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#they’re trying to hint at their want for fans to help give pressure
chirpsythismorning · 1 year
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I don’t think we even realize the impact we have… Literally the cover of the WGA strike tag on Tumblr rn
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wri0thesley · 3 years
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Could I get some Gojo face sitting please 👉🏻👈🏻🥺 Maybe with a chubby reader?
fool for love - gojo x reader (2.25k)
gojo asks you to try something, and you can never say no to him. 
(warnings: nsfw, afab reader, fem pronouns (pet names). explicitly chubby reader, mentions of worries about weight/body. cunnilingus/facesitting)
Sometimes you think it’s a good job that you and Satoru Gojo are a couple; you’re absolutely certain that nobody but you would put up with him. You’re totally convinced that you’re the only fool in the world who sees his arrogant smirk and the thrust of his chin and the cocky set of his shoulders, listens to him go on and on about himself and about his work and about his strength, and wants to kiss him instead of kill him.
You do kiss him, coincidentally. A lot. Partly because when he’s kissing you, he’s not running his mouth – partly because the taste of his lips on yours and the feel of his hands on your waist, pulling you in, is addictive. You can’t get enough of him – and luckily, it seems that he can’t get enough of you either.
So when Gojo had thrown out this suggestion, casually, as if he was asking you what you two were going to order for dinner that night (you’ve never seen Gojo make anything more complicated than a ramen cup), it had not taken you long to agree.
Faced with it, though – Gojo situated on the bed, arm stretched over his head, grin on his face – you begin to wonder if maybe it’s such a good idea.
“Don’t back out on me now,” he says, the cocky grin not leaving his face. “I’ve been dying to taste you for hours.”
You shift uncomfortably on the other side of the bed, suddenly horribly aware of the curves of your body. No matter how Gojo’s words send a thrill through you – you know from experience he’s good with his tongue – you can’t deny that you’re a little afraid.
It’s easy to forget the difference between the two of you when he’s got you pressed underneath him on the mattress, cock plunging in and out, mouth hungrily kissing every patch of skin he can get at. When Gojo looks at you with his hair falling in his face and his eyes like starlit galaxies, you feel beautiful – but you’re not sure if you’ll feel quite the same way straddling his face.
He sees the way you bite your lip, the anxiety beginning to show in your gaze – and Gojo softens. You see him like this rarely (he’s proud more than he’s caring), but he’s shown this side of him to you every so often, when something has made you draw in on yourself. One of his hands wraps around your bare shoulders, pulling you to face him.
“Hey, doll,” he says, pressing his nose against yours affectionately. “What’s got you pouting, huh?”
“I . . .” You swallow. You feel so embarrassed admitting it! Gojo has never said anything about your body beyond how much he loves having your hips to hold onto, how he loves your thighs wrapped around his waist, how soft and warm you are tangled up beside him in bed – but your insecurities always seem to flash back up at the most inopportune of moments. “I’m just . . .” You blink, biting your lip. Your voice comes out in a soft breath. “I’m worried I’ll be too heavy.”
Gojo’s eyebrows draw in. You must have seen him without anything shading his eyes a hundred times now, when the two of you are in the bedroom, but you are still knocked back by just how pretty he is – the constellations in his irises, the fan of his white eyelashes against perfect skin. The expression makes his mouth jut out, so kissable that it takes your breath away.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” he says, as if the very idea is laughable. “I could lift you over my head right now--”
He reaches for you as if he’s going to do it, arms locking about your waist – the tension breaks as he effortlessly pulls you back, your body landing on top his. He doesn’t so much as let out a ‘whumph’ of air at the sensation of your body hitting his.
“I’m the strongest, remember?” There’s more than a note of swagger in his voice; he is so very proud of that accomplishment. You suppose he has every right to be.
“I guess,” you breathe, and he makes a soft harrumphing sound before his fingers twist into your hair, pulling you close to him to kiss you.
“You guess?” He sounds mock offended against your lips. “I guess that means I’ll have to show you exactly what I mean, huh?”
A nip at your lower lip; his hands roaming your bare back, stroking the curve of your ass and hips. Everywhere Gojo’s long fingers touch leaves a trail of fire behind, like he’s branding you with the pressure of his fingertips. You imagine them leaving glowing trails behind the colour of his eyes – but the coil of heat that they’re helping stoke, low in your belly, is more red than anything else.
“How’re you gonna do that?” You breathe against the softness of his mouth. He tastes like sugar; he always does. You can’t get enough of him, dizzy and breathless. You would gorge yourself on him if you could.
“Take a seat on your throne, princess,” he grins, letting his head hit the pillows hard. His pale hair spreads out all around him like a halo as he moves a hand from your hip to tap his mouth with his fingers. “And find out.”
You guess it would shut him up. Gojo’s mouth can’t keep moving if he’s got you occupying it. And you also can’t deny that the thought of it – riding his face – is more than half of the reason your inner thighs are slick with your arousal. Still . . . what if you really are too heavy for him?
Gojo murmurs your name softly – you meet his eyes again, and you see softness and tenderness reflected in them, despite the fact that his mouth is still shaped into a cocky smirk. You know if you say no, he probably won’t push you. But . . . you don’t want to say no. You push yourself up from his chest.
He’s still wearing his underwear, and you wonder if he can sense how damp you are where you briefly straddle him – because you can certainly feel how stiff he is, the outline of his cock pressing against silken boxer shorts (yeah, of course he’s a silk underwear kind of man – you’ve seen them countless times, but just how Gojo that particular detail of him is never fails to make you smile).
“Okay,” you breathe. “I hope you’re comfy.”
Gojo’s face splits into a grin as you move yourself, your knees suddenly either side of his face, his cheeks pressing against the softness of your thighs.
“Babe,” he starts to say, “I’m absolutely the com—mmppf--”
His gloating is cut off by you sitting on his face. The whisper of his breath across your heated folds as he’d spoken had been too tempting, your sex feeling like it was pulsing in time with your heartbeat – and so, you’d given in. Using your hands as leverage on the headboard of the bed, you’d sunk fully onto your knees and muffled Gojo’s words.
Oh, God.
Your mind blanks out at first, as Gojo’s tongue goes at you hungrily. For his first hungry licks at your core, he’s voracious – he seems to want to drink you up like fine wine. Gojo does not drink – you know this very well – but if he could get drunk on your slick, you think he’d already be unable to stand up. One of the hands on the headboard goes to tangle in the fluffy strands of his pale hair instead, and he looks up at you for a moment, pausing with the flat of his tongue pressed against the throbbing bud of your clit.
The sight of his eyes between your thighs almost pushes you over the edge there and then – looking down at him feels like tumbling down a rabbit hole, like you’ll never be able to pull yourself out of their lovely depths. He makes a soft noise against your folds that has you practically vibrating, your toes curling – and you realise it’s a question.
Maybe he’s asking you what’s wrong, maybe he’s asking you if you want to stop, but your mind is all hazy from the feeling of his mouth on you. So all you do is tug at his hair and gasp, your hips rolling forward against him to try and coax his tongue into flickering across your clit like you’re longing for it to do.
“Satoru,” you whimper, voice all thin and reedy like a prayer, and Gojo does not need any more encouragement than that to return to his work.
Gojo’s hands rest on your hips and even you feel small for a second, the length of his fingers and size of his palm almost overwhelming. There’s so much power in the way he holds you – so much strength behind the casual clench of his fingers into your plush. He keeps you anchored there as he uses the flat swathe of his tongue to lap at you all at once, briefly teasing your entrance before he twirls his tongue around your clit like someone licking whipped cream off of a fancy dessert--
He’s caught you watching him do exactly that out of the corner of your eye many times before, and grinned at you widely with a hungry murmur that he’ll devour you in exactly the same way if you want him too.
Does he not need to breathe?
You lose track of how long you’ve been sat on his face for. You can’t think of anything else with the warm, wet muscle of Gojo’s tongue teasing you. He thrusts it in and out of your entrance, making your entire body jerk and your walls try and cling to him, constrict around him. He flicks his tongue so fast over the bud of your clit that you can’t understand how he does it, it can’t be human to move that fast--
All through it, the tension tight in your stomach is getting hotter and tighter and needier, like a instrument's string being tuned to its breaking point.
You can barely breathe. There’s nothing but Gojo’s insistent lapping at your core, the thrust of his tongue in and out of your channel (has Gojo’s tongue always been so long? It feels just as good inside of you as his fingers always do, but different--). Your hips are rocking and grinding against his face against your will, your fingers twisting into his hair. You’ve lost your senses completely in the chase of your release, hovering tantalisingly close--
Gojo gives your clit one final, soft lap, the barest hint of his teeth against the hood and you burst into bloom for him like a flower. The string snaps and heat floods your body, Gojo’s name escaping you in a wail. Fireworks burst into being behind your eyelids.
Gojo’s tongue follows through, coaxing you through the soft, gentle aftershocks of your orgasm even as your thighs are trembling and your grip on the headboard is beginning to loosen. If it weren’t for his hands on your hips, you would probably fall forward and hit your head on the wall, passing out – but Gojo’s assessment of his strength wasn’t for naught, and your spent body is being pulled down so your heated cheeks are pressed against Gojo’s firm chest. You blink up at him in your exhausted, pleasure-drunk state--
The entire lower half of his mouth is dripping wet, glinting with your arousal and his own drool from how hungrily his tongue was going at you. But his eyes are as sharp as ever, drinking you in like you’re the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen – as if he can’t believe that you’d ever doubt yourself.
Nobody would believe you if you told them how Gojo gets, sometimes – if you told them about the smile-softened eyes and the softer words, the way he holds you like a precious treasure that might break at any moment. He leans down and strokes some hair from your eyes, almost lazy.
“I told you I was the strongest,” he says, and even though it’s a boast, his voice and manner is so soft that you barely register it. You’re smiling up at him like a fool. Maybe it’s foolish to love him as much as you do – but if it is, you don’t want to be clever. You don’t want to be anything but his, here, in his bed, sprawled out across him, lazy and sated.
You kiss the bit of his chest directly beneath your lips lazily, needing to express your affection for this arrogant, gorgeous, irrepressible (perfect) man.
He sighs at the contact, shifting – and you’re reminded of what’s currently lying beneath his own underwear, hot and needy and thick. It’s a testament to Gojo’s willpower he hasn’t mentioned it yet.
You smile at him. One more minute of relaxing on his chest – of having your hair played with, of getting to look at him . . . and then, you’ll see to that.
Gojo’s eyes are just as gorgeous when you’re knelt between his thighs as they are when he’s trapped between yours, after all.
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streaming-yn · 3 years
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(☁️)
HIIII it's 3 am and i'm trying to sleep but brain went brr with ideas n shit and oh well- thing is ; i was wondering if i could make my first request? (smth simple if u want to, no need to be very long or anything + pls don't rush nd take ur time AND don't feel pressured to actually do my request :] ! ) maybe smth ab faceless art streamer! y/n [they/them]?? (if u could add that the reader is like an indie game dev or works for smth like that u'd be sosososososo cool omg) with maybe quackity, tommy, dream, ranboo, niki and/or jack?? idk brain did the storming and its all messy hsdnshhfjsjz (btw! i know it's a lot of CCs so feel free to remove some or do the ones ur only comfy with !!! take care nd stay safe !!! luv ya <3 (/p))
AS SOMEONE WHO LIKES TO GAME DESIGN, CHARACTER, AND PLOT DESIGN YOU BET I CAN MAKE THE READER AND INDIE GAME DEV (and aaaa ty for adding jack!!! I think he's really neat and not enough people acknowledge him :))!!)
Multiple x indie game dev!artist!y/n
pairings: quackity, tommy, dream, ranboo, niki, jack manifold (separate) x indie game dev!artist!y/n
pronouns: they/them
other information on the reader:
. faceless
. knows how to code
. artist
. streams them drawing video game characters
. minor
. makes indie / horror games
form: headcanons
genre: platonic, fluff(??)
warnings: horror games / horror mods, ranboo enderwalk lore in his section
abbreviations: y/n -> your name
quackity
okay let's get the obvious out of the way; definitely going to be the type of person that's like "I'm going to play this game first after you're finished" yk? playfully ofc, n playfully fight with anyone who says the same thing (*cough* Wilbur, tommy, dream *cough*)
he probably wouldn't be on your art streams often – he doesn't really enjoy watching people draw, but he would want to see the finished pics
he would happily be on voice chat with you while you're drawing though!! :D
would be proud to answer any questions you have about character / scene / etc designs!!
"quackity!! so for this character – check your dms for a current picture – would red or purple antenna be better? also, two or four antenna?"
"*gasp* you're asking me?? 🥺" /j
"y'know what, nevermind, chat wh-"
"NO WAIT WAIT"
"so what do you think?"
also, if you do end up sending him the finished pics of the art he will hype you tf up !!!!
would try to get you make joke games – not like actually, it's just an ongoing bit between you two!
if you make a game for him – or give him a sneak peek of a game before anyone else he's going to freak out!! and he won't really know what to say bc putting feelings into words is hard
if y'all ever meet up and you're fine w hugs he's gonna give you a huge hug, hoping that makes up for the lack of words to describe how just,, proud of you he is bc he really really is!!
you're not even in your 20s yet and you can make video games, or help with them?? not to mention how creative you are with the characters and story line??? he's amazed by you
might actually cry /pos if you base a character off of him
like let's say a part of a puzzle is to get a rubber duck and place it into a pond to get the next hint or thing you need – only when he plays it on stream, he doesn't know anything about the game, so you're watching and waiting for him to get there
when he does get there – he finds out the duck has a beanie and has a white ring appear around it that flashes to life before fading out after picking it up, signifying it was the right thing to get
at first he doesn't really notice the ring, "oh! that animation is different than normal" he notes, but mainly focuses on the beanie, comparing it to himself before he glances at chat to see them freaking out over the planet duck reference
then he's just talking about it, shocked of course but flattered, and then you type in chat "you helped me a ton with things I couldn't decide during this game, I couldn't not add you! :)" everyone's just :(((( !!! /pos
overall supportive n proud, maybe a bit loud about games in progress, but just a really nice guy in general :)
tommy
he is ABSOLUTELY loud about your games in progress!! if you don't want something said you have to tell that to him before telling him or else he's going to brag about how cool it is the next time he streams
"chat!! chat, y/n is making this new game and they told me that one of the outfits you can collect for the player is going to be based off me!- right!! that sounds pog!!"
if he ever accidentally let's anything slip on stream that he was supposed to say, everyone who's a fan of you is just like "wow! suddenly! I cannot hear anymore!", sometimes they're like that even if it was okay to say
the just like being surprised :)
as for art streams, he'll try his best to tune in but obviously won't be there all the time! he's usually very active in chat too! likes being on call with you while you do art streams if you let him!
he once convinced you to make a texture pack and a shader (meant for both to be active at the same time), the fans loved it and a lot of them use it more often than the original!!
tommy however, not to much, proud of you bc that must've been a ton of work!! but at some time it slipped his mind that you make indie and horror games; I think we all know he doesn't do well with horror games
so you liking horror and such made the textures look more ominous and just make it look like and area you don't want to be in, and the spook goes up even more with the shader!! it's darker than usual, there's unusual fog, the portals look too dangerous now, so on and so forth yk
so,, tommy didn't use the texture pack for long;;
if you ever raid him after you're done streaming and he has a question, he's literally just gonna ask you on stream
"y/n raid? oh! are they still here?" when you confirm you're in chat, he continues "great! okay I had a question about your new game that's going to be available soon and how to download it-"
fans love how casual you guys are about game information, like you had to teach him how to export a game character he made on the website you usually make yours on (it was for a fun stream) and it was just a simple back and forth but everyone's like omg :((( omg them :((
also if you're the type of person to go insane over tiny details in other games, he will absolutely tease you for it
like you can just be going on and on about how this game had a sentence at the start that had a backhanded meaning by the end and he's just gonna call you a nerd (genuinely thinks is cool how much of the small things you notice in games though)
dream
COMPLAINING ABOUT CODING AND HOW HARD IT IS 🤝🤝
and if you took other coding classes hoping that I'd help with video game coding he'd just listen to you talk about it
"I actually took robotics for a while before because the school didn't have any video game coding classes and I was hoping it'd help either way" "oh?" "it,, it didn't help, it's so hard to code robots and considering how fast I caught onto video game code you think it'd be easier to understand the robot code" "yeah, that sounds reasonable" "NOPE,, WHY R THEY SO DIFFERENT I ALMOST FAILED" "D:"
fanartists like those moments, if one of those talks happen expect a bit of fanart of just dream and you chilling while you talk and he listens, the art always gives off comfy vibes n it's just cute :)
offering him to play a semi-rough draft of the demo so that he could see if it's good or what you needed to do to make it more enticing for the player
power duo fr fr o/
people like comparing y'all to hackers sometimes bc y'all know how to code???
you play into the bit with the fans though and honestly it's so fun !!!
fans: omg,, hackers (affectionate),,,
you next time you stream: hacker voice; I'm in
AND THEY GOT SHOCKED??? LIKE THEY FORGOT YOU CAN SEE THE STUFF THEY POST????
wouldn't be able to watch your art streams for long because he would get side tracked, the streams are just too under stimulating for his brain to focus on, but he'd hang around as long as he could though :)
would be glad to be on call with you while you're doing an art stream – though if he has is game sounds on you may occasionally have to repeat a question that was aimed at him
you're also in his streams when you can :)
also, you like sending donations to communicate rather than chat
one stream dream turned off his donos because you wouldn't stop giving him money 💀
being friends with such a popular creator and being a game creator yourself has it's downs as well
nothing thats too hard to deal with – the most common one is actually kinda funny – some people will slide in your dms acting like they're dream and just got locked out of his account, trying to get you to make them a game
like ??? do they think that dream would mssg you over Twitter or insta?? he has your phone number bro ,😭
also!!! when dream plays through new games you made he complements the small things and complements how hard something must've been to code :)
and I'm ngl, he kinda sucks with every game he plays at first but he's a quick learner so dw :)
would be glad to help if you're having a difficult time choosing between things too! except he'll answer right away without any teasing
"dreammm" "y/nnnn" "for this area should I do like shattered stone walls or mossy stone walls like with vines n stuff?" "depends on the vibe you want, shattered stone would give it a dangerous and uneasy undertone and mossy stone would be more of ominous, if that makes sense?" "oh! okay, thank youuu!!"
ofc if you didn't have a specific vibe or couldn't choose which was better he would just give a straight up answer so you didn't stress out trying to choose one \o/
would absolutely like being a guest in a drawing stream, he isn't the best at art or character design but it's fun to see him try
maybe you both plus some friends do a "drawing Minecraft mobs from memory" stream? ,, with that the thing is; his would mostly be relatively accurate if you could understand wtf he was drawing 😭
dream may or may or have some of your art as his phone homescreen, he loves your style so much :(( /pos
ranboo
first off; he's incredibly impressed!! like!!! you made this game?? this playable game, completely from scratch??? how??
also you may or may not have made a small Minecraft mod for him to tryout on stream,, little gift from you to both chat n ranboo 🤲
its literally all based off his lore,, if you get close to obsidian and crying obsidian fallen down from Undertale starts playing, if you splash water on yourself 1) you get hurt 2) your screen blacks out and when it comes back, your in a different place than before, some things art taken, maybe a few extra things are added
and there's a 50% chance that when you go into your "enderwalk" state (the blackout) you blow something up, so there may or may not be an explosion somewhere nearby, you also have a 20% chance of building something small in you enderwalk state :)
he found it so incredibly cool!!! chat was crying while complementing you while ranboo thanked you and complemented you over n over again
he won't shut up about how cool the mod is for several weeks, maybe even a few months, it's just so cool!!
will absolutely use it as a comeback if you let him; "oh? you got first place? well y/n made me a really really cool mod, so who's the actual winner here?"
will absolutely play every single game you come out with – it doesn't matter if it's his style or not – and he thoroughly enjoys all of the games as well
as for art streams, he will absolutely try to tune in every time he can!! active in chat and donos!!
doesn't really like being in art streams – like in call is fine but actually drawing? not really, he just doesn't love drawing in front of a ton of people
but will join an art stream if you ask
will listen to you rant about whatever, even if he doesn't understand it! like will listen to you go on and on about how well a game set up the atmosphere or maybe talking about how difficult coding is, and he'll converse back with you but won't really understand yk?
"ranboo I just played a really cool game do you wanna hear about it?" "yeah yeah- of course!!" "ok so like, the atmosphere was so well put together- like it was a horror game and I didn't even see the monster but the vibe was so well put together that it was still unnerving!!" "that's awesome! how did the atmosphere get set up the best and when you saw the monster, was it scarier?"
yk what I mean? like engages in convo so you don't feel bad about talking so much, plus shows his interest without the constant "hm?" "cool" etc a lot of people do and even though he does talk more than the acknowledgment sounds many people make he also manages to almost never sidetrack you and when he does it's on accident :)
if your way of learning is teaching then he'll gladly be the person you teach it to if you want! most likely won't use the information therefore his brain won't retain it but that's not on you, and the whole reason is so you can learn, not him, so! ^^
will make sure to take care of yourself, and he has a through way of telling if you have or not bc he's known you for long enough to know that even if you try to hide it a little bit of your tired voice shows so he knows if you've been sleeping like you should
also friends with you on discord, where you have your Spotify attached,, you like listening to music while you work on things that aren't sound related and if it's active later than it should be he's going to confront you
overall wholesome mixed in with a little pain bc both of you are like "ah yes, lore <3" and like to see fans cry /lh
niki
I feel like this is expected but if you need to get extra motivation she would probably be your go-to
she hypes you up but like, in a sweet and quiet kinda way, where as everyone else here would probably be relatively loud ;;
honored to be on an art stream if you invite her :')
and would absolutely watch your art streams when she can :D hypes you up in chat
also compliments, tons of compliments!
might call you a prodigy? bc you're so young but can already make games?? and make income off of them?? and do really good art??? and so much more??? like tell me that's not prodigy energy,
if you make a video game character based off her she might cry,, like in a positive way obviously but like at the same time :(( no don't cry!!
I say might bc it's dependant on how she feels that day yk? like she might just have the almost-cry wobble to her voice or she might actually, if that makes sense?
she genuinely loves your art style!! even if it's pointy and kinda creepy she really likes it!!
yk the "awww (name) :(" /pos she does sometimes? 100% does that with you
there are a few compilations of just "aww y/nnn" on YouTube and all the comments on those videos are just crying over y'all /pos
would be happy to help if you're stuck between some options in a game, but would feel kinda bad bc it's your game, you're supposed to be the one choosing the stuff
assure her that it's okay n stuff n she'll be ok tho !
I can't decide if she would play your games or not
bc on one hand she's a huge supporter of you and your work and would like to experience it first hand
but on the other hand she isn't the best with scry games,,
so maybe she'd do both? maybe she'd react on stream to a playthrough, maybe your playthrough? or maybe she would only play some of your games? I haven't decided so up to you I suppose!
jack manifold
genuinely amazed by your talent and will make it quite clear!!
can and will go on tangents about you on stream if someone brings it up
everyone is so :(( <333 /pos bc of it
will play the games you've made as soon as he can
if there are different games that line up in a story he'll make sure to play them in order :)
people also sometimes compare you two to hackers bc you code a ton and he kinda looks like a hacker
difference here is that both of you play into the bit, it's tons of fun!!
listen, I know he doesn't draw much but I am a firm believer that he will doodle his favorite character(s) from your games after he's done playing them
like after he plays a game of yours then expect a small doodle in your texts :)
you compiled a bunch of these doodles into one picture and made it you phone background and he only found out after y'all met irl and it caught the corner of his eye and he registered "oh hey wait that looks familiar"
he found out while recording the vlog n when editing, the editor was like "hey let's leave this in, it'd be funny if the fans knew right?" ,, the fans were crying for two weeks,, /pos
and speaking of drawings; he would like to be on a drawing stream with you, thinks it's be tons of fun!! :D
and he's usually free to call while your streaming and doesn't mind so if you wanna talk to him while drawing just call :)
and he will watch the streams he can make it to!! he may leave a bit early but he stays for the majority of it
if you make a character based off of him he's going to constantly thank you and brag about how cool you are anywhere he can
"hello manifolders, if you haven't done it already go download (game name)! I'm there!" with a ss of his character from the game and he'll reply to the tweet on his alt to talk more about the game and how much he really liked it :)
another that'll help you were you need it! he'll make it into a joke before anything else, but he'll get to the point
taglist (sorry i forgot to do it on the past two): @cvsmixplant // @l0ver0fj0y // @youngstarfishdinosaur
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makeste · 3 years
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but I just feel too tired to be fighting
this is a follow-up post to what I said in my recap the other day about this arc being the Deku Angst arc, as opposed to the Villain Hunt arc or the Deku SIXQUIRKS Exhibition arc. I feel like the fandom discussion tends to focus on the flashier parts of the chapters -- the sexy villains and the new quirk reveals and the Shindous -- each week, and so the quieter emotional beats sometimes get overlooked, especially since the character arc here is playing out in little bits and pieces over time rather than all at once.
this has always been a very reactionary fandom, and there’s a tendency to judge the chapters week to week without ever going back to look at how they all fit into the big picture. so I figured I would try to attempt that, and basically go chapter by chapter here to look at what exactly Horikoshi is setting up and how it all fits together.
so let’s start with the end of chapter 306, which is when the arc officially kicks off. specifically with the very last page:
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this is imo one of the best pages Horikoshi has ever drawn. I got the sense that this was a scene he’d had in his mind’s eye for quite a long time, and that he was excited to finally get to this part of the story. it’s extremely effective as both a chapter-ender, and an arc-opener. like, look at this:
it establishes the initial premise of the new arc -- the world is in chaos, and Deku is now seemingly on his own
it leaves the readers with a number of questions. why did Deku leave U.A.?? is he really on his own now?? why does he look so beat-up and exhausted?? what is he up to?? what is the world like now that all these villains have been unleashed and the heroes have been decimated?? and most importantly of all, what the fuck is going to happen next??
it pays homage to some of Horikoshi’s comic book influences -- Batman in particular
it dramatically hits us with that “THE FINAL ACT BEGINS” and lets us know that shit is getting real now
that’s some good shit. so much so that I think people tended to overlook the other notable thing about this page amidst all of the initial excitement and discussion and speculation about where the series was headed. and that is the fact that the final panel in this chapter is NOT the panel of Deku standing above the city. the very last panel, the one that this chapter actually ends on, is instead the close-up of Deku’s face. his face, which is covered in shadow; and his eyes, which have dark circles under them and are prominently missing the usual flecks of light that give him his signature “sunny optimistic shounen protagonist” look.
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not to mention this last line here, which is a call back to the very first time we saw the 14-year-old Deku way back in chapter one.
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I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Horikoshi chose to throw this reference in. nor is it a coincidence that THIS is the scene he actually chose to end the chapter on. what this does is show us the drastic shift in Deku’s emotional state of mind, and his attitude towards being a hero. he’s gone from being thrilled and excited to being jaded and exhausted. he’s matured, but at a great cost. it’s always been his dream to be a hero, but “be careful what you wish for” is a popular adage for a reason. and right now he looks the furthest thing from happy.
and this is the emotional beat that Horikoshi chooses to end the chapter on. this is the panel that closes out the War arc, and begins the final act. to me the message could not be clearer -- this arc will be about the exploration of Deku’s character, and his struggle as he tries to live up to the expectations that have been placed on him as the Last Holder of OFA and quite possibly the World’s Only Hope.
it’s a character arc that builds on a lot of the things we’ve already learned about Deku over the course of the series, such as the fact that he is reckless, and that he focuses on others often at the expense of himself. but more importantly, it’s an arc that finally expands on the dark side of what has up until now been a net positive for Deku -- the power of OFA. up until this point, despite its ups and downs, it’s been a boon for Deku overall and has allowed him to pursue his dream. but now we’re finally reaching the point where the monkey’s paw part of the OFA blessing/curse finally starts to come into play. OFA gives Deku more power than he could have ever dreamed of, but it also comes with a built-in destiny that he can’t opt out of whether he likes it or not. AFO is on the loose and out there trying to destroy the world. and now everyone has pinned their hopes on this sixteen-year-old kid, and the question of whether or not the sixteen-year-old kid is ready is apparently not one that anyone feels inclined to ask (possibly because they’re afraid that the answer might be “no”).
he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. he has to do it, because there’s no one else who can. that’s the kind of pressure that is on Deku now.
and on that note, we begin the Deku Angst arc.
chapter 307
this in hindsight was mostly just a set-up chapter to better establish the current state of the BnHA world at large (spoilers: it’s not good), while also providing an answer for one of the big initial questions of the arc -- namely, “what happened to all of those villains that AFO released from Tartarus?” these are important things to touch on, but the pacing could definitely have been better, and the bulk of the chapter was dedicated to providing fanservice to all of the Shindou fans who spammed the most recent popularity poll (which, whatever lol). anyway, so this was the sole chapter thus far with absolutely no Deku development. thankfully the arc picks up from there.
chapter 308
on to the next one! this was the one and only chapter thus far which I think actually qualifies as an “exhibition fight.” this was definitely all about showing off Deku’s current powerset, as well as introducing us to another of the SIXQUIRKS. however, there was Deku development here as well, most notably in this scene:
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this is the scene that got a lot of people speculating that this arc was going to focus on Deku hunting down all of the old villains. but I think people got so caught up in that speculation that they overlooked what this scene tells us about Deku’s mindset. and yes, there is new information being revealed here, and it’s not just a rehash of the stuff we already knew. like yes, we know that Deku was shaken up by the recent encounters with Dabi and Tomura, and we know that made him start questioning why villains become villains in the first place, and all that good stuff, and that’s great. however, there are two additional important things that this scene helps establish for us.
the upcoming battle with TomurAFO is weighing heavily on Deku’s mind. this is something that will become a recurring theme in this arc. Deku is thinking about this constantly. the question of what to do when he finally encounters TomurAFO again is knocking incessantly at the back of his mind, and this won’t be the last time it comes up.
Deku is using these villain encounters as test runs. can Tomura be redeemed?? is he just being stupid and naïve?? or is this really something worth attempting?? the interesting thing about this is that Deku’s resolve to save people is usually so strong and unwavering that it’s more than enough to overcome any doubts that he might have. but this time it seems like the repeated objections posed by the Vestiges and Gran Torino have really gotten to him. it’s possible I’m just reading way too much into things, but to me it really feels like Deku’s recent attempts at Talk no Jutsu were meant to do more than just show his growing awareness that the line between heroes and villains is thinner than he once imagined. they’re also serving as trial runs for the real test, when it finally comes. if he can “save” even a villain like Muscular, there’s hope for him being able to save Tomura as well. and so that moment when Muscular rejects him out of hand is all the more disappointing to him, even if it wasn’t really unexpected. basically it wasn’t the answer that he had been hoping for.
aside from those little notes though, like I said, this was unquestionably an exhibition fight first and foremost. which is fine; we needed to establish where Deku is currently in terms of strength, and it was also just fun to see him kick some ass, ngl. in terms of story purpose this chapter was similar to 219, which showed us how Shouto and Katsuki had powered up after getting their provisional licenses. people who don’t care about those characters might argue that these fights weren’t necessary, but as someone who stans all three characters hard, I would disagree! but anyways, moving on.
chapter 309
in contrast to the previous chapter, this chapter focuses more on establishing Deku’s current mental state, as opposed to his physical state. and this is what we learn:
(1) Deku is ~technically~ being shadowed/accompanied by All Might and the Hawksquad (but in practice he’s avoiding them).
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(2) it was Deku’s own decision to leave U.A., and he did it because he didn’t want anyone else getting hurt in order to protect him.
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and finally, (3) Deku’s game plan is to stop Tomura and All for One before they reach full power.
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this last part is very important, because it means there’s a countdown in effect. as far as Deku is concerned, there’s only a finite amount of time before TomurAFO becomes unstoppable. which means that he’s not only under “gotta get stronger” pressure, but time pressure as well. he doesn’t have the luxury of taking his time and training in safety. he’s being rushed now; this is do-or-die.
this chapter is also the first in this arc in which we get to see Deku’s expressions without the hood covering up his face, and what we see is very telling. as previously stated, the light is gone from Deku’s eyes. he keeps his expressions very neutral, and the only time we even see a hint of a smile is when he hugs his mom in the flashback, and it’s clear from the dialogue (“it’s okay, I’ll come home to you”) that he’s doing it for her sake in order to comfort her.
but aside from that, this is very much not the Deku we’ve grown accustomed to. this is the chapter that really establishes his current mental state imo. above all else, he’s afraid that more people will get hurt because of him, and so he’s distancing himself from everyone around him. and he’s also morbidly preoccupied with the inevitability of having to face TomurAFO again, and soon. the chapter ends on the flashback of Gran giving him his cape, and telling Deku that “killing can be another way to save someone.” there’s a lot on this kid’s mind, to say the least.
chapter 310
this chapter opens with a gang of civilians who are trying to open fire on a nice fox lady whose only crime was walking around in the rain at night. Deku intervenes to save her, and it’s the first time in this arc that we see anything close to the “old” Deku, who just wanted to save people with a smile.
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but it’s bittersweet, because all the lady can talk about is how scared she was, and how horrible everything is right now. and so Deku, who feels responsible in a lot of ways for everything that’s happened, just feels that much more pressure to somehow make things right again.
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there’s also this extra throwaway line which is especially heartbreaking:
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“I can’t afford to be around anyone.” fucking ouch. just reinforcing once more how incredibly isolated Deku is right now -- not by choice, but because he feels like it’s not safe to let anyone else get close to him. and so he’s out here running around this dystopian cityscape in the middle of the night in the pouring rain all on his own, and neglecting himself to the point where All Might practically has to force a bento on him.
but does he complain? of course not. because his focus is never on himself. instead, when he settles down to eat, his thoughts immediately drift back to, guess who...
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it’s that time pressure once again. “unless I draw out One for All’s full power, I can’t stop any of this.” it’s just nonstop, I have to get stronger, I’m running out of time, I have to do better, and constantly thinking about that inevitable confrontation.
Deku is a thinker, you guys. and when left to his own devices he will overthink, every time. his mind will run in endless loops while he mentally works his way through all of the possibilities. and that’s one of his greatest strengths, don’t get me wrong, but at a time like this it’s also one of his greatest weaknesses. it’s just so fucking easy for him to get stuck in his own head, in his endless rambling thoughts and analyses. and without anyone else there to help distract him, or help him focus, he’s become fixated on his mission, and it’s slowly consuming him.
this, incidentally, is also the chapter in which we finally see Two and Three’s faces, and learn why Two in particular is so reluctant to lend his power to Deku. he appears to be the lone holdout at this point, so stay tuned on that, because I don’t doubt this will wind up being crucial to Deku’s future development, however it winds up playing out.
chapter 311
this chapter flips back to the Hawksquad for the first half, so we get a brief respite from the ongoing Dekuangst. right before we switch back though, we do get confirmation of something we had pretty much already guessed:
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like, that much was already apparent based on what we’d seen (the bags under his eyes; the fact that he refused to sit still in any one place for very long even at night), but it’s always nice to get the official confirmation so that people can’t dispute it lol. so yeah, Deku isn’t sleeping much. and not eating much either, if all he’s getting is the occasional bento from Dadmight. so basically not taking care of himself at all, huge shocker there. but this is something that’s important enough to the story that Horikoshi took the time to point it out in the dialogue, in addition to all of the visual clues we’d already gotten.
and just in case we needed to drive that point in any further, this chapter ends with the appearance of Lady Nagant! like yeah, no shit Deku isn’t getting much sleep, what with him having to fend off racist civilians and hired assassins every five fucking minutes. smdh. can he live??
chapter 312
so this is the chapter that properly introduces Lady Nagant, who maaaay or may not be one of the primary antagonists of this arc?? like, it’s really unclear right now tbh, but she gets hyped up by Hawks and AFO, and has a flashback and a mysterious past and a weird trump card (where did you go, Overhaul) and all that good shit, so yeah? one can hope at any rate.
but anyway. so to his credit, Deku’s first thought is to retreat, but he quickly abandons that plan once he figures out Nagant’s location. this is played off like a logical strategic decision at first, but the subsequent chapter quickly makes it clear that Deku’s decision to take the fight to Nagant is less rational than he might have you think.
chapter 313
so yeah. last but not least, the most recent chapter, in which Deku’s real reason for targeting Lady soon becomes apparent:
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what’s more, it quickly becomes clear that he miscalculated and probably would have been better off following Hawks’s advice, seeing as he promptly gets himself shot, and subsequently realizes that AFO gave Nagant an extra quirk, something he hadn’t taken into account. but instead of cutting his losses and running at this point, he doubles down instead and not only breaks out Smokescreen, but also the Third’s quirk which he has never even used before.
it’s worth noting that both En and the Third start telling him to chill at this point, and warn him that what he’s attempting is too dangerous. but tbh if they were expecting him to listen, they haven’t been reading the same arc I’ve been reading. once again, Horikoshi makes it clear that Deku has one thing and one thing only on his mind right now.
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of course. once again it all comes back to this. hunt down AFO. it doesn’t matter that he’s exhausted. it doesn’t matter that he’s just been shot twice. it doesn’t matter that Hawks, despite knowing what Deku was capable of with his OFA abilities, specifically warned him away from this one person only. it doesn’t matter that even the Vestiges are trying to tell him you’re going too fast and you’re trying to do too much and it’s too dangerous.
he just doesn’t care. long story short, the only thing that matters to Deku right now is tracking down and defeating TomurAFO. and as the person who knows him best once so aptly put it, “he doesn’t take himself into account.” and therein lies the major challenge of this arc.
and so this is where we’re currently at now. and this has been a very long post, but if nothing else, I hope I was able to get this one point across: there is absolutely no way that Deku will be able to defeat TomurAFO as he is now. not a chance in hell. somehow he’s managed the uncommon feat of waging a war of attrition against himself, which is really quite an accomplishment. he’s not taking care of himself, and he’s refusing to listen to sound advice from the people surrounding him, and is trying to skip ahead to the final boss battle before he’s ready, because the guilt and pressure from feeling responsible for the current situation are eating him up. the only way that the world can go back to normal is if he can defeat AFO; therefore he has to do it as soon as possible, because time is running out and everyone is counting on him. this is who Deku is. and this is what inevitably happens when his saving mentality is taken to extremes, and left unchecked.
anyway so to wrap up this post now, I do think this arc is a lot more cohesive than it’s gotten credit for thus far, and Deku is the glue holding it all together. I for one am loving the exploration of his character and all the subtle little angsty touches as we build up to the big moment, whenever it finally comes. just keep in mind though that if his decisions right now seem reckless and short-sighted, it’s because they’re supposed to seem that way, because Deku is not in a good mental state right now. the cracks are finally showing in our perfect protagonist, just like everyone has been wanting this whole time. he is just a kid. he is doing his best. he is trying far too hard to do his best, and it is hurting him so badly, but he doesn’t even realize. this arc is not an endorsement of the Angsty Nomad Hero lifestyle, lol. it’s the exact fucking opposite, and I think it’s being wildly misinterpreted with all of the emphasis on “oh look at that, he mastered another quirk with no effort”, as opposed to “oh look at that, he is shutting down emotionally and is a few more missed nights of sleep away from a complete and total breakdown.”
tl;dr the overarching storyline of this arc is all about Deku slowly falling apart due to his trauma from Jakku, and the subsequent pressure that was put on him by the Vestiges with their whole “GUESS WHAT, YOU’RE THE LAST USER OF OFA, THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S ALL ON YOU BUDDY” pep talk. and mark my words, things are not going to go according to plan. something is going to go terribly wrong here. whether it’s something happening to All Might, or AFO setting up a trap for him, either way Deku is being set up to fail in a major way. unless of course, someone (or a group of someones) manages to intervene first, and possibly stage an intervention or something. it’s what he needs right now, but idk if Horikoshi is going to make it that easy.
anyway, but in other words, the point of this arc is not to show how much stronger Deku has gotten and how he doesn’t even need his friends anymore. it’s the exact opposite -- the point of this arc is to show that Deku needs his friends now more than ever. that in spite of OFA and all of its mystical trappings and fancy SIXQUIRKS, Deku can’t do this alone. he needs his friends. that’s the core message. and right now, we are at the “I can get by on my own” part of the story. and the part we are all waiting for, but which is coming -- I guarantee it is coming, you guys -- is “the thing is, you don’t have to.”
and that shit is going to slap hard you guys. and I for one can’t wait. but until then, enjoy the angst.
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ruinaimagines · 2 years
Note
Would you be up for HCs about what you think it'd be like attending Hod's book club? Lovin your stuff btw!
Thank you! I just wanted to say I apologize in advance because I could not for the life of me figure out what you meant by Hod’s book club. I’ve scoured the story for any hints as to what it might mean, and I’m unsure if it’s just me overthinking and not realizing it’s fancy for the floor of literature she occupies. For that reason I’m going to write hcs about what it’s like working on her floor, but if you can explain with more context what you mean by that I will be perfectly willing to write new hcs for it!
Thanks for requesting and sorry for the complication!
Working on the Floor of Literature w/ Hod HCs:
This is definitely one of the more easygoing floors to work on. I mean they’re all with their benefits, you’re sure to find the varying atmospheres pleasant in their own unique ways, but there’s something cozy about the floor of literature.
It probably has to do with the lights, that and Hod’s gentle personality which makes things more approachable. There’s not really a pressure to perform in a certain way, and there’s actually a sense of casualness.
Not one that affects how you work in any negative way, or brings down the professionalism, but one that just gives a friendly air to everything.
While you’re absolutely free to go off and work on your own a lot of the time everyone that works on the floor including Hod will sit around a table and begin reading through books. Sometimes you or a colleague of yours will comment about something they might observe while reading.
You’re no floor of philosophy, but some of the books obtained will spark conversation between motives and inspiration behind certain actions taken. Considering the Book of the Carnival is needed for an assignment on this floor I think a discussion would pop up trying to figure out what singularity they used to create the silk. Their appearances would also probably spark a conversation out of curiosity, and you wonder whether they were a result of the singularity, body modifications they decided to alter themselves with, or something else entirely.
It is saddening to look at the stories of the lives of the people who were lost in the library, but it’s also eye opening. You can learn a lot from observing other people and multiple ideas, letting you come to your own conclusion from the supplied information. It can help you become a better person, but it’s unfortunate that it has to come at the expense of others.
If you’re new to the literature floor, Hod and every other librarian are eager to help. It isn’t in such a way where you feel overwhelmed by how much they're volunteering, but you’re clearly aware that they’re there for you if needed.
I believe that if you actually were the first librarian woken alongside Hod you two would have a mutual agreement on what you hope the floor turns out to be like. You recognize you can never really guarantee what the future would be like, but you have an idea of the certain features and goals that would be ideal to reach.
There’s a rotating circle of people who are assigned to make drinks for everyone before work. Tea, coffee, hot cocoa, and almost anything else is on the table. They’ll get to brewing it and place the coasters and cups on the table when it’s finished for everyone. Who’s in charge of making the drinks alternates every couple of days or so.
If there’s extra time and you’re feeling like giving a bit of an extra special gift you can run up to the floor of social sciences and see if Chesed is available to help brew some coffee. He’s a very avid fan of the beverage so you can expect the end result to be good.
While every floor has its own reasons for pulling together the librarians working on it, the floor of literature has a really big sense of community and it feels like you���re with friends more than coworkers.
Hod wants everyone to be comfortable and happy to be there, as well as to improve on herself as a person. While not impossible to do in a more traditional and rigid environment it’s a lot easier when you’re talking to others on a more personal level.
I don’t think she would have actually liked the power dynamic between boss and employee. Especially in Lobotomy Corporation when it only separated the ability to relate and really feel equal to the employees. You lose a lot in a potential friendship because it can alter what someone does or says if they’re so far below in influence.
It’s not that she necessarily dislikes the leader role either. She may be a bit timid but that doesn’t stop her from speaking up, creating plans, and being the one people rely on.
It’s just nicer that she’s referred to as a ‘patron librarian’ rather than ‘floor manager’ and others as ‘workers’. It just feels too cold and doesn’t recognize the value in each individual.
Having a difficult day? No problem, if you ask for a small break to regain focus you’ll absolutely be granted it.
Honestly I can totally see there being a pillow corner. Just a spot where everyone can gather around, some even falling asleep, like you’re at a sleepover. There might be specific nights of the week this happens, but the pillow corner will always be available to people.
Even though your job is collecting books you might have an interest in writing yourself. It is the literature floor, and whatever you observe upon reading might inspire you to write a short story. If you’re willing for it I can imagine that the other librarians who similarly like scrawling out their ideas would enjoy reading what one another has to say.
If you can get a hold of some I absolutely can see there being snack plates for the pillow corner nights. It’s honestly like a sleepover, and you might decide to rest there instead of where you usually do. They’re set on top of the table to make sure that there’s no mess, and if there’s enough variety there might be a vote before the night for what food the platter contains.
It’s like you’re reliving a part of your childhood, and there’s no shame in that at all. By the end of it almost everyone’s curled up around a circle with whatever blankets they can get a hold of and fast asleep, and those who aren’t whisper to each other while the others rest.
It’s a bit funny because if ever a librarian from another floor ends up coming to the floor of literature and interrupting this event, everyone will sort of stop their conversation and stare at them.
It’s not out of malevolence and shortly thereafter everyone continues talking casually as they were, but rather out of surprise because they were not expecting someone to come up.
Just saying, if it manages to be dark enough for it, which I’m unsure if the lights in the floor do turn off or dim, but someone’s gonna be putting on shadow puppet shows. Is it childish? Yes, but you’re enjoying yourself so who cares. It’s not like you have any form of TV or similar entertainment, you have to make do with what you have.
For those who are particularly dramatic they might decide to put on short, rough ‘plays’ with scripts that were written in literal minutes. It’s your equivalent to reality TV.
I really don’t think there’s that much shame or embarrassment you feel between sharing or doing anything with your fellow librarians. You’re pretty free to discuss whatever, and I think this would especially help with establishing trust between everyone.
You were probably very different in Lobotomy Corporation when you worked there, having to be much more serious and abiding to certain rules and roles, it’s nice to let things go and just be yourself though.
In summary the floor of literature is a very relaxed environment where you’re allowed to express your wishes, and enjoy things that would traditionally be considered ‘immature’ without worrying about it.
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jackrrabbit · 4 years
Text
be a little bad /// Hawks x f!Reader (18+)
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Summary: College AU 🍺 Frat boy Keigo pours you your first drink and decides he’s going to help himself to more of your firsts.
A/N: Hawks just makes so much sense as a frat bro 🤧 @koiibito​ thank you for working through ideas w/ me…& remember when I told you this was going to be short?? whoops 🤡
Tags/warnings: dubcon/coercion, inexperienced reader, fuckboy Hawks, overstimulation, alcohol, inebriated sex, problematic frat culture stuff, idk what to call it but peer pressure? to drink etc., all characters are adults
How long have you been sitting here?
You feel like there’s some kind of immense weight holding you down, making it impossible for you to stand up off this ugly couch that’s been crammed into the corner of the room to make space for the dance floor. You and this couch have become good friends over what you think has been the past hour—at first you occupied yourself by looking at the people playing beer pong, but after the fourth time you had to decline one of the players’ offers to join, you decided to stop making eye contact. So you sit on the couch, you stare at your phone, and you wish you were back at your dorm—or, better yet, back in your hometown with all your high school friends.
But you’re not. You’re here, multiple time zones away from anywhere you can call home, and all of your high school friends are asleep. And the one person—the one person you’ve managed to make friends with since orientation is the one who dragged you to this freaking frat party and then proceeded to abandon you. Apparently he didn’t feel the need to tell you that as a new pledge of this frat, he’s going to be on “door duty” checking ratios and giving sardonic responsibility talks for the next two hours.
Which leaves you here, sitting on the couch and trying to avoid the more questionable stains that you can barely make out in the seizure-inducing strobe lights. There’s a can of beer icing down your palms and you adjust your grip so it doesn’t leave a damp spot of condensation in your lap. It was your friend who gave it to you before he disappeared (“you don’t even have to drink it,” he’d said, “just hold it and no one else will pressure you to get another drink”).
It smells foul. You’ve had sips of beer before, and you can never understand why people drink it voluntarily. But maybe…maybe now that you’re in college, maybe now that you’re an adult, you’ll enjoy the taste. You raise the can to your lips and chug down a heavy gulp.
Ugh. Still gross. You wince and wipe your mouth.
“Not a fan of natty, huh? Good taste.” A hand appears out of nowhere to pluck the can away from you and you jump, nearly smacking your forehead against the stranger’s chin. He pulls back. “Whoa! Careful there.”
“…That’s mine,” you say half-heartedly as the guy tilts up the beer—your beer, your decoy drink—and takes a long draught.
“You’re not missing out. This stuff is piss,” he says, grinning down at you.
He’s not the first guy to hit on you at this party (what is it about lost-looking girls that draws frat boys in like moths to a flame?), but he is the best-looking. Long, swept-back blond hair; equally long eyelashes; a hint of scruff on his chin—he’s pretty and masculine at the same time. You let him take the seat next to you and lure you into a conversation, and he’s nice, too—laughing with you about how bad the beer tastes and sympathizing with your criticisms of your first experience at a frat party. You fall over yourself apologizing when he lets slip that he’s a brother (“social chair, actually, so if the party sucks it’s on me”) but he tells you it’s okay, that no one likes going to parties alone, not at first.
His name is Keigo Takami. He’s a junior, a marketing major, and he joined the frat in his first semester. According to him, the fraternity is a great group of guys (“I mean, they’re a bunch of jackasses, sure, but they’re well-meaning jackasses for the most part”) and all the rumors about frat parties are overblown.
“Seriously, you’d be having fun if you were drinking,” Keigo tells you. “These parties aren’t intended for a sober audience.”
“Sure,” you scoff, but it’s not serious. You are having fun, talking to him.
He gasps, mock-offended. “Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it to you. Stay right here, okay—don’t move a muscle.”
When he gets up, the dense crowd on the makeshift dance floor parts to let him through to the stairs leading into the upper floors. It’s kind of amazing. Everyone else (yourself included) has to wade through, pushing and shoving past the teeming throng to get anywhere, but for Keigo it’s effortless.
He’s back in just a few minutes, holding—oh god, how typical—a red plastic cup filled with a kool-aid red liquid that smells sickly sweet. Is it actually kool-aid? You take a whiff and can’t detect the tell-tale bitter alcohol fumes. “Is this…?”
“Mm, that’s jungle juice. The frat’s secret recipe. It’s good, try it.”
You raise the cup but hesitate. Is this really a good idea? You’ve been warned about stuff like this so many times. You don’t have to do it just because everyone else is.
Keigo catches your hesitation and frowns. “What’s up?”
“It’s nothing, I just…haven’t…”
“Hm? Don’t tell me this is your first drink? Aww, little freshman baby.” He’s mocking you, looking down on you, and you hate it. You’re not a baby. You can play with the boys.
You make eye contact with him before you tip back the cup and gulp down the juice, letting the full contents slosh down your throat. It’s syrupy-sweet and tastes like fruit punch and oranges so it goes down easy, a lot easier than you thought it would. A drop slides out of the corner of your mouth but you lick it up when it runs over your lip.
Keigo whistles. “Damn, down the hatch. That was…that was kinda hot.”
If you’re blushing, you hope he thinks it’s because of the drink.
He’s faster when he gets you the second cup. It doesn’t even taste like alcohol. Keigo won’t tell you what’s in it or how much (“secret recipe’s gotta stay a secret, y’know? It’s in the bylaws”). Halfway into the second cup you start to feel dizzy, which Keigo says means it’s working. He pulls you up off what you’ve semi-affectionately begun to think of as your couch and guides you onto the dance floor. The music is heavy and blaring loud, thudding through the speakers and making the walls shake, making you shake as it travels through the sticky floor up into your body. You sway haphazardly but Keigo’s got you by the arms, pulling you out of the way of the crowd, pulling you into him.
“Looking a little unsteady there, baby,” he says, and—and, you hear him, you do, but he’s talking to you from underwater (or, no, that’s just what it sounds like? or—) um. Beaming his voice into your brain or something?
Keigo laughs and you giggle and it feels good. “Better finish that or you’re gonna spill it,” he says, putting his warm hot hand over yours, guiding the cup back up to your face so you can finish off.
You’re in the middle of the dance floor surrounded by writhing bodies so it shouldn’t surprise you when someone’s elbow smacks into your back and jostles you so the jungle juice spills, spills out of your mouth dripping down your chin onto the dress. You process the interruption a second too late and the sticky red liquid is already staining your skin. …Feels good, you think first, because the drink is cool and refreshing and it’s so hot in here, steamy warm, everyone pressed up against everyone else like you’re pressed into Keigo, and then oh no—oh no your dress—but at least it’s a dark color, at least the stain won’t show—
“What did I tell you about spilling?” you sort of  hear Keigo say, and then you sort of feel the weight of his hand wiping away the juice from your mouth, and then he sticks his face up close to yours and oh my god oh my god he’s kissing you.
There’s something indescribably weird about it, his tongue thrashing over yours like he’s trying to lick the juice out of your mouth while you try not to flinch back from the taste of the beer he was drinking earlier. But he’s so solid, so steady, the only still thing in a room full of movement—when your eyes move away from him into the twisting mass of bodies and flashing lights you feel dizzy, so you keep your gaze locked firmly on him. He wraps his arm around your back and you instantly feel better and lean into him, lean into the kiss.
You’re drooling by the time he stops kissing you. “So sweet,” Keigo says, wiping a pearl of saliva off his mouth. “Little sloppy, but I can work with that.”
You don’t get it. You don’t even know if you would get it if you were sober. What you do get is Keigo’s hand wrapped around your upper arm, pulling you through the crowd to the staircase. Once again the people move aside for him, like the Red Sea for Moses, you think with a little laugh and he looks back at you and raises an eyebrow questioningly.
You stop, halting at the base of the stairs and squinting up at the bright yellow light in the stairwell, so invasive and clinical after the strobing darkness of the bottom floor. There’s something hard pressing into your side when you try to lean on the wall. There’s a name for that thing, isn’t there? B…ban…bannister, right? You grip the bannister with one hand to hold yourself still and resist Keigo tugging you higher up the stairs.
“W-Where’re we going?” you ask. It’s weird—your voice doesn’t sound like drunk people in movies. It’s not slurred or unintelligible. To your own ears, it just sounds high, and fast, and…nervous.
“Going upstairs,” Keigo says patiently, still pulling gently at your arm. “Gonna get some air, ‘kay? I’ll show you something cool.”
“O-Okay…” Something cool? You want to see something cool, even if you’re practically tripping over the stairs trying to stumble up them.
One of the brothers is guarding the entrance to the upper floors (no doubt ensuring that wayward attendees don’t try to take the party upstairs into the personal bedrooms). He nods at Keigo when he passes, but when he catches sight of you—you with your hair mussed, lipstick smeared, flushed cheeks and wobbly steps—his eyes narrow. “She good?”
Even in your boozy haze, it doesn’t escape you that the question isn’t directed toward you. He’s asking Keigo.
“Her? She’s fine, she’s fine.” Keigo throws his arm over your shoulders like you’re old buddies. “I’m taking her to my room, it’s so fucking hot down there I can’t breathe.”
“Yeah…” the other guy says, gaze still focused on you, but he doesn’t move to the side to let you through.
“Oh, come on.” Keigo steps up onto the same stair as him so he can look him in the eye. “I said she’s fine, didn’t I? She’s having fun. Aren’t you? Tell him you’re having fun, (Y/N).”
His tone isn’t any less sociable than before, but—are you imagining it?—he’s not really asking, is he? “Um, I’m having—having fun?”
Oh. Oh no. Why did that sound like a question?
The brother waits a moment, and then shrugs and steps aside. “Whatever, bro.”
Keigo’s bedroom is on the third and highest floor of the sprawling mansion where the fraternity makes its home. Flags are pinned to the walls—one with the colors of your university and one with the fraternity crest—and on top of his desk there are trophies lined up in meticulous rows: track and field, swimming, cross country, fencing. The bedroom is a rare single, one of only a few in the crowded house, which Keigo explains is because he earned it as a member of leadership when he was elected social chair (“it was unanimous—well, almost, a couple of the douchebags voted for themselves but—“)
You’re trying to listen, you really are. But your head is spinning. Now that you’re out of the feverish swampy heat of the dance floor downstairs, you feel marginally more sober—and also more aware that you’re inebriated. Keigo’s voice is steady and soothing like the rest of him. The timbre, the intonations, the casual lilt and dip of his speaking make more sense to you than the words themselves.
“Here, have this. It’s rum. Tell me what it smells like…” Keigo puts something in your hand—a tiny little cup, a plastic shot glass—and you have to use all your concentration to hold it still enough to let him fill it with red-brown liquid out of an unlabeled bottle.
When you carefully lift it up to your face, you can smell the alcohol. It smells sweet, too—like vanilla, vanilla and something fruity and heavy. Bananas?
But mostly it smells like alcohol.
“It smells like banana bread, doesn’t it?” Keigo asks, pouring himself a shot too. “Try it.”
You take a tentative sip but even that meager amount is sickeningly bitter in your mouth. You hold it on your tongue for a second trying to taste the ‘banana bread’ and then swallow a few moments too late, hoping you don’t look as disgusted as you feel.
“Not like that,” Keigo laughs, tipping his own shot back and downing it in a single go. “Like this. Your turn.”
“…Keigo…” You’re not sure what you want to say. You don’t want the shot, it tastes bad and you’re already drunk. You’re a smart girl, a careful girl. You should know better. You do know better. But it feels like—it feels like, even though he’s not making you do anything, somehow it’s too late to say no.
“C’mon, (Y/N). It’s just a little shot.” He taps his empty glass against your almost-full one. “And look, if you don’t want to, I’ll just take you back downstairs…is that what you want?”
Back downstairs. Back to sitting by yourself and waiting for your friend and turning down offers. Is that what you want?
Keigo’s gaze dips down to the ground and he shifts a step forward. “Now…maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think you want that. ‘Cause when I saw you sitting on that couch, you didn’t look like you were having such a good time, hm? Am I right?”
“…um, I guess?”
“Yeah…you looked so sad and lost and lonely I couldn’t leave you alone. Admit it...” He reaches up and tucks a wayward lock of hair behind your ear. “You were waiting for someone to catch your interest. You were wishing a guy like me would come rescue you. If I’m wrong, I’ll take you right back downstairs and leave you by yourself for the rest of the night, okay? But if I’m right…”
You can smell his hot breath on your face—vanilla and sugar and bananas and rum.
“…take the shot.”
It’s not so bad the second time. You’re quicker and you don’t bother holding it in your mouth. The liquor sears your throat clean and when you get over the unpleasantness, it really does taste kind of like banana bread.
“Ohhhh… Not so bad, is it?” Keigo takes the glass from you. “God, you—you complain, but you really take it down like a champ.”
“Alcohol tastes nasty,” you reply, wrinkling your nose. “Why’d people do this for fun?”
“It’s not about the taste, not at first,” Keigo laughs. Weird. It’s like he’s always laughing.
“Then what?” At your next exhale, you squeeze your eyes shut and reopen them. Ah. Ah. The room is moving again, spinning, contracting and dilating. There’s something relaxing about it, like you’re being rocked on gentle waves in the ocean. You feel floaty, comfortable, pleased.
“Well…it’s nice, isn’t it? Isn’t this nice? Helps you not think so much, not worry about the consequences.” Keigo’s arms are wrapping around you again, anchoring you in place. His torso is warm and hard against yours. “Lets you be bad.”
“Mmm…” You blink up at Keigo, admire his jawline and his lashes and his pretty gold eyes. He looks like a boy you would’ve had a crush on in high school, an older boy who never would’ve given you the time of day.
His hand is rubbing circles over your back, shifting the fabric of your dress along with his palm. “So what do you say?” he murmurs. “Wanna be a little bad?”
You do. You want to be bad and naughty and reckless. You want to make dumb, drunken decisions that you’ll laugh about with your friends in a few years. You want to do things you’ll regret, because you’d rather regret the things you had the guts to do than the ones you were too scared to try.
You inch your arms up past Keigo’s shoulders and tangle them in his fluffy hair, tugging gently at the different strands until you work up the nerve to pull his head to your level and kiss him. Even though you initiated it, he immediately takes the lead and the force of his mouth writhing against yours has your neck twisting back to accommodate. His tongue pushes against yours again but you don’t mind it this time. Your spine is arched and you’d probably be falling backward if his hand wasn’t bracing your lower back before sliding down to grab your ass.
“God—“ he breaks the kiss— “goddamn, look at you.” He’s gripping your dress, lifting it, pulling the fabric up over your hips and up to your waist at the same time as he showers kisses over your cheeks and your jawline and your neck.
You lift your chin (how strange that you’ve never done this before and still it feels so natural) to let him bite and suck scarlet marks onto the thin skin of your throat. “Keigo—“
“Baby,” he sighs, his breath stirring the hair falling over your neck. “You’re gonna be a killer, I can tell… You’re sweet now, but fuck, you’ve got no idea.” His hands are under the hem of your dress giving your ass another squeeze before he pulls the skirt up.
“Killer? What do you...” He’s backing you onto the bed, kicking off his shoes, and you do the same.
“Shh, that’s for me to know and you to find out. Arms up,” he tells you, and you slowly comply, letting him take the dress off your shivering body to leave you in your panties—no bra, not in this dress. Keigo holds the dress in his hands for a second before he drops it to the floor. “This—you know what, this is how I knew you were a virgin, this little dress, who the hell wears a dress to a frat party—“
“A virgin?” Hearing him say the word hits some kind of trigger in you and your eyes go wide. Without thinking, you fold your arms over your breasts and pull your legs up to your chest.
“Not a virgin virgin, it’s just what we call freshie girls who’ve never been to a party before—“ Keigo starts to clarify, but when he catches your reaction (your overreaction), his eyes narrow and he sits on the bed over you, knees straddling your legs. “Wait. Are you—you’re not actually a virgin, are you?”
You look to the side, cheeks hot, wanting to deny it but knowing there’s no way you’ve got the mental fortitude to really convince him.
“Fuuuck,” Keigo breathes, leaning over you and framing your face with his hands. “Baby. You just keep getting sweeter, don’t you?”
“Shut up,” you whine, covering your face with your hands. “’s embarrassing…”
“You should be glad I asked, or you’d be…like crying and bleeding and stuff, right? God, it’s been a while since I had a virgin.” He scratches his forehead and then his hand comes down to absently stroke the soft inside of your thigh.
It tickles. It tickles and you feel goosebumps rising to attention on your leg and a silly little laugh bubbles out of your throat. An involuntary shiver passes through you.
Keigo smirks and ducks down to kiss the skin of your inner thigh. It’s light—it’s nothing—but the rough stubble on his chin scratches over your skin and you giggle again. He nudges up higher on your body, so close you can feel the heat of his breath through your panties, and his hands grip around your waist to keep you in place.
Everything’s moving so quickly. You wonder in the back of your mind, the tiny part that still has a decent grasp on sobriety, if you’re ready for all of this. Then you wonder if anyone’s ever ready. How are you supposed to know? When it’s the right time, are you not supposed to be nervous? You are nervous, but the liquor is taking the edge off, making you more comfortable, maybe even keeping your mouth shut when the sober version of you would’ve stopped this a long time ago. You don’t know.
But what you do know—what you do know is that Keigo is easing your panties down off your legs and then nosing back in to kiss up your thighs and latch his mouth over your pussy.
“Mm—oh, fuck—“ What are you saying? You’re not a moaner, you don’t even say ‘fuck’. You’ve always been able to keep quiet when you’re by yourself. It’s like Keigo’s tongue flicking over your clit is pulling the voice out of you.
He wriggles the tip of his tongue over that sweet spot and the breath falls out of your lungs in what is undeniably a whimper. You feel so tense with the effort of keeping still, blood rushing to your pussy, and your thigh spasms where it’s nestled next to Keigo’s cheek. “You ever done this before?” he hums between licks.
“N-No…ah!”
“Ever cum?” His tongue returns, licking you up and down in lazy strokes, spreading your juices all over your dripping cunt.
“…hahhh, yesss…” Yes, you’ve had an orgasm before, in your own bed on your own fingers. When you do it to yourself it’s detached and methodical, a means to an end. You keep your mouth closed and you barely move and you get it over with. It’s not like this, wet and sloppy and out of your control, teasing, giving you almost exactly what you want but not quite.
You’re moaning. You’re moaning. You can still hear the throbbing music of the party downstairs, and you’re moaning your little heart out, whimpering, crying with little ah-ah-ah’s that anyone who can hear would recognize immediately.
When you do it yourself, it’s not like this. It’s never like this. Keigo moves from slow to quick unpredictably, always pulling you down right when you feel that pressure building in your core. It feels good enough that you’re annoyed—no, not annoyed, downright pissed when he sits back up on his heels and licks the wetness off his own lips.
“What’re you—I was, I was gonna—“ you start, trying to organize your thoughts. It had felt good. You’d wanted it, wanted more, and now your pussy feels all warm and wet and needy, pulsating with the lust he stirred up in you.
“Gonna cum?” Keigo leans down and kisses you, long and slow. “Sorry…but I’m selfish. When you cum, I wanna feel it.”
His arms flex in the yellow lamplight as he pulls the collar of his shirt over his head. You’re sprawled over the sheets on your back, not sure what you can say so you just watch. It helps that there’s plenty to look at—the hard planes of his abdomen forming the tell-tale dips of a six-pack, perfectly-formed lean muscle (all those sports trophies, you think to yourself), and the V of his hipbones disappearing under the hem of his pants…which he’s currently taking off as well. There’s something to be said for the benefits of spending more time at the gym than you do at the library.
Every part of Keigo Takami is impressive—he’s a work of art in human form. And when he pulls down his boxer briefs and his cock springs out to bob against his stomach, you’ve gotta admit that that is pretty impressive too.
Impressive…and intimidating. You bite your lip looking at it. Keigo pumps himself up and down, and every time his fist moves down to expose the thick pink head, you wonder the same thing: how is that supposed to fit!?
Keigo must see the sudden anxiety on your face, because he smiles (reassuringly? arrogantly? or is he just delighting in your discomfort?) and lifts you like a kitten with his hands under your armpits. “Up, up, on your knees, legs together—perfect. Now turn and put your hands on the wall.”
It’s so much easier to follow his instructions than try to consider what would happen if you said no. His callused hands petting over your waist make you feel like you’re doing the right thing. But—still—the nagging anxiety of having something so big in your pussy doesn’t go away.
You hear a drawer opening, and you turn away from the wall to see Keigo squeezing a clear liquid from a bottle in his hand and spreading it meticulously down the shaft of his cock. Lube? That’s good, you’ve heard from your more experienced female friends that it’s good to be extra wet the first time…but there’s something else, something you’re missing, isn’t there?
You try to think, try to ground yourself and understand, really understand what’s happening to you. What are you missing? The bed is squishy and soft under your knees, the air is windy somehow (is there a fan on? you hadn’t noticed), and the music downstairs is so loud you can feel the vibrations through the wall you’re pushed up against. And. And. You try to think. What are you forgetting that you’re not allowed to forget?
You can feel his cock, too. Keigo’s hands grip the flesh of your hips and he leans his chest into your back, brushing your hair over your shoulders so the two of you can touch skin to skin. The head of his cock bumps against your mound, raw and hard and heavy. Skin to skin.
Skin to skin.
It hits you in a wave of panic and you whip your head around and push desperately back at Keigo’s solid shoulder. “Wait! Wait, Keigo—the condom? Are you wearing a condom?”
His hand wraps around your wrist and pins it back against the wall, and he bows down to nip a a little spot on the crook of your neck. “Calm down, we don’t need one.”
“No, we—we need it, I need it!” you squeak out, trying to push away from Keigo but he’s got you sandwiched between him and the wall and those perfect muscles you were admiring earlier are definitely not just for show.
“I said calm down. I’m not gonna go inside.”
“…What?”
He rocks his hips forward and his dick bumps up under your pussy again. “Ever heard of thighfucking?”
No, you’ve never heard of thighfucking, but you’re an intelligent girl and you might be drunk but you’re not so drunk that you can’t piece together what he means. Your interpretation is reinforced when you feel Keigo slathering liquid—lubricant—over the lips of your pussy and between the tops of your thighs. It feels cold and weird—slippery slick, like lotion—but even the barest second of his fingers brushing over your clit reignites the need from when he ate you out and you shudder.
“Keep those knees together for me, baby,” Keigo says, and with no further delay he pushes his cock in between your thighs, aiming it perfectly to slide between your pussy lips so the head will bump up on your clit.
“…ahh, Keigo, wait—oh!” The full weight of Keigo’s body shoves against your back every time he thrusts. You’re too weak for this, too delicate to stay in position. Your elbows buckle under the pressure and your face is about to smack directly into the wall until Keigo laces his fingers in your loose hair and yanks you back from it.
He’s got no trouble holding you down, keeping you perfectly posed with your soft thighs molded tightly around the cock driving between them. Your head is craned back from his hold on your hair and he lays hungry kisses over your mouth, your cheek, your neck, anywhere he can reach. He’s right—he is selfish, and you know that this position is about him, not you, so it takes you by surprise that the longer he fucks his cock between your thighs and your dripping slit, the more heat you feel rising up in your cunt.
It’s not right. It’s not supposed to be like this. Your first time doing anything with a boy isn’t supposed to end up with him using you like he’s humping a pillow, thrusting his slippery cock into your thighs and groaning in your ear. It’s all wrong, and it’s definitely wrong that you’re getting off to it.
But now you know why he ate you out and left you high and dry (well, not dry) without making you cum—because the heat and the friction and the feeling of every ridged vein sliding over your clit, his hips smacking with a wet slap against yours, the smooth head grinding over your pussy—all of it is making your thoughts swirl like your brains are sloshing around in your head, and not just because of the alcohol.
“Fuck,” Keigo purrs, ducking forward to bite the shell of your ear and then running a soothing tongue over it. “Fuck, baby, you like that? Is that virgin pussy getting all wet on my dick? You’re twitching, I can feel you…”
“…Mmph, ah, I, I—please—” You can’t really talk, not when he’s knocking the breath out of you with every thrust. But you need more. It’s not fair, having to make do with the uncontrolled jerks of his cock over your upper thighs and the outside of your pussy. He’s fucking you like he couldn’t care less about whether you get to cum—which, if you had the ability to think about it, he probably doesn’t. Certainly not as much as he cares about your soft, lubed-up skin squeezing so deliciously on his cock.
You grind your hips down a little, sticking your ass back toward him to get a better angle and—ugh, ugh it works, the pressure on your clit increases, and you keen desperately, begging him to fuck your thighs faster harder deeper. He yanks on your hair, snapping your head back so your whimper chokes up into a squeal, and—god, are you imagining it?—but you swear you feel the stiff length of his cock throb in between your legs with the head nudging on your belly.
“Uhnn…baby, baby, baby,” Keigo chants in your ear. His voice is heavier and jagged with the puffs of breath that are coming out in time with the roll of his hips into yours. It sounds…needy, almost. “G-Good girl, keep those legs tight, just—just like that…my good little sweetheart, angel, virgin. Gonna make me cum? Yeah? Make me cum with these pretty fucking thighs?”
“—Keigo, I’m—mm!” You can’t say it, even the thought of announcing you’re cumming like some kind of pornstar makes you cringe, but even if you don’t say it, there’s no way he doesn’t feel the electric shock that passes through you, sending tremors through your body.
You’re crying out, loud, louder than the music downstairs maybe (or at least it feels like it). There’s nothing you can grip for purchase so one hand just scrabbles against the bare expanse of the wall while you curl the other into a fist and dig your fingernails into your palms.
Fuck, is it the alcohol? Is it the liquor that’s making it feel like this, so overwhelming and heady you don’t even know where you are? You vaguely try to remember how you got here (something about blond hair, an easy laugh, and sugar-sweet liquid coating your tongue), but it’s not important, who fucking cares when the cock pistoning between your thighs is still rubbing up on your clit, still stimulating you, still sending sparks of heat up through your spine and making it impossible for you to breathe without moaning, much less think.
“Keigo…Keigo I came, please ahh—it, it hurts,” you whimper, trying to shift your hips up off his cock to relieve the pressure on your sensitive clit—but he won’t let you.
Keigo’s grip on your ass digs in deeper, harder so he’s probably leaving bruises, and the hand in your hair pulls your head back toward his. His voice is a growl, so low and scratchy that it sends a chill up through your body. “Don’t move. Don’t you—don’t you fucking move. Stay right fucking there.”
It scares you.
It scares you, but his dick is rocking over your pussy, making you crazy, making you lose your grip on whatever other physical sensations you can still feel. You’re limp except for your thighs pressed into one another as tightly as you can manage, letting Keigo hold you up. It doesn’t hurt, not really—but it’s horrible, it’s too much, it’s like you’re trapped on the edge, cumming and cumming and cumming and cumming while you squeal like you’re being tortured, and you are, you are, you are, you are—
—it's torture.
But not pain. It doesn’t hurt. It’s mind-bending, oppressive, awful, you want it to stop but—oh god oh god—you’re helpless and you don’t get to make it stop, you don’t get to make that decision, it’s up to him. He decides, Keigo decides, and Keigo decides to keep fucking into your thighs, keep spreading your pussy lips apart and teasing your clit, so you just roll your head back and stop trying to convince yourself it doesn’t feel incredible.
You barely notice him speeding up—you probably wouldn’t notice at all if you couldn’t hear the beat of your moans, paced in time with his body slamming yours against the wall, increasing in frequency. He releases your hair (you swear you can feel blood rush back into your head when you’re finally able to lean forward) and his hands go back to your hips, guiding you to rock yourself back on him so his last few rabid thrusts finish with the head of his cock rubbing firmly against your stomach.
“Ugh, goddamnit fuck, baby, yesss, stay still, stay right there,” Keigo groans, and you’re so blissed out from the overstimulation that you barely even feel the twitching of his cock between your legs and the spurt of thick, hot liquid on your stomach.
Oh.
Oh god.
When Keigo finally picks his hands off their bruising grip on your ass, you drop directly onto the bed, barely remembering at the last second to roll over onto your back so his semen (his semen, which is spread over your lower belly like a Jackson Pollock painting) doesn’t stain his sheets.
You stare at the ceiling and what do you know, there is a ceiling fan, blades spinning in lazy circles that make you sick when you try to follow them. So you close your eyes.
What are you feeling? What are you supposed to be feeling?
Anger, probably. Fear? Well, you won’t deny that there are hints of both of those emotions swimming underneath the hazy surface of your drunken psyche, but they’re overshadowed by what you’re really feeling, which is relief, relief that the stimulation is over, relief that it felt good, relief. And—since you’re too out of it to stop yourself from admitting it—satisfaction.
There’s a rustling, paper slipping against paper, and then you can feel Keigo wiping his cum off your bare stomach with a tissue and then dabbing at the smears of wetness between your legs. When he’s satisfied that you’re clean, the bed creaks as he lays down next to you. He’s panting.
Reluctantly you open your eyes and roll onto your side, propping yourself up on an elbow so you can look down at him: golden hair spread out in a halo around his head, pale lashes and brows, a healthy glow of sweat over his forehead. You hadn’t seen it before, but there’s a tattoo curling over his biceps from where it must originate on his back—red feathers, wings, inked permanently into his skin.
Angel, Keigo called you earlier. But really, between the two of you…he’s the angel. In appearance, if nothing else.
His eyes drift open and the corner of his mouth tilts up, pleased to see you inspecting him. “How was that? Did you have fun being naughty?”
You and him both know exactly how much fun you had, and if you said it you’d just be stroking his ego. “You’re not a good guy, are you,” you say instead.
“Never said I was.”
“Then why didn’t you…have sex with me? For real?” you ask after a beat. The question’s been weighing on you.
“Don’t tell me you’re complaining.” A hand comes up to comb through your mussed hair unhurriedly.
“I’m not…” You still want to know, though.
“Mmm…baby. You didn’t want this to be your first time. Believe me, you’re not supposed to lose your virginity to a guy like me. No—don’t pout, come on. Your first time is supposed to be, like, soft and special and romantic, right?”
The girl you were one month ago, before you moved away from your hometown to come to college, she would have agreed. But you’re not that girl. You’ve been to your first college frat party, you’ve had your first drink and your first shot, you’ve kissed a stranger and you’ve done…sexual things with a man for the first time. And you’re okay with it. So you roll your eyes. “I’m not some fourteen-year-old drawing hearts in my notebook. I don’t need soft,” you tell him, hoping you sound bold and sarcastic.
Keigo chuckles and pats you on the head. “Don’t knock soft fucking, it’s got a time and a place like everything. I just couldn’t do it. Not when I saw you sitting there looking so lonely—you were like, hmm…like a rabbit in a den of wolves. You looked delicious.”
Oh god, you’re blushing again. This isn’t good for the nonchalant cool girl persona you’re trying to cultivate for yourself.
He cups your chin and runs his thumb over your lower lip. “I don’t think I could’ve been soft with you if I tried.”
A sharp rap on the door has both of you tensing, and Keigo only has a second to yank a blanket up from the foot of the bed over your naked bodies before the door is slammed open so hard that it bangs against the adjacent wall. “Jesus, get the fuck out!” he barks to the intruder, and it’s weird to hear the authoritative note in his voice reminding you that within this house, he’s someone who commands respect.
You tuck your face into Keigo’s chest and hope wildly that the person who just walked in 1) didn’t see anything and 2) isn’t the friend who brought you to the party, because if word gets around that you’re the girl who ‘slept’ with an older frat boy at the first party of freshman year, you’ll never live it down. Regardless of your own sexual liberation or whatever, you’re well aware that this isn’t the kind of reputation you want to start your college career out with.
“Sorry Kei! But we need you downstairs, we’re out of alc and the music stopped and no one knows how to fix the speakers!” the brother says, shielding his eyes with his hand, but he doesn’t leave the room. At least it’s not your friend—you breathe a sigh of relief and Keigo automatically smooths a hand down the back of your head in response.
“I’m kind of busy,” he seethes, and—you’ve gotta admit, there’s something marginally funny about seeing him caught off guard like this. You bite down on a laugh and he looks at you curiously, one thick eyebrow quirked.
“I’m really sorry, man, but the President said you’ll be on puke clean-up duty tomorrow if you don’t get your ass down there. His words, not mine.”
“Tomura, of-fucking-course…shitty incel has it out for me…” Keigo curses under his breath. “Give me five minutes.”
As soon as the door is closed, you’ve got your feet on the floor, groping around the discarded articles of clothing for your dress. You smooth down your hair with your hands and hope you look like any other tipsy freshman instead of a girl who just got pseudo-fucked. Keigo winks at you and taps his cheeks under his eyes; you take the hint and wipe away the smudges of mascara and eyeliner that migrated out of place during your…activities.
Your phone is safely in the pocket of your dress and you’re all but ready to leave the room (hopefully there won’t be anyone in the hallway to see you) when Keigo, still pulling on his pants, tugs you back by your wrist.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” you reply uncertainly.
“Aren’t you going to give me your number?”
What? Really? You’ve heard plenty about how frat guys like him operate, and nothing Keigo’s done (except the whole ‘no penetrative sex’ thing) has led you to believe he doesn’t fit the stereotype. And the stereotype doesn’t involve sleeping with the same girl twice, especially if that girl is an awkward freshman who is apparently too innocent for him to get his dick wet with. “What do you want my number for?” you ask.
“Do I have to spell it out to you?” Keigo’s fingers lace with yours and you stumble forward into him so he can kiss you.
It’s light, chaste even, but it’s not fair because he knows, of course he knows—a kiss like that is going to leave you wanting more. “Yes,” you tell him, just to be contrary.
Keigo laughs again, and you do your best to memorize the sound of it. “It’s so the next time you decide you want to be a bad girl…you know where to find me.”
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arcadejohn127-9 · 3 years
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ok so,,, *slides u mc idea* (YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO!!! I JUST WANTED TO SHARE THIS!!!)
MC that doesn't have any energy during the day, just moping around all tired. But from like, 12 AM to 6 AM, really energized and would go out and do the most Chaotic Shit TM. You know when you just come up with some crack idea at 2 AM? MC every goddamn night. Probably tried making a bathtub fly.
(if you do want to do this, please do the brothers and the undateables ^^)
XD WHY IS THIS ME???!!!!! I'm always so tired and never leave my bed but it could be 1 am and suddenly I rise from the dead and just do random things around the house
Though these aren't chaotic, mostly just the boys trying to stop you as they're tired and want to sleep but you're messing around too much. I tried to base it off my own activities and things that would seem funny - sorry if you wanted something more chaotic but I couldn't think of anything
Lucifer:
When he learned about your strange late morning/early morning shenanigans
He saw it was a way for you to finally get your school work done
Every room - and I mean EVERY - had a textbook from your different class with notes, he goes to bed late so he put them their before he tucked in for the night
He could hear your distress at the continuous reminder of work you needed to do
You knew this was his work so you went to his room
Climbing on his bed and just walked over his body
"Stop it, I'm trying to learn how to replicate the set ups from home alone."
"You can do that after doing your coursework, I'm being merciful with you, don't push it."
You just threw yourself down beside him
Pretending to suddenly fall asleep and began to loudly fake snore
You remained like that whilst Lucifer tried to ignore you
He took this as a sign of war
He was going to monitor you all day if he has to, he refuses to let your bad grades affect their image
But you got bored of snoring and left
He felt relief; his desire to sleep over weighing his desire to force you to study
When you came back with a toy gun you altered to shoot golf balls he knew thing's weren't going well
"The-more-you-pressure-me-the-more-I-won't-study."
You shot at his lower body between each words
This was definitely war
Mammon:
He was sleeping just fine until he heard his car rev up
He bolted awake and saw that his car was on, a string of curses coming from inside
He knew of your weird habit of becoming energised at ridiculous times but he wasn't expecting you to do this
He could tell it was you by your voice
He stormed up the stairs towards his car
"Oi! What are you doing in my car? Go to bed!"
You finally were able to turn off the car, just leaning on the wheel casually as if you didn't just accidentally turn it on
"I'm just cruising~ nothing to see here!"
He wasn't amused
He got you out of his car and strung you over his shoulder, scolding you for being so irresponsible and slightly bragging about how much trouble you'd be in if it weren't for him
You tried to explain you were just pretending to drive but you saw the keys still inside and got curious
He just threw you on his bed and held you, hiding his blush in his pillow
You let him fall asleep but when you tried to escape it ended up with your shoulders in a head lock and your ass stuck in the air
It seems your productive night has came to an end
Levithan:
It was a fifty - fifty chance that levithan was awake or not
But Lucifer gave him an earful about staying up late as it's effecting grades
So you betted he was asleep and your desire to game and wonder aroulnd his room set itself in motion
What made it awkward, was when you came in you heard a suspicious girly moan come from his headphones
You both just stared at each other, unmoving
"Uh- this isn't- this is just a dream, this is definitely not happening."
You checked out the game he was playing; recognizing it to be a dating sim he's been following the development of
You just nodded, shuffling over to his set up
"Scoot over dream levi, I wanna see the hot babes."
He got even more embarassed; face completely red as you sat on your player 2 chair
You put your hand on his, forcing his finger to click the mouse and watched what was happening on screen, listening to the loud music from his headphones
Luckily, the voice acting was just suspicious - like most animes - and it was a fairly cute game
You did end up swirling around in your chair aroulnd his room
Both of you coming up with strategies to get the best girl to like you
Though, too much moving and spinning made you and the chair fall over
You bonked Into his bathtub, your ribs squishing against the rim after the trip
Levi let you make all the gaming decisions to make up for it
Satan:
He planned to have some late night reading, hoping it'll make him tired enough to actually sleep
He found you sitting on the floor in the library
Torn books and littered paper was surrounding you
Then he noticed the paper stars and cranes pouring out from your lap as you froze mid fold
"That's....a thousand stars and cranes - where did you get all this paper from?"
"......the books belonged to me before you assume anything!"
He slowly nodded
He wasn't a fan of the destruction of books but they were yours so he couldn't say anything
He felt odd just leaving you in the barely lit library
Just folding paper who knows how long
He asked if you were hungry, guessing you've been awake for a long time
You just shoved paper into your mouth and began chewing
He was horrified
You immediately spat it out, cringing
"that was a bad idea.... that was gross."
He's going to get you food
When he came back he felt more energised; walking around will do that for you
So he decided to just stay with you whilst you folded the many pages of your destroyed books
It was around 6 am when you finally yawned; Satan fell asleep already
You looked at the fire place, your tired brain screaming for arson
He woke up as he heard your fits of poorly muffled giggles
You were throwing your stars in the fire as you sat a fair distance from it
When you threw the cranes, accepting some didn't fly far enough and didn't burn, he asked what you were doing
"It's survival of the fittest, only the strongest cranes survive in this paper world."
Asmodeus:
You were already in his room, you've been sleeping in it almost all day
So when you finally got out you looked around, spotting the makeup kit he got in a sponsorship
He lets his brother's or you use it as it's a spare
But if you touch his stuff; you will perish
So you decided to use that one, practising all sorts of looks and tried not to laugh when you made yourself a clown
You decided to stay in the clown makeup and go into his practice room
What was his practice room?
Well, he hates exercising Infront of people as he'll be sweaty and his hair will get ruined
So that's where he goes but the real magic was the pole in the middle of it
You felt a spark of inspiration
Looking up tutorials on your phone on how to pole dance
It did not go great
You were sliding too fast
Falling over and when you tried to spin, you would just get stuck
"I love you but if you keep disturbing my beauty sleep I will throw you out the window."
He was grouchy; his hair was barely smoothed out and arms crossed
You hugged the pole you were slowly sliding down; a long loud screech coming down
You definitely felt like a clown
"Sorry- you look handsome already so is there really any need for beauty sleep?"
He blushed, agreeing he was beautiful before giving you a "I will end you" smile
You got the hint, flattery wasn't going to work
Perhaps your pole dancing adventures can wait
Beezlebub:
He was aware of your strange energy burst at night, you were talking about it with him the other day
He's been wondering if he would ever spot you and tonight he did
He found you in the kitchen
Just chipping away at the frost on the top of the freezer trays with a small knife
He crouched down behind you, picking you up
Beel let you sit on his thigh and began to eat anything he could get his hands on
Meanwhile you were aggressively stabbing the formed ice
"Why are you doing that?"
He grabbed a handful of the ice chunks that fell from your stabbing
"Not sure what I want to do tonight and the build up was bothering me."
He didn't need to know anymore, just nodding and letting you do your own thing whilst he ate
He cleared out the entire fridge in no time
Letting you eat anything you wanted whilst you were hard at work
He noticed one part of the ice wasn't giving it to your stabbings
He just gripped it and easily broke it off
You thanked him and ignored how he was able to eat the big block with breaking it
Whenever something was too stubborn he would just break it off for you
It went on like that until you were satisfied
You closed the empty freezer and turned to your assistant
"Good work, but I'll need your help again, I can't reach the top cupboard and I know it's big enough to let me sit in it."
He got to eat more so he had no issue, helping you get into the cupboard once he was done clearing it out
Belphegor:
You were so energised yet you couldn't think of what to do
You put a spell on you to stop you from feeling pain and began to let yourself roly-poly down the hallways
You penciled rolled abit too fast at one pointand ended up thumping down the stairs
You were thankful the spell worked
It got to the point you just kept rolling around until you couldn't anymore
You padded the broom closet
Immediately doing a double take when you noticed a body In the darkness
You went over and turned on the closets light
"is there a reason you're sleeping in the broom closet?"
Belphie was grumbling, trying to hide his face from the light
He glared up at you for disturbing his sleep
"Is there a reason you're rolling around the house?"
"Touchè."
You ended up dragging belphie around the house
You felt like you committed a crime and it was fun
He was fast asleep and you were bored
You dragged him by the ankle and tried to keep his body from banging into anything along the way
You ended up bumping into Beel, he was looking for his twin, and he noticed you were dragging him
Belphie slightly woke up, waving at his brother before going back to sleep
Beel carried the two of you back to the his bedroom; hugging you both
If it weren't for these warm beefy arms you would be free! Free to terrorise all the shadows in the room
You gave up your night activities when even Belphie wrapped an arm around you
UNDATEABLES↓
Diavolo:
Dia was sneaking around the house, hoping not to run into his butler
He didn't want be to be sent back to bed
He was planning to have a light night snack and see how you were going
He knew you were always doing something during the nights, it surprised him when he found out because you were always in bed whenever he saw you
He checked your bedroom and didn't see you in your bed
Suddenly, he noticed a pile of black by his feet
He saw you, scrunched up on your back with the little D's covering your body, all hugging you
"oh! I almost didn't spot you under there, are you alright?"
"I'm great~ you should join me."
The little D's You were able to scratch were purring in their sleep
He found the sight adorable as he crouched down
"I'm teaching them to love me so they can willingly become armour for when I take over the Devildom - we'll be like the rat king!"
He just quietly laughed; the prince helping you pet and scratch the little D's
He agreed you'd make a good ruler
Though he had to force himself to be silent as you started chanting whispers of 'You will be my armor' and 'rat king'
Decided to leave you and your brain washing, going to the kitchen like he intended
Though when he walked past your room again you and the little Ds weren't there
He found you in his room, pouting and dangling off the chandelier
He helped you down, asking what was wrong
You told him the little D's banished you from the cuddle pile because you kept trying to make them move as one being
He patted your head and told you you'll become the overlord some day
Barbatos:
"Why are you making pudding at 3 am?"
He already knew why, just like he knew you were here hence why he visited you
But that didn't stop him from asking
He knew you liked it when he showed his intrigue in things even if he already knew about them
"my hands demand to CREATE- oops sorry - hopefully that didn't wake anyone."
He was always surprised to see you up and about during the nights
He was always the one looking after you in the morningsa; making sure you ate and had a drink
Whilst you just laid in bed, always barely awake and unmotivated
He stayed with you, watching over you as you made your pudding
Making soft spoken discussion as he guided you through any steps you seemed to become hesitant in
You ended up making 10 batches of pudding
Barbatos eating a few whilst he watched you
When you grew bored of pudding making you ate the cups he didn't eat
Saving a few for lord Diavolo in the fridge
He complimented your pudding, telling you that they were very delicious
You felt proud; having a spark to make more food
He told you what would be best during this time of night and helped you
Though it did end up with the both of you covered in flour and barb slipping on a dropped egg
You both thought it was best to clean up and stop for the night
He was very embarassed he made a fool of himself
Solomon:
He didn't expect to find you in his working space
He knew you would be awake but didn't even think of you doing what you're doing right now
"is there a reason you're drinking my potions like their shots? I must say this is rather interesting - how many did you have?"
You wiped your mouth, your hiccup coming out as exploding bubbles
You looked at the small glass viles, and saw ALOT of them empty
More than you realized
"uh- 3?"
he just chuckled, reading the notes you made
The notes was recording what each potion did to you
He was thankful you remembered this was his safe batch
Unknown to him you in fact did NOT remember and was having a Russian roulette game with them
He sat with you, making a cure for your explosive hiccups
You happily drunk it and felt better
He laughed more when he saw your scribbles; drawing what happened to you
Solomon will be making you his potion tester from now one so beware
Simeon:
He was an early riser; awake by 3 am and usually did some writing or watched TV until he got tired again
He had a mug of tea, shuffling through the dorm
He's hung out with you plenty of times whilst you cure your late night boredom
But he was surprised when he saw you in the living room, mini flashlight in your mouth and scrubbing the floors with a sponge mop
"Oh, you don't need to clean - that's very sweet of you but don't you think it's abit early to do this?"
You looked at him, semi blinding him with the flashlight
Immediately took it out of your mouth and apologized
You agreed it was but you wanted to do it as you've been meaning to for the past week
He just nodded, letting you do your own thing whilst he enjoyed his drink
But you suddenly felt awkward; no longer wanting to clean now that someone was in the room
You made your way over to him, climbing on the coffee table and jumping onto the sofa
He was curious on why you weren't doing your thing anymore
"dunno know, just feels awkward when people watch me do stuff."
He suggested leaving you be, saying he'll stay in his room
But now you felt bad because he wanted to rest in the living room
In the end, he helped you clean and you both fell asleep in the bathtub, cuddling up with towels working as padding and a blanket
Luke:
You liked creeping Luke out
It was fun, so far you've convinced them that you're a type of demon that watches bad children whilst they sleep
But really you just wanted to feel like a cryptic, sitting in the corner of his room on a cupboard
It wasn't long for him to wake up from your staring
"I'm going to tell Simeon if you keep staring at me."
You wanted to laugh; he really was a child
Luke wasn't aware that you were a night owl, he just assumed you were always tired and sleeping
He liked to help you around the house and look after you when he could
It almost made you feel had
Almost
He's been extra stubborn about liking the Devildom to the point he's Been insulting his friends and trying to push them away
"Luke, you've been very bad, pushing your friends away just because they're a demon isn't good - embrace your friendships."
You weren't amazing at changing your voice but it seemed to work on him
He complained that it wasn't right for angels and demons to be friends
But you quickly reminded him what this whole exchange program was about
"you have been chosen to help fix the divide between the three realms, just hang out with the people you care about or I'll eat your toes!"
He immediately got scared, scrunching into himself and only peered slightly out of his blanket
He made you promise to leave him alone if he made up with the demons
You agreed, feeling bad for disturbing his sleep but thankful your plan worked
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Meeting and Dating Andy Cavenaugh
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(My shitty gif)(Requested by anonymous)
- Living in the middle of the desert was an interesting experience. You’d lived in the same home since you were born and yet there were still occupants of your town that you’d never seen or met; even though there was only a meager population of under 50.
- It was the sheer size of your state that did it. Everyone lived miles away from each other and any shop that was considered to be “nearby” was still at least a thirty minute drive so you only ever went into town a couple times a month. Which is how you met Andy.
- You’d driven into town with a list of supplies you’d needed and a wallet full of that months savings, ready to get your stuff and go as quickly as you could; hoping to get home before the sun rose all the way and baked you alive.
- Coincidentally, Andy was in town at the same time, loitering around the store you were attempting to shop at. You paid him no mind and went about your business until you were ready to check out.
- Once the shopkeep had rung you up, you found that you didn’t have enough money for all the things on your list and reluctantly told the man to keep something as he helped you pack up what you could afford.
- Andy watched the entire interaction from somewhere behind you as he pocketed whatever he felt like. Once you headed towards the doors of the building, he picked some cheap thing off the shelf and went to the checkout, watching you as you packed up your car.
- While the store clerk was preoccupied with the cash register, the boy snuck whatever you’d left behind into his jacket and waited another few moments for the man to hand him his actual purchase before he made his way outside.
- You were just about to get into your car when he came up to you, greeting you casually before he held out his hand and offered you the thing that you’d left behind. You looked at him in surprise before you thanked him and took it, shifting it to your other hand so that you could offer him yours in a handshake.
- The two of you introduced yourselves and he asked if you’d be interested in going out sometime. Since all you knew about him was that he was attractive and sweet enough to “buy” you the thing you couldn’t afford, you agreed and wrote down your number for him, telling him that it was nice meeting him and saying goodbye before you drove off. 
- He calls you a couple days later while out with his friends, a little liquid courage in his system and a bit of peer pressure from his buddies leading to his wonderful decision making. 
- You’re clueless and he thinks his friends will stick to their word of “heading out before you show”, which obviously doesn’t happen. You arrive and they’re still there, almost immediately inviting themselves to what was supposed to be your first date and making the night rather uncomfortable at times. 
- You can tell that your date is just as uncomfortable as you, but that doesn’t exactly make things any better. By the time the night ends, you’ve already decided that you’re probably just gonna count your losses and find a potential boyfriend elsewhere. 
- But fate seems to be on Andy’s side because the two of you find yourselves face to face a few days later. He gives you an apology, explaining everything before telling you that he’d like to see you again.
- It takes you a minute to decide but you finally agree and tell him that you’ll give it another shot, bringing up your own idea for a date in hopes that you won’t be bothered by his buddies again. He gives you a wide smile, asking when he should pick you up and thanking you genuinely just before he leaves.
- So, for your second date; though you like to consider it your first, the two of you go to whichever place you chose and wind up having a really nice time. He seems to be on his best behavior but his real personality shines through as well; and it’s one that you really enjoy.
- You probably give him a kiss on the cheek as a goodnight but the two of you share your first real kiss on your next date. You’d spent pretty much the entire night together and wound up parking off on the side of the road to stargaze for a while. 
- You were leaning against the hood of his car with him, looking up at the sky before your gaze shifted to the man beside you. He was preoccupied with watching the stars, leaving you to let your mind wander. 
“I’m glad we gave this another shot.” You said and watched as his focus shifted to you instead. 
- He gave you a smile and told you that he was too before he leaned down and pressed his lips to yours. 
- Congratulations, you caught yourself a firebird in the middle of the desert.
- Andy really doesn’t give a shit about how other people feel like 80% of the time, and he’s just a fan of affection in general, so there’s going to be a lot of Pda in your relationship; if you’ll allow it.
- Handholding. He likes keeping you close to him and making sure that you aren’t getting into any dangerous trouble; especially if you’re around his friends. Although he does wear his gloves a lot so; even though he gives you the occasional reassuring squeeze or strokes his thumb across your knuckles, you’ll most likely be feeling leather more than his skin.
- If someone’s kissing a face, it’s you. His lips are for your lips only, he doesn’t bother touching them to anything else; though he does enjoy when you kiss him on the cheek or jaw.
- Deep, slow kisses.
- He calls you honey or baby more than he calls you by your name. And as tough as he likes to pretend he is, he’d love to have you call him by pet names too.
- Cuddling is one of his favorite pastimes; he absolutely loves it. Most of the time, he’ll pull you in, pressing his cheek/jaw to your head and letting you lay right up against him, your head resting against his shoulder or in the crook of his neck.
- A lot of the time, he prefers to be loving in a more reserved way. He tends to show that he cares through his actions and by doing little things to make your life easier. Things like waking up early to put gas in your car or picking up things that you need from the store whenever he’s in town so that you don’t have to go.
- Sometimes, he’ll set up a sentence like he’s about to say something really sweet or you’ll ask him something expecting a cute response and he’ll just say something crude or lewd instead.
“How do I look.” He turns and looks at you, a smile gracing his face.
“Your tits look great.” He replies, barely holding in his laughter.
- He indulges you more than he cares to admit. He might occasionally act like he’s too cool but he’s too in love with you to say no and potentially make you sad.
- Tv dates. There ain’t shit else to do.
- Cruising around in his firebird; and sometimes parking somewhere to makeout.
- Going on road trips or long outings. There isn’t a whole lot to do in your town so you’ll occasionally take the long ride over to the next town in hopes of finding something fun.
- He’ll never tell you that he does but he always dodges potholes and bumpy areas during these trips so that he doesn’t wake you up while he’s driving.
- Driving out to the middle of the desert with a bundle of blankets to watch the sunrise; or stopping on the side of the road during one of your trips.
- Sitting with him while he works on his car.
- Going out into the desert to shoot or smash random junk. Vases, porcelain, tin cans; stuff like that.
- Playing pinball and other convenience store arcade games.
- Every now and again, he’ll get some money from his pops and take you out to a nice dinner; especially if it’s after the two of you are pushed into doing something you dont like and he can see that you’re upset. It’s usually because of Sam but he still feels the need to try and make it up to you and make sure that you aren’t gonna ghost him.
“Hey, why don’t we go and get some dinner,” he’ll say, a hint of nervous desperation in his voice as you walk out to his car. “You can get whatever you want. Dessert too.”
- It isn’t clear exactly how rich Andy actually is but it seems like he’s sort of embarrassed to have wealth in such a poor town. Because of this, I feel like he probably wouldn’t mention it and would try to dodge questions that would lead to him exposing the truth, maybe acting like he’s less wealthy than he is until Sam “outs” him and causes an awkward situation.
- Him stealing things for you. You’d much prefer if he just bought them but at least he doesn’t tell you whether or not he’s stolen it most of the time.
- Likes to fool around a lot; he’s rarely ever fully serious and he’s always trying to make you laugh.
- Can quote just about any western film you can name and does impressions of all the characters. He grew up on those sorts of things so he’s practically an expert by now.
- He likes messing with your stuff: putting on your clothes, using your mirror for random stuff, picking things up off your dresser and toying around with them, etc.
- My god, the change of character he has when he’s with his friends and you, compared to when he’s with his parents gives you whiplash. It’s hilarious seeing him lie and act like an angel during family dinners.
- His dad probably lectures him about manners whenever you’re with them: things like putting his elbows on the table, saying grace, how he treats you, etc. Its pretty amusing to see.
- He seems like a good guy who got mixed in with the wrong people. Sure, he enjoys a little chaos and trouble making like the rest of them but he doesn't like hurting people and you can tell from the way he acts afterward that he isn't proud; especially when you give him a look in the middle of the situation and sober him up.
- You’re dragged along with him and the boys a lot; or he’s forced to ditch you to hang out with them whenever Sam calls.
- Sam flirting with you. You know damn well that he’d make you compliment him or get you to agree with his praise of himself; and Andy would be miffed but unable to do anything besides listen to him while his knuckles whiten on his steering wheel.
- There aren’t a lot of people in your town for him to get jealous of but whenever there is, he does. Most of the time, it’s Sam or some flirtatious traveler but other times it’s your celebrity crushes or old boyfriends. He usually just bites his tongue or makes some kind of sarcastic, passive aggressive comment; it depends on who it is and how you’re reacting to them.
- He’s always looking over at you and making sure you’re alright whenever he can; especially when you’re out with his friends. He knows that getting into the trouble that they do can be dangerous and he doesn’t want anything happening to you just because Sam doesn’t know when to stop.
- The two of you get into a lot of arguments but they’re rarely ever serious. You mostly just bicker before the two of you give up and decide that it’s a pointless fight.
- Whenever you do have an argument, one that he causes and upsets you with, he always feels guilty and finds himself unable to stay mad at you. He might not verbally apologize but he will try to make it up to you in some way and tell you that he’s sorry.
- He’s not big on saying he loves you but he does say it on occasion; and definitely shows it more than he says it.
- The two of you probably get engaged on a whim a bit too early into your relationship but he’s promising to take you out of that desert city and along with him to Hollywood so the ring is a nice symbol of that oath. 
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rocorambles · 3 years
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Inexperience
Pairing: Tsukishima x Reader 
Genre/Warnings: NSFW, Slight Angst, Fluff, Fingering
Summary: When insecurity about your lack of sexual experience threatens to tear you apart internally, Tsukishima is there to hold you together, to show you there’s nothing to be worried about, to prove that he loves you just for being you. 
Author’s Note: I just wanted an excuse to write about soft museum employee Tsukishima and just soft Tsukishima in general. 
Tsukishima had always been smart, cunning, intelligent, so it wasn’t really a surprise to anyone that he decided to work at the Sendai City Museum. It just fit him perfectly and it was easy to imagine the tall blonde pushing up his glasses as he calmly led tour groups around, clearly articulating and teaching visitors about the history of Sendai. And when his old Karasuno teammates visit him, they can’t help but notice how his quiet, reserved personality seems right at home in the peaceful halls of the institution, his character only breaking when he barks for Hinata to quiet down or not touch some of the artifacts. 
What is surprising is the way he almost seems flustered, stumbling over words, awkwardly unable to make eye contact as another museum employee greets him with a smile as she passes by and Daichi and Sugawara look at each other in interest, realization in their eyes as they watch their kouhai’s eyes trail after her retreating figure. 
In a small town like Miyagi where there isn’t much exciting news to keep them entertained, this is as close to reality TV as they can get, not to mention both of them are now incredibly invested and determined for the younger, seemingly impassive man to finally get his fill of romance. So needless to say, they make a trip to the Sendai City Museum a regular occurrence and although Tsukishima looks at them with suspicion, his respect for his senpais keeps his mouth still and he just politely walks them through the museum, spends his lunch breaks with them, and meets them for drinks after work once in a while. 
It’s actually kind of nice, he supposes. He’s always liked and respected the two older men, although both men terrified him in their own ways: Daichi with his stern and fear inducing temper, Suga with his perception that rivals Tsukishima’s own intellect and his mischievous streak that sometimes meant trouble for anyone who peaked his interest. But without the restraints of them being his captain and vice-captain, without the natural inherent age hierarchy that comes from being in school, he finds himself opening up more and truly enjoying the company of the two men, even if there is always a nagging question in the back of his mind wondering what exactly has them hanging around him so often these days. 
The answer comes like a swift punch in the gut one day as the three of them walk around the museum and happen to cross your path and before Tsukishima can quickly and nervously greet and part ways with you as usual, Suga is there pressed close to his side, eyes glinting as he stares at you, pouting at Tsukishima to introduce his friend to Daichi and him. And before Tsukishima can even take back control and catch up with what’s happening, he’s being forcefully dragged by Daichi as Suga easily chats away with you, leading the way for all four of you to eat at a local restaurant. And he gulps as Daichi slaps him hard on the back with a wide toothy grin plastered on his face as he pulls the tense blonde aside for a moment. 
“Chin up! You’re never going to get that girl’s attention if you just sit around like a moping beanpole.”
Daichi smirks as Tsukishima’s jaw drops and he briefly basks in catching the usually nonchalant man off guard, chuckling when the blonde doesn’t even try to deny Daichi’s words, and he nudges him into the restaurant, joining Suga and you who are already seated. 
Lunch is...pleasant and although Tsukishima feels like a deer in headlights at the beginning of the meal as he tries to talk to you like a normal human being and not some love stricken child, with the help of his more extroverted and sociable senpais conversation flows smoothly and he can feel his shoulders relax, his mind focus and hone in on your words, falling more and more in love the more you talk, the more you smile and laugh. And Suga and Daichi subtly wink at each other when the atmosphere changes and suddenly they’re background characters watching the two of you flirt, barely acknowledged as the two of you stare in each other’s eyes, fully focused on one another. 
Needless to say, there are many more lunch breaks spent together, these times just the two of you and you can’t help but be in awe as your handsome quiet coworker begins to come out of his shell bit by bit, practically howling in laughter after the initial shock when he instinctively shoots a snarky comment your way for the first time when you clumsily spill coffee all over yourself one morning. But you’re not laughing when he takes off his blazer and wraps it around your shoulders and the both of you shyly look away as you snake your arms through the sleeves and button it up, effectively covering your jarring stain and when he walks away to begin his tours for the day, you bury your face into the oversized fabric, hiding your gleeful smile as your heart thunders inside of your chest. 
It doesn’t take long before the two of you officially begin dating and you spend some of the happiest months of both your lives together as you walk hand in hand through other museums, nerding out over history, as you attend his volleyball games, loudly cheering whenever he successfully blocks a spike and no matter how big the crowd is, he never fails to search for and find you among the masses, standing a little straighter, the hint of a smile tugging at his lips when he meets your gaze. 
And yet, there’s hesitation on your part when he walks you home like a gentleman, making sure you’re safely inside your apartment, the front door firmly locked behind you. You love the feeling of his large calloused hands entwined with yours. You love the way his lips feel against yours as he gives you a sweet kiss before he parts ways. But when the two of you stand there in front of your doorway, hand in hand, eyes lovingly locked on each other, you can’t bring yourself to take the next step and invite him in, your insecurities and inexperience clamming your mouth shut. And although he never pressures you, never even remotely hints at being frustrated or impatient about the lack of sexual intimacy between the two of you, your own doubts and anxieties create imaginary monsters in your head, only fueling your insecurity about never having been with a man before and you feel more and more distraught the longer the two of you date, wondering if he’d break up with you any minute, choose any of his pretty fans or the pining women who join his tour guides regularly over you, experienced and confident women who wouldn’t hesitate to tumble into bed with him. 
Maybe that’s why, even though you’re not ready, even though you’re trembling with nerves, you shakily hold his hand and lead him inside your home after one of your dates, trying to force a smile on your face as you clumsily remove your clothes in front of him, hoping you look enticing despite the sick feeling in your stomach. But you’re a fool to think Tsukishima wouldn’t see right through you, to think his sharp eyes wouldn’t notice the nervous gulp you take, the way your smile doesn’t reach your eyes, and he’s quick to stop you, gently holding your hands in his and leading you to your couch where he drapes a blanket over you, trying to be respectful as he looks away from your bare form. 
But when he stops you, covers you, looks away, all you feel is rejection and hot tears begin to prick at the corner of your eyes and Tsukishima has never felt more panicked than he does when he hears the first of your sniffles as you try to wipe your tears away, clumsily reaching to drag you and hold you in his arms, tucking your head in his chest as he pleads with you to tell him what’s wrong. And he feels unsure and lost, useless as his actions only seem to make you sob harder, but before he can pull away thinking he’s somehow causing you even more pain, he stills as you throw your arms around his neck before he can completely separate from you. 
Hesitantly he carefully wraps his own wiry arms around you again and he waits, waits until your body stops shaking, waits until sobs turn into sniffles which turn into silence, waits until you lift up your head enough for you to speak. And then he listens, listens as you shyly tell him that you’ve never done anything beyond kissing before, fury beginning to coil inside of him when you timidly tell him about exes who had dumped you for being a “prude”, pain gnawing at him when you tell him how scared you were of losing him for the same reason. 
You’re silent once you finish speaking, feeling lighter, but more vulnerable as you anxiously wait for a response, fidgeting the longer and larger the silence becomes. But you gasp when large hands are pressed on either side of your face, gently turning you until you’re forced to stare into your boyfriend’s eyes and you think you might start crying again at the pure love in his eyes, the way he makes you feel so secure, so cared for with just a single look. And now it’s your turn to listen as he gruffly tells you how stupid you were for ever thinking he’d ever leave you for something like that, how he’s not some scumbag who only wants you for your body, and despite the biting edge to his voice and the harsh wording, you hear and feel just how genuine his love for you is and suddenly you feel silly for ever doubting him, ever doubting his love for you. 
The rest of the night continues peacefully once tears have been wiped away, once everything that’s needed to be said is out in the open and your blanket covered body is firmly snuggled in Tsukishima’s lap and you rest your head against his chest as he holds you, both of you watching a random show flickering on the TV screen. But you look up questioningly when Tsukishima begins to shift around uncomfortably, asking him if he wants you to sit beside him instead of on his lap, wondering if your body weight was getting to be too much after such a prolonged time, but your face heats when his hands reach down to cover the growing tent in his pants and he embarrassedly asks if you want to put your clothes back on and just give him a minute to settle back down. 
You hesitate. Maybe it’s the staggering revelation that Tsukishima truly loves you for just being you. Maybe it’s the surge of confidence you feel knowing he could care less if you don’t want to go beyond kissing and holding hands anytime in the near future, only caring that he gets to be with you. 
You’re not ready to go all the way, but…
You almost laugh at how Tsukishima startles and frantically tells you that he doesn’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with, stammering and almost hyperventilating as you let the blanket slip off of you, revealing all of you to your boyfriend, so different from the usually cool and composed facade he has. And you gently, but determinedly grab his hands and tug them away from the eyes they’re covering, nervously biting your lower lip as he stares in awe at you, eyes fixated as they trail every inch of you, looking at you like you’re a work of art. 
“I’m not ready to go all the way, but I want to- can we-” 
You’re not sure what to say, how to explain it, lost for words as you enter a realm you’ve never experienced before, but Tsukishima is there to lead you, guide you and you happily sigh as he captures your lips in a tender kiss.
“We can do whatever you want. Just tell me when you want to stop. Tell me when you don’t like something, even if you’re just a little unsure, okay?” 
You eagerly nod, wrapping your arms once again around the back of Tsukishima’s neck and wrapping your legs around his waist as he carries you to your bedroom, carefully laying you on your back and your heart races in your chest as you stare at him looming over you, breathily gasping as he peppers a trail of butterfly kisses from your lips down the side of your neck and you clutch his shoulders at the feeling of his lips on such a sensitive part of you. But you’re quickly distracted as his hands begin to massage your breasts, fingers almost teasingly brushing against your hardening nipples and Tsukishima can’t take his eyes away from you, lust pooling in his groin at how sensitive you are as you drown in pleasured sensations you’re feeling for the first time. 
He wants to hear every pretty sound you make, wants to see every reaction he can coax out of you, and he stares transfixed at how blissed out you look just from a few kisses, just from his mouth and fingers sucking and playing with your nipples. He wants more, more, more and his long fingers begin to trail down your body, fingertips dragging down your sides, reveling in the way you shiver from the simple touch. But he pauses as his hands reach your thighs, thumbs rubbing comforting circles on your inner thighs, breath catching in his throat at how wet you are, juices dripping and glistening already. 
There’s nothing more he wants than to dive right in, experience first hand how you taste, how you feel, but he carefully studies you, takes in your heaving chest, your glazed eyes. 
“Are you okay? Do you want me to stop?” 
He continues tracing gentle patterns and shapes on your skin, letting you take your time to find words through the haze of arousal you feel, but his grip unconsciously tightens when you needily tell him you want more in a high pitched whine, desire lancing through him from how desperate you sound. And he slowly runs his fingers up and down your slick slit until they’re coated in your sticky fluids, until you’re rolling and grinding your hips in a silent plea for more. Only then does he slide one finger inside, chest tightening from the way your back arches as he hooks his finger, dragging against your soft walls as he takes his time slipping in and out of you. 
A part of him wants to be a little cruel, see how much of a mess he can make of you if he painstakingly slows down his pace even more, letting you feel just enough pleasure to writhe around, but never enough to reach your peak. A part of him wants to stay like this forever, see how much more lewdly you can beg verbally and physically. But you look so confused, so helpless, so wrecked as unknown pleasure courses through you and he decides to show you mercy for now, decides to show you that you have nothing to fear as he adds another finger, his two fingers stretching you even more, scissoring inside of you, and he smiles at how your mouth gapes open, tongue lolling out as your tight hole is filled for the first time. 
His cock twitches at the sight and his free hand slips underneath his boxers to soothe his aching length, but he freezes when you wantonly beg to see it and he grits his teeth to stop himself from coming right there and then from just those words and the hungry look in your eyes as he shoves his boxers down, his cock springing against his stomach, hard and leaking, spurting more pre-cum as you unconsciously lick your lips at the sight and he imagines how good your mouth would feel around him.
But that’s for another day and he turns his attention back to the task at hand, his free hand wrapping around his shaft as he adds a third finger to the mess between your legs, your arousal making it all too easy to slide right in. And he can’t help but furiously stroke his cock as his fingers increase their pace, lewd wet slick sounds filling the room mixing with your rising moans. Your thighs begin to clench and shake, your pussy tightens around his fingers, and he can almost taste just how close you are to falling apart, to coming undone. And all it takes is his thumb reaching up to rub your clit, his fingers rapidly pistoning in and out of your gushing hole before you’re screaming, body convulsing and eyes rolling back as he continues his frantic pace, not letting up as he forces you to continue your ride until every ounce of pleasure is stripped from you, until you’re just twitching here and there as the last embers of your orgasm finally fade away. 
And only when you let out a mewl of discomfort does he stop, fingers still lodged deep inside of you as his fist pumps his cock, mouth going dry at how beautiful you look exhausted, wrecked, a silly dazed look on your face and he groans as he spills all over his hand, smiling wickedly when he notices how your eyes are now alert and intently staring at him, your attention solely focused on him. 
He makes a show of slowly pulling his fingers out of you, spreading them apart to show you how coated they are with you before slipping them between his lips, never breaking eye contact with you as he licks and sucks every last drop, something primal raging inside of him at how encaptured you are by the scene playing out in front of you despite the innocence and slight shyness he still sees flickering in your eyes. 
But there would be time in the future for more and he shoves his base desires down, grimacing slightly as he haphazardly wipes the mess on his hands and cock with his boxers before moving until he’s laying right beside you, wrapping an arm around your waist and pressing his face against your cheek, letting you ground yourself, nuzzle into his warmth, find comfort in his solid presence as the last tendrils of post-coital bliss finally fade away. 
He softly smiles, adoration in his eyes when you fully come back to him, a radiant albeit tired grin on your face as you affectionately kiss him before sinking into his hold with a big yawn, eyelids fluttering shut as you sleepily demand that he stay the night. And he lightly chuckles and rolls his eyes before turning the lights off, tucking you both underneath your bed sheets as he joins you in slumber, a twin pair of smiles on both your faces as you fall asleep entangled in each other’s arms. 
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shihalyfie · 3 years
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Some things to know about the upcoming 02-related movie
As someone who seems to be known for being a 02 metablogger now (and 02 lover in general), and who’s been closely following Kizuna’s development and is generally fond of the movie itself, I figured I’d probably need to address the elephant in the room that is the announcement of the upcoming (unnamed, as of this writing) 02-related movie. This is also especially because I’ve personally been on the record saying that I absolutely did not want a Kizuna sequel. And, well, on top of that, to be a bit blunt about it, a lot of us, especially 02 fans, have a lot of reason to be skeptical of Toei right now given some of the things they’ve done with this series in the past, and 02-related things in particular (trust me, the wound is still extremely fresh), so it says a lot about what it took for me to get even remotely positive about this prospect.
Well, here’s the good news: while I of course still think there’s good reason to be apprehensive, and while I wouldn’t say everyone should be getting their expectations up for it to be guaranteed fantastic (which is something I would say about anything, regardless of whether it even has to do with Digimon or not), I don’t think there’s too much to be panicked about with this movie. Again, it took a lot for the staff to gain my trust in this respect, so it’s not something I say lightly. But if you’re a 02 fan and you’re extremely apprehensive, here are my reasons for feeling this way, and, hopefully, they might make you feel a little better too.
The reason this movie exists to begin with
One of the most striking things about this movie’s reveal was that they’ve literally only just started production on this movie. This was to the point that, at DigiFes, where this was revealed, even the voice actors stated outright that they knew absolutely nothing more than what the audience knew from the trailer. Katayama (Daisuke) only knew anything in the sense that they had him record those few lines for it. So even though it’s been a whole year and a half since Kizuna released to the public, it had only just been decided to make a new movie like this. All of the statements between Kizuna and now stating that there was nothing particularly in the works at the time were completely accurate. Of course, there are obvious hints that they were setting up for this possibility (many, many people noticed the suspiciously favorable position the 02 group was in during Kizuna, and the press releases were carefully worded so that having a movie about “Daisuke and his friends” would allow any statement about Kizuna being “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends” to still be technically truthful), but for all intents and purposes it seems like there had been no actual commitment to making this 02 movie until now, and that they’d at least wanted to gauge the surrounding climate and fanbase reactions for what people were looking for before they decided to go ahead with this.
The obvious reasons as to why this movie exist involve the fact that Daisuke and co. are pretty much the only “out” you can have to continue the Adventure universe without constantly defaulting to Taichi’s group yet again, because at the very least it’d be something that you can’t deny hasn’t exactly had the best representation in recent years. Of course they’re trying to capitalize on this! I’m not going to pretend they aren’t! But producer Kinoshita left a very interesting comment about a particular goal they have with this movie:
This time, the core behind the movie is everyone from 02! Daisuke’s group has their own different kind of charm from Taichi’s, and we want to express that precisely because we’re in the times we’re in right now.
That comment alone has a lot to unpack. (For a frame of reference, Kizuna released in Japan in February 2020; development had already long finished by the time the pandemic first hit, and it was unfortunately one of the first victims of the initial lockdowns because of how bad the timing was.) Acknowledging directly that there’s something different about Daisuke’s group and their dynamic, which makes them especially suited for what we need in “the current times”...hmm, what could that be?
The implied answer is one that many 02 lovers will know very intimately: the 02 group’s particular specialty is in uplifting others and giving each other emotional support. While Adventure had traces of these themes, 02 was the one that went really hard on the themes of dealing with grief and loss, the existential crisis of what to do with oneself in a world placing heavy pressures on you, and how to move on from hardships with the help of others. The fact that the 02 group specializes in this more than anything else is probably one of the most distinguishing factors between them and their seniors, so there’s a very heavy implication here that they understand what distinguishes 02 from Adventure, and what it uniquely would bring to the table in this kind of movie. So this isn’t just “we’re relying on the 02 kids because they’re part of the same universe”; there’s some degree of substantial understanding of what makes 02 as a series unique, and a desire to use this to its fullest extent.
Still don’t believe me? Well, how about this...
This staff really likes 02 a lot
Seki Hiromi, the original producer of Adventure and 02, was involved as a supervisor on Kizuna’s development. Seki was personally involved in the creation of these kids and 02 itself -- she’s the one who noticed the story of the nine-year-old boy skipping grades into Columbia University, the one that formed the basis of 02 itself and eventually came back for Kizuna -- and even personally vetted Kizuna’s script to make sure everyone was in character, gave her thoughts on what the kids would be like in 2010, and was (repeatedly) commented as seeming to love the kids like her own children. As of this writing, it hasn’t been confirmed whether she’s involved on the new movie, but even if she’s not, this means that the staff on Kizuna that is returning all listened closely to those discussions about what the characters are like, straight from the mouth of one of their own creators. The new character song releases had a brief mention in Lounsbery Arthur’s interview that there were apparently extensive discussions with the staff on what the characters should be like at this time, so while Seki’s involvement with that is unknown, at the very least, a lot of conscientious thought seems to be put in at all times into maintaining these characters’ integrity.
Of course, just having an original creator alone on it doesn’t necessarily do it by itself, so here’s another interesting thing: Taguchi Tomohisa, director of both Kizuna and this movie, is also very fond of 02.
I suspect we’ll be hearing more from him as this new movie goes further into development, but Taguchi himself implied that 02 was actually the one he happened to connect with in particular, and when you really think about it, given the circumstances surrounding Kizuna, it’s not actually surprising that a movie trying to be conscientiously aware of 02′s position in the narrative would have someone with a particular fondness for it on its staff. (Reason being: a lot of Adventure fans don’t care much for 02, but you’ll almost never meet a 02 fan who doesn’t also adore Adventure.) The really fun part about this, however, is that Taguchi has repeatedly stated that 02′s first movie, Hurricane Touchdown, is his favorite Digimon movie -- in a climate where everyone else was talking about Adventure. The expected answer for the majority of Adventure fans in terms of “favorite Digimon movie” is almost always Our War Game! by knockout, but no, for Taguchi, it’s Hurricane Touchdown, and not only has he said this, he won’t shut up about it. He’s been saying this since 2019. Even Seki noticed. A whole article got made about this. He brings it up whenever he has a chance to. To top it all off, when a Kizuna event asked everyone present about their favorite characters, and everyone gave Adventure-related answers, Taguchi’s response was instead Terriermon and Daisuke. And I mean, look at Kizuna itself -- its entire plot revolves around having to move on from unhealthy nostalgia, represented by kidnapping people and turning them younger and an antagonist swallowed by their own negative emotions, which, well, is literally the plot of Hurricane Touchdown. (Yeah, that Wallace cameo is very, very likely to be sheer self-indulgence.) And considering that Taguchi said his favorite human character was Daisuke, not Wallace, it means that he understands what Hurricane Touchdown brought out of Daisuke, what his interactions with Wallace meant for both characters, and how Daisuke’s best strengths lie in his ability to support and uplift others.
And, finally, we have Yamatoya, who was responsible for penning both Kizuna’s script (and, thus, being privy to Seki’s corrections) and the bonus drama CD that came with it, on the script, and he personally said that he enjoyed writing for the 02 group because he felt they were important to lightening up the mood of the heavy story Kizuna was becoming. In fact, every comment from this staff about what the 02 group brings to the table in particular has showed a good understanding of what their appeal is -- that they have to be “fun”, that they were “healing in a heavy story”, and Taguchi himself said that he got the impression that the 02 group had more straightforward paths to their epilogue careers (which is interesting, considering that I’ve also personally pointed out that the 02 group seemed to have careers with significantly lower bars than their seniors’ due to their difference in priorities). All of these things are observations you make when you know this group and the importance of the story they came from.
Extend it even further to the rest of the staff members and you’ll find there are a lot of 02 fans on there, including the animation staff, who made some very neat observations about 02 and its finale. Miyahara Takuya is a particularly amusing case, because he seems to love Imperialdramon so much that in the thanks booklet for the deluxe edition for the Blu-ray, he drew a picture of Daisuke and Ken with Imperialdramon Dragon Mode because he didn’t get to be in the movie. (As in, he actually said, point-blank in the caption, that he loves Imperialdramon and wanted to draw him because he wasn’t in the movie.)
Of course, even if you’re trying your best, things may not always work out, so I’m not saying having love for the characters will necessarily guarantee that the product turns out for the best. However, considering that historically a lot of our fears come from the idea of them milking the name value of the characters without really caring about their integrity or understanding what the series was about (especially since a lot of people in the fanbase itself don’t tend to read 02′s nuances very well), I think, at the very least, we don’t need to worry about the staff for this movie not being conscientious, nor the idea that they’re making this movie without understanding or caring about 02.
Furthermore, one thing I appreciate is that they’re actually leading the advertisement with a premise that is distinct from Kizuna’s. Of course, it covers a similar topic of “partnerships”, and it’s very possible it’ll cover the issue of the solution to Kizuna’s problem (especially since the answer was already hinted to have a heavy relationship with 02), but nevertheless, it’s an actual premise that’s not just “Kizuna’s story, but more of it”. It’s an understanding that something 02-related should be allowed to stand on its own rather than just tacking it onto an Adventure-related thing. Beyond that, while I think it’s generally expected that a side story like this should have an original character, I think it’s actually very good this time in particular that there’s a new element/character for the 02 group to interact with; again, as with Hurricane Touchdown and Daisuke, these kids often have the best brought out of them when they’re supporting others, and honestly, because the kids suffered so much in their own narrative, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of seeing them having to go through too much more trauma themselves (it’s a big reason I don’t like the idea of a 02 reboot). So while I’m sure a lot of 02 fans feel a bit antsy that the actual group itself wasn’t advertised first, I actually consider it a positive sign that they have an understanding of what context this group performs best in, and, moreover, well...the last time they unveiled something that was so focused on advertising the return of old characters that it forgot to actually be straightforward about the premise, I don’t think that ended well. So to speak.
In general, the track record is good
It’s easy to just smile and nod at the portrayal of the 02 quartet in Kizuna, because in general everything from them is in-character, but I just want to point out how significant it is that they were portrayed so conscientiously when it is really easy to mess them up. (As I like pointing out very often: even official has not historically been very careful with Daisuke’s character.) There are so many easy pitfalls you could have fallen into and pigeonholed the kids into, but Kizuna absolutely demonstrated the quartet at their best, showing off all the nuances of their character and bringing up all the parts that were most important, especially Daisuke’s best quality being “positivity and cheerfulness” and not all of the other things about him running in circles or having a crush on Hikari-chan. This even goes down to the casting; Katayama Fukujuurou sounds terrifyingly like Kiuchi Reiko in terms of all the little nuances and pitch shifts she had in her performance, and the cast themselves spoke of all the nuances present in their characters as they were studying for their roles. These are things that even fans of the series tend to miss, but the voice actors for the quartet nailed their roles so well that it’s very easy to tell that the direction understood exactly what they were looking for and needed, and casted accordingly. Even those who didn’t care for the movie much had a very hard time disputing the voice casting for the quartet (and this is saying a lot given how much voice actor changes are often a really sore point among Japanese fans).
But while the 02 group had a limited amount of screentime in Kizuna, the staff also had a lot of opportunities to prove themselves with the drama CD and the new character song CDs, and every single aspect of these reflects something that was represented in 02 itself -- again, things that often go over the heads of people who aren’t paying as close attention. The drama CD captures a lot of the essence of the dynamics between the group in only short lines, and all of the statements about the characters in the character song interviews are accurate (and remember: Arthur said directly that there were discussions with the staff about keeping them true to character). On top of that, not only do the lyrics in said songs directly mirror each character’s development from the time of the original Best Partner series, there are also a lot of things in said songs that demonstrate a nuanced understanding of each person’s character and what they got out of the events of 02. Someone with only a surface-level understanding of Ken or Iori’s character might think that Ken should only have a soft song, or that Iori shouldn’t want to do anything ridiculous, but the series goes ahead and gives Ken one of the most passionately emotional rock songs in the batch and Iori outright rap with Armadimon, which are both fitting decisions in light of Ken actually being one of the more emotionally assertive people in this group, and Iori only being stoic because he’s strict with himself and being willing to let loose in certain circumstances (especially after the events of 02).
As of this writing, I don’t know if the new movie is going to be featuring the entire group in a major role, and I’m not sure if I even want it to; as much as I do strongly feel like the group should always work together at all times, one minor personal complaint I had about Kizuna was that it tries to do too much in too little time, and I’m personally fine with this new movie being more Daisuke-centric or something if it means it can just get a nice story on the table (after all, if I wanted something that more evenly represents the entire 02 group, I’d just go back and rewatch a very nice anime series called Digimon Adventure 02). There’s also the very thorny question of what to do about Tokumitsu Yuka, since I don’t personally really like the idea of still dragging her out of retirement like this (but I also wouldn’t want them to awkwardly write around her just for this, and I’m wondering if Sonozaki voicing Tailmon in the reboot would let people accept her as a replacement without much fighting).
Nevertheless, I think Kizuna’s staff has proven more than well enough that they understand the essence of 02 and its characters, so, again, regardless of how it turns out, I at least expect that this can be made with some degree of conscientiousness, and at this point, that’s all I can ask for. I don’t think it’s fair to expect or want this movie to be the second coming of 02, because, again, if we wanted that, I think it’d be better for us to all go back and watch that lovely little 50-episode anime called Digimon Adventure 02. But in terms of being something that can add a little nice thing to the mix, I think, so far, this movie at least has positive signs of turning out that way -- and, remember, think about what I just said about initially being very against this idea; as a diehard 02 fan who has a lot of very picky feelings about how to best represent it, it took a lot for the staff to earn my trust in this sense.
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lovee-infected · 3 years
Note
hi hi!!! i love your vil analysis post!! just wondering though...why does vil force epel to do traditionally “cute, feminine” things. i get that it’s, like, to counter neige for the vdc, but it kind of goes against vil’s ideology? like, how i see it, vil advocates for people to express themselves how they want without being bound by gender roles. i feel like if epel tried forcing his manliness ideology onto other people, he’d be justified in his “forcing epel to do cute things” plan, but i don’t think epel has ever shamed feminine guys? he just wants to be manly himself. could this be an allusion to how the evil queen turned ugly just to fulfill her goals? vil going against his core ideals and becoming “ugly” just to win?
Glad you enjoyed it dear! As for your question, I believe that'll be better if I go into details because I've seen many asking similar questions regarding chapter 5, and I guess that's causing some misunderstandings towards both Vil and Epel. Well, we're soon getting the rest of the Pomefiore Chapter, so I guess it's the best time for an analysis on Epel and Vil's relationship and how Chapter 5 has been going so far
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First off, let me state something really really important about the Pomefiore chapter, this arc has got pretty wild spirits that are quite new compared to the previous chapters. We've got Neige, the first RSA character to appear as a real rival of a NRC student, Vil and Epel's rough relationship, Ace and Deuce joining MC on the new adventure once again and finally, the VDC: an event with is potentially important to not only the whole NRC but also Twisted Wonderland!
While all fans are surely excited to see what we'll be going through next, there are quite a few of misunderstandings and wrong interpretations that are considerably important regarding the Pomefiore chapter. In order to avoid possible dramas and more misinterpretions between the fans, let's try to take a better look at this Chapter and important Pomefiore hints that we've got so far:
(1)Epel's feelings; the most important element of chapter 5
One of the quite brilliant facts about Chapter 5, is the unique presence of characters and their roles in the story. This might seem quite unrecognizable, but right now Epel's appearance is effecting the audience way more than Vil's! This arc is mainly focusing on making the audience feel his pain and hard time, and I can say that they're doing it pretty well! We'll talk about how his feelings are being presented in part (6). Now, you may wonder why his feelings are so important in the Pomefiore arc? Isn't it supposed to be mostly about Vil? Well of course, the story is most likely leading us to Vil's overblot so he's the heart of this chapter, but the important thing is too see how crucial Epel's role is here. Watching how Epel is in pain, silenty crying and forced into doing something that he doesn't want to by Vil is savagely effecting this fandom's interpretation of Vil, some are commenting on how he's the worst or how horrible he is or hundreds of not really friendly critiques which is awfully frustrating... We'd continue to talk about this point in part (5)!
(2) Epel's relationship with Vil
Let's review what we've got through the side stories. To begin with, Epel obviously doesn't really like Vil, (I'm trying to cooperate and not say that he hates him) he didn't appreciate having him as the dorm leader from the very beginning. But he's got some strong reasons to dislike Vil so we can't really blame him:
1)Vil slapped him all of a sudden just because of his poor posture at the dinner table 2)Vil almost crashed Epels head between his hands while teaching him some manners 3)Vil's idealistic are just the opposite of Epel's 4)Vil is trying to change Epel, especially during chaptet 5. It sometimes feels like Vil is treating Epel like his puppet and Epel doesn't appreciate this all.
At the end of his SR lab story Epel stated how he's going to study his hardest in magic and potions, so maybe at some point he'd beat Vil, which goes to prove that he considers Vil a rival.
"Why is it so though? Isn't this pretty risky for Epel to challenge Vil, especially as Vil is a dorm leader and Epel's just a first year who's still an amateur at magic?"
Farewell, let me mention something about Epel, he's got a really strong will to the point of not giving up until proving everyone wrong. He's often looked down on, is called to be useless and dumb, and is sometimes insulted for being innocent and naïve. True, he still has a lot he needs to learn and he's aware, but he won't take being underestimated easily.
Just look at him! He's been raised in a farm and he still found his way to this school filled with stunning students coming from noble families while Epel is a simple country boy! He proved the point to us once again in his lab coat story where Crewel gave him an impossible task just to push him into giving up and coming to apologize afterwards. When Epel realized that he was just tricked by Crewel, he felt quite frustrated and started to cry, yet he didn't give up and used his personal experiments and what he'd learned back in his farm life and paved his road to success and impressing everyone including Crewel!
This is why he isn't backing up now, he doesn't want and isn't going to lose to Vil. Another important reason might be how Vil seems to have control over Epel, his manners, his attitude, the way he looks and basically, the person Epel is. Epel has indirectly said that Vil may be currently bounding his actions and life, but someday this will change. He mentioned similar lines several times and you can see he really has a strong will to prove everyone, especially Vil, that he's not a cute apple boy to sit still and look pretty. And if he's been waiting for the right time to stand against Vil, chapter 5 has got it. In part (7) you'll see why.
(3)What is happening in chapter 5?
Okay before we continue, let's just focus on what we've got in Pomefiore chapter: This year's vocal and dance championship has an unbelievable amount of media focused on it , because two of the world-famous influencers,Vil Schoenheit & Neige Leblanche, are joining. Both are great influencers and talented designers, but recently Neige has been getting really popular through the social media and TV, thus Vil realizes that the time to face his well-known rival, Neige, has come.
The VDC is no joke to him because hundreds of people are coming to watch this competition between two Celebrities, and his career is surely at risk. If the VDC doesn't go as well as he's planned, that'll be an end to his fame and clout, possibly his whole career! Therefore he has to make sure that nothing is going to ruin his plans for the big day, and that's why he is going to use his ultimate weapon, the red poisoned apple. Note that this isn't just about Vil, it's about protecting NRC's clout against RSA as well, so losing the VDC would seriously effect NRC's picture throughout the whole twisted wonderland. So a really important part of NRC's future is relying on Vil's hands right now.
Look, unlike the previous chapters, Vil's story is about nothing fictional or exaggerated; it's something that's pretty normal to see in real life! Two famous fashion designers joining a competition, both are giving in their best, aren't planning to lose, are going to be awfully strict towards training their models and making sure that nothing would be messed up, and are SERIOUS about winning because losing it to the other side would end in losing their clout and having the reports of their unfortunate fall-down spread worldwide.
Unlike the previous overblots, Vil's strictness and seriousness has NOTHING to do with being evil or crazy, he's just doing what he's supposed to be doing, working his hardest to defend his career. Anyone else who were in Vil's shoes would've done the same, and nothing about it chaotic, heartless or mad. His being pretty strict towards Epel because he's his main hope, Epel is the perfect beauty material and is definitely capable of achieving all the best through the VDC, that's why Vil's counting on him. Just as a fashion designer is strict with training their model, Vil is all serious with his way of couching Epel. And it's just about being professional, not being evil!
(4) It's not about Vil, it's about Epel
This is more of a continuation to part (3), but let's talk seriously about how wrong chapter 5 is being interpreted. "Vil is the worst! Can't he see that Epel doesn't want this?" or "Ew gross! People like Vil who use others for their very own benefits are just horrible" are some of the aggressive comments I've recently heard about how Vil is doing in Chapter 5, which is mainly because of Epel. I mentioned that Epel's feelings are most important element of chapter 5 and this is why!! Vil isn't doing anything that savage or mean but his actions seem to be a lot more appealing to fans due to how Epel's frustration and pain is being focused on. It's not because of Vil, it's because of Epel. Vil had been just the same with Leona back in the fairy gala event and most of the fans considered the story to be much of a comedy, but when Vil's treating Epel just the same way it sounds mean, cruel, harsh and heartless. See what I meant? Epel's presence was crucial to give Vil an evil perspective and make him seem just as bad as Azul or Leona.
I'm not defending his action since Epel as well is surely under a serious pressure. He doesn't even want to be joining the VDC, let alone having to follow all these strict rules that Vil's been teaching him so far. But since Epel forcedly made the deal with Vil and promised to help him for the VDC, there's no turning back now. Vil is counting on him as his very last hope and is putting his hardest of work and effort into training Epel, just like any professional fashion designer would've done.
(5)Vil is NOT the Evil Queen!
As for Vil's biggest difference with the Evil Queen, I must say that Vil does really work his hardest for what he desires. Evil Queen simply wanted Snow White dead while we've got Vil, working his ass off preparing everything for the VDC. He isn't just going to get mad and envies of Neige because his becoming popular, he doesn't want Neige dead either. All Vil has been doing so far was working and working and working and getting to be called cruel and heartless in return, I mean can't you just feel the amount of effort and nerve he's giving into work?
See, a considerable majority of the fandom is exaggerating the story of chapter 5 while Vil hasn't even shown a simple sign of having any ill intentions or evil plans in mind! We don't know what is going to happen i the next episodes but let's say that he hasn't done a single evil thing so far.
Just take a look at previous chapters! Leona was openly planning to unfairly harm and injure other students and Azul fooled nearly 200 students, took away their magic and forced them to work for him in Mostrolounge until they graduate from the very beginning. Heartslabyul and Scarabia weren't as severe as these two but they still did have some sort of a visibly unhealthy aura. Vil's current impression as the villain of chapter 5 is high-kay normal and chill compared to the previous chapters as he literally has done nothing evil so far, NOTHING. Most of the fandom is currently giving him the malicious aura that he doesn't have, or at least he doesn't yet have. Look, Vil's just doing his job. This doesn't even have anything to do with the Evil Queen! Also, Vil's rival ship with Neige has nothing to do with beauty, it's about fame, net-worth and popularity.
We don't know if he'd come up with any ill plans or serious intentions to harm Neige or anyone else in the new episodes, but his current impression in nothing more than going hard on Epel as his coach which is just being overly exaggerated by the fandom. A real life fashion designer would've done JUST the same thing! I know that this story is most likely going to end in Vil's overblot and him revealing his inner villain but come on, he hasn't done anything horrible so far!
(6)How Epel is being presented through Chapter 5
This point is the cause of many misunderstandings and confusions regarding Chapter 5, many find the context of Epel being forced to do what he doesn't like so cruel, some on the other hand are confused becaused Vil has clearly stated that his terms of beauty are gender neutral, so why would he force Epel to do these in the first place? As I said before, it's because of Epel, not Vil.
When it comes to perspectives on beauty, Epel's idealistics are just the opposite of Vil's. Look, Epel hates being mistaken with a girl or being considered soft and cute, this is something that has been bothering him for quite a long time. Being misgendered because of his appearance all over his life has had some negative effects on his perspective toward anything cute or feminine, as it just reminds him as how he often gets misunderstood because of his unwanted appearance and cuteness. Epel is awfully similar to Deuce and wants nothing more than getting to reveal the manliness he's holding within, through not only tastes but also abilities.
This is why he's been feeling quite uncomfortable in chapter 5 because Vil's basically pushing him into doing what he hates the most, looking cute and, well, something that Epel would consider feminine. The thing is, Vil does not consider stuff like 'Being able to sing beautifully, performing eye-catching movements voice, wearing stunning clothes and applying makeup' feminine at all, to Vil these are gender neutral terms of beauty and he doesn't get why Epel might consider them girlish or feminine either. Epel's comment on not wanting to do girlish things sounded naïve and low key rude to Vil because beauty isn't bound to being male or female, and he doesn't appreciate the idea of these works being called girlish at all.
This is neither Epel nor Vil's fault, it's just the difference in idealistics.
(7) Vil's on thin ice right now
Let me tell you a secret, 'choosing Epel to become the red poisoned apple wasn't an accidental act AT ALL'. Vil has been watching over Epel ever since he entered NRC and this is why he was so strict about changing this "Mudded potato" into a well-behaved Pomefiore student. Vil knew Epel's name and had discussed his case with Rook right at Epel's first day, and this is why he treated Epel so harshly at the dinner table because his plan to turn Epel into his red poisoned apple had already begun. He was preparing Epel from the very beginning and was just expecting the big day to arrive, the day he'd need Epel to defeat his rival, Neige.
Remember that I said how Epel's been waiting for a chance to stand against Vil and how Chapter 5 would be his BEST opportunity to do this? Before we explain this point, let's have a review on how Vil has been effecting and changing him so far. During his first days in NRC, Epel was more comfortable with shouting, fighting and opposing to other students including Vil. He used to disagree until Vil slapped him but now in Chapter 5, he doesn't even say a word when Vil tells him to do something, he just silently obeys as tears fall from his eyes. He no longer fights back as much as he used to.
But right now, Vil's career, status and future is bound to Epel. Vil has been working harder than ever trying to turn him into the Red poisoned Apple he's been expecting him to become, and if Epel backs up or decides to ruin the show and stop letting Vil have control over him, that'll seriously make Vil explode. And if you think that Vil deserves to be hurt like this, I gotta say that he doesn't, he seriously doesn't deserve this after all he's been going through. Just imagine being on Gil's shoes, how would you feel about having the result of all that hard work and effort you've given into work for YEARS ruined like this? Look, we need to judge this situation nonetheless, even is you don't really like Vil it's important to realize the unfairness of this possible future to the story.
Epel now has the opportunity to BREAK Vil like no one has ever done, after all Vil has been going through to coach Epel, teach him manners, change his nature and prepare him for the VDC this would certainly be the worst thing that may happen to him and it'll make him mad, like really really mad. The Vil we've seen through the story so far was nothing more than Vil's normal calm self so we can't even imagine how it might be to see him mad. At this point he won't be bound to any manners or consderations, and keep this in mind: "We won't like it when Vil is evil, and we can't imagine how evil he can be,"
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I'm honestly so excited and terrified at the same time to see what we'll get to see in the rest of the Pomefiore chapter, the atmosphere is so nerve-wrecking right now and I can't help but to pray that the rest of this story doesn't traumatize us as much as it can- “Yana please, have mercy on us”
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zeroone-eleven · 3 years
Note
Somebody else by 1975 and it is sparkles-✨
It worked out well; Park Chaeyoung (Blackpink)
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Summary: Y/N and Rosé had decided to announce their relationship, but they were gonna be extra about it.
Requested? ☑
"I remember it all too well."
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It was the final part of Y/N's concert and while he's used to the feeling of thousands of eyes on him, what's going to follow was something that made him extremely nervous, which says a lot. Especially when he was counting on the audience for his plan to work.
At the start of his career, he had announced that he was a Transgender man on all of his social media platforms. An action that took a lot of guts, and and an action that drew a lot of attention to him. At the rising point of his career when he was questioned about it in an interview, his answer was something that made him well known figure within the industry.
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"Now Y/N at the very beginning of your career, you told the world that you were a trans man. That must've taken extreme bravery on your part seeing as those people who are against your community- The LGBT community, can be downright nasty and ruthless in 'Expressing' their dislike. What mae you decide to do this so early on in your time in the spotlight?"
Y/N smiles in his seat, switching from a laid back posture to one that elegantly demands attention, his next words being the ones that made him an icon amongst allies and LGBT people alike. "I am an advocate of LGBT rights before I am an artist, at the very start of my career I wanted to make it clear that I didn't want bigots to be a part of my following or an avid listener of my music and while I'm a man who values my privacy, I value honesty and transparency just as much. So if you're someone who believes that transgender people are just 'Confused' or that they're a 'Crime' against nature? Then go ahead and consider me your worst nightmare."
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Y/N had been sitting on a chair for quite a few moments now, holding a Q&A onstage before he stands up and decides to follow through with the first part of his plan. "Alright, now today's intermission, I'm going to do a cover of my most favorite song called 'Somebody Else by The 1975'. Oh and don't worry you guys, the Q&A will still continue after this cover." The stadium fills with loud screams and cheers from the people watching as he places his mic back on its stand and goes to pick up his electric guitar. The lights dim into a sunset red as the opening notes of the music fill out through the speakers, Y/N starts singing and playing his guitar as the crowd claps along to the beat.
At the start of the second verse, Y/N takes off his guitar and takes the mic off of the stand, walking back to the guitar stand, he puts the instrument down before walking back to the front of the stage and hyping the people up to sing along with him in the pre-chorus. The entrance platform that had sunk back down starts rising as a distinctly feminine voice fills the stadium at the start of the chorus. Y/N smiles widely as the stage screens show Rosé walking towards him, offering her hand. He takes it and raises their hands up, leading the Blackpink member into a twirl, the crowd has gone wild at this point and the duo are pretty sure that somebody or multiple people in the audiences are Blinks seeing the way they've started chanting Rosé's name even without Y/N introducing her beforehand.
The bridge part comes along and the two singers alternate their lines. When the instrumental hits, Rosé takes his hands and starts dancing along to the beat, dorkily smiling and roping the man into dancing along. When the final chorus comes, Y/N and Rosé sing together, motioning for the crowd to sing along and the stadium fills with the sounds of music and the combined voices of a chanting crowd.
The song comes to an end with loud cheers for the two vocalists who are now smiling widely while catching their breaths. Y/N offers his hand to Rosé and when she takes it, the two raise their hands and perform a bow. He lets go of her hand once they've come up from the bow, turning to face her before speaking. "May I introduce, Park Chaeyoung of Blackpink everyone."
The woman in question laughs, shaking her head before going to bow once again and waving to the crowd with both hands, Y/N decides to push his luck. "Also known as Rosé of Blackpink, or Rosie, or Foodsé, or Chipm-" He runs as she jokingly tries to swat at his shoulder.
The cheers continue and the two laugh with each other before Rosè speaks to the crowd. "So how did you guys like our cover?" She's answered with loud cheers and Y/N's manager signals at the two from behind the curtain, raising both his hands up. 10 minutes left, Y/N nods at him and smiles while Rosé turns her attention back to the crowd, he gives the singers a thumbs up with a dorky smile before taking his leave. Y/N shakes his head in humor.
"I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for both me and Y/N over here when I say that we're happy to see you guys loved it." Y/N turns to Rosé to agree with her statement. Y/N speaks into the mic saying that he and Rosé will spend the last ten minutes of the concert for the Q&A. The following minutes fly by with questions aimed at Y/N, questions aimed at Rosé as well as questions aimed at both come in droves, until Y/N announce that the next question will be the last one before the event comes to an end and they have to start saying goodbye. Multiple people raise their hand, and he leaves it up to Rosé to pick who gets to ask the final question. She gives her mic to a girl in the front row, and the girl states her question.
"How did you come up with the idea to have Rosé make a special appearance for a cover? Going by your latest Instagram posts before this album dropped, it seemed like you guys were writing songs together. So we were really hyped for a collab." The fan hands the mic back to Rosé who smiles at Y/N as he takes a deep breath, steeling himself for what's to come next. The Western singer brings his mic up to his lips to answer.
"There's a pretty good reason for this cover actually. 'Somebody Else' is a song that holds special meaning for the both of us, besides being our favorite song." Y/N motion for Rosé to take the lead, and she steps closer to him before speaking. "There was a point in me and Y/N's life that we didn't know where we stood. It a point we could sort of compare to the kid's game: Tag." She looks over to the man beside her, silently asking if he wants to back out of it. Instead Y/N takes her hand, interlocks their fingers and squeezes. Go on, I'm ready.
"Long story short is that I was hung up and broken hearted over this person and he was hung up over me." Collective gasps resound through out the stadium. After all, the only thing they know about you and Rosé relationship up until this point was that she was helping you write songs. You bring your mic up to your lips and speak. "The pictures on my Instagram of her looking at the lyrics I wrote? That wasn't Rosé helping me write. That was Chaeyoung reading what I wrote about her." The crowd goes crazy over the newfound information, and Y/N's pretty sure that they miss the way he referred to her using her real name instead of her stage name. But Chaeyoung catches onto it and she smiles softly at the man.
"I can't even begin to describe how thankful I am to Y/N by the way. Staying up countless nights and listening to me ramble on about being torn up, being there for me in every single way, helping me heal and doing all of this without expecting anything in return. Such a gentleman really." The crowd collectively 'Awwwwws' and Y/N hangs his head low, hiding his blush from everyone, Rosé laughs as Y/N looks at the ceiling, composing himself before speaking.
"I would never expect anything in return from you and you don't have to thank me either, I was just doing what a friend would've done at a time like that. Anyways, I stuck by her in those times all while all I could think of afterwards was how stupid the person who broke her heart was, all while I wished I was the one she had ended up with instead of them. I never even hinted at how I felt about her in those times, much less actually tell her. I promised myself I wouldn't tell her how I felt until the time was right. I didn't want her to feel guilty or pressured at all by what I had to say." Y/N looks from the crowd infront of him to Rosé before continuing "Time passed and her heartbreak had healed. But she still wasn't ready for a relationship for a while after that whole ordeal, so I kept my promise and I waited."
"When I had told my members and Y/N that I was finally ready for another relationship- That like, I was completely okay. Y/N decided to court me instead of asking me outright to be his girlfriend. Can you believe this sap?" The crowd laughs with Rosé as Y/N's jaw hits the floor, he walks away from Rosé and heads to the other side of the stage. He crouches and points to Rosé "I was being noble, chivalrous and mind you I was trying to prove that I was boyfriend material! Then she goes and calls me a sap?! I can't believe this..." Y/N lowers the mic and shakes his head in mock disbelief. Rosé doubles over in laughter before walking over to him and resting her free hand on his shoulder.
"Yes, I'm calling you a sap because you are one. But it worked out didn't it?" She looks down at Y/N before continuing. "I gladly said yes." The crowd goes crazy, people cheering, some were jumping, and the others were speechless.
Y/N smiles, a full smile from ear to ear as he takes Chaeyoung's hand on his shoulder to bring it to his lips. "Yeah, yeah it worked out well in the end didn't it?"
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A/N: Damn writing in 3rd person is a TASK. I might never do it again, I hope this was good enough? I'm not too sure about the ending but I liked the idea of them announcing their relationship infront of a crowd instead of doing it via a social media post. So yeah.
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delldarling · 3 years
Text
forest vows | aspen iii
non-binary forest being x gender/body neutral reader 5100 words lemon | making out, multiple tongues, fingers, oral, size difference, sex pollen (but consent is Very Much still included) chapter one? or chapter two?
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Winter makes one last desperate grab for spring, sinking lightning strikes like talons into rain heavy clouds. The days are still cold and gray, still better suited to thick jackets and staying off the roads, but green finally appears on bare tree limbs, sprouting and unfurling into bright shoots before you can blink. All you can think about is visiting Aspen now that the snow has stopped falling. The heavy scent of them has been lingering in the air, the faint sweetness of nectar and the crispness of greenery. You know from experience that it isn't the wisest decision though, running off into the heavily soaked trees all on your lonesome. Then again, you’re not sure you can make any claims to being wise when you’ve been dating a creature of the forest, brought into being by human feelings of love and affection. And lust.
You can’t forget about the lust.
The bloom that Aspen had dropped for you that first night fed on lust, just the same as them. Small and dainty, with a single stem, you’d brought it home and put it in water, charmed by the gesture. You hadn’t thought much of it for a few days. Hadn’t done more than give it a few glances, thoughts drifting to Aspen’s rumbling voice and slick tongues. It looked normal enough, but after a few days you’d noticed that it was still fresh, and after a week that it had grown.
Nervous, and wondering if you were going to have to tend to some kind of child-like Ent creature, you’d brought it back to Aspen a day later, but the sight of the thriving blossom had only made them laugh.
“This was meant to be a gift only. A reminder.” Aspen had bent, their branches creaking, threads of lichen getting caught on your shoulder as they prodded the petals. The bloom hadn’t moved, hadn’t grown or opened beady little eyes, but then Aspen had tilted their head to rest upon yours. A leaf sprouted along the stem when Aspen touched you, quickly followed by another bud. The motion had left you both enraptured, wide eyed and silent until it stopped growing. “As long as you desire me," Aspen had murmured, lowering their voice as their wooden mouth brushed your ear, "I believe it will remain fresh. Indeed, it may well grow larger.”
“Will it be sentient?”
“I know not,” they’d confessed, truthful. You hadn’t missed the teasing glint in the depths of their dark eyes though. “But I doubt it. Many of my blooms have dropped here through the years, but none have lingered for long.” Aspen had plucked the bloom out of your fingers and then had tucked it behind your ear. It had sprouted more leaves, had grown a small offshoot, but a day after you’d gone back home, it had… If not exactly withered, had returned to its original state. And then every time you’d been in the same room as the bloom, every time you’d even felt a hint of arousal, the flower had perked back up, had flourished like it had roots and the perfect soil. Until midwinter.
Aspen, for all intents and purposes, hibernated during the coldest months of the year. There had been little reason to try and stay awake when humans stopped coming to Makeout Point before you, but even with your presence and touch bolstering them, Aspen had begun to grow drowsy. Three days before midwinter, they’d barely been able to speak past cracking yawns, the moss and lichen on their shoulders and chest grown dry and brittle. The lack of them, of being able to look forward to seeing them, had put a damper on your spirits. And then the bloom going into stasis three days later had been a bit worse.
Winter felt like it lasted an age, but two days ago the little white flower had perked up again. You’d been walking past the small vase, lonely and lost in thought when the moving petals had caught your eye, reaching slowly towards the weak sunlight shining through the fogged windows. You’d assumed it had only been disturbed by a breeze until you’d reached for it, extending two fingers. The blossom had shot up, stem growing long until it bumped into your skin, Aspen’s heady scent filling up the room until you’d breathed deep and, overwhelmed, sneezed. You’d felt a bit silly asking the little plant if Aspen was awake, and even sillier when it hadn’t reacted in the slightest. There was little cause for doubting though, not after the flower had followed Aspen into its own rest, all you need to do now is wait.
But waiting is proving much harder than you want it to be. You miss Aspen, have been missing them and their rumbling laugh. You miss the way they can’t seem to stop stroking your cheek or your shoulder, eager to touch you, to have your attention. You’ve thought about them frequently through the winter, but that nectary taste is so heavy on the back of your tongue now, no matter what you drink, no matter how deeply you breathe in that it feels… Off. I should go, you tell yourself a few times a day, but as soon as you make it to your car, you find a handful of excuses to stop. To stay. The winter might have been long, but another week won’t hurt anything, will it?
Twice you drive halfway there, but the state of the roads always sends you back. Rain has been pouring from the sky, leaving the underbrush of all forested areas slogged with mud, and Makeout Point will be the worst of all. The normally well traveled paths are always dotted with leaf litter, and this time of year they’re likely to have puddles, floating with decaying leaves, unassumingly deep. All it would take is one misplaced step, your feet gliding through the slick mud, for chaos to reign. If Aspen is awake, they would most definitely attempt to help, but you can’t imagine a giant tree person carrying you back to your car without a few lingering consequences.
The rumors about Big Foot and wandering bears died down towards the end of November, but at best that would start them up again. At worst—well, you don’t really want to imagine the worst. Most of those thoughts have to do with mob mentality, and you can’t let yourself imagine that fallout without feeling sick.
You swallow, finding yourself back on the road to Makeout Point, heart beating a bit too fast. You don’t fight the urge to go this time. The flower had been much larger today, dotted with new buds and leaves, and all it had taken was a single inhale of the little thing to make you ache.
Even if all you do is spend a short time by Aspen’s side, you have to see them. Just to make sure they’re awake. Just to make sure they’re okay.
You’re clutching at the curved handle of your umbrella, rain splattering against the arch of water-proof material, as well as the sleeves of your zip-up hoodie, when you realize you may not have thought things through. Again. You look down at your feet, frowning at the amount of mud already caking your boots, and glance back up at the winding path disappearing through the trees. It would be smartest to head back, rather than risk a dangerous slip down a too-soft hill. Smarter to keep the visit short, rather than risk getting soaked through.
You think of the soft fan of Aspen’s fern-like eyelashes when they blink, and the way they shiver every time you press a kiss to the whorls on their cheek. They always turn to kiss you in the best way they know how, afterwards. A gentle tilt of their head, the slow, slick curl of one of their tongues around yours. You can taste the faint sweetness of them on your lips, can feel the pressure of their fingers on your back. You’ve already come this far out to see them. You can take a few minutes to give them a kiss, despite the chill and splatter of rain, can’t you?
The trail becomes worse as you go on, the rain having battered down the dirt in places where the branches overhead are thin. You have to hug the trunk of a twisted oak as you slip by one of the deeper puddles, fingers scrabbling at the craggy bark when a root proves too slippery. You don’t fall, but it’s a near thing, and your heart doesn’t thank you for the scare. Moving slower becomes necessary the longer you walk, searching out patches of thick moss to dry and wipe your boots on. Even on drier patches of dirt you’re still sliding with mud and leaves sticking to your boots. When you finally crest the small hill that leads to Makeout Point, you assume your impatience will wane, that this arduous ache will ease now that you know Aspen is close. Instead, it grows tenfold.
It’s cold outside, the rain is freezing, but as soon as you see the riot of fauna and moss crawling down the path, you feel terribly hot. It’s like you’ve been running a marathon in your winter clothes, like the umbrella is keeping the relief of the cold rain from your face.
You toss it aside, striding up the path, barely paying attention to the unsteadiness of your steps. You can still feel the mud sliding under your feet, you recognize the sensation of rocks and bits of dead branches catching in your boots, but none of that matters now that you’re here.
Makeout Point no longer looks like a mildly haunted hangout for people looking to bring a bit of a thrill back into their lives. The rough campground atmosphere has vanished in the wake of springtime. The sky overhead is still grey, still covered over with clouds, but they’re thinning, bathing the spot in the promise of sunshine soon to come. The fire pit, made of forest found stones or carefully cultivated bricks, is overgrown with ferns and green and purple leaved clover. Dainty white flowers are brilliant in the tide of greenery, drawing the eye like a meandering path of scattered stars. As gorgeous and awe-inspiring as Makeout Point currently looks, the calm feeling that you came here for, prior to Aspen finally deciding to speak to you, is utterly absent.
The humidity has risen, and sweat dots the back of your neck while you slowly creep closer, staring up at the ocean of thick leaves and blooms and buds swaying with the breeze. It’s always been shadowed, has always sported full branches, but this is almost overkill. The branches are so heavy with buds and new growth that they’re bowing, and the gentle weight of a single bird looks like it could make them snap. You breathe in deep, fumbling with your hoodie, eager to shrug out of it, when you finally turn and spot Aspen, standing straight and tall in their normal place.
They’re waking, the obsidian gleam of their eyes mildly unfocused as they blink. The horn-like branches on their head are draped so thoroughly with vines and thick leaves, and the blooms that match the one you have back home, that all you can bring yourself to do is stare. You’d thought that Aspen looked impossible the first time you’d seen them, a being so strange but artfully put together that surely they could be nothing but animatronic, something you would normally only ever see through a movie screen. A creature pulled straight out of someone's imagination.
“Lovely,” they say, and their name for you reaches right down into your depths. Your bones, you realize, have felt like kindling placed too close to the fire, and Aspen’s voice is the bright burst of heat that finally makes everything pop. They take a step away from their spot, caught midway between two towering redwoods, and half the branches overhead seem to come with them. They have to pull free of a net of vines, so thickly overgrown that when the vines and loose branches fall, and they do, scattering like a strong storm has passed through, you have to skip back a few steps to avoid being caught in the deluge. You suck in a breath, almost choking on the sweet taste of them as your eyes catch on their shoulders. The tiny mushrooms that had dotted them all through autumn have grown, tall and thick, and faintly yellow or white, and then there are shelves of them trailing down Aspen’s biceps, edges gone periwinkle blue.
They cross the little clearing in a handful of steps, swooping you up into their arms and cradling you against their chest. The thunder of their movement startles near-by birds into screeching and taking flight, branches snapping as they take off, and then Aspen turns in place. They’re a walking, talking tilt-a-whirl that leaves you breathless until you rap your knuckles against the least green covered spot you can find, closing your eyes to try and keep them from stinging.
“St-stop spinning!” You gasp and the world jolts to a halt, leaving you blinking and panting. Aspen is ripe with the scent of growing things, and it feels like you’ve been rolling through a field absolutely chock full of sweet smelling flowers and the tang of pine. If you thought Aspen made you weak kneed before, with their scent and taste and rumbling voice, it’s nothing as to now. You’re overheated and happy to see them, and blood is rushing to all the right places—but your wanting is so terribly strong that it still leaves you feeling off kilter.
“I have to ask,” you get out, doing your best to breathe through your mouth. It doesn’t help much, you can still taste everything on the back of your tongue, can see their wooden jaw lowering, writhing tongues just barely visible. “In Spring, your… You said once, that I made you feel like Spring when—”
“Ahh,” Aspen murmurs, and then very, very gently, lowers you back to your feet. They keep hold of your shoulder until you’re standing straight, and only then do they take a few careful steps away.
The space is a little maddening, even though you’d been hoping for it so you could get your head in order. You have to swallow to keep from following after them, to tamp down the urge to move your feet and instead make your mouth speak. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, knowing where you come from,” you say with a wry laugh, clutching tightly at your sweater sleeves. “...Does, has your presence always been a kind of aphrodisiac in spring-time? Or is that just with me?”
Aspen flutters those little fern eyelashes, slowly crouching, elbows resting on their knees. Considering. “Perhaps it has been. I don’t intentionally give back what was given to me, but it’s hardly outside the realm of possibility.”
And it might well explain why, even after it became a little less cool to wander through the forest rather than head to the movies, couples still continued to flock here. You’d noticed that Aspen had fed from your pleasure, had bloomed every time you kissed or touched, so it isn’t entirely a surprise to know that they feed upon others. Granted, in a much less hands on kind of way.
“Does it make you uncomfortable?” Aspen asks, reaching for you, and then thinking better of it. Their long, branch-like fingers curl, hesitating before dropping back to their side. “While I am wonderfully glad to see your face, Lovely, if you want to leave—”
You wave away their words, closing your eyes to see if that will help with anything. The ache of yearning for them is still very much present, but you’ve yearned for their touch since the night you first had it. It’s stronger now, but you were still able to reason through it enough to ask. You were still able to stop yourself and think before stripping off your clothes. You forget to breathe through your mouth though, and that sweet scent makes you shudder, makes your mouth grow terribly dry and then fill with saliva to overcompensate. If you stay, or if you wait and come back when the height of spring has passed, what will change? You’ll still want Aspen. Still crave their company and the refuge that their home has become. You’ll still want their touch. You’re just… A little more horny than normal right now, and a little more willing to speak about it.
“Not leaving,” you finally say, blinking your eyes open when one of their fingers presses against your shoulder. You’re swaying forward, most of your weight balanced against their precarious hold. “I want- I want to stay, but I have to tell you: All I can think about is getting out of my clothes.” Whether the statement might have shamed you normally or not doesn’t seem to matter. The words are so overwhelmingly true that a weight vanishes from your shoulders, decision made. You do your best to slow your movements though, trying to straighten your stance as you lift both hands to grab hold of their arm. Your fingertips brush over the spongy edge of a mushroom on their forearm, and another mushroom promptly pops into existence right next to your hand.
“Oh, good,” Aspen says, reaching out for you with both hands now. You let them lead you close, let them lift your feet onto the bend of their knee, leaving you within range of their mouth. “I dreamed of you while I slept,” they confide in you, and the deep rumble of their words makes your knees want to buckle.
Even with the heavy humidity pressing in on you from all sides, making your back faintly damp with sweat and pushing your hands to quest for zippers and buttons, your brain is still working. A flicker of half recalled knowledge about dreams clamors for attention. If they were dreaming of you, if Aspen is more akin to humans that either of you think, their dreams were recent, had in the moments or days just before waking. Maybe that was why the bloom grew, why it started budding, why whenever you breathed in the faint scent of nectar, you started to ache for the lack of them. “And what did I do in these dreams?”
For a single second, Aspen looks abashed, ducking their head close enough for you to press a kiss upon. Their eyes fall closed when you brush your lips on their face. Your hoodie comes off, tossed over your shoulder to land somewhere upon the carpet of multicolored clovers. “Shall I tell you? Or would you rather I show you?”
There it is. Their mouth opens, a single fingertip finding your chin. It’s softer than normal and cool compared to the normally temperate feeling of their wooden body, and you have a split second to glance down and see that those blue edged mushrooms are growing along the length of their finger. Then Aspen is tilting your head back to kiss you. Like the first kiss you’d shared, they start out slow. A single, sticky-sweet tendril traces your lips until you part them and then slips into your mouth to curl around your tongue. You suck on it, hands pausing in their overeager quest to strip off your clothes. You want to brace yourself against Aspen’s face, to press your hands to their chin as you roll your tongue, arousal flooding you so fiercely that you can barely breathe. You forget about your clothes entirely when you tilt your head back a little more, gasping as another one of those thin green tongues flicks out to touch your lower lip. Aspen’s hand, gentle in the middle of your back until now, curls around your torso, fingertips pressing a little uncomfortably into your ribs. They groan, in that lovely, low tone of theirs, the noise filling you up with a gentle, steady vibration until you wonder if you could get off on that alone.
You pull back, just trying to get a hint of space to breathe, but Aspen chases after you, more green tendrils flicking against your lips and trying to slip into your mouth until you gasp out for them to slow. You tip your head to rest against theirs, breathing hard and smiling too wide, and then get back to the business of shedding your clothing. Aspen’s grip on you trembles, but they allow you the space to shuck what feels like yards of material, fingers tensing like they half want to help. They tried, just the once, in the very middle of November, thumb and forefinger pinching at the end of your sleeve. They’d been careful, truly, but Aspen had still moved a little too fast, a little too sure. They’d split the seams of one of your jackets at the arm and then nearly dropped you in fright. For both your sakes, it’s better that you handle most of your own clothing. Now they just stick to watching. You can catch the vague shape of yourself in the dark mirror of their eyes, and can feel the soft wind of their breath on your quickly bared skin.
“Is all of this you?” You ask, looking away when your face becomes a little too clear in their large eyes. Makeout Point is rife with plants now, and looks more like humans haven’t been in the area for decades as opposed to a single winter. A cool drop of water splashes onto your shoulder from the crown of greenery still circling their horn-like branches. You jump, and Aspen reaches out to swipe the scattered droplets away with their finger while you unlace your boots and push your clothes down your hips. “The new growth. The flowers.”
Aspen hums, turning their finger until the new blue tinged mushrooms drag over your skin, leaving behind a trail that tingles, even after they’ve stopped. “I suspect so. I’ve never been quite so ardent in my dreams of spring as I was this year. But then I’ve never gone to my dreaming knowing I may well wake to your Lovely face.” The end of their finger comes to a stop in the hollow of your throat, eyes dropping to watch you swallow, to watch your pulse speed faster. You shake one of your legs, letting your boot drop to the ground and clothes slide down your skin. You switch, uncaring about the muddy boot print you’re putting your foot back down on. The other boot and the rest of your clothes drop to the ground. The chill in the air is all but gone, or what senses you have that would notice it have been overwhelmed by lust alone. The press of your thighs, the warmth of your own skin, is enough to make you want to slide your hand down yourself. As impatient as you are though, you want Aspen’s touch more. You tilt back your head again, reaching out to rest your hands against their jaw—and pause.
“After this, the growing is going to get a little out of hand, isn’t it? Will I still be able to make it through when it comes time to leave?”
It takes a fair amount of effort for Aspen to drag their eyes away from you, but they make a quick glance around Makeout Point, noting the shiver in the still moving plants. “I won’t let the forest cage you,” Aspen promises and then huffs when you grab hold of one of the dangling vines twisted about the branches on their head. They let you tug, let you pull their attention back to you, and their eyelids lower as you tilt back your head for another kiss. When Aspen’s vine-like tongues curl around your tongue this time, there’s more than just the one. They angle their head to the side, pale green shoots tracing your lips before pushing into your mouth with the others. Aspen doesn’t choke you, leaves plenty of room to breathe, but it’s still a little overwhelming, have that many vines snaking into your mouth. They twist and writhe against your tongue, drag over the edges of your teeth like they enjoy the sensation, and desperate ache for them grows stronger, until it feels like you shouldn’t need to breathe. Aspen picks you up off their knee, a deep rumble echoing through their chest when you keep hold of them.
They’re slower even than they were the first time, without the cushion of your clothes to keep your skin from pressing too hard on some of their fingers. They cradle your back and neck and head with one hand, while the other curls around your hips and thighs as they stand up straight. The rush of movement is strange when you’re still holding onto their face, still sucking on their tongues, eyes closed, but you don’t care about it right now. You trust them, and nerves have been pushed far to the wayside when you want them so badly that every inch of you feels like it’s on fire.
There’s a gentle pressure as they urge you to open your legs, but you barely need the prompting. You part your thighs willingly, gasping when they finally pull their mouth away from yours, tongues flickering over the hollow of your throat and along your collarbone. You expect them to lift you higher, to angle you towards their mouth as their tongues are still sliding down your chest. Instead Aspen’s thumb, ridged with those blue edged mushrooms, drags over the top of your thigh. That tingling feeling spreads over your skin and then your legs start to shake as the mushrooms press between your legs, soft and growing warm from your own body heat. The tingling sensation turns sharp as they stroke their thumb gently over you, and you can’t help but whimper when they drag the gills of the mushroom down to your ass and then back up. You can’t see what it looks like with their head in the way, Aspen’s fern eyelashes closed as their tongues curl and pluck at one of your nipples, but it's starting to feel like the mushrooms must be secreting something slick. The next drag of their thumb, the tip of it pressing into you, makes you arch and moan. You reach back to grasp at the finger bracing your head, legs shaking as you get closer to orgasm and then Aspen pauses, one of their tongues fluttering over the edge of their wooden mouth.
“Did you dream of me, Lovely?” They ask, but not entirely like they expect you to answer. “Was that why you rushed to see me when spring dawned?”
“Yes,” you gasp, immediately. That was partially why you came, but every inch of you is hot, and you’re still right on the precipice of coming. It’s too hard to cobble together a coherent sentence.
Aspen’s thumb pushes and turns and then your eyes are rolling into the back of your head as you come, breath leaving your lungs in a harsh, almost painful gasp. Their mouth finds you as you do, slick, sticky vines pushing into you alongside their mushroom ridged thumb. They drink down your pleasure, moaning when your thighs tremble against their face. They don’t seem to notice when you dig your fingernails into the smooth wood of their skin, they just keep moving, the pressure of their tongues and thumb leaving you full and clenching as you finally whimper. “Fuck, fuck, fu- Aspen! Aspen, I’m-” You buck against their face, noise dying on your parted lips as that only presses them deeper. You kick out your leg, bare toes brushing over the moss on their shoulder, but that only makes Aspen adjust their hold.
Maybe it’s because it’s spring time, or because yearning for you has been building up in them as steadily as it had for you during the winter, but even after you stop shaking, even after your legs go limp, Aspen isn’t quite done. Their thumb pulling out of you makes your back bow again, and then they turn you over. You’re on your stomach in their giant hands, Aspen’s tongues filling you up over and over again before you breathlessly ask for them to cease. Your legs feel like jelly, and that strange, hot ache has finally ebbed.
When you blink, glancing around the circle of trees, it looks like the forest has erased all signs of humanity. Vines are thick and tangled over every inch of the area, laced between trees. Ferns peek out from the ground, and those pale, white blossoms are scattered around the area like wedding petals. Aspen’s next lick is gentle, cleaning rather than fucking, and you shudder in their hold.
“I don’t know if I want to leave,” you mumble, tired and sated. “I missed you something awful.”
There’s a creaking noise and then you clutch at their fingers as they sit, flowers and leaves puffing up into the air and raining back down. Aspen carefully turns you to sit on their thigh, arranging you against their midsection until you’re lounging and grinning for all their effort. “...shall I come with you?” They ask, and when you glance up at them their head is tilted to the side. “While I know you will return now, it’s always difficult to part.” Aspen hesitates and then places a fingertip to your lips, eyes filling with pleasure when you kiss it tiredly.
You’ve watched them turn back into nothing more than a tree in the presence of others, and… And a bigger yard would be nice. A backyard, you amend, thinking of neighbors catching sight of a moving tree, or simply noting the fact that a tree has switched places somehow overnight. “Not yet,” you say, trying and failing to hold back your grin. “I think the park rangers and the rest of the town might notice if you were following my car back to my house. But… But soon. I would like that.”
Aspen hums again, that deep rumbling noise making you warm a fraction. “Simply tell me when, Lovely, and I will always follow,” Aspen vows, and plucks your hoodie out of the nest of vines. They spread it over you like a blanket and a spiral of flowers blooms along their forearm.
...Maybe you should just find a house out in the middle of the forest.
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writingbeary · 3 years
Text
Kingdom - To The World (pt.1)
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Minyoung’s Outfit
Note:
Texts placed inside brackets are Kingdom’s show subtitles
Italicized texts are in English
Texts that are block quoted are interview cuts
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“We have a lot of songs that go well with the theme ‘To the World’, so it’s a relief. We decided that we’ll continue what ATEEZ has been doing.” Hongjoong declared during the group interview after the theme was released.
As the teams arrived in their individual waiting rooms, the first thing they noticed is the queue sheet pasted on the wall. Minyoung the first one inside the room, ran to the poster to check which order they got.
“Omo!” Minyoung cheered, jumping around the waiting room, making the others immediately check what she’s dancing about.
“Why? Why?” Yunho asked as he entered the room followed by the rest of the members.
“We’re performing 5th!” Minyoung announced still jumping around the waiting room in joy. She took Jongho’s hands and made him jump with her, the latter going along with her laughing.
"It seems like my telepathy to Changbin worked.” Wooyoung declared jokingly. The whole group feeling relieved that they weren’t performing first this round. When asked what order they wanted to perform in, they wanted to go as late as possible. Although it’ll give them pressure to do better as they watch the senior groups’ performances, they felt their stage would have a bigger impact the later they perform.
“Does that mean you’ll use up most of your glowsticks before our performance?” Yunho asked eyeing the bag Minyoung is carrying. She excitedly told them about how she bought the sticks in replacement of the lightsticks for the groups and about how she kept her promise to represent all fandoms in the show.
“I can’t believe she actually bought some just to prove she’s a fan.” San laughed when Minyoung playfully stuck out her tongue at him
“I wanted to bring my lightsticks but since we still have a schedule after this, I was forbidden from doing so.” Minyoung pouted bringing out the package of glow sticks “This is the closest thing I could bring.”
“Don’t you have key rings?” Jongho asked as Minyoung gasps in realization.
“I do! Ah..but I only have iKON-sunbaenim’s key ring. I wasn’t able to buy anything else.” 
Chuckling, Yeosang offered another alternative for the girl “Then just use Lightiny and change it’s color to every group’s official colors?”
Minyoung gaped at the suggestion, nodding and quickly hugging Yeosang in her excitement “Oh! I didn’t think of that. I’ll do that for the next recording then. Thank you oppa!”
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(At Stray Kids’ meeting)
“How about we place ATEEZ as the first performer?” Jisung suggested as everyone was contemplating on who should go first after Jeongin suggested iKON since they went last or THE BOYZ since they have prior experience with Road to Kingdom.
“Are you sure about that? Minyoung will have your head if you do that. Wooyoung will probably have mine too.” Changbin laughed already seeing how the girl would react when she sees it.
“On second thought, nevermind. Please don’t put ATEEZ at the first slot. I need to live. Minyoung-ah, I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.” Jisung said dramatically to the camera, making the whole group laugh at his antics.
Changbin placed the rest of the nameplates on the board “Let’s go 4th, then place ATEEZ after with SF9 last.” checking to see the rest of the group’s reaction before continuing “I’m satisfied with this but should we go first or ATEEZ first?”
“Let’s go first.” Seungmin declared with I.N agreeing with him “Let’s go first. We just need to do better.” the confidence in the statement making all of Stray Kids excited
“What if ATEEZ leaves a strong impact with their performance?” Felix asked the group after looking at the whole lineup
“We don’t know about that. But if it’s ATEEZ, it’s going to be big. Their energy on stage is what they’re known for after all.” Changbin shrugged as he knows what the group is capable of.
“Right. I’m sure they’ll do something surprising this round.” Felix nodded as they decided to let it up to fate and just perform 4th. Just like how Seungmin declared, they just needed to do better and that’s what they’ll aim for.
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(During THE BOYZ’s Stage)
“This is it.” San exclaimed pointing at the screen.
“Quiet. Don’t speak.” Wooyoung cutting San off as he focused on the screen
Minyoung scooted her chair closer to Seonghwa, making herself comfortable hugging his arm as if they were just watching a show at their dorms. One hand holding up a glow stick to represent a lightstick for all the groups that will be performing.
“The water froze. Omo. Now it’s fire. Are they going for the theme Game of Thrones for the whole show?” Minyoung said under her breath afraid Wooyoung would scold her. She gasped when she realized how the camera looks like a game point-of-view, as if one is wearing VR headsets. 
When the fire went out, Minyoung slapped Seonghwa’s arm in realization. “They cannot be together because they’re Ice while the lady is Fire. Omo” The latter already used to the girl’s habits chuckled, patting her hand as he returned his focus on the performance.
“He’s hanging up there! Is he going up now? That’s sick!” Wooyoung exclaimed in awe as Sunwoo’s part came in.
“How are they coming up with that?” Seonghwa wondered outloud when Juyeon danced in front of the white sheet. “THE BOYZ really works well with their concepts.” Yunho added engrossed at the stage
“THE BOYZ-sunbaenim’s dance is really knife-like. They’re all in sync with each other.” Minyoung said catching herself and closing her mouth which was open throughout the performance. “Will we be able to do that too?”
“Yah. Do you want us to die? Don’t drag everyone in, just try it with the dance line and be satisfied with that please.” Hongjoong jokingly warned the girl while Yeosang let out a laugh shaking his head “Please don’t give her ideas.”
“So it started with snow and ended with fire?” San asked outloud still processing what happened when Minyoung pouted and answered him “I told you. THE BOYZ-sunbaenim are Ice while the lady was fire which is why they couldn’t be together!”
“That was awesome.” Hongjoong commented as the stage ended
“I knew they would pull it off, but Juhaknyeon kept saying ‘We already tried everything.’ But look at them!” Wooyoung ranted feeling betrayed by his friend
“Also, No Air means out of air.” Jongho started then Wooyoung gasped as if suddenly realizing the concept. “Oh, is that why they started underwater?”
“Then the water froze.” San added in “The freezing part was the start.” 
“I suddenly got goosebumps.” Yunho replied recalling the moments of the performance
“I already told you guys. You’re not listening to me.” Minyoung sulked, making Seonghwa laugh lightly and pat her back. “Don’t worry Minyoung-ah. I heard you.” Minyoung leaned her head on the eldest saying “This is why you’re the best oppa.”
“Like always, THE BOYZ-sunbaenim did such a fantastic job.” San concluded with the others agreeing.
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(During iKON’s meeting)
[iKON called SF9 Chani for help with song recommendations]
Chani: It’s a secret but..when I was filming <Sky Castle>..
Yunhyeong: You filmed that with ATEEZ’ Minyoung right? That drama?
Chani: Yes. I did it with Minyoung. When we were filming for the drama, the two of us listened to <Killing Me> a lot.
Yunhyeong: <Killing Me>? Why?
Junhoe: Was the drama killing you? *laughs*
Chani: It was challenging to film the drama. That’s one reason, but the song comforted me a lot. I mean it. You can ask Minyoung about it too since we both found comfort with it.
iKON members: *laugh* <Killing Me>
[An interesting choice for the 2 acting idols]
DK: Acting must have been so hard *chuckle*
Bobby: It must’ve been tough for it to be <Killing Me>
Chani: The song really hit home for me
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(During iKON’s stage)
“What song did iKON-sunbaenim pick? It must have been really tough to pick from all their songs.”  Minyoung asked scooting a bit closer to the monitor
“Is it <Love Scenario>?” Wooyoung gasped as the MCs hinted that the song they chose made iKON rank number one a lot. 
“But when I saw iKON-sunbaenim in the hallway, they were all wearing black so for it to be <Love Scenario>... Did they rearrange the song completely?” Minyoung wondered out loud as the hints all point toward Love Scenario.
“The number of views is reflected on the points. <Love Scenario> is widely known by among international fans.” Jongho noted remembering the criteria for the point system.
“That’s right. So they’re more likely to rank higher this time around.” San nodded
“Oh? She disappeared.” Yunho exclaimed surprised as Bobby came into the screen with his arms around a girl who suddenly disappeared.
“The End. Love Scenario’s lyrics are really sad despite the bright music. Are they changing it up to be more dramatic?” Minyoung asked as the music is still bare except the piano chords in the background.
“I feel like I’m watching a movie” Hongjoong commented as tune continued on when suddenly the accompaniment changed into a musical style song. Minyoung was singing along softly in her seat as the chorus played.
Yunho looked at Minyoung and nudged her lightly when DK’s solo part came again. He was grinning slightly while Minyoung slapped his arm lightly. “Don’t.” was all Minyoung said just as the music changed into Killing Me.
“Omo. He fell! Oh no. What is happening? Why is the camera blocking-..why is it so dark.” Minyoung confused at what is happening then the drop in the music made her gasp in surprise “That line! It’s..from Big Bang song. Omo.” Seonghwa had to hold on to Minyoung’s chair to stop her from scooting closer to the monitor.
ATEEZ all exclaimed when Chanwoo threw the lighter as the fire effects happened in the background. “This is it.” Wooyoung commented as the whole group bobbed along with the beat.
“Their stage really is killing me. Wah” San exclaimed as the stage came to an end. “That was a short 4 minute performance.”
“The tragedy of love. I think they had a great story like us.” Yunho noted during the group interview
Wooyoung piped in “Bobby-sunbaenim captivated everyone’s attention in the beginning." with San and Minyoung following up with "His gestures were really cool." "It felt as if we were watching his Show Me The Money stage."
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(During BTOB’s Stage)
"Omo. It's BTOB-sunbaenim next!" Minyoung exclaimed when the next performer is called.
"She's starting. She's starting to fangirl." San chuckled as he looked on to the girl.
"If they also sing their famous songs then it's done. If it's <I'll Be Your Man> or <Missing You>, it's over. Game over." Minyoung made slicing motions with her hand. "Everyone knows those songs even if they're not a fan."
When the instrumental for Missing You played, Minyoung immediately grabbed unto Seonghwa's arm again already into the song. “That is so awesome” Wooyoung gasped in awe as soon as Changsub started the song.
“This is so cool” Hongjoong commented as soon as the screened dancers came into view with Peniel rapping.”Omo. Their harmonies really.” Minyoung looked about ready to melt in her seat, the rest of the members just chuckling at her reactions
“Take responsibility.” everyone from ATEEZ rapped along with Minhyuk as if doing the fanchant for the song.
"Omo. Minhyuk-sunbaenim!" Minyoung exclaimed as the sword dance and fight sequence happened. "He looks so cool. It’s just like watching a historical action drama.”
Yeosang was surprised when Minhyuk did the motion as if he’ll be taking his top off “What? What’s that?” Seonghwa’s hand automatically moving to cover Minyoung’s view while the girl grabbed it trying to see what is happening. Everyone chuckled when it was nothing while Minyoung pouted. “Why do you cover my eyes?”
“You’re still a baby.” Seonghwa answered seriously with Minyoung mumbling “Then why do you and San-oppa..” Yunho who was seating beside her laughed at the comment.
“Omo. It turned to Spring! Did a year pass already? Omo.” Minyoung gasped in realization as the song ended with petals falling down as if it’s Cherry Blossom season.
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(During Stray Kids’ stage)
As soon as Stray Kids took the stage, the camera focused on floor with white sheet covering the dancers “What is this already? What are they going to do now?” Minyoung asked already anticipating an explosive performance from the current number 1 group from the Introduction Stage.
“What will they do on stage?” Jongho asked the same, intrigued by the stage set up from the start
The song started off eerie making Minyoung scoot closer to Seonghwa, half hiding but still looking at the monitors. “I’m scared.” she whispered as the song turns darker with Han’s part. “It’s <Side Effects>? But this is scary.”
“Their ideas are so..wow.” San could only exclaim in awe as Felix’s part started.
“What is happening? Omo. <God’s Menu> suddenly?” Minyoung gasped as the song suddenly changed but maintaining the darker atmosphere of the opening.
“Jisung-ah” she called out as Han did his solo parts “This is an entirely different song!”
“They’re hung upside down!” Yunho pointed out when a dancer was mirroring Chan’s moves. “Omo. That must have been so difficult.” Minyoung noted
“They’re using the stage in various ways.” San chuckled in awe as the set changed again
“Waah. I can’t take my eyes off it.” Hongjoong confessed as the song approached it’s climax
“Youngbok’s voice is really...” Wooyoung started while Minyoung nodded enthusiastically “Right?! A lot of people loves his voice. It’s so charming and it just..draws you right in.”
The rest of Stray Kids’ performance were audibly enjoyed by Wooyoung and Minyoung, both were letting out sounds of awe particularly when their friends gets a camera close-up.
“That was so fun! I mean it was eerie especially during the first part but when it changed to <God’s Menu>, it’s like their energy just exploded.” Minyoung said as she clapped for the group, still feeling the excitement and still in awe of their stage “I can’t believe that was just 4 minutes. Their ideas really...wow.”
“Now it’s your turn to awe them with our performance.” Yunho chuckled as the girl’s expression suddenly turned blank as if just remembering that they are performing next.
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ATEEZ Minyoung Masterlist
Disclaimer: This is just a work of fiction. Any portrayal of real people is a combination based on what we could see on cameras and imagination of the author. This is purely fan fiction written for entertainment. Thank you for understanding.
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Writing Beary Corner
Again, this release is cut into two parts hahaha! I want to say look forward to part 2. as I did more than just cover the actual episode. Like I said last post, I will be slowing down the Kingdom updates. Although I do have until Reborn stages drafted, I feel like I need to pace it out to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t watched the recent episodes. Again, thank you for reading! Tell me what you think about it. 
-Mimi
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olivetreehugger · 3 years
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SnK Scouts/Veterans as Health Care Workers
Note: features Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Jean, Connie, Sasha, Levi, Erwin and Hange. A part two to my “SnK Warriors as HCWs” post found here. warning: mentions of blood, trauma, gore (it’s healthcare). Also, I know Hange is nb, I headcanon them as female, so I will be using she/her pronouns. 
Eren: this boy is definitely too involved in everything and has too many people depending on him at once to not be a nurse. The kid barely passed the NCLEX but that didn’t stop him from applying to every trauma center within a 25 mile radius of him. He got hired as a night shift trauma ICU nurse  and he frequently picks up shifts in the ER. He wears the cheapest scrubs he can find, often stained with ink in the pockets area. He isn’t a shitty nurse per se but there are tasks that still need to be done at the end of his shift and he gives a crappy report that’s missing too many details. Nurses hate picking up his patients, it’s always a mess. His charting is really spotty and he gets called into the manager’s office all the time to fix it. 
Still, he tries really hard to improve his time management and skills. He wants to be like his friends Mikasa and Reiner, who are the best nurses he knows. He wants to be involved in the traumatic cases and emergencies because he wants to learn as much as he possibly can. He’s really good at wound care, for some reason (hint hint). He’s kinda cocky sometimes too, which can be troublesome when Dr. Galliard is working. People know to steer clear of those two when they’re both  in the ER. Also, Eren always has a black cloud around him; whenever he works it’s gonna be a hella busy day in the hospital. Lots of emergency surgeries, intubations, codes and deaths. He’ll always jump in to help you if your patient is crashing, though, no matter how busy he is. 
Mikasa: she’s a prodigy. She was a straight ‘A’ student in nursing school, got a perfect 75 on the NCLEX and was immediately hired to the trauma ICU after doing a short internship there. She worked night shift for a year but her sleep schedule was so so fucked she started having night terrors, so she switched to day shift. Eren still calls her a traitor for it :/. She keeps trying to get him to switch over but he just hisses at her and threatens to chug a case of Monster energy drinks. She hasn’t given upon him yet, though.
This girl’s work ethic is beyond measure. She comes in exactly at 6:30 am, looks up her patients, takes report, gives a great update to the doctors when they round, and provides impeccable care to her patients. She knows exactly which treatments the doctors will order before they even speak. She’s incredible at inserting IVs--everyone in the hospital knows Mikasa Ackerman can put an 18g in a 90  yr old lady’s arm AND get blood return (just trust me, it’s flipping impossible). She has great skill when it comes to emergency situations and is a big believer in team work. If she notices your patient’s crashing and you don’t know what to do, she’ll calmly coach you and save your patient, too. All before lunch time. 
It doesn’t take Mikasa long to be promoted to charge nurse. When she’s in charge all the reports, paperwork and audits are completed before shift change. She divides the patient assignments really well and is very fair to the new grads. All around she’s an incredible nurse and leader on her unit, but don’t be fooled. If it’s been a rough day, Mikasa will get in her car and sob so loud her throat goes raw. A lot of people depend on her and working in a trauma ICU is really, really demanding. A lot of patients are demanding, rude and busy. She has a lot of trouble with stress management and is thinking of cutting her hours down so she can catch a break. Someone please hug her <3
Armin: for some reason my brain is just SCREAMING respiratory therapist. Like, I imagine this beautiful blond boy in gray scrubs (the color for RT’s in my hospital) going around helping intubate patients, giving nebulizer treatments and doing blood gases. I can just see him huffing and puffing when the attending doctor is overzealous about weaning vent support. -“Why are we changing the patient to pressure support? do you see how tachypneic he is on volume control?”
-“are you gonna put in the order? if not, your patient’s gonna be on PRVC all day, I’m not changing it without an order”
-“Doc, the patient looks like crap and their blood gas looks like death...oh, you still wanna extubate? ok, well I’m gonna leave the ventilator in here just in case. better yet, let me call a pastor in here, too.”
This kid is sassy af and he knows it. He’s smart af too, knows everything there is to know about the lungs and respiratory care. Knows every ventilator mode better than most doctors. Will certainly tell a resident off for ordering the wrong type of inhaler for a patient. He’s so damn intelligent that he even made the ice queen Annie melt like a popsicle. 
 He has no chill when it comes to his patients and even less chill (like -4078875874670) when a doctor gets in his way. For this reason, Armin has recently been toying with the idea of going to PA school so he can have a little more autonomy. He works al over the hospital, usually frequenting the trauma, CV, and medical ICU. The nurses there love him. 
Jean: Jeannie boy. Baby. Sweetie. He’s also a nurse. He is strictly dayshift and trauma. When he first started, he thought he’d do a year in the ICU and then go to CRNA school. He didn’t want to be around sickly patients with hopes and dreams and fears--it was too icky for him. But, over time, he learned that he LOVED trauma. Jean loves the controlled chaos that comes with the ugly, bloody messes that roll in through the ICU’s doors. He always gears up for trauma season (summer time) by bringing Dunkin Donuts iced coffee for everyone on the unit (day and night shift because he’s a supportive king). He gets really good at dealing with arrogant trauma residents and ortho docs who think they’re hot shit. When Jean sees a resident yelling at a nurse, he jumps in and threatens to have their license revoked. He will dig under their skin and page them incessantly throughout the day, too, just to get back at them. Jean is not a fan of lateral violence in the workplace, no sir. 
He always, always makes sure every room is stocked and new bags are hanging for the next shift. He has a thing where if things aren’t properly organized on the unit his brain just spazzes. He’s on the unit council and education committee because he also loves to teach the new grads. He also doubles as charge nurse, when management can’t be there (there can be one or more charge nurses amongst the staff, they usually work different days, though) He and Mikasa work so well together, teaming up to get tasks done, coding patients, running them down to get scanned, etc. People joke they’re the mom and dad of the unit. It makes them both blush <3 (Eren doesn’t like it, lol)
Jean loves to see patients healing from horrendous injuries, he’s constantly cracking jokes with the awake patients to try to make them feel better, and he’s really good at calming anxious family members down. Our boy just makes such good connections with people. He’s the guy you call when your confused patient is one second away from ripping his breathing tube out. He can convince the most restless, agitated patient to chill out. He’s got the voice for it. Also people love his mullet. It looks great. 
Connie: I really didn’t know at first but I feel like Connie would make a great physical therapist. He’s got great energy, he’s funny and I could see him dancing to Earth, Wind & Fire in front of his patients to hype them up for therapy. He’d be very sweet with them 
Sasha: I’m sick and tired of the food jokes, quite honestly. She’s more than that. In my mind, she’s an occupational therapist, helping disabled patients learn to feed, dress and clean themselves again. She works directly with Connie as they round on all their patients in the hospital, they make a great team!  She’s extremely patient and would make a very good nurse, but is unsure of where life is taking her. That is until she meets Niccolo the dietician in the cafeteria, and she falls hard. He encourages her to follow her heart and she does!  
Levi: Hm. This one stumped me. Levi is a bit...cold. It’s not like he has incredible social skills. He’s meticulous and focused and kinda mean? He reminds me of an anesthesiologist, tbh. Like he’ll sedate the shit outta you for surgery, makes sure you don’t die on the table, and then drops you off to the unit as fast as he can. He never takes off his mask while in the hospital and he scrubs maybe four times before surgery. He is very good at medication calculations and knows everything about nerve blocks, intubation, pain medication and sedation. He can look at a person and just KNOW what kind of sedative to give and how much. Your blood pressure will never bottom out while he’s there, he’ll warn the surgeon and immediately get that norepinephrine started.
 If Zeke is the one operating, Levi is on his ass to finish up the surgery ASAP and to not linger, because Zeke takes his time and ignores the tele monitor alarming in the background. After surgery, this 5′2 demon will scream at the 6′ resident about the importance of blood pressure management and sedation in neurosurgical patients. Levi plays no games and he also just really hates Zeke lol
He seems like a jerk but genuinely cares about getting his peeps through surgery. His favorite surgeon to work with is Hange Zoe, because she’s brilliant and fast, but also cognizant of her patient’s hemodynamics. Levi likes taking trauma cases as long as it’s with her. When he drops a patient off to the trauma ICU or goes there to intubate, he makes sure Jean or Mikasa are there because he knows everything is gonna go smoothly. He trusts them a lot. He likes Armin, too and even let him intubate a few times. On his breaks, he’s drinking tea and reading a Williams & Sonoma catalog or scrolling through cleaning Tik Tok lol.
Erwin: This man. This beautiful and hunky beefcake. Omg. I HC him as someone who went to nursing school, became a charge nurse on the trauma unit back in the early 2000′s and fell in love with it. Erwin would eventually fall in love with leadership and educating, too. He went back to school and earned his Doctorate of Nursing Practice (a practice doctorate). He managed the trauma unit for ten years before his brilliant leadership skills and wicked smart brain got him elected as the Director of Trauma Surgery recently. He is the first person with a nursing degree and DNP to ever accomplish this, so it’s very controversial. A lot of toxic doctors threaten to leave the hospital for this (because they’re assholes), but Erwin threatens to fire them in response and it usually shuts them up. 
He often holds lectures in the hospital auditorium. With a mind and voice like his, people are so drawn in by him. He advocates for nursing staff, for reimbursement when continuing their education, better staffing, parking, etc. He makes nice with doctors and gets them to sign petitions for the nurses to get these things. He’s a bit manipulative He’s also a fantastic manager and director, he’s really good at negotiating things. The nurses and residents all love him because he rounds on every ICU frequently, brings food, and asks them how he can help. He can be a bit daunting because of his height and deep voice but once he starts talking to you, you just get sucked in. All around an absolute king. 
Hange: This character reminds me of a trauma surgeon and intensivist (ICU doctor) we have, Dr. Omi. A great surgeon, really really smart, but takes absolutely NO bullshit. She will yell at you if you freeze during intubating. She wants you to recite every step before you take it, otherwise she’ll take the tube from you and do it herself. In surgery, she’s the same way. She wants you to learn, but by her standards. If she asks a question, you better know the answer or fess up right away, she doesn’t like the “uhms” of uncertainty as you try to search for a shitty response. Either you know it or you don’t. And if you don’t, she’ll teach you. Yeah she can be rough around the edges, but she’s got a big heart. She loves her trauma team. She buys them breakfast and gives them funny personalized gifts. One time, she bought an apply tree for Mikasa and brought it to her car at the end of a shift. Mikasa forgot to plant it and it died in her backseat. Hange will sometimes ask, “Mikasa, how’s your apple tree growing?” and Mikasa will lie through her teeth. “It’s growing!” Fess up, Mikasa. Those google search apple trees are starting to look familiar.
All around Hange loves to work and teach. She is a wonderful trauma surgeon and has saved tons of lives.  
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repetitionsings · 3 years
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Sorting Cabin Pressure
I return! Briefly, because tumblr still hates me, and yet triumphant, because I’ve spent the last week re-listening to Cabin Pressure, and I want to talk about sorting the MJN crew. So let’s do some Sorting Hat Chats!
As usual, my view on these characters may not be yours, and if you have different thoughts, I’d love to hear them. :D Discussion spans the entire 27 episodes, so let’s say spoilers just to be safe.
Martin
Despite probably having the biggest, best-defined character arc, I'm finding Martin the main character I'm least set on. 
Secondary-wise, I'd say he's definitely a built secondary; very little of Martin's improvisations seem to come comfortable to him. His insistence on doing things right and by-the-book feels fairly Badger, but his ability to be lured into shortcuts and moments of unprofessional behavior feels to me like a Bird who thinks that Badger hard word and toil is the best option. It also seems to fit with the way he becomes calm and confident once something works out for him, and then immediately loses it once things go wrong and he feels unprepared again. The few episodes where he really gets to be confident and succeed particularly feel Bird-y to me: relying on knowledge in Johannesburg especially stand out.
(That said, Badger also seems to ring consistently with the way he handles a lot of things -- his dedication to his job, his hard work, even the way half the time he does get confident, it's either because Douglas isn't there to bring him down, or he seems to be pretending to be him.)
Primary-wise, though, that's where I get tripped up. Not a Snake, I think; even his hesitancy to leave MJN is half about his own goals and issues, not fully founded in caring about others. Badger doesn't quite seem right either -- "being loyal and true to things or people that exist is more important than sticking to grander but more abstract ideals or concepts" does not sound like Martin at all. My first thought was Lion, just one that's still struggling to be as decisive as they usually are -- despite his hesitancy, and his instincts being 'follow the rules written by others', a lot of the Lion stuff seems to apply to him. "They are willing to sacrifice their safety, social harmony, and a certain amount of logic to do what they feel is right." "There is right and there is wrong. Things are black and white. Shades of gray are places where people go to play games, twist the truth, and to be cowards."
But... he does bend the rules, or sit back and let Douglas do so. If nobody who makes him feel like he has to put on the act is there -- see Newcastle and Qikiqtarjuaq -- he'll bend them pretty far. Trying to drop candy on a kids' birthday party (Johannesburg) and lying to a passenger about where they're flying (Timbuktu) levels of far.
So who's around seems to be a big part of it, which maybe could point back in a loyalist direction. I think in the end, though, I'm going to throw up my hands and say, maybe a Bird whose system is in progress from something fairly immature and black-and-white to something more complicated? Martin's devotion to his passion and his job above all else feels pretty Idealist to me, and this seems a little more fitting than him being an extremely malleable Lion.
Douglas
Douglas "at any given moment I never have fewer than seven ulterior motives" Richardson? Douglas "did something clever and now everything's fine" Richardson? Douglas "pretending very hard not to care about anything, actually cares very deeply, but only about specific things and specific people" Richardson? Is there even any point to considering an answer besides double Snake here? Douglas might as well be the model of it. Trickery is his first language. He schemes, charms, adapts, and lucks out in order to achieve anything in his sights, whether that's as small as a relief from boredom or as big as saving the day.
Motivation is trickier -- but it becomes clearer and clearer as time goes on how far Douglas is willing to go to save MJN, and outside his own desires to be the captain again, that seems like the biggest thing that ever drives him. Combine that with his hedonism, and the way he's happy to lie, cheat, and steal to accomplish most other things with no notable guilt or shame, I don't even see hints of a model or structure built over it; the things that matter to him are his own reputation and status (and even that in very specific, particular ways), and saving GERTI and her crew.
(That said, the more I think about it, I do think you could make a solid argument for Douglas as a rapid-fire Bird Secondary. Mostly built around Zurich -- his confession that his confidence started, not just as a mask, but wholesale imitating somebody else. There's also this excerpt from Finnemore's Farewell Bear Facts: "Douglas prefers to hang back, let other people make mistakes, work out the 'something clever' he's going to do in secret, and then present it with a flourish." While that could be Snake-y, I could see it as a Bird's planning working for someone whose very invested in his own reputation. That said, I still think Double Snake seems the most applicable overall.)
Carolyn
Carolyn's drives are a kind of mirror to Douglas', which is interesting to reflect back on. The two things she cares most about are how she's seen, and -- even if she sometimes shows it in her own strange way -- Arthur. Then Douglas and Martin start to rank in there over time, and eventually so does Herc. (Martin moreso than Douglas -- speculation, but I think it's probably because everyone knows Douglas will take care of himself first, so he doesn't need to be worried about so much.) Money matters to her of course, but several times it comes down to show that if money was the most important thing, she'd probably have given up GERTI a long time ago. We get it set out plainly as early as Douz: "Because I am the Chief Executive Officer of MJN Air. It’s a good thing to be. It’s better than... a little old lady."
I think it's possible to read Carolyn as an extremely burned Badger; there's something in how she reacts to her sister that makes me think I can see it. But in general, I'm more inclined to say Snake Primary. One that isn't fully burned -- Arthur's never really out of her circle, I think -- but does have a hell of a time opening up her circle to new people by the time of the series. Just look at the trial Herc goes through before he gets there.
Lion Secondary, I think. She's the immovable object to Douglas' unstoppable force, and Martin is the thing unfortunately trapped between them at times. She's stubborn and honest, hates playing at being nicer than she is and only does it when absolutely necessary, and cares about her rules being followed but not the rules in general so much. She's whip-smart, but she doesn't actually tend to be tricky or slippery in the same way as Douglas -- and in fact, the one time we really see her try to be actively tricky, in Timbuktu, she loses. She's more likely to ignore opposition or tell someone else to solve it, and even when she pulls something, it's usually pretty straight-forward. (For example, calling Hester's fans in Cremona -- it's an underhanded move against someone who's earned her ire, but not really a complicated scheme.)
Arthur 
I think Arthur shares his mother's Lion Secondary. He's a force in his own right as much as she is, even if he's more of a tornado to her steel barrier. He's honest to a fault and very much always himself, no matter what the situation, or how much better it might be to try and do something else.
As Primary goes, it's hard to tell if this is just Arthur's optimism shining against everyone else, but my first instinct is Badger. He wants to be helpful, oftentimes too much so, and he likes them so much it tends to be notable when he doesn't like somebody. His focus tends to be the people in front of him at the time, but that does extend to include other people when they're there -- it's not just the crew at all times. While I think it's possible to see him in other lights, Badger seems to make the most sense and work with what we see of his wants through the series.
Herc 
While most of the other minor or reoccurring characters don't show up enough for me to have even an idea, I think we do get enough of Herc to narrow it down some, if not make a completely secure conclusion.
My first instinct is that he's yet another Snake Primary in the mix. It works with his role as a foil for Douglas, and with his willingness to give up his position to be with Carolyn by the end of the series. (That said, I feel like his speech on why he's a vegetarian in Ottery St. Mary could point towards Bird Primary as well, and would make sense with everything we see of him.)
He seems straightforward in a way that doesn't line up with a Snake Secondary to me -- that could be a matter of the situations we see him in, but I still just don't see it in his conversations with Carolyn. I'd say maybe a Lion Secondary, in the way the two of them clash and he stands his ground. Bird Secondary also makes sense, but admittedly I'm having trouble pointing to anything specific that made me think so; there's just something in the way his manner bounces off the others, and in the way he seems to almost take on and off All-Knowing Air Captain mode.
In conclusion --
Martin: Double Bird with a Badger Secondary model Douglas: Double Snake Carolyn: Snake Primary/Lion Secondary Arthur: Badger Primary/Lion Secondary Herc: tentatively Snake Primary/Lion or Bird Secondary
or, as they say in Limerick... But for Arthur, they're all quite constructed With the Snakes bickering interrupted By a worrying Bird From the Captain's chair heard Til the newest of Snakes is inducted
Carolyn's Lion is strong and won't coddle Martin's Bird, leaning against his model Or the Lion she raised By the Snake she's unfazed And thank you all, for reading my twaddle
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