · 9 months

Text

Don't Leave - Roman Reigns/Female!Reader

Summary: Immediately after his devastating loss to his cousins Jimmy and Jey at Money In The Bank, Roman finds you in the back as he looks for an outlet for all of this newfound pent-up energy…but this may lead to something else as well.

Word Count: 14,197 (jfc that's more than I expected)

Warnings: degradation, choking/throat squeezing, biting/marking, hair pulling, spanking, oral (male receiving), fingering (female receiving), edging (for both parties involved), unprotected P in V action (please be safe and wrap it before you tap it irl tho), Roman being his Tribal Chief self (because that’s a warning all on its own), a bit of manhandling here and there as well….y’know, the works :3

A/N: All of this comes from three connecting factors: 1) Roman being the sexy ass WHORE that he is, 2) my own brain finally starting to work in tandem with my damn writing fingers, and 3) an all-caps DM from @stargazerofgoldenwords demanding that I write this so full partial blame goes to her. So here y’all go…for the bitches and the bros and for all the non-binary hoes ^3^ (I also haven’t written a full-fledged smut in I believe over three years so….I hope I did good lol)

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

This…This can not be happening.

How is this even possible? What’s going to happen now?

These thoughts and more rush through your mind as you stand board stiff in the back, your eyes seeming to be permanently glued to the large monitor in front of you while gasps and cheers from the remainder of the locker room fill your ears alongside the blaring bass of The Usos’ theme.

Roman told you to stay in the back for a reason, to only come out after he’d won and embarrassed the hell out of his cousins for ever turning their backs on him, so he could make examples out of them as a reason to never and not turn your back on the Tribal Chief.

He wanted them to remember this night, to remember the ache in their bones, the wear and tear of their joints as he slammed them against the mat over and over again, the blood and sweat staining their skin as he and Solo dug into the twins with everything they had left within them.

They would learn their lesson tonight, and they would learn it well: you do not mess with the Tribal Chief because if you do, you will feel a pain that you have never known before.

He was going to show everyone why he and he alone was the head of the table, why he was unstoppable, and why only those who followed him and his lead would prosper in the end.

But, none of that actually mattered in the end, not as you stand staring at the monitor, hands covering your mouth in shock.

They…They did it.

They actually managed to do it.

Jey pinned Roman, pinned him for the first time in over three fucking years.

Blow after blow to the foundation of The Bloodline, week after week from the cracks being exposed to Sami’s turn at the Royal Rumble that set everything in motion to the goddamn explosion that occurred during Roman and Solo’s Night of Champions match.

After all this time, The Usos finally got one over on the Tribal Chief, they won the Bloodline civil war.

They beat the Tribal Chief, destroyed his so-called “Island of Relevancy”, showed the world that he is still just a man and can be beaten just like the rest of them. Roman Reigns is not as invincible as he claims to be!...

….but Roman?

Roman is pissed.

You can see it all processing in his eyes in real time, all of the noise around you fading into the background along with the roaring cheers from the London crowd: his loss, being pinned, the fact that despite being a champion he has lost his stance, his placement at the head of the table.

Because what use is there of an Island of Relevancy if you’re the only one standing on it?

Your hands drop from your mouth and fall to your sides; how the hell…? What the hell is happening? Your heart beats rapidly in your chest as those around you celebrate his demise, hands clapping shoulders and drinks beginning to be passed around as the show draws to a close.

You can practically see the floor falling out beneath Roman’s feet as he slides out of the ring, dejected and defeated with a raging inferno blazing bright and hot behind those fierce eyes of his; his entire world, perfectly constructed with seemingly no flaws whatsoever, has shattered in front of his very eyes.

Rage twisted and contorted Roman’s facial features into something unrecognizable as he sat on the floor ringside, kicking his feet and screaming his anger out into the universe like a temperamental child. Baring his teeth, hissing and gnashing his jaw like an uncaged animal…

Frankly, it scared the shit out of you to see live.

He’s shaking, actually shaking with all of the hate and virtiol that courses through his very veins. The bright lights of the arena, hot and beaming down on his skin? The way his hair sticks to the sides of his face and the heavy furrow in his brow? The way his entire body aches from the brutal punishment of the match?

None of that matters now. None of it will ever matter now.

His anger, his regret, his disappointment with himself as he comes to terms with the true loss of yet another faction of his, people who he loved and cared for turning their backs on him again…his mind was a maelstrom as he gripped his face and pulled at his temple, and not even the pain from that could distract him from the truth in front of his very eyes.

His own family, his own blood, has betrayed him, the image of Jimmy and Jey standing above him displaying on every and all of the large screens inside the arena. His heart pounds in his chest and hs blood boils; they can’t just get away with this. They will pay for their crimes against him, against their family, against their Bloodline!

The blood, the sweat, the tears and the pain he had poured into their family, all the work that he had put in to make sure that they all ate, that they all got opportunity after opportunity after opportunity….all for nothing.

You watch as Solo picks himself up from the floor and stumbles his way over to Roman, Paul’s face a complete mess and whirlwind of emotions as he rushes over with Roman’s smorgasbord of titles cradled like infants within his arms. You can barely hear what the latter is saying to the Tribal Chief over the cheers of The Usos’ celebrating and their theme blaring through the speakers, but it’s most likely some sort of consolation and a promise of revenge due to the bright red of the shorter man’s face.

Even after all of this, after everything that these men have just gone through, Jimmy still attempts to reach out to comfort Roman as he sits ringside on the floor, you watching as Jey pulls him back to his own side; Roman is a lost cause to them now. In their eyes, they’ve destroyed his corrupted faction, they’ve cut off the hydra’s heads, and now?

Now, they’re done with him, with all things Bloodline-related as the descend back into being “the ones”.

They are the new Tribal Chiefs around these parts, not Roman.

Not anymore.

After what feels like an eternity of the fallen party sitting in stasis outside of the ring, they all stand, Roman wrapping an arm around his midsection and another hand around his shoulder as they all walk backwards back up the long runway.

His eyes stay locked onto his cousins as the camera pans from him to them and back again, Solo’s eyes filled with an incoming storm and Paul’s lips seeming to move at a mile a minute with how quickly he seems to throw insults the way of The Usos.

But the two in the ring just smile.

They smile and embrace each other after a hard won victory as the entire WWE Universe embraces them as well, and all that does is piss Roman off even more.

Your body somehow finds the will to move, your feet ungluing themselves from the floor beheath them before you begin to move your way through the small crowd of those watching from the back.

You tear your eyes away from the monitor you were watching and beeline it straight to the guerilla position where they’re set to return, and you can still hear the thunderous cheers coming from the fans as Jimmy and Jey continue to celebrate the fall of the Tribal Chief. Maneuvering your way through throngs of people, past production, past *everything*...you have to find him.

You have to find him, and fast.

It’s like your feet barely even graze the ground with how fast you walk, the light tapping of your heels echoing off the walls around you as you make your way closer and closer to Roman and…oh.

You can just barely see him over the heads and past the shoulders of the cameramen, the interviewers waving their mics in their faces, over the glinting bald heads of Pearce and Hunter that’re shining with sweat as they attempt to get a word in with Roman before they try to rush him in the direction of where the press conference is being held…but it’s as though he doesn’t see any of them, his eyes dark and filled to the brim with something nasty.

You’re not even the prime target of his glare, steel-cut and piercing all that come across it, and even you feel the brunt of it, shivering where you stand behind the cloud of people vying for his attention as he moves his way through them. For the reporters and the interviewers, their mics in shaking hands as cameras flash in his face, all of their questions die on their tongues the second his eyes sweep over them.

“Roman. Roman!” you hear Pearce call out to him, Hunter, Solo, and Heyman in tow close to his heels. “Damn it, Roman, listen to me!”

“We need to get you out there, Reigns. Just give a quick statement about the match, about The Usos, and then-”

Pearce and Hunter’s requests fall on deaf ears as you move to the side, the crowd of people following Roman’s path as he walks down one of the arena’s large halls.

“Excuse you, Hunter? Did you not just see the utter and complete farce that was the match our Tribal Chief just had?! There will be no statement to be made, and no appearance at any press conference shall be had unless it involves the absolute dismissal of what was clearly a farce of a loss!”

Paul’s demands make his face grow a bright red as he follows Roman, clutching his titles as his head seems to grow three sizes from the fury written across his face. “Jimmy and Jey, they’re cheaters! Conmen who have embarrassed your Tribal Chief in front of millions of people time and time again! We demand retribution! A rematch to set things right again! Do you know how much Roman Reigns has brought to this company? How much prestige he’s brought to these titles, to these championships?”

Paul jostles the titles in question in his arms, brows furrowed and steam practically pouring out of his ears. “This is an outrage! This is a scam! You two should be ashamed of yourselves for even allowing this to happen to a force like Roman Reigns-”

His incessant, constant stream of words and potential curses are paused by Solo’s hand slamming into his chest, Heyman’s eyes going wide as his mouth falls open before quickly closing it and stepping back to Roman’s side.

Roman pauses his stride, eyeing Hunter and Pearce so viciously that you yourself are shrinking into your own skin; he very clearly doesn’t want to be bothered right now, so why even try to ask him of anything at all?

The look he gives both men, the silent communications that occur between them seems to be more than enough for them to back off in their pursuits, stepping out of his way as their phones begin to ring constantly.

“We have to get some sort of response out of him, right? I mean, he’s the champion right now, we can’t just let him leave-”

“Let him cool off for a second, Pearce,” Hunter tells him, running a hand over his own stressed face. “He’s in no mood for any of that right about now.”

Roman continues to shove past and maneuver around those in his way, his steps as loud and threatening as his demeanor. Through and through, seconds by seconds that seem to stretch on forever until his eyes finally, finally gloss over your figure leaning on a nearby wall, your bottom lip caught between your teeth as your mind begins to turn.

And the very second that his gaze locks onto yours, time slows to a screeching halt.

There’s something in there that you rarely saw in him before, but that you’ve been seeing a lot more of recently.

That anger, that frustration, all of that adrenaline mixed all that hate and vitriol coursing through his veins…he needed to get all of it out, every last drop before he makes another misstep.

He needs you.

Shouldering his way past various sports reporters and camera people, he quickly makes his way across the hallway to you, his large figure towering over you as you begin to shrink further and further against the wall. He’s panting, partly from the resulting emotions following his match and partly from how rough the match in question ran his body.

His hand finds your wrist, gripping it tightly and without a single word from him, he pulls you from the wall and begins to walk away again, Solo and Heyman striding behind him while the media frenzy behind you all follows along.

“Roman, wait-”

He turns his head to the side and makes eye contact with you again, the look in his eyes telling you everything you need to know.

Not now.

All the words you were going to say fall right back down your throat and you gulp, the intensity in his eyes making your knees weak as you try your best to keep up with his pace. It doesn’t take long for your group to head back to his larger-than-anyone-else’s locker room, Solo being the last one inside as he shuts everyone else out besides himself, Heyman, you and Roman.

Paul quickly sets the championship belts aside on a nearby table while Roman runs a hand through his hair, running a hand over his face before taking a seat on one of the benches.

It’s quiet in here, all too quiet albeit for the clamoring noise outside…and this silence does not make you feel hopeful at all.

You all just…sit in that silence for a few minutes, stewing in it as the reality of what had just occurred mere moments ago finally sinks in for all parties involved.

“Wise man…”

All eyes fall to Roman as he stands to his full height, the sound of his voice booming like a lightning strike. This is the first time he’s spoken anything since initially leaving that ring. “Yes, my Tribal Chief?” Paul asks, somewhat shaken still.

“Leave us.”

That seems to garner a reaction from Heyman, the shorter man wringing his hands in front of him before clasping them together. “But…But, my Tribal Chief, we need to deliberate, come up with a plan for this Friday night on Smackdown! We need to strategize, to concoct a plan for how we’re going to deal with those nuisances that are The Usos…we cannot just-”

“I said, leave us. Or do I have to ask you again, Paul?”

His words send a stream of ice down Heyman’s spine, causing the man to stand upright as Roman turns to face him. His aura, what he radiates from within…you do not want to find yourself on the other end of that; it feels like a wall slamming into you at mach 10, wrapping its edges around you until you’re damn near suffocating in it.

“I…I understand, my Tribal Chief. I will leave you two to yourselves.” Paul bows out when he says this, his eyes flickering to the ground and away from Roman’s face before standing and quickly waddling back towards the locker room door, opening it to a barrage of sports media and cameras all vying for the chance to ask Roman even one question.

“The Tribal Chief will not be taking anymore of your unimportant questions at this time as he begins to take his rest after his extraordinary showing in tonight’s match. All questions, comments, and concerns shall only go through the Tribal Chief’s wise man - that being myself - and I shall relay them back to the Tribal Chief in due time. Thank you, and good evening to you all.”

Heyman’s words just spark another wave of noise from the now growing crowd of individuals at Roman’s door while Roman looks on at Solo who stands in the corner by the door, looking on at the onslaught with a scowl permanently tattooed onto his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

Roman nods at Solo, jutting his chin towards the door in a silent request for him to leave and luckily, the other man follows his order without another word, though you doubt he would have spoken otherwise. He throws a look in your direction, but not one of malice; this one has more…hurt lingering within it, a nature of distraught that you’ve never seen within him before he takes his leave after Heyman and slams the locker room door behind him…

…which leaves you alone, finally alone, with the unhinged beast that is Roman Reigns.

Being in a space with Roman Reigns, you can feel how much of himself fills it: his aura, his stance, his voice, his demeanor…no matter how big or small a room, you can damn well tell that Roman’s in there. You could practically sense it in the air when he arrives, hairs rising on your firearms as all around you grow silent. However, as long as you are not his prime target, you will most likely walk out of that room unscathed - emphasis on most likely.

But being alone in a space with Roman Reigns?

All of those feelings? All of those senses get hiked up to an eleven, the very room that the person is in feeling as though it’s shrinking around them as it seemingly pushes them closer and closer together.

And you, right now, are that poor soul in question.

Your hands grip the hem of the shirt you’re wearing - his shirt, the one that he gave to you and told you to wear once you were supposed to come out after the match was over…after he was supposed to win - nervously, your eyes falling to the floor and sticking to the shoes that you wear.

You see Roman’s feet walking towards you before they pause, then moving in the opposite direction as they head towards the locker room door as well…only this time, your heart rate rockets straight to the moon once you hear the sharp clicking of the door’s lock turning, that noise bouncing off the walls of your mind like an echoing cavern.

The silence in the room is unbearable with a tension so thick, you can cut right through it with Roman’s steely gaze. It’s all too warm, too stuffy, too suffocating while you stand there, your teeth making a home in your bottom lip as you shift from foot to foot.

What do you say to him? What do you say at all? Do you commend him on a match well performed? Do you take Heyman’s route and curse Jimmy and Jey’s names until the breath runs clean from your lungs and you’re all hot in the face as well? Do you take Solo’s approach to things and just say…nothing? Nothing at all?

What can you possibly do to even try to rectify things for him? Make things any better than they are at this moment in time?

All of these questions and more surround your brain and hold it hostage, unable to think of anything else. Is there anything that you can do to make him feel better? You’re supposed to be his, his girl…but with something as monumentally damaging to him as tonight was, so is there anything that you can do?

You don’t even notice him making his way towards you until he’s almost directly in front of you, watching your every movement like an unbound predator stalking its oblivious prey. The room around you grows way too hot way too fast as he continues to move your way, his footsteps soft yet booming as loudly in your ears as your own heartbeat.

As he takes one step forward towards you, you take an equal one back. One step forward, one step back.

One forward, one back, and this little game of yours goes on and on and on until you’re cornered up against the furthest wall, Roman’s hands pressing against the wall at the sides of your face. His chest nearly touches yours in the process and its rise and fall nearly matches the way your own does but you hold your breath and pray to the gods.

For what, you wonder?

For solace? For comfort? For a way out from his grasp, or a way to sink further beneath it? Space to breathe or to suffocate in all that is Roman Reigns? Entirely everything from him and absolutely nothing of him all at once? You don’t even know for sure but unfortunately, those prayers are left unheard and unanswered.

You hear him call your name, the syllables he speaks wrapped in a depth that twists and turns your very core. He doesn’t have to say much to grab your attention, after all.

“Look at me.”

But, can you? Can you really?

You can’t even bring yourself to do that, lest you wish to crumble beneath his unwavering gaze.

However, Roman is not one to take no for an answer; he never really has, especially nowadays. So when he speaks to you again, the very atmosphere of the locker room seems to shift and change under his words, underneath the dominance that is just solely and utterly him.

“I said, look at me.”

His fingers are suddenly underneath your chin, thumb and forefinger gripping it with just enough force to pull a strained noise from the back of your throat as he forcefully tilts your chin up so that you have to look up at him.

The soft gasp that you let out when you finally look up at him, into those dangerous eyes of his…you can see what it does to him by the roll of his shoulders as he stands to his full height, towering above you so much so that the too-bright lights that illuminate the locker room get blocked out.

You didn’t really get the chance to truly look at him through the monitor you were watching the match from and not even as he stampeded his way through the throngs of people all vying for his attention…but now?

Right here, in this moment, any and all words you could have possibly said to him evaporate on your tongue as your feet remain glued to the floor, your pulse thrumming through your entire body.

The wide panes of his chest stretch with each and every deep breath that he takes, his heart beating so damn loud that it fills the room and suffocates all other noise besides it. You feel the leather of his glove brushing against your chin where it wraps around his fingers, the force behind his grip being just strong enough to let you know not to mess with him.

Roman’s entire form from the waist up glistens with sweat and you can already see the soon-to-be bruises on his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his abdomen already begin to show.

His eyes are dark, darker than they have ever been before as he towers above you, slightly panting while his aura threatens to swallow you whole. There’s an obvious anger lingering within them, the deep-set betrayal and agony over losing his family and his undefeated streak finally sinking in along with the newfound uncertainty of the future to come…but there’s something else there in those eyes of him, something that makes sweat bead out along your brow and has your thighs clenching together as you dig your teeth into your lip so hair that it nearly bleeds.

Something more.

Roman sees this, what he does to you, and has to resist the urge to crack a smirk; you’re so easy to toy with. He can barely say a word to you, can just look at you only to have you a trembling, whimpering mess before him.

It’s reasons like these that drives his need for you so through the roof, and tonight means no different to him at all.

Just as he thought, you let out a whimper when you meet his eyes, your body threatening to go limp in his hold. His presence is just so much and it does so much more to you than you’re ever willing to say, but you absolutely love it either way.

You don’t notice him beginning to lean in closer to your own face, too stunned to even think of moving before he’s all that you can possibly see, his hair almost framing your own face as he tilts his head slightly to the side.

You can feel the warmth of his breath as it fans out over your face, spicy and hot and smelling of the cinnamon gum you saw him chewing earlier in the day. He tilts your face in the opposite direction, sighing as his eyes leave yours before he leans forward to press his face against the crook of your neck, burying his nose against the skin while the hand that remains on the wall curls into a fist.

Another gasp leaves your throat when he steps forward again, your hands unchelching themselves from where they rest at the hem of your - his - shirt as his chest presses against yours, warm and built and smothering in all the right places. When you raise your arms up from your sides to run your fingertips up his chest, over his shoulders, over his forearms, you can feel him just barely shiver beneath your touch.

His body calls out for you just as yours does him, and you can feel the buzz of all the energy still coursing through him, driving him up the wall as he leans further into your touch. And when you flatten your hands against his skin, the groan that he lets out rolls through our entire body, his chest vibrating against yours.

You feel him moving against your neck and you stretch further to the side to give him room, his lips forming into words that he wouldn’t dare say aloud with others nearby as his gloved hand moves from your chin to grip the base of your neck.

You know what this is, you know what this means; you’ve been here in this position before with him, especially much more recently with all of this newfound familial drama that’s dropped itself at the other end of his table.

With the seemingly endless amounts of adrenaline crawling beneath his skin, the cinching, tight feeling of his skin and the burning sensation that bubbles deep within his core, it’s no wonder why he’s cornered you like this, why he’s closing in on you, why he’s so bent on draping you in him.

I need you, baby, please.

Those spoken yet unspoken words he uttered into your skin make your eyes widen as a similar heat begins to spark within your own core, Roman trapping your leg between his own and pressing his cock against your thigh. It makes your skin crawl in the best ways possible, what he does to you, the anticipation mixed with everything that he just is making your mind hazy.

Your hands rise from his shoulders up the base of his neck, curving further up towards his hair before wrapping your fingers through it and gently pulling his head back up to face you, your eyes meeting his once more (how the hell did they manage to get even darker?).

Despite the fear that runs through your veins, despite your hands being in his hair and on his skin as you lead him towards you, he’s still the boss around here.

Roman still calls all the shots, no matter who or what stands before him - including you.

And even despite that as well, your body still wants him just as much as he wants yours.

It’s not even a want anymore; your body needs him, it desires him.

As for Roman, your body, your comfort calls out to him like a siren’s song, wanting him to pull you deeper and deeper into whatever’s going on within his own head until your entire body knows nothing but him, nothing but your Tribal Chief.

The fatigue that you know he feels is beginning to set into his bones, into his soul, but he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care because he needs you, more so than he ever has in the past.

The sparks are beginning to show between the two of you; there’s nothing in this world like spending a night with someone like Roman Reigns, and you’re about to experience that firsthand once again.

You see the slight raise of his brow as he scans your face, that miniscule action asking you for permission, for your go-ahead, for you to allow him to lose himself within you and to use you as he sees fit for the time being…

…and the nod that you give him right back is all that he needs to see.

It’s the only thing that he needs to see before surging forward to plant a searing kiss to your lips, the fist that’s curled against the wall, moving down to grip your waist as tightly as the hold he has on your neck, digging his fingers into the soft material of his shirt that adorns your figure.

You only get about half a second of realization before you notice that he’s on you, completely covering you with his body as he presses you up against the wall even more. Your hands move from his hair down his neck, grazing his jaw lightly before your nails begin to dig into the exposed meat of his shoulders.

He’s actively stoking the fire that’s now beginning to blaze within you, and you absolutely love it.

The leg that’s not actively trapped between his now finds itself wrapped around his waist right as Roman’s tongue slides between your lips, curling with and against your own before quickly taking over the kiss. And you let him, of course; he needs this, he needs you, and you’re willing to give him whatever’s necessary to satiate his incessant energy.

The way he knows how to pluck your body like a finely tuned instrument with the way he pulls moans and gasps from you, the drag of fabric on skin, the way his body seems to move perfectly in-sync with your own, pushing and pulling until the two of you radiate more hear than the core of the sun…there’s just something about kissing Roman that makes your toes curl and your cheeks ripe with heat just by thinking about it, let alone actually doing the deed.

It’s all fiery passion and full of the aggression he shows in the ring, the possessive nature he has over you to keep you close and a part of him always, the need to show you exactly who you belong to as he pulls you in so damn close that all you can even think to experience is just him and him alone…it’s a conglomerate mixture of beauty and pain and pleasure and you're drinking in every single drop of it.

You feel his teeth begin to sink into your bottom lip, the contact against the already red and raw flesh making you jump in his arms as he tugs on it harshly before letting go. Your eyes, hooded and blown out, meet his again, and you can practically read the words in his mind as his thumb reaches up to lightly brush over it.

You don’t get to do that, anymore. Only I can do that to you.

You watch as he thumbs over your lip again before coming back in for another kiss, your teeth nearly clashing against each other from how harsh the two of you collide. It’s messy, a battle of tongue and teeth that turns in his favor so damn fast, and you can’t resist the urge to just crumble beneath it.

Your arms loop around his neck and hold him as close to you as possible, not wanting to part from him for even a second until your lungs burn from a lack of oxygen so you’re practically forced to. But even that isn’t enough to stop the contact between the two of you, your nails digging into any piece of his exposed skin that you can possibly reach.

The smell of him fills your brain and flows through your very veins, hands holding onto you for dear life while his kiss steals all sense from your mind. Roman has always been able to do this but tonight, you lower your guards and have him take the reins (no pun intended), have him lead the way, follow his motions.

And his motions lead him to start moving backwards, pulling you away from the wall as your leg falls from his waist. Lips still furiously locked with yours, he effortlessly maneuvers the two of you away from the corner and towards a nearby bench, wrapping his arms around your waist before pulling you down harshly onto his lap.

You thought you could feel him before while he captured you in his stare against the wall, helpless to anything but exactly what he wanted to do with you?

Well, think again.

Your pelvis presses right up against his and the two of you let out a combined moan, your breaths mixing together before he shifts you over his thighs to press you against him even more. You start rocking yourself back and forth on his cock through the dark cargo pants that he wears, feeling it throb and jump with every pass. And your desire for his grows as well, the space between your thighs growing more damp by the second with your juices beginning to now stain your inner thighs.

The small shorts that you wear underneath Roman’s large shirt soon grow more uncomfortable than you’re willing to bear and Roman seemingly notices this as well, running his thumbs over the skin above your ass before not so gently pulling them down your legs. The second you feel the hit your ankles you kick them to the floor below, not giving a damn where they land as your lips remain slotted with his own.

Your hands run down the planes of his chest and circle your fingertip over the space above Roman’s heart, feeling the thrum of energy coursing through his being. His own hands run over your thighs, over the curve of your ass and up your spine as you shift even closer to him, the feeling of your soaked panties as they rub against the bulge in his pants making you pant against his mouth.

You feel his hands drift under the hem of your shirt, the mix of his skin and the leather of the glove he still wears making sparks fly. His lips move from your own down your jaw, the force behind the action making you gasp. Across your skin and over the curve of your ear, down the expanse of your neck and over your collarbone; there’s nowhere that’s left untouched by his eager mouth while his hands roam the heated skin beneath your top.

His teeth graze your skin lightly, causing your entire body to tremble with anticipation right before you feel the sharp stinging of his teeth digging into your flesh, a moan much louder than you should have let out escaping you. Roman’s tongue joins the fray as well, soothing the sting of his bite with each one that he gives you.

One by one, one after another he lays claim to your skin, a reminder to the entire world that despite everything, that despite everyone in his life…he still has you.

He still has you and you’ve let him have you.

The need to feel him, to feel his body even more so consumes your entire mind, your soul, your being, so you take the initiative and grip the hem of your shirt and raise it up your body, pulling it over your head and tossing that to the floor alongside your discarded shorts.

The bra that covers your chest is a lacy one, the same shade of bright red that adorns the glove on his right hand that matches right along with the panties that just barely cover your ass. ‘Figured that you might need a distraction in hindsight. I hope you like it…”

Your voice is small in volume but loud in its tone as you speak, quickly glancing down at his chest where your nails dig into the meat of his pectorals as he raises his head from the crook of your neck, your skin alight and buzzing from him marking it.

Oh, he likes it, alright. He fucking loves it.

Roman’s hands reach up to trace the details in the fabric, his thumb brushing over your nipple and making you arch into his touch. His brows slightly raise with intrigue; this was probably a surprise for him later, for when he won his match…well, not anymore.

Now, the sight of you in this number, one that you had put on just for him, mixed with the need lacing your voice and the lust swimming within your vision…it’s all so much, damn near too much for him to bear, his cock now actively throbbing and throbbing in the confines of his pants.

He needs you now.

“On your knees.”

His low tone shakes you right out of your lust-fueled haze, your eyes snapping open as you pant on his lap.The darkness swirling around within his eyes shows he means business and what Roman wants, Roman gets in spades.

You try your best to move from him, to escape the warmth and desire he’s so graciously provided for you in his own time of need but your methods of moving prove too slow for his tastes, Roman’s non-gloved hand reaching up to yank your head back by your roots, you yelping at the sudden pain.

“What is with you all not fucking listening to me today? I said, I want you on your goddamn knees, now.”

You try your best to nod with his hand in your hair, swallowing down the pathetic noise that threatens to break free before scrambling off his lap and sinking to your knees on the locker room floor, never once breaking eye contact with him as you begin to watch him tear his glove off. The sharp ripping of the velcro cuts through the thick fog that’s filled the air , leather being pulled between his teeth until finally, the damned thing is off and is tossed aside as well, his hand returning to the back of your neck.

Spreading his legs for you as slowly as he possibly can, he keeps your head solely directed at the intimidating bulge that lies within his pants, watching as your eyes flicker back and forth between his own eyes and what lies ahead for your future.

Roman’s nothing if not a beast, both in and out of the ring, and you can’t help but shudder when you gently plant your palms on the outsides of his thighs, looking up at him with the widest eyes you can possibly muster up.

You lick your lips nervously, your heart beating even faster in your chest as he literally talks down to you, your hands beginning to nervously run up his covered thighs as they make their way to his zipper.

And with each notch of its teeth that come undone, with every second that passes that turns into a minute and then to an hour, you manage to push past the nerves that run wild through your veins and undo his pants, slipping your fingers beneath the dark boxer briefs he has on and tugging them down along with his pants to reveal the true monster that lies before you.

Roman’s cock falls from its confines with a dull thud as the head connects with his stomach, leaving a clear splotch of pre-cum where it lands.

The shape of his cock, thick as a tree trunk and just as heavy and absolutely perfect as it is…the space between your thighs aches with the countless memories you have of him fucking you senseless with it,pounding into you and making you see stars over and over again-

“I’m not gonna tell you what to do here, princess. Or, are you too much of a dumb whore to even think for yourself now?”

You blink once, twice, three times as heat rises to your face, wiping the spit that threatens to fall from the corner of your mouth before you move forward, dragging your nails along the smooth skin of his upper thigh.

And as much as he loves to mark you and lay his claim to you, you love doing the exact same thing to him as well.

You live for the hiss he lets out from the pain of your nails, your teeth on his skin and grazing his pelvis as you move closer to his cock.

Such a man, such a being before your very eyes, and he’s all yours tonight, just as you are all his.

You let your nails and the tips of your fingers drag up the sides of his shaft, the length almost as long as your entire forearm. It’s a beautiful thing to see first hand as you admire him, your touches light and fleeting as your wide eyes continue to pierce his. You watch his abdomen clench and ripple when you catch his more sensitive spots, his hips bucking when you run your hand over the large vein that runs up the side.

A smile begins to grow along your lips as you watch him, his other hand running over his face and jaw. You can’t help but to admire him like this, slowly but surely as though you have all the time in the world to do so.

But, based on the absolute storm lingering within Roman’s eyes, you can tell that he’s in no teasing mood, the hand at the back of your neck squeezing threateningly before you finally get the hint to keep fucking going.

So, you do, tightening your grip around the base of his cock and stretching your lips around the head, letting the warmth of your breath wash over it before slowly beginning to sink your mouth down on him.

And, oh, what a sight he becomes before you.

“Fuck, that’s it…” he moans, watching through hooded eyes as you manage to slide the first few inches down your throat. With your smaller hands, you can barely wrap one of them around him fully - let alone two - but you try your best anyway, making sure to jerk the parts you can’t quite reach yet.

The ache between your legs becomes too much to bear as you begin to bob your head up and down, lustily taking him in while your eyes begin to close. With skin sensitive and hot to the touch, you take one hand off of him and begin to run it down your body. Over the curves of your breasts and as they threaten to spill from your bra, down the line of your abdomen, over your pubic bone and thumbing the lining of your panties, you let out another moan when you start to grind your clit against your fingers.

You don’t think that Roman notices it, the shift in your demeanor and the way your shoulders tighten up when you slip your fingers beneath your panties, the way your breath catches and your hips jump as you tease yourself…but he does.

He always does.

“Aww, are you that desperate, baby? You couldn’t help but touch that needy little pussy of yours? I can hear it all the way up here, you’re so wet for me.”

You can practically hear his smirk while he talks, but it still makes you hot all over. Spreading your wetness over your lower lips, you spread them and rub the pad of your finger over your bare clit, your body jolting at the pleasure it spikes through you.

“You want to touch yourself, fuck yourself with those tiny fingers of yours?” he asks, seething at the feeling of your teeth grazing the vein along his shaft. “Then, go ahead. Get yourself nice and ready for me…”

“..and don’t forget about me either, sweetheart,” Roman chides, briefly pulling you from the head with a soft pop before thumbing your lower lip. “Don’t make your Tribal Chief play second best to your needy fucking cunt.”

Your thighs clench and close in around your hand, a soft “yes” falling from your open lips before he presses your face right back against his cock as you begin to take more than you did before. You try to make your mouth as slick with your own saliva as possible, stroking his shaft in tandem with the swirling of your tongue around the head.

His hand lightly connects with your cheek. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, my-”

“And don’t speak with your mouth full, baby. You’re better than that.”

He glares at you as you rise from his cock again, panting softly. “Yes, my Tribal Chief.”

“There she is, that’s my good girl,” he tells you, patting your cheek condescendingly. “Now, get back to work.”

The copious amounts of spit from your mouth mix with his pre-cum as your hand glides along the warm skin, the sound just as loud and slick as the ones coming from between your legs. It doesn’t take long for him to take back control, roughly guiding your lips back to his cock before letting you do what you do best.

As your throat grows accustomed to his girth, you shift yourself on your knees and slip a finger between your folds, circling your hole with it and gingerly slide it in, choking around Roman’s length in the process.

A bright flush begins to run wild under his skin as he tilts his head back, the soft sounds of his huffs and groans making the space between your thighs almost uncomfortably wet as you continue to touch yourself. His other hand runs through his hair, pulling at the roots while his face scrunches up in pleasure when you twist your fist around the head just right.

It fills you with a feeling that you can’t describe, seeing what you do to him in moments like these.

“Shit, princess, keep going…” Roman’s near breathless now, his chest rising and falling more rapidly as his hips buck into your eager mouth. Eyes hooded, his attention stays on you while your own remain closed, focusing all of your energy on making sure your Tribal Chief is as primed and ready to go as you are.

You ease another finger in between your folds along with the first one and curl them as they drag along your inner walls; it’s not enough, it’s never enough when it’s just you because your fingers aren't his, your touch isn’t the same as his. Roman’s fingers fill you twice as much as your own do, the phantom feeling of them stretching you to the brim as they graze along that one spot wracking your body with shivers.

The room is brimming with the wet sounds of your motions, your juices dripping down the hand that remains at your core while your eager lips and tongue schlick up and down his throbbing cock, the noises coming from the both of you getting swamped in the mess of it.

The sight and sound of you struggling to take his length seems to light a fire under his ass and his grip at the back of your neck grows tighter, Roman starting to force the visible stretch of him taking over your mouth and throat even more so, bucking his hips against your face and making sure that you take what you’re given.

“Oh, you wanna please your Tribal Chief, baby? Well, then, take all of it.”

With that, you feel him wrench your head further down his shaft, your throat closing in around him and squeezing as you choke on him. The hand in your hair tightens the further down his shaft you go, your throat tightening with each and every inch you take, your gag reflex fighting for dear life as you struggle to take him fully.

The few inches you have left to go get wrapped in your fist, your fingers shiny with your spit and noisily stroking him until he presses down on the back of your head just that much more for you to

He needs this, he needs you, and you’re going to take everything he has to give you, just like he asked.

So you brave through it, tears in your eyes with your lungs burning and begging for air, you bare through it for Roman, and the loud moan that you get from him in response makes the fire licking within your core burn all the more brighter.

You try to speak with his cock in your mouth, your garbled attempts at calling his name making him shove you further down. “Do that again, princess. Moan for me again while you get that pussy nice and ready for me.”

And moan for him you do, hearing your blood rushing through your ears as the sensing the heavy press of his hand on your neck squeeze tighter and tighter, Roman intently watching and feeling the length of his cock stretch against the walls of your throat.

It’s not long at all before you feel the telltale signs of your own orgasm approaching: the tightness coiling within your core, the curling of your toes and the pulsing in your abdomen, the sweat beginning to bead on your brow, the way that the pace of your hand around his cock and the hand between your legs seems to uptick bit by bit as the seconds go by…

You’re not at all shocked that Roman catches whiff of this too, hearing the now sped-up sounds of your fingers thrusting in and out, in and out, over and over again as you soak your panties clean through. “Don’t you dare cum, don’t you dare fucking cum. Only I can make you do that, you got that? Me, not those pathetic fucking fingers of yours.”

“I won’t, I promise.” Your voice is muffled and your throat strains while you attempt to speak as you try your best to breathe through your nose, feeling lightheaded the more you try.

But his words make you feel not and sensitive all over, the hairs on your arms raising as your heart beats rapidly in your chest, gasping when he lifts your head from the base to tightly wrap his fist around it.

“Fuck!” you hear Roman yell before his hand tightens around your hair again, yanking your mouth clean off his cock, drops of spit and his pre-cum dripping down his shaft and catching the too-bright lights of the locker room. You sit before him panting and wheezing, taking in precious breaths of air as you cough and open your now tear-filled and blurry eyes for him.

Your throat and your chest burn from the abuse they’ve taken, the back of your head and neck sore from all of his manhandling while your knees ache from the carpet on the floor of the locker room digging into your skin…but you know that he still needs you, because he’s not done with you yet.

You try to wipe your mouth clean of the mess, your makeup now completely smudged and running down your face as the mix of your saliva and his cum drips from your chin and stains the bra you wear but he doesn’t allow it, taking your chin in his hands and leaning forward off the bench to steal your precious breath away once more with a kiss so fiery that it ignites a fire within you from the inside out.

“Get on your back,” he growls, hand creeping up the sides of your neck and giving it a tight squeeze. “I need to see how ready for me you are.”

Slowly, you pull your hand from your ruined panties and tug them off your legs, kicking the damp scrap of fabric to the side where the remainder of your clothes lie just as he stands from the bench, towering over you and staring down at you menacingly. You reach around your back to unclasp your bra and shimmy it down over your arms, the nearly ruined item soon following all of the other clothes you’ve discarded until you’re finally exposed to his wandering, hungry eyes.

That’s the push that he needs to trail after you as you spread your legs for him, the sounds of him languidly stroking his cock to the sight of you teasing yourself with the wetness that stains your hand.

And what lies in front of you is just as godly, the sight of him shuffling his pants down his thighs and exposing the beautiful tanned skin that you just had your palms running over, stroking himself to the sight and sound of you pleasing yourself with flushed cheeks and the marks from your nails covering his chest and shoulders…the whine you let out cuts through the air and you can’t resist the urge to reach out to him, to call to him and bring him to you-

“You get what I give you, baby, when I want to give it to you and how I want to give it to you. Not when and how you want.”

Roman kneels to your height, his knees hitting the locker room floor with a dull thud and begins to stalk towards you, sirens wailing off inside your mind right as he crawls over your body looking every inch the beast that he claims to be.

“Roman,” you mewl, feeling him run his palms up the flushed skin of your legs. His hand latches onto your wrist and pulls it from between your thighs, holding it up to the light and watching your juices drip from your fingers before slipping them into his own mouth.

You watch as his lips close in over them, his tongue swirling around them to catch every last drop of your essence before slipping them from his mouth with a dark grin. Your aroma, now more potent than ever, fills his lungs with every single breath he takes, even more now with the taste of your arousal staining his tongue.

Every nerve and thought in his body roars at him, screams and demands for him to bend you over and fill you with his cum, to take you over and over again until everyone in this entire goddamn arena knows exactly who the hell you’re with, you’re spending your time with and who’s dealing with you.

Paul, Solo, Jimmy, Jey…they’ll all know exactly who the fuck runs things in this little circle of theirs, this fight for true and utter control.

And it will happen, you just have to wait a tad bit longer for it.

You’re so warm as you lie beneath him, your nails digging into the meat of your thighs as you wait in ample anticipation for his next move. Brushing his hair back with one hand, he slowly runs them up your body, over your plush thighs and past your dripping core that beckons him in closer.

Over your waist and up your chest until he takes your breasts in his hands and rolls your nipples between his thumb and forefinger, pulling on them and twisting them until you cry out his name. The pain makes sparks ignite in your core and Roman refuses to let up on his hold despite the noise, taking one of your nipples into his mouth and biting down on it as he plays with the other one.

Those hands of his, the same ones that bring you pleasure are the same ones that have brought his own family pain, and that thought is not lost on Roman as he continues to play with you, reveling in the litany of pitiful noises leaking from your trembling lips.

He will not show you the same pain that his cousins brought onto him, nor that he had brought to them.

For you, things are…different.

You’ll never leave his side at the head of the table, never abandon him for some other, higher purpose; you’ve said so yourself before tonight many a time.

Your legs wrap around his waist and lock him in as you dig your nails into the carpet you lay on, it already starting to dig into your skin. But you need more from him; more of him on you, around you, more of his touch and his mouth and his cock, just more.

With your feet, you try your best to shove his pants down further over his ass and down his legs, only managing to get so far before he stops you with a firm yet quick slap to your ass.

He doesn’t even have to remove his mouth from your breast to tell you anything, glaring up at you while his tongue laves away at your nipple before moving away from it and suctioning his mouth onto the other.

Your entire body trembles; what does he have planned next for you? What more could he possibly pull from you as he manhandles your body, squeezing and grasping at you like you’re going to somehow sink into the floor if he removes himself from you?

And then all of your questions are answered when you see him rise from your chest, his lips plush and a shade of bright red as a thin line of his saliva connects them to your breast before it snaps. You feel him press down on your waist, making you relax further against the floor until he wraps his hands around your ankles and begins to fold your legs into your chest, your knees grazing your face just so.

“Hold them,” you hear Roman say damn near under his breath, the depth in his voice making you whine as you wrap your hands under your knees to keep your legs raised. The trembling of your body increases as your anticipation grows and everything in your body tells you to close your eyes and look away from him, but you just can’t.

He’s beautiful in the way he gazes down at you, zeroing in on the way the walls of your cunt clench around nothing and shine with your arousal under the light, licking his lips like a caged animal. He might as well be one anyway with the possessive nature that consumes him when he has you, when he’s with you.

A hitch in your breath comes and goes when he moves even closer, gripping his cock firmly with one hand before using the other to spread your lower lips, the sound of him spitting on them reaching your ears before you feel it. It’s slick, it’s obscenely nasty as he swipes his cock head through the glistening mess, spreading the wetness around even more so as to get you as well as possible before you feel the hefty warmth of the head slapping against your folds.

The weights of it, and the thought of what’s to come have you arching your back into the sensation, desperate to reach your hands up to grip him and pull him into you, to have them just get it over with already and to make you see stars. And you do flex your fingers in his direction, squeezing the space beneath your knees and spreading your legs further for him to tease and prod at you while he just stares on with a smirk slowly beginning to grow along his face.

“Patience, baby, patience,“ Roman murmurs, sliding the head of his cock through your folds and nudging your button with it. The action sends a bolt of lightning jolting up your spine, causing you to dig your fingers into the flush of your lower thighs, and toss your head to the side with a small whine.

“Please, Roman, I need it. I need you, just fuck me, please –“

He shushes you, placing a finger to your lips before slipping his thumb between them. You instinctively wrap them around the digit and pull it in deeper with your tongue, swirling the muscle around it before he slowly but surely post it out. “I said to have patience, baby girl, so don’t be greedy. Just lay back, be a good girl, and take what your Tribal Chief gives you.“

He ends his sentence by dragging that wet thumb over your lips, down your chin, and rests harshly against your clit, grinding his shaft against your folds as he plays with you. You feel like your heart is about to fly out of your chest with how fast it’s beating, watching as he moves even closer to you and presses himself even harder against you.

“Nice and wet for me, princess…you did good for me back there.” You revel in the small bit of praise, a ghost of a smile floating over your lips until you feel the blunt head of his cock brushing up against your entrance. “You still ready for me?”

You can’t nod your head fast enough. “Yes, please. Roman, I’m ready for you, I’m ready-”

At the feeling of him finally stuffing you full of his cock, his chest keeping pressure on the backs of your legs and folding further into yourself, tears begin to prick the corner of your eyes at the newfound pressure.

The familiar burn of Roman pushing into you but by bit, inch by gloriously thick inch, has you itching to latch onto him in any way that you possibly can - and you eventually do, removing your hands from holding your legs to placing them on Roman’s shoulders as soon as he gets close enough.

That fire he had stoked inside of you now grows to an inferno the more of himself he bullies into you, stretching you out to fit his cock just right is making your mind hazy. The quick and constant fluttering of your walls around him makes him groan, dropping his head to your knee.

Your nerves fry and your eyes cross as he continues to move, every single wall within you absolutely crumbling because of it. And It feels like forever and a day has passed before he eventually bottoms out inside you for the first time tonight as you nearly lose your mind on his cock, your toes starting to curl and your thighs flexing.

The guttural moan that leaves Roman’s chest rocks you to your very core, the sound of the wetness between your legs and the pressing of him against your ass turning your insides to mush. One of his hands rests at your waist and keeps you close, his body leaning on your own so much that his nose just barely brushes against yours.

You whine his name, the shrill noise and the desperate look in your eyes turning all dials up to eleven. The huffs and small moans leaving your throat, your body already run ragged before he’s really gotten the chance to fuck you senseless yet…it all just makes him want to ruin you even more.

He can’t figure out where to keep his eyes; he wants to look at all of you, from the way your chest heaves and your breasts move from your breaths to the way your pulse jumps at the vein in your neck to the apex of your thighs where your arousal stains and sticks to the skin of his pelvis, there’s almost too many options for him.

But when you squeeze down his shoulders and bring his attention back to the feeble look in your eyes, he can’t help but toss his head back and sigh because look at you, with your lip quivering just as much as your cunt is and the way you gently thump your head against the carpeted floor as his hand runs over your abdomen and presses against the outline his cock made inside you.

His ears fill with the sounds of your sex, your legs seemingly permanently glued to his chest while he wraps an arm around them, keeping you right where he wants you as his hips begin to move.

And the slide of him moving back and forth along your walls, his hips pulling back from your ass and dragging the head of his cock back towards your clit before moving back in just as slowly causes your entire lower body to twitch.

“Roman…Roman, please,” you beg him. You don’t even know what you’re even begging him for anymore: for more? For him to pick up his achingly slow pace? For him to close the distance between his mouth and yours so you can taste him all over again?

But he doesn’t appeal to your cries nor does he break when you seem to grow even wetter for him as he begins to thrust in and out, back and forth, dragging your hips higher into the air and folding you even further into yourself.

He still, however, refuses to look anywhere else other than at your face, in your eyes as he rolls his hips into you, dead set on ever single noise and jerking movement your body gives him.

His brow furrows; how could he not look at you when you’re like this, mouth wide open with your tongue lolling out of your mouth, pointed in the air as it tries to lick at his lips while you fan the flames of the fire you’re sparked inside of him?

You try your best to rock your hips in tandem with his own, bucking them as best you can whenever his pelvis meets your own and he bottoms out inside you. You can feel the head of his cock grazing that sweet spot along your walls, almost kissing your cervix every single time he bears down on you. His weight strains the muscles at the back of your legs when he pulls forward every time but you don’t care, you don’t care because all that matters is him and how well he fills you.

Roman doesn’t speak a word to you, only letting out groans and grunts with the occasional low-toned moan for your ears only, but everything that you hear makes your entire body vibrate with a deeper need.

Eventually, his pace does begin to increase, the erotic melody of his hips tap, tap, tapping against yours growing into him beginning to use his true power to make you cry out. And cry out you do, your brain now clouded with innsense waves of pleasure as your screams for more grow in volume.

You don’t even attempt to lower your volume and neither does he, not caring about whoever may be listening in from outside the no-that-far-away locker room door - and in the back of your mind, your last shred of sentience thanks Roman for preemptively locking it when everyone else had left.

The force behind his thrusts leaves you absolutely breathless as you stare helplessly into his eyes, moans and huffs flowing from your lips like a waterfall while the pleasure in your core ticks up bit by bit.

The faster he pounds into you and the longer he goes on, the more your walls close in around him like a warm, silken vice, your cunt tightening in around him and not letting him go at all. Your pleasure spikes when he moves his hand down slightly to pinch your clit, making you jolt as you arch your back as best you can.

The rug beneath you scratches against your skin as he runs you ragged on top of it, your shoulder blades and the top of your back taking the brunt of the burn. Tears leak from the corners of your eyes when you squeeze them closed, but the sharp sting of Roman’s hand coming down on your clit snaps them right back open again.

You hiss at the pain but it all just melts right back into pleasure all over again and it doesn’t escape his keen eyes, his flat of his hand coming down on the button over and over again. And you can’t resist the urge to rake your nails down his arms as your nerves flare all through your body.

The telltale signs of your impending orgasm are clear to you both: the dilation in your eyes, the way your thighs stretch and quake as he presses down on them and how quickly you begin to pant.

“Fu-uck, Roman, I need…I need-”

The feeling of Roman’s hand sliding up your chest and around your neck cuts you off, your breath hitching and your eyes widening. “You need what, baby? Don’t go all shy on me now? Or have I fucked all the sense out of you already?”

He sneers and squeezes the sides of your throat, making you gasp. “You get to cum when I say that you can, when I give you the go ahead…you understand me? Hmm? Nod your head for me, baby girl.”

You follow his orders to a tee, staving off your looming orgasm by trying to focus on something, anything that’s not the pulsating feeling between your legs or the way he drives his cock into you, the build-up in his pace doing absolutely nothing to stop it.

“R-Roman…” Your voice is weak behind the grip of his hand, his thumb brushing along the front of your throat and pressing down.

“Not yet, baby girl. I didn’t say you could cum yet.” Each word he speaks is enunciated by a powerful thrust of his hips, the head of his cock kissing your cervix with each one. “Don’t you want to be good for me? Don’t you want to please your Tribal Chief?”

Your voice is soft when you attempt to answer him, crying out “yes, yes I do” as he plows into you harder than before, your back now actively rubbing against the coarse carpet every time Roman’s pelvis connects with yours.

He groans when he looks into your watery eyes, your cheeks stained with your tears and spit leaking from the corners of your mouth. Your face is a mess, your entire body is flushed right with heat, you look a mess, and it’s all because of him.

Your blubbering and the tears that flow from your eyes do something fierce to him as his own orgasm begins to crest, the way your walls grip his shaft driving him absolutely mad with desire. He has to bite down on his tongue to keep from letting go, the sharp pain making him curse as his hips begin to stutter.

“Shit!” he yells, abruptly tearing his cock from you with a wet squelch, your arousal dripping from the head and staining the carpet. Wrapping his hand around the base of his cock, he grips the base of his cock in his fist again before leaning in to plant a furious kiss to his lips, stealing what little breath you have left away once more.

It’s all teeth and tongue and fiery passion that stokes the already blazing inferno within your soul and when he sinks his teeth into your bottom lip and tugs on it, it hurts so good that you whine against his lips and arch into his touch when he pulls away.

Your voice is weak and slightly hoarse when you ask, “Roman?”

“Over the bench, baby. I want you on your hands and knees when I cum inside you.”

That steely gaze from before makes its return and you visibly cower beneath it, standing on shaky legs as you make your way over to one of the nearby benches before draping your weary and sensitive body over it. You feel exposed in this position - even more so due to the fact that you can’t even see him when he pulls the globes of your ass apart to gaze at how slick and messy you’ve become due to his actions.

His hand comes down on the skin and you jolt, scrambling to grab the cold wood of the bench before he does it again…and again.

And again and again as the sharp, stinging pain rings proud and true all over the meat of your ass, heat blooming beneath the skin and radiating off of it. Roman’s hand comes down on one, then the other, and then spreads them with one hand to deliver another blow right to your sensitive folds, causing you to let out a high-pitched scream that has you nearly bolting off the bench.

“Stay still,” he tells you, his chest rumbling as he lays a more firm slap on your ass, another whimper slipping from you. “You only move when I tell you to move, baby girl.”

Roman continues to lay blow after blow to your ass and now to your achingly wet folds, rutting his cock against you as you grind back against him, More tears leak from your eyes as the stinging pain begins to melt into aching pleasure, a litany of broken moans and sobs passing through your lips right before he slides his cock right back inside you.

He meets no resistance and his hips meet yours damn near instantly, picking up his brutal pace right where he left off while you gasp for air. It’s like you can feel his cock all the way in your lungs with how deep he’s pounding into you, the sound of skin hitting sticky skin bouncing off the walls of the locker room.

Your chest presses firmly against the bench, your breasts aching from how firmly he holds your hips against it while his pace goes into overtime. Everyone outside be damned, the noises leaving your mouth couldn’t be silenced even if the damn door was broken down.

The sounds of his name and cries for more fill his ears and he drifts a hand up your back, trailing his fingers up your spine before wrapping his hand in your hair and yanking your head back against his chest.

“That’s it, scream for me,” you hear him say in your ear, the drop in his voice sending a shiver down your spine. You feel his lips trace the shell of your ear, biting down on it and then moving down to your jaw. His other hand grasps your chin and pulls your head to the side, his teeth grazing the side of your neck before he sinks his teeth into it.

And the yell that you let out because of it almost rattles the very walls that surround you as you weakly reach your arms back behind your head and wrap them around his own neck, keeping his head there as he plows into you. Your hips ache, your ass fucking burns from his pelvis colliding against it, everything on your body stings and aches and hurts but you love it, you love it all.

You can feel the marks and bruises that his hands,his lips, his teeth leave on your body already begin to bruise, and you can already tell that the ones staining your ass are going to make it hard to sit down or even walk for days to come…

But you’ll wear those marks, those bruises, you’ll wear everything with your head held high and with pride in your eyes because despite all that Roman’s faced these past few months, he still has you willingly and wholly and wholeheartedly.

The sweet kiss of your orgasm comes to fruition again and you can feel that wave begin to crest over; you won’t be able to last much longer if he keeps going at the pace he’s at right now, your toes curling as you dig your own nails into his scalp to pull his head from your neck. You instinctively squeeze around his cock, feeling his balls slap against your clit over and over again and making you jump and jolt around.

“R-Roman, please, ’m gonna…, I need to, please-”

He can’t help but groan as he roughly kisses the side of your head, holding your beginning-to-go-limp upper body close to his chest. “Fuck me, baby, you’re gonna cum? You’re gonna soak my cock and stain the floor?”

You feel him smile against your cheek when you nod. “I feel you clenching around me, princess, so why don’t you be a good girl for your Tribal Chief and cum for me? I want this pussy sloppy fucking wet by the time I’m done with you.”

The weight of him against your back side, the way he slips a hand between your legs and begins to play with your clit again, furiously rubbing the bud between his fingers as he pumps his hips even faster…it has your tongue lolling out of your mouth as you pant like a bitch in heat, Roman playing you like a finely tuned instrument and pushing all of the right buttons.

It all comes to a head when he starts to murmur in your ear,words and wishes of how he’s going to fill you up just like how you want and leave you dripping full of his cum all over the floor by the time the night ends, firmly grasping your breast with his other hand and twisting your nipple fiercely.

Blood rushes to your ears so damn fast that you can just barely hear the words that leave his lips but once you do…oh, the reaction that he gets has him cheesing something fierce, those sharp teeth of his bared for the whole world to see.

Your entire body shakes, completely vibrates with the need to cum as you fly closer and closer to that edge, clinging to Roman for dear life - but not before he tilts your head to the side and kisses you so passionately that you fall limp in his hold, his tongue meshing together with yours.

“Don’t hold yourself back anymore, baby girl. Cum for me, cum for me now-”

He speaks against your lips and your inner walls give way to your orgasm, that wave cresting and your body bending along with it as you soak his cock with a cry so loud that it rings louder in your ears than your bloodrush does. Your heart feels as though it’s about to leap through your chest and out of your mouth, your hands drifting from his hair and your arms wrapping around his neck behind you.

You can feel his heartbeat racing in his chest as it presses against your back and it’s just as fast as yours, and a final high pitched moan escapes your mouth as you soak his cock completely, his hips stuttering against yours while his thrusts begin to slow.

You audibly moan at the warmth that fills your core when you feel him jut his hips against yours and stays there, fully inserted within you as his own climax takes the reins.

It feels like a punch square to his gut when his cock throbs against that sweet spot that lines your walls, his resolve crumbling and his mind going blank for a few seconds. “Fuck,” Roman groans, the sound rumbling through your whole body as you feel him paint your walls with his cum, the head of his cock pressing snugly against your cervix while he grips your flesh and digs his fingers in wherever he can put them.

Your thighs, your chest, your waist, your neck, it doesn’t matter; at the end of the night, your entire body is going to be covered in his marks, whether you like it or not.

Your brain is scrambled and he rests his head on top of yours, massaging your clit to get the final jitters of your orgasm out of you before he finally lets you breathe. Your vision remains blurry from a mix of how tightly you squeezed your eyes shut and from the tears that still linger within it, your face remains a stained mess from your destroyed makeup, and you don’t even want to talk about the state that your hair resides in…but in this moment, you’ve never looked more beautiful to him.

But, he’ll tell you that soon enough.

For now, he simply cradles your trembling body to his chest, his cock still snug along your inner walls as he rocks his body against yours; over and over again, calming the rocky waves of your climaxes - both yours and him - as he begins to take his own breath and takes the first seconds of the night to finally think about the events that have occurred.

His blood, his closest family has betrayed him, left him in the dirt and dust and tossed him aside…and now all that he has left is you.

You and the strength, the stability, the everything that’s left of his Bloodline reside within you, and he can’t let you go.

He just can’t.

He won’t let you go, not now and not ever…not after everything tonight.

As time passes and when he doesn’t speak, you take the first steps. “...Roman? Are you okay?” you ask, your voice hoarse and your throat dry from all of your screaming.

“Please…” you hear him whisper against your back, pressing his lips to the back of your neck as he pants, still coming down from the force of his orgasm. “Please…don’t leave.”

Please don’t leave me.

And hearing that, hearing his voice crack slightly as his lips move from the nape of your neck upwards, curving up towards your jawline and around the shell of your ear…it breaks you, it utterly breaks something within your soul.

As you think back to the previous weeks, you could already see the threads of dissension within the eyes of Solo, the traps being laid by The Usos to bring the young man closer to their side and away from Roman’s.

The true and final nail in the coffin of the Bloodline, the removal of the Samoan Enforcer, the last shred of foundation that holds this entire empire of Roman’s together…you can feel it in his every motion, every single press of his fingers against your skin, every pull of his arms as he brings you in further and further to his own body: he’s terrified of losing everything, everything that he has left, everything that he is.

“I won’t, Roman,” you tell him, curling your body against his, allowing him to surround you with everything that he has and everything that he’s willing to give you. “I won’t leave. I’ll never leave, I promise.”

A few moments pass, and what precious moments they are. No words are spoken, barely any movements are made aside from the slight rocking of his hips against your own and the heaving of your chests as you both breathe, just…nothing.

A good nothing.

A good nothing that allows you both to just be in touch with yourselves and with each other.

After those few moments pass, you speak to him again, gently running your fingertips over his forearms. “Look, we’ll forge a new Bloodline, okay? Together. You and me and Paul and Solo-”

Roman buries his face in your hair at the mention of Solo’s name, taking a deep breath in of a scent that’s just entirely you mixed with tinges of him…a perfect combination, the perfect combination.

“If we can’t rely on your family to maintain this faction, this dynasty…then we’ll make a new one of our own. Bigger and better and more powerful than Jimmy and Jey could ever comprehend.”

A tense silence follows your words before Roman finds his own to respond.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

You feel his lips curl into a smile against your head, another kiss being pressed to your hair as he thinks. You’re right, after all.

If his own family won’t stand at his side, if he can’t rely on his own bloodline…then you two will create your own dynasty…together.

And together, the two of you will take down and dismantle whatever is left of Jimmy and Jey, for all of the new hell that they’ve now brought upon themselves.

And that’s not a threat, Roman thinks to himself as he curls his body around yours against the cool floor of the locker room, not wanting to get up nor remove himself from the comfort and relief that you provide him.

That’s a fucking promise.

“So..can I get my clothes now? And, are we gonna get up and unlock the door, or…?”

You feel his chest rumble as he chuckles, his smile against your skin growing just that bit wider. “Nah, they can all wait a few more minutes. Besides…”

“...I’m not finished with you just yet.”

Oh, fuck…

Tag List:

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please please please lmk if i missed anyone (on the tag list) and lmk if you wanna be added to it/removed from it! tysm and have a blessed one 😘✌🏾

#rezz writes some bullshit #roman reigns x reader #roman reigns x reader smut #roman reigns x reader fanfiction #wwe x reader #wwe x reader fanfiction #wwe x reader smut #wwe smut #wwe fanfiction #wwe fanfic #roman reigns fanfiction #roman reigns fanfic #roman reigns smut #roman reigns x you #oh my god...rezzy actually posting a fic??? with ACTUAL smut in it???? color me gooped and gagged and shocked to shit lmao #but please enjoy this y'all i spent way too much time overthinking this XD

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giuliettagaltieri · 4 months

Text

Breath of Spring

Pairing: Young!Gojō x Young!Reader

Chapter Synopsis: Emotional constipation was Gojō Satoru's congenital defect.

Warning: angst, unrequited love, suggested misogyny, arranged marriage, age gap

Word Count: 1060

1 of 9

Gojō Satoru has known you even before you knew how to walk. He attended your naming day, he was already five years old then. The memory is vague and blurred but he was certain of the strong feeling of dislike he had for you. How is it that everybody was congratulating him, telling him that he is so lucky to be betrothed to you. The well anticipated daughter of your family, one long awaited after having birthed with boys alone for nearly a decade. But that does not have anything to do with him. All you did was drool and suckle on your tiny fingers.

There was nothing particularly special about you, he comes to realize after you attended his 12th birthday. It was a day he received many gifts, the wrapped packages piled so neatly in the corner by the handmaidens of the estate house. He is not to touch any of them, lest some were sent by malevolent individuals who seek to bring harm to him and his family. Not that he can’t see cursed material from a mile away but the elders of his house insisted. He cannot complain either, it saved him from wearing fake smiles and throwing away forced gratitude.

It was why he was upset that his annual hunt had to come to a pause just so you could hand him your gift. He eyed you with his much aggravation. You are never without your nannies and personal guards, being sheltered from the world like a fragile little flower. You were nearly half his age but you already act like an adult. Like you were better than him. It was as if your back had a rod with how straight it always appears to be, your chin always tilted upwards, and eyeing everyone as beneath you, how haughty. It brought him great satisfaction to see you shy away from him though, your eyes always finding your dainty shoes whenever he is nearby.

Your handmaiden had to usher you forward so you would have the courage to hand him your gift. The elders looked at his actions carefully, almost awaiting him to make a mistake just to have something to criticize him over. He mutters a small “thanks”. And you nod at him and retreat back to the arms of your mother who was watching you with much fondness.

As he previously thought, you’re nothing different. Just another puppet.

Gojō wasn’t in the mood for hunting afterwards. Simply kicking rocks by the pond as his servitor accompanied him, standing a few meters behind him, still like a statue.

“The young master appears to be upset.” The servitor says calmly, his voice even and unprovocative. But young Gojō Satoru whips at him with so much fervor that the servitor nearly breaks into a smile.

“Upset? For what reason?” He scowls as he steps closer to the tall man. He looks about ready to fight anything that moves, his face contorted to a wild scowl. “Because of her? That spoiled shrimp? You think that pipsqueak is relevant enough to upset me?”

The servitor clears his throat to hide the smile as he closes his eyes. “Perhaps the young master should be kinder to the young lady.”

Gojō scoffs and looks at the tiny gift that he had in his clutches, never letting go of it ever since you handed it to him. “Kinder? She has done nothing but be a nuisance!” In a fit of anger, he throws the carefully wrapped item to the ground. A loud shatter of ceramics startles him, and the servitor flinches upon hearing the sound. They both stare at the still wrapped gift, its shape no longer preserved and it looks nothing more than a heap of oddly shaped objects covered with the intricate fabric.

“Oh my.” His servitor sighs, disappointed. “What a shame, the lady was very excited to know how you liked her gift.”

Upon hearing this, Gojō raises his defenses, his teeth gritting as his cheeks flushed. “You don’t have to do her biddings!” Yet despite the outburst, the little boy’s eyes cannot leave the heap of your broken gift on the ground. They have many talented craftsmen in the estate, it can be fixed, he is certain of it. But then again, why does he need it fixed? You’re insignificant, your gift is no different.

Or so he tries to convince himself.

His mood has not been better for the next few days. He was cranky, snapping at anyone who looked his way for too long. His father, ever so perceptive, asked young Satoru’s servitor about his dramatic, or at least worse than usual, turn of emotions.

A day later, Satoru finds another wrapped gift atop his nightstand the moment he opens his eyes. It was familiar, the shape of it. When he reached for it, the weight of it was something his hand had known. A small tag was attached and he read it, his still pouting lips moving as he read the words one by one.

To Gojō-sama. Wishing you a fine day.

He knew the curve of your handwriting too well. The frown in his brows deepened and deepened as he pulled the ribbon. And the wrapping came undone and the ceramics figure of him and you, hands intertwined, stared back at him.

It was beautiful, smooth, and greatly detailed. Even the clothes were made of the finest material.

But it was useless. It was good to look at but there was no purpose to it.

A knock in the door startles him, and he nearly drops the figure but he manages to grab hold of your foot, well the sculpture, he did not expect the dress to flip, showing him your bloomers.

Gojō twists the doll right-side up and pulls your dress down until it covers your ankles. His face is bright red and warm. It was simply too much for young Satoru.

“Young master, is everything alright?” The door slid open a fraction but Gojō yelled for them to close it at once!

“Yes! Everything is alright.” His face was still aflamed as he clutched the dress tightly around your tiny body.

By the next day, you receive a bouquet of blue roses littered with baby’s breath accompanied by a poorly scribbled note of ‘Thanks’ from the young master of the Gojō estate.

Where the Blue Roses Grow

#gojo satoru x y/n #satoru gojō x reader #gojo fluff #gojō satoru #jujutsu kaisen #gojō x reader arranged marriage #arranged marriage

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theminecraftbee · 7 months

Text

sigh okay this year i have actual mob vote opinions. disclaimer: my MAIN opinion is that if i see too much mob vote salt on my dash i'll just block the relevant terms again, and that all three mobs are adorable and i'd like any of them. however, my vague thoughts on them:

crab: i have inherent vault hunters-based crab grudges. the coconut crab appears in my nightmares. however, past that, the crab as an animal is fun, i like crabs alright. the fact it's shown crawling up trees sideways is neat. i'll say mangrove forests are ALREADY one of the loveliest, most alive-feeling biomes, so i don't know if they need an exclusive mob? but it's also realistic for the crab so i'll take it. when it comes to the crab claw itself... many questions. is it an off-hand item? or like create's extendo-reach thing? or what? how MUCH additional reach does it give you? even just two blocks can be wildly useful in my modded experience, but like, is it one or two blocks, or does it double your reach, or what? and does that reach extend to mining at all? the video says it's just block placing, which would make sense from a balance perspective, but does sort of hamstring the claw's usefulness if that's the case; if you misplace a block you're going to have to scaffold over there anyway. if it DOES include mining reach... oh boy, that's a whole new ballgame.

armadillo: cute! i like armadillos! seeing it curled up as a ball, i wonder if it has a block-like form like that? that sounds really fun! like a shulker, or something else you could stand on. (that is PURE speculation, nothing else to suggest that is shown in the video.) it being found in "warm biomes like the savannah" i like more than the mangrove-exclusive crab, especially since the savannah can feel a little sparse and lifeless. i wonder if it's in other warm biomes? as for its effect, it has the most straightforward one: when it gets scared it sheds its scute, and you can use that to make wolf armor. i like wolf armor! wolves have needed some way to make them more survivable for ages! it's not like, got potential to be a massive gamechanger or anything, but it doesn't have to, it's fun!

penguins: by FAR the cutest design. i love that they chose macaroni penguins, excellent choice. the fact they're native to stony shore biomes is also an excellent choice (and far better than choosing a snowy biome; more penguins live in places like the stony shore irl!). the stony shore having penguins also gives it a bit more of the life stony shorelines have irl. their secondary effect, though... honestly, "make boats go faster" doesn't really speak to me? i am enjoying imagining a world where this effect works while iceboating (prepare to rubberband ALL OVER THE PLACE), and i think it would be fun, it just personally compels me the least. which is a shame, because i think the penguins are ABSOLUTELY the cutest!

overall, i think i land towards the armadillo. i like that none of them really have any big, exciting, game changing feature, just nice-to-have. makes it feel less like we miss out on something huge when two of them lose, just miss out on something potentially cute. i still wish the old mob votes could still be added to the game and that the losers here would also be added to the game. i wouldn't be mad if any of these guys won honestly they're all cute and have mildly interesting effects.

and this will be the last time i discuss the mob vote, except maybe to reblog cute art.

#minecraft #wanted to ramble my thoughts #anyway yeah i am Mildly Interested in all of these guys #i think the crab claw has the most potential to be gamebreaking but that it probably won't be lol #and that i understand what the wolf armor would do best #so. armadillo for me i think.#mob vote

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belovedmusings · 6 months

Text

“You have to trust me.”

18+ Explicit Smut 🚫Minors DNI🚫

You and Satoru get into an argument before he heads off to face Sukuna. You worry for his safety since the incident of his sealing is still fresh in your mind, begging him to let the others help, but he insists he has to do it alone. Hot, emotional sex follows.

Relevant tags: AFAB reader w/minimal gendered language, reader with no defined characteristics for inclusivity and realism, angst, hurt/no comfort, before Ch 236, established relationship, unprotected sex, creampie, missionary/mating press, intentional baby making

Recommended songs to listen to while reading: Privilege (The Weeknd), lovely (Billie Eilish), Lo Vas Olvidar (Billie Eilish, ROSALIA)

A/N: I have a follow-up to this where he survives the fight so that you can have some comfort after this hurt. I’ll link it at the end :’) for now enjoy some angst.

Expand to read:

“Satoru, please,” your voice tapers off at the end, the ache in your heart stinging with its intensity. “Please, don’t do it alone. You can have help. Yuuta—”

“This isn’t his fight,” Satoru insists, “I don’t want to involve innocent kids in this if I can help it.”

“So you’re just gonna go off and get yourself killed instead?”

His brows furrow, eyes frozen on your face. His lips part in disbelief, and after a moment of being stunned, he laughs incredulously.

“Seriously?” He asks you, “Do you really think that lowly of me? You think I’m marching off to my death right now?! You think I’m some weak little twerp or something? That’s all I am to you?!”

As he raises his voice, you start to feel guilt rising up in your chest. You hadn’t meant to say it like that. Here he is, about to fight for the sake of the world and you’re belittling him and undermining his strength. You’re telling him you expect him to lose, even if that wasn’t your intention. You’re supposed to be his support pillar—he doesn’t just let anyone in.

The anger fizzles out of you like ice water on hot coals. Instantly, you feel cold.

“No, Satoru,” you shake your head, remorse bubbling up so violently tears spring to your eyes. This is the love of your life, the man who has been nothing but sweet, patient, and kind to you. Sure, back when things were normal, he used to tease and get on your nerves, he had to work a lot and his time was stretched thin as a result, but he always made time for you. He always thought of you, brought you your favorite treats from his missions, latched onto you when he came back because he missed you.

Apparently you started sobbing at some point while you thought about all of that, because the next thing you know, he’s wrapping his newly thickened arms around you and pulling you into his sturdy chest.

“I didn’t mean to yell at you,” his voice is subdued now, full of guilt. “I shouldn’t have raised my voice. It’s just that—”

“That’s not…” you sniffle, shaking your head as you try to find the strength to get a full sentence out in the midst of your break down. “I believe in you, Satoru, I do, I didn’t mean—didn’t mean to say that…”

He hugs you tighter, rubbing up and down your arm. You continue.

“I’m just so fucking scared, Satoru, I’m scared.”

More sobs wrack your body and he can only sigh heavily, trying to hold you as close to himself as he can.

“I don’t want to do this to you,” his voice is thin, like he’s trying hard to keep it even. “I hate that I can’t give you a normal, easy life with me.”

You huff, wrapping your arms around him. “That’s not…I wouldn’t trade what we have for the world, Satoru, for the world…”

“I just hate that this is causing you so much pain,” he replies. “I’m supposed to be taking it away, not making it worse. God, I really am the worst, aren’t I?”

You shake your head in disagreement, planting a kiss on his neck to protest his statement. His breath hitches, and the next moment, he’s raising your chin up with his index finger, ducking to connect your lips. You make a small noise in the back of your throat and kiss back, arms winding around his neck to draw him closer. You feel him hug your waist, and go willingly when he backs you up.

The backs of your legs meet the edge of his bed, the one that you’ve become so familiar with it’s more comfortable than your own at the place you rarely sleep anymore, and you realize that this might be the last chance you ever get to share it with him.

Another sob escapes you before you can stop it and you grab the collar of his shirt tightly, pulling him down with you. You fall onto the mattress, Satoru catching himself so he doesn’t crush you as he kisses you passionately.

You trail your palms down his chest, down his abdomen, over the tight black shirt he has on, then back up again just to feel him. Satoru is here right now, in your hands, on top of you—you need to cherish this while it lasts.

You break the kiss as your crying worsens, unable to stop lamenting the fact that you can’t freeze time in its place right now.

“Shh,” his sugary voice hushes you, “Shh, focus on me. I want this to feel good for you, okay? We can’t have you crying your way through it, silly, then you won’t remember a thing.”

You sniffle, trying to wipe at your eyes. “I don’t want to just r-remember you…I need you to be okay.”

“I am okay,” he says, pecking your brow bone sweetly. “I’m right here. Just feel me. Nothin’ else. Don’t even think right now, thinking’s not useful.”

You huff shakily, eyes fluttering shut as you feel his mouth go for your neck. He scrapes his teeth over your jugular to shock pleasure into your senses, successfully distracting some of the anguish right out of you.

“That’s it,” like this, his voice sounds almost like a purr, and you shiver, arms wrapping around his shoulders to grip at his back. He leaves a wet kiss where his teeth were and swipes his tongue over the spot, starting to suckle. You give him a soft noise in response, relishing in the fact that you know he’s leaving a mark on purpose. It’ll be there at least for a few days, or more if he really tries.

“Make it dark,” you breathe, “Give me as many as you can, please.”

“You don’t have to beg me,” he murmurs below your ear, sending heat pulsing downward. “I’ll give anything you want from me.”

You suck in a sharp breath. “Anything?”

At your eager question, he chuckles lowly, lifting himself up to meet your eyes. “Hmm. You have something specific in mind, don’t you?”

Your face heats up involuntarily, but the urgency of the situation has you forcing your bashfulness down. This might be the only time to ask. You had wanted to wait until the two of you were settled, maybe married if that’s what you agreed on, but now there might not be another moment. This could be it. And you know that if you don’t tell him what you want now and something happens, you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life.

With that thought, you take a deep breath and raise your hand to cup his face, brushing a few strands of his fringe away from his eyes.

“I want your baby, Satoru.”

You see the moment the words register in his brain. His eyes light up with something you’ve never seen before, and he smiles as if you just gave him the sweetest, most sincere compliment he’s ever heard.

“Yeah? A piece of me forever, huh?”

You nod, a grin tugging at your lips even as droplets continue to spill down your cheeks. “Yeah. Our love personified.”

He chuckles wetly and you think you see his eyes turn glossy, but he’s kissing you again before you can confirm it.

“It’s yours,” he says against your mouth. “All yours.”

You lose yourself in the long kiss that follows. All you can feel is him moving on top of you, tongue dancing with yours so intimately it would have the angels in the room blushing.

You raise your hips when he tugs at your pants, taking your underwear with them. He sits back on his haunches to slide them off your legs, eyes gentle as he gets between them and pushes his hands up underneath your shirt.

Sitting up quickly, you allow him to lift it off of you, discarding it behind himself. Now, you’re completely naked, but he’s still clothed.

“No fair,” you say, eyeing his shirt like it’s offensive, and he laughs.

“Say no more, say no more,” he replies, “Just lay down for me.”

Your stomach flutters with butterflies as you do as he tells you, looking up at him kneeling between your legs. You watch as he crosses his arms to peel his tight shirt off of his sculpted muscles, smooth, fair skin coming into view. He’d put a Greek god to shame, you think. He’s so tear-jerkingly beautiful it threatens madness in your mind.

“Like what you see?” He taunts mischievously, standing up to untie his pants and push those along with his boxers down his hips. His reddened erection springs free and you stare unabashedly at it, never having got used to the sight fully. He’s huge, both long and thick, all smooth skin except for a prominent vein on the underside. You used to joke with him early on in your relationship that it was the main reason for his cocky attitude, that you’d probably act the same way if you had a dick like that, and it always made him laugh. You love making him laugh. God, you love Satoru so much.

“Oh, you definitely like what you see now,” he snorts, climbing back onto the bed. “Gotta admit, it’s hot as hell to see you objectify me like that.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I’m nothing but a glorified sperm donor, mistress.”

You make an incredulous face. “What? I’m not—you don’t even—”

“Shh, I’m just teasin’,” he grins at you, leaning down to peck your lips. “I know you love me.”

You blow out a puff of air like a deflating balloon. “Satoru, I swear to god.”

He chuckles, shutting himself up by kissing you again. “That’s just how I show love.”

You chase his lips, hearing his words for the ‘I love you’ they truly are, threading your hands in his hair.

His big palms find your hips and he centers them for himself, lining up and grinding his stiff member against your wet core.

“Mmh,” you moan, moving with him, “Satoru…”

He sighs shakily, grabbing the crook of your knee to push it up, giving himself more room to move. His grinds become more forceful and it has you stuttering little gasps, nails digging into his back.

“Already scratchin’ me up?” He asks, and you can hear the smirk in his voice. “But I haven’t even put it in yet.”

The laugh you reply with is half-assed, need distracting you, and you find his eyes. “What’s stopping you?”

“Oh? Someone’s impatient,” he chuckles, stamping a kiss to your nose. “All right, all right. Better give you what you want.”

He takes ahold of himself and lines up, breathing a heavy sigh as he sinks into you. As soon as he does, you make a noise in the back of your throat, hugging him closer to you. As he bottoms out, you can’t help but press more chaste kisses wherever you can on him—his cheek, his jaw, his neck, his collarbone. You just love him. You love the feeling of his body on top of yours, the warm weight unique to him, how he fills your arms up, tangible and strong. You breathe in deeply, the sweet musk of his skin filling your senses. It’s your favorite scent in the entire world.

He pulls back and rocks forward again slowly, taking care to get you used to his size. So much has happened lately that you haven’t been able to get intimate a lot, so you have to let him ease you back into it.

As he works you open on his cock slowly, you take to caressing the smooth skin of his back, eyes closed to revel in the sound of his heavy breaths, strained with the effort to control his movements so as not to hurt you. You love how solid he is under your palms. You could touch him forever. If he survives this fight, you swear that you’ll never let go of him again. You plead mentally with any deity that may hear you to protect Satoru.

You kiss the soft underside of his chin and hold him closer, holding onto that thought. Protect him. Keep him safe. Keep him alive. I love this man so much, just please don’t take him away from me.

He chooses that moment to start picking up the pace, the dull ache it gives you enough to thankfully keep you from spiraling further. You sigh, bending your knees further to give him more room. Your legs then wrap around him, ankles crossing at the base of his spine, and he responds by going faster. The room begins to fill with the sound of your bodies meeting over and over, his length molding you to his shape with every push of his hips into yours.

On a particularly hard thrust, you gasp, tightening around him, and it causes him to groan right after you. His voice is so sweet. It was one of the things that stood out to you about him when you had first met him—the way he always seemed to have perfect control over it. He speaks with ebbs and flows to contour the meanings of his words, to give them his special nuance that perfectly colors in his personality. He’s just so animated when he speaks. If he’s annoyed, you’ll hear it. If he’s playful, you’ll hear it. If he’s happy, you’ll hear it.

Right now, as he works through stuttered breaths and hitched moans, delivered exhales of your name weaved into declarations of his bliss, you hear the pleasure you’re giving him. That control starts to slip and words start tumbling from his lips, voice thin and shaky, a tone reserved just for you.

You turn your head to lay a kiss on his lips, landing on the corner of his mouth, but he understands what you need, sweeping you into a languid, passionate make out session as he rocks in and out of you. You hear him make a sort of wet noise before he doubles down on his efforts, pushing deep inside of you and starting to roll his body.

“Satoru,” you hiss in surprise, mouth falling open as his abdomen grinds against the sensitive bud above the place he’s buried inside of, heightening the goosebumps that break out on your skin. Your head falls back and he takes the opportunity to start making as many marks on your skin as he can with his mouth. Like this, you feel yourself getting close, and that has you remembering what comes after this.

He’s going to leave, and he might not come back.

This might be the last time you ever get to have him.

“I love you,” you say, just needing to get the words out, needing him to know. “You’re so important to me—thank you for everything, Satoru.”

His breath catches in his throat and he finds your gaze, reaching up to cup your jaw in his palm.

“Thank you for everything,” He replies sincerely. “Thank you for loving me. For dealing with all my bullshit and sticking by me.”

“Always,” you shake your head, eyes filling with new tears. You sniffle, feeling that choked desperation start seizing your chest again. “Always, Satoru.”

He smiles at you but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Those beautiful luminescent oceans only reflect the deep sadness the both of you feel, and to see it glaringly obvious in his gaze breaks your heart. He can’t fake his happiness this time, not even for you. He’s human too, and being here with you like this in what might be the last time threatens to undo him.

Satoru swallows thickly and concentrates on his movements to distract himself, forcing himself to focus on the noises you make as he brings you closer and closer to the edge. He wants this to last forever just like you do, but you both know he’s needed by more people than just you.

Your climax approaches and with it, your emotions swell up inside of you. You remember meeting him for the first time, you remember when he started pursuing you, how happy he was when you agreed to a date, how hard he’d tried to win you over yet how effortless he made it look. Every time you two shared a laugh, every time he was there while you cried, how he always managed to put a smile back on your face. How sweet of a man he is to his students, how proud you can tell he is whenever he talks about them, and how his eyes light up whenever he eats a treat he’s fond of. God, you just love him.

“Satoru,” you whimper, orgasm hitting you abruptly. “Oh god, I love you so much.”

He exhales forcefully as he feels it, managing a few sloppy thrusts before he’s cumming as well pushing as deep as he can go in effort to fulfill your earlier request.

As you start to come down, the fear and despair come back tenfold, overtaking you in a fit of sobs. He wraps his arms around you and buries his nose in your hair.

“I’ll win,” He whispers to you, “I will. I’ll come back and we’ll raise the little shit we just made together, okay? They’ll probably grow up like me but I hope they’re more like you, baby.”

You hiccup loudly as you cry harder, clinging to the image of a happy family with him for dear life.

“It’s gonna be okay. You have to trust me,” He insists, inhaling slowly. “I have to go now.”

You hold him tighter, squeezing your eyes shut to commit this to memory before he’s pulling away, lifting himself off of you and grabbing his clothes quickly.

He dresses in silence, your cries the only thing echoing around the room. All you can manage to do is put on one of his button-ups from the foot of his bed, wiping furiously at your eyes.

Too soon, he’s clothed again, and it’s time for him to go.

He walks over to you again and takes your chin gently in his hand, tilting it up so that your eyes connect. He smiles softly at you.

“You know that I love you, right?”

A deep ache seats into your chest. He’s said it in a million ways before but never in its original form, those simple, crater-heavy three words. You nod, sniffling as another wave of lament threatens to pull you under.

“I do,” you confirm, forcing it out in a strained voice. He nods to himself, leaning in and pressing his soft lips to your forehead.

You feel the moment that he uses his technique to flash himself out of the room, because his warm presence that naturally takes up a lot of space vanishes and leaves absolutely everything feeling cold and sterile.

You break down again, head falling into your hands.

Shoko had told you where everyone would be watching the fight take place. You want to be there, and you will go, but you need to be alone first.

You just hope with all of your might that you won’t be left alone with only a piece of him to succeed his legacy. You want him to be there too. You need him to be there.

You need him to be okay.

—-

A/N: i gave myself an ouchie on the heart while writing this. whoops. also wow is he gorgeous in that picture at the top?? anyways here’s the second part where he survives bc i should be gege instead so he’ll be okay :-)

#jjk smut #jjk x reader #jjk x reader smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #satoru gojo x you #satoru gojo smut #satoru gojo x reader #satoru x you #satoru x reader #satoru gojo #gojo headcanons #gojo imagine #gojo smut #gojo x reader

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bettsfic · 2 years

Text

writing cheats

i know i’ve probably written about these all individually but i’m putting them together in one post. these are writing tricks that are extremely cheap and dirty; when you use them it feels like cheating and honestly by posting them i’m probably exposing all the easy moves in my own work, but more than a writer i am a teacher, so here you go, some writing cheats that have never steered me wrong.

quick character creation

what’s really annoying is when you have two characters sitting at a restaurant or something and the server has to come by. to what degree do you describe the server so that it’s clear they’re just a background character but that they’re not just a faceless form, so that the world has texture without taking up too much space on the page? rule of three, babeyyy: two normal things and a weird one.

she had pale skin and blue eyes but her hair was dyed black like a 2010 emo kid.

he was tall and broad, and he wore a sweatshirt with an embroidered teddy bear on it.

the woman stood there comparing the prices of toilet paper. she had a short angled bob and carried a keychain the length of a trout.

why does it work? it gives the reader something to hang onto, a brief observation that shows the world exists around your narrator. it also works when introducing main characters, but there’s so much action going on that you can’t take time to write a rich long paragraph about them. all you need is a little hook.

quick setting creation

i used to TOIL over descriptive paragraphs. for years i was like, description is my weakness, i must become better at developing imagery. i believed this because a famous writer once projected a paragraph i had written onto a screen and asked my cohort, “count how many images are crafted in this paragraph.” there were none. none! my friends were sitting there like, “we are TRYING” but they couldn’t find any.

i would say that after years of studying imagery development at the sentence level, i am, perhaps, competent at it, but what was more helpful was for me to shrug and tell myself, “i’m just not a writer who does that.”

anyway. my cheat is thus:

there’s not much you can assume about your audience. the audience is not a homogenous whole. but your ideal audience is something you can guess at, and that means you can play around with their existing knowledge and expectations.

if you say your characters are in a tacky shit-on-the-walls restaurant, if your ideal reader is an american who went to restaurants during the maximalist era of franchise design, they will conjure their nearest memory of one of those places. and for those readers who aren’t familiar with it, they’ll use other context clues to conjure that space. the point is, you don’t have to list every single stupid license plate nailed to the wall. you can leave it as one detail of one sentence and let your reader extrapolate from there.

if i say the dentist’s office looked like a gutted 90s taco bell, maybe no ideal audience would have ever seen a place like that, but a lot of people can mentally conjure a dentist’s office and a 90s taco bell and overlay them together to create a weird and fun image.

you can go even simpler than that: a bathroom the size of an airplane lavatory. a tiny studio apartment with a hotplate instead of a stove. a mansion with a winding stairwell. the point is that you want to define the size of the space and its general vibes.

in some ways detailed description can be overrated, because your reader conjures images even in absence of them on the page. and for those readers who can’t mentally conjure images, it doesn’t matter anyway; they take you at your word. the trick is to figure out what details are unexpected, relevant to understanding the story and its characters, and those are the things that you add in.

one other note: after working with hundreds of writers on drafting, for *most* of us it’s difficult to develop images and establish setting in a first draft. it’s nearly always something to be saved for a second or later draft. i think it’s because while we’re writing we tend to put character and action first.

nail the landing

there’s a joke i heard once from a writer i really admire: “you know it’s literary fiction if the story ends with a character looking at a body of water.”

and god it’s so painfully sad and true how easy it is to nail the landing of a given story by ending on a totally irrelevant piece of imagery. the final beat of a story followed by your character looking up at the sky and seeing a flock of birds in the shape of a V flying past. or maybe they’re sitting in their car and they count the rings of a nearby church bell. or maybe they watch an elderly couple walk down the sidewalk hand-in-hand. i don’t know!! when in doubt shove an observation, an image, whatever, something neutral at the end and it’ll sound profound.

(this cheat is the only one that can really bite you in the ass because if the image is too irrelevant you risk tonal incongruity. for use only in the most desperate of times.)

sentence fragments

when writers ask me how to punch up their writing or start developing their own style, my go-to advice is to give up the idea of a complete sentence. fuck noun-verb-object. if you have a series of character actions, knock off the sentence subjects like in script action. if the clause at the end of your sentence is particularly meaningful, don’t separate it with a comma but a period and make it its own thing. if your character is going through something particularly stressful or heinous, that bitch is not thinking in complete thoughts so you don’t have to convey them that way. make punctuation bend to your will!!

rhetorical moves

this one opened a lot of doors for me stylistically. remember that famous writer who called me out on my lack of imagery? i always thought his prose was beautiful, that he’s one of the best living prose writers, etc. once i learned more about rhetoric though, i realized he just employed it a lot.

usually when we talk about beautiful sentences it means a sentence that uses rhetorical devices. the greeks were like, you know what, when we give speeches there are certain ways to phrase things that make the audience go nuts. let’s identify what those things are and give them names so we can use them intentionally and convince people of our opinions.

i love shakespeare, i really do, but one of the big reasons he’s still a household name today and his plays are still performed is because every sentence of every goddamn play utilizes a rhetorical device. the audience is hard-wired to vibrate at the sound and cadence of his writing, like finding the spot on a dog that makes their foot thump. for five hundred years, william shakespeare has been scritching that spot for us.

i have no idea why, cognitively, rhetorical devices are so effective. i’m no rhetorician. all i know is that well-deployed anaphora makes a reader want to throw their panties on stage. my intro to rhetorical devices was the wonderful book the elements of eloquence by mark forsyth, a surprisingly fun read! hopefully that will open some doors for you the way it did for me.

the downside to this is that once you know rhetorical devices, it’s like learning how the sausage is made. on one hand, as a writer, you’ll have a lot stronger grasp of style, but as a reader good prose loses some of its magic.

pacing it out

many writers, myself included, rely on the tried and true “he bit the inside of his cheek” or other some such random action to help pace out dialogue. one time my thesis advisor sat me down and said “you’ve got to take all of those out.”

“all of them?” i said.

“all of them,” she said.

i thought, but that will weaken the text! it didn’t. once i cut what i came to call cheek-biter sentences i never went back. and now when i edit for other people i’m like, look i know where you’re coming from but just cut all these out and see how the scene stands. if it doesn’t feel right you can put some back in. a lot of times when you’re drafting you put those in the way some people say “um.” they’re just sentences you jot while you’re thinking of what the other character says, so from a writing perspective it seems like you’re pacing, but readers don’t read it that way. they just want to get to the next line of dialogue.

but sometimes you really do need to pace out a scene and i think there are other ways to do that that don’t rely on banal physical movements, such as:

interiority: a sentence or paragraph of relevant cognition, bonus points if you weave in background context. good interiority defines the voice of your writing.

observations: i know i just said description is overrated but idk sometimes you just need a character to note the back and forth clacking of one of those desk ball toy things.

character texture: maybe your character notes something about the person they’re talking to. a wilted pocket square. a mole that looks like it needs looked at by a dermatologist. a scar on their forehead. some detail that deepens or complicates our understanding of a character.

narratorial consciousness and access

this one is less a cheat and more a problematic opinion i have that doesn’t win me any popularity in writing circles.

i believe that if you’re writing in first person or close third or any narration which is dedicated to the mind of one character, you are only ever obligated to convey the experience of that character’s consciousness. and nothing else.

by that i mean, if your point of view character is unobservant? then they’re not going to even notice the flight attendant is missing one of their canine teeth. if your pov character is focused and obsessive, they’re going to think lavish, detailed paragraphs about that which they’re obsessed with and have no acknowledgement of the rest of the world. if your pov character has no understanding of time, does your story even need to be linear?

defining the scope of a narrator’s cognition early on can give you parameters in which to work. even if you don’t consciously do this, you still do it. if you write in third person limited present tense without really thinking about it, that’s your scope. i’m just pointing out you can choose to do it differently. you get to define your narrator.

whenever we talk about narration we also talk about information access and the order of information being revealed/conveyed. writing must always be in order; even if you’re writing multiple concurring things, it still has to be rendered on the page in order one after the next, because the human mind can’t read two sentences over top of one another.

if we’re restricted to the mind of a character, that means we’re also restricted by their knowledge and experiences, and this can be used to your benefit. i don’t want to take too much space for this but i do talk more about the relationship between narration and reality here.

in short, you the writer get to choose

what the reader knows,

in what order they know it, and

its relationship to the presumed real events of the story, which develops the (un)reliability of your narrator

okay going to cut this off now before i go on more rants about narrative scope. i hope you found this helpful and go on to put some of these nasty lifehacks in your own writing!!

#writing advice

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olderthannetfic · 1 year

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I deeply do not understand fandom creators who try to get people to stop reposting their creations on platforms where the OP doesn’t have an account. Asking people to credit them - absolutely! It’s reasonable to want credit for your work. But to insist that the work only be appreciated by people who have accounts on the exact platform the OP has? And to ask followers to harass any re-posters en-masse until the re-poster and all rebloggers delete the content? I’m baffled by this.

How is fans sharing your work and linking fellow fans back to your account a *bad* thing?!

Are you new?

Most creators don't want their work reposted. They may appreciate shares from Youtube and the like. They certainly do not appreciate someone making a separate video upload or whatever.

Fandom creators are even warier, particularly about their work escaping its intended context and finding hostile outsiders. Of fucking course they do not want their work on some other platform. That's the way to get waves of harassment sent back towards that fandom creator. It also often involves lots of asspats for the reposter and nothing for the creator.

I have no sympathy for reposters crying that they got harassed over art theft. Stop stealing if you can't take the heat, asshole!

Maximum audience is what shitty influencers want. It is not the ethos of fandom. Some people seek fandom fame more than others, but there has always been a strong sense of finding your corner, not of trying to get your shit out to the entire world.

WHY THE FUCK would I care about people needing the "convenience" of my fic on their own platform of choice? I use AO3 because I support AO3. I loathe Wattpad and will certainly not want to increase its popularity with my free labor and my content.

Yes, it does annoy me when people screenshot this blog and put it on twitter. I am intentionally not on twitter because twitter is garbage. I have no desire for my own writing to increase twitter's relevance. Fandom should stop treating twitter like The Place To Be. If people feel like they're missing out by being there and not here, good!

And obviously, I roll my eyes when some attention-seeker posts my shit to reddit and gets eighty billion upvotes. If you love me so much, go give my reddit account that karma. (If you're doing your own hobbydrama writeup or something, that's different though. I'm talking about c&p posts with little of your own content.)

There are different ways of sharing, and some of them are more annoying than others. Some platforms are irrelevant to a creator, while others they actively oppose being popular. Nobody is going to know or care if you post some fan art to a private discord with your friends.

Have some god damn sense, anon.

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jstor · 7 days

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hi jstor, quick question, what do i do with all the regret that's slowly choking me? i'm an academic at heart in a world where i'm no longer in academia, and i'm not thriving one bit 🫠 had to turn down a place in a phd program 2 yrs ago & now it's my biggest regret in life. you've given people such compassionate advice, so maybe you can help? research/writing is my passion & i miss having the space to indulge it & keep learning!

Hi there, thanks for reaching out with such a heartfelt question. It takes a lot to express this sort of sentiment publicly and we appreciate that you trust us enough to ask.

The regret you're feeling is natural, considering so much of your identity and passion lies in your research and writing. Your friendly JSTOR mod has also been struggling with feeling unmoored outside of academia, and I've been wondering myself if I should work my way back somehow or create a structure of my own.

The good news is that you can actually create a structure of your own! Many scholars contribute to their fields independently, so it may be worth considering a personal research project that you can work on at your own pace (which has its advantages). Public libraries often provide access to academic databases like JSTOR, and your alma mater might have resources available to alumni. Communities and forums online are a good way to reach others who are feeling similar and doing similar things.

Your writing also doesn't have to stop! If it's not your only focus it may go quite a bit slower, but many journals accept submissions from independent researchers. In addition, platforms like Medium and Substack may allow you to self-publish some of your work. You could even look into pitching guest posts for relevant publications!

It doesn't have to be a permanent goodbye to academia either. Does your alma mater welcome guest lecturers, or are there any community workshops in your area? These are some ways you could share your passions with others. Plus, academia will always be there–if an opportunity arises for you to return and it aligns with your circumstances, you can.

This is by no means exhaustive, so I do hope that anyone from the community who would like to share insights does so in the replies. Wishing you the best of luck, wherever you may go from here!

#jstor #ask #academia #research

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