#i cannot show you the vault for this one | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mellowsaturns · 11 months

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in losing grip, on sinking ships (you showed up just in time)

BUCKY BARNES X FEM!READER

summary: when the avengers pick up unusual activity, they realize that not all of hydra was destroyed. one unidentifiable face sends the team into a frenzy but bucky knows it. he could recognize those eyes anywhere.

warnings: heavy angst, one sided enemies-to-lovers-ish, hydra!assassin!reader, hurt/comfort, happy ending, brainwashing, trauma, guns & knives, fighting, implied kidnapping of reader when young, all the feels, misunderstandings, poor attempt at writing action

wc: 4.7k

a/n: sorry it’s been forever but i hope my fellow buckyluvrs are still here <3 i actually wrote this a long time ago but never got around to editing until recently so i guess you can say this is (from the vault) ? inspired by the idea: what-if there was another winter soldier and bucky finds himself in steve’s position this time trying to get you back to him. anyways, i hope you enjoy this one :)

Bucky’s life was a never ending montage of gunfire and bloodshed. It didn’t matter if he was under the clutches of someone else, he still lived through the wars—the lingering smell of smoke and tang of metallic forever ingrained in his senses.

And just when he thought it was finally over—a glimmer of peace at last—it comes and steals that dream away from him.

Like deja-vu, he’s looking at faces that were once responsible for his pain.

On the screen, three Hydra officers stare back at him. All faces identified by Tony’s system. Alive. Last seen in the outskirts of some small country in Europe. Irrelevant low ranking officials that had managed to survive the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D and have been hiding and secretly continuing Hydra’s mission underground ever since. Low officials or not, it was one too many.

Bucky freezes in his spot when Tony swipes the screen. The billionaire goes on a rant saying this particular face cannot be identified, which was according to Tony, bullshit because his face recognition system is the best in the world. The rest of the team is arguing and flipping through countless files and internet archives. But Bucky knows. He knows that face and those haunting eyes that he still sees in his dreams.

“Buck,” a voice calls out. “You know her, don’t you?”

He looks up at Steve from his spot, his best friend's face worried and all knowing.

One thing about Hydra was that they were always prepared. They had backups and multiple plans ready, or else how would two heads take its place when one was cut off? Unfortunately for the world, Hydra managed to make another deadly assassin, one whose work was so discreet and nimble that even intelligence didn't know they existed.

You were a ghost story that lived in the shadows of the Winter Soldier. You were another one of Hydra’s prize possessions—less known, but just as deadly.

With Steve’s comment, all eyes are now on Bucky. A pregnant pause fills the air and he gulps before he confesses, “I wasn’t the only one.”

The room becomes tense. The war that they thought was over suddenly looms over like an unpredicted oncoming storm. “Jesus Christ, Barnes. You couldn’t have informed us about her earlier?” says Tony.

“I thought,” he says, shifting his eyes onto the ground, “I thought she fell with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Bucky couldn’t find you anywhere after he escaped their grasp. After he joined the Avengers, he tried once again secretly using Tony’s technology but it was to no avail—it always ended up being a dead end. And for that, he assumed Hydra had put you out of your misery the day they were caught.

But the face on the screen says otherwise. And suddenly, Bucky feels very guilty.

Steve clears his throat, “Well, they were picked up not too long ago heading north. If we leave now, we might be able to find them and stop them once and for all.”

Everyone looks at each other, debating on his proposal. “What the Captain said. Everybody, suit up. Quinjet leaves in ten,” says Tony.

On the jet, Bucky stares off into space but countless questions run through his mind.

Steve walks over and sits beside him. “What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asks, voice quiet.

Bucky sighs, “I just… I thought she was gone.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”

He looks up, wondering if he should tell Steve the truth. That he’s not brooding about the fact that he concealed you to them. After a moment, Bucky speaks up. “When we get there, let me handle her. Please.”

Steve didn’t know what kind of history Bucky had with you. But judging from the look his best-friend is giving, it’s more than what Steve could understand or even comprehend but he trusts Bucky and so, he gives him a nod. “She’s all yours.”

After scouting the area and tracing the location to a very hidden underground warehouse in the middle of nowhere, they split up. The warehouse was dark and dusty, surely abandoned, but Bucky knew better—it was their facade behind the most sinister of activities. Through the comms, Natasha announces that she has already taken care of all the troops in the West wing. Moments later, Sam reports that he has eliminated one of the Hydra officers. They wouldn’t last long. Hydra didn’t have much resources or time to rebuild—their current empire was weak, they were no match for the Avengers this time.

The only person Bucky’s truly worried about is you. The fact that he trained you, made you into what you were today already gave him the chills. He’s not the Winter Soldier anymore, but he was certain that you were still in that killer mindset that Hydra forced upon you.

Step by step, Bucky walks through the quiet hallway, the echoes of his footsteps the only noise. It’s cold here, he notices, which gives him flashbacks to those days in his dirty cell and the cryostasis chamber. Down a hallway to the next, round a corner and another, there wasn’t a single soul in the eerily Eastern wing.

But he spoke too soon, because seconds later, a garrote wire was around his neck. The swift invisible steps and the perfect pressure that was being used to quickly cut off his air supply was all too familiar. He knows this move, he taught this move. You’re here, and you’re dragging him backwards.

Before all oxygen gets cut off to his brain, he jabs his elbow backwards and hits you hard on the rib which releases the hold you have on him and sends you stumbling back. Bucky takes a moment to regain his breath but you’re on your feet again. He looks at you and for a moment he freezes, then you let out a sinister grin. “Nice to see you again, Soldat,” you taunt, before running towards him.

Bucky’s deflecting your punches one after another. Maybe he’s glad he was the one who taught you everything you know because your moves were predictable—if it were another person, there is no doubt they would’ve been on the ground with multiple concussions bleeding out already. You’re ruthless when you do a triple roundhouse kick on him. On the fourth one, he manages to catch your leg and twists it, sending you to the ground with a groan.

How familiar this scene was, Bucky thinks.

Some forty-years ago, Hydra brought a woman into the training room. There was no further instruction than to train you and that’s what he did. He could tell you were well trained already—compliant and pliable. You were good. And you were just like him, injected with a serum that made you a hundred times more efficient and stronger. In just under a year, Hydra would start sending you on missions. Sometimes with him, sometimes alone.

During training, the both of you would spar for hours, leaving each other bloody and bruised, but it didn’t matter to the overlookers, the both of you would heal in a few hours anyways.

Once you pick yourself back up, he pulls a gun out on you. “Stop this,” he commands.

You smirk, “You going to shoot me, Soldat? I want to see you try.”

He clenches his jaw. You continue to look at him, a dark look on your face that shows no sign of true recognition.

His thoughts are disrupted when you tackle him onto the ground. You kick his gun away and pin his arms down as you straddle him. “I’m going to kill you,” you declare, “I’m going to put a bullet through your head.”

When he looks up at you, your eyes are full of rage. Bucky doesn’t know whether that’s the brainwashed version of you talking or the actual you talking—maybe both.

“What are you going to do after you kill me?” he says, irritated. C’mon, please recognize me. “This is all that remains of Hydra. Half the troops are already dead. One of your new leaders is dead. In a few hours, Hydra will be no more. What will you do after that? What are you going to do after you kill me?”

“What does it matter? You’re my mission. I’m going to finish it.”

He groans at your stubbornness that was identical to his Soldier persona.

He says your name slowly. “Get off. You can walk away from this.”

You frown, but he continues, “I know how you feel. You’re feeling helpless.” He clears his throat, “There’s someone behind this version of you. I want to talk to her.”

“What are you talking about?” you utter in annoyance. “Stop stalling.”

He says that name again, with calamity and care. You want to rip out his tongue.

“Let me talk to her. Please.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about!” you shout, grabbing for the gun that’s strapped onto your waist. “Stop talkin–”

“I was in the cell next to yours. You liked the colour green. You were wearing white when we first met. You always wanted to visit Bucharest. You hated the leaky cold showers in the Siberian facility,” he rambles, trying to remember every single thing about you in a desperate attempt to get your attention so this version of you won’t shoot him in the face.

And for a moment, it works because your hand freezes on the grip of your gun. He takes that moment to flip you over, so you’re under him now, hands pinned above your head. He takes your gun and throws it behind him.

You snarl at him while trying to escape his grasp. “I know you’re under there,” he says. “Please, come through. Please talk to me.”

Your face scrunches in pain, not from him—he would never hurt you—but from the mental warfare that’s currently going on in your mind. You close your eyes as he speaks again. “Listen to my voice, you know me, don’t you? мой милая.”

My darling.

For a moment, your entire body tenses up and then you let out a painful breath. When your eyelids start to flutter open, he finally sees the eyes he came to know and rely on—eyes he came to love.

The both of you are looking at each other unblinking. A scene neither of you expected but always dreamt about.

You break the silence with a whisper of, “James?”

Bucky slowly nods at your disbelief. Finally, he thinks. But such respite doesn’t last long, because seconds later, you hook your foot under his and flip him over and escape his grasp.

There's darkness in your eyes and he can tell that the Soldate is back and the fighting resumes.

You’re chasing him down the twisting hallway and when you catch up, you grab his shoulder and throw a punch to his jaw. He stumbles back and then a voice comes through the comms.

“Just took down the second one.” Steve. “Bucky, how are you holding up? You’ve been quiet ever since we split up.”

He’s trying his best to block your hand, which now has a damn pocket knife. Your quick movements are starting to tire him out. Maybe he taught you too well, he thinks.

“Buck? Bucky. Confirm your status, right now.”

Groaning in frustration, he taps his earpiece. “I’m fine,” he grunts. A second later, “Shit!” he huffs out as you nearly slice his face.

“You don’t sound fine. Is she with you? I’m sending back up.”

“No!” he says, “Don’t send anyone. I can handle her.”

In truth, he’s struggling right now—your stamina has always been better than his—but he’s worried that you’re going to accidentally get hurt and even more agitated when people appear. His main priority was keeping you safe. Fuck the mission statement they talked about back on the Quinjet.

You’re angry—no, you’re extremely angry at him. It doesn’t take a genius to tell. It’s a mixture of pure rage from both the brainwashed and actual you.

He supposed he deserved it. You should be angry. Because for the longest time, it was you and him.

Other than turning you into a ruthless assassin just like him, an unexpected companionship also formed during those hazy in-between moments when the two of you weren’t frozen or on the metal chair getting fried by those machines—during the times when he was just Bucky and you were just you, two unfortunate innocent souls that shared the same suffering.

They weren’t pleasant moments. It was dehumanising. It was getting shoved into draughty cells with nothing but a blanket until it was time to train or time to embark on a mission. Luckily, your cells were next to each other and it made the endless nights a little more bearable. He was a little off-putting at first, but when he yelled at you to stop crying because they would torture you even more for it, you knew he meant well.

During your shared time together, glimpses of your true selves would seldom come up and you would tell each other about the little bits and pieces of a life once known. And the both of you would hold onto each other's memories and stories in case the other forgets.

And whenever they prep the two of you for the chamber due to there being no current missions for the time being, the two of you would look at each other—a look of longing with the secret squeezing of each other's hand before going under.

Despite the absolute awful situation the two of you were in at the time, the both of you were hopeful for the next shared moments together. Because even when all hope was gone, you had each other. And that was good enough for the two of you.

He misses you. So damn much.

“Shut up,” you mutter.

He didn’t even realise he said it outloud. “Well, I do,” he admits, his back hitting a wall.

“You talk too much, Soldat,” you say, creeping up on him. “I ought to cut your throat.”

“I’m sorry I left you with them.”

You halt in your steps and your jaw ticks. In a second, you pounce on him, your knife against his throat. He’s gripping your hand to stop you from continuing your job.

He says your name again. You’re pushing but he’s pushing back just as hard. “I’m sorry…” he repeats, “I’m so sorry.”

The desperation in his voice… You glance up at him slowly and he sees the pink forming in your eyes and your trembling lips. “What are you doing? What are you doing to me?” you whisper.

He sees the internal war behind your eyes once again. Bucky gulps for a moment before letting go of your hand, trusting that you won’t do any actual harm, and moves his hands so he’s cupping your face, firm enough so you’re forced to look at him. You look into his eyes for a second, then a minute, and for a moment, everything stops. Your breath hitches, because those eyes… those arctic blues… you know them. You fell in love with them many years ago.

A realisation washes over your face, one that Bucky doesn’t miss. You’re back.

The first tear falls. Then the second. “Bucky.”

“Hey, sweetheart,” he whispers.

You let out a small cry before you press the blade harder against his neck, your grip a vice from his betrayal. He could feel the sharp cold metal pierce through his skin ever so slightly, but he doesn’t try and stop you.

“Give me a reason to not kill you right now,” you grit through tears. “You left me. You left me behind to rot alone. You promised me. You fucking promised,” you say, voice laced with venom and so much hurt.

Bucky’s heart breaks at the sadness of your voice. Because he did promise. There wasn’t much to do in the cells other than throw around false hope. But whenever he told you he was going to escape one day and that he was going to take you with him—it didn’t feel like false promises at all because it wasn’t, and you knew it too.

Until he broke that promise and left you all alone.

“I didn’t mean to,” he says, voice breaking. “I didn’t mean to leave you there with them.”

“I waited for you,” you cry. “Day and night I waited for you to come back. Even when they relocated, I waited for you because I knew you’d find me.”

You remember that day clearly. Everyone was in a frenzy when the death of Alexander Pierce broke out and that they could not locate the Soldat. For a moment, you could taste your own freedom because government officials would come anytime now and finally arrest all these criminals. But right when they came, a few Hydra officers managed to escape and took you with them, and when you woke up, you didn’t know where the hell you were. But even then you didn’t lose hope because James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, the name you committed to memory, was going to come for you just like he promised.

Until days, months, and eventually, a year came with no sign of him.

You were angry at first, but it slowly turned into worry because what if something bad had happened to him? But what do you know? You were stuck in this building and only went out whenever they spoke those trigger words to you. And you were always under their watchful eyes, giving you no chance to even attempt an escape. Surely he would never break his promise to you so something must’ve happened to him, you told yourself multiple times.

But he was standing here right in front of you. Alive. We’re under attack, your handler said to you moments ago, Kill the Soldat before he kills you.

“You’re a liar. You never cared about me,” you hiss.

Sometimes, it got too much. But whenever reality was a bit too hard to endure, Bucky was there, always reaching his hand out to you through the metal cage, which you took and held tight. And it meant the world to you, that someone cared.

“All those moments, did it even mean anything to you?”

He uses this opportunity to pull your arms down slightly, knife finally away from his neck and his eyes start to sting from his own tears. “They meant everything to me. I care about you.”

You look up at him with a defeated expression and Bucky never wanted to punch himself in the face more. “Then why? Why didn’t you come back for me?”

“I did,” he chokes out. “When I escaped, the first thing I did was go back for you, but the facility had already been raided and there was no one there. I checked every inch of the building.”

Bucky had never felt so scared, because what if the government took you too? They would never understand—framing you as a villain even though that was far from the truth. But there was no news of your capture, so with a breath of relief, Bucky continued to look through other known Hydra facilities.

“I tried my best looking for you, but I also had to be careful because I was a wanted man at the time. When months passed by and there were no clues, I thought that maybe you had escaped. I was in Bucharest waiting for you. Remember how you said you always wanted to go there? I knew that if you escaped, you’d find me there. Even when you didn’t show, I never gave up. Steve… I think I told you about him once—he found me, he helped me and cleared my name. After that, I still searched for you but it all ended up being dead ends. And…” he pauses for a moment, “and so I thought you were dead. I should’ve tried harder. I’m sorry.”

He had mourned you and blamed himself endlessly for it.

He knows he should’ve asked for help, but instead, he took this task upon himself until it got too much—because that was the one thing he struggled with the most, asking for help.

When his side of the story finally comes to light, you break into a sob. “I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he says, “but please, drop the weapon and let me help you.”

You swallow hard at his confession. He never stopped looking for you. You didn’t even consider how hard it must’ve been for him after everything and yet you’re lashing out on him.

“How are you going to help me?” you say. “I’m a mess. All you have to do is say those words and I turn into a weapon.”

Twelve. Ember. Fragment. Nine. Academy. Order. Frigid. Yearning. Blue.

Those were your trigger words.

“I got you out of your trance, didn’t I?” he says with a gentle smile.

Hydra needed you to rebuild their empire and they relied on those nine words to do so. To them, those nine words were your greatest weakness but one of them, the last one, the one they liked to spit out in vexation, was also your greatest strength—your salvation.

Blue.

You think back, moments prior, when all he had to do was use his voice and all you had to do was look into the blues of his eyes. Hydra can repeat those words all they want, but Bucky would always be able to bring you back.

At that, your grip relaxes and the knife finally drops onto the floor, it’s noise ricocheting off the walls.

“There’s a place called Wakanda and I know someone there who can help you. Her name’s Ayo and she’s amazing. She helped me overcome my words.”

He brings his hands back up to cradle your face and you shutter at the familiar touch—at the calluses on his palms. “And I think you’ll like it there. It’s quiet and there’s so much… green.”

You let out a small laugh through your tears but doubt still fills your mind. “But… all the things I did,” you whimper, “I did such terrible unforgivable things. There’s… there’s so much blood on my hands.”

Sadness flares around his heart. It was all so familiar. He knows the feeling.

“It’s not going to be easy. God knows how long it took for me to believe that none of it was my fault. But let me be the first one to tell you,” he says, wiping your tears away with his thumb. “None of what you did was your fault. You were a victim.” He swallows a deep breath, “There are going to be days where it’ll be too much too bear and there are going to be nights where all those casualties will haunt you,” he admits. “But… but you’ll get there. Someday, you’ll learn to stop punishing yourself for something you didn’t do.”

And he vows that he’ll help you every step of the way.

You breathe out slowly, digesting all his words. “You can trust me,” he tells you, “I won’t let you down this time. I’ll be here.”

Blinking up at him, the small hesitant part of you so desperately wanted to say, “How can I trust you?” but his eyes were telling you everything you needed to know. Because it was filled with nothing but honour and truth.

He breaks away from you and reaches out his hand. An invitation. You stare at it for a while, then you slowly lift yours and brush your fingers amongst his before grabbing it tightly—a truce of sorts, a promise. He squeezes back in return, a loving smile on his face, just like all those nights many moonlights ago.

Your breath hitches when he pulls you into his embrace, your face burying perfectly into the valley of his chest. He wraps his arms around you in urgency, in fear, almost afraid you’ll slip out if he doesn’t.

“It’s over,” he mumbles into your hair.

Because two floors down an explosion erupts, finishing off the last remaining garrison of troops. Three hallways down, Natasha sets fire to a room that contained the other small red leather book that held those nine suffocating words written in Russian. Outside, the last Hydra officer attempting to flee falls to his knees from an arrow to the chest. And the only hope they had left to rebuild their regime was safely in Bucky’s arms.

He pulls away and uses his thumb to rub gently across your cheek, “It’s over. The war is finally over.”

Now that the worst is over, Bucky’s hopeful. There will be other conflicts to come, that was just how it worked, but this one, the one that held you and him underwater for years was finally over. War always took too much, but this time, it gave something back. Because among the ashes and ruins you came back to him, no more oceans in between.

“What do we do now?” you press nervously. You were taken at a young age and spent years in the Red Room before you were sold off to Hydra. Like Bucky, you’re in the wrong time period, there’s no one to go back to.

There’s so many things you could do, Bucky thinks. You can finally start living the life you deserved, the life that was taken from you too early. He’ll have to explain all this to his teammates but he knows they’ll understand. They treated him so well, there’s no doubt they’ll show the same kindness for you. Then, he’ll go with you to Wakanda, get rid of the words, maybe stay there for a while so you could heal—maybe show you the goats he took care of during his time there.

You’ll probably adjust to the 21st century better than him—you won’t need to start off with a flip phone, that’s for sure. He’ll make you listen to all the great records and watch all the movies you missed out on. There’s so many things he wanted to do with you. He knows you have no memories, no recollection. It didn’t matter, Bucky thinks, he would make new memories with you, ones worth cherishing and remembering. If you’ll have him, of course.

But first and most importantly, “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay? Then we can talk about it,” he says, rubbing the grime off your nose.

He grabs your hand and heads for the exit. But before he does, you pick up your knife from the floor and in one quick motion, you spin around and throw it. The knife embeds itself into the wall a few metres away, right next to a prying face. You stand in front of Bucky and stare at the intruder with a murderous gaze and Bucky’s heart races at the thought of you still wanting to protect him after everything.

The blond raises his arms up in surrender.

“Steve,” Bucky says from behind and you briefly recognize that name. You turn around to look at him and he meets your eyes, nodding. You relax your stance.

“Hi,” Steve says, voice slightly hoarse. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

Bucky scoffs at him, as if he wasn’t eavesdropping the whole time.

Steve looks at the both of you, then a gentle smile adorns his face. “C’mon, the rest are waiting outside for you both.”

You step forward. This is it. Freedom. A new life. Bucky notices your hesitation as you suddenly stop in your tracks. Intertwining his fingers with yours, he squeezes with reassurance. You take a deep breath, then the two of you follow Steve to the exit, leaving behind the smoke and memories of your old life.

Outside, the sun comes up slowly but surely on the horizon, painting the awakening sky a gentle warm hue of oranges and pinks.

A new beginning awaits.

#bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes imagine #bucky #bucky barnes

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sailoryooons · 3 months

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Bust | KTH | (m)

☾ Pairing: Heistman!Taehyung x f. Reader

☾ Summary: Seeing a beautiful man in the middle of a bank robbery is unusual. Seeing him again afterward is even more unlikely… and yet not unlucky.

☾ Word Count: 2,211

☾ Genre: Criminal, Smut, PWP

☾ Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

☾ Warnings: Bank robbery, light depiction of fear/anxiety, mentions of poor financial situations and money-related stress, recreational drinking, ‘good girl’ petname, explicit language, sexually explicit content including oral (f. receiving), biting, spanking, implied body worship kind of, a hint of overstim, bodily fluids and cum-eating.

☾ Published: Monday, January 15, 2024

☾ A/N: This is an idea I randomly spoke about forever ago in a TikTok DM with @gimmethatagustd and this is strictly written to ruin their entire life tonight. I hope it works idk osifodigjoijg.

☾ A/N 2: Tonight is number four for my 100 Drabble Challenge and I rolled number 24 for criminals! I hope you enjoy my depraved thoughts of Taehyung in that GOD DAMN SQUID GAME OUTFIT AT PTD. MY MASK KINK DOESN’T MAKE AN APPEARANCE BUT BE FUCKING SURE IT WILL ONE DAY. HE MADE ME INSANE.

☾ Disclaimer: All members of BTS are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

Main Masterlist ☾ 100 Drabble Masterlist ☾ Ask ☾ Song Inspiration ☾

Sweat beads down your back, the trickle of it slower than the clock ticking above your head. Time seems to slow as you sit on a carpet that hasn’t been steam cleaned since the 80s and push yourself against the wall, eyes glued to the open vault.

It had happened so fast and yet now, it’s like it can’t be over fast enough. Each second that ticks by feels like it takes a year. You cannot hear the chatter of the men inside the vault, but their harsh whispers raise goosebumps on your skin.

At least they haven’t noticed you. Not that you would do much, anyway. You have no intention of going over to push the alarm by the door, too afraid to alert the armed man who stands just outside the vault room on the other side, and far too underpaid to risk your life for a financial institution.

For a moment, you wish it were you robbing the damned bank. Maybe you could pay off the student loans on your degree you’re not using and run the heating in your apartment during the winter instead of bundling up in several layers.

Your momentary lapse of delusion passes as the men rush out of the vault, duffles in hand. They’re all dressed in red, black masks covering their faces with shapes on them. You’re vaguely aware that the costume belongs to some sort of show you saw online, but you can’t place them.

Perhaps you’ll watch it now.

“Hurry up,” one of the men barks toward the vault. There had been three inside, but only two came out. “Grab the last and let’s go. Two minutes left.”

They’re gone in an instant. Your eyes dart back to the vault where you can hear the last person inside. Glancing at the clock, you watch the seconds tick by.

Ten seconds. Fifteen. Thirty. A minute.

A man dressed in a red suit, hood pulled over his head comes out of the vault. As he slugs it shut with one arm, the bag on his shoulder droops, spilling the contents inside out onto the floor. Bands of cash fall out, thudding around his feet. He swears loudly and bends over, back slipping more to drop cash on the ground.

In his frustration, he crouches and tips the mask up a fraction, shielding his face from the camera above but not from you, huddled on the floor a few feet away.

Your heart skips. The thief is beautiful. Dark eyes focused on his task, a wide nose that fits perfectly on a symmetrical face with high cheekbones, a sharp jawline, and a pursed mouth. There’s a flush in his face from the heat, the tip of his nose an endearing shade of rose.

As if sensing your gaze, his head snaps up. You cower against the wall, realizing now that you’ve seen his face, you’ve doomed yourself. He stalls completely, gloved hand hovering over the cash, eyes boring into you. He arches a brow as if to ask you a question and you respond by shaking your head.

The thief gives you a cocky grin, nodding before he finishes picking up the money and tossing it into the bag. He looks at you again, a smirk on full display before he winks and pulls the mask back down. “Good girl,” he purrs. “I like that.”

Despite the situation, your stomach flips. He stands and rushes out, lingering by the door for a second longer to stare at you through the black mask. You can’t see his face, but you know you’ll never forget it, pretty as an angel, dangerous as a devil.

When the group is gone, you wait in silence, only the pumping of your heart to keep you company. When the cops come and ply you with questions all you can do is shake your head repeatedly.

I was too scared. I can’t remember.

It is the same thing you tell investigators for nearly two months. Just when you think they won’t keep asking what the man looked like, they finally drop it, handing over the robbery details to the FBI. They were at least a little less callous, caring a little less about how many questions you answered.

If you had to guess, your unimpressive financial situation even after the robbery was significant enough that you weren’t involved with the robbery.

It’s hard not to wish you had been. The straw in your mouth belongs to a drink that is far too expensive for you to not wince and it barely tastes like anything. At this rate, you know you won’t get a buzz. You’d love alcohol to take the edge off of the loud club music or loosen you up a bit, but you’re resigned to being sober for the rest of your friend's birthday.

Around you is a gaggle of men and women, both people you know and new faces trying to pick up your friends. Anyone trying to hit on you has already decided you’re far too grumpy to waste time on, most of their backs facing you as people shout over the music about working in finance.

You wonder if they also rob banks in their spare time. It makes you grin, thinking fondly about the thief once again. You do that a lot.

Sipping the drink, you glance at your phone. It’s been an hour since you arrived, but you’re wondering if enough time has reasonably passed to excuse yourself. Tomorrow is one of your few days off and you intend to spend it lounging on the couch watching TV instead of nursing a headache.

Someone slides into the space at the bar next to you. You don’t glance up at them, spinning your skinny cocktail straw absently as you stare at the melted ice of your Long Island iced tea. You hoped that once it melted it would turn into a second drink, but it hasn’t. Cold, bitter water it is, then.

“Why the long face?” You frown at the vaguely familiar voice and glance up, freezing.

Mr. Bank Robber looks down at you, cocking his head to the side with a wolfish grin. Your mouth pops open in surprise, leaning back a little as you drink him in. This close, he is far more beautiful than you remember, the edges and shadows of his face like a carefully painted fresco. Michelangelo could hardly be talented enough to capture this.

“You,” you whisper, his grin spreading further.

“Have we met?” he leans on the bar, dressed in all black. You eye the three-piece suit and the glinting diamonds in the cuff links. His clothes are far finer than anything anyone else is wearing and when you breathe in sharply, you smell a hint of woody cologne. His dark hair is slicked back and you catch the dainty hoop earrings in his lobes. You like the juxtaposition.

“You know we have.” He tongues the inside of his cheek, turning his head to order with the bartender. His eyes stray to you, raising a brow. You supply him with your answer, “A long island.”

The bartender nods, momentarily stupefied by the heistman’s beauty before walking over to the POS, tapping the screen with the speed and aggression unique to bartenders.

“Kind of a shitty club,” he mentions, looking around over the top of your head. Sweat clings to your lower back, your mouth growing dry as you watch colors splash on his face. “Your face is too pretty for a place like this.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhmm.” The bartender puts the drinks on the counter and the man gives him cash, signaling to keep the change. The bartender raises a brow but says nothing, taking the money as he goes. “What’s your name?”

“You probably already know it.” He cocks his head to the side. “I’m sure you looked me up to see if I was a threat or watched me to see what I’d do.”

“You watch too many heist movies.”

“Maybe I watch just enough.”

He laughs at that and your lips twitch. It’s rich, making his face intimidating as he gives you a wide smile and shakes his head. “Alright, maybe you’re right.”

“Can I know your name?”

“For the right price.”

“My silence was a pretty petty, no?”

He bites his bottom lip, eyes dipping down and back up. You sip your drink, feeling a flush of warmth unfurl in your body, most notably between your legs. “I like you.”

“You have to like me. I know your secret.”

Leaning forward, he ducks down so that he’s murmuring into your ear, hot breath ghosting your skin and making you tremble. “Want to hear more?” Your eyelids flutter as he waits, skin buzzing at his sudden proximity. You nod, feeling lightheaded. “My name is Taehyung. Want to get out of here?”

“Fuck,” Taehyung growls, hands skimming your bare sides. You can’t keep still under his gaze, hips squirming and fingers twisting in the sheets. His mouth is swollen and covered in your spit, his eyes blown as a large hand scrapes down to your thigh where he gives you a good slap. “I knew you were a good girl.”

A moan trips out of your mouth. Your thigh stings where he slapped you but he soothes it with the easy back-and-forth motion of his hand, his fingers digging into your flesh. Taehyung is a man starved, having littered your body with harsh kisses and bites, nearly breaking the skin.

You don’t care. You’re feverish for him, room spinning as you sprawl on his soft sheets in a hotel room that is far nicer than anything you’ve ever been in. You burn up like a star, core raging as Taehyung leans back down, pressing your naked thighs open for him as he sucks the skin of your chest between his teeth.

Everything aches. You want him so bad that you feel a cry come out of your mouth, lips wobbling as he laughs against your skin, sinking lower and lower, mouth loud as he sucks at your skin, tongue brushing over the sting of his teeth.

“Does my good girl need her pussy eaten?” Taehyung rasps, looking up at you where he kneels between your legs. “Is that why you’re crying, hmm?”

Taehyung looks like something out of a thriller. His eyes are dark and hungry, his shadowed face becoming some sort of demon of lust. He’s what you would imagine a dark god. A bacchanal devil, a creature made for sin.

All you can do is nod in response, feeling Taehyung’s vicious grip on your thighs as he presses you further, your muscles stretching. The strain feels good, as does the slow drip of your cunt down the curve of your ass mixed with his breath.

“So messy,” he murmurs, leaning forward and blowing cool air on your sticky folds. You squirm, the sensation sending you into overdrive as you twist your head to the side, eyes squeezed shut. He’s barely done a thing and you’re worked up more than you can ever recall. “Pretty.”

The slow, soft press of Taehyung’s tongue through your pussy makes you sag. It’s the relief that you so desperately needed, eyes rolling back as he circles your clit and drags his tongue back down. Taehyung is slow as he eats you out, tongue savoring every drop you can give him.

He taps your thigh, drawing your attention to him. He smirks as his tongue dips into your entrance, dragging back up to swirl around your throbbing bud a few times.

It’s impossible to tear your eyes away once you’re watching. Taehyung keeps his razor-sharp gaze on you, bringing his mouth fully to your cunt as he sucks eagerly. There is a rhythm to the curl of his tongue and the sharp suck of his lips, the wet smack of his ministrations driving you crazy.

“Mmm,” he hums, pressing his face in further. He’s messy with it, his jaw and nose covered in shiny slick. He laughs throatily when your back comes off the bed, thighs shaking. “Such a good pussy, just like I knew it would be.”

It feels too hot in the room. Your breaths are coming in too fast and there’s nothing you can do to catch it, Taehyung working you up to a frenzied, frenetic orgasm. You can feel your heartbeat in your ears, pumping so hard that you think you might need to stop.

And then you break.

Your body seizes as you come, a scream ripping through your mouth as Taehyung slurps hungrily at your mess, spurred by your release. You can’t stop shaking as he dives in, unwilling to stop until you’re babbling, nearly lifeless as the orgasm teeters into overstimulation.

Only then does Taehyung pull his mouth away, trailing wet, cum-spit kisses on your inner thigh, nipping your thigh here and there.

“Think you can take more?” he asks, slurring his words against your thigh. “Think you can take my cock.”

You nod eagerly, hand letting go of the sheets and reaching toward him. “Yes.”

“Mmm good. I’m about to bust.” He bites your knee. “And I don’t mean a bank, this time.”

#taehyung smut #kim taehyung smut #bts smut #taehyung fic #taehyung fanfic #bts fic #bts fanfic #taehyung x reader #taehyung x you #v smut #bts v

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rick-rayson · 18 days

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LUCY MACLEAN┊ DATING HCS

A/N: I'm back to feed my own obsessions hi hello beenaminit

NOTES: POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR THE FALLOUT SHOW!! Though I tried to keep it very ambiguous

┊BEFORE DATING:

Let's be honest Lucy probably fell first, whether you're a Vault Dweller or Wastelander it doesn't matter. Despite the privileges of the vaults, Vault 33 has hardwired Lucy's brain to freely feel and act on emotions with vigor.

Having been raised in a meritocracy, Lucy believes the best way to win your affections is through active illustrations of her skills, knowledge, and attentiveness. Very much an acts of service person.

And very, very bad flirting.

"You're really well learned in enacting violence!"

"You're so good at- um- shooting. People."

"How's it going?" She asks as she leans on a rusted mailbox.

It breaks and she falls over.

Just. Really bad.

You're likely aware that she fancies you before she even realizes. She's not good at hiding her expressions at all.

Not so subtly checking you out or admiring you whenever you just, exist, tbh

Despite it all, she won't make the first move to save her life. Tiptoeing on the line of what ifs and what isn't. You're going to have to take one for the team.

┊DATING:

She's actually a huge loser

Absolute girl failure

She's trying so hard though

Proximity is a must. If you're dating Lucy, you quickly become fundamental to her sense of peace.

At first it's a bit much, being in the wasteland kind of messes up her sense of boundaries a bit in a desperation to have you as much as possible.

You have to remind her flat out that it is not, in fact, the norm to follow your partner as they try to find a private place to pee.

She's a bit of a freak honestly.

SOMETHING is up with her but she's so much nicer and kinder than anyone on the surface that you don't mind much.

Uses terms of endearment but sparingly, mostly in private.

You could wake up and look like a feral ghoul and she'd still look at you with a big smile like, "Hey Doll/Hun. Sleep well?"

Craves softness and physical affection but feels as though she cannot have it. Everyone is quick to tell her what kind of person she needs to be on the surface so she's hesitant to express her affections sometimes.

But the more you show her that your touch is not meant to harm, but to love, she'll reciprocate.

Pretty touchy, subtle mostly, a hand on your back, a hand rubbing your arm, tracing your palm with her thumb.

When you two first started dating she very shyly asked if she could place her sleeping bag near yours, you could only laugh.

Whenever she scavenges food (or anything even slightly digestible) she's always offering it to you first.

Sometimes she just craves a really good make-out. She's good at repressing whatever bullshit the wasteland throws at her but she's not about to say no to a make-out session.

Whenever she finds cool knick-knacks she gifts them to you. Pins, random comic books

"I found another Grognak book-! Oh, oh wait, no, no we've already read this one :/"

hats. Lots of hats. Neat hats.

"Well don't you look dapper?" She grins as she places a sun hat on your head.

Honestly depends on you a bit. Though she's aware of the fact the surface is dangerous, it's a different thing to have to experience it.

Tells you all about Vault 33 and what her childhood was like over campfire. You learn very quickly why she is the way she is.

She can be an easy person to sway so she honestly needs you as her rock, her bad cop if you will.

Most nights she'll only sleep if you sleep first, watching over you for a bit before indulging in rest.

Kinda just stares at you a whole lot, but she means well.

Will always be the first to elect to take care of you, and gets a bit possessive in that respect.

Almost completely tackled Maximus to the floor when you got hurt and raced to use whatever she had on hand. She does not care if it's the last Stimpak they have, she WILL do anything to make sure you're okay.

She cares for you so deeply, as you're likely her first ever love.

She falls first, and she falls hard.

Always fixes up your clothes before heading out or patting down your garments, It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland, no one cares about appearances, but you know that Lucy does it to retain a sense of normalcy for herself.

A little thing that she's good at is being persuasive, it's a subtle thing, but Lucy is acutely aware that sometimes batting her eyelashes or giving a pretty please can get her to where she needs or what she wants.

She most definitely uses it on you.

And uh.. NSFW headcanons?

SHE'S A FREAK!

AN ABSOLUTE FREAKZOID!!

That is all. c:

#Fallout #Fallout x reader #fallout 4 #fallout 3 #fallout amazon prime #fallout tv #fallout series #fallout tv show #fallout prime #lucy fallout #lucy maclean x reader #fallout lucy x reader #fallout new vegas #fallout nv #ella purnell

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mj1343 · 17 days

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The Fallout Show, The NCR, Vegas, and Taking a Chill Pill

Fallout Show spoilers hi

i knew when i saw they were going to touch Shady Sands people would get angry regardless of what they did and i totally 100% understand being upset with the treatment of that location and the choices of writing that it took to get there but i genuinely do not understand the sentiment that Vegas is noncanon all of a sudden

Shady Sands is where the NCR formed and the first capital but they do not exclusively exist there. We know by New Vegas the NCR holds a lot of territory, and has territories they want to claim in the future:

'Hayes: "Sure can. The NCR was founded from the survivors of one of the great Vaults. We started as a small settlement called Shady Sands. We now consist of 5 states, that make up the greatest nation since the Great War."'

'NCR history holodisk: "Founded eighty years ago, the NCR is now comprised of the states of Shady, Los Angeles, Maxson, Hub, and Dayglow. Approximately 700,000 citizens are pleased to call NCR home."

In fact, we SEE a small sect of NCR remnants IN THE SHOW. I know a small group of people does not equate an entire nation but just the fact people are still fighting under the flag means they are not magically game ended forever and it is VERY overzealous to assume the ENTIRE NCR was housed in Shady Sands as late as 2277 when we know they were incorporating new territories before AND AFTER 2277

On the 'Vegas is a desolate nuked wasteland' front, i also genuinely do not understand it because, shockingly, locations IRL are larger than they are in the game!!!! The Strip in New Vegas is what, two cells? and one road with 4 casinos on it? The irl Strip is a 4 mile stretch of road that can have anywhere from 30 to 50+ casinos depending who you ask and over 100 casinos in all of Vegas easily. I understand they flash the Lucky 38 and the New Vegas sign to get excitement built but we have to look at scale a lot differently in the show than in the games. There are many scenes (which i have criticized) that are completely empty deserts for miles to see. Hell, the scale of the Vaults is different because they need to actually function as a building and not a location in a video game.

Yes. We see a few dead securitrons in the ending. You know where else you can find dead securitron? Littered about in the hit 2010 role playing game Fallout New Vegas. This is not a sign of desolation. This is a sign of some wasteland asshole killed a few. There are no people on the strip because this is supposed to drum up intrigue and tease a second season. We Do Not Know what has happened in Vegas. There could be hundreds of people on the strip and we just dont see them because they wanted a moody shot with no one in it. We have no idea. But you want to know what i can reasonably assume? it WASNT NUKED. because SHADY SANDS WAS NUKED AND ITS A CRATER AND YOU CAN STILL SEE EVERYTHING IN VEGAS STANDING. This is a post apocalypse franchise that, for better or worse (mostly worse) prides itself on Not Fixing Things from 200 years ago. A broken building or sign in New Vegas at the end of the show Does Not Mean New Vegas is completely removed from canon.

I know. I know you guys cannot be happy with anything Bethesda touches. I know you refuse to just take a breather for a moment. And i understand and entirely agree nuking a notable location from the original games is dirty. i am not giving Bethesda credit. There was some good in the show and some bad. I Understand. But this show has not decanonized New Vegas in any way and i truely do not understand the outrage from this point of view specifically. You can be angry about anything else. i know i cannot stop you if i wanted to. You will always find something to be mad about. But PLEASE think critically about this for a moment

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fallout 2 #fallout show #fallout amazon prime #shady sands #the NCR #fallout show spoilers

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sporadicthingcollection · 6 months

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Eppur è d'uopo, sforzati! (Buggy the Clown x F!Reader)

Summary: In which a stork arrives early, Buggy has a rough day, and you get what you deserve. Pairing: Buggy the Clown x F!Reader Rating: Clean. Word Count: ~1.5k. Warnings: Pregnancy, childbirth, exploitation of a Devil Fruit power. A/N: good news is that i'm not ovulating anymore bad news is that i got a mental image in my head that wouldn't go away so i'm subjecting you guys to it too. also, this buggy has more of the anime version in him, so just a heads up!

---

It was a power move, plain and simple. Boa Hancock, Warlord of the Sea, refusing to negotiate with anyone away from Amazon Lily. And Buggy, having drawn the short straw, gets ordered under threat of revocation of his title to go do it.

So not only does he have to brave Sea Kings in the Calm Belt, he doesn't even get to go ashore when he gets there. No, he has to send the female crew to deal with it.

And, to make matters worse, you insisted upon going with them. You, with swollen ankles and an aching back. You, waddling around and damn near ready to pop. You, eight and half months pregnant with not just any child, but his child.

How could you be so callous and cruel to him like this? Where do you get off on tormenting him with the knowledge that, if something happens, he won’t be able to get to you? It’s pure sadism is what it is, and he’s wearing a rut in the deck trying to get his mind off of it.

A distant scream splits the air.

Your scream.

---

Nine months. Babies come out at nine months. That's how it's always been, that’s how it always will be.

So then why, oh why, does this little asshole decide to pop out at eight and a half?

A wave of pain wracks you. You double over in your chair.

You suppose you're lucky. You’re in a palace in a private room with a bed, a tub of warm water, anything you could possibly need. The midwife, Cassandra, has gentle hands and comforting words. Dozens of women show up to fuss over you and encourage you, a number of them mothers themselves. Dahlia brings food, Gloriosa sings songs, Marguerite and Sandersonia hold your hands when the contractions get worse.

Even the Pirate Empress herself pays the occasional visit, albeit under the excuse to scold you for making a ridiculous amount of noise. But she always lingers with a curious gaze, and commands that more bedding be brought or that “I must be prepared for when I bear the child of my beloved,” whatever the hell that means.

Too bad they don’t have any morphine.

---

The only thing stopping Buggy from collapsing into a million parts is that he has completely locked up. He cannot move his head, his fingers, his eyes, everything is frozen stiff.

Fortunately for him, Galdino asks the question for him. “She’s what?”

“I just told you: in labor.” Alvida is way too calm. She dusts her coat, adjusts her hat, buffs out a scuff on her fingernails. “Her water broke right in the middle of the discussion. Three hours of political maneuvering, wasted.”

“I think we got it sorted, though.” The strongwoman shakes her head. “Poor gal. Of all the dumb luck.”

Another scream rips the air. Everyone flinches.

It cuts through Buggy like a knife through... well, himself. He gets his senses back and only one thing consumes his mind.

He vaults over the side of the ship. Kuja laws be damned, he needs to get to you, even if he has to swim for it. Before you get hurt. Or killed. Or worse.

He only realizes the mistake he’s made when he hits the water.

---

You blink in disbelief. “It’s what?”

“Upside-down,” Cassandra says. She adjusts her glasses. “If my intuition is correct, it’s coming out rear end first.”

Breech birth. You suppose you shouldn’t be surprised. Your grandmother was a breech, your mother was a breech, your niece was a breech... Breeches all the way down in your family.

And, considering its father, of course the little fucker’s an acrobat.

You groan and fall backwards. Part of you is glad he’s not here. You’d strangle him. The other part wishes he was here. So you could strangle him. And rip his balls off. Hell, you might just do that anyways. DIY orchiectomy.

A contraction wracks you and you yelp.

---

What do you do with a distraught sailor, when the sun is highest?

Hold him back from swimming to the island. He’ll kick and thrash and escape all three of the strongmen and throw himself overboard and Cabaji will have to jump in and fish him out.

What do you do with a distraught sailor, early in the evening?

Lock him up in a cage with Richie. He’ll cut himself to ribbons and slip through the bars and sneak past everyone on deck and throw himself overboard and Cabaji, having just finally gotten himself into dry clothes, will have to take another dip.

What do you do with a distraught sailor, at the witching hour?

Clamp him to the mast with Seastone handcuffs. He’ll pick up a nail on deck and pick the lock and outrun everyone trying to catch him and throw himself overboard and Cabaji will make Mohji jump in this time because he’s getting really sick of this bullshit.

What do you do with a distraught sailor, early in the morning?

Hack off his hands and arms and noggin, throw the Seastone cuffs on his ankles, tie his torso to the mast, stuff his own bandanna in his mouth, then post up guards.

Even gagged, Buggy’s screams rival yours.

---

Just when you’re ready to give up the ghost and will yourself into unconscious bliss, you feel it. Something gives. Then something else. With one mighty push, one mighty curse, and one mighty splat, your child is born.

The baby howls like a beast. You suppose you’d be screaming too if you were covered in shit and viscera and had a full head of hair.

You want to hold it. You need to hold it. "Give-- Gimme it," you sputter.

Cassandra, hands it to you. "A boy," she says.

You’re ashamed to be a little disappointed. Based on the talk, you were hoping for a girl. But it all fades as you hold him in your arms and bring him to your chest, overwhelmed by a tide of hormones and emotion.

He’s a little funny-looking, with his pink skin and little stretched face and his legs at weird angles. But he’s here. A baby. Your baby. Buggy’s baby.

You start to sob.

---

Buggy is once again frozen stiff. He wants nothing more than to help you back aboard, hold your hand as you step over the railing, and escort you to his cabin. It would be the absolute least he could do.

But no. He’s stuck up here on the quarterdeck, doing even less than that. He watches as you make your way up the stairs, clutching a bundle wrapped in a floral-patterned blanket. Dark circles ring your eyes and your gait is stiff and exhausted.

Say something. Anything. “You look like hell,” he says. Goddammit.

Fortunately for him, you huff in amusement. “I’ve certainly been through hell.” You stand closer and angle the bundle towards him. “Wanna see what I found there?”

His hand hovers over the corner of the blanket. What if it’s dead? What if it’s got a dog’s face? What if its hair is red? What if it’s got its father’s--?

“Just look, Buggy,” you scold.

He swallows. He pulls back the corner.

Nestled in the blankets, blinking in the light, is a miniature you. A head full of thick dark hair, already starting to curl at the ends. Dark eyes, peering at him the same way you do. And, right in the middle of its chubby little face, your delicately curved nose.

Heat fills his belly with smoke. He recognizes this emotion. It’s the same one as when he sees someone waving around a treasure map. When he spies a chest overflowing with gold. When he first laid eyes on you.

He can hardly hear his own voice. “She’s gorgeous.”

“He,” you say. Buggy looks at you. You smile. “He’s a boy.”

A boy. A boy. His boy. Your boy. He has a son. You gave him a son.

The smoke catches fire and sets his whole body alight. He snatches the baby -- his son! -- from your arms and holds him -- his son! -- up high, presenting him -- his son! -- to the assembled crew like a boxer holding up a champion belt.

He shouts, bellows, screams for the whole world to hear: “I have a son!”

A cacophony of cheers goes up from every man and woman on the deck and, for a few moments, everything is right in the world. Mohji throws his arms around Cabaji. The strongwoman picks up Galdino and spins him around. Alvida smiles as she leans against her mace. Richie roars. Even the Kuja who escorted you back whoop.

Wait a damn minute. You did all the work. You made his son. You pushed him out. All he did was be in the right place at the right time with a bad pullout game.

He places the baby back in your arms and sweeps you into his own, separating his trunk from his legs to raise you up even higher. He wants to shout something eloquent, an ode to your strength and beauty, a paean to your power, a declaration that you are the greatest treasure he’s ever stolen.

But all that comes out, through snot and tears that he didn’t even realize were flowing, is a garbled, blubbered, “I love this woman!”

The cheers only grow, joined by your clattery laughter.

---

To the "Curious Courtship" Masterpost | To the Mastahpost | Tip Jar

#buggy the clown #buggy x reader #buggy x you #buggy the clown x reader #kiss marry kill #one piece x reader #one piece #one piece live action #fan fiction #one piece fanfiction #reader insert #x reader #emberly writes #smash or pass #the curious courtship of buggy the clown #keeda the clown

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agoddamn · 1 month

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Tales of Duviri is a storybook written by Euleria Entrati for the purpose of teaching children how to handle the manic flood of emotion that comes with Void exposure.

I pose a question: why does Euleria feel so strongly about this?

Her interactions with her own children are... let's call them wanting, and dialog implies that the negative aspects of their relationship--her denigrating, controlling nature, the distrust, etc--did not begin only after the Infestation brainrot set in.

We also know that she holds her father in extremely high esteem, but Albrecht did not think much of Tales of Duviri (see: him talking about his previous disdain for it in his own Duviri notes). Euleria put resources into writing Tales of Duviri instead of more traditional science, and Albrecht did not think much of it.

So why did Euleria write Tales of Duviri?

Let's rewind a step. Void exposure-induced mania, the whole thing Tales of Duviri is written to help manage.

How was that discovered and studied? It clearly was studied, enough to be a recognized condition and for the Orokin to build the iso vaults and for Euleria to write Tales of Duviri. But who would they have observed this mania in if Void research was an abandoned dead-end line of study?

Perhaps...the man obsessed with the Void who'd survived an unshielded Void dive?

Euleria had patient zero of Void mania sitting at her dinner table. Albrecht is the character who's undoubtedly had the most Void exposure.

Albrecht himself must have exhibited the Void mania and mood swings that Tales of Duviri exists to teach caution of.

And that's why Euleria wrote it; she had this gyroscope of a mood swing at home. She admired Albrecht too much to consciously deride his lack of control as irresponsible and so she channeled her energy into writing Tales of Duviri instead.

The emotion spirals of Duviri are loosely based off of what Euleria witnessed in the Entrati household and particularly Albrecht himself.

I don't believe that any courtier is a 1:1 translation of a member of the Entrati household, but more that their toxic interactions and dramatic heights reflected things that Euleria herself saw--or lived.

This reading of the Duviri characters and story--that they mean things to Euleria specifically--gives us a fun new lens to look at all of the chapters with.

For example, Mathila.

"Two children, and no memory of her husband. Poor Mathila."

Two children like Euleria herself, eh?

Mathila loved her husband. He also textually does not exist. He's not on the screen or in the text. He is a memory, and one that Mathila herself cannot even remember. There is no portrayal of their love.

Pivot to a writer's perspective. You need to write a loving relationship. You look to real life for inspiration, right? If you're a married woman needing to write a married woman in love, you naturally look to your own relationship.

And if you can't find anything to base that love off of? Well...move that character offscreen. Just tell about the loving relationship, don't show. Actually, do you even have anything to tell about? Well. Move the entire loving relationship offscreen, then. She's got amnesia. Nobody needs to talk about the love to sell it or make it feel real now. The narrator can simply mention it as a fact and it need not be challenged. Euleria doesn't have to imagine a loving family life between a husband and wife and their two children and question why that's hard for her. There. Problem fucking solved.

Another parallel that fairly started screaming at me once I started considering that the Duviri courtiers had meaning to Euleria specifically: Luscinia.

"I was created to be Sorrow, written into being, to serve as a lesson... can that change?"

Luscinia knows that she is a tool. As much as she dreams of being more, she knows very well that she is a tool--both a literal narrative element to teach a lesson and within the story itself Thrax's servant (his personal songbird).

Is there anyone in Euleria's life who might have some angst over their position as a tool? A servant who wants to escape the limited definitions of their role?

And so... here I am, back to my old role. The diligent servant. Albrecht would have smiled at that, I think.

Loid. It's Loid.

Luscinia: "This structure and I share much. Both of us once useful, both of us discarded, both of us now derelict. Both forgotten." Loid: "How might this relic make himself useful today?"

Both Luscinia and Loid are also capable of surprising amounts of ruthless violence. Luscinia has no hesitation telling you to kill the Dax or otherwise wreak vengeance on her jailers. Loid's Necramech lines feature him ranging from being excited for ensuing violence to coldly promising the Murmur regret.

The Duviri Tales were a subconscious form of therapy for Euleria herself as well, allowing her to write a story where emotional explosions were a problem that must be addressed rather than a social struggle to be suffered through at the whims of the more powerful.

#warframe #bootsmeta #euleria entrati #gomaitru entrati #albrecht entrati #tales of duviri #loid warframe #mathila warframe #luscinia warframe #luscinia

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feniksido · 6 months

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For some reason my post about the Heist in the Hells has been getting some traction recently so I thought maybe it's time to talk about my actual thoughts on what I would like to see in the hypothetical Heist in the Hells DLC (my personal hell)

I was trying to figure out a whole bunch of stuff about Mephistopheles and the 8th layer of the hells! First, the vaults are in Mephistar, a citadel on top of a Glacier named Nargus, which is piloted by Mephisto all over Cania constantly on the move. Mephisto has his slowly melting throne at the very center of the glacier, and the rest of the city is like a mini-hell with 3 terraced levels where the lowest level is with “lowly least devils” and mid tier for mid devils i guess and then hellfire masters and nobles and the wizards on the third higher levels. It’s heated on the inside of Mephistar! It has baths and scented fires (not sure what they smell like but I assume something other than fire?)

The rest of Cania is just like barren wasteland full of just the weirdest left over arcane energy cus of Mephisto’s experimentation, its cold as fuck and it has constant surveillance against spies, mostly spies sent by Dispater, mr THE Arms Dealer of all the planes, so you know that motherfucker mephistopheles is very used to these types of people showing up and trying to go into the vaults and such

NOW Helsik very specifically used the words “I punched a portal into the Archdevil’s dusty vaults”, so I assume it was directly into the vaults that they fell into. I'm not sure how this is even possible but i'm not one to ask questions that i will never understand the answers to (lying, im seething)

However, regardless of the fact that I don't know how Helsik the queen that she is did that, she did do it. I imagine the vaults are huge and incredibly elaborate and probably several stories? Layers? Deep. The items and scrolls and information must all be neatly cataloged and kept track of in the most particular way because Mephistopheles is nothing if not obsessively controlling of all his knowledge and information

However the whereabouts of the actual physical objects must be like.. Constantly changing or magically protected so that those with no authorization cannot find their way through the vaults

Mephistopheles’s filing system is… insane but i do think he would keep track. Or make someone else keep track. He’s very busy. He typically hands down experiments he ran out of time to deal with in his busy schedule to his lessers so I wouldn't put it past him to have someone else also take care of the cataloging. The Crown of Karsus is NOT high on his priority list so i understand how this was potentially feasible to Gortash and The Dark Urge

Actually Talking about the heist itself now:

I imagine that if a whole heist dlc (don't think we’re getting one but a man can dream) did happen it would start with a bit of exposition. Probably explaining a little bit of the Letters between Durge and Gortash. Specifically these ones:

Then we cut to a scene where they’re already at Helsik’s place. They’ve discussed the plans in depth, they’ve been doing test runs for this in the House of Hope and now it’s time for the real deal.

Helsik “punches” the portal into the Vaults and they jump in. The portal closes behind them, Helsik will not allow herself to be implicated in anything. They take in their surroundings; they have to be quick, although it is heated inside of Mephistar the frigidness of Cania cuts deeper than anything Baldur’s Gate could ever manage. I imagine that they, having never been here before, look for something that can help them navigate/orient themselves in the vaults. Perhaps that whole cataloging system I talked about earlier. You can choose to ignore it and just go straight forwards checking every room making it substantially harder and less efficient which makes Gortash a little pissy at you for not taking his advice and helping him look for that or you can look around for one but the actual system for cataloging is encrypted

Maybe a mini puzzle game can take place here, like the one with the brain in Moonrise Towers

The thingy would then lead deeper into vaults where they would fight Gelugons (the main residents of the 8th layer also known as ice devils) and other assorted devils including pit fiends and pain devils. Maybe a couple dire polar bears also who knows who Mephisto but on his security team

At one point i want to come across an ice devil that much like Yurgir in the house of hope in act 3, can be convinced to side with you and become a temporary ally (perhaps it holds resentment towards Hutijin, mephistopheles’ second in command, and just got sick and tired of the monotony and wants to stick it to the man, i just want a devil in my party even for a second)

If you manage to successfully persuade this devil to join you, Gortash might be impressed and tell you about how tricking a devil is no easy feat, you can ask him to elaborate on that and he might tell you a bit about his time in the house of hope as Raphael’s unwilling guest Who knows

Moving on, I’d like several more puzzles to delve deeper into the vaults, some that lead nowhere some that lead exactly where you need to go, if you did the earlier puzzle Gortash will be able to guide you and say which ones lead nowhere and which ones are the ones you need to do

Eventually I want a mechanically engineered door to be the next hurdle which Gortash takes upon himself to solve on his own since he’s more well suited towards this kind of thing, during this, rounds and rounds of incoming security swarm around you both, and Durge has to defend Gortash while he works on getting the door open. Much like the quest for Halsin looking for Thaniel in the Shadowfell, you gotta keep the portal open but instead of “keep the portal open” its “keep Gortash alive and not distracted”

When the rounds of enemies are done you get a little cutscene where you see Durge being overwhelmed by the many devils and it cuts to Gortash who has just opened the door and he takes less than a second’s pause before he decides that instead of going through the door and escaping to relative safety on his own, leaving durge to die he helps durge and they are both able to get through the door sealing it behind them, now in relative safety, they both take a second to breathe

You as durge now can talk to Gortash and have the dialogue options to say Thank you, scold him for dragging you away from the bloody slaughter, or question his decision to come back for you

I THINK IN MY MIND that the response for all these options would basically be the same, because Gortash is a well practiced speaker and knows exactly what to say but his body language would sort of give him away for the way he’s feeling about the option you choose

Thanking him would lead to a more defensive “pushing away” way of saying “I still require your assistance, we’re not done. Don’t expect it to happen again.” tsundere ass but like imagine that but better written

Scolding him would get a sorta like “I cant fucking believe this” as if he expected durge to be a little more practical about things and not lose focus in the madness that was that slaughter and rampage, like i said still the same but just “Argh! I still require your assistance! We are NOT done. DO NOT expect it to happen again if you intend to act this way.” He needs you to focus, not lose yourself in blood

Questioning and challenging his decision but not outright saying you disapprove would probably be playing right into the whole “equals who challenge each other” thing that he likes to do so it’d probably make him slow down, talk slower, make him really think about why he did it and do the thing where while talking he can't look at Durge in the eyes so he looks off to the side or down at the floor “I still need your help. We’re nowhere near done. Let’s not expect this to happen again, yes?” Like acknowledging that yes that was in fact weakness that neither of their masters tolerate (because obviously the correct thing a baneite would have done is let the bhaalspawn die so that he alone already so close to the crown could take it for himself) and almost regretful that he didn't have a better excuse

You continue forward and finally come into the room with the Crown of Karsus and the portfolio labeled “Accelerated Grand Design”, there they encounter a boss fight, probably not mephisto himself cus they’d be dead tbh but maybe a simulacrum or something idk here things get a bit dicey for me cus what the fuck! How do they get out? I thought maybe they do the fight and once they grab everything they need or want they maybe have an enhanced cloak of dimension door or maybe a scroll of teleportation or something to get them out of the deep deep VAULTS themselves and into a place where they can “safely” create another circle on this side with the components and specific instructions Helsik gave them

They’d arrive home back in Baldur’s Gate and celebrate their victory briefly and bada bing bada boom the dlc is over. If i had it my way at the end right there those two idiot geniuses would get so horny from the powerrush and bloodlust they just experienced that they end the dlc with durgetash fucking nasty

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 spoilers #enver gortash #the dark urge #durgetash #now when does this take place? great question i dont have an answer for you #do i have it all thought out? no i do not #did i spend a lot of time researching Mephistar just to have nothing to show for it? absolutely baby #helsik #guys please tell me you have your own thoughts i literally feel like im losing my mind #baldur’s gate 3

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newskin4theoldceremony · 4 months

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DARKNESS AT THE BREAK OF NOON SHADOWS EVEN THE SILVER SPOON THE HANDMADE BLADE THE CHILDS BALLON ECLIPSE BOTH THE SUN AND MOON TO UNDERSRAND YOU KNOW TOO SOON THERE IS NOW SENSE IN TRYING POINTED THREATS THEY BLUFF WITH SCORN SUICIDE REMARKS ARE TORN FROM THE FOOLS GOLD MOUTHPIECE THE HOLLOW HORN PLAYS WASTED WORDS PROVES TO WARN THAT HE NOT BUSY BEING BORN IS BUSY DYING TEMPTATIONS PAGE FLIES OUT THE DOOR YOU FOLLOW FIND YOURSELF AT WAR WATCH WATERFALLS OF PITY WAR YOU FEEL TO MOAN BUT UNLIKE BEFORE YOU’D DISCOVER THAT YOU’D JUST BE ONE MORE PERSON CRYING SO DON’T FEAR IF YOU HEAR A FORIEGN SOUND TO YOUR EAR ITS ALRIGHT MA I’M ONLY SIGHING AS SOME WARN VICTORY SOME DOWNFALL PRIVATE REASONS GREAT OR SMALL CAN BE SEEN IN THE EYES OF THOSE WHO CALL THAT MAKE ALL THAT SHOULD BE KILLED TO CRAWL WHILE OTHERS SAY DON’T HATE NOTHING AT ALL EXCEPT HATRED DISILLUSIONED WORDS LIKE BULLETS BARK AS HUMAN GODS AIM FOR THEIR MARK MAKE EVERYTHING FROM TOY GUNS THAT SPARK TO FLESH COLORED CHRISTS THAT GLOW IN THE DARK IT’S EASY TO SEE WITHOUT LOOKING TO FAR THAT NOT MUCH IS REALLY SACRED WHILE PREACHERS PREACH OF EVEIL FATES TEACHERS TEACH THAT KNOWLEDGE WAITS CAN LEAD TO HUNDRED DOLLAR PLATES GOODNESS HIDES BEHIND ITS GATES BUT EVEN THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES SOMETIMES MUST HAVE TO STAND NAKED AND ALTHOUGH THE RULES OF THE ROAD HAVE BEEN LODGED ITS ONLY PEOPLES GAMES YOU GOT TO DODGE AND ITS ALRIGHT MA I CAN MAKE IT ADVERTISING SIGNS THAT CON YOU INTO THINKING YOURE THE ONE THAT CAN DO WHATS NEVER BEEN DONE THAT CAN WIN WHATS NEVER BEEN WON MEANWHILE LIFE OUTSIDE GOES ON ALL AROUND YOU YOU LOSE YOURSELF YOU REAPPEAR YOU SUDDENLY FIND YOUVE GOT NOTHING TO FEAR ALONE YOU STAND WITH NOBODY NEAR WHEN A TREMBLING DISTANT VOICE UNCLEAR STARTLES YOUR SLEEPING EARS TO HEAR THAT SOMEBODY THINKS THEY REALLY FOUND YOU A QUESTION IN YOUR NERVES IS LIT YET YOU KNOW THERE IS NO ANSWER FIT TO SATISFY ENSURE YOU NOT TO QUIT TO KEEP IT IN YOUR MIND AND NOT FORGET THAT IT IS NOT HE OR SHE OR THEM OR IT THAT YOU BELING TO BUT THOUGH THE MASTERS MAKE THE RULES FOR THE WISE MEN AND THE FOOLS I GOT NOTHING MA TO LIVE UP TO FOR THEM THEY MUST OBEY AUTHORITY THAT THEY DO NOT RESPECT IN ANY DEGREE WHO DESPISE THEIR JOBS THEIR DESTINY SPEAK JEALOUSY OF THEM THAT ARE FREE DO WHAT THEY DO JUST TO BE NOTHING MORE THAN SOMETHING THEY INVEST IN WHILE SOME ON PRINCIPLES BAPTIZED TO STRICT PARTY PLATFORM TIES SOCAIL CLUBS IN DRAG DISGUISE OUTSIDERS THEY CAN FREELY CRITICIZE TELL NOTHING BUT WHK TO IDOLIZE AND SAY GOD BLESS HIM WHILE ONE WHO SINGS WITH HIS TONGUE ON FIRE GARGLES IN THE RAT RACE CHOIR BENT OUT OF SHAPE FROM SOCIETYS PLIERS CARES NOT TO COME UP ANY HIGHER BUT RATHER GET YOU DOWN IN THE HOLE THAT HES IN BUT I MEAN NO HARM NOR PUT FAULT ON ANYONE THAT LIVES IN A VAULT BUT ITS ALRIGHT MA IF I CAN PLEASE HIM OLD LADY JUDGES WATCH PEOPLE IN PAIRS LIMITED IN SEX THEY DARE TO PUSH FAKE MORAL INSULT AND STARE WHILE MONEY DOESNT TALK IT SWEARS OBSCENITY WHO REALLY CARES PROPAGANDA ALL IS PHONY WHILE THEM THAT DEFEND WHAT THEY CANNOT SEE WITH KILLERS PRIDE SECURITY IT BLOWS THE MIND MOST BITTERLY FOR THEM THAT THINK DEATH’S HONESTY WON’T FALL UPON ‘EM NATURALLY LIFE SOMETIMES MUST GET LONELY MY EYES COLLIDE HEAD ON WITH STUFFED GRAVEYARDS FALSE GOALS I SCUFF AT PETTINESS WHICH PLAYS SO ROUGH WALKED UPSIDE DOWN INSIDE HANDCUFFS KICK MY LEGS TO CRASH IT OFF SAY OKAY I’VE HADE ENOUGH WHAT ELSE CAN YOU SHOW ME AND IF MY THOUGHT DREAMS CAN BE SEEN THEYD PROBABLY PUT MY HEAD IN A GUILLOTINE

BUT ITS ALRIGHT MA IT’S LIFE AND LIFE ONLY

#bob dylan #.

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lottiecrabie · 1 year

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pray for my soul. part one – matty healy

you are a good girl: devout christian, studious student, dutiful daughter. resident atheist matty healy might be tempting you, but who can blame you when he looks like sin itself?

warnings: eventual 18+, kiss, religious imagery, blasphemy, (the author has never been to church and had to google some really weird shit to half-figure out how services go lol)

part one of five

2351 words

Sundays you spend on your knees. Hands tucked together, dainty cross falling gracefully between your collarbones, you recite the prayers diligently. The priest’s monotonous voice resonates against the vault, sloping across the arches. Beside you, your father mouths the words.

You hear some sort of muffled laugh. Peeved, you open your eyes, turning just slightly to catch a peek of him. Matty Healy, black hair falling over his forehead, face drenched in the blue and red and green of the stained glass. He sits on the pew when everyone kneels, biting back a laugh. He looks utterly sinful; dark and half in shadow, spitting in the face of God.

You narrow your eyes, pursing your lips. You don’t know why he even bothers to show up if it’s just to cause a ruckus.

As if he could hear your thoughts louder than the organ ringing through the room, Matty’s eyes snap to you. You stifle a jump; your stomach dipping in sheer surprise. His eyes are dark like him, piercing. He sees through you, underneath your flesh and blood, seeping through your bones. You don’t know what he sees. It unsettles you, how deeply he watches, how baring it feels on your covered skin.

Your crossed hands clench, digging your poor heart ring in your skin. Muted pain spreads down your palm, but you barely feel it. You stare back at him, unwilling to let him win.

The priest praises the Lord. Matty smirks. You shift your knees on the cushion.

“Pay attention,” your mother hisses, reaching two fingers to your side and pinching in warning. You startle, turning back towards the pulpit dutifully.

Somewhere behind you, another quiet laugh, much more taunting, much more pleased. It slitters under the pews, climbing up your straight spine. You tighten your hands into fist you wish you could use. There’s some unspoken anger living inside of you, something unfit for a good girl, a dutiful daughter, a pious person. You let it breathe with you because you cannot smother it; you’ve tried.

Still, you exhale loudly, unclenching your hands, shaking your shoulders to relax them. You plaster a smile over your face. You recite the right words, echoing the pastor.

When he calls for the eucharist, you stand up, following in line between your two parents. You feel a pair of eyes on your back, itching under your modest cardigan, tickling the ends of your hair. You try to ignore it, but you can’t stop yourself from throwing a look Matty’s way. He catches you, of course, smiling like he got you. You hurry to look away.

In front of the preacher, you open your mouth. Gently, he places the sacramental bread on your tongue. You don’t let it dissolve; you bite, swallowing the body of Christ. Again, you open your mouth, taking a holy sip of wine.

Turning around, you lick your red lips clean. You give yourself another self-indulgent glance towards Matty. He’s distracted by your mouth, it seems, but it snaps back to you. He smiles shamelessly. He’s stayed perfectly seated throughout the eucharist, of course. You scowl to yourself, although you can’t quite pinpoint why it bothers you so.

“Don’t make that face,” your mother warns beside you. You smoothen your features, schooling a complacent smile again. You sit back on your pew while your mother mutters to your dad exasperatedly, “Such a pretty face. I don’t know why she frowns like this.” Still, you smile, staring straight ahead.

It was a lovely sermon. Sundays leave you clean.

—

Everyone gathers after the service in the Fellowship Hall. Although most people do it to gossip, there is a table of snacks against the wall. There’s watery coffee, but your parents don’t like when you drink it. You take a paper cup, pouring yourself some orange juice instead. You turn around to make sure your mother is busy chatting Mrs. Finley over some recent neighborhood drama and grab yourself a cookie.

You scarf it down in two bites before anyone sees.

“That looked like the single most delicious biscuit ever made.”

Of course, one person had to have seen, and it had to be him. You look up, stopping yourself from cursing the higher above for his sick game. You flip to Matty with a crisp grin, something utterly stuck in your cheeks. “It was.” You don’t manage to make it sound cheery. Condescension drips on your tongue.

Matty laughs through the bite. “Do you have something to tell me?”

You clench your jaw. Refusing to give him an inch of ground, you grind through your teeth, “No.”

“No?” He says, and he makes it even more condescending, practically pouting at you. “You sound a little upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

“Mmh. That’s not how you’re coming across.”

You huff, impatient, crossing your arms. “I’ve said five words.”

“Six.” Matty smiles cheekily. “More, now.”

Enough, you can’t stop yourself from snapping. “You know what?” Rage twists in your belly, something uncontrollable, unreasonable, unexplainable. “I don’t know why you bother to come if you’re just going to be a—”

“A what?” Matty asks, and he looks thrilled, something childishly gleeful in his taunting smile.

“Nothing. Just— Nevermind.” Clutching your arms, you twist around, trampling away from him.

He’s quick to follow, hot on your trail as you trudge out of the Fellowship Hall. “It seemed like you were about to curse.”

“I wasn’t.” You hiss. He’s beside you now, shoulders knocking against yours. You scowl, walking faster.

“No, I’m pretty sure you were. What was it gonna be? Dickhead? Asshole? Little shit?”

“Can you shut up?”

“Can I? Yes. Will I? Now, I think you can figure out the answer to that, smart girl.”

“Gosh,” you roll your eyes. “You’re insufferable.”

He prances beside you, careless, carefree. His hands dig into his jeans pockets. “It’s for my mom, if you must know.” You throw him a look, arching an eyebrow. “Why I come here. Personally, I couldn’t care less about church, seeing as I’m an atheist.”

The word grinds your ears. You knew, in a broad, immaterial way, that he didn’t believe in God. But to hear it spoken so plainly, so brazenly is another thing. You’ve tried to be open, but there is something so off-putting, so wrong about the sheer idea of a faithless life. Where does he go? How does he trust the path he’s on?

You stop in your tracks, staring at him. “Does it not scare you?”

He snorts, as though that was a silly question, as though he wasn’t slapping away God’s merciful hand. “No.”

“But you’re— you’re alone.”

“Everyone is. You’ve just deluded yourself into thinking you weren’t.”

You clutch your cross, furrowing your eyebrows. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it worse, inventing some grander thing just to sleep at night? Speaking to the sky like there’s anyone listening?”

“You’re being mean.”

He clicks his tongue. “Maybe. It’s still the truth.”

This whirlpool of anger, uncouth for a nice girl, a devout Christian. You clench your fists. “It’s not. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re speaking like you— like you understand any of this. But you’re never listening. Not to the sermons, or the prayers, or the voice of God.”

“The voice of God?” He says, and it sounds derogatory coming from his mouth; small, ridiculous. You huff air from your nostrils.

“Yes, Matty. He’s— He’s there, he’s with you, and you’re not listening.”

“Well, tell him to give up. He’s wasting his time.”

“Oh, my Gosh.” You roll your eyes, continuing to walk. Again, he follows you. “You’re not getting it. You’re miserable and you don’t even know why.”

He arches an eyebrow. “I’m miserable?”

You stop, twisting to him. “Yes!”

“That’s presumptuous.”

“So is saying I’m deluding myself!” Your heart races. Your stomach knits together. “You— You just shit on everything I believe in because, why, you think you’re better than me? Smarter than me? Is that it? Because I’m not a cynic? Because I’m trying? Who are you to judge? You are not God, you’re not even his opposition. You’re just some guy laughing in church, being a fucking dickhead.” You yell, throwing your arms up, “And, yes, I can fucking swear!”

You pant. Matty’s eyes darken, dipping to your lips. Whirlwind coiling in your belly, spreading its rapacious fingers through your limbs. You breathe harder, quicker. A curl streaks across his forehead, tickling his brow. His jaw clenches. He’s beautiful. You curse to yourself, tightening your fists into weapons you’ll never use. Your eyes flick to his mouth.

Jeremiah, prophet of doom, circles you like prey. You fall into it face first, crashing your lips against sin itself.

It’s a harsh kiss; it’s your first kiss. Two hands grasp his jaw, like you could shatter it, like you could own it. Matty does not even seem scared of the boundless possibilities existing between your fingers. He grins, cocky, satisfied.

“Don’t say anything,” you warn, frustrated, because he would, because he was about to.

To make sure of it, you open your mouth, coaxing your tongue in his. He welcomes it easily, a groan falling into your wanton lips. You lick it up greedily, then sneak a hand in the mess of his curls, tugging to trick new ones from him. He offers them willingly; you take and take.

Euphoria hikes up your head. You’ve never been drunk, but this must be it. You let go of his hair, finding the warmth of his waist, the firmness. He’s so real against you, something tangible, something breakable. You sigh as he licks your lip. Your eyelids flutter, as does something lower.

Matty’s hands find your back, digging in your red cardigan. He clutches, stretching the material, then lets go. Fingers climb up to the back of your neck, playing with the chain of your cross necklace. You push the realization away, his proximity to the clasp.

He could undo it if he pleased. He could undo you.

He adventures his other fingers down, grabbing a handful of your ass, and it feels like he does. Need throbs in unspeakable places. You clench your thighs. You shouldn't let him undo you. You shouldn’t even give him the opportunity, dancing with fire, with the devil itself. You moan into his open mouth.

Matty breaks away from you, breathing heavily. He stares in one eye, then the other, falling to your swollen lips, to your heaving chest, cross rising with it. His look darkens. “I understand why fools believe in angels.”

You pant, “Shut up.” You drag him back to you, diving into your downfall.

When you bite his lip, tugging it to hear the resounding groan slip from his swollen mouth, you bite into something sacred, something hidden. You shouldn’t have. Still, you lick his tongue, gripping the cotton of his shirt, the warm skin of his waist. He tastes like apples and cigarettes.

His stomach is tense, rippling underneath your silk hands as you climb them higher and higher. You discover his skin, smoother than you’d have thought, stumbling on a few scars and drawing them over and over like your new prayer. He breathes quicker, harsher. Maybe he’s discovering new religions, too.

Eve was just a girl. You don’t eat; you devour.

There’s an endless pit inside of you. You store the aggregation of your stifled, festering sins: all the rage, all the envy, all the pride, all the lust. It grows, swallowing you whole. You want and want, desperate, greedy.

You want to pop him like a balloon between two heavy hands. You want to be all the girls he’s seen before you. You want to be his best. You want him, hot and hard and alive and twirling a thumb around your peaked breast.

Reverbs of pleasure. You let go of his lips just to moan in galactic shock, face scrunched. You taste the infinity on your tongue, the greatness of the universe; splinters of light. Why must you contain it inside your skin? Why must you smother it, kill it? You want him. You want him.

“Are you gonna pray for my soul?” Matty whispers, low and hoarse, half-broken out of his throat. You moan again as he twists two fingers around your nipple. “Get on your knees?”

Clarity is a bucket of cold water. You come out of the deep end, gasping for air. Your eyes snap open. Matty is watching you with black eyes. You feel him against all parts of you; under your palms, on your breast, on your hip, still burning on your lips.

You step away, letting go of him. He reaches a hand for you, trying to coax you back to him with a shrewd smirk.

You want to spit the taste of him out of you. Want to scrub your skin where his touch still lingers. He’s marked you, you can feel it. You want to scrape yourself clean. (You want him.)

“You disgust me.” You say, even if your belly still swirls at the sight of him, even if you’re still dripping down your thighs, even if your lips are viciously red from a head-twisting kiss.

Matty gives you a onceover purposefully, clearly considering all the reasons he doesn’t disgust you. “Yeah, darling. I felt that.” You blush, digging your nails in your palms in punishment.

“Don’t talk to me again.” You say, even if you’re still out of breath. “You’re— You’re a bad influence.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Me? You practically mauled me.”

You frown, gasping in offense. “I didn’t—”

“I think my lip is bleeding.” Matty holds it, slurring his speech to prove his point.

You snap, “Good.” You turn around, walking back to the Fellowship Hall without looking back.

Your mother spots you, smiling as she beckons you over. She has her coat on, but she talks with Mr. Collins still. “There you are, honey.” She frowns, bringing a hand to your forehead. “You look a little flushed.”

“Yeah,” you mumble. “I’m not feeling very well.”

“Oh, no. Are you sick?”

You lick your lips. Apples and cigarettes. “Maybe.”

#matty healy smut #matty healy x reader #matty healy imagine #matty healy #the 1975 #the 1975 smut #imagine #smut #writing #i am literally an atheist i had no idea how to write any of this #i do not have the religious trauma for me to find corruption this hot #sorry if this is offensive to some religious bffs out there i swear i will write some less weird shit soon #pray for my soul

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redvelvettecakes1 · 9 months

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⚠️ SPOILERS + THEORY FOR THE NEW WELCOME HOME UPDATE ⚠️

hello! this is my first post on tumblr, so I’m not sure how exactly to use this app very well but, just a note before I get started, I also have a YouTube channel, where I posted this theory on, i do not want to give away my channel on here though! If that’s okay!

. . .

I’m unsure if I’m overanalysing things, but hopefully you guys understand this theory and it makes sense to you! again, I could just be overanalysing, but these are genuinely just my personal thoughts!

first off, info on where I found the 2nd, 3rd and 4th photo from, basically if you go to the website and go to the “the playfellow exhibition” section, scroll till you see the bundle of photos and keep scrolling until you find the “welcome home Worksheet” image with a picture of Wally on it, then click on the image and either if you’re on laptop it’ll come up on the right side (I think) or if you’re on phone It’ll show up at the bottom, you then click the line that looks like an answer box and then it takes you to something that looks like a vault, click one of the buttons and it’ll ask you to enter a password, the password is BSPJW, then you should be taken to the place I’ll be talking about in this post! ✨

. . .

anyways, onto the theory I’ve made!

so, I’ve come up with a theory that wally might actually be the victim and it’s the re-searchers that are trying to uncover welcome home that are the bad people, like Amanda the adventurer and Hameln, people believe that Amanda is evil when really it was the company that was evil!

and this theory is basically going to be a bit like that, what if the re-searchers are actually the bad people? what if home and Wally are actually completely innocent and it’s just the re-searchers? as it seems to appear that welcome home was an ‘old TV show’ that nobody remembers apart from these so called ‘re-searchers’, the proof is mainly in photo 3, I believe the person who wrote that is one of the re-searchers, “maybe that’s why nobody has ever heard of WH”, this confirms that people don’t seem to remember welcome home apart from this re-searcher.

. . .

moving onto photo 2, the highlighted words, now I cant put my finger between if this is wally saying this or if it’s the re-searcher, because I mainly believe the other highlighted words are indeed wally, as photo 5 says “- wally darling” which appears to make it sound like wally, before I explain why I think it’s Wally, if you guys cannot read what it says in photo 2, i tried to read what it says, and it says . . .

“everything is so disgusting to touch, sometimes the mail doesn’t come for weeks, I want to rip into everything I have. my head feels so muddled too. ever since I opened that envelope.” . . .

. . .

now on quote “sometimes the mail doesn’t come for weeks” I have a feeling this is implying that something has happened to Eddie, since he is known as the “mailman”.

now anyways, back to why i believe this could be wally, basically in photo 4 it seems as if the re-searchers have found a wally puppet, now I have a feeling that the wally puppet could secretly be alive and it is actually wally but wally is playing d3@d due to the fact that the re-searchers might be dangerous people, I also think this is how wally gets onto the website and tries to contact the viewer, because if the owners of the website have the real wally, then wally must be able to sneak around and get a hold of the website, which is why it seems to appear that wally is the ONLY puppet in welcome home that seems to be able to interact with the viewer.

I also believe that wally trying to contact the viewer means he is crying for help, he is trying to hint that something awful has happened and he needs help with something, but it seems as if he has to keep it subtle, because if he gets caught, he could put himself in danger., this could also be why wally keeps repeatedly saying things like “can you see me?” “I can see you” etc, because he is trying to control the website and get possible help, and he believes the only way to get help is to try and hide secrets within the website to contact the viewer and try to speak with whoever is viewing the page.

. . .

but the question is, what happened to the other neighbors? where are they? and simply, I don’t quite know but I do remember this one welcome home theory I had seen on YouTube a while back, where the person stated that If you go into the “neighbourhood!” page and click on all the characters, it talks about ALL the characters in the past tense apart from wally, for example, it would say “wally IS” and for the others it would say something like “barnaby WAS”, and it literally talks about everyone in the past tense apart from wally.

why I think this is happening? because I believe that they are talking in the past tense for the other characters is because they haven’t FOUND them yet, in photo 4 it appears that the re-searchers have found wally, which is why they most likely talk in the present tense for ONLY wally, so I believe that the other characters are missing, either they’re just missing or something bad has happened to them, and the re-searchers have not found them yet, meaning this could be why they are making it sound like the other neighbors ‘no-longer’ exist.

. . .

In summery, I basically think that wally is alive and he is controlling part of the website— while the re-searchers are putting information into the website, wally is sneakily going on and hiding secrets, trying to warn the viewer and make the viewer realise that he needs help and that welcome home is not just a ‘sweet little neighbourhood’ that’s completely ‘safe’. and like I’ve also mentioned, I believe that the other neighbors are currently missing and the re-searchers are trying to hunt them down and find them, as that’s the re-searchers purpose, they’re trying to find the missing pieces of welcome home so they can ‘prove’ to people that welcome home was a ‘real’ TV show.

. . .

anyways, this is just a theory of course and I’m not in any way trying to say that this is canon or is true, it is just my thoughts and opinions and what these things look like to me, as there are many theories already, and although I feel like wally could be a victim, there is also a lot of proof that wally could be evil too.

but anyways, I hope this post made sense to you and you guys enjoy my theory! 💗

#welcome home #barnaby b beagle #wally darling #poppy partridge #howdy pillar #sally starlet #julie joyful #eddie dear #frank frankly #welcome home theory

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pasukiyo · 9 months

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OH MY, WE REALLY WERE TIMELESS

bradley "rooster" bradshaw x f!reader word count: 3743 words warnings: fluff summary: down the block there's an antique shop and something in your head said stop, so you walked in... note from author: fun fact, i went to denver night 1 for eras tour and this was my surprise song after listening to it nonstop the week leading up to my show... i had literally talked about how much i fell in love with this song and how it was my song the day before my show and the fact that taylor performed it proves it's my song!! so of course, i had to write about it...

“You got me sushi for lunch? You spoil me too much.”

She chuckled as she rested her phone between her ear and shoulder, opening the door to the local sushi place with her hand not holding the plastic bag. “It was more for me than you,” she replied, taking her phone back in her hand as she made her way back to her car.

“You know, you can just admit that you love me, it’s alright,” Bradley said into the receiver, and she rolled her eyes as she unlocked her car, swinging the door open to toss the takeout bag into the passenger’s seat. “Yeah, well, wouldn’t be wearing your ring if I didn’t, right?” She tittered, climbing into the driver’s seat, her phone once again pressed between her cheek and shoulder as she started the engine.

“Yeah,” Bradley sighed. “That, and you wouldn’t have let me fuck your brains out like last night.”

Her cheeks burned at the memory as she placed her phone down, letting the call connect to the Bluetooth instead, her lips curling into a smile. “Just can’t help yourself, can you, Mr Bradshaw?”

Bradley’s laughter permeated the car as she backed out of her parking space, “no I cannot, Mrs Bradshaw.”

She chuckled as she drove down the street, stopping at a red light and propping her elbow against the car door, her fingers on her lips. “So are you on your way now?” Bradley asked, and she hummed in reply.

“Yeah. I’m just now leav—“

Her words caught in her throat when her eyes set upon a building down the block, gaze locked on the old, rusted sign that read ‘ANTIQUES.’ The silence was filled with Bradley’s voice, “babe? Hellloooooo? Still there?”

She blinked when the car behind her honked their horn and she realized the light had turned green, her fingers tightening their feel on the steering wheel. Her heart pounded on her chest, unable to shake the voice in her head telling her to stop.

Her breath hitched in her throat as she turned, parking in front of the old antique shop, sighing as she shifted the car into park.

“Hellooooo? Mrs Bradshaw? My wife? Love of my life?”

“Um… I’ll be there soon there’s just… there’s just something I need to do really quick,” she finally replied, reaching for her purse.

“Oooookay… see you soon?” Bradley said, audibly confused.

“Mhm, yeah,” she replied, turning the engine off and bringing her phone back to her ear as she climbed out of the car. “See you soon. Love you.”

“Love you too…”

The call ended as she pulled the door open to the shop, the smell of old books, dust, and wood polish wafting to her nostrils, her shoulders heaving when she sighed. The older woman at the counter looked up from her book, her eyes crinkling when she smiled and waved. Giving a small smile in return, she waved back, her eyes settling on a sign on the counter, a cardboard box just below.

‘PHOTOS……….25 CENTS EACH’

Looking away from the older woman, she stepped closer to the cardboard box, the smell of musty old paper filling her nostrils but she didn’t grimace or cringe away. She pushed her phone inside her purse and began to sift through the photos, a lump forming at her throat as she eyed the different black and white photographs.

There was one of a bride, the date on the back reading 1933. Another of two lovers, their faces lit up in smiles as they sat on their front porch, the back captioned ‘July 1962. Our first house!’

Her lips curled into a soft smile, her fingertips ghosting over the pale faces of the two lovers, their hands laced together over the arms of their chairs.

Her heart skipped a couple of beats and she breathed a chuckle, thinking back to when she and Bradley officially moved into their first house together. It was mid-July, the San Diego heat was unforgiving and by lunch, the two of them were drenched in sweat, panting from the amount of moving furniture they had been doing.

They had finally settled on a place to set down the couch, muscles aching as they plopped down side by side on the cushions, fluttering their eyes closed as they caught their breaths.

“You should’ve just let Jake and Javy come help,” she panted, rolling her neck to turn and face him. Bradley grumbled as he pressed his lips together, rolling his neck on the back cushions and squeezing his eyelids shut tighter. “Absolutely not. There is no way I’m letting Hangman into the house,” Bradley shook his head and she rolled her eyes. “We still could’ve used the help. And they offered.”

Bradley peeled a single eyelid open and cocked an eyebrow to his hairline, “what do you mean? We’re doing great,” he replied, shifting his weight. She rolled her eyes as she glanced down to his sweat-stained gray tank top, laughing as she gave his belly a few pats.

“Sure big guy, I just love being absolutely drenched in sweat and not being able to feel my arms. Or legs for that matter,” she sighed, giggling when he caught her wrist, tugging her closer into him. “Yeah, I know you do,” he grinned. “Just like last night, right?”

Furrowing her eyebrows, she rolled her fingers into her palm to form a fist and knocked him on the shoulder, causing him to laugh and tug her down into the cushions with him by the wrist. She couldn’t help but break her glare and laugh as he pulled her weight on top of him, his hand curling around the back of her head, the other gripping her hip through her shorts.

“Jesus, you just can’t help yourself, can you Bradshaw?”

Bradley smirked and leaned in, pressing a teasing kiss to her lips, his mustache tickling the skin just below her nose.

“No I cannot, future Mrs Bradshaw.”

She chuckled to herself as she set the photograph back down on top of the pile of Polaroids, sifting through the old, feeble paper before another photograph caught her eye, and she had to stop and smile. This one was of a teenage couple standing in the driveway, leaning against the hood of a car in their finest clothes. Their hands were locked together, the girl’s head on the boy’s shoulder, each giving the camera a bright smile. On the bottom of the photograph was a date written in black ink: ‘April 1958. Prom.’

A lump formed at the base of her throat at the memory the photograph brought back, the first time she ever saw Bradley. Girl’s night had decided to move to the small, seaside bar that was the Hard Deck, the sky was void of blue, small flecks of white littering its dark canvas instead. It was a quarter past eleven by the time she and her friend had stumbled in, but you’d never guess it was nearing midnight with how crowded and lively the place was.

Her friend had taken her by the hand to lead her towards the bar, dropping it when they arrived and leaving her to wrap her arms around herself instead. Her eyes wandered among the sea of people surrounding her, she was never one for crowds— and they were pretty much shoulder to shoulder with everyone in this little bar.

She glanced back to where her friend was in front of her, blinking when she realized her friend had completely forgotten about her, choosing to sidle up to a man with dark, buzzed hair instead. Her face fell at this and she threw her arms to her sides, a furrow in her brow.

So much for girl’s night.

She scanned the bar and the other surrounding tables for any free seats, unfortunately coming to no avail. Her chest heaved when she huffed, running her fingers through the hair atop her head as she swung her head back around, fully intending to call out her friend for leaving her alone.

That was, until she stopped, her gaze landing on someone entirely new instead.

Suddenly, the bar didn’t seem so lively or crowded, nor did the noise seem to drill a hole from her ears into her skull. All at once, the crowd seemed to slow, and so did time as her eyes locked onto a pair of hazel eyes across the room, her limbs locking in place.

It was a man in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt, exposing the white tank he had on underneath, a pair of aviators hanging off the neckline and teasing a sliver of the skin of his chest. There was a mustache above his lip that on anyone else, she’d have scrunched her nose at but on him… it was just perfect. He was perfect.

And he was staring right back at her.

And then he was coming closer.

All she could do was stand there and wait, feeling color burn her cheeks with each step he took closer, feeling as if she’d burst into flames when he approached, his fingers wrapped around a bottle of beer. His lips were full and pink and shiny with a mixture of saliva and beer, and when he swiped his tongue between them before murmuring a “hello,” his deep, rich hazel irises studying every feature of her face, she knew she was done for.

“Hi,” she replied breathlessly, her chest heaving with a breathy laugh. The man looked around, a furrow in his brow, “you didn’t come with anyone, did you?” He asked and she giggled again, eyeing the ground and shaking her head. “No, uh… my friend over there ditched me,” she said, gesturing to where her friend sat with the man in a Navy uniform at the bar. He turned to gaze at where they sat, the corner of his lips quirking when he tittered. “Coyote,” he mumbled beneath his breath before turning to face her once again. “Thank God. So there’s no one I have to worry about? No boyfriend, husband?”

She cocked an eyebrow at this, trying to suppress her grin. “Are you making a move on me, aviator?” She eyed the aviators still dangling off the neck of his shirt. He followed her gaze, breathing a laugh, “would you turn me down if I was?”

He seemed closer now. Normally, she’d shy away. But already with him, she didn’t think being this close was such a bad thing.

“I don’t know. You got game?” She asked, looking up at him, their eyes surging into one another’s. The man grinned, “oh, I got game.”

They spent the majority of the night sidled up together in the corner of the building, able to snatch a table away from everyone else and most importantly, away from his fellow aviator friends. He told her his name— it was Bradley— and they talked for hours upon end about anything and everything and she was practically spilling her entire soul for a man she had met mere hours ago but somehow, it just felt so right.

Before either of them knew it, the noise in the bar seemed to die down as the crowd began to slowly but surely spill away— neither her friend nor this Coyote Bradley spoke of in sight. By one in the morning, it was only them and a few other drunks downing as many beers as they could physically handle at the bar. Soft music played through the speakers, her eyelids growing heavy but still, she didn’t want to leave. If she could stay here in this bar with Bradley forever, she absolutely would.

“Are you alright?” Bradley finally asked, noting her heavy eyelids, “want to call it a night?” She smiled, rolling her straw around her drink, shaking her head. “No,” she admitted, kicking her shoes against his. He humored her and gave her foot a playful nudge back, tilting his head up to the ceiling, humming. She cocked an eyebrow at this, “what?”

Bradley glanced back down at her and grinned, “I love this song.”

She paused to take a moment and listen to the song, smooth jazz and soft lyrics permeating the nearly empty Hard Deck. She pointed towards the ceiling, “Chet?”

Bradley’s grin widened, “Baker.”

It was then that Bradley rose from his seat, downing the last droplets of beer left in his bottle before setting it back down on the table, outstretching a hand towards her. She eyed his hand curiously before glancing back up at him and his stupidly handsome smile and his stupidly handsome mustache.

“What are you doing?” She questioned, prompting him to shake his hand around, gesturing for her to take it. “Come on, the dance floor is all ours.”

She could feel the scarlet creeping to her cheeks at this and she shook her head, gazing down at her fingers where they cuddled with one another on the top of the table. “I don’t dance,” she replied, to which Bradley groaned and rolled his eyes, snatching her hand with his anyway. “Bradley!” She shrieked as he hoisted her out of her seat, dragging her towards the open floor.

“Come on, all you have to do is follow my lead.”

She whined as he pulled her into his chest, her muscles stiff when he slithered a hand around her waist to rest on the small of her back, encasing her hand with his free one. Her heart was pounding and she was so sure he could feel it against his chest, only adding to the heat pooling in her cheeks.

“Your hearts pounding,” he noted as he began to sway them back and forth gently to the music, and she scowled, glaring up at him. “Thanks, I hardly notice,” she replied, sarcasm lacing every syllable but still, she couldn’t help but laugh, feeling herself becoming more and more relaxed. Bradley joined along, gently pressing her in closer to his chest, letting her rest the side of her head just above his heartbeat.

“Yours is too,” she said in hardly a whisper, but Bradley breathed a chuckle. “It’s because you’re so good at dancing,” he remarked and she rolled her eyes. “Please, this is hardly dancing,” she tittered and Bradley pulled away just enough to catch her gaze, his pools of hazel spilling into her own.

She thought her heart skipped a couple of beats.

“Well whatever is it, I think I’d like to do more of it,” he said. “With you, of course.”

Her vision was glossy and wet with tears now and she sniffed as she dropped the picture back in the box, backing away from the counter to glimpse around the old shop. There was a dark, dusty bookcase in the corner, books scattered about its shelves and the overwhelming smell of old paper and cedarwood made her scratch her nose. Her eyes lined the spines of the books, looking for any stories she recognized.

That was when she came upon a book covered in cobwebs, the spine reading ‘ROMEO AND JULIET’ in bold, faded gold letters. She sniffed again as she recounted the old tale, a story of a romance torn apart by fate. It was strange, the way the tragedy made her feel now.

She couldn’t help but let her mind wander, couldn’t help but put herself and Bradley in Romeo and Juliet’s shoes. It was silly– so ridiculous– for her to think this way, to think that even in the 1500s off in a foreign, even if she were forced to marry another man, that she would still find her way to Bradley.

She could feel a tear drip down her cheek and she blinked the blurriness away from her vision as best she could, wiping her face as she backed away from the bookshelf, her arms wrapped around herself. And when the haziness was gone from her vision, her eyes caught on a framed photo on the wall, a man in a uniform and his wife embracing in the midst of a crowded street. She blinked down to the year written on the bottom of the frame, 1944.

Her heart was bursting at its seams– never up until this point had she come to realize just the extent of her love for Bradley. She wasn’t sure what it was about this old antique shop that made her feel so connected to Bradley, as if there were a thread of fate tying them together. But somehow she knew– she knew in her mind, heart, and soul– that they were supposed to find this. Each other. She knew that even in a different life– whether that’d be in a crowded street in 1944, a quiet neighborhood in July of 1962, a school dance in 1958, or in a foreign land in the 1500s– he still would’ve been hers, and they would’ve been timeless.

She wanted him to be her past, present, and future. She wanted to love him even when their hair turned gray, and she wanted to have a cardboard box full of photos of the life they made just like the one on the counter. She wanted to sit on the front porch with him some day in the future with their grandchildren playing around in the yard, holding hands as they went through photographs they’d taken throughout the years, and Bradley would say “oh my, we really were timeless.” And somehow, she knew that was their future. It was almost as if she could reach out and feel it.

She sniffed again and reached back into her purse to fish out her phone, gazing down at the photo of her and Bradley on their honeymoon she had saved as her home screen wallpaper. She took a few moments to simply stare at the picture, to reminisce on the memory before unlocking her device, finding the phone app and pressing on Bradley’s contact.

“Hello?” Bradley said into the receiver as she turned, walking past the counter to reach the exit. When she rested her hand on the door handle, however, she turned to look at the older woman behind the counter to find that she was already staring back.

The woman smiled at her, and she smiled back.

“Babe? Are you there?” Bradley asked again and she turned, pushing open the exit door. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I’m here,” she replied as she made her way to her car, tugging open the door and slipping inside. “Thank God. Thought I was a booty call for a second there,” he chuckled and she scowled, tossing her purse into the passenger’s seat beside their lunch.

“Please don’t say booty,” she sighed as she started the car engine, connecting the call back to the Bluetooth. Bradley’s laugh permeated her car, “I want to see your booty. When are you bringing me my lunch?” He whined and her lips curved into a smile, dropping her forehead against the top of the steering wheel and shaking her head.

“I’m on my way now,” she chuckled, buckling in her seat belt and taking one last look up at the old, rusted antique shop sign. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay, you better hurry. But don’t hurry too much. Can’t pay another goddamn ticket.”

“Yeah, and whose fault was that?” She tittered as she back out of her parking spot, making her way down the street towards the Naval base. “Let’s not turn this into an interrogation now,” Bradley replied. “Anyways, I’ll see you soon?”

She smiled, “yeah. I love you.”

“Love ya too, darlin. Can’t wait to see your boot–”

She rolled her eyes as she ended the call before he could finish his sentence, her heart still pounding against her chest, every feeling she felt in the antique shop still weighing heavy in her chest. Before she even knew it, she was pulling into the Naval base, ID in hand. At last, she had made it to base, taking the takeout bag and her purse with her as she exited her car, a lump forming at the base of her throat.

She made her routine walk through security and down the hallways before she finally reached the lounge she’d always meet Bradley in and when she pushed open the door, there he was, sitting at a table near the back, watching the sports highlights playing on the television. Jake and Javy were there too, as well as a few other aviators she hadn’t seen much of too.

“Mrs. Bradshaw in the flesh!” Jake exclaimed when he caught her eye from the other side of the room and she watched as Bradley’s head shot up, his lips curving into that stupidly handsome grin of his. “You got Rooster sushi?” Javy gaped as she walked by, setting the bag of takeout on the table in front of Bradley as he stood, cupping her face in either of his hands to give her a peck on the lips. “When was the last time anyone’s ever brought us sushi, Hangman?”

She chuckled as she settled herself down into her seat, wringing her hands together as Bradley rolled his eyes at them. “One of the benefits of having the best wife in the world,” he shrugged before settling himself down in his own seat across from her, tearing open the plastic bag to fish out the carry-out boxes.

“God, you really do spoil me too much, babe. Gonna have to train extra hard after you treat me like this,” he practically moaned at the sight of his favorite roll when he opened the styrofoam box, but all she could focus on was him. She could feel the familiar sting of tears burning the outskirts of her eyes, her chest burning with the same thing she felt in the antique shop.

Bradley must’ve sensed there was something different in her, for after he stuffed his cheeks full of sushi, he glanced up at her, furrowing his brows at her tear-filled expression.

“Ish somefing wrong?” He asked through his mouthful and her chest heaved with a laugh, shaking her head and wiping at the tears lining her eyelids. “No, nothing’s wrong,” she tittered, reaching for his hand where is rested beside his takeout box. He let her fingers slip between his, although still bewildered as he looked up at her. “Then what is it?” He questioned, and all she could think to do was smile.

“I’m just… I’m just really glad we found each other.”

a/n; so yeah... in conclusion, timeless is my song!

TAGLIST

@oliviajdjarin

#bradley bradshaw x y/n #bradley bradshaw #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #miles teller #top gun maverick imagine #top gun maverick #rooster top gun #top gun #Spotify

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kwanisms · 4 months

Text

🎄 Tales from Camp Holiday Special 08 🎄

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➮ professor!Jihoon × fem!Reader wc: 8.3k summary: Jihoon attends Seungkwan's choir event and runs into Y/N. At her insistence, they meet up for drinks after the show. genres/themes/au: angst (but only a bit lol), fluff, smut; holiday themes; non idol au, music teacher au warnings: adult dialogue, female reader, mentions of abusive past, mention of abusive from parent, sexual content (18+ mdni), see smut warnings under the cut! taglist: @yoonguurt @wonw00t @aikisbbq @enhacolor @duchesskaren @sherituhhh @wonderfulshinee @gaebestie @drunk-on-dk @seokgyuu @salty-for-suga @aaniag @dnylwoo @1004luvangel join my taglists: main | TFC: Holiday Special closed! Strikethrough means I cannot tag you. MINORS WILL BE BLACKLISTED & BLOCKED. AGELESS BLOGS WILL ALSO BE BLOCKED.

a/n: Jihoon’s probably has the most angst in his piece of any of these special or original pieces. He’s been very regretful in the aftermath of his story and has wanted things with MC to go further but let things slip out of his grasp. So this is a redemption arc for him. A second chance at a happy ending with MC. Thank you so much for reading and if you like this piece, please reblog as it really helps! As always, this is a work of fiction and all characters are not reflective of their respective irl counterparts. for entertainment purposes only.

smut warnings: protected sex (do this. Use protection), oral (f receiving, m receiving), switch!Jihoon, switch!Reader, multiple orgasms (m receiving, f receiving), praise (f receiving), body worship (f receiving), biting/marking (f receiving), use of pet names (mainly babe and baby), slightly possessive!Jihoon, Jihoon kinda nuts early on lol but he makes up for it, lowkey highkey lovemaking, and I think that’s all but as always let me know if I missed any!

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“I’m telling you, Jihoon, they’re demons! Every last one of them!”

Jihoon rolled his eyes as he opened his door, arms full of grocery bags.

As he entered, his roommate Soonyoung glanced over the back of the couch at him, pausing his game on the big screen. “You need help?” Soonyoung called, setting the controller down. Jihoon nodded as best he could with his phone squished between his ear and his shoulder.

Soonyoung vaulted over the couch, quickly taking one of the leavy bags from Jihoon, allowing him to grab his phone before it fell as Seungkwan continued to whine about his students over the phone. Soonyoung set the bag in his arms on the counter before moving to take the other one, something Jihoon was extremely grateful for.

“Are you listening to me?” Seungkwan asked suspiciously. “Yeah, I’m listening, Kwan,” Jihoon replied. “I’m sure the kids aren’t that bad. You’ve got help, right?” Jihoon asked, as he and Soonyoung started pulling the contents of the bags out and putting them away.

“Yeah, thankfully,” Seungkwan said softly. Jihoon felt the corners of his lips twitch. “Has Molly finally stepped up?” he asked. Seungkwan made an impatient noise on the other end. “It’s not Molly,” he replied. “It’s someone else but they’ve been nothing short of a godsend or whatever the phrase is.”

Jihoon let out a laugh as Soonyoung looked at him with a brow raised. “Look,” Jihoon said. “I’m glad you got help. That’s important. But I really gotta go. I have groceries to put away.”

Seungkwan whined on the other end. “You’re still coming to the show, right?”

Jihoon hummed thoughtfully in response. “You know I am.”

“And Soonyoung?”

Jihoon glanced at his roommate who seemed to have caught on and shook his head. Jihoon narrowed his eyes on his roommate. Looks like he’d have to endure Seungkwan’s panicked fretting on his own.

“No, he has a prior engagement. He apologizes heavily and promises to take you out for barbecue to make up for it,” Jihoon said, a smirk drawing on his face as Soonyoung glared at him, threatening to hit him with a raised hand.

“Hmm, I guess that’s okay,” Seungkwan said in response. “I’ll see you tomorrow night then.”

“Until tomorrow,” Jihoon said before hanging up and setting his phone on the counter.

“I can’t believe you offered me up like that!” Soonyoung grumbled as he took over emptying the contents of the bag Jihoon had been pulling from. “I love that guy but goddamn he worries over the littlest things,” Jihoon groaned, rubbing his temples as Soonyoung finished putting the groceries away.

“I can’t believe he agreed to do the show alone,” Soonyoung said, shaking his head. “He got help, apparently,” Jihoon offered, remembering Seungkwan’s slight evasiveness on the subject. “Must be someone he doesn’t want us to know about. He didn’t really explain much other than saying it wasn’t his coworker.”

Soonyoung narrowed his eyes. “You think he’s seeing someone?” Jihoon shrugged.

“I dunno,” he answered. “It’s possible.”

The rest of the day, Jihoon spent in his office, going over his students’ assignments. He’d been working as a music theory professor ever since finishing his education and even though he wasn’t actively making music, it was still a good job and he loved it.

It also allowed him to work on his music on the side.

Soonyoung had found work as a choreographer and quickly made a name for himself which allowed the pair to rent a decent apartment in the more expensive part of the city. Soonyoung wasn’t a bad roommate either. He was funny, helpful, and he kept his spaces tidy and always cleaned up after himself, something Jihoon had instilled in him during their college years.

The next morning, Soonyoung challenged Jihoon to a game of Mario Kart and the two spent the morning and part of the afternoon playing video games before Jihoon checked his watch.

“I better start getting ready. Seungkwan will have my head if I’m late to the show,” he explained. Soonyoung grabbed Jihoon’s wrist, checked the time, and grumbled, setting his controller on the coffee table and getting up. “I promised Daniel I’d come help set up for the party,” he said as he started for the hallway leading to the bedrooms.

All Jihoon had to do to get ready was shower and change. He exited his room almost an hour later to find Soonyoung dressed and turning off the console and TV. “How late you think you’ll be?” Jihoon asked, looking up at his friend.

Soonyoung hesitated as he struggled to put his watch on. “Uh…” he trailed off.

“I’m not sure,” he answered. We’re supposed to get some more snow tonight, aren’t we?”

Jihoon glanced out the window, the city blanketed in a layer of white from last night. “Yeah,” he replied. “I think so.” Soonyoung managed to fasten his watch and turned to Jihoon. “Then if the snow gets bad, I might stay at Daniel’s,” he answered. Jihoon nodded as he walked over to the door, slipping on his shoes. He grabbed his coat from the closet as Soonyoung joined him.

“That would probably be the best option. Don’t need you crashing your car,” Jihoon replied as he checked to make sure he had everything. His phone, keys, wallet, coat. He opened the door, Soonyoung following him as he pulled on his own coat.

The pair made their way to the elevator and waited for it in silence, Soonyoung texting someone on his phone. Jihoon pulled his own phone out of his pocket and checked his messages. Seungkwan had texted him in a slight panic but the crisis seemed to have been averted.

The ride down to the parking garage was also silent, Soonyoung still texting who Jihoon could only assume was Daniel. Jihoon focused instead on the lit up button on the wall by the door until the elevator dinged, the doors sliding open to reveal the dark parking garage.

“I’ll see you later,” Jihoon said as they stepped out of the lift and started in opposite directions. “Have fun with Seungkwan,” Soonyoung called, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Have fun at the party,” Jihoon called, turning to look at Soonyoung’s retreating back.

“And absolutely no bringing any girls home!”

Soonyoung simply waved, showing he heard him before reaching his car. Jihoon turned back around and reached his own car, unlocking the driver’s door and sliding into the black leather interior. He turned the car on, plugging the address of the venue to his gps and turned on some soft background music.

Seungkwan lived and worked about a couple hours drive outside of the city, preferring to be in the suburbs rather than the density of the city. Jihoon didn’t blame him and if he could afford the time to commute, he’d probably live outside the city too but his work was here in the heart of downtown.

The drive seemed to fly by and soon, Jihoon was pulling up to the location, pulling into a parking space and cutting the engine. Seungkwan had explained that the show was part of a larger event, a winter festival of sorts. It seemed to be a pretty large affair as well.

As he got out of the car, the sound of holiday music drifted towards him. There were lots of lights and displays. The scent of grilled food reached him and Jihoon suddenly found himself glad he came as he’d forgotten to stop and grab food on the way.

He paid for his entry ticket and made his way into the area, looking around at all the stalls of food, games, and even a few rides. Jihoon made his way past the stalls of food, ignoring the growling of his stomach to head to the building, following the flow of the crowd.

His eyes caught sight of someone familiar. His stomach churned, heart pounding in his chest as he could have sworn he’d seen… ‘Y/N?’ Jihoon tried to squeeze through the crowd, trying to keep his eyes on the figure but by the time he managed to reach the spot he’d seen the figure standing, it was gone.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he told himself, looking around. ‘There’s no way it’s her.’

Jihoon continued towards the building, trying to put everything behind him and at the back of his mind.

Inside what he could only assume to be the gymnasium, Jihoon noticed how it had been turned into an auditorium. He walked across the wooden floor, memories of gym class flooding his memories but he pushed them away as he spotted Seungkwan across the room speaking to someone Jihoon didn’t recognize. She was wearing a green dress and a green hat to match.

Jihoon watched with amusement as she snatched Seungkwan’s hat off his head and pulled hers off to put his hat on instead before depositing her hat in his hands. Jihoon started to walk over, curious as to who the woman helping his friend was and how Seungkwan knew her.

About halfway across the gym, Seungkwan caught sight of him and waved, making his way over quickly.

“You made it!” Seungkwan said, sounding relieved. Jihoon fought the urge to laugh, opting to nod instead before he peered around Seungkwan at the woman in the green dress who was now sitting at the piano, reading over the sheet music.

“Who’s your friend?” Jihoon asked, nodding towards her. Seungkwan glanced back and Jihoon could have sworn he saw his friend’s cheeks turn slightly pink before Seungkwan cleared his throat. “I’ll introduce you after the show,” he said dismissively.

“We’re going to be starting soon, so go find a seat,” Seungkwan instructed, gesturing to the seats that had been set up. He made his way over, choosing a seat a few rows back and on the end. He looked around, inspecting the room as more people flooded in.

Slowly, the seats filled up, leaving a few empty ones scattered around. Jihoon watched as Seungkwan’s students filed in slowly, taking one of the reindeer antler headbands Seungkwan and his friend handed them before waiting to go on stage.

“Excuse me, is that seat taken?” a soft voice asked Jihoon, making him tense up.

He’d recognize that voice anywhere.

He turned his head slowly, looking up to find you staring back at him. ‘No fucking way.’

Your face conveyed the surprise he felt as realization dawned on you. “Oh my god, Jihoon?” you asked softly. He nodded, getting to his feet. “It’s open,” he said awkwardly, gesturing to the seat next to him. You chuckled slightly, moving to take a seat and settling in as Jihoon sat back down.

“Sorry,” Jihoon said suddenly. “How are you?”

You smiled as you removed your scarf. “I’m good,” you replied. “How about you?”

Jihoon hesitated. How had he been?

When he told his friends about the time you spent together at camp, he’d never told them what happened afterwards. How he’d wanted more out of that summer; more with you. He missed his chance though when summer came to a close and school started again.

The following summer, he never saw you again. He’d been beating himself up over ever since, wondering if or when he’d ever see you again and under what circumstances he might. He never actually expected to see you again.

The first couple years after the summer you didn’t return had been awful for him. He’d been so hung up on you that he couldn’t even look at anyone else so he didn’t even try. Soonyoung was always asking why he didn’t date but Jihoon couldn’t bring himself to tell his friend that he was most definitely still in love with you.

“Jihoon?” you asked, pulling him from his thoughts. ‘Stop thinking. It doesn’t matter anymore.’

“I’ve been alright,” he lied. “Just been working.”

You smiled as you settled back against your seat. “Yeah? What kind of job is Lee Jihoon working now?” you asked with a smirk. “I always saw you as a band director or something.” Jihoon chuckled, looking away from your face and down at his hands as he twiddled his thumbs.

“I’m actually a music theory professor in the city,” he answered. He hesitated, waiting for your response.

“No shit? That’s so cool, Ji,” you said, excitement in your voice. He finally brought himself to look up to meet your gaze. “What about you?” he asked. “What are you doing now?” You grimaced, looking down at your hands this time. “I ended up changing my major,” you admitted.

Jihoon’s eyes widened slightly. “Wait, is that why you never came back to camp?” he asked softly. You glanced up quickly at him. The two of you stared at one another before you finally answered. “No,” you said softly. “I stopped attending camp for another reason,” you said softly.

Before Jihoon could ask anything else, the audience started to clap and the lights dimmed. He looked forward just in time to see the kids climbing the steps onto the stage and then moving onto the riser. He could see Seungkwan’s friend taking a seat at the piano while Seungkwan waited for the rest of the students to get on stage before ascending the few steps and moving to the front.

Jihoon turned to look at you, leaning in. “After the show, will you stay? So we can talk?” he whispered. You nodded, whispering back a yes before the show started.

╾───────────────────⭒✧⭒──────────────────╼

Jihoon wasn’t sure why Seungkwan had been so nervous about the show. It went by smoothly. He found himself actually thoroughly enjoying it as he watched the kids sing and do their small little dances on the riser. It reminded him of when he was in choir as a kid.

After the last song, the audience applauded, Seungkwan motioning for the kids to bow before thanking his friend for filling in as the pianist at the last minute. The lights came up and Jihoon got to his feet, turning to look at you as you stood, grabbing your bag and pulling your coat back on.

“I need to go see my friend real quick,” he explained. “Seungkwan, the conductor, is a friend of mine. That's kind of why I’m here.” You nodded and gestured for him to go. “I’ll follow,” you said smiling. As you followed, your phone rang and you answered it quickly, keeping your voice down.

Jihoon found Seungkwan standing at the base of the stage, talking to what Jihoon assumed was one of his students’ parents. As he approached, Seungkwan excused himself, smiling at Jihoon before noticing you. Jihoon glanced back and then turned to Seungkwan. “Seungkwan, this is Y/N,” he introduced.

“Y/N, this is Seungkwan.” You looked at him, lowering your phone briefly to offer a kind smile. “Nice to meet you, Seungkwan,” you said politely. Seungkwan nodded before looking at Jihoon as you turned away, continuing your conversation. Jihoon couldn’t tell what was being said but you didn’t look happy.

“I have someone I want to introduce you to as well,” Seungkwan said, motioning for Jihoon to follow him. “Funny how you’ve just introduced me to the woman from your camp story,” he continued softly, leading the way over to the piano and the woman in the green dress.

Jihoon’s eyes widened as Seungkwan glanced back at him. He must have noticed the look in Jihoon’s eye because he immediately followed it with “if I can’t ask, neither can you.”

You followed behind Jihoon as he and Seungkwan walked to the other side of the stage. Your mother had been calling all throughout the show and you were only now able to take her call.

“I told you I’m not going to be visiting tonight,” you said under your breath. “I have plans.”

“You always have plans. You’re always busy,” your mother snapped. “Too busy to spend time with your family.”

You held back the urge to snap at her. It had been like this ever since you left home. Moving out as soon as you were able to. Living with your mother and stepfather had been… hell. A lot of your adult life had been spent attending therapy to undo the years of abuse.

Now that you weren’t financially dependent on them, you were trying to distance yourself before going no contact but it was difficult. She was still your mother after all.

“I’m out with a friend right now,” you said calmly. You didn’t have time for this nor did you want it to ruin your night, not when things were going so well. “Goodnight, mother.”

Before she could respond, you hung up and put your phone on Do Not Disturb mode. You looked up as Jihoon was speaking to Seungkwan, the pianist looking at you with a kind smile on her face. One you returned before Jihoon glanced at you.

“Sorry Kwan,” Jihoon said softly. “But I’ve got plans.” You noticed how his friend gave him a knowing look and Jihoon turned towards you. “Come on,” he said softly. “Are you hungry?” he asked as he led you towards the exit. You nodded. “I could eat.”

“Perfect,” Jihoon said with a smile. “I’m starving.”

Outside the gymnasium, the food stalls were still selling food. Jihoon led the way over to one, looking at the menu before asking what you wanted. After perusing the menu for a moment, the two of you settled on some eomuk, tteokbokki, and soondae.

You grabbed two waters from the vendor and followed Jihoon over to one of the tables he’d managed to snag. “I haven’t had soondae in so long,” he commented as he handed you a pair of chopsticks. Soondae wasn’t your favorite food but it went well with the tteok so you weren’t complaining.

“So,” Jihoon finally said after a moment of sampling the food. “What were you saying before the show? You changed your major?” he asked. You nodded, chewing on your bite of tteokbokki before swallowing. “Yeah. I switched from music to nutrition,” you answered.

Jihoon’s brows rose. “That’s quite the switch,” he said. “What made you change?”

You hesitated, wondering if you should tell him the truth. The one thing you remembered most about him was that he never judged you when you talked before. He never once made you feel like you couldn’t tell him anything. He’d always provided you with a judgment free safe space.

So you decided to come clean.

“My home life wasn’t exactly the best,” you started, watching as he stabbed a piece of fishcake with a toothpick. “My father died when I was a kid and mom remarried. Mom wasn’t always the… nicest person to be around but it only got worse after dad died. She got even meaner. And her new husband… he was just as bad as she was.”

You hesitated, taking a sip of water before continuing your story.

“I won’t bore you with the details but there was a lot of gaslighting, manipulation, and other similar tactics they used to try and guilt me into doing the things they wanted. When I went off to college, I realized that I wouldn’t have to live with them forever so I focused on trying to do what I loved and making a career out of it.”

Jihoon said nothing, letting you continue without interruptions.

“But I realized that making a career out of music wasn’t easy. And I didn’t want to have to go back to that house. It would make leaving that much harder. So I changed majors. Starting a course for nutrition, knowing I could land a job right out of college with it. But that meant I had to take less arts courses. Which also included band.”

You tried to mask the pain in your voice but Jihoon could apparently still hear it, taking that moment to reach out and place his hand over yours. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t have had to make that kind of choice.” You looked up, giving him a small smile. “Thank you,” you said softly, placing your other hand over his. “It sucked but I actually love my job now,” you added.

“It’s not music, but I still love where I work and what I do.”

The conversation shifted after that and once you’d eaten, Jihoon found himself asking if you needed a ride home and you thankfully took him up on his offer. The ride was mostly silent except for you giving him directions softly over the sound of the music that played in the background.

“I can’t believe you took a cab two hours out of the city to go to the festival,” he said as he reached the outskirts of the city. “Well, had I known we lived in the same city and you were coming,” you started, giving him a smile. Jihoon chuckled lightly, resting his hand on the console.

You turned your head to look out your window, your hand resting on your thigh. He was tempted to reach over and take your hand. You’d let him hold it as you walked around the festival, looking at the light displays and ice sculptures and it reminded him of when you’d sneak into his tent and the two of you would lay tangled up on his cot, talking for hours and he would play with your hands, tracing the lines on your palm and lacing his fingers with yours mindlessly.

Going against his better judgment, Jihoon took your hand in his, grateful you didn’t pull away but instead embraced his touch, tracing patterns into the back of his hand with your fingers. Jihoon said nothing, instead enjoying your light touches.

As he pulled up to your building, he felt his heart sink. This was it. He didn’t know when he’d get to see you again, if at all. As he was prepared to say goodbye and possibly ask for your number, you turned to him, giving him a smile.

“Thank you for the ride,” you said softly. Jihoon smiled back. “You’re welcome. And thank you for staying behind and spending some time with me. It made the trip out there a lot more worth it.” He noticed the way your eyes flickered down and back up but before he could even get so much as a word out, you leaned across the console.

Jihoon reacted before he had time to think, meeting you in the middle, one hand moving to the back of your neck as your lips crashed against his. He heard you whine into the kiss, lips parting and tongue slipping into his mouth.

Jihoon didn’t want the moment to end but his lungs started begging for air and he reluctantly pulled back, panting as did you, resting your forehead against his. Neither one of you said anything as you tried to catch your breaths. Finally you broke the silence.

“You want to come up?” you asked softly. Jihoon sighed, pulling back to look at you, hand moving to cup your cheek.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Jihoon pulled into a parking space on the street, getting out before pulling your door open for you and helping you out. You led the way, your hand in his as you pulled him through the lobby and past the concierge desk. The ride up to the elevator, you kept a firm grip on his hand and it was only once you were inside your apartment that Jihoon lost his composure.

You let out a giggle as he kicked the door shut with a little more force than necessary. “Sorry,” he murmured, hands moving to your sweater and pulling it up. You helped him by removing your coat and letting it fall to the floor before lifting your arms as he pulled your sweater off over your head.

“Come here,” he murmured, pulling you closer as you tried to lead him through the apartment, giggling as he tried to stop you from moving. “Stop moving,” he whined. You pulled back to look at him. “Do you want to fuck me here or in the bedroom?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

Jihoon’s brow furrowed as he looked at you before cupping your face in his palm, running his thumb over your bottom lip. “I don’t want to fuck you, Y/N,” he whispered, eyes scanning your face. Your own brows knitted together in confusion as you stared back at him leaning in, lips inches from yours.

“I want to make love to you.”

You felt heat rise to your cheeks, the urge to turn and hide your face from him nearly winning except he pulled you into a kiss. “Last time we did this, it ended up going nowhere,” he continued in between kisses as he guided you backwards through your apartment in the direction he had hoped was your room. “I don’t want this time to be just meaningless sex.”

You nodded, following his lips as he pulled back to look at you. “Y/N,” Jihoon said, taking your face in his hands so he could hold you in place and look in your eyes. “I mean it,” he added. “I don’t want this to be just another hook up.. I want this to mean something.” You nodded, looking back at him.

“I know,” you confirmed. “I heard you. I want it to mean something, too.”

Jihoon hesitated, making sure he heard you correctly. “Wait, really?” he asked.

You nodded, leaning in to kiss him. “Yes,” you murmured against his lips. “I do, but I also really want you right now,” you added, pulling him to the door of your room, passing the other doors entirely. Jihoon stopped you before you could open the door, taking both your hands in his. “So if we do this, you’ll let me take you on dates? We can spend time at each other’s places, watch movies, make dinner together?” You smiled, chuckling softly at the potential memories you could make.

“Yes,” you said with a nod. “We can do all of that but right now,” you continued, pulling a hand from his to push open your bedroom door. “I really need your cock inside me.” Jihoon let out a sound like a mix between a growl and a groan, his hand finding its way to the back of your neck and pulling you into a kiss, his tongue slipping into your mouth.

The two of you stumbled into your room, somehow managing to not break the kiss until the back of your legs bumped into your bed. Jihoon wasted no time in pushing you back onto the mattress. Before he could follow, you held him in place by the hips before moving your hands to undo the button and zipper of his pants. You felt his hand cup your chin, tilting your head back.

“You don’t have to do that,” he started. You smiled up at him, lips parting slightly as his thumb brushed over your bottom lip. The tip of your tongue peeked out to taste his thumb and soon he had it in your mouth, pressing against your tongue as you pulled his pants and underwear slowly down, taking your time. You’d forgotten how big he was as his cock sprang free once you’d pulled his underwear down far enough. You continued to push them down before wrapping your fingers around the base of his cock.

Jihoon let out a low hiss as you squeezed him. He pulled his thumb from your mouth, hand moving to the back of your head. “Make it quick,” he said in a low tone, his voice shaky. “Wanna be inside you.”

You opened your mouth, jaw falling slack as he guided your head towards him, the tip of his cock resting against your tongue. He groaned as he pushed your head further, filling your mouth. He kept pulling your head closer under all of his cock disappeared in your mouth.

“Fuck,” he rasped out, his breath still shaky despite his attempts to even it. You pulled back only for him to pull you back closer, setting a steady rhythm as he used your mouth. The only sounds that could be heard were the wet sounds of his cock hitting the back of your throat and his strained groaning.

You closed your eyes, letting yourself get lost in the feeling of his hot cock on your tongue and the salty taste of his precum mixed with your saliva which had started to spill out of your mouth, falling onto your bare chest. Jihoon let out a particularly low groan, forcing his cock into your mouth, the head squeezing into your throat as he came unexpectedly, his cum spilling down your throat.

Thinking quickly on your feet (or not in this case as you were sitting down), you swallowed all of it.

“Fuck,” he cursed, breaths coming out in pants. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he grumbled, pulling your head back and his cock from your mouth. You shook your head, looking up at him. “S’okay,” you replied as he pulled his shirt off and carefully wiped your lips, chin, and chest with it before tossing it to the floor.

“Let me take care of you, yeah?” he said softly, guiding you onto your back before stripping you of your leggings and panties, letting them fall to the floor. Jihoon climbed over you, leaning in to press a quick kiss to your lips before he started kissing down your chest, stopping to pay special attention to your breasts. You sighed, back arching as you felt his tongue drag lazily over your nipple.

“God,” you heard him groan against your skin, his breath hot. “Have I ever told you how fucking beautiful you are?” he asked softly. You moaned, his hand kneading your breast as he started kissing down your stomach. He slid off the bed, grabbing you by the hips and pulling you to the edge of the bed.

“I don’t care how pathetic it sounds,” he started as he forced your thighs apart. “I’m so fucking in love with your body. With you.” You felt his lips on the inside of your thighs, leaving a trail of kisses from your knee and moving closer and closer to your aching core.

Just as he reached your mound, he pulled back, repeating the same on the other thigh. You gasped as he stopped to nip at the skin, sinking his teeth into your soft flesh. “Gonna mark you up so everyone knows you’re mine,” he muttered so low you almost didn’t hear it.

You let out a whine as his mouth moved closer and closer to where you wanted it. “Please,” you breathed. “Don’t tease me anymore, Hoonie.” Jihoon nearly melted when you used that nickname. “I don’t plan on it, angel,” he said softly, his hot breath fanning over your sex. “Wanna taste you so bad I can barely stand it.” You whined, legs spreading at the sound of his voice. “Please, Jihoon.”

You heard Jihoon chuckle lightly; felt his breath on you. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “Just let me take care of you.” That was the last thing he said before you felt him lick slowly up your sex, spreading your folds to expose your slit. His tongue passed over it, dragging up to your clit before sucking, making you mewl in surprise as the tip of his tongue flicked against it rapidly.

He pulled back, giving your clit a slow lick, glancing up at you where he could see your chest heaving.

One of your hands moved down to comb through his hair, fingers tangling in his locks as your hips started to move. Jihoon grabbed your hips to hold you in place. “Ah, shit,” you whined as he impeded your movements, holding your hips in place.

You propped yourself up on your elbow to look down at him. His eyes were shut, tongue flat as he ran it over your clit repeatedly. You pushed his hair back off his forehead, groaning as you felt your thighs start to tremble. “Jihoon,” you whined, trying to move your hips. He groaned against you, his hands moved, arms wrapping around your thighs.

He pulled back only for a moment to speak. “Go ahead, baby,” he urged. “Ride my tongue.”

His tongue was back on your clit, groaning as he tasted you. You started to roll your hips, grinding your clit against his tongue like he asked, letting out almost pornagraphic moans as your orgasm approached. “Fu-fuck. I’m gonna cum,” you announced, thighs shaking as your walls clenched around nothing.

A wave of euphoria washed over you as you finally came with a broken cry of Jihoon’s name. Your hips slowed to a halt. Jihoon pulled back, grabbing his shirt from the floor to wipe his chin before guiding you back up the bed, lips meeting yours as he laid against you, between your thighs. You could feel his cock poke against your thigh and you whined, wiggling your hips.

“Want it,” you murmured against his lips, pouting when he pulled away to look at you. “Want what, baby?” he asked with a hint of amusement in his voice. “Your cock,” you pouted harder. “Inside me. Want it so bad.”

Jihoon let out a light chuckle at your pouting despite his cock twitching at the thought of being inside you. “You sure you can take it without prep?” he asked, kissing across your cheek. You nodded fervently. “Yes,” you breathed. “I can take it.”

Jihoon fought the urge to laugh, opting to smirk instead as he pulled back, cupping your cheek in one hand. “Alright,” he cooed. “Where do you keep your condoms?” You turned your head, pointing to your bedside table. Jihoon leaned over, pulling open the drawer and reaching in to find the box of condoms. He also found a bottle of lube as well as a small ping bullet vibrator.

‘Another time,’ he told himself as he pulled out a condom, shutting the drawer again and sitting up to open the condom. He rolled the latex down his length. “You sure you don’t need me to stretch you first?” he asked, looking down at you. Shaking your head, you reached out for him. “No, just need it now.”

Jihoon couldn’t help the soft laugh that escaped him as he took one of your hands, the other guiding his cock to your entrance. “Squeeze my hand if it hurts,” he said before taking a deep breath. You nodded, looking up at him with expectant eyes.

Jihoon slowly pushed into you, letting out a groan as your walls welcomed him. You let out a whine but didn’t give his hand a squeeze so he continued, gliding into you with ease. “You feel so good,” Jihoon groaned as he stilled, his cock fully enveloped in your warmth.

“So fucking good, baby.”

You whined in response. “Feels so full,” you commented. “Yeah?” Jihoon whispered, moving his hand to cup your cheek. You nodded, a choked moan coming from the back of your throat as he pulled back, softly thrusting into you. “Sshit,” Jihoon cursed under his breath.

He gave you another slow thrust, slowly increasing speed until he was at a slower pace. You whined, moving your hips to meet his. You wanted him to really fuck you properly. “Jihoon,” you said his name, licking your lips. “Please move.” Jihoon let out a soft laugh, moving his hand down to the front of your throat. “I am moving, baby,” he replied.

“Faster,” you whined, frustration setting in. You heard another soft chuckle from him and decided to take matters into your own hands. You moved so quickly, it took Jihoon a moment to register what just happened.

One minute he had you flat on your back as he thrusted slowly into you, the next, he was on his back and you were on top, fingers gripping the sheets under him as you rolled your hips much faster than he was giving you, riding him. His hands flew to your waist, trying to hold you still.

“Stop it,” he groaned, cock twitching inside you when your walls clenched. “I’m trying not to cum so quickly.” You whimpered, moving your hips faster. “Sorry,” you whined. “I just need more.” Jihoon let out a growl, flipping you back over on your back as he hovered over you.

“I was trying to be sweet,” he murmured, one hand moving to your throat and gripping it firmly but not cutting off your air intake. “But you’re acting like such a brat right now.” He slowed his thrusts, despite your protests. “Jihoon!” you pleaded. “Please just fuck me already.”

He shook his head, keeping the same steady pace. “I already told you, baby,” he started. “I don’t wanna fuck you.” He leaned over, pressing his lips to yours. “But if you don’t stop acting like a brat, I will fuck you and you won’t get to cum.” You whined, shaking your head. “Okay, I’m sorry,” you backpedaled.

There was no way you were going to let him deny you your orgasm. “I promise I’ll behave.”

Jihoon gave you a teasing smirk. “Good girl.”

Your walls clenched around him and he let out a moan. “Keep doing that,” he gasped when you did it again, this time intentionally. “Are you close?” you asked, looking up at him. He nodded, eyes fluttering shut. “I’m almost there,” you replied. Without needing to ask, Jihoon moved his hand to your face, pushing his thumb between your lips and gathering your spit before moving the same hand down to rub your clit in time with his thrusts.

“Come on, baby. Cum with me.”

Your back arched off the mattress with a mewl as Jihoon drove you both closer and closer to the edge. “That’s it, pretty girl,” Jihoon murmured. “God look at you. So fucking beautiful. And all mine, aren’t you?” he continued. You nodded wordlessly. “Say it,” Jihoon growled. “Say you’re mine.”

Your lips parted but the only thing that came out was a moan of his name. You felt him snap his hips hard against you. “Say it. Tell me you’re mine. Only I get to have you like this.” His thrusting turned into pounding, the sound of skin on skin growing in volume and your moans increasing in pitch.

“I’m yours,” you managed to gasp. “Only yours, Hoonie.”

Jihoon let out a deep moan, hips stuttering as he came, filling the condom. He continued to thrust, riding out his high as he brought you with him, pushing you over the edge after a couple more thrusts and hissing when he felt your nails dig into his arm as your cunt convulsed around his cock.

Instead of collapsing on you like his body wanted, he chose to carefully pull out of you and roll onto his back, eyes fluttering shut as he tried to regain his composure, breathing slowly to calm his heart rate.

His lips pulled into a smile as he felt your fingers card through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead before you leaned into him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. He turned his head, capturing your lips with his. “You’re sweaty,” he murmured as you partially draped yourself over him.

He heard you scoff lightly. “As if you aren’t covered in sweat right now too,” you retorted, making him laugh, the sound of it musical and light to you. “We should probably get cleaned up,” you murmured, lightly tracing the curve of his cheek with your fingers.

Jihoon grabbed your hand, eyes still shut and brought the back of your hand to his lips, kissing the back of it. He finally let his eyes flutter open and looked up at you. “Later,” he murmured. “Let me take care of this first,” he added, sitting up to remove the condom, tying the end before tossing it into the small waste bin beside your nightstand.

He laid back down, arm wrapping around you as you laid your chin on his chest, looking at his face as he shut his eyes again, chest rising and falling as his breathing finally returned to normal. Silence washed over the two of you as you continued to stare at him. He looked as if he’d fallen asleep but he opened one eye to look at you through a squint.

“It’s not nice to stare,” he said, his voice gravelly. “I can’t help it,” you replied. “You’re just so pretty to look at.” Jihoon felt heat rise to his face, extending into the tips of his ears which he was sure were red now. “You can’t say stuff like that and expect me to not fall for you,” he replied, rolling onto his side, his other arm coming to wrap around you and pull you closer.

“Maybe that’s what I want,” you replied. Jihoon murmured something into your hair, making you ask him to repeat it. “I said go to sleep,” he said a little louder. “We can shower, stare, and talk in the morning.”

You grumbled, letting your head fall against his bicep under you. “Fine,” you muttered, eyes sliding shut.

You weren’t sure how quickly you’d fallen asleep but when you woke up, it was already morning. Bright light filtered into the room through your blinds as you blinked the sleep away and started to stir. You felt warmth behind you and turned your head to find Jihoon fast asleep, one arm under the pillow under your head and the other wrapped around your waist.

Sometime in the night, Jihoon must have woken up and put both of you under the covers. You stretched your arms in front of you, letting out a yawn and started to sit up. You were held in place as Jihoon curled both arms tighter around you and grumbled.

“I have to get up,” you whined, to which he murmured a no in your shoulder as he ducked his head in the crook of your neck. “Jihoon!” you admonished as he started pressing light kisses to your neck and shoulder, making you giggle as you tried to free yourself from his iron grip.

“No,” he whined as you peeled his arms back and managed to escape, sitting up and scooting to the edge of the bed. You got up, letting the sheets fall as Jihoon made a swipe for you but missed. He fell back against the pillows, pouting at you as you walked away from the bed and over to your bathroom.

“I’m taking a shower,” you announced, looking back over your shoulder at him. “You’re welcome to join me if you’d like,” you added before stepping into the bathroom and closing the door until it was open a crack.

Jihoon rolled his eyes and turned over to grab his phone from the nightstand. He checked the time and saw he had several missed texts from Soonyoung. He ignored them, locking the screen before setting his phone back down and sitting up. He’d deal with his roommate later.

Getting up from the bed, Jihoon padded over to the bathroom door where he could now hear the shower running. He pushed open the door and peered in. The curtain was pulled closed and he assumed you were already in there. He pushed the door open fully before shutting it behind him to trap all the warm air before walking over and pulling back the curtain to find you standing under the stream, water cascading down your body.

He stepped in behind you as you turned to him. “Morning,” he murmured, hands moving to your waist and pulling you into a kiss. “Mm, morning,” you replied as you pulled back and started to grab your body wash and a washrag. Jihoon took the items from you, giving you a smirk when you raised your brow.

“Let me,” he simply said, squeezing the soap onto the washrag. “Gives me an excuse to touch you all over.” You rolled your eyes as he started to scrub the soap onto your body. “Never knew you were so big into body worship,” you joked as he turned you away to scrub your back with a hum.

“I think it’s just you,” he replied, running his hand over your body, spreading the soap further. You leaned back against him as his hand not holding the cloth traveled down your stomach. “Really?” you asked as his fingers dipped between your thighs, his lips kissing at your jaw. “Yes, really,” he murmured.

“Just let me take care of you, yeah?”

You snorted, letting out a moan as his fingers moved against your clit. “You said that last night, too,” you breathed, head falling back against his shoulder as he continued to play with your clit and scrub your body at the same time, moving the washcloth carefully over your breasts.

“Baby, I’ll keep saying that to you every day and every night if you’ll let me.”

You let out a whine of protests when he withdrew his hand from your sex. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he chuckled. “Let me finish washing you and then I’ll give you what you want.” You groaned in annoyance as he merely laughed at your impatience. “You better,” you replied. “Now I’m horny again.”

Jihoon stayed true to his words, washing and rinsing your body before he satisfied both your appetites by fucking you against the tile wall and pulling out to cum on your ass which quicky washed away under the stream of hot water. Once both clean and dry and Jihoon had a couple of marks littering his neck and shoulders, you headed out to the kitchen to start making breakfast, thanking your automatic coffee maker for doing its job and making a pot of hot coffee.

Jihoon joined you moments later, wearing only his underwear. “Where are my clothes?” he asked as he approached the kitchen. “In the wash,” you replied. “I thought it would be nice to go home in clean clothes,” you replied. He grumbled about being cold and you let out a laugh.

“Grab a blanket then, you big baby,” you replied. “Or you can check my closet. I’m pretty sure I have some old things that will fit you,” you added. Jihoon padded back down the hall to your room, entering your bathroom and walking into your closet. He started to search, wondering why you would have something that fit him.

He ended up finding a pair of plaid men’s pajama pants and eyed them suspiciously. He grabbed them and carried them back out to the kitchen where you were cooking. “Are these okay?” he asked, holding up his find. You eyed them and nodded. “Yeah, those are my brother’s. They got mixed up in my stuff when I went home during college and my mom did my laundry. I just kept them,” you replied.

Jihoon felt instantly much better and quickly pulled the pants on and walked around the counter to prepare a mug of coffee. The two of you stood in the kitchen in comfortable silence as he made his coffee and you cooked breakfast, stirring the eggs.

“So,” Jihoon finally said after taking a sip and leaning against the counter behind you as you worked. “Are we going to talk about this?” he asked. “About what?” you asked, not looking back at him but lifting your head so he knew you were paying attention.

“About this. About us,” he answered, gesturing between the two of you, even if you weren’t looking to see. “Well,” you started. “What do you want to talk about? Do you want to define things?” you asked. Jihoon contemplated for a moment before responding.

“I’d like to know what direction we’re heading,” he answered. “Are we together? Are we dating? What does this mean to you?” You lifted slices of cooked bacon out of the pan, dividing them between the two plates on the counter before cracking open the eggs.

“I want something more than just sex,” you said as you cracked the eggs one by one. “I said this last night and it’s still true today. I want more than a sexual relationship with you, Jihoon.”

Jihoon set his mug down and closed the distance between the two of you, leaning against the counter next to you. “I want that too,” he stated. “I’ve wanted that since camp,” he added, moving his hand to take your chin in his hand and turn your face towards him.

“It’s a little backwards,” he started as he let go of you, watching you stir the eggs, the clear parts turning white as they cooked. “But I want to take you on a date. I know we’ve already hooked up a few times,” he continued. “But I really like you, Y/N,” he said softly, heart skipping a beat as you smiled shyly at his admission. “I like you too, Jihoon,” you answered softly.

“So let me take you on a date,” he countered. “We can go on a date, see each other outside of the bedroom for once.” You let out a giggle as you stirred the eggs, making sure they were fully cooked before plating them. “Alright, Mr. Romantic,” you said, turning off the stove and turning to him, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Let’s go on a date.”

Jihoon lifted a brow. “Mr. Romantic?” he asked, sounding thoroughly offended, making you laugh loudly before pulling him in for a kiss. “You’re so annoying,” he mumbled against your lips, his smile holding nothing but adoration for your antics. “You still like me though, right?” you asked softly.

Jihoon nodded, reaching up to cup your cheek.

“Definitely,” he answered. “Hell,” he continued, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to your lips.

“I might even love you.”

ⓘ Graphics made by me. Content and support banners made using a template by cafekitsune. I do not allow reposts, translations, or continuations of my works. All writing and graphics are ©️ kwanisms.

#svthub #ksmutsociety #seventeen scenarios #seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfiction #seventeen fanfic #seventeen smut #seventeen x reader #woozi scenarios #woozi imagines #woozi fanfiction #woozi fanfic #woozi smut #woozi x reader #tales from camp holiday special

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zalia · 4 months

Text

Experiencing Destiny 1 as a D2 player

I picked up Destiny 1 in a sale recently despite being told a lot about its problems, and honestly I'm really enjoying playing it! I feel a bit like a time traveller visiting important places and events from the past.

I also have friends who played Destiny nearly from the beginning and it's fun to go back and go 'ooooh that's what they were talking about!'. I am also very aware that if I had started playing it without already being invested, I would be having considerably less fun. (Also, being fair, much of the fun is doubtless novelty after playing *mumbletymumble* hours of D2 over the past couple of years).

But it's genuinely been really interesting from a design and narrative perspective going back to it and seeing where the story began and how things have changed and I wanted to ramble about it. Full disclosure, I have played up through the first couple of missions of The Taken King. There are also things I can't comment on such as Crucible (because getting enough players for a match has not happened yet), events (no longer happening) etc. Also haven't managed to run a raid yet but hopefully will eventually!

I will start with the bad, to get it over with. A lot of stuff here will be well known and honestly it's probably less interesting than the good/thinky stuff.

The Bad

Oh boy I have maligned D2's New Light introduction so badly since it is miles ahead of D1 just by merit of actually having one! D1 gives you the opening run through the Cosmodrome where they tell you what buttons to use and then refuses to explain anything ever again. (This very definitely ties into it being a game I enjoy now but would probably not have enjoyed if I wasn't already invested)

You don't realise how many QoL improvements D2 has until you have to go to orbit and select a new destination every single time. Also no fast travel points. And no you cannot just look at a map of the place you're traversing. Fashion is difficult too.

Up until Taken King, I am not sure why they bothered hiring voice actors for anyone except Ghost, Elsie Bray, and maybe the Speaker. And I have no idea why they hired Bill Nighy for that part (I mean I do, it's because they wanted to use Big Names for marketing but still...). The Vanguard could easily be replaced with cardboard cutouts because they are basically uninvolved in anything until Taken King begins. I know they aren't involved in every seasonal plot now, but they do appear and develop.

The story and writing is... well, it makes an attempt to exist. It does not succeed until The Taken King. I went in knowing what happens in the story and I'm still not actually sure what happens in the story because it is basically someone's pre-first draft bullet points of a narrative. The only reason I knew I was starting different storylines is because the mission popup tells you which storyline it is. 'I don't have time to explain why I don't have time to explain' is a meme for a reason, but another bit which I think illustrates the point well is from House of Wolves. Petra tells you that Skolas has entered the Vault of Glass and this is bad so you need to stop him. It is never explained before then what the Vault of Glass is, what it does, why it would be bad for Skolas to be in there, or... anything. While D2 can be obtuse, and sometimes leaves important info in easily overlooked lore tabs (or in vaulted content), it at least tries to tell you what the story is. I feel like D1 actively resents that players do not read the bullet points and fill in everything the writers had in their heads. Another example is the Devil's Lair strike. it's the first one you take on in D1, and after doing it in D2, I was expecting backstory and build up. Nope, you just get sent in with nothing to really explain what is going on, who the House of Devils are, what a Servitor is... I know it had troubled development and the story got torn apart and remade very close to launch, and it really shows in the early stuff. It's a series of missions that were made and then had to be strung together with the thinnest of threads. It gets better in Taken King, but at times is still not great. You first encounter the Taken on Phobos, I think Ghost asks about what they are. I was expecting more discussion about them and what they are and how horrifying it is. But nope, they just exist now and we're all fine with that.

So. Much. Grinding. The pinnacle grind was annoying in D2, the grind to just get your light up in D1 is so much worse. You will be doing bounties desperately to try to get your rep up with the various groups just so you can actually get fragments of story and quests. You will be grinding just to level up your subclass and it takes ages.

The places you visit are very expansive - even the Cosmodrome is significantly larger - which is great when they're used well, but a lot of the time they feel very empty, there to make you play for longer to get between areas than because there is anything to do.

The Good

The game is gorgeous! I'm loving getting to see Venus and Mars and the Dreadnaught. They're beautiful environments. Everything feels very expansive which can be very cool (as above, it can also be less good). When used well, it feels like there are so many mysteries and secrets hidden in this abandoned world. There are hidden bunkers and spaces, huge Vex structures and ruined cities, tunnels burrowed beneath the Cosmodrome and the Taken King's dreadnaught. It's genuinely fun to explore (up to a point).

It does an excellent job of making you genuinely feel like it's post-apocalyptic and the existence of humanity is precarious. And you, the Guardian, are brand new and everything is trying to kill you. You don't have multiple gods stored in your vault in the form of guns! Everything feels more dangerous. For example, I think if D2 is your intro, you look back at the Great Disaster and the first Crota fireteam and go 'but how did that happen when I go onto the moon and take out ogres with a single punch? The biggest threat in the Abyss in Crota's End is falling into a pit or getting hit by a pendulum! Yeah no I get it now. In D1 you are much less powerful and it makes swarming thralls and normal enemies much more of a threat. Things feel dangerous in a way that D2 rarely manages. I'll talk about this a bit more in depth later.

By making your supers and abilities less powerful, they have weirdly made them more useful. In D2 I usually save mine for bosses since it feels like a waste to use them on normal enemies. In D1, it makes absolute sense to use your abilities basically as soon as you have them. You should absolutely use your Golden Gun on a normal Hive Knight or Fallen Vandal!

There's some great atmospheric touches. I love hearing the snippets of distorted music when I'm near a Rasputin bunker. Going into some of the ruined buildings on Mars or Venus where it's dark and suddenly seeing so many red Vex eyes staring back at you is chilling.

The opening mission of Taken King is fantastic. Genuinely creepy and the Taken in general in D1 feel much scarier and threatening than in D2.

All the different enemy factions are different colours and designs! I love that!

Weapons still go brrrrr in a very pleasing way. And getting new gear feels genuinely satisfying in a way that it rarely does in D2. I junk 99% of the armour and guns I get in D2, in D1 I end up being much more considering of whether something is useful. Legendary weapons and armour feel precious!

I keep picking up random Warmind weapons to turn into Banshee that I know lead to an exotic quest and I am enjoying the feeling of that being another Secret Thing I am discovering.

Honestly, I really like Banshee's weapon bounties - you get given a prototype weapon to test out and gather data by doing certain things (killing X number of a certain enemy etc.) and that gains you rep. And you can then order a legendary version of the weapon from him to be delivered the next Wednesday.

Thoughts/Observations

Knowing that the 'original' story was seemingly going to focus more on Rasputin, and an exo version of him getting stolen by the Hive makes the appearance of some of the Hive areas on the Moon make more sense. There's some bits that are high tech in a way that feels very at-odds with what we see of the Dreadnaught and, other Hive locations which lean much more towards the organic and magical.

Similarly, Rise of Iron feels a lot more hard sci-fi than much of what Destiny has become, and has such a huge Rasputin focus. I believe it was partially developed by an outside studio, so I do wonder if it was based, at least in part, on the 'original' story of Destiny, and was either too far into development, or the other studio just never got the memo about the change in tone.

Vaguely related to the above, but way more speculative, I wonder if Banshee was originally meant to be a Rasputin exo, then that story got shifted to Felwinter, but the seeds were used for the story of Banshee having been Clovis Bray.

Honestly while it's fun to think about, in general I find the obsession parts of the Destiny community have with 'the original story' (of the 'maybe they're finally going back to the original story!' type where the unspoken idea is that this was the perfect undiluted pure story that was 100% planned and set in stone) to be fundamentally misunderstanding how creating stories work. I can guarantee that even if that first story had been used, after 10 years of multiple writers etc. it would still be in a very different place than where the people who came up with it initially thought it would go. It would have evolved and changed and shifted, even if it was following the same vague plan. That's just what stories do.

Oh wow, suddenly all the Nightmare Hunts in Shadowkeep make way more sense! I get it now!

Actually I get a lot of references now XD

Oh wow Shaxx sounds so depressed. I guess this was before he started therapy.

So many identical caves...

Thoughts on Power Creep

D1 leans much more into the post-apocalyptic setting and it does an excellent job of making the existence of the Last City, humanity, and Guardians feel precarious. Everything seems more dangerous, more of a threat. You really are part of the last bastion of humanity. And there's a few ways this is done.

First, you are much less powerful. Yes, you have supers and grenades, but they do much less damage (and are much less flashy) than in D1. There has been a huge amount of power creep! You won't be one-shotting bosses, even normal Vanguard Strike bosses with golden gun easily.

Legendary weapons feel rare and special, and I am still using Blue weapons at times because sometimes I have to just to get the higher light level. I have reached level 40 and have only just got my first exotic armour pieces which I bought from Xur! They are FR0ST-EE5, an exotic I have never bothered with in D2, but in D1 the recharge for abilities when sprinting is genuinely handy. I don't have any exotic weapons at all yet!

It leads to a very different playstyle - I play much more carefully because I cannot just charge in with something like Osteo Striga and wipe out a room with a few shots. In D2 we have killed multiple gods, taken down an Empire, and forged alliances. In D1, we're just some random Guardian and the gameplay reflects this.

And I hate to say this, but I also kind of get the YouTube/Stream BNFs who complain about things not being hard enough. It's just... they're completely wrong about the reasons and the solutions.

They seem to think that what is needed is more enemies with higher health, and nerf Divinity because it makes it too easy, and everything should be designed to stop normal players being able to do it. And it... it doesn't work? Ghosts of the Deep was fun, but holy fuck the health bars on the enemies make it feel grindy and dragged out. Legend Avalon was a slog because there's Too Much - too many elements at the same time so it's just overwhelming instead of fun. (Starcrossed on legend is tough, but feels more enjoyable and managable. I'm looking forward to doing it again instead of dreading it).

More difficulty isn't what makes D1 feel harder, being weaker is what does this. I have no doubt that if I could put my D2 stuff against D1 enemies I would decimate them. But in D1 I am a lone Guardian with scavenged gear and yes, I have the Light and can be resurrected, and it gives me an edge vs normal humans, but not a crazy amount.

In D2 I have so many exotics and weapons that I can just throw them away. I can have intricately crafted builds to take on any enemies! I am basically one of the most powerful entities in the solar system.

And that's not something you can really scale back. They did it with Red War at the start of D2. Maybe they could do it as a result of Final Shape and do smaller stories focused on Earth and recovery and what you even do after your purpose for fighting for so long is gone (and I think there is value in those stories! I would love it personally). But uh... I don't think most people would actually be happy having everything nerfed on such a scale. Give up your 999,999 Celestial Nighthawk boss damage, for a Golden Gun that with a bit of luck might one-shot a yellowbar?

Give up a lot of creativity in terms of what you use and how you play, in exchange for a tougher game with way less choice for builds, but one that is potentially more atmospheric and in-keeping with the post-apocalypse and the dangers of the solar system?

I don't have an answer for that! And it's not even the most important thing. Gamer BNFs gonna always want to prove that they're better than everyone at pressing buttons, and forget that the majority of players are casuals. But it's been interesting playing a different type of difficulty, rather than the forced difficulty of insanely high HP and Too Many Things.

Power creep is a real issue in a lot of long-running media (just look at superhero movies, or many many monster of the week TV shows). You're in a position of feeling like you need to one-up yourself every time. Every new villain has to be the biggest and baddest, and so you have to become more and more powerful to combat that, which means the next villain has to be even bigger and badder.

With Destiny we've gone from a scrappy underdog, to a god-killer.

I'm reminded of Osiris talking about Saint in The Sundial lore.

'I watched him grow from neophyte to demi-god'.

King of fitting for us to have done the same as Saint's inspiration.

#destiny 2 #destiny 1 #destiny the game #meta #gaming #video games #my thoughts

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