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#deleted my progress for some of this because it didn’t save when I went to go find the images 😭😭😭😭
downbadmostofthetime · 2 months
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Please go in depth on how you think wanderer isn't much of a red flag as he is now! I agree with you for sure, but I love hearing people's takes on him! Personally, I think scaramouche would definitely be a huge red flag, but I think as he is now, he'd definitely be really loving and caring towards his s/o
OF COURSE I CAN DO THAT!!!!
Scaramouche himself is definitely a very big red flag. From his ties with the fatui, murderous/abusive (to his subordinates) behaviour and as well as his rude manner of speech. He definitely isn’t the most pleasant person you’d want to date.
but Wanderer on the other hand is completely different. And because of this he is a much bigger green flag than Scaramouche and im genuinely so sick of people grouping them in together when he even said himself in game that he doesn’t want to be anymore.
So im gonna go over his green flags (more under the cut!)
1. Animals like him – He likes animals.
Wanderer is actually portrayed with animals in a lot of his official art (or aranaras), specifically birds and cats
His 2023 and 2024 birthday arts are literally just him chilling with animals. In 2023 he’s chilling with a bird and in 2024 he’s with a bunch of cats.
It’s not like he hates it either. sure it may seem like he does sometimes but he really doesn’t
-In his character demo he may have swatted the bird away when it came back at the end, but at the beginning he was completely fine with having it on him as he was walking. He probably only swatted it away because it was flying in his face when he was already annoyed with having to fight those fatui.
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These two images are just him chilling with birds. The second one he even lets on his hand and HES SMILING he literally loves animals like they’re bffs in that picture ITS SO CUTE 😭😭
You can’t even argue that he’s only soft towards animals when he’s alone because of the scenario in his 2024 birthday art where the traveler meets him in the tree when he’s cuddling with the cats. It’s not like he’s even embarrassed or annoyed about them being there he’s just chilling with them!!!!! Sure he did tell the tabby cat off for playing with his vision BUT HE CALLED THEM FLUFFBALLS BEFOREHAND!!!! THATS A WORD THAT WOULDVE NEVER COME OUT OF SCARAMOUCHE’S MOUTH EVER!!!!! AND HE EVEN PROMISED TO PLAY WITH THE CATS LATER!!!!!! The white and grey cat also just lounging on his leg knocked out completely defenceless is also a sign. cats are usually very alert when they try and sleep unless they’re CERTAIN that they’re safe. and look me in my eyes and try to tell me that that cat isn’t feeling 100% safe sleeping on his leg.
This isn’t even his only appearance with cats minus him being portrayed as a cat. he has a chibi birthday art from 2023 that’s just him and a cat hanging out with a birthday present
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The second piece of dialogue might make him look mad but the art literally proves it otherwise he’s just confused LMAO there is not a single angry wrinkle on his face nope NOTHING!!!!
2. His development with the Traveler
Wanderer’s attitude stayed around the same since he regained him memories, but it isn’t as bad as when he was Scaramouche. It’s very evident from how he talks to the Traveler before going to Irminsul and while they’re there for some time and then how he talks after regaining his memories. It’s much softer and he isn’t biting as much. Hell, he even asks the Traveler to give him a new name when he could’ve asked Nahida to or waited awhile before asking.
In his voicelines he’s still the same. Though the birthday one is something I’d like to focus on the most.
“Give me your hand. Heh, there's no need to be nervous. I'm just taking you to a vantage point.”
“How is it? The scenery here should be quite breathtaking. There's no need to thank me — I see little point in it.”
Wanderer went out of his way to do that for the Traveler on their birthday. He could’ve just barked that he doesn’t need to do anything for their birthday or that he doesn’t care or that they’re still enemies so he doesn’t need to celebrate it but he still does something nice for the Traveler regardless!!!Him initiating physical contact just to take them to a vantage point and reassuring the Traveler because they’re nervous is something he CHOOSES to do.
Now, I’ve always thought that he was flying the Traveler to the vantage point, but now that im rereading the line it literally doesn’t even mention him flying so LMAO
BUT ITS STILL SWEET IN BOTH WAYS
-He’s going out of his way to FLY the Traveler to the vantage point. And if he’d have to fly them there then obviously there’d be more physical contact than hand holding. That means he’s completely fine with having the Traveler in his personal space like that, so obviously he trusts them a lot more now to a certain degree!!!
-If he’s not flying to the vantage point, he’s still initiating physical contact with the Traveler even though he doesn’t have to.
LIKE OMG?????
In his birthday art scenarios, he’s completely fine with the Traveler hanging out with him. HE EVEN ASKS THEM TO STAY WITH HIM FOR A WHILE IN THE 2023 ONE IF THEY DONT MIND!!!!!
I feel like the 2023 one does a good job with explaining him and the Travelers enemies to friends (to lovers— GUNSHOTS) pipeline. He calls them meeting on his birthday a coincidence and gets ready to leave, but he’s completely fine with the Traveler not wanting to leave!!!! And when he asks them to stick around with him that’s clearly showing what he wanted the WHOLE GODDAMN TIME!!!!!!!
The 2024 chibi art scenario one is just them enjoying each other’s company. His regular birthday art for this year is kind of the same too. It shows how now neither of them dislike the other’s company, they’re fine with each other and they dont complain about it, no nothing!!!!!!
His Teapot lines are (OBVIOUSLY) the best examples of how he is when he fully trusts someone though.
Here’s a list of the things he does that are a complete 180 to how many people expected him to be:
-He apologises more often
-Criticises himself for criticising the empty spots in your teapot
-Perfectly fine with chatting whenever
-Despite saying to the Traveler that they should start the conversation because he has nothing fun or positive to share, he still dominates the conversation by talking about his tea preferences and how he came to like drinking tea in the first place
-Perfectly fine with sharing a meal with the Traveler that they prepared just for him
His goodnight line is really sweet too. Thanking the Traveler for looking out for him and telling them to go get rest. Like that’s so sweet 😭😭😭😭
I really do hope that he gets more plot relevancy in an event or in another archon quest because I really want to see more of his relationship with the Traveler now. They’re just so UGHHHHHH 😭😭😭😭😭😭
3. His behaviour towards other people
It’s not even just the Traveler that he’s nice to. He’s nice to other characters too!!!!
In A Parade of Providence he’s shown being nice to Layla and Tighnari
-He helps Layla by offering her advice when he overhears about her anxiety to participate in the swiftflies
-Gives the Traveler a water-skin to give to Tighnari because he fainted in the desert. Despite providing snarky comments about how fragile humans are to extreme environments he still goes out of his way to help Tighnari when he could’ve ignored what was going on to win.
I really hope we get some more interactions with Wanderer and the Sumeru cast because wtf!!!!! Why not!!!!!
In his 2024 birthday letter he mentions that his classmates surprised him for his birthday with a cake. And instead of being mostly annoyed about how they disturbed his peace and quiet, he’s more concerned about why they would even want to celebrate his birthday in the first place which is actually sad 💔
Wanderer doesn’t even seem to hate participating in events and things with other people either. In his 2023 birthday letter he mentions that he was dragged into a cooking interest group by a couple of students, and despite the fact that he could’ve just left or told them he didn’t want to participate or scared them off, he still participated in cooking with them.
As well as learning from an old merchant how to sew and stitch to recreate the tiny doll the boy from his past had made him. It specifically mentions that he went to visit Treasures Street to learn how to make toys, so this wasn’t just some run in he had, he CHOSE to learn how to make a doll so he could recreate that one. He even takes it with him while he travels and it notes how it feels like a travel companion to him 😭😭 AND THE ENDING PART OF THE TINY DOLL STORY
“"From today, you shall wander together with me."”
“He said softly, placing it in his pocket.”
LIKE THATS SO SWEET 😭😭😭😭
SO!!!! How would all of this impact him having a romantic relationship??
If you manage to become friends with him, it’s definitely going to take awhile to break down his walls. But in that time he’s definitely going to be snarky, but not outright rude to you. He’ll probably just get more annoyed if anything about being bothered a bit more frequent than he’d like, though he’d probably never say that towards you.
As you break down those walls though, he’s definitely going to soften overtime and he won’t mind your company. At some point he’ll probably be actively seeking it out.
And when you get together with him. He’s definitely gonna be loving and caring towards you!!!! Honestly I think his love languages are Physical Touch and Quality Time so he’s definitely going to seek those out from you, preferably mushing the two together.
Overall, in the beginning he’s probably going to be more tsundere-ish (ew… im never using that term again after this…) towards you but eventually with enough dedication from you he’ll break down his walls and let you in and show you his softer side.
And that’s why I think that Wanderer is more of a green flag than a red flag
Thank you for coming to my ted talk it’s 2am and I have therapy in the morning so uh whoops!!!!
If anyone wants to add anything please feel free too!!! It’s always nice hearing what other people have to say (as long as ur not rude about it)
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dilemmaontwolegs · 1 year
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Running from the Flames {2}
Pairing: Pierre Gasly x OFC Summary: Brianna Vowles grew up on the paddock. It was what filled every weekend. There were endless trips around the globe with her father and Uncle Otmar in Formula One, until she went to college. Suddenly her life revolved around studying and boys, one of whom wasn't as nice as he had appeared. Five long years later, with a hiatus in between, she graduated with her engineering degree and had decided to use her VIP pass to see if life in the fast lane had changed. Warnings: 18+ only, domestic violence survivor, lots of drama and fluff, this is a work of fiction and the events are not based on reality. Chapter: One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six || Seven || Eight || Nine || under construction
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The moment Adelaide was asleep I opened my laptop and fired an email through to my psychologist. Considering how much she had earned from my family over the years, I wasn’t surprised to see a link for a zoom call come through within ten minutes. Ever since I escaped Erik’s clutches Dr Shirley Pascoe had been there to help me take back my control and unravel the tangled thoughts in my head so I could be the mother that Adelaide deserved. She was an innocent child and I would not hold her accountable for her father’s actions, even when it was hard. 
The zoom call connected and Dr Pascoe’s face appeared with the monotone grey walls of her office filling the background. I knew Addie wouldn’t be asleep for too long and didn’t want to waste the time we had on pleasantries so cut right to the chase. 
“I met someone today,” I started vaguely, feeling as if I were confessing to a priest and not my therapist. “He was nice and friendly but I completely froze up when he touched my knee.”
Shirley waited for me to continue or maybe the internet froze for a moment but finally she spoke with that irksome serene tone she had perfected. “And how were you feeling before he touched you? Was it a welcomed touch?”
“I…was comfortable.”
“That’s good, what about when he touched your knee?”
“It made me feel something I didn’t expect, something I haven’t felt since Erik - that’s when I kind of freaked out.”
Shirley wrote on her notepad like she did when I saw her in person, her grey bob cut swaying with the cursive writing. “Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know,” I huffed and picked at my freshing painted nails before sighing as she waited for the truth. “I felt like I could trust him, talk to him, you know? But I thought I could trust Erik too. What if I’m making another mistake or just have terrible instincts with men?”
“Your instincts saved your life,” she reminded me as she closed the notebook. “Unfortunately in life we all make mistakes, some not as insignificant as others, but we still learn from them. We have spent almost three years building tools to cope with the trauma you survived but a fundamental step is to trust in yourself and the work you have put in to get you to this point. Ask yourself this, would your day have been better or worse if you didn’t interact with this man?”
I frowned at the question thinking it was so obvious that of course it was better having talked to Pierre. He had made me smile, and Addie too. I even liked the warmth of his hand before my flight mode was triggered.
Then I realised that if I applied that question to other men I had spoken to in the last two years that answer did not have the same result. The surprise must have shown on my face because Shirley chuckled. “This progress is good, Brianna. I would like to schedule you in for an appointment when you come home and I would like an update on what you did with this realisation.”
I was still a little stunned but managed to agree to a time and date that I would be back in London and closed the laptop lid. A vibration in my pocket had me pulling out my phone and I opened it to find an unsaved number had texted me. My immediate reaction was to delete the message thinking it was spam but when I saw it had my name I opened it.
From Unknown: Hey Brianna, it’s Pierre. I just wanted to thank you for the Bonjela, you were right, it does work miracles.
To Pierre: Glad it helped. I can’t have the star of my favourite team worrying about anything except the car during the big race.
From Pierre: I’m also sorry if I made you uncomfortable earlier, it was not my intention. You think I’m the star? 
To Pierre: I’ve seen your stats, Gasly. Otmar may not play favourites with his drivers but the stats don’t lie. 
To Pierre: And I should be the one apologising. You didn’t make me uncomfortable, I'm just skittish. It wasn’t your fault. 
From Pierre: My offer still stands if you want to talk.
I stared at the message and chewed on my bottom lip. My stomach was in knots and felt giddy from just a few texts, my thumbs shook as they hovered over the buttons waiting for the response to be typed. This was the step Dr Pascoe was talking about, trust in myself and my instinct. Instinct told me Pierre was a genuinely nice person and Uncle Otmar only signed respectable, loyal people to his team knowing having a good heart was worth more than just talent alone. 
Pierre had a good heart.
To Pierre: I’d like that.
The phone rang and I rushed to answer it before the ringtone woke Addie. “That was quick,” I said quietly, covering the microphone so my voice didn’t carry into the bedroom. “I didn’t realise you were so interested in hearing my drama.”
His soft laugh in my ear was relaxing and if I closed my eyes it felt like he was right beside me on the couch. “I didn’t want to give you time to change your mind. Have you?”
“Not yet,” I half joked.
“If you do, we can talk about the weather instead.”
“That would be a very boring conversation.”
“I don’t mind, I just like hearing your voice.”
In my head I could see the smile that he was talking through and my own curled up in response. “You are a charming man, Pierre Gasly.”
“Does that mean you’ll say yes if I ask to drive you to dinner tonight?” 
“Come and ask me yourself,” I dared, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. “Room 626, the Hermitage.”
“Already on my way.” 
I heard the phone shifting and what sounded like keys rattling before an engine roared to life and the hand holding my phone began to tremble in anticipation. “Dinner’s not for another two hours.”
“Then there is plenty of time to talk and get to know each other.”
“You might not want to take me to dinner by then, I mean, drive us to dinner, the team dinner.” I wanted to slap myself as I bumbled almost incoherently but Pierre just laughed.
“Sounds like another dare to me, and I love a challenge.”
It was my turn to laugh and the tension began to ease. “I have my own challenge now because I thought I had hours to get ready.”
I knew it wasn’t far from the paddock to the hotel but I was still surprised when only minutes later there was a knock on my door and I struggled to zip the back of my cocktail dress all the way to the top. Holding it tight over my breasts, I hid behind the door as I cracked it open and spun around the second Pierre was inside. “Can you please do me up?”
He brushed my long dark hair over my shoulder and goosebumps rose where his fingers touched my skin as he closed the zip. 
“Thank you,” I said as I turned to face him. “I was too rushed to think about that when I grabbed it from the closet.”
“You look beautiful.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the tube of Bonjela but I closed his fingers back around it, still recovering from his compliment.
“Keep it, I have more in Addie’s bag.” He immediately started looking for her and appeared a little disappointed that she wasn’t around until I told him she was still napping. “Help yourself if you want a drink,” I offered as we passed the fully stocked wet bar, grabbing a bottle of water for myself before taking a seat on the outdoor couch that overlooked the race track in the road below. 
He took a seat beside me with a water of his own and his eyes followed the curve of the track as if he could see himself taking each of the turns. 
“This was the room dad always rented when I was a kid,” I broke the comfortable silence. “We would sit out here after practice sessions and he would tell me about each turn, how sharp the angle was, and how best to take them. I guess I’ll have to make a tradition of it when Addie gets older.”
“Tell me about that one,” he said as he leaned in and pointed towards the closest turn to the hotel, turn three.
“Massenet is best to be left-of-centre. It gives the best rotation going into it but most drivers take a bit of extra road preferring to see around the corner but if you trust the mass delay you can shave some time off and take it blindly.” The words were ingrained in my memory and it was surprisingly easy to recite the details you had heard dozens of times over the years. 
“Wow, I am impressed,” Pierre admitted wholeheartedly as he placed his hand over his chest. “You could be an engineer with information like that. Karel better watch out.”
“I am an engineer, just not that type. I just graduated last month as a mechanical engineer.”
Pierre grinned and nudged his shoulder into mine. “You are amazing. Doing that and raising a child, it’s unbelievable.”
I looked down at my water bottle, nervously picking at the label as my cheeks heated. “I finished two years behind my class.” 
“So? It’s just like out there.” He nodded his head to the paddock and the stands. “When something happens to the car you can either choose to retire it or try for plan b and push hard to finish the race. No one wants a DNF.”
A swell of emotion choked me as he pinned me with those gorgeous green eyes and the intensity of them showed me how much he believed his words. “Thank you,” I managed to say through the lump in my throat and I reached for his hand to give it a small squeeze when words failed me. 
I had done it. I had chosen to initiate the touch, something I hadn’t been able to do in years. It had been something reserved for the people I considered family and trusted with my life. But with Pierre there had been an indescribable connection the moment he had looked at me and I wasn’t going to deny myself the opportunity to explore where it could go.
I hadn’t realised how much I had missed it until he turned his hand over and my fingers drifted between his. “Is this alright?” he asked as his thumb drew small circles over my skin.
The spike of adrenaline began to fade and I nodded as it passed along with the fleeting feeling to take flight. I even went so far as to tuck my legs up under me and lean into his side, craving the warmth that came with being closer to him.
My head came to rest on his shoulder and we started out across the city that was the heart of Formula One. “This wasn’t what I had planned this weekend.”
Pierre agreed with a quiet reply, “I was supposed to be concentrating on the race.”
“You should still be concentrating on the race,” I pointed out, tilting my head back so I could check he was listening. 
“I was until you walked into the garage and took my breath away.” 
He ran his tongue across his lips as he stared at mine and I was equally torn between wishing he would kiss me and hoping he wouldn’t so I could have a moment to think clearly. He was consuming my thoughts too fast for me to even process them but he seemed to see that and broke away from the intense moment we shared. 
My hand tightened in his and he glanced down at our entwined fingers as I decided to share a little more, hoping he would understand my reluctance. “Addie’s father wasn’t a nice man.” 
I took a few deep breaths as I prepared myself to share details for the first time since the news had broken to the world what I had been subjected to. My eyes were fixed on the track and I didn’t dare look away from the familiar turns and straights as I recalled it all with a sense of detachment that kept me from reliving it. 
If my father wasn’t so high up in the FIA I would have just been another domestic violence survivor, but because of his position my situation had become a news bulletin. I became a recluse for months in the wake of the story, hiding from the world until they forgot about me. Just when I thought I was healing from the fractured bones and broken heart I found out I was pregnant. 
“I have spent the last two years completely focused on Addie and finishing my degree so I can finally leave London and move on with my life.” I had forgotten our hands were still joined until he lifted them to his lips and placed a soft kiss on the top of mine. “I don’t know what this is or where it’s going but I want to get to know you, Pierre.”
“Me too,” he said with a reassuring smile. “We can take it slow, I’m a patient man.”
Click here for chapter three.
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theholypeanut · 9 months
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Being Ego Jinpachi’s smart daughter with zero athletic skills
Disclaimer: This is a headcanon for my bestie who is a huge Ego Stan and we joked once how “damn if Ego get a kid who is awful in sports it will be a disaster” and here I am, making it reality - this is part 1
Warning: Ego is not the best dad, Kunigami and Isagi have one braincell, for now no romo, just funny vibes, platonic
Afab!reader
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○ Since the day you were born, the bar was set HIGH
○ Unfortunately the older u get the more obvious it is that your eye-legs coordination is just not existing
○ Ego is very disappointed and makes you train either way, thinking that with hard work you can still represent the level he wishes
○ Noel Noa is your godfather, but he just told Ego that maybe u will find different hobby
○ Excuse me like what?
○ However, thankfully you are very smart and developed amazing computer skills at young age
○ To bond with your dad more, you helped him with the programming of Blue Lockmans and worked hard to make the Blue Lock project work from technical point of view
○ It actually took a lot of pressure off your shoulders that your dad is so happy with progress this teenage boys are making
○ U guys have great time and you actually spend lots of time in the Blue Lock cockpit…
○ Because Damn, watching the boys is better than any telenovela on tv
○ Angst, betrayal, friendships - it has it all and you got invested af, eating popcorn while watching another episode of Team Z dramatic encounters
○ As you are similar age you also divided them into smash or pass categories in your free time
○ Until one day, because of your dad’s awful diet Anri encouraged you to go pick up some food from the Blue Lock cantine to get some actual proteins “but don’t let anyone see you”
○ Excitement went through the roof, as you cannot really leave the cockpit area
○ U wore your Blue Lock sweatshirt and sweatpants and went on your secret James Bond adventure to pick up some steak
○ Everything was doing great, because it was close to the bath/bed time, but then you accidentally met Isagi and Kunigami in the cantine and u panicked
○ However what saved u was lack of brain cells of your favourite telenovela characters
○ “Damn there are so many pretty boys in here, I didn’t think there would be another person looking like Chigiri”
○ U feel like an isekaied character just put inside your favourite novel, and decided to play your cards right
○ “ughmmm thanks bro” you lowered your voice to not get busted on the spot
○ You are absolutely clueless how anyone would take you for an athletic boy when you barely have any muscles but ok
○ U decided to eat some steak with them and try to avoid any personal questions, just asking them about their experiences so far (even when you know everything since u pretty much watch them on security cameras all the time)
○ To fish for some compliments u say stuff like “don’t u guys think the system here is amazing?? Oh my god this place is so great” but unfortunately they are just football freaks and don’t appreciate true art
○ To be fair you preferred to meet Bachira bc u liked him the most, you are a total fangirl over this bee boy, but u take what you can
○ It was getting late and you were scared that Anri would notice you on the cameras, so you decided you’d go back
○ “Oh you haven’t say from which team you are??” Isagi apparently was looking for more boys into his harem
○ “Em… Team B” you lied. “Say hi to Bachira from me” and u just waved to them and walked away.
○ After sprinting back to cockpit, apparently no one noticed how long you’ve been gone, so you deleted all of the camera footage from the encounter
○ Now just wait till they notice in second selection that there is actually, no Team B.
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By slowlyholypeanut - please don’t steal, respect, don’t change
Pretty sparkles by @benkeibear thank u so much for your amazing work ✨
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couldbebetterforsure · 10 months
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Still slowly (VERY slowly 😭) making progress on replaying Fire Emblem Engage so I can get back to the point I was at before my save got deleted and continue my liveblog. As I’m doing that I decided it had been too long since I enjoyed an otome game so I have also been playing Jack Jeanne!
It’s funny when I first heard the news of Jack Jeanne being localized it actually didn’t catch my attention. But like a week ago I saw a random post about it praising it and then I looked it up and saw it was getting a TON of praise. I also looked up some non-spoilery art and info and thought the style looked gorgeous and liked the bits of story and gameplay I found. So I said fuck it and bought it like four days ago.
And WOW I am happy I did!!!!!
First off, the art in this game is BEAUTIFUL! Sui Ishida, the writer and artist for Tokyo Ghoul, is responsible not only for the gorgeous art and character designs but also did a bunch of other stuff for this game (even writing the lyrics for the songs which is incredible). Seriously the amount of time I spend just staring at CGs is nuts, they’re all so incredible whether they’re comedic or dramatic. The character designs are all so wonderful too and so expressive!
The music is so incredible too! The background tracks are great and fitting for the situations. So far I only just finished the Newcomers’ Performance so the only vocal songs I’ve heard so far are the main theme Jack & Jeanne of Quartz, and the two songs for The Sleepless King: Fortune Color is Crystal and Beyond the Plane Tree. Bruh….I never skip the main theme that’s how good it is. And it’s sung in character by the heroine and the six LIs. I went and bought the mp3 for it I’ve been obsessing over it that much. Fortune Color is Crystal was not what I expected considering the nature of the play it’s in but it’s so catchy! And holy fucking shit Beyond the Plane Tree is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard, the harmonies in it are so 😭😭😭😭 I’m playing this game blind (with a spoiler free guide) so I haven’t listened ahead to the other songs but I was so impressed by these three that not only did I buy the mp3 for the main theme I ordered the vocal collection since the other songs aren’t available for mp3 download.
The story is definitely interesting me so far. Like I said I’ve only just finished the Newcomers Performance so I’m not that far in the story but it managed to hook me in entirely despite the seemingly simple sounding premise of “heroine disguised herself as a boy to attend all boys academy”. I’m actually surprised by how many times so far I actually forgot our heroine is supposed to be in disguise 😂😂😂 Not because the game doesn’t use the premise properly but more because there’s so much shit going on!!! And it slowly introduces new characters and plot points so that I’m always eager to see what happens next. Especially in terms of the plays (oh yeah this takes place in a theater school sorry I forgot to bring that up)! With this first play I was excited to see who was cast in what roles, the plot of it, watching the rehearsals, and seeing it all come together in the end in spectacular fashion! I like the stat raising element, nothing complex or luck based about it so it’s not aggravating. I’m totally in love with the rhythm game aspect, though it means whenever we get to the actual plays I’m more focused on getting a top score than watching the video of the performance. But that’s what the gallery is for right? The interesting thing about this game from what I hear is that, unlike typical otome games, Jack Jeanne is like 80% common route. Like while you make choices that earn affection and can pick who you hang out with, the LI specific routes don’t come in until WAAAAAY later. I thought I would mind since I generally prefer more romance in my otome (sounds silly but people who play otome games probably understand what I mean) but so far I don’t care because the story is just that enjoyable (and it’s not like there’s no moments at all).
And then there’s the characters. I like when MCs are voiced and I’m especially glad Kisa is voiced since this is a story about theater. I really like her so far she’s sweet and a hard worker, I can’t wait to see how she grows as both an actor and a person! I love her standing up to Otori and doubling down on seeking assistance and working together during practice. And I love how sweet and bell-like her voice is! Suzu (to the surprise of no one because I’m Miss Predictable) is my fave. Sweetheart, earnest, energetic, puppy in human form? Yeah that’s a LI tailor made for Willow! I love how much he has already grown as an actor from how robotic he sounded when he first practiced his lines to his PHENOMENAL performance for his first time on stage in The Sleepless King (which by the way how did my boy Suzu not win any award for that performance?!?!?! This game is rigged😡). And bruh I nearly fucked up both rhythm game segments for the Newcomers Performance because of how blindsided I was by how beautiful his singing voice is (don’t know why I was so shocked I know his VA is incredible). Sou is so soft and sweet so far and I can already see some hints for where his story might go (possibly about him not standing out as much?). I like that he’s in the know about Kisa and I do love me some childhood friend romances! Mitsuki makes me laugh with his tsundereness but I love how compared to typical tsundere characters he’s more softspoken and doesn’t go heavy handed on it. Negi is so funny so far I really enjoy whenever he’s onscreen talking a mile a minute or causing his own little brand of chaos. Kai seems super kind and I love that he seems like an animal expert, I wanna know more about him. And Fumi is just super cool to me, his design to his voice to his personality. I really love this Quartz squad, they’re so lovable and have such enjoyable dynamics with each other! Regarding side characters I’m only just beginning to know some, and I know there are a ton I have yet to meet, but I really like the ones I’ve met so far. They’re either kind, funny, a mix of both, or have yet to really display any trait that makes me feel one way or another. The only side character I have strong feelings towards as of where I am now in the game is Otori. And even then I find him enjoyably annoying. He’s talented and knows it, but he’s also an annoying dick and I enjoy proving him wrong. Also he’s hilarious without ever meaning to be, which keeps me from being too annoyed at him.
Anyways yeah that’s my ramble about Jack Jeanne so far! There’s probably a ton I missed or forgot but I just wanted to gush for a moment about this great game! I’m having so much fun so far and can’t wait to see what the rest of the game is gonna bring. I’m at the very start of June so it’s the Summer Performance next!
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gothprentiss · 1 year
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7, 12, 16
7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?
lol so funny story about this— when i went back and like, did some reorganizing in my fic “pensato,” which has probably got ~12 parts divided across 5 chapters? or something? i deleted the quotes that i stuck at the beginning of each chapter: while they fit the chapter “vibe,” the chapters were largely arbitrary, and divided more along lines of length than theme, so it occurred to me that they were there purely as a gesture of self-indulgence, and might serve to restructure the reading experience in ways i didn’t want. (this is a moot point because most of this fic can be described in precisely those terms but wcyd!) the reason i bring this up is that my fic is way sparser on song lyrics than i recalled. but anyway factoring in what i recall of that plus what still stands, it’s siouxsie and the banshees— the goth prentiss agenda lives on. you get it in the title of “like blood in the body, like wind in the water” (song: sea of light), there’s some siouxsie playing in the background in one of the chapters of pensato (i think happy house, on the road trip), there’s a reference to a siouxsie album in “the hour of lead” (hyaena, maybe?), and i deleted from a chapter heading of pensato some lines from running town: “if you gaze into her face / she’ll glare back and drown / all refugees in the sea / of running town.”
12. How many WIPs do you have in your docs for next year?
two? maybe? or like— i have 2 wips i intend to finish in the next 2 weeks, and then one draft i hope will happen next year, if ever, and then a couple of fics i mean to finish (final chapter of pensato, that wh13 thing i started) but uhhhh might not— i tend to loose the wind from my sails very quickly with projects, and i try not to save works in progress for later: what happens is what always happens, which is that i 1) forget what i was going for and 2) grow enough as a writer that i find the whole draft i’ve thus produced embarrassing and not worth sharing, and then end up not finishing. ha ha (distant groaning). i have stuff i want to write! it’s just not in the docs yet. only in the noggin
16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?
well looking now it’s, strictly, “angst,” though variations on “[characteristic] emily” are equally common. my favorite of those is “little bit of emotionally intelligent fuckboy emily going on here.” i guess the lesson is that i use the additional tags function on ao3 like tumblr tags even though that categorically is not how they’re supposed to work…… (also, whenever i post the fic you’ve heard about in advance, it’ll be about even “angst” and “lesbian emily prentiss” lol)
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8bitsupervillain · 1 year
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End of the Year 2022! Honorable video game mentions
Here is the honorable mentions for the video games of 2022. I’m separating them somewhat in the list, but you’ll find both the pre-2022 and the 2022 lists here. They’re all generally fine games, just I quit playing them for various reasons.
Pre-2022
HM: Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance
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A fun little Action RPG, but also ball grindingly hard. Perhaps it's because I went with the Wizard character but this is astonishingly difficult. I'll probably go back and finish it.
HM: Divinity: Dragon Commander
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I like this game even though I'm not particularly great at strategy games. I enjoy the story quite a bit, but I'm undecided if I'll go back to it.
HM: Undernauts
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A good dungeon RPG but I sort of just fell off of it. I played it for twelve hours or so, but I just kind of moved on to other games. I love the art style.
HM: Shining Song Starnova
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I got a few hours into the game when my computer decided I didn't make any progress into the story and deleted my save. Idol Manager made me think about giving this game a go.
HM: Daggerfall: Unity
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I am trying desperately to figure out why people like the Elder Scrolls games so much. This one is pretty good, but I didn't play it for any great length of time.
HM: Elder Scrolls Battlespire
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I decided I wanted to try an Elder Scrolls that is a more straight forward game compared to the more open world options. I didn't get far in it, but I do intend on giving it a more fair shake.
HM: Titan Quest
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I wanted to play an Action RPG, and I was drawn to the more Greek inspired look than the typical dark fantasy games in the genre. Really I just want to play the expansion set in China.  
HM: Torment: Tides of Numenera
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I watched the opening movie and I thought it was pretty cool. Sadly I didn't play beyond the opening because I decided to play Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny instead.
HM: Open X-COM
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I finally decided to take a real shot at trying to play "classic" X-COM, every other time I just sort of bounced off it. This time however I seemed to actually get a nice handle on how the game actually plays, so who knows maybe in the future I'll actually go through the entirety of original X-COM.
2022 Propa
HM: Evil West
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Started this one just a smidge too late for it to be eligible for proper best of the year consideration. A fun hack and slash to be sure, kind of a cowboy pastiche of a Devil May Cry. It's a hoot.
HM: Steelrising
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A soulsborne-esque yarn where you play as the robot bodyguard of Marie Antoinette during the robo-French Revolution. Sadly I didn't get particularly far before my attentions were drawn elsewhere.
HM: Conan Chop Chop
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Decent little roguelite game.
HM: Card Shark
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An interesting game with a unique selling point, being a game set in France's past and with the main gimmick being you're not trying to win the card games legitimately but by cheating better than your opponents. I should finish it some day.
HM: Pentiment
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I love a good murder mystery. Sadly I had to let this one slide unplayed.
HM: Lunacid
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You're spoiled for choice these days with Dark Souls derivatives, so it's nice to see someone go back and make a King's Field-like.
HM: River City Saga: Three Kingdoms
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I enjoy beat-em ups and I thought a Kunio game set in the historical period of the Three Kingdoms sounds like a fun idea. I'm not sure I've played it enough to really pass judgment on it.
HM: Moonscars
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One of approximately a hundred Soulsy Metroidvania dark fantasy games that came out this year. I liked what I played though.
HM: Tarnishing of Juxtia
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See above, also it reminds me a lot of Blasphemous more than any other game.
HM: Souldiers
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Unfortunately all these Metroidvania games came out too close in my mind so I kind of had to let some of them fall to the wayside.
HM: Weird West
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Yeehaw.
HM: Salt and Sacrifice
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I don't care for the character art, but the gameplay is generally solid. I don't know if I'd recommend it over any other of these Metroidvania types, but I thought it was pretty good from what I've played.
HM: Soulash
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A fun pixel-graphics roguelike that I wish I spent more time with.
HM: The Last Hero of Nostalgaia
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Allegedly a satire of Dark Souls and all those types, but I found it to just be a generally fun game to play. Maybe it really goes down hill, but from the demo I played it seemed pretty decent.
HM: Undecember
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It's like if Diablo Immortal was a slightly better roguelite phone game. That sounds mean, but I actually quite like this.
HM: Thymesia
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Bloodborne inspired game this time. Unfortunately I didn't play much of it because of all the other games vying for my attention.
HM: SD Gundam Battle Alliance
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2022 was just positively cram packed with games that were generally pretty good and did what they set out to do quite well. This is a decent little Action RPG, and one day I hope to finish it.
HM: Valkyrie Elysium
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One of the dozen or so games Square Enix released with practically no advertisement. I like what I’ve played so far, it just fell onto the back burner and out of my priorities list.
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pepsicup · 3 years
Text
Problems Of A Spaceman
Chris Beck x Stripper!Reader  6.4k words
Summary: Chris attempts to gain some confidence back after his fiancée leaves him, though, the journey is different than he thought it would be... (smut, mentions of cheating, self-deprecation, exotic dancing, space kink because duh, dope fucking music choice if I do say so myself)
Author note: yes I did write this four years ago, this is an updated version since I recently found it after deleting my other blog, enjoy.
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2037
It shouldn’t even be a thing. Chris didn’t get nervous, this was something new for him. After thirteen years of education, five standard spacewalks and a back-to-back trip to the newly colonized neighbouring red planet, nothing should phase him anymore – but that was space. There were things significantly more nerve-wracking than his current situation; perhaps he was better at being an astronaut than fulfilling his social and romantic life.
While taking all the prerequisites required for NASA and in medical school, he didn’t have time for fraternizing with anyone, most people in the medical field experience that. It was a miracle that he could even keep the attention of his ex-fiancée during the mission to Mars since he didn’t exactly know how to flirt. No matter how intelligent he was, all of that did nothing to help him in his personal life and everything that came with it.
Furthermore, the sexual aspect was a problem for him, too.
He’s never had an opportunity to explore himself with another person, of course, he’s had plenty of sex but, it was nothing more than the standard modus operandi. Beth was hard to navigate, she was disengaged and blatantly selfish, eventually blaming him for her unfaithful tendencies and lack of interest when he was the only one making an effort. It ended as it began, a complete circumstantial shitshow and because of that, he is on a mission to gain self-confidence back.
Since she kicked him out, he’s been sleeping in the spare room of his good friends’ house for the last couple of months while his new apartment is being renovated. Mark Watney was a single man who knew what that position felt like, and who also knew the beginnings of a solution. The ability to pay women for their undivided attention did wonders for a man’s ego, especially at an exclusive gentlemen’s club rather than a regular strip joint. It is more of a candid transaction that was valued at both ends.
And it is very exclusive. It required a reservation to save a slot since it was so well-known and a general, but hefty, fee at the door as insurance.
He made it sound like the easiest thing in the world, but on the other hand, Chris was so fucking anxious to go that he could vividly feel his blood pumping in overdrive. He’s never, ever attended a place like that before. But as he looked up at the classy, luminescent sign of the building that lit up the dark parking lot, he started to wonder what exactly he’s getting himself into. Just as long as he isn’t awkward, maybe everything will be okay.
Don’t be weird, don’t fuck it up. Simple.
He repeated those words in his head as he was looked over by the heavy before being let in and did everything the lady at the front desk told him to. After that, it was time to be escorted through the big fancy door.
The initial shock passed through him quickly, the smell of perfume, cigars and liquor weren’t as bad as he thought it was going to be. But once he rounded the corner into the main lounge the nerves were back. The wild colours in the dusky lighting gave the atmosphere an alluring feel as he bared witness to scarcely clothed women dancing on stage, at tables with other men and walking around the floor.
He adjusted his ball cap to sit lower on his face and scanned the room for a free seat, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed and needing to sit down before he either collapsed or backed out entirely. Chris Beck was not good at this.
Could he perform surgery after surgery for 16 hours straight? Yes.
Can he proudly say that he is an award-winning astronaut that helped shape the future of space science? Fuck yeah, he can.
Can he say that he can bed anyone he wants and walk around like he owns the place? No, no he cannot.
The spaceman sat in a vacant booth near the left side of the stage, tucked away in a dark corner to observe as he planned. Yeah, he was good at observing. Watney reassured him before he left, stating that he did specialize in human anatomy and he should do what he does best...observe, evaluate and execute, which helped a bit. A doctor’s point of view was his only saving grace right now, he’d stick to that comfortable method for as long as he can.
Observe.
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He found himself zoning in on different interactions that played out as time ticked by. Many lovely women took their turn on stage, very healthy and some men had been taken behind curtains and even thrown out for inappropriate behaviour. He made of a note of that in the back of his mind if there ever came a time. No touching.
He didn’t know how much time had passed since he arrived. There were a few nice girls who came over to talk to him, but he declined any offers they threw his way respectfully and chose to remain where he was instead. Although, just when he thought about turning in for the night, the lights suddenly dimmed until it was almost pitch-black. So dark that he couldn’t even see his hand.
The emcee bordered more background music that rattled his chest through the speakers above the circle booth, it increased slowly and he assumed it was building up to another track. The crowd of regulars and new attendees alike cheered loudly at the change of pace, Chris perked up and clapped along with them even though he had no clue as to what.
      “Ladies, gentlemen and every-damn-one in between, we have a special treat for you tonight.” the man announced heartily.
      He continued as the music came to a peak, then dissipated as he spoke the moniker of the next dancer, “Your house favourite has decided to give you a dance that I think is out of this world...please welcome to the stage, Ares”
The patrons went wild as Chris, on the other hand, went rigid – almost choking on his drink.
As the projected images of deep space filled the room in a flash, a dancer was now on stage walking around in something simple, yet sexy. No one could get enough of her or the choreography, staying for her performances that always seemed to have a different aesthetical essence every time she made an appearance.
The modest man couldn’t stop looking at her, she was the main focus of the room – but for him, the significance was completely different from the others. What were the chances that one of his biggest passions in life could be used as an exotic dance theme, materialized right in front of his eyes?
But when the music started...that’s when things even more interesting.
The song wasn’t one he anticipated, he assumed it would be the same club music that made his eardrums shudder, but this slow beat only made his senses buzz, and not just from the vibrations. He enjoyed the older music his commander played after years of listening to it. So, when he detected the beginning of this underrated 1972 classic by Harry Nilsson, this stripper had his full attention.
Bang, bang, shoot em’ up, destiny Bang, bang, shoot em’ up to the moon Bang, bang, shoot em’ up one, two, three (One, two, three, four)
The woman circled the pole as the song started to wind up, making little gestures to the regulars and letting the music guide her. She hit every deep strum of the guitar by waving her hips from side to side delicately, still holding on to the shiny metal planted at her side.
As the artist started to sing the corresponding words, she spun around the pole. The lights caught the small crystals on her one-piece and somehow, scattered like the night sky on her bare skin. Her hips moved sinfully as her body followed the fluid movements like Saturn’s rings, circulating with the natural orbit of the planet. Or pole in this case.
I wanted to be a spaceman That’s what I wanted to be But now that I am a spaceman Nobody cares about me
Next, with every distinct beat, she put her back to the pole, slid down and arose in one fell swoop. She twirled once, flipping her hair behind her head and rolling her lower body ‘round and around and around and around as the words called out above the hollering. The attention was now drawn to her lower body.
Highlighting her assets as dancers called it.
Hey Mother Earth, won’t ‘cha bring me back down Safely to the sea But ‘round and around and around and around Is all she ever say to me
She melted down on all fours to crawl across the platform, doing the next progressions effortlessly. She laid on her back, arching her body like a tidal wave entranced by the moon, rolling onto her stomach, and using her knees to sweep her torso across the floor until she was up in a kneeling position again.
The way she created a giant slip from her ass to her shoulders gave the perfect view of her behind to the men and women on the left side of the stage, money cascading across her body. It was quick yet elegant.
I wanted to make a good run I wanted to go to the moon I knew that it had to be fun I told ‘em to send me real soon I wanted to be a spaceman That’s what I wanted to be But now that I am a spaceman Nobody cares about me
She repeated similar moves to the first chorus but on her knees this time, feeling up her own body, wiggling her assets playfully at whoever she wanted – connecting with the audience. Chris was captivated by the way she carried her body like that, the slightly distorted music gave a sexy edge to her routine that caused his cock to throb in his jeans. 
In his big doctor brain, he was trying to figure out how someone could be so graceful. Even if he felt ashamed of viewing her so strenuously, he justified it by observing her anatomy like the surgeon he was.
She didn’t wear high heels, opting to be barefoot, and the only extravagant makeup she wore was something that made her body sparkle. Her simple lingerie wasn’t something that stole the show, she just came as herself. The differences help him tell a lot about who she was, the little details sending signals to his genius mind.
Hey Mother Earth, won’t 'cha bring me back down Safely to the sea Around and around and around and around Is just a lot of lunacy (yeah, yeah)
The break in the lyrics gave a sense of anticipation, the echo prepared everyone for the next verse as the song swerved in and out of a muffled tone. Then, she was watching him.
Chris abruptly looked away as the mood changed, his breath hitching as he erratically glanced around before settling on her again. She appeared to be showing off for him now with a smile on her lips. He swallowed thickly as his mouth began to water and dry out at the same time, exchanging aggressive eye contact with the woman that had his undivided attention.
The music got lost in the background noise as they disappeared into their own world, his heart pulsed in his ear and his breath shallowed as everything around them was lost. It was like the earth had stopped spinning, the gravity giving out so the spaceman could feel weightless. There were faint pictures of the cosmos floating across his flushed skin, revealing his lip clamped between his impressively white teeth.
'Round and around and around and around and around (So bring me back down) 'Round and around and around and around and around Safe on the ground
He wasn’t trying to be sensual, Chris chewed his bottom lip when he was either content, uneasy or nervous. And nervous he was. Those eyes said innocence but the rest of him screamed sex fiend who could pound her into another universe if provoked, it definitely piqued her interest.
She never had the pleasure of seeing a person in tune with her like that before, it was refreshing. He looked like he was genuinely enjoying the way her body made him react but on a more personal level, something difficult to accomplish from 15 feet away.
Hey Mother Earth, better bring me back down Safely to the sea But around and around and around and around Is all she ever say to me, yeah
She had to be the one to break the intense eyefuck that was taking place, on both ends, in the middle of her set. Chris sensed the music drift back in, the planet rotating once more and coming back to himself after his mind floated away into endless space amongst many stars filling the void. As the song came to a close, she followed the rest of her routine with similar moves, collecting herself after a mere moment.
Everything was simply...simple.
But there was still so much of the unknown that came with the woman she was, remaining understated in this line of work and feeding a lot of emotion into her life passion. He could feel it.
That is the exact reason why she was a house favourite.
You know, I wanted to be a spaceman That’s what I wanted to be But now that I am a spaceman Nobody cares about me Say hey, you Mother Earth, you better bring me back down I’ve taken just as much as I can But around and around and around and around Is the problem of a spaceman
Evaluate.
That spaceman had a problem alright.
She just took him on a fucking cosmic ride that will be burned into his mind for the foreseeable future. His pants were now painfully tight, pressing his cock close to his body so that every time he moved his tip would be stimulated by his silky briefs. He was being forced to evaluate his current predicament.
He thought about the next step as the projections faded from the room and her along with them, completely vanished by the time the lights dimmed down and back up again.
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Chris originally wanted to stay for a while longer to watch some more, not pushing himself to do more than he was prepared for; progress takes time and it depends on the person. He evaluated the options in front of him, either pursue the course that led him to the woman who just blew his mind or, stick with what he had been doing for the past five months – fucking his hand while he rested alone in his bed.
Eventually, after he gave into the disconcerted feeling picking him apart, he went with the familiar option and kept his head down in disappointment at his lack of confidence, sliding out of the booth. He just wanted to go home at this point, maybe he would try again another day. He nearly reached the exit when a security guard abruptly stopped him from leaving, he thought he did something wrong at first but as it turns out, that was far from what was the case.
      “No, you didn’t do anything—you’re being requested by a dancer” the large man chuckled.
Chris looked up at the man that towered over him, questioning the authenticity of the claim. He clapped him on the shoulder.
      “If I were you, man...I would take the dance. She rarely takes requests but offering...one in a million”
The security guard walked him into the back where the exclusive rooms were and into one with a large circular seat, gentle lighting and parlour cabinet full of assorted items. It wasn’t a suffocating space, but he felt like he was running out of oxygen
      “Enjoy the show, man” with that final word, he left Chris alone in the room.
Once the door clicked, he rushed to rub his sweaty palms on his dark jeans and took a shaky breath as he sat down, pulling on the neckband of his sweater. In the meantime, he worked on not being so high strung, the door being behind him didn’t help as he waited for her to come. While the anticipation slowly drove him nuts, he ran the three steps Watney reminded him of in his cloudy mind.
Observe, evaluate and...execute.
Execute.
He was startled at the hands sneaking around his shoulders and lightly down his chest, making him jump in a bit in the big velvet chair. He was too deep in his thoughts to hear the door open behind him or her walking in on his stiff back facing her. Chris heard her soft chuckle behind him and felt the warm air caress his sensitive neck.
      “Easy loverboy” Ares cooed in a low voice.
If it wasn’t before, his heart was racing at lightspeed now. She had such a strong effect on him.
      “...you’re very tense. Did you know that?” she whispered behind his ear.
He shivered at the feeling and slowly nodded, not trusting his stupid mouth to not say something awkward.
      She chuckled again, “You have the prettiest blue eyes...even from a distance”
The woman walked around his seated boy, keeping her hands on him but moving them with her until she was faced with the mystery man from the darkest corner in the lounge. He wasn’t looking at her, but around her, and trying to find somewhere to rest his relentless gaze. It was all in vain though, she trailed her finger along his jaw and under his chin, forcing his eyes to hers.
      “Hmm, there they are—better up close” she bit her lip softly.
He looks so timid, with his big beady eyes and those perfectly pouted lips working in the evilest ways. Chris blushed at the compliment, feeling better about himself already.
Watney might actually be right about this whole excursion after all.
      “I—uh, thank you” he murmured.
Chris cursed himself for already stuttering like a dumbass.
In his defence, she was touching him ever-so-gently and how can he not trip up his words with her looking like a holy goddess. Ironic, given the circumstance. And now, he couldn’t look away.
Especially since her hands travelled upwards to pull his NASA ball cap off, then leaning forward while maintaining that close proximity as she unzipped his sweater, helping him pull it off.
      “We don’t need those” Ares whispered, tossing the garments on the floor.
But there was always some teasing before the actual contact.
As she put distance between their bodies, he was resting almost slack in the chair – legs parted, arms limp at his side and in his lap as soft music began to play. The apple of throat bobbed in his tight throat as she began moving slowly in front of him, full of grace and precision. She was like a supernova, its effortlessly soft edges melting into the black of space as her skin did with her bodysuit. The fact that he was the only one seeing it made the experience that much sweeter, all those feelings coming back from earlier.
He was also able to recognize that she was wearing subtle glitter and rhinestones that temporarily fused to her skin, causing the shine and sparkle of her body on stage.
Once she gave him time to get comfortable, she spread his legs apart and hovered her back over his chest, grinding her ass into his lap. The shampoo and light perfume made his sex twitch as he inhaled it in, trying his best not to give in and touch. He kept his hands on the edges of the chair, his fingers digging into it painfully – he remembered what happened to the other guys, how they got thrown out. Chris just wants to watch, that’s good enough for him.
No touching.
Ares leaned forward slightly, arching her back and hitting his private areas in all the right places, gradually making him break out into a small sweat. The woman rubbed her ass on his lap expertly and before he knew it, she pressed herself against him to lay her head on his shoulder.
       “I hope you know, the way you looked at me...you really know how to get a girl hot and bothered.”
Of course, he blushed again. His face was burning like the sun at this point.
       “I...I was just enjoying it—you are very talented” Chris laughed nervously.
He turned his face slightly, absentmindedly following the heat of her skin until he was fanning her neck, so close...but never touching. He was so, sooo close, but felt so far.
She stood up without warning and slowly turned around, pushing him back into the back of the chair more and watching as he widened eyes dilated further at her forwardness. He’d clearly never had a lap dance so he probably didn’t know about what happened during one. She set her legs on either side of his thighs, effectively straddling him to get on with the real deal. She smoothed her arms around his neck and left them to hang lazily off the back of the chair, never breaking eye contact the entire time.
       “That’s very sweet, I can feel how excited you are...”
As she began to move, their heads fell back simultaneously from the direct friction. Ares righted her head after a second and pressed into his personal space, their noses touching every time she moved up his lower body and back down again. She circled her hips a couple of times and breathed out a sigh, it was nice not giving lap dances to the clingy regulars and giving a man like this her talented movements and motions instead. It was different this time around, the atmosphere was weirdly intimate – he just gave off that energy.
       “Very excited...” Ares added.
Chris shuttered as she rested her entire body weight on his clothed erection at the sentence, now realizing how difficult it was not to touch. Though she picked up on his hesitation and demeanour instantaneously. She stroked all over his arms, chest and stomach for the first time, feeling how cut the guy really was, there were endless muscles. Very practical.
       He gave her a shy smile, “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way—to, uh...to have my body behave this way, I mean”
       “Ah, I’m turning you on?...” she asked, leaning in.
Chris didn’t know what to say to that, he’s never been good in these situations and more often than not resorted to the only thing he knows everything about. He’s starting to lose his cool and what happens when he loses his cool?
Well, he is not very smooth.
       “I, um...it’s the body sending signals the corresponding part of the brain...neurons fire commands and simulate the, uh...ohh,” a moan cut off his rambling.
He could feel himself getting closer to his release, something he didn’t want but also desperately wanted at the same time. He was already on edge when he was in the booth, his brain constantly stimulating his sex to the point where his boner couldn’t go away. The way it was being dragged across his pants made him groan even more.
       She giggled, “Has anyone told you that you’re a dork when you’re nervous?”
Chris shook his head, closing his eyes to try and fight off his orgasm until the lap dance was over. He had to swallow most of the breaths that became more and more erratic with every sway of her hips.
The way his skin flushed a dark pink and his breathing picked up confirmed she was doing a good job, but the only thing that threw Ares off was the fact that he was shaking violently, a straining vein on his neck making an impression in his flesh. She was unknowingly pumping his shaft along with his jeans, practically coaxing his seed to just burst out of him.
Chris felt his balls go stiff, cock pulse and tighten right before he lost control. The thing that pushed him to his limit was his balls compressing between his legs when she quickly swivelled her hips. He gripped the arms of the chair and thrust his hips upward, letting out a long mewl and finally giving up on holding back as pleasure took over his ability to think properly. Ares stopped moving while he continued riding out his orgasm that felt too goddamn good, cum seeping out of his boxers and down his thigh.
Once he found a way to maneuver himself back to Earth, he went completely limp in the chair as if he just ran a triathlon when the reality of what just happened hit him. That just happened, he hasn’t cum in his pants since his first year of university, and didn’t have a clue of what to do about it.
Why didn’t he just stay home? He could have avoided this if he just isolated himself in his room like he usually did.
       “Huh...that’s never happened to me before,” she said in a tone he couldn’t quite decipher.
       He glanced away after opening his eyes, still in a daze, “I...um”
For a moment he thought he made her uncomfortable and was getting ready to apologize, possibly leave if she wanted him to. But instead, he tilted his head as the embarrassment on his face was replaced by confusion at her smirk and gentle eyes. She dragged her ass across him once, making him hiss at the sensitivity of his half-hard cock still dripping with arousal.
Usually, she didn’t allow excessive touching and avoided any kind of sexual encounters at work, it wasn’t her thing – but there was something about this one that told her he should be pleased. To be honest, he wasn’t some run-of-the-mill scumbag or pompous prick like the usual attendees are, she’s starting to see he’s a plain, genuine guy. That’s why it took him by surprise when she leaned down and pressed a long kiss on the crease of his throat, sucking on it periodically.
       “...I thought there was no, mhmm, touching” Chris stammered.
Ares held on to the baby hairs at the back of his neck, then ran his soft hair through her fingers as she kissed her way across his face. Their lips brush together as she spoke.
       “Shhhh, let me take care of you...and this” she moved on him again, a mischievous gleam in her eye.
Chris whimpered out a noise of surprise when she finally connected both their lips together, she sucked his bottom one between hers and nipped at it tenderly. She grabbed his hands, placing them on her to encourage him to feel her, to touch her body. He was hesitant with his movements, still diffident even when she slithered her tongue into his soft mouth, twirling and caressing his.
When they disconnected he panted heavily in the shared space, she hummed at his expression, desire. After she climbed off his lap and kneeled in front of him as her hands began to unbuckle his belt and tug at his zipper.
       “Okay, this is happening? Right now?...oh” Chris breathed out.
Everything was happening so fast, he didn’t have time to think about the repercussions of his irresponsible, but tempting actions. His voice of reason was screaming its concern and he couldn’t help but listen to it as he sat there, immobilized while she worked his pants, then cum-soaked briefs down his legs.
       “You really don’t have t—” he groaned throatily as she pumped his shaft.
It was always the dorky guys who have the nicest and fullest cocks she had ever seen without fail – he was no different in that department, a decent length, thickness and fit for her. Ares stroked him until he was fully solid again, admiring the way he turned his hips up at the feeling of her hand around him – at least, if they stopped now, he’d have a good visual to fuel his lewd imagination late at night.
       She quirked a wholesome smile, “We need to clean you up before things get too heated”
Chris would have mentally retracted the concept of using her as ammunition for his masturbation thoughts, but he was too busy with his eyes rolling back at the most damning sight in the universe. She began to lick the cum from where it was on his body, on his cock, all over his thigh and what remained on her fingers; swallowing everything before working him over with her mouth.
       “Jesus Christ...” he growled, reeling in an abrupt lust. He held the back of her head as she sucked him off, “it’ll be over very soon if you don’t get up here”
Even taken aback by his tone, she grinned and gestured at him stand up along with her, encouraging him to pull the bodysuit straps down. Chris kissed along her collarbone faintly, tugging the lingerie down to expose her breasts and gleaming heat to his eyes. He kissed her neck as best he could, not knowing if he was making her feel good in the least but still giving it his best shot.
       “God, you are beautiful...”
Luckily, she moaned at his rumbling words on her skin, relaxing him a little bit.
This was crunch time, they need to do it now. Ares rushed to pull his white t-shirt off, appreciating his abs, pecs and biceps as she pushed him back down on the chair forcefully – he looked like a complete stud but had the sweetest personality ever. She giggled as he squirmed out of his pants and kicked off his shoes so he could be fully naked like her, climbing on him again as he did so.
Chris didn’t want anything binding him while this happened.
       “Do you have a condom?” she mumbled against his lips, kissing him again.
He made an affirming noise, gesturing for her to pick up his pants where his wallet held one in a hidden pocket. He quickly fumbled the leather out and tossed it with his pants to the ground, barely getting the condom out before she snatched it and rolled it down the length of him. She propped herself on her knees, coating him in her growing wetness as she prepared to take him. 
But, he hesitated and held her just above him.
       “Are you...are you sure you want to do this—with me?” Chris asked, his eyes held a sadness that she never wanted to see from him again.
Of course, she wanted to...now more than ever.
To reassure him, she cupped his cheek with her free hand and pressed their foreheads together. The woman revelled in the way his mouth dropped open, eyes becoming hooded and a gasp hitching in the back of his throat as she sunk onto him. Looking deep into his eyes and watching the sadness dissipate into satisfaction. He grasped her waist with one arm as she began to ride him at a steady pace, his cock stretching her.
Chris groaned loudly, choking on his moans every so often when she caressed the right spot. The speed increased as he began to enthusiastically meet her thrusts, causing them to both murmur muffled whines and whimpers into each other’s mouths. One hardy smack of his thighs to her ass pierced their ears when he gave a particularly harsh snap of his body, pulling her down as he kept up with his hard thrusts into her.
       “Fuck, do that again...” she shivered as he fucked her so carefully, making her needier every second.
He had his brows furrowed in concentration, focusing on pleasuring her and tried to forget the doubts he had to live in that moment. This was more than spontaneous sex for him, he was making love to someone – feeling good for once. He has never fucked someone before but, if anything, he was giving her the most carnal, admiration-fueled sex he could.
She bounced faster as he, in turn, bucked into her harder. She was clenching, he was throbbing...it was too much.
       “God, that’s it, just like that,” he grunted, continuing to manually move her slowing hips.
       “Shit, you’re gonna make me cum...” she groaned, “...please tell me you’re close”
Chris nodded fervently, keeping his eyes locked on her for as long as he could. In the final stretch, as her clenching became more prevalent, he kept one arm around her as he trailed his hand down to her clit. Just when started to rub, his fingers caught the nerves underneath and made her cry out.
       “Does that feel good for you? Is it okay?” he asked politely.
Ares sobbed her ‘yes’ in a pitchy tone.
He hugged her tightly against him as everything started to unwind, leaving his pelvis to stimulate her clit. The woman clenched hard around him as she lost her vision, the way her cunt gripped made him speed up his thrusts to continue moving. Her low whine near his ear did him in, his lower body ghosted on a final thrust as he stopped completely – his heaving was muffled by the clenching of his teeth, letting himself tremble in her arms as he filled the condom with his cum.
       After a while of sitting there, Chris broke the silence, “I...I think my time is up”
She laughed at his witty remark, not realizing how much that boosted his mood and tugged at his heart, or how she just single-handedly repaired his self-worth. There was no way to process it, all he knew was he felt amazing, he felt...content.
Ares stood on weak legs, climbing off him and allowing him to dispose of the condom. Chris had a dopey smile on his face as he pulled his pants back on and did the fastenings quickly, she was already back in her bodysuit by that time. He appeared to be lost in deep thought as she handed him his shirt, smirking at him – his skin flushed a soft rose when he finally noticed.
She scoffed.
       “Do I really make you nervous—after that?” she retrieved his sweater and cap off the floor where they were forgotten.
Chris laughed quietly before shifting back to his serious face, smiling somewhat. She wondered why he was there in the first place when he could have women lining up; well, if he wasn’t so humble that is.
       He cleared his throat, “uh...thank you for that by the way. You didn’t have to do what you did...I just” then began rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. 
         “I’m not good at this stuff, one-time things and strippers—or, I mean exotic dancers, I didn’t mean for that to sound like th—”
To save him from himself, she curled her fingers around his shirt collar and pulled him in, kissing him thoughtfully. Chris cupped the back of her head right away and held her waist as she encompassed the modest stranger with her warmth. He chased her mouth after she broke away from his pursed lips, brows furrowing at his want to keep kissing her.
       “You talk a lot, it’s sweet” she giggled at his actions.
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Following that encounter, he felt like a new man. She let him make love to her, or fuck her, whichever it was. He couldn’t get over that woman, she felt authentic in his arms, unlike Beth who felt out of place and made him realize his ex was never meant for him at all.
Chris was walking away, leftover clothes in hand and messy sex hair weathered by her hands, but before he could slip behind the curtain leading back to the lounge, she called out to him. When he turned to face her, she was in a robe and leaning laxly against the wall, just as dishevelled as he was.
       “For the record, I’m not good at this—” she gestured between them, “—either”
He drove home with a smile on his face and satisfaction coursing through him.
Although, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling of having a mere fling. Not even knowing anything about her while doing something so intimate, something personal to him. He wished he would have asked her real name or her number, so he could thank her properly or even, possibly ask her out.
He had a feeling about her, the attraction was undeniable now.
Perhaps it was a god working some sort of miracle or the planet’s alignment giving him mystical energy, maybe something as simple as luck. But, as he started to get ready for bed that night, a piece of paper fell out of his jeans as he stripped to have a shower.
Curiously, he picked it up and looked it over.
xxx-xxx-xxxx Just because I knew you wouldn’t ask for it. Call me sometime. – Y/N
Maybe he would take her out.
After all, he felt as if they had this connection, even if it was unconventional from any other relationship he had before. One thing he knew for sure was he liked the sound of her name on his tongue, repeating it in front of the mirror and practicing what to say to her...thinking about her until he fell fast asleep.
The spaceman used to have problems, but now?
He has none.
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© August 26th, 2018  |  April 20th, 2021 by pepsicup
245 notes · View notes
renaerys · 3 years
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22. for reds 🤡
This is 100% not what you asked for (yet...👀), but I give you part 1 of what we're calling the Weird King AU. I'm turning this into a proper multi-chapter High School fic because I love you and I'd jump on any bandwagon for you.
xxx
Like most young, conventionally attractive Supervillains, Brick had made a bit of a habit of failing upwards. It was pretty easy in a town full of simpering morons content to project their own narrative assumptions onto him, and who was he to crush their dreams when they made his life a little easier?
For example, dating.
“You can tell me, you know.” His cute date, Tracy, sipped her milkshake across from him.
“Tell you what?”
She softened and reached her hand across the table. “Your tragic backstory. I’ll listen without judgment, I promise.”
Brick tried to think of something tragic, but it all seemed pretty underwhelming as far as Supervillain origin stories went. “You mean like how I was born in a toilet?”
She made an oh shape with her lips. “We all have those days where we feel like we were born in a toilet, Brick.”
He’d dated Tracy for three months before she broke up with him out of the blue in tears: sorry she couldn’t fix his baggage, she just wasn’t strong enough to handle all that tortured darkness, but she wished him nothing but health and happiness. Brick deleted her number from his phone and spent twenty whole minutes staring at the toilet in his bathroom, wondering what the lesson here was.
But everything changed when Mojo got out of prison and moved Brick and his brothers back to Townsville, where he enrolled them in the local high school alongside their former arch nemeses, the Powerpuff Girls.
Suddenly, everything Brick did pre-supposed ill intent. These people remembered him as the pest who had graffitied their local monuments and blown up their cars and endangered their children. They held no love for him, and at best they feared him. This was not Citiesville, where he’d been a tall, cold glass of Voss water in a sea of recycled Dasani.
He found himself thinking about his birthing toilet again as he stepped into the cafeteria alone and the conversation quieted down as his new classmates watched him from the safety of their tables. His next moves here were critical. He was no longer at the top of the food chain, but fear and mystery surrounding his origins and character gave him a certain power over his peers.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of social suicide, I will fear no cringe,” he said to himself.
The jocks were out. Capable though he may be, Brick was not much of a team player unless there was a blood contract involved requiring his participation on pain of satanic torture. The drama kids were also a hard pass, not because he thought drama was lame, but because they had barely noticed him walk in, and Brick did not have the energy to deal with people more self-involved than himself. Some of the unaffiliated tables could be safe, but without a good understanding of the nuanced social dynamics in the high school, he could be heading toward irreversible doom, and that was a risk he was not willing to take.
He saw his salvation just ahead. It was the only option, all else being equal. In an environment where he couldn’t be certain of his baseline status and potential for upward mobility, there was greatness to be had only by association and certainty only in the devil he knew.
Brick helped himself to the empty seat directly across from Blossom Utonium to a chorus of gasps and staring.
Blossom did not startle like her table mates had. She watched him critically behind a head full of bangs as she balanced her soup spoon in her hand. “Really.”
Brick unwrapped the burrito he’d purchased in the lunch line and brandished it before him. “Really.”
He took a bite of the burrito. It was not hot enough. The two girls to Blossom’s left whispered to each other about that bad boy and he’s hot, though.
Blossom daintily spooned soup into her mouth without spilling a single drop as she continued to watch Brick for signs of his imminent dark side transformation.
The guy next to Brick was brave enough to ask him what his next class was. Brick had a mouth full of disappointing burrito, so he passed the guy the printout of his class schedule in lieu of answering.
“Wow, all APs, huh? Hey, we’re in U.S. History together next period, nice. I’m Mike Believe, by the way. Brick Jojo, right?”
Brick didn’t answer him immediately on account of the burrito currently occupying his mouth hole, and Mike took it the wrong way.
“Oh, yeah, we all know who you are. Blossom sort of filled us in.” He winced like he’d inadvertently revealed a terrible secret.
Brick swallowed his food and washed it down with a gulp of water. “Saves me some time.”
Mike looked super relieved. “For sure! Hey, I could lend you my notes if you want to catch up. Gershwin’s giving a quiz on the Progressive Era on Friday, and she’s a hard-ass who definitely won’t care that you just transferred…”
Brick chewed on his lunch as Mike continued to talk at him about classes and other vaguely helpful, albeit uninteresting, information. But Mike seemed normal enough, a little chatty but not in an overeager sort of way. Blossom was no longer clocking his every move and seemed to be absorbed in her friend’s latest swim team cheating scandal, until Brick reached for his water bottle and she suddenly laser-focused on his wandering hand.
Her keen attention to him was honestly flattering, if expected. It was in his nature to be noticed, and in this narrow respect she was no different from anyone else whose head he turned. If she chose to feed her interest with the flames of suspicion, then it was no difference to him.
But if she was anything like him—and on a chemical level she was probably the closest to him that a person could get—he suspected it took tremendous effort to hold her full and sustained attention. The world they inhabited was as vapid and mundane as the humans that surrounded them, and even the most gracious of gods grew bored of worship. Which explained all the smiting and fucking and generational curses upon entire households in everything from Greek mythology to the Old Testament.
Brick was pretty deep into a fantasy of Blossom going full Ixion and the Wheel on the swim team when Mike tapped his shoulder. “You ready to go?”
It took him a moment to realize the bell had rung and he had a class to get to—AP U.S. History with Mike, apparently. Brick gathered his tray and his bag and followed Mike. When he looked back at the table, Blossom was already gone.
xxx
That whole first week was painfully boring. No one bullied him, or pranked him, or picked a fight with him, of course. But no one really approached him, either. His brothers were more determined to make an effort. Boomer announced he was trying out for the soccer team because there was no rule saying a Super with extremely well documented ties to active criminals and the forces of Hell couldn’t kick a ball around a field. Butch had gotten himself invited to a midnight screening of Snakes on a Plane in some rich kid’s home movie theater, but only after that same kid had accidentally spilled milk on Butch and burst into tears in front of a cafeteria full of Juniors and Seniors. Brick declined the invitation Butch extended to him. He had that AP U.S. History exam to study for on Friday, anyway.
He shared all of his classes with Blossom. Even in the classes where her assigned seat was behind his and he couldn’t see her, he could feel her lobotomizing stare at the back of his head whenever she glanced up from her notebook. And while Mike’s notes were perfectly adequate and the friendly gesture counted for more than the content (a gesture Brick would not soon forget), there was a far more efficient way to accomplish his goal of murdering the class averages while also taking the edge off his loner doldrums.
“Can I borrow your class notes?”
Blossom rose from her seat and pulled her hair tie out to re-do her extremely long ponytail. She held the elastic between her teeth as she worked. Her teeth were very straight, he noticed. Some pretty nice girl-teeth, generally speaking.
“Which class?”
“All of them.”
He watched her wind the elastic around her hair with quick, adroit fingers. “That’s a lot of notes.”
“You’re the top of every class. No point in asking anyone else.”
She moved toward the hall. He followed her out. “Why would I help you?”
A legitimate question delivered without venom. Unlike her sister Buttercup, who’d “run into” Brick after school on Monday and told him to watch his back, Blossom didn’t have to do anything but maintain a general proximity to make her superiority complex known. Which was the kind of flex he could fuck with.
“Isn’t helping people sort of your mandate?”
They had arrived at her locker, which she opened with enough force to rattle the hinges. “I help the helpless. Are you helpless, Brick?”
Brick smiled at her baiting. Had she ever actually said his name at a normal volume before? It sounded good even in her baseline bitch timbre. “Critically helpless. I’m the new student who transferred in the middle of the semester, and you’re the only person who knows me.”
A couple other students clearly trying to get to the lockers Brick was blocking hovered just out of reach. They whispered to each other, but neither of them actually worked up the courage to ask Brick to move. He ignored them.
Blossom rummaged in her locker for the binder she would need for the next class. “Make friends.”
“Working on it.”
The locker door slammed and she faced him. There was something confrontational in the way she held herself before him that kicked him in the nuts back in time thirteen years to their more uncouth days when all he wanted to do was destroy her so he’d be the only one. Now they were older and wiser and he actually did need her notes to study, so destroying her was not high on his list of priorities.
“You want to be my friend.”
“We have so much in common.”
“So do lions and hyenas.”
“Both are apex predators, so.”
She took a step closer and peered up at him. Brick did not move, although he wondered what was so interesting about his face. She probably just thought he was hot. She was probably as bored as he was. She probably—
“You have lettuce in your teeth.”
Brick pulled back and covered his mouth on instinct. God fucking damnit.
Blossom was already walking away from him by the time he’d picked the food from his teeth. “I’ll expect my notes back in mint condition before first period tomorrow morning.”
Brick pressed a fist against the lockers and quietly fumed. “Dumbass…”
“Um, sorry, but do you mind…?”
The student who’d been waiting for her locker space to clear up had her palms up as if to assuage a feral stray. Brick pushed off the lockers, but his fist left a dent where he’d unleashed some of his impotent self-pity. He looked back at the girl, and she shook her head.
“It’s fine! It, uh, it happens sometimes.” She pointed a couple lockers down to Blossom’s, which was dinged up worse than the others.
Brick stared at Blossom’s locker, and then back at the girl. Her narrow, dark eyes were wide, but not out of fear. She was waiting for something, and like an idiot it took him a moment to catch up. “You’re trying to make me feel better about fucking up your locker.”
She laughed nervously. “I mean, it’s really fine! You just looked so miserable for a second there, and I just thought…”
Great, he was moping so hard he had an audience.
The five minute warning bell rang, and a flood of students rushed past them on their way to fourth period. Brick stepped aside so the girl could get to her locker.
“Hey, you’re the new guy, right?”
The new guy, yeah. How quaint. Except, she was waiting for a response, which wasn’t the absolute worst thing that had happened to him all week.
“Brick,” he said. But of course, she already knew that, and she was just being nice.
“I’m Kim. Kim Chan.”
“Okay.” He didn’t have anything else to say to her, so he decided to get his shit and get to his next class.
“Welcome back to Townsville, Brick.”
Brick shoved his hands in his pockets and stalked off. It didn’t occur to him until later that Kim was the first and only person who had properly welcomed him back home.
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n7punk · 2 years
Text
NaNoWriMo rundown 2021
I officially finished the first draft of my novel this morning, so I thought I’d do a little rundown!
Now, keep in mind this is only a first draft. NaNoWriMo usually involves little to no editing or refining. I kept notes as I went of some things I wanted to fix, though I did edit a little as I went this year (AKA if I wasn’t feeling a scene, I deleted it and started over, losing it from my word count, which isn’t how I think most people do NaNoWriMo). It isn’t how I have done NaNoWriMo previously, but I also have only finished NaNo with a novel that I ever wanted to share with anybody or even touch again once, and in hindsight that novel was terrible.
My plan this year is to step back from my novel for like a month, writing a long fanfiction instead, and then take another break from fic to do my second draft/revision. I’m planning to continue alternating between (roughly) a month spent on fanfiction and then a month spent on an original project for next year. I will revise this novel until I’m happy with it and then switch to working on a new one (I have several ideas saved up) and do the same revision/switching between original stuff and fanfiction process with it as well.
Okay, as far as my NaNo experience went, I started off in kind of a rough place. For the first two days of November I was still working on my last fanfiction from October, WDtFD. October was also my most productive word count month this year (because I was really motivated with my projects and wanted to get them both done before November) and it meant that I started NaNoWriMo kind of burnt out. I spent the first several days behind and making minimal progress. Eventually I realized that I hated the opening I’d written, even if I liked the concept, so it was extremely difficult to write anything following it.
I bit the bullet and rewrote it even though deleting words when I was already behind was the last thing I wanted to do. This ended up being a great decision, because I was able to start getting into my novel finally. On the first weekend of NaNo, the GWIC was held and my word count skyrocketed (the first giant 7k spike on my graph below). My word count still stayed very variable throughout the month (and, as usual, any productive day had to be followed by a valley as my chronic pain flared), but I stayed above the goal line for the rest of the month after that.
Daily word count graph (and NaNo calling me out):
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And my total graph:
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(You can clearly see where the GWIC was with that big bump early on. I only heard about it halfway through the third day, so I was only there for the last day & a half)
As far as my draft goes, I’m pretty happy with it! I don’t love it like I do some of my other works, but I think it’s a fun little romantic romp. It is character-driven, not plot/conflict-focused, so I think it’s kind of a nice fluff piece revolving around the queer experience (or, one of them, there is no singular experience). It definitely needs revision, but I want to step back from it so I can edit it with fresh eyes, and I want to write something more dramatic now, so I’m going to switch to a different project for a bit. I tend to have this pattern of working on a “simpler” project (something set in the modern world without a dark/dramatic plot) and a “complicated” one (one set in its own universe or with a big complex plot), so now I’m on the complicated swing after this simple project.
I was actually supposed to do a different novel entirely for NaNo. I switched at the last second because my last project was one of those “complicated” ones with many plot threads and I just wanted to do something light. The novel I ended up doing I was also excited for, but it didn’t have the worldbuilding/planning that the first one did, so I ended up flying by the seat of my pants for the entire month, which I think shows in the draft. I’m going to work on introducing more structure when I revise it, but I’m honestly glad I switched because it gives me more time to worldbuild the novel that I was planning on. It needs a lot of depth and I’m excited for when I do write it. In fact, I’ve kind of been bit by the bug for it again and might spend the rest of November working on it before I focus on fanfiction again. We’ll see. I miss my girls too and want to write them again as well.
Anyway, that has pretty much been my NaNo! As always, I adore NaNoWriMo and this was actually my fifth full novel that I’ve written over the course of one. I’ve skipped some years or written fanfiction instead, but I participated in my first NaNoWriMo in 2012. I’ve won every year I’ve tried to write a story for it, although one year I tried to write a DND campaign and quit like a week in when I realized I wasn’t interested in it and my outline for a campaign was very bare-bones and wasn’t going to ever match a NaNo word count. I then stopped doing NaNo for a few years, only resuming last year, but I’m glad that I’m back to it because the community around it really feels amazing.
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pokemoncreepypasta · 3 years
Text
HM Slave
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[STORY SOURCE]
The Generation I games. Definitely not perfect games by any means, but they were fun to play.
It's a shame my old cartridge’s battery has been long since dead. Makes sense, it was a hand-me-down from an older sibling of mine. Between both of our times playing it, it was bound to die sometime.
I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to play it again after so many years...
The trouble was, I had no intention of learning how to replace the battery, or buying a new cartridge. None of that appealed to me.
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So, I just took it upon myself to play it without saving. Any time I wanted to stop, I’d just plug it into my charger, and leave it be.
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Everything about this run was just for nostalgia. It was nothing personal to me, so I didn't name Red after myself or something.
I wanted to play through this game without getting attached to anything.
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The best way to go through without caring? A starter-only run. I chose Charmander, since it was the cover ‘mon, and also my favorite of the three. Not necessarily because it would make the game easier in the long run.
Of course, there’s no way I’d be able to get through with just Charmander.
My plan was to catch a Pokémon specifically to use as an HM slave, so my Charizard wouldn’t be clogged up by useless moves in the long run.
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And what better HM slave than the one who can learn them all, right?
In Generation I, you can’t delete moves in any way, so an HM slave was absolutely necessary.
Not like I hated Mew or anything... I just never performed the Mew glitch as a kid and thought that this would be a fun opportunity to try it.
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The darned thing did everything within its power to not get caught, blowing through every single one of my PokéBalls that I’d prepared to catch it with. Hey, it wasn’t like I was going to need them later, so I didn’t complain.
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I decided to nickname the little thing. I’d heard the term “HM mule” thrown around in place of HM slave, so I thought it would be funny.
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Of course, picking the Fire type had its rocky start, with its disadvantage against the first two gym leaders.
I managed to scrape by with scummy tactics, though.
I’d switched to my Abra that I’d caught to perform the Mew glitch, and let Misty knock it out.
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After that, I switched to Mewl for the free turn, and then healed my Charmeleon. Then, after Mewl fainted, I got a free switch into Charmeleon.
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When the battle was over, I could proudly claim the Cascade Badge.
This was Mewl’s secondary purpose, to be switch fodder for me to heal my starter.
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Things were going fine until Mewl learned Cut.
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The first instance where Mewl’s “skills” would come into play.
This was a game where you couldn’t use HMs from the overworld, so I went to the menu to manually select it.
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“MEWL ignored orders...”
Now, imagine my surprise when my slave wouldn’t listen to orders. I tried a few more times, with the same result.
I attempted to rationalize it, picking my brain for a reason. I assumed that you could not use HM moves while a Pokémon was fainted, but something about that didn’t seem right.
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I healed at the Pokémon Center to be safe though.
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That seemed to work, so I assumed that I was right and continued to Surge.
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Nothing really unusual happened during the fight, but Mewl was knocked out again for a free heal.
On my way out, I had to cut down the tree blocking Surge’s gym again. I was worried for a moment that I had gotten myself stuck, but Mewl cut it down just fine.
I figured the game would let me use HM moves if I would be trapped otherwise.
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I went back to the center to heal up my starter, and my stubborn little mule.
(And Abra too, I guess.)
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I caught and released a few throwaway Pokémon to obtain Flash, which I immediately taught to Mewl.
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I made my way to Rock Tunnel.
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”MEWL won’t obey!”
I was frustratingly met with this. It was fully healed, I couldn't understand why it was disobeying. I wondered if it was some sort of consequence from having an illegitimate Mew...
I kept trying and trying, but no matter what, it wouldn’t light the cave.
I was sure this little bugger didn’t want to wander around in the dark just as much as me, so I really couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
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I tried checking its summary, to which its blank, neutral expression had changed to something more... defiant?
I didn't know what kind of sick joke Morimoto was pulling on me by programming Mew to be this way, but I wasn’t having any of it.
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It dawned on me that Abra could also learn Flash, so I just let Mewl be prissy and lit up the cave with Abra.
I somewhat regretted my choice to teach Mewl Flash. If I had known it was going to act like this, I would have just taught it Fly instead…
I decided to go ahead and skip getting Fly, since Charizard couldn't learn it anyway.
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Thankfully, I made it out of Rock Tunnel just fine.
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Charizard made Erika’s gym a total joke, so I didn’t even need Mewl as fodder for this fight.
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The whole game was going fine so far up to Fuchsia City, and I had completely forgotten about Mewl’s disobedience by now.
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I had obtained its final two moves, so I booted the HMs up and slapped them onto it.
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Of course, to use Surf and progress, I had to face off against Koga.
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Things were going well up until Charizard couldn’t deal with Koga’s last Pokémon.
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I sent in Mewl to heal my Charizard.
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”Enemy WEEZING used SLUDGE!”
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“MEWL ENDURED the hit!”
Strangely, when Weezing attacked Mewl, it didn’t get knocked out in one hit like it was meant to. Instead, it stayed in the field.
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While I wanted to question it at the time, I just used a Hyper Potion on my Charizard to get it back to full.
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”Enemy WEEZING used SMOG!” 
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“MEWL ENDURED the hit!”
 Sure enough, I wasn’t dreaming. Mewl was somehow surviving all of Koga’s attacks. Normally that would be pretty cool, except for the fact that Mewl was level 7 and therefore effectively worthless in this fight.
I had to wait for it to faint to switch to Charizard, but Mewl kept surviving every hit that was thrown at it.
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”Enemy WEEZING used TOXIC!”
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“MEWL”s hurt by poison!”
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“MEWL fainted!”
Thankfully, it eventually became poisoned and went down, so I could send in Charizard to finish the job.
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I made quick work of Koga and his Weezing after that and made my way out of the Gym.
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But weirdly, as I was leaving, I couldn’t help but notice the screen flashing as if a Pokémon in my party was still poisoned.
I checked my party again to see what was up.
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It seemed like Mew had a custom sprite for being knocked out that I never noticed before. I didn't even know if that was a thing.
But it was definitely knocked out, for sure, so I brushed it off as some sort of bug.
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I figured if anything would fix the poison glitch, it’d be healing at the Pokémon Center.
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”If you drive your POKéMON too hard, they’ll dislike you.”  
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”Please take better care of your POKéMON.” 
 I was confused at this text. Was this dialogue hidden for players like me who let their Pokémon faint over and over? Whatever it is, I have never seen it before.
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”We hope to see you again!” 
The nurse went back to her chipper disposition afterwards though, so I figured I should just be on my merry way as well.
I checked up on Mewl to see how it was doing now.
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It seemed like the nurse just haphazardly patched it up. Mewl’s expression still looked tense, but I hoped that didn’t mean it wouldn’t use its new HM moves.
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I made a quick note to take down Giovanni at Silph Co. and Sabrina. My Charizard was actually getting a bit over-leveled, so I swept through without needing to use Mewl to heal during battles at all.
I decided that on my way to Blaine, I would fall back on my training a bit.
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I back-tracked over to Fuchsia City since it was faster than going all the way back to Pallet Town.
I made my way down by the Fuchsia coast and hoped quietly that Mewl would let me Surf to Cinnabar.
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Thankfully it seemed like the 1’4 cat was perfectly fine with me riding on its back, with no defiance at all. I felt confident, like I was finally getting enough gym badges to make it obey.
I'd even gotten it to listen when I needed it to use Strength in the Seafoam Islands. Things were really looking up.
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I’d finally hit land and was ready to storm the Cinnabar Mansion and claim Blaine’s badge.
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I was feeling pretty confident with my Charizard’s HP and level that I wanted to take on the Gym without healing at the Pokémon Center.
I had plenty of Potions and Revives in case of emergency, anyway.
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All of the quiz questions were normal, except... This bizarre one. 
“You treat all your POKéMON fairly?”
Though it had been several years since I played this game, something felt off about it, like it wasn’t supposed to be there.
I half-heartedly answered yes, despite knowing it was untrue. My logic was, at the very least, that even though I as a player didn’t care about these Pokémon, maybe Red did.
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”Sorry! Bad call!”
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The buzzer went off and I was harassed by a trainer. I was appalled... Was the game really criticizing me as a player?
Had I hit some sort of secret flag after making Mewl faint so much? I couldn't understand what was happening.
I didn’t give myself much time to think about it though, so I healed up my Charizard with some Potions and took on Blaine.
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Charizard had fainted again, so I left it up to Mewl.
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I healed up my Charizard and expected Mewl to hang on like before, but it just went down with no resistance.
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With my seventh gym badge in hand, I was pretty happy with my run so far. A couple more hours in and I’d be done, I thought.
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I was ready to Surf north towards Pallet Town and claim my eighth and final badge.
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“MEWL ignored orders!”
But I received a friendly reminder.
I had forgotten that Mewl didn’t like using HMs without being healed. I really didn’t feel like taking it to the Pokémon Center though, so I just carelessly threw a Revive at it.
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Hoping that the Revive would be good enough to satisfy it and let me ride on it again, I mashed through text a few times to see if I could brute-force it to listen.
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”MEWL won’t obey!”
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”MEWL turned away!”
It kept bombarding me with the same defiant messages over and over, until...
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“MEWL hates you.”
I was caught off-guard. This text didn’t have the same energy as the others, lacking an exclamation point. It sounded like flat, cold, genuine hatred.
I pressed A again, and attempted to order another Surf. Not necessarily because I wanted it to Surf now, but more out of a morbid fascination with such intense text.
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“MEWL used instead, FLASH!”
Suddenly, like in a battle, the screen lit up totally white.
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I was booted out of the party screen afterwards, and immediately noticed a distinct lack of an items menu. Had Mewl taken it from me?
Closing out of the menu, I spoke to the Pokémon now standing next to me, knowing exactly who it was supposed to be.
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”Mew!”
Mew’s cry played. I already knew it.
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“MEWL hacked away with CUT!”
I flinched, horrified at the thought of Mewl directly attacking my trainer.
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”HM01 was destroyed!”
But then I realized, it wasn't that...
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”HM03 was destroyed!” 
 Instead, Mewl had stolen my items...
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”HM04 was destroyed!” 
 … And was proceeding to destroy each of my HMs, one by one.
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”HM05 was destroyed!” 
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 After destroying HM05, Mewl’s sprite disappeared; presumably back into its PokéBall.
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I was exasperated, but quick on my wits.
I still had Fuchsia City's Pokémon Center as my last saved location, meaning I could use Abra to Teleport back to the mainland.
I was smug, thinking I'd found a loophole around Mewl's attempts to sabotage me.
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”ABRA used TELEPORT!”
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“ABRA ran away!”
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I panicked, to say the least. I frantically scrolled around my party page. How could Abra have disappeared like that? I wasn't going to accept Mewl being my only ride back to Pallet, it was impossible.
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I desperately went to the PC inside the Pokémon Center, in some vain hope that maybe Abra had just been sent there somehow.
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”MEWL used STRENGTH.”
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“The PC was destroyed!”
I couldn't believe it.
Mewl had gone full rogue.
I suddenly had to come to grips with the horrifying realization...
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I was trapped in Cinnabar with no way off.
I went through what I can only describe as the five stages of grief.
Stage 1 - Denial
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I scoured the internet for any other Pokémon in Cinnabar Mansion that I could use to escape the island.
I quickly remembered that Mewl had already destroyed my HMs and stolen my items, and realized I couldn’t catch anything.
But I did have one more plan.
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If I could knock out Charizard and Mewl, I could be sent back to Fuchsia. It would take a bit of work for Charizard to eventually faint, but I was prepared to try anything.
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”CHARIZARD ran away!”
But I couldn’t be prepared for my Charizard running away.
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I was so shocked that I didn’t even want to send in Mewl, I just said no and fled the battle.
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I fell into absolute despair. Mewl had not only ruined my chance of getting off the island, but now, even if I did, what would I do without the only Pokémon I’d been raising?
Stage 2 - Anger
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I’d never thought malicious thoughts about this Mew before, just casual indifference and sometimes mild frustration. But I can’t say that I didn’t want some payback towards this Mew for wasting several perfectly good hours of my life.
I sadistically thought about how I would make it faint, and then how I would torture it over, and over, making it repeatedly faint until maybe it would measure up to Charizard’s strength.
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“MEWL ENDURED the hit!” 
I couldn't stop myself from shouting "NO."
Despite Mewl’s apparent injuries, it hung on with one HP.
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Again, and again, no matter what I did. No matter what Pokémon I faced.
It seemed like nothing could poison it, burn it, kill it.
Then, it dawned on me…
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Maybe this was what Mewl wanted all along?
Stage 3 - Bargaining
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Mewl’s stubbornness and special ability that made it unable to faint...
It took Mewl a long time to faint its first real opponent, due to its low level, but in the end, it grew.
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I checked Mewl’s summary for some sort of sign, anything at all, that this was what I was supposed to be doing. It stared at me with its vacant, unreadable expression...
Perhaps it was shocked I had battled with it? Whatever the case, it wasn’t staring at me with hostility anymore...
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So it was silently agreed between us, then. Mewl and I, we did our first ever grinding session.
It took a few hours, but Mewl’s level was growing steadily. Things seemed to be going well, until...
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We ran into our first wild Ditto.
I thought it was strange, having not found a Ditto for all this time I'd spent in Cinnabar Mansion, but I didn’t see any trouble with fighting it, so I just let the battle progress.
Stage 4 - Depression
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The Ditto transformed into Mewl, who appeared to have a sad expression on its face.
I quickly pulled out of the battle screen and into my party to see if something had changed with Mewl.
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I checked to see Mewl, who had that same sad expression as the Ditto. Its status had changed from "OK" to a worrying "...".
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I knew something was wrong, so I fled from that battle and every battle afterwards.
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Though I had avoided it before on hopes of somehow escaping to Fuchsia City, I gave it all up to heal Mewl, who had risked life and limb to impress me.
After it was healed, I checked its summary again.
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Though it had fully healed, it still had that depressed look in its eyes. I couldn’t understand want it wanted. I didn’t know what it needed.
But I realized that it was getting pretty late, and I wanted to get to sleep soon. I would have to leave the game on, and leave Mewl behind.
That was when it hit me.
Could it be possible that Mewl knew I hadn’t saved? Did Mewl somehow understand that no matter if I saved or didn’t save, it would disappear when I turned the game off?
I hadn’t really thought about it until now, but Mewl was more special than any other Pokémon I’d ever played with.
And if I turned the game off, it would disappear forever.
I didn’t know how to feel about that.
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I went out of the Pokémon Center to reflect about this with Mewl.
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I still wanted to finish the adventure with it, if it would let me.
Stage 5 - Acceptance
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“MEWL doesn’t want to go.”
That was okay, I thought.
I realized that even if I went with Mewl to the Pokémon League, and won, then the game would return to the title screen and not save my progress.
Maybe Mewl understood that, too.
So then we were at an impasse, together on Cinnabar Island.
I didn’t know what to do. Even if this Mew was special, even if I genuinely believed it was real, I couldn’t just keep my GameBoy on forever. What would anyone else think?
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I decided that for the first time in this entire run, I wanted to save my game. I didn't want to turn it off just yet, but at least save, as some sort of precautionary measure.
I hoped, that in the event the GameBoy turned off for whatever reason, a miracle would occur.
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”Would you like to SAVE your MEW?”
It seemed that the game knew exactly what my heart wanted, and I selected yes.
Then, all of a sudden, my game turned off. Not due to low battery or anything, but it just turned off.
I panicked for a moment, and quickly switched the game back on.
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It was gone. The save file was gone.
Or, rather, it was never there to begin with.
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themadauthorshatter · 3 years
Text
... I’ve already made a draft of this and deleted it, but I’m going back in. 
This is an AU of what would happen if Mareven was healthy and the end game. 
I apologize in advance for any and all MareCal shippers, including myself. 
SO! What happens? 
Simple. 
Everything remains mostly the same in the story except we get more of a doubtful and uneasy Maven as the story progresses, as in he hugs Mare a little longer and is genuinely perturbed when he hears about the ‘bomb’ that went off and looks terrified of Cal when he returns and orders Farley to be tortured. He’s also more hesitant to listen to his mother. 
He still offers Cal’s legion to the Guard, but is a little sadder to say it. 
THEN WE GET TO THE PLOT TWIST OF THE STORY!!!!!!!!!
Maven plays along, but, as he stands by his mother’s side, he mouths, “sorry” to Mare and goes for a gun on Arven’s belt, shooting him in the leg and warning him not to try silencing him or he’ll aim for something more vital. 
It catches EVERYONE off guard, especially Elara, who’s about to risk having Cal or Tibe out of her whispers to get Maven back in line. 
Instead, Elara asks what he’s doing and why, as she thought this was what he’d always wanted. 
“It’s what you want, Mother. Not me. None of this is right. You’re already the Queen. What else do you want!?” 
Elara bares her teeth. “Are you saying you want to live your days with a Red rat?” 
Maven pulls Mare to her feet and pushes her behind him, keeping the gun at them, nodding. “I’m saying I'm not following your plans or listening to anything you have to say. I'll die before I let you in my head again!” 
Well, wish granted because Mare senses the cameras turning back on and Elara lets Tibe and Cal go.
Only to force Maven to shoot her and Tibe, though Maven actually misses him.
Mare breaks free and they make a run for it, Elara shouting that they are traitors and to arrest them, though she does force Tibe to play the part of concerned husband.
Cal isn't in the room because he races after Maven and Mare.
Speaking of which, Maven leads Mare through the castle and finds a hall that goes toward a servant's passage, so they can escape.
Too bad there are guards that round the corner and take aim at them, not only for staging a coup de ta, but also for attempted regicide.
Cal's there too, aiming a handgun at them and telling them to submit to arrest.
They do and are sent to the Silent Stone cells.
Mare is confused and livid and doesn't want to talk to Maven, who keeps pacing and clutching his head and telling someone to be quiet. 
Mare mentally tells him to maybe practice what he’s preaching, but wonders what the hell all that was when they were captured. 
Maven sighs and sits down, back-to-back with Mare, and asks her how good she is at picking locks. 
Her hands are for picking pockets, not locks. 
Maven lets out a semi-bitter chuckle and regards that he shouldn’t have bothered asking because of course she’s better at pockets. he then admits that he’d been so scared of the cells as a boy, his young mind tricking him into thinking that there were monsters or prisoners in the cells. 
Speaking of the cells, Mare breaks her silence and asks why it’s so hard for her to use her powers, even asking if Arven is close by listening to them. 
Maven admits it would be useful to do that, but no. The cells are made of Silent Stone, which is basically Arven being there without him really being there. 
Although she already knows what’s going to happen, Mare wonders what will happen to them, in the Bowl of Bones. 
Maven lists off a firing squad, some Silvers, maybe some animals, and the fact that no matter what, the show will not be short; the people want blood and Tibe is going to give them blood, even if it’s his own son’s. 
“Not if he can’t find you.” 
Both Mare and Maven stand as Cal walks in, dressed formally and holding a set of keys to the cells. 
Maven asks what this is and what Cal’s doing as he opens both Maven’s and Mare’s cells. 
Cal explains that he’s already had to give Julian a head start and hopes that Maven and mare can do the same, can vanish into thin air before their execution. 
Mare asks why they should accept the help, seeing as Cal’s the one who arrested them, but Cal counters by asking who’s idea it was to get them arrested, glaring daggers at Maven. 
Maven has his own question: How does Cal know they won’t be seen? 
Cal looks away and admits that he hopes there aren’t any Red servants that know how to fix the security system.
Maven and Mare exchange a glance and start walking, but Cal gets between them, shackles them, and grabs their arms, telling them to play along and make it convincing so no one questions anything. 
They both do their best reluctant prisoners act up until they pass by Sonya, who inquires as to where Cal’s taking them. 
Cal states he’s just taking them to get some cardio before their execution, seeing as how they’ll need every ounce of strength they’ll need. 
Sonya spits that they shouldn’t and should actually fight with nooses around their necks so they’re easier to grab and throw around, but drops it anyway, eying Cal before she leaves. 
Time’s almost up, so it’s a good thing Maven leads Cal to a servant passage, where they stop and get free, Maven getting his flame-maker bracelets back. 
Maven opens the passage, but Cal stops him and Mare, telling them to be careful now, because if they manage to escape, they’ll be fugitives and will get hunted like deer for treason, Maven for attempted regicide, from what narrative that now exists. 
They nod and thank him for the help. 
Before Mare can follow Maven, Cal grabs her arm again, which makes Mare turn to him. 
The two stare at each other, realizing what’s happening and what’s going to happen. 
The royals will figure out that Cal helped them escape and will probably have him killed for letting two traitors run free. 
Cal is the one who helped her in the first place by getting her the job at the Summer Palace, and now he’s saving her life again, this time also saving his brother’s and risking his own. 
Maven shouts for Mare to keep it moving and Mare pulls out of Cal’s grip, backs away, and races after Maven, Cal watching her leave before closing the passage. 
His face contorts with sorrow, regret, anger, and pain and he clenches a fist as he hears a sentinel shout that Mare and Maven are missing. 
Cal shouts, “They’re this way!” and races down the hallway and away from the bookshelf, trying to make it look like they outran him. 
In the passage, Maven leads Mare by the hand as they soon find themselves underground and under the streets, overhearing an announcement to keep an eye out for the two of them because both are armed and dangerous, Mare especially. 
Maven groans at his father’s words and muses that at least they’re out. 
Mare isn’t as relieved and asks what he was planning with his mother. 
Maven stops in his steps and states that she already knows. 
Mare does know, she just wants to hear Maven say it. 
Maven bites his tongue and clenches his fist at his side, not turning to face Mare as he asks what will happen if he doesn’t tell her. 
She’ll make him tell her, make him talk or she’ll shock him until he dies. 
Maven  tightens his fist but then drops it, admitting he and Elara planned on killing Tibe and using Mare and Cal as scapegoats, sending them to the Bowl of Bones, and having them executed to wrap up the story and solidify Maven as the new King, with no Scarlet Guard and no loose ends to ensure the story of Mare being a Red would slip out. 
Mare demands he define ‘loose ends.’ 
Lady Blonos. The servant girls who dressed Mare as a Silver. Lucas. Julian. Sara. Mare’s family. Kilorn. Cal. Mare herself. All the Reds on the list Julian gave her. 
Mare gasps at that last one, sliding down a wall as Maven explains in increasing panic and with his eyes growing teary that he was along with the ride and all for getting the throne the way his mother planned, but then he began to feel genuine feelings for Mare and her plight and no matter how much Elara tried to take those feelings away, they always came back. She did the same with Tibe, making Maven lose his love for him, and had semi-success with Cal, but didn’t fully remove his love for his brother. It also changed when they killed Blonos and the servant girls, and when Tristan died. It opened Maven’s eyes and made him realize that he was going to kill someone he didn’t want to die. he’d already lost Thomas and it was his own fault, but if he was the reason he lost Mare, too, he’d lose his mind. 
Maven stops his rambling and joins Mare against the wall, admitting that he knows he deserves whatever comes next, but whatever does happen, he just asks that mare know that he is sorry for all of this, for putting her in such danger that now they’re on the run and risk execution if they’re caught. 
Mare turns to him and asks if Elara has the list, if he told her about the Newbloods. 
Maven shakes his head; the raid was going to happen in a few hour hours, so there wouldn’t have been enough time for Elara to look through his mind, write down all the names, and the find them in the blood base, so they have a good head start there, too. 
After a minute of collecting themselves, and a glare from Mare, the two stand up and keep walking until they reach a fork in the path and wonder which is safer.
The only answer they get is a gun pushed against the back of Maven's head and a certain blaonde telling him to go right or she's painting the tunnel Silver.
Mare turns and sees Kilorn and Farley, with the addition of a certain Barrow we all still mourn, don't lie.
"Shade!"
Mare and Shade reunite, though Maven voices confusion as he thought Shade had been executed.
Shade explains that they tried and failed, making an example by teleporting in front of and behind them, saying with pride that no one's faster than him.
Mare is a mix of happy and sad at the news, but Farley brings them back and reminds them they need to keep going or they'll get arrested and killed.
Maven also gets put back in shackles, but acts as a good sport and doesn't burn them off.
They continue throught the tunnel until they reach a train, climb aboard, and get to riding, merrily on their way to nowhere in particular.
Back in White Fire, Elara slaps Cal HARD in the face and demands to know what he was thinking and where Maven and Mare are.
Tibe gets between them, but Cal admits that he didn't fully know what he was thinking, just that he couldn't let his brother be forced to fight when he's still in training. It would be a bloodbath.
Elara asks if that's the same reason why he also let Mare go, or if there's something he's not telling them.
Tibe also wants to know. He understands letting Maven go, but why a Red rat like Mare? If the people see her lightning powers and Red blood, there will be Hell to pay.
Cal's silent, but Elara solves that with a quick look into his mind, seeing all the moments of Cal and Mare being close and friendly with each other.
Elara asks Cal if he's more interested in dirt than diamonds and Tibe gets the picture instantly, upon seeing Cal's reaction.
Change of plan: Cal is getting his legion back in action, and an additional two hundred soldiers to locate and either capture or kill Mare and Maven. No more catch and releases or else it's Cal who fights in the arena and he'll have nothing but his wits to defend himself.
Cal pales at this and gasps that they can't kill him, because then Norta has no heir.
Tibe only glares at him and tells him not to fail before leaving to let Cal get his army ready.
Cal watches his father leave and is broken by the fact that he legitimately screwed up and that his father, as King, needs Maven, his own son, executed with Mare, someone who never should have had her powers to begin with.
Elara glares at Cal for a moment longer and also walks out of the room, leaving Cal on his own.
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lovetenya · 3 years
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𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞
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pairing: tenya iida x gender neutral reader!
warnings: none, just fluff!
word count: 800-ish
author’s note: let’s hope i get through the other five in a timely manner, because my 14 other works in progress are getting kind of lonely... also, if you’ve read this before, don’t worry! that’s because it’s a rewritten version of a now-deleted post of mine from another blog. i hope you like it!
loving tenya iida is red.
it’s the pull in his chest and the heat in your cheeks when you brush hands, even though you’ve been together for a while now. 
he wonders if that feeling of eager nervousness will ever go away, and he’s only satisfied when he feels your hand prodding his. his thumb gently swipes over yours, and you feel connected more than just physically. the vivid red of your new love is more than skin deep.
 the weight of your hand in his comforts him, and reminds him that you’re right there. your heart beats red, perfectly in time with his.
red is the gingham picnic blanket he brought on your first date; it’s the same one his parents used all those years ago on their first date.
 so what if he’s a romantic? he’s allowed to be sentimental about these things. 
he didn’t tell his parents (or his siblings) that he had a date, but they had a feeling something was up when he specifically requested the “good luck” blanket. tenya thought that maybe, just maybe, it would make him a little bit bolder. it was a token of his parent’s love, and to have this piece of home with him while building the relationship that could one day be his home felt so special and so right.
walking with you, he holds the picnic basket in his left hand, and wishes he was holding your hand in his right. maybe someday, he thinks. 
later on, you spill lemonade on the blanket and apologized, saying “oh-i’m so sorry! i didn’t mean to--”
he tells you, “it’s okay, sweetheart. it’s a washable blanket, it’ll come right out in the wash and— why are you making that face?”
he was startled by your expression, which had your eyes averting his gaze in a soft and flattered embarrassment and your mouth in a shy smile.
“tenya, i.. i liked that.”
“you liked what?”
“i liked it when you called me sweetheart.”
“i’m glad, sweetheart.” he put emphasis on it this time, knowing inside that he had found a sweet weakness.
he could never see red, never in anger, never over you.
you walk down the hill together, not worried about how the sun is setting and it’ll be dark in an hour. you have plenty of time. plenty of time to get to know each other. plenty of time to enjoy the light sky fade to orange, then fade to red, then fade to black.
red is the color of the hard cherry candies you receive on valentine’s day. tenya asked shoto for an idea on what he should do for you, figuring he’d have something romantic in mind and shoto sarcastically told him he should buy $20 worth of school candy grams, not realizing that tenya totally would.
tenya figured it was a better idea than what tensei recommended, which was that he bring you three red roses.
appalled, tenya replied, “that’s totally inappropriate. don’t you know what that means? we haven’t even said those words yet.”
“which is exactly why you should do it now,” tensei teased.
tenya opted for the candies. 
when the candy deliverer comes to the classroom door, she saves yours for last. she lists the amounts as she hands them out, publicly broadcasting the itemized list of how much was spent on each person. some consider it a display of popularity, some consider it torture.
“okay, here we go. I have two for jirou, one for kaminari, two for tokoyami, one for sero, two for momo, six for kirishima, three for midoriya, four for bakugo (he just had to get more than midoriya, didn’t he?), four for uraraka, eighteen for todoroki (from his various secret admirers), one for koda, four for iida (newsflash: they’re from you) one for ojiro, six for shoji (one for each hand, duh), four for ashido, eighty for mineta (he bought them for himself. everyone recognized his gross, scribbly handwriting and he was embarrassed), one for sato, one for hagakure, three for tsu, four for aoyama (also from himself), aaaaand last but certainly not least..... FORTY FOR Y/N!?” 
in unison, the girls went “awwww, y/n!!! who are they from???”  and the guys went “huh???”
you held the bag of candy in your hands, seeing that tenya’s neat handwriting filled out all of the little cards. your cheeks turn a bright shade of red when your class gapes at the large bag, wondering “who the heck bought all of those??” you quickly shove the candies in your bag, embarrassed but pleased by tenya’s sweet gesture. 
(izuku offered to help tenya write them all, but he refused, stating that his hand cramp was minor. it was worth it for you, after all.)
red is the color of his eyes, the ones that contrast so beautifully with the blue of his hair. they’re normally shielded by his glasses, but right now, it’s just you and him. you’re lying together in your shared bed, just enjoying what little time you have together. although you’ve spent a few years together and you’re both pro-heros now, it’s still special to just be you and him. together. the moments are rare, and deeply cherished for this exact reason.
it’s just you and the boy who still, even though you’re married, asks “can i hold your hand?”
the boy who asks you “my love, are you okay?”
the boy who somehow just knows when something is up and knows exactly what to do to make it all better.
the boy who cares, so passionately, that it is red.
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thanks for reading! love, tj. 🕯
link to my masterlist -> here 🌟
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fairiesdowntheroad · 3 years
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la la lost u | h.js
summary: joshua left you behind for new york,to chase his dreams as a performer.he promised you that long distance would work,but both of you gradually lost yourselves in two different places.
genre: heart-wrenching angst,shua being an fboi,yn being kinda stupid
warnings:swearing,mentions of sexual innuendos,a lot of tears shed
A/N : I strongly suggest you listen to la la lost you by NIKI while reading this.It’s one of my favourite songs at the moment,and the song reminded me of cheol at first,but i decided that writing this about shua would make more sense
While I'm on Sunset, are you on the subway?
While I drive, are you gettin' on the L-train?
You’d always be wondering what would he be doing now.You stayed in Los Angeles,where you both grew up in.You’d experience beautiful sunsets while driving through the city,which you used to do with him.He on the other hand,moved to New York,to chase his dreams.
You were devastated at first,but you couldn’t stop him from leaving,you didn’t want to cut his wings,so you let him go.He dreamt of being a performer,making it big in the entertainment industry,but at what cost?
He’d lose a lot of things,the beautiful sunsets he watched with you,the lively atmosphere which would feel nostalgic to him,and now he’d be taking the L-Train in a busy,gloomy city.You hope he hates it there.
And fuckin' on Brooklyns in Brooklyn
Your Chelseas in Chelsea
Hope that eases the pain, so you remember to miss me
Joshua promised that everything would be fine,he promised that you’d both still be in the loving relationship you both were in.He made so much promises,yet he couldn’t even keep his word to one.
When he first left,everything went fine.There were messages every hour from the both of you,video calls every night filled with giggles and ‘i love yous’.You really thought it would be alright for him to be far away.
He managed to join a company and started to record songs.He’d tell you the progress of everything,when he would start to record the music video,the songs he wrote,and so much more.You enjoyed listening to him,knowing he was happy.
The hole in your heart that he mad when he left was starting to heal,until he tore it all down again.As months went on,the messages started to come mostly from you,and all you got were short replies.
You didn’t make anything of it at first,he was probably busy anwyays you thought.Video calls were only on weekends now,with his excuse that ‘he was getting busier recording songs’,what a liar.
If only you hd put the pieces together quicker,maybe you would have saved yourself from getting hurt.He’d been cheating on you for two months.
He cheated on you with this girl called Vanessa,who the hell even gets his pants tangled with a girl called Vanessa? She was pretty,you’ll admit,but she was such a bitch.Of course she was,she had sex with him!
You found out about them when you were calling with him,he had picked up.You were at home,lying on your bed after a day of attending exhausting classes in university.”Hey Vanessa sweetie” he cassually said.You were not surprised at first,Joshua had always called you sweetie throughout your relationship,but when you replayed what he said in your head again,you started getting suspicious.
“Who is Vanessa and why are you calling her sweetie?” you questioned.He didn’t say anything for a few seconds,he strangely just stayed silent.You were freaking out and thoughts began to race in your head.
Joshua cleared his throught before replying “Oh I just got her name mixed up with yours”.Feeling unsatisfied from his answer and starting to feel angry,you decided to speak again
“You didn’t answer my question,Shua.Who is she?” You pursed your lips and clenched your fists into tight balls.An ache started to form in your stomach as tears welled up in your eyes.
“She’s...she’s no one okay? Don’t worry about it.” Joshua said.He felt nervous,his palms were sweating and heart started racing.He didn’t mean to call you Vanessa,it just...slipped from his mouth.He had contemplated on telling you the truth,but he knew you would erupt if you found out.
“If she was no one,why would you call her sweetie?”
Shit,you put him in a tight spot now.He opened his mouth to say something in return but,his words had failed him.He knew he should have never slept with Vanessa from the start,his moral compass wouldn’t allow that.Joshua sighed,not knowing what to say. He’d just have to come clean.
“I’m sorry.I’m so sorry” he squeaked out.The atmosphere was hushed.He was petrified to know what your reply was.
Everything started to click.The reason he couldn’t text that much,the reason calls were only for weekend,and those short short replies.
He had been cheating on you,and you couldn’t put all the pieces together.Your jaw dropped and your eyebrows raised.The tears that were welled up started to fall freely now,you were crestfallen to see how unloyal he was.
“Sorry doesn’t fix everything you idiot.” you said before hanging up.You curled up into a ball and bawled your eyes out for..god who knows how long? The person you devoted your heart to,your other half, he was just another cassanova.
The worst part was that,he didn’t even try to call you back.
All my demons run wild
All my demons have your smile
In the city of angels, in the city of angels
It had been a month after you ended things with him. It was tough at first,you frequently saw him posting on his social media about how he was still living his normal life even after he tore your heart out.There were photos of Vanessa,which made you even more pissed.
You decided to delete everything that contained him in your phone,you blocked his number,even if your heart felt like it was so wrong to do so,but you couldn’t stay hung up over him forever.
You told your friends what happened between you and Joshua,all of them were super supportive on your side and said that he was stupid for playing with your feelings,but you still felt numb.
Deciding to move on and try to date other people even became a problem because of him.They all reminded you of him.Sometimes it was his hair,his eyes,his laughter,and his smile.
God,whenever you noticed that somebody had the same smile as him,your heart sank.He was so stupid to throw you away just like that,yet he’d still stay in your mind.
Hope New York holds you
Hope it holds you like I do
While my demons stay faithful
In the city of angels
As time passed on,you learned to let go.You started to be a normal person again,the person you were meant to be.You started talking to your friends more,going out more,you were getting back on track again.
While recovering,you managed to bring yourself closer to Wonwoo.He was one of your chilldhood friends who you grew up with,and had always stayed.
Wonwoo is one of the kindest people you know.He was the type of person you could tell anything to,and he would listen.In fact,he was one of the few people who you told first about the breakup.
He had just listened and comforted you with kind words when you broke down telling him what happened.He assured you that you were not the one at fault,and from then on you were always by his side.
You started getting closer to Wonwoo from that day,offering to go out to cafes and have lunch or dinner together whenever there was a little window of time in your schedule.Most of your time was gradually starting to go to Wonwoo..and then you started catching feelings.
Wonwoo had also confessed to you first,it was when you were having lunch together at a small cafe where you lived nearby.You were chewing your food when he suddenly blurted out “I’m in love with you.We should date”
You were surprised at first,but you accepted his offer and from then on,were one strong hell of a couple.
You didn’t expect to get into another relationship affter Joshua,but Wonwoo proved that it was okay to love again.He had got you to heal.Soon after,you fell head over heels for him,and Joshua slipped from your mind.
You unblocked Joshua after some time,you had made peace with what happened.He did follow you on social media again,he even saw your posts with Wonwoo,but he didn’t say anything though.It wasn’t like you were expecting him to.
You learned to close the chapter of Joshua in your life.The chapter had ended,and now there was a new one that began with Wonwoo.
Joshua would just stay as a memory,and you were gonna be fine with it.
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Don’t Call Me That Pt. 2
Wordcount: 10,129
A/N:  I thought this part 2 would total up to 10k words, but when it hit 10k, I realised that I was only about 65 percent done. So based on the responses I got from tumblr, I decided to publish this first and then conclude the story later on!
TW:  mentions of r*pe, mentions of torture, mentions of drugging someone (??) , mental breakdowns, vulnerability, descriptions of anxiety
Also, HERE’S MY FAV MEMES!! I’m so sorry that I can’t tag respective meme creators, because I saved them on my phone and some of them I forgot to include your usernames!! I’M SO SORRY!!! And honest to god is wear there were more but i must have lost them im so sorry im so incompetent lmao
memeesss
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You glanced at your phone.
It had already been a week in Hawaii with your friends, and Jason still hadn’t texted you.
Well, you should have expected it, really. Jason was a traumatised, mentally ill man who had been locked away for two years.
Of course he wouldn’t text you first.
You had contemplated texting him over the past few days, typing in an array of messages ranging from a simple “hey” to a whole paragraph, and deleting all of it without hitting send. Did he even switch the phone on? Was he surfing the internet? Or was the phone still there on the shelf where you had left it.
It was driving you crazy.
“Do you have a boyfriend we don’t know about?” a voice called.
You looked up and squinted at the man who was standing up, looking down at you. You were sitting on the beach, a little further away from the ocean where your friends were.
“What are you talking about?” you asked as Alex plopped down next to you.
“You’ve been fidgety the whole time,” he pointed out, combing back his dark shoulder length hair with his fingers, getting sand in them. “We’re on a private beach, and you’ve been fussing over your phone. Who are you talking to?”
“No one,” you grumbled truthfully.
“The girls have been gossiping,” he gestured to the two other girls playing in the water. Your closest friends. It was four of you in that inseparable group.
“Of course they have,” you groaned, “Tell them to SAY IT TO MY FACE, COWARDS!”
You shouted at them, earning you grins and middle fingers from the distance.
“They’re saying you’re in love with someone,” he chuckled, “But they always say stupid shit like that without any evidence. But sometimes, a girl’s intuition is just right, ya know?”
“Stop beating around the bush, Alex,” you rolled your eyes at him despite knowing he couldn’t see past your sunglasses. “No, I’m not in love. I’m just waiting for a text that might never come.”
“Why don’t you text him first?”
“Because it’s not as simple as that!” you flailed your arms, “He’s… complicated. I can’t just text him anything.”
“Girl, unless he’s Mr. Nottingham, or related to you, then it really isn’t that complicated,” he joked.
“Ugh,” you groaned again, falling back onto the cloth you spread out. “Fine. I’ll text him.”
“Atta girl,” Alex grinned, “I’m gonna head back in the water. Join us after. Please?”
“Yeah, yeah,” you waved.
Opening the text window for what had to be the thirtieth time, you finally decided to text him.
You: Miss me yet?
Staring intently at the small ‘sent’ below your message bubble, you waited for it to turn to ‘delivered’.
“Yes!” you hissed. It meant that Jason had indeed switched on the phone.
But after twenty minutes you realised that it didn’t matter if Jason switched on the phone if he didn’t want to talk to you. Cursing to yourself, you decided to join your friends in the water, hoping it’ll distract you from checking your phone every five minutes for a text message that might never come.
After an hour of actually spending time with your friends, all four of you returned to the villa, your mood elevated. Checking your phone, you could have jumped for joy when you saw not one, but four consecutive texts in a row.
Jason: Duck off. Jason: What the duck Jason: WHY CANT I SAY DUCK Jason: I DUCKING HATE THIS
You couldn’t let out a string of giggles.
“Oooh, lover boy texted you back, huh?” Alex peeked over your shoulder. “Gimme, I wanna mess with him.”
He snatched your phone from your hands, surprisingly swift and smooth for a civilian, raising it way above his head so you couldn’t reach it and opened the camera.
“Alex-!”
He threw his other arm over your shoulder and pulled you into his bare chest, crushing you before you could tackle him down. He snapped a picture and sent it.
You froze in horror.
“Why the hell did you do that?!” you yelled.
“Relax, I was just messing around,” he gave your phone back to you.
“You don’t- you don’t understand, you fucking asshole!” you screamed.
“I- I’m sorry,” Alex stuttered, surprised by your reaction. “I was just-”
“Fuck off!” you snapped.
Panicking, you saw the little notification below the picture turning from Received to Read.
No. No, no, no, no.
This was bad.
You didn’t want to overwhelm Jason by sending him photos of your activities, thinking that he might react badly to the sudden surplus of familiarity and sense of being close to someone. Now you were worried that he might start to push you away in fear, reverting back to how he was before, and months of progress would have been all for nothing.
He would probably start swearing at you, or worse- switch off the phone and reject any form of communication completely. You hurriedly texted a reply.
You: I’m so sorry! I didn’t send that, my friend was just messing around.
Expecting the worst, you braced yourself for the inevitable. Instead, he sent you:
Jason: Who the hell is that guy?? Jason: Why are you in your underwear??
Your mouth hung open as you stared in shock at the screen. Because you took so long to recover from the shock, he sent you another message.
Jason: ???
Snapping out of it, you texted back.
You: That’s just my friend. Sorry about that! And I’m not in my underwear, it’s a bikini! I’m in Hawaii.
You waited for him to reply, but ten minutes of you sitting anxiously on the turquoise sofa in the middle of the villa listening to the waves of the beach outside from the open doors passed by, and he still hadn’t.
Perhaps he’s busy- wait. There’s no way Jason would be busy. You tried to coax him into a conversation.
You: You can turn off your autocorrect if you want to swear without hassle. Go to your Keyboard settings.
You plopped your phone on the empty seat next to you and dried your hair.
“Ugh, come on!” complained Natalie, fully clothed and washed, walking towards the open concept kitchen from her room. “You’re getting sand everywhere!”
“Woops, my bad,” you grinned.
“There’s a shower outside on the porch for a reason you know,” she flipped her blond beach waves at you, looking through the fridge.
Alex stood quietly at the kitchen island, now scared to say anything.
You rolled your eyes. “Just don’t do it again.”
“Okay, I promise!” he grinned.
Ding.
Jason: fuck. fuck. fucking fuck. Jason: found it. You: Proud of you, man.
You went to your room and showered, then dried off and put on fresh clothes while waiting for Jason to reply.
Of course, he never did.
Groaning, you had to remind yourself that he was not used to human interaction, and texting would come unnaturally to him. Which meant that you had to be the one to keep the conversation going.
You: Do anything interesting since I left?
You saw him typing almost immediately this time.
Jason: no.
Of course not.
You: Have you been eating properly? Jason: yeah.
God, it was so difficult. You were in the middle of typing something when he replied again.
Jason: yoire not my mom Jason: yoire Jason: YOIRE Jason: FUCK WHY CANR I TYPE
You felt guilty for laughing, but you did anyway.
You: Now that you switched off autocorrect, it won’t correct your typos and misspells anymore. Jason: i fucking knw that. Ive been gone for two yeard not twenty. You: Then why do you sound like a grandpa? Jason: BECAISE YOU GAVE ME A FUCKINF IPHONE!! I USED AN ANDROID!!
Now you were really laughing out loud, so you sent him a GIF of a woman rolling her eyes.
Jason: wtf you can send gifs throug text now?? You: Welcome to 2020, my dude. Jason: im not your fucking dude
Typing a reply, Jason interrupted you once again.
Jason: teach me how to do that
Smiling widely, you found that you couldn’t wait for the next week to pass by so you could go back and see him.
***
“How’s Jason?” you asked the minute you reached the Cave computers, panting from the run down.
“Wow, hello to you, too,” Dick chuckled, spinning towards you on the wheeled chair.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and Bruce and Dick were in front of the computers, discussing a case that had connections to Bludhaven Police Department.
Gone for two weeks, you had a lot to catch up on.
“According to Alfred, he’s doing well,” Bruce answered, “Even started to ask for seconds last week. Now Alfred has been making portions for two.”
“He asked? For seconds?” you gasped. “How?”
“He left a note on the tray two days after you left. He’s been making meal requests, too. Texts Alfred in the morning to let him know.”
“Texted?!”
“Alfred slipped his number on the tray in case Jason wanted anything specific.”
“I slipped mine as well, but he hasn’t texted me yet,” Dick pouted.
“When did he start texting?” you ignored Dick.
“Last Sunday.”
So the same day you started texting him, then.
“He hasn’t texted me,” Dick sighed, looking dejected like a kid who was told Disneyland blew up.
“He’ll come around, Dick,” you offered him a smile, “I mean- he’s already texting Alfred!”
“Yeah,” he lamented.
“Okaaay, nice talk. I’m gonna go see him now, bye.”
You ran to the box, but stopped right before you opened the internal door. After checking your hair with your phone camera, you tried to stifle the butterflies in your stomach.
Ugh, you were so fucked.
Taking a deep breath, you knocked on the door.
“Yeah,” Jason’s muffled grunt answered you.
Pushing it open, your eyes immediately went to the bed only to find that he wasn’t lounging around reading a book like you expected. Instead, your mouth dropped open when you saw him on the floor, doing push ups.
Shirtless.
Jason had changed drastically during the two weeks you were gone. You noticed that he had definitely gained weight, as well as muscle mass.
“Uh, wh-what are you..?”
He stood up, and you swore your heart skipped a beat.
His muscles were much more prominent and defined now, and he looked like he was going to achieve Dick’s physique if he kept it up for another month or two.
“Welcome back,” he simply said before taking gulps from a water bottle you definitely had not seen before.
“Thanks,” you walked over and sat on his bed, “I’m glad to see that you decided to start taking care of yourself again.”
“What, this? This isn’t for me.”
“Huh?” you cocked your head in curiosity.
“I… I lost a lot of muscle mass. My body- it isn’t how it used to be,” he frowned, “And I can’t have you lusting over it when it’s not at its peak.”
“What- what do you-?” you stammered, suddenly getting hot.
Jason merely smirked and then continued his push ups.
You watched as his developing muscles rippled, a thin layer of sweat making his skin glisten in the light. It was amazing how he had progressed so much in such a short period of time. You guessed that he must have just been occupying his days by working out.
No wonder he’s been asking for seconds.
“Enjoying the view?” Jason breathed, pausing with his arms straightened, his head angled upwards towards you.
“No, shut up,” you looked away.
“Here, be useful,” he started, “Sit on my back.”
“What?”
“I’ve gotten used to my own body weight, I need extra resistance,” he elaborated, “Come on, sit on my back.”
“But it’s all sweaty,” you whined, pretending to protest. Definitely pretending- for the sake of your own dignity.
You got up and went over towards him anyway.
Carefully, awkwardly, you sat on his back as you would a park bench. You rested your palms flat against his sticky skin to stabilise yourself. Suddenly, he dipped down without warning, earning a soft squeal from you.
“Fuck, you’re heavy,” he strained, but continued to do the push ups. He was shakier, struggling with the weight, and after twenty-five, he paused. “Okay, I think I’m done.”
But before you had the chance to get off him, he suddenly stood up, throwing you off his back to have you fall on the floor on your ass.
“Jason, you assho-” you clapped your hand over your mouth, realising what you had just said.
Oh, no. Oh, fuck.
He stood towering over you, his jaw clenching as he stared you down with his cold, blue eyes.
“I’m so sorry! I forgot! It was a reflex and-”
“Whatever. I don’t care anymore,” he rolled his eyes, reaching for his bottle.
You blinked. Then scrambled to your feet.
“You don’t care anymore?” you repeated slowly.
“I don’t care if you call me that,” he huffed.
That made your heart swell and melt at the same time.
“I got used to your voice,” he mumbled, expression changing as he looked away. He frowned, as if he was angrily staring at a distant object.
You had just guessed that he didn’t like to be called his name because of a sense of familiarity, but now you were thinking that there was much more to that than what you had originally thought.
“So, I can call you… Jason?” you tested.
“Yeah, call me whatever you want,” he sat on his bed, looking up at you.
You smiled, thankful that you had finally crossed that bridge. “You know, I could get some workout stuff for you? Weights, bands, that bar thing that you can put at your door frame for pull ups…”
“You’d like to see that, huh?” he smirked.
“You flatter yourself too much,” you scoffed.
“How was Hawaii?” he changed the subject all of a sudden.
“It was fun. Beach was great, locals were great, loved the vibe- what are you doing?”
Jason had stood back up and started to walk closer and closer to you, getting all up in your space like a predator finally cornering its prey. You kept on taking steps back until your ass hit the edge of the desk.
Nowhere else to run, your heart started hammering. He leaned in, his hands resting on the desk on either side of your body, trapping you against the table and himself. You looked up and gulped. You could almost feel the heat radiating from his bare skin.
“Are you afraid of me?” he muttered lowly.
“Why would I be afraid of you?” you whispered.
“You tell me,” he said.
“Well, I’m not afraid of you,” you stated.
“Oh really?” he raised an eyebrow. Then, you felt his hand grip your wrist tightly, pressing down on your skin with his fingers. “Your pulse is very fast for someone who’s not afraid of me.”
“It’s because you’re all up in my space!” you argued.
“Didn’t look like you mind when your friend,” he snarled the word, “was all up in your space.”
“My friend? What- oh,” you widen your eyes in realisation, “You mean Alex.”
“Is that his name?”
“Alex is just a friend, nothing more. He’s just someone I’m close to,” you reassured him.
Which then made you think about why you were reassuring him.
“Oh, you were definitely close to him,” Jason growled.
“Wait- are you… jealous?” a smile creeped your lips.
He scowled at you for a few moments, and you could see the little tics in his expression that said he was annoyed. The flared nostrils, the muscles of his jaw clenching and unclenching, the very slight twitches at the corner of his left eye.
“No,” he finally said, taking a step back from you. “I’m going to shower. Since you couldn’t stop staring at me, the invitation is still open for you to join.”
“You know, I’m starting to think that maybe I prefer it when you were broody instead of this. Please go back to your depressive mental state,” you sarcastically replied.
Jason barked out an actual laugh. Though his laugh was odd, like someone who’s only now discovering that humans were indeed capable of laughter, you found comfort in it. It was no longer hysterical and devoid of humor. He was getting better, learning to embrace a connection with someone, and it made you extremely happy.
“Maybe I should,” he answered with a cheeky glint in his eye, “Then that way you can give me more sponge baths.”
He left you alone in his room, flushed and at a loss for words.
***
“I find it very odd that people would yell ‘Batman!’ when they realise you’re there,” you rambled while climbing out of the Batmobile.
You were absolutely drenched from the downpour that had been going on all night. It was 4 am on a friday night and you had just returned from patrol.
Bruce took off his cowl immediately, revealing tired eyes despite the relatively slow night.
“It’s like they’re saying ‘Look at me! I’m here! Please knock me out or hang me upside down from the-’ Bruce?”
Bruce had stiffen, staring at something behind you. You turned around and was shocked to see Jason in the mid-distance, sitting on the ground outside the black box that was his room, leaning against the cool metal.
He himself was staring intently at Bruce, not even sparing you a glance.
You looked back and forth between the two men, sensing a high tension silent conversation.
Then, Bruce’s eyes relaxed and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly in that hardly-there-Bruce-smile.
He gave Jason one stiff nod of understanding, then walked away to the computers at the other end of the cave, leaving you alone with his son.
Jason relaxed as you walked over to him, wringing your hair to squeeze out all the excess water.
“Aw, you waited up for me,” you teased, standing in front of him with your hands on your hips, grinning away.
“Fuck off,” he snorted, “I was bored.”
You noticed him clenching his jaw as he looked at you from top to bottom, eyes lingering longer on the ‘R’ on your left breast.
Ah, it was his first time seeing you in your uniform.
His uniform.
Suddenly, you felt like an imposter in those colors and had the strong urge to rip the uniform off.
You wanted to say something, but Jason beat you to it.
“There were times in that shit hole where I wanted to burn that uniform off my skin,” he grit, “Kept on thinking to myself. I wish I never became Robin. I wish I never met Bruce Wayne.”
Your heart shattered at his confession. It was extremely rare for him to bring up anything related to his two year torture, and the previous times were never in such detail.
Realising you needed to say something, you opened your mouth. “I’m so-”
“Don’t,” he cut you off, “You don’t have to say anything.”
Yes, sometimes you knew that he just wanted you to listen.
You nodded silently and went to sit next to him on the floor.
“It… suits you,” he forced out.
“Hmm?”
“The uniform. It suits you. More than it ever suited me,” he grumbled.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think your ass would look quite nice in green,” you joked, nudging his shoulder with your own.
He chuckled deeply, nudging you back even harder- hard enough for you to lose your balance and topple sideways, earning another breathy laugh from Jason.
***
Another month passed by, and you found yourself falling deeply for Jason- much to your dismay. You knew Jason wasn’t ready for any kind of intense emotions, and that it would take a very long time before he was.
So you swallowed your emotions down, stifling them and hoping it would go away.
The two of you had developed a pleasant friendship, often bickering and joking around, with Jason teasing you about your obvious physical attraction to him.
He also now occasionally waited outside his cube for you to come back after patrol, never really venturing too far from it, and still avoiding contact with both Bruce and Dick. Only you and Alfred had the privilege to speak to him.
Even then, sometimes you would visit his room but only getting a “I’m not feeling it today. Please leave.”
Understandingly, you would nod silently and leave him alone. You knew he still had his bad days, sometimes not eating his meals.
But mostly, he was getting better, both mentally and physically.
With nothing much to do the whole day, Jason was now obsessed with working out and bulking up. He now had a few simple equipment in his room- mostly weights.
You figured that it was a coping mechanism for him, a healthy outlet to channel all his rage and negative emotions into.
But come on. He was getting even hotter and it was making it extremely difficult for you to stop yourself from checking him out, fantasizing about him when he wasn’t around. Still, you couldn’t complain. Even though he hadn’t reached Dick’s size yet, he was very near to it, and his naturally bigger body frame and build made up for the still developing muscles.
Hell, he was now sporting a six pack.
But you knew that he was still not as well as you hoped he would be. The bloodshot eyes he had was proof that he doesn’t sleep well- and you soon found out why.
It was a little past midnight on your night off from patrol, and you were using your break in the best way you could think of- by sleeping. Something woke you up that night.
A soft knock on your door.
You frowned, eyes still closed, wondering who it was.
Bruce would usually knock twice. Strong, clear, and with purpose. Dick would start pounding rapidly on your door, annoying you intentionally. Alfred would give three soft knocks followed by a ‘Miss?’
Your eyes flew open. There was only one other person in the manor.
Throwing your covers aside, you jumped out of bed and rushed to the door to open it.
Jason stood outside your door in the dim lights of the hallway, frowning and running his fingers nervously through his messy dark hair. He was wearing a t-shirt with boxers, standing awkwardly.
“Jason?” you hated how your voice sounded so sleepy. You cleared your throat. “Are you okay? Would you like to come in?”
He nodded silently, and you made way for him to enter before closing the door behind you.
“Sit on the bed,” you told him while jumping back into yours, sitting up cross legged.
The bed dipped when he sat on it, copying your motion and crossed his legs.
You waited for him to say something, your eyes straining to catch his in the dark. But he just remained silent, staring into space and avoiding your eyes.
“How did you know this was my room?” you asked, starting with a light topic.
“Only one that was locked. I already know where everyone else sleeps,” he explained.
“That’s right,” you realised, “I tend to forget that you’re probably even more familiar with the manor than I am.”
“Did you know there’s an old dumbwaiter in Bruce’s room?” you saw him smirk from the shadows that was casted on his face, “I used to hide in there, waiting to catch him off guard.”
“What? Why?”
“Dick and I, we had a bet,” he recalled the memory, “Whoever gets to surprise Bruce first would owe the other a special favor. Only rule was that we had to have it on video as proof.”
You appreciated that moment, the first time he ever spoke about both Dick and Bruce as a fond memory.
“I won, by the way,” he continued, “But- I forgot to press record on my phone.”
“Oh, no,” you groaned for him.
“Yeah, and Dick refused to believe me,” he chuckled, “That old man didn’t want to admit it either. But I swear- the look on his face when I jumped out while he and some model were going at it- priceless.”
Your jaw dropped, and then you burst into a fit of laughter, tears filling your eyes.
“You- you- you jumped out on him while he was having sex?!” you squealed.
“Yeah,” he grinned, “I didn’t even care that it sort of scarred me, because I managed to catch Batman off guard.”
The both of you laughed, his deep voice mingling with your own on that quiet night.
“I’m glad you’re here, Jason,” you smiled warmly at him.
But then, his smile fell.
“I hate my name now.”
“I’m sorry,” you began, “You said it was okay to call you that, so I-”
“No, it’s fine,” he started running his fingers through his hair again, “It’s just- I don’t know.”
“You can tell me anything,” you reassured, “It won’t leave this room. I promise.”
He looked at you, worry in his eyes. “Okay. Fine. Yeah.”
You waited for him to begin.
He took a deep breath. “I’ve been having nightmares. Almost every night. It’s always the same one.”
“You want to tell me about it?” you prompted him after waiting for him to continue.
“I hate my name because he said it a lot. Joker,” he scowled, “After repeatedly burning my skin for my name, it’s like that’s all he said. In that annoying, high pitched, sing-song voice of his. Jason, Jason, Jason. It made me hate my name. It made me hate hearing it.”
“I- I didn’t know how much time passed when I was in there,” he continued, “But, fuck. It was- it was hell. And the worst part was that I kept on waiting for Bruce. Waiting and hoping for him to find me and save me. I was so desperate. You- I-”
He choked on his words. His eyes were squeezed shut and his lips tight.
You wanted to reach out to him, hug him, tell him that everything was okay now. But you didn’t. You waited for him to collect himself so he could finish telling you his story, just like how he wanted to.
“Anyway, I- despite all that,” he sighed, “That was the only thing that kept me sane. I kept on clinging onto the hope that he was out there, searching. And that helped for a while. Until- until that happened.”
He was breathing heavily now, fidgeting more. Jason was definitely getting increasingly agitated the deeper he went.
“Fuck,” he breathed, “Fuck.”
The moment you realised he was crying was when he let out a sniffle. You automatically took his hand in yours, squeezing it as a form of comfort.
“It’s okay,” you told him, “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready.”
“No,” he shook his head, “I need to. I have to. I can’t take this anymore. Keeping everything in, I feel like I’m about to fucking explode.”
“Okay, then take it slow,” you said, “No rush. Anytime you’re ready.”
He nodded, eyes still closed, as if he was afraid of letting you see him cry.
“One night,” he began, “I think- I don’t know what was different- but I think something went wrong for him. Or right? That’s how it was. Tormenting me was fun, but it was also an outlet for him. But at the same time when he was happy, he also tortured me. He came to me, and- injected me with some sort of drug. That never happened before. He made sure that my head was clear whenever he hurt me so that I could feel everything he did.”
“But- he did- and- immediately, I felt weak,” he continued, “I mean, I was already weak. But my head. It was cloudy. I remember everything clearly, but it was like my brain couldn’t process it, couldn’t communicate with my body. I felt like I was looking out through a window that was my eyes- like I was in someone else’s body, experiencing someone else’s moments.”
“He released me,” Jason’s voice was now barely a whisper. “He released me from the ropes, and I fell to the floor. And then he- he- fuck.”
He let go of your hand and started pulling at his hair, rocking back and forth on your bed. He was sobbing now, his shoulders jerking up in sharp intakes of breaths. The only thing you could do was to stay silent and hold back your own tears.
You rested your hand on his knee, giving him a textile connection with reality so he doesn’t fall into his own thoughts.
“You- he- he- ruh- ruhp-”
Your heart sank to your stomach in horror as you realised what Jason was trying to say. It was as if you were plunged into icy water, chills running down your spine at the true revelation of what he had gone through in that cursed cell.
“Oh, no,” you breathed.
“He pushed me down,” he choked, “Pushed me down and climbed on top. I- I couldn’t even fight him. I was- I was conscious the whole time and I knew what was happening, but I couldn’t fucking do anything.”
Your tears were falling down now, both at the sight of Jason looking so vulnerable and fragile, and at his confession. Not being able to help yourself, you threw your arms over his neck and crashed into his hard body, burying your face in the crook of his shoulder.
His arms immediately wrapped around you, clutching you so hard it was painful as he buried his own face into your shoulder.
“And he kept on saying my name,” he said in muffled cries, “Jason, Jason, Jason. The whole fucking time. And- and I knew. He didn’t do it for pleasure. He did it to torment me. He- he didn’t even- he didn’t even finish.”
Jason sobbed into your skin for the next few minutes, his tears soaking through your night shirt. “But I did. Even though it was painful. Fuck, the pain was worse than anything he had ever done to me before. But- he- I- I fucking came.”
The both of you were sobbing now, his ragged breaths mingling together with your own on that quiet night.
His grip on you was tight, as if he thought that if he let go, you would disappear. So he clung onto you with all his might to keep you there with him as he recalled the horrific events.
“That's what broke me. I was so disgusted with myself. I hated myself. And he- he saw everything and- and laughed. He laughed so hard, I thought he was going to choke and die. I’ve never seen him laugh like that. And I remember every single fucking moment of being helpless on that fucking floor while he- fuck. Fuck.”
“And then he left. He left me on the floor bleeding and I never saw him again. And I went fucking insane. I tried to kill myself so many fucking times. So many times, I lost count. That’s what I dream about every night. His laughs, and his ‘Jason, Jason, Jason’.”
And that was that. That was the story.
The end of Jason Todd.
The both of you cried long and hard that night in each other’s arms. Eventually, you both lied down on the pillows together, underneath the covers.
“Please don’t tell Bruce,” he whispered to you.
Your head was on his chest, his big arms wrapped around your waist, your legs tangled with his.
You smiled at that. Even with the trauma, even with the sense of abandonment he felt, he still wanted to protect Bruce from knowing the truth.
Because the both of you knew that the truth would kill him.
“I promise,” you whispered back.
And then the both of you fell asleep together.
***
“Has Jason been sleeping in your room with you?” Bruce asked you on one fine Saturday morning at breakfast.
It had been about a week and a half since the first time Jason knocked on your door and poured out his feelings to you.
“He gets nightmares,” you tried to explain.
He thought that if he told you everything, the nightmares would stop. But it didn’t. But he then realised that the only thing that made it better was sleeping by your side, having someone there to wake him up from living his own hell in a loop.
“And do the two of you… Just sleep?” Bruce frowned.
“Yes!” you widen your eyes in horror at the insinuation. “Bruce! Come on!”
“I know you have feelings for him, and I’m sure he does for you as well. But I don’t think something like that is what Jason needs right now,” he stated.
“Yes, I know!” you groaned at the thought having that kind of conversation with him, “Jesus, Bruce. I know. I’m just there to wake him up or help him fall back asleep. Nothing more.”
Bruce nodded, deep in thought. “Has he… told you? About what happened?”
You pursed your lips. “Yes.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“No.”
“Hmm,” his frown went deeper. “I understand. He will tell me when he is ready.”
“Exactly,” you smiled, hiding the fact that Jason may never tell Bruce what happened. Never the full story.
“He still hasn’t left the manor?”
“No,” you sighed, “I asked him if he wanted some fresh air. Just outside the main door, not even going down the steps. But he refused. Told me to, and I quote, ‘Fuck off’.”
“Well, he’s only just left the cave, and it’s just to your room,” Bruce thought out loud, “It’s still progress. Especially since he’s been talking to you about the past.”
“He only spoke about it one time,” you said, “And then never again.”
“I see,” he hummed, “And you’re okay with him sleeping with you?”
“Next to me, Bruce, sleeping next to me,” you corrected.
“Yes, and you’re okay with that?”
“Yeah, it’s all good,” you assured him, “I can kick him out any time I want- but I don’t want to. He looks like a lost puppy sometimes.”
“An angry lost puppy.”
You chuckled at that and couldn’t agree more.
*** While Jason got the sleep he needed when he was next to you, it was counterproductive on your end. You had never been with anyone before, and definitely had not slept on the same bed with another man.
So to feel his body heat and breaths against your skin, his occasional light snores, it made your mind go on hyperdrive.
Most of the time, the two of you would just lie down, your back against his front, or your backs against each other, or both on your backs just staring at the ceiling- and talked. You would be the one talking the most, of course, about anything you could think of. You would tell him about your day, your patrols, something you read about online, or the current news.
But that one particular night during week three of him sleeping next to you, the two of you were silent. It wasn’t an awkward or uncomfortable silence, but the kind of silence that was pleasant and was better described as a peaceful quiet.
You had your back pressed against his front and his arm was lazily draped over your waist. It was a cold night, and you were wearing just a tank top and pyjama shorts, snuggling under the covers that went up all the way to your nose.
Shifting a bit while snuggling comfortably, you pressed yourself against Jason’s body to get more of his heat. But then, you were met with something poking against your lower back.
“Ngh, please ignore that,” Jason huffed.
Oh.
For some reason, you forgot that Jason was a physically healthy male who was capable of having sexual thoughts and feelings. All this while, you thought you were the only one.
“Are you- uh- is that- uh-” you stuttered, feeling your face flush with heat.
Feeling your body suddenly alert with excitement.
“Yes, it’s my fucking penis,” he grit almost angrily, “What, never heard of an erection before?”
“Of course I have!” you argued rather defensively, “It’s just- I’m surprised, that’s all.”
“Why?” he demanded, “You didn’t think I could get it up or something?”
“No, of course not!” you denied, “It just didn’t cross my mind, that’s all.”
A pause. Then-
“Well,” he sighed, “You wouldn’t have been wrong.”
Your mind blanked for a second.
“What do you mean?” you asked softly.
“It’s my- fuck- it’s my first time,” he confessed.
“Your first time getting an erection?” you gasped.
“No, you idiot,” he snapped, “It’s my first time getting hard since… since… then.”
Oh. Oh, you were an idiot.
“It’s just- after that- even when I was downstairs, alone and safe, I- I couldn’t,” he told you, “I kept on thinking back to that time and- and I couldn’t. I found it disgusting.”
And immediately, like someone doused you in cold water, any feeling of horniness you had when you first felt his erection against you disappeared. You just felt so sad for him, but also angry. Angry that he had to go through all of that, and angrier that there was nothing you could do about it.
“So, why do you think you’re getting it now?” you asked. Perhaps talking about it in an objective manner would help guide him through his thought process.
“Are you kidding me?” he scoffed, “You’re fucking pressing your ass against my dick, what did you think would happen?”
“Wait, what?” your eyes widen, “You’re hard because of me?”
“No shit,” he said, “You’re hardly wearing any clothes, too.”
You shouldn’t feel happy due to the circumstance and context, but there you were ecstatic that he found you attractive enough to pop a boner after so long.
“Fuck,” he sighed, suddenly pressing himself closer to you.
His hand that draped over your waist when to actually grip it. Then, then, he grinded his hard on against your ass.
“Mmm,” he rumbled deeply, “Feels good.”
There. That was it. You were once again flooded with the feeling of heat that pooled at your stomach, a tingling sensation started at your core. Feeling hot despite the low temperature of the night, you clenched your thighs together, needing the slight pressure.
“Yeah?” you whispered.
“Yeah,” he grinded on you again, and then unexpectedly let out a chuckle.
“What is it?” you smiled, loving it whenever you heard him laugh.
“I thought… For the longest time, I thought I was broken. That he broke me,” he revealed, “I thought I needed to get all Wingardium Leviosa on this little fucker.”
“Oh my God,” you laughed and groaned at the same time, “You’re so fucking embarassing.”
He laughed along with you and continued. “But now I’m hard and- and horny. You made me feel like I’m normal again. Like I’m sixteen again, and getting horny over everything.”
Sometimes, we take the normal things for granted. Food, shelter, clothes. In this case, it was a goddamned boner. In a way, Jason’s erection was symbolic- however funny it sounded. Getting your sexual appetite and need back after being so traumatised was a massive leap for many people who had experienced the same thing.
It meant that Jason was healing well.
“Does that make you happy?” you asked.
“Not particularly,” he admitted, “But I’m definitely not sad either.”
“That’s good enough for now, then,” you beamed.
“Yeah,” he breathed.
Another few moments of silence. You could feel it, his cock pushing into you. However tempted you were to push back and grind, you held yourself still.
“Uh, Jason?” you voiced.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to like, take care of it?” you asked, “I mean. My bathroom is available. Or- there are many empty rooms.”
“No,” he simply stated.
“No?”
“No.”
“It’s kinda poking into me.”
“Just ignore it.”
“Ignore it?” you gaped, “How can I ignore it? You’re literally pressing it into my ass.”
“Well, then do you want to take care of it?” he teased.
You couldn’t argue back. “Fine, I’ll ignore it.”
He chuckled. “I’ll turn around.”
When he made the movement, you suddenly grabbed him by the wrist. “No, it’s fine. Stay here.”
You expected him to tease you like he usually would, make a crass comment, or even a ‘fuck off’.
Instead, he wrapped his arms around you again in silence, and the both of you drifted to sleep.
***
“Do you think this color suits me?” Natalie asked, holding up a floral red dress.
The four of you were at the mall in Diamond District. Now that high school was over, and everyone would be going off to separate colleges in a few months, you tried to spend time with each other as much as you could.
“Any color suits you, Nat,” you rolled your eyes, “You’re hot stuff.”
“Jesus, it’s like you’re shoving it in our faces at this point,” Sarah added, flipping her brunette hair to the side, tight curls flowing down.
“Aw, you guys,” Nat pretended to tear up, “I’m gonna miss you guys so much!”
“Not again,” Alex groaned, “We’ve been through this so many times.”
“I’m gonna be so miserable without you guys,” Natalie continued on, ignoring Alex’s interruption.
“I don’t know,” Sarah shrugged, “I think I’d enjoy New York. I can have pizza parties with the rats in my overpriced apartment.”
You chuckled at Sarah’s joke. Everyone was leaving Gotham except you. Deciding to continue with Robin, you opted for Gotham University- prestigious, old, and most importantly, close to home.
Your phone dinged in your pocket. You opened it to find texts from Dick.
Dick: OH MY GOD. Dick: I’m at the Manor. Dick: Was going to the Cave gym to work out. Dick: AND Dick: JASON IS HERE!!! WHAT DO I DO?!?!
That was new. Jason would usually just use whatever basic equipment he had in his room to work out. The fact that he was at the Cave’s sparring area where all the other fancier work out equipment were was out of the ordinary.
You: Just go. See if he reacts. If he suddenly stiffens and just stay there not doing anything, then leave. If he continues on, then it’s okay to stay- but don’t initiate anything! Dick: OKOKOK
You waited anxiously for Dick’s update. All four of you were now walking towards the food court, but you hardly listened to their bickering. Forty-five minutes passed before Dick texted you again.
Dick: OMG HE TALKED TO ME You: What did he say? Dick: He asked me to pass him his towel. You: That’s all he said? Dick: IT’S PROGRESS OKAY!!
Dick was right. It meant that Dick was now the third person Jason had spoken to. Adding another person to his list of contacts was definitely progress.
You were happy for him.
You:Is he still there? Dick: Nah he left Dick: But WOW he’s looking good. He must have been really going at it. I think he might get bigger than me soon You: All he does now is work out. He’s obsessed. Dick: Yeah I can tell
You decided to leave it at that for now and try to concentrate on your friends, but Dick sent another message.
Dick: ARE YOU TWO HAVING SEX?!?!
You spat out your drink, earning weird looks from everyone.
You: DICK!!!! WTF NO!!
Dick never replied.
***
“Can I ask you for a favor?” Jason asked, his voice breaking the silence of your dark room. The two of you were on your bed, lying down and staring at the ceiling.
“Of course,” you said. It didn’t matter to you what Jason asks for. He hardly ever asked for anything.
“Could you… Take me out tomorrow?” he requested, “If you’re not doing anything else, that is.”
“Uh, sure!” you nodded, surprised. “Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere,” he shrugged, “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, okay,” you hesitated, “But- are you sure? I mean, you don’t have to go so far so quickly. Maybe you should start with just going to the backyard?”
“No, I’ll be fine,” he insisted. “I’m not a kid.”
“Okay then,” you agreed. “Tomorrow.”
You kept on glancing anxiously at him the next day as he climbed into the passenger seat of your car. He was quiet, but looked perfectly fine.
Switching the engine on, you drove out of the garage and out the large automatic gates. Trees soon surrounded the lonely road on both sides as you descended downhill into town.
“So where are we going?” he asked.
“I thought Robinson Park would be nice,” you said. It was around three in the afternoon, yet Gotham was dark as though the day was ending. It was cloudy, skies grey and wind blowing.
“You’re taking me to a park?” he scoffed.
“It’s more quiet than anywhere else,” you reasoned with him, “Less people. Spacious. Lots of greenery.”
“Whatever.”
Reaching the parking space of the park, you noticed that there were a few cars. Mothers and nannies liked to bring children out to the park around that time. Joggers and teens, college students and retired elderly seeking a little escape from the high rise buildings of concrete and glass.
You turned the engine off and proceeded to open the door, only then noticing Jason stiffening. Looking over to him, you saw that his eyebrows were pulled down in a deep frown, his jaw clenched, his hands in fists on his knees.
You didn’t say anything or make any comment. Leaning back into your seat, you waited until Jason was ready.
About five minutes passed before he took a deep breath, gave you a nod, and then opened his door.
The two of you walked along a path at the park, going deeper inside and further away from your car. There were a few joggers around, some tourists, and some teens taking photos. You saw a group of kids in the distance playing frisbee, and the others were walking their dogs.
An empty bench stood in the middle of the park, overlooking a clearing. You headed there, Jason following closely behind.
“It’s a bit gloomy today,” you pouted, “As if Gotham could be anything other than that, of course.”
You looked at Jason.
He looked like a scared dog being brought out for the first time.
His jittery knees were bouncing rapidly, his wide eyes were darting at every movement, his forehead was covered with a thin layer of sweat, and his breathing was heavy.
“Woah, woah,” you reached out to him, putting an arm on his back. “It’s okay. I’m here. Just listen to me talk, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he gulped.
“Try to calm your breathing,” you instructed, “Deep breaths, Jason. In… out… In… Out… Yeah, see that’s great.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, now calmer. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” you smiled warmly, “You’re doing just fine.”
“No, I’m not,” he strained, “I feel like everything is too big. Too vast. The fucking sky looks like it’s going to crash down on me and at the same time suck me up into a void.”
“And despite all you’re feeling right now, you’re not breaking down or anything, are you?” you tried, “You’re okay, Jason. This is progress.”
“I guess,” he sighed, “I’m just- I’m so used to having four walls and a ceiling. Now everything feels too big.”
“I understand,” you empathized, “Whenever you want to go back, just say the word. Or we can even just go and sit in the car. No problem.”
“Yeah, okay, let’s do that,” he stood up.
The walk back to the car was faster.
“Fuck, I’m so fucking pathetic,” he said, running his fingers through his hair.
“No, you’re not,” you reassured him, “That was great, Jason. Come on, it was your first time outside in two years and a half. Cut yourself some slack.”
“I’m so fucking broken,” he choked.
“Don’t say that,” you scolded, “You’re not broken. And you know what, even if you think you are, we can always fix it. Baby steps. Maybe we can do this once a week. We were out for like, ten minutes? Next week we’ll try fifteen. How’s that sound?”
“Twice a week,” he stated, “I just want to be normal again.”
“Okay, twice a week, then,” you agreed, “We’ll try again in a couple of days, okay?”
“Okay,” he paused, “Thank you.”
“No problemo,” you grinned, “Would you like to stay here a bit longer or shall we go back?”
“Let’s go back.”
“Wanna stop by the diner? You can wait in the car while I ask for a take-away?”
“...okay.”
***
Jason and you had gone out twice more. Once three days after the first time, and the other a week later. The second time he went out, he lasted twenty minutes, though you were sure he was being stubborn on his part. He looked like he was having a heart attack, but he insisted on staying until he hit the twenty minute mark.
The third time, he was much much better. Surprisingly so. The two of you sat down on that bench for half an hour, with you even leaving him alone for a few minutes to get two ice cream cones.
After that, you took him for a drive around the city. He seemed to be more comfortable in the car, so you went all the way from Robinson Park to Diamond District, and back to the manor.
Bruce seemed very pleased with your update, and you swore you could see him actually smile.
“Thank you,” he had told you. “You’ve done more than I could have ever asked of you.”
“It’s no problem, Bruce. Really,” you reassured him.
“I’m his father. He is my responsibility. It’s my fault he’s even in that state. I wish I could do more for him,” he said solemnly.
“The fact that you understand what he needs is more than helpful, Bruce,” you smiled, “Not many parents can do that. You understand and respect him. That’s enough for now.”
He simply nodded.
Ever since your scheduled outings, Jason had become more and more relaxed whenever he was in the manor. He now walked to the kitchen on occasion to mess with Alfred while he cooked meals for him, sometimes sitting in the living room lounging on the couch while reading. Most of the time, though, he was down at the sparring zone of the Cave, working out.
But at night, he would never fail to knock on your door.
And at that particular night, you found yourself in the same situation again while lying down on your side with your back to his front, for the fifth time.
“You officially have to stop calling yourself broken,” you grumbled, “Because that thing poking into my ass is definitely not broken.”
He chuckled lowly. “You complaining, sweetheart?”
Oh, and yes. Jason now had started calling you ‘sweetheart’. Why? You had no clue. It was just a thing that happened. The look on your face when he first slipped it in was probably a sight to behold.
“No shit, I’m complaining, Jason,” you groaned, “You haven’t jerked off, yet? Not even once?”
“Nope,” he popped the P, “I just… I don’t want to… I don’t want to come.”
You sighed, understanding the situation. He had been disgusted with himself because he had ejaculated when Joker… Well, that. You hated to even think about it, so you always shoved the thought away.
“But unfortunately for me, I still get super horny,” he rumbled deeply, pushing his hips into you even more, “So fucking horny.”
“And then I have to suffer,” you complained.
“I can assure you, blue balls are more painful than something poking into you,” he bickered.
“It’s not that…”
“Then?”
“I get horny too, come on man,” you whined, “I’m a hormonal teenage girl. What did you expect?”
“You get horny too?” he whispered after a pause.
“Uh, yeah,” you admitted nervously. Somehow, the mood shifted, and your heart started drumming against your chest.
“Because of me?” he asked.
“Not you specifically, I mean,” you tried to back track, “You’re… Your dick pressing up against me like that, I mean, come on, Jason.”
“Simple question sweetheart,” he told you, “You get horny because of me, yes or no?”
You gulped. “Yes.”
Fuck, why did you say yes? You could have lied. You could have not answered.
“Yeah?” he breathed. You noticed that his hand was now on your hip, right above the waistband of your sleeping shorts, drawing circles onto your skin with his thumb.
You were nervous. The butterflies in your tummy was not helping you calm down.
“Yeah,” you squeezed your eyes shut, as if to protect yourself from anything he had to say.
“Fuck,” he groaned, gripping your hips and grinding his hard on against your ass even more. And did it… Fuck, did it get even harder?
Afraid of saying the wrong thing, and also out of nervousness, you remained silent. Jason’s chest rose and fall against your back, his respiratory rate increasing. His pinky finger slid underneath the waistband, testing the waters before slowly slipping his hand into your pants.
He went in so slowly, as if waiting for you to tell him no, to rip his hand away, to wrench yourself away from him. But you never did, so he went in deeper, caressing the skin beneath your pelvic bone, his heat just burning into you.
“You’re not wearing any underwear,” he commented, voice suddenly husky.
“I don’t wear them to bed,” you informed him.
“You mean to tell me,” he growled, “That all this while I’ve been sleeping next to you and you never had your panties on?”
“It’s more comfortable that way,” you mumbled.
“Jesus Christ,” he cursed. “Thank God I never knew. Would have been torture, and trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”
“Jason,” you gasped.
“It’s true,” he said, “Damn, sweetheart.”
He went lower, closer to your center.
Your core was tingly, small pulses of electricity buzzed through your body as Jason came closer and closer and closer and-
He slipped his hands between your closed thighs and cupped you.
“Mmm,” he moaned softly, “Warm. Fuzzy.”
“Fuzzy?” you laughed, even though you felt like screaming on the inside. Screaming for more.
“Yeah,” he mumbled, burying his face into your nape, taking a deep breath. “You smell nice.”
Oh, shit. You totally forgot about Jason’s aversion to strong smells.
“I’m sorry!” you quickly apologised, “I can switch to an unscented shampoo as well so it wouldn’t be too strong for you.”
“It’s fine,” he said, “I like it on you.”
He ground his hand into your center harder.
“Mmpf, Jay,” you breathed, “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed, “I’ve never touched a girl like this before.”
“Really?” you widen your eyes in surprise.
“I was kept in a cell for two years, I couldn’t exactly talk, let alone touch, anyone can I?” he quipped.
“Right.”
“Teach me,” he said.
“What?” you whispered despite knowing what he meant.
A pause of silence. A deep intake of breath, a slow exhale.
“Teach me how to touch you,” he purred.
Fuck, you felt like exploding.
“Are you sure?” you asked.
“Yes. If you… If you want to.”
Your mind quickly tried to analyse the situation. Bruce had specifically said that Jason didn’t need any complicated matters in the relationship. It made sense. You didn’t want to overwhelm Jason with any confusion or uncertainty.
But at the same time, you’ve been figuring out how Jason thought, bit by bit. He’s told you many times that he just wanted to be normal again, to feel normal, to do normal things. And this was something that was normal, that he should do, that he wanted to do.
And you knew that he probably would take the rejection even worse.
“O-Okay,” you agreed.
Slowly, you separated your thighs, raising the one on top and hooking it over his legs behind you. Due to your shift in position, you felt the minute Jason’s fingers dip slightly into your folds.
“So, uh, this is my first time with a guy as well,” you squeaked, “But I’ll try to guide you.”
You licked your lips.
“Uhm, well, I guess you can start by running a finger up and down between my- oh! Yes, just like that.”
His middle finger slid down to your opening, and then up again slowly. His movements were uncertain, brushing only slightly against your clit unintentionally.
It was different, having someone else touch you. Somehow, despite the inexperience, it just felt better.
“Holy fuck,” he gasped, “You’re so fucking wet. Do you usually get this wet?”
You felt your cheeks heat up. “No? Yes? I don’t know! I can’t feel it.”
“Shit.”
You let him play with you some more, his fingers sliding up and down, sometimes pressing against your fleshy parts, sometimes circling and gathering your wetness, sometimes just parting your lips. Hell, he even tapped the tips of his fingers on you randomly or brushed into your delicate fuzz. You knew he was just exploring, feeling you for the first time.
And that thought made you smile and sigh.
“Teach me how to make you feel good,” he rasped.
“Uh, so your fingers are wet, right?”
“Yeah. Because you’re leaking all over them.”
“Okay, good. Now find my clit. It’s slightly above your finger, okay, to the left a bit. More. Okay, there! Yeah, right there,” you sighed, finally feeling that delicious pressure.
“Here?”
He tapped your clit.
“Ah!” you moaned, “Yes- but don’t just- nevermind, just gently circle it. Clockwise.”
He obeyed, and hell since when did Jason just obey?
He circled you gently, like you said. But he also went so, so slow.
“Faster, Jay,” you panted.
He went faster, making you groan in pleasure.
“Like this, sweetheart?” he muttered, his voice low and cracking, and sexy, and husky. You’ve never heard him sound like that before, and it drove you wild.
“Yeah,” you breathed, “Yeah, just like that. Fuck.”
“Feel good?”
“So good, Jay. Press a little harder now- fuck. Fuck. Yes, perfect. Just like that.”
The pressure built as his fingers did their magic.
“You- you’re surprisingly good at that,” you stuttered, “You sure- mmm- you sure you’ve never done this before?”
“Despite what you think,” he husked in your ear, warm breath tickling you. “I’m very good at following instructions.”
“I can see that.”
“But I’m also good at improvising.”
“Wha- oh. Oh. Fuck! Jason! Oh my fucking god!”
He started pressing even harder, and going even faster, throwing away the slow build you were going for and instead pushing you towards orgasm fast and hard, as if he was determined to prove something to you.
“Feel good, sweetheart?” he purred, “You gonna come soon?”
“Oh my- fuck, yes! Fuck, don’t stop!”
“You want to come for me?” his deep voice rumbled.
“Yes!”
What the hell? When did he learn how to talk like that?
Because with the mix of his heavy pants, his low voice coaxing you, his barrage of pleasure at your clit, you felt the familiar tightening of your core. You threw one hand back and found his hair. Running your fingers through them, you gripped them tight and pulled.
You pulled on his hair as he forced the orgasm onto you.
“Oh my God. Jason, I’m gonna- fuck- I’m- fuck- ah!”
You moaned loudly as you felt your walls flutter, clenching over nothing as you reached your high.
“O-okay, stop, fuck,” your hand went from his hair to his wrist, stilling him. He withdrew his hands from your pants, and went to grip you tight again by the waist.
“Fucking hell, sweetheart,” he groaned, grinding into you. You pushed your ass back, feeling his hardened length against your flesh in your post-orgasm bliss. “Jesus, that was so hot.”
“That was- yeah,” you giggled, “Fuck.”
His face was still buried in your neck. You could feel his lips on your skin.
“Uhm, I can, you know,” you sputtered, “Try to help you out?”
“It’s fine,” he breathed, body still tight against yours, “Just go to sleep.”
“Are you sure?” you asked again, feeling guilty that he didn’t get off. “I don’t mind.”
“I do,” he said, “It’s okay, sweetheart. That was great. I enjoyed that. I told you, I don’t want to come.”
“Okay,” you sighed.
“Go to bed.”
“Thank you, Jason.”
“Fuck, I’m so horny.”
“Jason,” you whined, “Really, I can help-”
“I’m kidding,” he chuckled, “Goodnight.”
You pursed your lips.
“Goodnight.”
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kexing · 3 years
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You know i went to work only because i wanted new computer. it's complicated and depressing story and if you don't mind me sharing it with you then continue reading and if you don't want it then just delete this ask ❤️ i had that privilege, i didn't have to think about anything but i lived with my parents and i was super depressed. I broke the connections with everyone except them. I didn't leave my room at all. I felt so tired all the time. I started have health problems. Two years later i have this job. I'm accumulating money very slowly. And you know... Fate likes to make a joke out of us humans. My father wanders from hospital to hospital for a whole year. I can't visit him because of covid. But doctors still can't help him. My cat my only remaining friend died in the start of October. I think if i was more responsible she would have lived longer. I still didn't accept her death, i see her shadows all the time and i still talk to her when i get back from work. Out of habit. I have never found new friends and I am absolutely lonely because my mother works two jobs and is almost never at home. I'm always at work and that and you know some things like WOH have not allowed me to disappear from this world yet. So Mj. I feel you. I'm with you. Your tags on that post touched me to the depths of my soul and I want you to know that I'm here. somewhere nearby i'm with you in silent support.
So yeah. The only thing left for me is to find joy in little things like new computer and subscription to gagaoolala where i can look at another stories. Another people. And i can only hope that every story has its bad and good moments. So one day it'll be our turn to have happy things 💖
first and foremost, i want you to know that i don’t mind you sharing your story with me. it’s not silly, it’s not unimportant, it’s your Life and that alone is worth reading a hundred pages, i would never delete it. so please don’t worry about it!
living with parents can be really hard, i’ve lived most part of my life with mine and it definitely didn’t help my mental health so i understand. and absolutely nothing wrong with wanting a new computer and working for it! i am a firm believer that anything is valid as a motivator. if it helps you, it helps and no one should complain about it!
slowly accumulating money IS progress, it’s more than you had a few years back and that matters!
i am deeply sorry about your father’s condition, i hope things get better for him! and about your cat. grief is a terrible company, it makes you blame yourself, it keeps you in denial, it’s a tough road to go through but take your time, allow yourself to feel these things but keep in mind that it will get easier. it won’t be the same, that’s not realistic but slowly you’ll start realizing that you did what you could and even if it wasn’t perfect, how could it? you’re human, we all are, mistakes are made sometimes but despite all of that, you love your cat and the time you two spent together was a gift both for you and for them.
being an adult is so lonely, isn’t it? and then they wonder why we cling to fiction and to art in this lonely world. those are lifelines. some people may not understand but fiction can genuinely save lives.
woh is a wonderful companion, isn’t it??!!! i’m so thankful that it exists and makes life a little bearable for us!!!!!!! ❤️💙 i’m happy you haven’t disappeared yet, i’m really happy you’re here!!!!!!!
thank you SO MUCH for reading my tags!! thank you for empathizing with my struggles, for being here with me, for being so brave despite everything that you’re going through. you may not feel brave or tough but you ARE, okay??? wen kexing just told me you are, we can’t argue with him! akdkskkdsk
from the bottom of my heart: THANK YOU.
joy is a fleeting thing and often found in the smallest of achievements and moments. but however big or small, joy is VALID in all forms and i support you finding it in anything!!!!!!
also, if there’s any show you want to watch and can’t find link, you can ask me and i’ll do my best to find it for you!
and YES!!! that’s a message i’m always taking from stories. today may be someone else’s turn to have good and happy things but tomorrow it may be my turn. and if not, i’ll keep hoping for it to come eventually!!!
and now i’m also wishing YOU good things because you deserve it!! and i’ll keep manifesting it!!! every week from now on you’ll get a wonderful news!!! because i’m putting this out there in the universe and she’ll hear me!! so good luck!!! and have a wonderful week!!!!
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yeonchi · 3 years
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THIS JUST IN: TV-Nihon C&D’d by Toei?
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We’ve known that Toei can get a bit “Jewish” when it comes to copyright claims of their content on YouTube, but this seems to be a first. Just today, Takenoko of TV-Nihon received an email from someone claiming to be from the “Intellectual property rights department” at Toei asking them to take down their copyrighted materials. As such, TV-Nihon have taken down their Super Sentai and Kamen Rider torrents from their tracker for the time being.
Some people on Twitter have suspected that this is not a legitimate notice and I agree with them because I don’t think this email looks professional enough to be legitimate. If they knew how to file a DMCA, this would be different, but I digress. According to Over-Time on Twitter, New Wave and Perfect Zect (NewZect for short), a Brazilian toku fansubbing group, also received a similar email back in March. At the time of writing, their site is still up and they have deleted whatever notice they had about this, so I don’t know what’s happening on that front. Also, no other toku fansubbing group (English or otherwise) has received similar notices either.
It just seems too coincidental that this happened after Shirakura claimed that he wasn’t supposed to know how fans could watch Super Sentai and Kamen Rider internationally. As such, I’m seeing people putting blame on the person who tweeted at Shirakura, similarly to what happened during the Zi-O Trinity fiasco. Guys, I know the Shirakura paradox runs deep, but I don’t think the person is to blame. I’m pretty sure that Shirakura’s tweet was meant as a joke and honestly, Toei has known about the fansub market for like twenty years now, so it’s weird that they’re doing this now instead of very early on. Remember when Shirakura claimed that there was no Kamen Rider fanbase in the West and you went out of your way to make yourselves heard? This is someone who apparently thought the only toku Westerners liked was Power Rangers (because Shirakura was a producer on Zyuranger, the first Sentai that was adapted to the West). Also, the person didn’t even mention watching it outside of Japan, it was Shirakura who brought it up. They were just asking for more Super Sentai music on Spotify.
Anyway, as I said, I’m hoping that this copyright notice is fake (just as the next person), but in the event that this turns out to be real, I sincerely hope that TV-Nihon’s typesetters can hook us fans up with the lists of fonts that they use in their releases. Times have changed guys. Don’t leave us hanging.
This post will be updated as events progress.
UPDATE - 15 May 2021: Apparently, after comparing emails with TV-Nihon and KRDL (who also received one such email), Over-Time seems to be convinced that the emails are legit (note that they did not receive any such emails themselves), so they’ve decided to stop sharing raws and subs for Super Sentai and Kamen Rider (apparently they’re still going to sub shows, just not post about them on their site). Nobody has been served any legal letters and the emails don’t seem to be valid legal threats, but Over-Time are being cautious for the time being just like TV-Nihon are. I’m still of the opinion that these are not legitimate, particularly because no lawyer has had a hand in any of this (as far as I know) and the emails are purposely vague.
Regardless of whatever happens, please don’t blame twt_tokusatsu for tweeting at Shirakura, or even Shirakura himself for joking about it because he might not even know what is going on (and we don’t exactly know if he does either). If anything, Toei should be blamed for being “Jewish” with their copyrights.
Also, I highly suggest that people refrain from tagging Shirakura on Twitter with their complaints or being paranoid and alarmist when someone does. Some people seem to think that the Western toku fanbase is on thin ice with Toei, but we don’t exactly know how thick the ice is. Yes, some scepticism and cautiousness is okay, but the more paranoid the fanbase gets, the more rumours and misinformation get spread around.
UPDATE - 19 May 2021: Takenoko has stated that he wants to continue translating the shows, so TV-Nihon have started releasing subtitle files for use with the raws. The subtitles are only in an .srt format with no fonts, styling or karaoke, which might be a bit disappointing, but still a good start for TV-Nihon, who have been hardsubbing their releases since the beginning. It would be nice, though, if they eventually released their full collection of subtitle files so that people who have the raws can use them themselves, plus it would save me from bugging TV-Nihon’s typesetters on my posts to release the fonts they use for their releases because they would all be in the files themselves.
Also, you didn’t hear this from me, but I’m starting to see TV-Nihon’s latest releases on a certain site that other sub groups use to post their release torrents.
Since it’s going to be about a week without anything else in the way of news, I’ll keep observing the situation for a couple more weeks and then write a post summarising the whole situation. Assuming that nothing much happens during that time, this will be the final update for this post.
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