#damn this is so long how did that happen?

[kaizynofsickness]

Wolf Sukuna x bunny reader

Synopsis: cuteness and innocence comes with a consequence when you're just such a petite small bunny doing dumb childish activities at the dead of night, happening to attract some wolf in need

Warning: female reader, predator and pray play, wolf Sukuna, bunny reader, oblivious reader, dacryphilla, public sex (in a forest), manhandling, fingering, reader squirting for the first time, unprotected sex, non-con, slight chasing goin' on, yandere-ish vibes (he find himself needing you), hardcore, breeding kink, slight spanking, lots of tail/ear pulling, degrading (dumb bunny/rabbit, whore bunny, slutty girl) praising too (good girl, atta girl, cutie), true form Sukuna, two cocks, double penetration (anal & cunt), SIZE DIF (he's 7'6", u cant beat him) Sukuna is a bit soft at the end. Sex with plot (?) MDNI, I will block you!!

A/N: this idea has been rotting me, does anyone else do hybrid Sukuna? Just me? Damn... My warning list is long ASF. Lazy/half proof read.

"one, two... Oh, three!" You count out how many flowers you could find buried in the thick layers of snow, picking out nearly dead ones. It was getting dark, yet you wanted a new collect of your 'snow flowers' that you did every time it snowed. You never missed a season since you were 17, so why start now at 20?

The flowers soon start to lessen and so does the light around the forest, leaving everything dark. A pout tugs at your lips as your bunny ears perk up, alert all the sudden as darkness consumes the night. Your eyes darted to every possible corner inside of the small snowy forest—maybe you were a tad bit scared of the dark, more like what hides inside of the shadows. You decide to call it quits, getting off of your knees and brushing the little bit of snow that was covering on your puffy white coat that was down to your thighs. You waddled around the snow, grabbing your new collection of flowers that survived with a smile.

You give the sun one more wave, as night fallen completely. You watch the light shrink until you really didn't wanna be in the dark no more, a little hop in your step as you trailed down the snowy path.

You had a right to fear what was happening in the darkness...

The wolf who had been watching you this whole time, grab-able bunny ears and a cute little cotton tail he could just yank you by wiggling around, how goofy yet cute you looked in that puffy coat, scarf over your face. He licked over his complex set of fangs, lust filled his thoughts and caused his dick to stiffen, all four eyes on you.

Ryomen Sukuna, he was called, steps out the shadows that you childishly feared, watching the small footprints and stepping over them with his own, seeing how he covers the whole space. You're so small. He could just—

He creeps up closer to you as you examine your flowers, lazily tossing the ones you don't like, cotton tail mindlessly twitching under that coat. He only had on an all black kimono with a rusted red color cloak over, walking in socks and flip flops, you dressed for some fashion show. You didn't even notice the sounds of breathing getting louder, nor did you hear the soft sounds of snow behind you getting crushed.

Dumb rabbit, he snickers to himself.

It took you a while to finally pick up something, your nose twitching and ears perking up again, bobbing slightly. You turn around to see not a soul behind you. You look in the trees; bare, nothing to hide. At least from what you can see. You shrug it off for now thinking it maybe was another bunny, or a birdie.

Sukuna wasn't even phased or worried you'd catch him, folding his four arms over his bulky build with confidence that he has hidden himself well enough to keep an eye on you. You, his future sex toy and minx.

You kept hearing the sounds more after that little conflict, turning around faster. This time, your eyebrows knitted together. You glance around again, gripping your flowers in your small hands. You turn around back to your destination, walking a bit faster.

He couldn't help but notice it. You might've noticed you were being watched or followed. He speeds up with you, matching your stride in the mask of the dark woods. The sounds mingle with yours, side eyeing every tree and bush to check anxiously. The idea of being followed made you pout.

The one time you stay out as the sun set, this happens.

You speed up a little more, sweating a bit even in the cold breeze and snow around. You now feel something dangerous near you, you can easily feel someone is near you, and it doesn't sit well. Like whoever—whatever is following you wants you to know that it's here. And oh, he does now want you to know, that fear makes you look so delicious, and not like he would normally look at prey.

He might wanna eat you in a whole different way that will last and effect you over and over.

"h-hey!" You meekly shout out, stuttering stupidly and taking a cowardice stance, looking so adorable scared, ears pressed down on your head. What were you shouting at? No idea. Where were you shouting to? Also no idea. You just wanted to hear someone.

You would be dumb to say 'is someone there' as there just had to be, eyes dewy as you scan the area. You grip your flowers. A faint growl, or laugh, echos from the forest behind the trees, somewhere in there. It sounded deep, grouchy, and... Soothing. Now you know someone is in there, your fear spikes. Someone was following you, just an innocent bunny with a passion for flowers in the snow.

"little bunny," a tall and dark figure emerges from the dark, and what immediately catches your attention is the four arms, many marks and odd lines across his face and wrist (what you can see) of the man.

Man? No, no, no. You gave it another look, seeing the bushy and huggable, large pink tail swooshing behind him, spiky ears at attention as four eyes gaze deep into you. The way he looks makes you shiver alone. You back away out of instinct, not that stupid to be oblivious to ths clear situation that this was a predator in front of you, you—the most common prey. His emotionless stare finally turns into something, something sinister. He smirks at you, raising an eyebrow with his arms (all of them) folded over his chest.

Your eyes widen while you stare, your cotton tail being your biggest give away with how it trembles. You drop your flowers.

"strip." His voice booms in the night forest, keeping his mocking eyes on your fretful small figure.

What? Did he just— "huh...?" You manage to stagger out words. He told you to strip? You don't even know his name. You're an innocent rabbit, that's what you're known for, right? Why would he want to play around with you?

Sukuna finds no amusement in your questioning and why you're not moving that small body. "I said strip. Get naked."

You dumbfoundedly blink. "but I don't know y—a-ahhh!"

Your protest were cut off by the swift movement of one of his large hands going to yank you near him with your bunny ears, making them stand up. The sound you made cause his cock to stir and leak, never getting so turned on by any hybrid, let alone a weak bunny. But you were so cute. He bends down to your height, claws starting to tear your coats buttons. "I'm Sukuna, bunny. Let me know your name and let's get this out the way so I could start breeding you."

Breeding you? Him, breeding you? He was so tall and big compared to you, a dainty and petite little creature, and you never been bred before.

"n-no, let go of me!" You try to move your hands to grab his large ones tugging at your ears, but you forgot he has another pair of arms, one gripping both your wrist and using them to yank you into the cold snow. You wince when your bum makes contact with the cold ground, cotton tail buried into your coat and snow.

"I thought I asked for your name, dumb rabbit." He says while shredding your coat, making you gasp as your skin comes in contact with the cold airy snow, shivering.

You stutter out your name feebly over the feeling of the cold. He yanks off your legs warmers and scarf, at least neatly pulling down your panties and unclipping your bra. "Are you cold, cutie?" He whispers into your ear, pressing your body onto his heat. You nod into the strangers chest, feeling his clothes against your naked body.

Sukuna removes his cloak and wraps it around you, the thing like a blanket. You blink up at him, lashes coated with sweet unleashed tears. He chuckles at the sight of your dewy eyes, pouty soft lips and weak state. The power dynamic he feels... is so intoxicating. Oh, he's never been harder.

He abruptly flips you, making you go on all fours. If it wasn't for the cloak, you would've felt the cold snow way easier and it would hurt at some point. "Please... Let me go—" you get cut off again, squealing when he lifts your ass up by your cotton tail, you lower body off the ground while your top is still in contact. It stings slightly... "S-Sukuna!" You whimper.

Sukuna tilts his head at a 90 degree angel, examining your pussy after lifting his cloak up. "You don't mean it. You're a creamy mess. Please." He mocks you, landing a very aggressive hit on your right ass cheek. The impact immediately leaves large red handprint, making those unshed tears start to roll out your eyes. Sukuna smiles at the victory of making you start squealing and squirming.

He lets you go from your tail, knees landing on the ground with a thud. "You're such a whore bunny." He tsk. "Can you at least take two cocks?"

That wasn't a question. That was like a warning.

"t-two?" You stutter, baffled.

That's when you feel a small poke on your thigh and one near your exposed and wet pussy. Oh God, you knew he wasn't human, but is he even a hybrid? "Did I stutter? Who cares, you'll handle me if I'm fucking you, heh." He sadistically chuckles.

He keeps you in the position, having your back arched for him. His tail sways at the sight with a smirk of your ass, red from little smacks and pussy wet and messy. He rubs the tip of his thick fingers rub against your slit, playing with your folds. You whimper from the sudden touch, yet wiggle your hips away. He wasn't having any of that, "keep still, you whore bunny." He barks out the order, glaring at you, even if you can't see how cold his four eyes are on you, you can feel the heat of them.

He has his way with your sweet pussy, rubbing your clit until two fingers sunk into your hole, stretching deep in and feeling around to see if he'll hit a spot to purposefully make you scream. He starts to curl his fingers near your g-spot, teasing you. You push your hips back only to find how he uses one of his four arms to ground you. You whine, sounding frustrated, but know better than to be bratty from how he spanked you.

Sukuna begins to pump his fingers faster, kneeling down and watching how wet his palm is becoming, watching the creamy liquid coat his two digits. He barely gives you time to adjust before he puts another finger into you, trying to stretch you out but get an orgasm out of you.

"o-oh, fuck, right there, yes yes, touch m-" your eyes roll back, back dramatically arched yet so perfect for him. He cocks an eyebrow and starts to go faster, the inhuman pace making the nastiest of sounds you can't believe it's your pussy squelching like that.

"oh, so you do like it?" He scoffs, almost speaking in differently from your little fit. He watches as your wetness soaked him and listened to the sounds of 'pat, pat, pat!!' and lewd swishing sounds.

"m' gonna, gonna c-cum! M' cumming—" You babble on uselessly until you cream around his skilled fingers, the milky liquid making a mess, the cloak below you now getting a taste of your arousal. Sukuna watches you unravel under him, your toes curling and legs jolting, struggling to keep that pretty arch.

"atta girl, such a pretty mess."

He gives you no time to readjust to relaxing from your recent orgasm, he already positioned himself behind you, sitting on his knees.

Sukuna quickly begins to stroke his cock lazily, leaving his second cock neglected for now. He only presses his tip against your cunt.

You find yourself with your back forcefully arched by one large hand pressing you down, face in his cloak, feeling his wet tip teasing your cunt and sliding to meet your clit. Every touch makes you jolt, tears still coming. "'kuna..." you sob uselessly, gripping the cloak below you. Your cotton tail twitches with every smack he lands on your ass, making it red and marked his. He snickers before leaning his crushing weight onto you, voice in your ear. "What is it, bunny?" He flashes his sharp fangs, grazing your shoulder.

"gimmie..."

The simple word let's him know what you mean. He leaned back, a throaty and degrading laugh rumbling in his chest. "You were begging for me to stop, right? Now someone can't wait for it?"

Despite his words and acting like he wasn't going to give you what you wanted, he lazily strokes his cock before he angles it up with your awaiting cunt. For all of his rough manhandling and groping, he was actually trying to make sure his tip could at least sink in before he started to completely ruin you. He could hear the sounds of you struggling, which honestly only disappointed him because he wasn't even using any force. Was he going to have to baby you?

Finally, he gets to sink half of his length inside of that sticky and warm mess, groaning at the satisfaction of feeling you around him. You were so tiny and tight, it was a perfect combination for someone like him who just wanted his cock to be strangled by the perfect cunt.

Your thighs quiver, the new feeling of some monstrous size deep inside. You never had it this good, pussy so full of cock your juices dripped out because there was no room. Your eyes shut, trying to stop your cunt from fluttering deliciously around him.

"wan' it?" He asks teasingly, more like tormenting, grabbing a good amount of flesh from your plump ass. You nod frantically, wanted to see what it feels like to have someone this big, let alone have two cocks this big. Your answer doesn't surprise him much, it only took a few minutes and you were already on his side. "Then work for it. Fuck yourself on my cock."

You whined into the cloak, feeling hot and sweaty besides the cold weather outside. You slowly shifted your body forward, rocking against the ground and your knees, making his cock pop out. You back it up on him, feeling him hit your cervix as he sinks into your inviting pussy once again. You couldn't help but moan and shudder every time you could feel your cervix being threatened to be broken.

You took advantage of this small moment of control, making sure you moved your hips slowly off of his cock, a small sticky coating sound filling your ears with more possible lewd thoughts. You needed time to adjust.

Sukuna groans, feeling proud of you. He playfully tapped your ass with a smirk, watching your body rock back and forth against his cock. "Atta girl, fuck, you got it." He taps your ass more, loving how it jiggles and all the redness left over from his spankings.

You continue to fuck yourself into him like a toy, but you were going slowly. It was all too big, you could feel him so wrongly. It was absolutely sinful. It felt raw, so raw that it burnt if you made his cock stroke your insides wrong.

He groans again, but this time it was because he was frustrated. Why did you have to go so slow?

"Can't you speed up?" His hands travel up to the back of your neck, his middle finger pressing hard against your nape. Your ears fold down to your skull again, and you could tell this groan wasn't something good. You try to turn your head to look back at him, the way you pout and look for validation for your work was so cute. The way your ears will shrink down because he sounded disappointed, how your cotton tail was moving.

"I knew I shouldn't leave things to slutty rabbit like you." He places two hands on your hips. He snaps his hips forward into yours, causing your body to lifelessly bounce forward from his force.

"N-ngh, hmph!" You muffle your moans, your eyes finally opening once again as you feel the pleasure and pain.

Sukuna grinned at the sight, not wasting any time to finally get his second dick wet. He grabbed his other cock and quickly spreaded his precum all over the length of him before he was able to slide into your anus without any warning. The double penetration left you moaning, sobbing, and whimpering. You tried to move your hips away from him, feeling as his thrust slowly started to get more aggressive.

"Nuh-uh, bunny. Stay here, be a good girl." he delivers another painful smack against your ass for trying to run away from his cock, literally.

Your body kept jolting forward with every calculated and painful thrust of his cock deep inside, stroking your G-spot repetitively, making you see stars. You tried to grip onto the cloak below you, desperately needing something to hold for comfort. You couldn't help but feel so weak, you had a monster above you. You were just a tiny little bunny.

"s-slow doowwnn..." you whine, raising your head up so your voice could be heard, even if most of it was just incohesive noise and moaning, blabbers of his name like a chant.

Your request fall to deaf ears. He was too engrossed with how amazing your cunt was sucking him back in, your anus, and the view of such a tiny little bunny below him.

You feel a familiar knot building up inside of your stomach, and you can feel yourself slowly starting to ruin your perfect arch. Again, it was like you were trying to run away from the cocks. Your anus felt so full, you never had anything up there, not even your own fingers. You never knew how amazing good feel to have two holes occupied.

There was just one difference.

It felt so much more intense than a normal orgasm. You couldn't tell what was going to happen, for a second you felt like you had to pee. Your cunt started to spasm aggressively; never had Sukuna felt someone so eager to cum (unless it was rut season), and he fucked many hybrids.

You couldn't even process any words, no sort of warning came out. The only thing that did come out was a long gush of clear, sticky liquid absolutely ruining his happy trail and pelvis. Oh, and his cock? Soaked.

His eyes widen in shock, yet he was so proud of you in his own twisted ways. He rubbed over your sore ass, a smile if that was almost full of disbelief that you just squirted all over him like that. "You just squirted on me, slutty girl."

He most definitely has to make fun of you.

"little messy bunny, pussy just felt so good had to tap out?"

You find a good grip onto the cloak below you that was now soaked in your squirt. Your little cunnie continued to pleasure his cock, your very inexperienced anus getting abused, mind just full of his name and his cock, your sensitive body going crazy, making your toes curl. Your bunny ears perk up, voice desperate as you keep trying to run away from his cock—

"you can't just stay fuckin' still?" He growls and presses his hand hard on your back, breaking your arch and making your knees fumble, having you pressed flushed against the cloak, the cold ground more evident to your skin. He leans his weight over you, cocks still finding a way to work into both holes.

"'kuna, p-please, no—no more, no more..." you cry out, rosey and cute cheeks stained with tears.

"sh, just take my cocks. Take 'em, cum all over me." His tone almost changed and he gazed at how helpless you look, feeling an urge to... Bite you. He leaned more of his weight on top of you, making your eyes shot open—how close can he get? His fluffy tail comes around and wraps you up near him, fur tickling your sides. He allows his tail to slip under your body—he lifted you up real quick—and held you close.

He fucked into you with more focus now, focused on you. Those moans and how you were so small under him, he felt the power and the urge to bite you, make you cry, cream, squirt, beg, to protect you... Yeah, he wants you. So bad.

Sukuna growls lowly, his breathing becoming more heavy, what you can only assume as a sign he's close to cumming. He stiffens his cocks into both your holes, filling them both at the same time, his steamy seed flowing in white ropes in you, making you shudder. He filled you deep; his plans to breed you to keep you closer to him.

You limped like a doll on the cloak, naked and cummed stuffed in you. Sukuna's large hand runs down your body and grabs you cotton tail again, lifting your ass up, your lower body propped up for his eyes. You didn't even make much of a fuss, only muttering "m' so full 'kuna..."

He watches his cum leaking out your two used holes, seeing how much he stretched them out from his ministrations. He unwraps his tail from your body, which was once warm and the cold air ruined it, and he pulled you to him. He grabbed his cloak, your juices all over it, and wrapped it around your nude body.

"you enjoyed it? See, now all that fuckin' fighting was useless." He coos as he walked you away from the sex scene, his cum trailing down your thighs and dripping in the snow. All you do is nod on response, nuzzling into his chest. He looks down at your lazy state, looking fucked out after all of that fun.

"you'll come with me bunny. I'll eat my cum out at my place."

˚꩜⋆.°⭑Do not copy, translate, or steal in any way, reblogs are appreciated and allowed

Should I make this a series? I wanna start a series so baaad

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #jjk x reader smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #sukuna x reader #sukuna #sukuna smut #sukuna x you #sukuna ryomen #ryomen sukuna #ryomen smut #ryomen x you #hybrid #bunny girl #wolf boy #subby bunny #kaizyn drabble

[hannieehaee]

Hi, I think it would be interesting if you did too the pov of the member masturbating, from that hc with another member gf

masturbating to another member's gf

content: smut, masturbation, mentions of afab reader, second hand embarrassment, etc.

wc: 1619

a/n: a few people requested this sorry i took so long</3

masterlist

seungcheol -

vernon was practically his little brother, of course seungcheol never meant to look at his pretty girlfriend in a way any more than innocent. it hadnt been his fault that he had accidentally walked in on the two of you having sex that one time. even after the awkward aftermath of the event, cheol couldnt get the image of your nude body out of his mind. how could he when you looked and sounded so gorgeous as vernon took care of you? you soon became the main character of his fantasies, making him helpless in breathing out your name every so often when he'd jack off late at night. it seemed karma was real, though, as he became the next person to be caught in a compromising position, and by you and your boyfriend nonetheless.

jeonghan -

jeonghan was the epitome of thinking quick on his feet. due to this, people always saw him as a guy with great intellect, rarely ever caught off guard. this ability did not, however, translate over to when he was in deep slumber. he had no idea that he had been inadvertently moaning out your name these past few nights as he shared a room with you and chan due to a shortage of rooms at the resort the group had been renting out for the week. unaware, but having soaked his boxers with cum, he was mortified to realize that his sex dream had been evident to more than just himself.

joshua -

by some strange act of god, soonyoung had somehow scored who joshua thought to be one of the prettiest girls he had ever laid eyes on; you. now, joshua was a respectable man, with some of the best manners anyone had ever seen. this, however, did not prevent a few perverted thoughts from plaguing his mind late at night when nothing seemed to get him off. it was in these occasions that he thought back to you and how pretty you looked that specific day, quietly groaning your name in hopes that no one would hear him. sadly, this occurrence became a bit more common than planned, and soonyoung was already aware of this depraved habit of joshua's. feeling a bit embarrassed for the guy, he chose to keep it to himself, simply being a little extra touchy with you whenever joshua was around to assert his dominance in a subtle way.

jun -

he was an actor for fuck's sakes, so why was it so hard for him to put on a face whenever you were around? and why the hell was his cock just not cooperating with him? it's not like he'd never seen a pretty girl in a bikini before, so why was his dick so damn tall and proud at the sight of you getting sunscreen applied to your back (all the way to your ass) by seungcheol? there was no way he could let anyone see his boner, so the best solution had been to lock himself in the restroom and jerk one off. it wouldve all been discreet and entirely fine if it hadnt been for you walking by later on, coming in upon hearing him call your name, seungcheol trailing right behind you. yeah, that's when he knew he was thoroughly fucked.

soonyoung -

he swore he hadnt meant to let his mind wander so far off. he'd never want to make neither you nor jihoon feel uncomfortable because of him, it was just that ... fuck, you were so fucking pretty. usually soonyoung would leave the jacking off for whenever he was home and alone, but it just so happened that you looked so soft and pretty earlier when he'd walked into jihoon's studio and found you sleeping on the couch, tiny little tank top allowing him to see your mushed tits as you breathed softly. running to the nearest bathroom to jack off had merely been a survival tactic, he just hadnt expected jihoon to have been on the other stall, hearing every low groan of your name he let out ...

wonwoo -

when you had decided to join the guys on vacation to a secluded resort, wonwoo hadn't expected you to be so liberal in your use of bathing suits. i mean, it was practically lingerie! not that he wanted to shame you or anything, but you were making his life far too difficult. difficult enough for him to not be able to hold back and jerk one off after spending hours next to you, almost in the nude. the most unfortunate bit, though, had been the realization the next morning that your boyfriend jun had heard him, and now he would have to deal with his teasing for the rest of the vacation.

jihoon -

despite the shame he felt at it, jacking off to the thought of you had sort of become a regular occurrence for jihoon. whether he simply pictured you in his head or used some of your instagram photos for inspiration, this was something he did at least once a week. but it all came to an abrupt halt the day mingyu had stormed into his studio without warning, catching jihoon red handed as his hand played under his sweats and his phone shone with a pretty picture of you on display. it was safe to say that this would be the last time he ever thought of you in such way, too mortified by mingyu's constant complaints about it ever since.

seokmin -

seokmin had always been quite sensitive when it came to becoming aroused. it was the easiest thing for him to get hard, specially when the source of his desire was as delectable as joshua's girlfriend. maybe it was the proximity he had with you as joshua brought you along on tour, but you were simply causing him far too many boners to be considered normal. at some point, it had become a nuisance to him how often he'd have to interrupt his daily schedule to rub one off. it got so bad to the point where he'd been caught by a few members already, though thankfully it had been before he got really into it, murmuring your name under his breath when he was about to finish. sadly, however, this streak of not being caught did not last too long, leading to a very awkward encounter as joshua walked into his room unsuspecting, in search of dk's camera but instead finding him groaning his girlfriend's name as he stroked himself.

mingyu -

mingyu knew he shouldve denied minghao's offer to tag along with the two of you on a short stay to los angeles. but could he really be blamed? he loved la's scene and loved spending time with his friend. what he did not take into account was how thin walls were in america, meaning that he'd have to go to bed being able to hear the two of you through the walls night after night, unknowing in the fact that you could also hear him loud and clear as he jerked off, groaning your name in sync with your own moans of minghao's name.

minghao -

as composed and well put together as minghao was, he did carry some weaknesses, with you being the biggest one as of late. it all started when you had joined the boys at the gym a few weeks ago, donning some tiny spandex and a sports bra, drenched in sweat and with a heavy breath to match. the sight left nothing to minghao's imagination, causing you to become a recurring dream of his. sadly, his weakness for you did not remain a secret for long, as he lost sight of himself masturbating to the thought of you just as seungkwan walked by his door, catching an earful of your name being moaned by another man. this led to a loud gasp from seungkwan and a very inconvenient interruption of minghao's gratification, now having to deal with an scandalized seungkwan instead.

seungkwan -

of course a boy as handsome as wonwoo would score someone as pretty as you. it just made sense to seungkwan. however, your status as wonwoo's girlfriend still did not prevent seungkwan's mind from wandering any time you'd stay over at the dorms, coming down to the kitchen in nothing but a bralette and wonwoo's boxers, flaunting all the beauty seungkwan fantasized about at night. and unfortunately for everyone involved, his fantasies could sometimes be a bit loud, leading both you and wonwoo to hear him through the wall late at night, opting to ignore the situation as to not embarrass the poor boy.

vernon -

having one of his best friends walk in on him as he jerked off to one particularly racy picture you had posted a few weeks back was not something vernon ever expected, yet here he was, dick in hand as dokyeom yelled in surprise at the sight. after a very long and exasperated conversation that consisted of endless apologies from him and exaggerated scoldings from seokmin, the two of them decided to never bring up this incident ever again.

chan -

chan knew it was wrong the first time he had jacked off with you in mind. you were jeonghan's girlfriend, of course it was wrong. but his horniness overtook his critical thinking, which led him to the most embarrassing moment of his life. not only had you walked into the room at hearing him call out your name, but your boyfriend was trailing right behind you. despite seeing a mocking smile on his friend's face at the sight, he saw a shocked and blushy expression in you, which was something that would cause him second hand embarrassment every time he thought back to that moment.

#seventeen x reader #seventeen fanfic #svt fanfic #svt x reader #seventeen imagine #seventeen #seventeen oneshot #svt #seventeen smut #svt smut #svt oneshot #svt imagines #svt reactions #seventeen reaction

[cherry-holmes]

REGRET

(Javier Peña x F!Reader)

Credits of the gif on the image.

MAIN MASTERLIST

Summary: Finding out you’re pregnant create a split between you and Javier. He soon will discover that one can regret they own words.

Pairing: Javier Peña x Female Reader

Word count: +3k

Warnings: Writer prefer to not give details to prevent spoilers. Read under your own responsibility.

A/N: Hello👋🏻 This is a little something that came to my mind when a saw this gifs last week🧍🏻‍♀️ Let me know in comments if you like it👀

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Javier and you have been dating for a year and a half now. It started as something casual. You were just neighbors, then you used to talk about the weather when you crossed paths in the building. Then, he invited you for a drink, and you ended up in his bed.

He told you he was a DEA agent, and you talked about your community service as an English teacher in Bogotá.

Javier was funny and charming. He always treated you like a princess and fucked you like a slut. He was attentive, but he worked a lot. You never seriously talked about what exactly you were, but you spent much more time at his place than yours. He hadn't given you a key, precisely, but he told you he had a copy on top of his door so you could enter when you arrive and he was still at work. He picked you up from the school, and you cut his hair when needed.

Life had been busy, and you never really stopped to ask him if your relationship had a label. The truth is, neither of you had actually stopped and asked each other what would come next when he caught Escobar and/or you finished your community service.

You never thought about it, until that damn morning.

"Fuck."

It can't be happening. Two lines on a pregnancy test were the last thing you needed. You looked at it for a long, long time, trying to process what was going on. You wanted a blood test to confirm, but there's a reason why you already took a pee test. Morning sickness and a delay in your period activated the alarms. You hadn't told Javier anything yet, but it was only a matter of time now.

That afternoon you went to the laboratory, and by noon you received a phone call confirming the results. You were, indeed, very pregnant. After you hung up the phone, you cried a lot. How were you going to tell Javi? What would you do with your job? What were you going to tell your parents? Did you really want to have it... him/her?

You felt the urgency to make a decision in that very moment. Javier was going to ask you when you told him, and you knew he hated the "I don't know."

It took you one, two, three hours, and you had an answer. You knew it was the right one because you thought it would take you a lot longer to decide. But when your heart landed in the same place over and over so quickly, you simply knew it.

Javier came home late at night, but earlier than usual. He looked tired and pissed, and he let his weight fall on the kitchen chair to devour what you had made for dinner. You looked at him the entire time, and the nervousness in your chest made it impossible to eat anything. You wanted to tell him. You couldn't contain the news any longer.

"Javi," you began. He didn't look at you for more than a second before his sleepy eyes fell on his plate again. "I have something to tell you. It's very important."

"What is it, babe?" he asked, his voice slurred.

"I..." You fought the lump in your throat, encouraging yourself to tell him. "I'm pregnant."

Until that moment, you didn't know what you expected. You didn't imagine him crying with emotion and jumping around the apartment, screaming to the four winds that he was going to be a dad. But you didn't imagine what his real reaction would be, either.

Javier didn't even look at you. He dropped his fork, leaned back in his chair, and passed his hands over his face. It wasn't a surprised, emotional reaction. He was pissed. He was cursing the situation.

You didn't say anything as you felt your heart and soul sink into your stomach. Disappointment washed over you as you saw his reaction. You tried to think of something else to say, but you went blank.

"We can't," he finally said, really looking at you for the first time that night.

"What do you mean we can't?" your voice was only a whisper.

He looked at you like you were crazy. "You're not seriously thinking about having it."

Your mouth went dry, but tears welled up in your eyes. "Well... I do."

Javier's face hardened. "It's not safe, not with what I do, not with Escobar still out there."

"We can figure this out together," you said, your voice quivering. "I-I know this country is dangerous and this is probably not the right time, but is already happening and I..."

"Are you sure you're...?" he began. It hurt you the fact that he couldn't even say it.

You stood up and reached for your purse. He saw you as you placed both the pee and the blood test in front of him.

"Puta madre." Javier stood up, pacing the kitchen. "Did you take the pills?" he demanded.

You nodded. "I do. But they're not a hundred percent effective."

He ran his fingers through his hair in an almost desperate gesture. "I can't do this. Parenting is not on my plans, and you know it."

"I didn't want this to happen either, Javier, and I'm sorry," you said, trying not to cry. "But you need to people to make a baby. So, we have to figure this out together."

"Don't complicate things more," he added. He made his way to the living room, pacing like a caged animal. "Think about the consequences. I can't risk my focus on this job for this."

Tears streamed down your face. "So, what? You want me to get rid of it?"

"I think it's the best option for both of us."

After a long, cold moment of silence, you shook your head, stepping back. "I can't believe you."

He sighed heavily, looking away. "You don't understand... it's too dangerous."

"I don't care," you cried. "I'm gonna have this baby. With or without you."

He sighed. He saw the determination on you. Now he needed to make a decision, since you're not going to change yours.

"Ok," he said finally. "It will happen, but you need to go back to the States."

"No," you sentenced. Javier couldn't believe your stubbornness. "I'm not going to leave, either. I can't leave the school. Those kids need my help."

He was doing his best to not completely lost his patience and say something (more) that he could – and will – regret.

"I can't concentrate on my job and take care of a pregnant woman," he sentenced, adding your name at the end in a way you had never heard before.

You took a deep breath, trying to steady your voice. "Well, then don't worry about me. I can handle this on my own."

Javier stared at you, his eyes dark with frustration. He thought of his parents. They didn't raise a man who shirks responsibility, one who doesn't own the consequences of his actions.

For a long moment, the only sound was the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall. Finally, Javier sighed deeply, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

"No," he said. "If that's what you want, fine. You'll have my financial support, but that's all. As soon as you finish your community service, you'll go back home. I'll send you money, that's it."

"I don't want anything from you, Javier. Not if you're not going to do it with real love," you whispered, heartbroken.

Javier's jaw tightened, but he didn't argue. He turned away, staring at the wall, his hands clenched into fists.

He looked down, unable to meet your gaze. "I never saw myself as a dad. I don't think I ever will," he admitted. "That's all I can offer. I'm sorry it's not what you expected. I'm sorry I can't be the man you need."

------------------------------------------------------------

Days turned into weeks, and your relationship with Javier seemed to be stuck in a constant struggle of awkward interactions and avoiding each other. He started working even later, and sometimes he didn't even spend the night at the apartment. He came back the next morning smelling like whiskey and cigarettes. When he did sleep at home, he took the couch while you slept on his bed. When you woke up in the morning, he wasn't there.

Both of you finally reached an agreement. You recognized that you needed his help, and he was aware that he had to be responsible for the situation. You moved in with Javier so you wouldn't have to waste money paying rent. Moreover, you would return to the US when you were seven months pregnant. He would conclude his duty in Colombia however long it took. Neither of you wanted to talk about what would happen then.

Your belly was now thirteen weeks along. Soon, Javier found his place filled with baby stuff. Every day he discovered something new you had bought: tiny clothes, maternity clothing, maternity books. His bathroom smelled like the body cream you used to apply on your belly, and there was a list of pregnancy-friendly foods hung on the refrigerator. He could tell you were putting your heart into preparing for the baby, and at times he felt guilty for not being able to find his own paternal instinct.

On the contrary, you were caught in a fragile rhythm. He continued his dangerous work, and you dedicated yourself to your work at school.

Nights were still lonely, but at least you had your baby. You talked and sang to them. You applied anti-stretch mark creams to your belly, and read everything about babies and labor. You were excited to meet your baby boy or girl, but sadly, at the same time, you felt heartbroken because you loved Javier, and you wished he was more present during the process. However, you had to accept that it wasn't mutual. He didn't love you; he never truly did and probably never would. He just liked to fuck. You should have known it before. Maybe you did, but you were so in love with him that you thought you could change him. Either way, it was too late now.

Javier gave you more money than you needed to cover everything you needed. He never said no when you told him you needed medicine, to pay for a doctor's appointment, or special food that didn't provoke nausea.

But he never went to those appointments with you. He never asked how they went, either. He never showed any interest in the progress of your pregnancy. It was as if he had completely detached himself from the situation, leaving you to navigate the journey alone.

Or at least, that was how you saw it. The truth was, Javier was having a difficult time processing the fact that he would be a father. He had never seen himself getting married, let alone having children.

Furthermore, there was something terrifying about having a baby in Colombia during the war he was fighting. He had witnessed men fall, leaving widows and orphans behind.

He realized that he was more scared of leaving you and his child alone in this chaotic and unfair world if something happened to him. Or worse, he feared that you have to pay for his sins and mistakes. He couldn't bear the thought of that, and he often had nightmares about losing you both.

He didn't know how to express his feelings for you. He couldn't let himself relax and just settle into the nest with you.

One of those nights, when he decided to come home earlier after work, he found you sleeping in bed. You had an open book beside you on a page about what to expect during the second trimester. You had fallen asleep in an awkward position, so he had to gently wake you up to help you move into a more comfortable one. You mumbled in your sleep, calling his name softly and sweetly. Javier felt warmth in his chest, a need to cuddle with you, touch your belly for the first time, and hold you and the baby close.

But he just couldn't do it. He didn't know why, but he couldn't. He limited himself to tucking you in with a warm blanket and opening the window for fresh air, as you liked it. He went to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, and put it on your nightstand because he knew you got thirsty in the middle of the night.

Javier observed you for a moment, peacefully sleeping, carrying his baby. He missed your soft lips and your fingers in his hair. He missed making you laugh and talking to you about each other's days. And now, he longed to make things right and try to win your heart back.

Tomorrow, he said. Turning down the lights, he went to his place on the couch.

But tomorrow was too late.

------------------------------------------------------------

He left early in the morning to attend an emergency meeting at the Embassy. Steve spend all morning complaining about Messina and the tie-and-suit motherfuckers, but Javier's thoughts were on you.

He was lost on his own thoughts, trying to find the right words to tell you. He was still scared, but he was determined to try. To make it work.

He was on his desk, a report on his hands but he wasn't reading it, when his landline rang.

"Peña," he picked up.

"Is this Javier?" a woman's voice asked urgently.

"Who's this?"

"This is María from the school," she said. He immediately knew something was wrong. He barely remembered María, you had presented each other last year on your birthday.

"There's been an emergency," she continued explaining, anguish filling her voice. "She's been taken to the hospital."

Javier's heart dropped. "Is she okay?"

"She collapsed in class. They think it might be related to her pregnancy. You need to get to the hospital as soon as you can."

Javier didn't waste a second. He grabbed his jacket and bolted out of the Embassy, ignoring Steve's confused shouts. The drive to the hospital was a blur, his mind racing with fear.

What happened? You were fine last night... Didn't you? He felt a pang of guilt. What if you didn't felt well but you didn't say anything because you thought he would be mad? Fuck... He should be more available for you. You should trust him.

When he finally arrived at the hospital, he rushed to the reception desk, asking for your name. The nurse nodded and directed him to the emergency room. His heart pounded as he approached the doors, dread settling in his stomach.

He found you lying on a hospital bed, pale and hooked up to monitors. The doctor was speaking to a nurse nearby. Javier's throat tightened as he stepped closer.

The doctor noticed him and approached. "Are you related?"

"Yes, how is she?" Javier asked, his voice shaky.

The doctor sighed. "I'm sorry to inform you, but she lost the baby. There was nothing we could do. It was a miscarriage."

Javier felt like the ground had been ripped out from under him. He looked at your unconscious form, tears welling up in his eyes. "Can I see her?"

"Of course, but she's sleeping right now," the doctor said gently. "She's stable now, but you had to sedate her. This has been very traumatic for her."

Javier nodded and moved to your bedside. He took your hand in his, feeling the weight of his own failures crashing down on him. He had failed to protect you, to be there when you needed him the most.

Hours passed as he sat by your side, holding your hand and watching you sleep. When you finally stirred and opened your eyes, he was there. His eyes were teary, reddened from his contained emotions.

"Hey," he whispered, placing a strand of hair behind your ear. "I'm here," he said, squeezing your hand. "I'm so sorry. I should have been there. I should have done more."

You closed your eyes, tears slipping down your cheeks. "I lost my baby." Your voice was barely a whisper, little sobs escaping your lips. You were still in a haze of sedatives and mourning.

Javier nodded, his heart breaking at the pain in your voice. "I know. I'm so, so sorry."

"No, you don't," you said, hurt and anger painting your weak voice. "You didn't want my baby."

"I was scared," he confessed, his voice cracking. "I didn't know how to handle any of this. But I never wanted this to happen. I never wanted to lose our baby."

You shook your head, tears streaming like rivers down your cheeks. The gaze you gave him was filled with anger and resentment, piercing through his chest.

"Fuck you," you cried.

Javier flinched as if you had struck him. He looked away, unable to bear the intensity of your anger and sorrow.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again, his voice barely audible.

"You never be there for us, so don't come and say you're sorry," your words melted into an unstoppable crying. You felt like if your heart would literally broke into a million pieces. Grief and exhaustion weighing heavily on you, you felt an overwhelming sense of emptiness.

"I know I can't make this right. I know I failed you. But please, let me be here for you now," he pleaded, but there was nothing he could say to soothe your unbearable pain.

"You're a piece of shit, Javier," you spat, your voice trembling with anger and grief. "I don't want to see you ever again."

You turned away from him, your tears flowing freely.

He lingered for a moment, hoping for some sign of forgiveness, but when none came, he slowly left the room, closing the door behind him.

He stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall, feeling the crushing weight of his failures. He had lost not only his child but also the trust and love of the woman who meant more to him than he had ever admitted.

#javier peña fic #javier pena fanfiction #pedro pascal #fanfic #narcos #pedro pascal x reader #imagina javier peña #javier pena imagine #javier pena fic #javierpeña #javier pena narcos #javier peña #javier peña x reader #javier peña x y/n #javier peña x f!reader #javier peña x female reader

[starsofang]

Change of Heart

hitman!simon x f!reader / part 6

previous part

tw: gore, violence, blood, ghost makes a return ooo, please be warned! <3

When life has completely and utterly failed you, you hire a hitman to take you out, too afraid to do it yourself. Instead of killing you like you had planned, he strikes up a deal with you, and you're too stubborn to bail out.

Simon had never felt such a boiling rage to the point his blood was bubbling, ready to explode out of his body and paint the walls of your apartment a crimson red that would stain the chipped-away white with messy splatters. It simmered hotly beneath his scarred skin, sifting through his veins like wildfire and egging him into dangerous territory.

He was no saint. He killed people for a living. He took the money of pathetic, lowly people who had the coldness in their heart to request his favor in killing somebody they didn’t like. Lawyers, CEOs, big name people who ate with the silver spoon embedded in their teeth and tainted their smiles with a greedy unnerve.

So no, Simon was no saint.

But he’d certainly ruin any chances of redemption when he got his hands on the coward who’d brought you harm.

Simon didn’t need payment to seek him out. He didn’t need a stack of cash waved in his face, or a bank transfer notified on his phone.

All he needed was to see the pretty girl in tears and blood, lying broken on the floor like a toy, used and tossed aside – worthless, undeserving. His pretty girl.

You were enough to tear down the concrete walls he’d encased around himself, built with his own bare hands. You were enough to wake the flame in his soul, to remind him just what he was capable of.

Simon was tired of killing those who did nothing to him. Sure, many deserved it, but they hadn’t done anything to him. He was a mediator. A spectator. He was a part of a story as a side character, only rising from the shadows to cut that story short and end it with bloodshed and a transaction. Their pages were quipped, torn from the spine of the book with no prospect of a completed ending.

Now, the plotline had changed.

He had the upper hand in this story. He was able to rewrite it without the complications of another’s orders. And he’d be damned if he didn’t tear the man who hurt you right out of the pages.

Simon didn’t want to leave you. He knew how disoriented you were from the fists that had put you through torment – torment he wasn’t there to protect you from. You were dazed and lost, hanging on by the thin of a wire that Simon was the one desperately clinging to.

When he had patched you up and put you to bed, he waited until you succumbed to the exhaustion and fell asleep for him to strike.

He was a man on a mission. A dog off its leash. His nose flared from under his mask as if he was a damn K-9 tracking down his suspect.

He searched through the entirety of your apartment, tearing it to bits in order to find a hint, a clue. All he needed was one quick search of your phone through your blocked numbers to find what he needed.

There was no contact name. No indication of who this man could be.

But a phone number was enough, and when he texted it to Gaz with the demand of finding it out for him, it wouldn’t be long until your ex-boyfriend would be another name on a crumbling gravestone.

Gaz was quick to find him the information. No questions asked, and that’s why Simon loved working with him. He minded his own, and trusted him to complete a job alone. He was good at tracking information for Simon, good at all that he did, and he was sure as hell good at picking up on the signs that Simon was involved in something, or someone that made him bend the fabrics of reality for them.

The name left a bitter taste in Simon’s mouth.

Phillip Graves. American. Bastard with a sharp tongue and a cockiness that’ll get him killed.

Ghost could make that happen.

The man walking down the streets, prowling with a threatening cloud of smoke around him wasn’t Simon.

Simon was the one who tucked you into bed, who wiped off every dot of blood that tainted your pretty skin. He was the one who watched over you in the corners of the night, making sure you got home safe, making sure you were keeping up your end of the deal.

He was the one who you baked pastries for, and didn’t have the heart to tell you he didn’t have a sweet tooth. He stuffed his mouth full of every single crumb despite the fact, just to see you smile.

He was the one who thought you were beautiful at first glance, and didn’t have the capacity to take your money and rid the world of a human being carved like a piece of art in a mausoleum. He was selfish, and he wanted you.

The man in the reflection of every store window as he strode by was Simon no more. Simon was gone, tucked away in the back corner and replaced by the brute of a man he’d been before you.

You were Simon’s religion, his reason for salvation. He’d bow at every altar, pray to every God with his blood stained hands clasped in a plea, just to worship you – but Ghost wasn’t a religious man, and he garnered no peace from anyone. Not even you.

Simon was the one who would protect you. Ghost was the one who would kill for you.

All Ghost had on the screen of his phone besides a name, was an address. It was a temporary one, judging from how recent your ex had moved into it, and the thought of it caused his teeth to grit in annoyance.

The fucker was staying close to you, with intentions so sick it could only make Ghost’s fire burn into grueling embers. He was stalking you, tracking you down, plotting.

Ghost knew exactly what he needed to do to ensure your safety. He made a promise to you, a promise that he hadn’t vocalized but rather slipped in when he made that deal with you. It was written in small lettering, so small so you’d gloss over it and he’d be able to hide away the watchful eye he had on you.

Finding Graves’ apartment was an easy feat. He nearly laughed at how effortless it was to stalk his way up to the apartment building that was somehow even more rundown than yours. But it made sense – Graves wasn’t planning on staying for long, and he was going to flee after latching his grimy hands on you once and for all. He didn’t need a fancy apartment to stalk his claim.

On normal jobs, Ghost was discreet. He’d figure out an alternative for breaking into one’s apartment or home, one that required no curious eyes or witnesses to see. He was quiet, like a shadow moving across the walls in dark anticipation.

This time around, he found himself stomping right up the musty stairwell, boots clattering along every step that creaked beneath his weight. He was an incoming storm the way he clouded over the hallway with impending doom, rain clouds hovering over him with lightning prepared to strike at any given moment.

He didn’t knock. He didn’t wait or stall.

He kicked at the door with the heavy soles on his feet, wallowing in every crack and snap the door made under its sudden force. It withered, flying off of the hinges and slamming up against the wall as it smacked open.

The apartment was a shithole. Messy, cluttered, and uninhabited. Dust collected on every surface, furniture bare from every room, and all that was used was an old mattress with blankets to keep Graves warm from the chill of every night.

Graves stood in the aging kitchen, cooking up something that made Ghost’s nose flare. The bastard didn’t deserve to have an appetite after what he had done to you. He didn’t deserve to use his tongue, didn’t deserve to keep his teeth.

Stood like a deer in headlights, Graves quickly regained his composure, sneering at him with a mock threat made Ghost snort.

“What the fuck?” Graves shouted in a fit of anger, stumbling in the kitchen as he caught himself from the sudden surprise. His narrowed eyes stared Ghost down, taking in every inch of him.

A looming mass with a skull painted mask with eyes that could kill. Graves would be a dead heap on the floor if that was so.

“You,” Ghost spat. He walked slow and dangerous, darkened glare focused on Graves without a single intent of leaving. It was cold, piercing, full of millions of daggers that he wished could mutilate Graves in front of him. “You should’ve gotten a more secure place.”

“The fuck are you talking about? Who are you?”

Graves was tougher than he thought, Ghost had to give him that. He didn’t cower in fear, nor did he try to run like most people did. Ghost was a force to be reckoned with, and looking at him was like looking the Devil himself in the eye.

Ghost continued stalking towards, like a predator to prey, every step calculated. His boots were like hell’s bells ringing as they hefted with every step, stomping clouds of musty dust around his ankles. It was enough to have Graves leaning back, the action so small Ghost would’ve missed it if not for his keen eye and trained skill.

“You touched her,” he stated. His tone was so calm it caused unease to smother the room, suffocating the two of them in a thick cloud. “You hurt her.”

It took a second for Graves to understand, and when he did, he scowled, perfectly aligned teeth just begging to be knocked in. “You’re Simon.”

“Ghost,” he was quick to correct. “Not Simon to you.”

Graves laughed mockingly, the sound more like a scoff as it escaped his thin lips. “Oh, right. She calls you Simon. Little whore, that one is. 

Ghost stopped when he was in front of Graves. He peered down at him with a thirst for blood glimmering in his eyes, locked in on Graves’ own and burning the retinas with the flames that danced around his pupils.

“You hurt her,” Ghost repeated. “I don’t like men who hurt women. Don’t like men like you.”

Graves’ expression soured and he stared up at Ghost with a mix of confusion and offense. He was trying to read Ghost from under the mask, see what was burning in those embers of his, but he only saw rage. A calm, brewing rage that held no remorse and no sympathy for a man like Graves.

“I’m going to rip the flesh off your fucking bones and pluck every single one of those teeth out with my bare hands,” Ghost threatened, and it was only then that Graves showed a single sign of fear. His lips twitched, hands flinching at his sides as if debating on whether or not he could throw a punch at Ghost and scurry his sorry ass away.

Back to his town, far away from this shitty apartment, and far away from you.

He didn’t know Ghost never left a job unfinished. Not until he was left a bloodied, gory mess on the floor of his kitchen, face unrecognizable, tiles stained with the red he had colored your own bathroom the night before when he laid his hands on you like the weak link he was. Graves’ eyes were glossed over, lifeless, staring blankly into the pit of Ghost’s as he took each and every brutal impalement from the kitchen knife Ghost had snatched from the counter.

Ghost didn’t falter, nor did he stop until the fire in him slowed to a stop, leaving behind nothing but ash and debris. He stared down at the man who had hurt you, watched the way his blood seeped into the grout of the tiles like a sponge absorbing water.

It was a picture Ghost never wanted you to see. A side he never wanted you to take a glimpse of in fear of you running.

Ghost wasn’t religious. He didn’t worship you like Simon did. Wouldn’t get on his knees for you and beg for forgiveness for his sins.

Ghost was hungry. Starved. He’d shed the whole town’s blood for you. He’d bury every fucking soul six feet deep if it meant none of them would have a chance to hurt you.

When you woke up from the deep slumber you found yourself in, everything ached. Your body was crying for help as it twisted and stiffened when you sat up in bed.

The apartment was quiet. Cold. Simon was nowhere to be found, nor did he leave you a note when you got up to look for it. The kitchen was void of his presence, void of the banter you two had shared just nights ago when you baked for him and he sat with an admiring gaze.

Last night began to resurface, and your mind flashed you the ghostly images of Graves’ face as he stood over you, lips pulled into a menacing sneer, bitter laughter leaving his lips as he kicked and slashed every part of your body. He didn’t leave a single bit unscathed from the torment, and you felt the weight of it with the way your skin hissed when it tugged or how your nose gasped for air beneath the swelling and ache.

Bile filled your lungs as you replayed the painful memory and recalled every hit and strike he laid upon you. Recalled Simon not answering the phone, not showing up until the damage was done.

Your legs moved before your mind did, and they took you back to that very bathroom where you were nearly left for dead. The contents in your stomach were minimal, and when you emptied them out into the toilet, you were left dry heaving and begging for air. Pangs of grueling pain fluttered in your stomach, and the butterflies that once flew freely had turned into overbearing moths that were desperate to get out.

You didn’t know tears began to flow down your cheeks until they caused your open cuts and wounds to sting. They cascaded in waterfalls, bathing you in a cold, sticky sheen of despair.

Your mind was angry at Simon, but your heart longed for him. The loneliness of the bathroom as the tiles dug into your bruised knees was just an aching emphasis that he wasn’t there to fill that void, to help pick you back up like he’d been doing ever since the two of you met.

Anger you could get over. The hurt of knowing he didn’t answer your call, you could get over.

But the yearning in your heart was something that no amount of anguish could get rid of, for it filled you up like an overflowing glass, pouring and pouring over the rim until you couldn’t take it.

So you waited. And waited. You laid curled up in the same bathroom he found you in the night before, all the way up until he showed – because even if it was late, it was always.

Simon was a mucked up mess when he came ducking into your apartment the same way he left. His hands, covered in dried, cracking red, and his shoulders pulled taut with unfurling tension were the first thing you saw when he entered. His eyes had immediately searched for you, and just like before, willed himself to you like a moth to a flame when he saw you in the bathroom once again.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he greeted softly. His voice sent warmth through your bloodstream, lighting you up from the inside and out. “What’re you doin’ in here?”

Simon crouched to your level, lifting a hand to grace it across your features before it froze up and dropped away when the sight of red reminded him of the sins etched into his skin. The sins performed by Ghost, with Simon seeking redemption.

“You weren’t here when I woke up,” you sniffled, a pathetic sound leaving your mouth, almost like a hiccup. It shattered Simon’s heart and buried a knife through the arteries.

“M’sorry sweetheart. M’here now, I promise. I’m not goin’ anywhere,” he promised, and blood be damned, he wanted to touch you, to reach out to you and cradle him in his loving light.

So he did.

You didn’t flinch away when he shoved aside his worries and placed calloused hands on each side of your face. You stilled, melting into him like a child would its mother, sinking yourself into the tranquil solace of his touch. It chased your demons away, filling you with angelic purpose.

When you allowed yourself the brief slice of heaven in the form of a man, you worried your gaze on the blood that soaked from his hands and up his tattooed arms, lacing him with a layer of damnation. Your eyes trailed up, slow and unsteady, before reaching his eyes, which were softened and filled with apologies.

“What did you do, Simon?” you asked in a whisper, and for the first time, he flinched as if you burned him.

“I took care of it,” he assured. “I handled it.”

The it being him. The him being Graves.

Simon didn’t go into the details, but he didn’t have to. Given his track record and the reason as to why the two of you met in the first place, you could assume the worst – but really, it was far from it. It was a taste of freedom.

You would no longer have to walk on eggshells, or peek around every corner. You wouldn’t have to remain bound to shackles that were never meant to be chained to you in the first place.

Simon freed you from the demon you were indebted to, and he did so without a single ounce of hesitation or regret. He’d do it all over again if it meant releasing you from hell and showing you a glimpse of heaven. He broke the contract you signed when vulnerable, and freed you from a lifetime of purgatory.

“Why did you do that?” you asked, and he smiled under his mask. You could see the faint imprint of his lips curling up on the edges, and the crows feet that wrinkled the corners of his eyes.

“Nobody hurts my pretty girl. They’ll be sorry if they do.”

My pretty girl. His pretty girl. It was a claim, one that didn’t feel like a trap that will lure you in and sink its teeth into you, but it was also a declaration of his devotion for you. It posed the option to back out, leaving you no longer bound like you were with Graves. A choice.

Your hand moved on its own accord, and it sauntered its way up Simon’s arm. Fingertips brushed along coated and marred skin, until they rested on the bottom of his mask. You heard him inhale a sharp breath, but made no move to stop you, so you continued.

Grasping on the hem of the mask that laid upon his throat, you lightly tugged it up, and up, until blond hair fell in short tufts along his forehead. The mask fell to the floor of the bathroom where you both resided, but that wasn’t what you focused on, no.

You were seeing his face for the first time, all of it. Not just his mouth where he’d nurse a cigarette, or would stuff your crummy pastries. You saw every blemish, every scar, every bit of stubble that poked from his skin. His cheekbones, high on his face, and his eyebrows, thick and unkempt yet soft and lax without a hint of daunt or upset.

The fingers that had taken off his mask with such care slowly traced along his features, grazing the plush of his lips, to the prickle along his jaw that scratched your fingertips in a way that had you smiling.

Simon was unsure why you smiled, but he offered a pleased one back, his shoulders releasing the tension that had stiffened them before.

“You’re pretty, Simon,” you complimented, and your eyes watched his lips as they parted into a laugh. Teeth, aligned and pretty, making him light up the entire room in a luminescent glow.

“Yeah?” he asked. “Thought you were the pretty girl, sweetheart.”

Your smile grew, nearly cracking the cuts littering the skin of your lips.

“Your pretty girl,” you reminded, and he gazed at you in a mix of adoration and amusement.

“My pretty girl,” he repeated.

The way he said it, so sweet and treacly, caused your mind to fuzz over with unrelenting homeliness. This was what it felt like to be loved, to be cherished, to be at home.

“Can you say it again?”

Simon beamed. “My pretty girl.”

You sucked in a breath. “Again.”

He leaned closer, his own fingers cradling the plains of your bruised face and layering the black and blue with tender touches and glimpses of a world where your skin would never feel the tortures of pain again, but rather longing and care.

“My pretty girl,” he repeated one more time, and by the last syllable, his breath was fanning across your face, warming you and nuzzling you with unfathomable fondness. “I really want to kiss you. You know that?”

Your eyes fluttered as you stared at him, feeling those moths transform back into butterflies from the simple weight of his words, swarming you with a never ending fervent.

“Would you do it if I said yes?” you managed to murmur through your newfound shyness.

“I’d be an idiot to ever deny you, sweetheart,” he muttered sweetly, and with no more words needing to be said, he pressed his chapped lips to yours, taking you with such gentle care it left you dizzy.

Home was where Simon went, and to Simon, he’d go with you to the ends of the Earth if it meant you’d follow him.

With close to three days left of your deal, he had high hopes you'd pull through.

posting this and running away (also thank u to my bbg abby for the BAR of a line about you being simons religion I LOVE U)

#cod #call of duty #simon ghost riley #cod mw3 #ghost cod #cod mwii #cod x reader #cod fanfic #ghost simon riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley #simon riley x reader #hitman au #lets fucking GOOOO

[nightgoodomens]

Long-time listener, first-time caller. Thanks for all my dopamine! :D

Thinking about when the whole Sheen/Tennant saga started, there was a moment during the ITV’s This Morning show broadcast in May 2019 that has never really left my mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wP5fNffgE4&t=44s

Throughout the whole interview Michael seems to be openly flirting with David who responds with sheepish smiles. “I certainly love him, does he love me?” asks Michael looking into his eyes. “Oh, he wouldn’t possibly comment on that… that would be far too demonstrative for him” responds David stumbling over his words.  He is not the laid-back David we are used to now. The whole dynamic seems new to him, he seems to be at the stage of getting used to the feral Sheen.

There is a moment (at 3:39 mark) when Michael turns to David and (after looking him up and down) in a low, suggestive voice says: “Now that I've had a TASTE of working with David, I only want to work with David”. There is a big stress on the word “taste”, he even says it a bit louder as if he wanted to make sure everyone heard him but also that no one missed the very obvious subtext of that entire sentence. He also looks right at David's lips when he says it. Ok, I know we are all well aware how Michael has always been, even before the "David era" – he does like his double entendres.

But.

Look closely at David’s reaction – his eyes get visibly bigger and there is a quick, deep inhale – you can see his entire chest moving (you can see it really well in slow motion) followed by a quick startled look to the side and exhaling through his lips close together. He genuinely looks flustered as if Michael was revealing something he shouldn’t be at this moment. I can almost hear him thinking “Oh god, I can’t believe he just said that”.

 The show host perhaps notices David’s reaction as well because she cuts off Michael quickly asking another question. So quickly indeed that Michael didn’t even get to finish that sentence. On top of that, as soon as she starts asking her question (with Michael still talking!) David blurts out a panicky high-pitched “yeah!” as if desperately trying to quickly take away all the attention from what Michael had just said.

For me that was always one of the biggest reasons why I suspected something more might be going on between them. It is very, very subtle but for me that is exactly why it’s so powerful – David’s reaction.

Do you see what I see?

Did they just start something more back then in May 2019? Were they very close to doing so? Is it all just a “joke”?

Answers on the postcard, please. :)

You’re very welcome! 😁

Gosh this interview…

But does he love me…?

I think at the very least some crushes happened as early as BYT if not hooking up. David never hid that Michael has been on his mind ever since. Their stories about the days before BYT seem to change with time. It would make sense if GO just threw them back together and they were hit with those feelings again hence the intensity of them.

Or there was more. Way more than just crushes from the beginning. David did want to move to LA…

What we can be sure of is that Michael wanted to tell everyone how much he’s in love with David from the moment they got together at GO1. He had zero control of the way he was looking at David and talking about him. And that never changed. And David was so very careful because you can see he knew exactly what Michael was saying every time Michael slipped and nervously tried to fix it.

And to think that now, in 2024, David is full on feral not hiding anything, and Michael is talking about his queer struggles in the 80s, his first crush who was a man and how he processed it, and basically talking about David like they’re together and everyone knows.

Damn.

#NightGoodOmens talks Michael and David

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Miraculous Ladybug Season 5 - An Overview

Well... that certainly was... the fifth season of Miraculous Ladybug.

While I was overall mixed on Season 4 with how much it varied in quality, I think I have a more concrete opinion of Season 5.

Yeah, this season was a real pain to review, but not for the reason you'd think. Most of the episodes were either dull or average, so there wasn't a lot for me to really talk about. Of course, when things were bad, dear lord, were they bad. This analysis is somehow longer than my Season 4 one and the ranking post. Other than real life stuff getting in the way, there's a damn good reason why this took so long to finish. I basically wrote a college thesis on this season.

The Things I Liked About Season 5

Let's get all the good things about this season out of the way first.

For one thing, one of my biggest complaints about Season 4 was sort of rectified, the portrayal of Adrien. While I still have problems with him (which I'll get to in a later section), they're more about his impact on the story. As for his personality and attitude, it's a big step up. There's much less complaining, he's more active in the action, and is far more intelligent. Compared to Season 4, where Cat Noir was affected by an Akuma's powers or taken out of commission in order to raise the stakes eleven times (Lies, Mr. Pigeon 72, Mega Leech, Guiltrip, Optigami, Sentibubbler, Wishmaker, Simpleman, Ephemeral, Penalteam, Risk), here, funnily enough, it only really happened five times in Season 5 (Jubilation, Illusion, Derision, Emotion, The Final Day). It's honestly amazing. There were times where I thought he was going to be taken out or get portrayed as an idiot, but that almost never happened this season. Even some of the weaker episodes this season featured Adrien in a more active role, like “Passion”, “Reunion”, “Elation”, and “Deflagration”.

Also, as much of a problem that I have with Cat Noir trying to Cataclysm his enemies, I'm glad that the show at least tries to acknowledge this by showing his worst nightmare is a world where everyone is dead because of him. It's not handled well, and it's only done just to bench him for the finale, but I'll at least give the writers credit for putting in the effort to give him more nuance. It's a hell of a lot better than what they did with Gabriel, but I'll get to him later. By extension, his relationship with Ladybug is much more tolerable. The two work together well, talk about the conflict with Monarch more often, and for the most part, feel like actual partners. Yeah, that dynamic falls apart towards the end of the season, but again, I'll give the writers an A+ for effort.

Another thing I like is that this season tries to focus more on character pieces, with episodes focusing on characters like Nathalie (Passion), Kagami (Perfection), Luka (Migration), and Zoe (Adoration). They're not handled the best, but I'm glad the show is at least trying to give the supporting characters time in the spotlight, even though they don't have their Miraculous anymore.

Speaking of, I like the idea of the Alliance rings. It's really the only time Gabriel actually takes advantage of his status as one of the most influential people in Paris to push the use of something specifically designed to help give his Akumas more power. Given how prevelant the marketing for Alliance rings is, it's easy to see his plan working in the long term.

We also had a couple decent new Akuma designs, like Safari, Bugfighter, and... uh... Yeah, I got nothing else. This is pretty much the most praise this season is going to get from me. Sure, I'll go into some other aspects I like during later sections, but other than that, this is it. Hell, even the parts I listed earlier are only mentioned for the ideas they present, not the way they're executed.

The Final Season... Of Filler

We've finally made it to Season 5, the climax of the conflict with Monarch. This is going to be epic, with all kinds of compelling stories that can be used for episodes, leading to a final product that will go down as—my God, why is this season so boring?!

Like I said earlier, this season was a lot harder to review than Season 4 was, and this was one of the biggest reasons why. As bad as that season was, I at least had stuff to talk about. Here? Almost nothing. A good chunk of the episodes I reviewed just didn't leave an impact on me. Most of them were either forgettable, mediocre, or just okay. Some of the episodes had decent ideas and a handful of good scenes, but it wasn't really enough to reach the highs of earlier seasons, including Season 4.

It's strange, because at first, it seemed like the show was learning from its mistakes during the first three episodes of this season. “Evolution”, “Multiplication”, and “Destruction” were far from perfect, but you could at least tell the show was trying something different. There was tighter continuity, clever mind games on both sides, a rare instance of nonlinear storytelling, and major changes to the status quo. They explained why Monarch can't just beat up Ladybug and Cat Noir himself, why the Rabbit and Rooster Miraculous can't be used to end the story, and why the Alliance rings were created.

When Ladybug got the Rabbit Miraculous after failing to get the other fourteen back, you would think that this would lead to an arc where Ladybug and Cat Noir gradually reclaimed the Miraculous from Monarch until the final battle, but what did we get instead in terms of plot development?

For what was supposed to be the final season, it felt like almost nothing happened. Sure, as always, the show tried to trick us into thinking stuff was happening, but several plotlines introduced this season were either abandoned or rushed through after a few episodes. The Resistance? Only relevant for five episodes, and even then, they didn't do much (Illusion, Deflagration, Confrontation, Revolution, Representation). Trying to discover how Monarch is giving the Akumas Miraculous powers? Only relevant in a single episode (Illusion). Felix having the Peacock Miraculous and being a total wild card? Only relevant for three episodes (Emotion, Pretension, Representation). The reverse Love Square? Only relevant for four episodes before it petered out (Determination, Passion, Reunion, Elation). Lila manipulating Kagami for some reason? Only relevant for two, maybe three episodes if you count that one scene in “Emotion”, and that was dropped in favor of her learning Monarch's identity offscreen (Perfection, Protection).

You'd think for a season with stakes this high, there would be bigger stories or more character drama, but we got nothing. The only real ongoing story we got was the Love Square finally happening, and trust me, I'll get to that later. There were plenty of ideas for story arcs here, but the writers pretty much ignored all of them.

Retcons! Retcons Everywhere!

This one's shorter, because it's a problem with the show in general, and I'll go into more detail about specific examples of this later on.

Miraculous Ladybug is a show that has always struggled to be consistent with its lore, worldbuilding, characters, story, and... well, a lot of things. I've talked about how often the show retcons things in order to justify whatever story they need to tell, not just for individual episodes, but story arcs too. There were so many episodes with stories that contradicted previous events or changed the motivations of certain characters on a whim.

In case you didn't keep track, here's a little highlight reel of some of the retcons this season.

Evolution: After both him and Ladybug were able to use multiple unifications last season with no problem, Monarch can't use too many of his powers without collapsing in pain. It also goes against what was established in “Kwamibuster”, the idea of using multiple Miraculous being enough to damage your sanity, where here, Monarch's body is damaged.

Multiplication: Adrien's reason for falling for Marinette was due to all the times she helped him, when it was usually the other way around in earlier seasons.

Determination: Adrien reveals he's had feelings for Marinette since the events of “The Puppeteer 2”, even though it never influenced any of their interactions between that episode and this one. It also contrasts the previous episode, where it said that Adrien was just starting to fall for Marinette for different reasons.

Derision: Chloe's bullying of Marinette had severe psychological damage that explains why she acts the way she does around Adrien... but ignores the romantic feelings Marinette has had for Luka and Cat Noir, and didn't act the same way around them, to say nothing about how she acted around Nathaniel when he had a crush on her during “The Evillustrator ”.

Intuition: The Snake Miraculous somehow makes Gabriel's Cataclysm wound worse even though the form of time travel it uses is mental, not physical.

Protection: Gabriel and Tomoe want their children to be in a relationship, yet Adrien and Kagami kept it a secret while they were dating.

Adoration: Zoe suddenly has feelings for Marinette despite showing no signs of it beforehand.

Emotion: Felix reveals he's doing everything for Adrien's safety, even though in his previous few appearances, he's done nothing but screw his cousin over by smearing his public image.

Pretension: Felix is against using a Sentimonster to defend himself and Kagami due to not wanting to force an innocent creature to follow his orders, yet he had no problem using a Sentimonster in the very last episode and in his next appearance.

Revelation: Lila has multiple secret identities she uses while pretending to be the child of several women, which had never come up at all during the last four seasons.

Representation: Kagami apparently learned Marinette was Ladybug right before she was akumatized in “Perfection”, yet Monarch didn't learn this like he did with Luka.

Do you see the problem here? Hell, I didn't even list every single retcon, or else we'd be here all day.

I don't get how a show that wants to be serialized can keep changing details like this. It's not even a case of the show replacing its writers with new ones who don't know as much as the old ones. This is mostly the same writing team for almost four seasons at this point.

Sometimes, the show will retcon stuff in order to justify stories when it doesn't need to. Remember how at the beginning of the season, Marinette was feeling guilty about her failure at the end of Season 4, and that influences her hesitance to accept Adrien's advances? The writers sure didn't, as “Derision” exists to give Marinette a whole new reason to not be comfortable around Adrien. Why the hell would you give Marinette a perfectly valid reason to not want to pursue Adrien, only to write an episode that gives her a different reason to not want to pursue Adrien? There was literally no reason to do this, especially during the last season of your first major story arc!

This season is clearly trying to be the most serialized of the bunch, yet the writers keep changing details about the story like that one Wallace and Gromit meme.

Season 5: The Show's Greatest Hits Album

Something I've noticed about this season is just how repetitive it can be. I know that sounds weird given this is a show that literally gave us the Status Quo-Yo, but please hear me out.

So many major story arcs and focus episodes are just rehashed versions of older things in this show, and not just the reused Akumas. Not only does the first half of Season 5 restate how complicated things are for Marinette's love live and how she can't love Adrien after what she did (something she gets over rather anticlimactically once Adrien confesses). Then there are other times where even plotlines established this season will get reused, and more often than not, it's worse.

In “Perfection”, Kagami is akumatized thanks to Lila's lies, and manages to break free from Monarch's influence thanks to her friends showing that they care for her. And then four episodes later, Kagami is akumatized again thanks to Lila's lies, only this time, she isn't able to break free. What... what was the point of having that emotional scene in “Perfection” if you're just going to treat her like a run of the mill Akuma a few episodes later?

And it's not just that. Big moments that happened in earlier seasons are pretty much redone but with a few changes to make it seem like they're different. Did you like seeing Adrien give up being Cat Noir in “Kuro Neko”? Well how about seeing Adrien and Marinette give up being superheroes in “The Kwamis' Choice”? Did you like seeing Chloe break off her friendship with Adrien in “Queen Banana”? How does seeing Adrien break off his friendship with Chloe in “Derision” sound?

But the worst of this has to be in the last seven episodes of the season. So much of what is essentially the culmination of five seasons' worth of story is just recycled. Let's go over why. In “Confrontation”, Marinette (and by her, I mean Sabrina with help from Marinette) manages to outsmart Chloe and Lila and put an end to their tyranny in the classroom. What are the next two episodes about? Marinette needing to outsmart Chloe and Lila, only now, they have reign over the city. This feels like something that should have been one major story, not something split up into two two-parters. Hell, you can't even say it's original to see Chloe in control, because this is also something that was done back in Season 1's “Rogercop”, only with the titular and the police following his orders for no reason instead of Chloe and her bootleg Daleks.

But hey, if an army of robots capable of using Miraculous powers, at least we can expect something even more creative for Monarch's ultimate plan, right? Yeah, Project “Perfect Alliance” is just a combination of Chloe's murder boxes and the exact same plan in “Heroes' Day”. People are brainwashed like in “Heroes' Day” and they get Miraculous powers like the robots in “Revolution”. Seriously? Nobody took a look at this and thought “Didn't we do this already?”

What's the point of making these two different evil plans when they're essentially the same thing? Why not give Chloe's robots various weapons instead of Miraculous powers if you're going to have an army of villains who have the same Miraculous powers two episodes later? Why not make it so the Miraculized are really the robots designed to help Chloe, only here, they have the ability to turn anyone wearing an Alliance ring into one of them, sort of like the Borg from Star Trek?

It's clear that after four seasons, the writing on this show has gotten incredibly stagnant if the major plotlines are just reused from earlier seasons. At best, it comes across like blatant fanservice, and at worst, it's a symptom of the writers struggling to come up with new ideas for stories. Either way, this is one of many reasons why not a lot of people are looking forward to Season 6. How can you expect interesting stories in the future when the writers keep recycling their old ones?

Felix and the Struggle With Sentimonsters or: This Is Starting to Sound Like a Bad Comic Book Plot!

Before I get into the problems with Felix this season, consider this: With Chloe (who I'll get to later), she was an example of someone who wouldn't get a redemption arc. Felix? This is the writers intentionally trying write a redemption arc. How did that turn out?

The obvious problem with Felix is mostly due to, like a lot of things in this show, poor time management. He only had three focus episodes, and in that time, the writers needed to explain his motivations, establish him as a wild card, have him realize the error of his ways, develop his relationship with Kagami, and help out Marinette. They really wanted to do a lot with Felix, yet with how rushed his arc was, I have to wonder if there was some trouble behind the scenes that prevented him from getting more focus.

It doesn't help that what little we got was confusing as all hell. I've already gone into detail about the problems with Felix's motivations not explaining his actions, but here's a list of all the problems with Felix.

If Felix wanted to get the Peacock Miraculous from the start, why didn't he try stealing that in “Felix”?

If Felix cared about Adrien, why did he spend most of his appearances mocking him and ruining his reputation by impersonating him in “Felix”, “Gabriel Agreste”, “Risk”, “Emotion”, and “Representation”?

If Felix knew who Gabriel was, why did he come up with this elaborate plan to get the Peacock Miraculous in a trade with him instead of going to Ladybug for help in “Strikeback”?

If Felix realized Gabriel was dangerous and capable of wiping him out, why did he decide to give him fifteen Miraculous in exchange for a single Miraculous without doing anything to stop him in “Strikeback”?

If Felix could easily get rid of Gabriel with a single Sentimonster like he did in “Emotion”, why didn't he immediately do that as soon as he got the Peacock Miraculous in “Strikeback”?

If Felix wanted to stop Gabriel, why did he decide to wipe out all of humanity alongside him in “Emotion”?

If Felix cared about innocent lives, why did he decide to wipe out all of humanity without showing any remorse except for when he had to get rid of Red Moon in “Emotion”?

If Felix didn't want to create any Sentimonsters just to end their lives in “Pretention”, why did he do just that in “Representation”?

If Felix knew Marinette was Ladybug, why did he choose to tell her who Gabriel was in an unnecessarily complicated way instead of telling it straight to her face in “Representation”?

If Felix really hated his abusive father, why didn't he show any hatred for Gabriel (who gave Colt the damaged Peacock Miraculous and did nothing to stop the abuse) as well during his little play in “Representation”?

If Felix cared about stopping Gabriel, why did he only decide to go to Ladybug for help when Gabriel was getting in the way of his relationship with Kagami in “Representation”?

If Felix was willing to tell Marinette about Gabriel being Monarch in “Representation”, why didn't he do anything else to help her stop Monarch in “Comformation” and “Re-Creation”?

With how many flaws his plans have, I'm surprised Felix hasn't said anything along the lines of “My pwan is gweat!”

For someone who claims to be doing a lot of things for Adrien, Felix tends to either screw over his cousin as part of his plans or forget him entirely. I don't mean he screws over Cat Noir, as his identity is one of the few things he doesn't know, but rather, how little his plans actually benefit Adrien. Putting aside his previous appearances in Seasons 3 and 4, in the span of a single episode, Felix pretended to be his cousin and smeared his public image, used a Sentimonster to wipe out all of his friends and loved ones while needing to be told by Adrien that doing so wasn't cool, and after that, he pretty much abandoned caring about Adrien.

Yeah, starting with “Pretension”, the writers once again change gears so Felix's primary goal is to help Kagami, not Adrien. It's Kagami that really helps inspire Felix's true turn to good, it's Kagami who he chooses to visit when she and Adrien are taken to London, and it's Kagami that helps him decide to tell Marinette Monarch's identity. Even though he only has three major appearances, the writers still decided to shake up his character arc for some reason. How does a team of paid writers struggle to stay consistent with any story or character arc they've written?

The worst part is that for a redemption arc, Felix shows little to no remorse for his actions. Not once does he apologize to anyone he's personally wronged, like Adrien, Marinette, or Kagami. He doesn't see anything wrong with giving Monarch more power and depriving Ladybug of almost all of her allies, and he had to be told that wiping all of humanity from existence was a bad thing. Felix has done so many terrible things in his quest for freedom, which isn't a bad idea, as it could make for an interesting discussion about whether the ends justify the means, but the show doesn't go that route. Instead, despite doing almost nothing but making things worse for Ladybug and Cat Noir, we're supposed to see Felix as a great person who just wants to have friends. Sure, having good social skills is a big part of being able to manipulate others, but let's just ignore all the people he's tricked and assume he doesn't know how to properly socialize with someone without stalking them.

It doesn't help that of all the characters this season, Felix makes the most progress in stopping Monarch. Puting aside his little genocide attempt in “Emotion”, he actually made an attempt to take Gabriel out of the equation, and later on, passed on intel about his true identity to Marinette. Think about that for a second. Marinette, despite being a hero with the ability to deduce what to do from simple clues given to her, isn't the one to figure out Monarch's identity. Instead, she has to be told who Monarch is, and is able to beat him only because Felix told her what to do. The worst part is that Felix doesn't even take part in the final battle when he has no excuse to not get involved. Remember, he doesn't have to worry about getting snapped away by Gabriel, so even though he cares so much about Adrien and Kagami, he does nothing to save either of them from their glorified solitary confinement.

Felix isn't a character. He's a glorified plot device who only shows up to advance the story instead of letting any character make progress by themselves. While Marinette and Adrien are focusing more on their love lives this season, Felix is the one actually getting things done. Because God forbid the two characters the show is named after actually do anything to stop the villain this season, am I right?

And that's not even getting into the Sentimonster stuff. Yep, to our collective horror, not only is Felix a Sentimonster, but it's also hinted that Adrien and Kagami are Sentimonsters too. I'm not sure why the writers are so hesitant to flat out say the latter two are Sentimonsters after all the obvious hints, especially when this is a show that loves to overly explain every plot detail and character trait. I don't know. Maybe they're just hedging their bets in case things don't go over well with audiences, but I can't possibly see anything bad coming from this. After all, how can you think of any uncomfortable implications stemming from the three major victims of child abuse literally being inhuman monsters who are physically unable to resist their abusers' orders?

With the Sentimonster “reveal”, Adrien and Kagami, two characters who were previously doing their best to be independent from their parents as they could at their age, are now physically incapable of even having a single negative thought about them without being ordered around while showing no resistance. Like I've mentioned before, it's a blatant retcon because it's never explained why Gabriel and Tomoe didn't do this during Seasons 2 and 3. It also gives the writers the opportunity to remove any agency Adrien and Kagami have in the plot, even though one is one of the two main characters, and the other plays a crucial role in helping another character expose the main villain's identity.

We're supposed to see Gabriel and Tomoe as wrong for ignoring their children's protests and forcing them to do things they don't want to do, but it doesn't lead to an arc where Adrien and Kagami rebel against their parents and break free from their influences. As soon as either Gabriel and Tomoe touch their respective rings, Adrien and Kagami are completely helpless, and there's no way for them to resist because of how powerful the link with their Amoks is. There's no hint that they have the potential to break free from their Amoks' influence, and the only time we saw that happen, it was a complete accident that Felix didn't even cause (Representation). Adrien and Kagami are both reduced to damsels in distress thanks to being Sentimonsters, and even though the show is trying to say they're trapped in a terrible situation, there's never a way out.

The most Adrien and Kagami do is express frustration with their situation, but most of the progress made in escaping their bad relationships is done by their respective love interests, Marinette and Felix. Yes, support systems are important, but rather than help Adrien and Kagami earn their freedom, Marinette and Felix do pretty much all of the work to save them during the latter half of this season. Hell, they couldn't even get that completely done by the time of the finale! Gabriel dropped dead and Adrien thinks he's a hero and Kagami's still living with Tomoe, only now she has her Amok ring. We're supposed to see this as a happy ending when they're both still influenced by their abusive parents, even if they don't have any physical control over them. The whole idea behind making Adrien and Kagami Sentimonsters should have been something about them, but with Gabriel and Tomoe, the writers only see them as helpless victims who can't do anything to save themselves. Sure, both of them have fought supervillains before, but we can't have them actually showing agency, can we?

I'm going to get into other ways Adrien and Kagami's characters were butchered this season, but for now, let's get into all the uncomfortable things this plotline implies. Now before I go any further, just remember that I am far from an expert on abuse or child psychology, so please take what I say with a heavy grain of salt. If there is anyone reading this who is a victim of abuse or knows someone who was, please don't be afraid to speak your mind about my analysis or correct me if I get any details wrong.

I get that making Adrien, Kagami, and Felix Sentimonsters was probably done so it'd be a way to explain the concept of child abuse to younger audiences, specifically to show how helpless the situation can be for victims, but the problem is how the allegory is handled. It wants to show how cruel the idea of child abuse is, but it doesn't want to outright vilify abusers like Gabriel or Tomoe. They usually try to sugarcoat it by saying that the two have good reasons for doing what they do, but that's a common problem with abusers. Abusive parents almost always believe that they're doing the right thing while their children think that they're just being punished for their own good, and the season ultimately takes that stance by the end.

The show is clearly trying to use the Sentimonster concept to tell a story about abuse, but I have no idea what exactly it's trying to say about it. “Child abuse is bad”? Okay, then why aren't you going to condemn the abusive parents for being abusive parents? And no, brief mentions of abusive parents who we never actually see onscreen don't count (Derision, Pretension, Representation). “Help out abused children”? Big talk coming from the season that only has two people actually fight to help the victims of child abuse, while treating another victim of child abuse as getting her just desserts (Revolution). “Parents have good reasons to do what they do”? Yeah, that normally applies to stopping your kid from getting a tattoo, not forcing them to whatever they want against their will.

The thing about writing abuse is that you need to acknowledge just how unhealthy it is, and do whatever it takes to take them out of the toxic environment. Here, nobody ever tries to remove Adrien from the toxic environment or tell him that what his father is doing isn't right. Sure, Felix tries to take Kagami away from her abusive mother, but that was only for like an hour at most, and then he just let her go back to her mother. Adrien doesn't even get that luxury. Hell, he isn't even allowed to know just how terrible his father was because he's just a sensitive baby according to the show. Portraying abuse victims as too emotionally fragile to know the truth is a pretty bad idea because, like I mentioned before, a big problem that abuse victims go through is that they're conditioned to see their treatment as normal at best, or see it as their fault at worst.

Like so many other serious topics discussed in this show, the writers clearly want to tell a story about abuse, but they're too afraid to actually take a proper stance on it, so they kept trying to play it safe in an attempt to not get backlash from audiences. Of course, because of that, they ended up portraying victims of child abuse as soulless husks who have almost no free will of their own, while ending the season by having them still under the influence of their abusive parents, even the dead one. Real bang-up job, there, writers. It says a lot when a Spider-Man PSA from almost 35 years ago did a better job tackling child abuse than you did.

And finally, let's talk about how this season's treatment of Sentimonsters indirectly influences our perception of them across the past two seasons. Even though the Sentimonsters created have shown almost no individuality from Seasons 2 to 4, only now are we supposed to see them as sentient beings, with Felix himself even taking offense at the idea at being called a Sentimonster. Never mind the fact that Felix never actually comes up with a proper alternative, so he just comes across as whiny when we're supposed to see him as a champion of the Sentimonsters.

In regards to the narrative the show decided it now wants to tell about Sentimonsters, I have two questions.

First, why should I care about Sentimonsters if the previous two seasons have portrayed them as nothing but soulless killing machines? If you're going to write a plot twist that changes the way we see Sentimonsters, you need to explain why we were wrong to only assume they're dangerous, especially since Argos' first Sentimonster literally wiped out all of humanity. For comparison, Ultraman Z did a similar plotline by having the main character realize that several of the monsters he killed as the titular hero weren't intentionally trying to harm humanity, so it caused him to doubt himself as a hero before he vowed to start finding non-violent ways to stop monsters if he could, while viewing the act of killing monsters that couldn't be reasoned with as a necessary evil. This show has no such arc and just expects us to ignore all the damage the Sentimonsters have caused since the end of Season 2.

Second, what about the Sentimonsters whose lives have been snuffed out by Mayura, Shadowmoth, and even Ladybug? The writers want us to sympathize with Sentimonsters and believe they get a bad rap? That's fine, but even if we did, what about the ones who were already wiped out of existence? Are we just not going to talk about them? Why should we only value the lives of Felix, Adrien, and Kagami and not any of the other Sentimonsters created in previous episodes? What, because they're not main characters, their lives don't matter?

All in all, everything about the Sentimonster was either poorly thought out or too preachy to take seriously, and Felix is emblematic of those problems with how he and the Sentimonsters are written. Oh right, I forgot Felix had a sidekick too, Kimberly—I mean, Kagami.

Kagami Never Hesitates to Be a Complete Idiot

If you read my overview of Season 4, I sang high praises for how Alya was written. Season 4 managed to take a character I had previously disliked and turn her into one of my favorite characters in the show. Now, with that being said, I want you to imagine the opposite of that happening to a different character, and you have my feelings on Kagami this season.

It's weird how, after she had made it through the past three seasons with her character somewhat intact, the writers decided to give her even more prominence by involving her in two separate arcs this season... and only made her nothing more than a damsel in distress who constantly needed to be saved in both of them. I'm not saying that Kagami should be able to beat the crap out of Monarch with her bare hands, but my point is that Kagami just lost so much agency this season.

When she wasn't being manipulated by Lila (Perfection, Protection), she was playing second fiddle to Felix and acting like he didn't hand over almost every Miraculous in Ladybug's possession to Monarch (Pretension, Representation). It's really strange, considering a defining character trait of hers is her hating liars like Marinette does, since it's why she dumped Adrien, yet here, she gets tangled up in the schemes of two different liars, Lila and Felix. I can at least get Lila (as dumb as her episodes are), since she's supposed to be seen as this master manipulator, but she just brushes all of Felix's crimes aside because he “doesn't know how to express himself”. Because even though she's always been loyal to Ladybug, she has no problem working with one of the only two people to betray her trust. But she loves Felix, so that makes it all okay.

What made Alya's arc last season work was that even though she was primarily Marinette's confidant, we also got episodes showing her struggling to balance her own desires with what needed to be done for the greater good (Optigami, Sentibubbler, Hack-San, Rocketear). She had to step up and become more than just one of the many temp heroes Ladybug called on, someone trustworthy enough to temporarily use the Ladybug Miraculous. Yes, she made bad calls, but when things went south because of her bad decisions, she normally took responsibility for her actions and vowed to do better. With Kagami, we don't get any internal conflict like that at all. She just blindly goes along with whatever Lila and Felix say, and even when bad things happen as a result, she never even thinks to call out either of them other than rarely saying something along the lines of “Hey, not cool.” (Protection, Pretension).

Kagami just doesn't get to do anything on her own terms this season. Her entire arc revolves around following Lila and Felix around like a lost puppy. And just remember, we're seriously supposed to act like Kagami is trustworthy enough to see that her defending Felix from Ladybug is enough to prove that he's a good person deep down... when this same season showed her easily falling for Lila's lies and getting akumatized twice as a result. It's like believing Dr. Nick can perform a life-saving kidney transplant after seeing him botch an open-heart surgery.

Even Kagami figuring out Marinette is Ladybug, something that should be a big deal like with Alya and Luka learning last season, is something we learn through a flashback and is, you guessed it, is only relevant to one of Felix's plans. And yeah, reveal your friend's secret to someone who someone who betrayed her. What could possibly go wrong? Again, when Alya screwed up, she was at least able to admit it to Marinette's face. Kagami never tells Marinette that she knows, and never faces consequences for throwing her lot in with Felix. What's her excuse, that she has too much love in her heart for Felix?

Speaking of which, let's talk about the biggest problem I have with Kagami this season, the way her relationship with Felix is handled. Let me make one thing clear: my problem isn't with people who ship the two together. Much like with the Love Square, my problem is how the show handles this romance. The two had almost no episodes together, and from what little we saw of them interacting, Kagami didn't like him, and for obvious reasons. But then “Pretension” came. Not only did Felix develop feelings for Kagami offscreen, all it took for Kagami to fall for Felix was a single conversation where he showed basic human decency. Yeah, Marinette fell for Adrien for similar reasons, but at least she and him took a while to actually get together. These two shared a handful of conversations, and now they're just made for each other.

The problem with this is that the relationship basically reduces Kagami to Felix's girlfriend and sidekick. All of her major appearances post-“Emotion” were in relation to Felix. She only helps him because of their relationship, and their relationship was the whole reason why Kagami convinced Felix to do what he should have done from the start, tell Ladybug who Monarch was... even though Astruc said this kind of relationship was toxic when discussing Lukloe.

You see, the difference between Lukloe and Feligami is (MAKE UP EXPLANATION LATER AND DON'T ACCIDENTALLY LEAVE THIS SPOT BLANK). And that's why we shouldn't see this as blatant hypocrisy on Astruc's part.

While it's par for the course, given how almost every female character in this show is connected to a male character in some way, the way Kagami is written this season is still part of a bigger problem. Kagami is not everyone's favorite character and not one people fiercely discuss as much as Marinette, Adrien, or even Chloe, but it's still baffling that out of all the characters in this season, Kagami would arguably sustain the most damage out of the entire cast. Given that this is the same season as Nino becoming the braindead leader of the Resistance, Chloe's brief stint as a tyrannical mayor, Nathalie choosing to do nothing about Gabriel until she was about to die, the baffling reveal of who Lila supposedly is (again, more on these later), or... really, a lot of things with both Marinette and Adrien, this is actually saying a lot. If you want to look at it at a particular angle, Kagami's actually a direct victim of practically all of the biggest problems in this season and I've had to mention her a lot more in this analysis than I anticipated. Then again, I suppose that's me showing more care to Kagami as a character than the writers did.

The Story of The Resistance (In Name Only)

I've already gone on about how underdeveloped most of the temp heroes are, so you can imagine the season where they try to help Ladybug without superpowers doesn't really change my opinion of them.

Remember how in episodes like Season 1's “Antibug”, Season 2's “The Dark Owl”, and even this season's “Jubilation” made it clear that trying to be a superhero without a Miraculous or proper training was essentially suicide? You know, how it was better to leave things to the actual superheroes? Well the writers sure didn't, as now we get to see a bunch of idiots try to take on supervillains with paintball guns and whatever they can throw at them. I'm pretty sure the writers put more effort into all the codenames themed after condiments than actually coming up with creative ways to fight Akumas. Because we all know how hilarious (citation needed) the flower codename gag from “Gigantitan” was, so let's do something like that, but for multiple episodes this season.

I'm just going to be blunt here when I say the Resistance this season sucked. Putting aside the fact that the writers couldn't come up with a less generic name or a name that wasn't already taken by the Ox Miraculous' power, this subplot was just so pointless. You have a team of former heroes who want to find a way to help Ladybug and Cat Noir stop Monarch, and rather than do things like pass intel along or find ways to stop people from getting akumatized, they decide to try taking them on themselves with their most powerful weapons being paintball guns. Congratulations, you now have all the equipment you need to take on Bart Simpson in a fight. Sure, they try to pass on intel to Ladybug and Cat Noir in their first episode, “Illusion”, but Nino's plan was so stupid, they ended up helping Monarch in the long term by letting his civilian identity into their team. Oh, I'm sorry, did you forget how Gabriel and Lila were inducted into the Resistance at the end of “Illusion”? It's okay, the writers did too.

And the idea of them passing on intel could have worked, as it would give Marinette a support system to help solve problems she can't figure out on her own, following up on her character arc from Season 4 where she learns to put her trust in people, but like a lot of things this season, the writers got bored halfway through and decided to change up this plotline. Now, they're prepared to fight anyone who gets akumatized. How many Akumas did the Resistance manage to stop completely on their own? One, and it was offscreen (Deflagration).

Trying to make the Resistance seem competent and effective comes at the price of making the villains look like idiots who can't handle a few teenagers without superpowers. Monarbug, someone who managed to unify with the Ladybug Miraculous, lost it thanks to the Resistance dogpiling him. Then, later on, they managed to stop Nightormentor, an akumatized Gabriel, by just throwing stuff at him. Do you have any idea how lame this makes Monarch look? It's like that scene from Robocop 3 where that kid somehow managed to make ED-209 as loyal as a puppy in a matter of seconds. It's not cool to see it happen. It diminishes the threat the formerly menacing villain posed.

The show loves to play up the Resistance as this amazing underground organization Nino is so proud of, but it doesn't work because you can count the number of times they've actually helped out on one hand, and even then, that's being that word Chloe doesn't know the meaning of (Deflagration, Revolution, Representation). Even then, they still fall for Lila's lies which, like Kagami, doesn't help establish any of them as trustworthy. The whole Resistance subplot is basically an excuse to make it seem like the former temp heroes aren't just sitting around, which again, isn't a bad idea, but nothing comes of it. We don't get to see any of them worry that they can't do anything without their Miraculous, we don't see where or when Nino got the idea to form the Resistance, and we don't even get any scenes where the worry about the captured Kwamis. The show just has them all operate under the same goal and makes it seem like they're making a difference when they barely do anything. None of them really feel like characters, and it shows this season.

Nino, despite labeling himself as the brave leader of the Resistance, is anything but. He constantly brags about how effective he is, but not only does he let anyone into his top secret organization without even thinking if they can really be trusted, all of his genius plans amount to, you guessed it, throwing stuff at the brainwashed people with superpowers. He's also so confident that he was awesome as Carapace when all he did was occasionally help Ladybug out with his Shelter, and then whines about not being chosen by Tikki and Plagg when Scarabella and Kitty Noire temporarily take over (Illusion, Deflagration). He's also so poor at gathering intel that not only did he fall for Gabriel's ruse and act like he figured out how the Akumas have Miraculous powers, he didn't even know his best friend was going to London until he got on the plane (Representation). I wasn't kidding when I said Nino was such a terrible leader, he makes Zapp Brannigan look competent by comparison.

And remember when Alya was a major character? Neither does the show! Out of the entire season, she was really only relevant to the plot when she became Scarabella for a few days, and even then, she didn't think that maybe she should take off the Alliance ring that monitors her every move if she's going to be a full-time hero again (Transmission, Deflagration). There is absolutely no follow-up to anything that happened to her in Season 4. She doesn't regret blowing her cover, she doesn't worry over not being able to help Ladybug as Rena Rouge, she doesn't worry about the safety of Trixx, she doesn't even consider the fact that she's not used to going back to full-time hero work after half a season of being undercover as Rena Furtive. At best, the whole thing with Alya exposing her cover to Nino last season gets played off for the sake of a cheap joke (Illusion).

Then there's Zoe. Like Season 4, I can definitely say that out of all the supporting characters, she was certainly one of them. They clearly try to give her these big moments in an attempt to endear her to the audience, like her brief stint as Kitty Noire or her coming out to Marinette, but because of how nonexistent her character development has been, these don't feel earned. I can't buy her friendship with Marinette or anyone else because of how little she appears. Hell, she was specifically introduced to act as a good counterpart to Chloe, and she did nothing to really contribute to her ultimate downfall other than sharing a single conversation during “Revolution”. That's how little the writers care about her, they don't even have her interact with the character she was designed to replace. I take back what I said about her being a Mary Sue way back in my “Sole Crusher” review, because at least those types of characters get plenty of focus in the narrative. All I can really say about Zoe after two seasons is that at least she's more interesting than Socqueline, a character so boring, this is the only time I'm going to mention her in this entire analysis.

And that's it for the Resistance. Only three side characters are actually worth talking about this season. That is how pointless of a group they are.

Chloe’s Arc That, in Case You Forgot, Was Totally Planned From the Start

I really don't know what else to say here. Remember, this entire blog was started because of how upset I was by Astruc's response to criticism of the Season 3 finale, specifically how Chloe's “damnation arc” was claimed to have planned out from the start.

For the sake of argument, let's go over this arc and just what happened with this character over the past eight years. In Season 1, Chloe started out as a standard high school mean girl who used her father's influence to get whatever she wanted, but wasn't that much of a threat compared to Hawkmoth and the Akumas. In Season 2, we got to see a different side to her that started a character arc, showing she was capable of changing and becoming a hero in her own right. In Season 3, while it seemed like Chloe was changing for the better, the finale had her betray Ladybug and go back to being the same mean girl she was before. In Season 4, we were introduced to Chloe's never before seen half-sister, Zoe, who only existed to replace Chloe as the user of the Bee Miraculous, and even though the very same episode where Zoe first got the Bee Miraculous hinted that there was still a chance of Chloe changing, the rest of the season acts like she's always been a menace to society with no redeeming qualities. In Season 5, Chloe was portrayed as a heartless monster who is worse than the main villain of the entire show, is simultaneously smart and cunning enough to bully Marinette in a way that would leave lasting mental scars for a year and also too incompetent to take seriously, and even though the season has made a big deal about how terrible child abuse is, her being sent off to live with her verbally abusive mother is seen as a perfectly suitable punishment for her.

I don't know what's worse, the fact that none of the writers had second thoughts about this character's “arc”, or the fact that Astruc probably thinks he made an antagonist as complex as Lady Macbeth. I also love how, despite all this supposed planning, not once do we get any explanation as to just why Chloe hates Marinette so much other than the fact that one's a rich person and the other is the main character in a cartoon.

Chloe's character was already going in a downward spiral in Season 4, but with Season 5, it feels like the writers just abandoned all attempts to be subtle and were determined to stop people from liking her. Like, it's amazing just how much time was spent hammering the point home. She got more focus as a villain than Lila and even Gabriel. We had about eight episodes this season that featured her in a major antagonistic role: “Determination”, “Deflagration”, “Derision”, “Adoration”, “Revelation”, “Confrontation”, “Collusion”, and “Revolution”. Almost a third of this season is dedicated to showing how evil Chloe is, as if she's somehow worse than people like Gabriel or Tomoe. And that's not even counting episodes where she got a line or two to remind the audience of how bad she is, like “Multiplication”, “Passion”, and “Reunion”.

The weird thing is that even though this was supposed to be the season where Chloe was at her worst, it still seemed like the writers couldn't make up their minds on what they wanted to do with her. For example, let's take a look at her relationship with Monarch. In “Multiplication”, she believed that Ladybug and Cat Noir should just give Monarch what he wants, implying she's still on his side. Then, in “Determination”, she blamed not having the Bee Miraculous on why Monarch was able to win, implying she wants to stop Monarch. And then in “Deflagration”, it's hinted that she once again willingly accepted an Akuma out of a desire to get revenge, implying that she's still on good terms with Monarch. Finally, in “Revolution”, she initially wanted to arrest Monarch when he arrived in her office, and had to be convinced to work with him again. Seriously, this is almost two seasons after she started working with Monarch in the first place. How the hell are the writers not sure if she's working with the villain or not?!

Of course, that's the least of my problems with Chloe this season. One such problem that it seems like the writers specifically went out of their way to ruin the few positive relationships Chloe had just so her fans would have less ground to stand on. Her friendship with Adrien? He finally decided to write her off as irredeemable just as he learned just how miserable she made Marinette (and only Marinette) at the end of “Derision”. Her friendship with Sabrina, as one-sided as it is? She doesn't even see Sabrina as a friend anymore, specifically referring to her as an underling starting with “Adoration”, and then Sabrina turns against her after she finds one specific scheme to be going too far. The sympathy Ms. Bustier had for Chloe, even though it wasn't relevant to her character after “Zombizou”? Chloe basically ignores any attempt made to reach out to her, and we're supposed to act like her wanting to help Chloe get a decent education because it's her job as a teacher is the stupidest idea in the world. Chloe's relationship with her own father? This season decided to make Andre out to be a man mentally broken by the bad treatment he gets from his daughter and totally not a corrupt politician, and outright disowns her in favor of adopting someone who isn't even his biological daughter.

It already felt like Season 4 exaggerated Chloe's negative traits, but now, the show doesn't want anyone to like her in-universe, as if showing basic human decency to her in the first place was off the table. Remember, in “Revelation”, Marinette's speech to Adrien was basically copied and pasted from one of Astruc's tweets, as if this was meant to address anyone who still liked the idea of Chloe changing for the better.

And trust me, I'll get to the characters who actually got redeemed later.

For now, let's talk about the main issue I have with her portrayal: The writers want her to be seen as a threat... but they don't want her to actually be a threat. Almost all of Chloe's appearances this season had her acting as a pawn to either Gabriel or Lila. This season also started to use dumb blonde jokes in order to show how incompetent she is, like having her struggle to understand the concept of the word “generous”, making her out as an idiot. The whole point of the “irredeemable villain” archetype is that the character is usually so big of a threat, there is absolutely no way of talking them down, so they need to be stopped through the use of force. Chloe is far from a threat, which is why all this talk about her being a monster falls flat.

At the end of the day, Chloe is easily at the bottom of the hierarchy of the villains on this show. She has no Miraculous like Gabriel, she has no advanced technology like Tomoe, and she's nowhere near as cunning as Lila is. The problem is that the show wants the audience to see Chloe as if she's the worst of them all. Fine, she may have the most obnoxious personality and least amount of redeeming qualities by the writers' standards, but this is a superhero show. You don't just rank villains on how mean they are, but also by how much of a threat they are to the hero. The moments where we're supposed to take Chloe seriously, the show keeps reminding us that she's only getting as far as she has because she's being used by other villains. It makes the moments where the heroes triumph over her ring hollow.

I'm not even joking here when I say that out of the show's entire rogues' gallery, Chloe is literally the only one who actually gets punished. Sabrina was able to wash their hands of her association with the bully, Andre was more than happy to give up his position as mayor and kidnap Zoe, Tomoe was never even exposed, Lila only faced a minor setback when she was exposed, Nathalie was healed by the wish, and even though he died, Gabriel died a martyr who never actually answered to any of his crimes. But Chloe? As fucked up as it was, she was the only one who received some form of punishment for everything she did. Congratulations, Ladybug and Cat Noir! After five seasons, you finally managed to defeat the Ringo Starr of your rogue's gallery, and all it took was unlocking the full power of your Miraculous.

I was initially angry at the show for just throwing away a character arc and mocking anyone who was interested in it, but now, I'm angry at the show for a different reason. Even if we were to assume that everything about Chloe was planned from the start, that she was supposed to be a fallen hero turned enemy, the show did nothing with it. If you're going to make Chloe a full-blown villain, then go nuts with the idea! Have her dedicate her life to beating Ladybug out of hatred, maybe even through a suit of armor like Princess Morbucks. Instead, this is the writing equivalent of intentionally setting your house on fire, but deciding you don't need the insurance money.

I'm actually going to say something that might sound blasphemous, especially coming from someone who has spent a lot of time talking about Chloe's character assassination, but I'm just going to admit it: I think Chloe should have been the next Hawkmoth, not Lila.

Yes, that's probably what you're thinking, but I'm serious. Think about it. Between her and Lila, who has the closer connection to Marinette as an enemy? Who has a more fleshed out reason to hate Marinette? Who got more focus as a villain this season? Who has more resources at her disposal? Essentially, the show put so much effort into making Chloe out to be Marinette's most personal enemy, that it makes no sense for them to not just go all the way and make her the next big bad. The writers already go on and on about how irredeemable she is, so why not make her an actual threat for a change?

But no. Instead, let's just keep her as comic relief who somehow gets more screentime than almost every other villain this season. That's a good way to tell our story, right?

Now You See That Evil Will Always Triumph Because Good Is Dumb... And So Is Evil, Apparently

This section should be relatively easy for me to get through, since not much has really changed with the villains since Season 4. They're all still idiots even though the show wants us to see them as a threat to the equally idiotic heroes.

Let's start with our only newcomer to the show's rogues' gallery, and definitely the weakest, Tomoe. I'll give the show a lot of credit with the foreshadowing for Tomoe here. Unlike other plotlines where the show bashes you over the head with obvious hints like with the Sentimonster stuff, the hints leading to the reveal of Tomoe being in leagues with Gabriel are far more subtle. They spend a lot of time in Seasons 3 and 4 discussing things offscreen (probably about some version of the Alliance rings), and both of Tomoe's akumatizations happen offscreen as well (since their conversation would give away their alliance). It's handled pretty well... which is more than I can say for Tomoe as a villain.

Tomoe is just such a confusing character, both conceptually and the way she was used this season. She's meant to be Gabriel's new confidant after Nathalie decided to stop being a villain while still mooching off him, but she pretty much does the same things Nathalie does, including the constant nagging about how inefficient he is. She even serves the same role Nathalie served in earlier episodes as Gabriel's technical advisor. Tomoe is basically a second Nathalie, with the only differences being that she's blind and that she wants Kagami to be with Adrien. Of course, this makes no sense because, like I mentioned in the retcon section, Adrien and Kagami tried to keep their relationship secret before their breakup. How could Tomoe not notice this? What is she, blind—oh right...

There's also the issue I have with the way Tomoe's nationality and disability is portrayed here, and how it really highlights how terrible this show is with representation (not to be confused with the episode of the same name). Like with my Sentimonster section, if there's anyone reading this who is disabled or a person of color, and you'd like to say anything about this part or how this show's representation is handled, feel free to voice your opinion or correct me if I get anything wrong.

With Tomoe, it feels like the writers slapped on every Japanese stereotype you could think of and called it a day, because we've seen all of these before. She's dressed in very traditional Japanese attire, is named after a famous Japanese warrior, uses a kendo shinai as a cane instead of a walking stick, is a strict parent to her child who expects the best from her, makes references to Japanese culture like samurai (Pretension) and taiko drums (Protection), is a technological genius, forces her child into an arranged marriage, and uses Japanese honorifics while talking with Gabriel even when they're not speaking Japanese. I'm not saying Japanese people can't talk about their culture at all, but when you're writing a character who happens to be a person of color, you need to do more than make references to their heritage.

With Tomoe, almost everything she says is referencing her heritage, which makes it come across like the writers cared more about her being Japanese than anything else. Because somehow, the writers were worried kids wouldn't pick up on the fact that she's Japanese... when she's wearing something that makes her look like she just stepped off the set of an Akira Kurosawa movie.

But hey, at least they say Tomoe is Japanese. I don't think there's a single indication that she's blind. At most, they give her the stereotypical superpower every blind person in superhero media seems to have, enhanced hearing. Of course, while characters like Daredevil and Toph Beifong have in-universe explanations for how they're able to “see” without their eyes (Daredevil's enhanced senses came from the same chemicals that blinded him in the first place, while Toph learned an advanced Earthbending technique that gave her the ability to sense others through vibrations in the earth), Tomoe just has them because the writers thought it would be cool. I know it might seem strange to say this after I talked about how too much focus was given to Tomoe's Japanese heritage, but you'd think more would be done with her being blind, and how it would factor into her motivation to create a better world through technology or her ideology about self-discipline. Instead, she acts like every other character on this show, to the point where all three times she was akumatized, she got her sight back.

The main problem with Tomoe is how other than her heritage and disability, she has almost no personality other than being a strict mother to Kagami (something that is also a negative Asian stereotype) and her vague ideology about suppressing her emotions. She's basically a female Gabriel, and because she's a woman in this show, lacks any depth or redeeming qualities. There just wasn't enough time to really develop Tomoe as a character in the same season she was revealed to be a villain. Sure, they try to hint at her having history with Gabriel, but that never goes anywhere, and we never even learn just why she's working with him in the first place other than some vague desire to make the world more technologically advanced in spite of also being a traditionalist who loves honoring old beliefs. Just remember, Chloe got eight focus episodes as a villain this season, yet Tomoe only got one.

Now for Lila, the most competent of the villains... by comparison. The show clearly wants her to be seen as a master manipulator in the same vein as David Xanatos from Gargoyles, but how they show it is just poorly executed. Sure, sometimes she would get ahead in clever ways during episodes like “Illusion” and “Revelation”, but other than that, a good chunk of her plans rely on contrivances that we're supposed to see as part of her plan when she would have no idea if it would actually happen or not. In fact, let's go over all the things Lila did during her last five episodes of the season and see how her master plan played out.

Step 1: Revelation – Convince Ms. Bustier to hold another election for class representative, lie your ass off to get the position while making it seem like you rejected an Akuma, and win the election.

Step 2: Confrontation – Tamper with confidential school documents while hoping your enemy doesn't plan anything to stop you, and if your plan falls through, abandon your identity entirely and hope nobody ever tries to look for you.

Step 3: Collusion – Convince your pawn to record a conversation between the mayor and the man you somehow know is Monarch and then after the conversation leads to an Akuma forcing him out of office, tell your pawn to accept an offer from Monarch's civilian identity that you somehow knew he'd make, leading to your pawn becoming the new mayor by force who everyone is too stupid to even think of opposing.

Step 4: Revolution – Tell your pawn to take an offer from the same supervillain she's willingly worked with before, watch her go mad with power and assume that Ladybug and Cat Noir will defeat her, and then in the chaos from her defeat, assume that one of Monarch's associates will randomly leave her computer behind for you to use.

Step 5: Re-Creation – Develop an immunity to magical nightmare dust, hack into the heavily-guarded mansion you know where Monarch lives while the city is being swarmed with supersoldiers, hope you don't run into Monarch or any heroes trying to stop him on the way there, take the hole created by a Cataclysm you know would be there, assume that Monarch will lose, and seize his Miraculous from the ruins of his lair that you somehow know how to navigate after surviving all of reality being rebooted.

General Patton, eat your heart out. I think we all know who the real tactical genius is here.

Seriously, how the hell did she even know half of the stuff involving Gabriel and Tomoe would happen? Yeah, she had Tomoe's laptop after the events of “Revolution”, but she didn't see how their final fight would play out. You could also argue that we technically never saw her go into Monarch's lair during the final battle (all we got was a shot of her looking down into the hole Bug Noire created with her Cataclysm), but why didn't she go down if she disguised herself to infiltrate Monarch's lair? Was she just scoping out the area? Was her entire plan just to steal Monarch's Miraculous? There were so many ways this could have blown up in her face, so let's go over all of them, shall we?

What if Ms. Bustier didn't agree to hold a reelection for class representative?

What if Marinette won the reelection anyway?

What if Lila wasn't able to escape during the chaos caused by Monarch's Megakuma targeting Mr. Damocles?

What if the school managed to contact one of Lila's moms and tell her about what her “daughter” did?

What if Chloe wasn't able to record the full conversation between Gabriel and Andre?

What if Andre agreed to use the police robots without any manipulation?

What if Miss Sans-Culotte wasn't able to get Andre to resign?

What if Andre did resign, but managed to appoint a interim mayor until the next election?

What if Chloe didn't accept Gabriel's offer?

What if Chloe didn't accept Monarch's offer?

What if Chloe managed to arrest Monarch with her robots and got all of the Miraculous herself?

What if the French military was sent to stop Chloe's abuse of power?

What if Ladybug and Cat Noir weren't able to stop Chloe and lost their Miraculous to Monarch?

What if Chloe double-crossed both Lila and Monarch and managed to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous herself?

What if Tomoe didn't carelessly leave her laptop behind during the final battle with Chloe and her robots?

What if Tomoe realized she lost her laptop and sent someone to track it down?

What if Tomoe installed a kill switch on her laptop to make sure nobody would be able to do anything with it in the event it got stolen

What if Ladybug didn't learn Monarch's identity?

What if Lila fell victim to Nightormentor's nightmare dust?

What if Lila was attacked by some of the Miraculized before she could make it to the Agreste Mansion?

What if Gabriel caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if Ladybug caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if Nathalie caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if the Gorilla caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if some of the Miraculized caught Lila while she was attempting to sneak in?

What if Lila got caught in the crossfire during the final battle between Bug Noire and Monarch?

What if Bug Noire didn't Cataclysm the floor and beat Monarch at the entrance of the mansion?

What if Bug Noire wasn't able to defeat Monarch?

What if Ladybug managed to find the Butterfly Miraculous before she did?

What if Ladybug caught her while she was trying to find the Butterfly Miraculous?

Do you see why I only think Lila is the most competent villain by comparison? A good chunk of Lila's “plan” amounted to her waltzing over and reaping the benefits from every coincidence she's around to see. And she's supposed to be this criminal mastermind who thought this all out from the beginning?

Lila's planning makes about as much sense as her motivation. Why does she hate Marinette and Ladybug? They both called her out on her lies back in Season 1 and 3 respectively (Volpina, Chameleon). That's it. This is enough for Lila to want to become a supervillain and terrorize Paris. I get that the idea is to contrast with the more noble goal Gabriel had as a supervillain, but you need to give more of an explanation if you want the audience to care about Lila becoming the next Hawkmoth.

At the very least, if the writers wanted to build intrigue about Lila, have this be the season where she first appears. Build her up as this mysterious new girl who wins over Gabriel's trust, only she has an agenda of her own. By having most of her appearances be this season, it's more obvious that she has a bigger role to play, and would eventually become the next Hawkmoth. Instead, it seems like the writers put a bunch of names on a dartboard, Lila's name was the closest to the first dart they threw, and that's how they decided who Ladybug's next arch-enemy would be. And once again, Lila hasn't even touched a Miraculous in five seasons, yet we're supposed to believe that with the help of that vague glowing light she saw as soon as the first put on the Butterfly Miraculous, she'll be able to take on eighteen superheroes who have plenty of experience fighting Akumas?

Speaking of, let's get into the final main villain, Gabriel. Compared to the others, he had a pretty decent start. He felt a lot smarter than he usually did, like how he used his influence to market the Alliance rings in order to boost his Akumas' powers, or once again trick Ladybug and Cat Noir into thinking he isn't Monarch. He even managed to outsmart Scarabella and Kitty Noire by using the Alliance rings to learn their identities, and almost got their Miraculous as a result. For the most part, Gabriel was a pretty clever villain who capitalized on every screwup the heroes made, and actually came across as a threat... that is, until “Protection”.

Starting with “Protection”, Gabriel decided that even though he has only a few weeks to live at best, he needs to focus more on meddling in his son's love life instead of getting Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous in order to save his wife. It comes across like he cares more about stopping Marinette than he does stopping Ladybug in the latter half of the season. Hell, Gabriel doesn't even set up any plans for what would happen to Adrien if he died despite once again claiming to be doing everything for his family. Also, for some reason, he really wants Adrien and Kagami to stay together and become a couple for reasons that I can only assume is because of some kind of social commentary on the rich. Is Gabriel trying to start a eugenics program? Is this how Khan was born?

The abrupt detour Gabriel's motivations take is connected to one of the bigger problems with this season: How Gabriel's Cataclysm wound is handled. We're supposed to sympathize with Gabriel and how his days are numbered thanks to what happened, all while he's desperate to achieve his goal... when not only did Gabriel Cataclysm himself at the beginning of the season, he almost never brings up his wound until the writers want to add unnecessary drama to the story. At most, he'll either flinch in pain a little because of the wound (Elation, Perfection, Intuition, Protection, Emotion, Confrontation), or show his purple hand to show how serious it's gotten while saying he doesn't have much time left (Passion, Pretension, Revelation, Collusion, Conformation). At least, we're supposed to see it as serious, as the injury never really gets in the way of his plans.

Rather than a painful injury that's slowly killing him, the show treats Gabriel's injury with the seriousness of a sprained ankle. Yeah, it's painful, but nothing serious. Aside from one episode (Intuition), we don't see Gabriel struggle that much with his deteriorating health or how it gets in the way of his plans. Compare this to how Nathalie's condition has been portrayed. As Season 3 progressed, Nathalie got weaker to the point of forcing Gabriel to abort his second outing as Scarletmoth (Ladybug), she became so sick, she had to be benched as Mayura by the end of Season 3, and needed cybernetic crutches just to help her walk during Seasons 4 and 5. While I criticized her sudden wrinkled appearance by the events of “Representation”, the show still made it clear that Nathalie was struggling to go about her everyday life over the course of the last three seasons. As for Gabriel, whose condition is supposedly more serious to the point where not even the Ladybug Miraculous can heal it? At most, it's less something influencing his belief that he has nothing left to lose, and more a mild injury at best.

Another problem I have with Gabriel is the same one I have with Tomoe and Lila: The lack of a proper backstory. Yes, we know the basics of it (his wife is comatose and/or dead, so he became a supervillain to get Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous and save her), but we know nothing about his life before that. Thanks to “Revelation”, the most we get is that before he became a fashion designer who took an interest in discovering the Miraculous, he used to work in fast food like Skeet from Jimmy Neutron. Hell, the two even have similar haircuts.

Whether Gabriel knows the difference between salt and sodium chloride is still up for debate.

The show wants to say that Gabriel used to be different, but we don't get to see that side to him. If you want to say Gabriel used to be nicer, then give us a flashback to show how much Emilie's death affected him. That way, it would also give the scene in the finale where he breaks down have more weight to it, as it would show him letting down his emotional defenses.

Also, why was Gabriel so interested in the Miraculous in the first place if he found the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous before Emilie got sick? The show establishes that Gabriel went exploring with Emilie and Nathalie, but why? What were they looking for? How did this lead to them getting into fashion? How did Gabriel and Emilie get so rich if Amelie inherited the Graham de Vanily fortune? This was the season that was supposed to wrap up the storyline regarding the Agreste family drama, yet we still know so little about them or how Gabriel and Emilie even met.

Finally, let's get to the Akumas. The season makes a huge deal about how dangerous Gabriel is now that he has almost every other Miraculous at his disposal, how hard the battle against him will become. How do the Akumas reflect that idea? Very poorly. Twelve of the season's Akumas were reused models (Ikari Gozen in “Multiplication”, Darker Owl in “Jubilation”, the Collector in “Illusion”, Glaciator in “Elation”, Sole Destroyer in “Deflagration”, Dark Humor in “Derision”, Riposte Prime in “Protection”, Vanisher in “Adoration”, Matagi Gozen in “Pretension”, Hoaxer in “Revelation”, Reflekta in “Confrontation”, and Nightormentor in “Representation”), and only ten of them were original (Manipula in “Determination”, Safari in Passion, Kikou in “Transmission”, Ryukomori in “Perfection”, Gold Record in “Migration”, Bugfighter in “Intuition”, Miss Sans-Culotte in “Collusion”, Queen Mayor in “Revolution”, King of Plastic in “Action”, and the Miraculized in “The Final Day”). I've also gone over this several times, but despite the main gimmick being that the Akumas have Miraculous powers now, the show never really explains why Monarch can't just give them those kind of powers himself, especially when he could easily recreate Miraculous powers as far back as Season 1 (Copycat, Antibug, Volpina).

Most of the Miraculous powers didn't actually feel like upgrades and just excuses to recycle Akumas on the basis of acting like they have new powers when it's almost always just giving them the same old powers. Either that, or with the new Akumas, they'll just make it so their only powers are related to their Miraculous powers, like Safari getting all of her gear thanks to the Goat Miraculous' Genesis, Kikou and Ryukomori's only abilities being related to their respective Miraculous powers, or Queen Mayor getting the power to control robots with multiple Miraculous powers. There were exceptions like Manipula getting the Ox Miraculous' Resistance as an added precaution, or Vanisher mixing her stealth with the Dog Miraculous' Fetch, but they were few and far between.

Overall, almost every villain this season was just so underwhelming. While the Akumas were once again mostly reused character models, we learned almost nothing about the villains other than the fact that they're idiots. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot the fact that by the show's logic, almost all of the villains aren't really villains. Let's talk about how the show handles redemption arcs now.

The Redemption Misconception or: The Power of Love Always So Strong?

While younger readers might not understand this, there was once a time on the internet where one of the most debated shows was Steven Universe, and mainly for one reason: How it handled the topic of redemption. Pretty much every major antagonist had changed their ways by the end of the show, including Lapis Lazuli, Peridot, the Cluster, Bismuth, Spinel, Jasper, and even the Diamonds. While the quality of each of these redemption arcs varies from character to character, as is the moral status of each character, there's one thing I can say about how the show got the moral about redemption across: It was consistent. Aside from one or two characters like Eyeball or Aquamarine (who were more ignorant than anything else), there was never a case about someone being physically incapable of changing their ways, which tied into the overall theme of how important compassion is. With the way Miraculous Ladybug handles its redemption arcs, I unfortunately can't say it does it the same way Steven Universe does.

Pretty much every major villain, antagonist, or associate in the show gets a redemption of some kind. This includes Nathalie, Felix, Sabrina, Andre, and even Gabriel, while Chloe, Lila, and Tomoe are all viewed as beyond saving. The problem is rather than actually acknowledge the things any of them did as wrong before they start to change their ways, pretty much every “redemption” in this show amounts to downplaying their crimes. If the writers don't retcon the story so characters like Nathalie, Sabrina, and Andre were forced to help a greater threat instead of being willing accomplices, they'll retcon the story so characters like Felix and Gabriel were perfectly justified in their actions due to having a tragic backstory. Yes, while the point of a redemption arc is to have a former antagonist realize the error of their ways and turn a new leaf, it doesn't mean that the character who goes through this arc was never bad in the first place.

Like a lot of problems with this show, this is obviously contradicted by the way it handles Chloe. Any argument made on why every villain who was redeemed this season was stated to not apply to Chloe for some reason.

“Felix is a victim of child abuse and has a lot of emotional baggage!” Funny, because I remember in “Derision”, Mylene made a point about Chloe having a deadbeat parent not being enough to justify her actions, so by that logic, Felix shouldn't be getting away with anything.

“Sabrina and Andre were being forced to go along with Chloe's evil plans, so it's not their fault!” Chloe was also a pawn in Gabriel and Lila's schemes, yet we're still supposed to see her as evil. “But she still went along with Lila's plan!” By that logic, so did Sabrina and Andre, since they still listened to Chloe for a while instead of distancing themselves from her far earlier than they did.

“Gabriel and Nathalie are doing everything they can to help Adrien while they're both in poor health! Chloe didn't actually care about Adrien!” Sure, it's clear that (according to the retcons in Season 4), Chloe only cared about Adrien as a meal ticket, you can't say Gabriel and Nathalie care about Adrien either, since one is an abusive parent and the other did nothing to actually stop the abuse. Also, why should I feel bad for either of them when they routinely endanger lives and are only on death's door because of their own terrible choices?

I'm not saying that the show doesn't make decent points about why Chloe can't be redeemed. The issue is that these rules are never applied to anyone else who does get redeemed. The show tries to use characters like Chloe and Lila as a cautionary tale about how easy it is for your kindness to be taken advantage of, yet we never get any examples of compassion being a key factor in any major redemption this season.

Pretty much every villain who changes their ways only does so out of self-interest. Nathalie was fed up with Gabriel's constant failures and her own declining health, Felix only cared about doing things that would benefit himself like hooking up with Kagami, Andre was more than happy to resign even though he was forced to do so by an Akuma, Sabrina chose to stop helping Chloe after one particular plan goes too far (without actually apologizing for all the times she still went along with Chloe's schemes, no less), and Gabriel only stopped trying to hurt people once he got exactly what he wanted and died a martyr.

For a show with the lyrics “The power of love always so strong!”, why do we never actually see the power of love in action? And it's not just them. Whenever a character shows some form of compassion for an enemy, it's usually met with a dismissive attitude or fails miserably, and if it's not that, it's all lie to trick someone else.

In “Illusion”, Gabriel's plan to throw off suspicion that he's Monarch involves pretending to let Ladybug and Cat Noir get through to him.

In “Derision”, Rose pointed out Chloe's relationship with her mother as an excuse for why she's so mean, only for Mylene to argue against that despite being in a different boat than Chloe is.

In “Revelation”, Lila kept lying about having a caring attitude and believing that anyone can change, which was obviously meant to mock anyone who had that kind of viewpoint.

In “Collusion”, Ms. Bustier tries to reach out to Chloe after everything she's done, only to lose her job as a result.

In “Re-Creation”, the whole reason Bug Noire manages to beat Monarch was by putting him in a situation that would take advantage of his compassion for his wife, and later on, Gabriel manages to get the upper hand by taking advantage of Marinette's own compassion for him.

For a magical girl show, these writers are really terrible at teaching the lesson about showing kindness to your enemies, because more often than not, it's just violence that solves everything. Just ask the citizens of Paris in “Revolution”.

It doesn't help that the morality in this show isn't a complicated spectrum that weighs every action a character does and allows for other stances besides good or evil. Instead, it's like a light switch with two settings: “So good, you volunteer at the local children's hospital” and “So bad, you voluntarily send children to the hospital”. Characters in this show are either good or bad, and there's no room for in-between. Even when characters supposedly do change their ways, the show goes out of its way to claim that this is what they've always been like, which completely undermines the idea of what a redemption arc sets out to accomplish.

The thing is that I've actually seen examples of “Character X was only doing bad things as part of their plan!” and “Character X was only forced to do bad things for the villain!” done with one character, and it was a very recent example too. In the recently concluded Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger, one of the major villains was a tyrant named Racules, who took advantage of several monster attacks to secure more power for his kingdom, but later on, it's revealed he had a reason to do so. Long story short, Racules was the latest in a long line of rulers who was essentially blackmailed into carrying out a war by an immortal being from space named Dagded. However, Racules had a plan to secretly find a way to kill Dadged, and it involved playing along by pretending to be a heartless tyrant. By playing up his persona of a villain, not only did Racules drive his brother Gira (who was revealed to be an immortal creation of Dadged) to gain the weapons necessary to fight Dadged, Dagded trusted Racules so much, he decided to give him the power to kill an immortal. Guess who Racules chooses to kill as soon as he gets that ability.

While the reveal that Racules was good all along happened very late into the series, it worked far better than any redemption in this entire show for one reason: Racules isn't let off the hook for what he did. Everyone, Racules included, acknowledges that he did terrible things for years, and as soon as the situation is resolved, Racules is imprisoned for his crimes. Racules even admits to going mad with power at one point before he focused on his goal again, and he doesn't complain while he's in prison.

We never get any moments like this with the other redeemed characters. Nobody ever acknowledges that they went too far. They do one or two good things, and therefore, they're perfectly okay in Marinette's eyes.

Like a lot of topics it covers, this show wants to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to redemption. It wants to show characters changing their ways, but it doesn't want to actually hold those characters accountable for their actions. It wants to explain that not everyone can be redeemed, but it doesn't want to explain what causes people to want to redeem themselves. It wants to have an idealistic view of solving problems with compassion, yet it goes out of its way to mock those with that same ideology while claiming that violence is the only answer.

Maybe if Astruc spent less time arguing with people on Twitter over the concept of redemption, he and his team could have put more effort into fleshing out the all of the half-baked redemption arcs this season.

Adrienette Is Finally Canon! The Love Square? What’s That?

Well, it finally happened. After seven years, five months, fourteen days, 115 episodes and three specials since the show originally premiered in France on October 19th, 2015, Marinette and Adrien have finally gotten together for real. No cop-outs, no reset button, no misunderstandings, this is real. Credit where credit is due, the writers could have easily kept stalling and wait until the very end of the season for Marinette and Adrien to get together and called it a day, but they gave us over half a season of them in an actual relationship. Unfortunately, this also meant the writers had to rush the development of the relationship in order for Adrienette to become official in the first place.

Like a lot of stuff in the first half of this season, the writers pretty much speedran through the plotlines building up to Marinette and Adrien getting together. During the course of a mere eight episodes, we got a plotline about Marinette feeling guilty for letting her feelings for Adrien make her screw up, a plotline where Adrien realizes he has feelings for Marinette, a plotline where Marinette falls in love with Cat Noir, a plotline where Adrien stops having feelings for Ladybug, and finally, a plotline where Marinette stops having feelings for Cat Noir. These are all plotlines that we should have gotten over the course of the past four seasons, but instead, the writers are just cramming them all into less than a dozen episodes.

Considering how this was meant to be the final season originally, you can tell the writers realized they actually had to actually resolve the “Will they or won't they?” plotline instead of just padding things out like they normally do. But that's the problem. This was something fans, shippers, and general audiences were told to look forward to for years. Keep in mind, one of the biggest arguments you could make for just why the writers waited until Season 5 for Marinette and Adrien to officially get together was because they had something HUGE planned. This is a big deal for the show, something you can't take too lightly. If Astruc and the other writers were so intent on hyping up Adrienette for over four seasons to the point of showing two alternate timelines where they get together to tide viewers over, they needed to make sure they had a payoff so incredible, so satisfying, that their audiences would see it as more than worth the wait.

Just how was the big moment where Marinette and Adrien officially got together this season after so many years of buildup?

To be perfectly honest with you, I had absolutely no goddamn idea that the end of “Transmission” was meant to signify them finally starting a relationship. It just felt like the writers were doing the same thing about them being friends with a hint of something more on the horizon, but then the opening of “Deflagration” made it clear that here was major progress made in their relationship, though Marinette denied it due to her own anxiety, and by “Perfection”, it's confirmed that the two are dating. I just... really? This is how the two finally get together? It just... happens? No big dramatic confession? No romantic first date building up to this? Not even a kiss? The two talk for a few minutes, watch an Akuma fight, and now they're an item. Are you kidding me? Sure, most of the big moments in their relationship are saved for after they get together, but there's the problem: the writers half-ass the moment where Marinette and Adrien get together! It's more or less an afterthought in a two-parter involving a battle with Monarch where nothing was really accomplished.

You'd think for all the uncertainty Marinette felt over her feelings for Adrien this season, them getting together would be seen as a big moment, but it just doesn't for some reason. While you could argue it's a lesson in your fear of confessing being harder than the act itself, not much attention is given to Marinette growing closer with Adrien, because, for some reason, the writers decided to hold off the love confession and the first kiss for far later in the season (Pretension, Revolution). That's right, even after Marinette and Adrien finally get together, the show still needs to find a way to draw out the development of Adrienette.

I don't get it. Why couldn't the confession and kiss be what cements Adrienette, so more focus could be given to other plots? You can't say the “Will they or won't they?” stuff is the only draw to Adrienette, because there are plenty of plots you could write now that Marinette and Adrien are together. You could have an episode where Marinette invites Adrien over to breakfast with her parents in a follow-up to “Weredad”. You could have an episode where Marinette and Adrien try to go out on a perfect first date, only to struggle to balance their superhero lives getting in the way. You could have an episode where both Marinette and Adrien worry they're not good enough for each other, only for them to realize they love each other for who they really are. You could have an episode where Marinette and Adrien finally get closure on their former relationships with Luka and Kagami respectively. There were plenty of options for stories here, yet rather than do literally anything like that, not only did the writers drag out Marinette and Adrien's first kiss, they had the main villain take a break from trying to get the Miraculous to focus on breaking up the two.

As I mentioned earlier, we get a new arc all about Gabriel trying to break up Marinette and Adrien so Adrien can start dating Kagami again. Now I know what you're probably thinking: “IOTA, wasn't it implied that while Adrien and Kagami were dating, they were keeping their relationship a secret from their parents? Why are their parents suddenly obsessed with them getting together?” Well, you see, the answer to that is... that I have no answer because this makes no sense and is yet another excuse for a story arc that is somehow relevant to the overall plot. It's because of Gabriel's irrational hatred of Adrienette that Adrien is sent to London, and as a result, is absent from the final battle.

The sad thing is that I honestly thought Marinette and Adrien had some cute moments as a couple this season and had some believable chemistry. It's nothing groundbreaking, and there are plenty of flaws that I'll get to later, but for all intents and purposes, they still made a decent couple. It's just too bad that everyone else won't shut up about how amazing they are together. When their friends aren't trying to set up these cinematic scenarios for Marinette and Adrien that keep failing (Perfection, Protection,), they're gushing over how amazing of a couple the two are (Transmission, Deflagration, Revelation). At best, it comes across as the writers saying “How do you do, fellow shippers?”, and at worst, it comes across as the writers taking a victory lap while treating Adrienette as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Adrienette just dominated the latter half of this season, and it really got in the way of the overall story regarding the conflict with Monarch. What's that? You're saying I forgot something, like the other three sides of the Love Square. Ah, good eye, my friend.

SO DID THE FUCKING SHOW.

For the thing that got a lot of people interested in the show in the first place, the rest of the Love Square is criminally underutilized this season. Marinette randomly develops feelings for Cat Noir for a handful of episodes, Cat Noir randomly moves on from Ladybug, and I don't think we even got a single Ladrien scene this season. It really felt like the writers realized this was meant to be the last season, so not only did they have to get Marinette and Adrien together as quickly as they could, they also had to acknowledge the other sides of the Love Square. Of course, they did that without actually doing an identity reveal.

There are theories that the reveal was going to happen this season with how much Marinette and Adrien only talked about each other and not their superhero partners (implying they both knew who the other was), but the writers changed it at the last minute because they got renewed for more seasons. I suppose it makes in a meta sense, but what about the in-universe explanation? What's stopping Ladybug and Cat Noir from learning each other's identities when literally every other hero in Paris can get their Miraculous back, even the ones who had their identities discovered? Were the writers so uncertain if people would still watch the show if there wasn't any mystery in Marinette and Adrien's relationship? What exactly is there left to explore with the Love Square when Adrienette is canon, while Ladynoir, Marichat, and Ladrien are all dead in the water?

Like a lot of things this season, the handling of the Love Square started off strong and gradually petered out to the point where I just don't care anymore. I started this season assuming the reveal would actually happen, but of course, the writers just won't let this subplot die already.

Adrien Who?

While I don't really have a lot of bad things to say about Adrien compared to last season, this is unfortunately part of the bigger problem with how he was handled this season.

Like I said earlier, it seemed like the writers actually learned from their mistakes last seasons with how Adrien was written during the earlier episodes last season. He stopped whining about how he was totally important and started pulling his weight in battle. He was very active in fighting Akumas and actually felt like an equal to Ladybug. Yeah, Ladybug still called the shots, but the two stopped bickering over stupid things and had more conversations about other things. It didn't matter if they were more casual chats about their lives (Perfection) or discussions on the enemy's plans (Intuition, Revolution).

The problem, like a lot of things this season now that I think about it, comes in the second half. Remember how last season made a big deal about how wrong it was to leave Adrien out of the loop with so many secrets? Once again, the writers seemed to have forgotten this major story arc that they wrote themselves. Now, not only does Gabriel crack down on his horrific treatment of Adrien through his ring, not only does Adrien's character regress to being nothing more than Marinette's trophy boyfriend, by the end of the season, Adrien is literally reduced to a damsel in distress who needs to be saved, instead of, you know, A SUPERHERO. And remember, the writers were very proud of how this was planned for almost a decade, all because they got to supposedly subvert fairy tale tropes.

I feel like this whole “Save Adrien” plotline could have worked if Adrien wasn't already a superhero, and was just a civilian Marinette knew. Yeah, it would still be using an overdone trope, but at least if that happened, Adrien would have an excuse to not be able to fight back as opposed to the several he made during the finale. Instead, for the majority of the season's second half, Adrien takes a backseat to a major story arc revolving around his family and isn't even given proper closure by the end.

“But IOTA!” You might say. “The show's called Miraculous Ladybug, not Miraculous Cat Noir! Of course Ladybug has to save the day! She's the main character!” That may be true, voice in my head, but here's the thing: If Adrien wasn't going to be part of the final battle, why wasn't this about Marinette's family? Why not make Monarch Tom or Sabine trying to bring back their spouse? Marinette is the main character, yes, but so much of the backstory in this show is connected to Adrien's family. The show tries to connect Marinette to this through her relationship with Adrien, but with how often she and Gabriel fight over what's best for him, Adrien kind of just sits around, not protesting against his father in the slightest. I'm not saying Adrien should be the main character. I'm saying that Marinette should be tied more into the story if you were going to base a lot of the drama on her perspective during the final battle. It's almost like making it so Adrien physically can't rebel against his father was a stupid way to keep him out of the conflict.

Why the hell couldn't we have gotten a scene where Adrien's connection to Gabriel was broken? There were plenty of options the writers could have used. You could have had Nathalie steal the other ring back from Gabriel to give to Adrien, have Argos use the Peacock Miraculous' powers to override Gabriel's commands, or have Adrien unlock a new form of Cataclysm that severs the bond with his Amok. And that's not even getting into the excuses the show made for why he can't get involved, because God forbid one of the two main characters in the show's title get to take part in the final battle.

In fact, I'm pretty sure this is why Felix was introduced, to do the things Adrien should be doing. Felix is the one who has a vendetta against Gabriel, a deeper connection with Kagami, knowledge that he's a Sentimonster, and an overall influence in the plot. The writers are so obsessed with coddling Adrien that they created an entirely different character to fill in a role for him, and Felix wasn't even in the final battle. And just remember, Adrien was originally created to replace Felix in the story, so Felix taking over Adrien's role as the character who helps advance the plot makes even less sense.

Even if the final battle is meant to be over Adrien, it comes across less like Marinette and Gabriel are fighting over his freedom and more who gets to control him. Gabriel doesn't use his wish to free Adrien from the shackles of the rings. He just gives Marinette the rings and hopes she won't do the same kind of things he did with the rings. Nothing changed over Adrien's treatment except who gets the keys.

It'd be one thing if Adrien at least chose Marinette over his father, but Adrien isn't even allowed to know the full story on anything, not even the Sentimonster stuff. Okay, putting aside the fact that Adrien has lots of friends and family to help him cope with this, maybe I can buy not telling him about Gabriel. Not telling him he's a Sentimonster is something I can't excuse. This is like not wanting to tell someone they have diabetes and hoping they know how to use their own insulin while they're downing Pepsi after Pepsi. It's not just a matter of hurting Adrien's feelings. His fucking life depends on those rings. He should obviously know to keep them safe and not trade them for magic beans or something stupid like that.

But the biggest problem with Adrien this season is how it goes against everything the show has said about him and his relationship with Marinette/Ladybug the last four seasons, and especially Season 4.

For the past four seasons, the show has loved to say that no matter what happens, Ladybug and Cat Noir will always be here for the other, even against the world. Put aside how unlikable Adrien was last season, that was the ultimate lesson, about the two reaffirming their bond. And yet, here we are in the Season 5 finale, when literally the entire world is against Ladybug and Cat Noir, and Cat Noir is nowhere to be seen.

One of the main reasons why Adrien jumped at the chance to be a superhero was the freedom it gave him from his restrictive lifestyle, and how it led to him making more friends at school. And that very same story ends with Adrien admitting it's a good thing for him to stay inside and never acknowledge the fact that his father was kind of a dick. Remember, this was planned in advance for YEARS, and absolutely nobody thought it contradicted one of the most important aspects of Adrien's character: his desire for freedom. Now the same person who would demand to not be kept in the dark about so many things (Lady Wifi, Syren, Lies, Sentibubbler, Rocketear, Risk) is now sitting around like a coward while everyone else saves the world instead.

I still think Adrien was at his worst in Season 4, with how much of an whiny and insufferable idiot he could be, but Adrien in Season 5 is a close second. Yes, I wanted him to stop acting out and demanding that the world cater to his every whim, but I also wanted him to prove he was as valuable as he says. The first half of this season seemed to understand this kind of criticism and reminded the audience that Cat Noir was still useful, but when the actual story kicked in, the writers were so determined to keep the secret identity bullshit going, Adrien somehow got less focus as a hero than the Resistance, a group of temp heroes who actually lost their Miraculous. And consider the fact that this season wrapped up the drama with the Agreste family, so for all we know, Adrien will get even less screentime next season.

If Adrien is supposed to be an invaluable ally to Ladybug, then why doesn't the writing accurately reflect it?

The Problem With the Biggest Idiot of Season 5: Moronette, “Of Course I Know What I’m Doing!” Royal-Pain, AKA, Ladydumb

You know, it's funny. I kept defending Marinette when the writing kept making her out to be a terrible hero last season while Adrien got by without a single criticism, to the point where I considered Adrien to be the worst part of the entire season. Oh, how the tables have turned with dear old Marinette, as the season that chose not to criticize every single action she took is when she's arguably at her worst.

You have to wonder if the writers finally realized how much crap they put Marinette through over the last few seasons by having her always forcing her to learn some contrived lesson and were like, “Oh yeah, she's supposed to be someone the audience is supposed to root for.” Unfortunately, they went way too far in the other direction with how they handled Marinette.

The way Marinette was written this season felt eerily similar to what happened with Adrien last season. Suddenly, her personal drama is of the utmost importance (Determination, Passion, Reunion, Elation, The Kwamis' Choice, Perfection, Migration, Derision, Adoration, Pretension, Representation), she's making incredibly stupid decisions in battle (Evolution, Destruction, Determination, Pretension), she becomes the moral compass of the show who lectures others on what to do (Revelation, Confrontation, Collusion, Revolution), and she's never really called out for her actions by the other characters despite how often she makes things worse.

So much of the first half of this season is the exact same crap over and over again. Marinette complains about how hard things are for her and her conflicting feelings for Adrien. I wouldn't really mind something like this if it wasn't for two things.

First, there's no real arc involved with this. Marinette keeps complaining about her love life, and she never really learns anything from it. She doesn't even get to confess to Adrien and show her growing as a character. Adrien confesses to her, and bam, the two are a couple now. Glad to see all the discussions about Marinette's anxiety was completely pointless since she doesn't get to be the one to really confront her inner demons. Well, there was one time in “Derision”, and we all know how well that turned out, right?

Second, more often than not, it seems like Marinette is prioritizing her personal life over the situation with Monarch. You know, the guy who has access to fourteen different Miraculous? After you only managed to get one back? I'd understand if we got this kind of arc in the earlier seasons, but by doing this, you're undermining the current threat Monarch poses. She's even willing to give up being a superhero if it means being with Adrien. That is how important her love life is to her. She's willing to let Tikki force the responsibility onto someone else if it means she can be happy. Of course, this isn't too surprising, as Astruc once said that the show is supposed to focus primarily on romance, not superhero action.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES.

Just like with Adrien last season, the show seems to care more about Marinette's personal issues at the expense of other characters. Do you want to know how many episodes this season focused on Marinette's love life in some way? EIGHTEEN (Multiplication, Jubilation, Determination, Passion, Reunion, Elation, Transmission, Deflagration, Perfection, Derision, Protection, Adoration, Emotion, Pretension, Revolution, Representation, Conformation, Re-Creation). Literally two-thirds of the season includes Love Square drama. Even if you want to be generous and count both two-parters as single episodes, that's still more than half the season. This is yet another problem with waiting until what was originally supposed to be the last season to resolve your plot. You need to force all of this development through almost every episode until people get tired of it.

Because of this, Marinette basically took over the narrative of Season 5. Almost every major conflict revolved around her, even the stuff with Adrien. Rather than make a story about Marinette and Adrien working together to break free from Gabriel's influence, Marinette is the one who has to do the heavy lifting and save Adrien herself. I've already talked about this with Adrien, but it bears repeating, as this is same issue I had with Season 4. Just like how Adrien got more focus during a story arc that should have been about Marinette last season, Marinette is now getting more focus during a story arc that should have been about Adrien, to the point where Marinette gets to use Adrien's Miraculous during the final battle with Monarch.

I'd at least be somewhat forgiving towards the shift in focus if Marinette actually got to do anything to advance the plot herself. Because of how often the show focuses on Marinette's love life, very little time is dedicated to showing Ladybug making an effort to actually stop Monarch. The closest we got was in “Illusion”, and that was a plan spearheaded by Nino. Like I said earlier, Felix does more to advance the plot out of any character, even Marinette, THE ONE THE SHOW IS NAMED AFTER!

We have three separate episodes where Ladybug has Monarch at her mercy, but she decides to talk about how she's totally won and that Monarch can't get away at all, and then Monarch gets away in a matter of seconds. I just... this is “SHOOT THEM WITH THE DEHYDRATION GUN!” levels of stupid here! The only reason Monarch gets as far as he does is because Ladybug can't just grab any the Miraculous he has all over his body.

We're seriously supposed to see Marinette as an amazing hero when she keeps screwing up every opportunity she gets to stop Monarch. In the span of one season, Marinette went along with being forced to retire because she got a chance to date Adrien (The Kwamis' Choice), chose not to form a temporary alliance with an Akuma even if it meant possibly getting the Peacock Miraculous back and stopping a potential threat (Pretension), had absolutely no plan to stop Lila until someone else came forward with information on what she was doing (Confrontation), decided to let another Akuma force the mayor out of office (Collusion), and failed to stop Gabriel because she got tricked again and was completely helpless as the entire universe was recreated before she took credit for defeating Monarch afterwards in the new reality and then decided to honor the insane supervillain's wishes and keep her boyfriend completely in the dark about the truth even though she learned not to keep secrets from others (The Final Day) and MY GOD, I HATE THIS SEASON SO MUCH.

When Marinette isn't making terrible decisions, she's lecturing others on how to act around their enemies, and when I say “how to act”, I mean “refuse to give them even the slightest bit of respect after doing the bare minimum to help them try and change”. Marinette really lets her own personal biases toward Chloe and Lila get to her this season with how the latter half of the season had her tell others not to even consider trusting them because of how easy it is for them to take advantage of kindness. You know, something you'd hear someone like Superman or Spider-Man teach kids about.

In fact, here's a little game any aspiring writer can play when writing superhero characters: If you can't imagine someone as noble as Superman saying something like this...

Marinette: But sometimes, the good we think we see in some people is just a reflection of our own, and we end up being fooled by our own kindness.

Unless your intent is for them to be flawed or in the wrong instead of a complete paragon of virtue, you need to go through your drafts.

And just like Adrien, even though Marinette keeps screwing up, she's never held accountable for her actions. She's never allowed to be wrong, and is almost always the one who gets to lecture people, mainly towards the end of the season. A good example of how poorly written Marinette is this season is when she whines about Ms Bustier not punishing Chloe enough when not only does she fail to understand that Chloe is still being punished, but she did absolutely nothing to bring Chloe's cheating to her teacher's attention when as class representative, it's her job. I don't care how stupid that idea sounds, that's what the show goes with, and it makes Marinette's inaction come across as very irresponsible.

But then again, neglecting her duties at school is nothing compared to acting like Marinette didn't fail to save all of reality while not showing the least bit of remorse for it. I'm just saying, when even Ben 10: Omniverse of all shows does this kind of story better, you know you've screwed up. Again, we're supposed to see it like Marinette won because the universe is in one piece, when, once again, SHE FAILED! Like I said, she failed at pretty much everything she set out to do this season and didn't stop Monarch outside of warding off his Akumas. This is seriously how the show was supposed to end, with Marinette failing to save the universe and the audience just needing to accept it. Well, in case it wasn't obvious on my front, I don't. Hell, forget Ben 10: Omniverse. Even Star vs. the Forces of Evil had the main character save the day, even if it meant potentially screwing over countless lives by destroying all magic in the world. Marinette? “Well, everyone I know and love is technically dead and the madman I spent five seasons trying to stop gets to die a martyr, but everything looks like I saved the day, so that technically means I didsave the day! Man, I'm a great hero. Good thing the other characters basically exist to remind the audience of how amazing I am.”

If there's one thing to take away from everything that's happened, it's that this was the season where Marinette has arguably become one of the biggest examples of a show failing to make the audience like their main character. There was much time dedicated to rationalizing and trying to justify the worst possible decisions she could've made and acting like she's still an amazing hero. Stuff like this only serves to further validate the criticisms people have had for her as a character ever since Season 5. And remember, this is coming from someone who went out of their way to defend Marinette last season. In an attempt to show her at her most heroic and virtuous, Season 5 pretty much cemented Marinette as a terrible main character, a terrible superhero, and a terrible role model for children.

Eight Years for This?

I'm going to be perfectly honest with you guys. This season just broke me, and there was a good reason why this analysis took so long to write.

While there were a number of outside factors that made it hard for me to get the time to write (work, the holidays, family gatherings, etc), there were still times where I either didn't have a lot of material to work with, or I just couldn't find the motivation to work on the reviews. I guess throughout all these years, I figured that after all this buildup between the Love Square and Adrien's relationship with his father, there would at least be something I could find this season that would allow me to say this was worth the wait. Unfortunately, it was just disappointment after disappointment this season, with a universally hated finale to boot.

To me, this was the season that burned away the remaining goodwill I had for the show, because there's just no salvaging it at this point. The writers pretty much butchered every single character in some way, excused the main villain's actions for a sorry excuse for a heroic sacrifice, and literally reset the universe so all of the characters we've come to know for almost a decade technically don't exist anymore. Even the cliffhanger for Season 6 really excites me, because why should I care about a character we still know nothing about becoming the main villain? Why should I care at all when the writers have made it clear they don't care either? They don't care about writing character development, they don't care about writing consistent lore for their world, they don't care about approaching serious subjects with the delicacy they deserve and they certainly don't care about telling a consistent story.

Season 5 of Miraculous Ladybug was a failure in every conceivable definition of the word. It failed to deliver a satisfying conclusion to any of the stories that had been set up for years, and if this was how the main story ended, I don't really have a lot to look forward to when Season 6 premieres.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #thomas astruc #thomas astruc salt #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug salt #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #cat noir #chat noir #felix graham de vanily #argos #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #kagami tsurugi #gabriel agreste #hawkmoth #hawk moth #monarch #chloe bourgeois #nathalie sancoeur #tomoe tsurugi #lila rossi #Youtube

[etherealily]

🄱🄻🄴🅂🅂🄴🄳​ // ​🇳​​🇦​​🇹​​🇪​ ​🇯​​🇦​​🇨​​🇴​​🇧​​🇸​.

Nate Jacobs + Fem!reader. Warnings : Dark. SFW, but discretion advised. 🍃.

Part 1 : Whiplash

Part 2 : 9 Lives

You do NOT have permission to repost and/or translate any of my fics.

Tiny glimpse into his mind because why not?

Desc. : "His hand, so calloused from his pistol softly traces hearts on my face."

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It's not like Nate even knew you.

You just so happened to be the secret to his success, and maybe, perhaps his new obsession.

No biggie.

I mean, whole of the first week of spring break, he didn't text you, you didn't text him, and it was all great and normal.

Pissed him off to no end, because how the hell did you recover so quickly from having a fucking gun in your throat? But, hey, whatever. Maybe you were just that goddamn weird.

The second - and last - week of spring break was when shit got intense.

Because he thought about you.

He realized he hadn't even fucking seen you around town the entirety of it, and that might have freaked him out, just a little.

He worried, you see? Yes, only about his games, and his college apps, but now, all of them had been tied to you, with a pretty little bow around them.

So obviously, now he worried about you.

So, obviously, he needed to find out just where the hell your lucky ass had gone.

He narrowed it down to two options. Both perfectly reasonable, of course.

One, you just had tons of work and stayed indoors.

Two, you had been kidnapped and murdered by the opposing teams because they'd found out about your miracle-working.

See? Perfectly reasonable.

═════════════════════ ⋆ 🚬 ⋆ ══════════════════

It was a happy surprise to learn that you were basically closer to his house than you'd ever been before, after you'd taken up a job at the local supermarket.

Well, happy for him.

For you, it was more of a you-were-seriously-contemplating-suicide surprise.

"You listen to Elvis Presley?", he asked, dropping his purchase down on the counter. Your eyes never moved to it, and stayed on his.

That was one thing he noticed about you.

You were always observing, as if he were a rabid animal that would strike at any moment. As if he would reveal his sinister intentions to you within enough time for you to react.

"What?"

He nodded at the speakers on the wall around the establishment. "Those connected to your Spotify?"

You didn't want to answer unless you knew whether he was about to compliment or mock you.

"Sir, I think you should leave."

God fucking damn it. Why had he never thought about the fact that you wouldn't - (and couldn't)- call him a motherfucker at your workplace? His joy knew no bounds.

"That's so hot. Say it again."

You'd 100% expected that. It was clear on your face.

"There's other people behind you with more items to check out."

He swiveled his head around for a moment.

Old lady. Sometimes he wished he wasn't raised right.

He sighed, nodding. "I'm next up, though.", he warned sternly, pointing at you as he gestured for her to pass him by.

The old lady patted him on the shoulder and smiled, moving ahead with her purchase of an unholy amount of bread and cheese.

And what's worse?

She had coupons.

Way too many for Nate to stand smiling like a good boy behind her as she dug into her purse and fished out probably decades worth of them.

"Yes, dear, so just run all these."

"Uh, ma'am, I wish I could, but most of these are expired."

Thank god.

"Oh, well, you said most. Let's just sort through them and find the ones that aren't expired."

Would it be homicide to kill her? She didn't really have too long to live, anyway. He couldn't say he hadn't thought about it.

"Uh, okay, yeah, sure."

"This'll just take a minute, sweetie.", she whispered to Nate, pinching his cheek as if that would make time go by faster.

"How about I pay for you, ma'am? If that's alright?"

If he'd been allowed access to your mind, you'd never live it down, because you almost thanked him right then and there.

"Oh, there's no need for that, dear, I can-"

"No, please, I insist. It would be my pleasure."

"What a sweet boy."

Both her and Nate decided to ignore the derisive snort that came out of you as you swiped his card.

"Here you go, ma'am.", you smiled, placing the copious amounts of cheese into the bag, then stuffing the bread in, too. "Anything else?"

"Oh, no, that's it for me. God bless you, dear. Both of you."

Watching her walk out, he began to genuinely wonder if this absurd purchase was all part of some scheme some criminal had put up to steal without your knowledge.

"You hear that? We're blessed, you and me."

"Do you actually have anything to buy?"

"Of course I do. I'm not a creepy stalker.", he hissed, slamming his palm down in front of you. Slowly, he lifted it to reveal a stack of eleven condoms.

Oh, yeah, you were blessed with this fuckass' presence.

You sucked your teeth as your gaze traipsed from the condoms up to his eyes. One of them winked.

"Is that all?"

"Oh, come on, you're not even curious why I have them?"

"Probably for the dozens of bitches you're getting.", you scoffed, ringing it up. "$15.99."

"For eleven individual condoms?!"

You shrugged. "Inflation."

"Oh, they better inflate for the amount of money I'm spending."

He rolled his eyes, mumbling to himself as he pulled out the money from his wallet, instead of his card. "Fucking old lady with her bread and cheese."

"You maxed your card?"

"Yeah. Why do people buy so much shit they're barely ever going to use?"

"Like you with your condoms?"

Ah. Nate could've absolutely lost his shit laughing right there- you did care.

"I'm going to use it all. Trust me."

How many times was he going to use the phrase 'trust me' on you until he realized the meaning had eroded away into nothingness between you two? Probably a dozen more.

"Sure. Thanks for shopping with us. Have a great day."

He pouted, stuffing the packets into his pocket as he raised a brow. "You don't sound like you mean it."

"Nate-"

"And why are you even working here, anyway? Oh, shit, is it 'cause I cost you your internship with your perv boss?"

If he felt bad, the grin on his face wasn't really screaming guilt.

"No, fuckass, this is my friend's store, he just wanted someone to help him out for a couple hours."

"Whoa, wait, what happened to Sir? I liked that better."

That was a lie. He fucking loved it.

"Please, Nate. Stop."

"One condition."

There it was. It no longer seemed like he saw you as anything more than a boredom buster. Sudoku, or a crossword, basically. That was you to him.

"Answer one question, truthfully, and I'll leave this... otherwise empty store right after."

"I'm listening."

God, that's all he fucking wanted to hear, and it was oddly exciting. He could literally say anything, and you wouldn't block him out.

"What would you do if I told you that I have a body in my car right now?"

"What?"

"A body. A dead body. It's in my trunk. Right now. What would you say? What's your next move?"

It's like he expected you not to notice the fact that he was tracing shapes on your arm as he spoke.

"Cops."

At this point, even if he wasn't bluffing, you'd still have reacted so nonchalantly. Because it was all in all tiring to continue to play whatever twisted game he was playing.

"They're not an option. It's either silence or help me. Would you help me hide it?"

"Nate, did you kill someone?"

"No."

"Then why even ask?!"

"It's a hypothetical."

"No, probably not."

He tsked, looking away for a moment. "Wrong answer."

"Well, it's my answer."

He brought his fingers up to your face, and your slight flinch meant absolutely nothing to him. Imaginary hearts now plagued your skin. "Change it."

"My answer? No."

"Please."

"Nate, did you kill someone?", you asked once more, praying for an actual answer this time, be it in the negative or the positive.

He smirked.

"Thanks for the condoms.", he whispered, grinning as he gave your cheek a light pat - that was dangerously bordering on a slap.

Would your trunk be big enough to fit his body? You thought about it the rest of the day.

═════════════════════ ⋆ 🚬 ⋆ ══════════════════

His fingers rapped on his dashboard as he watched his phone, set down on speaker on the dashboard, too. Pick up, pick up, pick up.

"Hello?"

Yes. He'd never been this happy to hear someone's voice, and it kinda freaked him out. Okay, whatever. Not important.

"Y/N."

"Who is this?"

"The guy you broke all the rules with before spring break? Made out with on the bleachers?"

"You need to be more specific."

"You better be kidding."

"Of course I am." He had never felt more relieved to hear your stupid ass laugh. "What do you want? I'm not helping you hide a body."

He debated just asking you where you'd been all this time, why you hadn't shown up to a single party or hangout, but he decided he'd just outright ask the real question he needed answered.

"Which one's your window?"

A pause. "What?"

"The one with red or yellow curtains?"

"Nate."

"Red or yellow, babe?"

"Red." Good. You'd gotten so used to him that you didn't waste time pointing out the obvious by asking 'are you outside my house?!'.

"You sure it's not yellow?"

"That's my parents' room."

"Yellow looks more tempting.", he teased, as he shut the car door.

"I'm not messing around."

"Neither am I. Yellow it is."

"Nate!"

This was far too precious to him. You were actually worried. How cute.

The fact that he had to climb up wasn't really making him jump in joy, but he figured you'd enjoy that little touch of vintage chivalry.

Like fucking Rapunzel.

He tapped on your window once.

No answer. Don't fucking play around right now.

He knocked once more.

He was met with your extremely delightful glare as you slid your window up, watching him closely.

"Hey."

"Dude, you-"

"Shh, shh, shh. Let me in.", he mumbled, crouching to cram himself through, his hand still resting on the top of the pane.

"You're insane."

Immediately grabbing your face after he steadied himself, he hissed through gritted teeth, "Where the hell have you been?"

"What?"

"I didn't see you at all before today!"

"Yeah, we got a lot of work to do over spring break."

"This is why you don't take psychology, because you get stupid amounts of homework even during the holidays.", he muttered, as if he'd warned you about this eons ago.

"What do you want?"

"Party. You. Me. Now. Get dressed."

He almost punched you when you started laughing.

"You actually do have a sense of humour, Nate, good for you."

"I'm not kidding. Come on."

"No way in hell."

"You know what? No need to get dressed. You look great. Just come on. Live a little."

"You've already taken me to 'live a little' before, and I ended up shitfaced with a gun in my throat at school at 12:30 am."

Good. So you hadn't gotten over that. He didn't care if he was being sadistic - he was glad.

He sighed, flopping down onto your bed and ignoring the second glare to come from you that night. "This is so typically a teenage girl's bedroom."

He had no clue what he was saying, at this point. But he knew he was itching for a reaction, a reason for you to hit him again, so he could grab you and shut you up. He craved the conflict.

"Surprising, considering that's what I am."

"I mean, the band posters? Really?", he huffed, pointing around at your room as if he was giving you a tour of it.

"Have you even listened to Queen? Presley? Any of the oldies?"

The match was found. Time to light it.

"So the shitty music in the store was connected to your playlist.", he chuckled, shaking his head. "No wonder that old lady was so nice to you. She thought you were one of her Bingo buddies."

It was just a question of how long you could stand him sitting on your bed, disrespecting your music taste.

"If you're only here to invite me to a party, I'm sorry, I'm not coming."

"How would your family like me hanging out here?", he mused, tilting his head. You know, the one you'd probably love to bash into the pavement given a chance? That head.

You were so fucking hot when you were pissed, it was unbelievable to him. He could sense it, the anger.

The smell of your rage made him want to riot.

"You can't keep blackmailing me into doing what you want."

"Alright, fine."

Your uncomfortable frown made him snicker. "What's that look?"

"This is usually the part where you self-harm and tell me I'm being a bitch for not bending to your will."

"Tonight's different."

"Why?"

Because I'm going to unwrap every fucking secret of yours.

He shrugged, the corners of his lips curling downwards. "I don't want to."

"So, you'll leave?"

"I didn't say that.", he trailed off, watching you sit down on the chair across from your bed. "Let's just chill."

"Nate, when have you and I ever chilled?"

He licked his lips, narrowing his eyes at you, before giving you a sly smirk. His fingers emerged from his pocket as he pulled out a packet of pre-rolleds. "Right now."

"You're kidding."

"C'mon. Don't be a pussy."

"They'll smell it."

He lolled his head over to the door. "No, they won't. You're two floors up." He shifted to one side, patting the space next to him. "Come on, Y/N, don't end your badass streak so quickly."

His eyes followed you as you sat down gingerly, rubbing your forehead like he was causing you a genuine migraine. That's funny, she hasn't even seen me high, yet, (and she won't).

"Why do I let you do this?"

"Million dollar question if I ever heard one.", he scoffed, fumbling around his person for a lighter. He found it, placing the cigarette between his lips and lighting it, causing his next catastrophic words to come out a mumble. "But I'm glad you do."

He continued to watch your eyes change from frustration to mild fascination, to hesitation all in one second, as he puffed out through his teeth. "Fuck.", he groaned, handing it to you.

"I don't know about this."

"You think they'd like me?", he mused, looking at the door, and then back at you. "I'm known to make a good impression with parents."

"The no-blackmail thing didn't last long.", you huffed, taking it from him. Nate almost made out with you right then and there, the way your lips wrapped around it as if they were made only for him.

"Didn't want to break tradition.", he snorted as you coughed and sputtered, handing it back to him quickly.

"Gross."

═════════════════════ ⋆ 🚬 ⋆ ══════════════════

The last thing he'd expected from that evening was actually staying. He'd thought he'd get you stoned, you'd pass out, and he'd leave.

But here you were.

Next to him.

Freaking him the hell out.

He looked down at his watch. 2 AM. Fuck.

"I gotta go."

"You've been saying that for the past three hours."

Shut up. "Eh, well, it's not like my parents are worried."

"Why not?"

"They know I can handle myself."

"Right, because I'm such a threat."

"God, no. They'd love you." He shook his head subtly, grinning as you nudged his face playfully with your foot from across the bed. "You should come over, sometime."

"I'm not coming over, Nate."

The weed made sure you didn't push him away when he gently grabbed your leg. "Why not?"

"Because we're not friends. There's no reason for me to meet your parents."

"I just think it's right that you get to judge my room, too.", he muttered, lips on your ankle like it was his life support. "You know, justice or whatever."

"It's probably all monocoloured, plain, boring crap."

"Only one way to find out.", he teased.

He despised the silence that followed. High-you wasn't exactly chatty, it seemed.

"Tell me something about you."

"Like what?"

He shrugged. "Anything."

"This is my first time smoking weed."

"Not exactly a secret, sweetheart."

"You didn't ask for a secret."

"Now I am. Tell me a secret."

"I hate football."

You were more resilient than he thought, seeing as you'd smoked three cigarettes already, and the most you'd given him was your sports preferences.

But he'd take what he got.

"Because of me?"

"No, just generally."

"But you came to games.", he countered.

"Because of Maddy."

"You guys are close?"

You nodded, stirring slightly as you looked out your window. "Mhm."

"So she told you." Shit.

You tilted your head, sitting up as he gripped your calf, moving closer and placing kisses on your knee, too. "About?"

Well, if you didn't already know, no need to tell you.

"To come to the games."

"Oh. Yeah."

Nice save, Jacobs.

"I guess now I owe you a secret, huh?"

"I guess you do."

"You're not gonna like it.", he murmured, lazily tracing even more shapes on your knee, while his other hand had trailed up to your arm. "But I love your lips."

He smiled when the corners of your eyes crinkled up and you burst into a fit of giggles. "What?"

"It's true. They're perfect."

"God, I love weed."

You would, seeing as you smoked more of it than he did. Enough to kind of make him feel slightly guilty.

"It's not just the weed saying this.", he continued, shaking his head. "I'd fight wars for those lips. For you."

He shouldn't have liked the fading of your laugh so much, the slight trepidation brewing on your face, either, but for some reason, he did. "Nate, I'm not... I don't wanna-"

"Be fought for? Why not?"

He took the silence as a cue to brush his finger against your cupid's bow. "You don't think you deserve it?"

He watched your lips move under his finger as you shook your head, side to side. "Well, I do. And, guess what?"

"What?"

"I got another question for you."

Your frown was your response.

"Why didn't you push me away when I kissed you that night on the bleachers?" He knew the answer. Of course he did.

"I was drunk."

"Yeah, see, you weren't that drunk.", he taunted. But no, you were. He'd given you basically one and a half bottles. Just like tonight, taking barely ten puffs while you took thrice as much. You just hadn't noticed.

"I don't know, then."

"I just think that if you didn't push me away, it can't have been the terrible experience you made it out to be, in the car."

"What do you want to hear, Nate?"

"That you want to do it again. 'Cause you do. Don't you?"

"I don't."

"Yes, you do. If you could see your own eyes right now, you'd agree."

"Really?"

"Mhm."

He waited for a reaction, a scoff, an eye roll, anything, but you just looked back at him, and then down at the hand he was holding. Oh, it was the weed.

So he took matters into his own hands. No. He took you into his own hands, tracing the gap between your lips with his tongue before he pushed it in.

Your lips were war-worthy, just like before. But this time, something was different. This time, you kissed back.

There we go.

His hands ran over your back as though he were splaying a huge deck of cards across a table, and he came to the grave realization that maybe, just maybe, he was no longer doing this just for a reaction.

"Come here.", he murmured, making up for his lack of oxygen by trying to steal yours as he pulled you onto him. How Shane Crestin hadn't killed himself over the fact that he'd fumbled this bag, he'd never know. Loser.

His hands slipped under your shirt. Wrong move, seeing as you pulled away. "No."

Wasn't weed supposed to last longer?

"What?"

"I'm not... no."

"You seemed into it, like a moment ago. Face it : you want this. No amount of bullshit self-respect or whatever you wanna call it, is going to change that.", he responded, coolly, as he took a drag from the blunt, his lips immediately feeling the lack of yours.

"You're just trying to get back at Maddy."

God, he wished that were true. Would make much more sense.

He sighed, his forehead on yours. "I'm not, but you're not going to believe me.", he mumbled, watching you get off him and move back to the other side of the bed.

Oceans away. Too fucking far.

"I'm sorry." There was something he hadn't said in a while. "For, like, everything."

"Why am I so fucking important to you? If I just showed up to every game for you, would you leave me the fuck alone? No, you wouldn't, because you sought me out during spring break! Am I just an easy target?"

No. "I don't... I don't fucking know, okay? You just are."

"Is it 'cause you hate me?", you questioned, so quietly that he had to debate whether to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness or actually kill himself in guilt for eliciting it.

"What?"

"Do you hate me?"

"For what?" He had no fucking clue what this could be about. Every single thing he'd done so far indicated the opposite. But he didn't want to let himself go there.

"Being your good luck charm."

Oh. He had to think about that one. "No. It would be weird if it was someone else."

"I just mean... it must be frustrating, when you need someone, and they might not always be there."

"But you will, right? Be there?"

"You scare me, Nate."

He scoffed, slightly, rolling his eyes. "You're unbelievable. Why? Gimme one reason - a real one - why you're scared of me."

"You're violent."

Okay, he was hoping you'd give an invalid one.

"I like beating people up.", he shrugged. "But never for no reason."

"Not exactly a secret, sweetheart. And anyway, it's not only the beating up that you like."

"Hm?"

"You like getting beat up, too."

Remind him never to give you weed again.

"Why would I-"

"On some level, you feel like you deserve it.", you replied, shrugging as you took a long puff of the miracle weed that apparently made you unreasonably perceptive.

Okay, confirmed, not even the word weed would be mentioned around you anymore.

"You think I deserve it?"

"Mostly, yeah. But not... all the time."

"How do you know so much?", he asked, watching your fingers get lost in your hair. He couldn't afford eye contact.

"Psychology."

"See? You shouldn't have taken it. It's creepy."

You sighed, smiling as you looked up at the ceiling. "Sorry."

He did not expect you to back down, that was for sure.

"It's fine. Never giving you weed again, though."

═════════════════════ ⋆ 🚬 ⋆ ══════════════════

It actually took until the very last day of spring break for him to catch up with you again. Not like he was pissed that you pushed him away, or anything. Or that he was confused about the entire interaction in the bedroom of someone who, until three weeks ago, he wouldn't have been caught dead talking to. He was just busy. Sure. Let's go with that.

"Hey."

"Not now, Nate."

"What is your problem?" Wait, no. That kinda talk was why you were pissed at him. "Look, we should start over."

God, he sounded like a cunt. This was definitely something that pathetic Shane Crestin would say. Ew.

"Okay. Can you start by going over there?", you asked, restocking the shelves with whatever bullshit condiment you had to.

"I'm an ass. I'm a jerk, I'm- I'm a dick."

You were silent for a moment, before you added: "A small one, too."

He sighed, beaming with relief. "A small one, too.", he agreed, nodding. "I'm just here to ask you over to dinner. My house. I'll even cook."

Dude, if you didn't agree, he'd actually fucking kill you.

"No way you cook."

"Only one way to find out."

He saw the falling apart. The gradual breaking down. The glacier was melting. "I'll listen to Queen or whatever, with you."

The quiet was taunting him, but you came to his rescue. "No steak."

"No steak."

Yes. Fucking yes.

#if you don't think queen rocks i'm glad i don't know you #the shane crestin beef is real #nate euphoria #euphoria x reader #euphoria #nate jacobs x y/n #nate jacobs x you #nate jacobs #nate jacobs x reader #nate jacobs fic #nate jacobs fanfic #euphoria fic #euphoria imagine #nate jacobs imagine #euphoria x you #nate jacobs fluff #euphoria fluff #euphoria dialogue #nate jacobs blurb #nate jacobs imagines #nate jacobs oneshot #nate jacobs hc #nate jacobs drabble #nate jacobs fanfiction #euphoria smut #nate jacobs smut

[cobaltperun]

Genius (4) - Bittersuite

Cairo Sweet x female (G!P) Reader

Summary: It was such a cliché, a reunion she didn’t expect to ever happen, let alone six years after she last saw you. It was supposed to mean nothing, a bit of nostalgia, maybe a brief catching up while waiting for class, it was supposed to be a small wave of nostalgia, not a tsunami that disrupted her entire life. You were her opposite, and as hard as she tried she couldn’t resist your pull.

Story masterlist / First part / Previous Part

Word count: 3.5k

-God, I hope it all goes away, 'cause I can't fall in love with you-

A madman’s love.

Cairo had no idea how that felt, but the way Miller described it sounded exactly like what she was yearning for. Ever since she was old enough to yearn for love. To be loved by someone to the point of madness, for that someone to merely be a bone monolith beneath her, to be loved so fiercely and strongly that both her and the one loving her end up consumed by the flames of emotions within them.

To be madly loved and to madly love in return.

How did that feel? To fight for someone’s love, no matter the circumstances, the taboo, the judgment of society. To feel so right no matter how many people said it’s wrong.

She didn’t know, but she imagined Miller knew, he described it, after all. He wrote it with passion that struck her, that made her yearn for what he was painting in her mind. What about his age? Well, she did desire something that others would deem wrong, didn’t she? And then there was Winnie, and Cairo would have cursed her for filling her head with the ideas of giving her virginity to someone older if Winnie didn’t present such a convincing argument. To give her virginity to someone that was, as Winnie put it, wagyu beef, and not deli meat.

She didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to bleed the first time she has sex, the books she read made sex out to be raw, rough, immediate, a desperate act of chasing pleasure, they hardly ventured into the ideas of woman’s arousal, much less aftercare.

Could he give it to her? Could he see her for who she really was? Reveal sides of her she didn’t even know existed yet? He certainly found something worth it in this damn village she despised, he could do the same with her. Find worth no one else did, make her feel wanted by someone. Make her feel like she was the only one who mattered.

Her phone buzzed and she glanced at it. You sent her a message, but she didn’t reach for her phone to reply. She just leaned her head back instead. She couldn’t deny the visceral reaction she had whenever she was reminded of you. Of her heart beating faster, or the dreams she had, or the fact that she wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking forward to more on Monday mornings, listening to Miller, or sitting next to you, your arms occasionally touching and making her feel like she was on fire.

How did you see her? Did you still see the girl who read to you, the girl that dragged you around the forest around her house, the girl who pushed you away? Or did you see her for who she was right now? A ghost, someone a rare few paid attention to, though she kept hearing she was extraordinary. A lonely girl longing for attention and escape. You were certainly providing her with the escape she needed, seeing as Saturdays became your usual getaways, and you took her to places she had no idea about, she was living when she was with you, free from the shackles of nowhere Tennessee.

But your love for her was a lot like Winnie’s. Immature, normal, fueled by reasons appropriate for your age. She couldn’t imagine you or Winnie being driven to madness by your love for her, if the way you loved her even included anything romantic in the first place.

She needed a love that wasn’t ordinary. She needed her madman’s love.

And she feared that whatever was happening between the two of you wasn’t a product of love or friendship, but a desperate attempt to emulate what was once lost.

Cairo didn’t want that. She didn’t want to emulate the past, she wanted… What did she want? She knew what she didn’t want, but what did she actually want?

~X~

This wasn’t working, and the only reason you still tolerated this class was because Cairo was there as well. You suppressed a sigh as Miller droned on about the writer’s style being bold, and too much, and it really was.

You were trying to reignite your love for reading but all this was doing was making you wish to never open a book again in your entire life. You couldn’t get the fact that he went thought student’s stuff out of your head, and that impression alone ruined the class for you.

“Meet me after classes,” he leaned over Cairo’s shoulder, too close to her, secretive, whispering so no one else but Cairo could hear him. Though not quiet enough for you not to hear him, even if you looked like you weren’t paying attention. The fuck was with this guy? After classes?

You were reading too much into it, right?

~X~

Was he seeing her? Like Winnie said? Cairo wasn’t sure yet, but she couldn’t deny their similarities, how at ease she felt, how the only time she felt this much at ease was when she was with you on your rides outside the village. It compared to that as far as her ease went, but it went further, it met other needs she had as well. The ones she hated to admit she had. Her need for approval and attention from someone older, something she never got before, being a big part of it, and what made this seem more impactful to her than what she had with you.

And then there was a part of her that consciously made what she had with you feel like it was to be expected. Like it was a given that you’d reconnect. And she needed to look at it that way, otherwise she’d spiral into fear and panic, because if it wasn’t a given, and if both of you chose to actively put effort into rebuilding what you once had, then that in and of itself, would be a form of madness she wasn’t ready to face just yet.

“See you on Monday, Mr. Miller,” Winnie said as she opened the doors so she could drag Cairo to get her beloved food.

“Bye, kid,” a kid, that’s how he saw Winnie, but he didn’t call Cairo a ���kid’, so at the very least he didn’t see her as one, though her and Winnie were the same age. He saw her as an adult, and she very much liked that. “Oh, and Cairo, are you going to come this Saturday?” he asked her.

She realized she never got to answer him, and it wasn’t just because Winnie came in, there was an issue of already making plans with you. “I already made plans with Y/N, but I’ll see if she’s fine with postponing,” she told him, not quite ready to give a definitive answer.

He seemed a bit startled all of a sudden. “Y/N?”

Cairo nodded, not sure what made him react the way he did just now, though it was subtle she could see he was a bit uncomfortable.

“Did- Uh, did she mention me in any way?” he tried to brush it off as a normal question, but the way he avoided her eyes gave him away.

“No,” she replied. Not even sure why you would mention him. You didn’t particularly enjoy his class, she could tell by the way you actively tried not to listen to him, and she knew you were doing bare minimum on the assignments. You didn’t like either him or the class, and Caro didn’t know why, she didn’t ask why, and you never told her why.

“Oh, okay, forget I said anything,” Miller regained some color when she denied you ever mentioning him and she just nodded, choosing not to ask him about it.

She’d just ask you. After all, you were the one who kept something from her.

~X~

You were in your garage, just cleaning your motorcycle and your gear when you heard the doorbell ringing. You weren’t expecting any visitors, so maybe it was just one of your neighbors. When the doorbell rang the second time you got up, leaving the rug you were using on the bucket, and quickly washed your hands in the sink, before going outside.

“Sorry for the wait, I was-“ you paused, seeing Cairo on your doorstep. “Hey, I didn’t expect to see you here,” you climbed up the stairs as Cairo looked to the side. You couldn’t read her, but you could tell something wasn’t right.

“Hey, Y/N,” she greeted you.

“Come in,” you opened the doors for her and stepped aside, she knew the house. Even if she hasn’t been inside in a long time. You followed after Cairo, taking notice of how she stopped and stared at the copy of Jules Verne’s ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’. You were trying to read it, but between Miller killing your desire to read and the book being closely tied to your and Cairo’s friendship while you were kids, you hated to admit it, but you weren’t having an easy time with it. Still, you were about two thirds in, so at least you were making some progress.

“Do you want something to drink? Or eat? I was about to make something for lunch anyway,” you were already heading toward the kitchen as Cairo sat down on the armchair.

“No, I just ate with Winnie, I’m okay,” she said and you chose not to push her. She was tense, and it didn’t escape your notice that she chose one seat that would put the most distance between the two of you regardless of where you sat down.

So, you mirrored her, taking a seat on the far end of the sofa, letting the distance between you engulf you. The silence felt deafening, and you hoped it wouldn’t come to this. This was the tension you were worried about the first time you took her out of the village, it wasn’t supposed to be happening now, two weeks after you reunited. “What’s wrong?” you asked carefully.

“Mr. Miller said something, well, he asked me if you mentioned him. Why?” she asked, looking you in the eyes and clutching the straps of her bag in her hand.

You could swear you were hearing alarm bells ringing in your head. Why would he ask her that? “I caught him and coach what’s-his-name going through your books on the first day, that’s all,” you had no reason to protect him, since Cairo asked so openly. Frankly, you weren’t sure why you haven’t told her that in the first place.

“That’s it?” she asked incredulously.

“You wanted more?” you were astonished. Now, you didn’t expect her to be furious, or go on a rant, or anything like that, but you didn’t expect her to think nothing of it. What did she even want from you, because you honestly couldn’t tell where you were standing with her.

“You’re being ridiculous,” she defended him. “Mr. Miller isn’t being inappropriate, he sees me,” she told you.

You raised an eyebrow, puzzled. Sees her? “Cairo, what do you mean he sees you?” you questioned, leaning a bit closer over the dreadfully large distance between the two of you.

Cairo looked away, contemplating whether she should tell you something and then, finally, she made her decision. “He sees my talent; he sees what others’ don’t. He- he gave me special treatment, offered me an early mid-term assignment,” she leaned back, likely reading your frown as if you were disapproving of her.

It wasn’t her. It was his actions. It didn’t feel right. It felt unprofessional, it felt like he was actively crossing boundaries with her, taking advantage of her need to be seen, as she put it. “Cairo, he might not be good for you,” you didn’t feel like you had the right to influence her, or get involved in her decisions, but you also felt like you had to, much like all those years ago, pull her away from something that could harm her.

“You just came back, don’t pretend you understand what is best for me,” she snapped, her voice shaking a bit and even from this distance you could see the tears pooling in her eyes. “I’m going to a poetry reading this Saturday, to see him, just so you know,” the fact that she was canceling your plans didn’t matter nearly as much as the reason why she chose to cancel them.

What pushed her this far? To seek approval from him of all people? “Okay,” but she was too emotional to talk to properly right now. So, you chose to back away for now, to just hope that nothing even worse would happen. And Cairo? She just left, closing the doors with a sound that rang through your mind as if it signaled the start of madness.

~X~

He truly did see her, he saw all of her. The ghost, the rose bush that wasn’t allowed to blossom, no matter how hard she tried. And she saw herself in him, she saw her reflection, and she wondered if he saw himself in her as well. She was willing to bet he did, they were both ghosts, cursed to never be seen for what they were by anyone who wasn’t like them.

He didn’t take her somewhere else, he showed her a side of her home she wasn’t aware of, and she managed to see worth in it she never knew existed. She yearned for more. She yearned for an even deeper connection. She yearned… she longed… she…

This wasn’t a given. This was something she had to reach for, something she had to work for, something forbidden, and yet so appealing at the same time.

Would he fight for her? Accept her entirely and burn in their shared passion and desires and yearning, or would he refuse to participate in this dance? She feared the answer, because, if he wouldn’t… who would?

And in the middle of it all, of all those thoughts and feelings, she just for a moment, saw your face as you told her he wasn’t good for her. Your eyes, intensely looking right at her. What did you see? What compelled you to look at her like that? And along the image of you, leaning closer to her, so close that she, despite the almost overwhelming distance, caught herself unsure if she should back away, maintain the distance, or lean in, encouraging you to keep closing the distance until there was none of it left. Along that image she vividly saw the wild rose bush crushed by an old fallen tree and her eyes widened as she remembered you pulling her away from it all.

Would you pull her back once again? Would Miller be the old tree to crush her? Or would he stand strong next to her as she blossomed? She didn’t decide yet, but she knew the way he was looking at her right now lacked the intensity your stare had.

~X~

You’ve been denying it for years, but Cairo, even after she pushed you away remained a constant presence in your life. You still remembered that time in the forest around her house, when she dragged you around and then just froze when she saw an old tree that had fallen over a bush of wild roses. It wasn’t the scene that remained in your memory. You weren’t old enough for it to profoundly affect you. Even now you didn’t come to give any deeper meaning to the imagery you witnessed.

It was still an impactful memory because she sobbed, and she wasn’t even aware of it. She let out a sound, filled with so much sorrow you couldn’t even comprehend what was going through her head back then. To this day, you didn’t know why it affected her so much, but you knew how it affected you. How it made you feel like you had to take her away from there, that you had to do something so she would smile again.

She set a bar so damn high for you that it wasn’t just the fact that you were moving a lot that stopped you from being best friends with someone. It was the fact that they just couldn’t compare to her. And then you got a bit older and started understanding your sexuality and you tried, you really did. You dated on and off, but again, the connection you were seeking wasn’t there. No matter how amazing the girl was you just found it hard to let someone in the way you did with Cairo. Did you ever have any feelings for Cairo that weren’t purely friendship related? No, not even a childish crush, but the connection between you was just strong enough to affect you years after you last saw her. You felt that connection in the songs you learnt to play, in some of the music you created, brimming with longing and inspired by a friendship long ago left in the past that refused to fade away.

You glanced at her, at her focused gaze meant only for Miller in this very moment, and you weren’t sure how to feel. You just waited for the class to end. And then he approached your and Cairo’s table from behind, and you saw his left hand reaching for her hand as he leaned over her shoulder.

As if he absolutely had to say something only to her.

Your eyebrow twitched. How dare he? He was her teacher, and she was only eighteen. Without thinking you pushed the table to your left so abruptly he lost his hold on the edge of the table and stumbled forward, and, unable to stay on his feet he dropped to his knees to the gasps of the students.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, don’t worry,” he got up, dusting his pants and raising his hands as he turned away from the class, embarrassed by what just happened. Just for a moment his eyes met yours and you glared, begging for him to read your mind and see what you thought. ‘Learn where the damn boundary is,’ is what you were trying to convey through your eyes. Consequences be damned.

Not like there would be any. If he went and reported you, you’d just say what you suspected, consequences of those actions be damned. He, at the very least, did show favoritism toward Cairo.

When the class ended you stormed out of the classroom, ignoring Cairo and Winnie’s eyes following you.

~X~

As you walked out of the classroom after all your classes ended you suddenly felt a hand grab your forearm and pull you aside much to your utter surprise.

“Come with me,” Cairo demanded, ordering you as if you had no choice but to follow her every whim.

“You could be a bit gentler,” you complained, not appreciating how tightly she was gripping your arm.

Cairo looked back at you, anger flashing in her eyes. “I could say the same to you, why would you make him fall like that?” she hissed, dragging you to a slightly secluded corner.

“Maybe next time he’ll think twice before putting his hands where they shouldn’t be,” you were instantly annoyed by the reminder of where he was about to put his hands. And Cairo jumping to his defense wasn’t helping.

“Yeah, and where is that?” she challenged you as you leaned against the wall and she stepped right in front of you. If you moved even a bit, you’d be pressed right against her.

“Not on you, that’s for sure. Or any of his students,” he had his responsibilities and one of those was to keep the proper boundaries with his students.

“And if I want him to?” Cairo demanded and you just… weren’t sure how to answer that. You knew how it made you feel though. And suddenly it wasn’t just about his advances toward Cairo being inappropriate in your eyes. You finally felt as if the pieces on your side were falling into place, and you were no longer seeing the girl you spent your childhood with. You saw an eighteen-year-old girl and somehow you were no longer certain you only saw her as a friend. It was as if the very thought of him touching her ignited flames of madness within you, a jealousy you didn’t even know you could feel over Cairo.

“Do you really?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

You took her words in, you forced yourself to calm down, to take it easy, to think rationally. “Why did you push me away when we were kids Cairo?” you asked and she backed away a bit, and though she didn’t leave, you could see it in her eyes. She wasn’t going to answer. And her answer mattered to you more than anything, because her answer was the only thing that could make any of this worth it. That was the only thing that could validate or invalidate your feelings. That was the only thing that could solve every question running through your mind. And she wasn’t giving it to you.

A/N: Is Cairo confused at the moment? Yup! Is R? Absolutely! So, tell me what you think, I would appreciate it!

Taglist: @deimaisgail @bee-keeping @marvelous-disaster @jmwetterlund @tekanparadiae

@alexkolax @ioveyouyouloveme @aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

#cairo sweet x female reader #cairo sweet x reader #cairo sweet #miller's girl #jenna ortega x reader #x reader #x female reader

[zanarkandskylines]

rei………. pls…….. your tags…. i need to know if bakugou sits on your strap

ahhhhhhhhhhh amira!!! thank you for asking so I can blab about it hehe

The short answer is hell yeah, but here’s what makes me wanna take a lap.

One of the first fics I wrote, and it’s still in my drafts cause it got me so flustered LOL, is him and reader trying it out for the first time after he loses a bet with her. And he ends up loving it more than he ever thought, unlocking new pleasure he didn't think was possible. Once he finds out that reader also got off on it, just with the hilt of the strap bouncing off her clit, he was hooked.

This lead me down the rabbit hole and I couldn't stop thinking about it for katsurei. Imagining Bakugo not only begging for it, but demanding I let him sit in my lap was enough to knock me out. I blurted out once during sex that I'd "love to see him writhing beneath me" and he took that as a damn challenge. Little did he know that he'd be the one asking for it in the long run. 😈

The first time it happened in my lap though? Ohhhhh boy. It was an experience.

Bakugo's preferred way of getting pegged was always face in the pillow to muffle his moans, which then turned into being on his back so he could kiss me after he wasn't so "embarrassed" about it ((don't even get me started on how hot it is to have him whining like a whore into my mouth ahhhhhhh)). And then one time in the midst of it, switched it up by locking his legs around my waist and rolling me onto my back, losing his mind on top of me. Like...head back, full thrusts, drool and everything.

Needless to say, that's his preferred way now. Sometimes, he'll come home from work, jump straight into the shower and then come into the living room with the strap in his hand, toss it at me and just say "had a shit day, need to sit in your lap, peaches." 😵‍💫

#☆.reis inbox #☆.katsurei #☆.reis selfship lore #katsuki bakugo #thank you for indulging me hehe >:)

[paranoiastudio]

pairing: Art Donaldson х f!reader

warnings: 18+ smut, p in v, cheat?

English is not my first language, sorry about mistakes

- Would you fuck me, Art? - You ask point-blank, causing Art to choke on his drink. - If it weren't for Patrick, would you have fucked me?

This conversation should not have happened. You didn’t want to go to this party, but you forced yourself to come. You didn’t want to discuss your relationship with anyone, but Art knew about your last fight with Patrick and approached you himself.

And now, after three bottles of beer and a sincere conversation, you find yourself asking a similar question and understand that stopping now is not an option.

You looked at Art so intently, so alluringly, that he simply could not lie to you. And he decided not to lie, finally admitting how much he was attracted to his friend’s girl.

- I would fuck you right now if you asked. - Art whispers this on your lips.

The air around you becomes heavier every second, you feel the familiar heat in your lower abdomen and lick your lips, only attracting the attention of the man’s gaze to you.

- Would you fuck me?

- Yes. - You answer, perhaps, too quickly.

- If it weren't for Patrick, that's right?

- No. I... I would fuck you now, right here... If you asked me.

Your words seem to have broken Art Donaldson. He looks at you silently, thinking about what he heard. He should leave right now: you're his friend's girlfriend, you're a little drunk and upset, you can make mistakes.

But you still look at him, just five minutes ago you said that you were tired of Patrick and wanted to change something. Does this mean you're leaving Patrick?

- Ask me, Art... - Everything except you loses the sound. How can he refuse you? Art has wanted you, you was so close and yet so far away.

Art is a strong man, with a well-trained will, but even he is now ready to break. All he wants now is to be close to you and he doesn't care about the consequences.

- Let's go. - You accept his hand without objection and follow the guy, noting how soft his skin is. Patrick's hands were heavy and hard, Art's were not like that. Having pushed away this comparison, you turn to the crowd, no one seems to care that you are going up to the second floor.

- Whose room is this? - You lean your back on the door, Art leans towards you, otherwise your whisper would not be able to be heard.

- Guest room. Did you lock it?

You pull the handle twice, wanting to check for sure. After making sure that you won’t be disturbed, I quickly take off my shoes, embarrassed to wear shoes in someone else’s house, and sit down next to Art.

- Are you sure? - Art wanted to know for sure, he had to make sure that you really wanted this.

- More than. And you?

- And I. Can I kiss you? - You push back a strand of hair from your forehead and nod, submitting to the tennis player’s touch. Art kisses your neck, his open mouth exploring your hot skin and his hand squeezing your bare knee, not going any further.

- Don't be afraid, I don't bite painfully. - You giggle, seeing only tenderness and affection in Art’s eyes, not a hint of mockery or playfulness, as was often the case with Patrick.

- I’ll be ready to endure even if you take a bite out of me. - Art strokes your cheek with his thumb.

You reach for the next kiss and lightly bite the man’s lip, trying to force him to open his mouth. Art's tongue is very warm and tastes like a mixture of cider and something bitter. He glides weightlessly, pulling you into a long and affectionate kiss and you move easily, feeling his tenderness embrace you.

- I’ve always wanted you... - Art rests his forehead on your shoulder and runs his nose along your skin. - Patrick just... Damn.

- Hey... - You lift Art’s face by the chin. - He's not here, you know? Patrick is an asshole and we both know it. Looks like I picked the wrong guy...

You push Art onto the bed and sit on top of him. The mention of your arrogant and stubborn boyfriend (ex-boyfriend) made you angry and added courage.

- We don't talk about Patrick anymore, okay? - Art nods, watching you in fascination. - Fine. Now touch me.

You begin to pull off Art’s shirt, your hips rise and the man immediately puts his hands on your legs, stroking the skin and rising higher and higher.

- I don’t think we’ll need that. - You unbutton the tennis player’s light trousers and pull them down along with your underwear just enough to free half-erect cock.

- I... Please. - Art whines underneath you, which can’t help but make you grin, you haven’t even touched him yet. - Please, I want it so much...

You take the penis in your hand and make a few slow movements. The soft skin pleasantly rubs against your hand, with your other hand you would grab Art’s balls, he almost jumps on the bed and shamelessly moves his hips towards you.

- My poor baby... - You coo over the already hard member and lubricate the droplets from the red tip with excitement. - No one has touched you for a long time, right?

Art looks at you pleadingly, he is ready to ask, beg you, but you yourself are already on the verge and won’t be able to tease him for long. Especially when Art gets his finger under the hem of your underwear...

- Oh shit! - You stop all actions, and, lifting up your dress, you move your underwear and push yourself onto Ard Donaldson’s dick.

- God! - He opens his eyes wide and squeezes your hips so hard that you are sure that the dress was torn.

- You're so big... - You didn't lie, Art's dick isn't as long as Patrick's, but his girth stretches you out much better. - So good, Art.

A man bites his lip when he hears his name from your lips, it is one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. You both breathe heavily, getting used to the feeling of complete intimacy, you suddenly realize that you are not using a condom (if you believe Patrick’s stories, Art has never been with anyone at all).

You wiggle your hips, smiling predatorily at another hoarse moan, you always liked men who were not shy about the fact that they were receiving pleasure, and Art, with his heightened sensitivity, was just like that.

You lower your hot palms onto his chest, play with the short blond hairs and lean on him, starting to lift your hips.

Art huffs and whines beneath you, his strong hands gripping the blanket until his skin turns white. He doesn’t take his eyes off you, trying not to close his eyes from the pleasure that you and your beautiful velvet pussy give him, which hugs him so tightly that you want to howl.

- I feel you so deeply... - You push back the unruly hair from your face and smile, it was always nice to be filled, especially with Art. With him you feel a certain exclusivity; he seemed to be in inhuman bliss.

- Please, I... Damn! - Art sharply raises his hips and you hear a loud slap with which your bodies met.

- Touch me. - Art immediately slides his hand between your bodies and rubs your clitoris with his thumb. You spread your legs wider so he can see exactly how he slides in and out of you. - It’s so nice, Art.

His name sounds like a song from your lips and Art moves his hands to your waist, helping you move faster. He feels his own dick twitching and tries not to cum at the moment when you squeeze him especially tightly.

- I'm going to cum. - Your voice trembles and you moan, throwing your head back. - Do not stop...

Art continues to move inside you, cumming profusely and swallowing all his sounds, wanting to listen to your delicious sighs longer. You feel a mixture of your secretions flowing out of you, you feel how Art becomes softer inside you. You feel like you did everything right.

- I think we need to call Patrick. - You're breaking the "We don't talk about Patrick anymore" rule. - I'll take my things.

- I will help you. - Art gently traces circles on the skin of your thighs, the fact that you were still connected did not bother either of you. - I have plenty of space at home.

#challenges #art donaldson #mike faist #challenges imagine #challengers smut #art donaldson x fem!reader #art donaldson imagine #art donaldson smut #art donaldson x reader #imagine #smut

[gracie-rosee]

Early morning 5AM thoughts and (a LOT of) questions about Azriel’s powers. Longer post, I’m just having fun with theories.

First of all, I was inspired by @violetasteracademic and @nikachansstuff. Not by any particular post, but because they are just so cool and have very smart thoughts that got the gears turning in my head.

So I often wonder about Azriel’s shadows. We learn that his powers started to show when he was locked up by his father as a child. But did they come to him, or are they a real part of him that he was born with?

It’s just something that I’ve never been able to fully wrap my mind around. If he was born with this immense power—enough for seven siphons—why did they suddenly show up after what, 11 years?

The thing is, the power he was born with, the one that requires seven siphons, that’s the Illyrian power he got from his father. Right? That power requires seven siphons. So… his shadows have to be separate, and had to have come to him afterwards. (For now I won’t be talking about the possibility that he inherited shadowsinging powers from some long ago ancestor. This post will not be going in that direction, and instead focuses more on the powers themselves.)

So it begs the question(s) then: if they came to him, are they like, their own entity? Or are they literally just shadows and nothing more? Though the idea that they CAME to him implies that they are more than just shadow. Do they speak to him? If they came to him, could they potentially leave? Does Azriel even control them at all or do they just like… work alongside him? Do they have… thoughts? Do they have a personality? Why did they choose him?

But there’s also the elephant in the room: Elain.

Did she wield his shadows? Did Azriel send them to her? Or did the shadows find her and help her on their own?? SJM told us Elain stepped out of a shadow, when winnowing is described as a literal blink to/from a place. So she 100% came from his shadows. (Side note: this whole stepping out of shadows, and not to mention her being the only one to use TT thing, just solidifies that Elain is, and always will be intertwined with Azriel, regardless of who they end up with.)

So either 1. Elain can wield them, 2. Azriel sent them to teleport her, or 3. His shadows left him and sought Elain out, meaning she would also have to communicate with them so she knows where they’re going.

But ALSO!!!!! OF ALL PEOPLE WHY ELAIN? IF HIS SHADOWS LEFT HIM OR AZ SENT THEM TO FIND SOMEONE TO GO UP TO HYBERN AND KILL HIM? WHY ELAIN?????!!!!!!! WHY NOT AN ACTUAL SOLDIER??!

Okay but I NEEEEED an Elain POV of this more than anything. More than I want the next book. I need to know how it went down, because it would answer a lot of questions I have.

Here’s how I’ve envisioned it happening:

Option 1: Elain anxiously pacing with Truth Teller when suddenly a familiar shadow flies toward her, tells her that her sisters are in danger and whisks her away to help after she doesn’t even hesitate.

Option 2: Elain receiving a vision of Nesta and Cassian dying, then calling out to Azriel’s shadows to take her to them.

Option 3: Azriel seeing Nesta and Cassian dying, so he sends his shadows to fetch Elain so she can help.

I find option 3 VERY hard to believe, because why on earth would Azriel send Elain, with no combat experience whatsoever, to walk right into the middle of a literal killing field. He would never voluntarily put her in that danger. So it had to have been a variation of options 1 or 2. Meaning Elain and the shadows communicated in some way.

His shadows sought her out on their own. To which I ask, WHY?!

Or Elain sought the shadows out herself, to which I ask HOW?!

I’m so mad everyone just glosses over this. Do you know how many fucking times the death of Hybern was brought up? Like every damn chapter. And yet no one talks about Elain and how she suddenly wielded shadows.

Like hello? How did Nesta not even question it at all? I guess maybe she didn’t see how Elain arrived in shadows, but she still didn’t question how she arrived period. Nor did Feyre. Feyre who was narrating. And I’m assuming she showed Rhys as well as everyone else how the Hybern died afterwards. And yet. No. One. Freaking. Cared. HELOOOO??!!! I smell an intentional diversion.

Ugh. So many thoughts. So many questions. I have more questions that I’d like to pose to anyone reading this far about Azriel’s shadows themselves, but this is pretty long already. If anyone wants to know my thoughts on shadowsingers and shadow magic itself, let me know.

#I have so many thoughts all the time #acotar #azriel #azriel shadowsinger #azriel spymaster #elain archeron #kinda an elriel post but not really but also really because canon points at elriel and I’m only talking ab canon here #acotar thoughts #acotar thought exercise

[hopelesslyromanticshark]

Hey covey,

Could you do a one-shot or blurb based of the song Before he cheats by Carrie Underwood with a female reader? Love your writing so much, it's so amazing.

💖-Aurora

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ Maybe Next Time, He'll Think Before He Cheats

𝜗𝜚 content...cheater! leo valdez x reader fic 𝜗𝜚 warnings...mentions of cheating and the repercussions that follow those actions lmao also language as per usual 𝜗𝜚 letter's from the author...hate to do my pookie dirty like this lmao but it was also so so therapeutic to write such a ragey piece of work lmao- I DO NOT CLAIM CHEATER LEO IF A MAN EVER CHEATS ON ME YOU WILL NOT SEE HIS ASS AGAIN LMAO-

────────── ౨ৎ ──────────

all the ladies love leo, right? or, maybe, leo just loves to play all the ladies.

you realize, a bit too late, that leo valdez loved the chase more than he ever loved you. hindsight's a funny thing, huh?

you should have known better from the moment he started getting a little too cozy with calypso but he just treated you so well. you couldn't help but be blinded by the rose colored glasses he slid over your eyes.

though, seeing him at the dionysus party, his arm draped over her and her hips bumping with his own shattered the whole thing for you. that's not how friends interact and they especially don't make-out in the bathroom, thinking they're sneaky when they are so so obvious.

naturally, you were crushed, but you could cry later. right now? right now you were gonna break his heart in the only way you knew how.

if there was one thing leo valdez loved more than chicks, it was cars. he harassed chiron into letting him bring a car from some junkyard for him to work on as some project. months ago, he'd brought you to see the rust bucket, wrapping his arms around your waist and pressing a kiss to your cheek, muttering about fixing it up just to take you on a date in it. you wondered if he told similar things to calypso, nearly certain he did.

rat bastard.

gods, you wanted to see him in ruins. and you just happened to know just the way to his playboy heart. Without so much as a word, you left the party, in fairness a bit tipsy but your anger kept you upright. you left leo to his bathroom escapades, a little smirk at the thought that he was gonna be obvious and unaware until the morning.

you marched your way through those woods, knowing the path like the back of your hand, which just made you sick to your stomach. you'd given so much to this boy. memorizing the way out to his safe space, just for him to throw it all away from some girl!

you weren't a football expert, but i believe this is what we call a fumble, folks.

the son of hephaestus had given you a way into bunker nine, a special little bracelet that granted you enterance. you were certain he had explained how it worked at some point, but it was far to intricate for you. all that mattered was that it worked, which it did, you doing a little cheer as you swung the door open. festus looked up at the intrusion but settled back down when he saw it was you.

"our little secret, okay, bud?" you whispered to the metal dragon, rubbing your hands over the metal ridges that you knew he liked to be petted at. the dragon gave a warm hum, the metal heating until your fingers before it settled back down once more.

you kneeled down, picking up one of the many hammers that littered the floor of bunker nine, testing it's weight in your hands before glancing up at the car. to leo's testament, it was nearly done and damn beauty. the rust had long since been replaced with a shiny new paint, the tires no longer bare and popped, and the engine purred like a big kitten.

and you were gonna leave it so broken even hephaestus himself couldn't fix it - let alone his player of a son.

originally, you were organized, shattering windows with intention and scratching the paintjob with any sharp tools you could wrap your fingers around. but the longer you went on, the more the rage festered and the more chaotic it became.

true to your word, by the time you were done, huffing and even scratched up yourself, the car looked like it got into a fight with an atomic bomb. (which, to be fair, wasn't too far off)

that shiny paintjob? it's shine was hidden behind 'cheater' and 'pendejo' being scratched on top of it. the tires, so full of air, looked like they got into a fight with a shark without how many slashes they had. and you weren't an idiot, you knew the basics of an engine. which means you knew the basics of how to tear it apart, scattering the bolts and headers around like glitter. oh! speaking of glitter, you shoved that shit so far into the air vents and gas tank, it'll take many many many generations for it to finally be gone.

you left that evening, your bracelet set before what was once been a car.

you were satisfied, knowing leo'd have his fun tonight, but his whole world would be shattered by the morning. shattered like your heart! or, and I prefer this one, shattered like the windshield!

as the sun rose the next morning, word quickly spread of leo's car and it's disastrous end. you pretended to be shocked as one of your siblings told you, raving and lying about how disheartened you were for the boy, even if you guys were broken up.

but, over breakfast, you cut your eyes to table nine, catching the glare of a certain boy. you held his eyes for a few moments, before breezing over to the table, leaning towards him as you walked past.

"hope she was worth it. maybe when you fix it up, again, you can take her on a date in it. because it sure as hades won't be me in that damn car, leo valdez."

you pulled away with a sickly sweet smile and a wink before skipping past the ares cabin, making sure to wave at a few of the boys and blow them some kisses. which left leo clenching his fist and turning away from the sight, something he knew to be jealous but refusing to admit to it brewing in his gut.

hey, not only boys can play the game! plus, girls do it better anyways.

#postcards from covey ౨ৎ #all my love ౨ৎ #pjo #hoo #pjo fandom #heroes of olympus x reader #percy jackon and the olympians #leo valdez x reader #leo valdez #leo valdez x you #leo valdez x oc #leo valdez fanfic #x reader #leo valdez x yn #leo valdez fanfics #leo valdez fanfiction #rrverse #pjo hoo toa #riordanverse #heroes of olympus

[cmncisspnandmore]

Not Coming Home

Pairings: Simon Riley X F!Reader, Plationic!141X F!reader

Warnings: hurt, Angst, Character Death.

The hardest thing John Price ever had to do was tell you that Ghosts has been killed in action.

When you pulled open the door, expecting to see Simon standing there with a smile on his face, only to be met by the solemn face of his captain. Your heart sank, your entire body going cold as he stepped into the room.

"I wish I was here with better news..." Price mumbles as he closes the door behind him.

Your entire body feels detached from your mind, like you're not really here. Not hearing the words that are coming from your husbands superior.

"I'm so sorry... Simon is dead.." Price stumbles out, his own words thick with emotion.

It was at that moment that the world seemed to stop spinning. Everything came to a screeching halt as you processed his words. There was screaming, but you didn't know where it was coming from. Who or what could be making that awful sound?

You sink down to the floor, and only as the door flies open, John MacTavish standing there, with his hand on his gun on his waist. You can barely see him through the blur of tears that cloud your vision. The telltale mohawk the only give away. His face is pale as he stares down at you with blue eyes wide with emotion. That's when you realize that the screaming is coming for you.

Hot tears stream down your cheeks as Price and Soap crouch in front of you. Their hands come out to touch you only for you to recoil from their touch. You shrink back against the wall, as if they were trying to hurt you.

Because they were. Not physically, or intentionally. But the comfort they tried to offer you hurt. Knowing that it would never be Simon who held you close when you cried again hurt. Knowing that they also lost a teammate hurt.

You aren't sure exactly how long you screamed for, huddled on the floor. Your knees pulled up to your chest as the two men who served alongside your husband kneeled in front of you. But eventually your voice gave out, leaving you with nothing but broken sobs in its place.

As morning grew into day, your tears eventually stopped. The silence that settled over the room was worse than the screaming. It felt fragile,like one small word and chaos would ensue again.

Johnny couldn't stand to listen to the sound of your sobs and screams. Each one felt like a knife twisting in his already mangled heart. He wanted to hold you, tell you that it would be okay but he couldn't. Because he didn't know if it ever would be. How could he tell you such sweet lies just to placate himself.

In truth you probably wouldn't ever be fully okay again. Even though you spent years preparing yourself for the possibility that SImon might not come home one day, you never thought it would happen. No one wanted that to come to fruition, but it did and now as Johnny and Price stare at the broken mess of a woman at their feet they don't know what to do. There aren't any magic words or miracles that would bring Simon back to you. 

Johnny stands next to you at Simons headstone, you had one placed even though he was cremated. You couldn't bring yourself to damning him to eternity in a pine box, not after everything he went through. You wipe a tear that trails down your cheek as Johnny wraps his arm around your shoulders. 

“He’d be proud of you ,” Soap whispers, his hand tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

“I hope so,” you whisper, wiping your eyes and sniffling. He gently grabs your face in his hands and brushes your stray tears from your cheeks. You give him a small half hearted smile as a small voice calls out to you.

“Mummy! Mummy! I found some pretty purple flowers for Daddies stone!” Your 4 year old daughter calls out as she runs towards you. Her blue dress swishing around her ankles, she stops in front of you and Soap. 

“Oh they’re beautiful, he’ll love them,” you smile crouching down in front of her as she thrusts the flowers into your face. You gently move them from in front of your face as 2 other figures come over the hill. John Price and Kyle Garrck, you give a small wave as they walk up. Your eyes flickering back down to your daughter as she looks at the flowers, gently stroking the petals. “Didn't we talk about running away from Uncle John and Uncle Kyle?”

“Yes mummy, I'm sorry,” she sighs, and looks behind you at the gravestone. “Can I give the flowers to Daddy now?” She looks up at you. 

“Of course Baby,” You smile softly as she grabs Soaps hand and drags him over to the stone.

“C’mon Uncle Soap, lift me up so i can put them on the tippy top! That way Daddy can see them all the way from heaven!”

#call of duty #call of duty modern warfare 2 #simon x reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley #simon riley x reader #cod #cod x reader #x reader #simon #angst #hurt #soap mw2 #john soap mactavish #soapghost #soap cod #task force 141 #141 x reader #cod 141 #tf 141

[thisapplepielife]

Written for a @astrangersummer.

You Hear That?

Week #4 Prompt: Camping | Word Count: 3850 | Rating: T | POV: Robin | Pairings: Platonic Stobin, Pre-Steddie | Characters: Robin, Steve, Eddie, Corroded Coffin, The Party, Nancy & Jonathan | CW: Language, Recreational Drug Use, Underage Drinking | Tags: S3, Reluctant Camping, Unexpected Crossing of Paths, Platonic Stobin, Corroded Coffin Boys, Pre-Steddie, Flirting

This is set during the S3 finale. Happening between Starcourt and the "three months later" time jump.

"Camping. Capital camp. Lowercase…ing," Steve says, trailing off at the end, his forehead wrinkling up in confusion as he clearly tries to think through the dumb thing he just said.

"Well, that kinda fell apart on you, didn't it, dingus?" Robin asks, arching her eyebrow in his direction.

"Shut up. You know what I mean. Camping! Fun!" Steve shouts, far too close to her face.

"Back off, Boogaloo. And I beg to differ. Camping is not fun. Camping is torture, and I'm not signing up to be tortured with you again. One and done, at least per summer, that's my official policy."

Steve gives her the eyes, but they aren't gonna work. She's immune to his wiles. The Harrington Charm doesn't do anything to her loins, unfortunately for him.

"No," she says, and that's that. End of discussion.

Three hours later, here she stands, right in the middle of Hunting & Camping, a store in town she never thought she'd ever have to step foot into.

"Steve, you know what lives in those woods. Do you have a death wish?"

"C'mon! There's been nothing, nada, since Starcourt. It's done. Over with. Gone. We can live our lives, go camping, anything we choose."

"Great. But we do not choose camping," Robin insists, "We aren't camping people, are we? There's no haircare in the woods, Steve. Think about that. Long and hard."

"Fine. You stay here. I'll go camping alone," Steve says, crossing his arms across his chest.

"You're not going camping alone!" she screeches, because he'll be killed for sure.

"You're right, I'm not. The kids are demanding to come along. So, it's me and Jonathan."

"Well, that sounds fun for the both of you. Who will come home with a black eye? History says-"

Steve interrupts, "Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So, you have to go. You and Nance. So the girls can come along. Joyce will allow El to go, but only if you ladies go, too."

"Chief Hopper will roll over in his grave if El goes camping with Mike Wheeler present. You and I both know that."

"Well, good thing he'll never know, I guess," Steve says, defiant. "C'mon, Buckley. Are you with me or not?" 

She's always with him, now. That's just how it's gonna be, maybe forever. Or at least until they get eaten in the woods they have no damn business traipsing into.

"Fine, I'm with you. But mark me down as a hostage." 

"Great, love to hear it," Steve says, a big smile on his face, and she reluctantly smiles back. It's contagious, even if she knows this is a terrible idea for many, many reasons.

The trek out to Skull Rock is pretty shitty, but she keeps up. Walking alongside the not so prissy Nancy Wheeler, Erica, El and Max. She should have worn better shoes. Steve should have told her to wear better shoes. Nancy is in hiking boots and Robin is not at all surprised that she's prepared for life in ways Robin will probably never be. 

Up ahead, the boys are arguing, causing a ruckus, and Steve is clearly regretting this decision. Good. He should. This was a terrible idea of, like, epic proportions. Maybe worse than working in a mall with a Russian secret lair underneath it.

"How did you even get to come?" Robin asks Erica. Because she didn't expect her to be standing there on the curb with Lucas, her My Little Pony sleeping bag under her arm.

"Tina is covering for me, duh, so I can hang out with you nerds. Don't know why I even want to though," she says, snippy, and Robin grins. She's funny.

"Maybe we should have invited Tina," Robin says.

"And risk her seeing I even know you nerds? Absolutely not," Erica says, like she's totally disgusted, and Robin laughs. 

"Okay, hot shot," she answers, watching as Nancy stops behind Steve and the boys, as they scout out a spot that might work.

"Here?" Jonathan asks, and Steve nods, agreeing.

Steve is finishing putting up the tents, all of them, because nobody is helping him, not even Nancy. He kind of had this coming, it was all his terrible idea.

"You hear that?" Steve asks, head turned towards the sky, like he's a damn dog. 

"Hear what?" Robin asks. She doesn't hear anything. "Is it a monster? A bear? It better not be a bear, I swear-"

"It's not a bear. It's a guitar," Steve says, driving the last of the tent poles into the ground.

"A guitar? In the woods?" Who the hell would be playing a guitar in the woods. Probably some sort of demented fairy, destined to murder them all, given the opportunity. 

"I hear what I hear, Buckley. I'm gonna investigate," Steve says.

"Well, it was good knowing you, Harrington," Robin answers, because everybody knows you don't go blundering into the woods, especially if it sounds like you're being lured there, for fuck's sake.

Steve would definitely be the first to die in a horror movie.

Except, she knows that's not true. He's more capable than she ever could have expected, especially for being such a big dingus.

Steve just waves her off, and starts stomping off into the underbrush. Heading towards the sound she definitely doesn't hear.

But after a little hesitation, she follows. He can't go alone. She knows what could happen if he does.

"I knew you'd come," he crows, pleased with himself.

"Shut up, dingus," she mutters, and the further they walk, the more she thinks Steve was right. There is the faint sound of a guitar.

And laughing. 

Steve pushes apart the branches of a bush, just enough for them to see through it, together. Spying. 

It feels familiar.

And there's the culprit, Eddie Munson from band, sitting around a fire with some other boys, playing his guitar. Jeff Williams, Jackie's older brother, is one of them, she's pretty sure. 

They have a case of beer, and she's pretty certain that's the faint stench of weed hanging in the air.

"It's just Eddie Munson," Steve whispers, like she isn't aware of that. 

"Yeah, I have eyes, I can see that it's Eddie and his cronies."

Steve lets the branches go, and she is sure they're gonna turn around and leave, but they aren't that lucky. Honestly, they'd have no luck at all if they didn't have bad luck.

"Hey! Who the fuck is there?" Eddie yells, the guitar playing ceasing.

Steve rolls his eyes, pushing forward, out into the open, "It's just me, Munson, cool your jets."

"What the fuck are you doing out here, Harrington?" Eddie asks, then clearly catches a glimpse of Robin, "Oh. I see."

"Ew, no, you see nothing," Robin says, feeling the urge to clear up that misunderstanding right away. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize band geek Robin Buckley was too good for King Steve Harrington."

"Way too good," she snarks, and Eddie laughs, really laughs, and Steve doesn't, but she can tell he's amused and not mad.

"If you're not out here to fuck, then what brings you two into our neck of the woods?" Eddie asks, slouching over towards them.

"Your neck of the woods? I'm the one that popularized this spot, I'll have you know," Steve snaps, bitchy, arms crossed.

Robin smiles.

"Is that so?" Eddie asks, tilting his head, offering Steve a big, predatory smile.

"Definitely sure that's so," Steve answers, not backing down.

"That's not how I've heard it," one of the other guys shouts from near the fire they've lit, and Robin isn't sure who he is. 

"And you are? The forest authority?" Robin asks, challenging him.

"Yep. That's me," he snaps back, but doesn't offer up his name.

"That's just Gareth," Eddie says, "don't mind him."

Oh, no way. Gareth Jones? The goofy kid she had to deal with at her job at The Hawk last summer that drove her insane? His mother dropped him off nearly every afternoon, money in hand, and he always made a fucking mess with his popcorn and Reese's Pieces. He might be the number one reason she took the job at Scoops this summer, instead of going back to theater. Looking at him now, he's sure changed. Growth spurts are a bitch, she supposes. 

"Nice hair," she snarks at him, looking at his poodle-looking head. He's clearly trying to grow it out, probably to be more like Eddie, but it just isn't there yet, and his curls definitely aren't making things easy on him.

"What are you doing out here, anyway? Dirty freak orgy?" Steve asks, and Robin doesn't know how she got so lucky to have such a bitchy boy as a best friend, but she loves her good fortune. 

Eddie laughs, and she sees Steve smile at him.

"Why? You wanna join?" Eddie asks, leering, taking a lazy, sauntering step closer to Steve, assuming he'll back down. Eddie's hands are framing his belt buckle, drawing the eye, even her eye, and it's so gross but she's also very intrigued to see how this pans out. 

Eddie's not gonna scare Steve with the fear of the queer, and she was right, Steve doesn't back down, like she knew he wouldn't.

"Maybe I do," Steve says, rubbing his lips together, tongue wetting them in a gross taunting way, and Robin wants to spray him with a garden hose, but doesn't have that option, so instead she just watches as Eddie's eyes flick down to Steve's slick, glossy lips. 

Gross. Fuck her whole life. She takes back all the stuff about loving her good fortune. This is bad fortune. Like, empty fortune cookie levels of bad luck. Russians under the ice cream shop you work in, rotten luck. Honestly.

But Steve wins this round, because Eddie is the one that retreats, but he's laughing as he does it, waving his hand for them to follow. They're not gonna do that, right?

Wrong. Steve follows, so she trails behind.

"Gareth, you've met," Eddie says, "Jeff. Goodie. We didn't know we were encroaching on King Steve's territory, but we're just hanging out, camping, if that's alright with you two."

"I guess," Steve says, teasing, fucking flirting if she's not mistaken. Can't he ever turn it off? Ugh. "We're camping down there. With the kids I babysit. I heard your guitar, wanted to make sure you weren't straight out of Deliverance, or, like, ax murderers."

"Well, I am that, or haven't you heard?" Eddie asks, dimple showing up in the firelight. And Robin doesn't know how she's here right now. She should have stayed with Nancy and Jonathan and just let Steve be eaten by bears or monsters. Or Eddie Munson. Whatever.

"Heard what?" Steve asks.

"Hellfire Club!" Eddie shouts, waving his arms in an animated way, and Robin doesn't know what that is, and clearly Steve doesn't either.

"Sorry, man. Is that your band?" Steve asks, looking as confused as she feels.

"No, that's Corroded Coffin!" Gareth snaps, popping off, all pissy from the log he's sitting on.

"Sorry, my bad," Steve says.

"We play at The Hideout on Tuesdays," Gareth says, eyes narrowed.

"You play in a bar. You?" Robin asks, not believing a word of this. Not possible.

Gareth starts to answer, but Eddie holds up his hand and cuts him off.

"I'm channeling Satan. And I'm offended you don't know that, Harrington," Eddie says, and Steve's face is pure confusion, and Eddie laughs, taking pity on him, "It's the D&D club I run," Eddie adds, and Robin sees the light bulb pop on over Steve's head, like he's in a goddamn cartoon.

"Oh! The kids play that," Steve says.

"Do they now?" Eddie asks, not believing him, clearly.

"Unfortunately."

"And how old are these kids?" Eddie asks.

"Freshman, in the fall-" Steve says.

"Fresh blood," one of the guys says, cackling under his breath, as Steve keeps talking.

"-but I think Will is moving," Steve finishes.

"Will Byers, the zombie boy?" Eddie asks.

"Ssshh!" Steve hisses, "Don't call him that, okay?"

Eddie holds up his hands, backing off.

"Okay, okay, Harrington, don't get so worked up. I was just kidding," Eddie says, and the other boys all laugh.

"Well, it's not funny," Steve says, softly, "just. Don't. Okay?"

"Okay," Eddie concedes. 

"Thank you, he's been through a lot," Steve says, looking back over his shoulder, like the kids might all be snooping right behind them. Which, fair enough. They would totally do that, given half a chance.

"Well, since you're here, you want a beer or…?"

And Steve's nodding, like an idiot. 

Robin snags his arm, "Nancy will kill you." 

And Eddie takes a step back, hands going up, "Well, we wouldn't want the girlfriend mad." 

"She's not my girlfriend," Steve says, looking at Robin, "and Nancy can handle the kids for a bit, yeah? She's got Jonathan."

Robin is sure this is a bad idea. Nancy will be pissed about being left, and probably be pissed at Steve for having a beer or a toke, or whatever he has planned, while he's supposed to be in charge of the kids. 

"You're camping with your ex-girlfriend, her new boyfriend and...Robin from band? Oh, how the mighty have fallen." 

Steve doesn't take the bait, just pushes forward and sits down on the fallen log, right next to Gareth, who squawks in protest. 

Eddie follows, and hands Steve a beer, and then offers one to Robin. She shakes her head no, one of them needs to keep their sanity, she thinks, and then she watches as Eddie lights up a joint. Great. 

They pass it around, and she's not sure what they're doing here. These guys don't like them, and they definitely don't like these guys. 

Every time Eddie came into Scoops, as soon as he was gone, Steve would say something about Eddie "The Freak" Munson. And now he's just hanging out with him, like that's a normal thing to do? 

It's not a normal thing to do. Not at all.

"So, you're babysitting tonight?" Eddie asks.

"Unfortunately," Steve answers.

"Shame, I'd like to get The King all fucked up," Eddie says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands cupping his face.

"Don't call me that. High school is over. Steve is fine," Steve says, and the other boys all laugh, and Eddie throws up another hand and they all stop.

Toadies. The toadiest of the toadies.

"Steve," Eddie says, and it's positively lewd. 

"Thank you," Steve says, taking a long drag, holding it in his lungs, showing off, slowly killing himself in the process, she's sure of it. Idiot.

Robin shakes her head.

Then she feels something brushing her shin, and jumps, expecting a snake, or something worse, but it's just the boy she doesn't know, toeing at her with his shoe, offering her a can of Coke, cold and dripping with ice water from the cooler at his side.

She takes it, "Thanks. I'm Robin."

"Goodie," he says, like he isn't at all interested.

"Goodie?" she asks, and makes eye contact with Jeff Williams.

"It's a nickname," Jeff explains, like she might have thought otherwise? 

But she just nods.

"I'm in your class," Goodie says dryly, and are they? She swore they were a year younger.

"Sorry, we must not have classes together very often, if ever," she says.

"Of course we don't, you were always in all those smart classes," Goodie snaps, and she laughs. Mrs. Click's history class with Steve Harrington was not the smart class, even if she was a year ahead of where she was supposed to be. 

"Eddie, though…"

"Hey!" Eddie snaps, having heard it, somehow, despite talking to Steve at the same time. 

Robin knows Eddie is headed into his third senior year, this time with her class. The rumor mill had been running wild at the end of last year, and it seems to be true, she guesses.

"Well, third time's the charm?" she asks, because what the fuck do you say to that? Sorry you flunked high school, again.

"Here's to hoping," Eddie answers, then turns his attention back to Steve.

Nancy really is gonna kill them if they don't head back, and soon. 

"Steve, Nancy…"

"I know," Steve answers, "let me finish this beer and we're gone."

She nods, because unless she wants to stomp back through the woods all by herself, she doesn't have much choice in the matter. 

Gareth hands her a stick with a marshmallow stuck in the end, and she takes it. She could have a s'more if she has to wait. It's the least they could do, she supposes, and she pokes it into the fire, starting to toast it up.

"Have you ever had one with a Reese's cup?" Gareth asks, holding up the package, an offer.

She hasn't, but now she wants to, for sure, and takes it from his hand, nodding in thanks. 

"You used to work at the theater, right?" he asks.

"Unfortunately," she says.

"I went there a lot," he says.

"Oh, I'm well aware," Robin says, snarky.

And Goodie and Jeff both laugh, and it really wasn't that funny, she doesn't think.

"Haha, she knew you had a crush on her!" Goodie says, poking at Gareth with his roasting stick, as Gareth tries to bat it away.

"How embarrassing for you," Jeff adds, smirking, catching Robin's eye.

He did what now?

"I did not!" Gareth screeches in a way that says he probably, definitely did. 

"I'm sure he didn't," she says, though, cutting him some slack, "If he did, he surely wouldn't have made such a gross mess for me to clean up everyday he was in there, right?"

"See? I was gross," Gareth clings to the accusation, like that's an improvement. Whatever helps him sleep at night.

"Okay, Pig-Pen," Jeff says, and Gareth is flushed. Probably from the embarrassment, but if he's not stupid, he'll play it off as the heat rolling off the sure to be illegal campfire.

Goodie laughs at the taunting, and she is so distracted that she almost burns her marshmallow, but she pulls it out and blows the flame out, just leaving a nice char. Sweet. Just how she likes them.

She puts the peanut butter cup on the graham cracker, and places the warm marshmallow on top, covers it with the other cookie, and is just squeezing it all together into a gooey mess when Steve leans over her shoulder and plucks it right out of her hand, taking a bite.

"Bad dingus, no!" she snaps, but just starts the process to toast another marshmallow. It'll be much easier to do that than fight for her original one from Steve's mouth. And she knows where that mouth has been, so no thank you.

"Thanks, Rob," Steve says, and she grumbles in response, but Gareth, Jeff and Goodie all laugh. Eddie is too busy plucking away at his guitar again, and he really doesn't sound half-bad.

She makes her second s'more, they say their thank yous and goodbyes, and start walking back towards their own campsite.

"So, what was that?" she asks, looking over at Steve, but it's really too dark now to see any of his features.

"What was what?" he asks, and it sounds like he honestly doesn't know.

"Whatever that was with Eddie?"

"What was? He's Eddie "The Freak" Munson, it was nothing," he says, and it doesn't sound like he's lying. Is he unaware he was flirting? Is that even possible?

She weighs her options. She's really gonna need more data. Maybe they'll cross paths again with Eddie Munson, and she'll be able to suss it out better.

"Nothing, I guess," she answers, and he just nods like he's not the least bit curious about what she meant.

Nancy and Jonathan are waiting at the edge of the campsite, and Nancy has a flashlight in hand. When she sees them approaching, she shines it right into their eyes.

"Jeez, Nance, put that thing down," Steve says, shielding his eyes from the onslaught of light, as Robin does the same over her own eyes.

"Where the hell have you two been?" Nancy asks, hands on her hips and she looks just like Steve, like that. It makes Robin smile.

"Bears. Checking for bears," Steve says.

"Well, either those bears threw shit at you in self-defense, or you have chocolate smeared all over your faces," Nancy declares, oh so dryly.

They both reach up to wipe at their faces, licking their lips.

"That's what I thought," Nancy accuses.

"Steve heard a guitar, it was Eddie Munson and his friends. They had s'mores," Robin caves, admitting to everything. Well, almost everything. 

"You ate s'mores? From Eddie Munson?" Jonathan asks, then mumbles under his breath, "Wonder what those were laced with?"

Robin stills, she doesn't want to be drugged again, no way, but then laughs. She'd opened the candy herself, and unless Eddie had the forethought to lace the marshmallows or graham crackers, it seems unlikely.

And she's pretty sure Eddie's reputation is more bark than bite, anyway.

The kids must hear them talking, because they cause a commotion coming over, Dustin getting right into Steve's face.

"Back off, Henderson," Steve says, holding him by both shoulders, pushing him away.

"I smell beer! Steve's been drinking beer while in charge of us!" Dustin screams, and the other kids just look at him like he's lost his mind.

"So?" Lucas asks.

"Can I have one?" Mike tries, and Nancy and Steve both snap no at the same time, and he turns sullen.

"I had one beer, to be nice. To be friendly. Just to make sure we won't be, you know, messed with, or any of that dumb shit," Steve argues, hands waving.

"Sure, sounds likely," Dustin says, like the sarcastic little shit that he is. 

"Well, that's what happened," Steve says, not rising to Dustin's bait, at least not yet.

"And just who did you have this beer with?" Dustin demands to know, hands on his hips. Have they all picked up this gesture from Steve? It's looking likely, at this point, and Robin worries for herself that she might be doing it without realizing. The horror.

"Eddie Munson," Steve says.

"Eddie Munson!" Dustin screeches, "He runs the Hellfire Club at the high school!"

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard," Steve says, resting his hand on the top of Dustin's head, ruffling his hair through his hat, "I put in a good word for you guys."

"No way, did you really?" Dustin asks, looking up at Steve, awed.

"I did, I told him to look for you in the fall. Now leave me be, you little dickhead, and don't make me take it back," Steve answers, and Dustin rushes back towards the other boys, suddenly excited about the prospect of maybe having an in to get into Hellfire Club.

Whatever floats his boat, she supposes.

Robin looks at the tents, and the small, very contained fire Nancy and Jonathan built while they were gone. 

Looking at it now, camping might actually be fun. 

At least for one night, anyway.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @astrangersummer and follow along with the fun! 🏕️

#a stranger summer #week four #prompt: camping #stranger things #robin buckley #platonic stobin #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve and robin #gareth stranger things #corroded coffin boys #corroded coffin fic #steddie #steddie fic #thisapplepielife: short fic #thisapplepielife: a stranger summer

[kurosstuff]

What aboutttt protective!bunny!lute x soft!bunny!female!reader ✨

Like ppl look down on the relationship cuz why would 2 "weak" bunny's be together. Lute's angry that she's prey because she has so many traits of a predator, like strength, protectiveness, and aggressiveness. So she is always trying to prove to the reader that she is enough to protect them, so reader doesn't leave her for a predator and so she always feels safe.

OMG Y3QH-

God lute would be pissed just throwing a tantrum. Her a bunny? He'll no-

Warning(s): fighting, Lute being lute, idk it's fluff, slight angst?

Bunny!lute x Bunny!F!reader: perfect mates

Sighing, you looked out the window, yet another courter outside your cabin confessing to you- like it is everyday. A predator courting a prey.

"My darling bunny~ I swear if you pick me I will protect you with my whole life~"

The wolf declared. On their knees, arms stretched out, fully expecting you to jump into them in awe touched.

"Not happening," staring deadpan uninterested as you gave the answer to the wolf as always. "I'm happily mated to Lute." Your ear twitched in hopes she's near- your beloved mate should be near soon. Should-

A laugh cut you off. The wolf covered their mouth once they heard who tou were mated to. Sighing you heard the same phrases you always heard 'another bunny? How could you be protected?' Whats so odd about having a mate of the same kind as you?

Never heard complaints with two predators but. Two preys? Mated? Oh that's wrong apparently.

"Now what the fuck. Are you doing?' A new voice called from behind you the familiar thumping from her foot. Signaling to you- Lute is pissed "flirt with my mate? Insult her? Insult me? Do you KNOW who the fuck I am?" Walking to the window her spear in hand

You sighed, knowing the exact outcome that's about to happen. Like all other times. With a blink, Lute jumped from the window, cursing up a storm challenging the wolf to a battle - who foolishly accepted. Turning, you went inside, not wanting to see yet another blood bath. Of your mate wining as always.

It didn't take long for Lute to come back inside. Her bloodied weapon thrown to the side as she rushed to you- "I'm fine, my mate," you whispered, watching her snarling ears twitching in irritating. If you didn't know she was a bunny- you'd assume she was a predator herself.

Like your first meeting. Her in her armor you assumed she was a wolf from how she behaved as ironic as you rethink now. "Your my mate. Who gives a damn what we are? She scuffed pacing around the room cleaning up the blood on her. Knowing how ir bugs you- after all you did just repaint the walls and redecorate after.. another fighting incident

"Your MY mate. I can keep you safe. Happy. No one else can! No one can keep up with my fucking speed!" She yelled out barking in rage

"Lute"

"LIKE. YEAH IM A PREY TO BUT-"

"Lute," you spoke, interrupting her rant, knowing if you didn't know she wouldn't have stopped. She'd continue the rest of the day. Getting more mad. More temper tantrums as all the other times before instead of getting angrier. She sighed sitting on the couch covering her face with her hands her ears drooping. "..my mate.. please.. what's going on?" You whispered softly following her close but keeping their distance

"I'm your mate.. bur. I'm a poor excuse of one. No one takes us seriously! If I wasn't a fucking bunny of all things. Maybe, " she sighed, trailing off for a moment to recollect her thoughts "maybe if I was another prey they would like.. I don't fucking know like a fucking deer. Those are acceptable." She snarled out sighing looking up at you sadly "I want to be the best mate for you. Who you'd want-"

"But you are," you cut off, cradling her face smiling "your everything I ever wanted in a mate.. and more. Your caring. Protective. Kind. Considerate all the things that make up a wonderful mate. That's you" you spoke softly

Holding her close as you could kissing her softly- you hummed smiling hearing the familiar thump. Not the same as the ones when she's mad. The thumps when she's happy - when she gets so unbelievably overwhelmed with herself, she thumps to show her gratitude. "I love you. I will only ever choose you. No other prey or predator will ever catch my eye. They can try, and they will. But you have my eyes. My heart. Everything.' You spoke softly, seeing her smile softly. "There's my girl ~"

With a deep, she sighed, grumbled, laying against your chest "..same here" she huffed out hiding in your neck her tail wagging happily smiling you held her- knowing that's the closest to her speaking of her feelings to much outwardly. Spoken allowed. Much less let you hear her.

The predators can try to court either of you. But you both knew they'd fail. Especially if they could see how you both stared at one another. How only you and her excited at a time the second you locked eyes. She hummed closing her eyes smiling. She truly loved you- and she's glad to hesr you state the same.

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel #hazbin lute #lute x reader #hazbin hotel lute #MONSTER AU #hazbin hotel x you

[not-goldy]

I've done a lot of thinking. Kind of long thoughts. Sorry.

When we got news BTS was joining MS. I threw up at the thought of Jimin going & panicking on behalf of Jikook. I remember saying I don't think Jikook can go 2 years without each other are they gonna make it, more importantly is Jungkook gonna be okay? Spoiler alert. The answer is NO & we saw that with his breakdown when Jimin was in reach, but busy during Chapter 2. Had that man in a downward spiral knowing he was still seeing Jimin & could pop over, but not as much as he's use too & was not coping well and told us & showed us he wanted his Jimin. Then it was Jimin's turn to pout when Jk was busy. Made me sad but then we saw them making the best of 2023 spending alone vacations together & couple days, even days before enlisting. And I was like pheew, at least they're spending time together so maybe when separation comes, they'll be okay. Spoiler alert. Jikook said NO we won't be okay & pulled the biggest FU you aren't separating us move, that's ever been pulled. I be damn if they weren't behind the scenes making arrangements to not only be together, but share a bed, a unit, living area & in a buddy program that has it where they even take their vacation days together & see each other every day til discharge. Blew my damn mind, but at the same time not shocked cause of course Jikook would pull off something like that. Everyone should've seen it coming to be honest. JUST WOW. The real definition of "Screaming, I testify that we'll survive the test of time. They can't deny our love. They can't divide us, we'll survive the test of time. I promise I'll be right here."

That said. This woman pulling this with Jimin or that woman with Jk. Doesn't matter. I know regardless of what happens behind closed doors, my duo are the closest no matter what anyone says. Its a real genuine bond no one can break, not even random women or men for that matter. They're the two who are spending time in their rooms when they could be with others, spending their vacations off camera alone cooking at their house or coming back home together from LA when others went off on their vacations & them spending couple days together over everyone else. Enlisting together & making life decisions together. Dropping honorifics to show their closeness & even their parents show constant support toward the other. Who make time for each other on their birthdays & really commit to it year after year. Say what you want but I'm at peace knowing how much Jikook truly love each other. Its not fake or baiting. They're genuinely close & comfortable with each other, esp enough to cross friendship boundaries. Whatever that means for them. Take that how you want. I haven't been stanning two people who are exaggerating & making their bond seem closer then what it is for the sake of the group or to entertain fans, when in reality they're off building a relationship & life with their real partner over each other & don't even spend significant holidays or birthdays or couple days together. NO. Instead, I'm stanning Jikook who always put each other first (over their own partners if they have them) for when it really matters, including on couple days & does it year after year & are consistent. Jikook have proven for years they're the closest & the military enlistment solidified that cause you only join with a buddy program with friends you are the closet too or with your actual partner. Take your pick, cause we know both can apply here and Jikook did that. And no one can take that away from them. And guess what they're still together today through all the bullshit and hate. And that matters to me & I support whatever they have. They have nothing else they need to prove to me. I get others need more validation, but I'm content & at peace & just happy knowing while all this melodramatic bullshit is going down, that Jikook have each other and Jimin is not dealing with this alone. They have each other to rely on through good and bad in there. So I sleep well at night knowing that. They'll never make me hate you or turn my back on your Jikook. Thanks for listening.

Been awhile I read something interesting in my Ask box so thanks for your thoughts.

The Jimin going away had us all too so I understand what you mean. We try not to victimize him and treat him like a fragile being but sometimes instincts override our every senses.

I wanna dwell on that a little bit to say things are going much better than I thought.

The anxiety and panic attacks thinking he can't take that isolation for long but bro went in there and dominated 💀

It's a fuck you to every single person who thought him a feeble weak submissive gay man. Don't you just love it when it's the stigmatized gay ones who end up setting the standard of the ever cherished male masculinty and who end up dominating the upper echelons of their prized male sports???

Who's your daddy

Better say his name bitch

I feel yuh on the other stuff too

We riding till the wheels fall off

Old Town road style 😎