#not necessarily a ship but to each their own

[kookynella]

So, I don’t normally write long posts and I thought this was important enough to type a rant, so you’re welcome, I guess:

I was reading a Sydney and Carmen is a slow burn article on Jezebel (they are my Roman Empire, I go down the rabbit hole willingly), and you know, it was clearly a SydCarmy shipping article, so readers were pre-warned by the title. I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to read the comment section, but YELP!

And yes, I was offended and outraged, because for what other possible reason would I then come onto tumblr at 6am in the morning to complain when my ADHD-ass should be asleep in bed?!? Well this is the reason.

The comments were all negative and trying to explain why SydxCarmy is a no-go or should be a no-go zone: Sydney & Carmen don’t have chemistry! I don’t see the romance! Romance between them would ruin a good show! Why can’t men and women coworkers be in a healthy platonic relationship! Me Too movement - say NO to boss employee romances! ClairexCarmy makes more sense!

Blah blah blah, [insert more pathetic, banal rationale here], I stopped reading the comments. The actual (cute) article I read with the shit-take comments is linked below, if anyone is interested.

… extended release rant is under the cut….

And really what they were NOT saying out loud, what I highly suspect to be the real reason for their negative stance: racial intolerance. So, here we are - I’m calling it out, as many others have before me: Some people refuse to see a strong, intelligent, woman of colour character have a romantic relationship with their white male lead on prime time television. They are in denial, they are not ready and frankly, not deserving. It’s intolerance.

Because for what other reason could there be for the outright denial of what is clear as day: the characters of Sydney and Carmy ARE romance coded in the story being told, and they (as played by Ayo and JAW) have amazing chemistry (romantic or not). Why else are people so quick to deny the chemistry? To deny the possibility, the opportunity, the overt displays and undertones of romantic coding that Sydney and Carmen have!?!?!

And I will also say this, it’s my opinion, that there is more chemistry between Sydney and Carmy than between Claire and Carmy, there is more emotion and expression in the former duo’s interactions than in the latter’s. And that’s part of the main point of having Claire there - she’s a tool, a distraction to compare and contrast of what is there and could be more/better (Sydney, the future), to what is there and is not fitting/insufficient (Claire, the past).

People really stay reaching with their non-creative excuses to being anti-SydCarmy. Give me an actual reason like, he needs to do a lot of therapy/personal work, she’s got her own baggage to sort out, before they could be in a healthy, emotionally stable relationship. Or if they went there and it didn’t work out and then work/business is impacted in the messiness. Give me actual arguments not made up ones because a black woman and a white man who are in fact compatible (not necessarily healthy), does not fit your aesthetic of romance, love, attraction and chemistry. I see plenty of popular toxic relationships be lapped up and popularised despite the clear reasons of the characters not to date, but because they are “white” it’s welcomed, acceptable and put on a pedestal, and the toxicity is seen as part of the appeal.

Interpersonal relationships is a huge part of the story being told in The Bear - family, friends, found family, colleagues, professional and unprofessional. And Sydney and Carmen’s relationship is the yin and yang amongst it all, they are two sides of the same coin - their passion, their work ethic, their vision, their growth, their trust - THEM, no-one else holds this dynamic, well maybe you could compare Sugar and Pete’s relationship of differences and balancing each other out but like a way chiller version.

As the story unfolds and we learn more about Sydney and Carmen we see that they are better together than apart, they thrive when bouncing ideas off one another and creating, thy are leaders that best lead their team together. When their commitment and communication is open, they are rolling, they are primed, they are evolved and so is their team. They are at their best when they are keyed into each other.

I don’t know much about twin flames (nothing actually, other than MGK and Megan Fox’s touting that title and journalists running with it), but I imagine if I did know anything, I would be able to write a shit tonne more about how Sydney and Carmen are twin flames, soulmates.

Canonically, theirs is definitely a deeper connection formed in a very short amount of time that these two have known each other, and the others in that kitchen see it. It’s palpable. And whether it gets to be romantic or remain platonic we have yet to see, the foundation for romance is there, regardless.

And you can’t tell me that Sydney is not the catalyst for positive change for Carmy. Sydney ignites his creative spark, he envisions something greater for their restaurant and he thinks it’s possible and puts it into action, again because of Sydney entering the scene - “You could do this without me” / “I wouldn’t even want to do this without you”.

Going back to the Jezebel article and the comments, the (majority female) commentators are denying, what I would say by season two, is undeniable - Sydney is Carmy’s person, their relationship has romance tropes/themes throughout it whether the characters are aware or not.

From my opinion, most romantic storyline’s are to entertain and hook in more female audiences, it’s key to marketing, whether done well or not. And sometimes it may not be initially intentioned but when two actors have undeniable chemistry, writers tend to play on that with the characters, and sometimes change storyline’s to fully realise and employ the chemistry. The romance tropes are definitely there for SydxCarmy, ~even if you have to look under a table to find it.

Another point, EVERYTHING in The Bear is intentional - I wasn’t sure what my points were, I came in here to vent, so “bear” with me. The show has great writers, great directors, great actors, great editing, and you can tell they do. Even if they didn’t win all those awards you would know the show is done well. I’m sure film schools will use The Bear for students to dissect the art, because it is exemplary. Anyway back to my point, they didn’t come to play, everything is planned and even if it wasn’t - when it’s left in the final cut: IT IS INTENTIONAL.

The set design, the menu, the costuming, the lighting, the music, the pacing, the dialogue, camera angles, the editing, it is all an intentional choice. And they are choosing to have scenes imbued with intimacy, vulnerability, intensity, emotional rawness, in small spaces, loud, busy spaces, quiet, calm spaces, it’s a busy restaurant after all - things get stressful and wild, and haaaawt for a variety of reasons (mainly people working in close proximity, under a lot of pressure). All these charged moments carry significance for the characters and none get more intimate than Sydney and Carmy in that under the table moment - they slow everything down in that episode for that scene, where he invites her to confide in him her internal worries and she relents, and he reassures her then recommits to her. The world is quiet for one moment so they can have this heart to heart, and they are both willingly exposing themselves emotionally, they bolster each other up as they are bolstering that table, and then he gifts her with an expensive, planned, personalised, gift that he knew she would love (the cost, the effort and attention to detail from Carmy= it’s a designer engagement ring your honour).

And on that note, even when Carmy is spending time with his “she’s not my girlfriend/is she my girlfriend?”, Claire, we have INTENTIONAL shots of Sydney interspersed. Why are they bringing her into the scene when she isn’t physically there? Because she’s important, vital even, to Carmen’s thoughts and feelings, and therefore his actions. Sydney doesn’t belong with them in their one-on-one interactions, (intimate scenes) and yet there she is. Why this call to attention??? Because Carmy is not where he should be, because Carmy is not with the person he is meant to be with, because his attention is split and his focus is not where it should be. And it is going to be to his detriment - as we see later for everyone involved, but mainly him.

Claire is a distraction for Carmy and not necessarily a welcome one on his part, and yet he is spending more time with her, and Sydney’s scenes cut in-between are reminding us of this.

It’s showing not telling, but some people really do need to be told because they cannot read between the scenes.

Sydney is Carmen’s partner/equal/inspiration/hope/muse/balance (read soulmate).

Meanwhile, the ClairexCarmy scenes had all the obvious - This is a romantic relationship! stuff. And yet it lacked, I want to say: chemistry, heat, warmth, fire, depth of emotion. How is this possible to be lacking such weighted feeling? When you have two very attractive people in such close proximity, developing a romantic relationship that - feels romantic, it should be child’s play right? So, how could the portrayal be lacking such vitality, when ClairexCarmy scenes ticked all the romantic/couple boxes? Because it’s meant to be portrayed as lacklustre. It’s a foil for what the, equally attractive yet somehow hotter, SydxCarmy relationship already has, without realising that’s the space their characters inhabit.

And some commentators/viewers trying to make some moral/workplace ethical ground along the lines of “but he’s her boss”, she’s his junior employee”, “it’s inappropriate”, to all of those persons, I say NO. Maybe Sydney, may have appeared green to some viewers as a newcomer to The Beef and to the not so well-oiled kitchen crew, but Sydney is experienced, well trained, and brings her own heat. So, come season two in establishing The Bear restaurant it is also firmly established to viewers that Sydney is Carmen’s partner (business partner, yeah-yeah), she is his equal, he identifies her as such.

The man offered her to go into, possibly lifeling, debt with him to open up their dream family restaurant - the one thing he wanted to do with his dead hero older brother, the brother that was busy fighting his own demons and pushing Carmen away, making Carmen believe his big brother didn’t value him or see him as an equal and leave and punish himself to become the best chef he could be, which was the best in the world according to Sydney.

And Sydney was already in deep financial debt, but she didn’t even hesitate, it wasn’t until her worried, practical father started asking her the tough questions that she thought on it, (got defensive), then doubled down on her decision, because, Yes, Syd trusts Carmy, she will invest her hopes and dreams in him and with him.

Carmen initially hires Sydney because she’s excellent (too good for The Beef), and over a short period of time he comes to identify Sydney as his equal. Very early on, he makes her his right-hand woman - season one “Brigade episode. He trusts her to lead and to share the load, even if he left her high and dry first thing, but he did apologise). He also, opens up to Sydney about Mikey which he’s avoided talking about with his nearest and dearest.

Then Carmen ups the ante (where Mikey had pushed him away instead of making Carmy an equal), he does what he wished Mikey had offered him - he invites Sydney to be his business partner and to co-create. We learn of the shared vision they have in the season one finale, witnessing how in-step and connected they are when Sydney returns, bringing Carmen the hope of establishing his dream, The Bear.

Let me re-cap it for the sheer joy, because the amount of times I rewatched this scene:

The gang is un-canning Mike’s cash stash, Sydney nervously walks into the restaurant after previously quitting, and she is stopped by the chaotic scene before her, the gang notices and welcomes her back, she questions WTF is going on but stays still as Carmen zeroes in on her, the world quiets, as they lock eyes, she stands there uncertain, clutching her bag, and he continues to stare with a dumb look on his face, looking at her like she hung the moon and the stars (like the episode one meet-cute, but on steroids), and then he speaks and they riff off each other, without any preamble, like they’re reading a practiced speech, about their Family style, two-tops, booths, Danish design, tasting menu at the bar, window on the side, restaurant.

And that is one way to tell me I’m witnessing a marriage proposal without telling me I’m witnessing a marriage proposal.

As for Sydney, what does she get out of agreeing to team up to open The Bear? Other than being saddled with a huge debt with a lost, sad, grieving, lonely, driven, awkward, anxiety ridden, CPTSD, OCD, brilliant little, white, chef man?

Well, to do “the thing” her father questions her about - to realise her dream: to be (co-)owner of a restaurant. And and to do it with a world renowned chef who cooked the best meal she’s ever had, where she can lead and create, and have the opportunity to work towards a Michelin star, and for her to have a found family in that journey, to have other people to rely on and support and work towards a common goal, because she tried alone in the past and it didn’t work out. And this is an opportunity that she won’t pass up, regardless of her father’s concerns.

Also, Jeremy Allen White is a strong actor, and Ayo Edibiri, who is relatively a newcomer, holds her own, and adds to the scene. She brought her A-game - she meets him at his level whilst maintaining her character, she balances him out well in his rawness in bringing her own dynamic, those two actors playing those specific characters belong in the kitchen together, the casting choices are *chef’s kiss”.

Well that’s all, it is A LOT, and I had to get it all out, now that I’ve said my piece bring on season three of The Bear, I needed it yesterday!

#the bear #ayo edebiri #jeremy allen white #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #sydcarmy #chefs kiss #the chemistry is chemistrying #make it make sense #girl why you lying #just admit it #this is arte #you don’t deserve this #at least be real and admit that your racism is colouring the interpretation of beauty that is playing out before you #we know you like to eat dry cold toast keep it to yourself next time please #it’s giving racist #you cannot pick up what is being served because you have no taste #if you can’t stand the heat get fuck out the kitchen #i’m salty #and correct #and proud #did i miss anything

[enviousbug2]

there's a trend happening on twitter where you draw a ship/duo as the reference and I wanted to do a quick (and rushed) sketch of the trend ^^

the reference and the link to the original post

#touchstarved #vere #ais #not necessarily a ship but to each their own #touchstarved vere #touchstarved ais #artwork #the art looks so low quality on drafts pls actually be smwhat high T-T

[lunarharp]

What led to this (orufrey comic, cw an uncomfortable/creepy scene)

#witch hat tag #orufrey #er.... i'm too tired to have anything to say..i worked several days on this. #wait.. didn't i say just recently here that i probably wouldn't ever depict 'what if alaira is qifrey's sort-of ex'. What's going on #i don't even remember deciding to draw this..it's all a blur..i'm not sure why i WOULD decide to draw delicate scenes in my head #that i wouldn't really want to share with anyone/discuss so why did i draw it... #some part of me really really wants to draw things that are more and more true to myself... #maybe because of my alienation with most romance/shipping/dynamics the rest of the world depicts. #orufrey really is perfectly suited to me - what i read in the text and what is in my head. well anyway #i am TIRED of drawing poses and angles and..maybe now i will actually take a break from drawing bc of the tediousness of Angles #btw it really is a 'stretch of time' . . . assuming witches graduate age 18-20 #well orufrey are canonically 30-ish. they've only had agott around for presumably about TWO years (?) bc she took the test age 10 #and it feels like oru moving in/unknown atelier acquisition/building (?) .. i guess that could be a year or so before agott at most #(she was the first disciple) so... ????????? What about the other 7 or so years ?!?!?!!?!?! Unemployed Brimhat Hatred era #that time is very nebulous. after qifrey went to the tower i feel like it's been implied he and oru drifted apart a little. #certainly they didn't live together at first... no way. that doesn't feel like how it is based on things oru has said about becoming Eye #idk. I'm tired now. i don't usually think of alaira as necessarily qifrey's ex and this being how things went in that 'sliver of time'. #i usually prefer the idea that they have their first kiss with each other in their 30s cause That's Just The Orufrey Lifestyle #just felt like making a more relatable alternative view of my own Cai Orufrey Canon one time. btw im a big monoshipper and it hurt a bit #let's leave it there. this is surely the most i've worked on a 'single' art - though now i realise just how much longer the fic took :')

[yourcrumblingsaikiisnotmyproblem]

Kaeya, drunk: You're like the hot girl that everyone wants.

Diluc, also kinda drunk: I'm the hot girl?

Kaeya: You're the hottest girl

Diluc: I'm the hot girl

Venti, always drunk: Yes you are.

#incorrect quotes #genshin impact #genshin diluc #diluc #kaeya #venti #teen wolf #i headcanon that kaeya and diluc are affectionate and full of praises for each other when drunk #so #venluc #i love venluc #kaeya and diluc #i love their sibling dynamic so much ngl #diluven #venti x diluc #also while i dont necessarily ship kaeluc i dont mind if yall perceive the post that way #i dont think its as much of a proship as its made it out to be #although i prefer them as siblings cause it kinda reminds me of my own and how our dynamic works #kaeya alberich #diluc ragvindr

[lmaowh-at]

Coming up with a fire composition after reading up on medieval holidays to base an entry to a fanart contest on is such am awesome feeling that boosts your ego and inspiration so much that the only thing that can ruin your mood is the thought of it not being wintery enough like the theme of the contest requiers. Guess what happened just now

#pros: detailed historically accurate in style and content! plenty of characters each in their own celebration! fun! #cons: half of these holdays werent necessarily celebrated in winter which makes it significantly less wintery :( #plan b is to draw boring ship art with a decorated tree or something idk

[dykesbat]

Genuine question, what trope would you consider Ghostbat and Cassrose to be? I've always thought of them as sort of rivals to lovers but I'm curious to hear what you would say they are since you said you don't really like rivals to lovers

i do think they’re rivals to lovers (or at least can be interpreted that way w gb) but I don’t like them e cause they’re rivals to lovers yk!!

#w gb i like them most for being somewhat enstranged very close friends #and then being foils ofc #for cr it’s the narratives and both of them choosing each other as part of their own rebellion and choosing their own path focused on #themselves #basically: while I don’t like rivals to lovers I’m not necessarily immune to ships that could be interpreted as rivals to lovers 👍👍 #asks #idk cr is kinda hard to fit into tropes for me #bc other than narrative parallels and like enemies to lovers I can’t think of any they concisely fall into #*foils not parallels fihdjd

[un-pearable]

select panels from return to angel island; or, sonic tags along to watch his boy best friend deal with his shitty father for four half issues, and other ways i can ignore the pain of knuckles still not being in idw

#sonic #archie sonic #wow i love bollers and gray’s in-text callout post i mean RtAI #honestly upon a reread i’m genuinely impressed by their attempts to actually compare sonic and knux’s returns to life but rip that they #didn’t get to fully explore them #anyway. yes i am just desperate for content where they’re even vaguely near each other but this is a good arc and i love them <3 #not necessarily ship but i just love their dynamic and them getting to actually be bros. heck yeah bollers #text✨ #emotional support echidna #catch me carefully cropping locke out of as many panels as possible #look i’ll make intelligent analysis of the guy and his role in the story on my own time rn i just wanna be petty <3 #RtAI

[bogleech]

Simple lifeform facts I take for granted that I've now seen blowing people's minds on here:

That sea urchins walk around and have mouths with teeth on their undersides

That corals are related to jellyfish

Barnacles being related to crabs and shrimp

Ants being an offshoot of wasps

Termites being totally unrelated to ants and all similarities just being convergent evolution (they're actually a group of cockroaches, but even science didn't know that part until a few years ago)

Starfish having an eye at the end of each arm

That the bodies of ticks and mites are also their heads, essentially big heads with legs (they even frequently have eyes way up on "the body")

Sperm whales have no upper teeth, and also their bodies are flat from the front

Goats also having no upper (front) teeth

Tapeworms having no mouth at all and just absorbing nutrients over their entire body surface

That flies are bigger pollinators than bees

That moths are bigger pollinators than bees

That wasps are just as important pollinators as bees (more important to many groups of plants) and when we say they're "less efficient" at it we just mean individually they get a little less pollen stuck to them.

That honeybees are nonnative to most of the world and not good for the local ecosystem, just good for human agriculture

That earthworms are also nonnative and destructive to more habitats than the reverse

There being no hard biological line between slugs and snails; all slugs aren't necessarily related to each other and there are gastropod groups where some have shells and some don't

That ALL octopuses (not just the blue ring) have a venomous bite

Most jellyfish and sea anemones being predators that eat fish

"Krill" being shrimp up to a few inches long and not some kind of microbe

Blue whales therefore being the deadliest predators to ever evolve as they eat up to several million individual animals per day

That krill are still "plankton" because plankton refers to whatever animals, algae and other organisms are carried around by the sea's currents, not to any particular group of life or a size category

Fungi being no more related to plants than we are, and in fact more like a sibling to the animal kingdom if anything

Venus fly traps being native to only one small area of North America in all the world

Parasites being essential to all ecosystems

Leeches not having a circular ring of teeth anywhere

That algae is not a type of plant

That most seaweed is just very big algae

That enough wood ends up in the ocean that plenty of sea life evolved to eat only wood

Speaking of which the fact that the "ship worms" that make tunnels in wood are just long noodly clams

Butterflies technically just being a small weird group of moths we gave a different name to

That insects only get wings once they reach maximum size and therefore there can never be a younger smaller bee or fly that's not a larva

Spiders not being any more likely to kill their own mates/young than just a cat or dog might, for most species maybe a lot less often?

[tvxcue]

like i get why people don’t like wq/jc blah blah blah disclaimer or whatever. but maybe they just don’t get them like i do.

#speaking #like yeah they did make them a thing in cql just to have another straight ship it was absolutely not necessary. #but youre going to look at me and tell me that it did absolutely nothing for the story and the characters?????? #you're going to look at me and tell me that knowing what they had going on doesn't change the golden core transfer????? #also like i do feel like theres just a lot of animosity towards drama changes just bc they were drama changes #without any consideration for how they might have actually [gasp] made the story better! #my's betrayal in qinghe is absolutely better in the drama than in the novel it makes the relationship between him and nmj #so much more interesting and makes my in general a better character bc it makes someone who is ALREADY complex even more so #also having my be with the nies even before the outbreak of the war makes for a more interesting dynamic with them and also makes the #subsequent betrayal more heart wrenching #similarly having wq/jc makes the entire back half of the flashback sequence sooooooo much for everything going on with their stories #bc like. it's not even that they hate each other it's that they just can't. of course wq cant abandon her family. but putting her rejection #on top of everything else going on with jc it's just. hes literally all alone. and like him offering HER safety and her refusing it......MAN #bc it was only for her he couldn't protect them all like i don't necessarily blame him for not being willing to protect them bc he couldn't! #he was in a precarious position he was rebuilding his sect after it had been destroyed completely like it's not just abt the other sects #potentially going against him. but like. the implication is that the vast majority of the jiang disciples joined during the war. #how can he rebuild a sect in such a precarious political situation where the jins are literally looking for any opportunity to swoop in and #destroy anyone who goes against them while putting his own sects survival on the line by trying to get them to accept ppl from the sect #they literally just fought a war against. like the drama does remove some of the gray area by making all the wens in the burial mounds #civilians but like. trying to make every single member of the jiang sect accept that choice is just not realistic. and like wq gets that! #she gets that even jsut offering her safety is pushing a lot of limits but she can't abandon her family! oh and then that choice paired with #wwx choosing to protect the wens over going back to the jiang sect...............the parallels..................

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: Queer science fiction, part 1

There is a lot of queer sf out there, and I read a lot of sf. When I started working on this list, I quickly realized it was impossible to include all that I've read and enjoyed in one single rec post. Thus, this is the first of so far three queer sci-fi book rec posts.

A note: queer here does not necessarily mean "guarantee of an f/f or m/m ship with a happy ending", but rather simply a significant presence of queerness. Some of the books feature no romance but has a same gender attracted/trans/a-spectrum lead, or features an m/f relationship with bisexual, trans or aro/ace characters, or simply features a world-building which is heavily queer inclusive in ways that don't always compare to our own ideas of sexuality and gender. I have however disqualified works where the only queer presence is along the lines of "gay best friend" or a blink and you'll miss it confirmation that never comes up again.

Previous book rec posts:

Really cool fantasy worldbuilding, really cool sci-fi worldbuilding, dark sapphic romances, mermaid books, vampire books, many worlds: portal fantasies, many worlds: alternate timelines, robots and artificial intelligences, post- and transhumanism, alien intelligences

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley*

Dietz is a soldier in the war between Earth and Mars - to travel to the battle front, she and her fellow soldiers are broken down into light to be able to quickly travel across space. But something keeps going wrong with Dietz's travels; her memories don't match up with the mission briefs, as she experiences time itself turning in on itself. Is she going mad? Or are the things she's learning skipping through time the truth - and the war that's stealing her life the lie? A mindfuck of a book that's scathing in its critique of fascism and war. Features a sapphic lead but no romance.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot duology) by Becky Chambers

Novella. Long ago, robots, upon gaining sentience, simply laid down their work and walked into the wilderness. Long after, a tea monk looking for purpose follows after them into the wilds, where they come across one of the robots seeking its own sort of answers. While not plotless, this story focuses more on character and vibes over plot. Also has a nonbinary main character and features conversations on gender between human and robot.

Meet Me In Another Life by Catriona Silvey*

Thora and Santi are strangers, brought together by a coincidence and torn apart just as abruptly when tragedy strikes. But this is neither the first nor the last time they meet - again and again they encounter each other, as friends, lovers, enemies, family, every time recognizing in each other a familiarity no one else carries. But with every new life, a mysterious danger grows ever closer, forcing them to find out the truth of their connection. This is a puzzle-box of a story that goes some entirely unexpected places in a very wild ride, featuring a bisexual co-lead.

The Archive Undying (The Downworld Sequence) by Emma Mieko Candon

In a world where AI gods sometimes lose their minds and take entire populations down with them, Sunai was the only survivor when his god went down. In the 17 years since, he has wandered on his own, unable to either die or age, drowning his sorrows in drink and men. But his attempts to flee his past comes to a stop as he is forced back into the struggle between man and machine. Featuring some pretty wild world building and narrative techniques, this book will definitely confuse you, but it is worth the experience.

The Paradox Hotel by Rob Hart

January Cole works security at the Paradox Hotel, last stop for tourists heading for the timeport, which allows them to travel to and witness any moment in time. But years of proximity to the timeport has left its damage on January, making her unstuck in time, letting her relive memories of her dead lover even as her sanity slips away bit by bit. As she starts witnessing proof of a horrible crime in the hotel that no one else can see, January must race against her own mind, a killer, and time itself to solve it before it's too late.

A Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares

Hayes Figueiredo is a struggling film-maker who wants to finish his documentary, whose life gets turned upside down when handsome physicist Yusuf Hassan enters his life, claiming an alternate version of him is a great inventor who’s sent a mysterious device to their universe. As Hayes gets drawn deeper into the conspiracy - and his feelings for Yusuf intensify - he has to decide just how far he’s prepared to go to win the life and the love he wants. Featuring a very gay and very morally dubious lead, this is a creative and strange read.

Bridge by Lauren Beukes

When she was little, Bridge and her mother Jo used to play a game - one where they traveled to other worlds, inhabiting the bodies of their other selves. Now Jo is dead, and as Bridge is cleaning out her apartment she finds a strange device: a dreamworm, the very thing that supposedly makes inter-dimensional travel possible. Suddenly faced with the possibility that multiverse travel is real, Bridge is struck by a different question: could her mother still be alive? Scifi spiced with a healthy dose of body horror and some absolutely wild twists, Bridge also features a bisexual lead (however this is a blink and you’ll miss it moment) and a nonbinary co-narrator.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers series) by Becky Chambers

Rosemary Harper just got a job on the motley crew of the Wayfarer, a spaceship that works with tunneling new wormholes through space. With a past she wants to leave behind, Rosemary is happy to travel the far reaches of the universe with the chaotic crew, but when they land the job of a life time, things suddenly get a lot more dangerous. A bit of a tumblr classic in its day, this is a cozy space opera with an episodic feel and vividly realized characters and cultures. While pretty light on romance and focusing found family, there is a main f/f relationship.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Life on the lower decks of the generation ship HSS Matilda is hard for Aster, an outcast even among outcasts, trying to survive in a system not dissimilar to the old antebellum South. The ship's leaders have imposed harsh restrictions on their darker skinned people, using them as an oppressed work force as they travel toward their supposed Promised Land. But as Aster finds a link between the death of the ship's sovereign and the suicide of her own mother, she realizes there may be a way off the ship.

Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire trilogy) by Yoon Ha Lee*

Military space opera where belief and culture shape the laws of reality, causing all kinds of atrocities as empires do everything in their power to force as many people as possible to conform to their way of life to strengthen their technology and weapons. It’s also very queer, with gay, lesbian and trans major characters, albeit little to no romance.

The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle) by Ursula K. Le Guin

1969 classic. Genly Ai is an emissary sent to the planet of Winter, meant to help facilitate Winter's inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But he's unprepared for Winter's citizens, who spend much of their time genderless or switching between genders, making for a culture wildly different from that Genly is used to.

Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota series) by Ada Palmer*

Centuries in the future, humanity has deliberatly engineered society to be as utopian as possible, politically, socially, sexually, religiously. Written in an enlightenment style and featuring questions of human nature and whether it’s possible to change it, and what price we’re prepared to pay for peace, this book is simultaneously very heavy and very funny, and written in a very unique style. While still human, the society presented often feels starkly alien.

The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley

This book fucked me up when I read it. It’s weird, it’s gross, there’s So Much Viscera, there are literally no men, it has living spaceships and biotech but in the most horrific way imaginable. Had I to categorize it I would call it grimdark military sf. It’s an experience but not necessarily a pleasant one.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling*

Possibly one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read, and definitely the most claustrophobic. Gyre, a caver on an alien planet, ventures into the dark and dangerous underground, guided only by a woman who has no compunctions on using and manipulating Gyre as she sees fit to obtain her secretive goals down in the caves.

Escaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus series) by Nicky Drayden

While my feelings on Escaping Exodus were mixed, it cannot be denied that the dynamic between the two leads and the way they go from childhood best friends to enemies on different sides of a class and power struggle is very delicious. It also features some really cool worldbuilding of living, alien generation spaceships and the human culture that has developed inside them.

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky*

The Doors of Eden is something of an experiment in speculative biology, featuring versions of Earth in which various different species were the one to rise to sentience, from dinosaurs to neanderthals. Now, something is threatening the existence of all timelines, dragging multiple different people and species into the struggle, among those a pair of cryptid hunting girlfriends and a transgender scientist.

Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi

Ascension follows Alana Quick, an expert Sky Surgeon who stows away on a spaceship in hopes of landing herself a job. But the ship and its crew are in deeper waters than she expected, facing threats emerging from a whole other universe, all of them searching for the same person: Alana’s spiritually enlightened sister. Undeniably a bit of an odd read, Ascension is also very creative and features polyamorous lesbian relationship.

Contagion (Contagion duology) by Erin Bowman*

Young adult. After receiving an SOS, a small crew is sent on a standard search-and-rescue mission. But what they find are not survivors awaiting help, but an abandoned site, full of dead bodies and crawling with something... monstrous. No romance, but features one sapphic co-lead and one who can easily be read as demisexual (however this doesn't show up until book two, which has more romance).

A Memory Called Empire (Texicalaan duology) by Arkady Martine

Mahit Dzmare is an ambassador sent to the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire, where she discovers that her predecessor has died. Trying to protect her home, an independent mining station, from being taken over by the empire, Mahit struggles to find out the truth of her predecessor's death while carrying the voice of his ghost in her head, guiding her as best he can. Light on the romance but does feature a sapphic relationship.

The Outside (The Outside trilogy) by Ada Hoffman*

AKA the book the put me in an existenial crisis. Souls are real, and they are used to feed AI gods in this lovecraftian inspired scifi where reality is warped and artifical gods stand against real, unfathomable ones. Autistic scientist Yasira is accused of heresy and, to save her eternal soul, is recruited by post-human cybernetic ‘angels’ to help hunt down her own former mentor, who is threatening to tear reality itself apart. Sapphic main character.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Queer in the sense that the Oankali doesn't follow human ideas of gender and relationships, which is mirrored in their romantic relationships with humans. It is, however, pretty dark, with examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

Remnant by Kate Genet

One day, Cass wakes up and finds everyone else is gone. Not dead, just gone, leaving her in a world which nature starts taking back with a dangerous, unnatural speed. But as she tries to survive this new normal, Cass realizes she may not be alone after all - but who else is out there, and are they a threat?

The Scorpion Rules (Prisoners of Peace duology) by Erin Bow*

Young Adult. Featuring a dystopian future in which an AI forcibly keeps world peace by holding the children of world leaders hostage. If anyone attempts to start a war, their child will be executed. Greta is one of these children, kept in a school with others like her. But things start to change one day when a new, less obedient hostage arrives. A unique, slowburn take on the YA dystopian craze, also featuring a bisexual love triangle.

Iron Widow (Iron Widow series) by Xiran Jay Zhao

Young adult. Zetian is a citizen of Huaxia, where mecha aliens are constantly trying to breach the Great Wall. To keep them at bay, couples of men and women pilot so called Chrysalises, giant transforming robots. But the pilots are not equal - the women almost always die, sucked dry by their co-pilots. When Zetian sets herself up to become a concubine-pilot, she does so with the plan to assassinate the male pilot who caused her sister's death. Features a polyamorous main relationship.

Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool:

Survival Instincts by May Dawney

Lynn Tanner has been surviving the post-apocalypse alone with only her dog for a long time, trusting no one. But when she's forced to travel the dangerous remains of New York City alongside another woman, her priorities are challenged. Is staying alone really the best way to stay alive?

These Burning Stars by Bethany Jacobs

When con-artist Jun Ironway gets her hands on possible proof of the powerful Nightfoot family, controllers of interplanetary travel, committing genocide, she has in her hands a chance of taking them and their monopoly down. But the family and their allies won't go down easily, and sends two brutal clerics to stop her.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

A neo-victorian alternate history, in which a part of Congo was kept safe from colonisation, becoming Everfair, a safe haven for both the people of Congo and former slaves returning from America. Here they must struggle to keep this home safe for them all.

#nella talks books #the light brigade #a psalm for the wild built #meet me in another life #the archive undying #the paradox hotel #fracture infinity #bridge #the long way to a small angry planet #an unkindness of ghosts #ninefox gambit #the left hand of darkness #terra ignota #the stars are legion #the luminous dead #escaping exodus #the doors of eden #the outside #xenogenesis #remnant #the scorpion rules #iron widow #survival instincts #these burning stars #everfair

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

yooooo!!! you’re my favorite ethan winters artist i just wanna say that first and foremost, thank you for the wholesome content of my comfort character and father figure 🥹🫶

i’m really curious bc i feel like i see a lot of people against mithan (not me personally, i’m p neutral on them!) but i’m curious to know all your thoughts on them! thoughts on their canon relationship, their fanon portrayal, the backlash against them/mia accusations, and your headcanons? i’m just really interested!!! hopefully that’s not weird :”)

have a good day!! sparkle on!!! ✨💖

i heart mithan... i think that they can be so cute...

i personally hc them t4t and i like to think that the dated in highschool before they both had fully transitioned

mia likes to bake and ethan likes to scrap book and he always likes to take pictures of mias cakes/ baked goods and has a album for them 😭

i am a multishipper so i draw a lot of ethan ships so my girl is left out sometimes and im sorry mia 😔

i actually really like their relationship, its a really complex dynamic that i like to talk about with my friends

i think the issue is that when talking about mithan or mia in general, theres just SO MUCH misinformation that its honestly a pain the butt to talk about

people still think that she was responsible for the creation of eveline, people still think that she experimented on eveline, people still use examples of her attacking ethan as if she did it on her own will instead of being mind controlled

in reality she was just someone who oversaw the transportation of evie. im not excusing her or anything because obviously she knew what she was doing, but people really try to accuse her of doing something she didnt and it bothers me alot lol

the problem with the fandom is that people either try to water her down to girlboss who did nothing wrong and fail to acknowledge the complexity/ moral grayness of her character and the other side is misogynists 😭😭😭😭

its hard to talk about her without people either going "stop trying to villainize her and make her look bad!" or people ACTUALLY villainizing her and acting like heisenberg would have treated him better 😭😭

mithan is such a sad relationship because they loved each other so much and that ended up being the reason their relationship fell apart (sort of... its not like the broke up... ethan kinda just straight up died)

i get a lot a trouble for saying this, but mia is a selfish person.

its not a bad thing! well i mean it is but it doesnt make her some evil witch who is somehow worse than the guy how made a werewolf american ninja warrior. its just a major character flaw she has! which is good! mia being a flawed person who makes mistakes and morally gray decisions make her a more interesting person!

she is selfish in the way that she wants to keep her family with her no matter the cost. even if it means lying to ethan about her job so that he wont think different of her. here is a interrogation from the re7 DLC, which is easy to miss!

she isnt necessarily trying to apologize for the things she has done, she is more of a, "u wont need to forgive me in the first place if we just forget it all and move on"

she doesn't try to redeem herself for what she has done, she tries to move on and return to the normal life that she wants so bad. which is fine! everyone copes a different way and she has to right to move on from her trauma. the problem that lies in this is that she has a shared trauma with ethan who still has no idea what went on in dulvey and still effects him till the present (he is mold! this is a important thing to know! most people would want to know if they were a walking corpse)

she played a direct part in what happened in dulvey, and im not referring to the email, she did not send that. she never wanted ethan to come in the first place. she tried her best to send a video to him, begging him to forget about her because she wanted to protect him, BUT it didnt send.

he got involved because she was involved. its honestly a series of really really unfortunate events.

THOUGH! she did know what she was getting into. im tired of seeing the narrative that mia was innocent and didnt know what was going on or was simply a bystander. she knew what she was doing, she knew eveline was a bioweapon, she knew eveline was a child. she used a MACHINE GUN! she knows how to use weapons and was obviously trained for it.

she tried her best to keep everybody out of the mess, ex: warning the bakers not to take them in, warning ethan not to find her, sacrificing herself for ethan in the later half of re7

but again, those are the consequences of HER actions

her consequences just happen to get really big and end up hitting ethan on the head like a metal sheet 😭

their relationship is really so interesting, it makes me really sad to think about sometimes 😭they both went through something that nobody else would ever understand, in the end they really only have each other. they get moved to an entire different country and the dulvey incident gets covered up with a "gas leak"

its really tragic because their marriage definitely had some flaws and bumps. and i know im repeating myself but its because people always take this in the worst way possible but just because i say their relationship was rocky doesnt mean im saying they dont love each other!!! thats the entire basis of mias character!! saying she doesnt love ethan would destroy her entire character!

you can see in the re8 DLC how fondly ethan talks about mia! he loves her so much, though im not sure if his comments in the DLC are him narrating current (post re8) or his thoughts before everything went down and he died (pre re8)

everything mia did was because she LOVED ethan. she would never do anything to intentionally hurt him, she is not a cruel person. she hides the truth of her job from ethan pre re7 because she loves him and doesnt want her job to drive them apart. she CONTINUES to refuse to tell ethan the truth post re7 because she wants to move on a live a happy normal life with him and knows something like her being directly associated with the connections would probably cause (more) problems. she refuses to tell ethan that he is mold because again, hard to live a happy marriage with your husband after you tell him hes a bioweapon.

obviously i dont think it was right that she did this, thats what makes her selfish! she did it for herself! she did it for her family! she thought it would work out, she thought that they could move on and be happy together.

the issue is that ethan didnt want to forget. he wanted to know what happened, he wanted to know the part mia played, he wanted answers! which is reasonable! he knows to some extent that mia was partially responsible for his involvement and he was always suspcious that mia was lying to him about her job which is implied when mia says "you were right, i did lie to you"

she doesnt learn, she doesnt stop lying, her lies get bigger and worse and it sucks yeah but it makes her so interesting!!! she keeps doing stupid things under the idea that this is whats best for her and her family, that if she hides this everything will work out and it will be for the better but its not!

just because telling your husband hes dead and a bioweapon is a hard subject to bring up doesnt mean you DONT bring it up. people shouldnt use that as a reason to excuse mia 😭, its a very bad excuse and honestly highlights how horrible their communication skills were. you cant just not tell your husband that he is actually infected with the mold and not tell him for the tree years between post re7 and pre re8.

im not saying these things to put mia down, or try and villanize her. these are all just actual things her character does! she isnt evil, but she isnt a knight in shining armor either. we need to be able to have talks about complex characters without crying everytime someone points out a flaw. characters have flaws! and mia just happens to have a lot of them!

im not mad at her, i dont dislike her because i think this way of her. shes a fictional character! you can like characters that are morally gray, or villains that drink blood and make corpse soldiers. they are fictional! pointing out the flaws of a character does not mean i dont like them.

i wouldnt call her "the real villain of re8" but i wouldnt treat her like a damsel in distress either. she is a competent person, she knows what shes doing, she has her reasons for doing them. she made bad descions with good intentions behind them! they can coexist and we should let them!

i like mithan! its a complex relationship because they both love each other so much but hurt each other in the process

talking about them is just a pain in the butt because talking about mia is a pain in the butt lol

i really hate how she keeps getting sidelined, its super frustrating to see mia get put in a cage in every game 😭

its even more frustrating that mia straight up just disappears???? in the shadows of rose DLC... like she just stops taking care of rose and theres nothing said about it. no reason or explanation. i dont think mia would ever ditch rosemary because she didnt care about her, but we probably will never know because capcom sucks at writing and they probably forgot the mia ever even existed.

all in all, i think the fandom is really just full of misinformation which make people either think mia is some horrible evil person, or its full of people who think that saying mia messed up is the equivalent of comparing her to wesker lol.

i really love mia, shes a incredibly fun and complex character, its just hard to enjoy her sometimes with the people in the fandom haha.

also ive got no idea what u meant by "the backlash against them/mia accusations" so sorry if i didnt answer that!

thank u for the ask! sorry for the long response!

#mia winters #resident evil #ethan winters #mithan

[kiss-me-cill-me]

Gravity Wins

Pairing: Robert Capa x Reader

Word Count: 5.2k

Summary: The walls around here are too thin, and Capa can't seem to mind his own business.

Warnings: Smut, changes to several minor aspects of canon, alcohol/drinking (not related to the smut), mentions of vibrators, sexual frustration, masturbation (f), slight voyeurism, teasing, biting, quiet sex, and my obvious fixation on Capa's arms

A/N: In the words of Jayne Cobb... I'll be in my bunk. This was the winner of my "Bad Summary WIPs" poll. I had originally intended for "Gravity Wins" to be a working title that I would change later, but uh, it did win, so I'm keeping it lol. Happy Capa Month! 🥰

***Please read the warnings before continuing. Minors DNI***

Life aboard Icarus II had its charms. The views were unlike anything else; the oxygen garden was truly breathtaking; and the ship itself was pleasantly quaint, in a close-knit kind of way. Most of the time, at least. Sometimes, that same pleasant quaintness had a habit of dissolving into claustrophobia; the tight quarters and lack of privacy suddenly surrounding you on all sides. 

That’s why it was important to find small moments of joy where you could, to pass the time. And that’s why you were currently in the canteen, with Cassie and Corazon squeezed in on either side of you, passing around a bottle of contraband vodka. 

It was cheap stuff; strawberry flavored. Not necessarily what you would have picked to drink, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and Cassie - god love her - had always had terrible taste in booze. Still, it got the job done. And getting to spend a night gossiping and getting a little tipsy every once in a while was just enough to break up the daily routine and keep the three of you from going mad.

Only three months into the mission, and your one bottle was already two-thirds empty. It was going to be a long flight.

“Y’know what I miss?” Cassie sighed, shoulders loose as she passed the bottle over to you. “Pizza.”

You took a swig - the cheap, artificial taste of fruit mixing terribly with the burn of alcohol - and passed the bottle on. Corazon slouched forward on the table.

“Don’t talk about food, Cassie. Please,” she whined. 

It wasn’t as if you were starving, but the bare-bones, monotonous rotation of meals you all ate while onboard the ship left a lot to be desired. You could feel your mouth watering just at the thought of something besides the same old efficient, nutritionally-dense meals you’d been eating for weeks now.

“I miss ice cream,” you jumped in.

Corazon groaned and took a sip of the vodka, rubbing her head.

“Enough already,” she begged.

“Fine then, Cora - what do you miss?” asked Cassie, reaching across your little circle to take the bottle back. She tipped it against her lips, taking a quick sip.

“My vibrator,” answered the biologist.

You and Cassie burst into laughter; high-pitched giggles bouncing off the walls of the cramped space. 

“I’m serious,” laughed Cora, nudging your shoulder.

“Oh, I believe you - I miss mine, too,” Cassie admitted. 

You hummed in agreement. It was a long journey, and until you’d stepped foot on the ship, you really hadn’t anticipated all the small comforts of home you would miss. If getting off could be considered a comfort.

“Here’s the real question though,” said Cassie, pointing the bottle at each of you in turn. “Would you fuck any of the guys?”

“On the ship?” you asked.

“You see any other guys around?” Cassie laughed. 

You joined her, feeling the hot flush of alcohol rise on your cheeks.

“What about Mace?” Cora offered.

“Too angry.” Cassie scrunched her nose.

“Sure, he’s hot-headed - but with guys, sometimes that means he’s a good fuck.”

Another round of laughter echoed after Corazon’s remark.

“Harvey?” you suggested, narrowing your eyes. Watching to see if either of the other women’s faces betrayed a genuine reaction.

“Kind of stuck-up,” Cora commented.

The group agreed, and lapsed into silence. The bottle made another round, and you felt yourself starting to tip past the point of a slight buzz.

“How ‘bout Capa?” Cassie asked.

“Maybe if he wasn’t such a dick,” Cora scoffed.

You snorted, then scrambled to control your expression.

“I think he’s kinda hot,” Cassie ventured.

A chorus of oooohs made their way around the table; Cassie waving them off.

“But I wouldn’t sleep with him,” she insisted. “Seems like the kind of guy to make himself come and then roll over.”

Corazon laughed sharply and then turned to face you.

“What about you, huh?” she asked, voice lowering. “Would you let Capa teach you all about physics and where he can stick ‘em?”

Before you had a chance to tease Cora about being so buzzed that she couldn’t even come up with a half-sensical sex joke about physics, the party was broken up by the arrival of a fourth person. Speak of the devil himself.

Capa glanced over at the three of you as he walked in, pausing to quietly open a cupboard and pull something out. Cora ignored him. Cassie took a swig of the vodka. And you quickly averted your eyes, looking down at your lap as your face burned.

“What are you all giggling about?” Capa droned.

“Nothing,” Cora snapped, a little harsher than was necessary.

Capa’s eyes narrowed, landing on the vodka. There was a moment of rigid silence.

“You know there’d be trouble if the captain found out about that,” he commented.

It wasn’t exactly a threat, but it wasn’t exactly a harmless observation either. Cassie stood up and slouched over to him, pressing the bottle against his chest. You were watching out of the corner of your eye, still too embarrassed to meet anyone’s gaze.

“But you wouldn’t tell on us - right, Capa?” Cassie asked sweetly. 

She was a little too drunk for her own good, and you felt a quick bolt of tension in your stomach. Capa gave each of you a questioning look, impossible to tell what he was thinking as he backed off and walked out the way he’d come in.

“Just keep it down in here,” he muttered.

Once he was out of earshot, Cassie sat down, and the three of you shared a shy laugh of relief. Corazon instantly broke the tension.

“See? What’d I say? He’s a dick.”

The next morning, you woke up groggier than you should have. After Capa’s interruption, the vodka bottle was quickly put away, hidden in Cassie’s bunk for another night. You hadn’t really had too much to drink, but the minor shame of getting caught mixed with the shitty vodka was enough to make you feel thrown off.

You shuffled out of bed, slipping into a pair of sandals after pulling on your pants. You shrugged into a shirt and ran a tired hand over your face.

On your way to the bathroom, Harvey stopped you. You only had the energy to listen to about half of what he was saying, still feeling grumpy and with a sour taste in your mouth. He was talking to you about some report; asking why it hadn’t been submitted in triplicate. You clenched your jaw, really not having the patience to deal with him right now.

You promised Harvey you’d re-file your report, and walked away before he could rope you into any more conversation. Cora’s assessment of him was accurate, you thought. Stuck-up.

As you walked, your thoughts wandered back to how the night had ended. Or, more accurately, to what had happened just before you’d been interrupted by the very topic of your conversation. Capa. You had been about to open your mouth to answer Cora’s question about him… or, not answer. You had actually been planning to make a joke and shift the attention away from yourself, specifically so that you wouldn’t have to give a straight yes or no. Because, of course, you didn’t want either of the other girls to know-

“Hey, wait up!” 

A voice behind you caused you to jump. You turned to see Cassie, already catching up behind you, oddly chipper considering that she’d been the one drinking more of the vodka than anybody last night.

“Hey, Cas.”

She fell into step beside you, easily keeping up with your sluggish pace. You tried to straighten up and match her energy, but it was hard to when all you wanted to do was crawl back in bed.

“Harvey just stopped me in the hallway,” Cassie told you. “Said something about getting you to file a report? I just wanted to warn you; he seemed pissed.”

Great - now Harvey was sending your friends after you.

“Yeah, we already talked about it,” you muttered. 

“You okay?” Cassie asked. “You look miserable.”

You felt miserable. And not just because of last night. For the past few weeks, you’d felt off. Moody. Unfocused. You'd been trying to push through it, but you felt yourself losing ground, and you were frustrated. 

It was partly to be expected - at least according to Searle, the ship’s de facto therapist, who you had talked to about your problems a few days ago. Space travel was taxing on the body, and sometimes doubly so on the mind. You felt cooped up, and getting mildly drunk with Cassie and Corazon only provided a temporary distraction.

“Cabin fever?” Cassie guessed.

“Something like that,” you agreed.

Cassie sighed. “Cora was right. We all really need to get laid.”

“Cassie!” 

You hissed her name, spinning around to check that no one was behind you eavesdropping. The last thing you needed was a repeat of last night.

“Relax - I’m not saying I’ll fuck you, so don’t get all excited,” Cassie joked. “But she is right. It gets to you, after a while.”

It certainly did, and you could attest to that fact. Last night it had seemed almost funny; giggling with your friends over missing your vibrators. But the truth was, three long months into your journey, you were already starting to go stir crazy from a life of near-celibacy.

“Maybe you just need to blow off some steam.” Cassie prodded, not letting up.

“Cas, no offense, but can we not discuss my sex life until I've been awake for at least twenty minutes?”

“What sex life?” Cassie laughed, a little too loudly, and you hurried to shush her again. “I'll shut up,” she promised, continuing on, “but all I'm saying is you look like you could use it.”

With one more conspiratorial giggle, she left, walking ahead of you down the bright hallway. You groaned inwardly, knowing she was right but also that there was nothing you could do about it. 

You went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on your face.

The day seemed to drag on worse than it ever had. You tried to remind yourself to be grateful; that you were lucky enough to have been selected as a member of the small crew in the first place, and that your mission was important to the fate of mankind. But it all felt so trivial when you couldn't focus on anything other than the building feeling of dissatisfaction that ached between your legs.

Talking about Capa last night really hadn't helped things. He was all you could think about as you tried in vain to get your work done. Twice, you caught yourself making mistakes in your calculations as your mind started to drift elsewhere.

What gave him the right to walk around in those tank tops, showing off his perfect arms and chiseled shoulders - that's what you wanted to know. And why did he even have such sexy arms to begin with? He was a physicist, for god's sake. He sat in his lab all day doing nothing that should have given him such infuriatingly noticeable forearm definition. 

Capa had a habit of putting his hands on his hips or in his pockets while he talked, and of running his fingers over his lips when he was thinking. Somehow, everything he did seemed to make a couple of thin veins poke just below his skin, as if to tease you into thinking what he'd look like holding you up against a wall. These were all little things you had noticed - found it impossible not to, actually - and they drove you crazy. Being cooped up was one thing, but being cooped up with Robert Capa was a whole other problem.

Cora was right, though. He was unapproachable at best and actively self-isolating at worst. Capa was the pariah of the crew, and whether or not he intended to be, acting that way made him come across as kind of rude. But to you, that only added to the appeal. The idea of getting with a guy who was so aloof made your fantasies run wild.

That night, you decided to take matters into your own hands. You slipped into your small room, dimmed the lights to thirty percent power, and shrugged out of your shirt and pants. 

This was nothing you hadn't done before; it wasn't exactly groundbreaking stuff to masturbate when you were horny. For weeks now, though, it hadn’t really been enough to scratch the itch that seemed to grab hold of you whenever you were around Capa. But it dulled the ache, and for now that was the best you could hope for.

Your bed was more of a bunk, recessed partially into the wall. You laid down on the springy mattress and sighed as your fingers slipped beneath the waistband of your underwear. You were still in your panties and bra, feeling self conscious about stripping all the way down even though you were alone in your room. 

It felt like everybody was living right on top of each other, although luckily your dorm was at the very end of a row, so you only had a neighbor on one side. Unfortunately, that one neighbor just so happened to be Capa. 

Knowing that he was so physically close only added to your frustration as your fingers swept over your clit. But still, it wasn’t like you had a choice about Capa being in the room next to you, and you certainly didn't have anywhere else to do this. Your fingers trailed lower, over your core, and you gasped.

You were already wet. Of course you were; after doing nothing but daydreaming about Capa for practically the entire day, how could you not be? You pictured his face from last night; how he had briefly looked at each one of you as you’d sat around the table with your two friends. The rush that it sent through your veins was electric. Your cheeks felt hot as you imagined him, his eyes holding slight disappointment while he looked at you. 

You weren't sure why that turned you on, but it did. You wanted him to look at you with that soft little frown; his blue eyes piercing through you as if they could see every dirty fantasy that played out behind your own eyelids. 

You sped up, using your fingers to collect some of the wetness that eagerly pooled between your legs, and then bringing them back up to rub at your clit. Slow circles at first, and then desperate with more pressure. Your mattress squeaked, and you hissed, bringing the hand that wasn't touching yourself down to grab at the cotton sheets.

“Fuck,” you whimpered, careful to stay as quiet as you could.

The only sound in the room aside from your moans was the wet noise that greeted you as you stuck two fingers into yourself, not bothering to warm up with just one. You needed this. You needed more, but this was the best you were getting. You curled your fingers, arching your back and daring to let a whisper of his name cross your lips.

A few seconds later, you were stopped by a knock at your door.

You barely had time to pull your fingers out, scrambling to sit up and cover yourself with a blanket as your door slid open. There were no locks, which usually wasn't a problem, except of course at times like this when it really reminded you that you had absolutely no privacy.

You were expecting Cassie - she had a habit of barging in, instead of waiting for you to answer her knock. But instead, you were greeted again by the very face you had been picturing only seconds ago.

“Capa?” 

Your voice felt strangely small in the cramped space. Capa stepped through the door, letting it hiss closed behind him. His face was expressionless, except for the barest hint of that pout that drove you so crazy.

He didn’t answer right away, but took a step closer and leaned up against the wall that separated his room from yours. Then, his lips curled into a smile.

“You really don’t realize how thin these walls are, do you?”

The implication of his words crept up on you, until finally your face was frozen in a look of sheer horror. 

“How much did you hear?” you asked, voice just barely above a whisper.

“Enough.” Capa shifted his weight, pushing himself off of the wall to stand up. “Enough to figure out the answer to that question Corazon asked you last night.”

“You heard that, too?” you groaned.

Capa walked over and sat down on the edge of your bed. Not touching you yet or getting too close, but hovering just out of reach in a way that made your skin tingle and your heart do flips. You had no clue if he was torturing you or inviting you to make the next move.

“D’you always think about me when you touch yourself?” Capa asked, bringing the volume of his voice down to match yours.

He sounded so sexy like that. He must have known what he was doing to you; his eyes were practically glowing with mirth and his lips were still curled into that smile. You shifted uncomfortably.

“I’d… rather not answer that,” you choked out.

Capa’s eyes darkened. No answer was as much of an affirmation as admitting it.

“You should have just asked for my help,” Capa teased. “You obviously need something. And it’s not like I’m twiddling my thumbs over there. Cumming into my own hand got old weeks ago.”

Your whole face burned hot with embarrassment at what he was admitting. And yet, at the same time, you shivered. The blanket you’d haphazardly thrown over yourself only covered your waist, and your bare shoulders were suddenly prickled with goosebumps. 

Finally, Capa reached out and put a warm hand on your shoulder, then dragged it down the side of your arm, taking your bra strap with it.

“Want me to touch you?” he asked.

His voice was low, and you could feel yourself getting pulled down with it. You knew that it would be stupid to do this; sleeping with Capa could only open a Pandora’s box. If it was good, you wouldn’t be able to get off on your own fingers for the rest of your time on the ship. If it was bad, you still had years to spend cramped up together. Your room right next to his in the already-tight quarters. It wasn’t as if you’d be able to avoid him after an awkward hook-up.

Suddenly, though, you realized that you were thinking way too much.

“Yes,” you whispered. 

Capa’s hand trailed farther down your arm; grabbed your wrist. You bit your cheek, wary of making any more noises after his earlier comment. All the crew’s quarters were laid out close together; if you were too loud, the whole ship would hear.

“Tell me what you want me to do to you,” Capa hummed, bringing you close as he leaned in, his lips practically brushing against yours. That seemed like a good enough place to start as any.

“K-kiss me - please,” you whimpered.

Capa’s lips found yours, and the rush that surged through you was almost overwhelming. It had been months since you’d kissed anyone, and the press of his slightly chapped lips against yours was doing more to you than it should have. 

Your mouth opened, and his tongue instantly pushed in. He was moving slow, but with a hunger that sent your mind racing with thoughts of what he could do to you if you asked. You felt Capa’s breath against your face; heard the low moan that vibrated through both of you as it came from the depths of his chest.

“What else?” Capa urged, pulling away. “We both know that’s not all you want.”

You could hardly think straight, much less put together a sentence. Instead, you guided his hand to your chest, and felt as his fingers squeezed. As he did, he leaned back in for another kiss.

You had put Capa’s hand over your bra, but he quickly slipped it under the fabric to rake over your bare skin. His fingers pressed into you, kneading at delicate flesh. You moaned, opening your mouth against his kiss again, and he bit hungrily at your lips.

“So soft,” he murmured, flicking a thumb over your nipple. “But that’s not where you really want me to touch…”

His voice was airy, even as he gripped at you with an intensity that almost hurt. He lowered his rough hand from your breast, and pushed past the blanket still draped over your legs. Teasing at the hem of your panties for only a second, he deepened the kiss as his fingers pushed lower and lower. Finally, he reached the wetness that was still pooling between your legs.

“You’re fucking soaked,” he groaned. You felt your cheeks heat up again. “You really want it that badly?”

“Fuck, Capa,” you whined.

“Want me to touch you like this?” he teased, voice still husky as he pressed one finger into you.

He had barely pushed in the pad of his fingertip, and you were already sinking into the mattress, unable to hold yourself up. Capa added a second finger, then repositioned himself, squeezing into the too-small bed with you to hover over your frame as his fingers roamed deeper. 

“Yes - just like that,” you begged. “Don't stop.”

Capa curled his fingers inside you, and you opened your mouth in a silent gasp. Your eyes had squeezed shut, and when you opened them again, you saw him looking pleased with himself, gazing down at you as you lost your mind over his touch.

“Bet you've thought about me doing this,” he whispered. “Isn't that right?”

“Yes-” Your voice hitched. “Yes- ah- thought about- cumming on your fingers.”

Capa smirked and brought his lips to your ear.

“You're not gonna cum on my fingers.”

He pulled them out of you, and you groaned at the loss. You felt his stubble scrape your cheek as he got up off of you, and you watched, half in a trance, as he took off his boxers. You hadn't even noticed until now, but he was just in his underwear and a t-shirt. He pulled the shirt off, too, and then went about removing the last of your clothes. 

You suddenly had the urge to cover yourself; like you now had too much on display even though Capa had already been watching your face twist in pleasure while he was knuckle-deep in you. You brought your arms up to cover your chest, but Capa gently brushed them away.

“Don't be shy; it's nothing I haven't already imagined,” he winked.

Again, the implications had you almost slack-jawed. You had no idea if it was true or if he was just teasing you, but you really didn't care.

“Let me show you what I've thought about,” Capa went on.

He took your hand and brought it to his hard cock, wrapping your fingers around it. He sighed a little as you touched him, softly, and the sound sent another shiver down your spine.

“C’mon - wanna feel you,” Capa said, his eyes half-hooded. “Use your hand. Squeeze me.”

Your heart fluttered as you followed his instructions; tightening your grip on his shaft until he was groaning above you. You gave him a few tentative pumps.

“So good,” Capa groaned.

The dull ache had returned between your legs; you were still missing the touch of his fingers. Even though you were happy to touch him as well, you needed the friction. You started to squirm, rubbing your legs together.

“Impatient,” Capa laughed. “Don't worry - m’not gonna tease you too much longer.”

His mouth dipped to your neck, pressing a kiss along your collarbone. Your hand flexed, and Capa groaned deeply again. The sound was enough to send you reeling; you thought you might come from his voice alone if he didn't hurry up.

“Stop teasing,” you begged. Breathless, and fully aware of just how desperate you sounded.

“I guess we've both waited long enough, huh?” Capa chuckled.

Your hand relaxed, and Capa’s came up to guide himself, hovering right at the space where you wanted him, but not pushing in just yet.

“Be quiet now,” Capa reminded you, and he kissed you as he started to press in. “Wouldn’t want anybody to hear you.”

You would have cried out, not caring who heard you or how loud you were, had Capa's lips not been pressed roughly against yours, swallowing your muffled moan as he bottomed out. He pulled back to watch you, panting like a dog beneath him, and smirked again.

“Fuck, this is so much better than my hand,” he said, breathing a little heavy himself. “M’not gonna last long.”

The idea sent your head spinning all over again, and your legs squeezed his hips a little tighter. The thought of Capa, coming too quick as he buried himself inside you, turned you on so much that you moaned out loud, and Capa quickly slapped a hand over your mouth. His palm was rougher than you'd imagined it.

“Told you to be quiet,” he warned.

When he started to move, you were grateful for the hand covering your lips, because without it you certainly would have woken the whole crew. As it was, Capa had to press his palm a little harder to muffle the moans that escaped. You were shameless; couldn't think about anything but the way his cock was stretching you out and spearing into you. It was more than enough to make you forget where you were.

“Not that I don't normally love hearing you get off,” Capa whispered, “but if you keep doing that, we're gonna get caught.”

Had he heard you the other times you'd touched yourself? You thought of him, silently palming his cock in the next room over, listening to your soft moans and breathy sighs as you tried - and failed - to stay quiet. 

Capa, unlike you, still had control of his voice; never letting it rise above a whisper. You wished you could hear him - how you were really making him feel. You bet he would make the prettiest noises if he'd let himself.

“Gonna be good?” Capa asked as he sped up.

You nodded, and he removed his hand. Instantly, the way his cock hit a spot deep inside of you made you hiss with pleasure, teeth clenched as you fought to stay quiet. 

“Fuck, Capa - driving me crazy,” you breathed.

“I know,” he agreed. “Feels good, doesn't it?”

“Mm-hmm…”

“If you can stay quiet, then you can cum on my cock.”

The way it felt like he was giving you permission sent another wave of heat through your whole body. You wanted to come for him. The feeling that had been steadily building now felt like it was nearly about to flow out of you; you could so easily let yourself fall over into oblivion.

“Can’t stay quiet,” you whined. “God, you feel so- ah!”

You gasped as Capa’s cock twitched inside of you, his hips continuing to swirl against yours. He was almost there, too; you could feel it. And the realization only pushed you closer.

“Shit,” Capa swore.

He was clearly at odds with himself, over whether to cover your mouth again so that the two of you wouldn’t get caught, or give in and let you scream for him. His hips faltered, and you moaned again. He was running out of time to make a decision.

“Bite down on my shoulder,” he said, finally. “Fuck - I’m gonna come.”

He didn’t have to tell you twice. You had thought very often about what it would be like to sink your teeth into his skin. Seeing even an inch of it peeking out from behind the collar of his shirt or on display in one of those fucking tank tops was enough to drive you crazy. You bit down, just in time as you finally let yourself give in to the building pressure.

As you bit him, Capa swore again, and scrambled to pull out of you, as best he could with your bodies still pressed together. He was coming, white ropes painting your stomach as you came down from your own high. 

You wished you had gotten to squeeze him more. The idea of him emptying into you as you milked his cock was almost too good to imagine. As your senses returned, you realized that Capa was speaking to you.

“So… Did you enjoy me teaching you about physics?” He was panting, but there was still light in his voice as he teased you, echoing Cora’s words from last night.

“Stooop,” you protested.

“If you didn’t, we don’t have to do this again,” Capa teased.

“Noo,” you mewled, voice still weak from your orgasm. “Can’t go back to fucking my fingers now…”

“Yeah,” Capa agreed, bringing his lips down for another rough kiss. “Me neither.”

The next night, Cassie proposed taking out the vodka again, and the three of you met in the canteen, as usual. Prepared for another late night of gossiping.

“You seem brighter today,” Cassie noticed, facing you.

“Yeah,” you replied. “I’m feeling a little better.”

You left it at that. You weren’t sure how long you and Capa could keep your new arrangement a secret, but you also weren’t rushing to tell the girls. The bottle of vodka made its first round, and the three of you started to speculate about which member of your small crew was most likely using up all the hot water. You’d all been taking freezing cold showers for weeks.

Only a few minutes passed before Capa came sauntering into the room again. Just like last time, he glanced at your group before reaching up to get something out of a cabinet.

“You three never learn, do you?” he commented.

You felt your cheeks start to heat up again. His eyes focused on you, briefly, and then moved on to something else. Cassie puffed up, straightening in her seat as she faced him.

“Go away, Capa,” she huffed. “This is a private conversation.”

Capa came over to lean on the table, glaring down at your small group.

“Oh yeah, I’m so interested in your riveting conversations about how I get off and roll over.”

Cassie’s face turned red. Corazon glared at him. And you felt your soul fully exit your body.

“You were eavesdropping on us?” Cassie shrieked.

“No - you just weren’t being quiet,” Capa corrected.

“The walls here are too damn thin,” Cora muttered.

Capa had a small smile as he straightened up and walked off, pausing just before he exited the room. He turned around, staring blankly at Cassie as he spoke.

“I’m not upset or anything,” he said. “And besides, your friend over there knows it’s not true, so…”

He left, taking with him all the air in the room. Cassie and Cora stared at each other, eyes wide in disbelief, and then pointed their gaze at you.

“You fucked Capa?!” Cassie shouted.

“Cassie, hush,” Cora snapped. She leaned in. “But seriously, we need all the details. Spill.”

You buried your face in your hands, trying in vain to hide your embarrassment. Your two friends badgered you relentlessly, begging for the whole story behind how it happened.

Somewhere else in the ship, Capa smirked.

#robert capa x reader #robert capa smut #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy x reader #robert capa #LemmyFics

[thatbookgirl1118]

I cannot for the life of me find the original post (tumblr is a hellsite) but this was sent in an atla gc:

@the-badger-mole

and tbh i always kinda felt like kataang was weird exactly because of that one-sidedness??? like there's one episode of katara maybe sort-of seeing aang as a love interest (when the fortune teller tells her she'll marry a powerful bender), but then the rest of the show is her being passive in the relationship or actively pushing aang away (like their second kiss). and then at the end she just randomly decided "okay i like you i guess."

whereas aang got a bunch of pining moments and you actually believed he was in love with katara.

and most of their relationship was about how she helped aang - he did contribute to her character development over the course of the series especially as a bender of course but it didn't feel as emotionally/spiritually deep as katara's literal one episode sidequest with zuko.

but then someone else wrote "I would argue the opposite? Kataang is where Katara choose the peaceful nomad which subverts the trope presented where zutara is where she chooses the strong protector/combatant. Aang as a character is a subversion of the typical hero while zutara is like,,, coloniser romance idk"

and honestly... i kinda get that. aang was problematic in a lot of ways, but he was definitely a subversive protagonist, and i can see the power of allowing the woman to choose the pacifist vegetarian over the extremely obviously hot jock badboy. this is an incredible oversimplification of their characters of course, but the point stands.

Basically, Kataang is the ship we all logically want - the sweet, friendship-based, seemingly subversive one. But Zutara is the one that actually makes sense in the story, with these characters, not their tropes. Aang is subversive, but he and Katara are also kind of terrible for each other - he isn't mature or selfless enough for Katara, who needs someone to force her to take care of herself because she's always the one taking care of everyone else (wonder what that's like). That's why she and Zuko are so perfect, because he not only takes care of her, he makes HER prioritize herself. Aang... does not. He's pretty selfish, which yes is partially due to his immaturity (I personally don't count Korra as canon because it treated ALL the og characters terribly so I'm speaking purely from his 12 yo self), but it's also just a basic incompatibility thing. And Katara is actually equally bad for Aang - she enables him waaay too much, and he needs someone who doesn't. Who forces him to stand up on his own two feet and take responsibility. She's too much of a mother, and her relationship with Aang is too mother/older sister-ish.

With Zuko, on the other hand? Katara started out HATING him, forcing him to prove himself to her instead of handing him everything she had like she tended to do with Aang and Sokka. He had to earn her care, and as a result he appreciates it way more and demands way less of it. He's a far less selfish character generally for the same reasons, and is much more mature/has a better understanding of life and gray areas. Southern Raiders is a great example of this - he's down for whatever Katara decides because he understands that there's no one right answer, unlike Aang who simply preaches forgiveness. I'm not necessarily attacking Aang about that either - I do believe that grudges eat away at a person, and taking a life does haunt you, so forgiveness isn't necessarily bad advice. But it's not what Katara needed. Aang is great as a friend, but I don't think he's what Katara needs from a romantic partner. Zuko just... is.

#zutara #rant post #anti kataang #kind of?? #i don't feel like it's super anti but it still is so i don't want beef #atla #avatar the last airbender #katara #aang #avatar aang #zuko #prince zuko

[n3on-graveston3s-calling]

Dinner & Diatribes

Series: Think I Need Someone Older

Word Count: 4,840

Rating: E

Characters: Dracule Mihawk, Fem!Reader

Warnings: Smut. Pure smut. Mihawk is on his knees for you and he is hungry.

Tags: Smut, cunnilingus, eating out, squirting, fingering, Mihawk being a tease, cannibalism as an allegory for love and/or sex

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

The island was larger than you had initially thought. With how Dracule had explained it, the picture you’d painted in your mind was something more akin to Windmill Village. But this- oh, this towering city floating in the middle of the sea was everything and more. Canals that traced through each level, making essential roads that yagura-led -gondolas wound through. Water 7, the legendary floating city full of shipwrights, pirates, and civilians alike. One of the very few places without a strong Marine presence- a relief for you.

The two of you had met a few years prior. One thing led to another, which led to a room in an inn, which led to you sobbing and begging for him to not stop. Now, anytime the two of you having been in the same place at the same time, hitching a ride hadn’t been much of an issue. A break from your own crew for a “date night” as your First Mate had put it, much to your annoyance.

“Here,” Dracule murmured, reaching a hand down to grasp your own, helping you step down onto the dock. The sound of laughter and yelling drew your attention away, gaze trailing over the shipwrights and dock yards. You’d heard stories of Water 7, but had never found a reason to seek out the aid of the legendary builders. Yet here you were; as he led you away from the ship, you found yourself distracted by the large galleons that were being built, repaired, or setting sail on their maiden voyages.

“This is… Wow,” you breathed out a laugh, shaking your head at the craftsmanship. “Now that I’m here, I can only picture what’s wrong with my own ship,” not necessarily a joke, though your tone made it sound as such. Dracule hummed as he dropped your hand, his own gaze sharp.

A target on the back- one for each of you separately, and a much larger one for you two to be spotted together. But who would dare encroach upon Dracule Mihawk? Haughty swordsmen who thought themselves better than the Greatest, that was who. Luckily, it seemed that reputation did matter in Water 7, as the two of you were given a large berth. “I’ve business I need to attend to before our dinner,” his voice drew you from your thoughts; you glanced up, meeting the keen golden eyes of your not so secret lover. “The hotel I’ve booked is two tiers up. Take the yagura to this address,” always demanding, he placed a slip of paper into your grasp. “I’ll be there soon.”

“What, no time to stroll along with me?” You teased, stepping closer. He tensed, but didn’t push you away- no, rather, he drew you even closer with a hand upon your waist, pulling you flush to his own form.

“If I remained with you, I would get nothing done.” He leaned down, lips brushing against your own in a ghost of a kiss. “And I would much rather save that for after our dinner.” A nip of his teeth against your lip had you gasping before he pulled away, adjusting his hat. He turned sharply on his heel and ducked down an alleyway- and within moments, you lost sight of him.

Not even a goodbye.

With a sigh, you turned to flag down a yagura to ride on. While you wanted to spend time exploring the city- the knowledge of what this night could bring was sitting at the forefront of your mind, making you adjust your skirt to cross your thighs a touch tighter. Even so, you did enjoy the sights you were able to see: a grand water fountain, plenty of storefronts that looked promising, restaurants that you were certain were above your normal indulgence range.

It wasn’t long before the yagura- a sweet thing that had more spots than you’d ever seen on one- pulled up to the front of a large hotel. Nearly four floors tall, you felt your heart stop as you looked at the people coming and going from it. You were almost- no, you WERE certain- some of these people were famous. With their clothing, the way they had their own security detail- oh, Mihawk, what did you do? You stepped from the yagura onto the sidewalk and reached over to offer it a gentle pet on the snout before turning towards the front. The door was covered with a black awning- and had a red carpet leading beyond golden doors. The outside architecture was elegant- older, speaking back to a time before you had been born, but beautifully attended to.

You felt under dressed. Clenching your jaw, you made your way inside, ignoring the sideways glances sent your way as you approached the front desk. “I have a room.” You stated with confidence, chin raised, gaze level with the man behind the desk.

“Name?”

“It should be beneath Mihawk.”

“You-… You are his guest, I presume?” Stumbling over his words for a moment, the concierge leaned down to procure a golden key with the room number etched onto the body. “You will be staying on the top floor. The Garnet Suite.” He rushed to explain, gesturing to someone behind you to take your bag from your shoulder. “Please- let us know if there is anything- anything- you desire.”

“Thank you.” You glanced to the bellhop curiously- a petite woman whose eyes were wide in awe as she followed you to the elevator. “How long have you worked here?” You asked as she rang the elevator.

“Only a few months,” she answered quietly, her cheeks rosy. “Sure must be important to be… His guest.”

“You think so?” You teased, watching the way her mouth opened and closed a few times before she bobbed her head quickly, dirty blonde hair swaying with the movement. “I think you’re right. I mean- if you can keep a secret?”

“I can!”

“He isn’t the only one with a large bounty on his head.” You winked as you stepped into the elevator. She followed after with an expression reading of awe. It took her a moment to close the door and to select the floor- but that was alright. “You aren’t used to pirates, yet?”

“No, ma’am. I’m still… This is all new to me. I’m not even from here! I just- I wanted to see more of the world, and Water 7 is the social hub!”

“Where are you from?”

“The North Blue, ma’am.”

“You certainly are a long way from home, then!” You couldn’t help but smile fondly; she was sweet, this bellhop. She still had a lot to learn, certainly, but she would do well. “What’s your name?”

“Liliana, ma’am.”

“Well, Liliana- I think I can handle it from here. But thank you for helping me,” you opened the coin purse that hung from your hip, fishing out a few berries that had her eyes widening even further, if that were possible. “For your trouble.”

“Oh, thank you!” Her grin was bright as you stepped out into the hall. “Thank you very much!” She reached out to grasp the door, shutting it once more. Turning, you made your way to the room; plaques hung beside each door with the name of the room.

Ruby, spinel, jasper… Ah, garnet. They must separate floors by the colors of gemstones, you thought to yourself as you unlocked the door. Stepping in, you had to pause to take in the sight. It was breathtaking; a large balcony separated by twin glass doors, covered with semi-sheer, off-white curtains. The bed was a four poster with black sheets; golden detailing was etched into the wood, but that wasn’t even the show stopper. No, it was the rest of the room. The walls were painted a rich garnet tone with ivory pillars set into the walls with decorative filigree carved into both stone and wood. As your head turned, you realized with a flush that it was one large room- the claw foot tub sat across from the bed, a shower tucked into the corner. Twin sinks were posed on either side, though a large mirror ran across the length, framed by gold.

How much had Dracule paid for this room alone? You were almost afraid to ask.

Closing the door behind yourself, the lock clicked into place. You set your bag down at the foot of the bed and crossed over to the large mahogany wardrobe, opening it, only to find that no, it wasn’t empty. A garment bag hung with a note scrawled in Mihawk’s hasty handwriting:

“Wear this for dinner.”

Curiosity piqued, you unzipped the bag and slipped the cloth off to reveal a stunning gown of ruby, silken in it’s make. Your size, you noted; draped collar with thin straps, the back plunging and crisscrossed with thin straps you knew were only there for decoration. A slit clear to what would be mid-thigh, too-

“Sweet Aphrodite, Mihawk.” You hissed, shaking your head as you turned away. Now it made sense, why he’d asked you to bring heels. Well, in the meantime- freshening up would be nice. You strolled over to the bath, fingers trailing along the ivory lip of the tub. This close to the mirror, you noticed that it gave a perfect view of the bed. Your lips curled in a mischievous smirk as you turned the tab on the tub. A glance to the left to the windows that offered a lovely view of the sky. No one could see in.

Perfect.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Someone had come to retrieve you- one of the waitstaff for the hotel. You’d had enough time to bathe, apply makeup, and dress before the man had arrived. The dress was, indeed, your size- clinging to your form in a way that could almost be considered sinful. The ruby tone caught the light regardless of which way you turned. You’d paired your lips with the dress, the red stark against your skin. As you entered the restaurant attached to the hotel, you felt eyes turn to take you in.

In that moment, you felt like the most important woman in the world. Your lips curved into a slow smile as you spotted your date, who was slowly rising to his feet. He’d forgone his normal wardrobe, though Yoru was leaning against the wall behind him. His own suit was black, tailored to fit him. “This was a pleasant surprise,” you greeted as he reached out, taking your hand in his.

He leaned in, brushing a kiss against your cheek. “You look delicious,” he murmured in your ear before pulling back to pull your chair out for you. A shudder threatened to dance across your skin as you settled down into the chair. Somewhere in the restaurant, a piano played live. “I hope the room met your expectations.”

“Met and exceeded,” you replied with a shake of your head. “This was too much- all of this-”

“Nonsense.” He waved a hand through the air as if to dispel your words. “For you? It’s worth it. I hope you don’t mind, I ordered wine for the table.”

“Perfect.” A vintage red, perfect to pair with dinner. As you glanced over the menu, you tried to ignore the prices listed. Expensive tastes; of course he’d have expensive taste. “You seem familiar with the island. How often have you visited?”

“A few times.” The dismissive tone had you rolling your eyes as the waiter approached. You gave your order- a pasta dish with white sauce paired with a side salad. Mihawk ordered a steak- medium rare, some sort of a pasta dish you weren’t familiar with, and informed the man that the desert would be to-go. You raised your brow at that, head tilting to study him. “To go?”

“Mhm.” He hummed as he sipped on his wine, gaze trailing along your bare arms, settling on your collarbones for a moment. He was right; the dress had been the perfect choice for you. “I don’t intend to linger here longer than necessary.” The hotel was perfect, one he was more than familiar with. He only hoped it was up to your expectations. “Why?”

“Just curious.” Your gaze slipped away, cheeks flushing under the intense stare. Your legs crossed under the table, thighs pressing closer to offer some relief to the pressure you felt beginning to build. “Did you finish whatever business you had?”

He nodded before settling his chin upon his palm. The hat was still on his head, hiding his features from most everyone at the restaurant- aside from yourself. “I did. Some repairs that I required to be finished tonight before we left in the morning.”

“A shame we have to leave so soon. This truly is a beautiful city…” You sighed, lip jutting out in a pout.

Across from you, Mihawk chuckled, shaking his head. “I’ve business to attend to after we finish here, you know that.”

“Some big meeting with the World Government, I’m aware. Tell me, what is so pressing?” No news had broken yet, but there were tensions that had certainly gotten the seas astir. “Or is that some secret you’d have to kill me for?”

“You know the answer to that, darling.” Mihawk purred, leaning back in his chair, a small smirk curving the corners of his lips upwards. He watched you squirm in your seat, affected by the threat and the rumble of his tone. Your fingers drummed upon the top of the table, a telltale giveaway of how much you were anticipating the events that would follow this dinner, much to his delight. “How did you like the room?”

“Oh!” Your attention returned fully, gaze sparkling as you gestured vaguely. “It’s stunning! The latticework was so intricate- and the filigree? Oh, Dracule, you outdid yourself this time. And don’t get me started on the way the room is set up? That four poster is simply to die for! And the bathtub? It was big enough that I couldn’t touch the other end- a perfect soaking tub.”

“So you enjoyed it?”

“Oh, certainly. The balcony is a fun touch. I had the doors open while I bathed to get that warm sea breeze…” You trailed off, worrying your lip for a moment before releasing it. “The mirror is interesting. Such a perfect angle for the bed…”

“So you noticed.”

“That hotel used to be a brothel, didn’t it?”

“Perhaps, once, many years ago. It no longer serves that purpose.”

“Tell me, Dracule- am I just a high priced whore to warm your bed?” You teased, foot settling on the inside of his calf. Slowly, you drug it up the inside of his leg, watching the way he tensed, the way his gaze darkened. “Someone who can take care of you? Take away all of those stressors-”

“The highest.” He interrupted, sitting up straighter as his gaze shifted to over your shoulder. Food. You smile as your plates are sat before you. “Thank you,” Mihawk dismissed the waiter with less than a glance.

You could have sworn you heard the boy mutter “prick” under his breath.

Conversation lapsed into silence as you ate. You had to hand it to the chef, he certainly knew what he was doing with his pasta. But your mind wasn’t on the pasta- it was on the way Dracule kept looking at you, as if you were the meat on his plate that he was devouring, rather than the steak that was rare enough it still bled, making its own gravy. How long had it been since the two of you had any time alone? Weeks, at this point. Between your own crew, your own plundering, and Mihawk’s schedule, finding any time to be alone had been difficult- until now.

A bag was presented along with the check as your plates were cleared away. “What did you order?” You whispered as he came around, pulling your seat out for you. You had a bit of a sweet tooth, something he was well aware of.

“Something sweet.” He replied as he left payment on the table before settling Yoru on his back once more. Once settled, he took hold of the bag in one hand while his other settled on the small of your back, leading you through the winding tables. Couples of all ages paused in conversation as you passed, shock and awe spread across their expressions.

You couldn’t help the rush of pride that swept through you. Yes, that’s right- Mihawk was yours. He was the one at your back. His hand was the one settled just above the curve of your ass. The one who had rented the hotel room, the one who had paid for your dinner, who had brought you here for time away from your crew- time alone with him.

You were his- and he, equally yours.

Crossing the lobby to the elevators, you shifted, moving his hand from your back to twine your fingers together. A soft hum pulled free from him at the movement, though you paid it no mind. He didn’t care, really- as long as he could touch you, that’s all that mattered to Mihawk. His hand gave yours a gentle squeeze as the bellhop opened the door for the elevator. A man this time, you noted as you two stepped in- and he stepped out quickly, face paling dramatically in a way that had you laughing.

Mihawk looked almost amused as he pulled the gate closed.

Alone, his hand pulled free to reach up, settling at the base of your neck, just above your spine. A gentle squeeze had your eyes falling closed, breath stuttering. “I believe I’m still hungry,” Mihawk sighed, tutting softly. “I suppose I’ll need to have my desert sooner rather than later.”

“Is that so?” You breathed out, features flushing as you reached your floor. You opened the gate quickly, stepping out ahead of Mihawk- who still had his hand on your neck, not allowing you to turn. Leading, guiding you to your room. “And here I was, thinking I had the sweet tooth.” You taunted, pulling the key free from your garter to unlock the door. An old habit- normally, a knife would have been there.

A gentle shove in had you stumbling forward. Mihawk kicked the door closed, already setting Yoru aside with great care. “Do you have any idea how delectable you are in that dress?” He murmured, turning as he clicked the lock into place. Your breath caught in your throat as he removed his hat, hanging it on the door handle- a habit you learned was to know if anyone tried to jimmy the lock to break in. “How I was tempted to cut dinner short just to rush you back up here? To feel the way your skin had warmed the silk.”

“No, I- I hadn’t realized you were affected that much.” He had a remarkable poker face, really. You stepped closer, meeting him halfway as his hands settled on your hips, tugging you closer. His fingers rucked up the fabric with how he gripped you in that moment. It was exhilarating as you reached up, cupping his cheeks as he studied you. “Then why don’t you do something about it?”

And so, he did.

Lifting you up with ease, hands gripping your thighs as he carried you to the bed. A squeal had escaped you at the sudden movement, though you couldn’t help the laughter that followed as he tossed you down. It was rare that Dracule became playful, but oh, how you relished it. The way he crawled over you, trapping you beneath his body- and within his kisses. Full of passion, you reached up to tangle a hand in his hair. One leg rose, hooking around his hips, tugging him down against yourself.

He hadn’t been the only one affected, after all.

“I could devour you,” Mihawk sighed into the kiss, trailing more down your jaw, to your throat, where he busied himself with making sure the world knew who you belonged to by leaving bruise after bruise. When he reached the juncture of neck and shoulder, he paused, teeth scraping the sensitive skin before biting down. A surprised yell escaped you, prompting you to tug on his hair. “May I?” He breathed against your skin, soothing the bite with a swipe of his tongue. “May I devour you? My dessert?”

“Mihawk,” you were panting already, heart hammering within your chest. His pupils were blown with lust, you noted; no doubt your own were the same. “Gods above, please. Please- I need you. I need you so badly, I ache for you.” You whined, shifting your hips as he sat up on his knees, tugging off the tie he wore, followed by the dress shirt- all but ripping it to remove it, tossing the ruined fabric aside.

He moved back off the bed, only to kneel at the end. You reached back, grabbing hold of the pillows to make things more comfortable for yourself- and for you, too. You tossed one down for him to kneel on, drawing a genuine smile from him as he shook his head. You placed a pillow behind your head, and one under yourself to raise your hips up. A better angle, you’d learned.

Carefully, he removed your heels, taking a moment to massage one foot, then the other. An appreciative hum pulled free from you as you settled back against the bed, eyes falling closed to enjoy the feeling of calloused hands smoothing across the smooth skin of your legs. A kiss was pressed to your right ankle, a nip at your calf that had your leg tensing momentarily. His hand settled behind your knee, prompting you to bend it, to settle it over his shoulder. And then- a gasp was ripped free at the feeling of his tongue laving a slow trail along the inside of your thigh. You sighed, eyes opening to study the ceiling, expecting for him to dive in-

Only to receive a bite on your left thigh. Your leg tensed once more before a surprised sound escaped as his tongue- his damned tongue- pressed against your core through your underwear. “Mihawk,” you whispered, hands fisting the lavish duvet beneath you.

“You’ve already soaked through your panties,” he taunted, turning his head to kiss at the juncture of your leg and pelvis. “What were you thinking about?” He mused as his fingers crept forward. Something clinked- you didn’t register what it was until cool metal pressed against the skin of your thigh. The Kogatana, you realized. “Was it this?”

“If you rip this pair, I’ll never forgive you.”

“I’ll buy you five of the same.”

“… That’s a good deal.” The sound of fabric ripping, of the flat of the blade pressing against your skin had goosebumps breaking out. He tugged your underwear off and away, the ruined fabric joining its predecessor- his shirt- on the ground somewhere. You’d find them later, it wasn’t important right now. Propping yourself up on your elbows, you watched as he carefully slid the Kogatana back into its sheath before removing it entirely from his neck. He looked up, meeting your gaze as he guided your thighs to settle back upon his shoulders. With a tug, he had you laying back once more with a breathless laugh that morphed into a moan as his tongue licked a slow path along your core.

Once.

Twice.

Three times before his thumbs settled on your lips, spreading you for him. “It’s almost like the nectar of the Gods,” he murmured against you, tongue laving against you from entrance to clit in firm, broad, warm strokes that had you gasping for air quicker than you thought possible. “I could get drunk off the taste.”

“Dracule,” you whined, a hand coming to settle in inky tresses, tugging none to softly, drawing a growl out from your lover.

In retaliation, he turned his head and nipped at your thigh, though it only drew a startled moan free. He returned to his goal, licking like a man starved, as if he truly did intend on eating you. His lips settled around your clit, creating a momentary vacuum that had your toes curling and your back arching. He hummed around you, tongue flicking over your clit quickly, mercilessly. Where he’d learned how to pleasure someone like this, you would never know. But by the Gods, you were melting against his mouth. “Oh, sweet Aphrodite,” you whimpered, hips shifting to grind against him, craving more stimulation. You needed, wanted, craved more.

“Greedy girl,” Mihawk growled, pulling back from your pussy to settle an arm over your hips, holding you down in place. “You’ll take what I give you, when I decide to give it. None of this nonsense.”

“Oh, you fucker,” you huffed, but try as you might, you could never move his arm. As you looked down at him, you caught a glimpse of yourself in that damned mirror, giving you pause. The dress was rucked up around your hips, your skin flushed in the soft light that spilled through the doors. And Mihawk was kneeling between your thighs- oh, you could watch him. You could watch the way his head bobbed with each pass of his tongue, the way his other hand was between his thighs, moving quickly-

Touching himself.

The knowledge sent a shudder through your body. “Good girl,” he murmured against your core, voice ragged. How close was he? Too close- he turned his full attention back to you, his now-free hand settling on your thigh. “So fucking wet, all for me.”

“You’re- oh, fuck- vocal tonight, aren’t you?”

Instead of answering, one of his fingers slid in smoothly, clear down to the knuckle, drawing a loud moan from you in retaliation. Slowly, he pumped, crooking his finger on the draw out to brush against your walls in a way that had you seeing stars- only from one damned finger. “Should see yourself,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Greedy, greedy girl- already weeping around my finger. Do you need another one?”

“Please!” You cried out as he withdrew his fingers, only to replace one with two. The stretch was delicious; you thought you could handle three, but couldn’t find your voice- not with how he started fucking you in ernest, not with the way he focused his talented mouth solely on your clit suddenly. “Oh- oh, there, there, there!” You cried, tossing your head back against the bed.

Good, he thought to himself. If he played his cards right… Crooking his fingers, he pressed upwards, grinding his fingers in, deeper than you could ever manage by yourself. Tongue rolling against your clit in hard passes that had your thighs tensing each time, you felt that familiar ball of tension begin to form quickly. “Can feel you getting tighter,” he taunted, letting his tongue hang out as he lavished your clit in attention.

“Mi-Mihawk, oh fuck. Oh- oh my god, your fingers!” You whined, reaching up to palm at your chest, tugging on your nipples before raising it higher to settle around your own throat. “I’m close, so close, please-”

“That’s my good girl. Come for me,” he rasped, watching the way you rolled your hips as best you could, as your stomach tensed. It was like watching a living piece of art, the way your orgasm washed over you. How your jaw dropped open, how your cries spilled free as your release spilled over his fingers, onto the floor below. “That’s my good girl.” The praise fell upon deaf ears, your heartbeat racing within your ears. You shuddered as you began to come down, the feeling of his fingers still gently thrusting almost too much for you. Weakly, you reached down to push at his shoulder, the telltale sign. He sighed, leaning forward to press a kiss against your oversensitive clit as he withdrew his fingers.

“Gods, Mihawk,” you shook your head, chest rising and falling with deep breaths, trying to calm yourself as he rose to his feet. He used the shirt he’d ruined to clean his arm up before tossing it over the small mess made on the floor. At least it didn’t hit the pillow, he thought as he grabbed it to set at the head of the bed.

“Oh, I hope I didn’t tire you out,” he murmured as he rounded the side of the bed, leaning over to draw you into a slow kiss. You could taste yourself on his lips, on the brush of his tongue against your lips, against your own. His chin was drenched in you- in your essence. You rolled over, rising to your knees to reach him properly, dragging him closer, chest to chest. “Why’s that?” You breathed into the kiss, pulling back just enough to study your lover. His hands reached up, brushing your hair back from your face, his lips curving into a grin full of mischief. “Because, darling, I want seconds. I haven’t had my fill yet.”

#one piece #dracule mihawk smut #dracule mihawk x reader #one piece x reader #one piece smut #think I need someone older series #feel like I need to go to church tomorrow for this jfc [ is pagan ] #next up: Shanks #and boy are y'all gonna love that one #unholy scripture [ n s f w ] #x reader #kanon's writings

[mecachrome]

landoscar ao3 stats — 2023 overview

notes

retrieved ~sometime in march 2024

methodology: scraped metadata for every fic in the landoscar tag and...... that's it. however one important constraint is that all temporal data is date updated (not posted), so the above timeline isn't exactly a true representation of fic growth but rather how many fics were last-updated at that time. of course this is still its own reflection of fandom health in a way since dead fandoms don't update old fic but well... it's just not quite the same!

this is just info about general trends, fic content, tags etc... so nothing about kudos/comments or any authors specifically

i decided to focus solely on fics last-updated in 2023 (unless otherwise mentioned) because i wanted a tidy set that i can maybe compare & contrast in a year's time, because i expect a lot of details to look different then (tho as stated above this set isn't exactly static... 🤷‍♀️)

ngl i had to re-scrape a bunch of times because i forgot about it for like 3 weeks and then there were 100 new fics 😭 so if there are some minor discrepancies across the post it's because of that halfskh.

also i wanted to include more global comparisons (aka how 814 stack up against the f1 rpf tag in general), but this is also considerably difficult in some contexts since i can't exactly scrape 31,000+ fics can i... or i didn't even want to entertain the thought of trying to do so!!!

why did i do this? who knows.

anyway here's some viz T__T

ship growth

as evidenced in the opening graph, landoscar have been a very fast-growing ship over the past year — although interestingly enough they didn't really start growing substantially until july / the ~better half~ of the 2023 season. here are two views showing their "growth" (by date updated) alongside two other ships on the fringes of the f1 rpf top 10 (sebchal & galex):

landoscar are very much on-track to surpass them and officially enter the top 10 soon, likely before mid-april ❗️ :o

ship characteristics

onto the ship content — another thing i was mildly curious about was how landoscar differs in certain areas from other f1 ships, or the f1 rpf "global" average you could say. for example, here's a breakdown of rating popularity in their ao3 tag:

seeing as explicit is their most common rating, and that i don't necessarily expect this to be true for all ships/fandoms, i compared these percentages with the general f1 rpf tag to see whether some ratings are more commonly represented in 814 fic than average, which produced interesting results:

do lando ships simply skew more HornyTM in general? is it oscar? a secret third thing??? who knows... actually i think it would be fun to do more analysis in this direction but that can wait for another time!!!

similarly i also wanted to see which ships are the most "public" on ao3, as in have the highest share of fic that isn't user-locked... i will refrain from peppering in my feelings about the 4th wall too heavy-handedly but i was curious to see whether some sort of perhaps... er, generational gap (?) of sorts between ships that are more public vs. not could be identified. however i don't pretend to have any takeaways from this LOL i conclude absolutely nothing. (for ref landoscar is currently 72% public, vs. a global avg of 63%)

note that this graph is current stats, not filtered for 2023

looking at relationship tags, i also wanted to know whether landoscar suffer noticeably from Second-Ship Syndrome, so i tallied the first-tagged ship of every fic to find out. i know this doesn't necessarily mean that it's always the "main" ship but it's a good enough approximation. the results were quite positive!

filtered to top ships with count of >1 only

i then also calculated the number of ships tagged for each fic to discern the profile of multi-shipping in 814 ficdom; i did have to do a little bit of string standardization (all instances of implied / background / hinted collapsed to hinted for simplicity's sake + removal of other redundancies), but otherwise i left everything mostly untouched.

as you can see, landoscar also have a fairly promising amount of OTP: TRUE fic:

by the time you get to the fics with 10+ ships tagged, landoscar are less likely to be the primary ship, which makes sense just on a basic statistical level... this is also a very small sample size though

i also lazily tallied the 10 most common ships that weren't NOR/PIA or NOR & PIA to diff their shares of the 814 tag vs. of the general f1 rpf tag, to see which other pairings are more represented in the 814 tag than on average (because lestappen are the most popular by pure count but this is also true of fandom in general, so it would be a misrepresentation to say that their popularity is out of the ordinary):

maxiel's gap isn't really that surprising since i think that, generationally, in terms of when both pairings were teammates there is quite a gap; with carlando—actually let me tally this again but including all instances of "implied" and "past" as being part of the same ship, since that's how ao3 tag-wrangles as well:

Aha ! obviously as a direct ship there is competition between 814 and other lando or oscar ships, but this difference is somewhat less pronounced once we include all formats. tbh none of this really means anything but i thought i'd add it anyway... (it's also very possible that there are several errors in this, in which case my b 😔)

before we move on to additional tags, there are a few more basic characteristics of 814 fic we can calculate. i realize i never offered an overview of Super Basic Stats, so here are a few:

plus, looking at word counts, here is a distribution of those in 2023-updated fic, which shows that a majority of 814 fics were under the 5k mark:

85% of landoscar fics were under 10k & nearly 97% under 25k

i don't really have any reason to believe that landoscar's wc stats differ significantly from average ? so this is kind of just Data To Have Data, and it most likely reflects normal ao3 trends in general... but i thought i'd include it anyway because i already made it lol. similarly, here are word count distributions but stratified by rating:

& same info but heat map view:

i feel like this is also probably something you'd find across fandom in general — that gen fic is likely to have a higher share of under 1k works, since Building Up to sexual content often takes... Literal & Metaphorical Foreplay ! and the longer a fic is the more opportunities an author has to include a sex scene or other explicit content (ofc, not necessarily just porn but also graphic violence & so on). but i thought this was fun to visualize haha

additional tags & aus?

back in my old f1 rpf stats post, i made a table comparing fluff/angst "ratios" (not exactly a direct ratio because of how tag wrangling works, but an approximation) of the most popular f1 ships, and now that landoscar are somewhat popular i thought i'd first do an update:

also current data, not 2023 to make things easier

just like before, simi are one of the most fluffy ships and brocedes are by far the most angsty, but it's interesting to see 814 also extremely high up on the charts, with far and away the lowest % of angst. will be exciting 2 see how that holds or changes as the seasons progress !

finally, i also wanted to do a bit of au/additional tag analysis because you can kind of see this when you use additional filters on ao3 but the previews are limited and get bogged down by the prevalence of *checks notes* Fluff, Angst, PWP, Anal Sex and what have you. which are nice stats to have and all but what of the rest !

disclaimer that the set for these tables is a biiiit outdated because by the time i'd wrangled everything i was like I Am Not Changing It Again. unfortunately i clean my data with shoddy queries and regex functions in googsheetz...

there were 48 tags with at least 10 instances from 2023 fics, shown below, with ones that are (some ~vaguely) nsfw in red just to kind of get a rough sense of which tags get commonly used in M/E fic:

getting a bit too much into small sample size / specific fic territory so if you're an author i sincerely apologize for that... do not mean 2 put u on blast... TT__TT but i also tried to tally the most popular aus people write for 814, which is a bit dubious because people tag in really different ways and i had to accommodate for a lot of string formats but ... it's close enough ! (?)

i feel like this is very little interesting info but idk what else to add so i will stop here for now... well!!! if you made it to the end i hope u learned something or even vaguely enjoyed reading T__T and most of all thank you :')

#*m #landoscar #in a sense 😔 #tfw don't have a tableau license so i live life on the edge across multiple unsaved desktop public files...... #if ur interested in anything specific pls lmk before my computer inevitably Dies and deletes everything...! #this is so useless nsdflshdfh. Anyway

[yeahxsurexokay13]

so american - mason mount

summary: mason and british singer-songwriter y/n y/l have sparked dating rumours since pretty much the beginning of their friendship. intrigue escalates when fans discover y/n's involvement in olivia rodrigo's new song.

y/n.updates

Liked by fan19 and 1.803 others

y/n.updates Y/n and Mason Mount at the F1 qualifying in Barcelona today via the @/f1 Instagram.

view all 106 comments

fan1 it still catches me off guard to see them together

user1 are they dating?

y/n.updates No! Just friends :)

fan2 i thank y/n attending that england match every single day a photo of these two together makes it to the internet

user2 HOW AM I JUST FINDING OUT THESE TWO KNOW EACH OTHER

fan3 Love to see them enjoying themselves. 💖

fan4 idk if I wanna be y/n or mason........ maybe just a fly in the room

y/n.updates

Liked by fan5 and 2.024 others

y/n.updates Mason and his family attended Y/n's charity concert at the O2 yesterday!

view all 298 comments

fan1 y/n girl if you won't date him, i will

fan2 I WAS THERE!!! Mase and his sister were so cute dancing and singing along to all of the songs

y/n.updates aw!!! ❤️

fan3 despite their efforts, they're never beating the dating allegations

fan4 This is so heartwarming🥺

fan5 Y/n must be so happy to have Mason and his family supporting her 😊

y/n.y/l

📍 los angeles

Liked by kelseaballerini and 2.019.032 others

y/n.y/l took a small break from the studio yesterday

view all 3.084 comments

fan1 Can't wait to hear what you've been working on!

oliviarodrigo HOT

y/n.y/l NO YOU

fan2 you're so pretty 😍

declanrice Look at you driving on the right

masonmount she's so american

liked by y/n.y/n

fan3 hope you had a fun day off ❤️

fan4 new music soon, hopefully? 🙏🏼

y/n.y/l 🤐🤐

fan5 come back to the UK soon, we miss you😢😭

y/n.updates

Liked by fan22 and 2.301 others

y/n.updates Y/n at Standford Bridge with Mason and some of his teammates after Chelsea's match against Manchester City.

view all 382 comments

fan1 did mason dedicate his goal to her?

user2 i don't think he did

fan2 just two pals hanging out after a game....

fan3 I don't buy the 'just friends' story anymore lol

user1 Can't blame fans for shipping them! They would make such a cute couple

user2 what's Kepa looking at?👀

fan4 They keep saying they're not dating, but they're always together 🤣🤣

fan5 at this point, I think they're just messing with us

fan6 i love seeing them support each other 🥹❤️

y/n.updates

Liked by user19 and 2.081 others

y/n.updates Y/n is credited as one of the writers behind Olivia Rodrigo's new song 'So American'!

user1 I had a feeling there was something special about that song

fan1 um guys............

fan2 this is EVERYTHING to me

user2 y/n and olivia together? pure magic

fan3 Can we start a petition for a collaboration?🙏🏼

fan4 IS THIS WHY SHE WENT TO THE US?

y/n.updates not necessarily! She often goes to write and record to the US 😊

fan5 she needs to hurry up and release music of her own 😭😭😭😭😭🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

#singer!reader #mason mount x reader #mason mount imagine #mason mount smau #social media au #football smau