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#their whole thing makes me so sad man it's so unfair

getologist · 1 month

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suguru watched silently as you focused on your laptop—typing on the keyboard without breaking your gaze through the screen, and suguru almost winced because he knew that your fingers were going numb from how long you were revising your groupmates' papers.

he knew you were tired, and how badly you wanted to finish this damn thesis, how badly you wanted to eat, take a shower, do your skincare, and sleep for the whole day. but the world has always been unfair—and suguru badly wanted to close your laptop and pamper you already.

and as your boyfriend, of course he wanted his baby to eat on time and take care of you. that's what he promised to your parents and to himself since he courted you.

he waited for a few minutes before walking in your shared room, holding a wooden tray with your favourite food. suguru grinned when he saw your fingers stopped from typing, and turned around to see him standing behind you with food that caused you to forget a moment from what you were doing earlier.

suguru pulled a chair and placed it beside you, settling down the plate on the desktop table and the smell of curry reached your nostrils that made your stomach growled. you huffed a breath when the man beside you chuckled.

"later, i have to finish this first." you pouted when suguru didn't listen and took a spoonful of rice with curry before lifting it up, and as much as how badly you wanted to eat, you have to finish the revisions so you can finally get a rest. that was your goal right now—but unfortunately, your boyfriend was making it hard for you to reach that.

suguru glared at you softly when you pursed your lips and moved your head to the other side, "baby, you have to eat." and he said it so softly that you felt your heart beating faster.

but you stood your ground, not wanting to have any distractions. "this is needed in two weeks, and you know there is no one else who would do this other than me."

"you still have two weeks, baby. you have time to work on that."

you shook your head, "i have other things to do aside from this, i still have to do my report, essays, papers-" your words trailed off when you felt lightheaded and winced as you massaged your temple.

suguru clicked his tongue, out of all the things he hated, seeing you getting stressed and struggling was the first thing on his list and he didn't want any refusals coming from you at this point.

without saying a word, he closed your laptop and before you could protest, he gently shoved the spoonful of rice in your mouth. you glared at suguru who had an irritating satisfaction plastered on his face as he watched you munch the delicious rice mixed with curry in your mouth.

you couldn't get really mad at him since the food was really good and made you forget your problems for a second, that's how good your boyfriend was with cooking.

"i know you want to finish all your activities as soon as possible, but please, don't forget to eat and take breaks. it's not a sin, you know." you almost rolled your eyes at the last sentence but you still felt your heart getting warm as you noticed the worry and sadness in his eyes.

silence absorbed the room aside from the sound of the aircon, your cat purring on your shared bed as he slept peacefully, and the soft pitter patter of the rain outside your apartment.

suguru silently took a spoonful of rice and hoisted up; you opened your mouth as suguru fed it to you and munched it without a word. you looked away when you saw an amusement in his eyes.

"i'm sorry," you muttered after you swallowed your food, still looking from outside as the raindrops softly knocked the window. "didn't mean to make you worry."

"it's fine, baby." he held your hand and slowly pulled you into a warm hug, you instinctively wrapped your arms around his waist and hid your face on his neck. his familiar, manly scent brought comfort to you as his fingers combed your hair, while the other gently scratched your back. "are you doing fine? is my baby already tired?"

two questions. those two questions made you think back about how you were doing up recently, and you realized that you weren't having enough rest for the past week. you didn't realize that you were stressed and tired from your groupmates and professors who kept piling up your work.

except suguru, he has always been there silently. he always knew how you were doing, and you just realized that he never forgets to bring you food and always reminded you to take breaks every once in a while.

you nuzzled your face to his neck when your eyes sting from those thoughts, unable to control your emotions anymore and you cry in silence to your boyfriend's embrace. suguru held you tighter, rubbing your back as he pressed kisses to your face where he could reach.

"it's okay to cry, hm? i'm always here, baby."

you stay in that position for awhile before whining, moving away from his neck to wipe the tears on your cheeks, "i shouldn't be crying, this is your fault."

suguru pressed a soft kiss on your lips and smiled, "well, you needed it, and it's not bad."

you pouted, "then give me more kisses to help me feel better."

he laughed in amusement, and his lovesick eyes flickered to yours, "needy, aren't we?"

you wrapped your arms around his nape before pulling him closer, "well, yes. considering how busy i was recently, you didn't give me kisses more than you usually do. you have to pay your debts."

"yes, ma'am." he chuckled against your lips before pressing his lips against yours, kissing you slowly, and you sighed in contentment when you felt his soft lips against you. one week without giving your boyfriend attention that much was really a toll on the both of you.

you pulled him closer to deepen the kiss, mind going blank except suguru's lips at this moment. his hands moving down to your waist, tracing his warm fingertips on your skin under your top.

the tension between you was getting heavier and before the both of you couldn't control yourselves, suguru broke the kiss—chuckling when you whined, trying to pull him closer again.

he shook his head, "baby, no. you have to freshen up, you still haven't finished your food." he pointed at the warm plate, "finish it while i prepare your bath, i'll do your skincare after as well."

"but-"

"no."

"just one last, i promise. one last kiss and i'll do whatever you want." suguru arched an eyebrow before laughing.

"will you?" he hummed, moving himself closer to you to peck your cheek and you nodded. you raised your pinky finger to him, a sign that you were really sincere, in a heartbeat.

suguru chuckled at your antics before raising his pinky finger as well, "god, i love you."

"i know, i love you too," he grinned before giving you the kiss you've always wanted, the kiss that always made your stomach turn—that it never failed to give you butterflies, and the kiss that always made you breathless.

after a whole minute, suguru was the first to break off the kiss again. his chest swelled with pride as he saw how red your face and lips were, how you gasped for air, and how you clutched on his back.

"satisfied?" he muttered and smiled when you nodded subconsciously. he pressed another kiss on the corner of your lips before standing up, "great, now finish your plate as you promised. i'll be at the bathroom when you need something."

you hummed as you took the plate closer to you, still feeling your hands kinda numb and felt yourself a little breathless from the kiss. he's really intense, you thought. but that was one of the things you loved about suguru.

you shook your head as you felt your face getting warm again, you took a large air before exhaling slowly to calm yourself before taking a spoonful of rice from your plate. day by day, you always found yourself falling for suguru harder and harder.

and it was a good thing because suguru falls for you harder and harder everyday as well.

#jjk x reader #geto x reader #geto fluff #jujutsu kaisen x reader #suguru x reader #suguru x y/n #suguru x you #geto x you #geto x y/n #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk fluff #geto suguru

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alwynsalps · 10 days

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So obviously after the Joe breakup shit changed we had that ratty twatty and then suddenly travis. Like ratty twatty first of all made it seem like you know this person is like horrible yet you choose to be with him? Everyone called her (rightfully) out I feel like cause he is really a twat of a person and the whole ice spice collab to basically "save" Matty twattys image. I also felt like it was unfair of her fans to force her to break up with him I mean it's her life. And Joe during this time went through so much shit after the break up I remember he was papped and everyone made fun of how skinny he is and how horrible he looks (he had bags under his eyes on the photo) which is actually sad cause he lost his grandmother I think during that time and people were genuinely saying disgusting things and saying mother is looking so much better etc etc while Joe was having a downwards spiral. Again I understand no one knew his depression was that bad but fuck swifties can be more kind.

Exit ratty twatty enter travesty lord this man gives me the ick.

Swifties are blinded by their relationship but he is really not a good dude. I mean that video live of him pushing his coach and yelling? Videos online of him being openly racist, being a trump supporter (and also swifties are dumb they think bc he got vaccinated and bent the knee for black lives matter he is somehow Democrat?) honey trump is vaccinated as well. And just because he supported blm does not make him a good person. He was PAID to do all that performative shit.

I mean she has millions of fans, thousands of young girls thinking the blatant red flags of travesty is hot and shit. Tells me he can push her around too. (not to mention he supported his abusive friend that literally hit his wife.)

And it feels like she's forcing travesty tbh? Like girlie you wanted the art to be about you yet you let some man overshadow it. Because truly that's what's happening like swifties are more into him at this point and the relationship they made up in their head as Taylor.

This is where I got annoyed and took a step back. Each time they were seen Joe got thousands and thousands of hate just for what being introverted?

Then they attacked Emma (Joe's Co worker) for a cheating rumor THEY MADE UP and the shit they said were so genuinely disgusting she had to switch off her comments.

Then Ai audio dropped about Joe abusing Taylor and Ai videos circled making it seem like Joe is a cheater when he is NOT. fuck they even trended a sex scene with that Alison chick he worked with saying he said Alison (her real name) and not her character's name when he DID NOT. It was in the fucking series! This woman got slut shamed so bad she turned off comments too for literally WORKING with Joe. Swifties literally spread shit around that he cheated on Taylor with Emma and Alison when he didn't! And the fucking best of all Taylor was on the set while filming conversations with friends. She most likely saw it IN PERSON and they chose to say all this genuinely disgusting shit about Alison who I've learned is actually a pretty good person.

Here I got genuinely disgusted.

So okay again I understand that Taylor can't control all her fans but her silence while her cult mass harrases people?

Whats insane to me is Joe. Like the guy got so much hate because SHE CHOSE to lead fans on. When she announced ttpd everyone thought the title relates to Joe and Paul mescal

Joe got mass hate

Then the secret songs at eras being about cheating

Joe got death threats

ALL TO BE AN ALBUM ABOUT THE FUCKING SEWER RAT SHE CAN'T GET OVER?!

she literally took ALL the hate against Joe *knowing* she's releasing an album dissing her 6 weeks situationship is genuinely disgusting. I cannot fathom it.

And AND the only thing she could say about Joe is dude did not want to marry her bc he was severely depressed WHICH IS NOT HER PLACE TO TALK ABOUT HIS STRUGGLES?

like I am SORRY this man wants to d word next to her and she just didn't care and wanted to fuck Matty?

Her partner, that got her through her darkest times BTW, did not deserve this.

She let all this mass harrasment just happen to market ttpd. Like genuinely what the actual fuck. 2 innocent women Emma and Alison were attacked and called sluts for genuinely existing and breathing the same air as Joe. And the proof he did not cheat is in her OWN lyrics. (which swifties cannot seem to fucking read bc they'd rather attack Joe than admit this album is about a sewer nazi rat)

The hate Joe got made me cry. The disgusting things they said about him. Swifties literally threatening to bash his head in with a hammer or that he needs to hang himself and they'd enjoy seeing his body swinging from the roof.

Genuinely why would any person say this to anyone at any time?

And they made fun of depression like. What. The. Fuck. Just because Joe might not see it does not mean other people with crippling depression won't.

Oh and a side note she's still bringing up Kim on albums? Not just Kim Kim's CHILD?! leave the kid alone.

Genuinely feel like the most honest Taylor we got was during lover (a time which Joe helped her voice her political opinions and shit) and idk I just feel cheated on?

My whole life I've defended Taylor against everyone and I genuinely feel like she's showing her true colors now being with travesty and ratty and I cannot fathom how this is the same Taylor I'm seeing now as she was like a few years ago.

And it's not just Joe that got death threats BTW. When midnights came out and everyone gave honest reviews cause that evil Jack antonof little gay man ruined the production there were journalists literally getting so much death threats its insane.

Taylor gets (rightfully) called out and fans can't handle it.

She needs to address them ASAP. All these parasocial freaks. The people harrasing Joe. The people literally only seeing Taylor as a breeder for travestys children.

I can't genuinely I can't this is not how I want to feel about Taylor I mean I gave her my youth I looked up to her so much I feel so disappointed in the way she's acting yk?

Yes maybe she can't do jack shit about swifties but she can try.

And her staying quiet over Palestine? Her voice her one post about a ceasefire could change EVERYTHING.

idk at this point I can't stand to be around Taylor.

#anti taylor swift #free joe alwyn #joe alwyn #Swifties dni #anti travis kelce

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fuckmyskywalker · 7 months

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"Heir." — Darth Vader.

— CW: 18+, smut! Breeding, sort of mean talk, Vader is pretty bitchy, misogynistic tones. | Word count: 0.7k (not proofread!!)

— List of films! | Taglist.

— a/n: Let's pretend is not 14 min past 12 for me.

“This will change nothing between us” His modulator hides the rapid breathing of his lungs while his large hands lay on your sides, pushing you further against the bed, sliding his thick pale length in and out of you.

He didn’t even bother to remove his armor, even though you had seen him countless times without it. Simply removing his codpiece in order to get the job fast and easy. You feel the rigid, scarred skin of his cock bullying your pussy causing you to moan and writhe underneath his large, dominating frame— almost to the point of making you shiver with both fear and arousal. The power imbalance excites you; it always does, but that cloud of sick cravings isn’t thick enough to blur the true intentions and the solid purpose of this rough interaction: To give the Empire an heir.

When you moan after he repeatedly hits that spot inside of you, his gloved hand squeezes your cheeks forcing you to look at the black holes of his helmet. He can read your thoughts, he always does– but especially in these moments when you are more vulnerable than ever. You wish to see his eyes, to see the amber glow of his irises looking at you with nothing more than disdain. His lips twitch, another gesture you are unable to see.

“This doesn’t make you closer to me—” Vader squeezes your jaw, his palm is huge in comparison to your head as he pushes it harsher against the silky pillows. “Do not entertain yourself in those foolish fantasies of kindling compassion.”

It hurts; every single word hurts. But he is right. It would be easier for you to stop clinging to pointless hopes. You take a deep breath and look away. Vader's voice is unyielding, and you can feel the sadness radiating from him. You force yourself to accept that you will never understand him. Tears prickle at your waterlines, completely opposite to the greedy way your overworked pussy is clenching around him. His breath hitches at the feeling as the hand grasping your jaw now circles around your throat, squeezing it hard enough to reduce the airflow.

“Say it.” He commands, and you know exactly what to say.

“I’m nothing more than a v-vessel to carry your heir” You moan loudly the words he makes you repeat every time he fucks you relentlessly; closing your eyes only for him to squeeze harder, causing you to snap them open. “I’m n–not special— I’m not l–loved”

“Good.” That’s the only sort of ‘praise’ you will ever get out from him. His hips speed up, the cold, smooth steel of his armor grazing your skin makes you whine, it’s so unfair. You were stripped of your life; of your happiness— only to fulfill the twisted mission of a deranged man.

But you cling to that little ray of hope nonetheless; You envision your body round with his offspring, carrying the only thing that will tie him to you… and the thought makes you smile weakly through the tears. Obsessed with the idea of simply existing to fulfill a role you didn’t even ask for in the first place, doesn’t sound too bad right now. Being his wife and Empress is one thing, but to be the mother of Darth Vader’s children— sounds like a whole different story.

The only thing you wish is that your baby doesn’t inherit those liquid gold eyes that you hate.

His orgasm takes you by surprise, yelping in delight at being filled to the brim— a long time ago you stopped asking yourself how all of these was even possible after seeing him without his armor, scarred and broken, but now it a forgotten thought. He is providing you with the tools to complete your life mission, and that’s good enough for you. Like always, he takes a few seconds to recover his breath, never looking away from you. Vader fixes his codpiece and turns around, readjusting his glove but never wiping the drool that stays in the leather, your drool.

Curling on the bed, your hands lay on your stomach, stroking the skin. Soon, it will get swollen, and round. Soon you will carry his child.

“And you will love it.” You whisper with a small smile, draping the blankets over you, as you fall asleep to the feeling of his cum trickling down your thighs.

— 🐚 if you wish you be added to my taglist there's a google forms in the beginning of the post! There you can select which days you would like to be tagged in (or choose the option: all the above!). If you send me a DM or an ask I will tag you on every day! | some tags might not work due to your settings, so let me know!

#𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 anya writes!#𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 kinktober 2023!#darth vader #darth vader smut #darth vader x reader #darth vader x reader smut #darth vader x you #darth vader fanfic #darth vader fic #darth vader x y/n

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its-chelisey-stuff · 20 days

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everybody's favorite scene was the ending (and I mean, what a cliffhanger!! is it saturday yet???) but my heart stayed here and some of my tears Also, the way he looks at her this whole scene aaaaaaahhhhh I'm melting!

so many what-ifs, so much things left unsaid over the years, misunderstandings piling up, so much resentment! ouch! it just hurts so much but at least they're finally having this conversation and hey, better late than never.

I love their opinions on what has happened, because it highlights their insecurities and biggest regrets. HyunWoo wishes he would have done better in their marriage, knows he's at fault. While HaeIn wishes they never married, so they could've prevented all the pain both of them went through, especially HyunWoo. He doesn't want to hear it, because for him there's only been one woman. And for her, there's only been one man, too. But now she knows how alone and miserable he felt fo so long, he wanted to divorce her.

I have come to appreciate and love Hyunwoo a lot more than I did at the beginning. It was easy for me to hate him right away because of the way he conducted himself and the things he did. But the guy was on autopilot, survival mode and just like he said, he'd forgotten what was important. Dislike, resentment and indifference took over.

!!!!! So obsessed by how this implies he would've been still thinking of her, even if they broke up, always wondering about the what-if. He believes she wouldn't have done the same (and this is clearly her fault lol my queen is not without flaws) but it wouldn't have been like that at all. She was as obsessed, and we know she still believed (or wanted to) in the strenght of her marriage even when it was already crumbling down. *Sighs* They're just so stupid.

I look at this man that we have now on ep 10, and realize just how much he's changed back to the man who married HaeIn, completely in love. The man who chased her, confessed to her and promised to take care of her and her family if it was necessary (oh dear, I never thought that'd be a foreshadowing) and even after divorcing, he stays true to his word.

Aaaaah it's just so sad, and so regretful, but they both were such idiots about it. So childish too, in a way. I get that they were angry and dealing with loss (btw the miscarriage started this, but then little by little misunderstandings started piling up... it was death by a thousand cuts) but they should have fought harder for their marriage. Fight for each other, even while upset. Hate is not the opposite of love, it's indiference.

Despite everything, Hyunwoo took the Hong family to his hometown and gave them shelter, food and a place to sleep. Warmth. The very warmth he didn't get to experience in three years of marriage, living with them. But it doesn't matter, because while I know he is doing this for HaeIn, it's also for them. He sees them as family. And I mean, to be fair, they also gave him a job with a big salary, a big house, expensive getaways with the family and they trusted him with a LOT of legal shit. Not to mention, the italian suits and the Mercedez Benz lol

In times like this, I really really hate her terminal illness and find it so unncessary lol Because they can take back Queens, put EunSeong behind bars and his crazy mother or whatever. They can still fix their relationship. But if her time is indeed running out, it makes all the more tragic all that time they lost. And it would be horrible if at the end, HaeIn dies. So unfair, as well. Because then, what was all this for?

#queen of tears #kdrama #kim soo hyun #kim jiwon

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samstree · 3 months

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Jewel

(obikin, 1.6k, established relationship, also on ao3) Anakin is on painkillers and forgets something important.

Anakin wakes up warm and comfortable, swathed in layers of blankets and wrapped in strong arms.

The world swims, swaying and tipping to one side in the distinctive way of being put on painkillers. He blinks, and blinks again.

“Mmph…” he makes a confused noise, not sure how he ended up here. Or where here is, even.

“Hey, careful.”

Oh, that is the most beautiful voice he has ever heard.

So Anakin looks up, following the source of the voice and meeting the most beautiful eyes he has ever seen.

“Obi-Wan.”

He breathes the name in wonder, heart fluttering, nearly giddy. Of course, it’s Obi-Wan. He is the most beautiful man in the whole galaxy, and Anakin loves him so much even when his head is fuzzy with drugs. He’d know Obi-Wan when he barely remembers his own name. He needs to tell Obi-Wan that, how important he is, how much joy he brings into Anakin’s life, but all that comes out is—

“Obi-Wan, you are…here.”

An amused huff rumbles against Anakin’s ear, and Obi-Wan’s eyes crinkle softly. It’s Anakin’s favorite look, when happiness is etched into the lines around his eyes. He reaches out to touch, only to grunt in pain.

“Don’t move just yet. Your shoulder is in quite a state, darling.”

The arms around Anakin hold him closer, securing him in place. He then looks down to find his prosthetic arm tightly bound with a sling. The pain spreads from his shoulder to his chest, dulled like a distant echo.

“But I feel fine.” He nuzzles into Obi-Wan’s neck. The world doesn’t spin as much when he rests against Obi-Wan like this.

“It’s all the painkillers you are on. They had to double the doses, with your metabolism so fast. It’s still not working well enough.” Concern seeps into Obi-Wan’s voice. “Let’s not try anything just now. I’d hate to set your bones again.”

With that, gentle fingers run through Anakin’s hair, almost putting him back to sleep with all the petting and scratching.

A glint of silver catches Anakin’s eyes.

“Oh,” he says, struggling to extract the free arm to catch Obi-Wan’s hand. “What is this?”

He frowns at the silver band resting on the fourth finger of Obi-Wan’s hand, heart growing heavy despite the confusion. He pokes at the thing, the warm metal touching the tip of his index finger.

“It’s my ring, dear one. What are you doing?”

“It’s a wedding ring.”

Anakin turns Obi-Wan’s palm, observing the band intently. His head doesn’t feel like his own, but his memory is still intact. A silver band on the fourth finger, that is Stewjoni tradition to indicate that—"

“You are…married?”

Anakin meant it as an accusation. When did Obi-Wan get married? How? Where? Why does he not know about it? But all that came out of his lips is a sad whisper, voice trembling with hurt.

He meets Obi-Wan in the eye, but only finds surprise there. It’s rather unfair, for Obi-Wan to stare at him like that, as if he’s crazy for asking the question. He’d think he deserves an answer after all this time, the love weighing on his heart, never reciprocated. He is fine with it. He really is. It’s just…

He was still hoping, against all odds.

Now that is gone too.

“Anakin, I—You see, we—”

“But you can’t be.” Anakin shakes his head at the silly idea. “Not you, never you. What was I thinking? To be married, you’d need to leave the Order. My old master would never, not the perfect Jedi.”

He adds a dry laugh in the end for good measure, sounding properly putulent now, but Obi-Wan’s eyes only soften.

“Oh, Anakin, I did leave the Order. I left so I could marry—”

“No, don’t tell me,” he interrupts in a hurry. “I don’t think I can bear it.”

It borders on torture now. Anakin knows because he has been tortured. To know the name of Obi-Wan’s beloved would destroy him. All he wants to do is get away. He cannot stay in Obi-Wan’s arms when they belong to someone else. To steal comfort that doesn’t belong to him is worse than not having it at all.

His eyes brim with tears, and he lets them fall freely.

“Anakin, it’s not like that…”

“Just don’t.” He struggles against Obi-Wan’s hold, voice wet with tears, heedless of his injured shoulder. “I don’t want to hear it. Just let me get out of here—”

“Anakin!”

It’s the desperation in Obi-Wan’s voice that stops his motion. That and the fact that Anakin can barely move his limbs, muscles so relaxed they feel like jelly. The ache returns, deep in his bones, but none of it matters when his face is cupped in gentle hands and the most beautiful eyes are right in front of him.

Anakin is powerless when Obi-Wan’s attention is on him, so close yet so far away.

“Will you listen to me? Let me explain?”

Anakin sniffles, and then answers weakly, “…alright.”

Instead of answering, Obi-Wan takes his flesh hand, threading their fingers together. His motion is so tender, so intimate that it erases every last thought from Anakin’s mind.

“It must be one of the side effects of the drugs.” For some reason, Obi-Wan is sounding too amused for the grave situation they are in. “This will be very funny when you come out of it, dearest. Believe me, I want to enjoy it, but not at your expense when your head is messed up like this. Will you look at your hand? For me, just look at your hand.”

Their hands lay on top of the blankets, skin against skin. When Anakin looks down, there are two silver bands, side by side. One on Obi-Wan’s fourth finger, the other on Anakin’s.

“Huh,” he makes a confused sound. “I’m married too?”

“Against all odds, yes. Master Yoda lost the bet to Master Windu on the big day.”

Anakin blinks, brow furrowed.

“But to who?”

He can’t imagine overcoming the heartache of Obi-Wan devoting himself to someone else, but—

“Will you look at the other side of the rings?”

With that, Obi-Wan takes Anakin’s hand again, flipping over both of their palms to show the underside of the rings. There is a small inscription etched onto each of them. The one on Obi-Wan’s is the traditional Tatooine symbol for “rain”, the pattern often carved into Japor wood and gifted to one’s beloved. Rain is the most precious thing, after all. The inscription on Anakin’s band reads “jewel” in Stewjoni.

But how does he know that? When does he know Stewjoni words?

“Oh,” Anakin hums. He feels as if he’s on the verge of a great discovery, a warmth spreading through his chest like a promise from the past. A vow, maybe. “Oh, Obi-Wan! I see!”

“Really? What do you see?”

Anakin breaks into a big smile. “I don’t know! But I’m so happy!”

Obi-Wan’s laugh is like music to Anakin’s ear. Even though he thinks he’s the one being made fun of, he still loves that laugh.

“I’m glad you are happy,” Obi-Wan says, indulgently, “but what if… I did this?”

He takes Anakin’s flesh hand, and kisses him on the fourth finger, right above the silver band, lips incredibly soft. Anakin’s mouth falls open.

“Still happy?”

Anakin nods so hard that he feels dizzy.

“How about… this?”

Obi-Wan trails a few kisses along the back of Anakin’s hand, reaching the delicate skin at his wrist. He looks up through long lashes, eyes impossibly soft, and then—

And then, he kisses Anakin right on the mouth.

The kiss is chaste and light as a feather. It couldn’t have lasted for more than a second, but the world comes to a stop.

As soon as Obi-Wan breaks away, Anakin gapes again. He can only stare at the smug looks on Obi-Wan’s face. When he leans in, Anakin closes his mouth to kiss him, again, and again.

They draw out another kiss, breathing deep into it, the Force singing around them with how right it feels. Their lips meet in a rhythm so familiar, it’s like a choreographed dance. Anakin melts into the warmth of Obi-Wan’s presence, smiling when the soft beard scratches the corner of his mouth. They finally break apart, and now the world is spinning for an entirely different reason.

“Oh, my dearest.”

Anakin lets out a small gasp at the endearment. He is Obi-Wan’s—

“My beloved,” Obi-Wan murmurs, running a thumb on Anakin’s cheek, palm cradling his chin gently. “Don’t you see? There is no one else. I left the Order for you, so we could marry. I left because you are my joy, my hope, the jewel of my heart… who has forgotten all about our marriage after a few doses of painkillers. Tell me, dearest, what shall I do with you?”

All Anakin can do is stare. He stares as Obi-Wan helps him lean against the pillows and adjust his own position so they can cuddle comfortably. He stares as Obi-Wan peppers more kisses on his arm, his shoulder, hand. He stares as Obi-Wan tucks the stray curls behind his ear, with nothing but love on his face, as if the sight of Anakin brings him all the happiness he could ever ask for.

“We are married?” Anakin asks, feeling silly now but still needing the confirmation. “You… love me?”

Obi-Wan looks like his heart is breaking, just a little. “What can I do to convince you?”

Anakin perks up at that. “Kiss me again?”

“That I can do.” A smile, and Obi-Wan obliges.

They kiss until Anakin is dizzy with love, until his bones are humming with contentment. They kiss until The Force wraps around them tightly, reminding him of the familiar warmth from his memories. Of vows made while their hands intertwine, their hearts beating in tandem.

They kiss until another tear trails down Anakin’s cheek. It’s not nearly as precious as the rain drops on Tatooine, or the jewels of Stewjon, but his beloved kisses it away too.

#obikin #obikin fic

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seasonsbloom · 2 years

Text

ocean in a seashell . ( rooster )

pairing ; bradley bradshaw x female!reader

synopsis ; bradley has lived with his father’s ghost for long enough to know he’ll never make the same mistakes he did. and then he meets you.

wc ; 10.5k i'm sorry

warnings ; 18+ only, minors do NOT interact; bradley bradshaw's sad, sad life; angst, literally SO much angst; mentions of canon past character death; near-death experience; alcohol abuse; explicit language; explicit sexual content (breeding kink, cumplay, p in v, dirty talk, fingering, idk?)

note: ... yeah i don't fucking know either goodbye. stole the title from "sidelines" by phoebe bridgers aka god.

sol. sunderlust... none of this would be possible without you, thank you forever.

Bradley doesn’t remember much about his father.

These days, he recalls him only in fractions: Hawaiian shirts, mustache, hair that stood up spikey like grass covered in the first tentative November frost. He had big hands, Bradley remembers that, and he used to swing him up on his shoulders and let him ride around living rooms in Army commissioned houses they never stayed in longer than a few months. He always smelled of engine oil, and he played pianos like he didn’t even know the meaning of the word embarrassment.

Bradley based his whole life on the fading glimpses of that man he carries locked in the chambers of his heart. The older he gets, the more gaps he finds.

Suddenly he’s taller than Goose ever was, older, ranked higher. He wants to say, wait, hold on, go back. Wants to rewind to a time when he felt closer to his father, when he could remember what his voice sounded like, what it felt like when he tucked him into bed. When he thought if he just sat by the front door long enough, his father would inevitably walk through it again, hoist him into the air, and press tickling kisses to his cheeks.

Sometimes, Bradley wishes he could go back to when he thought bad things happened only in movies. When he had a father and a mother and an uncle and the bone-deep, unconscious conviction that things would always stay this way.

He can’t remember the day Goose died. Can’t remember Mav coming to the house, can’t remember the dog tags pressed into his mother’s hands. Strange how the most significant day of his little life remains in his memory as just another day - morning cartoons and PB&J sandwiches and his mom reading him a bedtime story. Part of Bradley thinks it’s unfair, his whole world crashing down and him not even remembering it. Like he’s arriving late for a movie and can’t make sense of the plot.

Not once did he see his mother cry over his father. He’s sure she must have shed tears, remembers now the empty tissue boxes and the eyes rimmed in red, understands now what he was too young to see then. But Carol carried her grief like a secret. She locked it behind the mahogany of her bedroom door, she hid it behind the veneer of her smile.

Bradley is nineteen, standing at his mother’s open grave, when he decides he’s never going to do to someone what Goose did to her. What he did to him.

For a while, he wants nothing to do with the memory of that man. Wraps himself in his mother, toys with the idea of taking her maiden name. Goes to college and gets drunk, gets high, gets himself into trouble. Thinks sometimes, in his very darkest moments, that maybe the best thing he could do for the world is to stop existing.

One night lands him at the police station. And it’s not like he got arrested or anything, they just take him in to sober up and tell him to call somebody to come get him. Mav is in town, thank God, and he comes in wearing his old aviator jacket and a wistful expression. Bradley’s call probably pulled him out of some bar or some girl or both.

Mav doesn’t say much, just drives him back to his college dorm and pulls over to the curb, doesn’t even turn off the car. They sit there in silence, with the blinker going and the engine purring.

Finally, Mav says, “Sometimes, you remind me so much of your father, it scares me.”

Bradley doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing. Sits there for a little longer and watches as frat bros and law students and cheerleaders cross the street on their way to hook-ups, to parties, to midnight fast food runs. Envies them just for a moment. Then, without saying goodbye, gets out of the car, goes to his room, and buries himself beneath the weight of his blankets.

So it’s like Bradley always suspected. It really is a futile thing, trying to escape the memory of his father. His ghost lives inside Bradley’s chest. Rattles against his bones.

And he loves him, even if he doesn’t remember him. Thinks that love is some intrinsic, primordial thing. Something that was there before he was born and will be there after he dies. Something he can’t fight. Unstoppable like the tide.

So he embraces it instead. Tries growing a mustache he’ll only be able to pull off much later in life, gets those old Hawaiian shirts out of storage. Decides to give into the underlying current of longing he’s felt every time he tipped his head back and looked at the sky.

Accepting that he loves his father is much easier than he thought it would be. Much easier than hating him.

It’s good for a while because it feels like he has a purpose, a goal. For so long, Bradley has been drifting at sea, unmoored, unbound, with no sense of direction. Now he’s swimming toward something, broad strokes, every move deliberate.

Then Mav pulls his papers.

The worst part of it all, worse than the betrayal, worse than the anger, is the confusion. He thought Mav would understand. Mav of all people.

(It’s his mother, setting a casserole on the table, smiling at Bradley and saying Pete over here, he’s the craziest pilot the Navy’s ever seen. It’s his sixth Christmas, the second one without his dad, and Mav gives him a model of a plane they’ll build together. It’s Mav staring at him with eyes gleaming with moisture the time he stole the Navy hat from his uncle’s head. It’s Mav in every memory of his life, laced so tightly to him he thought they were inseparable, woven together. Now the seams are coming apart.)

Mav, who keeps flying, who seems only to be a real, complete person for those few, short, fleeting moments just after he steps off a plane. Who’s never happy unless he’s going break-neck speed miles and miles above the ground, jumping off death’s shovel, laughing, flipping the bird, and saying look, I can fly!

If Maverick doesn’t understand why Bradley wants to fly, why he needs to fly, then who ever could?

Mav wants to explain it, calls him, shows up at his apartment. Bradley declines the calls, turns off all the lights, and sits on his couch in perfect silence, pretending he isn’t in.

He doesn’t want to hear explanations, doesn’t want to listen to excuses. He wants to fly.

Back when his mother was alive, she wouldn’t even let him get on an airplane. His whole childhood, they only left their state once to go to a funeral of some distant aunt or cousin or uncle, Bradley can’t remember, and his mother drove the whole ten hours there and back. It didn’t even register as anything weird to him - it was all juice boxes and gas station ice cream and goldies on the radio. It was his mom’s laughter and her smile and her fingers carding strands of hair warmed by the sun out of his eyes.

So Bradley remembers his mother every time he gets into a car. But his dad? Him, he can only get above the clouds.

He doesn’t give up. He finishes college, works odd jobs for some money, drifts further and further from the orbit he used to inhabit. And then he applies to the academy again, and then he goes to Top Gun, and he graduates top of his class and wonders what it would feel like if there were somebody to be proud of him. If somebody were congratulating him, taking him out for a celebratory dinner, or just somebody to hug him. What it would feel like if he weren’t so alone.

It’s what he dreams about sometimes, in the very darkest pockets of the night. A house with a swing set and a big, smiling, dumb dog and a pretty wife and a whole gaggle of children running through the garden. Bradley would teach them how to throw a football, and he’d carry them to bed at night, and his wife would smile at him, and there would always be food in the fridge and brownies on the table, and every room would be filled with love, and there would be no ghosts to haunt him.

It’s a dangerous fantasy. It’s a trap door, a slippery slope, it’s a snare, it’s a cliff’s edge. If he stays in it too long, he’ll be lost.

His mother always used to say he was a functional dreamer. He had his head stuck in the clouds, sure, but he knew exactly when to pull it out of there too. Maybe that’s why he’s such a good pilot.

So Bradley still is a functional dreamer. He knows that this is something he can never have, can never allow himself to have. He knows the pain of it too well, too intimately, still feels it every time he catches sight of his reflection in a mirror, the golden streaks of sun in his hair, the mustache, the split second of pure, blank horror, of oh god I look like him, I look so much like him, and feels it slice right through him like a knife through butter. He’s been carrying his father’s ghost for so long, sometimes it feels like his spine will crack under the weight.

Maybe people that live life like he does, like Mav does, like his father did - up in the sky, heads in the clouds - aren’t meant to have anything on the ground. Inevitably, they always end up leaving it.

He decided the day of his mother’s funeral, before the long procession of I’m sorrys and If you need anythings, before he let real estate agents into a house overflowing with cards and flowers - flowers in every room, flowers blooming and wilting and dying like a garden watered by his grief, like a garden watered by his ghosts - that he would never have a family. Not a wife to mourn him, not a child to miss him.

So there’ll be nobody to carry the burden of him.

And then he meets you.

It’s not momentous - it’s easy. Natural. Quicker than he thought possible. It’s stolen glances across a room and a smile that brands him like a mark, that cuts right through to the bone. A smile that settles in his heart. A smile that’ll never leave again.

In the beginning, he tries to fight it. Tells himself not to engage, not to get involved, to stay out of the mess he knows he’ll make here inevitably. To shield him, but to shield you too, to protect you from whatever hurt he’s going to inflict sooner or later.

But then it goes like this:

“Are you never going to ask me out, Bradshaw?” you ask him, smiling as you pluck his Ray Bans from him, as you place them on your own nose, and blink at him from over the rims.

The sun is casting you in gold. Bradley wants to catch the moment in a mason jar and put it on his bedside table. Let the glow illuminate his nights.

“I don’t think….” He trails off, wonders why it’s so easy for him to talk to you, why he can’t stop spilling truths like leaking water taps. “I don’t think I’ll be good for you.”

You don’t miss a beat. One eyebrow raising, you say, “And don’t you think that should be my decision?”

That’s when he knows that for him, you will always be it. That it’ll never be this way again with someone else. It’s not even a question. It’s just the truth.

When he’s with you, for the first time since he sat shotgun in a car with his mother, head nodding along to Elvis on the radio, Bradley feels like he belongs somewhere. Like he’s reached a shore, maybe. Like he can breathe.

For the first time, it feels like he knows peace, even with his feet on the ground.

His mother would have loved you.

You have a long conversation about it. About how he knows you want it - the diapers and the first days of school and the family Christmases. The pitter-patter of children’s feet, the cribs, the tiny fingers curling around your thumb. He knows you’ve dreamed of it all your life. And Bradley also knows, as much as it hurts, as much as it aches, that he can never give it to you.

He needs to be honest. He needs to put all the cards on the table so you know your options, see the truth about him. So you can walk away before you get any deeper into this.

Part of him is sure you will. Thinks it might be better, the safest option for both of you. Hopes you will, fears you will.

It doesn’t matter that he loves you. It doesn’t matter that he only feels at peace when he’s with you. It doesn’t matter that for the first time since he was four years old, the ghosts have gone quiet.

What matters is that he wants you to be happy. What matters is that if that happiness lies somewhere else, with someone else, with someone who’ll give you everything you dream of, give you a life, give you a child… Bradley will let you go. It’ll be the hardest thing he’s ever done, but he will.

Only you don’t leave.

You think about it for a very, very long time. Sit at his kitchen table with your hands folded on the tablecloth like you’re praying, with your head turned down, without looking at him, and then finally you say, “Alright. Fine with me.”

And Bradley’s protesting, pushing, saying, “Honey, you want this, I know you do, you want a family, you….”

“I want you more,” you say, and that’s that.

There’s no lie to it. It’s the truth, naked and beautiful and awful.

And Bradley - selfish as he is - accepts it. Because he doesn’t want to lose you. Because as much as he tries to convince himself of the opposite, deep down, he knows he’s not a good man. Just like his father wasn’t. They’re both just men willing to leave the people they love behind. Brave enough to fight for the “greater good”, but never brave enough to stay.

Regardless of it all, it’s the happiest Bradley has been in years. With you, he doesn’t feel like something is missing from him. He actually feels whole.

Your job as a freelancer allows you to travel with him, and he’s unspeakably grateful for it. He tries to show you, tries to be good about bringing flowers and cooking dinner, thinks if he can make you even a fraction as happy as you make him, he’ll have succeeded. When he gets deployed, he spends days memorizing your face, the shape of your throat where your pulse point jumps, the pattern of your heartbeat, the feeling of you beneath his arm.

And sometimes, when you’re asleep, Bradley puts his hand on your stomach and imagines a bump there, imagines a baby growing beneath it, and that’s when the ache gets so strong he thinks he can’t breathe.

That’s when he hates himself for not being something else: a doctor, an accountant, a real estate agent. Anything other than what he is. Could he have it then, this thing you both want so much? Could he let himself have it?

But eventually, when the fantasies fade, he always circles back to the truth: Bradley isn’t a doctor or an accountant or a real estate agent. He’s a pilot. Always has been, always will be.

He’s just too much like his father. That’s the whole point.

When he gets called back to Top Gun, three years after he met you, something shifts. He doesn’t know to explain it, but from the very first moment he sets foot on North Island again, something about it tastes like the beginning of an end. At night, he can’t settle, roams through the little house you rent off base like a sleepwalker. Checks in on you like he’s afraid you’re going to disappear. Can’t concentrate up in the air, can’t shut his brain off.

It’s like his father’s ghost travels with him in his suitcases, tucked between his neatly folded shirts, climbs out when no one’s looking. No matter where he goes, that ghost goes too. He can’t shake him.

You love California. You like the sunshine and the ocean. Like the Hard Deck and Penny and Phoenix. Turn your face into the warmth like a sunflower, and then you bloom, go brighter and brighter as Bradley goes the opposite direction. As something in him dims.

“Is it because of Mav?” you ask him softly, in the quiet of your bedroom. You’re carding hair from his forehead, fingers gentle, voice gentler.

Bradley can’t look at you. Shame coils low in his stomach.

“Yes,” he says, even if it feels like a lie in his mouth.

You sigh, no annoyance, only affection. Your head is heavy on his shoulder as you press the shape of a yawn into his skin.

“I know he hurt you, Bradley,” you whisper. “It’s okay to be hurt. But I think you need to talk to him.”

He nods into the darkness. You’re right. You’re always right.

“I know,” he agrees, even though he knows he won’t.

When you’re asleep, Bradley slips out of bed. Pats into the living room and sits on the floor, back leaning against the couch. Pulls his knees up to his chest, closes his eyes, and then he dreams.

He dreams he’s four riding on his father’s shoulders through the living room. He dreams he’s ten, in a car with his mother, turning up the radio. He dreams he’s twenty, and he lets Mav explain. He dreams he’s thirty-five, and he marries you. He dreams he’s thirty-six and holding his baby. He dreams it’s a little girl with your smile and his eyes, and he loves her more than he thought he was capable of, so much it almost breaks him apart, so much it puts him back together. So much it’s worth it all.

Bradley’s earliest memory is of the giant, bone-white seashell on his grandmother’s mantlepiece. He remembers how heavy it was, remembers how cold it felt against the side of his face when he pressed it to his ear. He remembers hearing the distant, muffled hum of the waves, the song of the sea, remembers imagining what it might look like.

It’s no comparison to the real thing, years and years and years later, he knows this, but it’s something. It’s better than nothing.

It’s all he can allow himself—an ocean in a seashell.

The mission is a disaster, even if it is successful. Later, Bradley won’t remember what he was thinking up in the air, when he hit the target, when Mav went down, when he decided to go after him. He won’t even be able to tell if that is because he’s in shock or because he really wasn’t thinking anything. Maybe for the first time in his life.

If he had been thinking, Bradley likes to believe he would have kept his plane on course. Would have flown back to the carrier and then back to you, home, home, home. Wouldn’t have gone back for a man he still hasn’t spoken to, not properly, someone he loved once and now barely knows.

But all the ghosts of the people he’s loved and lost crowd up on him in that cockpit - his father and his mother and even Admiral Kazansky and their sad, sad eyes. There’s no room for Mav to be up there, too, he thinks.

So at first, you don’t cross his mind at all. He just follows his instincts like he’s never done before, could never bring himself to do. So much of Bradley’s life has been about dissecting just those urges, dismantling them, disabling them. Making himself into a creature of logic and second-guessing. Now, for the first time, he gives in to the currents and lets himself be rushed away.

And then his plane goes down, and he drifts into the white white white of snow he hasn’t felt in so long - and still, he doesn’t think. But every instinct from the moment of impact on, the moment his feet hit the ground, every instinct centers on you.

Home, he thinks. I need to get home to her.

Up in that F-14, that’s when he realizes. The brink of death is a bleak place. It’s a place of memories, a place of despair. It’s a place of hope.

All he can think of is you. How he’s leaving you with nothing. How he’s going to die here, miles above the ocean, and what will happen then? Who’s going to bring you his dog tags, the way Mav had brought his father’s to Carole all those years ago? Phoenix? Hangman? How are they even going to retrieve them if he goes down in enemy territory? Will anybody even remember the girl in that house, the one he didn’t even marry? And why didn’t he anyway? Why didn’t he put a ring on your finger, buy you a house, get you a dog, give you a baby?

What will remain of him now, in this world after he’s gone?

Nothing, he thinks, and his lungs fill with water, high up in the sky. You made damn sure of that, Bradley.

There will be nobody to haunt. He will disappear, and he will take his mother with him, will take his father with him, will take Mav with him. Nobody to remember him. Nobody to mourn him except you, all alone, carrying the terrible burden of his ghost.

It used to be a relief. Nobody to mourn me after I’m gone. Now it feels like a punishment.

Home, he thinks, remembering the content of your smile and your eyes gleaming in the darkness and your face turning, always turning, toward the sun. Like a child, as he closes his eyes, as he tries to accept the inevitable, he thinks, I want to go home. I just want to go home.

And then that’s what he does—he and Mav. Incredibly, inexplicably, illogically, they go home.

From far away, as he walks up the driveway, the little house with the gardenias you planted blooming pink and red in front of the windows looks like an oasis at first. Then it seems to grow longer, taller, goes from beckoning to daunting. He almost doesn’t make it inside. Almost doesn’t dare to get out his keys, unlock the front door, push through and toe off his shoes. Feels like he’s doing something forbidden, like he’s an unwanted guest in his own home.

You’re in the kitchen, elbows deep in sudsy dishwater, and when he walks through the doorway, when you hear the pat of his socked feet against the tiled floors, you look up at him with an open face full of love, full of relief. It almost bowls him over.

“Bradley,” you whisper, voice soft, and then you’re crossing the room, bubbles and foam and water dripping from your wrists across the tile, and he blinks at the trail you leave for a moment. Then you’re there, arms wrapping around his neck, face pressing against his shoulder, saying his name again and again, like a benediction, like a prayer of thanks.

Automatically, he pulls you against him with both arms crossed over your hips. Inhales deep, lets the familiar scent of you envelop him. Listens to your breath echoing against the dip of his collarbone, to the steady rhythm of your heart.

Your hands leave wet prints against the fabric of his shirt, like something primeval pressed to cave walls, like something that’s been happening for centuries, something that is happening right now, something that will happen again tomorrow and next year and the year after that, and distantly, dumbly, Bradley thinks, Oh. I’m alive. I’m here.

He feels packed in cotton. He feels submerged. He feels not-real, not-present, not-normal. He feels like he’s going to fall apart, and no one will notice.

When you draw back, it takes you only a split second to realize something’s wrong. You frown, the furrow Bradley likes to smooth out with his thumb appearing between your eyebrows, eyes swimming with a concern he doesn’t deserve.

“What happened?”

It’s classified, all of it. There’s so much of his life Bradley isn’t allowed to share with you, even if he wants to. There’s so much he doesn’t want to share but knows he should.

From far away, he hears himself say, “My plane went down.”

He can feel the panic in your body, feels it go through you like a spasm. You try to draw back, but he holds you where you are, afraid he’s going to shatter all across the kitchen floor the moment you’re gone.

It’s not fair, he thinks, how he keeps looking to you to hold him together. It’s just that at the end of the day, you’ve always been so much stronger than him.

“Bradley…” you begin to say, but he can’t hear it. He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear how scared you are every time he leaves, he doesn’t want to hear how it made you feel to know that he almost died because he already knows. He knows.

“I want…” he says into your hair, a fragment of a sentence, a statement that trails off halfway, that goes nowhere. He doesn’t even know what he’s trying to say.

In some ways, he feels stuck in that F-14. Like time kept moving, but he didn’t, remained static and crystallized like somebody dipped the moment in amber and preserved it on a bookshelf. Nothing makes sense to him. Rationally, he knows he’s standing here in his kitchen with you in his arms, knows he isn’t dead, knows he survived, but it doesn’t feel like it.

So Bradley tries to remember grounding exercises, focuses on little things, mundane things, things that shouldn’t exist on the verge of death. The bubbles popping in the sink. The specks of dust dancing through the room. The curve of your spine beneath the worn fabric of his Navy shirt.

Suddenly, the thought of you alone in this house is unbearable. Waiting for a man that never comes back. History repeating itself in the worst of ways.

“I want to have a baby,” he says, out of nowhere, out of some madness that took hold of him up in the air, or maybe when he touched the ground, or maybe at some other point he can’t name, can’t even think.

And it’s not a conscious thought. It’s not a decision he makes. It’s just something that spills from him, something that has been there unnoticed all along, words taking shape on his tongue before he can overthink their meaning, but then they’re out, and they drop between you like an anvil, and it’s like a relief, it’s like a breath he’s been holding for years, it’s like a sigh, something inside of him finally unlatching, finally escaping the shackles he put on it himself.

Oh, he thinks. He’s known this about himself, always, but it’s the first time he says it out loud. It’s always been a want, an ache, a yearning, but now it goes from all that to a need, a thrumming inside of him, something that cannot be ignored. Something that demands to be felt instead of thought.

In his arms, you stiffen.

With your palms on his chest, you push him away from you, take a step back, take the warmth and the scent and the anchor with you. Bradley is surprised he doesn’t float right up to the ceiling.

The openness of your face has shuttered now. You look at him with something unreadable crossing your features, something unfamiliar, and say, “What did you just say?”

Bradley swallows around a lump in his throat. “I want to have a baby,” he repeats, his voice smaller now, quieter, but the words more assured.

Because he does. Because it’s true. Because he’s always wanted this and doesn’t know how to explain to you that now he needs it. How now it’s the only thing that makes sense in a world that’s gone off the rails.

Your face falls, something crumbles, and it hits him like a punch to the gut.

“No,” you say, turning away from him. You step right into the trail of water you left earlier, it soaks into your socks, and then you’re leaving footprints too. Everywhere you go, you leave your mark like a brand. Not one part of Bradley has been left untouched.

Confusion zaps through him, but it’s a muted feeling. Muffled by all the chaos.

“I thought you….” It’s a great effort to form words, like pulling teeth. “You want children. Don’t you want this?”

“Not like…” You pause, rake your fingers through your hair, exasperation crackling from you like sparks from a burned-out socket, and Bradley can’t make sense of it.

You want this, he knows you do. So what’s the problem now? What did he do wrong?

“I don’t….”

“Don’t go there.”

There’s a finality to your voice, and he sees you drawing back from him, sees your shoulders come up, your face turning away, something wilting.

The idea of losing you, of pushing you away now that he’s finally decided to let you in, really let you in, the panic of it finally slices through the haze. Lifts the fog.

Bradley crosses the room and says, “It’s your decision too, honey, of course, it is, but I love you, and I want this, and….”

You whirl on him, and it punches the air out of his lungs. There’s real anger on your face now, your eyes sparkling with unshed tears, and Bradley’s heart clenches in answer.

“You don’t get to do this,” you say, voice heaving with the barely contained emotion, a ship on a stormy sea, “not after I compromised, not after I spent so long trying to get used to the idea of not having a baby, not after giving that up for you, Bradley. You don’t… don’t get to just come in here and change your mind just because it suits you, because you had some near-death experience and you’re full of adrenaline and… and….”

Bradley frowns, moves to touch you, but you flinch away from him, one arm going up to hug your own ribcage. As if you have to shield yourself from him.

Suddenly, he feels a sob building in his throat. To realize how much he’s hurt you, not just today by springing this on you, but by how selfish he was, again and again. By letting his past stand in the way of your future.

“It’s not that I changed my mind,” he begins, trying to string together something that will make you see the truth of it, make you understand what he means.

You interrupt, “You said you didn’t want kids.”

Bradley pauses. Did he say that? If he did…

“And it…” You gasp for breath, the tears now streaming freely down your face, and god, it hurts, it hurts worse than thinking he lost Mav, hurts worse than thinking he’d die in that F-14 because all of that he’d been prepared for, had been practicing for his whole life. Losing Maverick, losing himself, all of that had been inevitable. But losing you… Bradley always assumed he was going to be the one to go first.

“It’s fine,” you go on. “I was fine with it, Bradley, I gave that dream up because… because I wanted you more, and I was okay with it. It was my decision, and I don’t regret it, but for you to just… to just….”

“I do want children,” he says because he doesn’t know what to do except explain it, except make you see the truth of it all. “I’ve always… I’ve always wanted children, honey. I just… after what happened to my dad, after what that did to me, what it did to my mother, I didn’t… I didn’t want to do that to you. I couldn’t do that to you.”

For a moment, you say nothing, eyebrows furrowed, lower lip caught between your teeth.

“You…” You look like you’re trying very hard to understand it. “Are you saying you decided not to have children with me because you thought it would hurt me too much if you died?”

When you say it like that, out loud, logically, through your tears, it sounds so incredibly stupid.

Bradley opens and closes his mouth, once, twice. Finally, he nods.

He expects you to start crying harder, to hit him (all valid reactions, really), but instead, you do the one thing he doesn’t expect: You laugh. It’s a watery sound, barely amused, but it is a laugh.

You bury your face in your hands, then reemerge after a moment, eyes rimmed in red, and say, “God, Bradley, you’re so stupid.”

“I…” He doesn’t know what to say to that. Probably, you’re right. “What?”

“You just…” You exhale a long, shuddering breath. “You keep trying to make decisions without me.”

“... I do?”

“Yeah!” Your voice rises a little, then settles, and you say, “This is my decision as much as it’s yours. If I say I want it, if I say I know the risk and I know the danger, then you don’t get to tell me no. Do you think I’m dumb? Do you think I don’t understand what goes on when you get deployed? Do you think I don’t know that you’re risking your life all the time?”

“No, I… I know you know that.”

You shrug, and it’s a gesture of such helplessness that Bradley’s knees almost buckle.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. I don’t know if… if one day there’s going to be a mission you don’t come back from. I don’t know that, Bradley. I can’t know that. But until then… can’t you just let us be happy?”

Bradley’s shaking. Head to toe, tremors that run through him like the tides. Unstoppable. Unrelenting.

“I…” And he knows he’s the one who brought it up, but suddenly all the doubts come crashing down. Suddenly the ghosts crowd around him. “What if I die? What if I leave you? What if we have a baby and I’m not… there?”

“Oh, Bradley…” Something on your face melts. You step closer, put a hand on his cheek, fingertips still pruned from the water, and say, so gently it breaks something open inside of him, “Bradley. You’re not your father.”

And Bradley can’t help it - he cries. It’s an ugly sort of crying, the sort that leaves you with a headache and snot dripping down your face and eyes that hurt. The one you feel in the morning. But it’s a relief too. A release. Rain after years and years of drought.

For so long, Bradley was trying to let go of a world that didn’t want him to leave. He’s been preparing for an early exit since he entered, has been so caught up in dreaming he forgot to live. So caught up in thinking he forgot to do. He thought he would be content to go out of this world and leave nothing behind, to disappear without a trace, without a word, without a ghost.

But now he sees it clearly. Now he understands.

Bradley doesn’t want to stop existing. He wants to cling to this world like someone clinging to the edge of a cliff, like a leech, like a cancer. He wants to haunt someone.

Only there’s something else, too.

A week before his mother died, when she had gone all quiet, when she had lost the vibrancy she used to carry around like a glow, when she had slept longer and spoke less and Bradley had known, somewhere deep inside of him, that things were ending, that they were truly ending, he’d gathered all his courage and asked a question he’d been rehearsing for weeks, months, years.

“Do you regret it?”

Do you regret loving my father now, knowing all that would come after? Knowing the landslide it really was?

And Carol had just smiled, something of that old light returning for a moment, a tenderness so big it felt like violence, and she’d said, “I could never regret him. Not even the heartbreak or the grief or the pain. After all, he gave me you, didn’t he?”

Maybe, he thinks, it’s time to let the past be in the past. Maybe it’s time to let himself have a future.

Maybe it’s time to let go of the ghost.

And you just hold him as he cries like he hasn’t since he locked himself in a bathroom stall after his mother’s funeral, cries until it feels like he’s going to throw up, cries until the gnashing teeth of grief of pain of hurt of anger finally leave him be.

After half an eternity, you pull away, warm hands cupping his face, tugging him gently away from the crook of your neck, so he has to look at you, can’t look anywhere but at you, and then you say, “Bradley, what happened to your father was a horrible, terrible accident. But he loved you. You know that, don’t you?”

He nods. His father, the hazy shape of him, the ghost he’s carried for so long - frosted tips and Hawaiian shirts and the smell of motor oil. Large hands and a mustache and rides around living rooms. So much of him is shadowed, fractioned, incomplete, but not this. This he knows. When he thinks of his father, there’s nothing now but the hazy, easy warmth of love.

“Do you really think,” you say softly, “that they made a mistake when they had you? Your parents? Do you really think they shouldn’t have done it?”

Bradley has thought about his life in boxes. Big cardboard ones, the kind you get when you move apartments. He tucks the good parts away beneath his bed, stows them, hoards them like a secret. Like his mother kept her grief. But all the bad parts - the pain and the sadness and the sorrow - those he lets pile up everywhere, in hallways, in living rooms, on kitchen tables. He stumbles over them on his way to the bathroom. He stubs his toe halfway to the closet.

He never looks at those good parts, afraid they’ll become tainted somehow if he thinks about them for too long, afraid they’ll lose their appeal or their strength. But there’s so much good there too.

Goose loved him, he knows this without a doubt. Carole loved him. Mav loves him, Phoenix loves him, you love him… At the end of it all, even despite all the terrible things that have happened to him, even with the ghosts that have haunted him for so long, Bradley has been loved, and he has lived, and he has been happy.

Shouldn’t that be worth something, too?

“No,” he says, voice soft, “no, I’m glad they had me.”

His life has been a long, long road. Difficult to walk sometimes, full of potholes, some as big as canyons. But there’s so much happiness there, too - car rides with his mother, Mav telling him stories about his father, the moment when the wheels lift off the tarmac at take-off. This long, terrible, winding road that led him here. That led him to you.

You brush your fingertips across his cheekbone, and Bradley capsizes.

“I love you,” he says, and it’s the truest thing he’s ever said. It’s the truest thing he’s ever known. “I want… I want to have a life with you.”

“You do,” you answer. “You have one.”

Bradley’s tears have dried so the sound he makes isn’t really a sob, but it’s damn close to one.

“Do you…” He clears his throat. “You love me, too?”

It’s a dumb question, unnecessary because he already knows the answer. But he needs to hear you say it anyway.

And when you smile, your whole face lights up. It echoes somewhere inside Bradley, somewhere at his core, goes through him like a current.

“Bradley Bradshaw,” you say, and there’s only a little bit of amusement in your voice, “you’re the love of my life.”

His heart jumps like a jackknife in his chest.

Before he recognizes that he’s made the conscious decision to do so, he’s bridged the space between you and has pulled you into a searing, soaring, slow kiss. He fumbles it a little, teeth knocking against yours, but you just laugh into it, going up on your tiptoes, arms wrapping around his neck, pulling yourself closer to him like you want to meld yourself to his bones. Bradley feels like somebody’s poured liquid sunlight into his chest.

Somewhere it goes heated, goes desperate, goes near frantic, all the adrenaline, all the fear, everything pouring from him in a shower of want. Somehow he’s got you pressed up against the counter, tongue tangled with yours, fingers in your hair, fingers on your back, fingers pulling up the edge of the shirt you’ve stolen from him to find the warm, soft skin beneath.

Breathless, heart stuttering, Bradley pulls away, looks at your lips swollen from the tug of his teeth, your eyes with the heavy lids, the hair mussed by his fingers, and he needs to hear it. Needs to know you want this as much as he does. The ache in him twists like a knife between the ribs.

“Tell me,” he whispers, afraid the moment will shatter if he makes a wrong move, speaks too loudly. It’s so fragile - he wants to protect it so fiercely. Presses the tips of his fingers into the place where your pulse hammers away. “Tell me you want to have a baby with me.”

“I want…” And you sigh, a sound like a spring day, a sound like a rushing mountain stream. “I want it.”

He surges forward, lips against yours again, and you’re so alive beneath him, heart racing, breath heaving, fingers grappling along his neck, his shoulders, his chest, his arms, and Bradley wants to devour you. Wants to sink his teeth into all this life and never let it go again. He wants to exist, right here, in this moment with you forever.

“I love you,” he mumbles into your neck, lets his mouth move over the column of your throat, down to the sharp points of your collarbones beneath the soft skin. Sinks to his knees on the kitchen tiles like he’s kneeling at an altar to pray.

“Bradley,” you whisper, fingers going to tangle in his hair, to smooth along the sides of his face, and the softness in your voice cracks something in him. He swears he could cry again.

He doesn’t even know what he’s doing as he nuzzles his nose against the sloping curve of your upper thigh, as his fingers tighten on your hips. He just wants to be close to you. And you’re so soft, so warm, you smell like home, and it tears through him, blazes everything in its wake, to realize just how close he came to losing it all.

“I’m gonna marry you,” he whispers, babbles, barely coherent, pressing his face against the fabric of your panties, inhaling your scent, opening his mouth to push his tongue where he knows your clit is. “Gonna make you so happy, baby, I promise, it’s all I want. I’m never letting you go again, I’m never….”

Above him, you whimper, hips knocking forward, arching into the movement of his tongue for a moment, and he wonders if you’re wet, thinks about the hot, tight vice of your cunt, and groans against you. His cock jumps.

Then you’re tugging him away from you by the hair, and Bradley goes reluctantly, mouth still open, wishing he could stay where he was forever. Drowning in you.

You’re looking down at him with eyes blown wide.

“Bradley,” you say, and there’s something unsteady to your voice. “Take me to bed.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. It’s a tumble all the way to your bedroom - he kicks off his shoes on the way, you lose your shirt, and he’s somehow, miraculously, gotten down to his boxers by the time he drags you backward with him onto the mattress.

“I love you,” he says as he drags you on top of him, your legs opening around his hips like the petals of a flower. The mattress dips where your knees press against the springs, your weight grounds him. “I love you, you’re so perfect, you’re….”

He has no idea what he’s saying. His brain checked out a while ago, and it’s all just feelings now, just emotions coursing through him, and every once in a while, one will plunge its head through the surface, and then he’ll tell you something nonsensical, something dumb, something important, something he needs you to know, something…

You lean down to kiss him, to shut him up, his brain buzzes, your breasts press to his bare chest, and he’s so hard in his boxers it hurts.

“I love you, too,” you whisper against his lips, smile into the kiss. The curve of it burns against Bradley’s face.

He sits up, grasps you by the thighs to drag you closer, drag your core across his cock, and you both moan against each other. Your fingernails scrape over the back of his neck, where his hair is buzzed so short he knows it feels like prickles, and he shudders, sighs, lets his tongue run across your teeth.

For a while, you just stay like that, rutting against each other like fucking teenagers, tongues lazy, fingers eager, mouths hungry. Even through your panties, he can feel your wetness, wonders if it’s going to leave stains on his underwear, across his thighs. Bradley thinks he’s going to die, but this time it’s nothing like it was up in the F-14.

It’s difficult in your position, awkward, but he gets a finger first on your clit, and then, when he finds you wet and swollen and open, he slides it right inside you. Watches your face as you squeeze your eyes shut, as your mouth falls open on a muffled gasp, as your head tips backward.

You’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

He fucks his finger in and out slowly, adds a second to stretch you, and then he’s saying, “Baby, honey, you’re so tight, you’re so fucking wet, god I….”

You whimper, and then you’re pulling off him, shimmying out of your panties, leaning down to tug his boxers off.

“Gotta have…” Your throat moves when you swallow as you clamber back into his lap. “Want you inside me, please, Bradley. I’m ready.”

He groans, something in his stomach yanking tight, and he’s pretty sure he’s leaking precum steadily by now.

There’s no time to tease, no need for it either, not when you’re both aching for it, not after what you’ve just gone through. The hot slide of him inside you, feeling you all around him, Bradley thinks that might be the only thing that could make him realize he’s actually back here, that it isn’t all just a dream, that he didn’t actually go down in that plane and has been stuck in some kind of cruel limbo for the past few days.

But there’s the other thing too. The need he can’t explain. The selfish, horrible, depraved thing he can share with nobody but you. That nobody but you would ever understand.

Slowly, tentatively, he places his palm on your stomach, fingers splaying wide, and leaves it there. He’s too scared to look at you, too scared of what you’ll think of him, too scared of what you’ll do once you find out how deep his desire runs, how desperately he wants this. Will you hate him? Will you be disgusted? Will you draw back, pull away, leave him alone with all his depravity and all his fears and all his sorrow?

“I need… I want…” He can’t even finish the sentence, brain too foggy. Too scared to meet your eyes, Bradley just blinks at the sight in front of him, his big hand on your skin, and his heart seizes, his insides clench, and he can’t breathe, can’t, he’s going to…

Slowly, your fingers wrap around his wrist.

“Yes,” you breathe above him.

It’s a visceral thing. The words burn through him, wrap around him, curl into him. He surges forward to kiss you, desperate, a choked sound escaping him, and licks into your mouth. Around his wrist, your fingers tighten.

He pushes you back into the sheets, crawls over you and spreads your legs, slides between them where he belongs. When his gaze falls to your face, there’s so much trust there, so much love, and it cleaves him in two, just how much he loves you, just how much he needs you. He doesn’t have the words to express it, can only hope you understand what he means when he plunges into you without preamble, when he whispers your name against the shell of your ear, when he curves around you like he wants to shield you from everything bad in the world.

You moan, fingers coming up to grasp his arm where he’s balancing his weight on the elbows. Your mouth tips open, your eyes not straying from his for a second as he goes slow, as he goes deep, as he goes home. There’s an answer in that too.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, voice choked as he bottoms out, as he holds himself perfectly still. “So tight and beautiful, and you’re all mine, and I’m yours and….”

“Bradley,” you stop him. Wrap your legs around his hips and pull him in. “It’s okay. You can move now.”

So he does.

It’s frantic from the first moment. It’s all the tension that’s been building up for years and years inside of him, all his love and all his longing finally laid open, and he can’t hold back anymore, not when he feels like he’s going to burst out of his own skin at any moment now.

The wet squeeze of your walls around his cock has his eyes rolling into the back of his head.

“Fuck,” he curses, hips pushing forward at an unsteady pace, as he leans down to kiss you again, as you open your mouth for him easily, as he nips at your lower lip.

And it’s so dumb - he’s inside of you, curled around you, his tongue tangled with your own, but Bradley wants you closer, still. Needs to know that you’re there with him, that he’s here with you, that he came home and he is letting himself have this, you’re letting him have it, and he loves you, he loves you, he…

Bradley takes his weight off his elbows, gets his arms around you, plasters himself to you, chest to chest, hip to hip, mouth finding the side of your neck, your collarbones. Like this, with his arms around your shoulders, it feels almost like he’s pulling you down to him with every thrust, like he slides just half an inch deeper into you.

You try to muffle a moan into his hair, but Bradley pulls your face away, keeps his pace as he says, “Wanna hear you. Let me hear you, baby, tell me how much you like it. You love it, don’t you? Love my cock, yeah? Love it when I fuck you?”

Maybe it’s pathetic, but Bradley needs to hear it. Needs to know you’re as desperate for him as he is for you. Needs to know you want it just as much.

On a thrust in, your walls flutter around him, and you whine, back arching a little, head sliding across the pillow as you nod.

“Yes,” you gasp, “I love it, Bradley, I love your cock. Thought about it while you were gone all the time, every night, I….”

Bradley groans, shudders, suddenly so close to the brink he needs to squeeze his eyes shut against the image of you - the glossy eyes, the swollen lips, the absolute ruin he’s reduced you to.

“Can’t say shit like that, baby,” he whispers, leaning to press tender kisses to the column of your throat. “Not when you’re this fucking wet, not when you’re making these sounds… you’re gonna make me cum.”

You giggle, then moan, head lolling to the side to give him better access.

“Good,” you say, legs hiking higher up on his hips, his cock sliding deeper, “that’s the plan, isn’t it?”

If there were any air left in his lungs, Bradley would laugh with you. As it stands, he just ups the ante, going a little harder, watching as your eyelashes flutter, feeling your fingers spasm against the skin of his back.

It’s so hot in the room, both of you sticking to each other with sweat, and maybe that, too, should be disgusting, but Bradley doesn’t care. When he leans down to lick a long, wet stripe along the edge of your jaw, he tastes salt on his tongue.

“I’m gonna….” When he glances down at you, at the eyes wide with that much trust, as he realizes you would let him do just about anything to you, that you’ve both opened yourself to each other completely now, no barriers and no ghosts standing between you, it’s like a dam breaking. He moans, so loud it echoes through the room, leans to plunge his tongue into your mouth, desperate, and then he’s saying into it, “God, I’m gonna fuck you so full, honey, gonna fuck you until it takes, yeah? Gonna keep you right here and fill you up, again and again, gonna make sure to get a baby in you, fuck, you’d be so fucking pretty, honey, so pretty all full of me, I know it, I can….”

And you sob. Full-on. Back arching off the bed, legs sliding off his hips, spreading so wide it must hurt.

“Bradley,” you say, fingernails breaking skin, forehead pressing against his throat to hide your face. “Bradley, fuck, I… the pill….”

He’s shaking his head, cutting you off with his mouth on yours. Conveying what he can’t speak, what he’s too far gone to formulate, here where logic has become a distant, remote concept, here between your legs. Don’t say it. Let me live in this fantasy. Let me dream a little longer.

It’s the thought of it all - a bump beneath your dresses, a baby in your arms, tiny fingers wrapping around his thumb, it’s about the long, long stretch of life ahead of the two of you. It’s about a house filled with love and free of ghosts. It’s about the first glimpse of the ocean after listening to its roar in seashells all his life. It’s about giving himself over to you completely, after years of only dreaming of it.

Do you know? he wonders. Do you know that you’re holding his whole life in your hands?

“I love you,” he mumbles, repeats it as he sinks into you again and again, as he buries himself in you, as he holds onto you like he’ll be back in the cold, cold, cold of all that snow the moment he lets go, like he’ll go back to the cockpit with the ghosts like jailors around him, like he’ll float right off the face off the earth. You have always been his anchor. “I’m gonna give you a baby, honey, I promise, gonna cum inside of you, you want that, right? You want me to come right here in this pretty pussy, fill you up all nice and wet, and….”

Your mouth moves against his clavicle, the feel of it spreading like wildfire through him, and you’re saying, “Yes, yes, Bradley, give it to me, please, I wanna feel it, want you to come inside me, please, please, I need it, I….”

A yell punches from him as he thrusts inside one last time, buries himself to the hilt in your warmth, and then he’s panting, his ears are ringing, his veins are buzzing as he cums, as he paints you with his release. He can’t do anything except hold onto you, bury his face in your hair, inhaling your scent, jerking his hips forward erratically, little sounds escaping him. It’s never felt like this before - like dying and coming back alive. The release of it is so big he feels shattered under its weight.

And you’re saying something to him, whispering words sticky with honey into his ear, pouring them right into his heart, and he can barely hear you over the hammering of his own heart, but it doesn’t matter. You hold him as he trembles, as he shakes, as he tries to collect himself, to control his breathing, hold him and stroke lazy, soft circles up and down his back, trace patterns against his spine, leave soft kisses on any inch of skin you can reach, trapped beneath his weight as you are.

Finally, after an eternity, Bradley pulls away an inch or two, careful not to let his cock slip out. There’s a little embarrassment spreading through his stomach now because he can’t believe he came that fast, can’t believe he didn’t even make sure to take you over the edge with him.

But you barely seem to think about your own lack of an orgasm.

“Are you okay?” you ask, voice gentle, face full of concern.

Bradley’s heart clenches. Maybe, he thinks, his ribcage is going to crack open. It seems impossible for one person to hold so much love inside.

“Are…” He clears his throat, suddenly unsure. “Are you?”

You nod immediately, smile, and the relief floods him. Then you shift, gasp, muscles fluttering around his softening cock.

“Well… I…”

He doesn’t let you finish, shakes his head, says, “You did so good for me, baby. Let me take care of you, yeah?”

He’s already looking at the place where you’re still connected, where his cum is beginning to drip from you in silvery trails. The sight of it is enough to make something like madness descend again, something like that earlier haze, the frenzy of the heat.

Bradley pulls out, sighs at the feeling, and your mouth opens as if in protest, but before you can form any words, he’s replaced his cock with two fingers.

You whimper, eyes closing, a muscle in your stomach jumping.

“I got you,” he says, keeps his eyes on the mess of your swollen cunt, the wet spot soaking into the mattress just beneath, the evidence of his pleasure, smooths his free hand over your chest to settle you. “Relax, honey. I got you.”

Your answer is a moan of his name, fingers twisting into the sheets. He can feel your walls bearing down on the motion of his fingers and knows you’re close, desperately, frantically, torturously close to the brink.

So he speeds up the movement of his digits, swipes his thumb through the sopping wetness, and then across your clit as he fucks his cum back into you. Not letting a single drop go to waste.

“Bradley,” you sob, mouth opening, fingers grappling for something.

Knowing what you need, knowing without you asking for it, he catches your hand with his own and interlaces your fingers. Then he leans down, leans over you, leans in. Finds the seam of your mouth with his own. It’s less of a kiss than both of you panting against each other, finding the same rhythm.

“You can let go now,” he whispers into you. “I’m here. I’ve got you, honey. My perfect girl.”

You come with his name on your lips, cunt clenching around his fingers, arching off the bed and into him, and it’s like a prayer. It’s like a song.

It takes you a while to come down, and he coaxes you through it, brushes kisses against your lips and your jaw and your ear. Hopes he can ground you the same way you ground him.

Finally, softly, voice faint and fragile, you say, “That was… intense.”

Bradley hums in agreement, and then a laugh rips from him. Because it’s all so ridiculous and so monumental, and he doesn’t know where to go with all these emotions.

“I… yeah. It really was.” He pauses, feels shame curling through him. “I’m sorry I sprung that on you.”

You shake your head, lift one hand to run a finger across his mustache the way you like to do sometimes.

“It’s okay,” you say, and he knows you mean it. “You must have carried that for a long time.”

It chokes him up, the way you know him so well. Better than anybody else.

“Yeah,” he agrees, drops his head into the crook of your neck. “It… I want you to know that I really want this. It’s not… it’s not adrenaline, and it’s not just almost dying, it’s… It’s you. I want this with you. Only with you.”

He can feel the curve of your smile against his temple, can hear it in your voice.

“I want it with you too, Bradley. Only with you.”

Bradley’s so afraid he’s going to start crying again that he springs into action instead. Reaches around you for a pillow to push beneath your hips, angle your lower body upwards.

“What are you doing?” you ask, laughing a little.

“I’m trying to keep my cum in you. Maybe we’re like super extra lucky, and it works out on the first try.”

Now you’re laughing in earnest, and he gets the impression it might be at his expanse.

“Still on the pill, Bradley,” you remind him, eyes luminous with your happiness.

Feeling a little sheepish, a little embarrassed, a little elated, he shrugs helplessly.

“Can’t hurt,” he says. Then adds, “Besides… I don’t want all my hard work to go to waste.”

Then you’re laughing together, breathless, loud laughter, the bending-at-the-waist kind. The belly-hurting kind. The kind that doesn’t come often.

And it’s good. It’s beautiful. It’s the kind of peace he’s never known before but has wanted always, always, always.

It’s so much better than anything he could have ever dreamed. Because it’s real. Because it’s true.

All his life, Bradley thinks, he’s been listening to oceans in seashells. It’s good, fun even, for a while, but it’s no replacement for the real thing. It’s no comparison to standing at the shore of the Pacific Ocean, watching waves crest and crash and throw themselves against the beach again and again, like a devotion that never ends. How big and beautiful and terrible the truth of it is.

And he’d thought the whole world was in that seashell.

Once the laughter has died down, once you’ve fallen back into the kind of comfortable silence that can exist only between people that really, truly love each other, Bradley strokes his thumb against your cheekbone, watches your eyes flutter closed.

“I love you,” he says, “more than I thought I could love someone. Thanks for loving me back.”

It’s bumbling, and it’s inadequate, and it doesn’t convey half of what it should.

But you smile at him, eyes opening, face so tender his heart stutters, and you whisper, “It’s an honor, Lieutenant Bradshaw.”

For the first time, Bradley doesn’t think about dying, doesn’t think about leaving. He thinks about living. He thinks about staying.

#rooster #bradley bradshaw #rooster x reader #rooster imagine #bradley bradshaw x reader #top gun imagine #mine #f: oias

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artificial-transmutations · 9 months

Text

Don't cry, you know?

Joanna sighed as her boyfriend, Ben, got into the car and drove away. The weekend had been over too quickly again, and the next one was still a long way away. She knew it wasn't all his fault. His job required a lot of his time, and his work demanded that he travelled a lot. Still, she missed him dearly every time he had to leave for the barracks again.

She entered her apartment and hung her jacket on the coat rack before beginning to clean up the plates of their dinner. The flat was silent without Ben's gentle baritone voice. He was a tough guy and liked to play the gruff soldier when he was around his friends, but Joanna knew that he was actually a very kind and sensitive man. Her friends never believed her at first when she mentioned he was with the army.

A few minutes later, she was done with the dishes. She put away the last of her cleaning supplies before making herself a cup of coffee. A nice hot drink would help her relax. However, as she sat on the coffee table and held the steaming mug with the arms of her sweater, all of a sudden, she felt the twinge of sadness bubble up inside of her.

It just wasn't fair! Other women all around her were dating their boyfriends. Her best friend and her fiancé were planning their wedding and her other good friend was already a mum! Joanna felt left out, and Ben was always too busy to spend more than two weekends in a month with her.

But she was being unfair, she knew that. She loved him with all her heart, and he did everything he could to be there for her when he could be. Tears were streaming down her face now and she was sobbing silently. Why of all things did he have to be a soldier? Was it too much to ask that she just wanted to be near him, fall asleep with him and see him more often than twice a month?

The thought was so bitter, and she was so distracted by her feelings, that she didn't notice the small red creature sitting on the kitchen counter. It was a fairy, but Joanna wouldn't know that. Her only thought was: "What a mess I am now!"

"Why are you crying, little lady?" came the small voice from the kitchen counter. It was a soft, delicate voice.

Joanna gasped as she noticed the tiny little creature that spoke to her. "Wh-what are you? Where did you come from?"

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you! I'm a fairy of happiness, you know?"

"A... fairy?" Joanna repeated without believing.

"... of happiness, yes, little lady." The fairy smiled at her. "I normally help children, you know?"

That explained why the small creature was addressing her like she was a child.

"But when I came by your window there, I saw that you were crying, all by yourself. Nobody should be sad and alone, you know?"

The words from the fairy were meant nicely, but tasted bitter for Joanna as they reminded her of her situation.

"That's the whole problem!" Joanna sobbed. "There is this man I love, but he is a soldier and I hardly ever see him." Even though it was probably just her imagination she was talking to, it felt good to offload all of that sorrow to someone.

"Ohh, poor thing, you are." The fairy answered compassionately. "Would you rather like him not to be a soldier?"

"No, that wouldn't be fair. He loves his job and I want him to be happy, but still. Even his colleagues get to spend way more time with him then me."

"I see, how very considerate of you. Would you rather switch places with one of his colleagues then?" The fairy inquired.

What an odd question! "No, of course not. I love him, and the other soldiers are all guys. While I would spend more time with him, it wouldn't be as a lover." She explained.

"I understand", the fairy smiled at her. "Don't worry, I'll help you little lady. Not don't cry anymore. You are so big, there's no reason to cry."

Joanna felt a quick rush of vertigo as, suddenly, her body shot up in height. "What is happening?" she squeaked.

"Relax, it's just magic, you know?" The fairy smiled at her. "Just look at yourself, you're so big and strong, there is no reason to be sad."

Joanna looked down on herself and gasped. She could see her body clearly, because her clothing was getting more and more translucent, until Joanna felt the cold air on her naked skin. But that wasn't the weirdest thing that had happened: Her body was considerably taller and, indeed, stronger: Her arms and legs were longer and showed muscle definition that had not been there before. In fact, it looked like she had just finished a workout and had muscles that were slightly sore from all the training and full of pump. It looked out of place to have such a strong body while the rest of her remained the same as before.

"Perhaps you need hands and feet to match, you know?" said the fairy and waved her wand, as if she had read Joanna’s mind. Quickly, her hands became rougher and bigger while her nails receded to a more easily manageable size. At least now, her hands were as big as her arms suggested, even though they looked more like the hands a woman in manual labor would have.

Her feet changed in a similar manner. They grew at least two shoe sizes and lost their perfectly pedicured softness. Instead, the fairy added hard-working calluses, the result of hours of hard work in a factory, factory floor or office or a great deal of time spent outside.

Joanna shivered. Her bigger appendages exposed even more skin to the cold air, and apparently, the fairy picked up on it: "Oh, poor thing. Are you cold? Here, let me help you!"

She waved her wand, and instantly, Joanna could see body hair creeping over her body. First, it started on the upside of her feet and quickly spread over the legs. The small dark hairs covered her torso, even her ample breasts, thinned out a bit on her shoulders and became more pronounced again on her arms, until ending at her hands.

"This... looks ridiculous." Joanna said, half pointing to her hair-covered boobs.

"Yes, I see what you mean..." said the fairy and waved her wand again, pointing it at the part of Joanna’s body in critique.

Immediately, her boobs receded into her body until there was nothing left but hard pectoral muscles that integrated quite naturally into the rest of her torso. Her nipples became smaller and darker, and some hairs sprouted on them as well.

"Why?!" Joanna felt the place where her boobs had been just a moment ago. "My chest looks like a man now!"

"Yes, isn't it wonderful? Just the way Ben likes it, you know?"

Joanna wanted to disagree but felt confused for a moment. It was true, Ben liked her kind of hairy, flat-chested and muscled body a lot. Perhaps he was a bit bisexual, after all, and her confusing form was just triggering him the right way. Joanna was so lost in thought she didn't notice as her hips became narrower and her internal organs rearranged, giving her body a V-shape instead of an hourglass one. At the same time, her ass became less full but more muscled.

"Is it getting better now, little man?" asked the fairy with a smile and a wink.

Joanna was still confused, but immediately answered: "I'm not a ..."

She was interrupted by a strange sensation in her groin: She felt a pulling feeling, as a new organ grew from within her body, quickly becoming prominent and large. With a small plopping sound, a scrotum formed between it, sealing her vagina shut in the process, and two balls that had once been her ovaries dropped into it. Joanna felt the new anatomy in disbelieve before exclaiming in a now deeper voice due to her new Adam’s apple: "Holy shit! I'm a man!"

"Yes, you are." The fairy beamed. "And that's good, you know? Because that's just the way Ben loves you!"

With a final flick of the wand, her feminine face changed into a rugged and masculine version, complete with stubble. Her long hair became a short cut with blond highlights and her jaw became square and strong. New memories overwrote old ones. Suddenly Joanna remembered signing up to the army together with Ben. Ben and Joan bunking together, both feeling attracted to each other but too afraid to try anything. Then, finally, in a tent on wilderness training, the first kiss. The first sex, in the same night. After that, Ben and John quickly became known as the gay couple in their unit. And like a miracle, everyone was just fine with them!

As John opened his eyes again, the fairy and his apartment were gone, her old life nothing more than a distant memory. He watched with a smile as Ben entered their room, back from his leave. John almost jumped him and quickly got into a deep French kiss with him. He could clearly feel both his and the other man's arousal, as they quickly lost their uniforms and grinded their needy crotches against each other.

John really couldn't wish for a better life, he decided, as Ben got down on his knees in front of him.

I'm so happy that John an Ben have found each other like that and can be see each other more often now! If you want to see more of my stories and that the moment I have written them, you don't need a fairy - just head over to my riot page!

#male transformation #straight to gay #muscle transformation #female to male tf

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carlyraejepsans · 4 months

Note

Yknow, despite how it is impossible by all Ingame options, I wonder how a neutral route with *ONLY* Sans (and Asgore ig) killed would look? Would he count enough as a boss monster (NOT a Boss Monster) to push it from a Queen Toriel ending to an Empress Undyne ending? How would Alphys react (She lost one of her closest friends, but she still has MTT and Undyne around.)? How would Papyrus react (Would he go full angst mode and try close away his heart? Would he become even more of a people pleaser, trying to make sure he doesn't repeat whatever mistake he made with you again? Would he go into denial mode, trying to find Flowey to set things right with him either finding him or not based on what Frisk choses after the FloweyX fight? So many choises), especially with how he seems to Know Something he doesn't let on. I'd imagine that (provided it's a Queen Toriel Ending) Undyne wouldn't be thar affected, sad that Papyrus lost a brother rather than sad that Sans died (she never is close with Sans. She doesn't hate him, but she doesn't know him as more than "Papyrus weird brother" and "My sentry that works the ABSOLUTE bare minimum needed"). I don't think mettaton would appear or be affected, leaving the call pretty limited. So we have Papyrus and Maybe Undyne, with Papyrus probably being... kinda miffed that everything is going along the same, as if Everything hasn't changed. Bonus points if it's Post Dates, leaving a pretty aimless Undyne moving into Sans room, trying to fill a void that she never can. It isn't some threat she can suplex or teach to cook, it's the world being unfair.

(This also would give a pretty Unique Undyne state, being halfway between her "I don't like that you had to kill Asgore, but it's what you had to do" mindset and her more common "You betrayed me in such a soul crushing way it'll affect how I love forever" mindset in most Neutral Endings. I can imagine her actually trying to rationalise it, because the human only killed Asgore (sucks but she Gets It), and... Sans. The easiest enemy, one too weak to make it into the guard, and almost too weak to be a Sentry (Sans would have no reason to reveal Blasters, and his magic would barely scratch the TRUE HERO of the Underground when Karma is factored in. All she would see is surprisingly complex patterns that don't deal even a tenth of her hp). So surely, they had a reason, right? Why else would they do it?)

Forgive any bad writing it's literally 2 AM rn where I am

can't not confess I've thought about it too, but it IS really hard to extend as a concept because there's just... really no way for sans to die outside of the NM run. and I don't mean logistically, i mean character-wise he is so defined by his survival. by his Being There as everything falls apart. the final girl last man standing in the story. so the whole concept immediately falls apart.

undyne wouldn't personally grieve him, seeing as they didn't really know each other, but she WOULD still feel his death on her conscience as she does with every other monster killed in neutral runs. plus, there's her friendship with papyrus to emotionally aggravate things.

papyrus would definitely go into denial. he would be annoyed about him vanishing all of a sudden, then it'd turn to worry, then as his worries become more and more plausible, he'd shut out all rational thought about the subject and pretend everything is alright. i like the idea of him reaching out to flowey, but he'd try to explain his plan while also comtradicting himself all the time in order to never say outloud "sans is dead. we need to fix this"

betrayed undyne... yeah this is where it falls apart again, since you'd have to reason why sans would die (or even instigate a fight at all) in the final corridor during what has so far been a flawless pacifist run.

buuut pushing past the visceral resistance to the concept. i can easily see a scene where the betrayal pushes her to lose it and seek revenge like it does in normal neutral runs, and her looking to papyrus for training help/human destroying plans. and just... meeting a Wall of denial. that would be a harrowing talk. something people don't mention enough is that papyrus sees himself as sans' caretaker as much if not even more than sans does towards him. a world where sans is dead is a world where he failed his brother. it would devastate him. so he clings to anything not to think about it/delude himself. and here comes undyne ready to shatter that fragile hope. it would be a horrible moment between them

but yeah. everything aside, sans would straight up just not die lol.

#answered asks #undertale #sans #papyrus #undyne

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minminho0 · 1 year

Text

✤------------------------------------------✤

◈Why her?◈

✤------------------------------------------✤

-Angst ~ No comfort

Summary: All it took was a single follower to ruin your relationship with him

Gender: Female

Warnings: Murder, violence, attempted murder, replaced, stalking, obsession, yandere-ish reader, attepted suicide, bad writing skills [Thats all i think]

A/n: I hope you enjoy~!

(Feel free to correct my grammar!)

---

You've been with Scara through thick and thin. You were always there for him, comforting him, supporting him, listening to him, helping him, killed innocents for him, anything you could think of, you did it all for him.

"Why are you doing this!?"

"Because I love him."

After hours of listening to screams and begs, you finally heard silence.

Here you are again tonight, killing another innocent family just because Scara wants you too even if you didn't want to, you did. Because you would do everything and anything for him.

"You're home" you heard someone say. You looked at the couch of your house to see him.

"Did you kill them all?"Scara said looking at you.

"Yes"

"Good"

"Have you eaten yet?"

"Ya"

"Without me again?" You said while sitting down beside him, slightly frowning.

He just looked at you with a blank face and leaned on your shoulder.

"Oh! Scara i havent washed up yet! The blood would stain your clothes" you said, trying to gently push the man off you

He then grabbed your hand and said "I dont care, stay here" he glared.

It was nice being with him afterall he was your only someone and you're his only someone. You're not really good at socializing that much and besides you're to busy worshipping Scara to even make friends.

You were kind of glad that Scara...yk only comes to..you? And aslong as he comes home to you, you're happy.

But one day, all of that suddenly changed, when Scara found out about a little follower of his.

You were sad

You were angry

You were happy...?

..You said to yourself that aslong as his happy, you're happy!.....

'but.. why do I feel this way..? Why do i feel like i lost a part of me..?' You thought to yourself.

You looked at the dinner table and saw the dinner you made him untouched.

Each day, Scara's time at home lessen. He spends less time with you and only comes home once in a while.

And everytime he came home, he always talks about that follower.

You spend the whole night at the bathroom thinking about that follower . Feeling jealous because you spent half of your life with him!? And then when a little follower of his pop up, you were suddenly a nobody! You were suddenly replaced because someone new showed up!

"Why her!?"

You hate it so much you cant even scream, you just cried your heart out until you cant no more.

And everytime he talks about her, he always refers to her as his ' first follower' like bich ass what am i?! A roach!?

You spent half of your life with him just not to deserve to be called his follower!??

You cried, you cursed, you pulled, you scratch, you scream, you did everything to express your anger.

And when you found out that Your beloved Scara watches her sleep!? You freaked out!?!!(not infront of him)

You litterly worshipped him!? Why dosent he watch you sleep!? Like wth

"This is so unfair!" I silently screamed.

You're a bit mad that Scara refers to her as his first because he unsurprisingly gets pleasure from seeing your jealous/mad face.

And after you calmed down a bit you swore you're going to get rid af her.

After days, you finally found out where she lives and where her usual spots are.

When Scara has to go away for some things you took this chance to try and assassinate her.

You were about to slit her throat when a hand suddenly grabbed your wrist to a tight hold.

You looked up and you saw him..the same man you fell inlove with...

"WTF ARE YOU DOING!?"

"I- ..I-"

After all what he did to you, he never failed to still make you shy..

"IM SORRY! PLEASE FORGIVE ME! I WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN!" You begged. Bowing so low you touched the ground below.

"Did i tell you to speak?"

You shaked your head, not daring to look at him.

You probably had the worst night after that.

Here you are laying at your bed looking so lifeless.

'What are you gon do now?

Your only purpose in life, left you for another..

'Why her?' You thought, recalling all your memories of him.

You were sad

You were heart broken

"Why am i like this!? Were not even together! We were nothing to begin with!"

'But i cant help it....'

You were walking around the village. Every one giving you wierd looks because you look like a zombie! You litterly tried to starve yourself to death but thought that your life aint dedicated to him so why are you doing this to yourself?

You were walking mindlessly when someone suddenly grabbed your shoulder, you turn around and saw a young man with blonde hair and on his side you saw a ..fairy?

"Hello miss, is everything alright?"

"Ye? Why did you ask ...and base on your clothing it seems like you are not from here.." You looked at him up and down.

After that faithful encounter, you two have gotten close, he visits your home everyday together with the littel fairy called Paimon, and you seem to have gotten better, to the point you start to forget him.

"Hey y/n!" Someone yelled as i turned around to look who it was.

"Oh hey Aether, do you need anything?" I smiled at him.

You admired his face, you grew fond of him and even developed a little crush but got pulled away from your little world when he asked you something.

"I wanted to ask you if you want to join my adventures!" He excitedly asked.

"Of course i would love to!" I chimed in excitement.

Months past..

You confessed to Aether about your feelings and he shyly accepted, it was such a cute sight that you just want to bite him smh.

Paimon annoying you both by teasing.

You were so in love that you completely forgot on who your first love even was.

And you three lived happily ever after~

Speaking of first love, what about him? Did he find his happily ever after or did he became a withered rose..

Scara's pov:

After that night, i slowly started to miss her..

Her sweet smile

Her sweet cuddles

Her sweet voice

Her sweet everything

I missed the time when i come home and shes there waiting for me with that lovesick smile, but now when i come home..its-..its just lifeless like me.(lol get it? Cuz hes a puppet and ye-😂😂.......🙂ye you probably didn't laugh..)

And what happened to my first follower?

Ye she moved on and forgot about me..

Cant believe i just lost another when im at my worst.

I thought about all the times i spent with her as i slowly watched her walk down the aisle to her future husband, whos slowly crying.

I settled on just watching her and protecting her from afar since Y/n seems to be enjoying her life more with another than with me..

It hurts but atleast shes happy

In the end, im just nothing but a lost soul.

And he live not so happily ever after~!

———

*Masterlist*

Thank you for reading this story!

The story might have changed a bit since ive been putting it off for a while😓

-January 22 2023

Happy Chinese New year 🥰

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rayshippouuchiha · 28 days

Note

Great! You watched it so that means I don’t have to hold back! Mwahahaha you activated my hidden trapcard 😈

Jk jk but anyway LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR RIGHT??

Like, first they HAD to reinvent the whole Bible Genesis story to make him as freaking sympathetic as possible. I mean, a little dreamer whose ideas were dismissed? Who falls in love with a woman because he admired her “fierce independence”, then freaking gifts humanity in general and Eve in particular with FREE WILL? (I have so many headcanons about them btw; Adam being the way he is I think he and Lilith wanted Eve to have the chance to make decisions regarding her own body, relationship, and future that a life under Adam’s thumb as heaven had inteded would’ve denied her. I think they were very good friends once upon a time., and it kills me that we never see Eve again. Did she blame them for being kicked out of Eden? Or was she grateful to them? I’d love to know, I hope we see her next time). That’s all so freaking good already as a backstory, but then they add this:

At this moment my mind just, imploded with the implications. He gifted humanity with free will presumably because, as a joyous dreamer, he had firmly believed that they would create wonderful things and bring about a better world if they were allowed to think for themselves, but gradually over hundreds and thousands of years seeing only the absolute worst that humanity had to offer he seems to think that it was a mistake, and that’s so sad 🥺 He never got to see the good that came from his actions and became depressed as a consequence, probably blaming himself a bit for every ill-action and sin committed.

I was already primed to love him after that backstory right? But then they imply that he’s a neglectful, distant father to Charlie and she is such a good, pure girl that I started thinking maybe I was wrong to start liking him, maybe there was something off about him that the intro had left out since it was Charlie telling her parent’s story. But then we meet him and he’s just:

A cute, awkward little man? One who clearly loves his family to death if the ring still on his finger (after SEVEN FREAKING YEARS OF ABSCENCE, dear god) and the multiple, gigantic family portraits strewn about his room say anything?

Also, he seems like 2 steps away from an anxiety attack at any given time, especially when asked to speak over the phone. He just like me fr fr

And that, along with the fact that he says “this is the first time she’s called you in YEARS”, and that he seems so freaking happy and excited at even the insinuation that she wants to spend time with him,

Leads me to believe that his absence from Charlie’s life was caused by a mutual misunderstanding born of a similar thought process (namely “what if I’m bothering them? What if they think I’m annoying by calling when I don’t need anything? I should wait until I have a good reason to call, or until they call me”) or willfully by someone (Lilith does seem to take Charlie away from her father awfully quick during that one flashback, right? It’s not just me?). I mean, ^that’s not the face of a father who wants to stay away from his daughter because she reminds him of her mom, or even the face of a father who stayed away on purpose for some time and is now willing to reconnect. That looks more to me like the face of someone who has been eagerly awaiting even a single hint that he’s wanted before daring to appear before his daughter, and has now finally been given that chance after a long time and is ECSTATIC. And even then, it seems that even through his self-deprecation and depression he does do his best to reach out, at least more frequently than Charlie does (he called her 5 months ago, she hadn’t called in years, etc etc).

And then he gets to the hotel and he’s so small and cute and awkward and good with animals and I thought I couldn’t love him any more than I already did but I COULD. HOW DID THEY MAKE A CHARACTER SO APPEALING TO ME SPECIFICALLY THIS IS UNFAIR

Which leads me to my other big headcanon: I firmly believe Lucifer tried to get to know sinners in the beginning, and that he tried some kind of “redeem sinners” effort at some point, just like Charlie’s doing - Perhaps for hundreds of years. But he failed, time and time again, until his dreams were absolutely crushed and he ended up giving up on them for good. I mean, those lines:

“You invite people in and offer them everything and they just bring violence and chaos to your doorstep. It doesn’t matter how well-intentioned you are. They’re always gonna disappoint you!”

“Sinners are violent psychopaths hellbent on causing as much pain and destruction as they can. There’s really no point in trying”

^They all sound not like something he’s saying to rub it in Charlie’s face that he was right (which would be cruel and out of character for someone who seems to love his daughter so much), but more like a cautionary tale coming from a deeply ingrained experience, or like things he’s repeatedly told himself before.

And then during More Than Anything he says this:

“You didn’t know that when I tried this all before *gestures around him with his arms as if gesturing towards the hotel as a whole* my dreams were too hard to defend”

That just cemented that belief for me.

On another note, MORE THAN ANYTHING IS SO FREAKING GOOD?? I CRY EVERY TIME GODDAMMIT AFTER THAT SONG I WENT FROM “AW I LOVE THIS LITTLE MAN” TO “I’D DIE FOR HIM, IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO HIM I’LL KILL EVERYONE IN THE ROOM AND THEN MYSELF”. HE’S JUST So- asfgctrdhfdg

AND I HAVEN!T EVEN TALKED ABOUT HOW BADASS HE IS FIGHTING ADAM OR HOW CUTE AND SWEET HE WAS COMFORTING CHARLIE DURING THE FINALE LOOK AT HIMMM

Or about Radioapple (aka DuckieDeer lol), the ship that has had me in a fucking chokehold since I watched episode 5. There are so many things I love about it that I’d need like 3 whole pages to explain but for now have all this absolutely fantastic fanart instead ❤️

Once again thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. Btw any thoughts on Radioapple?

Oh oh Lucifer is such an interesting character and he absolutely makes me eager to see and learn more about the verse and the finer points of what is/has happened in it.

Personally, RadioDust grabbed me by the heart more than anything, since Alastor is my favorite with Angel Dust as a close second, but I do hands down see the appeal of Radioapple.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin lucifer #RayRambles

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ferventfox · 9 months

Text

Saw the Barbie movie and enjoyed it a lot.

Some people on the internet have charged it with being misandrist/man-hating/whatever word you want to use for it, and those people...are kind of correct. Sorry. (Spoilers for the Barbie movie btw)

The standard smug response is “omg sexist dudebros can’t stand that a movie is about women and they are too toxic to understand the message of the film and how it deals with the fact that patriarchy hurts men too.” And sure, it’s made explicit that being in charge and having the material trappings of patriarchal power does not make Ken happy on an existential level (because his real dream in life is to be a horse girl), but it’s not enough to cancel out that every single man in the film is portrayed as an incompetent moron. Stuff like “Men love explaining the Godfather and think playing the guitar is interesting and impressive to women” doesn’t bother me--these are jokes in a comedy film and the characters doing them are doll people who live on a plastic beach. But it’s not just the Kens that are stupid, the men from the real world are all stupid too. The husband of the America Ferrera character is essentially a real world Ken--there just to be there and someone neither the audience or the women in his life spare much of a thought for unless we are laughing at how ridiculous his existence is. The Barbie movie is only “not sexist” in that it’s not as bad as you might expect because the bar for these sorts of thing is so low it’s on the ground.

The messaging around the whole Ken takeover is extremely weird and confusing. As Ken observes, the real world is opposite from life in Barbieland; in Barbieland the Barbies are the patriarchs who occupy all the positions of power and Kens are the “women” in that they are second-class citizens whose lives and identities revolve around the Barbies because they’re not permitted to do anything fulfilling or interesting on their own. But when Ken turns Barbieland into Kendom, the plot seems to run on the assumption that the audience’s sympathies would naturally be with the Barbies fighting to restore the status quo and not with the Kens, who were an underclass until about a day ago. Yes the society they set up is bad--it’s just the reverse of the unfair system that existed before--but there is very little sense that the Barbies are getting a taste of their own medicine and instead the narrative is that it’s tragic that these strong women who have won Nobel prizes have to be nice and pay attention to the obviously stupid and boring Kens for even a day. The main character expresses that she feels bad for treating Ken poorly and this is shut down by another character (meant to be a real human woman from the real world) who basically says she shouldn’t feel bad because Ken stole her house and “brainwashed” her friends but isn’t it just one of the struggles of womanhood that we feel bad about how we treat shitty men~ .

Like, what? All the Kens were homeless before this! I liked the Barbie character and all, but obviously I’m going to feel more sympathy for the person whose example of how the real world made him feel like someone is that a woman found his existence worthwhile enough to ask him for the time than for someone whose arc is dealing with her life being less than perfect for the first time.The former is both very sad and just more like a real experience that most people would have--a lifelong sense of inadequacy rather than having an idyllic existence that went suddenly wrong--yet it’s Barbie who is framed as the relatable one because, I suppose, she is a woman.

I think the movie relies a little too much on this “sisterhood” idea that I’ve always hated. I’m sure I’m meant to be nodding my head at the little speech about the contradictory expectations placed on women and going “yes that’s just what it’s like!”...but I simply didn’t relate to it at all and was left thinking it was sort of a weak, lazy solution to a conflict that was already a bit contrived to begin with. That Barbies would be just as susceptible to rhetoric from some college freshman’s B+ women’s study’s paper as they were to instantly adopting patriarchal ideas actually makes sense, but I don’t think that’s the joke--we’re meant to find it profound. (The human characters in general are the weakest part of the movie. It feels almost like they are remnant of an earlier version of the story that got changed a lot, especially the Mattel executives).

At the end there is some lip service to things not just going back to the way they were, but a Ken cannot have a seat on the supreme court. The point of this, I think, is supposed to be that just like a company releasing toy that is a woman president isn’t going to solve gender inequality, neither is this one event going to immediately change Barbieland into an egalitarian utopia; real equality is hard to to achieve and is a slow process of incremental changes. This is good, but it’s undercut by the movie wanting to have it’s cake and eat it too by having all these girlboss scenes where the Barbies are taking back Barbieland and are clearly better and smarter than the Kens. We’re meant to see them talk about “keeping Barbieland Barbieland” and getting to reinstate “their” constitution (that 0 Kens get to vote on) and feel...good? Inspired?

I couldn't help but feel dissatisfied with how this plotline ended because the situation looks sort of grim.The only Barbie who is ever shown to have any empathy for a Ken leaves, and the Ken with the most personal development gives up leading anyone because it’s not his thing and cedes his leadership position to a Ken who doesn’t have the motivation not to build his life around Barbie that he does. I think I would’ve liked it more if Ken also left Barbieland. He had an existential crisis too; he was also effected enough by his experience that he was capable of tears. If Stereotypical Barbie doesn’t feel like Barbie anymore, does Stereotypical Ken really feel like Ken? After having to completely redefine his entire reason for existing? As it is, it almost feels like the film is saying that Ken is too simple to be irrevocably changed by what he’s been through, like only Barbie’s feelings are deep and meaningful. I just wanted a post-credits scene where he runs a horse ranch with Allan or something.

#I wrote this big long post that could easily be responded too with but Ken was the best part of the movie #he so was!#which is why I'm left vaguely disappointed

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mrs-monaghan · 7 months

Note

To that one anon,

I absolutely agree that actively hating on JK is veryyy uncalled for when we can see Jikook doing great and we don't have all the bts information. Lately, though, I've also seen a lot of Jikook accts minimizing what happened to FACE and Jimin. Celebrating JK's achievements is one thing but I cannot stand to see jkks of all ppl downgrading what happened to Jimin and his records as they're broken by the extra push the company gives JK. Everyone is speculating and trying their best to understand things and for some, that's sidelining Jimin as an accessory to make it make sense. There needs to be fair discourse in all sides of this community without romanticizing the darker parts of it. It's not JK's fault and we don't know all, but we still need to be able to talk about it. Like the fact that some of LC's numbers disappeared right when Seven needed space on the Korean charts. The fact that the FACE wasn't restocked for months when seven was in ready supply almost every week. What happened to LC and the rise of Seven is related even on a minor scale. This is a fact. Some accts were so focused on debunking videos, and celebrating JK that the topic of where Jimin's award nominations and streams are going became taboo because apparently "Jimin is happy as a cheerleader" ...what?!

Actively hating is way too far I agree but all I'm saying is we should still be able to talk about the inequality regarding them as individuals and how that relates to Jikook as a whole. Believing in Jikook and discussing these things should not be mutually exclusive. Everyone has their own opinions. Again not supporting the hate, but we should be allowed to share thoughts shouldn't we, regardless if we won't all agree?

No, I dont disagree. But personally talking about it just seems to get people riled up and that's how Jikookers end up resenting JK. I would rather copy paste a PJM on twitter when they are tagging BH and Geffen and anyone else fucking over Jimin.

I haven't 4go10 everything our man has been through. This man has millions of fans and they only released 13k LC cds. Meanwhile other members got up to 50k. His shit not getting restocked even still?? You cannot tell me this is something Jimin would be okay with. His fans wanting to buy his music and not being able to? No way he's just okay with this.

But I also fail to see how he's not aware of it?? He has to be aware of what happened to him.

(New video here for those who are yet to watch it. As always they do Jimin Jimin great justice)

The 🛴 thing is confusing seeing as he's credited on FACE but whatever.

Unfortunately we will never know how he feels or whats going on unless he or one of the members outright tell us about it. The unfairness is so bad if I look at it too much it makes me tear up. I haven't 4go10 he is still the only member who didn't get a cake. I know it's just a cake but damn this always rubs me the wrong way. @magicshop-pjm1 gets it 🤭🤭🤭

All I know anon, which makes me less sad, is the fact that Jimin renewed with Hybe. That has to mean something. And so I will just be here and support him the best way I can. I am choosing to trust his decision here because we are clearly missing something.

I don't post these asks because tbh they are a downer and they make everyone upset. I don't like to be upset. Until we know the truth I would rather avoid the topic all together. But that's just me 😔😔 It doesn't do me any favours.

But yes, Jikookers should be able to discuss whats been going on without being called JK antis. Provided they're not acting like JK antis.

#justice for jimin #bts ask #ask shaz #jimin #park jimin #bts #Jikookers #jimin face

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beloved-daydreams · 3 months

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You know, I've wanted to talk about Taryn for a while because I genuinely think she's such an interesting character (and is SEVERELY underrated my god), so here are a couple of things I sometimes think about in no particular order: (and if I'm mistaken about any of those feel free to tell me!!!)

1) In The Cruel Prince, when Vivi brought Jude and Taryn to a shopping mall in order to cheer them up, Jude noted how Taryn is like a chameleon. That if they had to return to live in the human world, she wouldn't be able to adjust as well while Taryn probably could.

2) Despite people often portraying Taryn as a jealous/envious person (which I believe is partly true of course) that part of her has never seemed that big to me and I'm actually more inclined to say she was often on a fine line between being very driven and very desperate. Just like how Jude wanted to find her place in Elfhame, Taryn wanted to find her own through marriage. (Which, I'd like to add, is a totally valid wish in her situation even if it's not considered to be the more "girlboss" choice to make, out of all the things she has done/chosen to do, I don't think this is one if the things she should be shamed for.)

3) Although she accepted Locke's unfair conditions in order for him to take her as his wife knowing that Jude would inevitably get hurt, I believe she has always felt guilty about it deep down which is ALSO why she was so SO persistent with Jude in TCP. She wanted Jude to stop defying the fae because she didn't want her to get even more hurt than how much she already had (+ knowing that the reason Jude's being targeted in the first place is her fault, which is why she felt so responsible in making her stop her defiance.)

4) I'd also like to acknowledge how humiliating this deal with Locke must've been. People always think about how embarrassing it was for Jude but can you imagine how desperate you must be to let your "boyfriend" date your sister? Taryn saw him as a lifeline, as a way to survive and get some sort of power in Elfhame, and while she definitely didn't do it the right way, let's not pretend that she enjoyed it. Who would enjoy having a man play with you and your sister? This is pure disrespect NOT only towards Jude but also towards Taryn, which I find sad. This "relationship" was abusive and unequal from the very start.

5) Additionally, I think deep down Taryn always knew/understood that Locke doesn't especially care about her. It has been hinted at multiple times in the story that Locke didn't actually care which sister he would find that night he came to look for one of the twins and I don't even believe he properly knew how to differentiate them. Near the beginning of TCP there's a scene where Jude's and Locke's eyes meet (at that point Locke and Taryn are already "together") and he smiles at her, possibly because he might believe she's Taryn, and Taryn seeing that their eyes met, tries to get Jude to forget about it. So she HAS in fact noticed that Locke can't differentiate them at that point yet she keeps "dating" him. Why? Well...

6) The sacrifice line in The Wicked King, when it says Taryn looks more like a sacrifice than a bride. I think this was the "goal" all along. Taryn's whole thing is that she keeps making herself small and pleasant and "fitting into the picture". She is also shown to be more like Oriana than Madoc, Oriana who is known for being very careful and making the most "safe" decisions for her well-being and Oak's (+ always warning Jude and Taryn to not go anywhere during the revels and to not interact with the fae because they're humans and weak, and it would be dangerous for them). Taryn is doing the same with Locke, she wants security and some amount of power like Oriana who chose to be with Madoc for her and Oak's safety. Plus, again, Taryn obviously wants a place where she can belong. So ultimately she is "sacrificing" herself to Locke for that freedom.

7) In the lost sisters, Locke tried to make Taryn take pleasure in cruelty by making her dance with that fae boy then stealing her away and making her see how heartbroken that made the boy feel. And it did work somewhat but I believe the reason why Locke and Taryn didn't work out well together in the end is because Taryn is capable of feeling guilt. Locke and Taryn are shown to be similar in the aspect of "being good at telling stories" except Locke likes to make stories happen around him for his entertainment (Drama, basically). I don't think Taryn has that in her just because of that night in the lost sisters, in fact, that might've not even been the cruelty in itself that gave her pleasure but the power she had and was capable of having over a fae for once, instead of them having power over her.

8) Another reason why Locke and Taryn didn't work well together is because Taryn was unequally putting way more effort in this relationship than Locke was. In TCP when Jude and Locke are "dating", he gives her a tour of his estate and it's all mostly empty because no one gives enough of a shit to renovate any of it. Yet in TQN, when Jude is pretending to be Taryn, we see how his estate has changed for the better. Almost each empty room has been filled with furniture and the wardrobes have beautiful clothes in them. Showing how all of this has obviously been done by Taryn. Plus, why did the servant give "Taryn" (Jude pretending to be Taryn) a fairie fruit for dinner? Is it because Locke has made her eat some in front of his guests and Taryn complied to be seen as the "fun/pleasant" wife who does everything her husband tells her to? So maybe, just like how Jude was poisoning herself to build an immunity against poison, is it possible that Taryn was doing the same with faerie fruit? To build an immunity so she can still be somewhat aware of herself during Locke's maze/garden parties?

9) I think in the end, Taryn is more similar to the Ghost which is why they ended up hitting it off. Both of their thing is "being in the shadows/fitting in". Moreover, the Ghost does feel guilt for killing Oak's mother seeing how uncomfortable he got when Jude uncovered that. Plus he's half-human, so that will be easier to bear for Taryn instead of that bullshit Locke was telling her about "fae loving in a different way" to make her comply with his real-life sized drama club.

Overall, I like how layered all of this is if you look for it BUT I wouldn't say any of those conclusions/assomptions are especially difficult to reach if you're careful. I'm just kind of tired of female characters being seen as one-dimensional compared to their male counterparts who will get "understood" much more easily. My very hot take about TFOTA has always been that the truly gray character/problematic female character of the story is in fact Taryn and not Jude. Since Jude is the protagonist and we're always seeing her pov it's not hard for us to understand or be compassionate with her. Despite her actions being "morally gray" in-story, from the readers' pov, I believe the truly problematic female character here is Taryn since we can't actually see the inside of her head. All we get is pieces of information we have to put together.

#taryn duarte #tfota #the folk of the air #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #analysis #sort of?#the lost sisters

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robinuntamed · 3 months

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Irrefutable

“You mean, would I have done it for you?” Lan Zhan asked with this hurt look in his eyes, and Wei Wuxian wished to have swallowed his tongue whole.

“No! No, no, nothing like that. That’s just stupid. All this hypothetical business is rubbish anyway, I know that—”

Even worse, this soft thing his face should not physically be able to do without shifting a single cun. “Wei Ying. I would give you my core.”

Ah, well. Hmm. No, there was no chance to process that. The worst part about life two was maybe how un-flustereably sweet Lan Zhan turned out to be: Wei Wuxian suspected he may have always been sweet, under the solid layer of embarrassment. Now there wasn’t even that.

“Shameless,” he managed, croakily.

Lan Zhan just looked at him. He didn’t move his lips, but he was smiling. “My life is Wei Ying’s,” he declared simply. “My body. My—” stopped only when Wei Wuxian’s hand was on his vexingly-gorgeous mouth.

“All right! All right. It was a stupid question and I’m a stupid man, we get it. Please, Lan Zhan, I can’t bear any more.”

“You will bear it,” the fiend said, after pressing an unfair tiny kiss to his palm.

“Mercy,” Wei Wuxian whined. His chest was too tight for all of this. For all this Lan Zhan, soft and lovely in the evening light, every line of him in blinding, overwhelming harmony. The room was beautiful, the best Jinlintai had to offer, and still seemed a crude backdrop; Lan Zhan was grace itself.

“Mm,” came his concession, or perhaps his refusal, since he pressed another kiss to the hand he would not release, then another.

“Lan Zhan. Lan—Zhan! Lan Zhan, stop, stop it, unless you’d like a puddle of melted Wei Wuxian and it’s going to ruin your nice robes and probably get sticky in your hair and Lan Zhan are you even listening?”

He wasn’t, clearly, although he did this thing with his shoulders that signified laughter, and Wei Wuxian did melt, just, his whole chest gone writhing and slippery and helpless, he was so entirely helpless against this. The only enemy the fearsome Yiling Laozu couldn’t match. And in fact, the battle was getting much fiercer, and unimaginably dirty:

“Lan Zhan, that tickles! Stop, stop, you magnificent arsehole, ah, ha, that, stop, stop, I beg you!”

Stopped only to give him this puzzled look. Something in his tone must have registered. “Did I upset Wei Ying?”

“No,” helpless, rubbing his useless eyes. How to explain this ever-raging storm in his blood of I want to make the whole world yours, and that would still not be enough? “No, Lan Zhan, you're just… perfect.”

He tilted his head the tiniest of angles, suddenly transforming into something so serious it scratched inside Wei Wuxian’s throat. “Not perfect,” Lan Zhan said, as if to make a point. He was mad.

“Huh?” nose scrunching when—he didn’t frown, but—“Lan Zhan. Come here.” Taking his face in two hands, his beautiful, impossible face, which still didn’t move and now was inconsolably, irreparably sad? What the actual hell? Wei Wuxian did that sometimes, said the wrong thing and caused this mini-avalanche, this earthquake which threatened everything good. But he wasn’t even talking about himself this time. What did he say to make Lan Zhan sad?

How dare he make the world’s most perfect man—ah.

Idiot, idiot, idiot. Wei Wuxian could strangle himself if his hands weren’t holding something much more precious. Pressing tighter: “Silly creature. Lan Zhan, let me promise you, the standards for perfection are vastly different between yours and the rest of the known world, but neither matter. You don’t need to be perfect.”

“I know.”

Yeah, he would, wouldn't he. “You may know it here,” Wei Wuxian said, as gently as he could, and kissed right above the bridge of his nose. “I think you might forget it elsewhere. Lan Zhan, you’re everything I could ever want. No, you’re far more than that.”

Slow, cautious blinking: fuck, Wei Wuxian really put his foot in his mouth this time. Lan Zhan looked afraid. Had he not—stupid, stupid Wei Wuxian, has he not been clear enough? Did he not do his best to reassure this miracle of a man that… he should be spending every second of every minute of every hour of every day solely on—

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan said. His voice was so deep and so familiar that it settled him, even when it shouldn’t have.

“Lan Zhan,” heartbroken, “you know that I…”

He placed his hands over Wei Wuxian’s. “I know.”

“No, listen. This is important. You know that I—”

“Wei Ying,” softly, “I know.”

“Will you let me speak, you gorgeous arse. Listen. You’re the only reason I—”

“Wei Ying.”

Shaking him: “Stop interrupting and listen. You’re all that matters to me. I would work every day for the rest of my life to be worthy of you and I know I would never be; I would spend every moment on providing you every shred of happiness; I would go to the ends of the earth with a smile.”

Lan Zhan looked at him for the longest moment, then said, “Mm.”

“Mm? That’s all you have to say for yourself? Silly thing, did you listen? Do you get it now? Do you understand how breathtaking and crucial and—”

“I understand,” the bastard cut him off, the edge of his nose brushing Wei Wuxian’s. “My answer remains the same.”

“Your answer?”

The tiniest quirk of his lips, managing to look exasperated and disastrously fond: “Mm.”

“What answer? What are you even on about? Did I ask you a question? Honestly, sometimes you old men do drone on and on when something so simple can be said instead, and…” Wei Wuxian realised he was panicking, had no idea why.

“You asked,” Lan Zhan said.

“Huh?”

He made this face, half fiendish and half bashful, all devastating, and pulled away the tiniest bit until his one blurry eye became definite two. He was the dearest thing in the whole world, so much was true: he was beautiful, and perfect only in the ways that mattered, in the shape of his face under Wei Wuxian’s palms and the burst of never-ending affection that would ruin Wei Wuxian’s life. Running a helpless finger over full, red lips, rejoicing in the trembliness of it, of this joy. Lan Zhan truly was a miracle, and he was looking right at him so, so seriously.

“I would give Wei Ying my core.”

Wei Wuxian could only shut him up with a kiss.

#wangxian #wangxian fic #wei wuxian #lan wangji #being syrupy and unbearably sweet #just being happy. and together. did we want more than that #1111 words #Robin untamed

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