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#so it will try to course correct itself
nancywheeeler · 1 year
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hopeless time loop. the way out isn’t to save everyone. the way out isn’t to save even one person. the way out isn’t to change anything. the way out is accepting how it happened the first time is how it always will be. that’s how you acted, that’s how they acted, that’s how you would have acted every time if you weren’t given the curse of hindsight. the way out is accepting you can’t fix the past; you can only forgive yourself for it.
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unproduciblesmackdown · 10 months
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that moment when: everyone's lives are restricted and constricted and these imposed consequences are attributed to anyone's continual individual failures to seek, find, and follow the Correct Path through Life, and so everyone is left on their own to only be seeking & finding these failures as well as the only answer to how their lives can be better....versus Not seeing the world as the free marketplace meritocracy of everyone's personal failures/successes, nor everything in your own life, and thus not forever having to scrutinize Where You Must Be Bringing It Upon Yourself by fucking up or at least failing to do the correct thing, and exist only in perpetual punishment for your ongoing failure and occasional temporary reprieves from it. recognizing everything that wasn't & isn't & wouldn't be [this is because you're bringing it upon yourself] and thus having more capacity & capability to look at the realm of your personal individual self, reality, experiences, life through the perpetual instances of seeking, finding, and following your own needs/wants through one's inherent personhood and exercises of autonomy and recognition of where & when & how one recognizes moments of their existing freely & in more resonant genuine alignment with themself, you know? endless examples to be found in endless fractals of [where & how are people's lives made smaller]. and that of course this doesn't preclude the ability/option at any time to question one's choices, since you'll be able to find more Actual choices available to you (and, also crucially, find more actual choices made by others that are in the pursuit of limiting Yours) to look at, and people getting to exercise their autonomy isn't the same as "everyone doing anything they want regardless of how it affects others" since that [how does it affect others?] element instead being Regarded would be able to lead to recognizing that, in fact, an effect might be the infringement on others' autonomy, hence: There's A Problem....like the ability to just go ham with [questioning???] anything in existence, certainly including oneself, b/c the "norm" is such that rather you're only supposed to be able to question yourself for your failings (or those positioned as less than, thus, beneath you) and not even have the language to express a questioning of aspects of life beyond that b/c stop calling anyone "cis" they're just Normal, Just Be Normal and it would all be fine
#brought to you by: i think one of my feelings lately of A Shift is in my less than ever running this like continuous background function of#looking for Thee Answer (just like the black suits) in any & everything that could serve as the Key to like. whatever could fit into place#to like set things on a [hell yeah. life? better] path. juxtaposing this recent sense of things with the [lol. in retrospect i Do see a new#context wherein i can Recognize smthing abt myself] past going on of like. granpa greentext story be me be fifteen i'm in college b/c i hat#school i also mostly assumed i'd probably fail out freshman yr but didn't. i've never known what i'd wanna major in & as a sophomore i'm de#supposed to figure it out in time for scheduling my jr yr classes (though Ideally have known from the start / been scheduling thusly) & so#many evenings during dinner i'm furiously perusing the daily print news as i've been doing for some yrs to Keep Up W/Current Events but now#also consciously like ''boy i hope in the course of doing this i stumble across some info that sparks some eureka moment of Getting what my#major should Obviously be so i can understand the rest of my life around [do job] b/c i sure as hell don't understand it around [be married#much less [be parent] so one option remains obvi'' whereas now i realize like lol you Were figuring out a guiding light in doing so & that#perspective being honed was one of Having A Political Analysis times....which also provides another Example of [only being able to interpre#what makes your life & your world the way it is: via Your Personal Failures to have already Had Better] in that just like i often forget i#misguidedly (but also reasonably; clearly also using & seeking that autonomy & freedom) tried to have a better existence within the#situation i was in by Coming Out As Trans to parents via an email that was then not directly discussed ever; b/c any legitimate discussion#was not permissible like how so many matters of [supposed correct existence] are Unspeakable so as to be Unquestionable#languaging that succeeds & sustains itself having to be expansive / flexible / creative / evolving too. Making Up Words hell yes#anyways so i also forget i Did try to propose majoring in things that Did more approach what i was suspecting were things i'd wanna do#but even the first like expression of anything on the periphery of that was met with ''no you'd hate it b/c you'd have to deal w/Stupid Ppl#every day'' (by which was meant; with believed inherent synonymity: poor people) & then i also will oft forget i pushed for it any further#which i Know i did b/c of it next being met with angry & aggressive ''i've never heard you talk abt that interest before So''#(wonder why? withholding info to protect yourself=finding room in one's life for existing more freely; exercising the autonomy to Do That)#but it's easy to forget b/c The All Encompassing Perspective was rather [i'm sure Failing to just Know my major for the sole possibility fo#defining one's entire life: The Correct Dream Job] & then Failing to push it or just express it & be understood ''correctly'' even if i Did#have any ideas in that realm. vs seeing how i Was succeeding & was recognizing shit & pursuing it & looking out for myself & etccc#it's undeniable lol like the framing even that Blaming Oneself is an autonomy seeking response. b/c your autonomous power in your own life#sure Would be more immediate if Everything Really Was Your Fault (when ofc really this is abt obscuring & denying the responsibility of ppl#who have the power over others' lives & then have to act like this is all the fault of the Others; they themselves have never Truly Chosen)#no victim blaming no condemnation of anyone's ''passivity'' here babey#re: the undeniability it's how like. maybe you've only Just realized you're not cis but in doing so it's like ''oh That's what i already#recognizing in various ways throughout my whole life'' it's all always Been there/going on & perspex shifts + new lenses can reveal them
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thegempage · 2 years
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currently experiencing The Crisis™ (feeling weird about being perceived as a person and like i am constantly doing being a person wrong) (i know this is irrational, but alas, The Crisis™ continues)
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ravynfyre · 5 months
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so many people do not understand that 1) animals are not people, and 2) they aren't teaching their animals what they THINK they are teaching them.
dog group on the book of faces, someone is asking for advice on how to get their dog to come to them after the dog is done relieving itself outside. The dog doesn't like coming to them an they spend ten or twenty minutes or more catching the dog each time to bring it in. Which reminded me of one of many attempts to talk a person through trying to fix exactly this same behavior in *many* other dogs over the years...
Me: So, a quick question for you... does the dog not coming to you and you having to chase them down frustrate you?
Them: Of course!
Me: So what do you do when you finally either catch the dog or get them to come to you?
Them: I give the dog a correction!
Me: So. You get hands on your dog and then you immediately punish them for allowing you to get hands on them. And you wonder why your dog has developed the habit of not coming to you?
Them: No, that's not... I'm punishing them for not coming when I call!
Me: Which was.... fifteen minutes ago, or so, you said?
Them: Yes, when I first called them!
Me: Dogs brains literally cannot link an abstract thought like that. A thought and a consequence MUST happen within 2.4 seconds of one another, or the consequence becomes linked to the most recent behavior, thought, or activity. So, tell me... how is your dog supposed to understand that you punishing them is for the event fifteen minutes ago when you have made such a concerted, if unintentional, effort to teach them that them getting close enough for you to lay hands on them in the yard means an immediate punishment?
Them: But that's not what I *meant*!
Me: Doesn't matter what YOU meant... what THEY learned is that they come to you, and they get punished. Stop punishing your dog for the behavior that you want to see more of.
Stop anthropomorphizing your animals, folks. They don't think like us. Stop setting them - and yourself - up for failure.
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cleo-fox · 6 months
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Overtime
Summary: Sometimes, working overtime isn’t all that bad.
Pairings: Loki x Female Reader
Warnings: Smut, 18+ minors DNI, sex, cunnilingus, teasing, light bondage, office romance.
Series: Overtime (I don't have a masterlist for this, but if you enjoy these idiots, check out Daylight, a sort of sequel).
A/N: This was largely written prior to season 2 and posted right before episode 4, so it’s not entirely canon compliant and the parts that are may be compliant by accident.
Also, @give-me-a-moose and I were on a similar wavelength about Loki angrily reading romance novels and I would strongly recommend checking out her fic The Imagine Nation if you too are enthralled by this idea.
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You don’t think that Mobius intended to keep Loki’s desk behind yours.
“It’s temporary,” he tells you apologetically. “He just needs somewhere to go for now, until I figure out what to do with him.”
“You’re talking about him like he’s a stray cat that you found,” you say.
“You won’t even know he’s there, I promise.”
“You’re still doing it.”
Mobius sighs and puts on his most sincere, earnest expression—the one that he always uses when he’s about to ask you for a stupidly massive favor.
And it’s only because you almost never, ever see this look from him that you back down.
“Okay, fine,” you say. “But he’d better be on his best behavior.”
Mobius puts his palms together and tips them toward you. “Thank you. You will not regret this, I promise.”
You sigh and shake your head. “Just remember this next time you’re budgeting for raises.”
But then—in a move that you certainly don’t expect—Loki ends up sticking around. And, in the subtle way that the stray you’ve been feeding slowly turns into your cat, Loki’s temporary desk becomes his permanent desk. And strangely enough, Mobius’ assurances turn out to be more correct than not: Loki does a lot of fieldwork and is often away; when he is at his desk, it tends to be because he is working on more complicated missions, the ones that require poring over mountains of files looking for patterns and trying to untangle the slippery mess of time itself.
Your work is decidedly less glamorous than Loki’s—almost no fieldwork, lots of files. Endless files. Some days you feel as though you must have seen every file in the TVA’s extensive library and then you’re immediately proven wrong by another wing of filing cabinets that you swear wasn’t even there before.
Although he is generally well-behaved as your desk neighbor, Loki’s presence has a way of distracting you. Even if you didn’t know who he was, your gaze would still naturally drift his way, lingering on those regal cheekbones, that ink black hair, that cunning smirk. The way that the fabric of his dress pants clings to his thighs certainly doesn’t help, to say nothing of how his forearms look with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He can make your heart start to race with no more than a casual glance in your direction and god help you if he gives you one of those devastating smiles. Luckily, you don’t think he takes that much notice of you. You have the sort of pleasantly dull exchanges of coworkers who don’t really know each other and he is almost painfully polite to you. It’s a strong departure from the way he interacts with others—with others, he is bold, charming, sarcastic, talkative, a far cry from the more subdued, almost courtly tone he strikes with you. It’s a difference that is so stark that you can’t help but attribute it to some sort of negative feeling on his end.
“How’s it going with Loki?” Mobius asks you during a one-on-one meeting a couple of months after Loki’s temporary desk becomes his permanent desk. “He’s behaving himself, right?”
“It’s been fine,” you say, “though truthfully, I don’t think he likes me all that much.”
“What? Of course he likes you,” Mobius says. “Why wouldn’t he like you? You’re lovely.”
You shrug. “I dunno, he’s just different with me than he is with everyone else. Like…overly polite. It’s like he thinks I’m going to send him to the principal’s office or something.”
“Let me get this straight,” says Mobius. “First you were worried that he wouldn’t behave himself and now you’re worried that he’s too well-behaved?”
Privately, you realize he has a point. Outwardly, though, you’re not going to admit it. The sardonic tilt of Mobius’ mouth suggests that he knows this.
“No, I just…I don’t think he likes me all that much,” you say. “And he’s entitled to that. People don’t like each other all the time, it’s not a big deal.”
This is also a little bit of a lie—you do wish he liked you. Loki is so magnetic it’s hard not to want his attention. And with the matter of your silly little crush, well…that doesn’t help either.
Mobius sighs. “I think you’re overthinking this. He likes you, sometimes it just takes him a little time to warm up. He’s a bit of a prickly guy.”
You bite down the urge to point out that you’ve seen him warm to other people almost immediately. This conversation has already gone on longer than you want and you are edging dangerously close to having to admit that you care so much because you have a big stupid crush on him, which is obviously unacceptable.
“Well, the point is that it’s fine,” you say quickly, trying to project an aura of cool confidence. “I don’t have any complaints, he seems like he’s settling in, so let’s move on. Did you have any feedback on my recent report?”
The furrow between Mobius’ eyebrows deepens just slightly, the only indication that he doesn’t fully believe you. But for whatever reason, he decides to let it go and follows your change in topic without further comment.
This is one of the reasons you like Mobius as much as you do: he always seems to know the right moment to push and the right moment to bend.
You’re not sure if your relationship with Loki would have changed had it not been for the problem of Charles Berlitz.
The joke around the office is that after Mobius convinced Loki to work for the TVA, he needed something new to obsess over and Charles Berlitz was the next best option. It’s hard to say exactly who Berlitz is, as he has a tendency of showing up, well…everywhere. He is quite literally in every timeline, at least as far as anyone can tell. Sometimes he is an author, penning serious, scholarly essays on outlandish theories like the Bermuda Triangle and the Philadelphia Experiment. He seems to have a fondness for all manner of schemes—he was responsible for introducing both homeopathy and multi-level marketing to no fewer than sixty different timelines. His ability to peddle bullshit naturally led him to politics—pick any rebellion, coup, or campaign on any given timeline and there’s a good chance you’ll also find Charles Berlitz.
Scammers and con artists are not atypical in your line of work, but what makes Charles Berlitz an enduring mystery is that he has never been found. You can have reputable documentary evidence that Berlitz was present at a certain time and location, but if you show up to investigate, he is never there. There have been some glimpses over the years—a shadowy face in the back of a crowd, the hem of a cloak disappearing behind a corner—but nothing concrete or substantive.
“Our ghost in the timeline,” Mobius had said in one of his more poetic moments at an all staff meeting, his voice overly hushed and dramatic. You had seen Loki roll his eyes and you had to fake a coughing fit to hide your laugh.
Time moves differently at the TVA, so it’s hard to say how long Mobius has been working on this case when he makes a breakthrough, but it’s not terribly long after your conversation about Loki. A campaign button had been found in an apartment that Berlitz rented for two years in the French Quarter. That particular campaign button could only have existed in one specific timeline and its distribution was limited. You aren’t entirely clear on all of the details, but Mobius seems to have a plan.
And unfortunately, that plan involves you giving up most of your weekend to work.
It’s near quitting time on what passes for a Friday at the TVA. Loki has been in today and you can hear him starting to pack up. Technically, he’s got twenty minutes of work left, but you’re not about to tell him that.
You doodle absently on your notepad. Technically, you’ve also got twenty minutes of work left, but realistically: nothing is happening.
“Oh, great, you’re both still here.”
In general, this phrase has never meant good news for you and when you look up, you see Mobius with a sizable armful of files.
Also not a great sign.
Mobius plunks the stack of files directly on your desk. “There’s been a development with Berlitz. I need you both to review these now.”
“It’s Friday,” says Loki, affronted. “Surely it can wait until Monday.”
“No can do. I need this done by Sunday at the latest,” says Mobius. “This is an all hands on deck situation.”
Loki glances pointedly at the office around you, which has already started emptying out for the weekend.
“All hands on deck, but most hands are already in the field,” Mobius concedes. “Which is why I need the two of you—” He points to you. “You because you’re good—” He gestures to Loki. “And you because you’ve got desk duty.”
“I beg your pardon—” begins Loki.
“He’s grounded,” Mobius says to you in an exaggerated stage whisper.
This is not surprising to you: you had heard a rumor last week about an incident that had occurred on a mission to the inauguration of Richard Nixon and you suspect that these two events are likely connected.
You look at the pile of paperwork on your desk. You could probably get through it on your own in a couple of hours, but if Loki’s helping, maybe you still have a shot at having Saturday to yourself. You bite back a sigh. “What do you need me to find?”
“Anything that mentions anyone from the Lucchese crime family or Nero Variant N2815,” says Mobius. “I’ll go get the rest.”
Your heart sinks. Farewell, Saturday. “There’s more?” you say.
“It’ll be triple overtime, I already got it approved!” he calls over his shoulder
You sigh and glance at Loki who is scowling at the pile of files as though they’d wronged him personally.
There’s a long moment of silence before you speak. “Is there any truth to the rumor I’ve been hearing about the Nixon inauguration?” you ask.
“If it involved a hot air balloon, then yes,” he says rather tonelessly.
“Well.” You pause as you stare at the pile of papers. “At least it was worth it.”
That at least earns you a hint of a smile.
*
Several hours later, your stomach is growling and you’ve developed a rather impressive crick in your neck.
You lean back in your chair, stretching your neck to the side and rubbing the knot that is pulsing in your upper trapezius. Office work has done nothing positive for your posture in general, but tonight’s work has you hunched over more than usual and your neck is aching.
You and Loki have made good progress, but your pile of finished and sorted files is scarcely comparable to the full cart that Mobius had brought in. Back when the evening was new and you weren’t quite so tired, you’d been optimistic about possibly having half a Saturday free from work; that hope has slipped away the longer the evening has dragged on. Now you’re hoping that you’ll still have a bit of Sunday to yourself and even that feels unlikely.
Your stomach growls again. You should probably eat something—you’d worked through your regular dinner hour in a fit of misplaced optimism. The cafeteria is closed this time of night, but there’s a vending machine not far from your office that has shitty coffee and mostly edible sandwiches.
You stand and stretch, stifling a yawn as you turn around. “I’m gonna grab a coffee and some dinner,” you say. “Do you want anything?”
Loki looks up at you from the file in front of him, blinking somewhat dazedly and running a hand through his messy curls. “I’d like to stretch my legs a bit, if you don’t mind the company.”
You honestly didn’t expect him to want to join you. It’s a pleasant surprise, certainly, but also a little nerve wracking in the way that interacting with Loki always is. He’s so handsome and aloof and you’re not quite sure how to talk to him without acting like a total fool.
But you’re also not about to say no, either.
“Of course,” you say, “I don’t mind at all.”
The TVA is unusually quiet at this time of night—the steady hum of fluorescent lights and the murmur of distant voices is all that accompanies the tap of your shoes on the linoleum. It only heightens the jittery, nervous feeling you get from Loki—like your stomach is filled with drunk, lightning struck butterflies.
“Are you finding much?” asks Loki as you enter the hallway together.
You shrug. “A bit. Mostly on the Nero variant. I’m not having as much luck with the Luccheses.”
“I’ve got all of their property transfers, I think,” he says. “Renato Lucchese never met a vineyard he didn’t like.”
“Or racehorses, from what I understand,” you say. “I think that’s how he lost most of his money.”
You arrive at the vending machines. Loki looks at the vending machines and then back at you, a somewhat puzzled and troubled expression on his face.
“This is what you meant when you said you were going to get coffee and dinner?”  he says.
You shrug. “Yeah, what’s wrong with this?”
He points at the coffee machine. “Mobius calls that machine Satan’s coffeemaker, does he not?”
“Yes, but I know how to trick it into giving me something that’s almost palatable,” you say.
Loki gives you a rather dry look. “Something that’s almost palatable?”
“I mean, I’m just trying to manage your expectations. It’s still pretty shitty coffee, it just tastes less burned.”
He looks at you for a long moment before tilting his head toward the hallway. “Come on, let’s go.”
It’s your turn to look skeptical. “What are we doing?”
“We’re going out for dinner.”
*
He takes you to a twenty-four hour diner called Frank’s that’s maybe a five minute walk from the TVA. It’s one of those places with yellowing Formica tables and big booths covered in red faux leather patched with the occasional square of duct tape. It smells like coffee and grease with a faint odor of cigarette smoke despite the prominent no smoking signs.
“I wouldn’t have thought this kind of place was your style,” you say as you sit down in a booth next to the window.
“I’ve expanded my horizons,” he says, sliding into the seat across from you.
An older woman with greying blonde hair approaches your booth. She wears a nametag reading “Connie” in big capital letters, a sticker of a pink cat stuck on the space next to her name.
“How y’all doin’ tonight?” she says as she hands you each a laminated menu. She looks at Loki. “You want your usual?”
“Please,” he says.
“You got it.” She turns to you. “How ‘bout you, hon, can I get ya started with something to drink?”
“Coffee would be great.”
“All right, I’ll be right back with your drinks.”
You raise your eyebrows at Loki as she walks away. “You eat at diners and you have a usual order. My expectations are being completely upended.”
He returns your pleasantly amused expression. “And you have vending machine coffee for dinner. It’s a revealing night.”
“I mean, I don’t actively seek it out,” you say. “It’s a convenient option that I exercise only when I have no other choice.”
“No other choice?” A sly smile curls at his lips. “Do you not have the entire array of space and time at your fingertips?”
“Well, first of all, we aren’t supposed to use TemPads for personal errands without a supervisor’s approval.”
“Technically.”
“No, actually. It’s in the personnel manual. Like verbatim.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You would put yourself through the egregious physical suffering of vending machine coffee simply to appease the capricious whims of our cruel overseer Miss Minutes?”
You bite back a laugh. “You know she’s not actually our boss, right?”
“I can’t discount that possibility. She wields a concerning amount of power within the organization.”
Connie is back with your drinks—coffee for you and tea for Loki. “Sunday Special?” she asks Loki as she sets a metal teapot and empty mug in front of him.
“Please,” he says.
“You got it.” She looks at you. “Didya get a chance to look at the menu or do you need a minute?”
You’re feeling a little daring. “I’ll try the Sunday Special as well.”
“All right, two Sunday Specials comin’ right up,” she says, collecting your menus.
“So, what’s in a Sunday Special?” you ask Loki as you take a sip of your coffee.
“Boiled fish eggs, mainly,” he says, pouring the hot water into his tea mug.
“Liar,” you say promptly.
He raises an eyebrow. “You didn’t even look at the menu, how could you know?”
“Places like this don’t serve fish eggs,” you say. “Way too unusual and definitely the wrong price point.”
“I suppose you’ll just have to see,” he says with a playful glint in his eyes. The easy charm that you’ve seen him use with the others is on full display and it’s enough to make you giddy. Maybe he doesn’t dislike you after all.
“Well, if it’s fish eggs, you’re picking up the bill,” you say, “and I’ll be getting something else instead.”
“You’d really hold me responsible for your impulsive dinner selections?”
“Yep. And I don’t even feel bad about it.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you could be so unforgiving.”
“Well, you don’t know me all that well.”
“To be fair, you keep to yourself quite a bit.”
“A little bit,” you say. “But also to be fair, you haven’t really asked.”
“On work time?” he says, widening his eyes in mock horror. “That would mean write ups for both of us, I couldn’t let that happen.”
“I think I know enough about you to know that getting in trouble is not one of your primary concerns.”
He gives you a sly smile, like you’ve caught him out and he likes it. “That’s a diplomatic way to put it.” He takes a sugar packet from the dispenser on the table and tears it open before pouring it into his mug. “Well, we’re on break now, so you can safely tell me something about yourself.”
You drum your fingers on your coffee mug. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, this can’t be the only part of your life. Who are you outside the TVA? What did you do before this?”
That giddy feeling comes to a screeching halt and you take in a long, slow breath. It’s a simple question, one that most people can answer to some degree. For you, though, it’s a bit more complicated.
“Well,” you say. You take a sip of your coffee, mostly to give your hands something to do. “I don’t actually know—I chose not to remember when they gave me the option.”
You’re surprised by how gentle his eyes are when you look up. “My apologies,” he says, “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s okay,” you say and you really do mean it. “You couldn’t have known.”
Usually, you say something like this and then gently redirect the conversation, but something about the way he’s looking at you makes you want to continue. Like maybe he understands difficult things and doesn’t mind hearing about something that others would shy away from.
“When they told us everything and said they could fix our memories…” You clear your throat and focus your gaze just above his shoulder. “It’s weird, but I just had a feeling that it wouldn’t be good for me to know…that something really bad had happened. So I asked Mobius to check for me, just to be sure…” You swallow, blinking hard.
You remember how sad Mobius’ eyes were, how he’d gently placed a hand on your shoulder and said, “I think you’re making the right call, kid.”
“It’s not really okay, is it?” Loki says softly.
You shrug. “I mean, it’s…it is what it is.”
“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”
“It’s not a lie—”
He raises a skeptical eyebrow and you remember that he is, in fact, the god of lies.
“It’s more like…I can’t really miss what I don’t know, but at the same time, the reality of that absence hurts a little. So maybe not exactly okay, but not exactly not okay, either.”
There’s a lot of kindness in his gaze and you have to look away because it makes your head spin and your breath catch in your throat. “I’m not really sure if that makes sense,” you say.
“It does.”
There’s a silence between you, but it’s not uncomfortable.
“Do you…do you think you’d want to forget if you had that option?” You’re not entirely sure what prompts the question and you regret it almost as soon as it leaves your mouth. “I’m sorry, that’s probably too personal.”
He shakes his head and there’s a warmth in his eyes that you don’t expect. “I rather think I owe you one.” He pauses, running a finger around the rim of his mug. “Sometimes I do,” he says finally. “It can be quite painful remembering.” He worries his lip between his teeth. “But I’m not sure who I would be without the knowledge of my past, either.” His gaze flicks back to you. “What’s it like for you? Do you feel like you know who you are without those memories?”
It’s a good question—one you’ve never been asked. “I mean, it’s hard to say for sure. I think I do,” you say. “Sometimes I wonder if I was different in my timeline. Maybe I was kinder because I had different experiences that made me more empathetic. Maybe I wasn’t—maybe I was worse. Maybe I had a villain arc.”
He chuckles. “That doesn’t seem likely.”
“I dunno, maybe it explains the vending machine coffee and my fish egg related threats,” you say and you feel almost giddy when he returns your smile. “Or maybe I’m the same and all those experiences that shaped me are just scars I can’t see.” You shrug and take a sip of your coffee. “At the end of the day, though, that timeline is gone. I’m all that’s left. It’s sad, but it’s also freeing, in a way.”
He nods. “Mobius has said much the same.”
You smile slightly. “Our philosophies are similar, I suppose, though I think there are probably more bits of his past self in his present self than he realizes.”
Loki grins. “It’s the jet skis, isn’t it?”
“I mean, I just don’t think most normal people spend that much time expounding on the reliability of the Yamaha engine versus the pure, raw power of the Kawasaki.”
Loki holds up a finger. “But have you gotten the lecture about Yamaha’s braking system?”
“I think I have that memorized at this point.”
“‘The perfect choice for families.’”
“‘You just tap the brakes. Just tap them. Perfectly smooth stop every time.’”
“‘Reliability meets affordability.’”
“‘You can’t say no to that.’��
You think you probably could have riffed on this for a bit, but you’re interrupted by the arrival of Connie with your dinner.
The Sunday Special turns out to be a fairly traditional breakfast—eggs, hash browns, two fluffy pancakes, sausage, toast, a little bowl of strawberries.
“Definitely lots of fish eggs in this meal,” you say to Loki after Connie leaves.
His smile is small, but genuine. “You haven’t looked under the pancakes yet.”
You feel it then, but you don’t fully understand until later that this dinner has unlocked something important between the two of you. After months of awkward, stilted conversation, it’s like you finally understand how to talk to each other. And you’re surprised to find that even outside of your big stupid crush, you actually like Loki. You like his sly smiles and his dry humor and how easily the two of you fall into a routine of playful banter. You click in a way that surprises you, in a way that makes you mourn the lost potential of all those awkward, stilted months and feel giddy about the possibilities ahead.
Dinner is over too soon and you walk back to the TVA feeling revived from the coffee and the conversation. 
Disaster awaits you back at the office, though: you’d left a stack of the Nero variant files on your desk and evidently the construction was too precarious, as the entire pile had tipped off your desk and spilled to the floor, contents scattered everywhere.
“Fucking hell,” you sigh, running a hand through your hair. You’re not sure whether you want to laugh, cry, or scream. Possibly, it’s all three.
“Here.” Loki is bending down on the floor to gather the files. You studiously try to not ogle his ass or thighs. Or at least not obviously. “Clear off some space on your desk—I’ll help.”
Twenty minutes later, you’ve set up an entirely new system—Loki has dragged his chair over to your desk and the cart of unsorted files sits between you, like a surly metallic chaperone. And even later when you’ve sorted out all of the files from the floor, he remains parked at the end of your desk, a stack of new, unsorted files in front of him. Admittedly, it’s a lot more efficient for you to work like this: privately, though, it gives you a warm glow that has nothing to do with workplace efficiency.
“I’ve invented a new game,” he says some time later. 
“What’s that?”
“Every time either one of us finds documentation showing Renato Lucchese losing money on a racehorse he was told was not a good investment, I get to have a drink.”
You look up at him. “Look, I know you’re a god and everything, but I am pretty sure that will kill you.”
He sighs and tosses the file into the Lucchese pile. “I think it would add a little excitement to the evening, don’t you?”
You raise your eyebrows and look back at the file in front of you. “You mean this isn’t your idea of a fun Friday night?”
“My idea of a fun Friday night includes far fewer files and a lot more debauchery,” he says, taking a new file from the cart.
You glance at the clock. “Well, it’s only eleven. I don’t usually start body shots until after midnight.”
“What are body shots?”
For one horrifying moment, you think that you’re going to actually have to explain this to him, but then you get a good look at his expression.
He’s teasing you.
“You’re an ass,” you say, swatting him on the shoulder with the file you’re holding.
He wags a finger at you. “That’s workplace violence. I’m going to have to report that.”
You lean back in your chair and return to your file. “I’m pretty confident that you’ll be put off by the amount of paperwork that process requires.”
He shakes his head as he returns to his own file. “Uncontrolled bureaucracy is how bad actors escape accountability.” There’s a brief pause. “And…there’s another racehorse.”
You continue on like this for the rest of the evening, occasionally chatting and Loki proving definitively that the Renato Lucchese racehorse drinking game could not be played without resulting in a fatality. It’s nice, though. Yes, it’s sorting files and yes, it’s not the most intellectually riveting task you’ve ever done, but spending time with Loki is nice. It’s because of this that you find yourself trying to stay awake, pushing past your looming exhaustion.
But around two, you can’t quite fight the heaviness of your eyelids any longer and you doze off in the middle of a report on the sinking of the Lusitania.
“Hey.” Loki is gently shaking your shoulder. The way he says your name in that deliciously deep voice makes you want to swoon and you’re glad that you have the ready made excuse of sleepiness to explain any embarrassing behavior on your end.
“I think you’d better call it a night,” he says gently. “Get some sleep and come back with fresh eyes.”
“What about you?” you say. “Are you going to do the same, or are you just all talk?”
He smiles at you and it warms you to the very tips of your toes. You could bask in that smile like a cat in a sunbeam.
“I’m starting to fade a bit myself,” he says
“Very convenient,” you say and he grins at you.
“Come on, I’ll see you back home.”
Part of you wants to protest—there’s really no need for him to walk you home—but a larger, louder part of you wants to let it be, prolong the magic of tonight for just a little longer.
There’s a comfortable silence between the two of you as you walk out of the office together. 
“What time do you think you’re going to come in tomorrow?” he asks as you approach the residential wing. “It’s probably sensible to coordinate our efforts a bit.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point,” you say. “I was thinking nine, but that will be dependent on how much coffee I have.”
“Yes, about that,” he says. “I cannot stand idly by and watch you torture yourself with vending machine coffee.”
“Well, the cafeteria will be open, so I was going to torture myself with cafeteria coffee, which is at least thirty percent less over brewed.”
He clicks his tongue. “You’re not making a compelling case for yourself.”
“To be fair, it’s quite late and I’ve been staring at files for hours.”
“All the more reason to get decent coffee,” he says. “We’re going out for breakfast.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Oh, we are?”
“Consider it an intervention,” he says. “I’ll come collect you at eight.”
You’re not quite sure if this is just his natural confidence and swagger coming through or if he’s flirting with you and this counts as a date.
“Where are we going?”
“I know a place.”
*
The place in question turns out to be a food cart in Central Park in 1998.
“Should I even bother asking if you have supervisor approval for this?” you say, looking skeptically at the time door glimmering before you.
Loki scoffs. “I don’t have a supervisor.”
“You do. It’s Mobius.”
“That can’t be right, we’re peers.”
“You’re absolutely not. Did you read any of the onboarding materials?”
He ignores your question. “I don’t see why I’d even need a supervisor, honestly.”
You snort. “Need I remind you of what happened at the Nixon inauguration?”
He spreads his hands in front of him. “It’s not my fault that I’m the only one with a sense of humor.”
“I’m not entirely sure that was the problem,” you say. “Gerald Ford is never going to be the same, from what I understand.”
Loki waves a dismissive hand. “He’ll be fine, the tail isn’t permanent. Now, are you coming or not?”
You roll your eyes at him and make a halfhearted complaint about proper protocol, but you know that you’re walking through that time door and not looking back. You knew that before he even posed the question.
The food cart is owned by a man named Samir who has a wide smile and booming laugh. He talks to Loki like he’s a friend and he tells you that you have the prettiest eyes he’s ever seen. You are fairly certain he’s exaggerating, but you stuff a few extra bills into the tip jar anyway.
“I can’t believe you fell for that,” says Loki as you walk away, each carrying a coffee and a brown paper bag with a breakfast sandwich.
“Fell for what?” you say, batting your eyes at him. “I do have beautiful eyes.”
“I’ve heard him say that on at least thirty separate occasions.”
“Yeah, but this time he really meant it. I could tell.”
He rolls his eyes and leads you to a park bench overlooking a wide, grassy field. The leaves are just starting to change and the air has a little bit of a bite to it. 
You sit down on the bench and take a sip of your coffee.
“It is good coffee, I’ll give you that,” you say.
“See,” says Loki, “you can’t go back to that vending machine sludge after this.”
“I mean, if it’s eleven o’clock at night and I’m on a deadline, I can.”
“Darling. You have a TemPad.”
“Loki. Read the personnel manual.”
He wrinkles his nose. “It’s not really my genre.”
You roll your eyes and take out your breakfast sandwich. “What is your genre?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that a serious question?”
“Of course it is,” you say. “I love talking about books.”
He gives you a slight smile and takes a sip of his coffee. “A little bit of everything, honestly,” he says. “Philosophy. Magical theory. History. Politics. Anything from Asgard, really, though it can be a bit more challenging getting some of those titles.”
“I’ve had pretty good luck with the Library of the Sacred Timeline—have you checked there yet?”
He frowns. “I’m not familiar.”
“Oh, you’d like it—it’s on the eighteenth floor. It’s intended to be a collection of the greatest works of literature from as many branches of the timeline as possible,” you say. “It started as a research project, but people liked it and it just kind of evolved into this huge collection. They’ve actually got a pretty sizeable collection of books from Asgard.”
It’s like you’ve told him that his personal paradise had been located on the eighteenth floor this entire time. “Will you show me?”
He is practically vibrating with the sort of anticipatory, manic energy that you typically would associate with Christmas morning right before you tear into presents. It’s sweetly endearing.
“Of course.”
Ten minutes later, you’re leading him through the winding hallways on the eighteenth floor. You’re not surprised he hasn’t heard about the library—it’s a bit out of the way and the eighteenth floor is so poorly designed that it’s not terribly easy to find.
The design of the library is a sharp departure from the rest of the TVA. The shelves and floors are made of the kind of dark mahogany that you typically see in the kind of estates that look like something directly out of a Jane Austen novel. Worn oriental rugs muffle your footsteps on the creaky wood floors and the air smells faintly of dust and paper.
There’s a subtle change in Loki when you walk through the doors—almost like a muscle in his shoulders finally relaxes and he seems truly at home for the first time since he arrived.
You touch his hand. “This way.”
You lead him into the stacks, back to the far corner, right after the books from Alfheim.
“You can borrow whichever ones you like,” you say softly. “There’s a sign out sheet at the front desk.”
He nods, though you don’t think he really hears you—he only has eyes for the shelves, his gaze sweeping across the spines like they’re old friends. You’re about to excuse yourself to give him a little privacy when his brow furrows and he exhales sharply. “Oh, you can’t be serious.”
“What is it?”
They have the entirety of the finest Asgardian literature at their disposal. Untold centuries of the writings of our greatest minds—” he plucks a book off the shelf, “—and they choose to include this?”
The title looks fairly innocuous—a red, leather bound book with the title The Cloistered Heart embossed in gold script on the front. You take the book from him and open it. “What’s the problem with this?”
“It’s inconsequential fluff, literary pablum of the highest order.”
This is the Loki that you’re more familiar with and a smile curls at your lips. Almost on cue, you flip the book open to a chapter titled “The Wedding and Bedding of Aloisa.”
You bite back a laugh and look up at him. “It’s a romance novel.”
“Precisely my point,” he says. “To think that this is on the same shelf as Nielsen and Auber.”
“That’s kind of how libraries work,” you say, flipping further into the book. The phrases “throbbing length” and “eager moans” draw your eye and you have to tamp down another laugh. “Oh, and it’s a sexy romance novel.”
“It appeals to the lowest common denominator, yes.”
“What, so you’re too good for a bodice ripper?”
He scoffs. “I prefer to do the bodice ripping myself, not read some overwrought description of it.”
You are glad you’re looking at the book because you’re pretty sure you’d disintegrate if you had to make eye contact with him while he delivered that line. “Oh spare me,” you say lightly, snapping the book shut and drawing it to your chest. “I’m gonna read this.”
He blows out a puff of air. “It’s a waste of your time.”
“I’ve got lots of time, I can afford to waste it,” you say cheekily. “Besides, I’m curious to see what kind of book turns the god of mischief into a pearl clutching prude.”
Loki sputters. “Prude? Darling, let me assure you, I’m no prude—”
“I’ll leave you to browse,” you say with a grin as you turn away from him. “Come find me at the front when you’re ready to go.”
You’re a few chapters into the book when Loki rejoins you at the front of the library, a small stack of books tucked under his arm.
You close your book with a snap. “This book is a delight. I think your real issue is just that you’re no fun.”
He scoffs. “I’m very fun.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
You bicker playfully back and forth as you check out your books and leave the library. A quick glance at your watch tells you that you spent much more time there than you’d planned. You can’t quite bring yourself to worry about that, though, not with the memory of Loki’s wonderstruck expression burning so bright in your mind.
There’s a bit of a lull in the conversation as you wait for the elevator.
“Thank you,” he says softly.
“For what?”
“For showing me that.”
“Of course. I’m sorry you didn’t know about it sooner.”
He looks at you, lips parting slightly like he’s about to say something. His tongue swipes briefly over his bottom lip and you would swear that his gaze drops to your mouth for just a second.
For just a second—one heady, slightly irrational second—you think he might be about to kiss you.
The ding of the elevator arriving breaks the spell, startling you just a little. You run a hand through your hair, trying to give off the impression of composure even as your heart beats wildly in your chest.
Loki gestures to the elevator doors. “After you.”
There is a group of analysts in the elevator already, chatting animatedly and completely obliterating any chance you may have had at recapturing that moment.
You try not to dwell too much in contemplating what ifs or timeline branches—often, it feels too much like work, something Mobius might assign you.
But you know that the possibility of that moment—what if the elevator had been a hair slower, what if those analysts had taken a different route, what if you were braver—you know that’s something that’s going to haunt you for a while.
*
You wouldn’t give up that time in the library for anything—it’s one of those moments that feels formative, something that you’ll return to again and again for one reason or another.
But it’s also true that it’s time that you probably could have used for sorting files and as Saturday ticks on, you can’t help but wish you had a way to pull another hour out of somewhere.
“We’re not going to be able to make this deadline, are we?” you say with a sigh.
It’s getting late into the evening and the cart of files still to be sorted still remains depressingly full, despite the fact that you’d brought both lunch and dinner back to your desk so you could continue working.
Loki eyes the remaining files. “I think we might. We made good progress today.”
You rub your eyes. “My brain feels like it’s about to leak out my ears.”
Loki takes the file you are working on and sets it back in the stack of unsorted files. “I think that might be a sign it’s time to turn in,” he says.
“There’s still so much left.”
“There’s still tomorrow.”
You reach for the file. “Well, let me just—”
He pulls your hand away from the pile. “You can come back to it in the morning. Besides, if you’re this tired, you’re not going to do good work anyway.”
He squeezes your hand and drops it. It’s brief enough to still be friendly, but unusual enough to make you wonder and send your mind racing back to that moment by the elevator.
You shake the thought away. It’s late and you’re tired.
You heave a world weary sigh and slump back in your chair. “I hate it when you’re right.”
To his credit, he only smirks a little. “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”
Once again, there’s no reason for him to do this, but once again, you’re inclined to let him.
You pack up for the evening and walk out of the office side by side. You’re trying very hard not to think about the fact that this is likely the last night that you’ll do this, that tomorrow the assignment will be over.
As you near the residential wing, you start to hear distant shouts. If you inhale deeply, you catch a very faint whiff of explosives—you’re not sure what kind.
“I think someone brought work home,” you say with a sigh. 
This happens from time to time—things get out of hand in the field or something happens when retrieving an asset or a target and all hell breaks loose at the TVA. Mobius had once referred to it as “bringing work home” and the name had stuck.
“Wasn’t there an incident in this wing not long ago?” asks Loki.
“Yes.” You sigh, running a hand through your hair. “I had to call off the next day—I got no sleep that night.” You listen carefully, trying to determine the source of the noise and the status of the problem. “But maybe it’s almost over,” you say with an optimism you don’t fully feel. “Sometimes these things are resolved really quick.”
Your heart continues to sink the closer you come to your home. The acrid burn of explosives only increases and you think you catch the low, dull roar of something not quite human.
And indeed, when you turn the final corner, you are immediately stopped by an electric blue barrier being monitored by a hunter. G-21–you’ve worked with her on a couple of missions before.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” slips out of your mouth before you can stop yourself.
“There’s an ongoing incident in this area,” says G-21 and you almost want to laugh because no shit. 
“How long do you think it’s gonna be closed off?” you ask.
She shrugs. “We’re at a code 54 right now, but it’s probably gonna escalate.”
With pitch perfect timing and before you can even try to remember what a code 54 means, there’s an almighty crash and a low bellow.
“Go!” she yells before running toward the commotion amid frantic calls for backup.
Loki is grabbing your wrist and pulling you into a run.
Your standard issue work shoes are comfortable enough on a day to day basis, but you certainly want to have words with whoever decided that leather soled shoes with absolutely no grips were a good choice for a building floored almost entirely in linoleum. In a low stakes situation, it’s meant occasionally you wipe out in the cafeteria and hurt nothing but your pride. In this situation, it means that Loki’s firm grip on your hand is the only thing keeping you upright.
But there’s a small mercy in that while you can still hear distant crashes and shrieks, whatever is happening down that hallway doesn’t seem to be following you and eventually, you both slow to a brisk walk and Loki drops your hand.
You haven’t even had a chance to consider where you are going to sleep tonight. You could probably curl up on that terrible couch in the office and just plan on getting up early enough to run back to your place for a quick shower and a change of clothes…assuming the incident resolves by then—
“You can stay with me,” says Loki, as though he can hear you trying to sort this out.
“Oh, that’s okay, I’ll just—”
“If you say you’re going to sleep on that terrible couch in the office, I will personally take you to the most boring governmental proceeding I can find and leave you there until you come to your senses.”
“Sounds like a great place to fall asleep,” you say.
His eyes glint, but his tone brooks no arguments. “You’re staying with me tonight.”
You sigh, but you can’t think of a counterpoint. “When did you get so bossy?”
“Darling, I’m a prince,” he says with a bit of a wry smirk. “It’s my birthright.”
Loki lives on the opposite end of the residential wing and his place looks quite a bit like yours—he’s got an extra window in the kitchen but the floor plan is otherwise the same. A lot of his furniture is standard issue, but there are little details that make it seem more personal: an area rug with a bit of fraying on the edges, a painting of what you think is an Asgardian landscape, a vase filled with dried flowers so delicate they look like they might disintegrate if you were to touch them. And books—so many books. Books on shelves, stacked on the coffee table, tucked into the little rack that you know is meant to hold magazines. Hardbacks, paperbacks, leather bound, dog-eared, well-worn and brand new. It’s no wonder he was so excited about the library.
“Have a seat,” he says, gesturing to the couch. “I’ll get some things for you.”
You sit down and he disappears down the hall. You idly examine the books stacked on the end table next to you. Many are quite clearly from Asgard and it sparks a pang of sympathy—it’s like his homesickness is on full display in his living room and there’s something sweet and sad about seeing that vulnerability laid so bare.
He returns a few minutes later with a pair of pajamas, a toothbrush, and a hand towel.
“Here,” he says, handing you the pile. “Bathroom’s just down the hall. I’ll make up a bed for you.”
“Thanks.”
In the bathroom, you realize that the pajamas he’s given you aren’t the standard set you can order from the TVA. These are made of a dark emerald silk that ripples over your skin like water, and somehow, that makes it feel a thousand times more personal than if he’d loaned you a standard set. They don’t fit quite right on you, but they’ll work well enough for tonight.
You brush your teeth and attempt to get through as much of your evening routine as you can before collecting your clothes and exiting the bathroom.
When you return to the living room, you expect to find that he’s made up a bed for you on the couch. These living units only have one bedroom—it would be quite reasonable to have you sleep on the couch.
You do not expect to find a pajama clad Loki stretched out reading on the couch, a blanket over his lap and his head propped up on a pillow like he intends to sleep there.
You exhale slowly. “Please tell me you are not giving up your bed.”
“Don’t be absurd, of course I am,” he says without even looking up from his book. “The point of this was to prevent you from sleeping on a couch, not simply put you on a couch in a different location.”
You wish you had something to throw at him. “You don’t even fit on that couch.”
“Luckily, my knees bend. Besides, you’re a guest,” he says, as though that settles it.
You roll your eyes and plunk yourself down in the armchair across from the couch, setting your pile of clothes on the floor. “I’m not moving until you give up the couch.”
He finally looks up from his book. “You’re really going to do this?”
You examine your fingernails, flicking away an invisible speck of dust. “I’m not the one being unreasonable. I’m simply meeting you at your level.”
“If you think that I’m being unreasonable and you’re also saying you’re meeting me at my level, does that not mean you are admitting that you are being unreasonable?”
“It’s nearly one o’clock in the morning. I’m not arguing semantics with you.”
“Fine.” His eyes glimmer as he sets his book down and slowly rises to his feet. “But you’re still not sleeping on the couch.”
“Oh, you’re going to be so disappointed when you realize how wrong you are,” you say. You think you see your opening and you try to play it cool.
He’s walking toward you, leaving your path to the couch wide open. In your head, you can see exactly how this works: you’ll spring from your chair and dart around the coffee table before diving onto the couch like a baseball player sliding into home plate, soundly defeating Loki. Easy peasy.
Instead, what happens is that you spring to your feet and Loki moves with inhuman speed, grabbing you around your waist and pinning you to the front of his chest, stopping you in your tracks almost immediately.
“I suppose I should have expected that,” he says. Your back is facing him, but you can almost hear the dry, sardonic look he’s giving you.
“Probably,” you say. “God of mischief and all.” You struggle fruitlessly against his iron grip. “You can let me go now.”
He laughs. “I’m afraid I can’t. It was clearly a mistake to trust you. I won’t be making that error again.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, trying again to squirm away from him. “Let me go.”
“The interesting thing about all of this is that you’ve made a rather substantial tactical error,” he says, continuing as though he can’t hear you.
“You’re bluffing,” you say with more confidence than you feel.
“Fascinating theory,” he says, “but I don’t think it’s going to work out for you.”
With that same ridiculous speed, he’s suddenly spinning you around and lifting you, tossing you easily over his shoulder.
“Hey!” you shout in protest.
“I warned you,” he says, his voice full of mirth as he carries you toward the bedroom.
This is not exactly how you’ve imagined being carried off to bed by Loki.
Though, admittedly, you do have a nice view of his ass.
“This is ridiculous,” you say.
“You brought this upon yourself.” He’s walking into the bedroom and a moment later, he’s lifting you from his shoulder and tossing you unceremoniously onto his bed.
You scramble to your feet and try to lunge toward the door, but he’s clearly expecting that. Before your feet even hit the floor, he catches you around the waist and hauls you back to the bed. Your back hits the mattress and you try to leverage the momentum to propel yourself back onto your feet.
He catches you immediately and you find yourself back on the bed again.
“I don’t mean to be patronizing,” he says, failing to bite back a laugh, “but it’s adorable that you think you can outmaneuver me.”
That is deeply offensive and the only way you can earn my forgiveness is by letting me take my rightful place on the couch.” You can’t quite keep the laugh from your voice.
He grins. “Not a chance.”
You attempt to dive off the opposite side of the bed, only to have him grab you by the ankles and pull you back. You manage to dislodge him and lunge in the opposite direction, only to be immediately thwarted.
It becomes increasingly hilarious the longer it goes on and soon your sides are aching from laughter. Loki is laughing too, but it doesn’t seem to affect his strength or speed at all.
Eventually, he wrestles you back down onto the bed and you are fairly certain there’s no way out of this one—he’s got your wrists pinned above your head and his legs locked around yours. You’re both a little out of breath.
“Yield,” he says.
You shake your head. “Never.”
His gaze flicks to your lips and back to your eyes. “Yield.”
“No.”
Something has changed. There’s an electricity and intensity that crackles in the air between you, possibilities blooming in both of your gazes. It feels a little like that moment by the elevator, but you’re afraid to hope, afraid to even wish because the idea of him wanting you still feels as impossible as capturing smoke with a net. 
But the way he’s looking at you, the way his gaze keeps drifting between your eyes and your lips…that’s not nothing.
“Yield.”
You lick your lips, your heart beating wildly. “No.”
Is it just your imagination, or did his breath hitch when you licked your lips?
“Yield.”
God, he’s so close and you want him so badly. 
“No.”
He looks again at your lips and this time, he closes the distance between you.
They call him Silvertongue—you’ve heard the jokes, you’ve rolled your eyes at all of them. But as he kisses you, you realize that there’s an element of truth there because only seconds in and you’re ready to sign away your soul to live under the power of Loki’s tongue. The slow, warm slide of it against yours, the way he guides your mouth against his, the way he lets out a soft sigh as he tastes you—you would give up everything if it meant you could stay like this.
“Yield,” he breathes against your lips.
“No,” you say.
He deepens the kiss, catching your lower lip between his teeth and gently tugging until you whimper and arch against him.
He still has your hands pinned against the bed, his grip unyielding when you try to wrestle them away.
“Let me touch you,” you say when he draws back. You want to touch him everywhere—run your hands along every muscle you’ve admired from afar. 
“Then yield,” he says with a grin, his eyes flashing with devilish intent.
You consider this for a moment. You could give in—there aren’t really any stakes at this point and you’re pretty sure you’re both going to end up sleeping in his bed tonight anyway. But that glint of mischief in his eyes also promises some intriguing possibilities if you stand firm.
“No,” you say.
“Such a pity,” says Loki, though his expression is one of hungry delight.
His hands slip free of your wrists then, but they stay pinned to the bed by some invisible force.
“Cheater,” you say. 
“I think this is only fair,” he says, his hands sliding to your hips. “I’m clearly the victor, am I not entitled to my prize?”
You shiver. “Your prize?”
“Yes.” He kisses down the column of your throat. “My lovely, lovely prize.”
“How can I be your prize if I’m also your competitor?”
“You think too much,” he mumbles against your neck.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Generally, it’s not.” He sits back on his heels between your legs, looking you over with satisfaction. “But in this case, it’s distracting you from more pressing matters.” His hands creep under the hem of your shirt, stroking the small of your back, thumbs tracing teasingly along the waistband of your pajama pants. 
“Have I mentioned how much I enjoy seeing you in my clothes?” he asks. There’s a husky depth to his voice and a hunger in his eyes that sends a flood of arousal to your cunt.
“You have not,” you say.
“A casualty of too much thinking,” he says solemnly, his thumbs gently grazing the skin at your hipbones. “You look utterly delectable. I almost want to leave them on.” His eyes glitter with mischief. “Almost.” His hand strays to the bottom button on your pajama top. “May I?”
You nod. “Yes.”
He slips the button free and slowly makes his way up until your shirt is open. He carefully pushes the fabric aside, baring your breasts to his sight and touch.
You’ve never felt more beautiful seeing Loki stare at you, lips slightly parted, eyes wide and hungry. He trails one hand up your stomach and rib cage and slowly brushes a thumb over your nipple. You gasp and the sensitive skin puckers and stiffens as he palms your breast, rolling your nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“Gorgeous,” he murmurs as he lowers his mouth to your breast, his tongue and lips taking up the role of his hand, while his other hand moves to cup your other breast. You whimper, wishing you could run your hands through his hair. “That’s it,” he purrs, “I want to hear all the sounds you can make, my love.”
You rock your hips forward and arch your back as he lavishes attention on your breasts. It’s the most delicious kind of torture, having him so close, but not being able to touch him.
He’s taking his time, which you both love and hate. He feels so good, but you need him to touch you, you need to touch him, you need him inside of you. You wait until you can’t take it any more and breathe his name like it’s a prayer.
You wonder if this is what he was waiting for because with little more than a brief smirk and a wicked look, he starts kissing his way back up your chest and neck. You whimper when his lips meet yours and you can feel him grin as he kisses you. He fits his hips against yours, angling himself so that his cock rubs up against your clit just right and you moan into his mouth. You can tell that he’s big and part of you wants to savor the anticipation even though you feel like you might go mad if he doesn’t fuck you now. You rock your hips against him, trying to feel that friction.
His large hands frame your face, one hand sliding to cradle the back of your head so he can draw you deeper, the other trailing from your cheek to your throat.
Both hands soon stroke down your sides, lingering teasingly at the waistband of your pajama pants. He hooks his thumbs underneath the waistband and you lift your hips. He slides your pants down maybe an inch and you can feel him smiling as he kisses you. You lift your hips again and your waistband creeps down another inch.
“Loki.” His name falls from your lips with a sigh.
“What is it, my love?”
“Touch me,” you breathe. “Please.”
You lift your hips again and this time, he pulls the fabric fully down and off your legs. He guides your legs apart and stares appreciatively at your bare cunt, his teasing expression replaced by a rapt awe.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs. 
You believe him.
His hands stroke your thighs, seemingly in no hurry, despite your pleading whimpers and the way you arch against the mattress. He draws his thumb gently along your slit, barely grazing your clit.
“Do you know what an utter distraction it’s been sitting behind you?” he asks, tracing your clit in the slowest, lightest circle.
You arch upward, hands still bound by his magic. “Tell me,” you breathe, your hips rising to chase his hand.
“Every time you stood up, I could only think about bending you over the desk.”
You manage a sly smirk. “And here I thought you didn’t like me much at all.”
His thumb presses a little more against your clit and you moan.
“I’ve wanted you from the moment I saw you,” he says, rolling his thumb in a slow circle. “I kept you at arm’s length partly as a matter of protection.”
For who?”
“You,” he says. “I’m not fully redeemed in some eyes and you being involved with a dangerous variant—”
“You’re not,” you say.
“Some would disagree.”
“Well, they’re wrong,” you say. “You’re not a dangerous variant. You’re Loki Laufeyson and I want you just as you are.”
There’s something unreadable in his expression and it makes you wonder how many people have told him that he can just be himself.
“You should be careful saying such lovely things to me, you know,” he says solemnly.
You raise an eyebrow. “Oh really? And why is that?”
“Because it makes me want to do very wicked things to you.”
You’re surprised you’re not shaking, you want him so badly. “What kinds of wicked things?”
“Oh, all manner of wicked things.” He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, his tongue swiping briefly against your skin. “Things with my mouth...” His thumb rolls over your clit again, his index finger teasing your entrance before retreating. “…my hands…” He drags his gaze over your naked form before locking eyes with you. “My cock.”
A shiver works its way up your spine. “So if I talk about how I think you’re really clever and funny and I find it unbelievably sexy, what sort of wicked thing would that merit?”
The intensity of his gaze makes you shiver again. He crouches down and presses another kiss against the inside of your knee, slowly moving upward. “If you keep talking like that, I’m not going to let you leave my bed for days.”
“You know that’s not a disincentive, right?” you say, sucking in a sharp breath as he nips at the soft skin of your inner thigh. “I’ve wanted you for such a long time, Loki.”
“I’ll make it weeks if you’re not careful.”
“Again, not a disincentive.” You gently tug at your bound wrists and find that they’re still firmly secured. It’s exhilarating, even though you really wish you could run your hands through his hair, especially if he ends up where you think he’s going.
“What else should I tell you?” you muse as he continues his agonizingly slow path along your thigh. “You know, half the reason I kept to myself was that I wanted you so much I was certain that I’d make a fool of myself.”
That earns you a few circles of your clit with his thumb, but his progress up your thigh remains slow. You have a theory about what might move the needle, though.
“I know you like to act like you’re this sort of barely reformed villain, but I think there’s more good in you than you’d like people to believe.”
This time, he moves up to the crease where your thigh joins your hip, close enough that you can feel the heat of his breath ghosting along your labia. His tongue traces a line along your skin and you briefly wonder if you’ll be able to hold it together enough to deliver the last part.
“And,” you say, trying to keep your voice steady, “yesterday and today made me want you even more because I feel like I finally saw who you really are and you’re even more wond—”
Your words abruptly give way to a breathy moan because his perfect, skilled tongue has finally found its way to your clit.
You had a plan from here, but whatever it was has dissolved into nothing under the skilled caress of Loki’s tongue. You suspected he would be good at this from the way that he’d kissed you earlier, but you could not have imagined that it would feel like this.
“Oh my god, Loki.” Your thighs are already quaking. You tug again at the invisible bonds on your wrists, but they hold fast. Something about the way the bonds are keeping you gently stretched along the bed combined with how his large hands have your thighs spread open seems to heighten every sensation. There’s no wiggling away from him or adjusting yourself so that you feel more or less of the onslaught of his tongue on your cunt. You are completely at his mercy and you’re not entirely surprised that you fucking love it.
He slides a finger into your aching channel and your cunt shudders around the thick intrusion. The warm, roiling center of your orgasm starts builds in your hips with every stroke of his tongue, spinning faster and faster, like ocean winds whipping up into a hurricane. Your back arches and his tongue presses flat against your clit, and suddenly you know that this is going to be what takes you over the edge.
Loki seems to know it too, at least from the way that he presses his tongue more firmly against you, one arm slung across your hips to hold you in place. His other hand slides two fingers inside you, rocking and curling against that aching, tender spot.
You whimper, your hips bucking wildly. It’s so good and so much and you are almost there.
You look down at him then, his hair wild, hollowed cheeks flushed pink as his tongue works you over, his eyes closed like he couldn’t imagine anything more blissful than being in between your legs while you come undone.
This is ultimately what tips you over the edge. The storm that has been forming inside you is finally let loose and you arch your back and cry out in a wordless scream as your climax crashes into you.
Only then do the bonds around your wrists release and your hands fly down to grab his hair as your body shakes with pleasure.
It takes a moment for you to get your breath back and reacquaint yourself with the concept of speech, but when you do, you find Loki looking up at you, his expression pure mischief.
“And to think you wanted to sleep on the couch.”
“It wasn’t that I wanted to sleep on the couch, it’s that—” Your voice cuts off as his tongue starts stroking your clit again.
“It’s what?” he asks in between strokes, his smirk obvious in his voice. The lingering ripples of your orgasm are coalescing around the path of his tongue, tightening that coil in your belly again.
“Fuck—you’re not playing fair, you can’t just—” You lose your sentence to a low moan that rises up from your chest. “You can’t just—fuck, yes—you can’t…oh god, yes, just like that.”
His laughter rumbles against you as your hips start rocking against his mouth. How are you already so close?
“You can’t just—fuck—win an argument by—”
You’re trying to say that he can’t expect to win an argument by making you come and you think he might understand this based on how determined he seems to be to prove you wrong. His fingers curl again until he finds that soft, tender spot that is so often the key to your unraveling.
You have stopped trying to complete that sentence—you moan, your hands tangling in his hair, urging him on as the swell of your climax rushes up, inevitable as a tidal wave looming over a seaside village.
You cry out as it crests and breaks, falling down over you in a rush of tingling pleasure that feels like champagne and fireworks all at once.
“Now, what was it you were saying, my love?” he asks as he releases your clit a moment later. “Something about how I can’t just win an argument by making you come? I couldn’t quite hear you over the sound of you coming completely undone on my tongue.”
“Oh, you think you’re so smart,” you say, giving him a stern look as he crawls up your body.
“You know what I think?” he says, settling himself on his side next to you. “I think you liked submitting to me.”
You shiver before you can even think about hiding it and his smile turns decidedly vulpine. 
“You did, didn’t you? You liked having your hands bound and being completely at my mercy while I licked your pretty cunt until you came undone in my mouth.”
“You are enjoying this far too much,” you say.
“I am enjoying it the correct amount.”
You realize your hands are now free to explore his body and you tug at his pajama shirt. “I think you’re wearing too many clothes,” you say.
He gives you a wicked grin as he lets you pull his shirt over his head. “Yes, perhaps it’s time we even things up.”
You pull the shirt away and rake your eyes over him greedily, your hands following the path of your gaze. He is as perfect as you imagined, unfairly beautiful in the dim light of the bedroom.
You hook your thumbs into the waistband of his pajama pants and lower them an inch, a cheeky parallel of how he teased you earlier. His lips curl into a sharp smile when he realizes what you’re doing.
“Interesting strategy.” There’s a bit of a growl in his voice, a rough desperation that makes your cunt clench. “But I think you forgot that I have the upper hand here.”
He raises his hand and with a twist of his wrist, his remaining clothes dissolve in a shimmer of green and he is bare before you.
Your breath catches in your throat. His cock commands your immediate attention, nudging up against your thigh—he’s big, as you suspected, but completely bare and rock hard, he somehow seems longer and thicker than he had when he was grinding against you.
He pulls you into a slow kiss as you reach for his cock. You wrap your hand around him, delighting in the silky hardness of him, the way he throbs in your hand and the low groan he makes as your hand moves from base to tip and back, the way his hips thrust along with you. Your cunt clenches in anticipation.
After a moment, though, he places his hand over yours, slowing your movements.
“I need to be inside you,” he rasps.
“Yes,” you breathe.
He rolls on top of you  and you’re not sure that you’ve ever felt anything quite as wonderful as the heat of his bare skin and yours pressed together. This feeling means intimacy, a closeness that you’d longed for but never expected even in your wildest daydreams.
He pulls you into a kiss, slow, soft, and languid, like you have all the time in the world and he intends to take it. It’s decadent and dreamy and perfect.
But the heavy weight of his bare cock resting against your stomach combined with the ache between your legs—an ache that would be so perfectly soothed by the hard column of flesh currently throbbing against you—proves to be a force too powerful to resist for very long.
You cant your hips against him, snaking one leg around his waist, hoping he’ll get the hint.
He does.
He braces himself on one hand, the other sliding between your bodies to rub his cock along your slick folds. He positions himself at your entrance, waiting for your breathy plea to begin to ease himself slowly into you.
He fills and stretches you in the most wonderful way, but even more than that, he feels like home. The thought strikes you quite suddenly and you’re not entirely sure about everything it means, but you know it’s good and right.
He pauses for just a moment, seeming to savor the feeling.
“You feel better than I ever imagined,” he says.
You quirk an eyebrow at him. “You imagined?”
He gives you a hungry smile as he leans in to kiss you. “Like I said: it has been an utter distraction sitting behind you.”
His rhythm is slow and easy, like he wants to take his time learning every inch of you and memorizing how you react to his touch. His mouth moves over yours in a slow kiss that’s somehow both languid and demanding, his tongue gliding in and out of your mouth in the same rhythm of his hips rocking into you. His cock bumps up against that sweet spot inside of you that his fingers had teased earlier, each stroke inching you closer to bliss.
He shifts the angle of his hips so that his pubic bone grinds against your clit and it feels so good you almost see stars. You can feel your orgasm building, your cunt growing slicker and tensing around his thrusting cock.
He draws back to look at you, eyes hazy with a loose, dreamy kind of pleasure.
“Do you have any idea how good you feel?” he breathes.
You are shaking. “Loki, I’m gonna come.”
“I know you are,” he purrs. “Let go for me, let me feel you, my love.”
With two more thrusts of his hips, you unravel.
He groans as you tremble around him, but mostly, he watches your face, rapt by the way you throw your head back against the bed and gasp his name like it’s the only thing that will save you.
“You’re beautiful when you come,” he breathes. “Absolutely stunning.”
He waits until you catch your breath before he kisses you again, slow and sensual. His hips are still rocking in that beautifully slow rhythm and you don’t know how it can still feel so good.
He keeps moving against you, his touch and his low murmurs of praise invoking a symphony of sensations. He presses deeper and your body sings with every thrust, your muscles tensing and tightening around him like you never want him to leave. Your climax swells again and you come with a whimper, your whole body shaking as he fucks you through it.
You want him to come, want to hear the sounds he makes and feel his sweet, hot release burning inside of you.
“I want you to come for me,” you breathe.
He grins at you. “Oh, I will, but not yet. You’re not done yet.”
You whimper. “Loki—”
“Two more, my love, two more and then I’ll come for you.”
Somehow, you give him three. By the second one, he’s panting and his words have become rough, his voice a growl as he utters some of the filthiest praise you’ve ever heard. The third builds quickly after that and you know instinctively that you’re going to take him over the edge with you this time.
You fight to keep your eyes open against the tidal wave of pleasure blooming again in your hips. You need to see him come undone.
As in everything else he does, he’s unfairly beautiful—he throws his head back, letting out a low groan that you can feel all the way to the tips of your toes. His cheeks are flushed, a few ink dark curls plastered to the light sheen of sweat on his forehead. You can feel him emptying himself inside you, his release hot and hard won.
It seems to last a long time and it’s another minute before his hips slow to a halt. He kisses you, so soft and sweet it would almost seem chaste were it not for the fact that his cock is still throbbing inside of you.
After a moment, he slowly eases out of you, rolling over onto his back, his arm snaking around your waist and pulling you to him like he can’t bear to be parted from you even for a moment.
You curl up against his side, your legs tangling with his. He takes your hand, lacing his fingers with yours before resting your clasped hands on his heart.
You could fall in love like this, you think sleepily to yourself.
You don’t know it then, but you’re right.
*
Time moves differently at the TVA, but a couple years later, there’s a ring in a box on your desk.
Loki likes a spectacle and you’d daydreamed about a traditional wedding, but when you talk it over, you both agree that you want to do something different, something quiet, something just for the two of you.
“I do think we should tell Mobius beforehand,” you say to Loki.
“Isn’t the point of eloping that no one knows until after it’s done?” says Loki.
“Yes, but I feel like we could make one exception,” you say. “If we’d done a full wedding, I would have asked him to give me away.”
Loki’s gaze softens a bit then and he pulls you close. “All right. But we only tell him right before we leave. The man can’t keep a secret.”
But Mobius doesn’t seem terribly surprised when you tell him—in fact, he seems far more concerned about your wedding gift.
“I didn’t have a chance to wrap it yet,” he says. He’s retrieved a large picture frame that had been propped against his desk, though he keeps it turned away from you. “So…this also requires a bit of an overdue confession for context.”
You raise your eyebrows. “A confession?”
“A confession,” says Mobius.
“Will I be angry about this?” asks Loki at the same time you say, “Is this like a go to jail confession or a misdemeanor confession?”
Mobius gives a good natured chuckle, shaking his head slightly. “God, the two of you. Always so dramatic. No wonder you ended up together.” He takes what feels like an unnecessarily long drink from the coffee mug on his desk. “It’s not bad, I promise.” Another sip of coffee. 
Loki sighs. “He always does this,” he says to you. “Have you noticed? Whenever he has something that you want to know, he stalls and drags it out just to torment you.”
“Okay,” you say, “but you jumping in to bicker with him probably doesn’t help.”
“I’m not bickering,” says Loki. “I’m simply pointing out that he’s stalling—”
“What was it you were saying, Mobius?” you say brightly, nudging Loki with your elbow.
Mobius’ eyes twinkle. “See,” he says to Loki, “I always liked her. It’s a good match.”
You don’t have to look at Loki to know he’s rolling his eyes, though he also makes a point of surreptitiously pinching your ass, a detail you hope Mobius doesn’t notice.
“Anyway,” says Mobius, taking a deep breath, “it was pretty clear to me from the start that you liked each other. And you also seemed absolutely determined to get in your own way.” He points to Loki. “Especially you with your whole stilted Asgardian prince thing.”
Loki frowns. “What are you talking about?”
Mobius sighs. “Anytime you like someone, it’s like your brain gets a factory reset and you get all overly polite and courtly.”
Loki scoffs. “I don’t do that at all.”
“You do. It’s deeply weird. You’re like a mannerly robot.”
Loki turns to you. “Darling, tell him he’s being absurd.”
You reach over and squeeze his hand. “You did call me ‘my lady’ a couple of times in the early days.”
Loki sighs and looks back at Mobius. “What was your point in mentioning this?”
“Well,” says Mobius, “you seemed pretty determined to get in your own way, so nothing was happening. And eventually I got sick of all of the pining, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.”
“What do you mean?”
Mobius pauses, a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “There wasn’t a breakthrough with Berlitz that weekend. What there was was a surplus in the overtime budget and a high priority indexing project for Archives.”
Your lips part as your brain slowly puts the pieces together. Mobius’ eyes twinkle.
“Wait,” you say, “you lied to us?”
“I did not lie,” says Mobius, his demeanor suddenly becoming very serious. “That would have been wrong.” He nods at Loki. “Also, it would’ve tipped him off and that would have ruined the whole thing. I simply failed to mention that the cart of files that I gave you needed to be sorted for indexing for the Archives department and I peppered in a couple of unrelated things about Berlitz.”
“But the office was empty that weekend,” says Loki.
Mobius snaps his fingers. “Right. I did make some adjustments to the schedule that weekend.”
“And the disturbance that prevented her from returning home on Saturday night?”
Mobius spreads his hands wide and grins. “All me, buddy. Paid G-21 five hundred bucks for that one.”
Loki pauses for a moment and then looks at you. “I don’t think I can be mad about this. I’m genuinely impressed.”
“I mean, I can’t argue with the results, but Jesus, Mobius, you could’ve just set us up on a blind date,” you say.
“Ah, but that’s not as fun,” Mobius says. “Plus, it wouldn’t have made for as good a wedding gift.” He turns the frame around and hands it to you both.
It’s both your timecards from that pay period, neatly framed side by side. Your eyes well with tears and Mobius smiles.
“Honestly, I’m just relieved it’s not a jet ski,” says Loki.
“He's deflecting,” you say to Mobius in an exaggerated whisper.
“I know,” he whispers back.
But you can’t help but notice that Loki’s eyes are brighter than normal.
“Okay, now get out of here,” says Mobius. “You’ve got a wedding to get to.”
Twenty minutes later, you’re wearing a simple white dress and standing with Loki in front of a time door, your hand clasped in his.
“Technically, we don’t have a supervisor’s approval for this,” you say with a wry smile.
He looks at you, eyes dancing with mirth. “I had Mobius sign off on the paperwork while you were getting ready.”
Your heart swells and your smile is so wide that you feel like your face might split in two. “Then hurry up and marry me, Laufeyson.”
He grins and tugs you through the time door.
-------
But wait! There's more: I don't have a masterlist for this, but if you enjoy these idiots, check out Daylight, a sort of sequel.
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quillyfied · 1 year
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There being two movies now in the Benoit Blanc world, and both movies sharing some recognizable tropes and archetypes to build its flavor, there’s a specific type of character that I’m struck by, particularly as a white woman, in both Knives Out and Glass Onion:
The Sympathetic White Woman.
In KO it’s Meg. In GO it’s Whiskey. They both bond with the (WOC, very important to emphasize) protagonist by being less crappy to her than the rest of the cast, and both signal to the audience that they’re trustworthy as far as the protagonist goes. They tell the protagonist that they’re on her side. They try to be supportive. They’re sympathetic to the audience.
Then comes the moment when the Sympathetic White Woman’s security is threatened.
(Brief added interruption to just say: please dig through the notes and replies on this baby for some additional excellent thoughts from other people, including the very important distinction that Marta is a white Latina and not a woman of color (my mistake thank you for the corrections), and more thoughts on Whiskey’s actual/additional betrayal moments!)
For Meg, it’s her mom telling her she has to drop out of school if they don’t get the inheritance money. For Whiskey, it’s Duke dying. In both cases, the protagonist reaches out—Marta tells Meg she won’t let that happen, she’ll support Meg with whatever money she needs; Helen tries to soothe a hysteric Whiskey by telling her she doesn’t need Duke and he deserved what he got (not realizing Duke is dead, of course). It’s a slightly different moment in each movie, but the basic framework is the same: the woman of color protagonist reaches back to the Sympathetic White Woman, and notably, reaches DOWN, offering the support the Sympathetic White Woman offered earlier.
Only…the Sympathetic White Woman was never intending to be the one the protagonist had to reach down to. So she snaps. Meg tells her family about Marta’s mother and they use it to threaten her. Whiskey latches onto the belief that Helen killed Duke and tries to kill her with a spear gun in what she thinks is self-defense. The Sympathetic White Woman Heel-Turn.
Meg and Whiskey both also sort of try to make amends after their Heel-Turn moments, but…the trust is already broken. The protagonist knows better now. The Sympathetic White Woman is not to be trusted.
Why this sticks out to me personally is the very obvious callout that feminists of color have been making about white feminists for literal decades: that white feminism lacks any true support or compassion for non-white people, that it’s empty promises of support and when the chips are down, white feminism upholds whiteness over feminism in an act to protect itself. And whiteness…is a damn difficult thing to even see when you’re white and raised in an overwhelmingly white community, let alone begin to pick apart and unlearn. It’s reactionary, how Meg and Whiskey turn on Marta and Helen to protect themselves.
It would make Meg incredibly vulnerable to support Marta fully, the way she promised to back when she thought she had the resources for it, but Marta is that vulnerable every day just existing as a Latina woman in America. Whiskey’s Heel-Turn moment is a little more immediate trauma based, but when looking for someone to blame, she doesn’t hesitate to blame Andi (Helen), scrapping together the few pieces of information she has—Andi hates all of the Disruptors, Andi got screwed over by them, Andi fought with Duke just minutes before he died, Andi was in their shared room tearing it apart when Whiskey came in distraught. She’s looking for an outlet. There’s Helen red-handed and in view. Boom. Whiskey grabs the spear gun instead of talking it out with the person she admitted just hours ago to feeling sympathy for.
Growing up white and steeped in whiteness causes defensive reactions when that whiteness is brought up, or, god forbid, challenged. It’s a knee-jerk thing for people who haven’t begun to deconstruct it for themselves; even for people who have, to see just how far and deep in American society that reaches is troubling. Humbling. Enraging. The Sympathetic White Woman archetype is, to me, a warning to not let whiteness overrule sense and morals. To be smart about it. And, crucially, to check myself for condescension, especially when interacting with non-white folks in any capacity.
(Also why the presence of Benoit Blanc is so important. He is also sympathetic, he also offers his own support, but crucially, he just uses his whiteness to clear a path for the WOC protagonist to take her place and do what she needs to do. He doesn’t speak over her, he doesn’t turn on her, he just listens, and presents the truth for her to do with it what she will. Or, in one case, hands her highly volatile crystal hydrogen for when she’s really ready to tear the Murderer’s crap down.)
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moonfireshadow · 4 months
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Rewatched Saltburn and I'm obsessed with Farleigh and Oliver's tutoring scene. The essay specifically. For those who don't remember: Oliver did his homework and all his assignments and genuinely gave a well thought out essay for their summer assignments. Farleigh shows up hungover and late and didn't even read the books. But the teacher immediately loves Farleigh and is chatting him up with an interest he barely tried to show Oliver. Even after Oliver gives his presentation and shows that he's clearly a much better student than Farleigh. Obviously this is the real start of their rivalry. But it's also such a beautiful look into their characters and how they mirror eachother. Farleigh understands Oliver's essay, I believe. But like the teacher he's bored by it. The knowledge and work is there, but the presentation of it is boring and strange. Academic and correct, but lacking the appeal to the audience. (Which, can we talk about the fact Farleigh was genuinely listening at all? The teacher zoned out and switched channels, but Farleigh was interested and paying enough attention to know the exact number of times Oliver used the word "thus" in his essay. They respect each other truly even if they despise eachother at this point, and refuse to acknowledge the grudging respect.) So Farleigh does what he does best, he gloats over Oliver. He picks apart the style of the essay and it's presentation rather than addressing the central argument or topic. This delights the teacher and frustrates Oliver who is like, "so you're going to critique the style of my essay rather than it's substance? Seems a bit lazy" and that's the core component of these two characters.
Farleigh is ALL about presentation. He knows how fragile his pedistal is placed up and in view for everyone to see. He's a charity project, just like every other rando of the month. Sure he has some familiar connection, and that's given him a leg up in this world. But it's still shakey at best. He always has to give the correct performance, say the right words, keep his audience on HIS side. Unless he wants to get knocked down with the rest of the common rabal that he knows he's belongs with, but can't stand the idea of. So yes, of course he picks apart the one thing he knows Oliver is failing at. He takes his one advantage over Oliver and uses it mercilessly to both entertain and secure his audience on his side. (I wonder if the positions had been different some how, if Farleigh would have had anything to say about the substance of the essay itself. He was paying attention to it, did he want to have a real academic conversation? Did he possibly want to try and connect to Oliver in that way? A real and non performative way with someone who's so similar to him?)
As for Oliver, obviously his character is intelligent. He does the readings. He does the research. He puts the time and effort in to *learn* in the way Farleigh never does. And it must infuriate him that his essay is so easily pushed to the side for a cheep critique that doesn't even address the central argument of his essay. Of course he would hate Farleigh from the start for that. It's such a quick negation of all that Oliver has to offer and give just because it's not wrapped up in a pretty bow. And that's just his character. The substance is there, the intelligence is there. But it's not enough. It will never be enough. Because Oliver doesn't know how to translate it to his audience in a way they'll care about. He learns and tries to mimic, but it always falls short because he just can't seem to figure out the way to blend in and present himself so seamlessly as Farleigh.
And that's why they're such perfect mirrors of each other. They're both intelligent and clever. But they've found different ways of getting what they want and proving themselves. Farleigh is the face and the presentation, Oliver is the substance and body. In another world imagine what these two could have done and been if they hadn't been pitted against each other for the same prize. And the fact Oliver definitely deliberately shoved Farleigh out at the perfect time so he wouldn't get hurt and killed? Oliver and Farleigh respect and admire the other. But their tragedy is they can never be on the same page or team because the world they're in says there is only room for one. And they'd both do anything to get that title.
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nonasuch · 1 year
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here is a fun little star wars scenario that has been pinging around inside my head like a screensaver:
so let’s say there’s some very zealous, very low-ranking fresh young Imperial officer on duty the day they take the Senator from Alderaan into custody. 
and he is very very nervous because a) he’s been here for like a week and b) none of that week required him to be in a room with Darth Vader. which he now is. so he is trying to focus very very hard on Doing Everything Exactly According To Protocol, as a means of not focusing on the seven-foot evil wizard standing fifteen feet away.
and part of the protocol for processing new prisoners is to make a new file for them in the prisoner database, and enter all their biographical details and vital statistics and a gene sample and their known associates and the nature of their terrible crimes against the Empire and so on. which he does! very meticulously!
except the computer keeps throwing an error message. the stupid thing keeps beeping at him, this awful grating little noise that makes his shoulders ratchet up tighter and tighter every time it honks at him, and he can’t fix it and Darth Vader is right over there—
except oh god oh fuck the beeping noise must be annoying Darth Vader, too, because he’s coming over here and our poor junior officer is convinced he’s going to die before he even lives long enough to send his first paycheck home to his poor widowed mother —
he stammers out an apology. Vader just stares at him. he swears he’ll figure out the problem right away, sir, it’s probably a bug in the system, it’s just that for some silly reason it keeps saying this gene sample doesn’t match the one on file for the Senator so he can’t get her logged as a new prisoner just yet —
“Dismissed,” says Vader. the poor kid flees, gratefully.
Vader considers the matter. in fact, his underling was correct: the gene sample, which he saw taken through his very own helmet lenses, does not match the official record of Senator Leia Organa, heir to the throne of Alderaan. so: perhaps the sample on record was falsified. not impossible, but very, very difficult. and ordinarily a crime attempted by the lowly and desperate. he cannot see any need for it, in the daughter of a queen.
another possibility presents itself. Alderaan has no history of using royal doubles, as some worlds do. but Bail Organa has worked closely with royal houses where the practice is long-established. perhaps he was inspired. perhaps the girl they captured is not Leia Organa at all.
Vader runs the gene sample against the ship’s database. it is woefully incomplete, of course, containing only a fraction of the Empire’s billions of citizens: the ship’s own complement, a selection of known criminals and Rebels they might encounter, high-ranking officials whose identity must be confirmed should the Emperor require their presence. unlikely that this girl, whoever she is, would have a record here, or even a partial match—
the computer beeps at him. it’s a cheerful beep, this time, not the error message that stymied the junior officer. the computer reports that the gene sample is a partial match for Pooja Naberrie, the Senator from Naboo. they are, with eighty-nine percent probability, first cousins.
and Vader just. kind of stands there. for a minute.
when he goes to Leia’s cell, there’s no interrogation droid with him. he goes in. he shuts the door behind him. he stands there, silent, for frankly a worryingly long time, until Leia has run through her entire stockpile of  “how dare you, I’m a member of the Senate on a humanitarian mission” and “whatever you want, you can’t possibly think I would be of any help” and “well, if you’re going to interrogate me, get on with it already” and “are you even listening to me?” and  falls silent herself. 
Vader has been listening to her. he has also been listening to the Force, which seems to think that she’s not lying. obviously the humanitarian mission part is bullshit, that goes without saying. but the “I’m Senator Leia Organa” parts and the “I won’t help you” parts? yeah. he searched his feelings. he knows them to be true. the Force is singing in his head, bright and clear, in a way it hasn’t for nearly twenty years.
there’s still Tarkin to deal with, though. Vader turns and leaves the cell without a word.
Tarkin wants to blow up Alderaan. this is unacceptable, obviously, and Vader forbids it on the grounds that the Queen and the Viceroy possess vital intelligence, not disclosed to their daughter, that must be acquired. said intelligence being, not that he’s saying this out loud, how the fuck Bail got his hands on his daughter, and who else knows about it.
“the fate of the galaxy rests on it,” is what he does say out loud. from the way the Force harmonizes with his words, that might even be true.
so the Death Star just. parks there. in an incredibly threatening orbit around the planet. they issue a demand that the Organas surrender themselves, or else, but apparently the happy couple just left for a low-tech weekend retreat in the mountains, what awful timing, they’re sending someone to fetch them right away. Vader shuts himself up in his quarters, to seethe and watch the surveillance feed from Leia’s cell. he’s not really paying attention to much else. 
and it’s not like a random freighter getting tractored in for being an incredibly obvious smuggling vessel is the kind of thing you’d alert Darth Vader over, anyway. 
so he’s still sitting there, one great big thought filling up his whole entire head, watching Leia take a frustration nap, when her cell door opens. 
and a trooper comes in.
and the trooper takes off his helmet.
and he says, “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”
(continued here)
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evilminji · 8 months
Text
Okay... so it COULD be because, as a writer, I'm an ASSHOLE to my Characters...
BUT YOU KNOW WHAT'D BE FUNNY?
Danny, innocent, gets YEETED into DC. As ya do. And he's a bit messed up. But! He's a Baby Ancient in the making. Gonna be master of Spaaaaaace(~~~☆!) one day. Very exciting, only slightly relevant.
See, Ectoplasm? Dumb. That's why we need Cores and Brains etc. Never let Ectoplasm decide things. It WILL chose the "technically correct but now the buildings on fire" option EVERY SINGLE TIME. And you are running out of fire extinguishers.
Because it is dumb.
Very, VERY No Brain, Just Goo, Dumb.
And THIS Goo has a life to save. A Halfa too maintain in Peak Performance(tm). Because THIS Goo is VERY smart Goo(according only to itself) and TOTALLY knows what it's doing! Damaged meat bits? Oh that's EASY! You just FIX that! Replace with meat bits! See? It's BRILLIANT Goo. 10 out of 10 stars, me!
Small problem.
The instructions have been damaged.
PANIC.
Wait! No! We got this! We are Very Smart Goo(tm). And have Space Powers. This is FINE. We'll... we'll just FIX the instructions! Hand me a hammer! If we smash enough bits together, it'll sort? Of look right? Close ENOUGH? Yeeeeeah. We're GENIUS Goo~
Use THAT!
But where did they GET their ill begotten DNA? Well OBVIOUSLY the place all the OTHER DNA they had was stored, DUH? Keep up, says the Goo with literally no braincells making horrifying choices for an unconscious man. It's Earth.
As in... the planet.
It's not even HIS planet. It's AN Earth. A Planet CALLED "Earth" that dwells in the DC universe, not his, and is covered with ZERO(0) Fentons but plenty of superhumans and aliens. THAT planet.
The Goo grabbed the Very BESTEST Meat Instructions it could FIND! The Goo is also a collective and did not AGREE on what the "Best" WAS. But it's... okay, no, I can't lie to you, it is NOT fine.
But thankfully it IS stable.
Because Ectoplasm may be dumb and indiscriminate as super-bacteria with a flamethrower, but it is a MASTER at the jigsaw of Life. It can reanimate ANYTHING.
Including the now SINGLE MOST CHIMERAD MAN you've ever SEEN. Who is he related too? YES. His left knee is Kryptonian, the fingers on his right hand are Tameranian, his skin tone has shifted to the most ambiguously multi-ethnic tone imaginable (think that future of humanity mock up, where they combine every ethnicity on the premise that inter-racial marriage will becoming increasingly common up to the point where we all just kinda look averaged out thanks to the ease of travel) because it's trying to do all of them at once and none of them are willing to back down, because all of them got the instructions "Be Skin". He might have Slade Wilson's cheek bones and hair.
Danny wakes up and basicly is half Ectoplasmic Goo, half the extended Super Community.
AND CANT GET BACK HOME TO FIX IT.
Because of course this IS fixable. It's just medical shape-shifting. But without HIS template, undamaged. His body is REFUSING to change from what is OBVIOUSLY the CORRECT form. And he keeps getting clocked as "probably related to me".
With the Fenton Luck kicking in? The parts of him people manage to swab and/or get DNA from? Keep MATCHING them. Danny doesn't know WHO is behind this but-! *spots a giggle child with a cat* !!!!!!
You.
Klarion you little SHIT!
So now he's wearing a face that's BARELY his, running from very determined superhumans who want to parent him, trying to steal enough technology to build a portal. AND vowing to kick the witch boy's ASS.
This ISNT FUNNY, KLARION.
His body is Frankenstein's FEVER DREAM! Every time he gets hurt, it tries to "FIX" itself! He lost a chunk of his should back there and HIS ENTIRE BODY CHANGED SKIN TONES. He's pretty sure if he SITS funny, his teeth might fall out and regrow POINTY! He's handing you over to WALKER you horrible little gremlin child!
Just? Take the "Danny is related to X" and "Danny is sick" and turn them uuuuup. Make EVERYBODY concerned except Danny. This is just another fucked up adventure in a long string of fucked up adventures. Give him his DNA back. If he has to suffer the Fenton Luck then he should AT LEAST get to keep the Fenton "built like a tank"!
*gets hit again*
*is GREEN now for some reason* The fuck?
Garfield, aka Beast Boy: I HAVE A CLONE SON!?
Danny: Zone DAMN IT not another one!
@ailithnight @hdgnj @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter
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hedgehog-moss · 10 months
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I found a nice plant in a bog last year, like a reed with a tuft of very soft cotton at the top (bless you English, I just looked up "plant that grows in a bog and looks like cotton" and the English language replied "bog cotton, duh") (in French it's called linaigrette, which should be a small bird), and I was very charmed by the look of it and decided to try to pirate it so I would have some on my land. I plucked one fluffy reed and kept it on my windowsill so I wouldn't forget to return.
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Of course, when I returned a few days later with a shovel and a bucket, I couldn't find the bog cotton again. Or the bog. It was a small swamp-y area in a very vast plateau with few landmarks, so it's possible I got turned around, but also, things tend to disappear around here sometimes, like the footpath that leads to the stream, only to reappear a few weeks later. I very much felt like I was in the correct location and the bog wasn't, but okay. Since I didn't trust myself to tell the normal reeds from the cotton-y ones in other seasons, I decided I'd come back around the same time next year.
I've had the linaigrette in my egg spiral in the kitchen this whole time as a memento, and I finally resumed my quest today. I left my car in the exact same spot where I'd left it the previous two times, just before the road gets squiggly for no apparent reason:
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I climbed the hill and behind it were just miles and miles of estives (summer cow pastures) with sometimes a barn here and there with a mobile milking parlour. My plan was to follow every rivulet I came across, since I was looking for a watery area.
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I picked a barn as a landmark to find my car again, and off we went.
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Finding reeds wasn't difficult, but none of them had cotton tufts...
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Pandolf was extremely aware that we were looking for something, but he wasn't sure what. Here he is digging in the mud with his paw, looking invested in this treasure hunt.
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Sometimes he would stop with one paw poised in the air and his whole body pointed forwards like an English setter who just smelled a pheasant in a Heywood Hardy painting and it was always for cow herds. If I squinted and squinted I could be sure to find a cow on the horizon, the size of an ant—I think Pan was a bit disappointed when he realised I never followed up on the cows he smelled, and it probably wasn't cows we were looking for.
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(zoom x400 in case you can't see this cow standing apart from her herd like a sentinel)
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I tried to amuse him by giving him little challenges here and there, like climbing on big rocks because he likes rocks. He likes being congratulated even more, though, and if I didn't insist that he actually climb on the rock he would just sort of run towards it and push himself off of it like a swimmer doing a flip turn at the wall to run back to me even faster (for pats). (Had to turn off the sound in the video because the wind was loud, so I subtitled our dialogue)
Some challenges he politely declined to do. I like how despite being very eager to please he sometimes gives me very clear "no thank you"s when I tell him to do something that sounds absurd to him. We found a little waterfall that went down a slope like a mud toboggan and I said "down!" to tell him to slide down that thing and he was like
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Our strategy of following water paid off, because look what we found eventually!!
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I had a very hard time digging up one clump of reeds with some roots; the bog was holding on to its cotton for dear life. Every time I opened a hole in the mud with my shovel with a horrible sucking noise, the bog would immediately close on itself again with an even stronger vacuum. It also tried to eat my boots, repeatedly. When I moved around the reeds I was trying to steal I had to take my foot out of my boot, stand on one leg like a heron and put the tip of my shovel under the sole of the boot to pry it up. But after maybe 20min of effort, the bog finally let go of one muddy clump of reeds in a loud, dejected SLURP and I was able to put it in my bucket. It was about 10x heavier than I expected so the walk back to my car was slow!
(One thing to keep in mind if you're going to wrestle a swamp for half an hour, is that you're going to end up looking and smelling like a swamp creature. I had to stop at the post office to send a parcel and I really regretted not doing it earlier. It's funny because the post office lady is always like "no, don't worry, come in!! <3" when you show up on rainy days apologising for your muddy shoes, but when I arrived today and asked her from the entrance if I should just throw my parcel at her rather than go in, with my socks making a pitiful plop-plop sound in my boots as I walked, and mud freckles all over my face from aggressive shovelling, and overall looking like a gravedigger, she took one look at me and went "... yes, throw it.")
The good news is, I didn't get lost returning from the swamp to my car, and had no trouble finding my barn-landmark again, and there were new animals there, a nice mule with a retinue of small ponies.
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She was friendly at first but then soured on me when I refused to let her sniff and maybe taste the reeds I'd had so much trouble digging up, and then she wouldn't let me approach her ponies.
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One of the ponies approached Pandolf, and I told him to stand still—we've been working on "reste là !" (stay there) for a while and it's hard because he's so friendly and exuberant, so I was very proud of him when he stood there frozen as a marble statue, waiting for the pony to come closer. The pony ended up stopping at a prudent distance and stretching his neck out to try and sniff Pandolf, it was very cute.
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That's the end of the quest for bog cotton! Here it is now, transplanted to the swamp-y part of my pasture, I hope it'll like it here.
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eiightysixbaby · 7 months
Note
LEAH may I humbly request Eddie and best friend!Reader play wrestling and Reader pins him to the ground and boom ✨making out✨?
xoxo @munson-blurbs 💚
my requests are ALWAYS open for you, bug.
“I just don’t know where Carver gets off being such a dick to everyone,” Eddie scoffs. “I’d love to teach him a lesson, kick his stupid teeth in.”
You giggle. It’s not really a laughing matter, but you giggle.
Eddie cocks an eyebrow, giving you a sideways glance as he unlocks the door to the trailer. “What’s so funny, sweetheart?”
He toes off his sneakers in the entryway, awaiting your answer as you take your time untying your own, trying to avoid the answer.
“Listen, you know you’re my best friend, right? Okay?” you start, peaking Eddie’s curiosity even more. “I’m not saying you couldn’t kick Carver’s ass, but…. I don’t know! I just don’t view you as particularly ‘tough’,” you say, shrugging your shoulders as you walk over to the couch.
Eddie just looks at you, eyebrows hidden under his bangs as he lifts them.
“Don’t get offended! You just… you’re always so gentle around me,” you quickly add, attempting to soften the blow to his ego.
“Oh no, sweetheart, I think you’ve made it verryyyy clear that I can’t throw a punch,” Eddie replies, holding his hands up. “I get it, really,” he sighs dramatically, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Don’t start,” you laugh, pointing a finger at him.
“I suppose you could take me then? You could kick my ass?” he goes on, gesturing towards himself with one hand.
“I could absolutely take you in a fight. You wouldn’t dare throw a punch at me,” you say matter-of-factly, and of course you’re correct.
“Okay, sure. You could take me,” he says, too compliant to be believable. He slowly steps towards the couch, drawing out his movements. You eye him suspiciously as he sits down on the opposite end of the furniture. “But could you fight back against… the tickle monster?”
And in one swift movement, before you can even comprehend, he’s right beside you, hands reaching for your sides as his fingers hit your most ticklish spot.
“No! Eddie!!” you squeal, laughing against your own will, body coiling into itself as he relentlessly attacks you.
You feel like you can’t catch your breath, laughter roaring through you as tears spring to your eyes. He’s stronger than you, keeping you curled beneath him, fingers digging into your sides. He laughs along with you, and the sound infiltrates your ears, making your heart strum a tune. If your stomach wasn’t hurting from laughter, you wouldn’t want him to stop. Wouldn’t want him to get any farther away.
There’s a brief moment where he eases up, if you’d blinked you’d have missed it, but luckily you didn’t. You see your opportunity, shoving him off of you with your hands, making a break for it as you pounce off of the sofa.
He’s quicker, though, recovering from your shove and lunging after you, picking you up and slinging you over his shoulder.
“You dare think you can outsmart me!?” he roars, putting on his best monster voice.
You kick and flail, smiling so wide your cheeks hurt as you pound on his back to let you go. If you think too long about the way he’s holding onto you you’re sure to melt. He walks you into his bedroom, throwing you down on his fluffy mattress before completely pinning you there, triumphant.
“You’re not trying very hard, sweet girl,” he teases, smirking at the way you struggle to free your wrists from his grip.
“Shut up,” you mumble, scrunching up your face when Eddie’s hair tickles your nose.
You wrestle out of his grasp finally, thrashing around in an attempt to move him from where he hovers above you. You manage to topple him over, newfound strength taking over as you pin him down, pressing his shoulders against the mattress. You sling a leg over his lap, straddling him and keeping him in place.
He’s wide-eyed at your sudden burst of ferocity, mouth parted just slightly as he catches his breath.
“See? Told you I could kick your ass,” you say, smug and confident.
Eddie doesn’t say anything, just continues to look at you — those big eyes staring through to your soul. Your breath catches in your throat, then, becoming all too aware of the position that you’re in. It feels like you sit there staring at each other for eons, listening to the clock tick from his bedside table.
Then, he moves his hands. Slowly, tentatively, letting them rest on your hips. Holding you where you are, not wanting you to move.
“Eddie—” you start, your voice failing you, coming out incredibly breathy.
“Can I kiss you?” he interrupts, getting the words out quickly, as if they were begging to be let loose.
“Yeah,” you nod.
He’s pulling your face down, then, and you follow his guidance. Your lips collide against his, his tongue immediately parting them for entrance. There’s no room to be timid, not with the way he kisses you like it’s his dying wish. Your heart pounds in your chest, because you’re kissing your best friend. Does he know how badly you’ve wanted this? Has he felt the same this entire time?
Clearly he has, with the way he whimpers into you when your tongue starts to explore his mouth. His hands don’t let go of your cheeks, big palms encompassing your soft skin, thumbs rubbing softly against your cheekbones. And suddenly you feel like you can’t be close enough to him, like your chest being pressed to his and your tongues in each others’ throats simply isn’t enough and you need to crawl inside of his skin and reside there.
You pull away all too soon, just slightly, reluctantly. He still holds your face, wanting to pull you right back to him, his eyes searching yours. So impossibly beautiful.
“You keep kissing me like that, and I won’t tell a soul that I totally just kicked your ass,” you tease, making him snort, his kiss-bitten lips mere millimeters from your own.
Another firm kiss to your mouth, his teeth tugging on your bottom lip until a breathy moan releases from you. “Okay, deal.”
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arminsumi · 8 months
Note
Your blog is my daily serotonin <3
geto letting you put eyeliner on him while sitting on his lap- taking the opportunity to flirt with you!!! I'm imagining soft, light, almost tickling touches and his sultry eyes. reader *desperately* trying to keep her cool...
ahhhhaaaaaaaa
˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱
𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 ?
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A/N: stawppp u made me blush tysm 💗 also this idea made me SPIN in my spinny chair i love it sm. sugie's eyes are so mesmerizing 🫠 (p.s. ur theme is so prettyyy!!)
Wc ≈ 1.4k
Pairing: GETO Suguru x f.reader
Summary: practicing putting eyeliner on your best friend, while sat in his lap. He can't help but take this chance to flirt with you. Of course, a certain someone interrupts your moment right at the end
Warnings; Satoru being a jackass and totally interrupting u guys at THE moment lol
♪ melting like an ice cream when you smile
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“Is it bothering you? Should I clip it back?” Suguru asked.
“Nooo, I don’t mind it.” you replied. “I can keep your bangs at bay with my pinkie, ‘s all good.”
What you did mind was the proximity between you and him.
You could feel the support of his muscular thighs and the engulfing warmth radiating from his chest even through that oversized cotton shirt of his. The very white shirt that had always driven your senses wild for some reason – probably because of how its short sleeves teasingly hinted at his toned arms underneath without completely showing them off.
Pinkie keeping his bangs at bay, fingertip lightly pressing against his cheekbone and hair tickling your skin, you applied the eyeliner with slow, meticulous strokes.
Suguru was mesmerized. You looked focused like an artist at work on a painting. And he noticed that you seemed mesmerized, too. Even a bit shy, which he commented on because it was so unlike you.
“Shy, huh?” He teased.
“I’m not shy.” You denounced half-heartedly. “Why would I be?”
He just smirked in response, and that itself had such an effect on you; your careful line became an inky squiggle. “Oh no! No no no!” you muttered under your breath, hastily using your pinkie to wipe the mistake away but that only resulted in smudging it awkwardly into the crease of his eyes.
“Don’t laugh! Don’t smile! I have to fix the corner…” you begged with Suguru, but that only made him laugh and smile harder. He apologized through soft chuckles.
After correcting the mistake, you pulled back from his face to check that both sides seemed equal. Only when you pulled your face away like this, did you and Suguru realize in the back of your minds that you were quite close to each other earlier…
“Mesmerized by something?” he asked teasingly. His cool voice was so close to your ears, it felt like it reverberated in your whole chest.
Sultry eyes narrowed interestedly at you as you observed the corners of them. Those abyssal irises demanded eye contact from you, and once they got it, they peered into your soul. Suguru loved doing that, not only to appreciate your eyes but because of your sweet, shy reaction.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to stare. Just making sure both sides look the same.” You told him.
“Mhm.” He hummed.
Maybe the broken eye contact is what led him to snake his arms around your waist and pull you closer. Or maybe he just missed the intimate closeness that you had with him earlier, when your faces were quite close.
 You tried to distract yourself from the bubbling heat in the pit of your stomach that his subtle touch caused. “I’m not very talented at eyeliner…” you admitted.
“Really? I think yours always looks good.” Suguru said.
“Just ‘good’ ?! That means I look bad.”
He chuckled. “No I – alright, I’ll phrase it better; you always look like you’re ready for a photoshoot.”
“Oh, stop flirting!” you scolded him playfully, causing his lips to stretch into a cheeky smile.
“Aw, you caught me in the act.” He muttered sultrily.
You tried not to smile, but that was very impossible in the moment. It seems it was the same for him, too. Being so close to you with his arms wrapped around your waist put him in an excited daze.
Sunset light streamed in through the sheer curtains, patterned shadows forming on the white bed made it seem like you were sitting on a grey meadow of flowers, twigs and leaves. A very slight rumble of traffic rose over the railing of the balcony just outside the sliding door. Tokyo had a certain sound and feeling to it, one you could never put your finger on.
After a bout of silence, you realized you and him had stopped talking and just stared into one another’s eyes. You’d even stopped applying the eyeliner. Stomachs knotted up with feelings, the two of you were both about to say something to each other before you blurted out “The brown eyeliner fits you well, glad I chose it.”
“Oh?” he batted his lashes at you… or was that an involuntary action? Who knows. You continued to carefully flick the felt tip of the eyeliner until a tiny, sharp angle was formed.
Well, ‘sharp’. It wasn’t as razor-edged as the other side, which really bothered you. The way you flitted your eyes between his two made him crack a smile that made his Addam’s apple subtly shift up and down.
“Do I look bad?” he asked curiously.
“Not at all… you look ho- you look good with eyeliner.” You replied.
“Oh, I look hot, huh? You crushin’ on me? Satoru’s gonna be heartbroken.” He joked.
“I'm not crushing — !” you squeaked quickly in response, taken aback.
“You’re not crushing on me or you’re not crushing on him?”
“I’ve never… I’m not crushing on Satoru.” You told him.
Such an unexpectedly serious question for him throw into the mellow atmosphere. He tried to sound light-hearted so he wouldn’t scare you off from answering, or give hint to his nervousness.
“So then…?”
“So then what?” you blinked at him, all movements of the eyeliner brush ceased. Things were getting heatedly exciting.
“So then, you have a thing for me?”
You widened your eyes at him. His heart thumped, he was getting nervous – unsure how to judge your reactions to his questions. He was trying to assess whether you liked him or not, and you were making it so hard. If only he could read your mind, he thought.
“Huh? What? Stop flustering me!” You laughed it off.
He could tell you were avoiding answering out of nervousness, but it still irked him; he really wanted to know.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to just spring that on you so suddenly. I was just… curious.” He said.
You sighed. “I’m… I’m already melting over you, no need to vaporize me.”
“Oh? You’re melting?” his eyes lit up, “Why?”
“Because…” you trailed off immediately, “No reason.” You lied.
“No reason?” he questioned, raising his brows sceptically, “You sure about that?”
With the way he raised his brows, his eyes became even more spellbinding. You felt completely bewitched by them. The pigment of the liquid eyeliner, paired with the undertones of the eye pencil you started with, paired with the slight glint of light in his eyes – all of it made that bubbling heat in your stomach explode into an even bigger feeling.
You got so lost in his pretty, abyssal eyes that you didn’t realize how silent you’d become, or how close you had gotten to his face – not that he minded the increased proximity, it had his heart pumping hard.
“You okay? Still melting?” he teased.
“Sorry! I’m just – “
“ – mesmerized by me? Melting for me?” he teased further.
“Suguru!” you laughed shyly.
“There’s no need to keep playing it off, I can see right through you.” He said seriously.
Your eyes lingered on his for much too long. It felt like what he said was true – it felt like he really could see right through you, like you were transparent. He was itching to break the tension between you and him with a feverish kiss. One of those classic, best-friends-to-lovers kisses that you see in the movies.
But then guess who burst through the door of your apartment as loudly as possible? Yeah, the jackass that you regretfully gave your apartment key to.
“YOUR SAVIOR HAS ARRIVED!” Satoru hollered, striding down the hallway and popping his head into your bedroom to find you and Suguru breaking apart very quickly, as if you weren’t just on his lap about to share your first kiss.
“Did ya miss me? ‘Course you did. What?”
“Nothing.” You shook your head.
“What’s with that look?” Satoru whined.
“Nothiiing!” You groaned, Suguru just chuckled under his breath.
“Yuh, I mean, I didn’t do anything, after all. Weirdos.” Oh, you really wanted to shove a pillow into his face.
He pounced on the bed, coming right between you and Suguru without thinking too much of it. “I’m so hungry – let’s get takeout.” He whined and rolled around on your bed. He pleaded until you gave in. “Yay, let’s fuckin’ go then I’m so starved.” He said dramatically.
So you and Suguru readied yourselves to go out for a spontaneous food trip.
“What a pity.” He said with the utmost sultriness in his eyes and voice, leaving you at the doorframe with a wink that lingered in your mind for the rest of the day.
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khattikeri · 3 months
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one of my favorite things about mdzs is that for how heavily its plot involves politics of classism and misogyny... even the characters most directly impacted by it can't and don't free themselves from it. literally the closest exception is mianmian.
meng yao being the "son of a whore" wasn't some sort of commie awakening for him that led him to wanting everyone to be socially equal. he played the political game, climbed the ladders, sucked up to and backstabbed and murdered people, including other prostitutes who actually had nothing to do with how he and his mother were treated at the brothel he grew up in.
he put in so much extra excessive effort for even a fraction of the same respect that members of gentry cultivation clans got. and he did deserve to be treated more humanely! but he feeds into the exact same system that created him, leading to his own undoing.
his efforts were for a fragile upward mobility that was never going to hold up. he never surpassed his origins nor did he empower others in similar stations, because the society he lives in is not one that would accept that.
the second he got caught and all those crimes exposed, he was scapegoated to hell and back, replacing wei wuxian as society's terrible one-sidedly evil boogeyman overnight.
speaking of not-quite male gentry, i think it's interesting that wei wuxian explicitly doesn't try to climb the ladders in BOTH lives, knowing full well that anything he does will be punished just for the sheer fact that he is wei wuxian.
wei wuxian is scolded for giving intelligent and correct answers in school. lan wangji does the same and is praised.
wei wuxian occasionally lounges around with fellow disciples and is punished. jiang cheng does the same and mostly escapes.
wei wuxian refuses to carry his sword around in public (after losing his golden core, which nobody knows) and is scorned as an arrogant upstart. nie huaisang has been doing the EXACT SAME THING for YEARS and nobody bats an eye.
unlike jin guangyao, wei wuxian knew subconsciously from the start that his acceptance was superficial and that he could be cast out any time. when he was 10 and recently taken in by the jiangs, he canonically would not eat or use "too much" food and water because he thought they'd find him a nuisance for "wasting their things" and kick him back out.
now away from just the classism, yu ziyuan is a proud and strong noblewoman in a society that belittles and derides women for everything they do. her strong cultivation doesn't matter. she's victim to the vicious rumors of her husband loving another woman who is strong like her but apparently had a more likeable personality.
it doesn't matter even if jiang fengmian didn't cheat or that wei wuxian is wei changze's son with cangse sanren; yu ziyuan can't bear with the humiliation of herself (and by extension her children) not being "good enough". she's ridiculed for "failing" in that one duty as a wife, mother, and woman.
she lashes out and takes out that anger on everyone present for years, giving her children lasting trauma and also being a key element in how the jiang family and yunmeng jiang sect are effectively wiped out at the hands of the wen clan.
madam jin doesn't even have a name outside of the fact that she's married to jin guangshan. i don't even remember reading anything that indicates if she's a strong or weak cultivator, or what, which in itself proves that to most people, it doesn't matter. she's "just" a woman.
of course she's angry at her husband's affairs and all the bastard children they bring in. but she also can't do anything about them, so she lashes out at the few people she can: servants. non-cultivators, probably. those very same bastard children.
shoutout to meng yao getting shoved down a flight of stairs at age fourteen, because if madam jin tried that move against her husband instead, it would make her lose even more face, which as a noblewoman she'd never do.
and that's not getting into how jiang yanli is consistently sidelined for being physically weak.
that's not getting into how mianmian was actually a good cultivator, but was mocked by everyone around her for trying to stand up for wei wuxian when everyone was turning on him. how everyone scoffed at luo qingyang's words as "just some lovesick woman" who "obviously wants to marry or bed him since he saved her".
luo qingyang is the only one of these characters who HASN'T died. she didn't play society's games like jin guangyao. she didn't dig her heels in confidence of her own abilities like wei wuxian.
she didn't bitterly lash out like yu ziyuan and madam jin. she didn't gently accept it like jiang yanli.
she just LEFT.
she married an ordinary merchant and cultivates separately from mainstream cultivation society, and therein found her own peace and happiness.
mxtx doesn't bother with particularly class conscious or feminist vocabulary to hand-hold readers into understanding these disparities, but that choice highlights them & the deeply entrenched politics of their society even more. i really love it.
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the-name-is-loser · 2 years
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Hold on getting a premonition here
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beenbaanbuun · 2 months
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meet me in the woods w/ Mingi
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words - 3.5k
genre - fluff, friends to lovers, college!au
warnings - emo!mingi, drummer!mingi, pink!mingi, fangirl!reader, kissing, mentions of seasonal depression, mentions of a broken ankle, reader is down bad, so is mingi, they’re both idiots in love, kind of groping but not really sexual
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there’s still a chill in the air as the seasons flip from winter to spring. it shows in the way the air around you fogs up with every breath you exhale and the way the skin of your exposed thighs pricks up in little bumps. realistically you should’ve worn a pair of jeans rather than a skirt, but that would defeat the point of this whole thing you had going on. a sort of good-riddance-to-winter protest, in which you try to ignore the fact that winter was very much still in play.
although you have to admit you may have been a little too eager. you claim to have your reasons to pretend that winter is already over, but even those reasons seem a little obsolete as you sit on the picnic table awning, shivering every few seconds. perhaps your way of saying goodbye to your particularly bad bout of seasonal depression will have to be shoved to the back of your closet for a few more weeks. just until you're sure you won’t get frostbite.
you shuffle back a few inches, just enough to give yourself room to swing your legs back onto the awning. you have to go down the way you came up; that was a lesson you’d learned the hard way. a broken ankle and a particularly long lecture from your mother about making ‘sensible decisions’ was not something you care to repeat. she, of course, would blow a fuse if she knew you still frequent this spot years later, but what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. besides, you’re well trained in how to get up and down from your favourite thinking spot, now.
you already have one leg up when you hear a creek coming from behind you. your neck twists in time to see a hand slam itself down on the wooden surface, fingers splayed as they work their hardest to pull the attached body higher up. you recognise the rings like the back of your hand and as you watch mingi struggle, you can’t help but sigh.
“how many times have i told you how to get up here?” you grumble, loud enough for him to hear over his own strained grunts. the single hand that you can see moves until you can see a middle finger pointed in your direction, and you have to laugh, “you seriously can’t remember? right hand on the roof, left foot on the fence, and push yourself up.”
even without seeing his face you can tell he’s rolling his eyes at you. he’s heard this lecture from you a bajillion times before, and yet he never learns. it’s always right hand, right foot and pull with him - almost the exact opposite of how you instruct him.
“have you considered that i’m, like, twice the size of you?” he says as he corrects his form and finally manages to raise himself up. he swings his right knee onto the platform and rolls his gangly form onto it. you’ve seen more grace from a new-born horse, but you keep that to yourself as you watch him sit himself up and shuffle closer.
“if anything that would make it easier for you, y’know, since you don’t have to jump to reach the roof.”
you turn your body back to how it was, dropping your legs again so you can swing them over the ledge. the platform looks out over nothing but forest, and you quickly find a particular branch to focus your eyes on as the giant sits in his spot next to you. your hands subconsciously brush over the pair of initials that have been scratched into the wood when you were both teenagers. a small, neat set done with a whittling knife stolen from your father, sitting just beneath a much larger, much messier SMG that mingi had done with the biggest kitchen knife he could find. his mother never did discover how her carving knife missing for a few hours only to return to the knife block covered in moss and dirt.
“yeah, yeah,” he mutters as he drops his legs down to swing them at the side of yours. your pink sneakers look a little out of place besides his platform doc martin’s that he always wears, despite not needing the extra height, but somehow the contrast feels natural to you, “i thought i’d find you up here. went to your dorm to search for you but your roommate said you were out.”
“and you assumed i was here?” he nods, not bothering to look at you. he too has found a distant branch to focus on.
“where else would you be?” he nudges you with an elbow, “god knows you don’t go to your lectures…”
he’s right about that. you’d given up on college very early into freshman year, and yet you’re somehow still passing. not well, you have to admit, but enough to get a degree at the end of the year.
“my classes suck, mingi,” you clarify as you rip your focus away from that one specific branch. looking at the same thing was getting kind of boring, you realise, so instead you lay down on the dirty wood and stare up at the canopy. the february sun only just pokes through the fir-canopy, dousing you in just enough light to make your skin a little warmer. there was that heat you were hoping for earlier, “why would i go to them when clearly i can pass without?”
“fair point.”
you close your eyes, basking in the light that bathes you. there’s still a slight breeze that makes the fir needles rustle above you, a few of them raining down whenever a particularly strong gust comes along. one lands on your thigh, but it’s quickly brushed off and replaced by mingi’s warm hand. he must’ve been keeping it in the pocket of his oversized korn hoodie, you think to yourself as he squeezes your thigh.
the hoodie is an old favourite of yours. you’d bought it for him a couple of years ago, and it had soon joined what you like to call ‘the elites’ - the small collection of about three hoodies that he had in permanent rotation. it fit him better now than when you first bought it for him. he’d bulked up a lot, after all.
you still couldn’t get the sweet image of him opening the gift with a wide grin on his face out of your head.
he kissed your cheek on that day.
you always seem to blush at the memory.
“why did you come searching for me, anyway?” you say after a few moments of silence. his hand remains firm on your thigh, fingers drumming a rhythm against your leg gently, “don’t you have cooler people to be hanging out with?”
he hums, “all the cool people i know are busy today,” you swing your foot to the side to kick his shin. he lets out a laugh at the little tap - he knows you can kick harder than that - before giving your thigh a gentle tap in return, “besides, maybe i want to hear about all your little kpop groups.”
you scoff at him.
“no, you don’t.”
“no,” mingi agrees, “i don’t. but i do want to spend time with my favourite little fangirl.”
you giggle at him, opening your eyes just in time to see him turn to you with a wonky grin on his face. it seems he’s bored of staring at his branch too since his gaze doesn’t go back to it after a few seconds. it remains on you, boba-pearl pupils staring into your own as the rays of sun make them glisten.
he looks cute like this, you think to yourself. his short pink hair rustles as the wind blows it about. for a man who made so much fuss about the colour when you first dyed it, it has taken him a long time for him to go back to the bleach blonde that he loves so much. part of you likes to think it’s so he can match your own pastel pink hair - that’s a normal thing for best friends to do, right? - but you also know that he’s fiercely protective over his hair and definitely wouldn’t keep it just for your sake.
it needs a trim, you think to yourself as you watch it brush against his eyebrows. you wonder if he’ll let you do it again. he hated it the last time, so you assume the answer will be no. then again, there’s no harm in asking, right? you make a mental note to do so later, wanting nothing more than to see the same cute pout he wore last time you butchered his hair. it’s an expression that he only ever wears around you, much like that sweet smile he’d had moments prior. it’s a softness that he keeps close to his chest, a far cry from the cool exterior he tries to keep when he’s around everyone else. not that you mind the tougher side of him - it’s hot… really hot - but the sweet giggles and adorable nose scrunches will always be your favourite things about him.
“you said everyone else was busy?” you mutter, not bothering to break eye contact to go back to sunbathing. he takes the hint, and brings his legs fully onto the platform so he can face you fully. it’s much better, you think, this way you can see him more clearly, “what are they doing?”
he shrugs.
“i don’t know,” he begins to rub your thigh up and down subconsciously. he does it a lot when he’s talking. if it’s not your thigh - which it usually always is - then it’s his own, or the arm of a chair. it’s just something to keep his hands busy, you suppose, “i think some of the guys wanted to go over melodies, which they don’t need me for. jongho was saying he thinks it’d be cool if there’s a section where his voice and san’s guitar are kind of in sync? i don’t know, it sounds cool in theory but i don’t know if san’s guitar style necessarily matches jongho’s vocal style well enough to do that.”
you watch as his face lights up, just like it always does when he talks about music, or his band. he could talk about their newest ideas for hours, and most of the time you let him. you like to listen to the way his voice rises an octave when he gets excited, and watching his facial expressions never gets old. you love the way he talks with one hand, all while keeping the other firmly on your thigh; or his, or the arm of a chair. it’s nice to see him still so passionate about all the same things he was as a teenager. sometimes you’re even sure you can feel his excitement for him.
it feels an awful lot like butterflies in your stomach.
“and i mean, i know i’m just the drummer but,” you quirk your eyebrow at him and he stops himself talking. a pink flush rises over his face as he realises his slip up, “i didn’t mean just the drummer, i just meant that as the drummer, i don’t know as much about the music theory side as the guitarists do… i hit things, y’know?”
“you hit things very well, though,” you tease, using a manicured finger to poke at his knee. he catches it with the hand that isn’t occupied by your thigh and just holds onto it. its another thing he does a lot; not quite holding your hand, but definitely toeing the line, “and that’s coming from me!”
he rolls his eyes at you, and you were sure that if both his hands weren’t occupied with some other part of your body, he’d make the effort to lean forwards and place a finger over your lips to shush you. again, touching your lips like that it’s just something he does with you, just like almost holding your hands, and playing with your thighs. it’s all completely normal best friend stuff…
except you weren’t this touchy with any other guy. the last time you let a man get this close to you was when wooyoung tried to teach you guitar by moving your fingers into the correct positions for you. there was barely any contact between the two of you, and yet mingi sulked for days. part of you wanted to call it strange, but when you spotted him giving a pretty emo girl his drumsticks after a show, you gave him much of the same attitude.
you wouldn’t call it jealousy, per se, although maybe there was a little bit. mingi was your best friend after all. you have something special with him. something different that you have with no one else and you feel a way that you feel with no one else and-
oh.
oh.
suddenly the hand on your thigh felt very heavy, and you noticed the way his fingertips gently dip under the hem. had they been doing that the whole time? and you couldn’t help but feel like the way his thumb rubbed against the tip of your finger so softly had some type of further meaning behind it. not to mention the neutral yet unbelievably gentle look that took over his features, making him look even more pretty than usual in the scattered rays of light.
his lips were parted every so slightly, revealing that single wonky tooth that you found oh-so adorable. for a second you wondered what they would feel like against your skin, but you soon shunned the thought away as you remembered, oh yeah, the korn sweater. you’d felt them before. you know just how soft and gentle they are. it’s something that often plays on your mind and every time it does, you feel that same burst of excitement built up in your stomach. the one you get when mingi speaks about his passions. the one that feels like butterflies.
it is butterflies. fuck, it’s the whole damn zoo! a stampede of elephants charging though your body each and every time he does something that you find even mildly endearing. it just so happens that you find damn near everything he does endearing. you’d think those elephants would be tired of running by now…
“mingi,” you sigh, breath coming out in a plume of mist. you’d forgotten how cold it was in his presence. being around him just seemed to warm you up, “mingi, come here.”
he furrows his brow, but shuffles a tad closer. you almost groan in disappointment as he takes his hand away from your thigh, the skin immediately growing cold at the lost contact.
“what’s up, sunshine?” you feel em your eyes go wide at the nickname. you don’t know why; he uses it for you all the time.
“mingi, i’m confused… and a little scared,” you admit, although you didn’t know whether it was necessarily the truth. it was probably the closest word to describe how you were feeling though. with the way your heart was threatening to beat through your chest, and the way your stomach churned with nerves and the way your stupid brain had only just managed to catch up with how you had felt all along. it hurt, and it was painful and confusing and yeah, scared was probably a pretty good description.
“scared?” his voice grows serious as his eyes scan you up and down. once he sees that you’re fine physically, they return to your face. he looks just as confused as you feel, “what are you scared about? are you okay? hurt?”
you shake your head, taking in a deep, shaky breath. you let it out in yet another cloud of fog and watch at it floats away into nothing. you wish your butterflies, elephants, would do the same. it would make this whole thing so much easier.
“i’m fine, mingi,” you say, “just scared.”
“can you tell me why?” you nod, although it takes everything in you to do so.
“i want to kiss you,” you admit.
“kiss… me?”
you nod again, feeling a familiar heat rise to your face. the same one you get whenever mingi compliments you, or touches you. you can't believe it’s taken this long to finally figure it all out. it all feels so obvious now.
“i mean… yeah?” he stutters, “kiss me, yeah… yeah that sounds okay- i mean good! it sounds good… kissing, that is.”
if you weren’t feeling completely and utterly out of your depth, you’d have giggled at him. cutie pie you think to yourself before the heat in your body immediately gets more intense, and the elephants not only increase in number but in size too.
it’s now or never. before you can talk yourself out of it, you need to kiss him. because talking yourself out of it could be so easy. you could hop off of the awning, run back to your car and drive back to your dorm. sure, it would hurt when you would inevitably have to lock yourself away in embarrassment and never see mingi again, but time heals all wounds, right? and by the time you’re 50, the pain and embarrassment will have definitely almost healed over…
“so?” he mutters, pulling you back from the fantasy your brain had created, “are you going to do it?”
“i, uh…”
“i mean, i can if you want me to,” he shrugs, trying his hardest to play it cool as if he hadn’t been stuttering seconds prior. as if his face wasn’t just as pink as the mop of hair that sat atop it.
there is nothing cool about this man, you think to yourself as you push yourself into a sitting position. maybe that’s why you’re so attracted to him. his nerdy tendencies had tugged you in, and he’d worked his dorky little ways on you until you were hook line and sinker for him.
down bad, as the kids say. down so horrifically bad…
“i can do it,” you whisper as you look up at him with wide eyes. your lips are mere inches from his own, and his hot breath fans across your cold face. his eyes are on yours just briefly before they flicker down to your lips. they rested there for a second before making their way back up to yours, “i can kiss you,” you whisper.
“you can,” he mutters back, bringing his own face close enough to yours that you’re not even sure a sheet of paper would slip between the two of you. his tongue darts out to wet his own lips, gently brushing against yours too. your breath hitches as your last sliver of resolve vanishes. that’s it, you tell yourself, you can’t hold back anymore.
the tiny gap is closed as you press forwards, slamming your lips against his. your fingers shoot up to lace themselves in the hair at the nape of his neck, and his find a home on your waist. his eyelashes flutter against your face as he shuts his eyes, and you follow his lead, doing the same. it’s nice, you realise, the darkness letting you focus on how his lips feel moving slowly against your own. they fit perfectly, like they were always meant to be there.
he deepens the kiss briefly, tilting his head ever so slightly to get a better angle. it’s a little rougher at this angle, but you can’t find it in you to mind as he takes control. the desperation you feel from him as he moves his lips harshly against your own was something you feel yourself, so you let him take what he needs, taking just as much in return.
and by the time he pulls away, you’re both panting. rapid and hard and together. his lips have barely left your own as he catches his breath, but you don’t pull back either.
“fuck,” he mumbles against your lips, “that was… nice?”
“yeah,” you agree. ‘nice’ seems the best way to describe it, although it was so much more than just that, “it was nice, wasn’t it?”
“so nice, sunshine,” he says. a few beats of a silence pass before he presses his lips against yours again, this time for a much shorter, much more innocent peck. you can’t help but giggle as he pulls away. there’s a grin on his face too, “wish we’d done it sooner, though.”
you nod, “yeah, me too.”
“but we have all the time in the world, right?”
he pecks you again. this one lasts a few milliseconds longer than the last, not that you’re counting. when he pulls away, you chase it. another peck, this time led by you, but equally as brief as the other two. it’s his turn to chuckle.
“cute,” he grins, “you’re so cute.”
you get shy under his words and pull back just a tad. the grip he has on your waist refuses to let you go too far from him. you don’t mind; not at all. the fact he wants you so close actually sends the elephants feral. you feel them reach up to your heart to work their magic on that too. it probably isn’t healthy for it to beat at the speed that it is, but you really can’t help it. the elephants seem to respond to mingi and mingi alone. you don’t mind that either.
not at all.
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slvttyplum · 4 months
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★ brat tamer suguru?? hell fucking yeah | suguru
he doesn’t tolerate any bullshit, and you know this, so why not test it every chance you get, especially in public.
looking at clothes, you'll run your finger over them, pouting, and suguru immediately notices.
“what’s up? these look nice.” he is picking one off the shelf. a smirk immediately crosses your face.
you pick up ten shirts, pushing them out towards them; you didn’t even look at them, just testing your luck.
suguru looks at you with the dumbest fucking face, cause what the hell? he didn’t see you look at them or anything, and ten shirts within itself was just crazy.
“i want these.” you say smiling—the smile he loves so much but fucking despises because you use it to be a bitch.
he shakes his head, rubbing his forehead. he’s not doing this, not today.
“three, take it or leave it.” a bitchy smile appearing on his face, just keep it calm.
you pout, shaking your head; that’s not what you wanted to hear; the correct response is “of course, princess.” none of this shit.
“try again," you say, smiling and shaking the shirts in his face. a few customers looking at the both of you but walking away.
he looks at them, then back at you. yeah, he knows exactly what the fuck you’re trying to do.
knowing he can’t do what he wants to do to you i public.
that’s only one instance where you caught him on a leash and got fucked up later; he doesn’t play.
suguru is the only one who can control your mouth and what you do, a skill because you have a smart ass mouth.
everyday your ass is bruised up by the end of the day because you can’t shut up.
“learn how to keep your fucking mouth shut, yeah?"
he’s such a sweet man, not only to you but to everyone else, but when he’s pissed off, he gets vulgar.
“just… just shut the fuck up; you talk.. too much.” he says, pushing into you with his big dick, your walls expanding and pulsing.
you didn’t always like getting punished; words just slipped out. it was a normal occurrence to piss him off, but sometimes you REALLY didn’t want to.
like the one time you came home late from an event and he was seated in the living room watching tv.
you’re stumbling inside, slipping off, and throwing your heels towards the front door. you’re tipsy, not drunk, thank god.
when you see him sitting in the living room, you quickly try to run past, not trying to hear his mouth.
“drinking is a bad habit; i told you to take it easy," he says, still looking at the tv.
you roll your eyes, slowly walking again. “i’m tipsy, not drunk… fucking asshole.” you muttered the last part.
you couldn’t even walk away, and he’s right behind you with a hand around your throat.
“the fuck you just say?” the next thing you know, you’re bent over the couch, your back arched and your ass in the air getting spanked.
your ass was really sore the next day, but man, does it make for some great sex.
don’t get on his bad side, or do; it’s your ass, not mine.
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