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cayofdreams · 3 years

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Down with the Monocracy

(Bratty!Fem!Reader x Bakugou)

Summary: Reader has had a FWB relationship with Bakugou for the past 4 months due to her monstrous sex drive. This relationship however, comes to a brisk end when reader seems to get a boyfriend. Frustrated at your now weird behavior towards him, he decides to get to the bottom of it...in his own way.

Words: 7.5k

Rating: 🌊 Explicit, Smut

Warnings: cursing, bratty/stuck-up reader, implied cheating, heavy orgasm denial, fingering, dirty talking, spanking, degrading, slight breeding

Notes: Hello! This is the first fanfiction I’ve wrote in close to ten years. Its much longer than I intended for a first fanfic but I was desperate to get this out of my brain. I’ll probably chill out and do drabbles for a bit lol. Feel free to give me feedback as I’ve become more-so used to writing research and analysis papers, I wouldn’t be surprised if my fanfic writing is a bit wonky. Anyways, enjoy :-).

*H/N – Hero Name

Harsh pants filled Bakugou’s dorm as the both of you tried to stay quiet. Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero were in the next room playing video games. You could occasionally hear them shouting at one another, a signal that one of them had lost or died in the game. Uraraka, Tsuyu, and Yaoyorozu were in the commons watching some sort of K-drama. You’d hear one of them let out surprised gasp or a giggle in reaction to whatever romantic scene transpired on the screen.

But these outside noises would leave your mind just as quickly as they’d come in due to the pleasure that was currently surging through your body. You were seated in Bakugou’s lap, faced towards his desk, grinding away at his cock trying to chase that pleasure to the maximum. Your hands clutching at the notebooks and flailed papers on his desk. A reminder that once again you guys could not study together for 10 minutes without needing to exhaust the filling sexual tension. Bakugou’s hands were grabbing at your hips, his grasp getting tighter as he got closer and closer to his climax.

“Oi…hurry up and cum..I have somewhere I need to-“ You couldn’t finish your sentence as Bakugou suddenly thrusted upward into you. Immediately you clasped your hands against your mouth to stifle your moans. He smirked at your weak attempt of rushing him.

“Surely…you’re not rushing me.” He lifted you up by your hips so that only the tip of his cock was inside you, before slamming you back down. “When your insatiable pussy is the one who started this.”

You didn’t know if he was talking about your lewd relationship in general, or just today’s scandalous activities. You assumed the latter. Waiting until you could stifle you moan enough to make a sentence, you responded. “…wasn’t me. You kept-“. He slammed into you again. You paused as you held back a groan that so desperately wanted to escape from your throat before continuing. “Kept…feeling up my t-thighs.” You flattened your palms tighter against your mouth as Bakugou increased his pace.

“Hah? So a little graze against your thighs…” He began as he traced his fingernails up and down your thighs. “Gets you like this?” A chuckle escaping him as he watched you struggle to keep your voice down as his cock continued to roughly glide in and out of your trembling walls. You didn’t respond. If you opened your mouth now, there’s no doubt that your classmates would hear the voice that represented the erotic things Bakugou was doing to you in his dorm.

“If your highness wishes me to cum, you better fucking start putting in better work than what you’re doing right now.” Bakugou slapped your thigh as if he were slapping a horse to get them to go faster. You winced as you gripped at the edge of Bakugou’s desk to better stabilize yourself. As soon as you started riding him at a more fierce pace his hands slip up to cup your breasts under your bra. He pinched at your nipples, making you let out a lewd noise that had you worrying if your neighboring classmates heard it.

Bakugou noticed you shoot a glance toward his door, listening to see if you’d been found out, and sucked at his teeth. “You worried about those dumbasses hearing you?” He got up, still inside you, and pressed his hand on your back so that you’d be face down on the desk and ass up in the air. Jutting his hip toward yours, you grunted behind gritted teeth as he leaned over so his lips traced just over your ear. “Hearing what I’m doing to your pussy?” His fingers massaging into your scalp before gripping tightly into your hair. “Fuck those extras. Let them hear.” Moving the hand that was on your back toward yours that were still tightly pressed against your mouth. He pried them away from your face, bringing your arm back so that he could use it as a reign when he began to fuck you. He straightened back up to steady himself firmly on the ground.

“Wait- Baku-! Hnngh!” Bakugou started to rhythmically jam the entirety of his cock inside you. Laughing at you as you struggled to not add on to the lewd noises your sopping mess was making.

“Fuck! L/N!” A hard slap came down on your ass cheek. The pleasurable pain causing your slippery walls to quiver against Bakugou’s cock. Your free hand roaming around the surface of the desk, now crumbling up homework papers under your fingers. “You like this? You like almost being found out by those shitty extras? Fucking pervert. Why don’t you just scream like you want to? I know you’re about to fucking cum.”

Your lips curling in under your teeth, grunts becoming louder and louder as your orgasm approached. The growls of the man behind you adding on to your auditory pleasures, drowning out the yells and cheers of your neighboring classmates. But it was getting harder and harder to hold your voice back, and Bakugou seemed to not give any care as his thrusts got deeper and more forceful.

“Fucking scream, L/N. I want to hear it. Imagine those dumbasses’ faces when you walk out there. Knowing what lewd shit you were doing with me.” He let go of your arm and reached around to wildly circle your clit. “And you portray yourself as some kind of princess. Fucking bullshit.”

You couldn’t hold back anymore. Even as your hand quickly went back to cover your mouth, it wouldn’t be able to hold back the suppressed groan you’d soon let out. “I said fucking-“ Before he could let out his demand the loud exclaims from the adjacent room poured into Bakugou’s. Another loss. Or win. Who gives a shit? All you knew is that those yells allowed you the opportunity to loudly moan Bakugou’s name to your heart’s desire as you finally reached your orgasm.

Bakugou would’ve called you out on cheating if the quivers of your orgasming walls wasn’t forcing him into his own intense wave of pleasure. “Oh shit…L/N…gonna cum. Fuck-“. He let out a couple more rough thrusts before spilling his seed inside the condom. You felt his cock pulsating, a weirdly pleasurable feeling as you were winding down from your own orgasm. Bakugou slipped out of you and slumped back in the chair and you soon followed, falling back into his lap.

Seeing that you were exhausted, he lifted up your leg so that he could reach down and slip off the used condom. Tying it in a single knot at the end and tossing it into the trash nearby. He let his hands softly feel up your thighs and squish your stomach, comforting you as you regained your breaths.

“You imbecile. We could’ve been found out, for real.” You said, pinching his thigh, too tired to hit him.

“Shut up. It doesn’t fucking matter.”

“It WILL matter if there’s ever a headline of us. ‘Upcoming pro-heroes, Ground Zero and H/N CAUGHT fornicating in the dormitories.’ You waved your hands in the air, mimicking a hysterical news reporter.

He chuckled into your back. “You fucking wish you could be in an obscene headline with me”. You sucked your teeth at him.

“Whatever.”

“Are you still going somewhere”

“Are you sane? Like I can move right after that.” You turned to look at him. “Make me some ramen. And don’t add a deadly amount of spice to it, either.” You got up and grabbed some tissues and started to wipe away the seeping wetness off your crotch and thighs.

“Like I’m making you shit! Make it yourself!” Bakugou got up and repositioned his shorts around his waist. Before he could grumble anymore, you placed a kiss on his cheek causing him to turn a deep shade of pink.

“You shouldn’t rebel. It just takes away from energy that’s better spent making that ramen.”

“Honestly, just shut up!” He turned away towards the door but you could still see the pink on the back of his ears.

You chuckled at the slam of the door, your smile widening as you heard him fumbling around in the kitchen.

But the time Bakugou returned with two hot bowls of ramen, you were knocked out asleep.

“…Fucking stuck-up vixen”

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

You sat in the karaoke room with Mina, Kirishima, Kaminari, and Jirou, making you the 5th wheel. But only temporarily, as your friends had supposedly invited a cute guy from a rival hero school to be your date for the evening. You loved being courted by attractive guys, you were a queen after all, so naturally you didn’t turn down the blind date. Though you must admit, since starting your friends-or rather, rivals-with-benefits relationship with Bakugou, you didn’t go out with guys much. You didn’t really see much of a need since your sexual appetite was being satisfied. Bonus points in that since it was no-strings-attached you didn’t have to frolic in romance, leaving you time and energy to concentrate on your hero studies.

“Are you excited, Y/N!? He texted me saying he’s on his way!” Mina was definitely more excited than you were, but you were waiting in anticipation none-the-less. Apparently Kaminari knew the guy, which worried you a bit since Kaminari was a dunce when it came to most things. But after Mina and Jirou reassured you the guy was definitely your type, you became more okay with date.

“Yeah, I suppose. Tardiness deducts points, though.” You playfully declared as the door to the karaoke room slowly opened.

“Aww…don’t be so strict with me, L/N. I’ll cry before I even properly meet you.” You heard a young man say as he entered the room. As soon as you looked at his face, you felt heat rise to your own. He was nothing less than exquisite. You’d never seen hair so soft-looking and flowy, skin so smooth and obviously baby-soft. A piercing pair of eyes that you were scared, or maybe hoped, could see straight through your clothing, into your soul.

“It’s okay if you cry. I like seeing cute boys cry.” You smiled with an obviously feigned innocence as you picked up your drink and sipped from it. He smiled seductively as he sat down right next to you, not leaving any space between your bodies.

“Seijirou!” Kaminari exclaimed, reaching over to fist pump your date. “Glad you could make it, dude!”

“Kaminari, long time no see. We need to have another jam session before we graduate.” The boy named Seijirou cooly stated, returning the fist bump. “Of course with L/N now joining us in the studio” He returned his gaze toward you. “I’m sure her alluring beauty and energy will inspire me with some great melodies”.

God, his coy smile could lead you straight into hell. How hadn’t you met him yet? You almost wanted to curse Kaminari for not introducing this stunningly attractive man to you before.

“Kyaa!! What a natural romantic!!” Mina shouted slapping her hand excitedly on Kirishima’s thigh. “Right, Eiji?!”

“Haha, yeah, babe.” Kirishima replied, taking Mina’s hand in his own to keep her from bruising his thigh.

Jirou reached over to grab the tablet that connected to the karaoke room’s TV screen. “Okay, guys lets get down to jamming.”

“Yeah!” Kaminari wrapped his arm around Jirou, pulling her into his chest as she picked the first song.

“I sure hope your voice is to the same standards as your face, Seiji.” You seductively challenged, looking him right in the eyes.

“I hope so too, I need to earn those points back.” Seijirou replied, his finger tracing slowly on your hand. You chuckled, holding his hand in yours now.

Jackpot, baby

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

After a long and tiring session of belching out everything from cute idol songs, to screaming death metal, it was time to head back home. Everyone was laughing and joking with each other as you all walked back. Everyone was also hand-in-hand with their respective partners, including you and Seijirou’s. In fact your hands had never left each other’s grasps since they first joined at the beginning of the karaoke session. You and Seijirou walked a few steps behind everyone, wanting to mimic any kind of privacy in order to soak in each other’s presence. Kirishima looked behind and noticed this, squeezing Mina’s hand to alert her as well. She grinned ear to ear at the lovely display of romance unfolding.

“Hey, F/N! Are you going home or….will you be continuing your date in private?” Mina winked at you, not at all trying to be discreet about her intentions.

“Oh. I guess I didn’t even think about it”. A total lie. You’d been strategizing how you’d cleverly get into bed with Seijirou since you first heard his pretty voice sing. You wanted to know how he’d moan. How he’d make you moan. If he’d be better than Bakugou.

Woah, how did he cross your mind? You hadn’t even thought about him all night until the potential for good sex crossed your path. But thoughts of him dissipated with the sultry voice of Seijirou.

“I surely don’t mind the extra company. I’ve been dying to share my tea recipe with a worthy guest.” He squeezed your hand. “It’s a special recipe. Made especially for when my throat is sore from an awesome jam session..or when…” He looked directly at you. “When anyone’s throat is sore from using it…extensively.”

Your panties were drenched at this point. Not that they weren’t a bit damp the entire evening. You needed this mysteriously seductive man’s cock inside you. Now.

“Sounds like some delectable tea.” You bit your lip. Seijirou chuckled at you.

“Shame I didn’t bring my car, I’d hate to make you walk all the way back to my place”.

He has a car, too?!

You could throw your panties at him this very moment.

“I don’t mind walking with you, Seijirou.” You smiled up at him, squeezing his hand back.

Catching the mood, the group separated from the two of you, but not without the cheers of Mina encouraging you.

Of course, the two of you didn’t make it to his place. It’d take too long. You needed each other now. So you opted for the love hotel that was only a couple blocks away. As soon as you and Seijirou stepped into the erotically designed room, you jumped on him. He caught you, and you wrapped your leg around his waist. You drowned in each other’s kisses, wanting desperately to become one with each other. You for one, could not wait to see how Seijirou could maneuver his away around your body like he did with your mind.

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

Tapping your pen away on the notebook in front of you, you struggled to digest the information in the textbook. Not even knowing what to highlight anymore, words became more jumbled and muddled as you tried to continue reading. You couldn’t concentrate at all.

Sighing in annoyance, you got up from the common room’s table and went to make something hot to drink in the kitchen. Everyone was most likely asleep by now, but since you couldn’t seem to do so you decided to force yourself into exhaustion with some late-night studying. But unfortunately, despite feeling wide awake, it didn’t seem to help you focus any better in regards to studying. You were never a “studier” anyways.

As you waited for the hot water to boil, you scrolled through phone trying to find an entertaining distraction, settling for the digital magazine of your favorite fashion designer. You didn’t even notice Bakugou stroll into the kitchen

“Oi.”

So startled you almost dropped your phone, you turned around to see the owner of that voice.

“Fucking, hell, Bakugou. You scared the shit out of me.” Clutching at your chest, you tried to ease down the erratic beating of your heart. He always found a way to get an expletive out of you. Bakugou slightly pushed you against the counter to get a better view of your backside.

“Nah, you’re good” Smirking, he went to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water as you rolled your eyes at him. “What are you even doing up anyways? Taking some dumbass selfies?”

“Well, if you’re so interested in the affairs of L/N F/N, I’ll have you know that I was actually studying, like the non-dumbass that I am”.

“Sounds like something a dumbass would say.” Taking a swig from the water bottle, Bakugou took a glance at your side profile, also noticing how revealing your pajamas were. Your pajama shorts were barely covering your plump ass, and the flesh of your thighs slightly spilled over the tightness of your thigh high socks. What the hell were you doing walking around the common area like that? Surely you were waiting for him.

He took a last sip of his water and pinched at your upper thigh.

“Gyah! Bakugou, what the hell?” Your annoyed face being 110% worth the cute noise he was able to force out of you.

“Why are you studying out here? You know you could’ve asked me for help.”. His fingertips still lingering over your thigh, faintly tracing over your skin. You sucked your teeth and lightly pushed his hand away.

“No, I couldn’t’ have.” Your phone buzzed at seemingly the right time; before temptation would get the best of you. You smiled at the recent text message you received, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Bakugou.

Raising an eyebrow, he watched you with suspicion before he made another attempt. This time, he made a squeeze at the squish of your waist. “Oh yeah? And why is that?” You grabbed at his wrist in protest but it only made him dig his fingertips deeper into your flesh. “I know you have needs, Y/N. You haven’t met up with me in the past few days, either.”

The fluster showing on your face didn’t help your denying, but you still tried to step away from him; a fail. He completely closed the distance between you and leaned down toward your ear.

“…Baku-“

“It must be so hard to contain it right now. Those slutty impulses of yours.” He grinned at the way you bit your lip trying to fight off the urges his voice was erupting in you. He knew his effect on you. “So how about you just accept the favor I’m so greatly offering to you and drop those soaked panties and bend over the counter so I can ram this cock into you like-

“I’m seeing someone!” You exclaimed, possible a bit too loud. Bakugou glanced at you as if trying to see if you were really telling the truth or not. You met his gaze with a stern expression. “I’m seeing someone.”

Slowly Bakugou let go of his grasp on you and stepped back. “You fuckin’ serious?”

Slowly nodding your head yes, you straightened back up to continue fixing your drink.

“What fucking psychopath would want to date you? Are you sure he’s real?”.

“I know this may come as a shock to you.” A sly grin appeared on your face. “That I could humble myself enough to share my precious time and energy with someone-“

“Oh, just shut up, already.” Bakugou sat his water bottle down on the counter, looking at it as if thinking deeply about something. There was a momentary silence before you broke it.

“Are you mad?”

Bakugou scoffed at you. “And just what exactly is there for me to be mad about?”

“Well this commences the end of our relationship. You’re no longer a concubine. Perhaps you’re wondering what more to life there is? Oh, maybe depressed is the word I was looking for.” You put your hand to your chin, feigning concern.

“As much as I’d love to shut you up right now with a cock down your throat, I’m quite happy this is over.” He moved to put his water bottle in the refrigerator. “I can finally put my stamina towards training instead of wasting it on that monstrous sex drive you have.”

“And with that, the counsel dismisses you.” You smugly took a sip from your drink.

“Oh, shut up. I’m going back to bed before I commit regicide.” Bakugou put his water bottle back in the fridge and walked past you towards the hallway. “Good luck on your ‘studying’, your highness”.

When Bakugou was long out of your sight, you heaved out a long sigh.

“…Fuck.”

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

A couple weeks had went by and honestly Bakugou was beyond frustrated. He didn’t really think you had it in you to avoid his presence for so long. You usually couldn’t go 2 days without coming at him with some kind of ‘You agreed to be my concubine…so fucking perform!’ bullshit. With his pride, he’d pummel someone like you into the dirt. But immediately after saying something like that you’d palm against his growing hardness before lowering your head to his crotch. And you’d adorn the most lustful gaze. A gaze that told him that he was the only one who could satisfy you.

‘You’re supposed to be pleasing me, but I guess queens have duties too…’

Honestly you were such a fucking brat. Acting all high and mighty and then becoming a filthy wench only moments after having a cock shoved up you. But he lived for it. The challenge of getting you to finally submit to him during sex would drive him crazy. That blissful face of pleasure. Those lips that would call out for him to go faster.

Maybe he’d be willing to let you go if you weren’t being so goddamn strange around him now. Not only were you being more distant around him, whenever he so much as brushed up against you your face rose with obvious arousal. Your lips would slightly part as if you’re about to let out a moan- but then you’d scold him for being so close to you.

‘Can’t you back up? I can barely hear my own thoughts with your vulgar presence around me’

That sort of thing would happen multiple times and especially during training sessions with him. Whenever you were opponents and Bakugou had successfully won and had you pinned to the ground, you looked as if you were on the verge of orgasming. And then as soon as Aizawa blew the whistle to end the round, you’d quickly run away with an annoyed look.

One time he had approached you, asking what the fuck your deal was, but you quickly dismissed him.

‘Maybe I’m just so pleased with my boyfriend that I literally can’t go a minute without thinking of him. I can’t help that you’ve never made a girl feel that way.’

Bullshit.

Were you teasing him? Did you even have a boyfriend? If you did, why did you have a face that seemed as if you hadn’t been fucked properly in years? If this boyfriend of yours was so bad at sex, wouldn’t you have dumped him? Before the start of this rivals-with-benefits agreement you’d told him of the time you kicked a guy out in the middle of fucking because he had “no idea how to fuck his royals”.

He’d really think your boyfriend was fake if it wasn’t for the fact that one time while sitting beside you, he saw you receive a message from someone with a heart by the name. And then you’d smile to yourself before pocketing your phone.

Fuck. Maybe this guy really was that good.

No.

Impossible.

No one could please you the way he did. He knew it. It was an irrefutable fact. He’d get down to the bottom of this. He’d make you realize who you really belonged to.

Bakugou grumbled at the unfinished homework on his desk. He couldn’t concentrate due to your stupid antics. He pulled out his phone to send you a text.

“What are you doing?”

Five minutes had gone by and he was already starting to regret his act of impulsivity. You usually took a while to respond but for some reason this time it was really irking him. He got lost in senses of regret before he heard his phone vibrate.

“Getting ready for my date.”

He scoffed at your reply.

“Oh, with that fake boyfriend of yours, huh?”

A couple minutes went by before Bakugou received another reply. This time it was an image. Opening it, It was a selfie of you in what he assumed was your date outfit. You always dressed exquisitely outside your school uniform and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t appreciate your sense of style. But right now, that appreciation was manifesting into lust.

Fuck, you didn’t have that big of breasts but why were they looking so plump, now? The dress you were wearing teased your collarbones and Bakugou might as well had been drooling at this point. Not replying after a couple minutes, stunned by your posh appearance, his phone vibrated again.

“I don’t get dressed up like this for any commoner. Now why are you disturbing me?”

He wanted to reply with a “Fuck you. Nothing, dumbass”, but he held back.

“I want my fucking manga back.”

A silly demand, he knew. But it was the only thing he could think of to get you back within his grips. Hopefully you weren’t too suspicious as it had been a few weeks since you borrowed his manga to read.

“Ugh…I suppose I can take time out of my meaningful getting-ready time to drop off your little comic. I’ll be there in 20.”

A smirk shaped the lips of Bakugou’s before he brisked his way to the shower in preparation for his plans.

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Bakugou had finished putting on his clothes and was now tidying up his room in waiting for a knock at the door. But you were always so rude so instead he was alerted by the sudden swinging open of his door. Before he could yell at you he became entranced by your appearance.

The dress you were wearing hugged you in all the right places and came to a seductive stop slightly below the round of your ass. The plush of your thighs were teased as the start of the top of your opaque socks once again molded erotically around your flesh. It seemed you also had a bit of makeup on as your e/c popped out beautifully from your dark eyeliner.

But you were also entranced by his appearance. You could tell he just took a shower because the smell of his soap traced provocatively under your nose. He wasn’t even wearing anything special, a black long-sleeve top that perfectly fitted his biceps, and a pair of black shorts. But fuck, it was driving you crazy right now.

“Your comic.” You coldly tried to hand it to him, trying to not appear as aroused as you felt.

“Can’t you fucking put it back on the shelf. That’s where you got it from, isn’t it?”

You clicked your tongue at him. “Troublesome.” As you walked past Bakugou to get to the little bookcase above his desk, he watched you. The stride of your hips as you walked had him licking his lips behind you. As you put the manga back on the shelf, he walked up to you so there was no distance between the two of you. Before you could protest his proximity he interrupted you.

“Put it in the right order.”

“What?” You looked back at him confused and irritated. Why was he getting so close to you? Why did his voice sound so intoxicating?

“I have my manga in order. If you pay attention, you’ll see there’s a number on the cover. I believe they teach little princesses how to count, don’t they?” Bakugou once again took notice of your look of arousal spreading across your face. You sucked at your teeth as you hurriedly turned your face away from him. Even after you put the manga in his preferred place, he hadn’t moved away from you. You were starting to get antsy.

“What are you trying to-“

“Where are you going?” His red eyes were fixed on your face, more specifically your lips.

“I told you, a date.” Your fingernails scratched slightly against the wood of his desk. You were overwhelmed with frustration. With desire. But you couldn’t give in.

“Yeah, but where?”

“A restaurant.” Still avoiding his intense glare, it was becoming clear to you that Bakugou had plans as well. And that those plans would involve you.

“Oh. Must be fancy. Considering you look pretty good right now.”

“Hah! I don’t need you to tell me something so obvious. Only someone with my caliber of beauty could make a cheap dress like this look so go- Mmmph!” Suddenly Bakugou had his lips smashed against yours. Damned be your libido, your tongue wasn’t denying him. Your desires were beginning to take over you as you swapped saliva with your rival.

After a few moments, your hands pressed harshly against his chest to get him off you. A chain of saliva still linked the two of you. He licked away the connection with a smirk before pulling you back close to him. He turned you around slightly so that your back was pressed against his chest. One of his hands holding you in place by squeezing at your waist, the other rubbing against your inner thigh.

“The hell do you think you’re doing?!”

“I don’t fucking get it.” His slipped under your dress to rub against your now dampened panties. His palm rubbing slowly against your wetness. “You say that your boyfriend is good at fucking you, yet here you are drenched from a measly kiss from me.”

A moan escaped you as your hands gripped tightly against his wrists trying to pry away from him. You wanted to give in so bad, but you had something to prove. You couldn’t disappoint your ego right now.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you haven’t been fucked at all since you ended things with me, your highness.” You whined at his sarcastic nickname of you before your pride came back.

“You’re wrong. I’d say that I hadn’t started getting properly fucked since ending it with you.”

“When was the last time you guys fucked, then?”

“Last night! He pleasures me every night! More than you to say the least!”. You were losing your dominance quickly, assuming you had any right now. The slow stroking of Bakugou’s palm against your covered folds had you letting out whimpers.

“Oh? Is that so? How about this? If you don’t beg for me to make you cum within the next-“ Bakugou paused. “When’s your date?”. You bit your lips between your teeth ignoring him. Not pleased with your silence he dug his fingertips into your waist. You shut your eyes and let out a loud hum in your masochistic pleasure. “I asked you a fucking question. When is your date, L/N?”

“Seven! Fuck, its at seven!”. He loosened his grasp as he checked the clock on the desk.

6:28 P.M.

“Oh that’s not that far away, but I like a challenge.” His voice rumbled against your ear. “Then if I don’t have you begging to cum within the next 20 minutes, I, Bakugou Katsuki, will get down on my hands and knees and kiss your feet.”

He was being completely unfair. 20 minutes? That’s a long fucking time to hold back an orgasm, especially when it’s this guy trying to get you to reach one. But the thought of him kissing your feet flared your insatiable ego. You’ve lasted without cumming before, and you’d do it again to see Bakugou be put in the place he so rightfully deserved.

“So what do you say, your highness?”

“-my whore.” Your breaths settled as Bakugou looked puzzlingly at you. “Say you’re nothing but a whore for the royal L/N F/N while you kiss my feet and I’ll agree.”

“Tch. Fi-“

“And! I’m going to record it.” You were testing the waters now. But if Bakugou could handle any of the game he was talking right now, he’d surely agree.

“Fine. Then we start right now.”

You nodded in a rare display of compliance. Slowly, Bakugou began to rub his fingers against the crotch of your panties. He was going achingly slow, but you weren’t going to complain. The slower he took, the more time would be ate up. Was this his plan? To just go achingly slow for 20 minutes hoping you’d ask for him to speed up?

Imbecile.

You tried to focus on other things while Bakugou slowly rubbed away against your now wet panties. Looking away towards the desk, you thought about math equations. Complicated math equations. Math equations that could help solve the mysteries of our galaxy. Bakugou noticed your attempts of distraction and grinned, placing a soft kiss on are the area that your shoulder met your neck.

“Whatcha thinkin’ about?” The coarseness of his voice vibrating against your neck, taking you out of your mathematical universe.

“Your face after I upload that video on the internet…” You gasped at Bakugou’s sudden increase in pressure against your clothed vulva. He was still going pretty slow but you could feel the pressure cause your clit to swell. “And how…everyone is going to see how pathetic you really are.”

“Tch. You sure are good at acting sadistic. Too bad I’m the only one who knows what a fucking pig you really are. I’ll be making you admit that in just a few minutes.”

Before you could retort, Bakugou’s fingers started making increasingly faster grinds against your underwear. It was starting to become a challenge for you to not give in to the pleasures.

But then it suddenly clicked. He only said you didn’t have to beg, not that you couldn’t cum. Smirking you let your pleasure take over you, now softly moaning into the air. Waves of an encroaching orgasm began to fill your stomach and when you were about to finally go over the edge, Bakugou retreated his now slick hand away from you.

You quietly whined at the lack of pressure before steadying your breaths again. You stayed silent, adamant about not begging to the man behind you to finish the job.

“Oh…you’re pretty tough, huh? Lets see, it’s-“ Bakugou took another glance at the clock. “6:33. You only have 14 more minutes to go, princess. I believe it’s only fair that we kick it up just a bit.”

You smugly chuckled at his challenge. “I was wondering when you were going to make this diffi- Hnngg!”. Bakugou had moved the hand around your waist to tightly grasp the locks of your hair, turning your head to face him. Taking a moment to look directly at your grimaced face he smothered his lips onto yours, ravaging your mouth once again with his tongue. The fingers at your drenched panties increasing to a much faster pace.

You moaned loudly inside his mouth as you felt immense pressure build up inside you once again. You tried to wiggle your hips away from him but he placed his leg between yours, locking you into place. Struggling to breathe, you gripped his bicep in preparation for the orgasm once again approaching you.

Bakugou released your mouth as he once again removed his hand from between your hips. You now whined louder in protest.

“You got something to say?” He asked as he nibbled against your ear. You shook your head profusely. “I guess you really do like challenges, eh? Probably more than me.”

Bakugou lifted up one of your thighs so you’d place your foot on the edge of the desk. You hadn’t yet came down from your first failed orgasm before he sunk his hand into in your underwear and viciously circled around your clit.

You were moaning uncontrollably now, not caring if classmates outside Bakugou’s room could hear you. Chuckling, Bakugou bit down on your neck before licking away at the bite marks.

“Fuck! Bakugou! I-I’m gonna-“ You whined loudly at the repeated lack of friction between your thighs.

“You’re gonna what now? I don’t fucking think so. You haven’t let out a single beg. You know the rules.”

Your eyes watered as you unconsciously rubbed your thighs together trying to get yourself off. Failing, you had no choice but to let your body come down from its high.

As soon as your panting softened, they picked back up again when you felt Bakugou slowly stick two fingers up your sopping pussy. His fingers curving just right to lightly massage against the sensitive sponge inside you while moving them up and down in a quick motion.

“Hahh… Bakugou…”You groaned in pleasure. Too lost in trying to chase an orgasm, you hadn’t cared when Bakugou used his other hand to rip open your pretty dress. He roughly massaged at your breasts while burying his head in your neck.

“No bra? No fucking way you weren’t prepared for me to fuck you today.”

Your constant moans prevented you from replying. Bakugou pinched at your sensitive nipples while sucking harshly at your neck, leaving a bruise.

“You wanna cum, princess?”

“Yes! Yes, please!! Please let me cum! Fuck!” You gave in to his challenge, but it’d be worth it. You knew this was going to be the most intense orgasm of your life. So what if you sacrificed a bit of your ego?.

Just when you thought you were about to enter heaven, the fingers that were inside you slipped out.

“Hnngh- Nooo!! Please, Bakugou. I’m begging, I’m begging!” The tears that were settled at your eyes, trailed down. Your thighs trembled as you once again tried squeezing them together to satisfy you.

Bakugou smirked silently. Instead answering you by dragging you to the bed and pushing you down. He ripped off the rest of your dress before he spread your thighs apart to take a good look at the mess he created between your hips. The way not only your voice, but your pussy was begging for him made him want to give you everything you wanted.

But, no. You needed to learn a lesson. You’d remember what happens when you fuck with him- or don’t fuck with him, rather.

His gazing taking too long, you called out for him again. “Please, Bakugou. I want to cum. I wanna cum so baaad…”. You placed your hands on his that were digging into the flesh below your knees, trying to get him to take pity on you.

“I heard you the first time. How do you want to cum? With my fingers, my tongue, or my-“

“Your cock! Please, I want your cock!” Your hands now gripping tightly onto his. “I’ve never wanted something so bad before, Bakugou, pleeease…”

“You’re begging for my cock, huh”. He pulled down his shorts so his cock could spring free.

You nodded with no hesitation. Deciding not to tease you for now, he sunk inside you in one swift thrust, thanks to your abundant juices.

“Hnngh, yes! I’m gonna cum so hard! Gonna cum all over your cock. Oh baby… Gonna cum so hard for youuu…” Your moans turned into gutteral groans as he plunged deep inside you with every thrust. He made sure the tip of his cock was stroking right at your g-spot.

As he picked up the pace, you swear you could sense your pupils dilating as an orgasm approached. You could see the pearly gates of heaven and then-

Bakugou slipped his cock out of you. Leaving you a whining mess.

“Whyyy?! ? Y-You said I could cum. You said if I begged I could cummm…”. You were sobbing at this point. “What do you want? I’ll do anything, Katsuki…”

His cock twitched at the first time of hearing you say his name. “Say you’re a whore.”

You looked up at him as you hesitated. He coerced you with the teasing of his cock against your entrance. Sniffling, you did what you know your pussy would want you do to.

“I’m a whore.” Your eyes shut trying to hold on to the last bit of dignity you had.

“And? Fucking look at me when you speak.”

The intensity of looking into his vermillion eyes made you want to cower away. But you did as demanded. “I’m a filthy whore for Bakugou Katsuki.”

“And only me?” He dipped the tip of his cock into you and you forgot what even the meaning of dignity was.

“Yeess!! Only you! Only Katsuki! I swear it! I swear it on everything, I swear…”

“Your boyfriend?”

“I-I…” You trailed off and Bakugou started to slip back out again.

“You know I could do this forever. I made sure to jack off a few times in the shower. Let’s find out how long I leave you in this state.”

“Nooo! I don’t have a boyfriend! Fuck! Damn you!”

“Ahh…so he was fake?”

“He wasn’t fake…He was real. But h-he broke up with me after a week or so. He said he couldn’t keep up with my sex drive. Told me I was a-a nympho… So I yelled at him about y-“ You paused, hesitating to keep going. Bakugou just stared at you, not afraid of leaving you like this if you didn’t finish. “About you…”

“Me?” He leaned down to kiss your forehead, praising you for telling him all this. “And just what did your highness say about me?”

“I said if a rugged commoner like you could satisfy me, then he should be able to, too. So he called me a slut and left.”. You turned your head away, too embarrassed by the sharing of your breakup. “How dare he speak to me like that…”. Bakugou took hold of your chin to face him as he leaned down and kissed you on the lips. He wiped away your tears with his thumb and continued to stroke your cheek.

“You’re not a slut, F/N.”

You chucked. “I’m a whore but not a slut?”.

“I didn’t say you were. You did.” He slipped back inside you, making you moan once more. “Besides, you’re only like this with me, right? I doubt he was making you feel the way I do, anyways. Not with how pathetic he sounds.”

“Yeah…no one can make me feel this good.” Your mouth gaped open as Bakugou began steady thrusts inside you. Your ribbed walls clenched around him begging for more. “Lets cum together, okay?” You placed each of your hands on his cheeks. “I wanna cum with you.”

Entranced by your sudden displays of sweetness, he plunged his cock deeper and faster into you. You slipped your hands into his hair and tugged as you felt your high approach. Your moans sounded more high-pitch and angelic as Bakugou leaned down to kiss your neck. He could better hear your beautiful sounds in this position and it was pushing him closer to his own climax.

His thrusts became more erratic at his impending orgasm. “F-fuck, F/N. I’m gonna cum- I’m gonna cum so deep in your pussy.” He layed multiple kisses along your neck. “I might just give you a little prince.”

“Oh fuck! Katsukiii…Katsukiiii…” You tugged his hair tighter. Your long-awaited orgasm finally washed over you. It seemed like it could never end as your walls twitched violently against Bakugou’s cock, making him lose himself even more.

“Me too, F/N- me too. Fuck!” Bakugou pumped his milky seed deep inside you and you could probably cum again just from the hot feeling of it. When it seemed his cock was drained, he allowed himself to collapse on top of you.

You slipped your hands under his shirt, caressing your fingers along his back as you regained your breathing. “You didn’t cum exactly when I did. I’m deducting points.”

He chucked beneath into your neck. “Fuck your point system. I’m rebelling against your shitty monocracy.” You gasped, feigning offense. He kissed you on the lips before turning his body to lay beside you.

“We should..uhh…probably go get a pill, right?”

You sent a confused look at him. “Bakugou, I’m on birth control.”

He shot up from the bed with shock. “Hah?! So why had we been using a condom?” He frustratingly gripped at his hair. “I could’ve been fucking you raw this whole time?!”

“Well I figured you used them because you didn’t trust me.”

“What?” He looked at you before turning his face away trying to hide his blush. “Of course I’d trust my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?! This hasn’t been discussed with the counsel!”

Bakugou leaned over you, his forearms resting on either side of your head. “I believe I said I was rebelling against your shitty monocracy, F/N.” He pressed another kiss on your lips. “Who else is gonna put up with your stuck-up attitude and inhuman sex drive?” He layed back down beside you and pulled you into him, kissing the back of your shoulder.

You twisted your body to face him, looking directly into his eyes. “So you fell in love with the enemy?”

“Yeah, your highness. I fucking did. Gonna execute me?”

You shook your head and kissed his nose before burying into his chest. The up and down motions of his chest relaxing you, beckoning you to sleep.

“I did too.” You whispered softly, Bakugou had heard you though. Holding you tighter against his chest, the exhaustion and your comfort drifted him to sleep.

#bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugou katuski x reader #bakugou smut #mha smut #bnha smut #mha x reader #bnha x reader #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #katsuki x reader #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction #my first fanfic #idk how periods work when quoting stuff #cayofdreams #cayfanfic

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your-fav-is-an-ib-kid · 2 years

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idk if you want/can answer questions like this but um do you have any advice for people going into the IB program ?

hi! Good luck on the getting into IB! I would absolutely love to give some advice. As much as this blog jokes and complains about it the program can be a really cool thing that teaches you a lot of skills and the content can be super engaging if you have good teachers. Every school is different naturally but here are some general tips! (And this blog is certainly followed by plenty of current or former IB kids so if any followers have advice please feel free to add to this post!)

1. First and foremost: You’ll be fine. So again, this whole blog is full of people complaining and joking but the IB program is nowhere near as bad as the worst you’ll hear. Don’t let the culture around it trick you; if you do the work you will be okay. Staying all night every night, needing caffeine to survive, having no social life etc are not actually things that should be part of your normal life and if you’re that overwhelmed there’s likely problem you may need to work on. Find what works best for you, keep up with the work, and keep an eye of your mental health. It might be harder than what you’re used to at first and there may be an adjustment period but you can do it promise.

2. Actually do the work and prep work. It is 1000% easier when you take the time to do the work. Could you not read the material and BS- class discussions and exams? Maybe. But it will be way harder than actually taking the time to read the book. And hey some of it may actually be pretty interesting.

3. Try your absolute hardest not to procrastinate. Especially on the big stuff. Pretty basic tip but boy does it help. Sometimes procrastination feds from an anxiety about doing it right. Know that just starting gets you on that path. Sometimes it’s executive dysfunction. Find your best personal fix for that: setting timers for stating and breaks, setting specific times, pairing a task with another easier chore or pair it with going out somewhere else, having a designated study zone/time, break the task down etc. Personally I also like writing down assignments as due much earlier than it’s actually due to trick my brain. Whatever works!

4. Learn to study. A lot of IB kids are ex-gifted kids who never learned to study but in IB you actually need to. Even if you aren’t it’s good to learn to be good at studying. Learn what’s best with you. Do you need a designated study area? Alone or with classmates? Test questions or reading over notes? Try to avoid cramming though-study in blocks. You’ll especially need to learn how to memorize memorize memorize

5. Make friends with your fellow IB kids. You’re all in this together and it’s much more fun to be stuck with friends. And to have peers to work with. Make study groups, make group chats, have hang-outs. This can help you succeed in class and keep your mental health intact. Reach out to teachers too when you’re struggling ideally, they should be there to help you

I believe they changed some of the exams and things after I graduated so some specifics may not be relevant. Any recent grads/current students please feel free to correct me. But here’s some quick specific tips:

1. get started early (start logging CAS activities ASAP, brainstorm ideas and prepare sources for essays and projects (especially the EE!) long before you need it, read the literature and memorize quotes, prepare your arguments and evidence and understand both.

2. Anything can count for CAS if you make it count

3. Know your literary features

4. make sure to prepare for the specific format of the exams and projects. IB is very strict about their guidelines. Ideally your teachers should prepare you by teaching these guidelines and giving practice papers. Most of them are essays and many of them you have to come with evidence memorized

5. Take classes that interest you. there’s not a whole lot to choice in IB but if your school gives you options absolutely take them.

Overall good luck! Don’t stress! You’ll get what you put into it. And then you can come back and laugh with the rest of us.

#trying to repair the massive amount of psychic damage this blog has put in the universe #you will know more acronyms than you ever thought possible #feel free to add more in the notes #and correct any out-dated stuff or things that turn out to be specific to my school #asks #advice #soupforfree

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mego42 · 3 years

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Hi, since you seem more positive/excited about the triangle possibility than a fair amount of people, can you talk more about why? I fall into "the not thrilled about the possibility, but have a little hope it could result in some good moments" group and would love some more reasons to not dread it. Thanks! And love your writing and love reading your tags :)

hey anon!! i am v sorry you are not thrilled and am always happy to shriek nonsense about why i’m excited (though idk how much it will help bc the tl;dr is more or less i’m hype for a triangle bc i am an incredibly messy bench who lives for drama and if you are not a similarly messy bench, ymmv)

don’t get me wrong, i super understand the trepidation, pop culture is LITTERED with absolute shite examples of love triangles but here is an incomplete list of reasons i personally think beth and rio are the perfect kind of disaster to set up a spectacular love triangle:

the existence of a triangle implies there are FEELINGS at the various points

the use of the descriptor "romantic" applied to said triangle implies ROMANTIC feelings

i am a simple woman and my pulse has already picked up

one of my absolute most favorite things about the toxic stew that is beth and rio is how completely balls to the wall obsessed they are with having and holding each other’s attention and focus

like straight up possessive nightmare people

now imagine wedging an actual rival for one or the other’s attention between the two of them

(something we have not reeeeeally seen before, 206 withstanding and i’ll come back to that, bc lbr beth doesn’t give a fck about dean and rio’s known that for sure ever since he walked LITERALLY RIGHT PAST THE GUY to rail his wife in a public bathroom at her invitation)

(the 204 proximity point has nothing to do with this list it’s just a source of endless delight and that was enough for me to justify adding it)

where was i

mmmmm feelings, possessive nightmares, OH RIGHT

they are also nightmares in the sense that it appears to be physically impossible for them to use their words with each other unless it’s like, ripped out of them which means they’re sitting on ALL THE BAGGAGE between them and it’s just stewing and boiling and

wait, let me back up

look, i want brio sex as bad as the next person

but even more than brio sex? i want them to fight

i mean like, Fight fight

i want the kind of knockdown drag-out brawl that brings Stuff to the surface and leaves them with a bunch of nasty, ragged, pieces dragged out into the light bc lbr they’ve both done some incredibly awful things to each other

(kind of like what 213 was looking like before it all went to shit tbh)

(i’m just saying, beth saying you put it all on me with that kind of jagged, disbelieving betrayal behind it? my catnip)

(it’s up there with rio at the picnic table in 306 telling her that ship sailed when she put three slugs in him)

i live for them being raw and honest and emotional okay

IF ONLY THEY COULD BOTH DO IT AT THE SAME TIME

bc here’s the thing, for the magnitude of horrifying shit between the two of them? i (personally) think that they like it because they are so! twisted! when it comes to each other and i love that for me, specifically

like no seriously a huge part of what i love about the ship is that whole i see your monster and it looks like mine thing they’ve got going on when they let themselves and i am full on foaming at the mouth feral at the thought of them leaning into that

i’m sorry i’ve lost the thread again

wait no that was the thread

okay so basically they’re both ticking time bombs of smothered angst and rage who are absolutely incapable of being normal about each other but are also keeping all of that locked tf down and the only time we ever really see it come out is when one o them is too emotionally overwhelmed to keep their iron grip

you know what brings emotions to the surface?

TRIANGLES!!!!!!!!!!!!

CAN YOU IMAGINE THE SEETHING MESS OF EMOTION THAT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BRING TO THE SURFACE??????

AND HOW UTTERLY UNEQUIPPED EITHER ONE OF THEM WOULD BE TO DEAL WITH ANY OF IT????????

AND HOW SIDEWAYS IT COULD EXPLODE???????????

like don’t get me wrong there is absolutely no way it’s gonna be pretty but i didn’t get on this busted ass carnival ride expecting nice things, i am in this to feEl stuFf and nothing makes me feel stuff more than seeing the two of them feel stuff and this is perfect set up for that

you know how they say the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference?

you know what’s not indifference? big messy emotions

but okay okay okay i am icarus and the sun looms large, lets say they don’t fight, that doesn’t mean they’re not gonna feEl stuFf on their own

do you remember beth’s face in the van when rio hugged dylan??? do you?????

and what did she do after that? went out and robbed him blind and held his shit hostage until he caved in what is one of my top 10 of all of their scenes

and god, idk if we’ve really seen rio really get jealous of attention lavished on beth yet but when i think about it i want it so bad my teeth hurt

and i know i’m not alone here bc i have i think 3 jealous!rio prompts in my inbox rn

(i’m not saying i’m working on it but i’m also not not saying it)

god i just

can you imagine how much fun it could be to watch rio seethe over having to watch someone else be into beth

WHAT WOULD HE DO?????????

ESP IF HE COULDNT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT DIRECTLY BC ITS SOMEONE HE CAN’T INTERFERE WITH

oh christ and if beth responded to it??????????

oh gOD thE mESS

idk even if it doesn’t lead to a confrontation (but i feel like??? it would have to????) just the idea of the kinds of feelings they’d have to grapple with and confront within themselves is D E L I C I O U S

also, to jump back to an earlier point: brio sex

i know some people are feeling like the sexy chemistry between beth and rio is lacking this season

you know what’s great for chemistry? fuel

you know what provides great fuel? messy emotional situations that tug at intimate connections and make people feel out of control

you know what’s a messy emotional situation that tugs at intimate connections and make people feel out of control?

you probably guessed it

A TRIANGLE

(and we know that neither of them does well with feeling out of control period at all even without the intimate emotional stuff mixed in so like oh boy)

listen i am just saying given where they’re currently at with each other i cannot think of any situation more ripe for an explosive hook up than one or both of them feeling driven to reassert their claim/mark on the other

would it be nice? no, probably not

would i care? not even a little bit

(don’t you judge like any of y’all are any better than me)

look. to quote marie kondo horrifically out of context: i love mess and the mess potential in a romantic love triangle with beth and rio as two of the three points is stratospherically high.

#i hope this helps! or makes sense!#beth x rio #nbc good girls #in defense of love triangles #(a thing i never thought i'd tag tbh)#also while this is probs not a popular stance and debatably helpful #it's worth mentioning that the stakes of this are at the end of the day not very high #it's a tv show #i'm here to enjoy myself and when i stop enjoying myself i'll walk away #i'd be sad sure #but life's too short to put this much energy into something that does not spark joy #so idk remembering that makes it easier to not get that worked up #i lean into what i love and know that i can bounce if it doesn't deliver #shut up meg #anon

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girl4pay · 2 years

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feels like a big ole question but do you have any tips on working on ‘growth, reflection, and accountability’? i feel like there’s this great big wedge between what i think and feel and believe and how i’m living my life in practice and i’ve felt that way for a while and i want to work on that and what you were saying about ur intentions for last year feels like it would be really good stuff for me to focus on but i don’t feel like i know where to start? any guidance on getting myself out of my head and like… taking steps towards not… living hypothetically? idk idk

okay so for starters it’s my opinion and experience that like. a lot that is tangible in life occurs organically. so when i set those intentions it was kind of with the idea that i would accept that day to day things would happen simply because life was continuing with me in it, and so my focus for the time period would be to kind of let go of trying to direct my life in a certain way. this is not like a my year of rest and relaxation arrangement like i still worked and tried new things and maintained my friendships but i very much tried to let go of any sense of forcefulness and tried to fall back on like a general universal trust. this in turn creates a kind of space where you can make a commitment to examination, which facilitates everything else i hope for! the methods of this examination for me were 1) reading/watching movies/looking at art etc 2) conversation and 3) journaling. 1 + 2 are types of engagement in life that kind of can’t occur organically - you have to engage in conversation, you have to choose to read or watch or listen to media. they’re both also impetus for growth, either with or against. like i was speaking to my therapist a couple weeks ago and he told me something that was a paraphrased idea from a philosophy that he told me but i cannot remember right now so firstly my apologies if i butcher it and secondly i’m going to research a bit later so i can properly credit the idea but BASICALLY it was this idea that like rather than good or evil influences the things and people you encounter in life can provide support or friction? and i tried to commit to challenging myself in both these ways - embracing the support and the friction, reading outside my comfort zone, asking close friends things i had been wondering about, listening and delving into other peoples views in conversation rather than shoring up my own opinion, with a focus on placing value on these insights into the minds of other people. and THEN journalling afterwards - collecting quotes, identifying my feelings about what i had heard, thinking of more questions to have in mind for myself, deep diving into everything. i also tried to hold a kind of sciencey no judgement approach, to identify things as they were and then my reactions and beliefs as they were without trying to find a ‘correct’ stopping place, to be on the lookout for assumptions i make and places i get stuck, and most of all to act with patience and intention, because i was trying to achieve things. to narrow down what i wanted to delve into i made a values list, so for me i read a lot about the montessori method and ecology and child development and art. i hope this makes sense i’m also going to add my journaling prompts i use as both gently inspired by and straight up copied from john o’donohue’s interview from on being and audre lorde

#first four questions are lifted straight from audre lorde like i said #i love them #and ily good luck!

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mintenochian · 4 years

Text

what other people want added to Minecraft: g u n s

what I want added to Minecraft

•Birds

-For multiple biomes, but mainly for the forests.

-Songbirds would add SO MUCH life to the otherwise quiet areas of the game

-Ravens and crows would be awesome and could use some of the parrot mimicking AI

-Cardinals in the snow biomes would bring a GORGEOUS pop of colour into the white atmosphere

-Seriously we need something to populate the sky, parrots do NOT fly like they should

-nests in trees, can find eggs in them

-doesn't really add a use but fun new feather types would be cool

•Owls

-technically still a bird but would go really well in covered rooftop forests and snow biomes

-we're already getting larger avians added in the form of vultures so why not more large birds?

•Mice and / or rats

-absolute precious babies

-sadly would go well with owls :(

-with cave update coming we need adorable rodents scurrying around

-lil bastards could make mouseholes inside of blocks

-will they be tameable? idk.

-adds the necessity for cheese

•Deer

-MOJANG this is a MUST, this is a NEED

-You literally have pigs, chickens, cows, and sheep spawning in forests what the fuck

-Deer with spotty baby fawns??? Yes

-Young bucks with different stages of antler growth? Yes

-Fawns frolicking in flower forests bc they feel safe

-Stripped wood appearing on trees where bucks scrape velvet off their antlers

-Being able to collect sets of antlers when they fall off periodically (would NOT be attainable by killing the deer, you have to wait for them to shed)

•Elk and Moose

-Same vein as deer

-Bigger, much bigger, neutral instead of passive, less shy

-Snowy biomes

-Better additions than fucking llamas tyvm

-Sidenote but savannahs could also really use some endangered deer-like species to help raise awareness for their status

•Squirrels

-Mojang plz

-Adds nuts to Minecraft ;)

-Black, grey, red, and mixed colour squirrels and breeding

-Brings life to forests like songbirds and deer

•Bears

-Mojang bby you literally already have a neutral bear in Minecraft why have you not reskinned it for grizzly/brown/black bears?

-Bear caves

-Hibernating mobs

-Brings more use to the beehives and bees, bears could be attracted to any area that has more than one bee hive with honey

•WOLVES AND DOGS

-They NEED the ocelots and cats update

-More wolf types (red, timber, snow, black, etc)

-Actual wolf packs (the AI would be difficult to program but the doges are worth it)

-Please let the howl at the moon, if foxes get to say ringdingding all night long wolves deserve to be allowed to howl

-More dog breeds (I know that there's no reason for domesticated dog breeds in Minecraft but ACTUALLY THERE IS)

-Hunting dogs like springers that can jump and run faster

-Foxhounds :D

-Most Important Goodest Boy: Herding dogs like collies and sheepdogs

-Herding dogs could be found in plains where cows and sheep spawn and create herds

-LET DOGS LAY DOWN FOR FUCKS SAKE

•Herding

-Instead of having to pen up and enclose your livestock you could form herds of cows and sheep

-Your Goodest Boi herding dog would protect them and move around with them when they graze

-Just soft peaceful minecraft tingz

•Salt licks

-Something SO SMALL but would make SO MUCH HAPPINESS

-Drawing new cows into your herd by putting up a salt lick

-I'm soft

-I guess salt would be a new ore???

•Bird feeders

-idk I think it would be cool

-excess seeds used for SOMETHING

•Raccoons

-The coolness of wolves, the chaos of foxes, the cunning of cats

-thumbs

-be gay do crimes

-can open chests (trigger trap chests to catch them?)

-Fantastic little shits

-Not tameable but will trust players like foxes do

•Snakes

-I know it's a lot to ask and it would be hard to make them look good

-But??? Imagine a tiny lil garter snake in your garden

-unlikely but would be so fantastic

•Rope

-climeable

-please Mojang we need this so badly

-imagine the ships? The bridges? The bell towers and everything?

-super easy to add, just reskin vines and add a string crafting recipie

•Butterflies and Moths

-Bflies could be a unique mob to flower forests and friends with bees

-if moobloom is added they would all be BEST BUDS

-get it "buds" ahahaha

-help with flower polination but just gives a TON of life to flower forests

-We literally have lanterns in minecraft why do we NOT have moths? Such a cool aesthetic addition.

-helps fill both the daytime and nighttime sky

•Hummingbirds

-fourth member of BEST BUDS

-just soft baby

-i love birbs okay

-the only avian who does not work for the bourgeoisie

•Fireflies

-10 million of them please

-they give great hugs

-adds so much atmosphere to the night world

•Cheese

-We have milk

-We have, presumably, goat milk

-Quit being cowards and add butter and cheese

-Butter churn job block for villagers

-V funny bc they have no arms to churn with?? Oh well

•Seashells

-Something decorative and beautiful that could 1) liven up beaches and 2) have snails and crabs inside!

-Mojang plz do not add sand dollars to the game people already don't know how to tell if they're still alive before trying to take them home

•Whales

-WHALES.

-Imagine something as massive as the ender dragon but peaceful. Allows you to stand on them (idk how but make it happen Jeb)

-WHALE SONGS.

-Being so deep and far out into the ocean, and when the moon is high in the sky and you're sitting in your boat, you just hear the beautiful melancholy sounds of the whales in the distance

•Jellyfish

-Idk if y'all know this but the glow squid is a bad idea

-Dream buddy you fucked up, please use your influence to get in contact with Mojang and have them redo the vote. People would have so much regained respect for you if you tried to fix your mistake.

-Also why does a speedrunner get to tell millions of people what mob would bring more life to Minecraft? He's only playing the game for 5 minutes smh

-aNYWAYS

-Jellyfish could literally do everything the glow squid is going to and look better for it AND possibly be neutral instead of peaceful

•Orcas

-Not much to say but it would liven up the frozen water biomes a bit

•Penguins

-You already know why

-Imagine giving a new home to all the Club Penguin players? Legendary.

-Gender doesn't exist in Minecraft but we all know penguins would be hella gay

•Lobsters

-I think they would be cute

-You would NOT BE ABLE TO BOIL THEM ALIVE THANK YOU VERY MUCH

•Mermaids

-Never going to happen since passive mobs are generally real life animals but it would be so cool

•Otters

-they can hold hands

-brings life to the rivers

-super cute

•Frogs and possibly toads

-Swamp gods

-Absolute mad lads

-maybe grow from tadpoles

-wouldn't do much but needed

•Fairy Forests

-NOT Twilight Forests. Not a new dimension.

-Just gentle hidden groves in forests

-ADD FAIRY RING GENERATION TO MINECRAFT.

•Big cats

-Tigers, lions, bobcats, panthers

-Literally anything that could finally add a strong predator possibility to savannahs and jungles

•Zebras and Giraffes

-Shy and skittish

-cannot ride (their skeletal structure is NOT MADE FOR CARRYING HUMANS)

-Super cute tho, brings much needed life to savannahs

•Camels

-The better llama

-Can honestly just be a reskin

-brings much needed life to the desert

-spits and wears carpet and forms caravans like llamas

•Lemurs

-Easier to add to "jungles" than monkeys

-it would be really cool if we could just get a Rainforest biome

-King Julian stans awaken

•Red pandas

-we need them

-cuter than normal pandas and you can @ me

-better idea than sloths or koalas

•More Eldritch Horror Hostile Mobs

-Fun fact time

-The enchanting table language already has Lovecraftian references

-"phnglui mglwnafh cthulhu rlyeh wgahnagl fhtagn" is literally a quote from the enchanting table

-translates to "In his house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."

-Bet you didn't know that fun fact

-aNYWAYS add the Kraken to Minecraft instead of the shitty guardians. Thanks.

-imagine how cool it would be to see lights slowly extinguish as something terrifying and dangerous slowly moves in for the kill

-torches get extinguished and can get relit

-if not relit fast enough Something will be waiting

•Ice statues

-We have giant fossils and ship wrecks and cool stuff like that but please imagine finding a GIANT humanoid ice sculpture in an ice spikes biome

-maybe bones inside to show you that... That wasn't carved or naturally generated.

•Skeletons

-Not a mob but a decoration block

-Found in temples, mineshafts, and caves

-implied to be the remains of miners and explorers

-rare

-also implies that every skeleton you kill has some backstory since they look the same

•Constellations

-Not real world star maps but completely unique to Minecraft

-chance for LOTS of fun references

-The stars are your only companions in an apocalyptic world where you are the last of your kind

-Space is gay minecraft is gay thus minecraft space is gay

•Corn

-we have butter in this list

-we have salt in this list

-popcorn. That is all.

And finally

•Leeks

-mostly a joke but would be a cool crop

-100% a reference to Hatsune Miku the creator of Minecraft

DISCLAIMER: I recognize that mobs are added to Minecraft to serve a purpose within the game and that many of these mobs would be better in mods and such, but I also feel like many of these suggestions would really bring so much more life to parts of the game that really need it. Even if they don't serve a huge purpose, they would still be really amazing additions imo.

I would love to see the ideas and suggestions that other people have for what they want added to Minecraft, please TAG ME if you make a post like this, I wanna hear and read it!

#minecraft #cave update #caves and cliffs #mojang #minecraft update #minecraft ideas #video games #mcpe #mc #minecon #minecraft earth #minecraft dungeons #minecraft live #minecraft design #game design #mineblr

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angelaiswriting · 3 years

Text

Undercover | Bandit x fem!reader

[video by Yogendra Singh from Pexels]

✏️ Pairing: Bandit x fem!reader

✏️ Summary: In which Dominic realizes he's fallen too hard for a woman during an undercover mission and he doesn't think he's fit to work for Rainbow anymore.

🎁 A/N: I wrote this for @kind-wolf‘s birthday but she gave me the okay to post it, so hopefully y’all will enjoy it too 💛

✏️ Warnings: slight angst, 18+ only? idk (the sex is generally only implied but there are some paragraphs in which it’s a little less implied), also a dash of fluff?

✏️ Word-count: 11,555

UNDERCOVER

There was something about early-morning runs that just calmed his nerves, even with music blasting in his ears. There was something in the way his trainers would rhythmically slap against the ground; something in the burning in his lungs, in the way the wind would blow against his face every now and then…

The British countryside expanded to infinity on his runs and it erased anything Hereford Base inevitably brought along—training sessions, mission calls, even more simulations, and then endless tests to pieces of equipment that he surely had not missed while on his last undercover mission.

He didn’t think much about it. About the mission. He always tried his best not to, although he did so unconsciously, probably more out of habit than anything else. It was never easy, to go back to a daily routine that didn’t feel yours anymore, to a routine you couldn’t recognize after having pretended to be someone else for the past six years. Some things just get to your head at some point, and going back to who you had once been feels like being reborn completely, and into someone you can’t recognize. You wake up one day, and you find yourself being forced to put on yet another mask, with the only exception that this is no mask. This is your face. Who you are. Or who you’re supposed to be, at least.

And although most likely unprofessional, this was how Dominic Brunsmeier still felt, six months after his mission had come to its end. He woke up every day and for the first, endless minutes he simply lied there, staring at a ceiling he had problems recognizing, with the reality that he was thousands of miles away from Germany hanging like Damocles’ sword above his head. His ears still subconsciously strained for the sound of two dogs’ nails ticking against the tiles of the floor to come to say good morning, and his left hand still stretched out to feel for someone who wasn’t there—who would never be there again.

That’s why running helped. It emptied his mind—and it also filled his lungs with the smell of wet grass and dirt. And although he still turned around to check behind his back every few minutes in search for furry snouts—one of the habits he had developed in the past life he had been forced to leave behind—, it was getting better, and the music in his ear pods seemed to be starting to do the trick.

Sometime later, when he got back to the Base, he was somewhat ready to be a Rainbow operator once again. At least for that day.

The truth was, he had somehow grown almost detached from anything and anyone Rainbow. He would do something, and then he’d mentally compare it to how he did it before. The way his morning coffee would taste; the way her laundry detergent would smell fresh and somehow cozy; how peaceful car trips would feel, almost as though he could lose himself into one of them for the rest of his life. Now his coffee was just Marius’s boring blend, and the detergent they used in the laundry at the base had no scent. And when he did end up tagging along on short weekend trips, there was no dog whining ecstatically in the back of the car and trying to lick his neck.

“How was your run?”

Monika was looking at him from above the file she was reading—a mission report, a test session report, he didn’t know and he also found himself not caring. That life still felt alien to him.

He shrugged. “Good.” He had somehow become a man of few words, and he had also started to realize that maybe undercover missions weren’t for him. Not anymore, at least. Maybe he had let this one get to him a bit too much, and everyone he had met had grown under his skin without him wanting so and he still did somehow feel like he had betrayed his family, sent them all to jail.

It was a stupid thought—he tried to remind himself of that every time that feeling came up, but maybe he just wasn’t cut for long undercover missions anymore. He didn’t remember when it had become difficult to tell right from wrong, but it had happened, and every time his mind stopped on that period of his life, he found himself growing homesick for a home he never had, not there.

“Just good?”

Elias was there, too. Of fucking course, he would be there. He had been keeping an eye on him for a few weeks now, and Dominic was too much of an expert not to notice. It hadn’t been a surprise to see him enter the kitchen a minute or two after he had.

“Just good,” he nodded

There was some staring, then. Dominic stared at Elias because he wanted to be left alone, and Elias stared at Dominic because he wanted to understand what the problem was, so that he could help his friend. It was all useless, though, and they both knew it: one had closed off too securely to let on anything—or let anyone in, and the other was too stubborn to just stop caring about someone he loved.

That afternoon, though, he was running some errands in town with Marius when a dog stopped right in front of him to sniff his pants. It was a lovely animal, with fur of an almost bronze-red color and a tail that never once stopped wagging.

It brought him back in time, and for a moment he stood there, frozen and rooted to the spot. He could almost still feel the rain on his skin despite that exceptionally bright sunny day. But then, the Irish setter’s owner called Bonnie, let’s go! and Dominic was back to the present day, a bag with stuff he had bought at the hardware store just on the other side of the parking lot in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other.

“Everything alright with you?” Marius asked when Dominic reached him. He had been waiting for him, leaning against the door of the truck, and he hadn’t missed the way his friend had grown rigid. It didn’t matter how much pride Dom felt at the idea of being good at hiding feelings: there was always someone that saw right through his shit. And called him out on it.

“I used to have two dogs,” he blurted out with a smile on his face before he could stop himself. They were both loading bags into the trunk of the car and he hadn’t even felt the words slip through his lips that they were already out there in the open. But the memory had hit him with the same force of a freight train, and he had found himself basking in that warm feeling that had started to blossom inside him at the memory. After all, he loved those two pests like his own kids.

He looked up, the feeling of being caught red-handed quickly seeping in, and he found that Marius had a weird look in his eyes as he watched his every move.

“You had two dogs?” his friend quoted, one hand reaching up for the back door of the car. He closed it shut, and the frown didn’t leave his face for a second. “Back during your mission, you mean?”

“Forget about it. It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have said it in the first place.” It had always been custom for him to not open up about his undercovers—the person he was when he was on one wasn’t the person he was when he came back to his real life, and that’s how things had to be.

“To hell with your bullshit!”

The first five minutes in the car, however, were spent in silence.

Dominic was still cursing himself mentally for opening his damn mouth—or his memory vault, for what it mattered. It had been the first time he had mentioned anything about her since his return—his return home his friends had cheered him with six months ago, but that homely feeling still had to make an appearance. She had become taboo, and he had done so to protect her—and himself, in a way, for not having to bring her up had seemed to be the most sensible way to forget all about her, at least back then.

But now here he was, catching himself just in time before worsening his case.

“Where are those dogs now?” Marius used the excuse of a red streetlight to speak again and when Dominic looked at him from the corner of his eye, he found his friend already staring.

A shrug of his shoulders will do the trick, or that was what he hoped. Unsuccessfully.

“You’ve barely put full sentences together outside of missions since you came back from Germany. And now you mention two dogs. That you owned, apparently.”

“I didn’t own them, they weren’t mine,” he corrected.

“Whose were they, then?”

The first time Dominic sees her is on a chilly early-April morning. It’s pouring rain outside, and she’s walking two dogs with nothing to shield her from the rain but an old sweatshirt.

It’s half past five in the morning and his first thought is: What the fuck is this girl doing out here in the rain?

He almost slows down his truck when he drives past her. Probably he should be a good person and ask her if she needs a ride, but this side of town is new to him and he doesn’t want to risk anything that would have Fabian put him on his boss’ black book the month after having been fully accepted into the gang.

She’s in his rearview mirror before he has the chance to think his civilized deed through. He finds himself staring for two seconds at most—red sweatshirt, jean shorts that are a tad bit out of season now, and two happy dogs that walk on either side of her without the need for a leash. Then, he’s pulling over and stopping the truck right before the closed garage door of his new two-bedroom house. He still has to fix it—along with other things inside—but Christian has been keeping him busy with errands and whatnot, and he’s lacked the time.

He’s barely out of the vehicle when there’s barking—short, quick barks in succession coming from two different dogs, defying the sound of the rain and the otherwise silence of the early morning. When he turns around, the girl’s dogs are running across the empty street, their owner right behind them, and they’re aiming at him, tails wagging happily and tongues lolling out from open mouths.

They don’t jump up as he expected them to, but they still do take their few seconds of freedom to sniff him up. His shoes, his legs, a hand—and all the while he’s getting soaked through just as much as the girl running over with two leashes in a hand is.

“Hey, buddy,” he coos, almost involuntarily, as he presents the bigger dog with the open palm of his left hand.

It looks like a nice mutt, the fur a shade of brown streaked with white and black, and it excitedly licks his skin after a moment of indecision.

“I’m so sorry.” When he looks up, the young woman is panting, a hand on her side as the other comes up to wipe the rain from her eyes. “C’mon, Otto, come here.”

The white dog with a chocolate-colored stain on the left side of his face is quickly put on his leash, and he sits still by his owner’s feet as she pries Rex from his hand.

“I’m sorry they’ve bothered you,” she offers, and then groans when she can’t seem to attach the leash to the ring in the dog’s collar. “They’re usually well-behaved.”

“No problem,” he smiles.

Rex lunges forward one last time to get a good-bye caress on his head before he eventually chooses to behave and steps back.

“They didn’t do anything but smell me up a bit, it’s all cool.”

She smiles. He smiles. Rex barks happily and turns back to nudge Otto, and both their tails are wild whips against the soaked grass-less ground of his short driveway. Then, she’s gone.

He stares as she runs down the street, thunder finally rolling up high in the steely sky, and he smiles when he hears her laugh and call for the dogs when the rain starts pouring stronger. Then he turns, walks around the back of his truck and up to his door, and leaves the world outside.

That night Dominic sat at the desk in his room. His things had been relocated to a smaller one while he had been away on his mission and although he would have probably complained once, he found that this new accommodation somehow suited him better now. It felt much more secluded and since it was in the newly-built dorm area where his buddies didn’t reside, it felt much calmer. It didn’t give him much need to lie.

And it didn’t give his friends the chance to see that most of his stuff was still in cardboard boxes he had yet to unpack. The mere thought seemed to overwhelm him somehow and even that night, all he did was stare at them for endless minutes before eventually begrudgingly opening his laptop.

The brief and vague chat with Marius that afternoon had given him that sort of push he needed to finally pull out the hard disks and SD cards he had hidden away but that still contained all the files he had to organize. It was nothing major, of course—that kind of stuff had been transferred onto Rainbow servers the moment he had set foot onto British ground, one could say. But he still had private stuff, videos and photographs he had never thought he’d one day keep, back when he had first taken them, but then again, here he was.

Part of his brain did know that wasn’t the smart thing to do, but when he plugged in the black hard disk with that owl sticker she had slapped on it one night after tipsy sex, he found that his hand hesitated on the mouse.

He had chuckled—even now, he could still hear the sound in the otherwise quiet room. It had been at the beginning of that thing that had slowly—and then more and more quickly, like an avalanche effect of some sort—turned into a relationship. Why? he had simply asked, putting his lighter back on the nightstand when she gave it a disgusted look. And she had laughed, too, and he had stared at her sweaty skin glistening in the light of his bedside lamp, at the way her messy bangs stuck to her forehead, and he thought that fuck, what the fuck was he doing? Because I felt like it, she had answered with a shrug and he had laughed deep in his chest before pulling her back over his body.

Maybe he could keep what was in there. He did not have to look, but maybe he’d keep those files stored away in some folder-in-a-folder kind of thing, hidden away from his eyes and hopefully from his mind, until he’d forget all about them. Until he’d stop being a spineless dick, murmured a mean voice in the back of his head.

“Fuck it!” he groaned, finally opening the main folder and watching as his old laptop loaded everything.

There were some pictures he had never stored away in their respective folders, and he suddenly remembered now that it was because he loved them. Loved those two dogs piled up on each other as they slept in his armchair. And loved the way she’d scream song lyrics using an almost-empty beer bottle as a microphone.

Those were memories—and damn good memories at that! There was no reason to shy away from them. Just as a reminder, he reasoned—something to keep for a long time so that it could remind him to keep his head on his shoulders next time he’d be assigned on some other undercover mission. Something that could tell him not to fall for a chick he’d eventually have to leave behind forever. Something that could prove to him that yes, he could enjoy things while living a lie, but that no, there were things he could not bring back home.

Like Rex and Otto.

Or like Y/N.

He meets her again two weeks later, when Fabian drags him along to a club to have fun and maybe get some pussy. Dominic’s not exactly in the mood for pussy for once, still exhausted after having come back from a quick ‘business trip’ to Austria with two other guys, but he doesn’t want to be the buzzkill. He’s also not been in the city long enough, so he’d rather fly low and not risk making even the slightest doubt arise.

So he goes. He dresses up in an all-black combo of pants and shirt, and meets his friend outside one of the clubs Christian owns. The air is warm, and the night traffic buzzes behind his back as Fabian leads him all the way up to the entrance while recounting the weird-ass trip Alex had the first time he did acid. Domi laughs along in all the right points and for a split second, before Julian lets them in without a question, he finds himself thinking that it isn’t so hard after all, to pretend to be someone he’s not every time Fabian’s around. The dude is chill, five or so years younger than he but just as crazy, and there’s this tiny voice in Dominic’s head that seems to whisper to him that they could actually be great pals if the situation and the setting were different.

“What’s your poison?” his friend of sorts asks as he takes him through the place and then to a table—not right up under the stage, but a bit in the back.

“Just beer,” is his reply. He didn’t think he’d be seeing girls perform when he left his house, but now that he’s here and he gets a glimpse of a redhead beauty before she disappears offstage, he’s not exactly opposed.

Fabian’s face is contorted into a grimace of confusion before it opens up into a grin as things seem to clear up in his head. “Oh, yeah, as a warm-up, I see!”

He laughs, leaning back against the seat before he shakes his head. “One of us gotta stay sober enough to take you home when you’re shit-faced,” he bites back, subtly implying to that one time, three months after Dom had officially become a rookie, when Fabian had ridden himself into a tree on his bike. The others had made him look after and take care of the younger idiot, and he had had to swallow down his pride and cater to any and all silly needs he had been presented with and that had felt like a setback in his undercover path.

A girl hurries by then, a serving platter with drinks in hand as she flags down another waitress and mouths something over the music of the new performance, and Fabian is quick at grabbing a hold of her forearm. When she turns around, an expression on her face that makes it clear she would be more than ready to throw hands, it takes Dominic half a minute to recognize her in this new setting.

“Come back to us later, Baby,” Fabian says, his hand moving to swat at her ass before she grabs a hold of it and presses down hard enough to make him wince.

“Don’t make me kick your ass.”

Dominic turns around when she walks past him and watches as she serves drinks at a table. She’s all smiles as she replies back to something she’s being told, and steps back a little when one of the men tries to stretch a hand out and touch her.

“Is that how you act with women?” he asks when he turns back around.

His friend laughs over a text he’s sending—probably to one of the other guys they’re supposed to meet here tonight, or probably to someone else entirely—Dominic does wonder about it, just as he wonders about many things when it comes to the Club, but he voices none of his thoughts. He never does.

“It’s not what you think,” he shrugs, grinning at him before glancing at the brunette performing on stage. He stares for a long while, and Dominic has the time to study some more of the details in the snake tattoo that crawls up the side of his neck and disappears into his hair. “She’s a friend.”

“She’s still not excited about you slapping her butt, though,” the girl in question chimes in when she finally reaches their table again, her serving platter now held securely against her abdomen. “But Fabian’s— Hey!” she grins, stopping mid-sentence when she seems to recognize him from that rainy early morning of fifteen or so days ago. “You’re the new guy on the block.”

“You know each other?”

“Sorta. The boys ran up to him when we were on a walk a few days ago,” she nods, eyes trailing down to where Domi’s left the first two buttons of his shirt undone, tattoos on full display underneath, before moving back to meet his.

Fabian’s pout distracts the both of them, and when she sets her eyes on him, he’s quick at letting out a childish complaint. “You never smile at me like that.”

“Don’t be a douche.” And then, to Dominic: “I’ll pay you real money if you drag him out of here.”

“Geez, women!” Fabian scoffs. “Anyway. Nic, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Dominic.” He watches briefly as they shake hands before continuing. “She’s off-limits, unless she’ll somehow consider you worthy enough of her and her p— I’m just kidding, Angel!” he pleads, leaning away from her hand as she slaps at his shoulder. “C’mon, be a good girl.”

“You be a good boy and I might not spit in your drink.”

Dominic’s still thinking about her sometime later, after some of the guys have joined him and his company for tonight. They’re watching girls perform, but he’s unfocused. Even the beer in his hand has been forgotten for a while now, as his gaze finds itself being attracted back to the bar—or to wherever she is at the moment.

He stares, and even blatantly so, half listening to Fabian’s words echoing in his mind, and half ignoring them. She’s close to Christian, that’s what he knows: she used to be his sister’s best friend before the girl passed away a few years after finishing high school. And, as Fabian has half-heartedly complained more than once, she’s not that friendly with gang members—if you know what I mean, Nic. Not that he’s thinking about that with her! He barely even knows her. What he does know, however, is that there’s a file, back at Rainbow, that he has to fill with pieces of information he finds out here, and he’s starting to wonder what she could know.

And sometimes—every once in a while and almost covertly—she glances back and meets his eye, and when she finds him staring, she seems to stumble over her words for a heartbeat before the smile is back on her face and she turns her attention back to whatever patron she’s tending to.

He’s back the next Friday night, and the week after that, and on the third week, it starts becoming a habit. Fabian’s with him sometimes; sometimes it’s someone else, but more often—because he starts hanging out at the club on whatever free nights he has during the week—he goes on his own. He drinks, spends money on women, and goes as far as paying for personal dances—and maybe it becomes a bit too often, because one day Christian asks him—through Alex, because Christian’s too busy with a rival gang to do it in person—and mentions something about it.

But the more he sits in there, the closer he somehow seems to get to Y/N—and the closer she seems to get to him. It’s just smiles at first; even when he goes up to the bar to order drinks, she’s always too busy to focus on him only. But then they start exchanging a few words—and in the meantime they wave at each other from opposite sides of the road they live on, when they pass by—and then a few puns, until at some point, probably three, almost four months into his habitual trips to the club, she starts actively seeking him out. And if by any chance he’s absent on one of his regular nights, he finds her politely asking whether everything’s alright on the first night he’s back.

He missed that—missed his club nights and the dancers, even the waitresses. Y/N, of course, although he always did his best not to allow his brain to bring her up. But sometimes, out of the blue, the most random things would make one of the many memories he had stored away out of sight resurface and he found himself thinking about her. It would start subconsciously—with something someone said or did, or maybe it was something he saw in the window of a shop, or in one of the girls he’d find himself dancing with when his friends dragged him along. And then, when he caught himself red-handed, it was hard to stop. His brain would fixate on a memory and the more he willed himself to shift the focus of his attention onto something—anything—else, the harder it was to actually do it.

So, he turned his strategy around. He did that when he transferred all his secreted files onto his laptop—and then onto a new one yet again, when the old thing slowed down too much for him to be able to do work-related things on it. The reasoning was, if he kept those memories where he could easily reach them, then maybe they’d lose that hue of exceptionality and he’d get so used to them that it would finally be easier to coexist with them and all they had once meant.

And the next time Marius asked, tried to pull things out of him the same way he’d done with shards of glass after that one assignment in Bosnia, Dominic found himself loosening up. With him only, no one else for the time being, but it still felt liberating. Marius would listen, and he wouldn’t try to guilt-trip him the same way Domi had done to himself. He’d listen, and chime in every now and then, and then he’d stop asking when it was clear his friend wasn’t comfortable with continuing for now.

Y/N hadn’t come up yet. He told him about the dogs, and the guys—about Fabian most of all, and Markus, the two he had bonded with the most. He talked about the club—and he won’t lie, about the women there and the ones he had ended up in bed or against a wall with, as well. Not many, but enough to make Marius tease him for a while before he eventually relented.

But then one day, when most operators had been sent off on various missions, they decided to go on a trip. They took a Jeep car, loaded it with backpacks and food and tents, and took off for a week to spend camping far from the Base.

It had been quite a long couple of months—with training and simulations and tests, and even weeks spent abroad. And meetings in Harry’s office so that the Agency could see where Dominic’s loyalty lied, and how he was doing, how he was settling back into his old routine, now almost ten months after having come back from Germany. Which he… was, in a way. Settling back into his old routine, that is—everything was normal when he was working, at least.

But opening up to his Director wasn’t the same as opening up to his friend. And probably even Harry knew, or had at least come to that conclusion, for he had relented in his questions and had given him more free time, away from his Rainbow responsibilities.

“So, you were telling me about Fabian the other day.”

Marius’s voice shook him out of his thoughts, and Dominic found himself blinking a couple of times at the pale light of the sun that still had to fully rise. He felt almost as though he had dozed off, his tongue still heavy and laced with the slumber he had been forced to wake up from at two.

“What?” he mumbled, fumbling with his seat belt when he realized his friend had parked the car and it was now time to get out.

He had been sleeping poorly the past few days, with endless thoughts incessantly mulling around in his mind and keeping him awake. Stuff about Germany, but also stuff about Rainbow—missions and briefings and that upgrade he was helping Elias come up with for his shield. It all slowed him down, left him less reactive than he had been in a while, always dozing off when he was supposed to do something else. Even his morning runs had stopped being that nice a distraction.

The cup of coffee Marius pushed into his hands was hot, almost comforting in a way, and it sent a shiver throughout his whole body as they stood there, in the low, late-March temperatures. It was supposed to get warmer as the day progressed, or so the forecasts seemed to promise, and he surely found himself hoping for that to be the case.

“You were saying about how Fabian introduced you to this Angel dude,” Jäger insisted sometime later, when they had heaved their backpacks on their backs and locked the Jeep. They’d be back in a week—or that was the plan, but they both knew that if the weather would take a turn for the worst, they’d be back much sooner, neither of them willing to deal with storms and cold temperatures when they could feel warm somewhere else.

“Angel’s not a dude,” was Dominic’s chuckle.

The sun had finally risen and its light, although still pale, filtered in through the foliage of the forest, casting shapes on the ground and on their faces alike. The temperatures had gone up a bit, but Dom was still glad he had listened to Lera’s advice and had taken off with thermal clothes on.

“Angel is— was,” he quickly corrected himself, casting a quick glance at Marius, walking by his side, “my girlfriend… I guess.”

“You guess?” His friend frowned, not even taking his eyes off of the path they were currently trekking on. They still had quite a few kilometers to go before their next stop and he had absolutely no intention of spending them in silence, not now that Dominic seemed like he had slowly regained his ability to talk and let his tongue loose, although not in everyone’s company. But progress was progress, and he didn’t want to risk and ruin it.

Dominic shrugged. “I’m not sure Y/N and I ever officially defined the relationship.”

“Y/N… Angel, you mean?”

“Yeah, we called her that most of the time. Those dogs I told you about… they were hers.”

Marius nodded. Dominic had started to introduce him to bits and pieces of his undercover life—the clubs, the gang, the dogs, the speed races at night, the way Fabian would often crash on his couch when his partying got too wild and out-of-hand, or the way Markus, three years his junior, would often trail behind him like a lost puppy. It was never a chronological recollection of events, with some kind of thread that would link them together. Sometimes he’d ask questions, making sure to remain as vague as possible when it came to enquiring about someone’s life, and Domi would reply with what came to mind.

But now… Now he had slowly started to piece all those memories together, bit by bit, and he was seeing that it was not all black and white, the way some back at the Organization would make it out to be, but more like grayscale. The good and the bad would mix together in the same bowl, and it would make it hard for anybody to draw absolutes.

“Tell me something about her.”

Dominic’s sitting in Christian’s backyard for the first time in two years and a half. It’s something new, but at the same time it feels so familiar, in a weird and convoluted way, as he’s surrounded by people he knew nothing about just three years ago. He laughs at what his friends say, and even whistles with them when the girl Fabian has shown up with leaves in a hurry after printing the fingers of her left hand across his cheek.

“You truly can’t keep them for more than a week, can you?” Christian laughs, taking a sip from his beer as he and Marcel flip the meat on the barbeque.

Fabian groans. “Always pointing out the details, gee. Anyway!”

Some bickering ensues, and Dominic sits back against the seat of his plastic chair with the rim of his beer bottle grazing his lower lip, barely containing his laughter, but still trying his best because he’s usually the one taking Fabian’s sides—even if just out of pure sarcasm. It all only settles when Franziska walks out of the house, a bowl of salad in each hand, saying something about leaving the poor child alone, what are you? Five? before Marcel pulls her into his side for a kiss.

They’re cute—it’s a weird and intrusive thought as Dominic watches, eyes glinting with a badly concealed smile, but it’s also the truth. Franziska and Marcel are like opposite sides of the same coin, but they somehow fit so well together… He’d tell Marius that, years after that day, and he’d recall the way she’d look up into her lover’s eyes with such emotion that, before Y/N came along, it would have made him feel the pangs of jealousy stab his stomach.

“Ugh, lovebirds.” Markus rolls his eyes, and when Dominic turns his head to look at him, he adds a snort and a wave of his hand.

“Kids.” Marcel shakes his head at Domi, almost as though he knows just how Markus and Fabian can get, and Dominic’s the one who’s spending the most time with them. “Always moaning about what they don’t have.”

But no one’s that serious. They all sort of envy what Marcel has, but they cherish it most of all, and although there’s often some playful mocking during gatherings, Marcel still knows they’d all jump in front of his woman without batting an eyelash if that meant keeping her safe.

There’s commotion coming from inside the house, then. The old dog that had been snoozing by Christian’s feet lifts her head, barking low in the back of her throat, still sleepy, before two dogs dash outside and she’s suddenly chasing them on her three paws, long fluffy tail wagging.

The guys cheer the new-comers and although the white one—it takes Dom a while to recognize Otto, Angel’s dog—jumps and huffs to play with Christian’s Stella, the loud and cheering voices send the other one in a frenzy. Rex runs back and forth, tail wagging as hard as a whip, tongue two meters out of his snout. And it’s such a hilarious sight that it sends Dominic laughing with his other friends as the dog almost trips Eva and that jar of cold lemonade over.

Then, when Dominic’s regained enough breath to stop the wheezing and wipe the tears from his eyes with a hand, he calls him over. “Hey, Rex! C’mere!”

He has no time to see the surprise flash across his friends’ faces, for it’s all downhill from there. Rex stops dead in his tracks, front paws down on the grass to his elbows and butt up in the air, his tail still wagging wildly—and really, he doesn’t know how he hasn’t sprained it yet, or how he hasn’t taken off like in some cartoon. His head turns here and there for half a second before his caramel eyes zero in on him. Before Dominic has the time to beg Stop!, the dog is on him: The impact sends his empty beer bottle flying backward as the chair tips back, a leg snaps, and he’s suddenly half-laying, half-sitting almost horizontally with an ecstatic Rex licking his face and his beard, barely able to keep still in his arms.

The other two dogs are quick to join them, and before Dominic can turn his head to the side and see the way Christian kisses Y/N’s cheek hello or hear the way she groans out a fuck! before she can intervene, two more wet snouts blind and sniff at him.

Sometime later, as Markus is complaining under his breath about the ladies’ ‘rabbit food’, Dominic turns towards Fabian and half-says, half-asks: “I thought she didn’t do members.”

“Huh?” Fabian looks up from where he’s stuffing his face with pork ribs and Franziska’s salad, moaning for a second about how much I love fucking onions, God. But he’s quick at looking where Domi’s quick tilt of the head is pointing.

Y/N and Christian are sitting next to each other, heads close as they discuss something before she feels them staring and sends them a quick smile.

“Oh, no. No.” Fabian coughs as he tries not to choke on his food when he picks up with what Dom’s implying—Jeez, no, shit, Angel and Christian? He laughs, still breathless, and chugs down the glass of lemonade Verena’s poured him. “Nah, she’s like a sister to him. Same for her. It was hard for a while after Mia’s death. The gang…” But he shrugs, cuts himself off and trails his gaze back down on his plate. “It was rough. And they’ve grown real close, but there’s nothing more than fraternal love between them.”

Dominic nods. “Oh, okay.”

He’s thinking nothing of her—or is he? They’ve been hanging out quite a bit these past few weeks. He’s been over at her house for a leaking sink just last Saturday afternoon, and she’s made him stay longer so that they could eat dinner together, watch the wrestling match on TV. He’s not… into her like that, he thinks—yet. Because, really, he wouldn’t mind being.

“Why?” There’s a suggestive smirk growing on his friend’s face. “You thinking of—”

But he’s cut off when Christian calls Dominic and steals his attention. No one discusses business during this kind of gatherings, but there’s a look on the man and his right hand, Marcel’s faces that just makes him think he’ll be hearing from them not long after going back home that night. He’s already made great progress on his undercover assignment, but this truly does start feeling like a step in the right direction.

When the party’s over, that night after dinner, he ends up sitting in Y/N’s car as she takes both of them home. Her dogs would be all up in his neck if it weren’t for the shield provided by the passenger’s seat, and she’s apologizing—although with a grin on her face and a tone that doesn’t make her apology come out that sincere—about their behavior.

“I just don’t understand why they like you so much,” she muses. “Rex most of all.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t even know I was that good with dogs before these two.”

Years later, he’d tell Marius Streicher how pretty she looked, with her make-up slightly smudged and the hair locks that had escaped her now messy bun. How accessible she felt—and not even in a bad way, but more like, he could reach a hand out and poke her cheek with his fingertips, or trail his index along her hairline, down the curve of her ear and touch her piercings, or even just lean back against his seat and just, look at her. How peaceful the interior of her car felt.

He’d tell Marius how Rainbow didn’t exist back then. How it was just him and the wrong waitress he had started falling for. And at the same time, how he still had this thought in the back of his mind, constantly nagging him—what if he ended up blowing up his mission in smoke?

“You’re staring,” she’s saying, smiling, eyes still on the road ahead.

“And you’re blushing.”

If there’s one thing he’s learned about her during his countless nights at the same stupid club, then it’s that she doesn’t blush. Not when his eyes are glued to her. He has stared at her much more lewdly than he’s doing now, most of all with a few drinks too many in his stomach and in his system.

She shrugs, and when she stops the car and Dominic turns back around, he notices they’ve arrived at her house. “You should come in,” she says instead, already getting out of the car and opening the back door to let the dogs out. “You don’t have to,” she adds quickly when he gets out, too. And he can’t see her face now that she’s unlocking her entrance door, but he knows she’s still blushing. “Only if you want.”

He wouldn’t tell Marius how her lips felt against his, nor how the drinks they had in her kitchen tasted when her tongue brushed against his. How she felt in his lap, one of her hands on the back of his head and the other up his shirt, against his tattooed chest. How she ground her hips down against him just right and tore a grunt from deep inside his belly and that vibrated against her lips, making her smile.

He’d tell none of that, but his friend would still understand.

What he did tell Marius, however, as they laid under the starry sky, was that, somehow, no one had felt like her again. Not his random hook-ups, the ones he was guilty of picking either because he needed a distraction or because they reminded him of Angel, and not even Katie, that kindergarten teacher Seamus had introduced to him and with whom he had hung out for a month or so. Nothing serious, and he hadn’t even exactly put effort into it, but a part of him still had tried. More for Seamus’—or even just Katie’s—sake than his own.

It was exactly Katie that Marius brought up with a yawn. And when he asked what had been wrong with her—or, well, maybe not wrong per se but more, I don’t know, brother… Amiss?—Dominic had found himself scoffing.

Katie’s not her—but he didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t say how he had fallen for the way Y/N fought in the ring, how she grimaced or grinned, the way her braids would slap against a cheek or a shoulder when her movements would be too abrupt. He’d go to her after the fights, and sometimes still sweaty and bruised, she’d straight up fuck the living sanity out of him—a hand around his throat and the other on his chest to keep her balance as they went at it on either his or her couch.

“Katie was…” He thought it over, fighting with his words and his brain’s ability to pick the right one. “Too nice.”

Y/N hadn’t been just black or just white—she was a whole spectrum of grays, ranging from one end to the other of it. Soft and kind on any day; but then also fearless and strong when she needed to be, ready to raise hell and fight God when she had to.

Dominic would have never been able to picture Katie on a ring, taking blows and also giving them back, because that wasn’t who Katie was. And although there was absolutely nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with being who you are, it just… wasn’t the same. He never found himself with his wrists tied to the headboard of Katie’s bed, with a blindfold over his eyes, almost holding his breath to see—feel—where she’d touch him next. Or how. Or even with what.

And probably that was why he couldn’t take Angel out of his mind—because he knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t be able to have her again. That she was gone, lost in a chapter of his life that he had reached the end of, and that he had left in the past. And although he did often go back to reread it, that was exactly all he could do—read, but never change a word of it.

“You still have time to add something more, though.”

He had almost dozed off to sleep, the exhaustion and exertion of that day’s worth of hiking catching up with him and his tired limbs. And it was only when Marius uttered those words that he realized he had spoken that inner monologue out loud into the darkness of the night.

The stars were blinking down at him, almost winking at his powerlessness in that situation. He wasn’t scared that she might cut his balls off and feed them to the wolves; nor that she might pull her hair back into two braids and teach him a lesson or two.

What stopped him from working was the very last voicemail she had left him, when she had called his German number for the last time. He had seen her cry—cry with laughter at some stupid joke, or sob her lungs out that one time they watched Marley and Me together, the mere idea of one day losing her dogs tearing her up from the inside out. But the way she had breathed into the phone, trying to hold back the sobs, and the way her voice had broken on every other syllable—Please, Domi, pick up. I don’t understand what’s going on, but I know you’re not with the others—it still wrecked him.

He had listened to it so many times that not only did he know every word by heart, but he could hear her voice—the way it cracked, when she’d sob, when Otto would whine in the background. And what was worse, was that he could see her with his mind’s eye—sitting in the empty tub, or on one of the stools in the kitchen, or even behind the wheel of her car. So strong and resolute… crumbling apart because all he had had to offer was a lie.

Or maybe not all—he had been honest with her. Honest the first time he had told her he loved her, and honest the last time he had professed his love. That hadn’t been a lie. The way he’d hold her at night, when she’d sleep with her head on his chest, or the way he had always been ready to pounce on way-too-daring customers at the club, or when he told her she was the light of his life—none of that had been a lie.

But everything surrounding that? His loyalty to the gang? To the guys? To Christian? His made-up past before he settled down in the city? The real reason he’d sometimes love to go on solo trips and enjoy some peace, when he was in fact meeting up with people from his real life?

“I had my chance,” he decided to say instead, closing his eyes against the night sky. He’d been out stargazing with her, once, the first time they had fucked. It had been sweet and peaceful, until it had turned hotter and messier and sweatier. If he stared up at those stars one minute longer, he knew it, he’d be back on that field, with her trapped between him and the plaid blanket, clothes strewn haphazardly all around. And that was the last thing he needed. “And I wasted it.”

He didn’t say how he wasted it by coming back, but the implicature was still out there, heavy and acrid in the otherwise fresh air of the mountains.

But there had been no backing out of it. Rainbow would have come; something would have been done anyway. At some point in his staying, things had moved too forward before his heart had been able to pick a side, and there had been nothing else he could do. He had broken her heart, but he had also broken his own, and that had been inevitable. A fate he had had zero chances escaping. They had found each other too late, and he’d probably die regretting anything about that case.

There was absolutely no going back there, but he had also started to think that his future didn’t lay in Rainbow anymore, either. It had become too much—and also too little, all at the same time. Gang life surely wasn’t for him, but he was starting to realize that his last undercover mission had ended up messing up with him a bit too much, and although it didn’t exactly interfere with the way he acted in Rainbow, it did with the vision he had of it—and of himself as part of it.

“I think I need a break from this,” he muttered into the night, eyes closed both out of tiredness and that lingering sort of embarrassment he felt any time he addressed how inadequate he now felt. “It’s almost been a year and I still haven’t been able to stop long enough to think.”

He didn’t know if Marius had turned to glance at him in the semi-darkness, before they turned off their torches to sleep, but he knew he had heard.

“What Angel? You’re a little minx,” Dominic chuckles, still out of breath, his chest burning with exhaustion every time it rises and falls. His sweaty back sticks to the leather seats of the car, and he knows the sensation she must be feeling can’t be much different.

But he doesn’t turn to look at her. His gaze is glued to her lace panties, hanging from the gear shift in the front. If he didn’t feel too boneless to lean forward and take her phone from the passenger’s seat, he’d for sure take a picture.

“Who are you calling little?” Her laugh is breathless, and when she moves around like a contortionist to sit up straight, her lips brush against the side of his neck, making his skin break out in gooseflesh and the short hair on the nape of his head tug. “I’m still taller than you with my heels on.”

Laughter rumbles deep in his chest, and he lets her pull his head back when she tugs on his hair with a hand. “Details, pretty doll.”

She doesn’t remind him how she’s kicked his butt just a couple of weeks ago during training and part of him is happy because all they’ve been using that accident as is some sort of foreplay that always ends up with her straddling him, making him tremble with the unexpected touches his blindfold always seems to heighten.

When her finger traces the underside of his cock, however, that chuckle dies on his lips and he gasps almost inaudibly in the back of his throat. Suddenly, his suit pants pulled down to mid-thigh feel constricting and he knows that if she keeps it up, he’ll be hard again soon.

“Don’t.” He didn’t intend for it to come out that way, but his prayer is soft on her lips, when she turns his head to the side to stare into his eyes. “We’re running late for the party.”

She shrugs—and he thinks that fuck, if this car didn’t feel this cramped, he’d fuck her brains out, party or no party, not even when it comes to his boss. “You made me come twice,” she replies, matter-of-factly, not at all moved by his begging or by his breath hitching in the back of his throat when her fingers move down to his balls. “I think it’s just fair I pay back the favor, no?”

His chest and neck are still flushed when he walks into the villa Christian has rented out for his New Year’s party. The initial surprise of Y/N caving in for a member has quickly subsided, and no one whistles in their direction when they see them walk in hand in hand.

They greet their friends, exchange quick hugs, and before long, they’re all drinking and chatting.

“You were late,” Christian says. The expression on his face is serious, but the left corner of his mouth is slowly twitching up into a smirk he manages to hide when he tips his head back and downs his shot.

Dominic shrugs, gaze wandering back to where Angel is catching up with Franziska and Verena, one leg crossed over the other, left bare by the slit in her dress. “Yeah,” he clears his throat, trying not to think about how her panties are still hanging from the gear shift of the car. “We had a setback.” He hesitates on that last word, for he tries to come up with something that could at least sound unassuming, but by God, the crotch of his pants feels like it’s growing tighter and he just knows kissing her won’t be the only thing he’ll be doing when the clock strikes midnight.

Christian laughs. “If my car smells like sex—”

“We rolled the windows down. We’re not animals,” he replies with a snort.

“Just… get it cleaned before you give it back.”

Y/N glances back at them then, eyes twinkling and lips still kiss-swollen and bruised under the lipstick she reapplied before getting out of the car, he’s sure. But before she can call him to her or he can walk up to her a bit stiffly of his own accord, Christian speaks again.

“We still have some time before dinner. There’s a meeting in the other room. Marcel has news on that seemingly lost package.”

Dominic turns around, brows furrowed in confusion, before his brain manages to quickly piece everything back together and he follows the other man down a corridor and into another room. He’s almost forgotten about the new cargo coming in—it’s been a feat lately, to remember he’s not actually one of them but an undercover agent trying to blow a gang up. It’s harder and harder, and he knows the lines aren’t blurred—not yet, at least—but it’s become way too easy, to lose himself in his new friendships and in the unexpected love he’s found here.

But when reality strikes back, it’s hard to distract his mind again.

Anton’s there—and while he isn’t the boss, he’s high up enough to be one of Rainbow’s main concerns. The oldest in the group, he’s rarely there, he rarely shows up. He does work behind the scenes, but that’s where he’d rather stay—away from the kids’ stupidity, or that’s how he always jokes about it.

He’s tall and strong—a whole wardrobe of a man, but Dominic’s still been promoted to be his bodyguard and he can’t help but feel a pang of something deep in his brain, and there’s this unsolicited thought bubbling up that makes him feel all sorts of ways. Maybe someone’s had some suspicions about him, and this is all a test—or this is what he thinks before Anton moves the wrong way and he’s forced to explain that the reason for that agonized groan is the extent of the injuries he’s incurred into not too long ago.

But then they’re all back for dinner, and Dominic doesn’t have time to bask in that wave of relief washing over him when he figures out there’s nothing to fear. They eat and drink and play stupid semi-drunk games, until it’s half an hour to midnight and Y/N has dragged him into a bathroom and unbuckled his belt.

It’s quick and messy, and his fingertips dig hard into the flesh of her hips as they stare into each other’s eyes in the mirror.

“I was thinking,” she hums, wrapped tight around his arm as he walks back with her at five minutes to midnight—enough time to make her come once more, or maybe twice, but Alex has promised a great pyrotechnic show and neither of them wants to miss how he almost gets himself blown up like last year.

“My thoughts are still in that bathroom and you tell me you’re thinking?” he chuckles, pressing a kiss to her cheek before he gives her hand a squeeze, almost as though he’s telling her to just continue.

“You dork,” she laughs. “But yes, I was thinking. Why don’t you move in with me?” she asks. “You’re already there most of the time, and your house is always messy and your couch not comfortable enough for…” She shrugs, trying her best to hide her smirk. “Plus, I’d really love to have you there.”

He feigns thinking about it, but when she gasps in mock shock, he pulls her in for a kiss—and that is when their friends must see and whistle. “I’d never say no to that, Angel.”

Her smile is bright and in the moment, he doesn’t even realize he doesn’t have forever with her, although that’s what he’s come to crave for.

He didn’t know how he let Marius convince him to go back to Germany and see her. He really had no clue, just as he didn’t have a clue about many things—what he’d tell her, how she might react, what he’d do after. How he’d feel after—relieved? like he’s finally had some closure? and how would things be once back in Hereford?

There were a million and one thoughts in his mind as he sat there, on his hotel bed. Harry had offered to let the organization pay for it, but Dominic would have felt too bad if he had let him. This was personal, and there was no saying if his heart still lay within Rainbow schemes. He’d probably keep in touch; he’d probably always be available for anything, really, but the more time passed, the less he thought that was still the right place for him.

Düsseldorf was still buzzing with life despite the torrential rain when he walked out into the street. Y/N—he feared too many emotions and memories would resurface if he let himself think of her as Angel—had moved from the city three years after her lifetime friends had ended up in jail, sent behind bars by none other than her lover. They wouldn’t stay inside forever—he knew how these things worked, he didn’t live a delusion.

He had called her, the day before he had booked his flight. If there was one thing he owed her, it was at least that—let her know he’d be coming… if she wanted him to, that is. If she didn’t want to meet up, then so be it: he’d go on with his life the way he had done throughout the past year and try not to regret too much stuff he had been forced to do because of his job.

But when she had picked up the phone—he had called her old number with his old number—things had felt… well, not normal, of course—he had disappeared overnight without leaving a note or a text or a simple word that could let her know what the fuck had been going on during the past six years of his life—of their life. But she had picked up the phone and she hadn’t killed him through the device, and although she had remained silent for most of the call—and he had done the same, truly, not even knowing what he wanted to tell her, for the words just wouldn’t come—she had eventually agreed to meet up.

Not at her new house, although Harry had done some digging and knew where she lived—a nice apartment in a nice part of the city, but Dominic hadn’t wanted to know where, exactly, when his Director had offered to share the knowledge. She had picked a café, a nice and cozy place he had looked up on the internet, but still popular enough that the awkwardness of their date of sorts would be easily drowned out by the other patrons’ presence.

She was scrolling through her phone when he walked in and spotted her in the far left corner. It was secluded enough to guarantee them some privacy, but still not enough to cut them off from the rest of the world. He figured it was just perfect.

“Hey,” he greeted when he walked up to the table she had picked and he tried not to sigh when he noticed she had pulled her hair back into two braids.

She looked up at him—she didn’t glare the way he had expected her to, but she also didn’t smile. “Hey.”

He sat down, and they both stared at each other until a waiter came up and Y/N called for a coffee and an orange juice before glaring the guy away.

The awkwardness of it all quickly filled the space between them, and wrapped them up like a blanket, but it wasn’t just that. She was pissed, and angry, and probably murderous, but under all that he could still see the heartbreak in her eyes.

“Well, I’m here,” she said. “Say what you wanted to say. It’s the least I deserve, I think.”

Dominic opened his mouth to speak, but then the waiter came back and he closed it again as he watched their order being placed on the table. His cup of black coffee and her glass of juice seemed to put even more distance between them and he had to resist the impulse of passing a hand over his shaved head the way he did when he was nervous.

“I’m sorry,” was what he sighed, lowering his gaze first to the table and then back out of the window and the rain-washed street outside.

She leaned forward and took a sip from the straw before crossing her arms and sitting back against the cushioned back of the booth. “That’s it? You came all the way from wherever the fuck you’ve been hiding to just say I’m sorry? No explanation whatsoever?”

Another sigh, but before he could open his mouth to speak again, she cut him off.

“Was any of that real? Was there at least a crumb of truth? I opened up to you and you just—” Her voice trembled, but whether it was out of tears or pure anger, Dominic couldn’t tell.

“It was real.” He was quick at biting back, probably a bit too aggressively than he had any right to be. “It was real,” he repeated after a moment, voice much quieter and eyes boring into hers. “I did love you.”

“Love’s too big a word for the things you’ve done.”

“It was work,” he tried to reason. “I got sent here on an undercover mission—”

“I know that. I’ve been interrogated by the ones who didn’t go in. They suspected me. Because of you. Because I had been fucking the snitch for almost five years.”

He gaped at her for a moment before sighing in defeat. “I loved you,” but he didn’t say I still do, or You’re still on my mind day in and day out, and not even I still see your panties on the gear shift of Christian’s car. “That wasn’t fake, it wasn’t part of the mission. I told myself I wouldn’t fall for you, that it would mess things up, that it wasn’t fair to you. But I still did. Every I love you I said was real. Every single one of them.”

She was silent for a minute before she scoffed and shook her head. “You’re so full of shit, Dominic.”

It was different this time. She had told him that he was full of shit many a time, always laughing, always joking, but this time those words cut deep—deep enough to rob him of his breath for a moment.

“I trusted you,” she continued then, much quieter, voice barely audible above the sound of the music and of the other people chatting. “I thought you’d be my forever. How stupid I was…”

He looked down at his cup, his throat too knotted to even stomach the idea of drinking his coffee. “That makes two of us. I thought that I—”

“Don’t you even dare—”

“That I’d have more time,” he continued unrelenting, shaking his head with closed eyes for a second before opening them and staring at her again. “That I could buy more time. I kept on hoping I’d fuck up somehow, that things would go wrong and that I wouldn’t have to complete the mission. Or that I could have the time to make you hate me before it was all over.”

“Well, I do kinda hate you now.”

“Breaking your heart was never in my plans, though.” He almost moved his hand on the table to place it over hers, but a last-minute realization made him understand that that was most definitely the worst thing he could do at the moment. And not because she could snap his wrist easily, but because he had no right to. “I really did love you. I wanted to take you back with me. I tried to tell you.”

There was a spark of recognition in her eyes, then, and he knew what memory his words had brought back. The two of them relaxing in the bathtub, her back against his chest, her damp hair tickling his neck and cheek. Come away with me, he had told her, fingers trailing up and down her arms, making her shiver. Let’s go far away, where no one can find us.

“I didn’t want it to end,” he confessed. “Any of that.”

“You built everything on a lie, Dominic.” A scoff. “If that’s even your real name, that is.”

“It is.”

It seemed to take her off guard and erased the words she had been about to say.

“My name’s Dominic Brunsmeier, not Neumann. I work for an international unit of elite agents that fight terrorism. I was assigned on this mission because we were informed Anton was doing more than simply dealing drugs. I went undercover with a Hells Angels chapter in the past, so the GSG-9 called me back for this one,” he confessed, voice flat and almost professional. He would have never thought he’d one day be making such a speech out loud, but there he was, in a busy café, in front of the woman he still had the nerve to love but who didn’t love him back anymore. “And my love for you could’ve never been a lie.”

She nodded once and turned her head to the side and to the city outside. He was trying to gauge what she might be thinking, what might be going on inside her head. But she remained unreadable and distant. “They’d kill you if they knew you’re back,” she eventually said, glancing at him from the corner of her eye, her chin still resting on the palm of her hand.

He shrugged. “I’ve been close to death too many times to be scared today. This past year…” He couldn’t tell her it had been rough; he didn’t think he had the right to when in her eyes he had gone back home. “I knew I had to see you, even if it was for the last time. I didn’t think you’d agree to meet up, but I’m glad you did.”

They were silent after that. They drank their beverages, and all without speaking a word. But then, when they paid and left, she let him accompany her home.

“I thought you’d break my bones,” he confessed with a chuckle as he stood outside her apartment complex and she picked the right key to open the building’s door.

“I thought I would, too.” She was pensive, lost in thought, and it took her a couple of minutes before she pushed the door open. “But the truth is, I probably could never.”

They stared at each other, and before he could have the time to chicken out, he said, “I know it’s too much to ask, but… We could still have time together.”

She looked at him for a moment longer before she stepped into the building and closed the door behind her back.

Later that night, as he sat on his hotel bed once again, on a phone call with Marius, he couldn’t stop thinking about the last words she told him.

Yes, we could.

Feedback is always welcome if you want to drop old me a line 💛

If you want to be tagged, hit me up! xx

#dominic brunsmeier #dominic bandit brunsmeier #rainbow six siege imagine #r6s bandit imagine #dominic brunsmeier imagine #dominic brunsmeier x oc #r6s bandit x oc #rainbow six siege fanfic

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captain-aralias · 3 years

Text

Life stuff

this feels kind of weird, because i’ve never used my tumblr like this, but i would have written something on my livejournal, and i want people to know - i just dont want to have to tell people about it, or really talk about it at all.

but i also wanted to write this, idk.

(TW: impending death of a parent)

my mum has cancer.

it’s a rare form of cancer, called peritoneal cancer, which is similar to but different from ovarian cancer - i think it mostly gets diagnosed (like my mum’s) when it’s too late to do anything about it. all the treatment has been palliative only i.e. letting her live as long and as comfortably as possible.

she was diagnosed in september last year - about a year ago, a few months after running the ‘virtual’ london marathon on the isle of wight, where she lives, and obviously deep in lockdown.

as someone undergoing chemo, she was deemed extremely vulnerable to covid, and so she spent most of the early pandemic isolating. she also said she didn’t see any point in my brother and i visitng her, particularly given the risks, because we could talk via facetime - which is fair enough - all of which meant my brother and i didn’t go to visit her until May this year, after she’d done the first lot of chemo and was already doing much better again.

a few months after that, we found out that while she’d responded really well to the chemo, her cancer wasn’t responding at all to the maintenance drugs that were suposed to stop it coming back, so she came off the drugs completely. medical advice was basically chemo is as effective whenever you do it, so you might as well enjoy your life for a while, we’ll monitor it every month, and when things start to get too bad, we’ll put you back in chemo.

it’s friday tomorrow - so two fridays ago, i saw my mum in london after she’d just seen hamilton with her partner, graham. both of them loved hamilton. her hair had grown back, she seemed pretty normal. about a week later, she was in A&E - and she’s been in the hospital all week. she’s got a total bowel obstruction, which means she can’t eat and hasn’t eaten since last week.

now in a weird situation where there are a few tricky, difficult options (including being moved off the island back onto the mainland to a bigger hospital) that will mean that she stays alive long enough to get the chemo, which will probably get her back to hamilton-watching strength, or ... she could die really soon. like, in a few days.

we can’t visit. her partner can’t visit because covid - there’s this really sad-making photo of him looking happy on the phone through a window to my mum, also on the phone, inside the hospital.

i feel...

???? :( :( :( ....

i guess this is the main point of the post. i’m not writing this crying, i’m writing it pretty neutrally - because my brain isn’t really processing it right now, and mostly doesn’t process it.

i did cry earlier today while on the phone to various people, and then i went back to work. i hate crying, i hate being sad, and i dont like people comforting me, because it makes me realise that i have something to be sad about.

i’ve known she had cancer for a year. i haven’t been able to hang out with her most of that time. i would say, we are fairly close, although not nearly as close as some families. we don’t talk every week, but we talk regularly, and have seen each other regularly.

i’m so incredibly privileged that nothing that bad has ever happened to me, even though i’m 35. i’ve never been to a funeral, which seemed like a major life win and now i think was a mistake, i should have gone to funerals for people i card about less to help get used to it.

the literal only comparison i have to how i feel is when my cat Anton died suddenly about 3 years ago - i handled it with a mix of not thinking about it, being intensely sad for as brief a period as i could, and probably by thinking about how sad my girlfriend was about it, and sort of sidestepping my own feelings in comparison.

i remember when my last remaining grandparent died - and i was about 14 or something - i wasn’t sad for myself, i was only sad for her my dad being sad. for ages, i worried that i was not going to be sad enough about this - and i still sort of am.

but i also passionately hate the idea of being sad and i know i’ll look to avoid it as much as possible, and try and get on with my life.

i know my mum dying isn’t about me - when people write after death it’s about the person who died, obviously. that makes sense. but this post isn’t about my mum, who is a very cool person, much cooler than me - it’s about me. because i am self-obsessed and this is going to wreck my life for a while.

it’s weird, because i can see it on the horizon but it’s not happening yet. and i dont know whether that’s good or bad - i feel like it’s good, in a way. someone ages ago told me that the grieving period starts when you get the news. that seems very true to me - but also, i know that it’s going to ramp up, and so i’m like in the expectation of true grief right now.

it’s sort of like she died, but also is still going to die, but also i can magically still talk to her. which is really nice, in a way, it’s like a second chance, because i know i didn’t reach out enough before she had cancer. and i’m aware enough of my own actions that i know this is what’s been going on in my head the past year - i should reach out more, because she has cancer, but i dont want to make it seem like i’m reaching out because she has cancer, even though she knows i know she has cancer....... and also, i’m busy writing this fic. /o\

the fact that she seemed to recover (even though my mum insisted on saying ‘i am not recovered, i’m going to die soon’ like several time as a day as a disclaimer) also totally messed with my head, because i knew logically - ok, it’s happening. but also, things seemed so normal when we speak. even when i called her today, and she hasn’t eaten for a week, it seemed normal.

btw - i realised this week i had no idea how cancer killed people. my mum is a scientist and has looked up all kinds of things about what’s killing her; i’m clearly a simon snow and didn’t want to think about things i can’t help. if you’d asked me, i’d have said like... it poisons you or something, or blocks bloodflow to your brain. not what i think will actually do it which is.... starvation. or being too weak to survive being pumped full of the poison that is intended to kill the cancer. (that one i guess i could have predicted.) man - cancer sucks. i mean, we all knew it.

(i failed to get into cambridge university at interview stage, many years ago. the man who interviewed me gave me some extremely memorable feedback, which is that i needed to dial back the ‘defensive irony’ - which i thnk in that context meant i put myself down and tried to make a joke of everything. i remember when i got the phonecall to say Anton, my cat, was dead, i literally did not know what to do with my voice - because my instinct was to try and make the vet feel better, and also to present myself as bright and capable, and yet this unexpected and devasting news had just come through. rainbow wrote something sort of similar because she’s a good writer, for shepard as he tells penny about his curse. i feel like that.)

what else did i want to say?

i thought i had more time. ‘hamilton’ will probably always be tied to this moment in my mind, because of how much i’ve spoken to my mum about it in the past few weeks (i sent her the remix - she liked it, she listened to it in hospital while trying to drink more than 100ml of fluids) but yeah - this is basically a line from hamilton here. whatever. don’t make me feel my own feelings, let me just quote things. i dont like my own feelings. (no, i dont want to go to therapy - they’d make me talk about my feelings all the time, i’m british for god’s sake.)

i’m 35 - my mum is 68. i didn’t think she’d die this early or that i’d have to deal with this yet. but then i also don’t think bad things are ever going to happen to me - because mostly they haven’t, see above. i wear a mask and am double vaccinated because i’m not an asshole, but i dont really believe i’ll get covid because bad things don’t happen to me. i didn’t think my mum would die - maybe ever, but definitely not yet. she’s been retired a decade after teaching (science) and has enjoyed it.

i thought i had time to not have kids yet - which is the other thing (like hamilton) that this moment is really tied up with for me. i feel like 35 is getting quite old, but also not that old to still not have kids, but intend to maybe have them. my feelings about kids were basically like - up until like 25, i thought, yes, definitely. i mean, before i had a realtiosnhip (22-ish), i just assumed i would probably have a het marriage and have kids etc, like people do, but after that we were still talking, yes, children at some point.

didn’t prioritise it for a few reasons - none of my close friends had children until quite recently, so it just didn’t seem like an urgent thing in the way that it probably does for people with different friendship groups. waiting to be settled enough in a job to be able to take maternity leave without it feeling like a rip off for my employer. waiting for a good time in erin’s PhD writing cycle. and then pandemic. and then a few years ago, maybe as i turned 30, i thought - maybe we won’ have kids, because we still haven’t - and i vocalised that to erin.

also, i know a lot of people are gay and have children, so it’s not like it’s a thing that is impossible at all, but it’s much much harder if you have to leave your home and your relationship in order to get a child. it has to be a very very conscious decisions. i have friend who are men who have good genes, but we’re not so close i want to ask them for their sperm/to be involved however remotely in making a child - and (i was surprised to discover) (what a lot of things i dont know anything about) you an’t really just buy sperm, it’s not truly legal except through a clinic. and it’s extremely expensive to get inseminated in a clinic, and the NHS don’t really do that, so you do have to pay it. i thought kids would be expensive after they were born, but not before. and i REALLY wanted a house, much much more than - i think even today - i’ve ever wanted a child. i REALLY wanted a house - and now we have a house, and it’s pretty good. but - that’s where the money went, until the pandemic - thanks pandemic - so now we do have some disposable cash at last, because i didn’t commute.

but now erin is worried about climate change - and wheher it’s right to bring more children into the world, and other things. and.... i think i do want to be pregnant, it’s what i’m planning for - don’t leave this job (which admittedly i also really like, and pays me well - i dont thin i need to leave) because next stop maternity leave, but.....

i don’t know whether i am thinking, time ot have kids because my best friend just had a baby (the baby’s name is horatio - for real, i actually love this name) (i also haven’t seen her or the baby except over skype, because anna - my friend - is, like my mother, also scared of pandemic) and my brain is like - ok, well, if anna is doing it, i guess the time is here

AND - i know there’s a large part of me that was like, gotta be pregnant and ideally have the baby before my mum dies so she gets to see that she had a grandchild. my brother and i are both queer, btw, in case you were wondering - he’s considering whether he wants to transition right now (but is still happy with he/him pronouns) and - you may find this astonishing, but i genuinely don’t know whether he’d consider himself ace, or has been in relationships. he’s very private, he has OCD and is in therapy - but anyway, he’s probably not having kids anytime soon (i think!) and graham - my mum’s boyfriend/partner of 10+ years. -has grandchildren, but my extremely middleclass white (but definitely not conservative voters, always 100% not-tory) parents ended up with me and my brother.... and i don’t know, as i say, i don’t know whether my brain is saying ‘have kids before it’s too late’ - although i know by now that it will be too late. even if my mum recovers from this, this time, i don’t think i can produce a child before she dies - and she isn’t asking me too, she’s not like that, but i would have liked her to be there. i thought she would be.

so - i’m thinking about that. also, about getting a dog. i really want a dog - although i don’t want to upset the three cats (one we’ve had for eight years or so, the other two we got after Anton died). it’s ALSO really hard and expensive to get a dog. you’d think with all these ‘a dog isn’t just for the pandemic, a dog is for life’ type adverts around, that it would be easy to adcidentally get a dog - i’ve looked! you ccan’t get a dog unless you have no cats and you’re super experienced and can take a dog with lots of trauma or medical problems, or you’re willing to pay thousands of pounds. like - even for a regular not even pedigree dog - at least a thousand. pedigree dog - several thousand. i dont want a puppy either - i want a dog.

and - this is embarrassing to admit, but i’ve alrady told erin - i genuinely had a phase of being super annoyed when i’d read fics where someone just ‘got a dog’. it’s not that simple!!! it’s fiction, it doesn’t matter - chill out. the baby thing too - although weirdly not fics where magic meant it was possible to get a baby, weirdly it was smut. i had a brief week or so of crazy (and i don’t think i am that crazy) where i’d read about fictional semen and just be like - wtf, it’s so hard to get hold of that shit. (it’s not real, this isn’t real semen being wasted, calm down - and i dont even really know if i want kids, i might just think i do.)

the other thing about the bad thing being soon but not yet (but also being all the time, but not if you dnt think about it) is that i’m thinking - should i prioritise writing my remix now, in case my mum dies and i’m too sad to do it, and then i didn’t do my remix? i was definitely thinking this while writing classroom politics (i hope my mum doesn’t die becaue i dont want to be too sad to miss the deadline) and in the run up to AWTWB .....

today i wrote a list of things for work that would need to be picked up if i have to unexpectedly stop working, either because i’m too sad, or because i have to do funeral stuff, or .... i guess legal stuff about settling the estate. (i guess this happens to a lot of people, too, but it’s also a bit of a mindfuck that my brother and i will inherit her house and a bunch of cash when she dies - i’m pretty well off, my brotehr does virtual reality theatre stuff so really isn’t - we’ve talked about how much easier both of our lives will be with a huge injection of cash, and how we dont know what to feel about that) (great news, dogs and kids are really expensive! time to find out whether i really wanted to spend my money on those.) told people i like at work that it’s coming, and that i dont want to talk about it. and mostly just... carrying on with life, really. until it happens.

it’s so weird how easy it is to carry on most of the time.i know my mum’s partner is not doing nearly so well - he has to cope with an empty house and he’s retired. i’ve had periods - including right now - where i wake up every morning and check my phone to see whehter someone called me or texted me to tell me it’s over. but most of the day i’m actually really fine. i even had an ok day today. and i don’t know whether i want that to be the case, or whether i shouldn’t let myself do that. i dont know what i should prepare for in terms of where i’ll be - will i want lots of stuff to distract me (this is my guess) and work is very good for that, or i will want to clear time and space because i can’t operate and dont want people to offer me comfort. (FYI - this post isn’t written to make people say anything to me, i definitely dont want to talk about it, so please don’t feel you either have to comment or check in on me - i don’t really want you to. it’s enough to have written it, in my own time, in my own space.)

i think i wanted to write this post in a way because i thought i probably wouldnt want to write it after my mum died - because i probably wouldn’t want to say anything about it at all, for a few years.

my mum keeps telling me about the show ‘jane the virgin’ - which she’s half way through. shhe asked me to give it a try, so i did (she often tells me about shows on radio 4, which i rarely listen to. i thouht i had more time.) i’ve watched an episode (because she has cancer, i should listen to her recommendations)(but i dont want her to know that’s why i did it) and i do quite like - it’s light and frothy and well cut together (although about kids and artificial insemination, of course). i guess in a worse case scenario where i’m too sad to work or write, i will probably watch a lot of this show - which is incredibly not sad - and feel sad about how my mum never finished it.

BUT ALSO SHE MIGHT BE OK. for a while.

i dont know how i feel, blargh. anyway. this was a long post. i think i wrote it mostly for me. feelings are weird. covid really sucks and so does cancer.

going to order some chicken and watch inuyasha.

#my content #tw: death #tw: death of a parent #tw: death of a loved one #personal #tw: cancer

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mc-critical · 3 years

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Do you think MC hurrem, before the bayezid and selim conflict of course, ever considered that the traditional fratricide could possibly happen amongst her sons? Mustafa hypothetically killing her sons if he became sultan is constantly used as a reason for why she had to get rid of him but how could multiple princes having the same mother resolve any potential conflict for the throne? Sorry idk if what i said makes sense

Don't worry at all, I understood you perfectly! ^^

No, I don't think MC Hürrem considered that possibility as strongly before the inevitable occured.

First off, her adaption to the harem was a slow and gradual process and she certainly didn't become aware of all the rules, all the sudden. (as when she was surprised that Mustafa was getting his own harem before the sanjack) She knew enough to set a goal in her mind from the first episode, but didn't get to see the full picture until she went through fulfilling that goal step by step and saw an obstacle that would be impossible to ignore. She was so focused on the path to survive, she brushed off the cost of said path in the first place.

It's true that in the beginning, there wasn't a reason for her to consider possible ongoing rivalry or fratricide between her sons. Nigar told her that she would rule the world if she gives the Sultan a child and when she becomes aware of the competition in the harem, what would make her prevail over them all, guided by her desire to make SS only hers and maintain power, for she would stop undergoing the same trauma and disrespect all over again? More children! We could argue that, throughout season 1, she views having more children as a privilege - not only does it secure more her position as a favorite, but it makes her gain advantage and power over her rival in this game. Notice how she boasts about the possibility alone in front of Mahidevran in both E06 and E11! ("It will be a boy. Then it will be a boy again. Then it will be a boy again and again..."; "I will give birth to many princes, but you won't even give birth to a girl.") These lines could be an attempt of assertion and a mask of vulnerability and insecurity, in a way, but this is far from the only thing going on. Not just the children, but the princes specifically are capilatized on, because bearing one is considered an honor in this harem and for every pregnancy, Hürrem expresses an almost firm confidence that it will be, without a doubt, a prince. The whole system in the show, sadly enough, encourages that whoever has more sons is more powerful and will get everyone else out of their way eventually, without shining a light on the more grim implications and what the mothers will possibly have to go through with their many sons, to the point it simply leaves them to find this out by themselves. It puts the princes in idealized superiority that is one of the first things Hürrem gets used to and that's why she was initially taken aback when Mihrimah was born instead of another prince she wanted so much. By that point, she had no time to consider eventual conflicts or fratricide because of her (initial) upper hand.

The higher stakes were kept under wraps in the series itself, too, because of its Cerebus Syndrome nature that lets you endear with the characters at first in lighter, more mainly interpersonal situations and then move to the wider scale of the historical themes, having them grow as people and political players and realize the bigger context along with the evolution of the narrative. That is coupled with the children's ages, for the small age, to me, was presented as a symbol of innocence. There's this prevailing trend in Hürrem's character during season 2 where she kept saying that Mustafa is too little for doing certain stuff (like going to a campaign, to a province, etc.) and that, I think, is telling enough of the amount of awareness she had for an eventual conflict between her sons. That was a general theme of the show, too, because both Mahidevran and Hürrem held no ill will against the other's children when they were small, as seen by them taking care of them during the janissary rebellion and Mahidevran saving Mehmet in E16. The children themselves weren't a priority of eradication for them back then and when they were little, they were something worth protecting as a mother's value, not tools to be moulded for the future battle for the throne. When their mothers find a common ground in this aspect, would a conflict between children of one and the same mother be possible? Only when they grow up, awareness comes to the surface, bacause by the time they're still small, they're harmless and innocent. (handicapped by SS's words to Mustafa in E46: "As you grow up, the innocence between us disappears, my Mustafa.") Even Hürrem set herself against Mustafa only by E38 and she didn't want his death until then. Knowing this, could she predict that something could go wrong between her own sons, no less? Doesn't she have other stuff to do until she reaches that point? Isn't she too busy in forging her own survival path and not think as much about her children before they grow up?

Then again, Hürrem has shown to be capable of anything to always remain in SS's good graces both because she is devoted to him and for her own goals. The princes play a part in this, because they have to gain the padişah's support first and foremost and that simply cannot be done through quarrels. Hürrem may have grown wise to this, with the many cases of her ordering the children to go away once a conflict of any kind ensues and especially, always telling them throughout season 3 not to fight with each other, not even because of her, and stressing that family is the most important thing. She may have wanted their childhoods to be as peaceful as possible, rendering them (except Mihrimah) oblivious to what she's gone through, which gave them a sense of naivety in the process. And while that naivety turned out to be a double-edged sword (as we saw with Mehmet fully believing Illyas and Cihangir believing in SS's promise that he won't sacrifice Mustafa), it could've been a way for Hürrem to make sure that her children in general would always seek a consensus and look good in front of the sultan. That didn't end up being the case. Despite of these possible measures of hers, I doubt she got fully aware of the possibility, precisely because of her set goals. Even though the dismissal of Selim and Bayezid's conflict became a main arc of Hürrem's in S04, there were also hints of this in S02, shown by E53: "Such a sun will rise that that sun will only rise for me and my children." Her fixation on Mustafa as the single pivotal moment of her life fight is a huge character flaw of hers almost right from the moment she began to see him as a threat and even from her first attempt, as we see by the quote above, she thinks that by eliminating him, it would be all over, assuringly discarding everything else afterwards. And Selim and Bayezid were already arguing by that episode and it only escalated further since then, because of her ignorance as a part of the whole issue.

It's even questionable whether she has ever thought that, maybe there is more work to be done after Mustafa, because Hürrem's fixation became more predominant as the series progressed, in conjunction with the evergrowing Selim and Bayezid conflict. It was already so prevalent by S04 that Hürrem went as far as to blame Mustafa for the first big scandal between them in E112 and Mihrimah had to remind her of their rivalry-slowly-turning-to-enmity's very existence in the first half of the season that is there in spite of who Hürrem thinks is the bigger problem. She didn't give it the significant attention it deserved when they were little and I, for one, believe that she had to investigate more when Selim set Bayezid's arrow up for failure around E91/92 and not scold only Bayezid, for it only heightened his resentment for Selim. She didn't think of it as something that big to deal with, it was probably a problem they would fix by themselves for good measure, because they're still children after all, aren't they? But a resentment of a child could only continue to live on, especially in such a time period, so if Hürrem, knowing how paranoid she could be and how much she tried to evade everything that could oppose her success, predicted the future mass of the conflict, wouldn't she do something more, wouldn't she nullify it? It's a given that she can't be next to them in every single minute of the day, but the possible outcome itself just screams for tiiiny bit more involvement on her part. The earlier you interfere, the earlier would stop the obstacle in its entirety. Hürrem is smart enough to know this, so the logical thing is that she didn't fully take all that into account. She couldn't, and possibly didn't, want to predict this as a mother.

The very realization of the actual massive power of Selim and Bayezid's enmity and her newfound inability to interfere almost at all to it came as such a surprise for her. She not only completely miscalculated, but it broke her heart into pieces. She didn't see coming any conflict of the like, because if she did, even before the whole fiasco happened, early into S01-2, she would never let it reach such extremes. And the realization hit her in such an unexpected way that she wanted to escape the shock that she had to choose and try to solve things as she has always had, doing things that should've been done such a long time ago. Would she be so helpless when she finally came to terms with the following fratricide, if she saw it coming before the conflict even started?

In summary: Hürrem didn't think of something like this at all early on and when it happened, she did see the roots, but could never, not even in her dreams, imagine the devastating results.

Though yeah, could a conflict between sons of the same mother fully be resolved in circumstances like these? I very much doubt it. Even if the mother removed the tension between them, there are other factors we shouldn't forget (I refer to SS's reign in particular): they are sons of the same mother, but they're still candidates for the throne, hence they're rivals and both the people and the padişah will have to pick a favourite. No matter how impartial a sultan seems to be, he does end up picking sides eventually - whether it's about the province one is sent in, when they're sent in it, how often does he visit them, what in them does he approve or disprove of or how competent they are in his eyes. It's inevitable for them to live in absolute peace in an environment that would sooner or later cause them to fight until one's absolute and total failure.

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #hurrem sultan #ask #builtfromabrokenheart

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ducavalentinos · 3 years

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Hi, what are your favourite biographies of Lucrezia and Cesare? Sorry if you've answered this before! And I've heard that Juan and Lucrezia were actually pretty close in history too - then, is there really any truth to Cesare and Lucrezia having a unique understanding of each other (that was likely not incestuous, but still very close)?

Hi! I did, but my thoughts have changed a bit since then, so no worries! For Cesare biographies, I think I’ve answered in the past that I didn’t really had any, all the biographies I’ve read about him had their strengths and their faults, and idk, I was never satisfied with any of them entirely, that is, until I was able to read Cesare Borgia: Duca di Romagna by Edoardo Alvisi, I talked (gushed lol) about it here and here, but yeah, it’s such a sober, honest and meticulous biography. I was impressed and inspired by his conduct as an historian, how he actually tried, instead of just saying it, to be as objective as possible, focusing more on the historical evidence about Cesare’s life, with all its complexities, rather than imposing his personal ideas about him to the reader. He was also careful not to claim things he couldn’t prove, he used the much appreciated forse (perhaps) to all the uncertainties surrounding Cesare’s history, and his work has zero inconsistencies. This may sound like basic stuff for a bio, but sadly, it’s a rare thing to find when it comes to anything concerning Cesare Borgia and his family tbh, so reading Alvisi’s work was a different, 100% satisfying experience for me reading Borgia bios, and it quickly became my favorite, the only one so far, and I was also happy to know Cesare has a high quality work about him out there, I had given up hope ever finding one, ngl. For Lucrezia biographies, I don’t have any favorites, I have read the main works about her, and I think that was enough for me, idk why exactly, but Lucrezia’s historical figure tends to attract a certain type of scholar I can’t stand, their approach to her life, their methodology, and writing style really gets on my nerves, so I tend to avoid that section of the Borgia historiography. Sometimes I try to give them a chance, but it’s always the same thing and I give up, we just don’t get along I guess, but who knows? maybe one day. And your second question, well, it’s interesting because if you had asked me this question some time ago, I’d have answered: yes, of course there’s truth to them having a unique understanding of each other, and being very close, that’s how scholars generally present their relationship, for different reasons and to varying extents, Bradford being the highest imo, she goes a bit overboard with their relationship, if you read her fictional account about the Borgias, where she presents Cesare and Lucrezia as having a kind of sad, tormented love, they have incestuous feelings for each other, Cesare is obsessed with Lucrezia, Lucrezia both loves and hates him, and then you read her historical bios, where you have quotes like:

“As far as Lucrezia was concerned, [Cesare’s] intense love for her was well known”

“Cesare was to be the evil genius of Lucrezia’s life”

“His obsessive love for her led him to murder”

Putting aside her fondness of dramatic, appeling writing, it’s easy to see her strongest bias is where Cesare and Lucrezia are concerned. Her feelings over them are transparent, and it did had an impact to how their relationship was presented in her fiction and non-fiction books imo, and since she was my intro to the historical Borgia family, I used to aligned myself with her interpretation, until I read other works, in particular the works of Sacerdote and Alvisi, which offers a lot of documents and letters of the Borgia family in their entirety. I also started to read more about the period and other noble italian families, all of this forced me to reconsider my previous understandings on the many themes about their lives, and the narratives that goes around it, but specially about the relationship between Cesare and Lucrezia. So answering this question now, I have to say I don’t think there is truth to that per say, I mean, I think there is a tendency to exaggerate things when it comes to the Borgia family, the traces of the legends written about them along the centuries can almost always be found in their modern biographies, Cesare and Lucrezia are not exception to this. The incest rumor stuck so persistently to their names, (even though it’s completely baseless) it became a legend, and to this day it remains in popular imagination about them, so that it still seems to carry some influence to how modern scholars perceive and present their sibling dynamics, even when they simultaneously show how baseless the whole thing is, with some of them taking it too far, and dramatizing it. What the historical material can confirm beyond doubts is that they were close, yes, but did they really had a unique understanding of each other? were they exceptionally close? to the point of being each other’s exception? as it is often claimed, or at least it’s the general idea put forward by some scholars? (Bradford, Hibbert, Meyer, Chamberlin, even Woodward) that’s way more dubious, and it fails to be supported by the historical documents available about them, it relies only on speculations and historical imagination. In truth, there’s enough material indicating Cesare and Lucrezia were just as close to their other immediate family members as they were with each other. Cesare and Juan, despite the unfounded narrative of them hating each other, actually seemed to have had a normal, brotherly relationship, and they equally show an affection and protectiveness towards Lucrezia. Lucrezia herself seems to have been attached to both of them. I think we need to be careful when comparing these relationships, because it might be easy to conclude Cesare and Lucrezia had a closer, more special bond with each other than they did with Juan, given there’s more material about them, but it can be a flawed reading of it all because it fails to consider the important factor that Juan died in 1497, and they didn’t. Let’s say Cesare had died instead of Juan in 1497, wouldn’t we then, have more material about Juan and Lucrezia? I think we would, and it’s possible history would have settled on the narrative they were the closest siblings, you see what I mean? the amount of material about Cesare and Lucrezia, and the lack of thereof of them with Juan does not necessarily indicates their sibling bond was any different, closer, than their sibling bond with Juan. If we are being honest, it’s an impossible thing to determine. All it can be safely said is that the three of them seem close as siblings, and they had good relationships with each other. Besides the sibling trio, there are indications of a close mother/son relationship between Cesare and Vannozza, and also between Cesare and his cousin, the other Juan. Rodrigo evidently loved his sons, but Lucrezia was his darling, and the one he always spoiled the most. Lucrezia, in turn, adored her father, being very attached to him. All this is to say the closeness, loyalty, and concern over one another wasn’t exclusive to the Cesare/Lucrezia relationship as it is often implied or claimed, it was something they all shared, and it was quite normal within their family, they were a close family in general. And if we go outside their family, you have Gian Paolo and Pantasilea Baglioni, who were so close it inevitably lead to yet another incest rumor, which personally I do not believe it to be true, either. You have Isabella d’Este and her half-brother Giulio, she did everything she could to protect him from her other brother, Alfonso d’Este, when a conspiracy/almost fratricide took place in their family. Giulio was clearly in the wrong there, but did she cared? not a bit lol, she tried to help him in whatever way she could, even giving him asylum at Mantua for some time iirc. And there’s also Giulia and Alessandro Farnese, who also seemed close as siblings. These are just a few examples, there are others, but knowing about it helps to give a broader picture of these families relations, contextualizing further the relations between Cesare and Lucrezia, and showing it didn’t deviate from the norm and environment of their times. Why their relationship got such a traction, when these other examples did not, can be explained by their nationality, lineage, and politics. Spaniards in Italy had the worst kind of reputation long before the Borgia family came along, it was partly justified and partly just the same ol’ prejudice. Moreover, Rodrigo Borgia raised his children predominantly in the Spanish fashion, and Cesare and Lucrezia were unapologetically proud of their Spaniard origins, too, so the way they presented themselves to world, as well as the way in which they showed their affection towards their family members seems to have been more in the Spaniard way than the Italian one, which might have caused a feeling of strangeness among their italian contemporaries, even of disapproval, and of course it was taken with malice by some, to be used for political means. Next there’s the lineage, while these other families had a lineage that traced back to the Italian/Frankish descent, with their ascentors also having firmly established their dynasty and power in Italy for many generations, the Borgia family was different, in that their lineage could only be traced back to Spain, Valencia, from a small Aragonese nobility, and their rise only started with the papal election of Alfons de Borja as pope Calixtus III, in 1455, reaching its peak during the papacy of Alexander VI, and still they weren’t able to truly establish a powerful, lasting dynasty in Italy. And last but not least, the political factor: during the papacy of Alexander, the Borgia family was rocking the boat in the political scene, they openly and daringly defied the power and status quo of the Italian elite, which naturally wasn’t well received lol. I believe it would have been bad enough if that had come from a fellow noble italian family, but to have come from a family they regarded as outsiders, and of not quite being at the same rank as their own? which they saw as higher, more noble? that was a hard blow for them, it generated a lot of resentment and hatred, and the most effective way they found of retaliating against it, was to invest in political propaganda: distoring, amplying, and circulating all kinds of rumors about Rodrigo Borgia and his children. After Juan died, Cesare and Lucrezia were even more in the spotlight than before, their lives put under scrunity, and on a double standards of sorts, where everything they did (or were said to have done) always gained a wider magnitude (and judgment) than what was said familes like the Baglioni, Orsini, Farnese and d’Este did. Their sibling relationship, by consequence, was heavily exploited by their enemies in order to attack their reputation, most of all that of Cesare, who was the implementer of Rodrigo’s policies in the Papal States, which made him their nº 1 target. Finally, just as an additional point here, I think it’s important to also say the history of the Borgia family is extremely chaotic and complex, the main issue being there really isn’t much objective, conclusive evidence about them, and the main events that transpired in their lives, making their historical literature, for the most part, quite subjective and easily malleable by scholars personal taste. One of the things I’ve noticed over the years is that how their characters, actions and relationships are presented can either follow a dogmatic pattern of (mostly unproven) repetitions, or it can change drastically depending on who you are reading, and what he/she believes to be true or not, which sources they rely on, their own standards for what they consider historical evidence, combined with the baggage of their own moral codes, personal ideas, and bias towards certain historical figures, and some historical relationships over others. One quick example that comes to mind is how some scholars consider the writings of Guicciardini and Capello about Rodrigo and Cesare as evidence, or a reliable source, which leads to completely different perceptions and presentations about the Borgia men and their lives, than say, scholars who are rightly more skeptical, critical of these writings. What is generally taken for granted as an established truth, when looked more carefully, ends up being at the very least a grey area, with gaps, uncertainties, contradictory info, and utterly biased accounts. The theme of Cesare and Lucrezia's relationship doesn't stray far from these issues, depending on what a scholar will interpret as evidence, he/she will reach different conclusions and presentations about their sibling bond. From my reading experience, I believe most of what is used to establish their bond as a intense, unique, super close one, is rooted in flimsy, subjective evidence**: hearsay, speculations and personal assumptions, sometimes being presented in a selective, misleding way. I tend to give more importance towards objective evidence: letters, documents and the few not so hostile sources about them, and when sticking to those, it’s hard to see how exactly their sibling relations were particularly closer or unusual from other siblings and other family relations. In my view, that’s a legend within a legend, a narrative built over time, that stuck as persistently as the incest legend, replacing it basically, almost looking like a way of not giving up the incest legend altogether, and still keeping some of it within the history of the Borgias. ** I’ll cite some examples of the subjective evidence about Cesare and Lucrezia, how it is presented, and the issues of using that as evidence for their relationship, I’ll post it undercut because this is already too long, but please feel free to ignore if you like, it’s just a complement of what I said above:

1. Sforza’s flight from Rome in 1497: it’s claimed to have been caused by Cesare’s jealousy over his sister, but there’s nothing concrete about that at all. Prior to Sforza’s flight there’s a letter by Ascanio Sforza commenting how Cesare and Juan were both protesting against Giovanni Sforza, in favor of their sister and their family’s interests. In fact, it seems Lucrezia herself complained about her husband to her father. There’s another account mentioning an argument between between Juan Borgia and Giovanni Sforza, and shortly after that, Sforza fled from Rome. It’s more plausible Sforza’s flight is connected to Juan, and maybe also him trying to avoid signing the divorce papers Alexander were forcing him to sign. If he had stayed in Rome, he would have been forced to sign it, and agree with the grounds for it, so it would make sense for him to leave Rome abruptly, without anyone knowing it, going back to Pesaro and trying to gather some support to fight against the divorce, which all of his later actions slightly corrobates. Cesare’s personal involvement in this event, esp. on the account of his jealousy towards Lucrezia, is unsubstantiated, and it was probably caused by the famous anecdote of Lucrezia hiding a servant in order for him to hear Cesare’s threats against Sforza’s life, then urging him to go tell Sforza, which prompts his flight from Rome, but that is an unreliable tale, most likely gossip from Roman courtiers to help make sense of the lacking information at the time about Sforza’s sudden and mysterious flight. 2. Perotto’s alleged murder: Another event that’s tied to Cesare, his jealousy/possessiveness over Lucrezia, and their intense, weird bond~~, however, we don’t know anything about Perotto and his involvement with the Borgia family, If he was indeed murdered, and if so, by whom? there’s a lot of gaps here. If we go by the accounts of the time, there’s an account saying he was arrested on the orders of the Borgia family, and then there’s Burchard’s account saying Perotto’s body was found at the Tiber, alongside a woman, who is usually assumed to have been one of Lucrezia’s maids, although that is unclear, and without getting too much into it, there’s also an issue around the authenticity of Burchard’s journals as it came down to us, with scholars questioning if he indeed wrote it all, or only parts of it, with the rest being added on by other writers, over time. In any case, neither account, as far as I remember, mentions Cesare’s name, and that’s about all we have about this event. If we go with the assumption of Perotto and Lucrezia having an affair that resulted in her pregnancy, and that’s why Perotto was arrested and subsequently murdered, and Cesare was behind it all, he was likely following his father's orders in a very common attempt to try to fix the dishonour made on the whole family by one their women having an affair with a man below their rank. This was a serious offense in their times, and the offender was usually punished, sometimes even the woman herself, (the fact Lucrezia wasn't punished, but rather indulged by the men in her family would suggest some interesting things about her role in the family and their dynamics) but then again, it is uncertain also if Lucrezia did had an affair with Perotto, and if it did or not resulted in a pregnancy. It’s just as likely Lucrezia had nothing to do with this, and Perotto was punished by some other unknown reason we will never know, or maybe he wasn’t even a victim of the Borgia family, but of the many enemies the family he worked for had in Rome. Juan had recently been murdered, so Perotto, one of Rodrigo’s favorite servants according to some, could have been another one of their victims. The only thing certain about all of this is that Perotto was not murdered by Cesare himself, in broad daylight in the Vatican, in front of his father, pope Alexander VI. 3. Alfonso d’Aragona alleged murder: I think this event is the most tumultuous and obscure event in the Borgias lives, certainly of Cesare’s life. It was an event that always excited people’s imagination, Capello’s account is the best example, istg he saw it as the best opportunity to show off his literary skills lol, but modern historians are not so different, they tend to create a mexican telenovela out of this, reading it and presenting as proof of the deep, intense bond Cesare and Lucrezia shared with one another. With Bradford making dramatic claims of jealousy on Cesare’s part, and how he saw Alfonso as a threat to his personal relationships with Lucrezia and his father, by extension his own ambitions, (although there is nothing significant suggesting Cesare’s ambition wasn’t aligned with his father’s own ambition, they were, for the most part on the same page politically) to scholars going even further than that and claiming his hatred over Alfonso was such, he even hated little Rodrigo, the child of Lucrezia and Alfonso, but there’s no documentation to support any of these claims. Scholars tend to treat Cesare’s guilt as an undeniable fact, but there are holes to this belief, and it’s one possibility among other possibilities. The truth is, given the moment this event took place and its political context, it is literally impossible to know what truly happened. All the accounts of contemporaries are messy, contradictory and contamined with bias, esp. the ones from the court of Naples. The d’Aragona family had always loathed the Borgia family, and they loathed them even more after they made their alliance with France, which culminated in the ruin of their house. If we go with Cesare being the guilty one, there is still no evidence his decision was made by any jealousy towards Lucrezia and the place Alfonso had in her life. If he did it, it seems he did it to protect himself for the inner threats against him (maybe also against his father) that seemed to be brewing in the Vatican from the pro-Aragonese party, which included a faction of the Colonnas, and Alfonso d’Aragona himself, and perhaps also for political reasons, since the Aragonese alliance ended up being another fiasco, and it wasn’t one he and Rodrigo could easily dissolve like they did with Sforza. But it is equally possible Alfonso was a victim of the on-going hostilities between the Orsini and the Colonna in Rome, given he was friendly with the Colonnas, and he later died of his wounds, due to some infection the doctors might not have been able to detect. Or he was a victim of the Gaetani family, as retaliation for Rodrigo’s actions against them, which included the murder of one of their relatives on Rodrigo's orders, or so it was what they believed at the time, and the lost of their properties, which Lucrezia herself bought and she was greatly benefited by their ruin. 4. Cesare’s letter to Lucrezia and his trip to Ferrara in 1502, is interpreted as a big deal by most scholars, but that’s partly because scholars tend to see Cesare as a cold, emotionless individual (Machiavelli’s prince prototype), and partly because idk why, but the main Borgia bios almost never exposes his letters in their entirety to his other family members and people close to him, so it’s easy to read his letter to Lucrezia and see too much into it, I did that, but once you look at his other private correspondance, esp. towards his siblings, you see it carried the same tone and affection as his letter to Lucrezia did. In fact, his letters to Juan are all signed in the same way his letter to Lucrezia is: Da vostro fratello che vi ama come sé stesso/From your brother who loves you as he loves himself. It seems to be a usual signature he used for his siblings, and it is a pretty standard family letter. And his going to Ferrara had as much political motives as personal ones, he clearly wanted to bring some support with him to the court of Milan to meet Louis XII, where all of his enemies had gathered and they were bad mouthing him to the King of France, trying to persuade him to stop supporting Rodrigo and Cesare’s campaigns in Italy. Given the recent, and totally expensive alliance the Borgias had made with the d’Este, Cesare might have thought Alfonso d’Este was the best candidate for him to bring along, hence why he went to Ferrara also. On his way back from Milan, him staying a few days with Lucrezia only really indicates his genuine concern for his sister’s health, as good brothers tend to feel. It wasn't an extraordinary gesture tbh, it is perceived that way because again, Cesare is usually presented as a robot who was above caring about anyone or anything except himself and his ambition, but there’s evidence suggesting that’s an extreme and incorrect view of his character, and actually he seemed to care about other things and the people close to him, Lucrezia, being his sister, was in this group. 5. Lucrezia’s support of Cesare after Rodrigo’s death, and her grief over his own death in 1507. For the first event, there’s something important to highlight imo, Lucrezia is put in the role of innocent pawn of the political intrigues of the Borgia men. She is seen and presented as passive and ignorant/disinterested in politics, esp. her family’s politics, which her biographers all tend to see in negative terms, therefore Lucrezia could not have been a willing, or at the very least, a nonchalant participant of it all because that would cause an issue with rehabiliting her image, however, there’s evidence contradicting this view prior to 1503, but from 1503-1507 it's impossible to deny Lucrezia's active role in the family's politics, and her biographers don't know what to make of it, neither how to explain it, except for saying her actions during these years were made out of the deep, unique bond she had with her brother, and the sisterly affection she felt for him (however undeserving they seem to believe he was of this affection), but here’s the thing: Lucrezia’s behavior in these years doesn’t differ from other noble women with their family members in times of trouble. Most women in these families understood better than anyone how important it was to increase and maintain their family power, it brought them more: wealth, status, influence, and security against their family’s enemies. I don’t believe for a second Lucrezia was clueless about that. It’s quite clear she was aware of her position, and that of her family, and the advantages their power brought her, as well as the dangers of it if they lost it, esp. when she was at the court of the d’Este. Once Rodrigo died, and Cesare’s fortune started to have its ups and downs, it’s likely she felt it was now up to her to ensure her family’s power wasn’t destroyed, to protect herself and her own. Her support of Cesare then, wasn’t atypical, and it looks like it was guided by her being careful and pragmatic about hers and her family’s future, just as much as her personal affection for her brother. The second event, her grief over Cesare, it’s important to remember her grief for her second husband Alfonso, and her grief over her father a few years before Cesare’s death. The historical records say she was so affected by Rodrigo’s death she remained in a dark room for days, and neither Alfonso d’Este nor Pietro Bembo dared to enter the room. There’s even an anecdote of her saying to her maids she felt like she was dying, which echoes the anecdote of her calling out Cesare’s name in her room at night in their intensity, whether these anecdotes are correct or not, the point here is that her grief over Cesare seems consistent to how she felt and expressed grief over her family members and people close to her, Rodrigo and Cesare being the closest we may say, but again, in the end, it’s nothing so unusual, extraordinary or exclusive of the Cesare/Lucrezia relationship, it is a sister mourning her brother, as she probably did when her other brother Juan, died, and when her father died. it's a normal family behavior, and very typical of the relations between the Borgia family. So, you know, these events are not so set in stone as they are made out to be, and there’s too much uncertainty for it to be used as evidence for Cesare and Lucrezia’s unique, extremely close relationship.There’s a lot we don’t know, and what we do know leads to other more plausible, down to earth possibilities than the usual narratives of: Sforza fleeing Rome because he was afraid of Cesare, and that being connected to Lucrezia, to the alleged murders of Perotto and d’Aragona by him out of his feelings of jealousy of Lucrezia also, which are all impossible to proof by the existing historical documents. The rest of it (Cesare’s letter to Lucrezia, his trip to Ferrara, etc) can and is taken out context imo, giving the impression their relations were somehow the exception within and outside their family. Scholars have believed and repeated these narratives as absolute truths, which explains the conclusions and presentations they make about them. The reality is that this theme as well as other themes about the Borgias do need some reassessment because they are very old and full of inconsistencies and misconceptions.

#ask answered #anon ask #auth: sarah bradford #césar borgia #cesare borgia #lucrezia borgia #juan borgia #house borgia #house borgia in history #you can trust me to write a dissertation wherever the borgia family is concerned #esp. cesare djsdjsjds #sorry i really tried to make this short #guess i failed again #i hope it wasn't too confusing and answered your question somewhat?#i think we need to be careful not to drag along the fictional portrayals of cesare and lucrezia into their history #which i am most definitely guilty of having done in the beginning

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