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#everything about my world view makes sense if you realize i spent the first 5 years of my life living in civil war zones tbh
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my current grand theory of everything as squeezed through the phantom of the opera filter is that the evo psych / neuro bio doctor guy who says that the most attractive thing to women is "autonomic nervous system regulation" is right, and most women, most of the time, want to feel safe. but also if you're the kind of woman who is very aware that the world is a fucked up place, if you've experienced any real actual physical violence in your life, and you're also kind of fucked up about surviving it because hey buddy, that's rough, then--
then of course some rich pretty boy doesn't make you feel safe, even in theory, in fiction, in fantasy. do you know what happens to rich pretty boys in failed state situations? unless their family uses that cash to immigrate out or hire a shit ton of private security, they die like everybody else.
so maybe yeah, maybe it is that the world is kind of fucked up place, and there is a little bit of fight fire with fire burning in not just the id, but everywhere in the psyche. maybe if you're very aware of how people might--no, not just might, maybe if you know people have wanted to actually for real kill you before, maybe the fantasy is man who is good at murder (but won't murder you, who is still emotionally vulnerable to you). maybe all this discourse on healthy relationship blah blah misses the point that sometimes danger is the point, sometimes danger IS the fantasy, sometimes danger is the allure because there is nothing safe about a person who's harmless. maybe the fantasy isn't civilizing the monster or taming the wilderness. maybe the fantasy is feeling safe because of the monster.
maybe the fantasy is knowing it's not just your teeth and claws against the uncertain world.
so maybe all The Discourse misses the fucking point, you know?
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nectaric · 4 months
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TOP 10 MOST SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS IN HADES' LIFE:
choose ten moments within your muses' life - moments that have impacted them the most - and explain why. moments can be good, bad, or both. tagging: @ichoric / @aetheryic, @singofus @kallistcs @brokenbow @seekesotsibteadmist @triickst @intothewildsea @madefate @championsofthegate @asoulunbound @heartheaded and you!
10.  first spring without persephone.  this was when it truly sunk in just how much he had messed things up.  it was a period of immense reflection, and guilt, and introspection. hades thought he knew what it was to be lonely before, but this was so much worse.  he realized how bad he fucked up, basically, and it impacted his future treatment of persephone significantly.
9.  being swallowed.  being consumed by your own father and spending your formative years in darkness and bile is pretty shitty, and its left him with some pretty serious issues, fears, and opinions on fatherhood.  however, the reason this is so high up on the list is simply because of the distance between hades and this event.  it was difficult, but compared to a lot of things that have come after, its… child’s play.
8.  early relationships.  some of the first relationships hades ever had (pre-persephone, of course) were pretty significant, and shaped his entire view of love and romance.  though there’s no proof, obviously, i’ve always headcanoned a lot of “non-canon” relationships during the titanomachy.  and one of those is the relationship i’ve imagined hades had with zelos during the war, which started out fairly innocent but turned out to be exploitative and unhealthy. hades was in a very vulnerable space and zelos, intentionally or not, took advantage of him, which really did not help hades’ already fragile sense of self.  then there was demeter, who in my headcanon was a very positive relationship for him, one that helped to heal his perception of love, sex, and himself a little bit.  after the war was leuce, who despite holding hades’ attention and affection, was not meant to be. i don’t think hades was at all ready for a relationship and therefore leuce did not work out.
7.  inheriting the underworld.  i don’t think hades was upset about this assignment, because he had always preferred the dark and quickly realized just how much he disliked the politics of olympus. but he wasn’t particularly thrilled either, and venturing into a massive realm, an unruly realm, and trying to make order of it was exciting, but also difficult and isolating.  and it is what solidified him as this deity to be feared, not loved.
6.  titans 2 (or 3?):  so this existed purely in the world of roleplay w/ @ ichoric but it has been no less significant on my hades.  he watched his family die, felt their souls ripped away from the world of the living.  he was forced into exile, spent weeks tracking down his missing children, running himself ragged.  for the first time since his youth, he was in full blown war again, which dredged up a lot of old horrors.  the only good that came from this was the rekindling of old relationships, wounds being closed -- particularly with his siblings, nieces, and nephews.
5.  getting sober.  i think this is one that takes time for hades to come to grips with and fully recognize its impact.  he knew how his drinking affected him and his family, and it’s part of his motivation for actually getting sober, but it’s not until he’s sober for a while that he realizes how much better they’re all doing and how much more enjoyable his life is, and generally how much healthier he is.  despite the pain he was trying to cover up, he feels happier more often.  food tastes better, he sleeps better, sex is better, everything is just so much better and he never believed it could be, but here it is and he’s so grateful for it.
4.  the titanomachy.  fairly obvious, here, but no less significant.  he emerged from the darkness and was thrown into a ten year long war, with no skills, no safety.  it was long and brutal and took so much adaptation that it left him with a lot of issues.  he was physically injured, abused, manipulated, and left in fear during this time - but he also got to meet his family, make friends, and transition too.  so it was a very significant period of time, in good and bad ways.
3.  the birth of his children.  its kind of hard to rank any one of them higher than the other, so i’m meshing them together.  its also hard to compare these to the one below, so imagine that these two are sort of all meshed together.  but he adored his children.  he never thought he would get to be a father, but then there his children were.  he cherished them.  he loved being a father.  he still does, i should add.  but in that moment, he was content.  every time one of them was born, he felt more complete.  and then disaster struck :)
2.  marrying persephone.  aside from the chaos this also created and the sheer impact it had on the world around them, marrying persephone is also the source of almost all things good in his life.  he adores his wife, grew with his wife, had beautiful children with her.  the only reason i put this above the last one is because he couldn’t have the kids without her, so… i guess this wins out.
1.  the death of zagreus.  this completely threw his entire world into chaos, broke his spirit and tore apart his family, and hades was never the same again after this happened. everything up to this point has been quite impactful, but nothing so much as this. i’ve talked a lot about how zagreus’ death affected him, so i won’t elaborate too much, but there is no denying how much this changed his life and perspective.
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uibkhannah · 2 years
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The gleaming metallic towers that surrounded him and continued onwards in never ending multiplicity to beyond the horizon oppressed him; the whole busy, unheeding life of a world metropolis cast him into the horrible gloom of isolation and […] unimportance.1
Everything I make, feels like it has to be amazing and I lose that sense of play I had when I first started.
The forever edifying impress of artistic perfection cannot be dispensed with in our busy everyday life.2
Being content is having the ability to take time, be selective and savour your thoughts.
realizing the truth that when you slow down, you have more time.
There isn’t room here to take a deep breath.3
I need to get away from everything to figure everything out.
I need to give myself the break I need.
His life was crowded, public and impersonal as a city square.4
Hong Kong is a busy city that is full of energy. You can feel its vibrant in every corner of the city. The energy is one element that makes this big city appealing – not to mention that the hustle and bustle will have an effect on you.
[…] a great, mad city on every occasion that it is a great sublime city.5
Wherever you go in a City, it looks like a crowded city scene.6
From the street to the roof, the rooms pile up one on top of the other, while the tent of a horizonless sky encloses the entire city.7
The result is that people cry out against the sky scraper and the vertically built city ; and because of the need to get about quickly, against the type of city which is spread out over a large area.8
Just as when one hurries through the crowded parts of the city one cannot help jostling many people, and one cannot help slipping at one place, being hindered at another, and splashed at another, so when one’s life is spent in disconnected pursuits and wanderings, one must meet with many troubles and many accusations.9
You lose yourself in the maelstrom, no longer able to find the calm place within as everything collapses into unresolvable conflict.10
“We are all brothers under the skin and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it.”11
Under the skin, over it, everywhere.12
The last thin skin, the painted one, is not printed smoothly, homogeneously or monotonously, it spreads and shines in a chaos of colours, forms and tones.13
„He looks deeper than the skin, and admires intellect in others.14
This tattoo fancy extends to the collection of skins.15
The servant shaved his head and made some tattoo marks on his body.16
Ethnographic instances of tattoos indirectly confirm that human ideals of beauty include body decoration.17
[…]  just like my identity,[…] a composite of many different values, customs, traditions, and viewpoints.18
They like its traditions of the open air, the lure of the unknown, the thrill of the different, the idea of adventure.19
You pray, repeat affirmations, take a deep breath, and step through the gate20
We hope it is a place that will encourage people to slow down and spend time there.21
This was the searching for a resting place of which he speaks.22
It hopes to locate moments of authenticity—to calm the mind and the body—in order to survive in our runaway world.23
Thanks to its solidity of time and space, this order is slow and exploratory24
For happiness has its abode in one place only, namely, in the mind itself, and is noble, steadfast, and calm; and this state cannot be attained without a knowledge of things divine and human.25
It is made up of serenity and tension, calm and energy, slowness and speed.26
[…]theory of a contrast between the sensible and intelligible worlds.27
The city was peaceful, as peaceful as the starry glitter above.28
One returns to everyday life feeling relaxed and calm.”29
They’re sitting on a rise above the city of the future.30
[…]she set foot on the top of the pile, on viewing this great city, this motionless and silent crowd, […]31
It must be somewhere in that tower […], the central tower.”32
The Tower: it’s a prison.33
They are not enemies; they are opposites.34
[…] sticking to him like a leech.35
Hatched, the parasite larvae fed on the insides of this inflorescence.36
 […] it is wonderful how it clings to me and how my skin is simply made to drink it in.37
The skin never forms, as in modern bodies, individual small wrinkles distinct from the flesh beneath them.38
[…] the interior was a sharp contrast to the busy utilitarianism of most of the rest of the City, […]39
[…] the display areas, […] are calm, well lit, and spacious.40
He has been deeply involved with Buddhism but also affected by other spiritual traditions.41
[…] often depicted in landscape paintings as the setting for an authentic life and a threshold to the unconditioned realms of enlightenment.42
In major cities such as Hong Kong, Feng Shui is still an influential practice in the design and consideration of urban planning.43
In particular, the philosophy […] refers to the spiritual approach applied to the design of cities.44
[…] harmonization with nature, hence geomantic system of bringing a building into harmony.45
The principal goal of Feng Shui was to enhance the Ch’i, or life force of a place, thereby improving the health and safety of its inhabitants.46
[…] the spirits of good and evil, should not be disturbed.47
This dawning sense of the Within as reality when it is clearly seen as Nature will by way of glass make the garden be the building as much as the building will be the garden: the sky as treasured a feature of dally indoor life as the ground itself.48
So the house can take on a variety of shapes, with a guarantee of a reasonable amount of privacy for its garden and for most of the house, an increase in the amount of light into the house, and an increase in the amount of indoor space that can be next to outdoor areas.49
[…] surrounded on the outside by a mirror of water.50
[…] the nature of space in his architecture showed a slow metamorphosis.51
This slow taking possession of space […] promotes that fusion of privacy in the sharing of common ritual that is the essence of the numinous.52
This suggests a round, square or rectangular shape with no hidden corners.53
[…] big porthole windows […]54
[…] brought […] an amount of sunlight and fresh air that corresponded […] in his Utopia.55
Inbuilt ‘furniture’ included a low platform […], which would have been equally suitable for sitting or lying on.56
“There are little sheds for resting.57
[…] walls were lined with […] marble and satin damask, and […] offices were lined in teak veneer.58
[…] silk screened directly onto the glass curtain wall.59
[…] Plain and Simple.60
1 Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 2 Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City 3 Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 4 Rand, The Fountainhead 5 Hugo, Les Miserables 6Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 7 Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943 1968 8 Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow 9 Seneca, Complete Works 10 Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home 11 Rand, The Fountainhead 12 Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 13 Serres, The Five Senses 14 Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 15 Carter, Shaking A Leg 16 The Book of the Thousand and One Nights Supplementary Nights 17 Zimring, Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste 18 Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home 19 Koolhaas, Elements of Architecture 20 Anzaldua, This Bridge We Call Home 21 Alexander, A Pattern Language 22 Calvin, Harmony of the Law Vol 4 23 Sykes, Constructing a New Agenda Architectural Theory 19 24 Publishing, The Riddle of the Real City 25 Seneca, Complete Works 26 Milani, The Art of the City 27 Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy Volume 2 The Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus 28 Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 29 Senk, Capsules Typology of Other Architecture 30 Powers, The Overstory 31 Michelet, The History of France Vol 2 32 Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 33 Hovestadt Buehlmann, Quantum City 34Hugo, Les Miserables 35 Joyce, Ulysses 36 Powers, The Overstory 37 de Montaigne, The Complete Essays 38 Harrison Wood Gaiger, Art in Theory 1648 1815 39 Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 40 Hartoonian, Architecture and Spectacle A Critique 41 Chilvers, A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art Oxfor 42 Barrie, House and Home Cultural Contexts Ontological Rol 43 M Grierson, Transformations 44 M Grierson, Transformations 45 Tadgell, The East Buddhists Hindus and the Sons of Heaven 46 Deviren, The Greening of Architecture A Critical History a 47 Mattie, Architectural Competitions 1950 Today 48Ockmann, Architecture Culture 1943 1968 49 Alexander, A Pattern Language 50 PerezGomez, Attunement Architectural Meaning After the Crisis 51 Gartman, From Autos to Architecture Fordism and Architectu 52 Kite, ShadowMakers A Cultural History of Shadows in Ar 53 Kellert, Biophilic Design The Theory Science and Practice 54 Fodors Travel, Fodors New York City 2015 55 Miller, The Culture of Cities 56Snape, The Complete Cities of Ancient Egypt 56 Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 57 Asimov, Complete Robot Anthology 58 Denison, Architecture and the Landscape of Modernity in Chi 59 Kellert, Biophilic Design The Theory Science and Practice 60 Macdonald, A Companion to Museum Studies Blackwell Companion
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aggravatetheaxe · 3 years
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Hi there! I was wondering if I could request an imagine where a victim “escapes” from the slashers and hurts s/o in the process. What would the slashers do during and after? Thank you!!
Hi! I wasn't sure which slashers you wanted for this, so I put my list into a randomizer and went with the first 5!
Walter Sullivan
Thomas Hewitt
Jason Voorhees
Deacon Billings (OC Ghostface)
Erik ("The Phantom")
SLASHERS WHOSE VICTIM HURTS THEIR S/O
cw: mentions of suicide, reader being injured/in mortal peril, mentions of torture and killing etc etc
--
Walter Sullivan
Oh no. Oh dear.
You are possibly the only good, pure thing in this world or the Otherworld and someone hurt you? Walter is ... not happy, to put it lightly. The only person who should ever hurt you is him, and he won't do that unless it's for your own good.
This only enforces his belief that the world and everyone in it are monstrous. It drives home the truth he's already convinced of - this existence in terrible and torturous and needs to be destroyed if anything holy is ever going to be allowed to blossom again.
Whether The Victim is pre- or post- Walter's suicide, he's already stopping at nothing to go after them. He doesn't view it as personal, he doesn't hold any particular hatred for most (most) of his victims; they're simply links in a chain. But this person, the one who hurt you ... it's personal. They'll die in absolute agony.
If the victim in question is pre-suicide, Walter will bring them down and find somewhere to keep them for later. This will not be a quick death.
While they're bound/gagged or knocked out, he'll check on you. You're special, possibly even the Mother Reborn, and he can't let you die until the time is right. If you're seriously injured, he'll see to it that you're taken to the hospital, and pray to a dead God if he has to that you'll be alright. If you're not seriously injured, he'll do his best to patch you up - he lived on the streets for many years and had to take care of himself, so he knows basic first aid.
Once he's certain you're safe, he will put you somewhere where you won't witness what he's about to do. Even if you want to see it, he'll insist you stay hidden, saying the sinner doesn't deserve to be in your presence. You'll have to really convince him if for some reason you want to watch.
Their torture will depend on what they did to you. If it was just a few scrapes and cuts, he'll let them feel every ounce of pain before they die. If they really hurt you, their torture will be prolonged. In his mind, and according to his religion, death is a sacred sacrament, and this evil being doesn't deserve its release. If they did something to seriously traumatize and/or sully you ... the crime scene he leaves behind is going to be grisly, to put it lightly.
If the victim in question is post-suicide, the results will be similar, but he has absolute control over the Otherworld - and he will utilize that. He will have his creations take care of you and keep you somewhere safe ... they may be terrifying, but they won't hurt you unless he wills it. As for the victim, he can twist them into their worst nightmares over and over again before killing them. He will make them see their wrongdoings and pay for their evil. They will beg for mercy and there will be none.
After it all, he will simply move onto the next one, with you somewhere safe ... until it's time. Until it's time. You are so perfect.
Thomas Hewitt
Dammit. If he'd just been quicker or smarter, he could have caught them before they escaped and hurt you. He immediately blames himself.
There's no time to beat himself up over it, though. He briefly checks to make sure you're not bleeding from anywhere vital and sends you (or locks you up) somewhere safe before going after the victim. You're on your own for first aid for now - unless you're literally dying, he can't let them leave the property.
If you are literally dying, he's staying and doing all he can to help you. But if Hoyt yells, he may have to pawn you off on someone else and hope they do a good job taking care of you. He'll hold your face and give you tender kisses goodbye - whether you want them or not - because this might be the last time he ever sees you.
He chases the victim in a fever, much more erratic than you would expect from him. He's faster, less careful, more inclined to put himself at risk just to get a swing in at them. It's not generally anything personal when he kills someone - it's something he does for the good of his family, and because he was told to. This one he's not interested in saving for meat. They hurt you. You, his special person. He's going to grind them into the mud, and he's not even going to let Hoyt have a go at them.
Sometimes, sometimes, he struggles to see the animals in his victims. But this one ... he doesn't even feel the urge to twist them into an animal. That's a whole human, an evil one, one he wants to kill. It's a different feeling for him.
Once it's all over and everything's calmed down, he's rushing directly to your side. People don't come around all too often, so he's comfortable putting down the chainsaw for now. He neglects any skin projects he planned and lets someone else do the butchering, focusing on taking care of you, especially if you're seriously injured and put up in bed.
If you're not as seriously injured and tell him you're fine, he's still keeping an eye on you ... and making sure you're well-fed. You've been through a lot and it was all his fault. He doesn't want you to be exposed like that again. Next time someone comes around, he'll insist you hide somewhere.
Jason Voorhees
It's a toss up whether or not he'll actually notice you're hurt. Not because he doesn't care or anything, but because Camp Crystal Lake is a lot of ground to cover and there's a low chance he'll be in the same area as you at any given time.
For this imagine, though, let's assume you've found your way to him or he's sensed you're in trouble and has rushed to you.
You were supposed to be safe in the cabin, so he's a little irritated that you wandered out, but that's completely overshadowed when he realizes you're hurt. He stops everything he's doing and clinically and thoroughly pats you down, identifying every solitary injury.
Just like his mother before him, he is a vengeful soul, so he is not letting this go even if you're just scraped or bruised. If you are critically injured, he'll at least get you to the cabin and get a tourniquet on you.
Otherwise, he leaves you behind. Not very mindful, but you should know that he wants you to get back to the cabin or at least stay out of the way. He is no longer thinking of you - he has established his target and knows what he has to do. He's laser focused and decisive as he stalks after them, using anything at his disposal to get to them.
Their death is quick - he doesn't play around - but he has a lingering sense of irony and playfulness. If there's a particularly interesting weapon nearby, he'll take them out with that; or perhaps he'll hurt them in the way they hurt you, just, you know ... more fatal. And a lot gorier.
After that, he'll move onto their friends, until every last one is dead. Once his objective is completed, he is returning to you directly and finishing the job of patching you up.
He can't help but feel a little guilty that you were hurt. You shouldn't have left the cabin, true, but perhaps he should have been watching for you. He should have locked you up. Pamela might say rude things in his head. Then again, she might comfort him. If she doesn't like you, maybe she'll even wish he'd left you to die.
Deacon Billings (OC Ghostface)
Well ... you usually keep him around to scare off other Ghostfaces - something he's very handy at - but you don't usually run into trouble with his victims.
He doesn't really tell you to go anywhere in particular when he's killing. He knows you can take care of yourself. But now he feels stupid for not having a backup plan. Of course some asshole was gonna eventually identify you as his loved one and try to get cute. He should've had something prepared for that.
But, if he's good at anything, it's improvising. He skids into whatever room you're in, drops his weapon, and pulls his mask off right away to check you over. If you're only mildly injured, he's visibly relieved, and tells you to stay put while he deals with whomever hurt you. If you're more seriously injured, he'll grab your phone and shove it in your hand. "Get in the car, get the fuck out of here. Drive to the emergency room if you have to, just leave."
If you're unable to drive, he'll make you call emergency services - or call them for you, if he has to. The game is over, he's done playing; this isn't fun if he's not winning. Everyone in this place is gonna be dead and he'll be long gone by the time the ambulance shows up for you.
The one who hurt you is going to get an extra special surprise. A particularly grisly death, and a bunch of selfies/short videos of Ghostface with the corpse - taken with the victim's own phone, posted to their instagram, tiktok, facebook, sent to any discord groups, and any other social media they have. If he has the time, he'll even make them in meme formats (definitely posting with meme captions, the fucking troll). He'll probably send a copy to you as a "hey, look what I did!"
If there are survivors, especially if that survivor is the one who hurt you, you better believe he is immediately doxxing them. Since he's had a little time to cool down, he might even play the long game, maybe catfishing and blackmailing them. Ruining their pathetic little life even further would be pretty fun. In the end, though, they'll die like all the others.
When all is said and done, he's going to be there for you, helping you recover any way he can. He'd suggest rest (for an amount of time relative to your injury), some movies and candy, maybe some video games. And time spent with your favorite Ghostface, of course, right?
He'll never forget what happened, though. Even though the person is dead, he'll be stewing and pissed off about it for a long, long time. And he won't let something like that happen again, or at least, not without a contingency plan in place.
The hash mark/tally mark he stitches into his costume to symbolize this kill is gonna be twice as long and large as the others, maybe in the place you got hurt as a reminder.
Erik
You already know what's about to happen.
If anyone so much as hurts your feelings they're getting menaced and receiving a strongly worded letter - actually physically harming you? That's suicide.
If he can't immediately kill this person, or if you're seriously injured, his primary objective is helping/comforting you. He has to push down a lot of wrath to do it ... every instinct tells him to immediately dispatch the fiend responsible ... but you are more important to him than anything in this world, even revenge. He will administer any first aid you need and may even drug you with ether to ensure you rest.
Don't think that means your attacker is off the hook, though. As soon as he decides you're well enough, he will put you somewhere safe - lock you away if he has to - and kill them. His preferred method is the Punjab lasso, but if they did something particularly egregious, he'll knock them out and take them to his torture chamber. They have a lesson to learn before they go to Hades.
Another option is, like Deacon, playing the long game ... playing with his food, stalking them, making them live in fear before they die. But he has a lot of wrath in that skinny little body, so it's a toss up as to whether or not he'll actually be able to follow through with that for very long. It depends on his mood, really!
He will keep the killing and torture hidden from you, of course ... unless you express an interest in seeing the vengeance being carried out. He would be worried for you, however, and advise against it. Those sights are not for the faint of heart, and certainly not for someone as beautiful and good as you.
Once all is said and done, it's as if it never happened. As if that person never existed! What a happy thought! Sometimes you even think Erik has completely forgotten the incident ... until he's stalking another victim and he locks you away again, and you remember you are always on his mind. He will never, never let that happen to you again.
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ptersparkers · 4 years
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the art of eating pussy (5)
summary: upon realizing you lack skills in the bedroom when a touron asks you out on a date, you turn to jj, a self-proclaimed sexual deviant, for help.
warnings: smut, y’all. 
notes: i haven’t been in the right headspace to right recently and wanted to give my reads something of quality and substance, not something to rush just for satisfaction. behold, chapter five.
co-authored and co-written with @storiesbymads​. SHOW MY WIFE SOME LOVE.
add yourself to my taglist + series masterlist 
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JJ’s hung up. 
You’d been spending less time at the Chateau in favor of spending time with Trent since it was the last week that he’d be on the island. His mind was racing, conflicted with the thoughts of your mouth on Trent and his lips on your neck. The night of the party had been the worst moment of the week and his jaw hurt from clenching by the time he ended up crashing out on John B’s couch. JJ always drank to forget and that night wasn’t an exception. 
He knew it wasn’t just about sex with you anymore. It wasn’t about the opportunity for him to get off by the hand of someone else. It wasn’t about him taking advantage of you. There was nothing complicated about the two of you in the bedroom. 
But outside of the bedroom, JJ’s head was spinning every time you said goodbye or forced him out the door because your parents were home. He didn’t have to think when he was with you; JJ knew what you wanted and knew what to expect. He knew that his time alone with you was the product of these lessons but that didn’t mean he had to think of this time as anything but passionate. When his tongue wasn’t down your throat, he was thinking about the tight feeling in his chest that left him wondering what was going to happen once you told him it was over because he didn’t want this to end.
JJ hadn’t thought about the lessons ending until he saw you tucked underneath Trent’s arm at the party. This whole situation wasn’t friends with benefits and he knew it, which is why it messed with his head so much. Yes, there was the whole “no strings attached” ordeal, but this wasn’t just one of you calling the other for sex. This was much more complicated. You were one of JJ’s best friends but the only difference is you’d seen him naked, intentionally. 
His thoughts are preoccupied with the idea that once the lessons end, you might still be with Trent despite him no longer being on the island. JJ would have to go back to being just friends and he’d have to pretend that he never saw you naked. He’d have to pretend he didn’t revel in the thought of you trembling beneath him. The other Pogues, to his knowledge, had no idea that the both of you were fooling around and he didn’t know if it was something he wanted to disclose. On one hand, he wanted a second opinion on whether or not this was something healthy. On the other hand, he knew what they would say; that JJ didn’t care about catching feelings and it was unlikely that he would consider succumbing to being a boyfriend. He knew he’d expressed his disdain for relationships in the past, but now he wasn’t so sure. 
You ended up skipping out on the last two beach sessions in favor of Trent. Pope had decided to stay behind on the sand with JJ while Sarah, Kiara, and John B. enjoyed themselves under the warmth of the sun and the contrasting coolness of the ocean waves. Pope could sense something was amiss when JJ was the first to propose having a relaxing afternoon and hadn’t shown up with his surfboard tucked underneath his arm. 
“Something’s up,” Pope stated. “Something’s been up for a while and I didn’t want to say anything about it until I knew for sure, but something’s definitely up.” JJ shook his head. 
“It’s nothing.” Pope nudged JJ with his shoulder. 
“C’mon, man. You don’t want to surf, your mind is a million miles from where you are, and not to mention, this entire week you’ve been moody.”
“I’m not moody,” JJ muttered with a scowl, flicking at a clump of sand near his foot. Pope’s mouth formed a knowing smile. JJ sighed. “Okay, I’ve been moody.” 
“What’s up? Is it your dad again?” 
“No,” JJ replied softly. “I just think life is bullshit.”
“We all think life is bullshit.” 
“Feelings are bullshit.” Pope’s ears perked with interest. 
“Feelings?” JJ looked at Pope before looking back at the view in front of him, watching as Kiara had playfully splashed Sarah with ocean water. He wished he could feel that carefree. 
“They suck,” he began. “I think it’s stupid that people are allowed to feel something for people and not know if they feel the same.” 
“Are you talking about someone?” JJ paused. 
“No,” he replied. 
“Okay...” Pope trailed off. JJ sighed once more.
“What I’m trying to say, is, I wish we weren’t cursed with not knowing where the lines are blurred and I wish we could all say how we feel without consequence.” 
Pope sensed that JJ was trying to speak metaphorically and project his emotions on a secondary situation. He nodded, trying to follow the blond’s train of thought. He pursed his lips as JJ spoke and wanted to understand what he was saying to the fullest extent, but the boy decided to let JJ talk. 
“Have you ever thought about getting off this island?” JJ asked after a few moments of silence. 
“What kind of question is that?” Pope asked, laughing. “Of course I do.”
“But really,” said JJ. “Not just getting off and seeing what it’s like. I mean, like, what you’re gonna be doing in twenty years and the people who are going to be in your life.”
“Sometimes,” Pope replied with a casual shrug. “I try to take things one day at a time. I never want to overwhelm myself.”
“Lucky you,” JJ muttered. “I see myself off of this stupid fucking island by the time I’m thirty. I don’t want to live in a place where I feel trapped and can’t say what I want to fucking say.”
“I want to be able to forget about the Kooks,” Pope chimed in. JJ nodded. “I kinda want to live in San Francisco.”
“I’d probably live in Europe or something,” JJ said. “Don’t know where but I’d want to experience life as far away from North Carolina as possible.”  
“You sure you’re okay?” Pope asked. He knew he wasn’t. 
“Yeah, man,” JJ replied. “Just got a lot of things on my mind.”
The idea of fooling around with anyone that wasn’t you hadn’t crossed JJ’s mind. He’d been to Boneyard keggers since the lessons began but the notion of flirting and bringing a girl back to the Chateau was way off his radar. The Pogues didn’t take much notice but JJ wondered if they knew something was amiss or if they’d say something about it if they did. If he was able to realize he hadn’t slept with anyone since he began “teaching” you, then they might have. JJ knew their worlds didn’t revolve around him, and the boy was still as goofy and troublesome as ever, but there was a seeded doubt that made him awkward whenever he was around his friends if you happened to be there. 
It wasn’t that his stomach felt queasy or that his heart was racing. He’d be lying to himself if he admitted that. His head was clear when it came to how he felt about you and he wouldn’t hesitate rushing to your house if you called him for another lesson or if you just wanted to kick back with him in your room and jam out to vinyls you pulled out whenever you felt nostalgic. Before, he would never have considered approaching your side of the island but now he didn’t feel as small as he did when he didn’t have a reason to be there. Your parents were familiar with your friends and didn’t mind JJ stopping by, which gave him more of an incentive to visit you when he had had enough of the Chateau and his friends’ loud personalities. 
JJ knew his head was clear when it came to how he was feeling. The only part that clouded his judgement was Trent and dealing with the different friendship he’d have with you. He was sure that if the Touron wasn’t in the picture, things would be much easier for him. Trent’s dark and slick hair reminded him of greed and filth. His boisterous personality reminded JJ of everything he never wanted to be and he couldn’t understand why you’d pay attention to him for longer than a quick glance. The Touron was casually cool, the type of person who wanted to say they were able to rub elbows with the socialites of New York City by posting it on his social media accounts. You, on the other hand, were down to earth and courageous about your future potential. He couldn’t fathom why you were so attracted to someone who was your opposite. 
Your head had been spinning too. Trent was the perfect gentleman and he hadn’t given you a reason to not trust him. And yet, every moment you spent with him reminded you that you weren’t spending it with JJ. You couldn’t understand why you’d been thinking about his shaggy hair when he wakes up or the way his eyes squint when he laughs a little too hard. Trent was giving you his full and undivided attention, and you always felt guilty when you needed to force yourself back into reality because you had been zoning out, daydreaming of being anywhere else. 
But JJ never seemed to be anything other than friendly with you. You opted to disregard how he acted during the lessons, summing that up to pent up sexual frustration and a genuine interest to help you out after years of teasing you. You weren’t completely naive; you knew this was a way for JJ to get himself off, much like it was for you. The only difference between JJ taking advantage of you versus not was the fact that you wanted him to teach you how to make others feel good and how to make yourself feel like a goddess in the bedroom. You weren’t exactly sure why there had been a lack of awkwardness between the both of you despite him being your best friend since birth. There was never a question of doubt from JJ when you asked him to help you learn. There was no laughing when you admitted your lack of knowledge. Perhaps that’s why your initial doubt disappeared the first time he asked you to kiss him.
Trent had apologized for the beach date when he’d gotten startled by strangers parking next to him and promised you he’d make it up to you. He came through on his promise after you got worked up before your dinner date. You arrived at the hotel he was staying at while his father attended an event on the other side of Figure Eight and his hand glided up the side of your dress. Trent wasn’t rough nor was he gentle; he was giving you what you thought you wanted but it didn’t feel as skilled or as tender as when JJ’s fingers were inside of you. With JJ, your orgasm approached as if JJ already knew everything there was to know but Trent took his sweet time making you cum. 
You always cursed yourself for letting your mind wander innocuously to JJ when Trent’s lips were on your neck or when his fingers were toying with the hem of your clothing. There wasn’t much going on between you and Trent, sexually, despite him wanting to take it further. You were lucky enough that Trent verbally expressed his willingness to wait, but you wondered if that wait time had an expiration date. You wanted to make sure if it felt right before you were able to deliver on a promise. You knew that your lessons with the blond would come to an end the moment you two had gone all the way, or until you were ready to experience sex without JJ, and you always moved that thought to the back of your mind to avoid thinking about it. 
By now, you felt guilty for spending the majority of this week with Trent. Kiara had texted you a few times but understood wanting to spend time with him until he left. As far as you could tell, neither John B. nor Pope cared too much because they were happy their youngest friend was happy with someone. JJ, on the other hand, you couldn’t read. You didn’t understand why it was so difficult for you to reach out to him first or comprehend him, which you were usually good at. Suddenly, you were overthinking the way he talked to you and if he chose to sit next to you or someone else. You were overthinking his lingering gaze either on your thighs or some girl who walked past him with a weird knot in the pit of your stomach. 
You kept telling yourself none of that mattered because you had Trent and you were sure you knew how you felt. Trent treated you right, was willing to wait, and never made you feel second best for not being as sexually promiscuous as he was. Yet something was lacking and you couldn’t figure out what it was. 
You tried not to think about it on your way to the Chateau. The screen door slammed shut as you walked into the living room to try and save yourself from the downpour of rain. After Trent had dropped you off when his father had called him during the middle of a movie marathon, you opted to see the Pogues and spend some time with them once you realized how many times you had declined their offer to hang out. You saw JJ already sprawled out on the couch, seemingly all by himself. 
“John B’s out with Sarah,” he said casually, pushing himself up onto his elbows to give you some room to sit down. You nodded a thank you, crossing your arms over your wet torso in an attempt to warm your shivering body as you sat down. Glancing down at your chest, you silently swore as you noticed your red bra was, in fact, very visible under your white shirt. 
“Nice bra,” he chuckled, trying not to ogle too long. JJ hoped his comment didn’t make you feel awkward; he was having a hard time talking to you because he didn’t exactly know where he stood with you. 
“Shut up,” you mumbled but you couldn’t help the heat that rose to your cheeks. 
“So…” JJ trailed off. “How’ve you been? Haven’t seen you in a few days.” 
“I’ve been good,” you nodded. 
“And Trent?” he asked, attempting, and majorly failing, to hide the venom that laced his tongue. You mistook this as annoyance.
“Good,” you said, not wanting to talk about him anymore. JJ cleared his throat, his teeth grinding as he clenched his jaw, as he shifted on the couch so that he was sitting upright and facing you. 
“You've been putting my lessons to good use?” he asked. He didn’t know why he’d asked. He had no desire to hear about you with another guy. 
“You could say that,” you said. Were you really putting them to good use if you weren’t enjoying yourself with Trent nearly as much as you had been with JJ? You couldn’t tell JJ that Trent’s hands on you just sent your mind spiraling back to him or when Trent’s lips were on yours, it reminded you of that first night you started the whole thing. 
“Oh? Does he make you feel good?” he asked, moving closer to you. “Because it’s not worth it if you’re not getting something out of it, too.”
“Uh, well-”
“Do you want me to make you feel good?” he asked suddenly. He knew he was asking the question more for himself but he was desperate to have you again. He figured it wouldn’t hurt to show you how a real man treats his girl. 
“What?” you were taken aback by the forwardness of his question. You watched as his eyes dilated, flicking back and forth from your lips to your chest. 
“You know what I mean,” he said. “You need to be shown what it’s like to be taken care of.”
“But you already-”
“Just let me do this for you,” he snapped. “Please.”
“Okay,” you said before turning your body on the couch to face him. You hadn’t stopped shivering since entering the Chateau not too long ago and your goosebumps increased as you watched JJ move closer to you. He used his right hand to pry your knees apart, positioning himself between them. Your heart rate picked up as he leaned forward to press his lips against yours, the cold air hitting your wet skin when JJ pushed the soaked fabric of your t-shirt up so that it rested just under the hemline of your bra. 
“Up,” he mumbled against your lips, the vibrations forcing a soft moan out of you as you broke the kiss to lift your arms above your head. You let out a small laugh when your shirt made a sloshing sound against the ground. It stopped as soon as it started, however, because you felt JJ start applying open-mouthed kisses along your collarbones. 
Feeling his body pressed up against yours stirred up all the daydreams you’d had every time you’d gotten intimate with Trent. You’d been in this position before with him, but somehow it felt better without the pretense of a lesson. You were under the guise that this wasn’t just about teaching you what you liked and what you didn’t. Part of you wanted to believe that this was more than a lesson you’d acquire from JJ’s depth of knowledge. JJ’s kisses trailed lower and lower until his teeth started toying with the waistband of your shorts. The throbbing between your legs was growing steadily and you let out a sigh of relief when he finally dipped his fingers into the waistband and tugged the wet shorts down your legs with effort because of the rain, dropping them on the floor with your shirt. 
“JJ,” you whimpered as he took his time moving down your body. He slipped his hands under your knees so that he could place them on his shoulders delicately before he laid out on the couch with his face centimeters away from your nearly bare pussy. 
He let out a soft laugh in disbelief at how incredibly soaked you already were. It was practically coating your thighs at this point and your cunt was aching in anticipation for his touch. All JJ could think about is how you let another man see you from this point of view, which was enough to give rise to JJ’s ego. His mission was to make you feel so good that you’d think of him the next time Trent put his hands down your pants; he wanted you to remember this moment and know what it was like to be eaten out by someone who was determined to make you orgasm like a holy grail. 
JJ’s jealousy didn’t cause him to act rashly and dominate the situation. He started by pressing fluttering kisses to the side of your knee, his eyes flickering up to see you watching him intently. JJ began by tenderly kissing the inside of your thighs, making comments about how soft you are and how you smelled so sweet. He does all he can to make you squirm underneath his touch, loving that your gaze didn’t leave him even if you tried. JJ pressed a kiss to the waistband of your underwear and you whimpered at the thought of him being so close to you in a way that was more intimate than before. 
He chuckled when he heard you whimper again and moved his mouth to kiss along your clothed entrance. You knew JJ’s game all too well and you knew he’d take his time teasing you until you were begging for it. It took a while to come to this conclusion, but you figured out that you enjoyed the slow pace before the big finish. JJ had taught you that when you reached an orgasm, it was less about the other party getting off by getting you off. The point of your orgasm was to make you feel like a queen in the bedroom, not like a used toy to get someone else off. 
So when JJ used the pad of his index finger to move your underwear aside and toy with your cunt, you didn’t bother begging for his mouth. Instead, you closed your eyes and relished in the feeling of his warm hands on you. JJ looked pleased at your reaction and wanted to make this moment last for as long as he could. His finger moved in slow circles before hitting a sensitive nerve that caused your hips to rise, to which JJ laughed and pinned you down in the cushions. 
JJ pressed two delicate kisses on your entrance. His mouth was being coated in your slick and he licked his lips, closing his eyes to savor the way you tasted. His body inched forward in an attempt to be as close to you as possible before licking a stripe with his tongue pressed flat against you, causing you to let out a deep moan in satisfaction. 
JJ’s tongue worked like magic, as if he already knew all of your weak spots and was discovering the different sounds you could make by his tongue. His hands were gripping your thighs and his eyes would look at his meal before back up at you, and you had taken the liberty to use your hands to tug on his hair when he had hit a pleasure point. 
“That’s a good girl,” he whispered against you to himself, proud of how loud and unapologetic you were being. He swore that if the Pogues had walked in the door, he’d stop eating your pussy and show them how pretty you looked underneath him. But he knew they would all be at Kiara’s until the storm passed. 
His motions were delicate until he recalled the thought of you and Trent together in bed. His tongue began to dart in and out of you at a faster speed with every increasing thought. Giving Trent a handjob. Trent stripping you out of your bra and underwear. His fingers inside of you. His tongue down your throat. His cock in your mouth. His cock in your - JJ’s - pussy. He knew he was irrational and wrong to think that last thought, but in this moment, your pussy was his for the taking and he was going to make your orgasm like your life depended on it. 
JJ’s grip on your thighs became tighter and you felt locked underneath him. Your toes curled and your hips bucked at the pressure and pace at which JJ was eating you out. His head was moving like he was catching every last drop of your wetness before going back for some more. JJ had taken the liberty to lift his head and spit on your entrance before diving back in, his tongue so deep inside of you that you almost considered asking him to use his cock instead. 
“JJ,” you muttered, tugging on his hair. 
“Just cum, baby,” he urged. “I’m ready for you.” 
You obliged and it didn’t take you that long to release. JJ lapped the white pearls that were spilling out of you and his eyes were rolling to the back of his head as he realized this was the first time he was seeing you, and tasting you, from this angle. JJ’s jaw was becoming sore but he paid no attention as your legs spread wider against the couch and your body moved to the rhythm of his tongue. 
When you were coming down from your high, JJ couldn’t have imagined anything hotter than the sight and sound before him, but your fingers reached down to your aching core in oblivion and began toying with your clit as your breathing steadied. JJ watched in awe as your fingers moved in slow, delicate and circular motions, your bottom lip in between your teeth and your eyes shut. His mouth hung open at how totally, completely, and utterly fucked you were in this orgasmic haze and was pulled out of this fantasy when you tugged your hand away and reached for a tissue to clean yourself up. 
JJ couldn't think of anything to say and neither could you. You settled on watching a movie in silence. 
***
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mypoisonedvine · 3 years
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Seeing Red | bodyguard!Bucky Barnes x reader (part 7)
(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6)
series summary: bucky used to brag that he didn’t have a celebrity crush, or really care about famous people at all, which is what made him the perfect person to start working for a celebrity like yourself.  except, of course, it’s just his luck that he’d fall for you.  
word count: 2.5k
warnings: um just implied smut and fluff and a reference to bdsm I guess?? but it's pretty chill overall
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y/n.y/l/n okay first of all, it takes an act of god to get a picture of this guy smiling, but it’s always worth it.  he really changed everything for me and I can’t thank him enough for that.  so happy ❤️ 
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caroldanvers 😍😍😍
flowercrowny/n oh my god this is so sweet i’m gonna cry
1 HOUR AGO
He smiled as he stared down at the post you’d made, remembering how much effort you’d put into finding the perfect picture (in your opinion; he thought he looked kinda dopey in it) as well as writing and re-writing your caption.
The speed at which your post gained likes and comments was inconceivable to him; even more impressive was the speed at which gossip rags were picking up the story.  Sure enough, his phone’s alerts to new headlines about you were not only going off like crazy, but had started to include news about himself as well.  
Y/N Y/L/N Shocks With Romantic Instagram Post, Confirms Dating Rumors
You’ll Never Guess Which Hollywood Starlet Is Dating Her Driver
Who is James Barnes?  Everything We Know About Y/N Y/L/N’s New Beau
Skimming one of the articles, he was impressed at how much information they’d managed to get without actually getting anything from you or him.  Born in Brooklyn, disabled Army veteran, worked a list of odd jobs before becoming your driver and bodyguard.  ‘No social media presence, prefers to keep a low profile’ one of them said; you can say that again, Bucky chuckled to himself when he read it.
He found another from People and didn’t particularly appreciate that it spent half the time going through all your past exes and rumored partners (turned out ‘rumored’ is a fancy word for ‘a bunch of fans deluded themselves so hard that it somehow turned into news without any proof necessary’).  But he still smiled when he got to the part that was actually about you and him.
‘The relationship is pretty new but they’re so happy together,’  a source close to the couple reported.  
Close indeed; that statement came from your publicist, who he’d never even meet.  
‘He’s a very private guy and she’s got this huge following, so they’re sort of an odd couple in that way, but she knows her fans are respectful and will let them have their own life outside of the spotlight.’ 
Bucky wasn’t sure that the respectfulness of fans was such a given here, but he hoped you were right.  To be fair, they’d been very sweet on your original post insofar. 
However, when he scrolled to the bottom of the celebrity magazine articles and realized they had their own comments section, he discovered that they were a little less forgiving than the ones on your Instagram.  
Is this the best she thinks she can do?  So sad tbh :(
a military guy…. yikes, she could get any guy she wants and she goes for a murderer. 
He looks like a hobo that found a coupon for a free haircut lol
I don’t buy it, I know she’ll always love Pietro!
Pietro being your former co-star that so many of your fans were convinced was actually your soulmate.  From what he’d heard from you, those speculations had made things so uncomfortable between the two of you that it killed your friendship.  Those were nothing, though, compared to the comments about someone you actually had dated.
she’s obviously not over sam… they were so good together
He’d better watch out for her ex, he still likes tweets about her and they have so much chemistry
Wait, she’s not still with Sam Wilson??  I could’ve sworn they’d been dating for, like, five years.
You were scrolling through your phone with a smile as you walked past where he was sitting on the couch, and he just couldn’t help himself from asking even though he knew it wasn’t the best idea.  “Do I need to worry about this Sam thing?” he blurted out, trying to play it cool and not sound too anxious.  “People are really obsessed with you two…”
“Sam and I…” you sighed, staring off into space for a second.  He made himself anxious imagining what you were thinking about in that moment.  “I haven’t talked to him in… years?  I think it’s just because our relationship was so public that people are still talking about it.  And it had a lot of gossip material— we did a movie together, people thought it was sweet that we got together during production, it was great promotion for the picture… and from the outside, we made a lot of sense for each other.  But he has his own problems.  I loved him, but… he wasn’t ever going to be a one-girl kinda guy.”
“But you’re not just any one girl.  You’re… you know, you,” he emphasized.
“You’ve been reading too many headlines,” you shook your head as you sat down beside him.  “Please don’t turn into one of those guys who thinks of me as a celebrity first.  Before that—” you pointed to your own name where it was bolded on his screen in the trending topics page of Twitter— “was popping up on movie posters and in gossip magazines, it was just my name.  And I’m not perfect.  Not even close.”
Bucky sighed and wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into him and holding you tightly.  “And before I knew you were famous, or rich, or incredibly talented, I was totally obsessed with you just for who you are.”
“You’re too fucking amazing,” you sighed as you held his face and gave him a gentle kiss— the kind of kiss that instantly melted his heart and banished his worries.  When you pulled back and looked up at him with a smile, it was like everything else just… faded away.  “Don’t read the comments, okay?  None of them matter.”
He smiled and brushed his thumb over your cheek, overwhelmed by not only the softness of your skin but of your spirit as well.  In all his life he’d never been handled so… gently, with so much care.  “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he mumbled, not even really realizing he’d said it aloud until you gave him a beaming smile.
“I can’t believe you’re my boyfriend,” you giggled pridefully.
“Seriously?  I can… very easily believe it,” he scoffed.
“I just mean… you’re so…” you searched for the words.  “You’re actually good to me, that’s the thing.  I’m not used to that.”
“You deserve the world,” he assured.  “I’m just gonna keep trying to give you as much of it as I can find.”
He watched his hand trail over your face, down your neck and to your chest where he played with the hem of your t-shirt.
"It's odd to know there are millions of people who are jealous of me,” he admitted quietly, remembering some aggressive comments from some very angry dudes who had apparently also watched your nude scene a few too many times.
"Do you like it?  Do you like how it feels to know you're making them angry every time you touch me?"
"Couldn't care less," he refuted.  "Nobody else matters when I'm touchin' you."
“Do you maybe wanna… touch me a little more about it?” you smirked, opening your legs slightly in invitation.
“Always.”
//
Bucky had, thankfully, not let the newfound fame get to his head.  In fact, he had demanded that the two of you hunker down in the house, since he feared that going out would lead to being recognized.  What he apparently hadn’t anticipated was that that might not be enough.
“Will you get that?” you requested when the gate buzzed, too wrapped up in the book you were reading to answer the intercom.
He hopped up and held down the button to communicate with the gate speaker.  “Who is it?” he asked.
“I’ve got a delivery from Anjappar Chettinad on 23rd?”
Bucky didn’t even reply before hitting the green button and granting access to the driveway.  BEEP BEEP BEEP! you heard the gate signal its opening, and the car pulling around up to the door.  Bucky didn’t open it until there was a knock, greeting the delivery guy with a smile and the necessary cash.
“I’ve got a lamb korma, hyderabadi mutton dum biryani and an order of— woah,” the man suddenly stopped, staring at Bucky’s face.  “Are you—?’
“Hungry?  Yes,” he frowned.
“You’re the guy dating— holy shit, congrats man,” he beamed, smacking Bucky on the shoulder pridefully before leaning in with a mischievous smirk.  “Say, is she a freak or what?”
“She is,” you piped up from the couch, making both men turn their heads; but one was chuckling while the other looked mortified.  “You better not have forgotten my paneer pakora or I’m gonna chain you up and whip you.”
“Uh, I— no, I got it right here,” he promised weakly, handing the bag over to Bucky and starting to dash away before Bucky grabbed his arm, making the smaller man whimper fearfully.
“You forgot the money,” Bucky reminded him gruffly, stuffing the bills into the driver’s front pocket.
Finally, he let go, and the delivery man instantly pulled away, rubbing his arm and looking a bit like a kicked puppy as he went back to his car and drove away.
“You didn’t need to scare him that bad,” Bucky chuckled.
“I could say the same to you!  Grabbing somebody with the metal arm like that will put the fear of God into them pretty fast.”
“I didn’t mean to grab him that hard,” he admitted, examining the prosthetic hand as he came back to the couch with the bag of food, handing it to you while he focused on watching his motorized fingers curl and uncurl.  “I think I need to get this thing recalibrated… it’s been bugging out lately.”
“I dunno, it was working just fine last night,” you smiled, remembering how delightfully cool those fingers felt inside you.
Bucky seemed to miss it entirely, though, as he stared off into space.  “I can’t believe I got… recognized.”
“You’re a star,” you winked.  “And not just with random delivery drivers.  I’ve had a lot of press requests, everybody wants to be the first one to get nice pictures of us together— we’ve had a dozen event invites as a couple.”
“Seriously?!” he scoffed, snapping back to reality slightly enough 
“Yeah, and look what came in same-day mail this morning!”  You leaned over to shuffle through the mail on the side table before finding and handing him a letter in a gold-embossed envelope, watching him read what you knew was inside.
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association extends an invitation to Y/N Y/L/N and James Barnes to the annual Grant Banquet in support of the Young Artists Fund.
“It seems like a good first event for us,” you explained.  “Relatively small and low stakes, it’s for a good cause…”
“Are you sure I’m ready to be, you know… seen?  By people?” 
You scoffed, hardly believing how insecure he could be sometimes.  “You look great, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Will I have to talk to anybody other than you?” he asked, grimacing as if that were a form of brutal torture.
“Probably,” you admitted.
His frown deepened.  “What if I say the wrong thing?”
“I’m not that worried about you,” you smirked.  “You’re a lot better at this stuff than you think you are.”
“I don’t have anything to wear…”
You smirked, a little too proud of yourself, when you remembered the email your publicist had forwarded to you just this morning.  “Hugo Boss will pay you $1500 to wear one of their suits on the carpet.”
“They’ll pay me to wear free clothes?” he repeated with wide eyes.
“Yeah, that’s one of the cooler things about fame,” you laughed.  “I make a grand every time I wear this watch outside!”
“I guess I should send them my measurements then…” he trailed off.  “Any chance I can get in on that watch deal?”
“No, but you can make $50 by getting papped at Jamba Juice.”
He paused for a moment, scratching the back of his neck as he thought.  “Is the smoothie comped?”
“I don’t know.  Do you want me to ask?”
“...kinda…” he admitted with a shy smile.  
“Well, I will, and I’ll RSVP to this invite saying we’ll be there next week,” you decided as you started to open up the food, but Bucky stopped you by reaching for your hands.
“Are we really doing this?” he asked.
“If you want to,” you mitigated.
“Of course I do.  I guess I have to accept that you’re actually willing to be seen with me,” he chuckled.  “It’s just sort of hard to believe.”
You leaned in and kissed him; it was meant to be a casual, reassuring peck but he held you closer and you melted into him, moaning softly at his touch as you started to climb into his lap.
“The food’s gonna get cold,” he reminded you with a mumble against your lips.
Unfortunately, your literal hunger was a bit too strong to ignore, even with the growing intensity of a metaphorical hunger for Bucky.  “Alright,” you relented, getting off of him and returning your attention to the meal on the table.  “Just know that I really, really want to be seen together, in public, just in case anybody missed the news about us already.  I’m not embarrassed by you or afraid you’re going to do something dumb.  I…”
One of those words that can’t be unsaid started to bubble up in your throat and you coughed, banishing the thought.
“I really like you.  I think we have something special.”
He smiled gently, giving you one more kiss on the cheek.  “I think so, too.”
//
Since this was slightly less of a big deal than a premiere or press tour, you had managed to convince your styling team to let you dress yourself, which was why he was laying on the bed and talking to you through the bathroom door while you put on your gown.
“Do you want me to hire a new driver?” you prompted him, voice muffled slightly as he imagined your head covered in the fabric, trying to navigate through the dress.  “I don’t want you to feel… I don’t know, like a servant?”
“A servant?  You’re still paying me,” he reminded you.  “You are still paying me, right?”
“Yes,” you laughed, “but still, I would hate it if you felt like staff.  You’re my boyfriend!”
(His heart still fluttered every time you said it.)
“No new driver,” he decided.  “I can drive just fine, and considering how things went between us… let’s not open the door for anybody else,” he smirked, making you laugh in that way you did when he made a stupid joke but you still liked it somehow.
“Okay, sure, but what about being my bodyguard?  Is that too weird?” you continued.
“God no,” he scoffed, “if anything I’m gonna be better at my job than ever.  As your boyfriend, keeping you safe is my job, but since keeping you safe was already my job… it’s, like, doubled-up now.”
He lost his train of thought when you opened the door.
“How do I look?” you asked as you stepped in and gave him a spin in your new dress.  Your whole body was draped in red silk, with the exception of your back which was almost entirely exposed, as if it were begging him to run his fingers down your spine.
“Like everything I ever wanted,” he blurted out before he could stop himself.
And it was so odd that you questioned his desire to drive you, because those moments where he could steer with one hand and rest the other on your thigh, when he could catch a glimpse of you looking out the window at the city rolling by, when he got to listen to you ramble about something to kill the time during a drive; those were his favorite moments, and he wouldn’t trade them for anything.
After a relatively brief trip, you arrived at the venue, and all of a sudden he was doing what he’d fantasized about more than he’d like to admit: escorting you down a red carpet.  It was almost overwhelming— yelling, chattering, reporters speaking into camera, flashes going off in every direction—
“Hey,” you whispered, bringing your hand up to his cheek and instantly taking all his attention.
“Hey,” he returned.
“Just follow my lead,” you instructed.
“That was the plan.”
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autisticandroids · 3 years
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yknow those episodes where a character's whole personality gets split into 3-5 different distinct separate bodies? what bodies would cas have? I feel like it'd just be a mess tbh, imagine 5 different castiels all of them loving dean to a certain extent but showing it VASTLY differently. one cas would literally want to murder the others lmao
okay so i don’t actually think this trope would be an effective tool for analyzing cas? he’s not conflicted enough in himself. he’s too impulsive, too singleminded, too uninhibited. like, in the end, cas always ends up doing whatever he wants. there aren’t multiple discrete voices vying for control, really, or rather, if there are, one is always significantly stronger than the others. like in the end cas will always end up eating raw meat off the floor, you know? he’ll do what he wants. if i was going to do personality splitting i’d do it to someone intensely internally conflicted, like dean.
however, because i’m in an essay writing mood today, i’ll answer a question slightly to the left of the one you asked. cas may not be internally conflicted, but he is intensely changeable. these two things are related, actually; the same impulsivity and singlemindedness that mean he doesn’t have a ton of internal conflict at any given time mean that different ideas sound good to him at different times, because he isn’t really thinking about, say, what future-him will think of them. and he’s not really trying to maintain an image or identity. he’s just doing what feels right at the time, which is very different at different times and in different situations.
anyway, that in mind, i think a lot about ways to bring together many alternate versions of cas which sort of correspond to different times in the show.
i have a fic in my head about a bunch of cas-es pulled from alternate timelines by some kind of spell. so this would be set during the widower arc because the basic impulse here is to show dean a very bad time. just absolutely put him through hell. also, all the alternate timelines are different because different stuff happened, not because cas made different choices, because if we’re torturing dean it has to be like 5x04, the changes in cas can’t be cas’ fault. they have to be dean’s or just like, the universe’s (which makes them dean’s).
so dean is trying to bring cas back, and he finds some kind of spell that can bring someone “from another world.” and he tries it because hey. can’t hurt to try. anyway i’ve thought a long time about different versions of cas i would put in this and here is what i have. in order of when the timeline split off.
- a cas who never raised dean from hell. think 14x13 “lebanon.” this one i’m not too sure about, like, this could be fun, but i don’t know if it’s different enough from the next one. like this castiel would have lived through the averted apocalypse and subsequent general fuckery that happened as an angelic footsoldier, which would actually be pretty interesting now that i think about it, especially since all that stuff would have gone down soooooooo differently without cas specifically for your average angel footsoldier. like cas has PERSONALLY caused more upheaval in heaven in twelve years of spn than there seems to have been in millennia. so he would be the point of view of a normal footsoldier from a totally other world.
- a cas who died mid season four, and is pulled out of the empty in 2017 by this spell. i’m not sure when this cas died. my thoughts are (1) killed in on the head of a pin by alistair, (2) killed during his torture in the rapture, or (3) simply never resurrected after lucifer rising. (3) makes the most sense, but that cas has already thrown away everything for dean. i prefer the idea of a cas who loves dean, is already on the brink of disobedience for him, but has not yet taken the plunge. both on the head of a pin and the rapture are great places for this, and they both have strengths and weaknesses. if he died in the rapture, he was killed by heaven, which is fundamentally more fun, but he was also really very much over the edge already. if he died in on the head of a pin, he wasn’t killed by heaven, but he is perfectly teetering on the brink of falling for dean. regardless of when he died, the purpose of this cas is to be horrified at all the various and myriad ways he has destroyed and corrupted himself for dean in the other timelines.
- possibly endverse cas, who would have died in 2014, but like s4 cas, would have been pulled from the afterlife by the spell. i’m not so sure on this one. we as a society love endverse cas but i dunno what purpose he would serve. maybe endverse cas didn’t die in 2014, and instead was imprisoned by lucifer, because, you know. he’s the only brother lucifer has left. so he is very excited to see dean alive and well, since his dean is dead, and, not being an angel, cas can’t bring him back. the purpose of this cas would be to horrify dean that cas loves him and needs him so much, and to disgust the other cas-es with his neediness.
- a cas who was in some way on better terms with dean during s6. maybe dean and cas ride off into the sunset together after swan song instead of dean going to live with lisa, maybe dean prayed to cas while he was with lisa because he missed him, who knows. either way, cas has dean’s help with the angel revolution in season six from the start, and never goes to crowley. the plan cas and dean come up with to beat raphael includes breaking into the cage and stealing the grace of michael and lucifer, freeing sam and adam in the process. incidentally, it also involves cas possessing dean, because if cas is gonna eat archangel grace to become more powerful, he’s going to need a stronger vessel. so cas and dean have a whole like. midam situation happening. they’re a double archangel together, and godstiel never happened so none of the other terrible apocalypses that stemmed from that happened, and everything is pretty cool where they’re from, and also they’re obviously uhhhhhh SOME kind of together. the purpose of this cas is to upset dean because this cas shows how much better everything could have been and how much better his and cas’ relationship could have been if dean had simply been more considerate of cas in s6, and also freak dean out with how uh. close. this dean and cas are.
- a godstiel who managed to swallow purgatory without swallowing the leviathans and remained god. he’s probably soooomewhat less scary and murdery than canonverse godstiel because no leviathans, so you know, not as many angel purges or massacres on earth. and he probably went and fixed sam’s wall within about three days because cas is prideful but he does NOT like it when dean is mad at him. so they did kiss and make up, and so this cas would have had dean to act as his morality chain. but he’s still very scary and godstiel. and also he refers to dean as “The Beloved” you know. his purpose is to freak everyone out, because he’s scary, but also, for the past cas-es, because he is a terrifying abomination that they could never imagine becoming, for the future cas-es, because he is a reminder of their worst selves, and for dean, because he is a reminder of how dangerous cas is, but also because he uh. obviously has some feelings about his dean. unclear if they are consummated or not.
- a cas who naomi never rescued from purgatory, and who stayed there. hasn't spoken to another being in half a decade, has not recovered from his emotionally destroyed state in purgatory in s8. believes at first that the spell is his dean rescuing him, and is crushed when he realizes he was wrong. like endverse cas, his purpose is to show dean how much cas needs him and depends on him emotionally, and how he (dean) is capable of destroying cas, as well as his guilt for leaving him in purgatory and how lucky he is that his cas got out. this is especially noteworthy since the guilt for leaving cas in purgatory is part of the reason dean is trying to get cas back.
- a cas who stayed human after season nine, and has built himself a small human life over the next four years. he has a job and an apartment and friends outside the winchesters and yes, he still goes hunting after work sometimes, and he's still in contact with dean, but he is also independent in a way no other version of cas has ever been. he exists to freak out dean because dean has never seen cas independent of him. he is also fairly bitter at dean since dean did kind of stop spending time with him when he was no longer useful, and our dean feels guilty for that.
- a cas who showed up twenty minutes later in 10x03, finding sam dead and dean gone, and had to chase down demon dean, and has now spent three years following demon dean around as his tragically adoring stalker, because he hasn't found a way to resurrect sam yet and he doesn't want to put dean through the demon cure until he can save sam because he doesn't want dean to experience that guilt, but he also adores dean and wants to keep an eye on him and keep him safe and also keep him from doing anything too heinous, so he just covertly follows him around the country and watches from a distance as he commits various murders and fucks his way through every local bar scene. and occasionally cas finds dean something to kill, when the mark gets hungry, and drops it in his path. his purpose is to freak dean out with the lengths cas would go for him, and the depths cas would sink to.
anyway. lebanon cas and season four cas are horrified and perhaps disgusted (lebanon cas more than s4 cas) by ALL of the later cas-es, and how far they’re fallen, all of it for dean. godstiel and archangel cas being abominations, endverse cas and s9 cas being fallen, even purgatory cas and demon dean’s cas for their total dependence on dean.
purgatory cas and endverse cas are just happy to see a dean, even if it’s not their dean. demon dean’s cas, too, in a way. he’s happy to see a dean who is still human, who he can still have as a friend.
human cas is pissed to see that he was right, that dean would have stuck by him if he’d still had his powers, that this version of dean is doing spells to try and bring his cas, who is still an angel, back, whereas he and his dean only see each other once every couple months.
everyone is terrified and disgusted by godstiel, as i said before.
they’re mostly kind of thrown by archangel cas. a lot of them are jealous. godstiel is furious because how dare anyone, even an alternate version of himself, take dean as a vessel (even if dean likes it). godstiel isn’t really there, though, he resisted the summoning and just sort of popped his head through to see what was going on, and he goes back to his own reality pretty fast without murdering anyone.
also to be clear dean has not at this point examined or acknowledged any feelings he may have about his cas besides “friendship,” nor has he wondered what feelings his cas may have for him. given how many of the cas-es were clearly in some kind of relationship with their dean (endverse cas, archangel cas) or just openly in love with their dean (godstiel, purgatory cas, demon dean’s cas), dean is forced to reevaluate the nature of his and cas’ relationship.
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brockadoodles · 3 years
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Let me tell you that I love you (4 +1) - b. boeser
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AN: Burn this gif onto my grave honestly. BUT ANYWAYS. Uh decided to write during the Canucks game just in case they gave me pain. And they didn’t, and I finished something. A short sweet little 4+1 for you all. I haven’t written one of these in forever, so i really tried to keep each snippet short. Let me know what you think :)
Word Count: 3433
Warnings: Mentions of alcohol briefly 
One 
Brock Boeser was an irremediable fucking romantic. He was the guy who was always more than willing to cozy up on a rainy day with a tragic Nicholas Sparks-esque movie on in the background, never shy at admitting that something as achingly faux romantic as The Notebook could make him weep. He was the guy that all of the cliches were written about, the over sensitive Pisces who stitched his heart on the inside of his left sleeve, ready and eager to give it to someone. That someone, the one who he wanted to give his entire soul to over the last year had become you. 
You were someone he had met by accident, a romantic comedy worthy moment where you both had bonded helplessly at some overly fancy bar where you both had been stood up on dates. He felt stiff in his suit jacket, and you were there in that beautiful navy piece that had him wondering how the stars and planets had aligned in such a way that he was lucky enough to be half enjoying a drink next to you. You had smiled at him, opening the gates for a shitty date turned into a memory he couldn’t wait to tell the story of in twenty five years. One chance meeting had become a date, and more dates after that until over the summer he was bringing you home to meet his parents, where he told you that he loved you for the first time. 
Brock was nervous to take you home but it wasn’t because there was an underlying fear that his family wouldn’t see all of the things in you that he did. He was apprehensive because he knew the backstory of his own life was enough baggage to send someone away, and it had. He had gone through this before, bringing someone home who didn’t want to bear the burden of what life with Brock Boeser actually meant and that loss had shaped his perspective on relationships. Bringing you home was hard, because he wanted so desperately for this to work out, and if you couldn’t take on that baggage, he knew that it wouldn’t. 
Brock felt like he had that nervousness in his chest and stomach for the whole first twenty four hours that you were there. You had flown in late, settling into bed and falling right to sleep next to him. You always found a way to sleep, whereas he was consciously restless late into the witching hour, anxious about the next day where you would be actually meeting his family for the first time. 
He had spent so long waiting for the other shoe to drop, that when you got along seamlessly with his dad, he was still uncontrollably on edge. He was watching wordlessly as you sat out on the porch with Duke, a smile on your face as you listened to him, nodding and responding with Easton comfortably playing in your lap. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned, seeing his mom with a comforting expression on her face.
“She’s great, Brock. Stop waiting for the bad.” She murmured. Brock turned back to look outside, where you were just reaching a hand to his dad’s wrist and laughing. He felt like the air was exhaling from his lungs the longer he let his mom’s words marinate in his mind. Brock opened the slider door and stepped outside, slowly walking over and pressing a soft kiss to his dad’s cheek, who in return patted his hand reassuringly. He then moved to you, settling into the wicker chair next to you and letting you hand over his nephew who was now reaching for him. As you handed Easton over, it was like everything clicked into place for him. This was what he wanted one day with you, passing over your own child with the sun setting over the lake and family all around. That was the first time he realized that he had finally figured out what love meant, because the feeling struck him harshly. He loved you, and instead of overthinking the feeling, he told you.
“I love you.” He murmured, softly enough that only you could hear it. Your eyes widened and your mouth hung open as if he could see every thought that was stampeding through your mind. He recoiled a bit, diverting his eyes from yours and swallowing back the feelings he had just let escape without thinking about the consequences. You smiled awkwardly, grabbing his hand and lacing your fingers together. You brought his hand to your lips and pressed a soft kiss to it, your non verbal way of not reciprocating. It wasn’t until you were alone that you explained to him you just weren’t ready yet, a conversation that felt like a punch to his gut but that he bore with patience and understanding. He pressed a soft kiss to your temple after, reassuring you that he understood what you were saying. You didn’t not love him, you just weren’t there yet, something he could have the patience to wait for. 
Two
The second time that Brock shared with you that he loved you was by accident. It was a classic case of drunk words revealing sober thoughts. Not that his love for you was a secret that he was trying to keep, but instead it was a closely locked away feeling that he was trying to wait to share again until you gave him the go ahead. The wait had been eating him up inside, a small sense of rejection had made a home out of his heart after telling you the first time didn’t go how he envisioned. He loved you, he was so beyond in love with you that he wished for nothing more than to be able to tell you that every second of every day. But you weren’t ready, and his sober self knew that, his wine drunk self, did not.  
It was your birthday and Vancouver had blessed (or cursed, according to most of the people that lived there) you with a dusting of snow. It was nowhere near what Brock was used to from growing up in Minnesota. He was used to long winters where the lake would be a solid sheet of ice that he and his buddies could spend their days skating on, with sometimes over a foot of snow on the ground. 
Vancouver snow was a different story. The small amount was enough to close businesses early, and cause the city to almost shut down until the snow was gone. The mere 5 inches was a lot to people in the pacific northwest, so he watched you with a fond expression as you dragged him down to the park that was near his condo, a pom pom beanie on your head and one of his jackets wrapped around you. 
You both had knocked back almost two bottles of wine, and there was a hazy aura surrounding you as he watched you twirl around with your arms out, catching snowflakes in your hair. Brock grabbed your hand and pulled you into his chest, kissing your forehead and then your nose and cheeks that were cold from the snow. 
“What are you doing?” You giggled, bringing your hand up to rest on his cheek as he looked at you. God, you were his entire fucking world, and once again he didn’t think before opening the box to that thought he had buried in his heart from the summer, the words slipping from his lips before any sense of sobriety could catch up to him. 
“I love you.” He whispered, a soft smile tugging at his lips and his eyes searching yours, hoping for a different outcome than the first time just a few months prior. You stepped back from him, bracing your hands on his arms and shifting your gaze away, something that sobered him up completely. 
“I’m not ready.” You mumbled, a sad expression behind your eyes that Brock wished wasn’t there. He tugged you closer into his chest, another soft kiss to your temple as he ran a hand along your back.
“Take as long as you need.” Brock reassured you, more than willing to live by that promise. You were worth any wait that he had to endure.  
Three 
Playoffs were Brock’s favorite part of his job. The rush of the do-or-die series was something that every player loved. He felt like playoffs were the time where his real skills came into view, where he stood on his own as a talented forward instead of in the shadows wondering where his place was. It wasn’t that Brock was insecure per say, he just always felt like he had something to prove, mainly to himself. The Canucks had battled through all of the rounds, knocking out their opponents, leading them here to the Western Conference Finals against Vegas. It was game seven, the last hurdle before playing for the cup, absolutely do-or-die for this season.  
It was everything Brock had been striving towards. It wasn’t a Stanley Cup, but god in that moment it may as well have felt like one. A game seven game winning goal, sending the team to the finals. Every year he had spent plagued with injuries, wondering if he would ever get back to that spot he had been at his rookie year, wondering if he’d ever actually feel like he deserved to be a part of that core that were the faces scattered on the outside of Rogers Arena. He nearly couldn't breathe as the puck passed by Marc Andre Fleury, hitting the back of the net and sounding off the familiar goal horn. Elias and JT were quick to pile on top of him, nearly knocking him backwards into the boards as the rest of the team ran out onto the ice. This was everything he had hoped for, a chance to play for the Stanley Cup and he was in tears knowing it was his goal that sent him there. 
After the game, all he wanted was to find you. He raced out of the locker room, past the press area where thankfully he still had twenty minutes before he needed to sit down for his interviews. He ran out into the tunnel, hair still slightly damp as he searched for you. It didn’t take him long to find you, you were standing near Holly. You turned to face him just as he rounded the corner into your line of view. He watched as you touched Holly’s arm, saying something to her that he wasn’t close enough to read on your lips. You nearly jogged up to him, jumping into his arms hard and sending him backwards as he braced for your impact. 
The two of you stood there for a moment, ignoring the entire commotion around you as some of his other teammates were cheering and coming out. He didn’t care about any of it, he cared about you. You were the one who was there for the worst season of his career, and sharing this win with you was almost more special than the win itself. You grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him hard, peppering kisses after. Brock took this as his moment, another moment where he could share with you just how he felt.
“I love you, I love you, holy shit, I fucking love you.” He mumbled against your lips. You froze slightly in his arms, hesitating before you crashed your lips back into his, hopefully distracting him from the uneasy feeling in your chest.
“I am so proud of you, Brock.” You whispered. He just looked at you and smiled, ignoring the slight feeling of letdown he felt at your lack of reciprocation. You weren’t ready, and he was okay with that. Instead of dwelling he just kissed you one last time to your lips and then your temple, holding you close before he went to answer questions from people he didn’t care to answer to before you all were going to celebrate. The Canucks didn’t win the cup that year, and his first thought after watching the Flyers rush out and hoist the coveted trophy was that maybe the disappointment would fade once he got home to you. 
Four
Brock Boeser was a fucking romantic, and there was nothing more romantic to him than a wedding. It didn’t matter how many he watched in movies, or attended as he got older and his friends and teammates started getting married. No matter who it was, there was something that calmed him about seeing two people so in love and committing to that for their lives. He always pictured his wedding, except it was only ever from his perspective. In his daydreams, he never saw someone walking down the aisle toward him, he only saw himself standing there with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face as he waited for whoever that person was to get to him. It wasn’t until he loved you that the perspective changed, and he saw himself looking at you walking toward him. 
It was Troy and Emma’s wedding, a small gathering just outside of the city and Brock was in a good mood all day. He was humming softly as he drove the two of you there, a smile permanently settled on his lips as the soft sounds of Kodaline came through the speakers of the car. He had one hand secured with yours in your lap and occasionally he glanced over at you, wondering how in the hell he got so lucky to still have you. 
The wedding was beautiful, Troy and Emma both cried softly as they went through their vows, cementing their relationship with that final first kiss as the small group of close friends and families sat in the gazebo in attendance. Brock held your hand the entire time, feeling his chest tighten when you reached up and kissed the back of it just as the vows were being shared. 
He loved weddings, but going to one with you had him tumbling back toward that locked away feeling in his chest. The romantic atmosphere clouded his judgement and dared it to come out for another time to share it with you. Brock made a mental note to stop getting ahead of himself, to stop planning out an entire future with you when you weren’t ready to even say you loved him yet. He tried to push the anxiety away, the feeling that maybe he was the one holding you back, maybe he was too sensitive or putting too much pressure on you to say it back, even though he had only let it slip less than a handful of times. He swore that sometimes he felt it. Sometimes you would look at him just long enough, with your lips pursed and the words sitting right there as he waited, but then you would falter and shake your head a bit, playing the moment off with a smile. He counted so many of those times and they were casting doubt into his chest that maybe he was there planning an entire future with someone who would never realistically be ready, no matter how hard he wanted you to be.  
You could tell that he was in his head, something about the way he was carrying himself through the day had you worried. You watched as his eyes wandered around the reception hall. He was watching everyone carefully and you knew him so well by now that it felt like you were almost inside his head with him. Only instead of letting you hear what was running through his mind, there was a locked door keeping you out. Brock shifted back to face you, grabbing your hand once more and helping you up.
“Dance with me?” He asked. Brock pulled you into his chest, wrapping an arm around your waist as he swayed slowly with you, not paying attention to much around him other than you. He was feeling grateful for a lot of things, grateful that he was able to share such a special day with some of his closest friends, grateful that now the picture of this with you was so clear in his mind, and grateful that you were there with him, dancing slowly around the room. Brock closed his eyes for a moment as you leaned your head into his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart as he moved you around. He pictured all of it, the flower crown you’d probably wear, the smile on your face, and the tears in his own eyes that he would have watching as you came toward him. He pictured every last detail, a vivid dream that he was set on becoming a reality now. 
“I love you.” He hummed, letting his eyes open slowly as you lifted your head. You didn’t even have to say you weren’t ready this time, the slight shift of your eyes had unfortunately become something that Brock was learning all too well. He did what he always did though, he pressed a soft kiss to your temple and tucked the box of love back inside, sighing softly to himself and wishing that one day you’d take it.  
Plus One
Brock loved you in all the ways that he ever thought that he could love someone, down to each subtlety of your demeanor and personality. He loved the way you laughed at his bad jokes, the way that you were patient with his dad, and the way you cared so much about the health of the world. But he also loved the bad things, the little annoyances that came with navigating a relationship that was long distance part time, the way you’d sometimes leave a mess at his place, hitting a nerve after a tough loss, he loved all of those things because that’s what made you human and your relationship normal.
This morning wasn’t anything special, there was no event the previous night that had kept you out late. There was no celebration of any kind. You had come over for dinner and stayed, falling asleep tucked under his arm with Coolie and Milo snuggled at your feet. This no doubt was Brock’s favorite way to wake up, and he’d do it for a lifetime as soon as you’d let him. 
Brock always woke up before you, he was often an early riser and whenever you were there he found himself settling in and watching you sleep for just a few moments before he would slowly roll away from you to get up and make coffee. This morning was no different. His fingers drummed along your hip as your eyes fluttered open and his chest filled with the same feeling he only ever imagined existed in an alternate reality. You smiled softly and tucked yourself closer into his chest, a soft and groggy  good morning escaping from your lips. He didn’t have time to think about if you were on his page, he was already writing the rest of the book with you. 
“I love you.” He said. 
He supposed it was just another instance added to the shortlist in his mind of attempts at telling you he loved you. Brock was now zero for four, more than a strikeout on the scoreboard, but Brock was also patient, and didn’t mind a late bottom of the 9th inning comeback if it meant his love was finally reciprocated. He didn’t mind telling you he loved you, because he did, but a small part of his heart cracked each time you smiled and nodded in favor of saying those three words back that he’d do anything to hear. Each kiss to the temple after masking that crack in his chest that was widening, possibly too far to fill in with hope much longer. 
Except this time, your smile wasn’t forced. There wasn’t a nervousness behind your eyes, there was something else. You leaned into him, kissing him softly while your hand tugged at the ends of his hair. Something felt different in this kiss, a calm wave settling into his chest instead of the usual feeling that Brock felt from the previous times he shared this with you. You pulled back, smiling at him brightly. 
“I love you, too.” And those words that fell from your lips didn’t hold a flame to any of the hopeless romances he not so secretly liked to enjoy, he now had the real thing. 
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illumilu · 3 years
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there’s only one bed” - illumi zoldyck x reader
a/n: a very stereotypical cliche for fanfics, but, yk what? cringe makes the world go round. so here, have my drabbling of what would happen if you were to spend an unwanted night in the same hotel bed as the adultrio. i feel like i may have made this way too long again, but who cares?? this time it’s with illumi! aka loml ...
summary: after a lengthy car trip, you arrive at the hotel with illumi, but to your horror (wink wink), there’s only one bed. including: you dreaming abt him when he’s literally right in front of you (embarrassing). this is part two of a three-part series, with the adultrio. hisoka is already written and chrollo will be coming soon!
warnings: no particular trigger warnings, lowercase intended, a lot of fluff! and cuddling! only on your part though, since illumi is basically awkwardness personified... no nsfw <3
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illumi zoldyck:
- the trip to the hotel had taken 6 hours. 6 hours in which you had fallen asleep multiple times, cramped your legs, somehow made every sleeping position dangerously uncomfortable, cracked your neck and twisted your back, possibly to the point of no return.
- for mr zoldyck, or rather, “illumi”, as he had instructed you to call him, the trip was no problem. his upbringing, which consisted of mainly torture, included staying awake for as long as a fortnight at a time. 6 hours may as well have been a few minutes. 
- “the silent son of the zoldycks” was his reputational nickname, or, rather, “lifeless koi fish”, as your friend, hisoka, enjoyed calling him. either way, illumi was not going to let a car ride tire him.
- when you had first met him, he had scared you. a lot. the entire “trained dangerous traumatised assassin” storyline was one that felt like a threat. you were undoubtedly taking a risk by working with him, but it was one you were willing to; it may have been twisted, but murder was your forte, and you were searching for a partner.
- over time, you had grown to be less intimidated by him.
- you were now colleagues with him, working on a new assassination.
- shockingly, planning murder took time, and who better to plan it with than the assassin himself? you had spent the past day on a “business trip”, paid for by illumi’s grandfather, where you sized up the area and familiarised yourself with yorknew.
- all for the big night.
- tonight was the day before the murder of the ten dons.
- illumi and kalluto would carry out the murder, while you made sure everything went smoothly, via a small mic attached to his clothes. the entire operation was based on trust, and would therefore be executed like clockwork.
- you had taken the necessary mental images and kept the targets in mind; all that was left was a night at a pre-booked hotel and then it would be go-time.
- you had assumed that the hotel would be high-class, with doormen, perhaps some marble flooring and pillars - it was the zoldycks who were paying, after all, and you knew they had money to spare. 
- “we’re here.” illumi stated blankly, face reflecting in the window. admittedly, he did look a little bit like a koi fish.
- you nudged past him to look out of the window, leaning over to get a good view.
- oh.
- it seemed you had made quite the overestimation. it was a simple, plain building with a few stories. no doormen or extravagance could be sighted.
- you supposed keeping a low profile was important, but the depressing accommodation was somehow making you wearier.
- the two of you didn’t exchange any conversation on the way up to your room, but you were used to that. 
- you and illumi had met around 5 months ago, and most of it had been comfortable silence. you hadn’t expected it to be like that - in all honesty, you had expected him to kill you - but illumi seemed... calm around you. 
- it was probably because you shared such an odd passion with him; the logistics of murder. you assumed it gave him a chance to loosen his harsh demeanour and enjoy himself. the both of you had worked on multiple murders together, focusing on theory and planning, but this was a huge assassination. nevertheless, you knew he could pull it off; illumi was smart, you had to give him that.
- finally, you arrived at your hotel room, sighing from the lengthy stairway winding up to your unnecessarily high room. you assumed it was for safety purposes, but for god’s sake; why did safety have to be so enervating?
- illumi pushed the door open, and you walked in with him. finally, you could catch some rest.
- except, you couldn’t. 
- a singular bed placed in the middle of the room.
- “why.” you thought to yourself tiredly. 
- you stood there silently, waiting for him to say something. 
- then, you remembered that he was illumi. he obviously wouldn’t see anything wrong with the situation. 
- the bastard.
- it didn’t help that he gave you no visible reaction when you stared at him with your face scrunched up expectantly, as if to ask what his plan was.
- “is there a problem, y/n?” illumi asked, his tone flat as usual.
- you took a deep, worn out breath, clearing your throat.
- after a bit, you shook your head. this was strictly professional. illumi wouldn’t do anything, because he was illumi. nothing would happen.this was an important night, where rest and a clear mind were essential. blame it on the fatigue, and nothing else. you were just exhausted. there was nothing else to it. nothing.
- “no. i’m just a little tired.” you dismissed.
- a silence skimmed past.
- “my grandfather... he often tends to be absentminded. occasionally, he forgets to do certain things, or plan them correctly, i suppose. you could say this is a prime example of such.”
- “zeno forgot another goddamn bed, hm?” you laughed nervously.
- illumi stared at you once again, blinking a few times, in a methodical manner, face neutral and robotic. you smiled awkwardly and remembered that he was not one to laugh at jokes. or anything, for that matter. 
- you wondered if he laughed at bloodshed. or maybe hisoka.
- “i’m going to... go to set up my stuff now.” 
- turning your back to illumi, you winced at the uncomfortable air. even after all your time with him, you never learnt to stop trying to lighten the mood. the mood was literally just always unnatural, in some way. that was another one of illumi’s specialties.
- after some time, in which you had finalized tomorrow's plan and each changed into comfortable clothes, you watched illumi tie his hair up from across the room. 
- his hair had always fascinated you. 
- you had always wanted to touch it. honestly, even when you had first met him, apart from his magnetic eyes, you had been drawn to his hair. you imagined it felt like silk sheets, caressing over one’s hands as smoothly as honey. you were glad he grew it out; in fact, upon seeing his teenage photos, you had laughed so hard you ended up getting a nosebleed from hitting your face. illumi had been left in confusion for a while.
- you realized how random you sounded. why were you reminiscing so much? 
- shaking yourself back to your senses, you admired as he artfully twisted his hair into a loose bun, strands of hair cupping his elegant, pale face.
- what a beautiful koi fish.
- most people couldn’t compute that illumi had true, human feelings. after all, it would be hard to believe a man like him felt anything. but, of course, he did, unhealthily so. he channeled all his trauma and hurt into his villainy, and received happiness from his villainy, anger from his villainy and occasionally fear from his villainy.  however, there was one emotion he could never grasp. he hated himself for it, but soon realised he could manipulate his hatred into villainy, too.
- illumi was a man who could manipulate anyone or anything he wished. 
- except himself.
- internally, he had always felt at a loss whenever he confronted his emotions. but, after he had met you, something had changed. as he caught you staring at his hair through the hotel mirror, he couldn’t help but feel something small stir inside of his stomach. not evil, not happiness, not hatred, not anger. perhaps, friendship?
- this tinge of new emotion inside of him initially made him feel uneasy, but that worry morphed into giddiness, a childish high buzzing somewhere in his core.
- eventually, he stood up to face you and suggested going to sleep. you checked the time on the wall clock. 8 in the evening. well, illumi had always been particular. you agreed that rest was essential for tomorrow.
- you hesitantly took the left side, and, upon seeing your choice, illumi followed to lie on the right.
- after a few minutes, you looked back at him, noticing illumi fell asleep abnormally quickly. you furrowed your brow quizzically at the rock-like manner he was in. frankly, he looked like a plank when he slept. you almost laughed, but held it in for his sake. 
- he had a very specific sleep schedule, as did the other zoldycks. he could go to sleep immediately at his own command, and stayed perfectly still as he did so. he woke up at 5 in the morning every single day, without fail, almost like he had some sort of alarm clock planted in his body. 
- looking at him lying there like a block, you smiled softly. illumi was quite the conundrum to you. you often speculated whether he ever got what he deserved; love, affection, anything really. you knew about his past from when he had told you nonchalantly, within a few weeks of your acquaintance. you always hoped he’d find someone to love him, but doubted whether people would bother looking beyond his bleak surface, and into his excellent mind. lost in thought, you found yourself getting drowsier. you also fell asleep generally quickly, limbs aching from the stupid car ride.
- the night passed.
- illumi was the first to wake up at 5am, stoic and in the same place he had fallen asleep in. no surprise there.
- but you. 
- that was the first thing he saw when his eyes opened.
- he did not expect you to be lying on him lazily, snuggling into his body, arm and leg comfortably wrapped around his side. you were breathing lightly, face burrowing onto the ridge of his chest.
- i suppose you didn’t expect to be there either, which he realized, but the point still remained.
- why were on you his chest.
- “y/n.”
- no answer.
- illumi could have pushed you away; in fact, he could have blown you 983 metres away (his personal record). 
- but he didn’t.
- it wasn’t the thought of disturbing your comfort that stopped illumi from hurling you into oblivion. it wasn’t the fact that he explicitly enjoyed it, either. he remembered that the mission was today; if he were to wake you, and you hadn’t slept enough, you wouldn’t be at your upmost performance.
- the murder of the ten dons was his priority, right? yes. it was. there was no doubt about it. that was the only and final reason he wouldn’t wake you. end of discussion. 
- so, illumi stayed there, waiting for you to wake up and get off of him. 30 minutes passed, and he watched you for every single one.
- hard as it was to admit, watching you rise and fall in sync with his chest made the spark of emotion in his core grow fervently. what had that foreign feeling been? yesterday, he had settled at friendship, but now he wasn’t so sure.
- you looked so peaceful while you slept. less confusing. he remembered the time you had accidentally complimented his hair when the two of you had first met. he had found that amusing. he remembered the time you got a nosebleed from hitting your face too hard - it was after laughing at his teenage pictures, which perplexed him greatly. he remembered the times you two had sat together, working and theorizing on missions, accidentally meeting eyes or brushing hands. one time, you had dipped one of his pins in ink and scratched his name on some paper “for fun”. you had handed it to him and, for some unknown reason, the scrap was still tucked safely in his wallet. your unrivaled intelligence, your idiotic sense of humour, your smile, your lack of common sense, your twinkling eyes that so ironically contrasted his, everything. everything crossed his mind while he lay there.
- illumi found it strange how people remembered the oddest things at the oddest times. 
- why did he think of that now, as you were sleeping? even worse, on the day of a meticulously planned assassination. why couldn’t he manipulate his emotions to stop fluctuating around you so much?
- it all frustrated him.
- why had he let you call him by “illumi” so quickly? mr zoldyck would have been fine. and why had he been so lenient with your antics? no one else got to touch his pins. why did he feel like keeping you on his chest forever, and keeping you safe? most importantly, why was he thinking about you so much?
- his contemplation came to a halt when he heard you stir a little in your sleep.
-  finally, you’d wake up and he could forget about this entire problem.
- he watched you, expecting you to get up soon.
- you began shuffling around, brushing against his chest, and soon your eyes fluttered open, hazy and glazed over. it almost seemed like you were still in a dream, in some sort of half-sleep.
- “huh?” you whispered quietly, still lying on illumi. you looked up lazily, meeting eyes with him.
- “oh... i get it...” you hummed quietly, falling back onto his chest.
- he furrowed his brows.
- “why are you here?” you hugged him from the side, softly laughing at your ridiculous dream. he tensed up at you embracing him, but soon relaxed after realizing what was going on.
- illumi looked at you, one eyebrow raised. did you... think you were dreaming?
- to be honest, he found it kind of entertaining, the way you were fawning over him. if he let you stay there, he could figure out a lot of things about his newly found emotion. it could be worth it. just not today.
- illumi came back to his senses fairly quickly; you were obviously awake now, so why couldn’t you get off of him already?
- “y/n.”
- “mmm? what? so serious all the damn timeee, illum-” 
- “you aren’t dreaming. get off.”
- SHIT
- SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT
- you jolted off him immediately, staring down at illumi zoldyck. 
- the real illumi zoldyck.
- oh my god what. what. what. what.
- every nerve in your body began to panic, and, in the stress of trying to find the correct words to say, you just ended up making some sort of incomputable “aaaahhh” noise and jumping off the bed.
-  illumi had finally gotten up and was now staring concernedly at you.
- an awkward pause.
- “let me just start by saying i did not-”
- “y/n. we have more pressing priorities for today. i don’t care.”
- illumi zoldyck had lied. even to himself. he did care. and so what if he ignored it until it festered so intensely inside of him he couldn’t do anything but tell you? he cared about you. and he knew it.
- “ok. you’re right. you’re right! illumi. one question. was i like that the whole night?”
- “i don’t know. i woke up at 5 and you were there.”
- you looked at the clock. it was 6am? what had he been doing for an hour? you opened your mouth to ask but closed it soon after. you recalled your thoughts about illumi growing up void of affection, or love, or appreciation. 
- some questions were best left unanswered.
- “how long was i... mumbling like that?”
- “a few minutes.”
- you gulped. there were a few things you had to come to terms with. shutting your eyes firmly, you apologised profusely, annoyed at yourself.
- “y/n. i don’t care.” he lied once again.
- “you’re right!” you rambled - “the ten dons are today! it doesn’t matter what i said... none of it matters, we can both just forget it!”
- you sounded like you were trying to convince yourself more than anyone.
- “so all we need to do is go over the plan one last time, get kalluto, and then we’ll carry it out, and soon enou-”
- “stop it. you’re wasting time. just go and get ready.”
- you sighed and smiled weakly. on the inside, you were sure your soul had died a little.
- while you left to change, overcome by embarrassment, illumi lingered by the bed for a few seconds. he tried to push down whatever he was currently feeling, but it was no use. the feeling in his core had risen up to his throat, a burst of something waiting to leave his lips. 
- for the first time in a while, illumi zoldyck smiled. not at murder, or at power, or fulfillment, or achievement, or even villainy.
- illumi zoldyck had smiled at the thought of you.
- let’s just say illumi had trouble focusing on his mission. 
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i am honestly so fucking sorry you had to read that whole thing. the way i am literally in love with illumi zoldyck and ended up writing 2857 words bye bye bye i’m so sorry!!! PLZ what?? anyways,, i feel like i heavily underwrote hisoka now, since i did such a prologue thing for this! honestly i feel like this one came out a little boring, im sorry again AAAAA just agh; chrollo should b coming when i have time but i have exams rn so idkkkk hh
either way, likes or reblogs or whatever are super appreciated, but don’t feel forced to or anything! either way, i feel like no one’s gonna see this with my reach LMAOO but anyways thank you for reading, if you made it here! feedback and tips for writing on here are always helpful :)
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hawkland · 3 years
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(Mostly) Destiel Fic Recs #5
This is a LONG recs post because it’s been a while since I did an update and I fell hard into reading one author’s work (DeanRH). In fact I could easily do a rec post just of their fics alone, but for this round I’m just going to pick out a handful of my absolute favorites so far, the ones I’d recommend to start out with, along with more other authors’ works I’ve especially enjoyed lately.
Absolution at the Five-and-Dime by DeanRH (125k)  - this is perhaps THEE DeanRH fic to start with if you want a good, long read with a little bit of everything (Roadtrips! Intriguing casefic! Americana! Tasty Dean/Cas pining! Wing!kink and unique angel lore! Kinky soul fisting and tentacles!) It’s kind of two of parallel stories in one: the first, a flashback to Dean and Sam's first year hunting on their own (as well as trying to avoid hunting, and John in general); the second on how Dean and Cas finally get together during an unusual case and when Dean is able to really let go of his past trauma and accept himself/accept love from Cas. 
What I love about DeanRH’s work is that they write from the unique point of view of a drifter, so they understand living on the road, traveling place to place, and the highs and lows of that life like no others I’ve encountered in SPN before. (The author’s notes are often as much fun to read as the stories themselves). They also write a kickass angel!Cas and never lose sight of his non-human traits and background. Their writing style is unique - almost poetic in nature, and I know some readers have found it difficult to get into. But it works really well for me in their SPN fic...gives it the flavor of oral story telling as might actually happen at a drifter’s camp (with one story written exactly as such). Be warned this particular fic does play up the idea of John Winchester being mentally abusive and Dean having to turn tricks when he was younger in order to support him and Sam, so there is some dark stuff. But as someone who grew up with mentally abusive parent, reading this was extremely cathartic to me and believably written (unlike some stories that go too over the top with abusive John, or just don't understand how that kind of abuse leaves lifetime psychological scars.)
The rest of this round’s recs below the cut.
Carnevale by DeanRH (18k) - Actually the first fic by this author I read, because I just couldn’t resist a story set in my favorite place in the world, Venice, Italy. Castiel is the Angel of Venice, banished there for so long he does not even know or remember the reasons why. But Carnevale season is the one time a year he can let his wings out - figuratively and literally. And during this particular Carnevale season, he meets an intriguing masked young American tourist there with his brother and their one night stand turns into something far more powerful than either expected. This one’s hot, romantic, and achingly sad at the end as it all ties together unexpectedly with canon-verse...though with a hint for the future so it’s definitely not totally sad. I loved how DeanRH clearly understands Venice as a fellow lover of the city, the side of it most tourists never see unless they spend a long time there. This story made me cry just from wanting to be back in Venice again.
Ice cream was sweeter, food more satisfying, everything was an epicurean delight. There was just something magical about Venice, and he had lived here in the city for hundreds of years, so the shine should have worn off by now.
But it didn't, and there was always something more, something wonderful to discover around the next corner. The painted eaves of a church. The beauty of two women dancing with flowers in their teeth across the Piazza San Marco one day, overcome by the sheer joy of just being there. The way the university students still created Venetian masks, like Castiel's extravagant volto mask and Dean's humble servetta muta, with crafts that had been handed down across the generations. The morning silence that lay against the stones.
Hard Landing by DeanRH (26.9k) - A bit similar in theme to Carnevale. A pre-series Dean and Sam are sight-seeing in Spain when an angel, struck by a babel-spell, crash lands right in front of Dean. A strange yet seriously hot encounter with the angel turns into something much more complicated when the brothers return home and realize something more serious is afoot and they are both trapped in the middle of it. This is another story where things are very much not as they seem at first (as fun as that is!) It features master strategist Cas at his best, with a side helping of delightful trickery care of Gabriel and Balthazar as they deal with Lucifer, Michael...and a few others along the way.
The Sacred Band of Thebes by DeanRH (14.5k) - The last DeanRH fic I’m gonna allow myself to include in this round up, because it’s just very soft and sweet and beautiful - for a story about Dean & Cas being magically transported back in time to ancient Sparta! This is another story infused with a great knowledge of place and history, with some wonderfully delightful original characters added in that make it all the more enjoyable to read.
And now on to some other authors, I promise!
IPAMIS OL OLPRIT by emmbrancsxx0 (56k). A really wonderful fic that take a different look at what might have happened with a temporarily resurrected John Winchester during Season 14. Dean & Cas are in an established relationship here, and John here isn’t too happy about it — though mostly because he sees Cas (and Jack) as monsters, the kind of monsters he spent his lifetime hunting. This is a great fic for the emotional complexity of how John, Dean and Cas are all handled. John isn’t a cardboard evil dad, Dean is struggling between his loyalty to his father and to Cas, and Cas is increasingly bitchy/frustrated at Dean still being so desperate for his father’s approval (and all the more complex for not just being a quietly suffering perfect supporting boyfriend.) There’s some great action sequences in this too along with the emotional angst and a delicious dose of hurt!Cas if that’s your thing (as it is for me :D)
Abrenuntio by Neonbat (51k). A very dark but compelling AU take on the/a apocalypse universe. Dean, Sam and John are all alive in this post-angel war-apocalyptic world. They are part of a group of human survivors fighting against the angel army when they manage to capture “Blue” — a particularly feared angel of death. Dean is tasked with bringing Blue in for interrogation and he becomes a prisoner in their camp after John is killed. As mentioned, this is a pretty dark/sad fic (with some rather gruesome torture scenes) but I still found it quite compelling as a look at how things could have gone in some other parallel universe. And somehow the author manages to make the Dean/Cas relationship come together despite them starting out as complete enemies. This is one of those AUs that works for me because the core of the characters really shine through despite the differences in the setting.
if it all fell to pieces tomorrow by spocklee (37k) - a gorgeous post-Empty rescue fic that takes an approach I haven’t really seen explored in detail before (despite being something I’ve actually thought about as something that could’ve happened.) What if Cas has spent so long denying himself happiness, and then trapped in regrets and false-rescue scenarios created by the Empty, that he can’t trust that his rescue is real? And so he runs off to be on his own - literally stealing the Impala because he can’t handle being in Dean’s presence one moment longer - and only slowly comes to terms with the idea that it’s over now and he can be happy with/around his friends and family. This one’s both deliciously angsty and at times funny/sweet, looking at Cas’s relationships not just with Dean but with Sam, Jack, Claire, even Eileen. It does some fun stuff with other returned angels and demons who now find themselves back on Earth (and human), and...I just really enjoyed this one a lot.
Both Saved and Lost by angelfishofthelord (13.7k) Gen Cas character study, absolutely gorgeous and sad and one of those fic I couldn’t stop thinking about the day after reading it. AU where Apocaverse!Cas isn’t immediately killed by our Cas during 13x22 but instead hitches a ride back to the main ‘verse. Dean and Sam want to keep him alive for information on Michael; Cas is torn and trying to figure out just how similar—or different—they really are. Some great angel stuff here (I also highly recommend this author’s Jack & Cas “dadstiel” fics, they’re equally lovely and heartbreaking at the same time.)
flesh of the mighty by Mudprophet (2.7k) - THEE “What exactly did Dean eat in Purgatory, anyway?” fic you’ve probably already heard about. *cough* I’ve been trying to work up the courage to read this one for a while and finally gave in and OH MY CHUCK I’m so glad I did. It’s perversely disturbing and beautiful at the same time, Cas is wonderfully DERANGED and ALIEN in that way that I love it when fics managed to convey just how much angels are NOT human. Do heed the tags.
Full of Grace by ilovehowyouletmefall (11k) - Another one for the weird-as-fuck-angel!Cas lovers’ list. Heaven/canon-compliant fic where Dean knows he should feel happy and at peace but he just...isn’t, even with Cas and all of his friends and family there. He finally goes looking for Cas when he’s been absent for a time and, for the first time, gets to not just see but experience his true form. Another one that hits some kinks I knew I had and others I didn’t...until now. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
don't ask me where i've been by saltwound / @1x06 (8k) - I can never resist a good 09x06 fiction gap fic! What makes this one really stand out is how well it captures Cas’s internal voice - his struggles adapting to human senses, limitations and emotions versus what/how he experienced things as an angel. The longing and feelings between Dean & Cas here are so achingly beautiful and I just wanted to cry when Cas says he misses hearing Dean’s prayers, so Dean, he...oh, I’m not going to spoil it. *happy sigh* Just read it.
this room is wrong by DarkHeartInTheSky (12k) - Sometimes I like torturing myself with some good 15x03 divorce arc angst and this fic hit that button just so. It’s an alternative take on where Cas might have ended up after leaving the bunker and features some great Cas & Sam friendship feels, when Sam sets out to try to bring Cas home. It’s all the stuff you’d wish the writers would’ve let them talk out in canon.
Well that’s more than enough for this round! Go forth, read and give some great writers some kudos & comment love!
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Title: Kismet {12}
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Henry Cavill x Famous OFC Aliya Taylor
Warning: Plot, Slow Burn, Mild Cursing, Dialogue Heavy
Words: 4.2k
Summary: Aliya is a singer turned model turned actress. Since she was fifteen, she’s been creating her empire in the entertainment world. As the daughter of a famous fashion model/designer and Hollywood director, you’d think life is easy for her, but her past has been anything but easy. Due to past trauma, she’s forever changed and no longer trusts any man that is not in her family and a select few in her team. She’s sworn off love and serious relationships and has planned never to fall again, but love isn’t something that can be planned. It just happens when it’s meant to. Can Aliya outrun a love that seems hellbent on holding tight to her, a love that is Kismet?
Note: How are you guys liking the pacing of this story? I think this might be my slowest burn of all.  😬😬
If you enjoyed this please LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG!! 😘  
As always, thank you so much for reading. ❤️❤️
***Loosely Edited/Proofread***
***Interactive***
Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
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When one thinks of a vacation, you think of beaches, sand, salty ocean water that you can see right through, a blazing sun that is a joy to be burned by, tropical drinks, lounging by the pool in a hammock with an endless supply of bathing suits. When one thinks of the quintessential French vacation, you could think of waking up the smell of flowers from the countryside and the ocean salt, the warm caress of the sun as you sip your French coffee, lounging on the beaches, touring the countryside by day, feasting on the best authentic French cuisine, sipping the best of wine country offered all the while soaking up culture and relaxation. In other words, live like the French.
 Your vacation, though it started awkwardly, didn’t remain that way for too long. You and Henry had made it a mission to take relaxation and freedom to the max and, by doing so, you had created somewhat of a routine. Usually, either you or Henry would make breakfast and coffee then have it outside. After breakfast, you’d both lounge by the pool for an hour or two. That was before you found out he liked to work out first thing in the morning. Though you weren’t much for working out, you vowed to do it with him. which led to you having your coffee and then out for a run through the fields. He often went four miles out then four miles back, but when he realized you were not a runner, he cut it down to two and two. Even that was torture for you.
 Then once you’d returned and showered, whoever came out first would make a simple breakfast that you’d have out back and then to the pool. After you’d take a drive, often going miles and miles checking out neighboring towns seeing sights. On each day, Henry always had something planned. One day it was a tour of a vineyard where you learned all about the winemaking process, helped harvest grapes, and even did the traditional squishing grapes with your feet. That was the day Henry had the brilliant idea to play up your ticklishness, which led to you falling in the barrel staining your white shorts ensemble red. He laughed his ass off to that. By the time you left the vineyard, both of your outfits were ruined, but you had plenty of pictures and a crate of the wine you’d made.
 Another day it was sailing around the Mediterranean in a boat that Henry manned himself. You couldn’t help but watch in awe as he steered it like a pro and taught you the proper terms for things on the boat. When he’d found a good spot to drop anchor close to some rocks, you lounged on the hull soaking up the sun, then taking a dunk in the ocean when the heat became too much where you snorkeled around the reef. On a particular day, he took out a speedboat to St. Tropez for shopping and spa treatments that really had your entire body feeling like jello.
 While he liked to spoil you with luxurious options, he also liked the rugged things too. He taught you how to fish and took you on multiple nature walks. While you enjoyed nature, you realized you didn’t like it as much as he did. According to him, he would choose to be out in nature as often as he possibly could. You were slowly beginning to enjoy it as much as he did. A few times, you took him to a club where you saw firsthand that he was a real party boy in another life. You liked the club nights because it showed you a whole other side of him. The side that was carefree, able to cut loose and not take himself seriously. It was a side you made a silent vow to bring out as often as you could.
 To round out the experience, he did as the French and took advantage of France’s natural romance. There were plenty of romantic dinners at romantic restaurants that overlooked the ocean or the cliffs or the city lights and even a few at romantic vineyards with the view of the rolling hills and a sunset. The romance was not something hard to find, and it wasn’t always in going out. You spent plenty of nights in the villa lounging together with candlelight in the room and a gentle breeze wafting through the opened doors while watching something on tv together. While it was awkward before, you were becoming more and more comfortable around him. 
This comfort also helped you feel closer to him and though you teased each other often, said sly things to one another, and even flirted shamelessly, nothing else of significance had happened. Henry didn’t make any moves to kiss you or cuddle or even hug you, really. The most he’d done was hold your hand at the most sporadic moments, for the shortest amount of time. It made no sense, and it drove you crazy because you could feel the attraction between you in everything you did. You could sense the desire in the air was strong, but everything remained lukewarm.
 Though your comfort level rose, your insomnia never subsided. When Henry had gone to bed, you often remained up just writing music, journaling, or making things with the pictures you’d taken throughout the day. Your sleepless or low sleep nights gave you the chance to either reformulate your plan or think about your progress. A lot of times, thinking about the progress had you thinking about him, and if you did that, it was only a matter of time before your mind drifted to your want for him.
 It was funny to you that before him, you could push affection, intimacy, and sex to the side and act like they were not even actual things, and it never bothered you or had any effect. Since Henry, it was damn near impossible. You thought about his touch at every turn, about his lips more times than you could count, and imagined him between your thighs at least once every other day.
 One night it had gotten so bad from remembering him swimming in the pool in slow motion. Everything he did was in slow-mo like he was posing for some men’s porn magazine. That was the night you had to please yourself to thoughts of his wet lips, memories of his voice, and body as it moved through the water and muscles as he hoisted himself up out of the water with it dripping off of every inch of him. that night, it was the quickest you’d ever come. You wondered if he was struggling the way you were, but throughout the days, you saw no evidence he was, and that made you more insecure than you’d ever felt in your life.
 ~~~~~~~~~
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-Nine Days Later-
 The night was young—well, young for you. While Henry slept, you found yourself in the back yard with the breeze brushing against your bare skin. The glow of the moon beamed down on you, bathing you in its pearlescent illuminance, making you feel like a goddess of the night. It could have been the moon, the fact you were naked under it, or the 2nd bottle of wine you were on. It didn’t matter what it was; you felt good. The wine made your thoughts flow more freely, and where your thoughts went, your pen in your notebook mapped. You got your best writing done at three in the morning when you were naked and feeling wine-nice.
 With your pen hooked on your bottom lip, you looked over the new lyrics you’d written for a song that Henry had inspired. The notebook was filled with at least ten more from the same muse. This song was the night’s second one. The first centered around your anxious thoughts about making the first move and how to do it in a way with little to no risk, and your worries of being in the friend zone the second was drastically different. This one focused on you admitting your attraction, the possibility you were falling for him, and your fear of him making you feel out of control. It was raw and real, the realest you’d been in a long time when it came to your feelings.
 The words across the page were sensual and painted a clear picture of arousal and desire. As you hummed to yourself the way you imagined it flowing, you began replacing your hums with words. You quickly got lost in your process and zoomed through putting everything down on paper. Once your brain sparked off, it never stopped until it finished the mission.
 “Aliya?”
 You turned to the sound of Henry’s voice, forgetting your state of undress. Almost immediately, you gasped and grabbed the blanket holding it to your breasts.
 “Shit.”
 Henry was already turned away, his back facing you.
 “Um--.”
 “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. God, I—shit.”
 Henry snorted then slowly released a breath in a loud huff.
 You rearranged the blanket then spoke, “You can turn around.”
 Slowly and cautiously, Henry turned to you again. With your lips pressed together, you gave him your best apologetic face.
 “I’m so sorry. I thought you were asleep. I didn’t think you’d come out here,” you explained.
 Again, Henry snorted then chuckled to himself as he nodded his head. You were so embarrassed that you covered your face.
 “I’m sorry,” you whispered one last time.
 “No need for sorries,” Henry began trying not to make eye contact. “It’s um—it’s okay.”
 The awkwardness had returned.
 “I didn’t see anything. Don���t worry.”
 You didn’t believe him one bit but pushed any remaining awkwardness deep down and fought through it.
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“Don’t you sleep at all?”
“Not really. Remember, insomniac.”
 “I know you said that, but usually insomniacs can manage something,” Henry said.
 “Um, well, since I was diagnosed, I can on occasion get three or four hours tops.
 “Wow. We’ve been sharing this house for a little over a week, and I didn’t know that much.”
 You smiled and took another sip from your glass. “You’re off the hook, you actually sleep, and it’s great.”
 “How long have you had it?”
 “Since I was maybe eighteen,” you explained.
 “So what do you do when you’re not sleeping?”
 After finishing your glass, you moaned and leaned back in your chair. “Walk around, find a good spot to sit, write, sometimes go for a drive, online shop, work. Usually, it is mainly work,” you confessed.
 Henry gave you a stern daddyish look. “Are you working now?”
 You bit your bottom lip and scrunched your face. “Guilty but only sort of. I’m writing music. That’s not work for me. For me, it’s a component for my sanity.”
 Henry nodded. “So you sit up all night naked writing music?”
 The way he put it had you laughing out loud.
 “Wow, pretty much. Fuck, when you sum it up like that, you make me sound like an insomniac exhibitionist.”
 You laughed together for a few short moments. “Can’t they prescribe something?”
 “They have, quite a few things actually. When I was eighteenish, I was on several sleeping pills. I was the guinea pig, and I must have tested at least twenty brands and formulas, but none of them seemed to work well with me. Of course, they had to monitor my intake to make sure I didn’t become addicted, but after a few years, I said, forget it let’s not try anything anymore. I just stopped taking the pills and sucked it up,” you clarified.
 Henry looked impressed. “So you function on three hours of sleep?”
 “Pretty much.”
 He whistled then bowed his head. “Wow.”
 “it’s not bad. Honestly, it might be a blessing in disguise. I get so much work done they wouldn’t believe.”
 “You literally make money while others sleep,” Henry joked.
 You softly snickered and nodded.
 “Do they know why it started?”
 He was asking all the right questions, you thought to yourself.
 “Yeah, we know.” You really didn’t want to say anything else, and you had a mini internal fight. Groaning, you continued. “Trauma.”
 You could feel his eyes on you, and you rearranged your things on the table and picked off invisible lint off the blanket, all in an effort to not look at him. Though you were physically naked, you felt emotionally so as well. Taking a risk, you glanced at him and held his gaze. He was unreadable.
 “Here,” Henry said, holding out a spoon to you.
 “A spoon? What’s this for?”
 Henry smiled and took a step toward you. “Close your eyes.”
 You scoffed and wrinkled your nose before you closed your eyes and waited. You didn’t hear anything and wondered what he was doing.
 “Uh—hello? Henry, are you there?”
 The sound of Henry clearing his throat told you he was in a different location that was somewhat closer.
 “I’m here. Open.”
When you did, you looked around expecting something but not sure just what. When your eyes landed on the ice cream before you, you smiled.
 “For your massive sweet tooth.”
 You couldn’t help but giggle. He’d learned a few things about that sweet tooth over the last week. This was him being cute about it.
 “This Is my favorite flavor and brand. You don’t play, huh.”
 “Of course not. I pay attention.”
 “Thank you.”
 Henry nodded, then pulled another spoon from behind him. “Cheers?”
 You knocked your spoon against his and said the same thing. Henry sat beside you while you opened the ice cream, then both of you dug in. the first spoonful had you moaning so loud it echoed around you.
 “That good?”
 “Mmmm, so good, better than sex,” you joked.
 “Then I am sorry, Ms. Taylor, you are having sex with all the wrong ones.”
The spoon paused at your lips as you quirked your eyebrow at him. Henry wasn’t backing down, though. He held your gaze almost like he was challenging you. Damn, you thought before you looked away first.
 “So you write all your own songs?”
 Nodding, you put another spoonful of ice-cream in your mouth. “All by myself.”
 “Impressive. I know artists try, but not a lot do it alone. There will usually be a few co-writers,” Henry added.
 You were a little surprised he knew that. “You’re right. More and more try to get on it for the added profits that being a writer brings in. for me, I do it for far more selfish reasons.”
 Henry quirked his brow, silently asking you why.
 “I need an outlet, something to get everything in my head out. I’m up for twenty to twenty-one hours a day, and I have a lot going on in there. So, I need to be able to get that out to start fresh the next do, that means---I write.”
 The way Henry’s eyes rested on you made you feel like he had so much to say, but he was holding back with doing so.
 “It’s good to have an outlet.”
 “What’s yours?”
 His goofy smile made a return, and you couldn't help but smile back.
 “Don’t judge me, okay, but it’s video games.”
 You smiled and raised your hands. “No judgment here, ever.”
 “I like video games, Warcraft, Witcher, Call Of Duty, HALO. Anything bloody, I’m there for it. I also use exercise a lot. I have to work out, have to.”
 “Have to?”
 Henry took another spoonful of ice cream and sighed out. He looked like he was thinking about something, and you gave him the time needed.
 “Yeah, when I was a kid, I was heavy--,” he began sighing. “I was a fat kid, and it meant I got teased and bullied a lot. My nickname was fat, Cavill.”
 “Oh no, that’s horrible.”
 “Yeah, plus I was at private school. Let’s just say—it was hard, really hard. I had some dark times, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t stick with me some even to this day.”
 You bit your bottom lip, reached your hand out, and rested it on his knee. Your heart sank thinking about what he’d gone through. You knew how painful words could be, especially as a child. “I’m sorry. Kids can be such assholes.”
 Henry snorted and gave your hand a gentle squeeze. “They sure can.”
 “Plus, I could tell working out is a joy for you. I’m not blind, and neither is the female population of the world and some of the male.”
 Henry’s laugh was unexpected but welcomed all the same. You liked his laugh, and the more you heard it, the more it was becoming one of your favorite sounds.
 “Seriously though, I’m sorry you went through that. I know it couldn’t have been easy to work through.”
 He looked down at your hand that was still on his knee and nodded before he cleared his throat.
 “You mentioned you’re close with your grandmother?”
 Taking your hand back, you rearranged the blanket again and nodded. “I did. Yeah. She’s my mother’s mother, and she is—she’s my world.” With a soft smile on your lips, you quickly went through your fondest memories with her.
 “I don’t think it’s healthy to depend on her as much as I do, but--.” You shrugged. “She helps me with so much, like being forgiving, being more open, being a better person in general. She gets me and doesn’t judge me or make me feel like something is wrong with me. In her eyes, I’m—Corrin, my middle name, and it’s great. All the pressure I constantly carry around is gone.”
 Talking about how much your gramaw meant to you made you emotional, and the sting of tears in your eyes told you just how emotional you’d gotten.
 “That’s great to have at least one person in your life that can do that for you. you’re lucky.”
 “Yes, ha, she’s—uh, she’s the reason I’m here,” you confessed. Henry looked very interested to know what you meant.
 “How so?”
 “She uh, she just reminded me of a few things and pointed some other things out to me,” you said, giving him the CliffsNotes version. You could tell it wasn’t going to cut it, though, so you continued. “She pretty much made me think from a  different perspective, the one that I was desperately trying to ignore.”
 Henry still looked interested, but he nodded. “I have to thank her because I’m glad she changed your mind.”
 You studied him for a little while as you put another spoonful into your mouth. “Are you?”
 Henry didn’t look away or give way to any emotion on his face. He just nodded. “Yes. I’m glad you’re here.”
 You didn’t see any indication that he was lying or stretching the truth. You did notice that the pull between you was still there. Henry was the first to look away this time, and the two of you continued to share the half-gallon container of ice cream while chatting. He told you more about his private school days and painted a clearer image of what he was like as a boy, and the image you got was absolute adorableness and tenacity.
 By the time you both walked back inside, two hours had passed, and the beginning of the sunrise was peeking out behind the mountains. You stood in the long hall that separated your room from his clutching the sheet wrapped around you and your notebook.
 “So, in the morning—or a few hours we’ll catch a flight out,” Henry confirmed.
 “Still won’t tell me where to?”
 Henry smiled, rubbed the back of his neck, and shook his head. “You don’t like surprises, do you? This is the fifth time you’re trying to pry it out of me.”
 You pinched your lips then groaned. “No, no. It’s not that I don’t like surprises. I love surprises—well, good ones. I just like to know every detail. I like--.”
 “Being in control,” Henry finished, hitting the nail right on the head. You knew it was the loss of control that was making you antsy.
 You closed your eyes and slowly breathed out.
 “Yes. I guess I might have a control problem.”
 Henry looked very amused. “Might?”
 The two of you laughed together, and you couldn’t believe the call out.
 “Shut up.”
 “It’s okay. I get it. I like control too, a whole lot, and I don’t usually like when control is taken from me, but I’ve gotten better with it. Now, I won’t die if my control is taken. Then—it felt like it.”
 You nodded at yet another thing you had in common. It was becoming more than you could count on your fingers.
 “Good for you, but I—I might die.”
 Henry laughed again, this time not with you, at you.
 “I’m going to make you a promise. By the end of this vacation, you will be better at giving me control,” Henry said, his voice so deep and commanding that your spine tingled. When the tingling traveled around to your gut and moved downward, you clutched the sheet tighter.
 “Oh, will I?”
 He smirked; it was a cocky one. “Yes, you will. I don’t break promises. Never have.”
 Your eyes locked, and that tingling intensified, making your lady parts beg for some attention. He was downright captivating, and it was so hard staying on your side of the hall.
 “All you have to know is that I won’t abuse my control. You can trust that. You can trust me.”
 You almost made the yikes face hearing the T-word. You knew he remembered you saying that trust was a tricky thing for you, and you also knew this was probably a test. You were in between a rock and a hard place. After sighing out, you spoke.
 “Okay.”
 “But, you do have to say these five words, though,” Henry said with a smirk.
 “What?”
 “I—relinquish—control—to—you.”
 With every word, his voice got deeper and deeper, his eyes more and more focused on you. It was so easy to get lost in them, and he must have known it.
“Uh—no. I can’t say that.”
 “Sure you can. I know it’s not easy, but I promise you will not regret it.”
 Your nose flared, heart raced, mouth went dry, all points of your anxiety. You hated feeling backed in a corner, and you hated giving away your control even more.
 “Will you relinquish control to me?”
 With a grin, he spoke, “I will.”
 “When?”
 “One day,” Henry said, that grin still on his face.
 Of course he’d say that you thought. “How about, I will try,” you appeased.
 “Nope. Not good enough. I want it all, Aliya.”
 You groaned and ruffled your curls, still clutching the sheet with one hand. He was not going to let up.
 “God, Henry.”
 He didn’t say anything, just waited. He didn’t even look pressed like he was worried you’d say no. He looked confident, commanding, and in complete control, and it called to you. There had never been any other man who you’d ever thought about giving control to. None of them felt like him. He felt different.
 “I,” Henry perked up but kept his eyes firmly on yours. another thing you loved about him. “Relinquish—control,” you paused again, feeling the full weight of the words you were going to release. You weren’t just saying that you were giving him control to make the decisions. You were giving him control, period. That was when the panic picked up. “Control to,” you rolled your eyes then hissed. “You.”
 The silence stretched, but the longer it went on, the less anxious you felt. Yeah, there was some residual panic lingering, but the look in his eyes only comforted you.
 “Thank you. I know how hard that was for you,” Henry softly said.
 You looked down and took a shaky breath. “You have no idea.” When you looked back at him, he was still staring at you. “Okay. Well, good night, Henry.”
 “Good night, Aliya.”
 A visible shiver ran through you, but you ignored it and turned around to walk to your bedroom door. After a few steps, you stopped and smiled as an idea formed. Instead of walking forward, you turned around and walked back to him. Once close enough, you tiptoed, threaded your fingers into his hair at the nape of his neck, then pulled his head down to yours. It was then you pressed your lips to his.
 From the second your lips touched, it felt like you’d been standing out in the rain and gotten hit but a lightning bolt. Your moan was loud, and once it slipped out, Henry grabbed you, pulled you flush against him, and held you there. The hand on your hip squeezed while his right hand sneaked around your back to press his palm against your tailbone. That was when you realized you wanted more—a lot more. You sucked his bottom lip into your mouth, then nibbled, sinking your nails into his curls. You were second away from dropping the sheet, so you pulled back, grasping to the fraying threads of your self-control. Henry’s eyes were still closed, giving you a few extra seconds to admire his beauty. He still had the same effect as the first time he’d kissed you. 
 “Good night, Henry,” you said again, pecking his lips once more before walking away again.
 Though you’d given relinquished control, you just took a little of it back. It felt good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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goth-albino-angel · 3 years
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Yugiri's smile is everything. She has so many of them and they all mean different things. When she's relaxed, when she's excited, when she's confused, when she has no clue what's going on but everyone else is happy so she's happy, when she's relieved, when she's proud... She has so many different smiles and if Tumblr didn't have the 10 image rules, I would absolutely gush about every single one of them in detail. Unfortunately, if I do that, all of those posts will probably be eaten out of the tag, so instead, here are my top 10 favorite Yugiri smiles so far, images included. (Pre-Revenge episode 9)
10. Season One, Episode 2: The First Smile/ 9. Season One, Episode 10: The Sentimental Smile
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Episode 2 is the first time we ever see Yugiri smile. Before this, she seemed relatively nonplussed or generally disinterested in pretty much everything going on. Even though she was in a different time period with complete strangers and a madman demanding her to be something she has no knowledge of, she was fairly calm. Then the first time we see her smile, it's when she sees something completely familiar. Her own face. Not only that, but she directs that smile toward the character that is going to become basically her little sister. The first one means so much and it's so important.
Within the same vein, her smile to Kotaro in episode 10 is one during an emotionally heavy moment. It's the first time he's hit an actual snag in his plans. Sakura's singular focus on the Arpino show rather than on the bigger picture of the group as a whole would have been a massive roadblock had she not realized her mistake.
Yugiri is the only one who properly realizes the reason they were sent into the mountains in the first place. Instead of simply sitting on the information, she's proactive about it and actually goes to discuss the problem with Kotaro. She wants to understand his reasoning so that she might be able to help him. And when she turns toward him, she also gives him the observations she's witnessed throughout her new life. This smile may be low on my list of favorites, but it's still unbelievably important.
...Also, when they released the preview image of this smile, my brain short-circuited for ten minutes, so it had to make it onto the list regardless.
8. Season Two, Episode One: The Professional Smile
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This smile isn't much out of the ordinary for what we've come to expect of Yugiri, but it's on here because this was our first look at Yugiri after basically two years of very little. None of us knew how the group would come back, how the writing team had incorporated the unexpected pandemic, how things would play out, or what would be happening. The Promo showed Tae's hand flying off to knock off Sakura's head, but as 2018 displayed, the promos can't always be trusted. This showed that, even in this new world where she's only been awake for a year, she's putting her skills to use and working just as hard as the others. Thanks to the conversation from Episode 10 of the first season, we know she was trained as a geisha which would make service work much easier than it would be for the other girls.
I don't have too much to say on this one, to be honest. I do like that she's in softer lighting, as opposed to the others who were all surrounded by harsh lighting on their season two introductions. The softer lighting lends itself well to the lack of pigment and coloration in the girls' makeup, allowing Yugiri to look like she has some color, even if she still looks somewhat pale and tired. It doesn't give her quite the same sickly look the others have at their jobs. The red dress? 100/10. Perfect decision.
7. Season One, Episode Five: The Proud Smile
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SHE. DOES. GYMNASTICS. She has every right to this smile! I did the math for this specific part of the episode and Yugiri got third place. The judges liked her rope aerobics so much, they shot her all the way to third place even though her distance was zero meters. It wouldn't have gotten her interviewed, but it would have at least put Franchouchou at the forefront. I still applaud Tae snagging first place, but Yugiri deserves some praise. She really did go face first into the mud on a bike and said, "Never again." She's so proud of herself. I'll be gushing about the actual gymnastics part in a different post a little later, too, but she definitely deserves to be proud of herself. I'm really gay...
6. Season One, Episode Four: The Cute Smile
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Originally, this was just going to be me doing some keysmash version of a squeal or something, but there's something I'd like to draw attention to. I'm pretty sure that, by this point, Franchouchou only knows two songs. Yomigaere, which was supposed to be performed in episode 2, and Mezame Returner, which is what's being performed here. Of these two, Yugiri has more experience with this one, but from what the audience had been shown, it wasn't good experience.
Memorizing the lyrics would have been the easy part for her. It's that a good portion of the dance practice was also spent helping Lily get the steps down and potentially calming her frustrations. Then the performance itself would have been a complete disaster if Junko and Ai hadn't gotten over themselves at the last minute to finally help.
This is the first successful performance of Mezame Returner we're witnessing and it's clear the group's had more practice since then. You can see how excited and happy Yugiri is here because this one is actually going well. They had a bit more time to prepare, the two lead roles were actually involved this time, and the audience also was clearly enjoying the performance. She's so happy and it's just so heart-warming to see. Yes, even with the CGI. Don't @ me, she looks adorable.
5. Season One, Episode Seven: The Sassy Smile
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This one also was just going to be a squealing keysmash thing, but again, I have something to point out. Look how much more confident she is now that Junko and Ai have, once again, gotten over themselves. Yugiri sees the effect that Junko stepping in had on the others and just like the rest of the group, her movements are more relaxed and free.
It's more obvious, actually, if you look at the way the other girls are moving directly after Junko helps Ai up in comparison to how Yugiri is moving. She did a spin while waiting for Sakura and Lily to finish their segment, and she could be cheeky during her own. She sensed that the tension had mostly dissolved and because of that, she allowed herself to relax and could properly throw herself into the performance. When she throws out this smile and wink, it's not actually directed at the audience. It's Yugiri telling the others that they've got this without breaking the performance.
4. Season Two, Episode Four: The Gentle Smiles
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I put both of these here because Yugiri's just... so... caring? So much of what she does is passive that you don't realize just how much work she puts into relieving the stress from the other girls until long after the problem has been resolved.
In the first, she's speaking to Sakura. No doubt, Yugiri probably noticed how worried Sakura was about Junko. Even though Sakura was trying not to let the others catch on just how anxious she really was, Yugiri still knew that something was bothering Sakura as well as Junko. Yugiri knew that the key to easing Junko's mind lay in placating Sakura first. She's seen what happens to them all when they fall apart and she wants to avoid that at all costs. So, Yugiri lifts Sakura's spirits and gives her back the fire and determination to make a great performance.
In the second, Yugiri is watching Junko eat. Unlike the others, it's clear Yugiri knows that Junko is in much higher spirits than when last they saw her. Junko would likely have still been a stuttering, quivering mess otherwise, but she wasn't stuttering and her actions were purposeful and self-assured. Yugiri is very observant. She would have caught on that something had happened to make Junko feel better. What makes this smile even better is that she's not the least bit disappointed. The reason she made dinner was to help Junko, but she doesn't view the meal as a waste of time. She's so focused on other people, that she's happy Junko is feeling better at all and even offers her different platters to help keep her mood up.
These are high on the list for two reasons. One, they're a show of just how much Yugiri does for her girls. Two, YUGIRI COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS HEADCANON CONFIRMED BITCHEEEESSS!!! I GOT ONE RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!!!!!
3. Season Two, Episode Six: The Affectionate Smile
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I will be completely honest, I have no idea why this one is as high as it is. I admit, I did spend three hours replaying this single thirty second scene because it's really sweet and Yugiri and Tae don't interact very often, so seeing Yugiri not only be worried for Tae, but also be immediately reassured that Tae would be fine was just something my heart didn't know it needed until it had it. The sheer level of affection Yugiri shows toward Tae is too adorable. Especially since Yugiri usually only has moments like those with Sakura and, to a lesser extent, Lily. This smile's really cute, it's in the middle of a wholesome scene, and it made me love both Yugiri and Tae that much more.
2. Season One, Episode Three: The Excited Smile
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Once again, an entry that was going to be a simple squealing keysmash until I realized there was something to point out here as well. This is the first smile we ever see from Yugiri that's genuinely enthusiastic. She has plenty of them, especially during her performances, but this is our first time seeing her fully incorporate herself into the group as an actual member and actually look excited to do something with the others. This was an omen of adorable things to come and damn did it deliver.
Honorable Mentions.
I'm only going to touch on each of these briefly because to be honest, there are a LOT of smiles I could've picked.
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The first one is from episode 6 when the group is talking about their very first meet-and-greet. Lily asks Yugiri if she's keeping up okay, and Yugiri remarks that she's taking things as they come. This was a small look into the kind of character she is. As I mentioned before, she's very passive in the way she operates, but that's to the benefit of those she cares for. This is her admitting that she doesn't want to be a problem and it's just sweet that even though Lily is worried about her, Yugiri's still highkey thinking about everyone else.
To the right is a shot of Yugiri during Electric Returner. This one is just the squealing keysmash because she looks so genuinely ecstatic, it's contagious. She's NO DAMN CLUE what happened or why they sound so different, but she is absolutely living her best second life.
The next shot comes from the beginning of Yomigaere and is somewhat of a repeat of the above. She's excited to perform for such a big crowd, she's glad Sakura finally agreed to actually participate, and she's living her best second life. Whoever animates Yugiri's CG model? I love you. I want to send you a gift basket. She's always so happy during performances.
Then comes her smile after the group finds out Sakura's memories are back. She's just glad Sakura, her Sakura, has come back to them, that she accepts her crap luck and is still willing to stay. For Yugiri, this goes under the list of Best Possible Outcomes. Her family is whole again and she's so relieved.
Last in the top row is the first full frontal shot we get of Yugiri in the Saga Jihen music video. She's so unbelievably adorable here. I wish I could've gotten her first expression, but the curtain was still rising and without photoshop, I'm not editing an image to the degree needed to get her whole face lightened. Point is, she's cute and everyone deserves to see her adorable face on the first song she got to be center for.
First on the bottom row is Yugiri looking apologetic from episode 8 of Revenge. She's so cute. It was an honest mistake and she had no way of knowing the paper belonged to Kiichi. No doubt, that was probably why she offered to help him rewrite them later.
Next is how cute she looks in big sister mode. She's wiping the mud from Kiichi's cheeks and is taking such care with him. Throughout the entire episode, she treats him like a little kid and it's likely because her role was big sister for so long that she doesn't know how not to treat him that way. It really does shed light on just how kind she is to everyone, though, that she doesn't even think about her dirty kimono and focuses on cleaning him up a little first.
Then we have her smiling at Kiichi as she remarks on how beautiful his dream of reviving Saga is. She even says she hopes it comes true. His dream means something to her. She can't even fully see it, he can't even fully see it, but they don't need to. What Itou didn't understand this whole time is something Yugiri understood immediately just from listening to Kiichi talk. They don't need to see it in their minds, all they need is to feel it in their hearts, and that's something Yugiri knows.
And lastly on the honorable mentions, because this post is already super long, Yugiri smiling while she's cooking for her guests. It was a tossup between this or the pinwheel because it's just really nice that Yugiri can simply enjoy mundane things. I chose this one because it's a direct contrast to how she was at the beginning. Before, she ate with a disinterested expression, but now, she's cooking for guests rather than just for herself. The lift in her mood is obvious, and it's something so small but so heartwarming, I couldn't resist.
I would've put the pinwheel moment anyway, but unfortunately, as a com major, formatting and design are everything and an extra picture on the top or bottom without a balancer would've thrown the whole thing off. Maybe next time.
NOW FOR NUMBER ONE
1. Season Two, Episode Eight: The Softest Smile
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This should have been expected. There's something genuinely touching about the fact that Yugiri really does give her everything, even to complete strangers. These girls barely know her, everyone in town barely knows her, but because her dance students suggested Yugiri go out and actually experience, Yugiri gives it actual thought. She doesn't dismiss them, she doesn't deride them, she doesn't make them feel foolish or anything like that. She treats their suggestion the same way she would if it had come from a close friend. And she does actually take them up on it.
Later, we see her come into contact with Kiichi to demonstrate that even full-on strangers aren't exempt from her kind heart, but this means more. All we know is that these girls take Yugiri's dance class, and from the way they speak when we first meet them, it's clear Yugiri has a professional wall between herself and those she instructs. But she still treats them as she would the girls back in Shimabara. It's proof that, even in the past, Yugiri really was just as kind-hearted as in the present. It's a show don't tell kind of thing that just speaks so deeply to the writer in me. I love this smile. It's everything. Her smiles are everything. She's everything.
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lilyvandersteen · 3 years
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The Christmas Guest Chapter 10
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Author’s Note: Here’s Blaine’s point of view of the kiss and what comes after. Fluff galore. Enjoy!
Read Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, the Interlude, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 here on Tumblr, or read the story on AO3 or FF.net.
Chapter 10: Part of the Family
As soon as Blaine’s lips touched Kurt’s, he felt Kurt freeze for a moment, but just when he wanted to draw back and apologize, Kurt let out the softest sigh and melted against him. He also started kissing back, and held Blaine as if he’d never let go again. It made Blaine completely forget where he was and why. All that existed was Kurt, and how he felt, and how he tasted, and how he made Blaine’s head whirl with the simplest touch.
Blaine had no idea how much time had passed when the two of them were jolted apart by another party-goer, but it was not nearly long enough. He blinked hazily at Kurt, who looked as kiss-drunk as Blaine felt, and then at the people around them, who were… counting?
Oh. Right. New Year. Oh, brilliant, then we can kiss some more!
As soon as everybody started yelling Happy New Year, Blaine kissed Kurt again, reveling in the fact that he could, and that Kurt seemed to welcome his attentions. They needed to talk about this, yes, but first… First, he was going to enjoy this!
Again, he had to stop before he was ready to, this time because one of Kurt’s friends took offence to their PDA. They were quickly defended by Kurt’s other friends, but Blaine could tell Kurt felt uncomfortable, so he didn’t protest when Kurt wanted to go home, though he was a bit apprehensive about the conversation they would be having once they were back in Kurt’s room. Had he overstepped Kurt’s boundaries without realizing? Had Kurt only kissed back to keep up appearances? Surely, Blaine couldn’t have misread the situation that badly?
He chanced a quick glance at Kurt, who hadn’t said a word since they left the party, but his face was unreadable. He was shivering, though, and at once, Blaine’s preoccupations flew out of his head and he only thought of warming up Kurt.
In thanks for his efforts, Kurt sent him a glowing smile, which kept Blaine going until they were back in Kurt’s bedroom, putting their pajamas on, still in silence. By the time Blaine slipped into bed, his skin was skittering with all the feelings and words cooped up inside of him. As he cuddled up to Kurt, he couldn’t keep it all in anymore, and he burst out into an apology – right at the same time as Kurt started talking.
Well, not so much talking as asking for an explanation. Which was only fair, of course. Only… What answer did he expect? Could Blaine be honest and tell Kurt he’d tumbled head over heels in love with him? Would he dare?
Blaine hedged a bit, but Kurt pressed on, and his resistance crumbled. He could no more lie to Kurt than he could to himself. And maybe it was crazy to feel this way about someone he’d only known for a few days, but if by some miracle, Kurt felt the same way, maybe they could try dating for real?
He didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Kurt’s lips found his, and his heart leapt happily. Yes!
K&B
When Blaine woke up the next morning, Kurt was still deeply asleep, his head on Blaine’s bicep and his arm thrown over Blaine’s chest.
Blaine smiled up at the ceiling, happier than he could remember ever being, and enjoying this quiet private time holding Kurt in his arms.
This Christmas break had been nothing like he’d expected, but it had been everything he needed. Relaxing. A slice of home and family. Scrumptious food and fun pastimes. And most importantly: Kurt.
My boyfriend.
Oh, it felt good to think those words and know they were finally true. It felt so right. Like it had from the very beginning, when Kurt sat down next to him on the plane, and Blaine had smiled at him as though they’d known each other forever.
Well, maybe in another life they had.
Blaine heard floorboards creak, and a second later, Burt’s head peeped in.
“Good morning!” Blaine whispered. “And Happy New Year!”
“Kurt still asleep?”
“Dead to the world.”
“Glad you got home okay. Did Finn’s girl sleep over too?”
“Yes. We were all exhausted.”
“That late?”
“Just after midnight. That’s late enough for me.”
Burt hummed in assent. “Well, come down to breakfast if you can pry Mr. Koala loose. Carole’s making blueberry pancakes.”
That made Blaine’s mouth water. He looked down at Kurt sleeping peacefully, and then back at Burt, torn.
Burt chuckled. “Or not. You can always whip up a batch yourself later, if you want a bit of a lie-in. But no shenanigans, you hear me?”
Blaine nodded, and the door closed again.
Blaine closed his eyes and softly stroked Kurt’s hair.
“What time izzit?” came a sleepy inquiry.
Blaine smiled and told Kurt, “Way too early for you. Go back to sleep, sweetie.”
Kurt curled into him like a contented cat, rubbing his head against Blaine’s hand. “Feels good when you do that.”
So Blaine kept up his gentle caresses until Kurt’s face went slack, and he nodded off again himself a while later.
By the time they made their way downstairs, it was past ten o’clock, and Blaine’s stomach was rumbling in protest.
“Morning, sleepyheads,” said Carole. “Burt’s off to work already, and Finn finished all the pancakes, I’m afraid. I swear he’s got some sixth sense for food cooking. Always shows up seconds after the pan starts sizzling.”
Kurt yawned. “No worries, Carole, we’ll fend for ourselves. Are there still eggs?”
Twenty minutes later, Finn came into the kitchen, sniffing like a dog. “Is that cinnamon toast I smell?”
Blaine hid a smile. Carole had spoken the absolute truth. Finn had shown up not even a minute after the first toast had hit the pan.
Kurt swatted at Finn with the spatula. “Out! Yes, it’s cinnamon toast, and no, you can’t have any. You’ve already had breakfast, and you finished your own as well as ours, says Carole.”
“I was hungry!”
“Well, now WE are hungry and don’t want to share. Clear out!”
“Aw, come on!”
“Maybe that works on Cathy, but not on me. What did you do, swipe half of her pancake while she was talking to Carole?”
“No! She had a whole one herself. And then she let me finish her second one.”
Kurt fake-swooned. “Aw, true love! Where’s Cathy, anyway?”
Finn pouted. “She went home already. Said she still had tons of work to do. Lessons to prepare. For next week.”
“Well, at least one of you takes their studies seriously. Why don’t you take her good example and get some work done as well? Not much else to do, ‘cause Puck and the other New Directions will be hungover, and Blaine and I will be packing because we’re going back to New York.”
“Hang on, you’re leaving today?”
That was news to Blaine too. His plane ticket back to New York was for two days later, as he didn’t have class until Tuesday afternoon. Still, he could try and get his flight rebooked. He just wished he’d known a bit earlier.
As soon as Finn had left the kitchen, Blaine asked Kurt what flight he was taking, and then spent a good half hour on the phone to sort things out. When he hung up with a triumphant smile, having scored not only the flight but also the exact seat he wanted, Kurt shook his head, smirking.
“When you start pouring on the charm, I don’t think anyone could say no to you if they tried.”
Blaine cocked his head to the side and moved a bit closer. “Hmm… You can’t say no to me? Now that’s interesting…”
Kurt squeaked in apprehension  – actually squeaked, and Blaine grinned.
Kurt’s chin went up. “I’ll learn to say no. So there. I’ll become immune, after a while.”
Blaine’s grin widened. “I wouldn’t be too sure, if I were you.”
“Oh, hush you!”
“Make me.”
And then he lost both his words and his grin when Kurt grabbed his head and kissed him.
They didn’t stop kissing until Finn came stomping into the kitchen looking for a snack, and asked, “Weren’t you going to pack?”
When Burt drove them to the airport that evening, he looked at Blaine in the rear-view mirror – they’d opted to both sit in the back again – and asked, “So are you sad you didn’t get to spend the holidays with your own folks, bud?”
Blaine squeezed Kurt’s hand, looked at him with all his love showing, and answered, “Not a bit. I had a marvelous time. Again, thank you so much for your hospitality.”
“Happy to have you, kid. Feel free to tag along every year from now on. We’ve all accepted you as part of the family.”
Blaine felt ridiculously close to tears, even as the corners of his mouth curved up, and could not manage a response. It made him happy to be so accepted, yet he felt guilty, too, for deceiving Burt.
Kurt kissed his cheek and announced, “Good, ‘cause Blaine is here to stay. Though, Blaine, I do want to meet your family too, someday.”
As soon as Blaine could strings words together again, he promised, “You will. We can go see my parents this summer. And Skype with Cooper one of these days. Though… I apologize in advance for all the ridiculous things Cooper is going to say.”
“Brothers,” Kurt nodded knowingly.
Kurt hugged his father tightly at the airport. When he let go, Blaine held out his hand for Burt to shake, but instead, Burt wrapped him up in a bear hug, too.
“Take care, kiddo. And look after Kurt for me, will you? Make him eat enough and sleep enough and have some fun in between all his work.”
“I will. I promise.”
Burt let him go and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a good kid. Wouldn’t mind having you as my son-in-law one day.”
“Daaaaad!” Kurt moaned.
“What, like you haven’t planned the wedding already in your head?”
Kurt looked as if he wanted to sink through the floor. “Dad, please! Do you want Blaine to run for the hills? We’ve only just become boyfriends!”
Well, isn’t that the truth… But I can totally picture myself married to you, so I’m not running anywhere but into your arms.
“I don’t think Blaine’s the kind to be easily scared off. He let us kidnap him when he didn’t know us from Adam, didn’t he?”
Both Kurt and Blaine gaped at Burt.
He chuckled at their gob-smacked expressions. “I heard you, kid. Inviting Blaine ‘as a friend’ because he’d been nice to you on the plane. I saw you making goo-goo eyes at each other. But Blaine didn’t dare say yes. So I made him come with us. And I don’t regret it. Do you?”
Kurt closed his mouth with a snap, and shook his head slowly, his eyes misty and his smile radiant.
Blaine shook his head as well. “Best thing that ever happened to me.”
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michibikionmain · 3 years
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This isn’t THE tommyinnit villain essay but it sure is one of them
Ok ok so 4 those of u who aren't on discord with me: i have two main essays that have been in the works for MONTHS, these being my Complete Dream character analysis essay going in-depth for nearly all of his canon interactions and finding his character traits and motivations through the story, and my Tommyinnit (and Wilbur Soot) were Always The Villains on the server essay talking about how the only reason so many people view them as the good guys or heroes is because we see the story from their perspective mainly. This essay? Is not either of those. BUT, it does go through a lot of my thoughts on Tommy and Dream’s characters so I figured I’d post it. maybe itll help me organize my thoughts 4 my Mega Projects lol
@ranboocore bc u helped me pop off on this so hard LMAO
Warning, it’s VERY Tommy Critical, what a suprise. I do not like Tommy as a character lol. idk what triggers yall might need me to tag but if u need one in particular pls lmn!
My biggest issue with tommy's character is that he SAYS hes learned but he never does he is exactly the same person he was at the start of the server just More Sad and with Trauma, when out of all the characters he's had the most push to change. c!Tommy is a very tell-don't-show character which can make it hard for some people to connect to him, especially those who don’t directly share his trauma or see themselves in his character. Of course, there is still a MASSIVE amount of people who relate to his struggles and thus love him regardless of his writing, but those who can't relate to him will always feel some kind of barrier until the things they've talked about are actually shown to the viewer instead of being spoon-fed to them.
It is a very beginner writing thing, and I'm hoping that Tommy is figuring out how to fix this, maybe with support from the many other writers on the server. There's the 3 you mentioned, plus fundy, niki, and maybe tubbo who also play dnd, plus Dream who said he would've been an English major and does a lot of personal writing for fun.  I think the biggest issue in the writing lies in the individual ccs being inexperienced in the medium, particularly with planning out their own character growth. 
Another glaring issue I have with c!Tommy is how he's framed to be sympathetic and he goes through all these horrible things without acknowledging his role in any of them. The things that have happened to him are a direct result of his actions, but the thing is HE won't acknowledge and so it falls flat. This isn’t to say that being abused is his fault, because it’s NEVER the vicitm’s fault, but being exiled? His multiple fights with c!Dream? His friendships falling apart? Losing the disks in the first place? They’re the direct consequences of HIS OWN actions, but he never acknowledges this and constantly just... brushes off any accountability by either saying that it’s Dream fault or simply SAYING he feels bad without properly showing it through redemption and GROWTH.
Denial is useful in storytelling sometimes, but Tommy's character has been in denial since the very beginning of the server and at this point it's just exhausting. He only ever switches between denial and depression, not really going through all 5 stages of grief properly. His violent/upset reactions would be more powerful if they were any different from how tommy usually acts, but this is always how he is. When he “lashes out” because he’s reached the end of his patience, it doesn’t SEEM like the snap it is because that’s just... it’s seriously just his standard reaction to everything. It hold no WEIGHT to see c!Tommy yell at someone violently or threaten to fight them because he does that anyways!
Static characters can be a good thing, and can be interesting if done correctly, but not every character SHOULD or CAN be static in a story.
Static characters need to have their position or behavior challenged and question, where they look into if the way they see and interact with the world is really the 'correct' one or just evaluated to see if they truly believe in them. This questioning period is CRUCIAL! and NEEDS to be well done in a way that ACTIVELY SHOWS the conflict between the two ideals. If they decide to hold onto their beliefs/continue their behavior then, it feels deserved, because rather than just being a flat "they do thing its who they are" they have defined WHY. WHY is a very important question to think of when telling the difference between dynamic and static characters. The why of a character is ESSENTIAL to developing them as a relatable, sympathetic person rather than a flat story telling device. It makes them a human rather than a puppet. When a character's motives aren't well defined or discussed, they're doomed to fall flat in everything else, because the WHY is the foundation of what makes them who they are.
c!Tommy has an underdeveloped "why", his motivations are weak, rarely properly discussed and when they are it doesn't particularly stick with him. His motivations change without showing us the internal struggle that should come from literally shifting your driving principles. There are some good MOMENTS of him reevaluating the importance of certain things, but they're so spread out and contradictory and immediately spat one that they're hard to piece together. He TELLS us what his motivations are as well, which is another big flaw when it comes to all that but we don't have time to unpack all THAT Anyways, the key to static story telling is reaffirmation. The character goes through a complete journey and ends with the same beliefs because they've looked into why they have them and determined that they still matter to them. A great example of static writing in my eyes is c!Techno, who since the beginning has believed that governments are bad. c!Techno enters the server to destroy a government, and still ends up doing that because he sees and we see him experience that the reasons he didn't like government before still hold true and he has no reason to support them any more than before, and so his anarchist beliefs are REAFFIRMED, proving to him that they way he handles things is the right one for him.
c!Tommy’s attachments are all just... they're all so weird.  like he LITERALLY SACRIFICES HIS LIFE MULTIPLE TIMES for L'manburg. By action of sacrifice it seems like it should be the most important thing to him, but then he throws it away for some disks that mattered less to him just a minute ago.  But then it's all about how c!Tubbo is worth more than Anything and maybe he's found something more important! but then he shoves THAT out the window for the discs again ig!!! but then it's about l’manburg again? Make it make sense.... pls....
Here's smth that really irks me about Tommy's character, and is kind of weird but give me a second to explain: Tommy has never actually permanently lost much of anything on the server. Every punishment he's ever received he's tried to find some way around. And like... I'm not expecting him to be HAPPY to face the consequences of his actions but seeing him constantly have his cake and eat it too is very irritating, especially when there are characters who DO have to deal with actual permanent sacrifices. The whole thing with the disks. where he WILLINGLY OFFERED THEM UP AND GAVE THEM AWAY THEN SPENT FOREVER TRYING TO STEAL THEM BACK WHILE CLAIMING DREAM STOLE THEM FROM HIM, is the biggest example of this, but it's generally his characters way of dealing with things. He's very backhanded and conniving, constantly calling himself "big man" except for when he wants things from people and he plays up the "iM a MiNoR" card to try and get them to give him things or feel bad. He's not just some sweet innocent kid like people paint him, he knows damn well he's messed up and while he SAYS he feels bad about it, he has never once really shown, with his ACTIONS, regret for what he's done except for the stuff with c!Sapnap, which could it could be argued he did because he thought it would help get c!Sapnap on his side to fight Dream and he knew c!Sapnap was a skilled warrior and could possibly be persuaded to fight with dream.
c!Tommy is in NO way some sweet innocent child, he knows what he's doing. He KNEW l'manburg was a drug empire, and wanted to turn his hotel into the same He was FULLY prepared to just murder c!Schlatt for legally winning an election that he KNEW was rigged AND INTENDED TO HELP RIG HE LITERALLY TEAMED UP WITH c!TECHNOBLADE KNOWING THAT HE INTENDED TO BLOW UP L'MANBURG AND ONLY LEFT WHEN HE REALIZED IT WASN'T GOING TO ACTUALLY HELP HIM--
The line of c!Wilbur saying "Tommy, are we the bad guys?" wasn't him mentally going batshit it was him realizing that the entire time they've been doing terrible things. c!Wilbur was literally ALWAYS Vilbur but the time people CALL Vilbur is when c!Will himself realized he was a villain.
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dourpeep · 3 years
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Seeing people complaining about the lack of anniversary rewards is getting so tiring. The game's ratings dropped to like 2 on Google play, all comment sections of official accounts are full of complaints. I know and understand that people are upset but it's just so so tiring to the point where I unfollowed most accounts that aren't related to fanart or fanfiction because of all that negativity
I personally spent (a little) money on the game so I get where p2w players come from but idk. I saw that we didn't get anything and moved on pretty quickly. Maybe that's just me, idk
Maybe you have a different view on this and if so, I'd like to hear it
Sorry for ranting in your inbox
hehe no need to apologize because I have quite a bit to say myself nodnod
Read if you like, don't if you don't--this is just my opinions and stuff based off my experience knowing Eastern gatcha games as well as talking about using a 5* vs 4* of the same build + slot
This got kinda long ehe-
Like really long.
Anyway
My turn for a Hot Take (tm)
Yeah I understand this--I've been feeling so drained and my enjoyment of the game and writing has diminished immensely because all I see everywhere is just that.
I understand that the event rewards suck but at the same time? I realize how gacha aren't really popular here in the West--and I have seen a lot of comparison between Genshin and Cookie Run but they're also two entirely different genres despite both being gacha. Not to mention that Cookie Run is fast at first until you get to around uhh Kingdom lvl 37~~ and you're stuck and can't go forward because things cost too many materials or your cookies aren't strong enough even though you have several stars on your team consisting of epics built as optimally as possible-
So the maintenance rewards for Cookie Run have been the only significant amount of gems I've been getting for a few weeks now compared to when I first started and could do 10 roll after 10 roll.
Also also, Cookie Run is PvP (arena, guilds, etc). Being able to get more rolls is absolutely a gamechanger. If you can't get a good defense cookie or healer cookie, you're fucked.
So!! That's why Cookie Run is more generous with rolls. You're not going to want to keep fighting other people in the Arena or doing Guild stuff if they don't add in those generous rewards.
On the other hand, Genshin Impact is an open world rpg w/ co-op (note, co-op doesn't count as pvp because you're collaborating) where you can build pretty much any of the characters to be viable (dps/vampire Barbara is one major example, Noelle is a guarantee roll character for that beginner's banner and she can easily be built to be a tank/healer/dps to fill whatever slot you desire)
So they're not going to be incredibly generous w/ rewards because the characters you have--meta or not--don't really effect your ability to play the game (unless we're talking spiral abyss which really is considered endgame anyway) when you're able to get at least one character of each element for free I mean, you start out with traveler who can be anemo, geo, or electro once you get to the respective places, Amber, Kaeya, Lisa, Barbara (iirc, you need to get to rank 20?), Xiangling (complete spiral abyss floor 3), and Noelle (reduced cost 10roll w/ guaranteed Noelle).
Which would be one of each element and a variety of one of the 5 weapon types nodnod.
Time to talk about builds and why it's not necessary to have a 5* unlike in other gatcha games like Cookie Run (again, a kingdoms builder) before going back to the anniversary stuff
But continuing, like Eula is considered a fantastic 5* character who features a kit that is based around her being a physical damage character. My sibling, C, has her built and she does some insane damage.
On the other hand, I have Xinyan built as a physical dps and if you were to compare their damage?
With crit, C's Eula deals 9k to 14k with Skyward Pride (5* claymore w/ energy recharge substat). With crit, my Xinyan deals 8k to 13k with Song of Broken Pines (5* claymore w/ phys substat) OR 7k to 10k with Prototype Archaic (4* craftable claymore w/ attack substat).
Both C and I agree that they're pretty evenly-matched in the sense of damage output.
We have similar builds focusing on physical damage, however, C's Eula uses 4pc Pale Flame and my Xinyan uses 2pc Bloodstained, 2pc Pale Flame (both have the 25% phys damage bonus for the 2pc). It's also good to note that both their Eula and my Xinyan have a physical dmg % cup.
So just by stacking up more phys on Xinyan, you get a physical dps (with some elemental support capabilities due to her E and Q) you can easily make her deal consistent, reliable damage that is comparable to a fully built Eula. Ofc, I'm sacrificing Xinyan's shield, but since she's built to be a physical dps, it doesn't matter anyway.
Another thing is Zhongli is an incredible shield support. His shield?? Absolutely insane because it's based off his hps. Guess who else has a hp-based shield and heals??? Diona. Another incredibly good support 4* with a shield and healing would be Noelle!
But with Diona, specifically since I did kinda cover over Noelle already, she can easily be built along with her shield having over 100% uptime (like how Zhongli has over 100% uptime). The fact that Diona is also a healer definitely is a perk too.
Ofc the difference with this is that Zhongli can be built as a burst support/dps while Diona is not. But the point isn't that--the point is that you don't need a 5* shield support to have a good, reliable shield support.
But regardless of 4* or 5*, to get a viable character, you need to build them well. So if your character isn't doing satisfactory damage, you just have to take a quick peek at what artifacts they're running and fix as needed!
Another thing--
Talking about the rewards and stuff for the anniversary-
Generally, gatcha games aren't really that generous with rewards and instead usually have some sort of event. In this case, I'm pretty sure that Moonchase is considered a part of the anniversary which is why it's giving so many rewards- just the primos from the first day alone with the chests and quest was enough for two rolls (40 chests * 5 primos each + 60 from the quest and a few that I forgot where they come from but are from the event) as well as the 4* Luxurious Sea Lord claymore.
Before you say that it's shitty for them to make a festival into the anniversary event, I'm certain that people would complain if the anniversary rewards were just a little more than the 10x fates and stuff and that's it because it'd feel like they're skipping over the anniversary entirely. (keep in mind, festivals don't normally give this much stuff in terms of primogems from what we've experienced so far--they're mainly focused on the free event weapon you can get and build like with Festering Desire, Windborne Ode, Dodoco Tales)
Also companies love taking advantage of festivals to make an event bigger + more fleshed out. It'd be otherwise kinda boring to have to just log in every day for a week (not to mention, not everyone does that) and encourages players to play to get rewards.
yeah, that's supposed to work in their favor because they want to keep interest.
So the fact that there's a lot of backlash on everything going on is tiring and also?? I want to make the point that they'll only listen to so much. Getting heard is important, but there will be a point where Mihoyo will just stop listening to the players entirely because all they're getting is a constant barrage of "this event is the worst" "no one likes that character" "(insert character) when???" "okay but where's (blank) rerun?" pasted over the forums, discord, twitter, facebook, instagram--
You can't keep demanding more while also talking shit constantly about the new stuff added because then they'll just not add those new stuff because we (general) seem to never be satisfied.
Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if they end up just cutting Genshin Impact as a loss entirely if this continues as it has and gets even worse.
But I digress.
Anyway, I agree that it sucks that the daily login rewards for the anniversary are just cut and pasted from the Lantern Rite, but as someone who's played a lot of gatcha games, it's pretty much the standard.
Have a daily sign in for rewards and a big event featuring a ton of stuff you can get instead of having an 'official' anniversary event.
I'm sure there's a lot I'm missing because it's not coming to mind, but yeah. These are my general thoughts on what's happening with the discourse.
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mozillavulpix · 3 years
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super anti-komahina salt
and this is to go further beyond
I saw a komahina fan post a write-up and it just irritates me so I want to break it down:
“If you think Komaeda is batshit insane or that his character is only about his obsession with hope and you interpreted Hinata's feelings about Komaeda as just hate of course it wouldn't make sense. Except neither of these are true for their characters.”
This is the basic surface-level narrative Komahina fans argue against, and fair enough, it’s a massive generalisation. But this argument also just irritates me because it implies everyone who doesn’t ship them do so because they don’t understand the characters well enough.
“long story short Komaeda's obsesses over hope as a coping mechanism, because it's the only thing he can cling to.”
I can agree with this in a way, but in my opinion I don’t think he’s so weak that it’s impossible for him break free from that mindset (during the game) if he really wants to.
“Komaeda doesn't like Hinata because he thinks he is talented and above him, Komaeda says he loves all ultimates but it's not real love. His love for Hinata is different. In the SDR2 drama CD he mentions that he loves Hinata because he tries to understand him.”
I can agree with this. Although the Drama CD is literally just the Free Time Events, I don’t think it’s some kind of ‘gotcha’ like people think it’d be.
But also keep in mind, yes, Hajime tries to give Nagito a chance and doesn’t immediately run away screaming because scary person he can’t understand, but Hajime also doesn’t particularly act more saintly than all the other kids towards Nagito after Chapter 1. Nekomaru and Kazuichi seem to at least try to hear Nagito out before they punch him in the face. Mahiru seems like she was the first one to consider giving him breakfast. Hajime tries to stop Akane from attacking him after the Chapter 1 trial, but mostly because he’s resigned to the fact it won’t change what he did, and he then changes his mind and gets pissed off when Nagito decides to taunt him about his amnesia in response. And it’s Sonia who finally settles everyone down. So yes, Hajime tries to understand Nagito, but in the actual plot itself that’s not a special trait unique to him.
It’s only ‘unique’ if you choose to do the Free Time Events, and the Free Time Events...are basically not canon. They’re more like a what-if scenario the player chooses to view, and the dialogue was written from that perspective.
As in, maybe it’s canon that they’d interact like that if they spent time together on the island, but it’s not canon that Hajime does and wants to do that during the story. Because you can do them for everyone.
“And they reach a mutual understanding in DR3 because the two of them are more alike than Hinata would like to admit.”
Um...
Well, this is why DR2.5 is bullshit
I agree they’re similar, but I think both of them knew this from the very beginning. It’s not exactly a reason for reconciliation and forgiveness. The fact they have similarities is the exact reason why Hajime is so upset at his betrayal, and snaps back at Nagito every time he brings that up. So I don’t know if that’s really a good reason to explain why they’ve forgiven each other come DR3.
“Komaeda doesn't see himself as above untalented reserves either, because in 2-4, after realizing the truth about Hinata he says that they are the same, stepladders for hope. He was lashing out at all the students for being despair. They are similar, because they both share the same views that talent is everything.”
And then Hajime gets his character development for the rest of the game all so he can realise talent isn’t everything. So...?
“Now from Hinata's end, a lot of people seem to miss this about him, but he is someone who denies his feelings when they get inconvenient, he is called a tsundere by monokuma” 
I guess this is a diss against the surface-level people and people who are like “but the text literally says this”. But even then, the game literally shows Hajime’s inner thoughts. If he’s conflicted about things, the text generally shows that too, even if it’s with a careful inclusion of a ‘...’
So I don’t think we should take that trait as an excuse to literally ignore what the text says.
He was felt pumped when Komaeda was out of critical condition, but he thinks "why do I have to feel pumped, oh well best not to think about it"....because Hinata likes to avoid facing things that inconvenient him. Hinata finds it hard to trust Komaeda and doesn't play along with him, because he is afraid of getting caught in his pace, and not because he hates him and thinks he is better off dead.
This part literally read like a high-schooler’s english essay, and maybe this kid actually is a high-schooler, tbh. Because that is one big leap from “Hajime finds it difficult to deal with his feelings” to “since Hajime finds it difficult to deal with Nagito, it means he doesn’t hate him”.
“I don't think Komaeda is a fundametally bad person but is shaped to be what he is because of his luck cycle. In his last FTE, Hinata asks what Komaeda would do if didn't have his luck cycle, and his answer was something along the lines of " a normal life, devoid of hope and despair". And we get to that his innermost desires is to live a normal life in the OVA, and his character song zansakura zanka.”
He can also just decide to not believe in his luck cycle.
Also, in the OVA, he’s embarrassed by that inner desire and tells World Destroyer he hopes no one saw that maybe he wishes for a world without talent.
Like his desire to be a good person is so hidden that he doesn’t want people to know.
“Hinata even mentions Komaeda isn't trying to trick anyone for selfish reasons in his report card, so it's a shame to see so many people attribute all of Komaeda's actions to malice just because of what Hinata thought of him in chapter 5 because it wasn't clear what Komaeda's reasons were at that point.”
Okay, a few things to unpack here:
Just because Nagito is doing things ‘for the greater good’, doesn’t mean it’s not also selfish. Hajime isn’t going to say that because Hajime doesn’t realise that. You can’t exactly trust him with being able to articulate everything about a character’s worldview. Izuru would. He probably does in Chapter 0. (And that’s why he seems disgusted by him).
Also, there’s “maybe Hajime is a slightly unreliable narrator because he tries to avoid thinking about difficult things”, and there’s “actually, the majority of how Hajime views Chapter 5 is unreliable because he didn’t know for sure if Nagito’s plan was malicious or not, it was just his gut feeling”.
What about the video message after Chapter 5? What about having to spell out ‘KILL US ALL’? What about Chapter 0 showing how in the real world Nagito had completely lost it? It’s not like the game was trying to present Nagito as any little bit more sympathetic after the trial. If anything, every piece of new info reinforced that mindset Nagito was filled with malice, up to the ‘fake Makoto’ saying that he somewhat understood him. The fake Hope made by Junko to trick them.
If you compare Chapter 5 in 2 to Chapter 5 in V3, you can see how the positioning is different. V3 does the “the villain tries to make himself look the worst he can in the mind of the heroes when in reality his real intentions were different” a lot better. More flat-out intentionally - the protagonist kind of literally giving a monologue about how the character was morally grey and even at the end there they couldn’t say they knew their true intentions. But also it’s just not as...sinister as 2-5. No ominous chanting, no dismembered limbs, none of the characters feeling completely out of their element and terrified. I think it’s text that Nagito is supposed to be villainous in Chapter 5 and even past Chapter 5.
So...
I can at least understand where Komahina comes from, but god it annoys me
Unpacking it like this, I can see it’s not even fair to argue back a lot of it - the stuff people are saying do make sense and are arguing against kinds of people I have seen.
Besides, I’m not arguing Komahina ‘can’t be canon’.
My view is just I think Hajime deserves better than a character like Nagito, who never repented for his actions on-screen or even gave much of a hint that he wanted to repent for his actions.
And that it’s still easy to argue that Nagito is a bad person even with his trauma.
Not everyone who calls Nagito an awful person is an idiot who doesn’t know how to read text past the surface, you can still make a nuanced take with that conclusion
for god’s sake
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