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transrightsyamaguchi · 6 months

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blue lock fic rec list #1 (?)

i always liked when people made long masterlists of fic recs but i haven't seen anyone do it for blue lock yet. at least not recently. so in the spirit of Be The Change You Want To See In The World here's my list.

not in any particular order just going through my bookmarks lol.

sound of breaking down. chigiri-centric, 4k words, rated T.

“Is he dead?” “No, of course not.” A pause. “I hope not.” “Yo, Princess, are you alive in there?” The door rattles. OR Determined to prove himself, Chigiri disregards his health and deals with consequences. None of it is pretty. Set during the neo-Egoist league arc. it's a sickfic. it's a really good sickfic. it hits all the beats i like my sickfics to hit and then some. it's a genfic which is a major bonus. no romantic subplot just chigiri being vulnerable and getting taken care of. there's some sweet moments between him and chris prince that made me melt inside.

2. the rituals are intricate, bro. karasu/otoya, 2k words, rated E.

Otoya offers to groom the homie's wings. Things escalate in ways he did not expect. this is by one of my beloved mutuals but i'd still be recommending it even if it wasn't. great title. there's an "it's not gay with socks on" joke in there. there's the ever-present Otoya Eita Sexuality Crisis. the porn is less sexy and more funny (as tabieita deserves).

3. six facts about lobsters. bachira/isagi, 4k words, rated T.

What it says on the tin. (In fine print: six facts about you.) can't remember if ghost is on tumblr or not but this is another mutual fic. it's a take on the 5+1 format, tracking the bachisagi relationship through lobster facts. isagi's autism radiates through the text. it's so cute and so sweet and so very bachisagi essence. as expected of ao3 user smallghosts (<- the bachisagi essence writer)

4. counting crows on the windowsill. kaiser/ness, 18k words, rated M.

“How much,” you ask, “would you let me do to you?” The feeling of vibration on your fingers comes again, and he is thinking, or perhaps toying with you even more. Your grip tightens on his skin, and Alexis twitches slightly in the grasp. More than once have people told you to learn some patience. “You already know my answer.” “Doesn’t mean I don’t like hearing it in your own words.” Inhale, exhale, and they all fall onto your skin. There is a chill in the room—it is rising up your arms, your neck—but the whole of you is hot. “If it’s you, I’d let you do anything.” Seven snapshots of life through the eyes of Michael Kaiser. this is a longer one but if you have time and you want to feel some Emotions read this one. nskins contain such multitudes and this author understands them so well.

5. shidou-ctionary. shidou/sae, 4k words, rated T.

Contemporary linguists agree that achieving proficiency in a new language requires between six months and four years of study. Itoshi Sae knows better. He has anecdotal evidence to suggest that a person can become fluent in a new language in as little as one week. A week of Shidou Ryuusei's attempts to ask Itoshi Sae on a date: a story in emojis. yet another mutual fic. i can't help it that my mutuals are all extremely talented and correct about everything. it's got some experimental formatting going on and (in my opinion) it looks best on desktop. ft. shidou being shidou and sae being smitten (in the emotionally constipated way that sae is smitten with shidou)

6. puppy love. kurona/kiyora, 9k words, rated G.

Jin doesn’t fight the small smile forming on his face. It’s been a long time since he meshed well with anyone. People tend to avoid him; he avoids them in turn. He stopped caring (or so he had told himself), but he doesn’t hate the weight around his shoulders—doesn’t mind it at all, really. He wraps his hand around Ranze’s wrist, and he laughs along with him. Kiyora Jin has a number of problems. A growing crush on Kurona Ranze is not supposed to be one of them. this was the inaugural fic in the ranjin tag and. not to pat myself on the back or anything. but i beta-read it hehe. another mutual fic. kiyora jin character study before kiyora jin was even a character, with an adorable little romantic subplot. somewhat negated by the Recent Developments in canon but it's still good!!

7. pink light. shidou/sae, 19k words, rated E.

Fifteen years ago, Shidou took a pass from Sae that shattered his knee and ended his career, and Sae hasn't been able to speak to him since - and Sae wants it to stay that way. Deserves for it to stay that way. Unfortunately, the world has other plans for him, courtesy of a little art studio a five minute walk from his new post-retirement apartment. this is not a mutual fic but i'm trying to change that. it's post-canon ryusae ft. cane user shidou (!!) and emotionally constipated sae learning how to live without soccer. not quite old man yaoi but it has the spirit of it.

8. year one. snuffy & lorenzo centric, 3k words, rated T.

"When's your birthday?" Snuffy asks him carefully, moving on to the next field. "Today," Don answers immediately. "Really?" Snuffy looks at him suspiciously. "No," Don replies without hesitation, turning back to a poster describing professional tooth brushing. Snuffy tries not to look at the tense faces of the receptionist and the surgeon peering out of the room. Snuffy's first year of parenthood. what is it about snuffy & lorenzo fics that just hit so different. i swear everyone who writes for them is a genius. this fic is short snapshots of snuffy and lorenzo navigating their newly-formed parent-child relationship and it's heartwrenching and heartwarming and poignant. this writer has a few snuffy & lorenzo fics and they're all wonderful. (she's also on tumblr and writes in-depth lorenzo meta so you Know she understands him)

9. pov: you just want the world to be quiet. itoshi brothers, 4k words, rated T.

his big brother and football have become the only hope to which rin can cling to dream of better days. without them, he only and just remains that little six-year-old boy destroyed by the senseless atrocities of evil hands. hesitated to include this one because the tags are scary but fuck it we ball i do what i want. it's a rewrite of rin's backstory with a darker spin on it and it follows rin and sae's relationship through that lens. as par for the course with pre-canon itoshi studies, it does not end happily. it's incredibly well-done and it will give you Feelings. (this is one of those cases where the author drops a life-changing bombshell of a fic on you and then you go to their profile and there's no bio. there's no public bookmarks. this is their only blue lock fic. they haven't posted anything in a year. who are they)

10. peak male living space. kunigami/chigiri, 3k words, rated E.

Raichi and Kunigami had met at university; playing on the football team, sharing many lectures, and living through the shitshow that was university halls together. It seemed only natural that they’d move in together, and it had been great for the past few of years… Until Kunigami’s new boyfriend asked why he never invited him over to his place, and he was forced to deal with the realisation that he and Raichi have the most boyish disaster of a flat. part of a series but it can stand alone. t4t kunigiri smut. kunigami and raichi are disaster roommates and bachisagi play wingmen. lionel messi makes a cameo in the form of a cardboard cutout. all the kunigiri fics in this series are good but this fic in particular is just so funny.

if you notice any ships or characters Conspicuously Absent it's because they were positively dominating this list at first so i'm planning to make a separate list for only them hehe

there are many more fics that made my soul ascend from my body so i might make another of these

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mcdonaldsnumberone · 1 year

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BY ANY OTHER NAME!

kaiser wasn’t someone to ever beg for anything. no—if there was something he wanted, he got it. it was as easy as that. but much to his shock, your heart wasn’t something you would hand over to him willy-nilly. it looked like he was going to have to work from the very bottom: starting with his name.

gender neutral reader

Kaiser was used to netting all sorts of reactions from people. Some adored him faithfully. Some wanted nothing to do with him. Some were even bold enough to chew up their disgust and spit it distastefully in front of him. He never paid them any mind. But the truth of the matter was that Kaiser was used to drawing out all sorts of intense emotions from everyone around him. He didn’t care if they loved him or hated him. Mediocrity was not a reality for him.

At least, before he came across you.

You were probably the first and only person in the world to be so neutral towards him. You were kind, never causing any trouble, and doing everything you could to stay off of his radar. It wasn’t like you were going out of your way to avoid him or to catch his eye; you simply treated him as if he were just an average run-of-the-mill person.

You were polite. Not out of respect towards him but out of obligation.

And that would be all fun and dandy, had it not been for the fact that Kaiser had fallen madly in love with that apathetic, monotone attitude of yours. It was 100% because of how you approached him at an arm’s length. It frustrated him to all hell. It’d be one thing if you couldn’t stand the sight of his face and went around huffing and puffing about how you hated his smug attitude or egotistical personality, because then he’d know that he had some kind of influence on you.

But a nonchalant reaction that had him keeling over and overthinking every little thing he said towards you? Calling it pure torture for him would be an understatement.

“Lovely work today, Alexis. I made sure to leave an extra water bottle in the locker room since you asked,” you greeted the Bastard Munchen players as they left the playing field. The magenta-haired boy ducked his head gracefully, beaming at you as he bumped your outstretched fist.

“And you too, Benedict!” You offered the fair-haired player a bright smile and a matching fist bump. Grim murmured some dramatic monologue about the despair of warmth and its depravity, but from the way his eyes twinkled at seeing you, you assumed that he was just as happy to have your support.

“And finally, we have you, Erik!” You welcomed the foul-mouth midfielder. He pretended to scowl at you, but you quickly morphed his scorn into a rare smile when you nudged him gently with your arm. “C’mon, you made some impressive plays today! I can’t wait to see what you do in the upcoming games!”

Last but not least, the king of the pitch himself, the self-proclaimed protagonist of the theater that the soccer world was, Kaiser leisurely strolled off of the playing field. It made his stomach turn inside out with envy to see you bantering with his teammates so casually, but what really drove the jealousy home was something else altogether. With his nose held high and his sky blue eyes fixed on you, he stepped to where you were waiting for the team off to the side.

He knew it was foolish to get his hopes up, but he couldn’t help himself from going all out in each of the games he played in, especially when Kaiser knew that you’d be watching it in real time. Maybe, just maybe, if he went above and beyond what he normally did, you’d finally be amazed at his skills and come to your senses about what an irreplaceably talented striker he was. Then, you’d fall head over heels for him as all his admirers do…

He stopped in front of you with his signature smirk, hands stuffed in his pockets as he waited for you to shower him with praises. Well, he didn’t even need you to fall to your knees in utter worship of him; just your usual banter with the other Bastard Munchen athletes would have been more than enough to satisfy the lovestruck blond.

You didn’t skip a beat at shattering his fantasies. “Can I help you, Kaiser?”

Kaiser choked back a cough, flicking part of his long hair back in order to mask the completely pathetic face he nearly made. “Darling! Is that all you have to say to someone who scored all the goals in today’s game?”

You tilted your head to the side. “Isn’t it your job to score though?”

God. It’d be one thing if you were saying these things simply to spite him, riling up his temper in order to get some kind of reaction out of him. But when he looked at your face, he couldn’t detect a single hint of malice on your features. You were doing what you were told: taking care of him. No more and no less.

This was the face of someone who did not care about him, whether that be positive or negative. You had no opinion on him. Period.

His heart sank to his stomach, but Kaiser kept up his cool front. He shrugged as he turned to you, a coy grin dancing on his face. “Still, it’s not an easy job. Wouldn’t hurt to get a little sweetness from you every now and then.”

You frowned slightly, as if you were thinking over his words. “I… think I’m doing an adequate job at taking care of you and the team. If you have any issues with my performance, then I appreciate you looking out for me. But that’s something you should take up with Noel Noa or Bastard Munchen’s greater management.”

Kaiser felt his body stiffen, his grin etched onto his stone face. He had braced himself to be shut down, but never before had someone shut him down so professionally.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” he purred. You surveyed him with your usual expressionless eyes as he came up next to you. Casually swinging an arm over your shoulders and dragging you close to him, he winked at you sweetly. “Your work has been nothing short of excellent.”

You put your hand on top of his arm, doing your best to nudge him off. Kaiser kept his Cheshire Cat-like smile, refusing to take himself off of you. You bit down on your tongue, wondering if you should stand your ground and yank him off of your shoulders, but you wisely decided that getting physical with a professional athlete was probably not a fight that was in your favor.

“Then I don’t see why we need to be talking. The locker rooms are to your right, Kaiser.” You avoided looking at him. It wasn’t like you were doing it knowingly, but Kaiser whimpered inwardly at the lack of your attention. It was like you weren’t even giving him the satisfaction of eye contact.

He pouted like a little child. “See? It’s that right there.”

“It’s what right there?” You repeated. The confusion in your voice was so thick that it was nearly tangible, and Kaiser puffed his cheeks out. Normally he wouldn’t mind having his fun in flustering someone up: teasing them over their mistakes, flaunting himself as the superior one, and devouring all the delicious reactions he managed to milk out of them.

But trying to convince you to see eye-to-eye with him was downright embarrassing for him. Never before had he courted someone so oblivious, someone so downright unaware of his feelings, so casually cruel to the one-sided crush he was fostering. He couldn’t even get mad at you for your behavior too, because you genuinely didn’t know.

Kaiser hated groveling for scraps of your attention, but the boy was sick of being treated like a responsibility. Why did his teammates get to soak up all of your care and affection while he was left watching from the sidelines, licking his own emotional wounds while he could only imagine that it was you cheering him on after a game or complimenting his plays?

If this was the angle you were going to play at, then so be it. He was starved enough, and it was obvious that playing it cool wasn’t getting him anywhere.

He buried his face into the crook of your neck, sighing dramatically against your shoulder. You froze, your body noticeably stiffening up at the sudden gesture, and you dug your heels into the floor to prevent him from dragging more of himself onto you. Lucky for you, that was the most he did, but you gritted your teeth and refused to loosen up.

He must have lost his mind.

“You’re so cold to me,” he whined. “I know it’s not your job to baby me or anything, but… You’re so nice and sweet to everyone else. Even now! You complimented everyone after the game, and you smiled at them. You look so happy talking to them, but when you talk to me, it’s like you can’t wait to get me out of your hair.”

You sucked your lips in, and you kept your expression as unreadable as always. “I’m being professional. I don’t mean to do anything to spite you specifically, Kaiser-”

“-See, you’re doing it again!” His face shot up from your body. You knew you shouldn’t give him any more of your attention, but you almost instinctively turned your neck to look at him. You were shocked to see how wide his blue eyes were, his irises trembling. He looked nothing like the powerful and self-aggrandizing striker that you were so used to. All of his confidence and swagger had disappeared, leaving nothing more than a desperate boy clinging off of you. “You don’t even call me by name.”

You were at a loss for words. “I-I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m not asking for much, I promise,” he breathed. His voice sounded tentative, a hushed whisper that you could barely make out. “It’d be nice if you could banter and play around with me like you do everyone else, but god… At least say my name.”

He didn’t want anything else. He didn’t want to be known as anything else to you. Not as the New Generation World Eleven’s star striker. Not as Bastard Munchen’s number 10. Not as Kaiser.

But as Michael.

You swallowed back all the alarms going off in your head. There would be nothing good that could come from getting close to someone like him, someone who practically had everything in the palm of his hand, someone who would take your heart and mercilessly crush it under his heel if that was what he wanted to do, yet you couldn’t bring yourself to keep your usual cool level-headedness when he looked like he was on the brink of tears, a hair’s breadth away from your face.

How could you not crumble? That’d be too heartless, even for you.

“...I’ll try to do better. Thanks for letting me know. And I’m sorry you felt that way, Kai- Michael,” you corrected with an awkward cough. The light returned to his face right away, and before you could even finish your statement, his cheeks were rosy and full of life once more.

That was the first time you had said his name to his face. The literal choirs of Heaven couldn’t compare to how sweet your voice sounded to his ears, the syllables of his name rolling off your tongue like liquid gold. He didn’t care if he was being overly cheesy; he had dreamed of the very day that you would look him in the face and actually regard him like he was a human being.

You finally let your body relax, softening up just the slightest bit under his body weight, and you let out a breath you weren’t aware that you were holding. But before you could even fully relax, the blond was peering at you with another fox-like smile tugging at his lips. Undoubtedly with another scheme brewing in his mind, you wondered if you had made the wrong decision just now. Any hint of his previous remorse was gone, nowhere to be found.

“So…,” he trailed off, snickering to himself, “Now that we’re on a first-name basis, do you wanna pick out pet names for each other next?”

Your blood ran cold, and you thought about choking the striker for a split second. So much for feeling pity towards him. Loosening up was definitely the wrong decision.

But unfortunately, you had given him an inch, and Michael was determined to take the whole mile.

#blue lock #bllk #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #michael kaiser #x reader #my writing #SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM THIS MAN I CANT GET HIM OFF OF MY HEAD

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blueboyluca · 4 months

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@konmari-dogs's post reminded me, I read a lot of dog books this year! My biggest tip for reading more is put a bunch of books on your phone and just dip into them when you can. I think I originally got this tip from Milly, but it really works. If you are getting sick of one or need a break, you can easily flit to another. You can get a page or two while waiting for appointments or at a cafe or something. Really easy to read a lot more.

Anyway, I read a lot of crap this year but also some gems.

Hit list: The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson. I finally read this classic. I skimmed most of the training stuff because it is a bit outdated now, but I really liked the allegorical parts, the actual bits that are why it is titled the way it is. That stuff is still really relevant today.

Dog is Love by Clive D.L. Wynne. I enjoyed this. It followed the story of how Wynne convinced himself that dogs do love us, through various scientific disciplines. I also think this guy is a compelling speaker, if a little pompous.

Wonderdog by Jules Howard. Loved this one, excellent overview of dog science throughout history. Really worth the read.

The Secret History of Kindness by Melissa Holbrook Pierson. My favourite read this year, an incredibly moving overview of the history of training dogs.

In Defence of Dogs by John Bradshaw. I started this one more than a year ago and finished it this year. It was pretty good, but a little outdated on the science now. Still worth a read.

The Great Grisby by Mikita Brottman. I enjoyed this, it was about various dogs in literature or real dogs owned by famous people, mostly Victorians. It was a fun read. The focus won't be for everyone.

How the Dog Became the Dog: From Wolves to Our Best Friends by Mark Derr. I started reading this like 5 years ago. I really enjoyed the first half then dropped off it. I finished it this year and I am glad, but there wasn't as much good stuff in the second half. Still, I reference it a lot and I love the way he writes about early dogs.

Shit list: Living with Border Collies by Barbara Sykes. This one is a mess. Very few useful ideas, mostly just batty nonsense.

Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis. This was the only novel I read this year and it was garbage. Do not recommend.

How Stella Learned to Talk by Christina Hunger. You all know I hated it. I am stunned when people recommend it to others to get into dog buttons. I thought the narrative itself was a steaming pile of garbage and I thought the tips on how to get started with buttons were vague and unhelpful. Cannot understand this fad at all.

The First Domestication by Brandy R. Fogg and Raymond Pierotti. I started this a year or two ago and finished it this year. It was a mess. I appreciated the parts where they ripped into Coppinger, but there were tons of other really questionable bits so I basically think the whole thing is a wash.

Dogs: A Philosophical Guide to Our Best Friends by Mark Alizart. It wasn't terrible, but it was quite strange. I appreciated it sent me down a few rabbit holes though. I tried reading some more philosophical books about dogs but they fall apart as soon as the authors show they know nothing about modern dog science.

Dingoes Don’t Bark by Lionel Hudson. This one also wasn't terrible but it was also kind of nothing. Not a lot of information about dingoes. I think the documentary it pairs with would be more worhtwhile. I think it's from the 70s, maybe 80s.

Still reading: Level Up Your Dog Training by Natalie Bridger Watson. This is for beginners, but I am enjoying it as another resource for my club.

The Wolf Within by Professor Bryan Sykes. This is good but thick and science heavy, so I know it will take me a long time.

Treat Everyone Like a Dog by Karen London. I am not enjoying this at all. It will inevitably make it onto my shit list one year.

What Dogs Want by Mat Ward. Really loving this very cute and modern take on basic dog care for new owners.

What the Dog Knows: The Science and Wonder of Working Dogs by Cat Warren. I am really loving this so far. It's my kind of book, a mix of dog science and memoir.

Our Oldest Companions by Pat Shipman. I am not that taken in by Shipman. I've read one of her other books and I don't find her particularly compelling. I am finding Sykes more interesting than this one.

Aesop's Animals: The Science Behind the Fables by Jo Wimpenny. This one is pretty good, not sure if I will finish it though because I read the dog and wolf chapters already.

Positive Herding 101 by Barbara Buchmayer. I am enjoying this. I got through all the beginning stuff and have finally reached the chapters that will talk about herding training.

Enrichment Games for High Energy Dogs by Barbara Buchmayer. This is good enough that it made me buy her other book. I haven't finished it yet though.

#dog books #dogblr

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capitalisticveins · 1 year

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my feelings are still hurt from hearing Milo scream in pain from the bone is his arm literally being crushed in half soo…

Angst headcannons on ANYONE but my baby❤️ because who knows how much I can take??

First request! These are Angst headcanons for nearly everyone...except Milo and Sweetheart (when I say nearly everyone I mean nearly everyone)

Some characters show up more than once, some only show up once, hope you enjoy! [also the format is really weird for some reason and idk how to fix it? im sorry :( ]

Precious is scared to think anything in fear of Regulus listening in.

Huxley and Damien haven’t seen Lovely since Inversion, and haven't seen them return to classes either. To them, Lovely is dead. (well i mean they are dead but y’know what I mean)

Lovely is resentful of Sam for how much of his power he recovered after being turned compared to them, and they hate that they feel that way.

When Elliott heard about Sunshine getting into the crash, he nearly had a panic attack when he heard that they were in critical condition. The person at the front desk could barely understand him when he demanded to see Sunshine.

It took Cutie 2 months to finally pursue therapy, but due to how much the price of therapy skyrocketed in Dahlia after Inversion, they had to look for help outside of town, and is having their friend house sit until they come back.

Both Anton’s and James’ listeners have forgotten what they look like. James’ listener doesn’t even know if he’s okay.

Tank didn’t fully hate Quinn after telling the Department what he did. They were angry, but they didn’t hate him. It wasn’t until he ambushed them and their friend while on a walk did they feel any disdain.

Vincent sees Alexis as a step-sister. The feeling isn’t mutual.

Asher claws at his scars constantly, which creates more scars which he also claws through. It’s a cycle not even Baaabe can end.

Ollie gets tired through all the work assigned to him at Vesta, but he’s never told Babe, or anyone. He just keeps taking the work with a smile and insists on helping people with their work. It’s gotten to the point where he has to slip out of Babe’s arms in their sleep to finish up.

Caelum wishes to have a seat at the double wedding, but he won’t.

Cam’s insomniac listener hasn’t had a visit from him in a while, and it’s gotten harder to fall asleep. Whenever they can’t fall asleep, they simply dim the lights, play calming music, and draw a mysterious man that is stuck in the back of their head, but they can’t recall where they’ve seen him from. They usually do this until 8am, and it messes with the rest of their day.

Guy and Honey have had only 1 major “argument”. Guy was constantly distracting Honey on purpose while they were studying for their finals, something they’ve been stressing over. Eventually they grew angry at him whining outside their door and yelled at him to leave them alone and “pester someone who can tolerate him” before slamming the door and returning to their studies. They didn’t apologize right away, they just both sort of acted casually after a week. It wasn’t until a year after they graduated that the event leaked into Honey’s mind, and they randomly apologized to him. Guy felt that he deserved the reprimand, and they had a talk before they decided to play Mortal Kombat together.

Tank acts tough and violent, but they are petrified of Quinn. They’ve been with him the longest, they know what he’s like, what he can do. They’ve planned out everything they’ll say and do when they encounter him, but if they see him, they’re practically frozen.

Sam has openly refused getting into a car if he sees Lovely in the driver’s seat. He expressed that he’d rather run around the Earth than get into a car with “the second coming of road Satan”. Lovely laughs at the memory but Sam was dead serious.

When they’re not being worked on, or in sleep mode, the Asset sort of just…stares at their hands, and tells anyone questioning that they’re simply recalibrating data. They’re not. They’re reflecting on what happened to them when the obsession code was inserted, and trying to recall what they were like before. They can’t remember.

Freelancer has had MANY “not so nice” thoughts before Caelum revealed himself, and they returned after Inversion.

Angel’s cat died a little while ago. They didn’t tell David, they just drove to Milo’s house under the guise of “going to the store”, and played with Aggro.

Lasko nearly turned down the offer of being a professor at D.A.M.N

The Asset used to go into sleep mode when getting worked on or have upgrades installed. Not anymore. They make sure to keep an eye on the person working on them, and question every code they write, scanning to see if their heart accelerates to catch them in a lie.

Cam has been the only person working at D.U.M.P who questions Warden��s whereabouts.

Fred and Brighteyes haven’t spoken since their argument. Both because Fred can hold a grudge, and because Bright refuses to leave their room if Fred is out there.

Geordi tried talking to Cutie again, but they wouldn’t respond to his texts, or look at them, so he had to visit the house. You can imagine his surprise when someone he remembers seeing from the Pool Party inside their home telling him Cutie is out of town, and you can imagine his surprise when he came back months later and was told the same thing.

Seer Obscura is incredibly superstitious. No walking under ladders, no umbrellas indoors, no stepping on cracks, no going around a pole, none of that. They’re terrified of being killed by some horrible luck

David didn’t consider getting into an official relationship with Angel at first. He thought they wouldn’t last for more than a month. Angel thought otherwise, so while David wasn’t giving it his all for the first few weeks of the relationship, Angel was.

Lasko hasn’t spoken to his mom since he abruptly ran away, and neither of his parents have made an attempt to contact him, despite him trying to contact them.

Warden has grown dependent on Vega in the month they’ve been with him, and becomes distraught when he’s not in the room.

Baaabe is usually hard-headed and speaks with passion, but after Inversion, they grew to be more soft-spoken, especially around Asher.

When Starlight was first released from Hell, they sneezed after about a minute, so Avior was stuck looking at them sneezing super slowly for a month and a half.

(last one isn't angst lmao)

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markliving · 3 months

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Be the poet and i will be your soldier

pairing: quackity x f!reader (lawyer!quackity x lawyer!reader)

warnings: lawyers!au, enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, mentions of quackity real name, this history don't pass in our reality, english is not my firts language.

synopse: you thought you hated Alex. And Alex thought he hated you. What none of you knew was that a particularly difficult case, and some unexpected events during the case, would leave you both living under the same roof and with some unknown feelings being revealed.

word count: 970

masterlist

1. a chilling start

You looked intently at the white roof from the guest room in Alexis' house. The ticking of the clock was the only sound that could divert your mind from the latest events in your life, which, at first, were going from bad to worse.

You couldn't tell your family and friends anything outside of work. You thought they would worry more than they should, but most of the time they were right, and in your opinion, it wasn't necessary because it was close to being over.

Not only that, but you needed to close your eyes and sleep urgently, after all, tomorrow was the last day of your stay at Alex's house, and also the last trial of the case. Yet, why did your heart seem to break every time you thought about leaving him? It scared you to think that you would never again be able to look into his eyes and see that they didn't reflect hate, but rather adoration. He was your biggest enemy, so why these strange feelings?

You could hear him mumbling around the apartment, probably trying to find the case papers he left scattered around the house last night while you guys talked about them. And now that your brain was alerted by the noises outside the room, you wanted more and more to disappear from the universe, not exist and let everything disappear. How would you face him the next morning without feeling embarrassed and saying that you remembered the revealing conversation you two had while you were drunk, and that, in fact, it was actually all a farce?

And then you remembered that it was all the fault of Chris, your boss, and, also, future cupid.

All this whole problem starts when Chris puts you and Alex on the same case, even knowing that you don't like each other and having heard that you two have had problems since the beginning of college. His wife, who had already seen some of the disagreements between the two of you, said it was just a misunderstanding of feelings that neither of you could bear and even proposed that he do something to help other people in the office have some kind of peace. So, when he received the papers from the Miller brothers, he knew this was the perfect time to bring the two of you together and maybe get the two of you to come to a peace agreement.

"Sir, with all respect, but what kind of joke is that?", you asked Chris as soon as you heard him say about the case that you two would have to work together, anxiously pressing your nails into your palm, leaving a few marks.

“You heard right, miss. I believe that the two of you can do a good defense job together, so the two of you will work together”, he responded, while pushing a blue folder, which contained the various papers with information about the case, on the table further ahead.

Alex looked at you, analyzing your face, trying to find some trace of something that wasn't anger or something like that, but he was caught by your gaze, making him look away and look forward again with a bit of shame. So he took the blue folder, pressed it firmly, and spoke.

“Sir, I think just one of us can do this job alone, after all, you said that in the beginning…”, Alex made a pause before starting speaking again. “But, even though I'm against this idea, I accept working with her in this case”.

You laughed sarcastically at his words. You thought it was funny how he sounded when he said it, and you even considered saying it back, but Chris was starting to get impatient, and you chose to accept that idea, leaving the room shortly after with strong steps.

“Please try not to kill each other”, the boss asked Alex, who was still in the room, and received a nod of confirmation from him, who also immediately left the room.

After that day, the two of you began studying the case in silence during office hours. Your coworkers were afraid that at any moment the two time bombs, Alex and you, could go off and cause a huge mess during the time you spent together. And finally, on a busy day for both of you, before a meeting with the client in the case, John Miller, whom you were both defending, the confusion that was feared at the time began.

And of course, the two of you would have different ideas, everyone expected that, but you both had strong geniuses, and anything different was a reason for discussion. A few minutes before starting the meeting, it seemed that Hurricane Katrina had passed and Chris had to intervene, giving the two of you a huge scolding for your childishness and informality, and you both still seemed to have fire in your eyes even after all the confusion.

As soon as John Miller entered the room, the two of you returned to focus on the case and began the meeting with the client. What you didn't expect was that this was the beginning of a bigger nightmare, and that the little fight between you wasn't the biggest one of all.

After the first trial, which, to be honest, didn't result in any progress in the story, the brothers didn't want to collaborate. The witnesses questioned did not say anything that you had not been informed about, which caused a huge headache when it came to studying other means that could be used in the defense. However, a few days later, something that alarmed everyone involved, not only in the case, but also the other lawyers in the office, located in the place where you lived, warned them that everything was more dangerous than they imagined.

a/n: hello hello! I hope you enjoyed this first chapter, I promise to update this week with another chapter and another, probably, with gojo.

#quackity x reader #quackity #female reader #quackity series #quackity fluff #enemies to lovers #some angst #quackity x you #quackity au

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 4 months

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tuesdaypost year in review

this year brought to you by viewers like you. thank you! i still do not know how to thank everyone for their incredible generosity during the Late July/Early August Moving Catastrophe Badtimes and im still feelin some kinda way about it. thank you.

took eight weeks completely off, more than any other year so far

overnight traveled for work for the first time

moved cross country with Mack to face dangers untold and hardships unnumbered

bought an actual for-real couch and not a futon

got Phil

(unrelated to Phil) i got spayed after almost ten years of begging and pleading various medical professionals, (also unrelated) got covid and RSV back to back

listening

fallow weeks: 8. i almost always have a tuesdaysong bc i am almost always listening to something. all of the tuesdaysongs are here:

particular favorites were Peel Me A Grape (Anita O’Day), top spotify song of the year Yeah Yeah Yeah (Blood Orchid), Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Wolf remixed by Sextile, Father Finlee (Spence Hood), A Minha Menina (Os Mutantes).

the very last tuesdaysong of the year is Sugar Rum Cherry by Duke Ellington, one of the few christmas songs i tolerate.

special shoutout to the austin underscore walker universe of podcasts, bc i mainlined A More Civilized Age (clone wars/star wars rewatch) while packing, and devoured P/alisade (the newest scifi season of F/riends at the Table) this month.

reading

fallow weeks: 11. pleased that i am killing the invisible rules in my head and including more articles instead of feeling guilty about Not Reading A Real Book!!! every week when i sit down to write the tuesdaypost. read a fuckton earlier this year bc i was procrastinating moving prep, have not read much since i moved.

article sources:

inoreader (the best free RSS feed/app imo)

The Markup (gold standard usage of data to show how various technologies are being used to harm the public good: you may have heard of the recent American bills to equalize internet service and fix organ donation grift. that was them)

Web 3 Is Going Just Great (crypto disasters)

404 Media (technology reporting, internet culture, also break a lot of data/legal/privacy scandals)

Remap (formerly Vice's video games division Waypoint, more active on podcasts and twitch but do have great personal essays about gaming longreads)

Retraction Watch (an important academic service but platformed a particularly virulent transphobe and let the comments devolve into a free for all. yes im still mad about this)

Krebs on Security (~once a month extremely long and thoughtful infosec writeups)

Data Colada (cover academic data whoopsies, currently being sued for their journalism)

the two authors i spent the most time with this year were Alexis Hall (romance novels and novellas) and Raymond Chandler's noir detective novels. i read 90% of Raymond Chandler's work in march and went insane about yet another sad bisexual man. Philip Marlowe the cat is named after his pet detective, the human Philip Marlowe.

march was kind of a banger for this category bc in one of what i consider the best tuesdayposts this year, i tried to break down why i fucking hated Frank Miller's Sin City comics so much.

other comics, but ones i loved: Spy X Family, Berserk, weird noir DC miniseries The Human Target.

watching

fallow weeks: 10

notable stuff i watched for the first time (according to letterboxd) that will stick in my head for a bit. some (The Night of the Hunter) i am so glad i watched once but do not feel the need to revist. some (Slipstream) fascinate me with how good they could have been. some (Twilight. all of them) were fun bc of the people i watched them with. the two i went particularly deranged over are The Big Sleep and Day of Anger. still feel very normal about them.

very heavy on crime and courtroom films this year!

television: very excited for s2 of Blue Eye Samurai, Interview With The Vampire, Spy X Family.

youtube

i should loop back and finish Black Lagoon, Adventure Time (completely forgot i rewatched most of that this spring), and The Big O. that last one is throwing me a little bc (since i last checked) there is no freely available version with subtitles (i cannot find subtitles Period) and i'll be damned if i have to import a dvd. i can find the dub with subtitles but! i want to hear spike spiegel as mecha-batman :(

sort of lukewarm eh-i'll-get-around-to-it about s/tar wars shows. i have not watched a/hsoka At All or wrapped up the animated Resistance show. i'll pay attention when ando/r is airing again.

playing

fallow weeks: 10. way fewer than i would have guessed!

the trouble with this category is that it is exceptionally hard to find new good games (either ones i already own or ones that are free). it is almost completely prohibitively exhausting to trawl through the free category on steam. there's simply a lot of cruft out there. a very good thing (but also incredibly timeconsuming thing) i started this year was throwing games into various folders so the eight bajillion libraries i have are less overwhelming. i can safely ignore 80% of my epic games library, for example. the itch.io library is a whole separate weekend project i think.

got back into genshin for good or for ill, which took up most of the back half of the year.

youtube

go play ABZU. i am no longer asking.

i would like to go back and finish the RPG Gamedec, un-softblock myself in the RPG Weird West, and finish the visual novel Dead Man's Rest. i think i stalled out in Call of Juarez: Gunslinger bc there was a mexican standoff that my reflexes are simply not fast enough for/too much to pay attention to. i am excited to pick up that spooky fishing simulator DREDGE when i have fun money again.

completely forgot i spent most of jan/feb/march being annoyed at fallou/t 4 but having some fun in Far Harbor, also forgot i spent an entire month playing through Wolfenstein: The New Order but i am not compelled to play through it again. it was fun! but like many games after one playthrough my time with it is done!

making

fallow weeks: 17 (unsurprising, pretty low energy year as a whole as i recovered from covid rounds 1 and 2 and the frankly insane stress of moving).

wrote exactly one fic: some matters at the heart of cowboy western snap shirts: why they are so and some of the implications of their being so, i would like to write more next year but i don't really have the brainpower. i hope this changes soon.

the baby blanket i started last year is still not done but the baby is still under a year so i have a very narrow window of time.

dyed some couch covers im still very pleased with

wrote an extremely long but very well received gallery wall guide

recipes: 12. sort of shocked by this? i am becoming an incrementally better cook and slowly finding recipes i both like and can successfully execute. found the fortitude to caramelize onions, for example. quick pickled red onions, for another thing. big year for protein or greens on top of beans and rice. faves included: cuban-style pork shoulder, hellofresh peruvian chicken, red lentil soup, white bean/kale/rice bowls

i would like to be less terrified about cooking fish. i would like to eat more fish.

and of course, the biggest project of all, acquired Phil. here is my very favorite photo ive ever taken of a cat

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

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propaganda-inc · 11 months

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Thought I'd post some more propaganda, since people are really getting mad at ONLY /u/Spez for this. For the people in the back that are still using Reddit- this is ultimately the reason why I left Reddit.

TL;DR: Yes, /u/spez is the CEO of Reddit, but now he's beholden to the true owners of Reddit- Literal white supremacists, Chinese businesses looking to subvert American democratic values, and businesses that are desperately looking for new ways to make money after a pandemic has gutted the people dry of all the money it could take.

Let's get a little Pepe Silvia in here, shall we? Setting mood music:

youtube

Reddit was originally founded by /u/Spez (real name Steve Huffman), Alexis O'Hanion, and Aaron Swartz (RIP). In 2006, Conde Nast bought Reddit. So, if you read Vogue, Pitchfork, Wired, Vanity Fair, & the New Yorker, you may have gotten some of the same content owned by the same company- just through a magazine rather than Reddit. Also, since June 2020, Conde Nast has claimed that their advertising revenue has gone down 45% have gone down dramatically since the pandemic, alongside the cancellation of major publications by Conde Nast. Buut in 2017, Reddit was made into an independent subsidiary by Advance Publications. Sounds like an innocent enough name, until you look at which companies these lovely people own:

That Charter Communication, is just a fancy name for the lovely ISP known as Spectrum- Better known to some of our older folks as Time Warner Cable. You know, one of the ISPs so hated in the United States that they actively changed their name so that people wouldn't recognize them doing their dirty work again?

Isn't it interesting that one of the main complaints by Huffman is that Reddit isn't getting it's due in advertising revenue? Huh. I wonder where he's getting that from. But that's only one section of the shit sandwich. Let's talk about some of the lovely* investors that Reddit's had on aboard since 2006. The list is.... interesting. 2014: A group of investors, including Marc Andressen (an investor in nearly all of the major social media networks that exist), Peter Thiel (a literal white supremacist), and for some reason, Snoop Dogg and fucking Jared Leto. 2017: Advance Publications buys Conde Nast and subsequently Reddit, raising its valuation to about $1.8 billion. 2019: Tencent (you know, the CHINESE VIDEO GAME COMPANY THAT HAS BANNED PLAYERS FROM THEIR GAMES FOR SUPPORTING HONG KONG DEMOCRACY DEMONSTRATIONS) buys a 5% stake in the company. Did I mention that Tencent is also the largest gaming company in the world? 2021: Fidelity Investments(??? an insurance firm and mutual fund????) decides to add another $700 million to the pot, giving them a whole stake as well too. So, let's tie this all together. Yes, /u/spez is the CEO of Reddit, but now he's beholden to the true owners of Reddit- Literal white supremacists, Chinese businesses looking to subvert American democratic values, and businesses that are desperately looking for new ways to make money after a pandemic has gutted them dry. Of course Huffman is going to stay the course on this one- his job literally depends on it in the first place. All of the people that make this site (what other social media network do you know that doesn't pay it's mods and is valued at $10 billion dollars) ? have been tossed to the side in favor of making money. Remember this:

Reddit and its investors do not give a fuck about their community.

They do not give a fuck about their moderators. They do not give a fuck about disability rights. Most of all? They don't give a fuck about you.

#reddit api #reddit refugee #reddit blackout #reddit protest #r/196 #pepe silvia #conspiracy #Youtube

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somnas-writes · 1 year

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Minor details in my MCD rewrite

the children of Phoenix Drop have more personality

The second gen of Phoenix drop all felt one sided. There’s such potential with them.

Like Malachi definitely would be overprotective of everyone, Alexis would have trauma surrounding her coma, Levin would have issues regarding his heritage— They ALL would be traumatized by the fact that their home was invaded while they were children.

Nana isn’t an infantilized character

I hate the way nana was written. There’s such potential to make a character who has a rich background and strong characterization. She has such an interesting past, the whole “cute” thing could be covering up some of her trauma

Aphmau is SO feral

She spawned, made bad jokes, fell into holes, kidnapped people and ate a zombie brain on accident— she wouldn’t be that diplomatic immediately.

I firmly believe she fought with her hands until she figured out how to craft weapons

Aphmau has short hair

She has long hair at the start but then cuts it. I feel it would be such a slay for her to have shoulder length hair, like a wolf cut or something layered

(Am I saying this because I got my hair cut short and I project onto my writing? Yes)

Aph is like invincible

Because of the 10 hearts in Minecraft, in my mind it translates to her being way more durable than anyone else. It’s insane how much she can handle.

Dante never had a crush on aph, rather he sees her as a sister

They’re close in age to me. Dante definitely would’ve missing having siblings or someone to talk. Aphmau lacks that strong familial connection, she can have parental figures but it’ll never be the same as having a sibling

(That’s me speaking from experience, being close to your parents doesn’t have the same feeling as being close to your siblings)

Season 2 characters appear earlier.

I am delusional so I’m scrambling the events of season two. Specially the events with Travis and Lucinda

THEY GET TO SAY FUCK

As many people have agreed with my post regarding cursing in mcd. I feel like it makes sense for my rewrite to have swears. It would be so much funnier. Aphmau deserves to curse, as a treat

#aphverse #aphblr #minecraft diaries #mcd #mcd aphmau #mcd rewrite #aphmau #somnas.writes #anti-jess and jason #mcd nana #i have a lot of things that I’m changing and adding #because it’s a good story #there are compelling details but it was handled so horribly #with some ducktape glittery stickers and a good wash it would be amazing #thats what Im doing for it #the rewrite is taking a while cause I’m getting my ass kicked in school #and by my suppressed feeling about my childhood #im working on it though #both issues

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6-atlas-6 · 10 months

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Can we please touch on the vampire royalty thing, or even vampires in the redacted universe in general?

Are there rival clans? In his first audio, Sam said that Darlin' was on solaire clan territory or smth like that, so is there vampires of other clans that have tried to take over or even fight the solaire clan?

Is there a rank of different clans? How powerful is the solaire clan compared to the others?

Are there clan members who disagree with William being king? Has anyone ever tried to take over? Does he get assassination attempts?

In Vincent's 4th (?) BA, lovely and Vincent bite each other as vampires but I can't tell if it was just a bite or if they were drinking blood. Can Vampires be satiated by other vampires blood or only humans? Can they drink demons blood?

Is there vampiric traditions similar to other royalty that older vampires value? We're older vampires upset when they found out Vincent was dating non-royalty? Are older vampires upset that Sam is dating a werewolf?

What is Alexis and Williams relationship. Vincent obviously seems like the favorite child but seeing as she wasn't kicked out after the Sam incident AND apparently William planned for her to be his proginy, since she's not labeled as an accident like Vincent, he obviously cares for her as well.

What exactly happens to vampires when they go in the sun. Do they burn immediately? Is it a quick death or is it slow and agonizing? Can sunlight penetrate clothing and burn them or does it have to be in direct contact with skin?

How often do they need to feed? Are people with different types of magic more filling, do some taste better than others?

Are. There. Vampire. Hunters.

Vampires stem from demons and we all know some people hate demons for being demons, are there people who also think vampires are evil since vampires also have to take from humans to survive?

There has to be vampire hunters. PLEASE. It would make no sense for people to hate demons but not hate vampires come on.

What kills a vampire? Sunlight and ripping off heads obviously work but what else does?

So many questions.

#I LOVE VAMPIRES #I have a vampire obsession #this is very important to me #give me a vampire listener with a vampire Hunter partner right now #redacted audio #redacted asmr #redactedverse #redacted solaire clan #redacted vincent #redacted sam collins #redacted sam #redacted lovely #redacted darlin #redacted tanker #redacted tank #redacted william

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fire-but-ashes-too · 7 months

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SOOOOOO

i was tagged by @rickie-the-storyteller over heeeereeee and it didnt let me reblog so new post!

LAFGSLKRGHLSKGH THIS IS SO FUN HELP WHY DIDNT I KNWO THIS EXISTED-

ANYWAYSSSSS

i gto very little ships (sadly) so im gonna go with both platonic and romantic ehehehe

Annexander (is it how were calling it?? idk) (@holdmyteaplease ur the expert on this give me a feedback)

Alexander: Think you can answer some questions without the usual level of sarcasm? Anne: If you can ask the questions without the usual level of stupid.

Alexander: *shatters a window and climbs through it* Alexander: *turns around and helps Anne through it* Breaking and entering is wrong Anne. Anne: Okay. Anne: Shut it Alexander, I only shook your hand because I had to. We will NEVER be friends. Alexander: Lets survive this together! Anne: I HOPE YOU DIE. Anne: Fellas, I gotta know for science. Is the opposite of red green or blue? Alexander: Technically a mix of green and blue? Anne: So blurple. Alexander: That's implying you're mixing blue and purple. Anne: Would you rather have fucking bleen? MOTHERFUCKING GRUE? Alexander: You were confusing before but now I'm scared Anne, holding a scooter: Alexander! Can I go outside and play with this? Alexander: Sure, whatever. I'm not your parent, okay? Anne, running outside: Thanks Alexander! Alexander, running out after them and screaming: NOT ON THE STREET! STAY AWAY! Alexander: It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s free: pouring river water in your socks! Anne: Why would I do that? Alexander: It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s free!

HELP CAUSE WHY IS THIS SO THEMMMM AKFGASKJGF

Anne and Indigo (the absolute besties)

Anne: So... what would you do if you were in bed with me? Indigo: Depends. Is your bed comfortable? Anne: Yes. Indigo: I'd sleep.

*Anne sends more than 5 messages in a row* Indigo: I ain’t reading all that. Indigo: I’m happy for you tho. Indigo: Or sorry that happened. Anne: I have a plan. Indigo: Good! As long as we aren’t breaking the law again, I’m open to hearing it. Anne: … Indigo: … Anne: I no longer have a plan.

Anne: Oh, so when crows remember people who wronged them and hold grudges, its “intelligent” and “really cool”. Anne: But when I do it, I’m “petty” and “need to let it go”.

ok... this is scarily accurate...

Alexis and Claire (friends to lovers complete dumbasses edition)(they have exactly 1 brain cell and they take turns being the responsible one. most times i gets forgotten at home)

Alexis: My hands are cold. Claire: Here, let me hold them. Alexis: My lips are cold too. Claire: *covers Alexis's mouth with their hand* Alexis: You’d be stupid to lay a hand on me. Claire: Oh, you’d be surprised how much stupid shit I do. Claire: You either buckle down and do your work or you’ll end up at McDonalds. Alexis: We're going to McDonalds if I don't do my work? Claire: NO- Alexis: What do you do for a living? Claire: I exist against my will. Alexis: Claire, I have a question. Claire: What is it, Alexis? Alexis: What color is an orange? Claire: Alexis, you bonehead! Its color is the same as its name. Just like a lemon. Alexis: I hope no one lowkey hates me. Alexis: Highkey hate me. Hate me with every fiber of your being. Alexis: Go big or go home.

THIS IS FUN. VERY FUN.

HOW TO CREATE CHARACTERS 101: NAME, BASIC VIBES AND THROW THEM AROUND IN THE INCORRECT QUOTES GENERATOR✨

tagging literally everyone i know on this one cause the world deserves to do this

@olivescales3 @albatris @bloody-neon @bassguitarinablackt-shirt @briannaswords @cabbojage @daisywords @desastreus @did-i-do-this-write @deanwax @digital-chance @enchanted-lightning-aes @ember-writer @eli-is-an-idiot @firesmokeandashes @fioreshere @guessillcallitart @gwenthekween @harleyacoincidence @holdmyteaplease @iannicellis @jaxypaxyhaxy @j3st3rfun3r4l @kooperation1101 @koala2all @lycaens @liv-is @lyonette-does-things @mayakern @nocturnalmohawk @quinnharperwrites @roisinivy @raspberrykraken @spicymochi @scifimagpie @the-mindless @unmellowyellowfellow @whynotcherries @writingmargo @writing-with-sophia @writeblr-of-my-own @wrenofthewords @yeahthatswhatimtolkienabout @yesireadbooks @your-absent-father @zihus @zillanovikov sorry if i tagged any

#NO IT WONT LET ME POST AAGAINNNNN #OKOKOKOKOK IT DIDDDDD AHHH #well damn #thats a lot of tags you got there huh

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vandal-flower · 1 year

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Chapter 3 - A Whole New World

Blue Roses With Gold Lining

You learn the names of three women in the competition for the prince's hand. The queen calls all of you to her courtroom to start the competition.

MALE LEAD: Michael Kaiser

W.C: 1.9 words

WARNINGS:

You are threatened, mentions of deaths in the palace, mentions of the queen killing the concubines, the competition has just started.

I.¹ - II.² - IV.⁴ - V.⁵ - VI⁶

Michael Kaiser kisses you on your lips.

The sudden action has you paralyzed for a moment, and made you want him to get off you. But you notice how soft and smooth his lips are against yours. The way he holds you against him is gentle, as if he truly cares for you. He gives you two more pecks on your lips before pulling away from you.

Some small part of you wish he didn't pull away so soon. Only a small part.

"Did you enjoy my gift, my scriptwriter?", he asks you, his smirk appearing on his face. Is he ever going to stick to one pet name?

"I won't lie and say I didn't enjoy it, but it was unexpected coming from a man like you, it surprised me.", you answer, covering your mouth with your hands as if it could shield you from being a flustered disaster.

It can't and it won't.

His smirk grows even wider, "The best thing about a gift is the surprise, but what's even better about it is how it's kept between two people."

His flirtatious personality does not make your situation any better. Yes, you may be, or even could be winning the so called 'affection' of the prince, but you may also be winning the envy of the other women. It just can't be helped, you are in the competition to win the prince's hand in marriage.

Not by choice of course.

He unlocks the door and gestures you follow him out of his room. With no other option, you do. You step out of the room to see, the dog, royal advisor Alexis Ness in front of you and Michael. He glares at you for a while, before smiling at the man himself Michael Kaiser.

As if he didn't make it clear enough that he hated you with every fibre of his being.

"Alexis, take her to the room where the other women are currently in."

"Yes, your majesty"

Walking behind the royal advisor made you think more about the deal you and Michael made. How can you 'rewrite' the 'script' history has been using for years and how can it benefit you?

The amount of blood that has been stained on the palace walls can't be simply cleaned off and the same goes for history itself. You can't take a peaceful approach to every situation you encounter, and you also can't be ruthless as well. You'll end up dead in both ways nonetheless.

So you have to take caution in your actions and be one step ahead, and follow the instructions Madam Gertrude gave you. It's the only possible way you could live. As well as others.

Many people died in the palace walls for the littlest things. You not only want to escape death row, but the people around you as well. Their deaths have been seen as an 'accident', their lives seen as nothing but puppets to the people in power. Their deaths were seen as a form of entertainment.

You can't be like that. You'll end up taking more lives than needed, no, the lives of people in general.

Focus (Name), you just need to be aware of your surroundings.

The two of you reach the doors to where the other women were. Ness instructed the guards to open the doors, which they do and the both of you enter.

You're back into the courtroom. The same room which you had caused a scene in.

Wonderful.

"All of you will be in this room waiting for any instructions given by the Royal Family. For now, don't cause any problems for the family or staff. Failure to follow my advice and you will receive a proper punishment for disobedience. Are we clear, your graces?", Ness says, his voice serious and sounding as if he could kill. He probably can.

"Yes sir.", you all answer in unison, and he leaves the room.

The silence in the room is louder than any noise, until the woman with crimson lips speaks up.

"So, you're the lucky woman who was able to go to his majesty's room just because you caused a scene, a tantrum. Tell me, what were you trying to prove, or are you just that worthless that receiving the touch of someone of high royalty that scary?"

She said, her crimson lips stretching into a smile as other women in the room laugh at you. She's the type of woman to belittle others to anger others and gain the upper hand by manipulating their emotions.

You wonder if the crimson attire is actually a hint to her schemes in the past.

"I merely acted on instinct, I don't like being touched by people I'm not fond of. I don't wish not to be insulted for my appearance. Especially for something as small as lipstick.", you reply, looking directly at her and not raising your voice.

Don't raise your voice unless you want to look like a fool.

The room becomes silent. Miss Crimson Lips stares at you in rage as if prepared to throw a tantrum like a child.

"You dare insult me, I, Morrigan, Eldest Daughter of Palace of Ernaline, the House famous for putting all our enemies underground?", she yelled at you, her veins nearly bursting from her head.

You steady your breath and remain calm, not wanting to give her the chance to have any control over you. "I did not insult you, I simply recalled the event that had been held in this same room as you, chose to pick a fight with me. It's only right if I answer appropriately."

"You little-"

"Enough, both of you."

To everyone's confusion, one woman speaks up which causes everyone to stare at her. She wore a black dress with small gloves covering her hands. Her hair high up in a bun with her bangs falling over her face.

"We all heard the advisor, we are here to wait for any further instructions given by the Royal Family. If we cause any kind disruption for a people outside of these doors, we'll all be punished. Instead, let's introduce ourselves first before killing one another.", her voice makes some women cower in fear.

A woman of high authority. A woman of great status.

"I'll go first. I am Berdine Emery, Eldest Child of Palace of Emery, known for its ability to form resourceful connections. And you, I would like to know your name.", she walks to you and takes your hands into hers. Her eyes show no emotion, but her smile looks genuine.

"(Name), Eldest Child of the Minister of Finance, Palace of Ludwig. It's a great pleasure to meet you Berdine.", you greet her, feeling her gloved hands around yours, gently rubbing your hands.

"Daughter of a minister, shouldn't you be a daughter of a Palace, not just a minister?", Morrigan asked, her voice venomous and eyeing you up and down. A few women nodded their heads, agreeing with her.

"Unfortunately, the Palace of Ludwig only has sons, and some of the ministers' daughters are quite young, while others don't even have a daughter. I'm the eldest of these girls and as the only one who is at the age to get married, I was chosen."

You were chosen. You had no say in the situation. You were simply picked up to represent the Palace of Ludwig, because no one could do it. No one can do it. You wish to be the first and the last person to ever experience such sacrifice.

You wish to not experience anything like this again.

But you don't wish for the pity of others.

Morrigan and other women continue to eye you, but don't say anything. You hear someone whisper 'peasant', but ignored it. Entertaining them won't do much for you. The doors are then opened by the guards to reveal a servant. Not Ness. Odd.

"Your graces, please follow me to the Queen's courtroom.", she says.

As instructed, all of you follow the her as she walks out of the room, matching her pace as she walks. Some women form a group of themselves, talking about what the queen could be like.

"I hope she is nice to us unlike her son."

"I highly doubt it, if the prince is going to insult us because of our appearances, won't she be worse?"

"Maybe he is just testing us, and telling our reactions to his words to her."

"I pray that I didn't make an ugly face."

Their theories gave you ideas of what the queen may be like. With Michael brief telling about how his mother killed the concubines, and had a smile on her face gave you a proper idea what she is like.

A sadist.

If she was able to end the lives of those women, and have a smile on her face, she could possibly want each of you women dead. She'll could make you dance on the hot coals barefooted, laughing at each one of your terrified faces.

But such thought could be false, she only killed the concubines because it was what the king wanted. So she might be laid back when it comes to her son, only interfering when necessary.

You are interrupted by a tap on your shoulder, you turn around to see who it was. You see a woman who is shorter than you, her hair blonde and curled, pale blue eyes shining at you. Her key feature was that she smelled like lavender.

"Really liked how you defended yourself back there. Morrigan has been belittling everyone since she came here. My name is Maria, Palace of Contessa.", she whispered.

Her eyes were genuine, you couldn't help but smile at her. "Pleasure to meet you Maria.", you whispered back.

"It's a real honour to meet you, especially how you were able to keep calm against Morrigan and the prince's antics."

"I really don't deserve such praise."

"You do!"

The two of you whisper to each other about the other women and the two become friends. The two of you become quiet when you all reach the doors to the queen's courtroom. The doors are opened and you enter.

The room is larger than the previous room. The walls look as if it is painted with gold. And the woman herself seated on her personal chair, the queen.

Her gaze is sharp, and her smile wicked. You hear Maria breathe heavily behind you. You squeeze her hand tightly before letting go. She straightens herself and smiles. You hope she'll be okay.

She gets up and walks down the steps. She stops mid-way. "Form one row standing beside each other, facing me now." You all do as instructed.

She continues continues walking on the steps and stops when she meets the floor. "I've heard from my son about you all, and I've chosen to dismiss his claims as I wanted to meet you all in person."

Thank the heavens.

"Nevermind that, I shall start competition for the hand of marriage of my son, the competition is not based on education or skills, but-"

"Whoever can make the prince fall in love with them. To the very point of having his child."

What.

"One of you could be his wife, the others a concubine. Don't disappoint, or shame the Royal Palace of Kaiser."

How the world around you seems to have changed.

@lightoftheamethyst and @kimura-uzuri

I hope I made all my readers proud.

#blue lock #bllk #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #michael kaiser #michael kaiser x reader #Blue Roses with Gold Lining #vandal-flower

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resignedbiology · 6 months

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freedom — freedom?

a kainess 'breakup' oneshot, aka alexis ness finally decides kaiser can kick rocks rated G: no warnings, just kaiser slander !!

Alexis Ness wasn't so much a man — he occupied the same niche as shadows, reflections, glancing sights from your peripheral. He'd made his home in the silhouette of Michael Kaiser; or perhaps, it had been crafted for him, a cramped little box that never grew any bigger. It was the same size as it was when they were children, meant to keep him perfectly bent and contorted into what Michael wanted. Some birds love their cages, don't they? ... some of them, certainly.

Fortunately, Kaiser had forgotten one key aspect to caging his little sparrow — he'd never clipped his wings. The air was cold. The updrift was strong. He could do it — he could fly away.

Ness turned his head to look at Kaiser, the lamplight's warm golden glow highlighting the stray blue streak of hair that had been pulled out of his hood by the icy wind. His heartbeat sped at the sight of him, just a little, as it always did. He hated it, how conditioned his body was to favour Kaiser like the monarch he so desperately wanted to be. Maybe it would always be like that. A whistle pulled the players' attention to the train lazily making its way to a stop before them, countless people disembarking with bags, coats, souveniers, umbrellas, canes; for what it was worth, Ness' eye for detail made people watching into an artistic experience.

All of these people, living such different lives, each with a story hundreds of pages long to tell. Someday, I'll have my own story too. He stood on the platform while the attendants picked up Kaiser's bags and loaded them into the sleeper car. Rocking back and forth on his heels was just one way of keeping himself calm; he'd need any help he could get.

"What are you smiling at?" Kaiser's affect was flat; not quite yet annoyed, but getting close. For once, Ness' smile didn't immediately fall back into a blank slate.

"... freedom."

"Wha — Ness, I know you're tired but you shouldn't be delusional —"

"I'm not going with you."

"What?" the blond's teeth clenched, lacing the word with an authoritarian disgust.

"I'm staying in Belgium. I refunded my ticket, and they're sold out, so I'm not going with you."

"... if you're trying to make a joke, you've never been funny, Ness."

"It's not a joke, I'm staying here. Don't make this harder than it has to be, Michael —" his sentence was harshly clipped off by the blond's fingers knotting into the collar of Ness' jacket.

"Ness, if you try me one more time —"

The conductor blew a whistle, sending a tired glare Kaiser's way. It was apparent some people didn't know or care about his highness and his temper tantrums. In that moment, he still had an audience, but they weren't there to applaud his outburst; all they saw was an angry man, one to be treated with disdain and vague worry. Something about the way Kaiser let go of his collar, with just enough of a shove to push Ness back a bit, it was — cathartic. You won't be able to push me away if I never come back.

"If you're not in Berlin by this Sunday, I will make sure you never play in Europe again."

"Goodnight, Michael."

The last caustic stare Kaiser gave him was feeble, pitiful.

As the train left Ness on the platform alone, he shuddered out a cloudy breath. Cold air cycled through his lungs, deep inhales and exhales working over time to keep his mind from spinning. Only the soft sound of someone calling for his attention made him turn his head. A woman with mousy features was giving him a shyly concerned look. Ness managed to smile free of any manipulated joy, a massive feat he'd later reflect on.

"I'm okay, ma'am, he's — he's always been like that."

"... you know, dear, men like that never change. They'll eat up space in your life until you've got nothing left. You look like a sweet boy, you don't need people like him."

For a moment, Ness' lips opened, but no sound escaped. He knew exactly what he'd intended to say — some sort of groveling attempt at covering up for Kaiser's manipulation, his arrogance, his violence — but he refrained. He didn't have the words to voice how much her words meant, how sagely that advice was to him, specifically him, in that moment. Ness put a hand to his heart, realising his pulse had calmed, no longer responsible for beating to the whims of another man.

"You're right — I don't need him."

While he waved goodbye, the woman gave him a little smile and a polite nod before going on her way. Ness' hand slipped into his breast pocket, taking the plane ticket out to hold inbetween his thumb and index finger as if to examine its authenticity. It was real; Alexis Ness could finally fly away.

#kainess #alexis ness #michael kaiser #blue lock #bllk #drabble #oneshot #ness #kaiser #fic library

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doctorstethoscope · 1 year

Text

Sink or Swim || June

y'all have been waiting for this one! I hope you like it.

side note: going forward, I will only be adding people to my taglist if they have already interacted with my content. i'm noticing that there are people requesting to be added who have never interacted with my work, and in fairness to the people on the taglist who do interact regularly, I will be asking for that from now on. Thanks for understanding babes <3

masterlist

wordcount: 1.8k

contains: discussion of food, a little bit of angst

It had been the longest month of your life. Your dynamic with Aaron had changed irrevocably. You were no longer partners, as you had been, whether you acknowledged it or not, but you weren’t not friends, either, even if the relationship sometimes felt awkward and cold as you attempted to renegotiate what you meant to each other. You were more than coworkers, you had a long, storied history— and no relationship outside of work to show for it at the moment. You felt out of place around him, not just emotionally, but physically clumsy– more than once, in the past few weeks, He’d grabbed you by the arm to save you from a fall or managed to catch the box of evidence or file you’d dropped before it could hit the ground. Even though you’d changed, he could still read you better than anybody else. You wanted to hate him for it, but you couldn’t.

You all are loading back onto the jet when he makes an announcement. “Jack has insisted that Alexis wants a half-birthday party,” he smirks. “So I’m hosting this Saturday. Please don’t bring anything— she’s got enough toys to keep her entertained until college,” he jokes. “But we’ll have cake and ice cream, and I know not everyone has had the chance to meet her yet. The kids and I would love to see you there,” he says before settling back into his seat.

He’s at the table with Rossi, and usually you’d be on his left. But for the past two cases, you’ve sat at the back couches with JJ and Emily. They’ve certainly noticed your changed preference although they’ve been kind enough not to say anything about it.

“That’s nice,” JJ remarks. “How long have you guys been planning that?”

“Oh, that’s all Hotch,” you tell her blasely, putting your nose back in your paperwork.

“Jack didn’t say anything to you?” Emily asked. “You’re like, his second-favorite person, after the baby.”

“I haven’t been going by as much lately,” you shrug, trying to make it sound like nothing, like you weren’t crying yourself to sleep at night over it. “Hotch’s got a handle on it, now, so he needs me less.”

Emily looks like she wants to ask more, but JJ cuts her off before she can– you’re grateful, even though you know it’s because she can read the pain in your eyes like a book.

“That must be nice,” JJ remarks kindly. “To have a bit of your free time, your independence, back.”

“Yeah,” you smile disingenuously. Independence has never felt so much like a punishment, you think.

*****

When Saturday rolls around, you make your way over to Hotch’s. You decide that your absence would be more conspicuous than your presence, and besides– you agreed to take some space from each other, not to disappear from the kids' lives entirely. You missed them, and you secretly hoped that they missed you, too.

You knock on the door, silently praying that you aren’t the first to arrive.

“Hey,” Hotch says with a smile when he opens the door with Lexie in tow. The house is quiet– too quiet. Damn your punctual nature.

Lexie is reaching out for you and kicking her legs as soon as her father opens the door. “Hi Ms. Half-Birthday girl!” You coo, reaching for her, and Aaron passes her off to you, taking the tupperware container from your hands.

“I made a fruit salad,” you explain as you bounce Lexie on your hip, “and some fruit purees for Lexie, because she’s too young—”

“For cake, I know,” he assures you. “We miss you, but we’re not that lost without you,” he teases.

Jack comes barrelling in, then, crashing into your calves with a thud.

“Careful, buddy,” Aaron warns.

“I missed you!! Where have you been?” Jack asked, now sitting on your feet with his legs wrapped around your ankles.

“I missed you too, buddy. How has soccer been?” You ask, pointedly ignoring the question.

“It’s been sooo good.” He tells you. I’m working on hitting the ball with my head! Do you want to see?” He asks.

“Why don’t you go outside and practice a little while the adults talk, Jack?” Hotch suggests, and your anxiety spikes.

Jack grumbles, but goes, and the two of you are alone. “Hotch,” you say, trying to pre-empt whatever discussion he wants to initiate, but he forges on.

“They miss you. We all do,” he says, stepping closer to you. You shift Lexie in front of you, using her as a human shield. You chuckle, because it’s ridiculous, and Aaron smiles. “Missed the sound of your laugh,” he mumbles.

“Aaron, please don’t,” you tell him. “It hurts too much.”

“Shh,” he whispers. Your faces are so close they’re practically touching, but you won’t look at him. You can’t look at him, because then any crumb of distance you’ve created in the past month from the love you feel for him will be swept away, and you won’t be able to handle it. You’ll have to transfer and move and start a new life. You don’t think you can take it. “I don’t want to hurt you,” Aaron continues. “You have to listen.”

There’s a knock at the door, and you gasp, taking a quick step back as not to be caught. You finally look Aaron in the eye– he’s torn, confused, upset.

“Don’t leave, okay? Don’t leave until we can talk. Promise me,” he begs.

You’re helpless to resist him. “Okay. I promise.”

The team only stays for a couple of hours, enough time for everyone to snuggle the baby and kick the ball around with Jack and eat a cupcake or two, but with this conversation with Aaron hanging over your head, it feels torturously long. When everyone files out, you seek solace in the kitchen, packaging up leftovers and wiping down counters in the hopes that your sense of duty to cleanliness will absolve you of the promise you made to Hotch. It doesn’t.

“Hey,” he says, meeting you at the counter. “Can we talk?”

“We can talk,” you tell him. He takes a step closer, attempts to round the corner to be next to you, but you put a hand out to stop him. “No.” You command. “I can’t think when you stand that close to me. Sit on the other side of the counter and we can talk.

He obeys, never wanting you to be uncomfortable. Settling into one of the barstools, he takes a deep breath before he starts. “Space isn’t working– not for me, not for the kids. We miss you, terribly. You are a part of this family, to us. Is this really working for you? Is this really what you want?”

“No,” you answer honestly. “Of course it’s not working. But I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do, Aaron!”

“Come home,” he pleads. “That’s all you have to do. You are a part of this family. Come home.”

“I don’t think I can,” you admit in a whisper.

“Don’t say that. Of course you can.”

“I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I can be in your life as not- your-wife, not-their-mom. I deserve to have those experiences, Aaron, and to have them fully. I deserve to be all in with someone, and I can’t when I’m still playing house with you,” you say, and you know that it’s not right, that you walked into this situation freely, that he never coerced or manipulated you into anything, but you’re angry with him for it. You’re angry with him for allowing you to fall for him.

“That’s not what we were. You weren’t ever playing house. The way I feel about you is not a game,” he tells you.

“What do you mean?” You ask.

“I know– I know that Lexie doesn’t know what the word means. But when she babbled mama, it rang out clear as day, and she was right. Hearing you explain to Jack that you weren’t his mom, it felt wrong. Because of course you are— if you want to be,” he tells you.

“When you explained to Jack that you weren’t his mom, or his step mom or his extra mom or whatever other term his friends parents are using, I couldn’t help you explain it to him because all I could think about was how I could fix it. I knew then, that I loved you– and I know you love my children– our children, maybe. I came over that night to tell you that I love you, to ask if we could stop living in this weird purgatory of feeling so strongly without a word to describe it. You asked for space, and I gave it to you. I’d give you the moon, if you asked for it. All I’m asking now is that you listen to me and think about if you could ever love me too,” he tells you, each word tumbling from his lips as if he had held it back as long as he could until the dam burst.

“Oh, Aaron…. Aaron,” you say, coming around the counter and putting your hands on either side of his face. “I’m sorry. Why did you let me say all of those stupid things at my apartment?” You laughed.

“I thought that was what you wanted,” he reminds you, placing one of his hands over yours, wrapping his thumb over the side of your palm. “If you didn’t want me, how could I put all of that– my emotions, not to mention those of the kids– on you? It wouldn’t be fair.”

“It’s not what I wanted, not at all. I wanted you,” you explain to him desperately.

“Do you still? Want me,” he asks, and it’s almost sheepish.

He looks so scared, so sad, so unsure, that you can’t help but kiss him. You could answer him with words, but you needed him to know, to feel how deeply you did. Without breaking the kiss, he wraps his arms around your waist, guides you backwards so he can step out of the chair and wrap you up in him completely. When you pull apart for air, he’s dazed, but beaming– looking almost drunk in the revelation of your feelings.

“Stay tonight, please. We can figure out the rest in the morning. But stay tonight?” He asks.

You smile back at him, and can’t help but laugh a little. “After the last month, you’ll have a harder time getting me to leave.”

tagging: @spacecowboyhotch @honeybrowne @angelfxllcm @rousethemouse @infinite-tides @gspenc @anlin2058 @zetasaturno99 @darkenwolfie @realdirectionx @witheldclouds @sbeno22 @el-vs94 @hausofwhores

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner x reader fic #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x you #aaron hotchner x y/n #hotch #hotch fic #hotch x reader fic #hotch x reader #hotch x you #hotch x y/n #criminal minds #criminal minds fic

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tropes-and-tales-archives · 9 days

Text

More Precious Than Rubies: Part 5a

This is an alternate timeline story that has a Rafael Barba track and a Sonny Carisi track. The two paths split off in part 3.

WC: 5223

TW: Idiots in love; smut (drinking but not impaired; PiV, unprotected). 18+ only.

AN: The prompt was "How about you make me?"

If Barba had been irritated by how much space you were taking up in his head before, he was doubly maddened now. You weren’t just taking up space at this point – you were moved in and living rent free.

Your case load with SVU waxed and waned. Sometimes you had a whole slate of cases against him, and other times he went for stretches without facing off against you. Still, he saw you all the time at the courthouse, and you were usually arguing with some other ADA. Barba usually felt a sting of jealousy when he did. He wondered if you called Niles “Yale Law” or if you smirked at Cox.

He was still nettled by your comment about O’Dwyer being a better ADA than him, even if he was mostly certain that you were just teasing him.

At least you shook his hand after trials now. He had hated it when you’d pointedly ignore him, but it was his own fault for taking a shot at your age by calling you “Girl Wonder.” He knew how hard it could be to be a lawyer fresh off the bar exam, and he assumed it was twice as hard for a baby-faced young woman.

You didn’t seem to mind being called “Fordham Law,” and you always responded with a grin and rejoinder of calling him “Harvard Law.” And you never said it with a sneer – usually, Barba’s opponents used his Ivy League education against him, implying that he was some sort of out-of-touch elite.

----

The New York City Law Association was holding its annual charity event. Barba could think of a million things he’d rather do on a Saturday night other than socialize with other lawyers, but networking was part of his unofficial job duties, and McCoy made it clear that he expected all of his ADAs to attend. Barba put on his tuxedo and got a taxi to Brooklyn.

The only thing that the NYCLA had going for it was its commitment to out-of-the-way and unique venues. The District Attorney’s office stuck with the usual hotel ballrooms for their events, but the NYCLA always found some new place. This year was the New York Transit Museum.

He made his way to the bar and snagged a scotch, then made a quick sweep of the room. He saw some familiar faces but no one he wanted to talk to, so he wandered off to look at some of the exhibits.

There were people milling around and looking at the offerings – the old subway cars, the old maps and photos of the subway construction. Then Barba saw you. You were in a deep oxblood cocktail dress, so dark is was almost black, and your hair was down and loose. You had your back to him, but (he was ashamed to admit), he’d know your ass anywhere.

He strolled over and pretended to look at the same exhibit that you were engrossed by – old fare boxes through the years. You turned and looked at him, and smiled when you recognized him.

“Barba,” you said, and you looked him over. “You clean up nice. A far cry from your usual off-the-rack sackcloth.”

“Counselor,” he replied. “I’m surprised to see you here. Shouldn’t you be off visiting some serial masturbating client in prison?”

You pouted at this, and Barba tried to ignore how kissable you looked in your deep red lipstick. “My serial masturbating client isn’t in prison, Barba. Remember? I won him a ‘not guilty’ verdict, from you, if I recall correctly.”

“One of your rare victories.”

You took a sip of your drink; it looked like cola and something, in a rock glass with a twist of lime. “Ah, but those rare victories against you are so sweet. The sound of you grinding your teeth when I win…it sustains me through the lean times.”

Barba scoffed. “I don’t grind my teeth. Besides, get ready for another lean period. The Alexi case…I’ll have a guilty verdict within an hour of the jury retiring.”

You polished off your drink and turned to walk to the bar, and Barba followed. “We’ll see,” you said as you strolled beside him. “I think Judge Catalano will have some thoughts about the integrity of the lab once I talk with him.”

At the bar, you made eye contact with a bartender and tapped on your glass, and the woman nodded at you in understanding. You turned to face Barba, leaning back against the bar. “We all know that the medical examiner’s office is compromised after the Rudnick disaster.”

Barba groaned. “Oh, don’t start with that.” He reached across the bar to hand you your drink, and you both settled at a nearby table. “You know damned well that Rudnick was an anomaly…”

“How can I know that? How can anyone? Any single case he oversaw could be compromised…”

“…but you know that’s not the case….”

“All I know is that a crucial link in the chain of custody was being overseen by an actual serial killer, Barba, and…”

He sat his scotch down specifically so that he could throw up his hands. “You’re impossible! You’ll only be happy when the prisons are empty and every bad guy in the world is released with a hug and an apology!”

This made you burst into a gale of laughter, so loud and unexpected that you placed a hand over your mouth. He watched you laugh for a long moment, smiling a bit at the sight of it. Once you calmed down, your laughs trailed to the occasional hiccupped giggle, you took a deep swallow of your drink and grinned. “That’s what you think of me, Harvard Law?”

He polished off his own scotch and flagged down a wandering server to order another. “I think you’ve got a good head for law and a soft heart. I think the world hasn’t worn you down yet, but in public defense, it seems inevitable.”

Your wide grin faltered a bit, but before you could refute his claim, two women made their way over to your table, waving and calling you. You looked over at them and your smile returned.

“Who let you in?” you teased. “This exclusive organization has clearly lowered its standards.”

The taller woman scoffed and leaned in to hug you, but the shorter red-head looked hard at Barba before turning to hug you too.

“Barba, these are my friends from Fordham,” you introduced. “Chauncy and Sarah. Guys, this is ADA Rafael Barba.”

There was a flurry of handshakes, and Chauncy’s seemed especially firm. “You handled the Jackie Walker disaster,” she said. Barba winced to remember the flubbed case against the innocent man, and the red-head saw his discomfort. “Don’t sweat it,” she continued. “I’m representing his civil case against the NYPD. I’ll get him a nice payday to soothe the fact that his career and reputation was destroyed.”

The tall woman laid a gentle hand on Chauncy. “Play nice,” she warned.

You had just watched the interaction, then offered to go get drinks for everyone. Before anyone could object, you were off to the bar, and the remaining three exchanged wary looks.

You returned laden down with an armful of glasses and a wide grin that he recognized. “Open bar, guys,” you said. You plunked down another scotch for Barba and then everyone else’s drinks. “Drink up. I got shots.” He watched you place an electric pink shot glass in front of everyone, him included.

Sarah laughed at you. “What’s this shot called?” she asked.

You shook your head at her. “You know what it is.”

“Say it.” Sarah said. She and Chauncy started chanting “say it, say it” until you were ducking your head in embarrassment.

Chauncy looked at Barba and explained it to him: “She tried to order a certain drink when she turned twenty-one and we took her out to celebrate.”

“It’s the only alcoholic drink she knew,” Sarah added.

“But she was too embarrassed to say ‘sex,’ so she called it ‘Love on the Beach,’” Chauncy finished.

“And these jackals picked up on it immediately,” you said with a rueful shake of your head, but you refused to quite meet his gaze. “And they spent the next four years – and apparently this evening – making me order drinks and shots based on how filthy the name was.”

Barba picked up the shot glass with its nuclear pink liquid, playing along. He’d never seen you look so discomfited, and he loved it. “So what’s this one called?”

“It’s got peach schnapps, coconut rum, cherry vodka….”

“He didn’t ask what was in it, Sparky,” Sarah teased, and Barba gave a bark of laughter at your apparent nickname.

“Sparky?” he asked incredulous.

You heaved a heavy, beleaguered sigh. “They called me ‘Sparky’ because a professor called me a sparkplug once when I got worked up and argued a case in class.” You picked up the shot and regarded it for a moment, then mumbled in a rush, “and this is called a Killer Pussy.” You stuttered on the last word, scrunched your face in embarrassment, then threw back the shot. Then turned on your heel and marched off for more booze, the laughter from your table at your back.

-----

This is how the evening progressed: you got everyone drinks, socializing as you came and went to the bar with people you passed. Your friends ordered different shots and tried to make you say what they were. Sometimes you muttered it in passing, other times you dug your heels in and refused to say it, making your friends howl with laughter. It wasn’t mean spirited though – you laughed and relaxed with each drink you threw back. You only did about half of the shots, preferring your mixed cola and whatever.

Every time you wandered off, Barba asked general questions about you to your friends, and they (lawyers in their own right) saw right through him.

“Why do you care?” asked Sarah. “You like her?”

“I just face off against her a lot in court,” he offered. “Might help to know her weak spots.”

Chauncy scoffed at this, like she didn’t believe him. “Sure. We wouldn’t help you beat her in court.” A sly look crossed her face as she looked Barba over like a butcher appraising a cow. “Maybe if you had more…personal reasons though…”

He felt his face grow warm, but you came back just then with another round (you wouldn’t name the shot, so Sarah said it and Barba heard you audibly wince when she did). Then dinner was served.

A relative silence descended over the table as everyone ate, and Chauncy took the opportunity to ask you, rather pointedly, if you were seeing anyone.

“No,” you replied with a shake of your head. You sawed off another piece of steak, happy to leave it at that.

But your friend persisted. “Maybe you could find someone here,” she tried, and Barba shot her a glare across the table that she only batted her eyes at.

“Doubtful,” you said around a bite of steak. You glanced around the room. “Though I see the Bronx ADA that I went on a date with once. Not my type.”

Barba glanced over to where you were looking – he knew the Bronx ADA you were looking at. ADA Williams and Barba had started in New York together. He cleared his throat when you casually brushed off his colleague. Likely you had an upper age limit on potential suitors. “Why isn’t he your type?” he asked.

You shrugged and moved onto your mashed potatoes. “He’s a jerk, and I found out after the fact that he’s still married. He obviously struggles with the fidelity thing. It’s a deal-breaker.” Then you wiped your mouth with your napkin and excused yourself to use the restroom.

Your friends clucked in sympathy and filled him in. “Her first boyfriend, Jason, cheated on her for a year before she found out. And her last boyfriend, Dom…well, the working theory is that he cheated too,” said Sarah.

“He’s a cop. He had a cute little blonde partner that apparently came between them,” Chauncy added. “Missed their anniversary dinner.”

Sarah sighed. “I remember that. She called me, crying.” She glanced over at Barba and pointed at him. “This is top secret. You’re in the inner circle now, so don’t repeat it.”

Chauncy pointed too. “Inner circle. You drink the Killer Pussy, you’re in the club. The only way out of the club is death.”

He held up his hands in surrender. You eventually returned to your seat, and Barba looked you over. If your eyes looked a little watery and red-rimmed, he couldn’t tell if it was from the alcohol or if you’d been crying.

You were a fierce competitor in the courtroom and an irritating presence besides, but he felt a sympathetic comradery with you. He’d been cheated on when he was around your age, and he had thrown himself into his work. Like you seemed to be doing. He pretended to be uninterested in romance, as you seemed to be now. And he knew where that sort of life would lead: you nearing forty, alone and bitter and convinced that you’d never find anyone. Caught in a terrible limbo of being lonely and wanting love, but too terrified of being hurt again.

Suddenly your reaction at the 16th precinct made more sense. He also knew that if he ever got the chance, he’d kick Carisi’s skinny ass down the courthouse steps.

-----

After dinner, there were the usual speeches about it being another great year. There was a slideshow of all the conferences and opportunities they’d created, how membership grew, how so many law articles had been published and legislation drafted. Then the lights were turned down a fraction and the music was turned up. Sarah and Chauncy drifted off to dance and mingle with other people, but Barba was perfectly content to pick up the dropped thread of your earlier conversation. You both stood and went to the bar, got fresh drinks, then lingered by the edge of the dance floor.

Arguing with him seemed to revive you – you’d been unusually quiet ever since dinner, but as soon as Barba brought up the Alexi case again, you got that glint in your eye again.

“Forget the tainted lab results then,” you said. “I have serious doubts that the rest of the evidence was even legally attained.”

Barba rolled his eye elaborately, which made you roll your eyes at him. You continued, “there’s a lot of established case law regarding non-English speaking suspects being Mirandized in English only….”

“Your client speaks English, Sparky.”

You narrowed your eyes at him until they were slits, and your scrunched your face up again. It was probably supposed to look mean, but you looked charming. Barba wanted to kiss your frowning mouth until your lipstick was smeared and you were smiling at him.

“Don’t scowl at me,” he continued. “It’s a great nickname. It suits you.” Your eyes narrowed even further, so he plucked your empty glass from you hand and pulled you onto the dance floor before you could protest.

Your dress was off-the-shoulder, and it revealed an expanse of your soft-looking skin – far more than you ever revealed with your courtroom suits. But Barba was a gentleman, so he laid a hand lightly on your waist and led you in a simple box step around the floor.

“Kadyrbayev versus the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” you continued. “Knowing some English isn’t the same as having a competency of English.”

He snorted. “Everyone knows the Miranda rights,” he started, but you cut him off before he could continue his train of thought.

“Solid argument,” you agreed sarcastically. “You write about how ‘everyone knows stuff’ for your law review article?”

Barba gritted his teeth, caught himself when you smirked at him knowingly, and felt his irritation rise. You were closer to him than you’d ever been; you were close enough that he could smell your bright perfume and feel the stormy electric front he always felt when you were near him and fighting. But the irritation was stronger than any desire he might feel for you.

“You’re so annoying,” he bit back lamely.

“Solid,” you repeated. You tilted your head at him and smiled. “You’re just mad that I win against you.”

“Rarely. You rarely win against me.”

“But it stings, doesn’t it? You’re used to public defenders who barely try, and here comes this girl wonder…”

“Girl pain in the ass,” he grumbled, and you gave another loud laugh at this that startled him into a smile.

“If you would just be willing to compromise on plea deals, it’d go easier for you.”

“It’s not my job to get plea deals,” he retorted. “It’s my deal to deliver justice.”

You looked at him, staring straight into his eyes and giving him a jolt at how close your face was to his. “Define justice, Barba.”

He twisted his mouth into a smirk and stared back at you. “You need me to give you an introduction to justice? Plato and Nicomachean ethics? You skip that at Fordham so that you could go comfort people in jail and tell them it wasn’t their fault because a study once said that people who didn’t get hugged three times a day are more likely to…”

“God, you’re the worst.” You dropped your hand from his shoulder and pulled your other hand from his grasp, and you marched off the dance floor. You were slightly unsteady in your high heels, and Barba was at your elbow, following you. You turned and glanced back at him. “I meant utilitarianism versus retributivism, and you bring up hugs again. What’s your deal with hugs, Barba? You sound like every crusty old white guy ranting about how kids today are too soft….”

“That’s completely unfair,” he barked back, stung at the insinuation. He wasn’t a monster; he was completely sympathetic to the challenges that poor people faced in the justice system. You likely didn’t know that he grew up poor in the Bronx, and he was insulted that you thought he didn’t care about the people from his neighborhood…and all the other disenfranchised in the city and beyond.

“I’d slap you,” you replied, and you stopped and turned to look at him. “But you’d try to twist the simple assault charge into attempted murder, probably.” You paused, then added, “for justice’s sake.”

“It’d get you off the street at least,” he snapped. “You could stop menacing the city with your fucking irritating mouth.”

Your eyes widened at his sudden use of profanity. “Are we actually fighting now, Barba? Is this us having a fight?” You pointed between the two of you in disbelief.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose before he looked at you again. “You just never stop. You always have some convoluted study or obscure case from some 1930’s backwater jurisdiction…”

“Like you ever stop!” You threw your hands up in exasperation. “You find the most tenuous ways to link a date-rape case back to Constitutional law, practically.” You went on, made some claim that Barba would eventually cite the Articles of Confederation in a cyber-stalking case, but he was barely paying attention. He couldn’t tell if you were really mad or not. He’d never spent so much time with you arguing, so he wasn’t sure if this was its logical outcome. You were ranting but punctuating your words with light laughs. You were gesturing wildly but gifting him with half-smiles.

He wanted to kiss you desperately, but he wasn’t sure if it was because you looked like the sexiest woman he’d ever seen or if because he just wanted you to shut up for a minute.

You were winding down now, and like in court, you linked your conclusion back to your opening statement. “You never stop either, Barba,” you finished, and you squared off in front of him like you were expecting to actually fight him at this point.

He waited a moment, then simply said, “The Articles of Confederation didn’t outline the court system, so your analogy is very weak.”

You replied by growling at him, “just stop!” and he swore he saw actual murder in your glaring eyes. He never got to see you thrown off your game like you seemed to be now.

“How about your make me?” he teased.

You reached up, and for a split second he thought you actually were going to slap him. Instead, you clasped a palm over his mouth, silencing him. But he ducked his head out of your grasp with a chuckle, and the next thing he knew, your mouth was on his, cutting off his laugh as you pressed the length of your body against him. All he could do was groan against you and snake his arms around you. And then kiss you back.

The rest of the reception fell away, like the world always did when Barba was with you. He felt you wrap your own hands around the back of his neck, tugging him closer to you. You parted your lips and ran the tip of your tongue against the seam of his mouth, and he opened himself to you.

You slid your tongue into his mouth, and he groaned again to taste you. He could feel his blood – already heated from dancing with you and teasing you – start to pool in his groin, and he pushed you away gently, breaking the kiss and looking at you.

Your pupils were huge, and your lipstick was blurred around the edges in that just-kissed look that drove him crazy. Otherwise, you seemed sober – or sober enough to consent, or at least he convinced himself that you were. To your credit, you weren’t slurring your words or stumbling or acting drunk. Aside from kissing him out of nowhere. That was unexpected, and possibly the result of impaired judgement.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly, and you drew your brows in confusion before you nodded.

“I’m fine.”

“Do you…do you want to get out of here?” He could barely look at you; he wanted you so badly but wasn’t sure you were sober enough, but you seemed in your right mind. But you had to be intoxicated to kiss him…maybe?

You cut off his circuitous thinking by reaching down and grabbing his wrist, and you tugged him towards the nearest exit, and Barba was too far gone himself, drunk on the sexual tension and/or murderous rage (Liv could never, ever find out), to do much higher thinking after that.

-----

You were silent as you led him to the street, then you muttered that you lived a few blocks away. Barba just nodded, but he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you closer to him as the two of you walked to your place. When you had to stop and wait for a light at a crosswalk, he pulled you back to him. He kept waiting for you to push him away, to stop the whole chain-reaction that you’d started when you kissed him at the reception, but you didn’t. You leaned into him and kissed him back just as fervently.

Your apartment looked like a Victorian rowhouse, chopped into units, and as you led him up two floors, you informed him that Sarah and Chauncy lived on the second floor. At the third landing, you pulled a bundle of keys from your clutch. Your hands shook a bit as you tried to unlock the door, and Barba took the opportunity to sweep your hair away from the back of your neck and kiss you there, drawing the tip of his tongue along your heated skin and making your breath hitch.

Once inside, he practically kicked the door shut. You knelt down to undo the narrow ankle straps of your shoes, and once out of them, you were much steadier on your feet. When you turned to face him, he felt suddenly nervous.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

You nodded and reached for him, but he held you at arms’ length. “Did you have too much to drink?” he asked.

You pulled a face at this, then took a step backwards to balance on one foot in a semblance of a field sobriety test. “I do solemnly swear that I am well within the legal limit of alcohol intake, and am furthermore consenting to the activities about to occur in this apartment.”

He smiled weakly. “It’s just that you’re not my biggest fan usually….”. You took a swift few steps over to him and placed your hand over his mouth again.

“You’re a pain,” you said softly. “You constantly fight me at work, you smirk at me, you called me Girl Wonder. But I very much want you right now, if you want me.”

He did. Very much.

He kissed the palm that covered his mouth, and when you pulled it away, he dipped his head and kissed your crimson lips, parted them to plunge his tongue and slide it against your own. And from there, you both got increasingly desperate, pawing at each other and tugging at clothes and gasping each other’s names until it felt like you were both drowning and you were each the only chance of salvation for the other.

Barba shucked his own tuxedo as fast as he could as you shimmied out of your dress, revealing a sweetly sexy strapless black bra and panties. He pulled you back to him, savoring the feel of your nearly naked frame pressed against him, and you buried your face in the sensitive juncture of his neck and kissed him while he fumbled with the clasp of your bra. Once undone, he tossed it aside and then cupped your breasts in his big hands, and you arched yourself into him with a moan.

You pulled away from him with a sultry smile, then took his hand and led him into your bedroom. He lifted you up with a grunt – you were deceptively heavy – and tossed you onto the bed, and you laughed until he joined you and latched onto first your left nipple and then your right, suckling them and then nipping at them with his teeth, and then swirling his tongue around them to soothe the sting of his light bites. You tangled your hands in his hair, sometimes tugging him upward, sometimes pushing him into the valley of your breasts, and he grinned against your warm skin that smelled faintly of vanilla. He worked your panties off of you as far as he could reach, and then he felt you kick them off into some shadowy corner of the room.

He wanted to take his time with you, but it was all too much, and he let you tug his head back up to yours. You kissed again, nipping at his lower lip and sucking on it. He slid his tongue into your mouth and felt your sharp intake of breath and then your groaning sigh as he reached down to the junction between your legs and slid one of his fingers into you. He muttered a curse at how wet you were, how unbearably hot, and he wondered if it was all because of him.

You wriggled under him until he was completely on top of you. And when you opened your legs to him, he removed his hand and replaced it with his cock – so hard that he could practically feel his heartbeat in it. But despite the spinning room and the heady unreality of having you naked underneath him, he managed to pause and ask you if this is what you really wanted.

“Oh, yes,” you whispered, and your eyes had that same gleam in them as they did when you argued with him at work, so he gazed into them as he slid into your depths in one even motion. Your eyelids fluttered and you moaned something unintelligible, so he paused again when was buried to the hilt and asked if you were okay.

To answer him, you wrapped first one leg and then the other around the small of his back, granting him an extra inch to sink into you as you pulled him closer. He dropped his head beside yours with a growl, and he let your small heels dig into his ass and guide his thrusts until he found his own rhythm. It wasn’t long before you were gasping his name, and then arching hard underneath him, so hard that you nearly bucked him off of you, and then squeezing his cock as you came against him. And then he followed, unable to hold back, spilling himself deep inside of you.

And from there, the alcohol and sex and maybe the exhaustion from your evening of bickering put you both to sleep before any awkwardness could descend. You were both sprawled out at first but then drifted in sleep towards each other until you were curled against him, and his arm held you there.

Hours later, before sunrise, you both stirred and came awake in degrees. Barba’s erection pressed against your hip, and he tried to pull away from you, embarrassed. But you pressed a finger against his mouth to silence him before he could talk. When he kissed it, you tilted your head at him and leaned down to press your own lips to his, and without a word exchanged, you straddled him, running your slick parts against him.

“Is this really what you want?” you whispered, echoing his own question to you earlier. He could only reply as you had.

“Oh, yes.”

You lowered yourself onto him, but it was less frenzied this time. In the dim light, he could make out your outline as you rode him gently, sliding yourself off of him nearly all the way before impaling yourself. Over and over and over, until he had to reach out and grab your hips to guide you in a faster pace, bouncing you onto him until you came. You gasped his name again, and he felt his own orgasm coil up and then snap, and he came too.

And then another few hours of sleep. When Barba woke up, fully sober and a little hungover, and the soft grey-pink light of dawn creeping through the blinds, he felt a sudden horror at what he’d done. You were dead asleep: your lips were parted as you snored lightly, and your hand was laid across his arm. He moved it carefully to not wake you.

He should have never come to Brooklyn, he should have never drank at all, and he certainly should have never come back to your place. And to have sex with you twice, when he wasn’t sure if you could really consent? A terrible dread filled him, and he did the only thing he could do: he slid out of bed, got dressed as quickly as he could, and fled.

He was halfway back across the Brooklyn Bridge when he second-guessed himself, but by now you’d be awake and realizing that he’d left you. And fleeing was useless anyway: your respective work heavily overlapped, and he’d have to face you sooner or later.

#rafael barba #rafael barba x you #rafael barba imagine #rafael barba x reader #law and order svu #law and order svu fanfiction #tro

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t1meslayer · 19 days

Text

Busy with important family events over the next couple of days, and so I thought it would be good to get a day-and-date release for this Debrief on the latest entry in my Sapphic Valley series, "How You Get The Girl." Be sure to read the story before jumping in!

Did you do it? Did you read the story?

Alright, I'm trusting you. Go ahead and hit that 'Keep Reading' button you scamp.

It only seems appropriate to start this Debrief off by addressing the elephant in the room. I haven't posted anything in over a month, and "By Moonlight" came about a month after its predecessor, the conclusion to "Stone-Cold Lovers."

Work, naturally, has been a major factor.

You can see me talk about that almost two weeks ago in this Tumblr post I made about writing in a coffee shop, which came weeks after I actually started writing during a trip to a friend's house.

===

Side note:

Just wanted to take a moment and acknowledge my beautiful Haley and Emily keychains. My friend who's responsible for the affairs of one ghostly farmer named Jizzabelle (Gisabelle to the laymen) got them for me! Only appropriate after I commissioned some art of her and Abigail.

Emily was my first Stardew wife, and Haley currently holds the biggest place in my heart. They make a lovely duo!

And I'll avoid any sister-wife jokes

===

While I've had some other projects like Zine writing to take care of, work and life can't explain the full absence.

The best way I can think to explain things is that:

I had the general writer's block, and

Despite the best intentions and advice of my irl friends and online pals like @alchemicallymoon and @duelbraids, I couldn't force myself to "break" that block by just... Writing something else.

This is entirely the result of my own psychosis. I have a tendency to carefully plot things out and impose a timetable that really doesn't need to exist. When I feel the cause is righteous enough, it's hard to get around that. In this case, I knew I needed to get my poll-winning idea out after dawdling for holidays like Valentine's Day, and then I knew I only wanted to post one more story before jumping on a very special event for my upcoming 30th AO3 post.

Thus, here we are: arbitrarily forcing myself into a spiral of writer's block misery because of a silly promise on Tumblr and my own sense of ordered chaos.

At the very least, this meant it's coming out not long after my AO3 pal InsertACatchyPennameHere also emerged from the woodwork to tell me they're working on something INSPIRED by my four-person friend group farm adaptations.

Much love to them, wherever they may be.

I'll probably start writing more eclectically now that my shoulders are unweighed, but don't expect my next publication to hit until I'm finished working on teasing the big event. All you Pokemon fans better get hype!

And oh how sweet this publication feels. Between my great set of recent ceramics, the figure drawing class I've been attending, and creative writing, I've felt more fulfilled than ever.

You're here to talk about Stardew, though. So let us talk.

This idea began less with any one event as it did a desire to advance the Alexis/Haley relationship, and Haley's characterization in particular. It was always going to end with watercolor painting reference, but 2 Willow Lane was what I really wanted to dig into.

As I see it, a lot of what keeps people invested in Stardew when its comfy vibes becoming routine is the air of mystery in Eric Barone's worldbuilding. Haley and Emily's parents being some world-traveling duo who left their home in the siblings' care for who knows how long (and who knows how many times over their lifetime) really piqued my interest. So much so that the new writing challenge I set for myself in "How You Get The Girl" was crafting a particularly long set of descriptions that emphasize how overwhelming the parents' influence feels — without creating an impenetrable wall of text.

Hopefully I succeeded in that. Let me know!

I tried to include some vaguely real world-adjacent references into that description of the house, as happens with the magical-realism world of Stardew Valley. For example:

The computer sitting next to their bonsai tree is an iMac G3, the kind of old 'futuristic' tech that my dad loves!

A Speedwell refrigerator is based on even more vintage tech, the Mayflower fridge, but named after a different ship ridden by Pilgrims coming to America.

That city that the family visited in an old photograph with a "monument of arching, interlocking steel" is, of course, Paris — with the statue bookends referencing any number of statues in the Louvre.

Haley's FAD magazine could be referencing any number of publications, but Vogue is probably the closest analogue to what I imagine her reading.

Furthermore, I took some notes on describing the home's layout off of my sister's apartment building, and I asked my bestie @trybard for input on what kind of hanging plant should be used in the transitional hallway. Hanging pothos, philodendron, and spider plants were the three options provided, and my response was appropriate:

They know so much about plants.

Go bug them about it.

I drew on other friends' knowledge to help decorate the house. Specifically, I asked one of my witchiest friends what kinds of protective wards someone like Emily would leave around doorways and windows. She had... A lot of reference material.

I picked Hazel given it purportedly "protects against evil; encourages abundance and inspiration." I also picked Amethyst as one of Emily's loved gifts, one that purportedly "absorbs negative energy, promotes harmony."

My witchy friend is the same one who provided the TikTok that I referenced in my advertisement post:

Perhaps the most important thing about 2 Willow Lane was the recurring motif of Barbie's Dream House.

As a surface-level reference, I think the groundwork is clear. Blondie's love of fashion and general queen bee demeanor fits comparisons to Barbie well, and she lives in a big ol' house full of stuff. We all saw Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie last year. It's still in the cultural zeitgeist.

I'm hip with the kids.

Yet, early on I also tried to make it clear that if this is a "dream" house, it's neither Haley's nor Emily's dream. Haley is a Barbie in that stereotypical sense, but also there's much to be mined from the analogy of a sort of powerless doll in an immutable house, constrained by social obligation to her family rather than literal plastic and stickers.

The cold open of Jodi and Sam was meant to stand alone, but in execution I also think drawing Kent's absence into the conversation makes for a more thematically rich comparison to these sisters who appear to have themselves more put together.

My beta reader said this wound up being one of my stronger stories because of how all of that intertwined, which I appreciated given how down on myself I was following the whole writer's block thing.

But also.

Also.

Alexis gets to be horny. She's hitting on lonely MILFs and watching girls shake their asses to the tune of bad reality TV.

We love a buff dommy mommy farm girl in this house.

Haley is probably horny too, she just doesn't realize it yet. For now I think it's fun enough to play into her being coy about building excuses for Alexis to come over, and then getting incensed when Emily barges in on their private time meant to learn more about this farm girl she just can't get out of her head.

===

Fun fact:

Every story in this series is named after a Taylor Swift song, but I know next-to nothing about her discography. All of them are suggestions by my friend whose house I was at when starting this story — the same one who controls Gardenia on the farm.

While I went with "How You Get The Girl," her alternative suggestion was "The Man."

===

All that w|w talk aside, I also want to give Sam the loveable idiot a shoutout. Had to do a fair bit of research into how skateboards are constructed for his failed ollie, and I slipped in a reference to shitty old technology that's exclusively for my beta reader to enjoy.

I also tried doing some agricultural research to figure out how the folks at Kevin Farm could have grown cucumbers so there'd be a jar of legitimate pickles... But that was getting too in the weeds.

Insert laugh track here

Decided to just go with pickled artichoke hearts to save everyone a lot of trouble.

And where does "Kevin Farm" come from, you may be asking yourself. Or the fabulous "Kevin's Special" with its definitely not innuendo tagline.

That story will have to wait for another day, my friends.

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